The first of these two out of their great love to do nothing, can make no better wish for themselves, then that they might sleep out the other half of their time; and it is rationall to do so, if his Rule were good for any thing, who said, He values his life at a just rate, who would be content to forgoe it for a Dream.
The other make their bargain but a little better; for whilest they entertain themselves with things which correspond not with the Dignity of Reasonable Souls, instead of perfecting those rare Capacities with which their Natures are invested, by a generous endeavour to obtain that Happiness which God doth not envy us, they lessen themselves, clip the wings of their Souls, and bring them down from those degrees of Excellency which they actually enjoy, and make them degenerate into a brutish incapacity, though many times they take no notice of the weakness of their judgements: till they meet it in the miserable Consequences of their Actions.
It is not my purpose here to reckon up all the impertinencies of Mankind, which are the several instances of the forementioned folly, I would onely give a charitable notice of one, viz. the VVriting and Reading of Romances. This I put into the number, because for the most part it is verified in them what Justin Martyr said of Homers Poetry, Ἔστι γαρ ἡ πᾶσα ῥαψῳδία Ἰλιάδος τε καὶ Ὀδυσσείας, ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος, γυνὴ, i.e. The whole Rhapsody of Homers Iliads and Odysseis, beginning and end, is but a VVoman. Yet they dote so much upon that subject, that they think with those amorous Trojans, that Helen was not onely worthy of all the labours of Homers Quill, but also of the sharp contentions of the Greek and Trojan swords.
Ου’ νέμεσις Τρωες και ευκνημιδαι Αχαιοι
Τοιη δ’ αμφι γυναικι πολυν χρονον αλγεα πασχειν: i.e.
A ten years VVar is no unworthy sight,
VVhen Greece and Troy for such a VVoman fight.
She was a brave Woman indeed, and it was but fit that so many Gallant men should destroy one another in the Revenge and Defence of her Adultery. But Maximus Tyrius in his 15th. Dissertation doth justly reprove the folly of their opinion, and condemn the unreasonablenesse of that lavish praise.
I am not ignorant that Homer wrote upon another design, then to tell so many tales of Helen and Paris, and that Horace hath said in his Commendation,
Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Plenius ac melius Chrysippo & Crantore dicit: i.e.
He what is fair, what foul, what good, what not,
Better then Crantor and Chrysippus wrot.
It may be so; for though Chrysippus was so great a man, that he was esteemed the onely support of the Stoick School, according to the Proverbiall speech recorded by Diogenes Laertius, Εἰ μὴ γὰρ ἦν Χρύσιππος, οὐκ ἂν ἦν Στοά. Yet quite contrary to the vertuous design of prudent Socrates, he spoil’d the Docrine of good manners, and unwisely changed the substiantiall precepts of a morall life for the uselesse subtilties of nice disputation. Or what if Crantor, whom he yokes with him in the disparagement, made no great proficiency either by Plato, to whose School he belonged, or Homer himself, who was his delight? For all this fair verdict, which Horace hath passed in favour of his Brother Poet, the Morall Vertues, which so highly concern the felicity of the World, ought to be discours’d in another manner then he useth; for he, as it may be said also of other Romancers, hath made the fabulous rind so thick, that few can see through it into the usefull sense. I do not deny what Plutarch saies, that his Verses were not written onely for pleasure, ὰλλὰ γαρ βαθύτερός εστι τους ενκεκρυμμενους τοις επεσι, i.e. but that a deeper meaning is hid under his Poems; but he hath sunk it so deep, that very few can come at it. And some of those who applaud him for a Philosopher, confesse that such onely can make a gain of him, that have already attain’d a mature judgement by long study; that is, such may possibly learn of him, who are able to teach him: But he is so unfit for others, that Plato desired they might not see him, ἱνα μη μυθους οιησοιντο γραφειν τον Ἡρωα, i.e. for fear they should think that the Hero wrote fables, which he had good reason to expect upon the perusall.
Besides this, as many others do, he hath so form’d the representations of Vertue and Vice, that it is hard to say, which is commended and which reproved; whil’st the Gods are frequently brought in practising Immoralities, he doth at least equall Vice to Vertue, and nourish that which he should eradicate. For, why should men endeavour to be better then their Gods? So he in the Comedy made the Adultery of Jupiter an apology for his lust.
——Et quia consimilem luserat
Jam olim ille ludum—————
Ego homuncio hoc non facerem: Terent. Eunuch.