The beginning of beginnings.

THE first homicide of the world was Cain.

The first that died in the world was Abel.

The first that was blind in the world was Lamec, as some lear­ned haue collected.

The first that builded was E­noc in the fields of Edon.

The first musitian was Tubalcain.

The first sailer was Noe.

The first tyrant was Nemrod.

The first priest was Melchisedec.

The first Duke (as some affirme) was Moises.

The first that was called by the name of Emperor was Iulius Caesar.

Thales was the first that found out the pole called the North star to saile by: and the first that found out the diuision of the yeere, the quantitie of the sunne and moone: and also said that soules were immortall. He would neuer marrie for the care to content his wife, and the thought to bring vp his children.

He was asked what God was. A definition of God. He answered; Of al an­tiquitie God is the most ancient thing: for all the anci­ents past neuer sawe him take beginning, nor those that shall come after shall neuer see him haue ending.

[Page 2] He was asked what thing was most beautifull. He answered; The world, bicause no artificiall painting could make the like.

Againe, what was the greatest thing. He answered; Place, wherein all things do stand: for the place which containeth all must needs be greater than all.

Againe, he was demanded what knew most. He an­swered; Time: bicause time was the inuentor of new things, and that which reneweth the old.

What was the lightest thing He answered: The wit of man, bicause without danger it passed the sea to dis­couer and compas the whole earth.

Againe, what was the strongest. He answered; The man that is in necessitie: for necessitie reuiueth the vn­derstanding of the rude, and causeth the coward to be hardie in perill.

What was the hardest thing to know. He answered; For a man to know himselfe: for there should be no con­tentions in the world if man did know himselfe.

What was the sweetest thing to obtaine. He answe­red; Desire; for a man reioiceth to remember the pains past, and to obtaine that which he desireth present.

The life of Philosophers.

THe Philosophers liued in so great pouertie, that naked they slept on the ground: their drinke was cold water: none amongst them had any house proper: they despised ri­ches as pestilence: and labored to make peace where discord was: they were onely defenders of the common wealth: they neuer spake any idle thing, and it was a sacrilege among them to heare a lie: and finally [Page 3] it was a law inuiolable amongst them, that the Philoso­pher should be banished that did liue idlely: and he that was vicious should be put to death.

Onely Epicurus gaue himselfe to a voluptuous and beastly kind of life, wherein he put his whole delite, af­firming there was no other felicitie for slothfull men, than to sleepe in soft beds: for delicate persons to feele neither heate nor cold: for fleshly men to haue at their pleasures amarous dames: for drunkards not to want any pleasant wine, and the gluttons to haue their fill of all delicate meate: for heerin he affirmed to consist all worldlie felicitie.

A principalitie of things.

The histories and liues of priuate men, to­gither with the report of coun­tries and townes.

PHalaris was deformed of face, pur­blind, Ouid. and exceeding couetous: neuer obserued any thing that he promised: he was vnthankfull to his friend, and cruell to his enimy. Finally, A tyrant. he was such a one that the tyrannies that were seuerally scat­tered in others, in him alone were altogither assembled: one onelie good thing was there in him; that he was a fauorer of wise men. And in 36. yeeres they neuer found that any [Page 4] man sate at the table with him, spake vnto him, or slept in his bed: nor that any man saw in his countenance any mirth, vnles it were some Philosophers or sage men, with whom and to whom he liberally put his bodie in trust.

Perillus being borne in Athens, Perillus. and also being very excellent in mettals, came to Phalaris the tyrant, saieng: that he would make such a torment, that his hart should remaine reuenged, and the offender well punished. This workman made a bull of brasse, wherin there was a gate by the which they put the offender in, and putting fire vnder the bull, it rored in maner as it had beene a liue bull, which was not onely a horrible and cruell torment to miserable creatures that endured it, but also it was terrible to him or those that saw it. Phalaris therfore see­ing the inuention of this torment, whereof the inuen­tor had hoped great reward, prouided that the inuentor of the same should be put within the bull: and that the cruelty of the torment should be experimented on none other, sauing in the inuentor: shewing himselfe therein rather a mercifull prince than a cruell tyrant.

Rome that in times past was a receit of all the good and vertuous, Rome. is now made a den of all theeues and vici­ous, I feare me least in short time will haue some sudden and great fall.

Cornelia of Rome said; A report of Rome long since, and found true now. You shal see iustice corrupted; the common weale oppressed; lies blowne abrode; the truth kept vnder; the Satires silent; flatterers open mou­thed; the infamed persons to be Lords, and the patient to be seruants: and aboue all and woorse than all to see the euill liue in rest and contented, and the good trou­bled and despised.

If thou wilt enioie rest in thy daies, Diogenes declaration. and keepe thy life pure and cleane, thou must obserue these three things.

First honor God: Honor God. for he that doth not honor him in all his enterprises shall be infortunate.

[Page 5] Secondly, be diligent to bring vp thy children well: Bring vp thy children wel. for a man hath no enimie so troublesome as his owne sonne, if he be not well brought vp.

Thirdly, Gratitude. be thankfull to thy good benefactors and friends: for the man that is vnthankfull, of all the world shal be abhorred. And the most profitable of these three (although most troublesome) is for a man to bring vp his children well.

Rome neuer decaied vntill the senate was replenished with wise serpents, Decaie of Rome. and destitute of simple doues.

As thou hast by tyrannie made thy selfe Ladie of Lords: Rome. so by iustice thou shalt returne to be the seruant of seruants. Why art thou at this day so deere of mer­chandise, and so cheape of follie?

Marcus to his schoolmaister said; A schoolmai­ster his of­fice. My dutie is to see that you be good, and your dutie is to trauell that your disciples be not euill: for yoong men on the one part being euill inclined, and on the other euill taught, it is impossible but in the end they should be vicious and de­famed: for there is no man so weake, nor child so ten­der, but the force which he hath to be vicious, is ynough (if he will) to be vertuous. For there is more courage re­quired in one to be euill, than strength is required in an other to be good: for to the maister it is greater treason to leaue his scholler amongst vices, than to deliuer a fort into the hands of enimies: for the one yeeldeth the fort which is but of stones builded, but the other aduentu­reth his sonne, which is of his owne bodie begotten.

Aduersitie.

IF there could be found any estate, any age, any lande, any nation, realme or world, wherein there hath been any man that hath passed this life without tasting what aduer­sitie [Page 6] was, it should be so strange to heare of, that by rea­son both the dead as liuing should enuie him.

In the end I find, that he that was yesterday rich, Miserie in mans life. to morow is poore: he that was yesterday whole, is to day sicke: he that yesterday laughed, to day weepeth: he that had his hartes ease, I see him now sore afflicted: he that was fortunate, is now vnluckie: he that was yester­day aliue, is this day buried in the graue.

One thing there is that to all men is grieuous, and to those of vnderstanding no lesse painfull. Which is, That the miseries of this wicked world are not equally deui­ded, but that oftentimes the calamities and miseries of this world lieth on one mans necke onely: for we are so vnfortunate, that the world giueth vs pleasures in sight, and troubles in proofe.

These are the miseries incident to man. The griefe of his children, Outward miseries. the assaults of his enimies: the oportunitie of his wife: the wantonnes of his daughters: sicknesse in his person: great losse of his goods: generall famine in the citie: cruell plagues in his countrey: extreme cold in Winter: noisome heat in Sommer: sorowful death of his friends: the enuious prosperitie of his enimies. Finally, man passeth so many miseries, that somtimes bewailing the wofull life, he desireth the sweet death. If man hath passed such things outwardly, what may be said of those which he hath suffred inwardly: Inward mi­series. for the trauels which the body passeth in 50. yeeres, may be well accounted in a day, but that which the hart suffreth in one day can­not be counted in an hundred yeeres.

It is not to be denied but that we would account him rashe which with a reed would meete one with a sword, Rashnes. and him for a foole that would put off his shooes to walke vpon thornes: so without comparison he ought to be esteemed the most foole that with his tender flesh thinketh to preuaile against so many euil fortunes: for without doubt the man that is of his body delicate, pas­seth [Page 7] his life with many miseries.

The wounded harts oftentimes vtter the pains which they feele without any hope to receiue comfort of that which they desire.

He is no man borne in the world but rather a furie bred vp in hell, that can at the sorow of another take any pleasure.

Ambition.

IT chanceth often to ambitious men that in their greatest ruffe, Careles of life. when they thinke their honor spoon and wouen, that their estate with the webbe of their life in one moment is broken.

The desire of men considered what things they pro­cure, and whereunto they aspire, I maruell not though they haue so few friends; but I much muse they haue no more enimies. Blind that they see not their friend. In things of weight they marke not who hath been their friend, they consider not that they are their neighbours, neither do they regard that they are Christians, but their conscience layd apart, and honestie set aside, euery man seeketh for himselfe and his own af­fairs, though it be to the preiudice of another.

Captains and valiantmen.

CAptaines that goe to the warres should not be cowards, for there is no like danger to the common wealth, nor no greater slander to the prince, than to commit charge to such in the field which will be first to command & last to fight.

As captains should shew them­selues in the beginning cruel, so af­ter [Page 8] victory had of their enimies, they should shew them­selues pitiful and meeke.

That captaine is more to be praised which winneth the harts of his enimies in his tents by good example, than he which getteth the victory in the field with shed­ding of blood.

The stout and noble hart for little fauor shewed vnto him, Fauor enco­rageth for­ward. bindeth himself to accomplish great things.

He ought to be called valiant that with his life hath won honor, Valiant. and by the sword hath gotten riches.

What greater vanitie can there be than that captains for troubling quiet men, For euil acts they are glo­riously recei­ued. destroying cities, beating down castels, robbing the poore, enriching tyrants, carying a­way treasures, shedding of blood, making of widowes, taking of noble mens liues, should in reward & recom­pence be receiued with triumph?

Couetousnes, and Couetous men.

THat couetousnes is great which the shame of the world doth not oppresse, neither the fear of death doth cause to cease.

The couetous man seeketh care for himselfe, What the co­uetous man procureth. enuie for his neigh­bors, spurs for strangers, baite for theeues, troubles for his bodie, damnation for his renowme, vnquietnes for his life, an­noiance for his friends, occasion for his enimies, male­dictions for his name, and long sutes for his children.

All naturally desire rather to abound, than to want, and all that which is greatly desired, with great diligence is searched, and through great trauell is obtained; and that thing which by trauell is obtained, with loue is pos­sessed; and that which by loue is possessed, with as much [Page 9] sorow is lost, bewailed, and lamented.

The hart that with couetousnes is set on fire, cannot with woods and bowes of riches, but with the earth of the graue be satisfied and quenched.

God to the ambitious and couetous harts gaue this for a paine, that neither with enough nor with too much they should content themselues.

Thales being demanded what profite he had that was not couetous, Riches tor­menteth. he answered; Such a one is deliuered from the torments of his desire; and besides that he recoue­reth friends for his person, for riches torment him bi­cause he spendeth them not.

Greedie and couetous hartes care not though the prince shutteth vp his hart, so that he open his cofers: but noble and valiant men little esteem that which they lock vp in their cofers, so that their harts be opened to their friends.

Periander had in him such liuelines of spirite on the one side, Gouernor in Greece. and such couetousnes of worldly goods on the other side, that the Historiographers are in doubt whe­ther was greater the Philosophie that he taught in the schooles, or the tyrannie that he vsed in robbing the common wealth.

I am in doubt which was greater the care that vertu­ous princes had in seeking out of Sages to counsel them, or the great couetousnes that others haue at this pre­sent to purchase themselues treasures.

Libertie of the soule, and care of goods in this life, ne­uer agree togither.

The prince which is couetous, is scarce of capacitie to receiue good councel.

When couetousnes groweth, Iustice falleth; force and violence ruleth; snatching raigneth; lecherie is at li­bertie; the euil haue power, and the good are oppressed. Finally, all do reioice to liue to the preiudice of another, and euery man to seek his own priuate commoditie.

[Page 10] What loue can there be betwixt couetous persons, Loue be­twixt coue­tous persons. seeing the one dare not spend, and the other is neuer sa­tisfied to hoord and heape vp?

The hart that is ouercome with couetousnes wil not feare to commit any treason. Treason.

If the couetous man were as greedie of his owne ho­nor, as he is desirous of another mans goods, the little worme or moth of couetousnes would not gnaw the rest of their life, nor the canker of infamie should not de­stroy their good name after their death.

It is as hard to satisfie the hart of a couetous man, Insatiable. as it is to dry the water of the sea.

Counsell.

NOtwithstanding thou being at the gate of care, reason would that some should take the clapper to knocke thereat with some good counsell: for though the rasor be sharpe, yet it needeth somtimes to be whet. I meane, though mans vnderstanding be neuer so cleare, yet from time to time it needeth counsell. Vertue strai­eth where counsell fai­leth. Vertuous men oftentimes do erre, not bicause they would faile, but bicause the things are so euil of di­gestion that the vertue they haue, suffiseth not to tell them what thing is necessarie for their profite. For the which cause it is necessarie that his will be kindled; A remedie. his wit fined; his opinion changed; his memorie sharpned; & aboue all now and then, that he forsake his owne ad­uise and cleaue to the counsell of another.

The world at this day is so changed from that it was woont to be in times past, that all haue the audacitie to giue counsell, and few haue the wisedom to receiue it.

[Page 11] If my counsell be woorth receiuing, prooue it; if it doth harme, leaue it; if it doth good, vse it; for there is no medicine so bitter that the sicke doth refuse to take, if thereby he thinke he may be healed.

I exhort and aduise thee that thy youth beleeue mine age; An exhor­tation. thine ignorance, my knowledge; thy sleepe, my watch; thy dimnes, my cleernes of sight; thine imagina­tion, my vertue; thy supicion, mine experience: other­wise thou maist hap to see one day thy selfe in some di­stresse, where small time thou shalt haue to repent, and none to find remedie.

If thou wilt liue, Gouernment as yoong; thou must gouerne thy selfe, as olde.

If any old man fall for age; Old age should not despise the counsell of youth. and if thou find a yoong man sage, despise not his counsell: for bees do drawe more honie out of the tender flowers, than of the hard leaues.

Plato commandeth that in giuing politike counsell it be giuen to them that be in prosperitie, to the intent that they decay not: and to them that be in heauines and trouble, to the intent that they despaire not.

Happie is that common wealth, and fortunate is that prince that is Lord of yoong men to trauell, and ancient persons to counsell. Manie things are cured in time, which reason afterward cannot helpe.

No mortall man take he neuer so good heede to his works, nor reason so well in his desires; but that he de­serueth some chastisement for some cause, or counsell in his doings.

The examples of the dead do profit good men more to liue well, than the counsell of the wicked prouoketh the liuing to liue euill.

Men ought not in any thing to take so great care, as in seeking of counsell and counsellers: for the prospe­rous times cannot be maintained, nor the multitude of enimies resisted, if it be not by wise & graue counsellers.

[Page 12] Thales being demanded what a man should do to liue vprightly, Spendals that leaue none for themselues are bank­rupts in the end. he answered; To take that counsell for him­selfe which he giueth to another: for the vndoing of all men is, that they haue plentie of counsell for others, and want for themselues.

He shall neuer giue to his prince good nor profitable counsell, Note. which by that counsell intendeth to haue some proper interest.

He is not counted sage that hath turned the leaues of manie bookes: but he which knoweth and can giue good and wholsome counsell.

Anacharsis said; Corruption to be shun­ned. Thou shalt promise me not to be im­portune with me to receiue any thing of thee: for the day thou shalt corrupt me with gifts, it is necessarie that I corrupt thee with euil counsell.

It is easie to speake well, and hard to worke well: for there is nothing in the world better cheape than coun­sell.

By the counsell of wise men that thing is kept and maintained, which by the strength of valiant men is gotten.

Ripe counsels proceed not from the man that hath trauelled into many countries, but from him that hath felt himselfe in manie dangers.

It is impossible that there should any misfortune hap­pen whereas ripe counsell is. Good coun­sell auoideth mishap.

To giue counsell to the wise man, it is either superflu­ous, One wise to counsell an other. or commeth of presumption though it be true: yet I say in like maner, that the diamond being set in gold looseth not his vertue, but rather increaseth in price: so the wiser that a man is, so much the more he ought to know and desire the opinion of others, certainly he that doth so cannot erre: for no mans owne counsell aboun­deth so much, but that he needeth the counsell and opi­nion of others.

We ordaine that none be so hardie to giue counsell, [Page 13] vnlesse therewith he giue remedie: for to the troubled hart words comfort little, when in them there is no re­medie.

The woman is hardie that dare giue counsel to a man; Womens counsell. and he more bold that taketh it of a woman: It is meant but of the common sort. but I say he is a foole that taketh it; and he is a more foole that asketh it; but he is most foole that fulfilleth it.

Children and youth.

