of this disease was so great that there was no roome in the Church-yards to bury the dead and many finding themselues infected with this disease being out of all hope of recouery would presently sow themselues in sheetes looking when death would come to separate the soule from the body These were the whips that God vsed in a generalitie for punishment of sinnes But what would we speake of diseases when Plinie and others write that in two thousand yeeres to their time they haue discouered aboue three hundred diseases to which men are subiect we may say with the Poet Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus 〈◊〉 Prima fugii subeunt morbi tristisque senectus Et labor durae rapit inclementia mortis The best dayes of vs miserable men The first are that make haste from vs and then Diseases come with sorrowfull old age Labour and lust Deaths implacable rage Let vs descend to some particular matter which hath happened to men either by the secret iudgement of God or by some rare accidents Popyelus King of Polonia a man of euil life would often wish that he might be deuoured of mice At last as he was sitting at dinner banquetting and 〈◊〉 a company of great mice set vpon him which came from the carkasses of his vncles which he and the Queene his wife had killed with poyson These mice in great heapes assaulted him his wife and children as they sate feasting and neuer left gnawing vpon them day and night though his guard and souldiers did all they could to driue them away great fires were made and the King his wife and children placed in the middest yet notwithstanding the Mice ran thorow the fire and fell to their gnawing againe Then they went into a ship and prooued what the water would doe the Mice followed them and gnawing continually vpon the Ship the Mariners seeing themselues in danger of drowning the water comming in at the holes which the Mice made brought the Ship to land where another companie of Mice ioyned with these and molested them more then before when his followers saw these things perceiuing it to be the Iudgement of God they all fled The King seeing himselfe left alone and those departed that should defend him he went vp into an high tower but the Mice climbed vp and deuoured him his wife and two sonnes By which it appeareth that there is no policie nor power to be vsed against God The Emperour Arnolphus was likewise eaten vp with Lice his Physicions being vnable to giue him any remedy Hotto Bishop of Ments in Germanie perceiuing the poore people in great lacke of victuals by the scarcitie of corne gathered a great many of them together and shut them into a barne and burnt them saying That they differed little from Mice that consumed corne and were profitable to nothing But God left not so great a crueltie vnreuenged for he made Mice assault him in great heapes which neuer left gnawing vpon him night nor day he fled into a Tower which was in the midst of the Riuâ—…r of Rhyne which to this day is called the Tower of Mice of that euent supposing hee should be safe from them in the midst of the Riuer But an innumerable companie of Mice swam ouer the riuer to execute the iust Iudgement of God and deuoured him The like happened to a Bishop of Strasbrough who was also deuoured with mice When Harold King of Denmarke made warre vpon Harquinus and was ready to ioyne battell there was a dart seene in the aire flying this way and that way as though it sought vpon whom to light And when all men stood wondering what would become of this strange matter euery man fearing himselfe at last the dart fell vpon Harquinus head and slew him An Italian Gentleman being vniustly condemned to die as it was thought by Pope Clement the fift at the request of Philip the faire King of France seeing them both out of a window speaketh to them aloud in this sort Thou cruell Clement for as much as there is no iudge in the world before whom a man may appeale from that vniust sentence which thou hast pronounced against me I appeale from thee as from an vniust Iudge to the iust Iudge Iesus Christ before whom I summon thee and likewise thee King Philip at whose suite thou hast giuen iudgement of death vpon me within one yeere to appeare before the Tribunall seat of God where I shall plead my cause which shall be determined without couetousnesse or any other passion as yee haue done It chanced that about the end of the time by him prefixed both the Pope and the King dyed The like happened to Ferdinando the fourth King of Castile who puttìng to death two knights rather through anger then iustice whose fauour could not be obtained neither by weeping and lamenting nor by any petitions they summoned the King to appeare before the Tribunall seat of Christ within thirtie daies the last of which the King died A Captaine likewise of the Gallies of the Genowayes tooke a vessell the Captaine whereof neuer did harme to the Genowayes yet for the hatred that the Captaine of the Genowayes did beare to his Nation he commanded him to be hanged And when no petitions nor prayers would be heard nor excuses allowed nor any mercy would be found hee said to this cruell Captaine that he did appeale to God that punisheth the vniust and summoned him to appeare at a certaine day appointed to render account before God of the wrong he had done him the very same day that he appointed the Captain of the Genowayes dyed of like went to yeeld his account A strange example likewise by a false accusation of an Archbishop of Mentz called Henry This man was indued with many vertues and had great care of his flocke and would punish seuerely publike sinners which procured the hatred of many wicked persons who accused him to the Pope as a man insufficient for his charge laying many faults against him The Pope holding a good opinion of the Bishop aduertised him of it who to purge himselfe and to declare his innocency made choise among all his friends of one Arnand whom he loued dearely and aduanced to many dignities to go to Rome This man being rich intending to depriue his master and to occupie his place suborned two wicked Cardinals with a great summe of money to fauour his practice when he came to answer for his master hee confessed how much bound he was to him yet he was more bound to God and to the truth then to men and said that the accusations laid against the Bishop were true By meanes whereof the Pope sent the two corrupted Cardinals to heate determine the Bishops cause when they came into Germanie they sent for the Archbishop and vpon hearing of his cause depriued him of his dignities and placed Arnand in his roome The Bishop being present at
the world and divided it into foure parts The first age they likened to gold and called it the golden age the next so decayed that they compared it unto silver the third abased to brasse the fourth worst of all was become like iron of lesse value and price than any of the rest and if there were a more base metall wee might compare our age to it In consideration whereof they with other writers in these latter ages both divine and prophane doe bewaile the decay of vertue of true faith of charity of mutuall love and fidelitie of good conscience of honesty yea of devotion and prayer and of the love and feare of God and of heavenly contemplation whereof as from his proper root should spring all the rest For how many doe wee see live as though they had no need of God hoped for no better nor mistrust no worse than they finde here As though God were not the rewarder of vertue and punisher of vice nay rather as though there were no God at all no resurrection no heaven nor hell Who feareth to offend God or spareth to blaspheme his holy name Who taketh any paine to please him Who forbeareth to hate envie and to slander Who laboureth to subdue his flesh to the spirit sensualitie to reason reason to faith and faith to the service of God Who letteth not loose the reines to his affections and suffereth not his will and wicked inventions to take the bitte in the teeth and runneth away against the rule of reason Subjects rebell against their Prince and Gods anointed and are sometime excited unto it by them that should set forth obedience by word and example of life Children disobey their parents contemne them and laugh them to scorne Servants make small estimation of the trust committed unto them by their masters Labourers hunt after idlenesse Artificers are deceiptfull in their wordes and workes Merchants and others in uttering the wares that they sell. No man lendeth without hire Vsurie was never so generall nor so extreame And if wee should after this sort run over the other estates of life wee should finde all sorts of men degenerate from the simplicity and goodnesse of their forefathers No man seeketh after vertue nor laboureth to reforme or amend much lesse to mortifie himselfe So as we might never more truly pronounce these old verses Heu vivunt homines tanquam mors nulla sequatur Et velut infernus fabula vana foret Alas men live as they should never dye And Hell were a meere tale and fantasie To doe these things what is it but as though there were no Gospell to forbid it nor God to punish it nor lawes nor authority to reforme it We have small regard and compassion to the reliefe of the poore lesse conscience wee make to deceive or oppresse our neighbours And this is a thing to be marvelled at that if the Merchant bee taken with a counterfeit measure the Gold smith with a false weight the measure shall bee burnt the ballance broken and the offender delivered to publike justice but if a man be knowne to be a blasphemer a drunkard an adulterer yea an atheist whereof it may be doubted there bee over many in these daies he shal be so far from being punished that he shal be rather of many favoured and supported regarded as a jolly fellow that will be coÌ„manded of none which encourageth him to offend further to the evill example of others for wicked acts and misdemeanours are allured by impunity as it were by rewards and he hurteth the good that spareth the wicked If we heare of any sinful or wicked act committed we sigh and grone and looke up to heaven as though it pierced our hearts with detestation both of the man and the fact whereas if the like occasion were offered wee are as ready every day to doc the same or worse Wee are notable censurers of other mens faults and cunning dissemblers of our owne We behold our owne faults with spectacles that make things shew lesse and other mens faults wee behold in the water where things shew greater Wee follow sermons like Saints with great shew of devotion as though we were very religious but that we practise in our life rather resembleth infernall spirits And thus we dissemble with God and play the hypocrites with men When our life is seene to bee contrary unto our profession we are a slander to the Gospell And it may be said to us as I heard a plaine man of the Low-countrie say to a Gentleman that commended the Spaniards for their devotion and often blessing and crossing themselves No doubt quoth hee they are holy men Cruzes de fuera diablâ—… de dentrâ—… Crosses without and the divell within The iniquity of this time is almost growne to this that a man godly and honestly given is laughed to scorne â—…nd had in contempt and the wicked is had in estimation and reverenced as though it were a shame to doe well and a commendable thing to live unhonestly so as nothing is more common in these dayes among us than false friendship dissembled honesty manifest iniquity and counterfeit holinesse And who is he if hee separate his mind a while from worldly cogitations that he may the better looke into the generall wickednesse of these dayes that will not say with Saint Paul Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo I desire to be dissolved and to bee with Christ when he shall see in use and dayly practice every where all kinds of vice but almost no where any kind of vertue When he shall see no wisedome without craft no justice without corruption no faith without dissimulation no godlinesse without hypocrisie no friendship wiehout gaine no lending without hire no promise without suspition and all things corrupted with covetousnesse and sensuality shal he not find cause to cry out with Policarpus Deus ad quae nos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God to what times hast thou reserved us But they that by word or writing shall go about to reprove the generality of vice lately crept into mens manners may looke for that answer that king Antigonus made to one that presented to him a booke written of Iustice Thou art a foole said the King to present a booke to mee of Iustice when thou seest mee besieging and making war upon other mens cities so shall they bee accounted fooles that so farre out of season in this common exercise and generality of all manner of vice will perswade or speake of vertue of godlinesse of honesty and reformation of manners they shall but sing to the dease as the proverbe is O wicked age and ungratefull peopleâ—… Hath God dispersed the darke clouds from our understanding and sent us the light of his Gospel to the end wee should runne into the dirt and mire and soyle our selves with all manner of vices Hath hee bestowed so many benefits upon us and yet cannot find us thankfull Hath
as I was considering with my selfe what to write the occasion that moved me to take my penin hand min stred also matter whereof to write For medisating with my selfe upon the variable and uncertaine state and condition of men calling to minde many things written thereof by divers Authors and being wiâ—…ing for my ease as a woman in travell to bee delivered of the burdeâ—… wherewith my head was overladen I could not find a more apt subject for my purpose than to discourse crassiori Minerva upon the Felicitie of man Which kinde of exercise I perceived might be profitable to me as well by the comfort I should receive by perusing the sayings and opinions of wise and learned men as also by renewing the memory of divers things which I had long sinceread almost forgotten and of a multitude of matter to draw out so much as I thought necessarie and the same for my recreation and to make it more favoric to my taste sometimes to interlarde with mine owne opinion and conceit And joyning to the things I have read the observation of mens maners and experience I have had of worldly matters I might see 〈◊〉 in a glasse that besides the â—…cles to which by externall causes and the ordâ—…nery course of nature men are subject much unquietnesse both of body and mind happencth to them by then owne fault by an unsatiable desire of such things as are hâ—…nderance to the happinesse they seeke after their minds many times being tormented with a suspended hope of that which when they have obtained utterly overthroweth them Some desire to passe their life in Epicures pleasures others would have Croesus riches the rest Caesars fortune all Nestors years which varietie of motions in mens minds having undertaken to discourse upon this subject occasioned mee to use the helpe of learned Authours in searching out wherein the felicitie and Summum bonum of man doth consist And as I was seeking for this felicitie and the way to it I fell into the company of certaine Philosophers who directed me to the branch that riseth on the right side out of Pythagoras letter which said they would conduct me to the path that leadeth to the thing I sought But some of them better advised taught that the Felicitie of man his soveraigne good and beatitude is to bee joyned with God in the life to come cannot be enjoyed in this life the meanes thereunto is the purgation and perfection of life by entring into our consciences and searching our sins and confessing them to God Which caused me not a little to wonder how men by reason only and by instinct of nature could bee capable of so divine knowledge But when I saw them there to stay and could proceede no further and except I left their companie and followed a better guide they would leave me in the middle of the way for of the confession of our sinnes followeth damnation except God bee pacified and made mercifull to 〈◊〉 I tooke my leave of the Philosophers and followed another path unknown to them which leadeth directly to felicity and beatitude by the grace of God through his Sonne our Saviour Christ Iesus I have therefore rejected the Philosophers opinions of whom neverthelesse I think reverently as not sufficiently conformable to Christianity though I have applid many of their sayings to my purpose And I have laboured to discover the error of them by many examples that in the course of their life seeme to set their felicity in those things that bring men to infelicity And I have enlarged the narration of some histories more than the due method of writing requireth which I might with lesse labour have abridged it may serve neverthelesse to that common end of the Poets either to profit or delight Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare Poetae Every man hath not been brought up in the knowledge of tongues And it chanceth often to the Reader as it dâ—…th to diceplayers that gaine more by the bye than by the maine It may bee profitable also to see the errours and passions of them discovered by the disordered course of their life and extraordinary kinde of death that have set their felicity in pleasures riches honour glory and such like worldly vanities which to all except they be well used are hinderance to feliâ—…ty and have brought many to extreme misery I have omitted the names of many authors whose aâ—…thority and sayings I do vouch and alledge not with meaning to decke my selfe with stolen feathers but because many of them are fallen out of my memory and to avoid a confusion of superfluous words by the multitude of names and yet divers were noted by me in the margent that are left out by the writer I wish they were all knowne to you that their authority might give the more credit to the matter I desire rather to be taken for a Relator of other mens sayings and opinions than to arrogate such sufficiency as to be Author of any thing my selfe Many things written by divers Authors dispersed into sundry volumes serving to divers ends I have simply collected and applyed to my purpose without any affected stile For as Terence saith Nothing is spoken that hath not been spoken before So men use to alter the forme and order and set forth the matter with other words and diversity of application which maketh their writings seeme to bee a new invention whercâ—… ndeed hardly can any thing bee written that hath not beene though in another sort and application written before For how is it possible among such an infinite number of bookes which daily increase beyond measure that any thing can be alledged though it come to him from his owne invention but the same by some man hath been written before though in another forme order and to another purpose But a collection of things that lye dispersed in many authors with an apt application to one speciall purpose may be both profitable and delightfull to the Reader The Cooke the Aâ—…oshecary the servant goe all to one garden where one gathereâ—…h hearbes and flowres for his pot the other for his poâ—… the third to dresse up the house all making the same thing serve to severall purposes So have I walked in the Muses garden and perusing divers sorts of things applyed by the Authors to divers uses I have gathered together some of those which I thought most fit to serve my purpose and although they were good as they lay scattered yet being gathered together and applyed to some speciall use they are made more profitable than as they lay dispersed For this is not the least fruit that may bee gathered of learning to select the sayings and opinions of learned men with examples of life out of histories that lye dispersed and apply them to some speciall use and purpose Hee bath a great advantage to the providence and foresight of things to come that joyneth the knowledge of things past with his experience of
