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The Praise of Folly 43 those that are slain, !not a word of them; and for the rest, when both sides are close engag’d 2 € and the Trumpets make an ugly noise ’, what use of those Wise men, I pray, that are so exhaust with study that their thin cold Blood has scarce any spirits left? No, it must be those blunt fat fellows, that by how much the more they exceed in Courage, fall short in Understanding. Unless perhaps one had rather chuse Demosthenes for a Souldier, who, following the example of Archilochius, threw away his Arms and betook him to his Heels e’re he had scarce seen his Enemy ; as ill a Souldier, as happy an Orator. But Counsel, you’ll say, is not of least concern in matters of War. In a General I grant it; but this thing of Warring is no part of Philosophy, but manag’d by Parasites, Pandars, Thieves, Cut-throats, Plow-men, Sots, Spendthrifts and such other Dregs of Mankind, not Philosophers; who how unapt they are even for common converse, let Socrates, whom the Oracle of Apollo, though not so wisely, judg’d ‘the wisest of all men living’, be witness ; 1 oddels Adyos. * et rauco crepuerunt cornua cantu.