IT is better to leaue vnto children good doctrine whereby they may liue, Childrens inheritance. than euill riches wherby they may perish. And the cause is that manie mens children haue beene through the hope they had to in­herit their fathers goods, vndone, and afterward gone a hunting af­ter vices: for they seldome do any woorthie feats, which in their youth inherit great treasures.

It is better to haue children poore and vertuous, than rich and vicious.

To be poore or sick is not the greatest miserie, A great feli­citie to pa­rents to see vertuous children. neither to be whole and rich is the chiefest felicitie: for there is no such felicitie to fathers to see their children vertu­ous.

It is an honor to the countrie that fathers haue such children that will take profit with their counsell: and contrariwise, that the children haue such fathers as can giue it them.

The father ought to desire his sonne onely in this cause, that in his age he may sustaine his life in honor: and that after his death he may cause his same to liue. Duty of chil­dren. If not for this, at the least he ought to desire him, that in his age he may honor his head, and that after his [Page 14] death he may inherit his goods. But we see few do this in these daies, except they be taught of their parents the same in youth: for the fruit doth neuer grow in the har­uest, vnlesse the tree doth beare blossoms in the spring.

Too much libertie in youth is no other but a pro­phesie, Libertie in youth. and manifest token of disobedience in age.

It is a griefe to see, Parents great care quickly wasted and a monstrous thing to declare the cares which the fathers take to gather riches, & the diligence that children haue to spend them.

There can be nothing more vniust, than that the yong and vicious sonne should take his pleasure of the sweate of the aged father.

The father that instructeth not his sonne in vertue in his youth, is lesse blamewoorthie if he be disobedient in age.

It is a good token when youth before they know vi­ces, haue beene accustomed to practise vertue.

It is pitifull to see, Sensualitie in children. and lamentable to behold a yoong child how the blood doth stir him; the flesh prouoke him to accomplish his desires; to see sensualitie go be­fore, and he himselfe to come behind; the malicious world to watch him; and how the diuel doth tempt him; and vices blind him; and in all that is spoken to see the father so negligent, as if he had no children: where in­deede the old man by the few vertues that he had in his youth might easily haue knowen the infirmities, as vices wherewith his sonne was compassed.

If the expert had neuer been ignorant; if the fathers had neuer been children; if the vertuous had neuer been vicious; if the fine wits had neuer been deceiued; it had been no maruel though fathers were negligent to bring vp their children.

Little experience excuseth men of great offences; but since thou art a father, Experience the best schoole. maister. and first a sonne; since thou art old, and hast been yoong: and besides all this, pride hath inflamed thee; lecherie hath burned thee; wrath [Page 15] hath wounded thee; negligence hath hindered thee, and gluttonie surfeited thee: tel me since so manie vices hath raigned in thee, why hast thou not an eie to the child of thine owne blood begotten?

It is impossible that the child which with many vices is assaulted, and not succored, but in the end he should be infamed: and to the dishonor of the father most wic­kedly ouercome.

It is not possible to keepe meate well sauored, vnlesse it be first salted: it is impossible that fish should liue without water: it is not vnlikely, but the rose which is ouergrowen with the thorne should wither: so is it im­possible that fathers should haue any comfort in their children, vnlesse they instruct them in vertue of their youth.

The Lydes ordained a law, Inheritance belonged not to the eldest, but to the most vertuous. that if a father had manie children, that the most vertuous should inherite the goods and riches, and if they be vicious no one to inhe­rit: for the goods gotten with trauel of vertuous fathers ought not by reason to be inherited with vicious chil­dren.

I do not maruel that the children of princes and great Lords be adulterers, and bellie gods: for that on the one part youth is the mother of idlenes, and on the o­ther little experience is the cause of great offences: and which more is, the fathers being dead, the children in­herit the fathers goods being with vices loden, as if they were with vertues endued.

The instructors and teachers of youth ought to be informed what vices or vertues their children are most inclined vnto, and this ought also to be to incourage them in that that is good, and contrarie to reprooue them in all that is euill.

The more a man giueth a noblemans sonne the bri­dle, the more hard it is for them to receiue good doc­trine.

[Page 16] Augustus the Emperor said to the senate; If my chil­dren wil be good, they shal sit heerafter where I do now: but if they be euill, I will not their vices be reuerenced of the senators: for the authoritie and grauitie of the good ought not to be imploied in the seruice of those that be wicked.

What a thing it is to see the sonne of a laborer, Difference betwixt the poore mans sonne and the rich. their coate without points; their shirt torne; their feet bare; the head without a cap; the bodie without a girdle; in sommer without a hat; in winter without a cloke; ea­ting course bread; lieng on straw or on the earth: and in this state so well giuen and vertuous, that diuers do wish to haue such a sonne.

On the other side, to behold noble mens sonnes brought vp and nourished betweene Holland sheetes laid in a costly cradle, shaped after the new fashion; they giue the nurse what she wil desire; if perchance the child be sicke they change the nurse, or appoint him a diet; the father and mother so carefull and diligent, that they sleepe neither night nor day: all the house watcheth: eateth nothing but the broth of chickens; asketh no­thing but it is giuen him immediately. It is a world to see the waste that a vaine man maketh in bringing vp his child; specially if he be a man somwhat aged, and that hath at his desire a child borne: he ceaseth not to spend so much of his goods in bringing vp of him wan­tonly while he is yoong, that oftentimes he wanteth to marrie him when he commeth to age.

The poore bringeth vp his children without the pre­iudice of the rich, and to the profit of the commō welth; but the rich bringeth vp his children with the sweate of the poore, & to the dammage of the common wealth: it is reason therefore that the Wolfe that deuoureth vs should die, and the sheep which clotheth vs should liue.

Oftentimēs parents for tendernes wil not haue their children brought vp in learning; Negligence in educating children. saying, there is time y­nough [Page 17] and leisure to be taught. And further to excuse their error, they affirme if the child should be chastened, it would make him both sicke and foolish. But what is their end, they become slanderous to the commō welth: infamous and disobedient to their parents: so euill in conditions: so light and vnaduised in behauior: so vn­meet for knowledge: so enclined to lies: so enuying the truth, that their fathers would not onely haue punished them with sharpe correction, but also would reioyce to haue them buried out of the way.

Whilest the Palme tree is but yoong and little, a frost doth easily destroy it: so whilest the child is yoong if he haue not a good tutor, he is easily deceiued with the world.

It is impossible that in any citie there be a good com­mon wealth, except they be carefull for the well brin­ging vp of children.

The cause is the couetousnes of the master, Why many noble mens children are wicked. who suf­freth their pupils to run at their owne wils when they be yong, to the end to win their harts when they be old, so that their extreme couetousnes causeth rich and good mens sonnes to be euill and vicious.

The father is bound no more towards his childe but to banish him from his pleasures, Dutie of pa­rents. and to giue him vertu­ous masters.

All the vertues that yoong men do learne, doth not them so much profite, as one onely vice doth them hurt if they do thereto consent.

Children ought not to vse any pastime except there be therein contained some commendable exercise: Play in youth. for if in youth he dare play a point, it is to be feared when he commeth to yeeres he will play his coate.

Play is not forbidden yoong children for the money that they lose, but for the vices they win thereat, & cor­rupt maners which therof they learne.

Of yong men light and vnconstant, commeth often­times [Page 18] an olde man fond and vnthriftie: What is laid in youth is hatched in age. of too hardie, commeth rebellious and seditious persons: and of vn­shamefastnes, slanderous persons.

What auaileth children to be faire of countenance; well disposed of bodie; liuely of spirite; white of skin; to haue yealow haires; to be eloquent in talking; pro­found in science: if with all these that nature giueth them they be bold in that they do, and shameles in that they say?

Sensualitie and euill inclination of the wanton child, Sensualitie remedied. ought to be remedied by the wisedome of the chaste master.

The trees that bud and cast leaues before the tyme come, hope is neuer to eate of their fruit in season: so when children haunt the vice of the flesh whilest they be yong, there is small hope of goodnes to be looked for in them when they be old: for the older they waxe, the ri­per be their vices.

Masters would correct the childe, but fathers and mothers forbid them. Little auaileth one to pricke the horse with the spurre, when he that sitteth vpon him holdeth backe with the bridle.

Of Death.

O If we would consider the corrup­tion wherof we are made; the filth wherof we are engendred; the in­finite trauell whereunto we are borne; the long tediousnes wher­with we are nourished; the great necessities and suspicions wherein we liue; and aboue all the great pe­ril wherein we die; we find a thou­sand occasions to wish death, & not one to desire life.

[Page 19] The excellencie of the soule laid aside, and the hope which we haue of eternall life, if man do compare the captiuitie of men to the libertie of beasts: with reason we may see that the beasts do liue a peaceable life, and that which man doth lead, is but a long death.

I had rather chuse an vnfortunate life and an hono­rable death, What death is better than life. than an infamous death and an honorable life.

That man which will be accounted for a good man, & not noted for a brute beast, ought greatly to trauell to liue well, and much more to die better: for that euill death maketh men doubt that the life hath not been good, and the good death is an excuse of an euill life.

The dead do rest in a sure hauen, and we saile as yet in raging seas.

If the death of men were as beasts, that is to wit, that there were no furies nor diuels to torment them, & that God should not reward the good: yet we ought to be comforted to see our friends die if it were for none other cause, but to see them deliuered from the thraldome of this miserable world.

The pleasure that the Pilote hath to be in a sure ha­uen; the glory that the captaine hath to see the day of victory; the rest that the traueller hath to see his iorney ended; the contentation that the workman hath to see his worke come to perfection; all the same haue the dead, seeing themselues out of this miserable life.

If men were born alwaies to liue, it were reason to la­ment them when we see them die: Whom we should mourne for. but since it is truth that they are borne to die, we ought not to lament those which die quickly: but those which liue long, since thou knowest he is in place where there is no sorrow but mirth; where there is no paine but ease; where he wee­peth not but laugheth; where he sigheth not but sin­geth; where he hath no sorowes but pleasures; where he feareth not cruel death but enioyeth perpetuall life. [Page 18] [...] [Page 19] [...]

[Page 20] The true widow ought to haue hir conuersation a­mong the liuing, and hir desire to be with the dead.

Death is the true refuge; the perfite health; the sure hauen; the whole victory: finally after death we haue nothing to bewaile, and much lesse to desire.

Death is a dissolution of the body; A definition of death. a terror to the rich; a desire of the poore; a thing inheritable; a pilgrimage vncertain; a theefe of men; a kind of sleeping; a shadow of life; a separatiō of the liuing; a company of the dead; a resolution of all; a rest of trauels; and the end of all i­dle desires.

If any dammage or feare be in him who dieth, it is rather for the vice he hath committed, than feare of death.

There is no prince nor knight, rich nor poore, whole nor sicke, luckie nor vnluckie, with their vocations con­tented, saue onely the dead which are in their graues at rest and peace.

If in youth a man liue well, and in age studie to die well, and his life hath been honest; his hope is that death will be ioyfull: and although he hath had sorow to liue, he is sure he shall haue no paine to die.

This equal iustice is distributed to all, that in the same place where we haue deserued life, in the same we shal be assured of death.

Cato being praised of the Romanes for his courage at his death; laughed: they demaunded the cause why he laughed; A woorthie saying. he answered, Ye maruell at that I laugh, and I laugh at that you maruel: for the perils and trauels con­sidered wherein we liue, and the safetie wherein we die, it is no more needfull to haue vertue and strength to liue, than courage to die.

We see shamefast and vertuous persons suffer hunger, cold, thirst, trauel, pouertie, inconuenience, sorow, enmi­ties and mishaps, of the which things we were better to see the end in one day, than to suffer them euery hower: [Page 21] for it is lesse euill to suffer an honest death, than to en­dure a miserable life.

The day when we are born, is the beginning of death; and the day wherein we die, is the beginning of life.

If death be no other but an ending of life, and that whiles we liue we carrie death; than reason perswadeth vs to thinke that our infancie dieth, An excel­lent reason. our childhood di­eth, our manhood dieth, and our age shall die; whereof we may conclude that we are dying euery yeere, euery day, euery houre, and euery moment.

Diuers vaine men are come into so great follies, that for feare of death they procure to hasten death. Hauing thereof due consideration, me seemeth that we ought not greatly to loue life, nor with desperation to seeke death: for the strong and valiant man ought not to haue life so long as it lasteth, nor to be displeased with death when it commeth. In such sort therefore ought men to liue as if within an houre after they should die.

If we trauell by long wayes and want any thing, we borow of our company; if they haue forgotten ought, they returne to seek it at their lodging, or els they write vnto their friends a letter: but if we once die, they will not let vs returne againe, we cannot, and they will not a­gree that we shall write, but such as they shall find vs, so shall we be iudged; and that which is most fearful of all, the execution and sentence is giuen in one day.

Let not men leaue that vndone till after their death, which they may do during their life; nor trust in that they command, but in that they do whilest they liue; nor in the good works of an other, but in their owne good deeds: for in the ende one sigh shall be more woorth, than all the friends of the world. I exhort therefore all wise and vertuous men, and also my selfe with them, that in such sort we liue, that in the end we liue for euer.

Those that visite the sicke, Good coūsel at the houre of death. ought to perswade them that they make their testaments, confesse their sinnes, [Page 22] discharge their conscience, receiue the sacraments, and reconcile themselues to their enimies.

Many in our life time do gape after our goods, & few at our death are sory for our offences.

The wise and sage before nature compelleth them to die, of their own wils ought to die; that is to say, before they see or feele the pangs of death, they haue their con­sciences ready prepared.

What loseth a wise man to haue his wil wel ordained; what loseth he of his credite; who in his life time resto­reth, which at his death he shall be constrained to ren­der? Wherein may a man shew his wisedom more, than willingly to be discharged of that which otherwise by processe they will take from him?

How many lordes which for not spending one day a­bout their testament, The incon­niences for not making a wise will. haue caused their heires all the days of their life after to be in trauerse in the law, so that in supposing to haue left them wealthie, haue left them but attorneis in the law?

The true christian and vnfained ought euery morning so to dispose his goods and correct his life, as if he should die the same night, and so to commit himselfe to God at night, as if he hoped for no life vntil the morning.

Princes and Lords ought to be perfect before they be perfect; to end before they end; to die before they die; to be mortified before they be mortified: if they do this they shal as easily leaue their life, as if they changed from one house to another.

The most part of men delight to talke with leisure; to drinke with leisure; to eate with leisure; and to sleepe with leisure; but they die in haste: for we see them send for their ghostlie father in haste; to receiue the sacra­ment in haste; to make their wils by force; to vse confe­rence so out of season, that oftentimes the sicke hath lost his senses, and giuen vp the ghost before any thing be perfectly ordered.

[Page 23] What auaileth the shipmaister after the ship is sunke; what do weapons auaile after the battell is done; what pleasure after men are dead: likewise what auaileth the godlie instructor when the sicke is heauie and bereft of his senses; or to vnlocke his conscience, when the key of his toong is lost?

Let vs not deceiue our selues, thinking in age to a­mend, and to make restitution at our death: for it is not the point of wise men, nor of good Christians to desire so much time to offend, and yet will neuer spie any time to amend.

Would to God that the third part of time which men do occupie in sinne were imploied about the meditati­on of death; and the cares which they haue to accom­plish their fleshlie lusts were spent in bewailing their fil­thie sinnes.

All worldlings do willingly sinne vpon hope onely in age to amend, and at death to repent: but they that in this hope sinne, what certaintie haue they of amende­ment, and assurance to haue long warning ere they die, sith in number there are more yoong than old which die?

The omnipotencie of the diuine mercie considered the space of an hower sufficeth, Repentance. yea too much to repent vs of our wicked life: but yet I counsell all, sith the sin­ner for his repentance taketh but one hower, that it be not the hower too late.

The sighes and repentance which proceedeth from the bottom of the hart, Repentance. do penetrate the high heauens: but those which come of necessitie do not pearce the seeling of the house.

What wrong doth God offer vnto vs when he calleth vs away: The benefite of death. seeing from an olde decaied house he is to change vs to a new builded pallace?

What other thing is the graue but a strong fort, The graue. wher­in we shut our selues from the assalts of life, and broiles [Page 24] of fortune: for we ought to be more desirous of that we find in death, than of that we leaue in life.

Two things cause men loth to die: the loue they haue to that they leaue, or else the feare of that they deserue.

Now I enter into the field, not where of the wilde beasts I shall be assalted: but of the hungrie woorms de­uoured.

We ought not to lament the death allotted, but the life that is wicked: that man is very simple that dreadeth death, for feare to lose the pleasures of life.

There is nothing that shorteneth more the life of man, than vaine hope and idle thoughts.

The great estimation that we haue of this life causeth that death seemeth to vs sudden, and that the life is o­uertaken by vnwarie death, but this is a practise of the children of vanitie: for that by the will of God death visiteth vs, and against the will of man life forsaketh vs.

To the stout harts and fine wits this is a continuall torment and endlesse paine, and a woorme that alwaie gnaweth, to call to mind that he must lose the ioifull life which he so entirely loued, and taste the fearfull death that he so greatly abhorred.

