It is easy to talk of fooling and of folly, mais d'en savoir les ordres, les rangs, les distinctions; de connoître ces differences delicates qu'il y a de Folie à Folie; les affinités et les alliances qui se trouvent entrè la Sagesse et cette meme Folie, as Saint Evremond says; to know this is not under every one's nightcap; and perhaps my learned Doctor, may not be under your wig, orthodox and in full buckle as it is.
The Doctor is all astonishment, and almost begins to doubt whether I am fooling in earnest. Aye, Doctor! you meet in this world with false mirth as often as with false gravity; the grinning hypocrite is not a more uncommon character than the groaning one. As much light discourse comes from a heavy heart, as from a hollow one; and from a full mind as from an empty head. “Levity,” says Mr. Danby, “is sometimes a refuge from the gloom of seriousness. A man may whistle ‘for want of thought,’ or from having too much of it.”
“Poor creature!” says the Reverend Philocalvin Frybabe. “Poor creature! little does he think what an account he must one day render for every idle word!”
And what account, odious man, if thou art a hypocrite, and hardly less odious if thou art sincere in thine abominable creed,—what account wilt thou render for thine extempore prayers and thy set discourses! My words, idle as thou mayest deem them, will never stupify the intellect, nor harden the heart, nor besot the conscience like an opiate drug!
“Such facetiousness,” saith Barrow, “is not unreasonable or unlawful which ministereth harmless divertisement and delight to conversation; harmless, I say, that is, not entrenching upon piety, not infringing charity or justice, not disturbing peace. For Christianity is not so tetrical, so harsh, so envious as to bar us continually from innocent, much less from wholesome and useful pleasure, such as human life doth need or require. And if jocular discourse may serve to good purposes of this kind; if it may be apt to raise our drooping spirits, to allay our irksome cares, to whet our blunted industry, to recreate our minds, being tired and cloyed with graver occupations; if it may breed alacrity, or maintain good humour among us; if it may conduce to sweeten conversation and endear society, then is it not inconvenient, or unprofitable. If for those ends we may use other recreations, employing on them our ears and eyes, our hands and feet, our other instruments of sense and motion; why may we not as well to them accommodate our organs of speech and interior sense? Why should those games which excite our wit and fancies be less reasonable than those whereby our grosser parts and faculties are exercised? yea, why are not those more reasonable, since they are performed in a manly way, and have in them a smack of reason; seeing also they may be so managed, as not only to divert and please, but to improve and profit the mind, rousing and quickening it, yea, sometimes enlightening and instructing it, by good sense conveyed in jocular expression.”
But think not that in thus producing the authority of one of the wisest and best of men, I offer any apology for my levities to your Gravityships! they need it not and you deserve it not.
Questi—
Son fatti per dar pasto a gl' ignoranti;
Ma voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,
Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde
Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde.
Le cose belle, e preziose, e care,
Saporite, soavi e dilicate,
Scoperte in man non si debbon portare
Perchè da' porci non sieno imbrattate.5
5 ORLANDO INNAMORATO.
Gentlemen, you have made me break the word of promise both to the eye and ear. I began this chapter with the intention of showing to the reader's entire satisfaction, why the question which was not asked, ought to be answered; and now another chapter must be appropriated to that matter! Many things happen between the cup and the lip, and between the beginning of a chapter and the conclusion thereof.