before and then straineth it out between the two trees and returneth to the carkasse to eate againe and thus he continueth to do untill he hath devoured all which being consumed he hunteth after more in this sort continually passing his life This beast it seemeth God hath created to the shame of gluttonous men that passe whole daies and nights in eating and drinking when they have filled themselves so full that their bodies wil hold no more they vomit up that they have taken and returne to their carowsing againe as though it were their felicitie and end for which God hath made them as the Poet saith Plusque cupit quò plura suam dimittit in alvum cibus omnis initto Causacibi est semperque locus fit inanis edendi The more he eates he askes his meat Is of his eating cause And be his belly ne're so full Still empty are his jawes Which kinde of surfeits maketh worke many times for the Physician who turning R. into D. giveth his patient sometime a Decipe for a Recipe and so payeth deerely for his travell that hastneth him to his end Horace calleth such men that give themselves to their belly a beast of Arcadia that devoureth the grasse of the earth Cornelius Celsus giveth this counsell when men come to meat Nunquam utilis nimia satietas saepe inutilis nimia abstinentia Over-much satiety is never good overmuch abstinence is often hurtfull Mahomet desirous to draw men to the liking of him his doctrine perceiving the pronenesse of men to luxuriousnes fleshly pleasures yet dealt more craftily in his Alcaron than to perswade them that felicitie consisted in the voluptuousnesse pleasures of this life which he knew would not be beleev'd nor follow'd but of a few and those the more brutish sort but threatned them with a kind of hell and gave them precepts tending somewhat more to civilitie and humanitie and promised his followers a Paradise in the life to come wherin they should enjoy all maner of pleasures which men desire in this world as faire gardens environed with pleasant rivers sweet flowers all kinde of odoriferous savours most delicate fruits tables furnished with most daintie meats and pleasant wines served in vessels of gold with beautifull damsels which every man might use at his pleasure The Egyptians had a custome not unmeet to bee used at the carowsing banquets their manner was in the middest of their feasts to have brought before them Anatomic of a dead body dried that the sight and horror thereof putting them in minde to what passe themselves should one day come might containe them in modesty But peradventure things are fallen so far from their right course that that device will not so well serve the turne as if the carowsers of these later daies were perswaded as Mahomet perswaded his followers when hee forbad them the drinking of wine that in every grape there dwelt a divell But when they have taken in their cups it seemeth that many of them doe feare neither the divell nor any thing else Lavater reporteth a Historie of a Parish Priest in Germanie that disguised himselfe with a white sheete about him and at mid-night came into the chamber of a rich woman that was in bed and fashioning himselfe like a spirit hee thought to put her in such feare that shee would procure a conjnrer or exorcist to talke with him or else speake to him her selfe The woman desired one of her kinsmen to stay with her in her Chamber the next night This man making no question whether it were a spirit or not in stead of conjuration or exorcisme brought a good cudgell with him and after hee had well drunke to encrease his courage knowing his hardinesse at those times to bee such that all the Divels in hell could not make him affraide hee lay downe upon a pallat and fell asleepe The spirit came into the chamber againe at his accustomed houre and made such a rumbling noyse that the exorcist the wine not being yet gone out of his head awaked and leapt out of his bed and toward the spirit hee goeth who with counterfeit words and gesture thought to make him affraid But this drunken fellow making no account of his threatnings Art thou the Divel quoth he and I am his Damme and so layeth upon him with his cudgell that if the poore Priest had not changed his divels voyce and confessed himselfe to be Hauns and rescued by the woman that then knew him he had bin like not to have gone out of the place alive This vice of drunkennesse wherein many take over-great pleasure was a great blemish to Alexanders vertues For having won a great part of Asia he laid aside that sobrietie hee brought forth of Macedon and gave himselfe to the luxuriousnesse of those people whom he had conquered And passing his time in feasting and banquetting in the company of hariots hee was so overcome many times with drunkennesse that he wanne more infamie by the outrages hee committed through that vice than commendations by his vertuous acts As hee sate on a time banquerring among those strumpets one of them called Thais being drunke told Alexander that hee should greatly win the favour of the Greekes if he would command the Palace of the goodly Citic of Persepolis to bee set on fire the chiefe seat of the Kings of Persia which in times past had beene the destruction of so many great Cities The same being confirmed by others as drunk as she Alexander that then had in him more inclination of heat than of patience Why doe not we then quoth he revenge Greece and set this Citie on fire wherewith being all chafed with drinking they rose immediately to burne that Citie in their drunkennesse which the men of warre had spared in their fury And the King himselfe first and after his guests and concubines set fire on the Palace by whose example others burnt the whole Citie Thus the famous Citie of Persepolis head of the East countries from which so many nations had before fetched their lawes the royall seat of so many mighty kings the only terror somtimes of Greece the sender forth of navies and armies that overflowed all Europe that had done many notable acts was utterly destroyed by the enticement of a drunken strumpet to the perpetuall shame of the King and all his nation But when Alexander had taken his rest and was become better advised hee repented him of this foule act as he did also the killing divers of his noble men in the like drunkennesse without judgement which helped him to conquer so many nations Iohn Baptist that holy Prophet was killed by Herod in a drunken banquet That great King Cambyses tooke over-great pleasure in drinking of wine and when he asked Prexaspes his secretary what the Persians said of him he answered that they commended him highly notwithstanding they thought him over-much given to wine the King being therewith very angry
to Rome and as we shal find our wiues imployed so wee shall have cause to judge of their disposition Every man allowed of the motion and taking their horses they forthwith galloped to Rome being dark-night and unawares to them went to visit their wiues whom they found feasting and passing the time in pleasures But when they came to Collatinos house they found the doores fast shut and Lucretia spinning in the middest of her maides Then was the sentence given by all their consents with Collatino they all commending the modestie of Lucretia Collatino then being victor invited them all to dinner the next day But after their returne to the campe the kings sonne being ravished with the beautie and modestie of Lucretia sought all meanes how to fulfill his lust And for that purpose comming to Rome on a time secretly in the evening he supped with Lucretia dissembling his intent lodged in her house When the d◅ad of the night was come he brake into her chamber and so craftily undermined her with threatnings of present death and perpetuall shame that abusing the simplicitie of the modest woman she suffered him to use his will When day was come and he gone she sent presently for her father her husband and kinsfolkes letting them to understand that a great misfortune had happened to her When they were come perceiving by her sad countenance that all was not well her husband asked whether all things were safe in the house shee like one in a trance stood silent unable to answere them a word But they urging still to know the cause of her heauinesse and what had befallen her after a little pause beeing come to her selfe her cheekes watered with abundance of teares What sayd she can bee accounted safe to a woman when her chastitie is lost Thy bedde my husband that hitherto hath been kept unspotted is now defiled by the kings sonne who comming to me yester-night to supper was curteously entertained of me as a guest lodged in my house as a friend altogether ignorant of his intent but when wee were all at rest he brake into my chamber and standing by my bed side with his dagger in his right hand and his left hand upon my brest hold thy peace quoth he Lucretia I am Tarquinius if thou speake any word this dagger shall be thy death Then began hee to discover his villanous minde and mingling threats with amorous words shewed me what paine and torment he had suffered for my sake But the Gods that never faile to strengthen them that carrie an honest mind gave me sufficient power to resist his treacherous temptations and by contempt of death to preferre an honest same before a shamefull life And when he perceived that I would neither bee enti◅ed with his amorous words nor terrified with his threats of death he altered his course and assured mee if I would not consent to his will hee would put a slave naked into my bedde and after he had killed us both he would make it knowne to the world that hee found us in adultery Then the feare of perpetuall shame and infamie to me and to all you my kinsfolkes prevailing more with me than the terror of death though my heart consented not my body yeelded to fulfill his lust And albeit I absolve my selfe of the fault yet I wil not remit to my selfe the paines of death lest any matron of Rome should hereafter take occasion by mine example to live when her honour is lost When shee had thus spoken and taken them all by the hand requiring them as they were men not to suffer this villany which reached also to them to passe unrevenged whilest they were cōforting of her and advising her not to take the matter so grievously seeing there was no fault where the heart consented not she tooke out a knife which shee had secretly hidden under her clothes and thrust it into her heart Then was there great cries lamentation by her husband and friends and Brutus one of them perceiving her dead drew the knife out of her body and kissing the same did solemnly sweare by the bloud of that modest woman he would not suffer that injurie to goe unrevenged nor that any king hereafter should reigne over the people of Rome whereunto when the rest condescended he carried the dead body into the market place and perswaded the yong men to joyne with him in revenge of this abhominable act and to expell their king wherunto they easily agreed armed themselves and would not suffer the king not any of his to enter any more into the citie and erected a new State translating the government from a Monarchy to a common wealth Thus by the incestuous act of this yong man Tarquinius lost his kingdome from himselfe and his posteritie By the like occasion of a libidinous desire after certaine yeares that the Romanes had changed their governement of two Consuls to ten principall men they returned it backe againe from them to two Consuls For Appius Claudius one of the ten governors was so extremely enamoured upon a yong virgin that was contracted to a yong Gentleman that when hee saw shee would not be enti◅ed with his faire promises and gifts he entered into a most odious wicked practice Hee caused a yong man that he had brought up as shee went forth of her fathers house into the towne who was then in the warres to challenge her for his slave and to bring her before him as hee sate in judgement that hee by adjudging her to him might by that meanes have his will of her This man according to his instructions claimed her openly in the Court and sayd that she was borne in his house and stolen from him and conveyed to the house of Virginius who falsely tooke upon him to be her father which hee offered to prove before him and desired justice that he might have his slave restored to him againe There was a great concourse of people to see the end of this tragedy and much murmuring against Appius whose wicked purpose they began to conjecture And as her friends desired him that for as much as her father was absent in service of the common-wealth the matter might bee stayed untill his returne Appius answered that he was contented to deferre judgement untill the next day yet so as he that challenged her might receive no prejudice which would be if he should lose the possession of her and therefore hee would take order that hee should put in sufficient suretie to bring the damsell in place againe when her father was come and then hee would judge her to him that should have best right At these words he that should be her husband pressed to come neare to lay hold upon his wife but beeing kept out by Appius commandement hee cried out upon his unjust sentence and told him hee would rather dye than suffer his wife to be taken from him and after many hot words Appius