O cursed and wicked world, thou that sufferest things neuer to remaine in one state! for when we are in most prosperitie, then thou with death dost persecute vs most cruelly.

Death is a patrimonie which successiuely is inherited; but life is a right which daily is surrendred: for death accounteth vs so much his owne, that oftentimes vn­wares he commeth to affalt vs: and life taketh vs such strangers, that oftentimes we not doubting thereof va­nisheth away.

When death hath done hir office, what difference is there between the faire and the fowle in the graue?

The man which is loden with yeers; When death is to be desi­red. tormented with diseases; pursued with enimies; forgotten of his friends; [Page 25] visited with mishaps; charged with euill will and pouer­tie, is not to demand long life, but rather to imbrace death.

Death is that from whence youth cannot flie a foot, and from whence age cannot escape on horsebacke.

Discord, Enimitie, and Variance.

FOr all that we can see, heare, or tra­uell, and all that we can do, we did neuer see nor heare tel of men that haue lacked enimies. For either they be vicious or vertuous: and if they be vicious and euill, they are hated of the vertuous; if they be good and vertuous, they are conti­nually hated and persecuted of the euill.

In great armies the discord that among them arise doth more harme, Discord in armies. than the enimies against whom they fight.

Manie vaine men do raise dissentions and quarrels among people, thinking that in troubled water they should augment their estate, whereas in short space they do not onely lose their hope of that they sought, but are put out of that they possessed. Dispossessed. For it is not onely reaso­nable but also most iust, that they by experience feele that, which their blind malice will not suffer them to knowe.

Enuie.

AGainst enuie is no fortresse, nor caue to hide, nor high hil to mount on, nor thicke wood to shadow in, nor ship to scape in, nor horse to beare away, nor monie to redeeme vs.

[Page 26] Enuie is so venemous a serpent, that there was neuer mortall man among mortals that could scape from the biting of hir tooth; the scratching of hir nailes; defiling of hir feete; and the casting of hir poison.

Enuie is so enuious, that to them which of hir are most denied and set fardest off, she giueth most cruell strokes with hir feete.

The maladie of enuie rankleth to death, Stingeth to death. and the me­dicine that is applied will not assure life.

I cannot determine which is the best, or to say more properly, which is the woorst; extreme miserie without the danger of fortune, or extreme prosperitie that is al­waies threatened to fall.

I had rather mine enimies had enuie at my prosperi­tie, than my friends at my pouertie.

It is hard to giue a remedie against enuie, sith all the world is full therof.

We see that we be the sonnes of enuie, & we liue with enuie, and he that leaueth most riches, leaueth the grea­test enuie.

The riches of rich men is the seede of enuie to the poore; and bicause the poore man lacketh and the rich hath too much, causeth discord among the people.

There were two Greekes, Homer. the one Achilles, the other Thiestes; the which Achilles being extreme rich, was per­secuted with enuie; the other which was Thiestes sore noted of malice, but no man enuied at him.

I had rather be Achilles with his enuie, than Thiestes without it.

And in case all do vs dammage with enuie, yet much more harme doth a friend than an enimie: for of mine enuious enimie I will beware, and for feare I will with­draw, but my friend with his amitie will beguile me, and I by my fidelitie shall not mistrust it.

Among all mortall enimies there is none worse than a friend that is enuious of my felicitie.

[Page 27] Honor, vertue, and riches in a man are but a brand to light enuie to all the world.

Thales being asked when the enuious man was quiet; he answered, When he seeth his enimie dead, or vtterly vndone: for truly the prosperitie of a friend is a sharpe knife to the enuious hart.

The outward malicious word is a token of the in­ward enuious hart.

What friendship can there be amongst enuious men, seeing the one purchaseth, and the other possesseth.

Euill and wicked men, with their vices.

THe euill men doe offend vs more which we find, than doth the good men which we lose: for it is great pitie to see the good and vertuous men die, but I take it to be more sorow to see the euill and vicious men liue. The good man though he die, liueth; the euill though he liue, dieth.

Let vs compare the trauels which we suffer of the ele­ments, with those which we endure of the vices, and we shall see that little is the perill we haue in the sea and the land, in respect of that which encreaseth of our euill life.

Is not he in more danger that falleth through malice into pride, than he which by chance falleth from a high rocke: is not he who with enuie is persecuted in more danger, than he that with a stone is wounded: are not they in more peril that liue among vicious men, than o­thers that liue among brute and cruell beasts? Do not those which are tormented with the fire of couetousnes suffer greater danger than those which liue vnder mount [Page 28] Etna? Finally they be in greater perils which with high imaginations are blinded, than the trees which with im­portunate winds are shaken.

Traian the emperor demanding of Plutarke why there were more euill than good, and more that embraced vi­ces, than followed vertues; The reason why vice is more follow­ed than ver­tue. answered, As our natural in­clination is more giuen to lasciuiousnes and negligence, than to chastitie and abstinence; so the men which do enforce themselues to follow vertue are few, and those which giue slack the reines to vices, are many. And this proceedeth that men do follow men, and that they suf­fer not reason to follow reason.

The remedies which the world giueth for the trou­bles, certainly are greater trauels than the trauels them­selues: so that they are salues which do not heale our wounds, but rather burne our flesh.

Doe you not know that extreme hunger causeth heasts to deuour with their teeth the thing that was bred in their intrals: As Herenni­us did by his master Tullie by experience we see that the wormes deuour the timber wherein they were bred, and the mothes the clothes wherein they were bred: and so somtimes a man beingeth him vp in his house which af­terwards taketh his honor and life from him.

As the shamefast man should not be denied in any his requests being honest, so the shameles and importunate man should be denied whatsoeuer he demandeth.

The ill rest and conuersation of them that liue, cause vs to sigh for the company of them that be dead.

Vniuersally the noble hart can endure all trauels of mans life vnlesse it be to see a good man decay, and the wicked to prosper, the which no valiant hart can abide, neither toong dissemble.

Of right ought that common wealth to be destroied which once hath been the flower of all vertues, Vices. and af­terward becommeth most abhominable and defiled with all vices.

[Page 29] If the euill liue, he is sure to fall; if the good die not, we doubt whether euer he shall come to honor.

The wickednesse of children are swordes that passe through the harts of their fathers.

Proud and stout harts obtaining that which they do desire, Pride. immediately begin to esteem it as nothing.

Tyrannous harts haue neuer regard to the honour of another, Tyrannie. vntill they haue obtained their wicked desires.

The harts that be proud are most commonly blin­ded, Proud harts. proud and ambitious harts know not what will sa­tisfie them.

If thou be giuen to ambition, Ambition, prodigalitie, and pride. honor may and will de­ceiue thee; if to prodigalitie, couetousnes often begni­leth thee; if to pride, all the world will laugh thee to scorne in such fort; that they will say, thou followest will and not reason; thine owne opinion rather than the councell of another; embracing flatterers rather than repelling the vertuous, for that most sorts had rather be commended with lies, than reprooued with truth.

That man which is brought vp in debates, A quarrelles. dissenti­tions and strife, all his felicitie consisteth in burning, de­stroying and bloudshedding: such works for the most part proceed not from a creature nourished among men on the earth, but rather of one that hath been brought vp among the infernall furies of hell.

Where vices haue raigned long time in the hart, Vices. there death onely and no other hath authoritie to plucke vp the rootes.

To whom is he more like which with his toong bla­seth vertues, and imploieth his deeds to all vices, than to the man that in one hand holdeth poison to take away life; and in the other treakle to resist death.

I haue mused which of these two are greater; None bolder than blinde bayards. the du­tie the good haue to speake against the euill, or else the audacitie the euill haue to speake against the good: for in the world there is no brute beast so hardie, as the euill [Page 30] man is that hath lost his fame.

I would all men would call this to memorie, that a­mong euill men the chiefest euill is, that after they haue forgotten themselues to be men, and exiled both truth and reason, with all their might they go against truth with their words, and against good deedes with their toongs.

Though it be euill to be an euill man, yet it is much woorse not to suffer another to be good, which aboue all things is to be abhorred, and not to be suffered.

Truly the shameles man feeleth not so much a great stripe of correction, The shame­les man. as the gentle hart doth a sharp word of admonition.

In the man that is euill there is nothing more easier than to giue good counsell, and there is nothing more harder than to worke well.

Vnder the cristall stone lieth oftentimes a dangerous woorme; in the faire wall is nourished the venemous co­luber; within the middle of the white tooth is engen­dred griefe to the gums; in the finest cloth is the moth soonest found; and the most fruitfull tree by woorms doth soonest perish: so vnder the cleane bodie and faire countenance are hid manie and abhominable vices.

Truly not onely to children that are not wise, Beautie sin­neth. but to all other wich are light and fraile, beautie is nothing els but the mother of all vices, and the hinderer of all ver­tues.

There is nothing more superfluous in man and lesse necessarie than the beautie of the bodie: Beautie su­perfluous. for whether we be faire or fowle, we are nothing the more beloued of God, or hated of wise men.

The man of a pleasant toong and euill life is he, which with impostumes vndoeth the common wealth.

Sensualitie maketh vs inferior to beasts, Sensualitie. and reason maketh vs superior to men.

He that knoweth most the course of the elements is [Page 31] not called wise; but he which knoweth least the vices of this world: for the good philosopher profiteth more by not knowing the euill, than by learning the good.

Quarrellers and malicious persons will haue their words by weight and measure, Quarrellers. but the vertuous and pa­tient men regard the intentions.

Men naturally desire honor in their life, How men shall leaue a good memo­rie behinde them. and memo­rieis after death; therefore I say as they come and attaine thereunto by high, noble, and heroicall facts: so memo­rie left by the good and legitimate children. For the children that are borne in adulterie are begotten in sin: and that memorie is infamous.

Adulterers are not only taken among Christians for offenders, Adulterers. but also among the gentils they are counted infamous. If the gentils feared infamie, the Christians ought to feare both infamie and paine.

Men are so euill and wicked, that they behold to the vttermost the offences of an other, but wil not heare the faults of himselfe.

It is a naturall thing, that when a man hath commit­ted any vice, foorthwith it repenteth him of his deede, and so againe after his new repentance he turneth to his old vices.

Where the soule doth not shew hir selfe mistres, Man a beast. it wanteth but little, but that the man remaineth a beast.

The euill do refraine more from vice for feare of pu­nishment, than for any desire they haue of amendment.

The Romans did not permit that liers nor deceiuers should be credited by their othes, Liers and de­ceiuers. neither would they permit or suffer them to sweare.

The simple man slaieth but one man with his sword of wrath, Illworks. but the sage killeth manie by the il example of his life.

There is no man by his eloquence may haue such re­nowme, Eloquent men. but in the end may lose it by his euill life: for he is vnwoorthie to liue amongst men, whose words of [Page 32] all are approoued, and his works of all are condemned.

There is no beard so bare shauen, but that it will grow againe: I meane there is no man of so honest a life, but if a man make inquisition he may find som spots therein.

Oftentimes they say they haue been on pilgrimage at some deuout Saint that is dead, Priuie forni­cation or carnall pil­grimage. when indeed they haue been imbracing the bodie of some faire harlot aline.

Of Fame and Infamie.

THe infamie of the slanderous shall neuer die: for he neuer liued to die well.

To die well doth couer an evill fame, and to make an ende of an euill life doth begin a good fame.

When a noble man shal aduen­ture to hazard his person and his goods, he ought to do it for a matter of great impor­tance: for more defamed is he that ouercommeth a poore laborer, than he which is ouercome of a sturdie knight.

The losse of children and temporall goods cannot be called losse, if the life be safe, and renowme remaine vn­defiled.

Of the good man there is but a short memorie of his goodnes: if he be euill his infamie shal neuer haue end.

If he deserue great infamie which worketh euil in his life, truly he deserueth much more, which trauelleth to bring that euill in vre, that shal continue after his death: for mans malice doth rather pursue the euill, which the wicked do inuent, than the good which vertuous man do begin.

Noble harts ought little to efteeme the increase of their riches, and ought greatly to esteeme the perpetui­tie [Page 33] of their good name.

The good life of the child that is aliue keepeth the re­nowme of the father that is dead.

The glorie of the scholler alwaies redoundeth to the honor and praise of the maister.

First, What is re­quired in good tutors. 40. yeers old. that he be fortie yeeres of age, bicause the mai­ster that is yoong is ashamed to command: if he be aged he is not able to correct.

Secondly, Honest. he ought to be honest, and that not onely in purenes of conscience, but in the outward appee­rance and cleannes of life: for it is impossible that the child be honest, if the maister be dissolute.

Thirdly, True. they ought to be true in words and deedes: for the mouth that is alwaies full of lies ought not by reason to be a teacher of the truth.

Fourthly, Liberall. they ought of nature to be liberall: for of­tentimes the couetousnes of maisters maketh and cau­seth the harts of princes to be greedie and couetous.

Fiftly, Moderate. they ought to be moderate in words, and verie resolute in sentences: so that they ought to teach the children to speake little, and to harken much: for it is a great vertue in a prince or noble man to heare with patience, and to speake with wisedome.

Sixtly, Wise. they ought to be wise and temperate, so that their grauitie may restraine the lightnes of their schol­lers: for there can be no greater plagues to a realme than princes to be yoong, and their maisters light.

It behooueth also that they be learned both in diuine and humane letters, Learned. in such sort that that which they teach princes by word, they may shew it by writing, to the end they may put the same in vre: for mens harts are sooner moued by the example of those that are past, than by the words of them that are present.

Also he ought not to be giuen to vices of the flesh: Continent. for as they are yoong and naturally giuen to the flesh, they haue no strength to abide chaste, neither wisedome to [Page 34] beware of the suares: it is necessarie therefore that the maister be pure and honest; for the disciple shall hardly be chaste, if the maister be vicious.

They ought to haue good conditions, Good condi­tions. bicause noble mens children being daintily brought vp, are more prone to learne euill than good conditions: the which their maisters ought to reforme more by good conuer­sation than by sharpe correction: for it chanceth often­times where maisters be cruell, the schollers be not mer­cifull.

Noble men neuer wan renowme for the pleasures they had in vices, Renowme. but for the trauels they tooke in ver­tue.

Follie and foolish men, with their vanities.

IT is a signe of little wisdome and great follie for a man to answere suddenly to euery que­stion.

As the wise man being demanded maketh a slow and graue answere: so the simple and foolish man being asked, answereth quickly and lightly.

The vanitie of the common people is of such a quali­tie that it followeth new inuentions, and despiseth anci­ent customs.

Fortune.

IF all fals were alike, all would be cured with one salue; but som fall on their feet; some on their sides; others stumble and fall not; and others fall downe right, but some do giue them a hand: I mean som to fall from their estate, and lose no more but their substance; o­thers [Page 35] fall, and for verie sorow lose not only their goods, but their life withall; others there are which neither lose their life nor their goods, but their honor onely, and so according to the discretion of fortune, the more they haue, the more still they take from them.

It is greatly to be mused at, He that de­caieth loseth goodes and friends. that fortune when shee doth begin to ouerthrow a poore man, doth not onelie take all that he hath from him, but also those which suc­cor him, so that the poore man is bound more to lament his friends hurt than his owne lost.

The afflicted man doth most desire the change of for­tune, and the thing which the prosperous man doth most abhorre, is to thinke that fortune is mutable: for the vnfortunate man hopeth for euerie change of for­tune to be made better, and the wealthie man feareth through euerie change to be depriued of his house and liuings.

The sage prince and captaine in the wars should not rashly hazard his person, nor lightly or vnaduisedly put his life in the hands of fortune.

Sith fortune is a mistres in all things, and that to hir they do impute both good and euill works; he alone may be called a princely man, who for no contrarietie of fortune is ouercome; for truly that man is of a stout courage, whose hart is not vanquished by the force of fortune.

Sith all men naturally desire to be happie, Happie. he alone a­mongst others may be called happie, of whom they may truly say; He gaue good doctrine to liue, and least good example to die.

Gentle harts do alter greatly, when they are aduerti­sed of any sudden mishap.

I thinke him happie, who hath his bodie healthfull, and his hart at ease.

The misfortunes that by our follie do chance if wee haue cause to lament them, Misfortune. we ought also to haue rea­son [Page 36] to dissemble them.

I thinke him happie, who hath his bodie healthfull, and his hart at ease.

Vbi multum de intellectu, Aristotle. ibi parum de fortuna: Whereas is much knowledge, commonly there is little wealth.

It is not good for a man to hazard that in the hands of fortune, which a man may compas by friendship.

The vnluckie man were better be with the dead, than remaine heere with the liuing.

It is commonly seene, that when fortune exalteth men of low estate to high degree, they presume much, and know little, and much lesse what they are worth.

Of Friendship and Friends.

THat only is true friendship where the bo­dies are two, and the wils one.

I account that suspicious friendship where the harts are so diuided, that the wils are seuered: for there are diuers great friends in wordes which dwell but ten houses asunder, and yet haue their harts tenne miles distant.

