Yet some by their faces may pass current enough till they cry themselves down by their speaking. Thus men know the bell is cracked when they hear it tolled; yet some that have stood out the assault of two or three questions, and have answered pretty rationally, have afterwards, of their own accord, betrayed and yielded themselves to be fools.

The oaths and railing of fools is oftentimes no fault of theirs but their teachers. The Hebrew word barak signifies to bless, and to curse; and 't is the speaker's pleasure if he use it in the worst acceptation. Fools of themselves are equally capable to pray and to swear; they, therefore, have the greatest sin who by their example or otherwise teach them so to do.

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One may get wisdom by looking on a fool. In beholding him, think how much thou art beholden to him that suffered thee not to be like him only God's pleasure put a difference betwixt you. And consider that a fool and a wise man are alike both in the starting-place, their birth, and at the post, their death; only they differ in the race of their lives.

It is unnatural to laugh at a natural. How can the object of thy pity be the subject of thy pastime? I confess sometimes the strangeness, and, as I may say, witty simplicity of their actions may extort a smile from a serious man,

who at the same time may smile at them and sorrow for them. But it is one thing to laugh at them in transitu, a snap and away, and another to make a set meal in jeering them, and as the Philistines, to send for Samson to make them sport.

To make a trade of laughing at a fool is the highway to become one. Tully confesseth that whilst he laughed at one Hircus, a very ridiculous man, dum illum rideo pene factus sum ille: and one telleth us of Gallus Vibius, a man first of great eloquence, and afterwards of great madness, which seized not on him so much by accident as his own affectation, so long mimically imitating madmen that he became one.

Many have been the wise speeches of fools, though not so many as the foolish speeches of wise men. Now the wise speeches of these silly souls proceed from one of these reasons: either because talking much and shooting often they must needs hit the mark sometimes, though not by aim, by hap; or else, because a fool's mediocriter is optime, sense from his mouth, a sentence, and a tolerable speech cried up for an apothegm; or, lastly, because God may sometimes illuminate them, and, especially towards their death, admit them to the possession of some part of reason. A poor beggar in Paris, being very hungry, stayed so long in a

cook's shop, who was dishing up of meat, till his stomach was satisfied with the only smell thereof. The choleric covetous cook demanded of him to pay for his breakfast. The poor man denied it, and the controversy was referred to the deciding of the next man that should pass by, which chanced to be the most notorious idiot in the whole city. He, on the relation of the matter, determined that the poor man's money should be put betwixt two empty dishes, and the cook should be recompensed with the jingling of the poor man's money, as he was satisfied with the only smell of the cook's meat. And this is affirmed by credible writers as no fable, but an undoubted fact. More waggish was that of a rich landed fool, whom a courtier had begged, and carried about to wait on him. He, coming with his master to a gentleman's house where the picture of a fool was wrought in a fair suit of arras, cut the picture out with a penknife. And being chidden for so doing, "You have more cause," said

he, "to thank me; for if my master had seen the picture of the fool, he would have begged the hangings of the king, as he did my lands." When the standers-by comforted a natural which lay on his death-bed, and told him that four proper fellows should carry his body to the church: "Yea," quoth he, "but I had rather by half go thither myself;" and then prayed

to God at his last gasp not to require more of him than he gave him.

As for a changeling, which is not one child changed for another, but one child on a sudden much changed from itself; and for a jester, which some count a necessary evil in a court, an office which none but he that hath wit can perform, and none but he that wants wit will perform, I conceive them not to belong to the present subject.

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OF RECREATIONS.

ECREATION is a second creation, when weariness hath almost annihilated one's spirits. It is the breathing of the soul, which otherwise would be stifled with continual business. We may trespass in them, if using such as are forbidden by the lawyer as against the statutes; physician, as against health; divine, as against conscience.

Be well satisfied in thy conscience of the lawfulness of the recreation thou usest. Some fight against cock-fighting, and bait bull and bear-baiting, because man is not to be a common barrator to set the creatures at discord; and seeing antipathy betwixt creatures was kindled by man's sin, what pleasure can he take to see it burn? Others are of the con

trary opinion, and that Christianity gives us a placard to use these sports; and that man's charter of dominion over the creatures enables him to employ them as well for pleasure as necessity. In these, as in all other doubtful recreations, be well assured first of the legality of them. He that sins against his conscience, sins with a witness.

Spill not the morning (the quintessence of the day) in recreations. For sleep itself is a recreation; add not therefore sauce to sauce; and he cannot properly have any title to be refreshed who was not first faint. Pastime, like wine, is poison in the morning. It is then good husbandry to sow the head, which hath lain fallow all night, with some serious work. Chiefly, intrench not on the Lord's day, to use unlawful sports; this were to spare thine own flock, and to shear God's lamb.

Let thy recreations be ingenious, and bear proportion with thine age. If thou sayest with Paul, "When I was a child I did as a child," say also with him, "But when I was a man I put away childish things.' Wear also the

child's coat, if thou usest his sports.

Take heed of boisterous and over-violent exercises. Ringing oftentimes hath made good music on the bells, and put men's bodies out of tune, so that by overheating themselves they have rung their own passing-bell.