with charge to foresee that shee might come alive into his power meaning to preserve her for his triumph But after he had talked with Cleopatra and perceived that shee would not let him into her sepulchre hee caused ladders to bee set to to the window where Antonius came in to her and whilest another held her in talke he with two of his servants conveyed themselves secretly into the sepulchre Then one of the women crying out oh unhappy Cleopatra thou arttaken alive she turned about espying 〈◊〉 took a sword which she had ready and offering to kill her selfe he steppeth hastily to her and layd hold upon the sword told her that shee did wrong to her selfe to Casar that went about to take away the occasion from that milde and mercifull Prince to shew her favour When they had gotten her out of the sepulchre after a few daies Caesar came to see her of whom she obtained leave to celebrate the funerals of Antonius after her owne minde And when shee had prepared things ready to bury him with such pomp as the time then served she with some other of her favorites came to the sepulchre bowing down toward the ground O my friend Antonie quoth shee I buried thee not long sithence with free hands but now I do sacrifice to thee a captive under safe custodie lest this slaves body should perish by weeping and lamenting which is preserved to none other purpose but to triumph over thee Thou must look for none other sacrifice nor honours for these be the last thou must have of Cleopatra whilst wee lived no force was able to separate us but now that wee are dead it is to bee doubted lest wee shall change places that thou a Romane shalt lye in Egypt and I an Egyptian in Italie But if the Goddesse there be of any power or vertue suffer me not to be led away alive nor to triumph over thee but receive me to thee into this tombe For of an infinite number of miseries wherewith I wretched woman am oppressed there is none so great or grievous to me as this little time that I have lived without thee After she had thus bemoned her selfe with him and embraced the tombe with many teates shee went to her dinner that was provided for her very sumptuously After shee had dined and sent letters to Caesar shee avoyded all other from her and went into the sepulchre with the two women onely and shut fast the doore As Caesar was reading her letters wherein shee bewayling her estate made lamentable petition to him that she might be buried with Antonius he mistrusting as the truth was that shee had determined to destroy her selfe sent presently to stay it if it were possible The messengers hastening them to the sepulchre found the watchmen there mistrusting no such matter But when they had broken up the door they found Cleopatra dead laid in a bed of gold attired like a Queen one of the women lying dead at her feet the other halfe dead was putting the Crowne upon the Queenes head and being asked whether this were well done Yea said she very well done and as best becommeth the progenie of so many Kings and therwith fell downe dead The fame went diversly of the manner of her death Some said it was by a venemous worme called Aspis which was brought unto her among the leaves of a fig-tree The desire of the like fleshly pleasure was the destruction of Spain which the Paynims recovered from the Christians For in the Reigne of King Roderick there was a Prince in Spain called Iulian Earle of Cepta who had a daughter of excellent beautie wisedome called Caba this damsell being sent to the Court to attend upon the Queen the King fell so extremely in love with her that perceiving shee would not be enticed to agree to satisfie his inordinate desire he took her away by force and defloured her in his Palace The which when Count Iulian understood hee received thereof such griefe that hee determined to revenge so great an injurie upon the Kings owne person But dissembling the matter that hee might have the better opportunity when the King sent him with an armie to make warre upon the Moores who then invaded the borders of Spaine hee practised with the King of the Moores to send over an Armie promising to bring all Spaine under his obedience which being done the Moores with the Counts ayd joyned in battell with King Roderick and after great spoyle done to the country overthrew him with all his nobilitie and armie so as the King could never after bee found quicke or dead and the Moores not long after became masters of all Spaine CHAP. IIII. Lust the occasion of many mischiefes and unnaturall acts Instanced by Hyppolitus Cardinall of Este And Galeace a Gentleman of Mantua Of Pyramus and Thysbe Histories of men made ridiculous by dotage The miserable end of Abusahid King of Fez and others Stories of lascivious Friers and a Parish Priest Of the Tyrant Aristotimus The 〈◊〉 love of Antiochus sonne to King Seleucus Of Charles the sixth King of France Of the Emperour Commodus And that in voluptuousnesse no felicitie can consist WHen men let loose the reines of their affections and suffer themselves to bee overcome with amorous passions neither feare of God nor respect of men nor regard to their own safetie for the most part restraineth them from attempting all manner of impieties to effectuate their dissolute desires Such passions excited Hyppolitus Cardinall of Este to commit a most cruell and unnaturall act against his owne brother This Cardinall or rather carnall and his brother were both extremely in love with one woman and perceiving that shee affected his brother more than him hee asked her the cause she confessed that the beauty of his eyes allured her liking more than all the rest The Cardinall departing in a great fury watching for opportunitie found his brother on a time a hunting and compassing him about with his followers made him alight from his horse and caused his footmen to pluck his brothers eyes out of his head hee beholding the matter whilst it was doing contrary to all humanitie Nonbenecum sociis regna Venusque manent Kingdomes and Concubines brook no competitors That act was no more wicked than this was foolish Galeace a Gentleman of Mantua courting a damself with whom he was in love as they stood upon a bridge said that he would suffer a thousand deaths for her service if it were possible She in jest commanded him to cast himselfe into the River which hee presently did and was drowned The like fond love brought Pyramus and Thisbe a young man and maid to the like end These two young folkes were exceedingly in love together and perceiving that by the suspicion of their parents they could not satisfie their desires they agreed upon a certaine day to meete in a place afer off where Thisbe chancing first to come
voyce O Solon Solon which when Cyrus heard marvelling at that 〈◊〉 cry asked what he meant in such wofull sort to redouble his voyce I lived quoth Croesus not long sithence in great prosperitie was accounted the richest king of the world and as Solon one of the sages of Greece my familiar friend came to visit mee I brought him into my Treasury and shewing him all my Riches I asked him whether hee thought that any adverse fortune could have any power upon mee that was so armed and fortified with Treasure against all accidents that might happen But Solon sharpely reprehending mee for my vaine speech answered that no man could bee accounted happy untill after his death whose counsell now seeing my selfe falne into this miserable estate commeth to my remembrance and maketh mee call upon his name Cyrus moved with compassion and by his example considering with himselfe the uncertaintie of humane matters and that Fortune never gave any man that power over others but shee threatned him with the like caused him to be taken from the fire and asked Croesus as he kneeled before him by whose perswasion he began this warre O Cyrus quoth hee thy prosperous fortune and my evill destiny brought mee to it chiefly encouraged to make this warre upon thee by the Grecians god For who is so madde that without such a principall author dare preferre warre before peace seeing that in peace the children use to bury their parents but in warre the parents bury their children Cyrus marvelling at his constancie and wisedome pardoned his life and used him ever after with great honour for his counsellor Croesus sent messengers with the chaines with which he was bound to Delphos to be dedicated to the god Apollo to expostulate with him for deceiving him and to aske if these were their rewards which had the gods in so great reverence Answer was made by the Oracle that whatsoever was fatall was inevitable to the gods themselves That Croesus was thus punished for the offence of his grandfather Gyges that slew Candaules king of the Lydians And as touching the Oracle that it was not to bee reproved for a lye having expressed his meaning in plaine termes that if Croesus by the greedie desire to enlarge his dominion would make warre upon the Persians he should destroy a great kingdom which was the kingdom of Lydia and it so came to passe Kings and Cities through riches have lost great dominion which they that have been poore have wonne by vertue The lamentation made by the Tragicall Poet under the person of Hecuba upon the ruine of Troy setteth forth not unaptly the uncertaintie of high estate and the miserie of them who are puffed up in pride through abundance of riches wherein they put their felicitie Quicunque regno fidit magna potens dominatur aula Animumque rebus creduluâ—… let is dedit Me â—…deat te Troia non unquam tulit Documenta fo rs majora quà m fragili loco Starent Superbs He that his confidence puts in a Crowne Or in his Palace potently doth frowne And takes in prosperous fortunes all his joy Let him but looke on thee and mee oh Troy Chance by no greater influence could declare In what a fickle state all proud things are This Gyges that the god as they called him spake of was subject to Candaules king of Lydia who having a wife of a wonderful beautie and favour thought himselfe to want something of the fulnesse of the pleasure hee tooke in her except some other might also bee an eye-witnesse and see the beautie and comelinesse of her person Gyges being one that he greatly favoured hee discovered his intent to him made him stand secretly behind a cloth in his bed chamber when the Queene came to bed that he might see her naked when she had stripped her selfe out of her clothes ready to go to bed having discovered those parts mistrusting nothing which modestie and shame would have kept secret Gyges sheweth himselfe to her whom when she had espied and perceived the treachery she was in a great agony and conceived a deadly displeasure against the king her husband And within few dayes after she called Gyges secretly to her and intimating to him the griefâ—… 〈◊〉 had taken by this shamefull practice of the king shee told him that either he must kill the king or suffer death himselfe If Gyges would kill her husband she would marrie him and make him King of Lydia Gyges whether for feare of his owne life or through an ambitious desire to raigne by the helpe of the Divell made a ring of that vertue that whensoever he put the seale to the palme of his hand hee should be invisible And aspiring to the kingdome of Lydia by meanes of the ring hee killed the King Candaules and all those whom he thought might bee any hinderance or obstacle to his purpose they falling downe dead but no man seeing who flew them and marryed the Queene and became King Crassus an exceeding rich Romane after the manner of rich men not content with that unmeasurable riches hee possessed but desirous of more procured himselfe to bee made generall of the Romanes army in the warres against the Parthians being then three score yeares old where he was overthrowne and slaine with his sonne and almost all the army of the Romanes And to give him the greater disgrace the Parthians caused his mouth to bee filled full of gold with these words Thou hast thirsted after gold now take thy fill This Crassus was used to say that no man was to bee accounted rich except hee could maintaine an army of men with his owne goods But the pride and presumptuousnesse engendâ—…ed by riches in the Heathens is not so much to bee marvelled at if wee consider the prncipall Prolates of the Christians from whom examples of humilitie and contempt of worldly wealth should proceed who have bin carried away from their profession by the infection of that disease Saint Bernard inveighing not without cause against the vaine and superfluous pompe of the Prelates in his time which grew by the abuse of their abundance of riches who were not so much corrupted as they have beene since painted them out in their right colours and complaineth thus There is quoth he an infamous and defiled sort of men that raigne in the whole body of the Church the Ministers of Iesus Christ serve Antichrist They jet up and downe in great honour and pompe with the Lords goods but they give no honour to the Lord. And that is the whores attire which ye see every day carried about Their saddles bridles and spurres be guilt the furniture of their feet is set out with more pride and pompe than the Temple of God Their spurs be better guilt than their Altars Hereof it commeth that their tables be so sumptuous and furnished with delicate meates their rich cupboords of plate from thence commeth their gluttony and drunkennesse and harmony
cares determined to alter the course of his former life and give himselfe to contemplation Hee used often to goe alone up to the top of a hill that joyned to the Citie of Abderita where hee would kill dogs and calves rip them up make Anatomie of them ever as hee saw how aptly nature had compact the intrailes members together to serve the necessary uses of the creature he would fall into a great laughing Hee used this so often that the Senatours marvelling what he meant to goe so much up this hill sent one secretly after him to watch what he did This fellow beholding covertly his manner how he cut up dogs and calves and laughed at he knew not what brought word to the Senatours what hee had seene They supposing him to be mad or become foolish were very sorry and lamented his case to one of the Sages or Philosophers of Greece that was newly come to Towne They told him what a great losse they had of so grave and wise a Senatour that was now become a foole and desired him to examine the cause of his sudden alteration and to perswade him if he could to leave off those foolish manners to reduce him againe to his former gravitie and course of life This man watched when hee went up the hil and followed secretly after And when hee had beheld him a while quartering his dogs and laughing after his usuall manner he came to him reprehending him for his laughing admonished him to recall himselfe to his former gravitie Democritus after he had ended his perswasions leadeth him to the side of the hill where they might looke into the Citie and Countrey round about Now quoth he imagine that you see all things that are done within the Citie Look saith he what familiaritie is between that young man and the young woman you see which is yonder old mans wife there is a bargaine making to set a paire of hornes on the old mans head And doe you see yonder two fellowes how they watch for the plaine man 〈◊〉 travelleth about his businesse to kill him and to take his purse And look on the other side how that young man that married yonder old woman for her goods provideth a drink to dispatch her that he may marry a young woman At the end of everie of these questions Democritus after his usuall manner would fall into a great laughing When he had ministred divers of these kinde of questions whereby he noted the ordinarie vices and lewd behaviour of many which were too common in Cities and other places where is much concourse of people as though they had beheld them in action Is there any man quoth hee that seeth these things that can forbeare to laugh After this man that was sent by the Senatours had some farther discourse with Democritus hee returned to them who hoping that hee had perswaded him to bee of another minde made haste to meet him and were desirous to know what had passed between them You are deceived quoth he in Democritus that think him to be mad or foolish for he is only wise and all you be fooles He withdraweth not himselfe from the companie of you and others because hee is out of his right mind but hee looketh into the vanities of the world with a sound and upright judgment and hath in contempt this worldly wealth honours pompe esteeming those things as the frumps of fortune which ye exalt above the skies and take for felicitie and giveth himselfe to the studie of Philosophie and contemplation of the works of God wherein consisteth the true felicitie Diogenes after his accustomed scoffing manner which hee used to reprehend vice and to draw men from over-much care and estimation of worldly matters for there is no cause to let men from speaking the truth though in jest on a time as hee sate in his tub upon the side of the hill that looketh into the Citie of Syracusa which was situate at the foot of the hill beholding every man occupied in ramming up their gates and preparing things necessarie for defence of their Citie against their enemies that were comming to besiege it hee rolled his tub from the top of the hill to the bottome and from thence up to the top againe and then overthwart the hill from one side to another and being asked what he meant to labour so hard Look quoth he what a stir yonder is pointing downe to the towne it is no reason that I be idle when my Citizens are so occupied By which scoffe hee would give men to understand what advantage they had that conâ—…ed themselves with a meane estate that is voyd of all feare and danger and free from the uncertaine accidents of wavering fortune over them that live in abundance of worldly wealth honours alwaies subject to a world of misadventures not only of the losse of that they possesse esteem for their felicity but of their lives also of them that be most deare to them Of whom riches is greatly esteemed he is neither beloved of vertue nor of God neither can that man attaine to divine things that hath not rejected the delights of money and of the body Byas one of the Sages of Greece when the towne was wonne by their enemies and leave given to every man to carry his goods away with him Byas being met carrying nothing whereas all others were throughly laden and asked why he carried not his goods as all other men did theirs I carry quoth he all my goods with me accounting nothing appertaining to him but the goods and gifts of his minde as the Poet saith Divitias animi solas egojudico verâ—… Qui rebus pluris se facit ipse suis Those the true Riches of the minde I count When men thinke They their Riches far surmount The mention of this Byas bringeth to my remembrance a notable example of modestie and contempt of riches shewed by the seven Sages or wise men of Greece whereof Byas was one As certain Fishers were drawing their nets to land one bought their draught at adventure not yet knowne what was within them It chanced them to draw up enclosed within their nets a table of gold of great weight and value The Fishers desirous to reserve to themselves the golden table said that they sold only the fish the other affirmed he bought the fortune The contention grew so vehement that the matter was brought before the people of the Citie to give their censure They considering the strangenesse of the matter and the great value of the thing referred the judgement to their god Apollo at Delphos And when answer was made by the Oracle that he that excelled all others in wisdome should have the table they gave it with a general consent to Thales one of the Sages he sent it to Byas Byas sent it to Pittacus he to another and so passing through the hands of all the seven Sages it came