The man that with words onely comforteth (in effect being able to remedie) declareth himselfe to haue been a fained friend in times past, and sheweth that a man ought not to take him for a faithfull friend in time to come.

If hitherto thou hast taken me for thy neighbor, I be­seech thee from hencefoorth take me for an husband in loue; for a father in counsell; for a brother in seruice; for an aduocate in the Senate; for a friend in hart.

In the inconueniences of our friends if we haue no fa­cultie or might to remedie it, at the least we are bound to bewaile it.

[Page 37] Thy anguish and griefe doth so torment me, that if God had giuen power to wofull men to depart with their sorowes, as he hath giuen power to the rich to de­part with their goods; by the faith I owe vnto God, as I am the greatest of thy friends, so would I be he that should take most part of thy griefs.

I see not why mishaps ought patiently to be suffered, but bicause in those we are to trie our faithfull friends.

In battell the valiant man is known; in tempestuous stormes, the Pilote; by the touchstone gold is tried; and in aduersitie a friend is knowen.

If true friends cannot do that which they ought, yet they accomplish it in doing that which they can.

He that promiseth and is long in fulfilling, is but a slack friend: he is much better that denieth forthwith, bicause he doth not deceiue him that asketh.

There is nothing more noisome than to iudge a con­tention betwixt two friends: for to iudge between two enimies, the one remaineth a friend; but to iudge be­tween two friends, the one is made an enimie.

In one thing onely men haue licence to be negligent, that is, in chusing of friends. Slowly ought thy friends to be chosen, and neuer after for any thing to be forsaken.

The griefs that lie buried in the woful hart, Grief to be reuealed to none but to faithfull friends. ought not to be communicated but to a faithful friend.

I do not giue thee licence that thy thought be suspi­cious of men, sith thou of my hart art made a faithfull friend: for if vnconstant fortune do trust me to gather the grape, be thou assured thou shalt not want of the wine.

Two things are to be respected, not to reuenge thy selfe of thine enimies, neither to be vnthankfull to thy friend.

He possesseth much which hath good friends: for ma­ny aid their friends when they would haue holpen them more if they could, for the true loue is not wearied to [Page 38] loue, nor ceaseth not to profit.

One friend can do no more for an other, than to of­fer him his person and to depart with his goods.

It is a generall rule among the phisitions that the me­dicines do not profit the sicke, vnlesse they first take a­way the opilation of the stomacke; euen so no man can speake to his friend as he ought, vnlesse before he shew what thing greeueth him.

The hart neuer receiueth such ioy Ioy. as when he seeth himself with his desired friend.

Friends for their true friends ought willingly to shed their blood, and in their behalfe without demaunding, they ought also to spend their goods.

The paine is greater to be void of assured friends, than assault is dangerous of cruell enimies.

Our chests and harts ought always to be open to our friends.

Friendship that is earnest requireth daily communi­cation or visitation. A man ought not in any affaires to be so occupied that it be a lawfull let not to communi­cate or write vnto his friend.

Where perfit loue is not, there wanteth always faith­full seruice: and for the contrary, he that perfectly lo­ueth, assuredly shall be serued. I haue been, am, and will be thine, therfore thou shalt do me great iniurie if thou be not mine.

I haue not seen any to possesse so much; to be woorth so much; to know so much; nor in all things to be so mightie, but that one day he shall need his poore friend.

The man that loueth with his hart, What a true friend is, displaid. neither in absence forgetteth, nor in presence becommeth negligent; nei­ther in prosperitie he is proud, nor yet in aduersitie ab­iect; he neither serueth for profit, nor loueth for gaine: and finally, he defendeth the cause of his friend, as if it were his owne.

We ought to vse friends for 4. causes.

[Page 39] 1 We ought to haue the company of friends to be conuersant Conuersa­tion withall: for according to the troubles of this life there is no time so pleasantly consumed, as in the conuersation of an assured friend.

2 We ought to haue friends to whom we may disclose the secrets Open our secrets. of our hart: for it is much comfort to the wo­full hart to declare to his friend his doubts, if he doth perceiue that he doth feele them indeed.

3 To help Helpe ne­cessities. vs in our aduersities; for little profiteth my hart in teares to bewaile, vnles that afterward in deed he will take paines to ease him.

4 We ought to seeke and preserue friends, to the end they may be protectors Protectors. of our goods, and likewise iud­ges of our euils: for the good friend is no lesse bound to withdraw vs from vices whereby we are slandered, than to deliuer vs from our enimies by whom we may bee slaine.

The Iustice and punishment of God, togi­ther with his mercie, goodnes, and purpose.

WHen man is in his chiefest braue­rie, and trusteth most to mens wis­dom; then the secret iudgement of God soonest confoundeth and discomforteth him.

The mercie and iustice of God goeth always togither, to the in­tent the one should encourage the good, and the other threaten the euill.

I would to God we had so much grace to acknow­ledge our offences, as God hath reason to punish our sinnes.

[Page 40] The great mercy of God doth suffer much, yet our manifest offences deserue more.

With God God impar­tiall. there is no acception of persons, for he maketh the one rich, the other poore; the one sage, the other simple; the one whole, the other sicke; the one fortunate, the other vnluckie; the one seruant, the other master; and let no man muse thereat, for that such are his ordinances.

We see daily that it is impossible for mans malice to disorder that which the diuine prouidence hath appoin­ted, but that which man in a long time decreeth, God otherwise disposeth in one moment.

It is requisite that God should order his purpose: for in the ende sith man is man, in few things he cannot be either certaine or assured; and sith God is God, it is im­possible that in any thing he should erre.

Things that are measured by the diuine iudgement, man hath no power with rasor to cut them.

As it is meet we should trust in the greatnes of Gods mercie, so likewise it is reason we should feare the rigor of his iustice.

It is the iust iudgement of God that he that commit­teth euil shal not escape without punishment, God will pu­nish malefa­ctors. and he that counselleth the euill shall not liue vndefamed.

What the euill with their tyrannie haue gathered in many dayes, God shall take from them in one hower. Likewise what the good haue lost in many yeeres, God in one moment may restore.

God doth not put vs vnder good or euill fortune, but doth gouerne vs with his mercy and iustice.

Iustice and Iusticers.

IT is an infallible rule and of humane malice most v­sed, that he that is most hardie to commit greatest crimes, is most cruel to giue sentence against another [Page 41] for the same offence.

We behold our owne faults as through small nets, which causeth things to seeme the lesser: but we behold the faults of others in the water, which causeth them to seeme greater.

There is no God commandeth, nor law counselleth, nor common wealth suffereth, that they which are ad­mitted to chastise liars, should hang them which saith truth.

I am of the opinion that what man or woman with­draweth their eares from hearing truth, impossible it is for them to apply their harts to loue any vertues, be it Senator that iudgeth; or Senate that ordaineth; or em­peror that commandeth; or Consul that executeth; or Orator that pleadeth.

The opinion of all wise men is; They are vn­wise that de­sire offices, bicause they are burthens. that no man except he lacke wit, or surmount in follie, will gladly take on him the burden and charge of other men.

A greater case it is for a shamefast man to take vpon him an office to please euery man, for he must shew a countenaunce outward, contrary to that he thinketh in­ward.

He that will take charge to gouern other, seeketh care and trouble for himselfe; enuie for his neighbors; spurs for his enimies; pouertie for his wealth; danger for his body; torment to his good renowme; and an end of his days.

The charge of Iustice should not be giuen to him that willingly offreth himself to it, The chusing of a Iustice. but to such as by great de­liberation are chosen.

Men now a dayes be not so louing to the common wealth, that they will forget their owne quietnes and rest, and annoy themselues to do others good.

Iudges should be iust and vpright: for there is no­thing decaieth more a common wealth, than a iudge who hath not for all men one ballance indifferent.

[Page 42] There are many in common wealths that are expert to deuise new orders, but there are few that haue stout harts to put the same in execution.

It is impossible for any man to minister iustice, vnles he know before what iustice meaneth.

It is impossible that there be peace and iustice in the common wealth, if he which gouerneth it be a louer of liers and flatterers.

That common wealth is greatly slandered, wherin the euill are not punished, nor the good honored.

The desire of commandement is become so licenti­ous, Lightnes in offenders. that it seemeth to the subiect that the weight of a feather is lead; and on the contrarie it seemeth to the commanders, that for the flieng of a flie they should draw their swords.

There is no woorse office among men, than to take the charge to punish the vices of another; Hatred the reward of correction. and therfore men ought to flie from it as from the pestilence: for in correcting of vices, hatred is more sure to the corrector than amendement of life is to the offendor.

Reason it is that he or she which with euill demeanor haue passed their life, should by iustice receiue their death.

Matters of iustice consisteth more in execution than in commanding or ordaining.

That common wealth cannot decay where iustice re­maineth for the poore; Discipline. punishment for the tyrants; weight and measure plentifull; and chiefly, if there be good doctrine for the yoong, and little couetousnes in the old.

Correction executed after a good sort hath this pro­pertie, that it incourageth the good to be good, and fea­reth the wicked from their wickednes.

If men were not endued with reason, and gouerned by iustice! among all beasts none were so vnprofitable.

Iustice being taken away what are realms but dennes [Page 43] of theeues: for, to affirme that men can liue without iu­stice, is as much to say as fishes can liue without water.

Do iustice thy selfe if thou wilt be a minister thereof: for the good iudge with the right yarde of his owne life, ought to measure the whole state of the common welth.

O to how much is he bound that hath taken vpon him to minister iusticel If such an one be an vpright man he accomplisheth that wherunto he is bound; but if vn­iust, iustly of God he ought to be punished, and likewise of men to be accused.

No man neglecteth iustice, Negligence in iustice. but for want of knowledge and experience; or else through abundance of affection and malice.

Musing with my selfe wherin so many dammages of the common wealth did consist; Cause of offences. such disobedience, such contrarieties, so many theeues: in the end I find that all or the most part proceed, in that they prouide for mini­sters of iustice, not for conscience sake, but for couetous­nes and ambitions sake.

The vertuous and Christian iudge ought rather to shed teares in the Church, Of iudges. than by affection of men to shed blood in the seate of iudgement.

There are many iudges, which imploy their studie more to get friends, to maintaine their state proudly, than for to read bookes to iudge mens causes vprightly.

Great shame ought they to haue, which take vpon them to correct others, when they haue more neede to be corrected themselues: for the blind man ought not to take vpon him to lead the lame.

If the poore come to demand iustice hauing no mo­nie to giue; The poore mans sute for iustice. no wine to present; no friend to speake: af­ter his complaint he receiueth faire words, & promises of speedie iustice: but in the end he consumeth that he hath; spendeth his time; looseth his hope, and is voide of his sute although his cause be neuer so honest and good.

[Page 44] If wee sigh with teares to haue good princes, wee ought much more to pray, that we haue not euill of­ficers.

What profiteth it the knight to be nimble, if the horse be not readie? Euerie mem­ber ought to joine with his head. What auaileth it the owner of the ship to be sage and expert, if the pilot be a foole and ignorant? What profiteth the king to be valiant and stout, and the captaine in the war to be a coward? I meane what profi­teth it a prince to be honest, if those that minister iustice be dissolute? What profiteth vs that the prince be true, if his officers be liers? What to be louing and gentle, and his officers cruell and malicious? What to be libe­rall, if the iudge that ministreth iustice be a briber and an open theefe? What to be carefull and vertuous, if the iudge be negligent and vicious? What auaileth it if he in his house be secret iust, if he trust a tyrant and an open theefe with the gouernement of the common­wealth?

Iudges ought to be iust in their words; honest in their works; mercifull in their iustice; and aboue all, not cor­rupted with bribes.

It sufficeth not that iudges be true in their words; but it is very necessary that they be vpright in their dea­lings.

Iudges ought not to haue respect to those which de­sire them, but to that which they demand: for in doing their dutie their enimies will proclaime them iust; and contrariwise if they do that which they should not, their neerest friends will count them tyrants.

Lycurgus made a law, whereby he inioined iudges not to be couetous, nor yet theeues: for the iudge that hath receiued part of the theft will not giue sentence against the stealers thereof.

Oftentimes it chaneeth that iudges do eate the fruit, and the poore suter doth feele the morsell.

Sith frailtie in men is naturall, and the punishment [Page 45] they giue vs is voluntarie; let iudges shew in ministring of iustice that they do it for the zeale of the common wealth, and not with a mind to reuenge.

The beginning of iudges are pride and ambition, Wicked iudges. their meanes is enuie and malice, and their end is death and destruction: for the leaues shall neuer be greene where the roots are drie.

Offices are somtimes giuen to friends in recompence of friendship; Offices. somtimes to seruants to acquit their ser­uice; somtimes to their sollicitors, to the end they shall not importune them: so that few remaine to the vertu­ous, which onely for being vertuous are prouided.

Idlenes.

EVerie lightnes done in our youth breaketh downe a loope of our life; The gate whereinto euill ente­reth. but idlenes whereby our eni­mie entreth is it, which openeth the gate to all vice.

Of idle motions and outragi­ous thoughts the eies take licence without leaue, the mind altereth, and the will is hurt: and finally, thinking to be the white that amarous men shoote at, they remaine as a burt full of vices.

In conclusion there is nothing that more chaseth the ball of the thought in this play, than the hand set a worke.

There is nothing breedeth vice sooner in children, Parents do hatch idlenes in youth. than when the fathers are too negligent, and the chil­dren too bold, as do not keepe the same from idlenes.

The prince that occupieth himselfe to heare vaine and trifling things, in time of necessitie shall not imploy himselfe to those which be of weight and importance: [Page 46] for idlenes and negligence are cruell enimies to wise­dome.

Of knowledge, wisedome, foresight, and vertue.

WE cannot say that the man know­eth little, which doth know him­selfe.

Man giuing his minde to seeke strange things, commeth to forget his owne proper.

We see by experience that in the fistula that is stopped, Foresight is good in all things. and not that which is open the surgeon maketh doubt; in the shalow water, and not in the deepe seas the pilot despaireth; the good man of arms, is more afeard of the secret am­bushment, than in the open battell. I meane that the va­liant man ought to beware not of strangers, In trust is treason. but of his owne; not of enimes, but of friends; not of the cruell war, but of fained peace; not of the open dammage, but of the priuie perill.

How manie haue we seene whom the mishaps of for­tune could neuer change, and yet afterward hauing no care she hath made them fall.

Asignorance is the cruell scourge of vertues, Ignorance and ouer-much know­ledge. and spur to all vice: so it chanceth oftentimes that ouer-much knowledge putteth wise men in doubt, and slandereth the innocent: forasmuch as we see by experience the most presumptuous in wisedome, are those which fal in­to most perilous vices.

The end why men ought to studie is to learne to liue well: for there is no truer science in man than to know how to order his life well.

What profiteth it me to know much, The vse of studie. if thereby I take [Page 47] no profit; what to speake strange languages, if I refrain not my toong from other mens matters; what to studie many books, if I studie not but to beguile my friends; what to know the influence of the stars and course of the elements, if I cannot keepe my selfe from vices?

In all things we are so doubtfull, and in all our works so disordered, that at some times our vnderstanding is dull and loseth the edge; and at another time it is more sharpe than it is necessarie.

Pouertie causeth good mens children to be vertuous, so that they attain to that by vertue which others come vnto by riches.

It is a rule that neuer faileth, that vertue maketh a stranger grow naturall; and vice maketh a naturall a stranger in his owne countrie.

It is impossible a yoong child should be vicious, if with due correction he had been instructed in vertues.

Noble men enterprising great things, ought not to imploy their force as their noble heart willeth, but as wisedome and reason teacheth.

There is no man so wise and sage, but erreth more through ignorance, than he doth good by wisedome: and there is no man so iust, but wanteth much to exe­cute true iustice.

The vertuous do so much glorie of their vertue, Vertue. as the euill and malicious haue shame and dishonor of their vice: for vertue maketh a man to be temperate and qui­et, but vice maketh him dissolute and wretchles.

The lacke of a physition may cause danger in mans person, Wise men. but the lacke of a wise man may set discord a­mong the people.

Marcus Aurelius at his meate; Wise men. at his going to bed; at his vprising; in his trauell; openly nor secretly suffe­red at any time that fooles should communicate with him, but only wise and vertuous men, whom he alwaies entirely loued: he had reason therein; for there is no­thing, [Page 48] be it in iest or earnest, but is better liked of a wise man than of a foole.

If a prince be sad, cannot a wise man by the sayings of the holy scriptures counsell him better, than a foole by foolish words?

If the prince will passe the time away, Wisedome is pastime. shall not he be more comforted with a wise man that reckoneth vnto him the sauorie histories done in times past, than harke­ning to a foole speaking foolishly, and declaring things dishonestly, and ripping vp the saiengs of the malicious of the time present?

That which I most maruell at is not so much for the great authoritie that fooles haue in the pallaces of prin­ces and great nobles; Fooles estee­med more than wise men. as for the little credit and succor that wise men haue among them.

