"But if some hateful wise man were to arise and say what is true:--'to live well is the way to die well; you will best get rid of your sins by adding to your money hatred of vice, tears, vigils, prayers and fasting, and a better life; the saint will help you if you imitate his life'--I say if a wise man were to come prating such stuff as this, how much happiness he would destroy and what trouble he would bring upon mortals!" There is no class of fools to whom Erasmus pays his respects with heartier good will than to those whom he calls "grammarians." Folly claims these for her choicest sons. Nothing could be more wretched than their profession were it not for their foolish self-esteem and the skill with which they make others have as good an opinion of them as themselves. The pettiness of their aims, the nastiness of their schoolrooms, the tumult of their pupils, are all concealed by the friendly aid of Folly, who makes them believe themselves "rulers of a kingdom as great as that of Phalaris or Dionysius." [Illustration: EVERYONE HAS HIS HOBBY. PILGRIM FOLLY. "FOLLY" CONCLUDES HER LECTURE. HOLBEIN'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE "PRAISE OF FOLLY."] "What a joy if they find out who was the mother of Anchises or discover some little word unknown to the vulgar, for instance, '_bubsequa_' (a cowherd), '_bovinator_' (a brawler), '_manticulator_' (a cut-purse), or dig up somewhere a piece of an old rock, cut with worn-out letters--by Jove! what bragging, what triumphs, what glorification! as if they had conquered Africa or taken Babylon." The grammarians enjoy nothing so much as rubbing each other's back--unless it be roundly abusing each other. The quibblings of the philosophers are among Folly's choicest products, and from these she runs on naturally to Erasmus' especial black beasts, the scholastic theologians. Quite in the spirit of the _Epistolæ obscurorum virorum_, but more decently, he enumerates the problems which, so Folly says, chiefly interest them,-- "whether there was any instant of time in the divine generation? whether there was more than one 'filiation' in Christ? is it a possible proposition that the Father could hate the Son? Could God have taken the form of a woman, a devil, an ass, a squash, or a stone? How the squash would have preached, done miracles, hung upon the cross? What would Peter have consecrated if he had celebrated the Eucharist while Christ was still hanging on the cross? etc." Not the eyes of Lynceus, which could see through a stone wall, could penetrate the refinements of these people. And these difficulties are all increased by the multitude of the schools,