No. 135. Mendicants on their Travels.
We may remark, however, that after Folly had thus run through all the stages of society, until it had reached the lowest of all, the ranks of mendicity, the gods themselves became alarmed, the more so as this great movement was directed especially against Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, and they held a conclave to provide against it. The result is not told, but the course of Folly goes on as vigorously as ever. Ignorant fools who set up for physicians, fools who cannot understand jokes, unwise mathematicians, astrologers, of the latter of which the moraliser says, in his Latin verse—
Siqua voles sortis prænoscere damna futuræ,
Et vitare malum, sol tibi signa dabit.
Sed tibi, stulte, tui cur non dedit ille furoris
Signa? aut, si dederit, cur tanta mala subis?
Nondum grammaticæ callis primordia, et audes
Vim cœli radio supposuisse tuo.
The next cut is a very curious one, and appears to represent a dissecting-house of this early period. Among other chapters which afford interesting pictures of that time, and indeed of all times, we may instance those of litigious fools, who are always going to law, and who confound blind justice, or rather try to unbind her eyes; of filthy-tongued fools, who glorify the race of swine; of ignorant scholars; of gamblers; of bad and thievish cooks; of low men who seek to be high, and of high who are despisers of poverty; of men who forget that they will die; of irreligious men and blasphemers; of the ridiculous indulgence of parents to children, and the ungrateful return which was made to them for it; and of women’s pride. Another title describes the ruin of Christianity: the pope, emperor, king, cardinals, &c, are receiving willingly from a suppliant fool the cap of Folly, while two other fools are looking derisively upon them from an adjoining wall. It need hardly be said that this was published on the eve of the Reformation.