this fearefull dreame he asked 〈◊〉 friend of his whether he knew in all his domâ—…on 〈◊〉 man called Phocas He answered that there was a 〈◊〉 man of that name in his army in Illyria And desirous to know the cause why hee enquired so 〈◊〉 for such a man the Emperour told him his dreame You 〈◊〉 not quoth the other feare any such matter in him for besides that hee is a man of meane estate and 〈◊〉 condition hee is also taken for a cowâ—…d Hee will bee quoth the Emperour the more cruell for that It chaâ—…ced that this phoâ—… was advanced from one degâ—… to another untill hee became the principall man of the whole army at such time as the people of Constantinople other places were in greâ—… mislike with the Emperour for his covetousnes By which 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of Illyria chose phâ—…cas for their generall to condust them to Constantinople against their Emperour where according to his dreaâ—…e he killed the Emperouâ—… his wife his five children and was his 〈◊〉 in the Empire And afterward being 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 for so horrible a murder Phocas sent to the Bishop of Rome that if he would abâ—…olve him of that crime hee would give him the Supremacy over all other Bishops and make him head of the Church which the Bishop did and here began his authoritie over other Bishops But this high title added to the large possessions great riches of that Church hath wrought that effect as all men know and was notably presaged by some supernaturall power as it seemeth in a prodigious sort For at the time that Constantine the great if it bee true that some authours report gave to Sylvester the first then Bishop of Rome and to his Successors the City of Rome with the Emperours Palace called Lateran and divers other Cities and Provinces in Italie there was seene an hand without any body writing upon the wall of the Lateran much people being present reading it these words Hodie venenum Eâ—…lesie infusurus est Some say a voyce was heard from heaven This day he will powre poyson into the Church Sithence which time the Popes have usurped such soveraignty over the Emperours that they pronounce themselves to bee greater than the Emperours and so much greater as the Sunne is greater than the Moone that is sixe thousand sixe hundred fortie and five times and somwhat more pretending also a title to the Empire in the vacancie saying That the Emperour holdeth the Imperial crown of men but the Pope holdeth of God as though they knew not that all power coÌ„meth from God And what was it but the love and desire of riches that made the Popes kindle the fire of Purgatorie knowing that money cannot be coined without fire and a furnace They that thinke externall goods saith Aristotle to be the cause of happinesse deceive themselves no lesse than if they supposed cunning playing on the Herpe came from the instrument and not from the art For as a body is not said to bee perfect because it is richly arrayed but rather because it is well proportioned and healthfull so the mind well instructed is the cause that both her selfe and the body are happy Which cannot be said of a man because he is rich in gold and silver It is not possible saith Plato that a man should bee good indeed and very rich both at one time but he may wel be happy good both together And to say that a rich man is happy because he is rich is foolish and childish and unhappy are they that beleeve it Beleeve me saith Seneca thou canst not be rich and happy And this propertie is joyned to the riches and possessions of this world that seldome it happeneth to men long to enjoy those goods which with much travel they have gotten The labour to get them is long but their use short And he that taketh greatest pains to gather them hath oftentimes least use and pleasure of them And hee it is that thinketh himselfe most happy by having them whose body is charged with vice and heart laden with cares They bring pride to those that have them covetousnesse to get them care to keepe them and finne to enjoy them And those goods that are gotten by shift are for the most part lost with shame For it falleth out by daily experience that what the wicked father getteth with care and sorrow the unthrifty sonne wasteth with pleasure and negligence And the wicked children inher it the worst of the fathers that is Riches and are dis-inherited of the best which are Vertnes Riches saith one and honestie seldome dwell together under one roofe And yet what is more coÌ„monly said He is an honest man for he is worth five hundred pounds or a thousand pounds as though it were a strong argument to prove a man honest because hee is rich Which by the opinion of these and other wise and learned men and by daily experience falleth out for the most part cleane contrary I have great possessions saith Menander all men call me rich but no man calleth me happy but hee that is rich Men said Thales are by nature inclined to vertue but riches allure them to vice and in stead of happinesse they bring care and sorrow And as they that are sicke of the dropsie the more they drinke the thirstier they are so the more men abound in riches the more they desire to have Povertie is the nurse of vertues and riches of vices Democritus was wont to say to him that desireth not riches a little wil seeme much for the desire of small matters maketh men rich Which agreeth with the Poet Qui nibil affectat mirum omnia possidet ille He that covets nothing possesseth all things For no man ought to esteeme himselfe happy for that he hath more than others or that for the same hee is esteemed more worthy of honour though hee bee lifted up with a wind of vaine glorie by men of little vertue for his power and patrimonie if he look throughly into the matter he shall find himselfe the slave of his own riches For little availeth it to happinesse to have large territories great store of land and sumptuous houses richly furnished and to have his minde oppressed with cares and his desires corrupted with coverousnesseâ—… which bringeth infamy to the owner and little goodnes to the necessitie of life Socrates to one that said It were a great thing if a man might have all things that he desired answered But it were much greater not to desire at all He that will make himselfe rich must not adde more money to that he hath but must decrease and diminish his desire of having and thinke that it is all one to have and not to desire For it is no paine to lacke but to him that hath a desire to have And this among other evils is incident to rich men who having gotten reputation or honour by their riches
scumme of the sea men without fathers and restlesse men that could stay no where to labor for their living Though the pretence of the Spaniards travell into these new found lands were to plant Christianitie among these rude people and to reduce them to the knowledge of God yet the infinit number of thousands of people which through their cruelty and covetousnesse they have there destroied in eight and forty yeere twentie millions as appeareth by their owne histories argueth plainely and is confirmed by this example following that the greedy unsatiable desire of gold and riches was the cause that drew them to undertake those painefull and dangerous travailes Which covetousnesse crueltie of theirs was a great hinderance to the planting of Religion there â—…Ferdinando Sotos a Spaniard went to Florida to seeke gold but being in a great rage and griefe because he could not there find that hee looked for he exercised great cruelty among those barbarous people It chanced that a Prince of that country came to see him presented him with two Parrots and plumes of feathers after their first salutations ended the Prince asked the Spaniard who he was and from whence he came and what he sought in these countries committing dayly so many and so great cruelties and wicked acts Sotos answered him by an interpreter that hee was a Christian the sonne of God the creatour of heaven and earth that his comming thither was to instruct those people in the knowledge of his law If thy God sayd the Prince command thâ—… to run over other mens countries robbing burning killing and omitting no kind of wickednesse we tell you in few words that we can neither beleeve in him nor in his lawes Of these greedy covetous men the Prophet Esay speaketh thus Wâ—…e be to you that joyne house to house and field to field till there be no more ground Will you dwell upon the earth alone The love of money made the French king 〈◊〉 the eleventh subject to obloquie by his niggardly sparing unseemely for a Prince without respect to his estate For having driven almost all the Gentlemen out of his Court hee was served with his taylor for all his Horaulds of armes his Barbor was his Ambassador his Physician was his Chancellour and for a mockerie of other kings he would weare a greazy cap of very course cloth and in his accounts were found twenty soâ—…s for two new sleeves to his old doublet and fifteene deniers for grease to greaze his bootes Horace reporteth of a man at Rome called Ovid so rich in money that hee might measure his gold by the bushell and yet he went almost starke naked for niggardlinesse never would fill himselfe halfe full of meat Insomuch that he lived poorely to dye rich Of such the Poet cryeth out not without cause Sed quò divitias tbt per torment a coactâ—… Cum furor haud dubius cum sit manifesta phrenesis Vt locuples moriare egenti vivere viverefato What meane these Riches by such torments got And infinite paines A madnesse is 't not A phrensey manifest it doth implye Penuriously to live richly to dye By this which hath bin sayd it is manifest that mans felicitie and his summoâ—… bonum or greatest good consisteth not in riches For who if hee be not senselesse desireth riches for it selfe but for some other thing Some for lascivious some for sumptuous others for profitable and necessary expences Which things if they might bee had without money no man would desire or care for riches Neither can riches be the common end of men seeing some have great plenty and others extreme want and poverty which have also their estimation by opinion Some calling gold and silver others pearles and precious stones others trifling things riches like little children that set their riches in pinnes and puppets But he that putteth not mans felicitie in himselfe and â—…nis nis owne matters doth like unto him that estimatethâ—… sword by his scabbard or a horse by his saddle and furniture Neither can we call that Summum bonum or the greatest good which is no good at all and is common both to good men and wicked which also make more men worse than better And how can riches be the principall end of man that withdraweth men for the most part from the true end of all things which is God For we see plainly that there is not a more compendious way to alienate a mans minde from God than to wallow in worldly wealth So that mans felicitie or Summum bonum must bee sought in some other thing than in riches For God placed not man in this world to seeke after earthly things neither that he should find the end of his desires in the scurfe of the earth Which one remembreth thus Memento rebus vanidis diffidere Opes genus formâ—… decor caduca sunt Ad ossa nuda mors reducit omnia Coelo repostus optimus thesaurus est In vaine things see no confidence thou hast For neither wealth nor birth nor shape can last To strippe us to the bone Death followes fast 'T is the best treasure that in Heaven is plac't THE FELICITIE OF MAN OR HIS SUMMUM BONUM THE THIRD BOOKâ—… CHAP. I. Of Cineas the Philosopher and King Pyrrhus Ambition the subversion of Kingdomes and Empires It engenders Parricides Instanced by Adolphus Duke of Geldria Selim the great Turke Henry the first Emperour and Solyman The ambition of Snio King of Denmarke Semiramis Iane Queene of Naples The Empresse Irene Bassianns the sonnes of Pope Alexander the sixth with sundry Histories both domestical and forreigne to that purpose The death of Pertinax Emperour And Didius Iulianus who bought the Romane Empire Dâ—…uers chances and changes in warre Histories of others unmilling to undergâ—…e the Empire HOnour and glory is another thing which men labour to aâ—…taine as though felicitie or the greatest good should consist therein But this is an erronious opinion and they greatly deceived that hold it For men desire honour and glory because they would seeme to bee â—…cndued with vertue by which they confesse that vertue is to be preferred before glory honour And honour is given as we see by dayly experience by man many times taken away againe by them that gave it But that wherein felicitie consisteth is a thing more stedfast and not so easily removed nor subject to the variable accidents of fortune Honour is gotten with much labour maintained with great exponces and lost with intolerable griefe and sorrow It is likened to a mans shadow which the more hee runneth after the more it flieth away and when he flieth from his shadow it followeth him againe as one saith Qui fugit honorem eum sequitur honos Honour followeth him that flieth from it Who is more honoured now than Christs Apostles Saint Peter Saint Paul and the like that despised honour when they lived Of all the disordered passions where with mens minds
are vexed there is no one that troubleth and disquieteth them more than ambition and desire of honour They never content themselves with that which they have gotten but their minds are alwayes imployed in devising how to get more It is a hard thing saith Saint Augustine for him that is placed in high estate not to desire great matters Alexander the Great when hee heard a Philosopher disputing of many worlds besides this fell into a weeping as though some great cause of griefe had happened to him and being asked why he wept Because quoth he I heare of many worlds and I have not yet conquered one whole world But he that hath felicity is content with that he hath and desireth no more He is free from all perturbations and unquietnesse of mind and thinketh no man in better estate than himselfe otherwise he cannot bee accounted happie Which thing was by Cineas a verie wise man aptly given to understand to King Pyrrhus that intended great warres to enâ—…ge his dominâ—… For considering with himselfe how peaceably and happily Pyrrhus might live if he could be content with his owne kingdome as they had conference 〈◊〉 about his intended enterprise to 〈◊〉 waâ—… upon Iâ—…ly If Sir quoth Cineas the gods shew us this favour to conquer Italy what good shall wee reape by the victorie Wee may afterward sayd Byâ—… with 〈◊〉 great difficultie subdue the Greciaâ—… and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that border upon that countrie When this quoth the other is done what shall we doe then Sâ—…ilia quoth Pyrrhus will not then stand against us Shall that be the end of our waâ—…res sayd 〈◊〉 Whâ—… will stay 〈◊〉 â—…ter quoth this Monarke from passing into Afriâ—… and Carthage and from the recovery of the Kingdome of Macedon that so we may command at 〈◊〉 pleasure all Greece 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brought all this to passe what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pyrrhus beginning to smile We will quoth hâ—… my friend give our selves to rest and live as pleatâ—…ntly and merrily as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where he desired And what Sir quoth he letâ—… 〈◊〉 from rest at this present and from living in joy pleasure seeing wee have all things requiâ—… oâ—… seâ—…king it with so much effusion of bloud and an insâ—…ire number of perâ—… and dangers and 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where it is uncertaine whether we shall find it These speeches rather offended Pyrrhus that was carried away with the vehement passion of ambition than any thing diffwaded him from his violâ—…t purâ—…â—…d 〈◊〉 which in the end 〈◊〉 his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by feeding of his ambitious humout in â—…ing 〈◊〉 hee was at last laine with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his head by a woman and so lost his life and his kingdome which hee might quietly have possessed And this is the common course of the world not onely among Princes and Potentates but also among men of meane estate alwayes to aspire and desire more according to the Emperour Charles the fifths word Plus ultra to whom sometime it happeneth as it did to Esops dogge that snatching at the shadow lost the peece of meat which he had in his mouth The ambitious humour of this King that aspired to a Monarchie of many countries and kingdomes putteth mee in mind of a pretty taunt given of late yeares to the Spaniards for the like ambition A Germane writeth a booke to his countrey-men wherein hee doth perswade them to beware they bee not entrapped by the Spaniards alledging many reasons that they aspire to the Monarchy of Germanie and that they let not openly to speake that the Monarchy of the world is due to them from God and by right One writeth in the margent Hispanis monarchia divinitâ—…s sed in Vtopia debetur A monarchy is due to the Spaniâ—…ds from above but in Vtopia There is not a more dangerous passion or affection nor that hath beene the cause of greater mischiefe than ambition and desire of honour which hath beene the utter ruine and subversion of many Kingdomes and Common-wealths and the destruction of them in whom this humour hath raigned And yet many times the worthiest men and those that are â—…ndued with excellent gifts are most subject to this passion For loftie mindes naturally have an earnest desire to excell others and to bring that to passe they forbeare not to attempt any thing whether it bee right or wrong for hee is easily â—…raen to unjust things that is deâ—…ous of glory As 〈◊〉 Casar had usually in his mouth this saying of To attâ—…ne to rule and principalitie which is as it were the subject of honour glorie there is no dutie respected nor naturall affection can beare any sway or restraine or bridle the unruly and violent passions neither betweene parents and their children betweene husband and wife nor betweene â—…thren or kinsfolke They that have suffered themselves to be overcome with this passion have made shipwrack of all godlinesse of modestie of honestie and of humanitie it selfe But meere madnesse it is to desire that honour and glory that neither contenteth the 〈◊〉 nor continueth with the possessor nor is voyd of great dangers both in this life and in the life to come and is thus threatned in the Scripture most severe judgement shal be used upon those over others The meane man shall obtaine mercie but the great and strong shall suffer torments strongly Adolphus Duke of Geldria did leade his father in the night when he was going to sleep five of their miles in the deep of Winter without shoes to a most vile prison where he kept him halfe a yeare in the end whereof for feare of the Emperour and the Pope hee let him forth And when reasonable conditions were offered by the Arbitrators which had the hearing of their cause he sayd rather than he would yeeld to those conditions hee would cast his father headlong into a well and throw himselfe after An undutifull saying of an unnatural sonne Selym the great Turke and first of that name usurped the Empire by favour of the â—…zaries upon his father Bajazet and caused him to bee poysoned and slue Aâ—…mat and Corcâ—…the his two elder brothers with all his Nephewes and others of Ottemans race saying that nothing was more pleasant than to raigne when all seare of kindred was taken away Henry the fifth deprived his father by force from the Empire and caused him to dye miserably in prison Frederiche the third after he had raigned thirty yeares was miâ—…rably slaine by Manfroy his bastard sonne who after he had committed this parricide he poysoned his brother Câ—… lawfull inheritour to â—…redericke that hee might make himselfe King of Naples salyâ—… King of the Turkes hearing the acclamations and cryes which the army made to Sultan 〈◊〉 his eldest son for joy of his 〈◊〉 from Persia jealous of his owne estate caused him to be strangled in his utter chamber and cast out to the army with these words to bee cryed aloud
