, were ever such, will
match, or come near him. Those seven wise men of Greece, those Britain
Druids, Indian Brachmanni, Ethiopian Gymnosophist, Magi of the Persians,
Apollonius, of whom Philostratus, _Non doctus, sed natus sapiens_, wise
from his cradle, Epicurus so much admired by his scholar Lucretius:

"Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes
Perstrinxit stellas exortus ut aetherius sol."

"Whose wit excell'd the wits of men as far,
As the sun rising doth obscure a star,"

Or that so much renowned Empedocles,

[196] "Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus."

All those of whom we read such [197]hyperbolical eulogiums, as of
Aristotle, that he was wisdom itself in the abstract, [198]a miracle of
nature, breathing libraries, as Eunapius of Longinus, lights of nature,
giants for wit, quintessence of wit, divine spirits, eagles in the clouds,
fallen from heaven, gods, spirits, lamps of the world, dictators, _Nulla
ferant talem saecla futura virum_: monarchs, miracles, superintendents of
wit and learning, _oceanus, phoenix, atlas, monstrum, portentum hominis,
orbis universi musaeum, ultimus humana naturae donatus, naturae maritus_,

------"merito cui doctior orbis
Submissis defert fascibus imperium."

As Aelian writ of Protagoras and Gorgias, we may say of them all, _tantum a
sapientibus abfuerunt, quantum a viris pueri_, they were children in
respect, infants, not eagles, but kites; novices, illiterate, _Eunuchi
sapientiae_. And although they were the wisest, and most admired in their
age, as he censured Alexander, I do them, there were 10,000 in his army as
worthy captains (had they been in place of command) as valiant as himself;
there were myriads of men wiser in those days, and yet all short of what
they ought to be. [199]Lactantius, in his book of wisdom, proves them to be
dizzards, fools, asses, madmen, so full of absurd and ridiculous tenets,
and brain-sick positions, that to his thinking never any old woman or sick
person doted worse. [200]Democritus took all from Leucippus, and left,
saith he, "the inheritance of his folly to Epicurus," [201]_insanienti dum
sapientiae_, &c. The like he holds of Plato, Aristippus, and the rest,
making no difference [202]"betwixt them and beasts, saving that they could
speak." [203]Theodoret in his tract, _De cur. grec. affect._ manifestly
evinces as much of Socrates, whom though that Oracle of Apollo confirmed to
be the w