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54 Erasmus
but just now off in the Robes of a King, put
on the Raggs of a Begger. Thus are all things
represented by Counterfeit, and yet without
this there were no living.
And here if any wise man, as it were dropt
from Heaven, should start up and cry, This
great thing, whom the World looks upon for
a God and I know not what, is not so much as
a Man, for that like a Beast he is led by his
Passions, but the worst of Slaves, inasmuch as
he gives himself up willingly to so many and such
detestable Masters. Again if he should bid
a man that were bewailing the death of his
Father to laugh, for that he now began to live
by having got an Estate, without which Life
is but a kind of Death ; or call another that were
boasting of his Family, ill begotten or base,
because he is so far remov’d from Vertue that
is the only Fountain of Nobility; and so of
the rest: what else would he get by ’t but be
thought himself Mad and Frantick? For as
nothing is more foolish than preposterous
Wisdome, so nothing is more unadvised than a
froward unseasonable Prudence. And such is
his that does not comply with the present