and lamentatior Such as appertained to the conspiratours deceived by the conâ—…ed cries and lamentation brought tydings to the rest that the king had killed himselfe Whereupon they galloped thither as fast as they could such followed after as they had chosen to bee ministers of their mischiefe When Bessus and Nabarzanes were entred into the kings pavilion hearing by his Eunuchs that he was alive they commanded him to be bound Thus he which before was carried in a chariot and honoured of his men like a god was made prisoner by his owne servants put into a vile cart covered over with beasts skins His men understanding how the matter passed all forsooke him But to the intent that Darius should not wâ—…nt such honour as was due to his estate they cauâ—…ed him to be bound with golden â—…tters Such were the despites that his fortune made him subject unto And for that he should not be knowne by his apparell they covered his chariot with foule hides of beasts and câ—…sed unknowne men to drive it forwards Newes being brought to Alexander that Darius was forsaken of his owne men and either taken prisoner or slaine hee followeth after him as speedily as he could And when he was come so neere them that the Macedons saw the Persians flying and the Persians the Macedons purâ—…ing them Bessus and other of his complices came to the cart where Darius was and perswaded him to leape on horâ—…backe and flie from his enemies that were at handâ—… but he crying out that the gods were come to his revenge and calling for the assistance of Alexander sayd that in no wise hee would goe with traitors wherewith they being exceeding angry threw dâ—…s at him and left him wounded in many places of his body they thrust in the beasts also that drew the cart that they might not be able to goe forward and slue his two servants that did waite upon him and flâ—…d to save themselves Within a while after the beasts that drew Darius wagon having no man to governe them were swarved out of the high-way and wandring here and there had drawne Darius foure â—…rlongs from the place where he was wounded into a valley where they fainted by reason of their heate and hurts And as Polistratus a Macedon came that way to drinke of a spring being overcome with thirst he espied as he was drinking out of an helmet the beasts that were thrust in with darts and looking into the foule cart he found the body of a man halfe dead and at length hee perceived it was Darius that lay there sore wounded gasping for breath Then hee brought him to a Persian that hee had taken prisoner whom when Darius knew by his voyce to be of his country hee tooke it for a comfort of his present fortune that he should speake before he died to one that understood him and not â—…ter his last words in vaine he required him to declare unto Alexander that though hee had never deserved any thing at his hands yet it was his chance to dye greatly his debtour and had great thankes to give him for the favour and goodnesse he had shewed to his mother his wife and children to whom hee had not onely granted life but also the reverence of their former estate and dignity whereas he of his kinsmen friends to whom he had given both life and lands was now by them bereaved of all He prayed therfore that he might alwaies be victor that the Empire of the whole world might 〈◊〉 into his hands requiring him that he would not neglect to revenge so soule an act not onely for his cause but for an example the love of other Princes which should be a thing honourable to him and profitable in time to come When hee had spoken these words hee fainted and calling for water after he had drunke sayd to Polistratus that presented it to him whatsoever thou art this is unto me the last misery in all my adverse fortune that I am not able to require thee this benefit but Alexander shall reward thee and the gods shall require him for his great humanity and clemencie shewed towards mine unto whom in my behalfe thou shalt give my hand as a pledge of a kings promise And having spoken these words and given to Polistratus his hand he dyed When his sayings were reported to Alexander hee repaired where the dead corps lay and there bewayled with teares that it was his chance to dye a death so unworthy of so great an estate taking off his owne cloake to cover the dead corps adorning also the same with all things that appertained to a king he sent it to his mother to be buried in such sort as the countâ—…ie manner was to bury kings and to be layd among the rest of his predecessours This was the miserable end of this mighty monarch which may be an example to all estates that fâ—…licitie consisteth not in abundance of treasure and glorious dominion wherein this man exceeded all the Princes of his time and which also discovereth the mutable estate of Princes when of the infelicity of the one dependeth the felicitie of the other Which mutability of humane matters the Poet in few words doth well set forth Omnia sunt hominum tenni pendentia filo Et subito casu qua valucre râ—… No man can count himselfe happy at all Whom with suspence blind Fortune doth inthrall And Bessus one of them that murdered Darius for the desire of rule was afterward taken prisoner and committed by Alexander to Darius brother that hee should cut off his nose and eares and hang him upon a crosse causing his owne men to shoot him through with arrowes One sayth that Prince which hath more than all other enjoyeth least of any other for the Prince that possesseth much is alwayes occupied in defending it but the Prince that hath little hath leasure quietly to enjoy it Abraham king of Marocco was driven to such extremity by a preacher called Elmaheli who had raised a power against him and overthrew him in the field that being voyde of all hope of succour hee stale forth of the towne in the night on horsebacke and tooke the Queene his wife behinde him and being come to the top of a high rocke that stood upon the sea coast hee put spurres to his horse and fell downe headlong hee and his Queene tumbling from one place to another untill they were torne in peeces The instability of high dignities and the griefe for the losse of them was effectually set forth by lamentable verses made by a Pope called Baltazar Cossa when hee was thrust out of Saint Peters chaire and cast in prison strangely presaged by the report of Nicholas Clemangie This Pope was a very wicked man being forced from his place assembled neverthelesse a Councell of some few strangers and Italians his favourites wherin consultation was had of some vaine matters nothing appertaining to the utilitie of
they be eyther oppressed or oppresse Of which things the others be free that want that imagined felicitie and the onely evill is that they thinke the lacke thereof to be evill A goodly happines no doubt when for one reputed good thing thou shalt have an infinite number of evils for the shadow of felicity a sea of troubles miseries And what be the fruits of these torments of ambition Thou art saluted in assemblies of people with caps knees art reverenced in feasts with the highest places at the table But thou considerest not that many a wicked and vicious man is ofâ—…imes preferred before thee And wherein doth that help or amend the estate of thy body or mind whereof a man doth consist Thou art of great power dominion if that should be mans end felicitie how coÌ„meth it to passe that one mans power should spring of the impotencie of infinite numbers of others how can that be accounted the greatest good which is not onely converted often into evil but also perverteth them that possess it maketh them worse But admit power dominion to be good one is adored ten thousand make courtesie one triumphs thousands follow the chariot one rules millions obey serve So that one man shal be the end of infinite numbers the felicity of a few the misery of al. But we â—…eck not now the end good of a few but of all men Neither doe these few if wee looke throughly into them possesse it Which the Courtiers themselves even the best sort of them that be in most estimation must needs confesse whose hearts bee more painefully pinched by a sowre looke or sharpe word of their Prince than their eares and eyes can bee pleased and delighted by a thousand flatteries and as many a dorations a whole day together It is not without cause said that the displeasure of the Prince is the death of the subject And Princes themselves feele many times more corzies and unquietnesse of minde by some offence taken within their own wals than any triumph or publike pastime can â—…create or make glad But felicitie is in the matter it selfe and dependeth not either upon the frowning countenance of any person or of fortune it selfe which must be also peâ—…tuall But honourable estate dyeth and is buried with the body And what is honour but a vaine admiration of the common people Ambition therefore is so farre from the right way to that good we seek that the very same thing hath cast us all downe head long from the greatest good into extreme evill and misery Insomuch that if wee desire to find that good we must be driven to seek it in our selves seeing we cannot find it with others nor in these worldly matters In vaine therefore doe wee seeke felicitie in worldly vanities which is to bee found in the service of God which was well observed by the Poet Si 〈◊〉 alies in qualibet arte quid inde Sifaveas 〈◊〉 si prosper a 〈◊〉 quid inde Si prior 〈◊〉 Abbas si Rex si Papa quid inde Si rota fortunate 〈◊〉 ad astra quid inde Annos si felix regâ—…es per 〈◊〉 quid inde Tam cito 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nihil inde Sola inde Ergo Deo servi quia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voles in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corpore 〈◊〉 haberis If that thy house be faire and table 〈◊〉 what then If that thy masse of coyne and gold be great what then If thou hast a faire wife that generous is what then If children and great farmes and nought amisse what then If thou thy selfe beest valiant rich and faire what then If in thy full traine many servants are what then In Arts if thou to others Tutor be what then If fortune like the world shall smile on thee what then If thou beest Prior Abbot King or Pope what then If fortunes wheele raise thee beyond all hope what then If thou shouldst live a thousand years in blisse what then Since that so swift so swift times passage is that then All 's nothing only then by vertue strive That after death thy glory may survive All you that are Gods servants and good men From what 's before said learne this lesson then All these good deeds you to your death deferre Doe when y' are young so shall you no way 〈◊〉 The end of the third Booke THE FELICITIE OF MAN OR HIS SVMMVM BONVM THE FOURTH BOOKE CHAP. I. Aristotle Concerning the Summum bonum with other of the Sâ—…cks Of king Alexander and the Gâ—…rdian 〈◊〉 The excellent effects of Morall vertue Of king Agesilaus and Meneâ—…aus a vertu glorious Physician Of Marcus Regulus Decius Codrus king of Athens Of Tubero and sixe observable Frenchmen Of Marcus Curtius a noble young Gentleman of Rome Of Leonidas king of Sparia who with five hundred men put the Army of Xerxes to â—…ght which consisted of 1000000. WEe have shewed before by many examples and by the opinions and reasons of wise and learned men how much they are deceived that thinke the Felicitie of man to consist in pleasure riches or in worldly honour and glorie Now before wee come to shew what opinion is meete for a Christian to hold of this matter let us first discourse upon one thing wherein the most approved Philosophers Plato and Aristotle held that this Felicitie or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should consist that is in vertue or in the action of vertue The Philosophers entring into consideration of naturall things found that the proper action of every thing was the end for which it was created as the proper action and end of the Sun is to illuminate the earth And in naturall things there are three kindes of life vegetative or increasing which is in plants sensitive which is in beasts rationall or reasonable which is in men So that the life of plants is to grow and increase of beasts to follow the motion of their senses of men to live according to reason after the Philosophers opinion Which reason sheweth a man how to live wel but what it is to live well the Philosophers cannot agree After Aristotle and others it is to live vertuously But because a man is a sociable creature and not borne to himselfe but to be helping to others it is not sufficient for a man to have vertue in him but hee must also exercise and be a doer of vertue And because all our actions and labours bee to some end which end is taken of us to bee good for every man desireth that which hee thinketh to be good for himselfe the last of all ends to which the rest are applyed for which all our labours are and ought to bee bestowed is the most perfect and best of all things that nature desireth and therefore the thing wherein the felicitie of man consisteth For that is desired for no other thing but for it selfe Which after Aristotle is the action of vertue
THe respect the Heathens had to the observation not of one or two but of all morall vertues may make Christians blush to thinke what observers they would have beene of Christian vertues if they had knowne God as we doe Zeleucus made a law among the Locrians that whosoever committed adultery should lose both his eyes it chanced that his sonne was condemned for that crime and determining that the penalty of the law should with severity be inst upon him yet being intreated by the earnest petitioÌ„ of the whole city who in as much as in them was for the honor and reverence of the father forgave the necessity of the punishment of the yong man first caused one of his own eyes and after one of his sonues eyes to be plucked out leaving sight to them both Thus though the rigour of the law was in a sort qualified yet the penalty thereof was by a wonderfull moderation of equitie sufficiently fulfilled dividing himselfe indifferently betweene a mercifull father and a just law-maker Charondas having pacified the seditious assemblies of the people and meaning to provide for the like in time to come made a law that whosoever did enter into the Senate with any weapon should presently bee slaine in processe of time it chauned him to returne to his house from a farre journey out of the countrey having his sword by his side and in the same sort as hee then was forgetting the law upon some present occasion hee went into the Senate and being admonished by one that stood next him that he had broken his owne law not so quoth hee but I will confirme it and immediately drawing his sword and turning the point to his brest hee fell downe upon it and slew himselfe I note not this example because I allow of the fact but that men may see how carefully the heathens observed justice and morall vertues which they preferred before their owne life for when he might easily have excused himselfe by haste and forgetfulnesse yet lest that might bee an occasion to some other with an evill intent to offend the law hee chose rather to warne others by his owne example Iulius Casar caused one of his Captaines to be beheaded because he had dishocoured the mistreste of the house where he lodged without staying for one to accuse him or for her husbands complaint Solyman Emperour of the Turks sent his Bassa into Valona to passe into Italy this man landed at the haven of Castro which so dismayed the inhabitants that they yeelded themselves to him upon his oath and promise that they should depart with bagge and baggage but contrary to his faith he caused them all to be slaine except such as were thought fit to serve for slaves After his returne to Constantinople the great being advertised of his breach of faith caused him to be strangled and sent back all his prisoners with their goods into Italy Among the rare examples of the Heathens we will recite a strange kind of severitie used by Christians out of the Histories of the Switzers The Switzers have a free common-wealth wherof they are very