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OCR
IO Erasmus equals a man of nothing to the gods, and proposes him as an absolute pattern of all Virtue that’s wholly a stranger to ’t, sets out a pittiful Jay in other’s Feathers, washes the Blackmoor white, and lastly 1swells a Gnat to an Elephant. In short, I will follow that old Proverb that says, ‘He may lawfully praise himself that lives far from Neighbours.’ ‘Though, by the way, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude, shall I say, or negligence of Men, who, notwithstanding they honour me in the first place and are willing enough to confess my bounty, yet not one of them for these so many ages has there been, who in some thankful Oration has set out the praises of Folly; when yet there has not wanted them, whose elaborate endeavours have extol’d Tyrants, Agues, Flyes, Baldness and such other Pests of Nature, to their own loss of both time and sleep. And now ye shall hear from me a plain extemporary speech, but so much the truer. Nor would I have ye think it like the rest of Orators, made for the Ostentation of Wit; for these, as ye know, when they have been beating their heads some thirty years about an Oration, and + ex musca elephantem.