It is a great iniurie that fooles should enter into the chamber of princes vnto their bed side, Boldnes of fooles ad­mitted. and that one wise man may not, nor dare not enter into the hall; so that to the one there is no gate shut, and to the other no gate open.

Now in these daies there is no wise man alone that trauelleth to be wise; but it is necessarie for him to tra­uell how to get his liuing: for necessitie inforceth him to violate the rules of true philosophie.

Whether he be prince, prelate, or priuate, let him haue about him sage and wise men, and to loue them aboue all treasure: for of good counsell there commeth profit, and much treasure is a token of danger.

Croesus said; Craesus. I account my selfe to be dead, though to the simple folks I seeme to be aliue: and the cause of my death is, bicause I haue not about me some wise person: for he is only aliue amongst the liuing, who is accompa­nied with the wise.

Euill princes do seeke the companie of wise men for no other intent, but onely bicause through them they would excuse their faults.

[Page 49] We learne not to commaund, Anacharsis to Craesus. but to obey; not to speake, but to be silent; not to resist, but to humble our selues; not to get much, but to content vs with litle; not to reuenge offences, but to pardon iniuries; not to take from others, but to giue our owne to others; not to be honored, but to trauell to be vertuous: finally we learn to despise that which other men loue, and to loue that which other men despise, which is pouertie.

To a man that hath gouernment, Too soone, too late. two things are dan­gerous, that is to wit, too soone, or too late; but of these two, the worst is too soone, for if by determining too late a man looseth that which he might haue gotten, by determining too soon, that is lost which is now gained, and that which a man might haue gained.

To men which are too hastie, Too hastie. chanceth many euils & dangers: for the man being vnpatient, and his vnder­standing high, afterwards commeth quarels and braw­lings, displeasures, varieties, and also vanities, which loo­seth their goods and putteth their person in danger.

It chanceth oftentimes to wise men that when reme­die is gone, repentance commeth sodenly: and then it is too late to shut the stable dore when the steed is stolne.

He is wisest that presumeth to know least, and among the simple he is most ignorant that thinketh he know­eth most.

Science profiteth nothing else but to keep thy life wel ordered, and thy toong well measured.

Vaine and foolish men by vaine and foolish words, Pleasure re­uealed is folly. do publish their vaine and light pleasures, and wise men by wise words do dissemble their grieuous sorowes.

Profound science and high eloquence, seldome meet in one person.

There is no man in the world so wise, but may further his doings with the aduise of an other.

There is nothing more easie than to know the good, and nothing more common than to folow the euil.

[Page 50] As the fine gold defendeth his purenes among the burning coles, so the man endued with wisedom shew­eth himself wise, yea in the midst amongst many fooles: for as the gold in the fire is proued, so among the light­nes of fooles is the wisdom of the wise discerned.

The wise is not knowen among the wise, Two contra­ries do make one the more perfit. nor the foole among fooles; but that among fooles the wise man doth shine, and that among the wise fooles are darkened, for there the wise sheweth his wisedome, and the foole his follie.

He onely ought to be called wise who is discreet in his works, and resolute in his words.

It is a rule that euill works doe cary away the credite from good words.

There is nothing destroyeth sooner princes, thā thin­king to haue about them wise men to counsel them, find them malicious, and such as seek to deceiue them.

It is not the part of wise and valiant men to enlarge their dominions, and diminish their honor.

Wise men ought circumspectly to see what they do, to examine that they speake, Circumspe­ction neces­sarie. to prooue that they take in hand, to beware whose company they vse, and aboue all to know whom they trust.

The lawe and ordinances.

THe law which by will is made and not of right ordained, deserueth not to be obeied.

The Achaians obserued this for a law and custome, Achaians. that the hus­bands should obey, and the wiues commaund: for the husbands swept and made clean the houses, made the bed, washed the buck, couered thetable, dres­sed [Page 51] the dinner, and went for water. On the contrary part his wife gouerned the goodes, answered the affaires, kept the money: and if she were angry, she gaue him not onely foule words, but also oftentimes laid hir hands on him to reuenge hir anger, whereof came this prouerbe, vita Achaiae.

Where men haue so little discretion that they suffer themselues to be gouerned (be it well or euill) of their wiues, and that euery womā commandeth hir husband, there can be nothing more vaine or light, than by mans law to giue that authoritie to a woman, which by nature is denied hir.

The lawes are as yokes vnder the which the euill do labor, and they are wings vnder the which the good do flie.

The great multitude of lawes are commonly euill kept, and are on the other part cause of sundry troubles.

The Romanes did auoid the great number of lawes and institutions: Romanes a­uoided lawes for that it is better for a man to liue as reason commaundeth him, than as the law constraineth him.

Lawes are easily ordained, but with difficultie execu­ted, and there be thousands that can make them, but not one that will see the execution of them.

The law of Athens was that nothing should be bought before a Philosopher had set the price: Athens. I would the same law at these daies were obserued; for there is nothing that destroieth a common wealth more, than to permit some to sell as tyrants and others to buy as fooles.

Of Loue.

BEleeue not that loue is true loue, but rather sorow; not ioy, but perplexitie; not delite, but torment; not contentment, but griefe; not honest recreation, but confusion; seeing [Page 52] that in him that is a louer must be looked for, youth, li­bertie, and liberalitie.

Strawe that is rotten is fitter for the land than the house, so in a broken body and aged, sorow and infirmi­ties are fitter passions than loue: for to Cupid and Venus no sort of people is acceptable, Which are fit louers. but yong men to serue them. The liberall which spares for no cost; the patient to endure; discreet to speake; secret to conceale; faith­full to deserue; and constant to continue to the end.

It is a miserie to be poore and proud; Torments of loue. to be reuenge­full, and dare not strike; to be sicke and farre from suc­cor; to be subiect to our enimies; and lastly to suffer pe­rill of life without reuenge: but for an old man to be in loue, Loue in age. is the greatest wretchednes that can occupy the life of man: for the poore sometimes findeth pitie, but the old man standeth always reiected.

The coward findeth friends to beare out his quarell, but the amorous old man liueth always persecuted with passions.

The sicke liues vnder the climate of Gods prouidēce, and is relieued by hope, but the old amorous man is a­bandoned all succor.

He that is subiect to his enimies, is not somtimes with­out his seasons of consolation and quiet, where to the old louer is no time of truce, or hope of reconcilement.

There is nothing more requireth gouernment thā the practise of loue, seeing that in cases of hūger, thirst, cold, heat, and all other natural influences they may be refer­red to passions sensible only to the body, but the follies, imperfections, and faults in loue, the hart is subiect to suffer, feele, and bewaile them, since loue more than all other things natural, retaineth always this propertie, to exercise tyrannie always against the hart of his subiects.

There is no doubt but vnperfit loue will resolue into iarres, contention, and continuall disquietnes: for that where is not conformitie of condition, there can be no [Page 53] contented loue, no more than where is no true faith can be no true operation of good life and maners.

Say what you will, and surmise the best to please fan­cie, but according to experience, the best remedie in loue is to auoid occasion, and to eschew conuersation: for that of the multitude that follow him, there are few free from his bondage, where such as abandon him li­ueth alwaies in libertie.

Behold how deerly I loued thee; The nature of loue. in thy presence I al­waies behold thee; and absent I alwaies thought of thee; sleeping I dreamed of thee; I haue wept at thy sorowes, and laught at thy pleasures: finally, all my wealth I wish­ed thee, and all thy misfortunes I wished to me.

I feel not so much the persecutiō thou hast done to me, as I do the wailing forgetfulnes thou hast shewed to me.

It is a great griefe to the couetous man to lose his goods; but without comparison, it is a greater torment for the louer to see his loue euill bestowed: for it is a hurt alwaies seene; a paine alwaies felt; a sorow alwaies gnawing; and a death that neuer endeth.

As the loue of a couetous woman endeth when goods faileth: A couetous womans loue. so doth the loue of the man when beautie de­caieth.

That woman which neuer loued for goods, but was beloued for beautie, did then loue with all hir hart, and now abhor with all hir hart.

The gallowes is not so cruell to the euill doer, The slauerie of loue. as thou art to me, which neuer thought otherwise than well: they which suffer there do endure but one death, but thou makest me to suffer a thousand: they in one day and one hower do end their liues, and I euery minute do feele the pangs of death: they die guiltie, but I inno­cently: they die openly, and I secretly. What wilt thou more I say; they for that they died, and I shed hartie teares of blood for that I liue; their torments spreadeth abrode through all the bodie, but I keepe mine altogi­ther [Page 54] in my hart.

O vnhappie hart of mine, that being whole thou art diuided; Operation of loue. being in health thou art hurt; being aliue, thou art killed; being mine owne, thou art stolen; and the woorst of all, thou being the onely helpe of my life, dost onely consent vnto my death.

Loue bewitcheth the wisest, and blindfoldeth reason, as appeereth in many wise philosophers: as for exam­ple; Gratian was in loue with Tamira.

Solon Selaminus was in loue with a Grecian.

Pitacus Mitelenus left his owne wife, and was in loue with a bond woman that he brought from the war. Inconueni­ences of loue.

Periander prince of Achaia, and chiefe philosopher of all Greece, at the instance of his louers slew his owne wife.

Anacharsis the philosopher, a Scithian by his father, and a Greeke by his mother, loued so deerly a friend of his called Thebana, that he taught hir all that he knew: in so much that he being sicke on his bed, she read for him in the schooles.

Tarentinus the maister of Plato and scholler of Pithago­ras occupied his mind more to inuent new kinds of loue than to imploy his mind to vertue and learning.

Borgias Cleontino borne in Cicill had more concubines in his house than bookes in his studie.

O how many times did Hercules desire to be deliuered from his loue Mithrida; Valiantnes vanquished by loue. Menelaus from Dortha; Pyrrhus from Helena; Alcibiades from Dorobella; Demophon from Phillis; Hannibal from Sabina; and Marcus Antonius from Cleopatra: from whom they could neuer onelie de­part, but also in the end for them and with them were cast away.

In case of loue let no man trust any man, and much lesse himselfe: for loue is so naturall to man or woman, [Page 55] and they desire to be beloued, that where loue amongst them doth once begin to cleaue, it is a sore that neuer openeth, and a bond that neuer vnknitteth.

Many words outwardly declare small loue within; and the feruent inward loue keepeth silence outward: the intrals within imbraced with loue causeth the tong outward to be mute: he that passeth his life in loue, ought to keepe his mouth close.

The loue of the mother is so strong, Loue of pa­rents. though the child be dead and laid in the graue, yet alwaies she hath him quicke in hir hart.

Amongst the well married persons is true loue and perfect friendship: Matrimoni­all loue. as for parents and friends if they praise vs in presence, they hate vs in absence; if they giue faire words, they carrie hollow harts; if they loue vs in prosperitie, they hate vs in aduersitie: but it is not so a­mong the noble and well married persons. In prosperi­tie and aduersitie, pouertie and riches, absence and pre­sence, in mirth and sadnes do they loue, and if not ought to do: for when the husband is troubled in his foote, the wife ought to be grieued in hir hart.

We see by experience that loue in marriage is seldom broken through pouertie, Marriage. nor yet continued with ri­ches.

The loue betwixt the husband and wife ought to be such, that she by hir patience ought to suffer the imper­fections of him: and likewise he by his wisedome ought to dissemble the importunities of hir, that they may the rather loue and agree togither.

The dart of loue is like a stroke with a clod of earth, What lone is like. which being throwen amongst a companie doth hurt the one, and blind the other.

The hart which is intangled with loue dare boldly ad­uenture himselfe in many kind of dangers, to accom­plish that which he desireth.

Women ought to know that for their beautie they [Page 56] are desired, Wherefore women are desired and loued. but for their vertue onely they are beloued.

The loue of the flesh is so naturall to the flesh, that when from you the bodie flieth in sport, we leaue our harts to you engaged in earnest: and though reason as reason putteth the desire to flight; yet the flesh as flesh yeeldeth it selfe a prisoner.

The man that willingly goeth into the briers must thinke before to endure the pricks.

What Man and his life is, with fortune and hir frailtie.

IF man would deepelye consider what man is, he should finde more things in him to mooue him to humilitie, than to stir him to be proud.

O miserable and fraile nature of man, Mans nature considered, is nothing. which taken by it selfe is little woorth, and compared with another thing is much lesse.

Man seeth in brute beasts many things which reioi­ceth him, and if beasts had reason they should see in man many things which they would shame at.

Man being borne can neither go, mooue, or stand, where all other beasts assoone as they are disclosed can do and performe all these.

As the euil doer is imprisoned with his hands bound, Man bound hand and foot at first comming and last going. and his feete in the stocks: so likewise to the miserable man, when he entereth into the charter of this life, im­mediately they bind both his hands and feete, and lay him in the cradle; and so they vse him at his departure out of this world.

It is to be noted that at the hower wherein the beast is brought foorth, though it know not the father, yet it [Page 57] findeth the mother: for that it presently sucketh the teats if it haue milke; if not, it shrowdeth it selfe vnder hir wings: it is not so with man; for the day wherein he is borne, he knoweth not the nurse that giueth him milke; the father that begat him; nor mother that bare him; nor the midwife that receiued him. Moreouer, cannot see with his eies; heare with his eares; iudge with his taste, and knoweth not what it is to taste or smell: so that we see him to whom the seigniorie of all things doth appertain, to be borne the most vnable of all other beasts.

To beasts nature hath giuen clothing wherwith they may keepe them from the heate in sommer, The apparell of beasts. and defend the cold in winter, as to sheepe, wooll; to birds, fethers; to horses, haire; to trees, barke; to fishes, scales, to snails, shelles.

Of all this man is depriued; who is borne all naked, and dieth all naked, not carrieng with him one onely garment: and if in the time of his life he vseth any gar­ments, he must demand it of the beast both leather and wooll, and thereto must put his labour and industrie.

What care and trauell had man beene discharged of, The care of man. if the trauel to apparel himselfe, and to search for things to eate had been taken from him: before he eateth he must till, sow, reape, and thresh, he must winnow, grind, and bake: and this cannot be done without the care of mind, and sweat of browes.

We see the sheepe flieth the wolfe; the cat flieth the dog; the rat flieth the cat; and the chicken the kite. O miserable creatures that we are, we know not how to flie our enimies, bicause they are in our owne shape.

When man thinketh oftentimes tht he hath entered a sure hauen, Danger in our safetie. within three steppes afterwards he falleth headlong into the deepe sea.

O poore and miserable man, who for to sustaine this wretched life is inforced to craue the beasts helpe: they [Page 58] draw him water; they soile his lande; they plough his lande; they carrie his corne; and beare himselfe from place to place.

What state liueth man in, that cannot but bewaile the vnthankfulnes of his friends, Sorrowes of man. the death of his children, the want of necessaries, the case of aduersity that succee­deth them, the false witnes that is brought against thē, and a thousand calamities that do torment their harts.

The innocencie of the brute beasts considered, and the malice of the malicious man marked, without com­parison the companie of the brute beast is lesse hurtfull than the conuersation of euill men: for in the end if yee be conuersant with a beast, ye haue not but to beware of him; but if yee be in companie with a man, there is nothing wherein yee ought to trust him.

Treasure consumed in making a mans graue is verie vaine, The making of costly se­pulchres is vaine. for there is no greater lightnes or vanitie in man, than to be esteemed much for his sumptuous graue, and little for the life he hath led. A painted case for a stinking carkase. It profiteth little the bodie to be among the painted and carued stones, when the miserable soule is burning in the firie flames of hell.

The man that presumeth to be sage in all things, and well prouided goeth not so fast that at euerie step he is in danger of falling, not so softly that in long time he cannot arriue at his iourneies ende: for false fortune gawleth in steede of striking, and in steede of gawling striketh.

What euill happened to Hercules that after so manie dangers, came to die in the armes of an harlot; Alexan­der after his great conquest ended his life with poison; Agamemnon that woorthie Greeke, after ten yeeres wars against the Troians, Mans ende is in the hand of God. was killed entring into his owne house; Iulius Caesar after two and fiftie battels was killed in the Senate house with xxiij. wounds; Hanniball slew himselfe in one moment, bicause he would not be­come a pray to his enimies. What mishap is this after so [Page 59] many fortunes; what reproch after such glorie; what perill after such suretie; what euill lucke after such good successe; what darke night after so cleare day; what euil entertainment after so great labor; what cruell sentence after so long proces; what inconuenience of death after so good beginning of life?

The miserable life of man is of such condition that dai­lie our yeeres do diminish, and our troubles encrease; life is so troublesome that it wearieth vs, and death is so doubtefull that it feareth vs.

The philosopher Appollonius being demanded what he woondered most at in al the world, answered but at two things, the one was, that in all parts wherein he had tra­uelled he saw quiet men troubled by seditious persons; the humble subiect to the proud; the iust obedient to the tyrant; the cruell commanding the mercifull; the coward ruling the hardie; the ignorant teaching the wise; and aboue al, I saw the most theeues hang vp the innocent.