jealous There was a yong man among them that went about to usurpe the government and alter the state whom when they had condemned to death judgment was given that the execution should be done by his father as the cause of his evill education that hee might receive his death by the author of his life and that the father in some sort might be punished for his negligence used in the education of his child And these were notable examples of Iustice and policie used by the Emperours Trajan Antoninus Pius Alexander Severus and others worthie of consideration because the felicitie of Princes is said to bee in well governing their people For that common-wealth saith one cannot decay where the poore have justice and the wicked rich men punishment and especially if there bee good doctrine for the young and little covetousnesse in the olde In the daies of Trajan none that had charge of justice might augment his goods but in that estate of riches or poverty wherein hee beganne to governe in the same hee was to containe himselfe and to looke for reward at the Princes hand according to his merit Hoc deterius habet respublica quo magis res privatae slorent Hee also confidering the great impoverishing and tediousnesse that long suites brought to his people ordained that all suites of Italy should continue but one yeare and the suites of other countryes but halfe a yeare The Emperour Antoninus never sent any pretor to governe any Province that was wise and valiant onely but hee also must be without any infection of pride and covetousnesse For he thought that no man could well governe a common wealth that is subject to pride or covetousnesse Vnto Pretors Censors and Questors before he gave them any country to governe hee caused them first to give up an Inventory of their owne proper goods to the end that when their charge was finished the increase of their wealth should be considered And joyntly therewith he did both say and warne them that he sent them to minister justice and not by fraud to robbe his people The Emperours Valentiman and Theodosius tooke this order with Iudges governours of Provinces that they should sweare at the entring into their charge that they had not given nor promised any thing and that they would not give nor cause to be given any thing and also that they would take nothing but their fee. And if it were proved that they had taken any thing being lawfull for every man to accuse them they should pay foure times so much besides the infamie and perjurie and the like penaltie was against him that gave the present The Emperour Iustiman would say that all Iudges ought to contemne riches and to shew their hands cleane to God to the Emperour or King and to the law which is also to be understood of all Magistrates and governours It is unpossible saith one but the same day that riches treasures begin to increase in the houses of Magistrates and Iudges that the selfe same day the administration of Iustice should not decay And though he were ready to pardon all other offences yet in the executioÌ„ of justice he that did offend though the matter were not great he would with great severity punish him grievoasly Institia 〈◊〉 maxime reddunt dâ—…turnum 〈◊〉 When Augudus Casar sent a Governour into Affrica with the change of Iustice My friend quoth he I pat you not in trust with mine honour nor commit to you my justice to the end you should bee envious of innocents and an executioner of transgressours but that with one hand you should helpe to maintain the good and with the other hand helpe to amend the evill and if you will know what mine intent is I send you to bee a grandfather for orphants an advocate
one departed homeward delivered of the danger hee was in the other consented to remaine as a pledge in captivitie that might have lived out of danger When hee was gone all men and specially Dionysius expected attentively what would bee the end of this strange and doubtfull matter When the day appointed for his returne was as hand and hee not come every man condemned the other of meere folly that so rashly would adventure his life upon another mans word but he assuring himselfe of his friends fidelitie told them plainely he repented nothing that hee had done nor had any mistrust in his comming the very same day and houre that was by Dionysius set downe for his returne his friend came the tyrant marvelling at their constancie and fidelitie pardoned them both and further desired them that they would accept him for a third person into the society of their friendship Ephenus having offended Dionysius likewise and being apprehended and brought before him and condemned to dye made sute to the tyrant for licence to goe home into his countrey to dispose of his things promising to returne to dye such a day Dionysius demanding a pledge hee delivered him his friend Everitus who boldly assented to bee his pledge and to suffer death if he returned not Ephenus departed and came againe at the day prefixed to the great admiration of all men and specially of Dionysius who pardoned them both such force had vertue to pacifie the rage of a cruell tyrant whose disposition enclined to no other thing but vice The performance of this friendship was joyned with honesty and discretion but this that followeth was more faithful than wise There were two Kings one of Denmarke the other of Suecia called Hading and Hunding that had promised such an assured friendship that whatsoever happened to the one the other would bee partaker of the same even to the death it chanced that a false rumour was brought to Hading that Hunding was slaine by treason hee beleeving the report to performe his promise invited his Nobilitie unto a banquet and in the middest of his Hall hee had filled a great deepe vessell with delicate wine and himselfe filled their cups and gave them drinke untill they were all drunke and they being fallen asleepe he threw himselfe downe headlong into the tub of wine and drowned himselfe which being knowne to the other King Hunding hee to performe his faith towards his friend in like sort assembled all his people together and in the sight of them all hanged himselfe Such faith as was between Damon and Pythias must bee sought for in some new-found land where swannes be blacke for it will hardly be found in the knowne world As the world declineth to old age and bringeth not forth his fruits with that vigour and vertue it hath done in times past so the vertue and goodnesse of men seemeth to decline from that of former ages and to waxe old and decay which was foretold in Esdras for the weaker that the world is by reason of age the more shall the evils be increased upon them that dwell therein for the truth is fled far away and lyes are at hand For there is so little heed taken and so small account made of morall vertues I will not speake of Christian vertues now adaies that the vices next to them are taken for the vertues themselves Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis umbra Cùm sit triste habitu vultuque veste severum Nec dubie tanquam frugi laudatur avarus Vice doth deceive us when she doth disguise Her selfe like vertue in sad shape and eyes Severe in life and gate Most certaine when The avaritious are call'd thrifty men They that be furious and passionate and quarellous are called stout and valiant men that stand upon their honour to live loosely and lasciviously abusing mens wives and daughters is called friendlinesse and courtesie they that bee ambitious and practise all unlawfull meanes to make themselves great in dignities are honourable and worthy men and meet for governement to be covetous and miserable is called thristinesse and good husbandry and these kinde of men call their like provident men to bee prodigall is called liberalltie and if wee shall runne over all the vertues and vices in this sort we shall see such a metamorphosis or transformation that it were sufficient to perswade us that the ages past have discharged all their malice into the age we live in as into a gowt or sinke to dissemble and deceive is now taken for wisedome or prudence a singular vertue which cannot bee dissevered from honesty plaine meaning One saith bee warie and circumspect how thou beleeve any thing these bee the sinewes of wisedome so as now we may say with the Poet nam fronte politi Astut am vapide servant sub pectore vulpens A crafty fox doth oft himselfe invest In a brow polisht and ill-tasted brest And he is accounted the wisest that can most artificially beguile which is the cause that Machiavell exalteth Duke Valentine the Popes sonne above the skies and calleth him the paragon of his time as he that in wisedome exceeded all the Princes of that age One cause of his commendation is this when hee perceived that for his tyrannous government hee was misliked of the nobilitie and that by open warres hee was not able to destroy them hee feined a desire to be reconciled and invited them to a feast for that purpose the nobilitie desirous of the Princes favour mistrusting no treason came to him to dinner where he entertained them with all manner of courtesie but under sweet flowers lurkes the serpent when he had dined his guard which hee had prepared before for the purpose tooke them aside and presently cut off their heads And when this newes was first brought to Pope Alexander his father hee smiled and said his son had shewed them a Spanish tricke Mali corvi malum â—…vum A bad egge of an evill crow I doubt there be too many Machiavillians that have his vices in more estimation than the vertues taught by Socrates Plato and Aristotle and carry his precepts better in memorie than the lessons of good and fruitfull Sermons and in their life more exactly put in practice his humanitie than Christian divinitie It may bee wished men were not so much Italianated whose habits many have gotten both of body and minde and are become as artificiall apes counterfeiting a formall kinde of strangers civilitie but that which some performe may rather bee called Divillitie They must dissemble cunningly promise liberally and performe niggardly give all and deliver nothing as one aptly expressing in himselfe the condition of many said I am all yours except body and goods which is now growne into a common proverb such friendship and courtesies are very usuall The Italian hath an old proverbe Inglese Italianato ediabele incarnato An English man Italianated is a Divell incarnated Our nation although
being loth the lacke of them should bee any hindrance to his Citizens death he went to Athens and openly in the market place hee caused the people to be assembled that hee might deliuer some newes to them who knowing his humour that used to speake with no man ranne to the place out of all parts expecting attentively some strange matter when they were come together he cryed out with his hoarse voice My Citizens of Athens if any of you be disposed to hang your selues doe it quickly for I meane shortly to cut downe the gibbets for my necessary building And when he had ended his charitable motion he departed home to his house without speaking any word more where he liued many yeeres continuing in the same opinion detesting the miserable estate and condition of men And when Tymon perceiued that death approched he tooke order for his buriall to bee at the low water marke in the very brinke of the Sea that the waues might not suffer any man to come neere him to see his bones or ashes and caused this Epitaph to be written vpon his tombe made Latine thus Hic sum post vitam miseramque inopema sepultus Nomen non quaeras dij lector te male perdant After a poore and wretched life Heere I am laid in ground Reader forbeare to aske my name So Thee the Gods confound And as another of his condition that liued solitarily in the woods eschuing likewise the company of men came to him to supper In the middest of their banket O Tymon quoth he what a pleasant supper is this that hath no more guests but thou and I So were it said Tymon if thou were away hee was so hatefull to the condition of men that hee could not endure the company of him that was of his owne disposition Pliâ—…ie meditating vpon the miseries where with man is borne and the endlesse travels wherein hee liveth saith Among all the creatures that nature hath brought foorth onely man is ambitious man onely is proud couetous and superstitious onely desireth long life and maketh a sepulchre wherein to bee buried and rightly was this spoken by Plinie for other beasts neither riches doe make proud nor pouerty sad they weepe not when they be borne nor waxe sad when they shall die Marcus Aurelius both an Emperor and Philosopher entring into a deepe contemplation of the calamities and miseries wherewith our poore life is continually afflicted burst out in these words The battell of this world is so perillous the issue so terrible and dreadfull that I assure my selfe if any old man should come out of the earth and would make a true discourse and declaration of his life from the time hee came forth of his mothers belly to his last breath and that the bodie would recite all the paines it hath suffered and the heart would discouer all the conflicts of fortune all men would bee astonished at the body that had suffered such things and at the heart that had in such sort languished and dissembled whereof I haue had experience in my selfe and will freely confesse it though to my infamy but in time to come it may be profitable to some others In 〈◊〉 yeeres that I liued saith he I would needes prooue all the vices of this life make proofe whether the wickednesse of man might in some sort be satisfied And after I had seene all I found that the more I ate the more hungry I was the more I dranke the more I thirsted the more I slept the more I desired to sleepe the more I rested the more weary I was the more I had the more couâ—…tous I was the more I sought the lesse I found and to conclude I neuer had thing in my possession that was not sometime troublous to me and by by I desired some other thing S. Chrysoâ—…some being in admiration after he had with great coÌ„passion bewayled the calamities of men and the darkenesse wherewith they are overwhelmed pronounced with a loud voice I wish that I were placed in so high a tower that I might behold all men and that I had such a voice that it might be heard over all the earth and understood of all people that I might with a shrill cry speak thus with King Dauid O ye children of men how long will your hearts be hardned and not without cause for hee that will behold with a sound iudgement the estate of the world in these dayes what fraud and deceit what dissimulation blasphemies adulteries licentiousnesse warres effusion of blood rapines ambition couetousnesse malice and such like wherewith the world is as it were drunke may thinke that the time is at hand whereof the Prophet Esay spake in such detestation Your iniquities have made a division betweene you and your God your sinnes have hidden their face before you that it might not heare for your hands bee soyled with blood your fingers with iniquity your lips have uttered lies and your tongue wickednes there is not one that calleth vpon Iustice no man iudgeth according to equity they conceave fellonie and are delivered of iniquitie they have disclosed egges of Aspis and have spunne the cobweb of a Spider he that shall eate of their egges shall die he that shall breake them foorth will come a Basyliske their feete runne to evill and they make haste to sheade innocent blood their thoughts bee wicked imaginations truth is throwne downe the streets and equity cannot enter in our wickednesse is multiplied and our sinnes witnesse against vs. When the Preacher had considered the vanities of the world and miseries of men he said thus Wherefore I iudged those that are dead to bee more happy then such as be aliue yea him that is yet vnborne to be better at ease then they both because he seeth not the miserable workes that are done vnder the sun Silenus saith that the greatest gift which God gaue to man was not to be borne the next to that was to die as soone as he was borne Plato that divine Philosopher entering into the due consideration of the miseries of this life Knowest thou not saith he that the life of man is no other thing but a pilgrimage which wise men passe with ioy singing heartily when they see the necessity of their approch to the inevitable end thereof Knowest thou not that man in his greatest part consisteth of the soule that is enclosed within the body as in a tabernacle wherewith nature hath environed us not without great paine and trouble and if shee bestow vpon vs some little good things they are hidden and of small continuance and are seasoned with bitternesse and pensivenes by meanes whereof the soule feeling griefe desireth the heavenly habitation and wisheth for the fruition of the ioyes there Consider that the departure from this world is nothing but a change from evill to good But come hither saith he from his nativity to his grave what kind of misery is there that he suffreth not
