one may say, perhaps, that the Praise of Folly is about as funny as an average copy of Punch. [82] iv., 405-503. Erasmus' account of the origin of the Μωρία is as trifling as in the case of most of his works. He tells More that he thought it out during his journey from Italy to England in 1509, and he put it into form at More's house in London soon after. The title, Μωρίας ἐγκώμιον, he explains as a pun on More's name, the humour of it being that More was "as far from the thing as his name was near it." The book is written under the form of an oration, a _declamatio_ the author calls it, delivered by Folly in person to an imaginary audience made up of all classes and conditions of men. Folly is a female, and this is quite in harmony with most of Erasmus' references to the sex. She wears cap and bells as her academic garb and brings to the lecture-room her attendant spirits, Self-love, Flattery, Oblivion, Laziness, Pleasure, Madness, Wantonness, Intemperance, and Sleep. Folly is the offspring of Wealth and Youth, born in the Fortunate Isles, where all things grow without toil, and nursed by the jovial nymphs, Drunkenness and Ignorance. The oration begins by Folly commending herself as indispensable to the well-being of men. Their very existence is owing to her, for no man would put his head into the halter of marriage if he thought it over carefully beforehand as a wise man would; and no woman would marry if she carefully considered the sorrows of childbirth. Marriage therefore is owing wholly to Madness, the companion of Folly. But no woman, having once experienced the pains of child-bearing, would ever submit herself to them again but for another of Folly's ministers, Oblivion, who comes in thus to save the race. From this first example we can see how Erasmus plays with the meaning of the word "folly." It is quite impossible to define it by any one term which would cover his numerous variations, but we may see plainly from the start that it is very far from being what we mean, in plain modern English, by the word "foolishness." It comes nearer to the meaning we find in Shakespeare of "innocent" or "thoughtless." "Folly" is the opposite of studied calculation for a mere material end. It is the impulse by which men perform their noblest actions. It is imagination, idealism, sacrifice of self for others. Nowhere does Erasmus lay down any such general definition as this, but his examples show that some such meaning was in his mind, and the Folly whom he allows to praise herself is therefore really a very praiseworthy person. She hates the materialism of the Philistine--the cool, calculating merchant-spirit which would reduce life to a thing of dollars and cents--and she finds her illustrations of what is noble pretty nearly where an optimistic philosopher of modern times would find them.