The other was that in all the places and circuite that he had bin in, I know not, neither could finde anie man euerlasting, but that all are mortall; and that both high & low haue an end, for many enter the same night into the graue which the day ensuing thought to be aliue.

Aristotle saith, that man is but a tree planted with the rootes vpward, whose roote is the head, Man descri­bed as a tree. and the stock is the bodie, the branches are the armes, the barke is the flesh, the knots are the bones, the sap is the hart, the rottennes is malice, The fruits of this tree. the gum is loue, the flowers are words, and the fruits are good woorks.

We see the vapors to ascend high; the plants growe high; the trees budde out on high; the sourges of the sea mount high; the nature of the fire is alwaies to ascende vpwarde; onelie the miserable man gro­weth downewarde, and is brought lowe by reason of the feeble and fraile flesh, which is but earth, and com­meth [Page 60] of earth, and liueth on earth, and in the end retur­neth to the earth from whence it came.

Generallie there is no man so good but a man may find in him somwhat reprooueable, nor any man so euill but he hath in him something commendable.

What man and his life is.

O Blindnes of the world; Beautie. ô life which neuer liueth, nor shall liue; ô death which neuer hath end: I know not why man through the accident of his beautie should take vpon him any vaine glory or presumption, sith he knoweth that all the perfi­test and most faire, must be sacrifi­ced to the worms in the graue.

It is to be maruelled at that all men are desirous that all things about them should be cleane; Cleanlines in body, and filthines in soule. their gownes brushed; their coats neat; the table handsome; and the bed fine; and onely they suffer their soules to be spotted and filthie.

The faire and well proportioned man is therfore no­thing the more vertuous: he that is deformed and euill shapen, is nothing therfore the more vicious.

Corporall beautie early or late perisheth in the graue, but vertue and knowledge maketh men of immortall memorie.

Although a man be great, Bignes ma­keth not strength. it followeth not that he is strong: so that it is no generall rule that the bigge body hath always a valiant and couragious hart, nor the little man a faint and false hart.

Iulius Caesar was big of body, Caesar de­scribed. yet euill proportioned: for he had his head bald, his nose sharp, one hand more shorter than the other, and being yoong, had a riueled [Page 61] face, yealow of colour, went crooked, and his girdle half vndone.

Hannibal was called monstrous both for his deeds and euil proportion: Hannibal. for of his two eies he lacked the right, and of the two feet he had the left foote crooked, fierce of countenance, and little of body.

Truly he feeleth the death of another which always is sorowfull and lamenting his own life. We feele an others death by lamenting our own life.

To esteeme thy selfe to be handsome and proper of person, Thine owne estimation nothing. is no other thing but to esteeme thy selfe, that dreaming thou shalt be rich and mightie, and waking, thou findest thy self poore and miserable.

What shall we say to this little flower that yesterday florished on the tree whole without suspicion to be lost, Mans life▪ and yet one little frost wasteth and consumeth it; the vehement wind ouerthroweth it; the knife of enuy cut­teth it; the water of aduersitie vndoeth it; the heate of persecutions pineth it; the putrifaction of death decay­eth it, and bringeth it down to the ground.

O mans life that art alwayes cursed, Fortune with hir force. I count fortune cruel, & thee vnhappy, since she wil not that thou stay on hir, which dreaming, giueth thy pleasures, and waking, giueth thy displeasures; which giueth into thy handes trauell to taste, and suffereth thee to listen after quiet; which will that thou approoue aduersitie, and agree not that thou haue proseritie, but after hir will, she giueth thee life by ounces, and death without measure.

The yoong man is but a new knife, Age compa­red. the which in pro­cesse of time cankereth in the edge; one day he breaketh the point of vnderstanding; another he looseth the edge of cutting; and next the rust of diseases taketh him, and afterwards by aduersities he is writhen, and by infirmi­ties diseased; by riches he is wheted; by pouerty he is dul­led againe; and oftentimes it chanceth, that the more sharpe he is whetted, so much the more the life is put in hazard.

[Page 62] It is a true thing that the feet and hands are necessary to clime to the vanities of youth, and afterwards stum­bling a little, immediatly rowling the head downwards, we descend into the miseries of age.

What thing is more fearfull or more incredible, The beautie of man chan­geth. than to see a man become miserable in short space; the fashi­on of his visage changeth; the beautie of the face lost; the beard waxe white; the head bald; the cheeks & forehead full of wrinkles; the teeth as white as Iuorie becom­meth blacke as a cole; the light feete by the goute are crepeled; the strong arme with palsey weakened; the fine and smooth throte with wrinkles plaited; and the body that was straite and vpright, waxeth crooked.

The beautie of man is none other but a veile to couer the eyes, Beautie of man. a paire of fetters for the feete, manacles for the hands, a lime rod for the wings, a theese of time, an oc­casion of danger, a prouoker of trouble, a place of leche­rie, a sinke of all euill; and finally it is an inuenter of de­bates, and a scourge of the affectioned man.

O simple, simple and ignorant persons, how our life consumeth and we perceiue not how we liue therein.

Of mercie, pitie, helpe, and compassion towards the poore.

HAppy not once, An hundred times happy. but an hundred times is he that will remember the poore afflicted, and open his hart to comfort them, and doth not shut his cofers from helping them: to him at the straight day of iudgement, the processe of his life shall be iudged with mercie and pitie.

The pitifull hart which is not fleshed in crueltie, hath [Page 63] as much pitie to see another man suffer, as of the sorow and torment which he himselfe feeleth.

If a man behold himselfe from top to toe, he shal find not one thing in him to mooue him to crueltie, but he shall see in himself many instruments to exercise mercie.

For he hath eyes to behold the needie, Anatomie of man. feete to goe to the church, eares to heare Gods word, hands to be stret­ched to the poore, a toong to vtter good things, an hart to loue God: and to conclude, he hath vnderstanding to know the euil, and discretion to follow the good.

God hath not giuen him scratching nails as to the cat, nor poison as to the serpent, nor perilous feete as to the horse to strike withall, nor bloodie teeth as to the Lion, but hath created vs to be pitifull, and commanded vs to be mercifull.

Obedience.

AS the element of the fire, the ele­ment of the aire, and the element of water do obey, and the element doth commaund of the earth, or that against their nature he brin­geth them to the earth, and al the noble and most chiefest elements obedient to the most vile, onely to forme a body mixt, it is great reason that all obey one vertuous person, that the common wealth therby might be the better gouerned.

The second reason is of the body and soule: Offices of the body and soule. The soule is the mistres that commaundeth, and the body the ser­uant which obeyeth: for the body neither seeth, heareth, nor vnderstandeth without the soule, but the soule doth these without the body.

In that common wealth where one hath care for all, [Page 64] and all obey the commandement of that one, there God shall be serued, the people shall profit, the good shall be esteemed, the euill despised: and besides that, tyrants shall be suppressed.

How many people and realms bicause they would not obey their prince by iustice, hath sithence by cruell ty­rants been gouerned with tyrannie: for it is a iust plague that those which despise the scepter of righteous prin­ces should feele and prooue the scourge of cruel tyrants.

O happy common wealth wherein the prince findeth obedience in the people, A happy cō ­mon wealth. and the people in like maner loue of the prince: for of the loue of the prince sprin­geth obedience in the subiects, and of the obedience in the subiects springeth the loue of the prince.

Patience.

LOoke howe much wee offend through the offence, so much doe we appease through patience.

The patience which God vseth in not punishing our faultes, is greater than that which men haue in suffering the chastisement, bi­cause we iustly offend, and iustly are punished.

I account all in me at the disposition of fortune, The phrase is heathenish; for God ru­eth, and not blind chance as wel riches as other prosperities, and I keep them in such a place, that at any hower in the night when she listeth, she may cary them away and neuer awake me: so that though she cary those out of my cofers, she should neuer rob me of my patience.

Patience in aduersitie pleaseth God, where as wrath prouoketh his indignation.

We see in a mans bodie by experience that there are [Page 65] sundry diseases which are not cured with words spoken, Comfortable words manie times help­eth mala­dies. but with the herbes thereunto applied, and in other dis­eases the contrary is seen, which are not cured with cost­ly medicines, but with comfortable words.

When the diseases are not very olde rooted nor dan­gerous, it profiteth more oftentimes to abide a gentle feauer, than to take a sharpe purgation.

The impatient hart, especially of a woman, hath no rest till she see her enimie dead.

No patience can endure to see a man obtaine that without trauel which he could neuer compasse by much labor. Vnhappie.

He is most vnhappy which is not patient in aduersity, for men are not killed with the aduersities they haue, but with the impatience which they suffer.

Though wise men leese much they ought not therfore to dispaire, but that they shall come to it againe in time, for in the end time doth not cease to do his accustomed alterations, nor perfect friends cease not to do that which they ought.

That man onely in this life may be called vnhappy to whom God in his troubles hath not giuen patience.

Peace.

HE alone doth knowe howe precious a thing peace is, which by experience hath felt the extreeme miserie of war.

The life of a peaceable man is none o­ther then a sweete peregrination, and the life of seditious persons, is no other than a long death.

Euerie prince which loueth forraine wars, Wars abrod is an enimie to peace at home. must needs hate the peace of his common wealth.

Aristotle doth not determine which of these two is the most excellēt, either stoutnes to fight in the wars, or [Page 66] policie to rule in peace.

That peace is more woorth that is honest, than is the victorie which is bloodie.

In the good war a man seeth of whom he should take heed, but in the euill peace no man knoweth whom to trust.

Where peace is not, no man enioieth his owne; no man can eate without feare; no man sleepeth in good rest; no man safe by the way; no man trusteth his neigh­bor; and where there is no peace, we are threatned dai­ly with death, and euery houre in feare of our life.

Seeing Christ left to vs his peace, and commanded vs to keepe the same, Christs peace. we should not condiscend for reuen­ging iniuries to shed mans blood: for the good christi­ans are commanded to bewaile their own sins, but they haue no licence to shed the blood of their enimies: and therefore I wish all princes for his sake that is prince of peace, they loue peace; procure peace; keepe peace; & liue in peace; for in peace they shall be rich, and their people happie.

Pleasure.

WHat commeth of vaine pleasure, Fruits of pleasure. nothing but the time euill spent, famine in way of perdition; goods consumed; credit lost; God offen­ded; and vertue slandered.

Of pleasure we get the names of brute beasts, and the surnames of shame.

I would the eies were opened to see how we liue de­ceiued, Pleasure va­nisheth away with sorrow. for all pleasures that delight the bodie, make vs beleeue that they come to abide with vs continuallie, but they vanish away with sorrow immediately: on the [Page 67] contrary, the infirmities that blinde the soule, say that they come to lodge as guests, and remaine with vs con­tinually as housholders.

Death is a miserable lake wherein all worldly men are drowned, for those men that thinke most safely to passe it ouer remaine therin most subtilly deceiued.

During the time that we liue in the house of this fraile flesh, Sensualitie. sensualitie beareth so great a rule, that she wil not suffer reason to enter in at the gate.

Reason leadeth voluntarily to vertue; and sensualitie draweth men against their wils to vices.

Vices are of such a qualitie, that they bring not with them so much pleasure when they come as they leaue sorow behind them when they go; for the true pleasure is not in the daily vice, which sodenly vanisheth: but in the truth which euermore remaineth.

Wise men after 50. 50. yeeres. yeeres ought rather seeke how to apply their mindes how to receiue death, than to seeke pleasure how to prolong life.

How happy may that man be called that neuer tasted what pleasure meaneth.

Men that from their infancie haue bin brought vp in pleasure, Pleasure the cause of ma­ny offences. for want of wisedome know not how to chose the good, and for lacke of force cannot resist the euill, which is the cause that noble mens sons oftentimes cō ­mit sundry hainous offences.

It is an infallible rule, that the more a man giue him­selfe to pleasure, the more he is intangled with vices.

The rich men win with their labor and watching, and their sonnes brought vp in pleasure do consume it sleep­ing.

Where there is youth; libertie; pleasure; and mony; there will all the vices of the world be resident.

The greatest vanitie that ragineth among the chil­dren of vanitie, Vanitie of vanities. is, that the father cannot shewe vnto the sonne his loue, but in suffering him to be brought vp in [Page 68] the pleasures and vanities of this life.

I wish no greater penance to delicate men, than in win­ter to see them without fire, and in the sommer to want fresh shadow.

Why are there so many vices nourished in the pallace of princes? Why vices in princes pal­laces. bicause pleasure aboundeth and counsell wanteth.

Play as Seneca saith, Plaies. is compared to the propertie & raging of a mad dog, with whom if a man be once bit­ten; vnles he hath present remedie foorthwith he run­neth mad, and the disease continueth with him vntil the houre of death: for those that vse it hurt their conscien­ces, lose their time, and consume their substance.

Marcus Aurelius saith, Carnall pleasure. if I knew the gods would par­done me, and also that men woulde not hate me: yet I assure you for the vilenes therof I would not sin in the flesh.

Aristotle saith, Carnal plea­sure shame­fast. all beasts after the deeds of the flesh are sorie, sauing onely the cocke.

In carnall vices he that hath the least of that, Reason al­loweth not sensualitie, therefore Tully said, pareat appeti­tus rationi. Fruits of car­nall pleasure. that sen­sualitie desireth, hath a great deale more than reason al­loweth.

I see no other fruits of carnall pleasure but that the bodie remaineth diseased; the vnderstanding blinded; memory dulled; sence corrupted; will hurt; reason sub­uerted; their good name lost; and woorst of all the flesh remaineth alwaies flesh, therefore fire is not quen­ched with drie wood, but with cold water.

In the war honor by tarrieng is obteined; The fame of conquest. but in the vices of the flesh the victory by fleeing is wonne.

Pride.

THe proud and disdainfull man for the most part falleth into some euill chaunce, therefore it is a commendable medicine somtimes to be persecu­ted: [Page 69] for aduersitie maketh a wise man to liue more me­ry, and to walke in lesse danger.

What friendship can there be among the proud, since the one wil go before, and the other disdaineth to come behind.

Of Princes, with their actes and sayings.

A Poore woman comming before Claudius the Emperour with wee­ping eies to craue Iustice, the good prince being mooued with com­passion, did not onely weep as she did, but with his own hands dried vp the teares.

Oftentimes those that come before princes, The loue of Princes is better some­times than Iustice. do return more contented with the loue they shew them, than with the Iustice they minister vnto them.

Antonius Pius was such a fauourer of poore widowes and Orphans, that the porters which he kept within his pallace were not to let the entrie of the poore, but to let and keep back the rich.

To a prince there can be no greater infamie than to be long in words, and short in rewarding his seruants.

Couetous princes do not onely suspect their subiects, but also themselues.

The diseases which God oftentimes sendeth to prin­ces, commeth not through the fault of humours, but through the corruption of maners, the which no me­dicine can resist, nor any other thing remedy.

It is the chiefest thing that can belong to a prince or other person, The riches of Princes. to be beloued for their gentle conuersati­on, and for their vpright iustice to be feared.

[Page 70] It is necessary for Princes to be stout and rich: for by their stoutnes they may gouerne their own, and by their riches they may represse their enimies.

The prince which is too liberall in giuing his owne, is afterward compelled by necessitie to become a tyrant and take from others.

If princes be proude, Some hun­ger after strāge realms greedie, and ambitious after strange realmes, it is most certaine that they need great treasures to accomplish their inordinate appetites: but if they be reposed quiet, vertuous, patient, peaceable, & not couetous of the good of another man, what need haue they of great treasures.

Princes become not poore for spending of their goods vpon necessaries, but wasting it vpon things su­perfluous.

High and noble harts that feele themselues woun­ded, do not so much esteeme their owne paine, as to see their enimies to reioice at their griefe.

It is better for a Prince to defend his countrey by Iustice, than to conquere an other by tirannie.

The prince is in great danger of damnation of soule if in his gouernment he haue not always before his eyes the feare and loue of the supreme prince, Damnation of soule. to whome we must render account of all our doings, for there is no­thing so puissant, but tis subiect to the diuine power.

That prince hath great occasion to be vicious, which for his vice thinketh not to be chastised.

Princes fearing neither God nor his commandemēts, do cause their realme and subiects to fall into great mi­serie: for if the fountain be infected, it is impossible for the streame therof to be pure.

We see by experience that as a bridle mastreth an horse, People like affected. & a sterne the ship; so a prince be he good or bad, will after him lead all his people. If they serue God, the people will also serue him; if they blaspheme God, the subiects will do the like: for it is impossible that a tree [Page 71] should bring foorth other fruits than those that are a­greeable to the roote.

Princes ought to resemble God more by vertuousnes than others.

Princes.

WHat shall vnhappy princes do which shall render al their account to God only, who will not be deceiued with words, corrup­ted with giftes, feared with threatnings, nor answered with excuses?

That prince is more to be magnified which reformeth two vices amongst his people, than he which conquereth ten realms of his enimies.