become bound from liberalitie to fall into covetousnesse from truth to learne falshood shifts and of a quiet man to become a vexer of others so that I see no other difference betweene the tenne plagues that scourged Egypt and the miseries that afflict suitors then that the calamities of the one were inflicted by Gods providence and the torments of the other are invented by the malice of men who by their owne toyle make themselues very Martyrs Peter de la Primandaye thus noteth and reprehendeth the abuses of this time in suites of law in his country of France Cicero complaineth of his time that many notable decrees of law were corrupted and depraved by the curious heads of the lawyers what would he doe if he were now aliue and saw the great heapes and piles of bookes with our practice in the law If he saw that holy temple of lawes so shamefully polluted and miserably prophaned where a thousand cavils and quiddities are continually coyned by such writings according to the saying of the Comicall Poet that through craft and subtilty one mischiefe is begotten vpon an other But times have beene when there were but few lawes because men thought that good manners were the best lawes and that naturall sense holpen with an vpright conscience and ioyned with due experience was the right rule to iudge by But after that men became so skilfull in suites and that offices of iustice that were wont freely to be given to them that deserved them became to bee gainefull and free from yeelding any account of their doings and set forth to sale as marchandisc for them that offered most after that men began to spice their suites with great summes of money after that lawyers began so greatly to gaine and slightly to consider of their clyents causes because they would make hast to another that waited for them with gold in his hand after that they began to write with seuen or eight lines on a side and to disguise matters with frivolous answers after that Proctors and Atturneys who in former time were to be had for nothing and appointed for certaine causes became hirelings and perpetuall after that sollicitors were suffered in the middest of them all to be as it were the skum gatherers of suites with all that rabblement of practitioners who devoure the substance of poore men as drones eate vp the hony of Bees Lastly after that the Chauncery did let loose the bridle to all sorts of expeditions and went about to teach the Iudges After these things saith he began to be practised we fell into this miserie of long suites gainfull to the craftie and wicked and very preiudiciall to plaine meaning and good men who many times had rather lose their right then hazzard their vndoing by following a suite so long by way of iustice for that commonly wee see the rightest cause frustrated by delaies by affection or by corruption We see how suites are heaped vp one vpon another and made immortall that nothing is so certaine which is not made uncertaine that no controversie is so cleare which is not obscured no contract so sure that is not vndone no sentence or judgement so advisedly given which is not made voide all mens actions open to the slanders craft malice redemptions and pollings of Lawyers the Majestie and integritie of ancient justice lost last of all that in the dealings of men now-a-dayes no shew of upright justice but only a shadow thereof remaineth This evill is become so great and growne to such extremitie that it is unpossible but that according to the course of worldly things the ruine thereof must bee at hand or at the least it is to receive some notable change within some short space For as Plato saith In a corrupt Common-wealth defiled with many vices if a man should think to bring it back againe to his first brightnesse and dignitie by correcting small faults and by curing the contagion thereof by little and little it were all one as if he should cut off one of Hydraes heads in whose place seven more did spring up But that alteration disorder whereby all evill vice was brought into the Cōmon-wealth must be plucked up by the roots For an extreme evill must have an extreme remedy And true it is that there haue bin times when both Lawyers and Physicions have bin banished out of divers countries as men rather hurtfull then profitable to the Common-wealth which argueth the same to bee no happy estate And some reason they had to maintaine their opinion because men being more temperate in their life diet not so cōtentious malicious in those dayes countries as they have bin since they needed not so greatly Physicions nor Lawyers But since that time the luxuriousnesse and intemperancie commonly used and the contentious and malicious minds of men growne to extremity have brought forth a necessary vse of both their skils Of the one to cure the disease engendred by disordered life or some way to ease the paine Of the other to helpe minister matter of contention and at length to decide the controversie for such is the necessitie of our humane condition that in many things they are driven to seeke remedie there from whence their harme commeth As the oyle of a Scorpion is a present remedie for the stinging of the Scorpion Chilo said Comitem aeris alieni ac litis esse miseriam But why Lawyers and Physicions should be coupled together in such a cōgruence I see not except because they have one cōmon end that is gaine and the manner of both their proceedings in their faculties is by evacuation Sine Causidicis satis olim fuere futuraque su◅ urbes And may not we say to these men as Accius said to the Augures Nihil credo auguribus qui aures verb◅ ditant alienos suas ut auro locupletēt domos But Princes where the abuses of this profession begin to grow to an extremity that shall see their people impoverished and thereby the lesse able to doe them service have meanes ynough to reforme them and to reduce the professors to their first integritie There is no art or science facultie or profession that in processe of time be they of thē selves ever so good or necessary that may not be corrupted by abuses and neede reformation Humanum est errare Councels were ordained to reforme errors and abuses crept into the Church Parliaments to redresse the abuses slipt into the Cōmon-wealth the authority of Princes sufficeth to reduce their subjects into good order And Princes should foresee and beware lest their Cōmon-wealths that were founded upon lawes be not overthrowne by lawes Baldus a famous man an interpretor of the civil law noteth-that Lawyers oftentimes are oppressed with sudden death But though the abuses in that facultie make the professors subject to obloquy yet they that speak worst if they yeeld them their due must confesse them to be malum necessarium
sent from a Free State in Embassage to the Duke of Moscouia and as one of them kept his Cap vpon his head in the presence of the Duke he being therewith offended caused a nayle to be driuen thorow his Cap into his head Ludit in humanis diuina potentia rebus Et certam prasens vix habet hora fidem The Diuine power all humane things derides And scarce one certaine houre with vs abides The Emperour Marcus Aurelius meditating vpon the miserable condition of men spake in this sort I haue imagined with my selfe whether it were possible to find any estate any age any countrey any kingdome where any man might be found that durst vaunt he had not in his life tasted what manner of thing aduerse fortune is And if such a one might be found it would be such an ougly monster that both the quick and the dead would desire to see him Then he concludeth In the end of my reckoning I haue found that he which was yesterday rich is to day poore hee that was yesterday whole is to day sicke he that yesterday laughed to day I haue seene him weepe he that was yesterday in prosperitie to day I haue seene him in aduersitie he that yesterday liued I haue seene him by and by in his graue Saint Augustine entring deepely into the consideration of the miserable condition of men and wondering at their infelicitie maketh thus his complaint to God Lord after men haue suffered so many euill things mercilesse death followeth and carrieth them away in diuers manners some it oppresseth by feauers others by extreme griefe some by hunger others by thirst some by fire others by water some by the sword others by poyson some thorough feare others are stifled some are torne in pieces by the teeth of wild beasts others are peckt with the fowles of the ayre some are made meat for the fishes others for wormes and yet man knoweth not his end And when hee goeth about to aspire higher hee falleth downe and perisheth And this is the most fearefull thing of all fearefull things the most terrible of all terrible things when the soule must be separated from the body And what a miserable sight is it to see one lying in the pangs of death and how lothsome when he is dead And then followeth the dreadfull day of Iudgement when euery one must yeeld account of his life past This is the time when Monarkes and Princes must giue account whether they haue laid intolerable exactions vpon their subiects and beene the cause of the effusion of innocent blood to feede their ambitious humours This is the time when the Pastours and Prelates must giue vp a reckoning of their flocke and with what doctrine good or bad they haue fed them This is the time when Merchants must yeeld an account and all other Trades that stand vpon buying and selling for the falshood they haue vsed in vttering their Wares whose case is hard if it bee true the Poet saith Periurata sâ—…o postponit numina lucro Mercator Stygiis non nisi dignus aquis The periur'd Merchant will forsweare for gaine Worthy in Stygian waters to remaine This is the time when Lawyers will tremble how to answere the animating their poore Clyents to waste their goods to their great hinderance or vtter vndoing in continuing their suits in a wrong cause the end whereof is their owne gaine This is the time that Magistrates and Iudges must bee called to a reckning whether they haue administred iustice vprightly and indifferently without fauour or corruption This is the time when men of Warre must answer for their spoyles and rapines and intolerable outrages and cruelties vsed vpon euery sexe and age that Christ dyed for as well as for them This is the time that couetous men and vsurers must yeeld an account for their rapines and oppressions and for the vndoing of infinite numbers to enrich themselues with their excessiue and vnlawfull interest and gaines This is the time that Widowes and Orphanes and other afflicted people will cry out and present their complaints before God of the iniustice and wrongs they haue sustained and suffered This is the time when the wicked shall say quaking and trembling for feare and repenting too late Looke how yonder folkes which we had heretofore in contempt as base persons and of none account in respect of our selues are now exalted in the sight of God and are accounted among the Saints This is the time saith Saint Hierome when they that stut and stammer shall be more happie then the cloquent And many Sheepheards and Heardmen shall bee preferred before Philosophers many poore beggers before rich Princes and Monarkes many simple and grosse heads before the subtill and fine-witted Then shall the fooles and insensible persons saith Saint Augustine take hold vpon Heauen and the wise with their wisedome shall fall downe into hell where is the miserie of all miseries and such as the miseries of this world be pleasures and delights in respect of them This is the iudgement spoken of in Saint Matthew Goe yee cursed into hell fire where is nothing but lamenting and gnashing of teeth which is prepared for the Diuell and his angels before the beginning of the world where they shall bee tormented for euer and euer and shall wish for death but they shall not finde it they shall desire to die and death shall flie from them These miseries to which men are subiect made the Prophet Esay sorry that hee was not destroyed or styfled in his mothers wombe and murmured that his legges did hold him vp and complained vpon the paps that gaue him sucke â—…remie mooued with the like spirit considering that man is formed of the earth conceiued in sinne borne with paine and in the end made a prey for wormes and serpents wished that his mothers belly had serued him for a sepulchre and her wombe for a tombe The consideration of the miserable estate of this life brought in a custome to the people of Thracia to weepe and lament at the birth of their children and to reioyce when they dyed But the Philosopher Demosthenes discouered his conceit by a more particular passion For beeing demanded of the Tyrant Epymethes why he wept so bitterly for the death of a Philosopher being so strange a matter for a Philosopher to weepe To this Demosthenes answered I weepe not O Epymethes because the Philosopher dyed but because thou liuest being a custome in the Schooles of Athens to weepe more because the cuill doe liue then for the death of the good Seeing therefore wee haue perused the principall estates of life and can finde nothing in them worthy to be called Felicitie nor answerable to the thing which that word seemeth to purport but rather that they all defect so much from felicitie that they decline to infelicitie and miserie Let vs doe yet with a better minde as many now a dayes vse to doe
in matters of greater importance the more is their iniquitie when their obstinacie will not suffer them to apply their opinion to the words and meaning of the authoritie they alleage they will wrest and apply the words to their opinion So let vs vse some force to the word and wrest it from his proper signification and apply it to the matter and call that happinesse of life Felicitie which a man hath possibilitie to attaine and set downe such a felicitie as agreeeth with the condition of men and as hath beene and is enioyed of some For to conceiue by imagination such a felicitie as is Plato his Common wealth or Câ—…ero his Oratour that neuer was nor will bee or such a felicitie as Aristotle setteth foorth which no man can attaine to serueth not this purpose For to set vp a marke so farre beyond a mans reach that he cannot shoot neere it will rather discourage then encourage him to take his Bowe in his hand and to make any attempt when hee seeth his labour lost before he begin So to faine or set vp as a marke for men to direct the course of their life to such a felicitie as neuer any man hath nor by possibilitie can attaine is to confirme or leaue them in their erronious opinion embracing some other thing for the true felicitie they ought to seeke after But when they see before their eyes such a felicitie or happie estate as is within their reach men will cheerefully vse their endeuour to attaine to it And though it happen but to few to enioy this felicitie in the highest degree yet in bestowing their labour with hope fully to possesse the same they shall come neere it and flye further from those things which by mistaking haue brought many to infelicitie For in a game he that winneth the second or third prize departeth victoriously though he could not winne the best Est quoddam prodire tenus si non datur vltra It is something to get so farre though wee haue not power to goe further We haue shewed before that the true felicitie of man or his Soueraigne good is enioyed in the life to come and that there is no estate of this worldly life voyd of troubles and calamities For as there is no Sea without waues no more is there any kinde of life without trouble So that we must be driuen to call that life felicitie which hath in it least miseries and him to be happie that feeleth least troubles and calamities and best beareth them For there was neuer any man to whom some thing either hath not happened or may happen to make him sometimes sorrowfull But hee that maketh least account of it is wise and happie as one saith Heâ—…est est enim mortalium foelicitas dolere quà m fieri potest rarissime For this is the felicitie of men to feele sorrow as seldome as may bee Socrates answered one that asked him how a man might feele little sorrow That there was no man that dwelt in towne or countrey or conuersed with men but he should sometimes be sad The best way to auoyd the occasion of sadnesse is to liue well but to be sorrowfull before there be cause and to feare euill things to come before they happen is meere foolishnesse For what necessitie is there to hasten or call euill things and anticipate that we must suffer too soone whensoeuer they happen and to lose the present time with the feare of that is to come It is madnesse for a man to make himselfe vnhappie now because the time will come he shall bee vnhappie and the things that many times occasioneth vs to be sorrowfull are either not euill but an opinion onely or else no great euill Sacrates was wont to say that if all euill things were laide together in a heape and euery man should take away a part there is none but would thinke that his owne euils were lesse then that portion which he did beare And in truth a man shall sometimes receiue more comfort in sadnesse of them that be in calamitie then of them that be merry For if he consider and compare his owne euils with those of others he shall finde that to be little which he suffereth in respect of that which others endure And nothing bringeth greater sorrow to the minde then the losse of the thing dearely loued and though many men winne opinion of wisedome because they seeme not to be greeued with the lacke or losse of that for the which we see others tormented with great sorrow and anguish of minde yet if the same men were touched with any thing that they did strongly affect we should see that humane wisedome were not able to make sufficient resistance For in such cases our affections and reasons contend together and if reason be stronger in vs then the affection that moueth the minde reason preuaileth and ouercommeth the other But if the affection be stronger then his reason then it preuaileth and reason yeeldeth And the more neere they be in equality the more vehemently they contend together and the longer endureth the conflict before the victory bee wonne like as two wrestlers the stronger ouerthroweth the weaker except he be assisted by skill So naturally happeneth it betweene affections and reason or wisedome affections being the stronger if the minde moued be stricken in the right vaine and doth commonly make reason giue place except it be assisted with Gods grace aboue our owne strength It is a hard matter to refraine from pleasures that delight and tickle the senses yet it is more hard to resist and endure things painefull and grieuous But we must contend neuerthelesse and endeauour with our reason and wisedome against our vnruly affections and call to God for the assistance of his holy Spirit For to what purpose serueth our wisedome our learning our knowledge and experience and obseruation of the ordinary course of worldly matters if we apply not the same to our owne benefit As the Poet saith Quid iuuat humanos scire atque euoluere casus Si fugienda facis facienda fugis What bootes it humane things to know Or after them Inquire If what 's not to be done we doe And To be done forbeare But seeing that by the fall of our first Parents wee are drowned in sinne and iniquitie and our nature is so corrupted that we can doe nothing of our selues not deserue any thing that is good nor haue any meanes to escape the torments of the life to come and the calamities of this present life which is extreme miserie nor enioy the pleasures of the heauenly life nor the quietnesse and vacancie of trouble in this life without Gods especiall grace and free gift through the merits of lesus Christ our Redeemer we must confesse and acknowledge that both the felicity we seeke for in this life and the beatitude and Summum bonum in the life to come dependeth wholly vpon God and commeth
