A satirical Roman in his time, thought all vice, folly, and madness were all at full sea, [264]_Omne in praecipiti vitium stetit._

[265]Josephus the historian taxeth his countrymen Jews for bragging of their vices, publishing their follies, and that they did contend amongst themselves who should be most notorious in villainies; but we flow higher in madness, far beyond them,

[266] “Mox daturi progeniem vitiosorem,”

       “And yet with crimes to us unknown,
        Our sons shall mark the coming age their own,”

and the latter end (you know whose oracle it is) is like to be worse.  ’Tis not to be denied, the world alters every day, Ruunt urbes, regna transferuntur, &c. variantur habitus, leges innovantur, as [267]Petrarch observes, we change language, habits, laws, customs, manners, but not vices, not diseases, not the symptoms of folly and madness, they are still the same.  And as a river, we see, keeps the like name and place, but not water, and yet ever runs, [268]_Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum_; our times and persons alter, vices are the same, and ever will be; look how nightingales sang of old, cocks crowed, kine lowed, sheep bleated, sparrows chirped, dogs barked, so they do still:  we keep our madness still, play the fools still, nec dum finitus Orestes; we are of the same humours and inclinations as our predecessors were; you shall find us all alike, much at one, we and our sons, Et nati natorum, et qui nascuntur ab illis.  And so shall our posterity continue to the last.  But to speak of times present.

If Democritus were alive now, and should but see the superstition of our age, our [269]religious madness, as [270]Meteran calls it, Religiosam insaniam, so many professed Christians, yet so few imitators of Christ; so much talk of religion, so much science, so little conscience; so much knowledge, so many preachers, so little practice; such variety of sects, such have and hold of all sides, [271]—­obvia signis Signa, &c., such absurd and ridiculous traditions and ceremonies:  If he should meet a [272] Capuchin, a Franciscan, a Pharisaical Jesuit, a man-serpent, a shave-crowned Monk in his robes, a begging Friar, or, see their three-crowned Sovereign Lord the Pope, poor Peter’s successor, servus servorum Dei, to depose kings with his foot, to tread on emperors’ necks, make them stand barefoot and barelegged at his gates, hold his bridle and stirrup, &c. (O that Peter and Paul were alive to see this!) If he should observe a [273]prince creep so devoutly to kiss his toe, and those red-cap cardinals, poor parish priests of old, now princes’ companions; what would he say? Coelum ipsum petitur stultitia.  Had he met some of our devout pilgrims going barefoot to Jerusalem, our lady of Lauretto, Rome, S. Iago, S. Thomas’ Shrine, to creep to those counterfeit and maggot-eaten relics; had he been present at a mass, and seen such kissing of paxes, crucifixes, cringes, duckings, their several attires and ceremonies, pictures of saints, [274]indulgences, pardons, vigils, fasting, feasts, crossing, knocking, kneeling at Ave-Marias, bells, with many such; _—­jucunda rudi spectacula plebi_,[275] praying in gibberish, and mumbling of beads.  Had he heard an old woman say her prayers in Latin, their sprinkling of holy water, and going a procession,