O princes if ye knew how small a thing it is to be ha­ted of men, and loued of God, ye would not cease night nor day to commend your selues vnto God, for God is more mercifull in succouring vs, than we are diligent in calling vpon him.

God did neuer create high estates to worke wicked­nes, but placed them in that degree, to the ende they should thereby haue more occasion to do him seruice.

Princes take great pains to winne other countries by crueltie, and little regard to maintaine their owne by Iustice.

All princes that be wilfull in their doings be absolute of their sentence.

The prince that is wicked causeth his subiect to rebel, and the seditious subiect maketh his lord to become a tyrant.

Without all doubt it is more intollerable to haue the harts burdened with thoughts, thā the necks with irons.

God did not ordaine princes and lords in this world, to eate more and drinke more, sleepe or reioyce more [Page 70] [...] [Page 71] [...] [Page 72] than others; but he created them vpon condition, that as he had made them to command more than others, so should they be more iust in their liues than others.

The prince that hath his mouth full of truth; his hands open to giue rewards; and his eares stopt to lies; and his hart open to mercy; such a one may well be cal­led happy, and the people fortunate that hath him.

Thales being demaunded what a prince should do to gouerne others; he answered, First to gouerne himselfe, and then afterward others: for it is impossible the wood should be right where the shadow is crooked.

As the office of the feete is not to see, but to goe; the office of the hands is not to heare, but to labour; the shoulders not to feele, but to beare, euen as these offices are not seemly for the members, but for the head: euen so should not subiects haue to doe with that which ap­pertaineth onely to the prince which is our head.

To a king it should be no pleasure but a pain & grief, and to the common people annoyance, that the prince should alwayes be enclosed and shut vp: for the prince that shutteth his gates against his subiects, causeth them not to open their harts willingly to obey him.

Cursed is that prince, and also vnhappy is that com­mon weale where the seruants will not serue their lord but for reward, and the lord loue them but for their ser­uice: for there is neuer true loue where there is any par­ticular interest.

Cicero in his Tusculanes saith, that in old time the peo­ple perswaded their princes to communicate with the poore, and that they should flie the rich, for among the poore they may learne to be mercifull, and among the rich nothing but to be proud.

Princes and gouernors.

THe Prince for one vice cannot en­dammage the people, but for be­ing too hautie and presumptu­ous he may destroy the common wealth.

If lordes and princes giue ma­ny occasions of euill will, after­wards one onely sufficeth to stirre the subiects to destroy them: for if the lord shew not his hatred, it is bicause he will not; if the subiect do not re­uenge, it is bicause he cannot.

When a man will speake of princes that are dead be­fore a prince aliue, he is bound to praise one onely ver­tue which they had, and hath no licence to reueale the vices whereof they were noted.

The good deserueth reward, bicause he endeuoreth himselfe to follow vertue: the euill likewise deserueth pardon, bicause through frailtie he consented to vice.

What princes ought to do to be good: Theodosius Imp. when sage princes shall walke they ought to haue with them wise men, and when he is at meat to reason how to order his life & the common wealth; and at vacant times to coun­sell with the sage.

For the knight that entreth into the field to giue bat­tell without weapon, is as hardie as the prince that will gouerne the common wealth without the counsell of wise men.

Princes that are yoong are giuen most commonly to vices: for in the one part youth raigneth, and on the other honestie wanteth; to such truly vices are dange­rous, specially if they want the wise to counsell them, to keepe them from euill companie: for the couragious youth will not be brideled, nor the great libertie cha­stised.

[Page 74] Princes no doubt haue great need of wise men to counsell them neere about them: for since they are in the view of all, they haue lesse licence to commit vice than any of all.

Princes ought to be circumspect whom they trust with the gouernment of the realme, The care of princes in chosing their protector, captaie, and embassador, and treasu­rer, & coun­sellers. and to whom they commit the leading of their armies; whom they do send as embassadors into strange countries; and whom they trust to receiue and keep their treasures: but much more circumspect ought they to be in examining of those whom they choose to be their counsellors: for looke what he is that counselleth the prince at home in his pallace, so likewise shal his renowme be in strange coun­tries, and in his owne common wealth.

Let princes know if they do not know, that of the ho­nestie of their seruants; A princes well ordered house, is a welfare to the publike weale. of the prouidence of their coun­sellers; of the sagenes of their persons; & of the order of their house dependeth the welfare of the cōmon welth, for it is impossible for that tree whose rootes are dried vp, should be seene to beare greene leaues.

The fault that princes haue, is, that they are prompt and bolde to talke of vertues, and in executing them they are fearefull and verie slacke.

And although we haue licence to praise their vertues, yet are we bound to dissemble their vices.

Counsellors and officers of princes ought to be so iust, Officers a­bout the prince. that sheares cannot finde what to cut away in their liues, nor that there needeth any needle or threed to a­mend their fame.

Wo, wo, be to the land where the lord is vicious, the subiect seditious, the seruant couetous, and the counsel­ler malicious.

The prince that is a friend to flatterers, of necessitie must be an enimie of the truth.

The particular loue of princes in that they shew more to one than to another, A great in­continencie when prin­ces loue one before ano­ther. breedeth oftentimes much en­uie [Page 75] in their realmes: for the one being loued, the other hated, of this commeth hatred; and of hatred commeth euill thoughts; and of euill thoughts proceedeth ma­lice; of malice commeth euill words, which breake out in to woorse deeds.

Princes ought to forbid; and sages ought not to con­sent, that the quarrellers should trouble the peacema­kers: for when the people do rise, immediately coue­tousnes is awaked.

The noble and valiant princes when they see them­selues with other princes, Wherein princes should glory. or that they are present in great actes, ought to shewe the franknes of their harts; the greatnes of their realmes; the loue of their common wealth; and the preheminence of their person: and a­boue all the discipline of the court; and the grauitie of their counsell; for the sage and curious men should not behold the prince in the apparell which he weareth, but the men which he hath to counsell him.

Princes oftentimes of their own nature be good: and by euill conuersation onely they are made euill.

They which haue charge to gouerne those that doe gouerne, without comparison ought to feare more the vices of a king, than the enimies of the realme: for the e­nimies are destroied in a battell, but vices remaine du­ring life, and in the end enimies do not destroy but the possessions of the land, but the vicious prince destroieth the good manners of the common wealth.

Why do princes commit folly? bicause flatterers a­boundeth that deceiueth them, Why princes commit follie. and true men wanteth that shoulde serue them.

Princes deserueth more honor for the good meanes they vse in their affairs, than for the good successe wher­vnto it commeth: for the one is guided by aduenture, and the other aduanced by wisedome.

The land is with much miserie compassed, A miserable land. where the gouernance of the yoong is so euill, that all wish for the [Page 76] reuiuing of the dead.

It is impossible that the people be well gouerned if the magistrates that gouerne them be in their liues disso­lute.

Princes in doubtfull matters ought not onely to de­maunde counsell of all the good that be aliue, In doubtful matters. but also to take paines to talke with the dead, that is, to read the deeds of the good in their writings.

To a prince that shall be an inheritor, Punishment in princes necessarie. one yeeres pu­nishment shal be better woorth then xx. yeeres pleasure.

A prince is as the gouernor of the ship, The definitiō of a prince. a standerd of a battell, a defence of the people, a guid of the waies, a father of the orphanes, a hope of pupils, and a treasure of all.

The glorie of a prince is that in his works he be vp­right, Glorie of a prince. and in his words he speake verie discreet.

The vertues of princes should be so manie, that al men might praise them, and their vices so fewe that no man might reprooue them.

Princes are lords of all things, Lords of all things sauing iustice. sauing of iustice, wher­of they are onely but to minister.

I would to God that princes did make an account with God in the things of their conscience touching the common wealth, as they do with men touching their rents and reuenewes.

Many crouch to princes with faire words, Dissimulatiō. as though they ment good seruice to him, their entent being by deceit to get some office, or to seeke some profite.

Seruants.

I Councell those that be seruaunts to great lordes, that their labours be accounted ra­ther honest than wise: for the wise man can but please, but the honest man can neuer displease.

Of the toong, and of the slanderer or backbiter.

IT is most certaine, that of Hollie we looke for pricks; of Acrons husks; of Nettels stinging, and of thy mouth malice. I haue seriously noted, I neuer saw thee say well of any, nor I neuer knew any that would thee good.

Octauian the Emperor being de­maunded why doing good to all men he suffered some to murmure against him; Octauian. he an­swered, He that hath made Rome free from enimies, hath also set at libertie the toongs of malicious men.

That is a cruell thing that the life and honor of those that be good, should by the toong of the euill be mea­sured.

As in the forge the coales cannot be kindled without sparkes, The toong. nor as corruption cannot be in the sinkes with­out ordure, so he that hath his hart free from malice, his toong is always occupied in sweet and pleasant sayings: and contrarywise, out of his mouth whose stomacke is infected with malice, proceedeth always wordes bitter, and full of poison.

It is an olde disease of euill men through malice to backbite with their toong, Backbite. which through their coward­nes they neuer durst enterprise with their hands.

Of sorow and griefe.

GRiefe is a friend of solitude, enimie of com­panie, a louer of darknes, strange in conuer­sation, & heire to desperation.

Sith fortune is knowen of all, she suffreth not hir selfe to be defamed of one; and it is [Page 78] better to thinke with fortune how thou maiest remedy thy self, than to thinke with grief how to complaine.

There are diuers men which to publish their grief are very carefull, but to seek remedy are very negligent.

We suffer griefs & know them not; with the hands we touch them & perceiue them not; we go ouer them and see them not; they sound in our eares & we heare them not; they daily admonish vs, & we do not beleeue them: finally, we feele the wound, and see not the remedy.

Experience doth teach vs, Auoide the taste of euill. with a little blast of winde the fruit doth fall; with a little sparke of fire the house is kindled; with a little rocke the ship is broken; at a li­tle stone the foote doth stumble; with a litle hooke they take great fish; and with a little wound dieth a great per­son: I meane that our life is so fraile, and fortune so fic­kle, that in that part where we are best harnessed, we are soonest wounded and grieued.

The heauy and sorowfull harts of this world feele no greater grief than to see others reioyce at their sorowes.

To men of long life without comparison the diseases are more which they suffer, The haruest of a long life. than the yeeres are which they liue.

If the days be few wherein we see the elements with­out cloudes, fewer are the howers wherein we feele our harts without cares.

As much difference as is betweene the barke and the tree; the marow and the bone; the corne and the straw; the gold and the drosse; the truth and dreames, so much is there to heare the trauels of an other, and taste his owne.

Greater is the disease that proceedeth of sorow, Hard to cure the disease engendred by thoughts. than that which proceedeth of the feuer quartane: and ther­of ensueth, that more easily he is cured which of corrupt humors is full, than he which with profound thoughts is oppressed.

There is no griefe that so much hurteth a person, as [Page 79] when he himself is cause of his own paine.

Men which haue not God mercifull, and men friend­ly; do eate the bread of griefe, and drinke the teares of sorow.

There is no greater torment to the hart, than when it is differred from that which it greatly desired.

If all things as they be felt at hart, shoulde be shewed outward with the toong, I thinke that the winds should breake the hart with sighings, and water all the earth with teares.

If the corporall eies sawe the sorow of the hart, Eyes see not the harts grief. I be­leeue they should see more blood sweating within, than all the weeping that appeereth without.

There is no comparison of the great dolors of the bo­die, Grief of mind incom­parable. with the least grief of the mind.

For all trauell of the body men may find some reme­die; but if the heauy hart speake, it is not heard; if it weepe, it is not seen; if it complaine, it is not beleeued.

I know no remedy but this, to abhorre the life where­with it dieth, and to desire death wherewith it liueth.

The toong.

NOble & stoute personages though they would be esteemed and iud­ged true in their sayings, hauing seene many wonders with their eies, yet when they make report of them, they ought to be very mode­rate in their toongs: for it is a ve­ry shame to an honest man to de­clare any thing wherein may be a­ny doubt whether it be true or not.

When a woman is mery, Mery wo­men. she alwayes babbleth more with the toong, than she knoweth in hir hart.

[Page 80] Men do not vtter half their grief, bicause their wofull and heauie hart commandeth the eyes to weep, and the toong to be silent.

The chiefest thing which God gaue vnto man, was to know and be able to speake, for otherwise (the soule re­serued) the brute beasts are of more valew than dombe men.

Pythagoras commanded that all men which are dombe and without speech, Pythagoras. should immediatly and without cō ­tradiction be banished and expulsed from the people: and the cause why he commāded this, was, that he said, that the toong is mooued by the motions of the soule, and that he which had no toong, had no soule.

The toong which is noble, ought to publish the good­nes of the good, to the end that all know it, & the frail­nes of the wicked ought to be dissembled and kept se­cret that it be not followed.

If the body of a man without the soule is little regar­ded; I sweare vnto thee that the toong of a man without truth, is much lesse esteemed.

As the sword pierceth the body, so the toong destroi­eth the renowme.

There are many which are of a goodly toong and wic­ked life.

Wise men ought to feare more the infamie of the litle pen, than the slander of the babling toong.

All corporall members in a man waxeth olde, Hart and toong. sauing the inward hart and outward toong: for the hart is al­ways greene to beare the fruit of euil, and the toong al­ways fruitfull to tell lies.

Time.

THere is nothing needeth more circumspection than the measuring of Time: for that Time should be measured so iustly, that by reason no Time [Page 81] should want to do well, nor any time abound to doe euill.

That time may be accounted lost which is spent with­out the seruice of God, Time lost. or profite of our neighbor.

Time in all things bringeth such change and alterati­on, that those we haue once seen to be great lords, with­in a while after we haue seene slaues.

Deceiue not your selfe to say there is time for all a­mendement, for time is in the hand of God to dispose.

Warres.

IN time of war princes cannot reforme vices, nor correct the vicious.

They which mooue war, or intreat it, ought to consider that if it come not well to passe all the blame shall be imputed to their counsell, and if his substance be not able, presently to recompence the losse, let him assure himselfe that his soule hereafter shall endure the paine.

In examining of histories we shall finde more defa­med for beginning of wars, than renowmed for van­quishing of their enimies.

In wars they do naught else but kill men, A confusion. spoile the people, destroy innocents, giue libertie to theeues, sepe­rate friendes, raise strife, all which cannot be done with­out hinderaunce of iustice, and scrupulositie of consci­ence.

Before wars be begun, Foresight in wars is ne­cessary. it would be considered what losse and what profite may ensue.

None are fit for the wars but such as little esteeme their liues, and much lesse their consciences.

If war were onely the euil against the euill, there were no thought nor care to be taken, but where honor, fame, glory, and riches are taken prisoners, it is a lamen­table [Page 82] matter that so many wise, good, and vertuous be lost.

Iust war is more woorth than fained peace, for looke how much his enimie offendeth for taking it, so much he offendeth his common wealth for not defending it.

Women in times past were led to the wars to dresse meate for the whole, Women in wars. and to cure the wounded: but now to the end that cowards should haue occasions to be ef­feminate, and the valiant to be vicious.

Men which in peace seeme most fierce, in time of war shew themselues most cowards: The valure of men. and likewise men full of words are for the most part cowards in deeds.

Women.

ANd sith God hath commanded and our face doth permit, A friendly exhortation. that the life of men can not passe without women, I aduise the youth, and beseech the aged, I awake the wise and instruct the simple, to shunne women of euill name, more than the common pestilence.

Shee that will be accounted honest, A looking glasse for a woman. let hir not trust to the wisedome of the wise, nor commit hir fame to the wanton youth, let her take heede what he is that promi­seth ought, for after that the flames of Venus is set on fire, and Cupid shot his arrowes; the rich offereth all that he hath, and the poore all that he may, the wise man will be for euer hir friend, and the simple man for euer hir ser­uant, the wise man will loose his life for hir, and the sim­ple man will accept his death for hir.

It is great perill to wise women to be neighbored with fooles; If you be a lambe, take heed of the woolfe, if you be a woolfe deuour not the seely lambe. great perill to the shamefast, to be with the sham­lesse; great peril to the chaste to be with the adulterers; [Page 83] for the honorable to be with the defamed, there is no slandered woman but thinketh euery one like hirselfe, or at least desireth so; procureth so; and saieth so: in the ende to hide their infamie they slander the good.

Diuers things ought to be borne in the weakenes of women, Womens weaknes pardonable. which in the wisedome of men are not permit­ted.

I know not what iustice this is, that they kill men for robbing and stealing of money, and suffer women to liue that steale mens harts.

Women haue more neede of remedie, than of good counsell.

The beautie of women setteth strangers on desire, and putteth neighbours on suspection: to great men it gi­ueth feare; to meane men ennie; to the parents infamy; to themselues perill; with great paine it is kept that is desired of manie.

The most laudable and holy company in this life is of the man and woman, A vertuous woman. especially if the woman be vertu­ous: the wife withdraweth all the sorrowes from the hart of hir husbande, and accomplisheth his desires whereby he liueth at rest.

