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The Praise of Folly 67
Than which how much more were the life of
flies or birds to be wish’d for, who living by the
instinct of Nature look no further than the
present, if yet man would but let ’em alone in it
And if at any time they chance to be taken, and
being shut up in Cages endeavour to imitate
our speaking, ’tis strange how they degenerate
from their native gaiety. So much better in
every respect are the works of Nature than the
adulteries of Art.
In like manner I can never sufficiently praise
that Pythagoras in a Dung-hill Cock, who being
but one had been yet every thing; a Philo¬
sopher, a Man, a Woman, a King, a private man,
a Fish, a Horse, a Frog, and I believe too, a
Sponge ; and at last concluded that no Creature
was more miserable than man, for that all other
Creatures are content with those bounds that
Nature set them, onely Man endeavours to
exceed them. And again, among men he gives
the precedency not to the learned or the great,
but the Fool. Nor had that Gryllus less wit
than 1 Ulysses with his many counsels, who chose
tather to lie grunting in a Hog-sty than be
1 modduntis ‘Odvaceds.
F2