at
the time requires: whereby he can in a trice so alter his judgment,
as to prove that to be now white, which he had just before swore to be
black; like the satyr at his porridge, blowing hot and cold at the same
breath; in his lips professing one thing, when in his heart he means
another.

Furthermore, princes in their greatest splendour seem upon this account
unhappy, in that they miss the advantage of being told the truth,
and are shammed off by a parcel of insinuating courtiers, that acquit
themselves as flatterers more than as friends. But some will perchance
object, that princes do not love to hear the truth, and therefore wise
men must be very cautious how they behave themselves before them, lest
they should take too great a liberty in speaking what is true, rather
than what is acceptable. This must be confessed, truth indeed is seldom
palatable to the ears of kings; yet fools have so great a privilege as
to have free leave, not only to speak bare truths, but the most bitter
ones too; so as the same reproof, which had it come from the mouth of a
wise man would have cost him his head, being blurted out by a fool, is
not only pardoned, but well taken, and rewarded. For truth has naturally
a mixture of pleasure, if it carry with it nothing of offence to the
person whom it is applied to; and the happy knack of ordering it so is
bestowed only on fools. 'Tis for the same reason that this sort of men
are more fondly beloved by women, who like their tumbling them about,
and playing with them, though never so boisterously; pretending to take
that only in jest, which they would have to be meant in earnest, as that
sex is very ingenious in palliating, and dissembling the bent of their
wanton inclinations.

But to return. An additional happiness of these fools appears farther
in this, that when they have run merrily on to their last stage of
life, they neither find any fear nor feel any pain to die, but march
contentedly to the other world, where their company sure must be as
acceptable as it was here upon earth.

[Illustration: 164]

Let us draw now a comparison between the condition of a fool and that of
a wise man, and see how infinitely the one outweighs the other.

Give me any instance then of a man as wise as you can fancy him possible
to be, that has spent all his younger years in poring upon books, and
trudging after learning, in the pursuit whereof he squanders away the
pleasantest time of his life in watchin