A man of vnderstanding ought not to keepe his wife so short, that she should seeme to be his seruant; nor yet to giue hir so much libertie that she becommeth therby his mistres.

The good wife may be compared to the phesant, whose feathers we little esteeme, and regarde much the bodie: but the euill woman to the Marterne, whose skinne we greatly account of, and vtterly despise the bodie.

The complexion of women with childe is very deli­cate, A woman with childe. and the soule of the creature is very precious, and therefore it ought with great diligence to be preserued, for all the treasure of the Indies is not so pretious, or in value equal to that which the woman beareth in hir bo­wels; [Page 84] when a man planteth a vineyarde, A similitude foorthwith he maketh a ditch, or some fence about it, to the end beasts should not crop it while it is yoong, nor that trauellers should gather the grapes when they are ripe; if the labo­rer to get a little wine onely, which for the bodie and soule is not alwaies profitable, doth this, how much more circumspection ought the woman to haue to pre­serue hir childe, since she shall render account vnto the creator of a creature, vnto the church of a christian, vnto hir husband of a childe.

The birds when they haue hatched, An other si­militude. hauing but six lit­tle ones, haue neither milke to nourish them, nor corne to giue them; neither haue they wings to flie; nor fea­thers to couer them; nor any other thing to defende them; and yet the mother in all this weaknes and po­uertie forsaketh them not, nor committeth them to any other, but bringeth them vp hir-selfe; how much more ought a christian woman to nourish and bring vp that with hir breasts which she once carried in hir wombe, rather than commit it into the handes of another wo­man, who bicause she bare it not, can not haue the like tender care ouer it.

Children are neuer so wel beloued of their mothers, as when they be nourished of their owne brests.

If women for excuse should say that they are weake, tender, and that they haue found a good nurse; A nurse. I answer, that the nurse hath small loue to the childe which she nurseth, when she seeth the vngentlenes of the mother that bare it, for she alone doth nourish the childe with loue, which did beare it with paine.

Aristotle saith that a childe at the most ought to sucke but two yeeres; How long children should sucke. and at the least one yeere and a halfe; for if he sucke lesse he is in danger to be sicke, and if he sucke more he shall be alwaies tender.

All women are bounde to loue their husbandes, A womans contentatiō in marriage. since that willingly and not by compulsion they were [Page 85] not enforced to take them. In like maner if the marriage please not the woman she hath not so much cause to complaine of hir husbande for asking hir, as she hath reason to mislike with hirselfe that accepted him.

The wife to serue hir husband in his life time procee­deth oftentimes of fear, A blacke swan. but to loue him and honor him in his graue proceedeth of loue.

A woman cannot say euill of hir husband, but she doth witnes dishonor to hirselfe.

I would counsell women not to presume to command their husbands, and admonish husbands not to suffer themselues to be ruled by their wiues: for in so doing I account it no otherwise than to eate with the feete, and trauell with the hands, to go with their fingers, and to feed themselues with their toes.

There is an olde disease that happeneth to beautifull women, that there be manie that defie them, and mo that slander them.

It little auaileth man and wife that their goods be common, and their wils priuate, for if the man and wife in loue doe differ, in their liues they shall neuer be quiet.

The want of magnanimitie in the female sexe, Ingenio pollet cui vim natu­ra negauit. is sup­plied with the excellencie of quicke conceite and inuen­tion.

The reason why women for the more part exceed men in beautie, and good complexion is for that they are an effect of a pure cause, namely of man, a creature poli­shed, and not formed as man immediately out of grosse earth.

After the creation of the worlde and mankind, God preferred the companie of a woman as a comfort vnto man exceeding all others.

Good workes.

THey that be old and ancient, ought to praise their good workes rather than their white haires: for honor ought to be giuen for the good life, and not for the white head.

To praise vertuous workes we greatly de­sire, Praise but not practise. but to put them in vre we are very slow.

If I haue committed any euill, it is impossible to find any that will do me good: but if I haue done well, no man shall be able to do me wrong.

Men are not bound to iudge others by the good na­ture they haue, but by the good and euill workes which they do.

That man is perfite who in his own opinion deserueth not that he hath, and in the opinion of an other deser­ueth much more than that he possesseth.

The vertuous ought to conforme their works to that they say, Saying and doing should be maried without de­uorce. and publish their words with their deeds.

There is nothing more infamous than to presume to be wise, and desirous to be counted vertuous: chiefly, for him that speaketh much, and worketh little.

Our euil worke sufficeth to deface many good works.

The world and worldly prosperitie.

THe prosperous estate whereupon the children of vanitie are set, are founded of quicke sande, in that sort that be they neuer so valiant, prosperous and mightie, a little blast of wind doth stirre them, a li­tle calme of prosperitie doth open them, & sodenly death doth con­found them.

[Page 87] Men seeing that they cannot be perpetual, do procure to continue themselues in raising vp proud buildings, & leauing to their children great estates, wherin I account them fooles no lesse than in things superfluous. Admit the pillars be of gold, the beames of siluer, & that those that ioyne them be kings, and those which build them are nobles, in which they consume a thousand yeers be­fore they can haue it out of the ground, or come to the bottom; I sweare they shall find no steadie rocke where they may build their house sure, not cause their memory to be perpetuall.

If men knew the world with his deceit, why doe they serue him, if they do not, why do they follow him.

The world hath this condition, The world full of de­ceits. to hide much copper vnder a litle gold; vnder the color of one truth he telleth vs a thousand lies, and with one short pleasure he min­gleth ten thousand and displeasures.

Would ye not take the thiefe for a foole that would buy the rope wherewith he should be hanged: and the murtherer the sword wherwith he should be beheaded: and the traitor that should offer himselfe in place for to be quartered: the rebell that should disclose himselfe to be stoned: than are they I sweare more fooles that know the world and will follow it.

The ancients in times past did striue which of them could furnish most men; Our ance­stors riches. haue most weapons; and keep most horses: but now a days they contend who hath the finest wit; who can heape vp greatest treasure; and who can keep most sheep. They striued who should keep most men, but in these days who can haue most reuenues.

Now it is so, that one hauing mony to buy a lordship, immediately he is made a knight; and when he is made knight, it is not to fight against the enimies in the field; but more freely to commit vices, and oppresse the poore at home.

What profiteth vs to desire much, to procure much, [Page 88] to attaine to much sith our days are so briefe, and our person so fraile.

Men are deceiued that thinke that temporall goods shall remaine with them during life.

I see no greater mishaps to fall to any, than vnto them which haue the greatest riches: so that we may boldly say, that he alone which is shut in the graue, is in safegard from the inconstancie of fortune.

The earth is cold and drie; A descripti­on of the foure ele­ments. the water cold and moist; the aire hote and moist; the fire hote and dry.

The wicked world is the euill life of the worldlings, where the earth is the desire; fire the couetice; water the inconstancie; aire the folly; the stones are the pride; the flowers of trees the thoughts; the deep sea the hart.

The worldlings and their worldly liues, are called the world: for sinnes they be called the seruants of sinne, & must be subiects of the deuill.

Pride, auarice, enuie, blasphemie, pleasures, lecherie, negligence, gluttonie, ire, malice, vanitie, and folly: this is the world against which we fight all the days of our life; and where the good are princes of vices, and vices are lords of the vicious.

This world is our cruell enimie: A descripti­on of the world. A deceitfull friend that always keepeth vs in trauell, and taketh from vs our rest, he robbeth vs of our treasure, and maketh himselfe to be feared of the good, and is greatly beloued of the euill. It is that which of the goods of others is prodigal; of his own very miserable; the inuenter of all vices; and the scourge of all vertues: it is he which entertaineth all his in flattery and faire speach; bringeth men to dissolu­tion; robbeth the renowme of those that be dead; and sacketh the good name of those that be aliue. This cur­sed world is he which to all ought to render acccount, and of whom none dare to aske account.

He should beare false witnes that would say: that in this world there is any thing assured, healthfull, & true: [Page 89] as he that would say in heauen there is any thing vncon­stant, variable, or false.

I maruell not though the worldlings at euery momēt be deceiued, since superficiously they behold the world with their eies, and loue it profoundly with their harts, (but if they desired as profoundly) to consider it as they do vainely follow it, they should see very plainly that the world did not flatter them with prosperitie, but threaten them with aduersitie; fo that vnder the greatest point of the Die which is the sise, is hid the least which is the ase.

The world is of such a condition, that if he let vs rest our first sleep, that commonly ere the morning, yea som­times within an hower after, he waketh vs with a new care.

Suppose that the world doth honor you much, Deceit of the world. flatter you much, visite you oft, offer you great treasures, and giue you much: yet it is not bicause he will giue you li­tle and little, but that afterwards he might take it all from you in one day: for it is the custome of the world, that those men which aboue all men are set before, now at a turne they are farthest behind.

O filthie world, that when thou doest receiue vs, thou doest cast vs off; when thou doest assemble vs, thou doest separate vs; when thou seemest to reioice vs, thou ma­kest vs sad; when thou pleasest vs, how quickly thou do­est displease vs; when thou exaltest vs, how thou hum­blest vs; and when thou doest chastise vs, how thou doest reioyce.

As mē be diuers in gestures, The world a Cater for all kind of peo­ple. so are they much more va­riable in their appetites: & sith the world hath experiēce in many yeeres, it hath appetites prepared for all kind of people: for the presumptuous he procureth honors; to the auaricious, he procureth riches; and to those which are gluttons, he presenteth diuers meats; the carnall he blindeth with women; the negligent, he feedeth with rest; and thus he doth baite them as fish, and in the end [Page 90] will catch them in the nets of all vices.

If at the first temptations we had resisted the world, it were impossible that so oftentimes it durst assault vs, for of our small resistance, commeth his so great boldnes.

The world hath made vs now so ready to his law, In seruing the world we are made changelings. that from one hower to another it changeth the whole estate of our life: so that to day he maketh vs hath that which yesterday we loued: he causeth vs to complaine of that which we commended: he maketh vs to be offended with that which before we did desire: and to account those our mortall enimies, which before we accepted as our speciall friends.

If he did giue any perfect or certain thing, we were the rather to serue him: but he giueth them with such con­dition, that they shall render it to him againe, when he shall demaund it, and not at the discretion of him that doth possesse it.

The world hath no good thing to giue vs, but only by lending or by vsurie: if it be by vsurie, there is no gaine of money, but rather returne with restitution of vices: if ye aske whether he hath any vertuous thing in his go­uernance, he will answer that he doth sell such merchan­dise in his shop, and therefore cannot giue that which he hath not for himself.

If ye exchange any thing with it, he is so subtile to sel, and so curious to buy, that that which he taketh shall be of great measure, and that which he selleth shall want waight.

They which are in prosperitie haue no lesse neede of good counsell, than the vnhappy hath of remedy.

When euery man thinketh he hath made peace with fortune, than she hath a new demaund ready forged.

Man being born in the world; nourished in the world; liuing in the world; being a child of the world; & folow­ing the world; what is man to hope for of the world, but things of the world?

[Page 90] Man alone thinketh to eate the flesh without bones; to giue battell without perill; to trauell without pain, & saile by the seas without danger: but it is impossible for mortal men to liue in the world vnlesse they wil become subiects to the sorowes of the world.

We are now come to so great folly, that we forget and will not serue God that created vs, nor abstaine from the world that persecuteth vs.

O filthy world how far art thou from iust; and howe far ought they to be from thee which desire to be iust, for naturally thou art a friend of nouelties and an eni­mie of vertues.

How much do we put our trust in fortune; how lewd­ly do we passe our dais; how much blinded in the world; yet for all that we giue him so much credit, as though he had neuer deceiued vs.

The world is an embassador of the euill, and a scourge of the good; a nurse to vices; and a tyrant to vertues; a breaker of peace; a maintainer of war; a table of glut­tons; and a fornace of concupiscence; it is the danger of Charybdis where the harts do perish, and the perill of Scylla where the harts do waste.

The men that are borne of women are so euill a gene­ration, and so cruell is the worlde wherein we liue, and fortune so empoisoned with whom we frequent, that we cannot escape without being spurned with his feete; bitten with his teeth; torne with his nailes; or empoiso­ned with his venime.

If a stranger or neighbor yea our proper brother doe enuie vs, Note. we will neuer pardon him though he earnestly request it, yet cease we not to follow the world, though he continually persecute vs, thus we see that we drawe our swords against flies, and will kill the Elephants with needles.

Some I see which willingly fall; Note. and some which would recouer themselues. I finde that all do complaine but [Page 92] few that will amend.

Riches, youth, pride, and libertie, are fowre plagues which poison princes, replenish the cōmon wealth with filth, kill the liuing, and defame the dead.

How vnhappie are they which are in prosperitie, for iustly they that be set vp in high estate cannot flee from the peril of Scilla, without falling into the danger of Cha­rybdis.

O miserable world, thou art a sepulchre of the dead; a prison of the liuing; a shop of vices; a hangman of ver­tues; an obliuion of antiquitie; an enimie of things pre­sent; a snare of the rich; a burthen to the poore; a house of pilgrims; and a den of theeues.

O world, thou art a slanderer of the good; a rauener of the wicked; a deceiuer; and an abuser of ail; and to speak the truth, it is impossible to liue contented, much lesse to liue in honor, in the which is most to be lamen­ted, either the euil man aduanced without desart, or the good man ouerthrowen without cause.

The tokens of a valiant captaine are wounds of wea­pons: and the signe of a studious person is the despising of the world.

Not those that haue most knowledge, Riches ru­leth. but those that haue most riches in the common welth do command, I doubt whether the diuine power hath depriued them, or that the wordly malice hath lost the taste of them.

O world, world, I know not how to escape thy hands, not howe the simple men and idiot defendeth himselfe out of thy snares, when the sage and wise men withall their wisedome can scarsely set their foote sure on earth, for al that the wise men know, is little enough to defend them from the wicked.

He onely passeth without trauell the dangers of life, which banisheth from him the thought of the temporal goods of this world.

The traiterous world in no one thing beguileth the [Page 93] worldly so much as by feeding them with vain hope, sai­eng, that they shall haue time enough to be vertuous.

The more the world encreaseth in yeeres, The elder the world is, the worse are the people. so much the more it is loden with vices.

The world hath alwaies bin in contention, and rest hath alwaies bin banished: for if some sigh for peace, o­thers be as desirous of wars.

O world for that thou art the world, so small is our force, and so great is our debilitie, that thou willing it, & we not resisting it, thou dost swallow vs vp in the most perilous gulfe, and in the thornes most sharpe, thou dost pricke vs, by the priuie waies thou dost leade vs, and by the most stonie waies thou cariest vs, thou bringest vs to the highest fauorers, to the ende that afterward with a push of thy pike thou mightest ouerthrow vs.

What, Burden. I thinke I haue somewhat in the world, I finde that all that I haue is but a burthen.

I haue prooued all the vices of the world for no other intent but to prooue if there be any thing wherin mens malice might be satisfied; All worldly vices. and in proouing I finde, that the more I eate the more I hunger; the more I drinke the greater I thirst; the more I rest the more I am bro­ken; the more I sleepe the more drowsie I am; the more I haue, the more I couet; the more I desire the more I am tormented; the more I procure the lesse I obtaine; finally, I neuer had so great paine through want, but af­terward I had more trouble with excesse.

Pretie saiengs in common places.

THou art such a one as neuer deserued that one should begin to loue, Commenda­tion. or ende to hate.

How much the noble harts do reioice in giuing to other, A good na­ture. so much they are ashamed to take seruice vnrewarded, for in giuing they [Page 94] become lords, and in taking they become slaues.

The rashnes of youth is restrained with the raines of reason. Reason ru­leth.

Although we be wise, Frailtie of man. we leaue not therefore to be men, dost not thou know that all that euer we learne in our life, sufficeth not to gouerne the flesh in one houre?

I am sorie to see thee cast away: To him that is ouercome with anie follie. and it greeueth me to see thee drowned in so small a water.

A brother in words, and a cosen in works.

I rest betweene the sailes of feare, and anker of hope.

Though we praise one for valiantnes with the sword, Diuersities of gifts. we will not praise him therfore for excellencie with the pen; although he be excellent with the pen, he is not therefore excellent with the toong; though he haue a good toong, he is not therefore well learned; & though he be learned, he hath not therefore good renowme; and though he haue good renowme, he is not therefore of a good life; for we are bound to receiue the doctrines of many which do write, but we are not bound to followe the liues which they lead.

When a father passeth out of this present life, and leaueth behinde him a childe being his heire, they can­not say to him that he dieth; but that he waxeth yoong in his childe, The father dieng, wax­eth yoong in his childe. bicause the childe doth inherite the flesh, the goods, and memory of the father.

The desires of yoong men are so variable, Youthly de­sires. that they daily haue new inuentions.

Men that reade much and worke little; Teachers and not fol­lowers. are as bels which do sounde to call others, and they themselues neuer enter into the church.

It is an olde saieng, A iuell no­thing woorth to the igno­rant. that a pretious iuell is little re­garded, when he that hath it knoweth not the value of it.