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The Praise of Folly 23
for this reason it is that Old-age dotes ; and that
it does so, it is beholding to me. Yet, not
withstanding, is this dotard exempt from all
those cares that distract a Wise man; he is
not the less pot-Companion, nor is he sensible of
that burden of life, which the more manly Age
finds enough to do to stand upright under ’t.
And sometimes too, like Plautus’s Old-man,
he returns to his three Letters, A.M.O., the
most unhappy of all things living, if he rightly
understood what he did in °t. And yet, so much
do I befriend him, that I make him well receiv’d
of his friends, and no unpleasant Companion ;
for as much as, according to Homer, 1! Nestor’s
discourse was pleasanter than Honey, whereas
Achilles’s was both bitter and malicious; and
that of Old-men, as he has it in another place,
florid. In which respect, also, they have this
advantage of children, in that they want the
onely pleasure of t’ others life, we’ll suppose
it pratling. Adde to this that old men are more
eagerly delighted with children, and they, again,
with Old-men. 2“ Like to like ’, quoth the Divel
1 Melle dulcior fluit oratio.
2 porov yet Beds ws TOY Spoor.