lay thy hand upon his head and ducke him under the water and never suffer him to rise againe Men have changed the inward habites of their mindes as they have done the outward habites of their bodies Every age nay rather every yeare bringeth forth new fashions so likewise that friendship and honesty which in our forefathers times was wont to bee performed with faith and plaine meaning is now out of the fashion and therefore not esteemed cunning dissimulation with faire words and large offers with little performance is now all the fashion Ioyne thy selfe therefore in friendship with very few and bee circumspect and curious in thy choyce and if it be possible bee beholding to no man more than hee is beholding to thee for a faithfull friend is hard to be found the bare name onely remaineth the thing is obsolet and growne out of use So long as thou hast no need thou shalt find friends ready to offertheeal mnner of courtesies but if fortune begin to frowne upon thee a tempest chance to arise they will find quarrels to leave thee and cover their infidelity with thy fault and give thee cause to say with Ovid In mediis lacerâ puppe relinquor aquis I am in a torne ship left in the midst of the Sea It is a hard matter for him that is in poverty to find out a kinsman or friend for no man will confesse that he appertaineth in any sort to him that needeth any helpe fearing lest hee will by and by aske something of him David calleth such men table friends And that is one coÌ„moditie which poverty bringeth that it sheweth who loveth thee But to him thou meanest to performe the part of a faithfull frieud thou must observe these two things to helpe his necessities and to comfort him in adversity But the manner of friends in these dayes is to deliver words by the pottle and deeds by the pinte They that call themselves thy friends will looke for performance of friendship at thy hands though they wil performe none to thee For every man looketh for honest dealing in another though he meane to use none himselfe To this declination the greatest comfort to the life of man is come by the generall depravation of manners for where can a man find greater comfort in adversitie than in faithfull friends who also double the joyes and pleasures of prosperitie That was never more commonly in use which Latimer spake in his Sermon to reprehend the want of love and charitie Yee have a common saying said hee every man for himselfe and God for us all but ye might more truly say every man for himselfe and the Divell for us all one for another and God for us all Martiall finding the infidelitie and inconstancie of love and friendship giveth this counsell Si vitare velis acerba quadam Et tristes animi cavere morsus Nulli te facias nimis sodalem Guadebis minus 〈◊〉 minus dolebis If thou wilt bitter accidents avoyde Nor let thy minde with sad things be annoyd No man too neare unto thy breast retaine So shalt thou more rejoyâ—…e and lesse complaine Prosperitie winneth friends but adversitie proveth them as the touch-stone tryeth Gold And over-great friendship not considerately united is many times the cause of great hatred Men cannot bee better warned to trust to themselves than by Aesops fable of a Lark which discovereth the common coldnesse of friendship in their friends causes A Larke saith hee that bred in the corne went forth to seeke meat for her yong birds that had feathers when the corne was ripe and willed them to hearken what was said in her absence and tell her at her returne The master of the corne perceiving it ripe willed his son to desire his friends the next day earely in the morning to come reape downe his corne The sonne did as hee was commanded and when the Larke returned her little ones trembling for feare told her what newes they had heard desiring to be removed to another place but shee bid them be quiet and feare nothing and went forth the next day againe to seeke for meat the master looketh for his friends and when hee saw that none came hee willed his sonne to goe to his kinsfolkes and desire their helpe to cut down his corne the next day when the Larke returned shee found her young ones in the like feare againe but understanding what they had heard she willed them to have no feare for kindred said she will not bee so hasty to helpe with their labour at the first call and departed from them againe The day following when the master had in vaine expected the performance of his kinsfolks promise also Away quoth hee with friends anâ—… kinne fetch two hooks to morrow early in the morning one for mee another for thee and we will reape the corne our selves Which when the Larke understood of her young Now it is time to bee gone said shee and removed her nest By which fable men are warned not to stay for their friends help in that they can do themselves And hereof springeth a common error that men consider not rightly of the nature of friendship which can be perfect but between two and those vertuous persons And where is no conformitie of manners there can bee no perfection of friendship for contraries can hold no consent nor unity together because their affections must be joyned together and his friend must bee preferred before all others as it were two bodies made one which moved Alexander the Great to say to Darius mother that desired pardon upon her knees for mistaking Ephestion for the king that he was also Alexander For if a man have many friends it may chance that one may have cause of joy by some great good fortune happened to him and another at the same time may have cause of sorrow by some evill accident or fortune Both which contrary passions cannot bee in him together and therefore hee cannot bee like friend to them both But one may be a friend to many by degrees according to the merit or estimation hee hath of them which he may also with honesty dissolve if by their demerites he shall find just cause and bee not bound to continue it by some good turne received and not requited Many by acquaintaÌ„ce only or by some courtesie shewed for civilities sake are more ready to challenge a further friendship never promised or professed as due to them by his voluntarie kindnesse than forwardly to requite that already received Yet neverthelesse true love and friendship hath respect onely to his friends necessitie without merchandize or feneration as one sayth Charitas non quaerit suum But seeing the affected name of a friend is so common and the act or matter so rare I wish thee to make choyce of a few companions with whom thou wilt passe thy time to avoyd the tediousnes of a solitary life such as bee inclined to honest
king of Arragon who would say that he had rather lose his pearles and precious stones than any book And divers other Kings Emperors were excellently learned among which number I account by a rare example the noble Queene of England my gracious Soveraigne The Mathematicallsciences were had in such estimation for their excellencie that none might study them but Kings that they might excell others as well in worthinesse and singularitie of knowledge as in dignity of estate but now Kings children bee brought up in Machiavels schoole â—…s an Authour sufficient for their instruction Hee that will compare this time with that of former ages shall find a wonderfull Metamorphosis in mens minds and manners Vertue was never lesse in use and vice did never more abound the truth was never more knowne and never lesse regarded never better taught and never worse followed men were never lesse idle and never worse occupied worldly 〈◊〉 were never more carefully sought for and heavenly 〈◊〉 â—…ever lesse effectually thought of Men were never moâ—… religious in words and never more prophane iâ—…deeds The divell never bestirred himselfe with more dilligence to allure men to all manner of vice and men were never more negligent to make resistance nor more ready to further his labour and though hee cannot stop the utterance of the word yet hee prevaileth in that which is next to it to hinder his bringing forth of condigne fruits It happeneth to us as it did to Tantalus that though the water ranne by his mouth yet none would enter in to quench his thirst so the sound of Gods word beateth continually against our eares but it entereth not in to coole the heate of the wicked motions of our inordinate desires and to quench our thirst after worldly vanities In every place is talke of divinitie even among them that know not what belongeth to humanity Many are with their tongues blazers and talkers of vertue but all their other members they suffer to administer to vice Few men are so covetous of their owne good fame and honour as they are greedy of other mens goods and envious of others vertue Most men seeme to hate pride and yet few follow humility all condemne dissolutenesse and yet who is continent All blame intemperancie â—…nd yet none lives in order All praise patience and yet who resisteth the sweet passion of revenge He that possesseth much oppresseth him that hath little and hee that hath but little envyeth him that hath much Wee condemne Papists for their superstition confidence in their good works and we blame Puritanes for their affected singularitie and formall precisenesse and in the meane time that we may be unlike the one in grossenesse and not much resemble the other in precisenesse we neither have sufficient regard to the true devout service of God and to Christian charity nor sufficiently shew the zeale of true Christians to the sincerity of religion and least of all expresse it in our lives and conversations as though godlinesse consisted in a theoricall kinde of beleeving without any respect to the exercise of Christian charitie and vertue And when we go about to shake off the clogges wherewith our consciences are burdened by superstition to enjoy the true and Christian libertie wee fall into such a licentiousnesse of life and dissolutenesse of manners that the Poets saying may be aptly applyed to many Dum stulti vitant vitia in contraria currunt Whilst fooles shunne vices they run into contraries Some hold that God may be better served in â—…eir â—…ber than in the Church others preâ—… a 〈◊〉 or a barne before any of them both Thus doâ—… 〈◊〉 old Serpent labour 〈◊〉 sow division in mens minâ—…s and manners to 〈◊〉 â—…nour of true religion that whilst the Magistrates bee occupied in reforming these new schismes the professed enemie to the Gospel may multiply and encrease his flocke under hand But in the middest of this generall wickednesse and depravation of manners being almost as we may conjecture at the highest this comfort remaineth to the well-minded that the day of deliverance cannot be farre off When Dionysius at the time that Christ was crucified beheld with admiration the Sunne eclipsed contrary to nature the Moone being at the full and opposite to the Sunne he pronouneed these words Either the God of nature suffereth now or else the whole frame of the world shal be dissolved And as Dionysius divined rightly in the one so may he do in the other that wil behold the generalitie of all maner of vice and wickednesse of this time contrary to the nature of Christianity and opposite to the word of God which was never more plentifully taught and boldly pronounce that this generall and unnaturall eclipse of Christian manners doth presage the destruction of the world to be at hand Hee that will looke into the manners of this time shall he not find cause with trembling and feare to thinke that the time is at hand that the Prophet Ionas spake of to the Ninivites There be yet forty dayes and the world shall be destroyed but our hearts be so hardened with worldly desires that wee will beleeve nothing that feedeth not our humours and is not plausible to our inclinations And nothing is more dangerous to a Christian than to accustome himselfe to harden his conscience For in such unhappy people there is no will to be amended nor meanes to be remedied The Affricans had a Prophecie that when the Romans sent an Armie into Affrica Mundus cum tota sua prole periret the signification of which words is The world with all his issue shall perish which made them thinke that the world with all the people should be destroyed But afterward the Romanes sent an Army thither under the conduct of a Generall whose name was Mundus who in battell with his sonnes were slaine by the Affricanes and fulfilled the effect of the Prophecie and discovered the illusion of the Divell But these Heathens were not so easie to be deludâ—…d by the Divell as we are hard to bee perswaded by the true Prophets of God and Preachers of his word that the destruction of the world cannot bee farre off for the mindes and manners of men are so transformed and changed and declineth daily from evill to worse that if the men of former ages were to walke againe a while upon the earth they would thinke that this world were not the same which before it was but rather another substitute in his place Horace found this fault in his time that the age of their parents was worse than that of their grandfathers and themselves more wicked than their fathers and their children would be more vicious than they And as wee are worse than our fathers so our posterity is like to be worse than wee be if vice bee not now at the highest and the world almost at an end The Poets observed diligently and with great consideration the mutations of
sensitive and understanding Now let us see in which of these wee may lay the end or felicity of mā The soul giveth life to the body the perfection of life is health If we respect nothing else in this life then he that was first created healthfull had nothing wherewith to occupy himselfe But if sithence our corruption our principall care ought to bee of our health what thing is more unhappy than a man whose felicity standeth upon so false and feeble a ground Seeing the body is subject to an infinite number of perils of hurts of mischances weak and fraile alwaies uncertaine of life and most certaine of death which commeth to him by many means and wayes who is he that is so sound of body or so feeble of mind that if his choise be given him will not rather chuse a sound mind in a sickely body than a little frenzie or imperfection of mind in a very healthful body In the mind therfore our chiefe good must be seeing we be willing to redeem the perfect estate of our mindswth the miseries of our bodies Next unto this is the sensitive part whose felicity seemeth to bee in pleasure but then were beasts more happy than men that feele pleasures more sweetly and fully And how soone are these pleasures ended with repentance also It pleased the gods said Plautus that sorrow should follow pleasure as a companion But wee seeke for the greatest or soveraigne good and if it be good it will amend men aud make them better But what doth more weaken and corrupt men than pleasures and what doth lesse satisfie men and more weary them But wee looke not for that which doth finish but that continueth our delight whereas these pleasures contrariwise soone decay and quickly spoyle us As Petrarke saith Extrema gaudii luctus occupat The extremity of joy and pleasure sorrow doth possesse The delight of the mind is greater and more meet for a man and more agreeable to his end than the pleasures of the senses And if choyce be given to him that hath passed all his life in pleasures and hath but a few houres to come either to enjoy the fairest curtisan in Rome or else to deliver his countrey who is so beastly or barbarous that will not presently chuse rather to delight his mind with so noble an act than to satisfie his senses with pleasure And to conclude the place of pleasures is in the senses which are decayed taken away by sicknesse by wounds by old age And if these pleasures that be exercised by the sensitive part will not sooner be abated yet death will utterly extinguish them But seeing man hath two kindes of life mortall and immortall the one of which he preferreth as farre the better before the other we must not seeke for such an end or good as perish both together but such as maketh men happy indeed everlasting and immortall which cannot be found in these transitory things Now followeth the third part of the soule which is understanding which is occupied sometimes in it selfe sometimes in the matters of the world and other while in the contemplation study of divine things Of these three operatiōs springeth three habits vertue prudence sapience And seeing that understanding is the most excellent thing in man let us see in which of these we may place our soveraigne good For in this part of the soul the end beatitude of man must needs consist for what thing can be imagined beyond man beyond the world beyond the Creator of both That vertue cannot be his end or soveraigne good hath bin shewed before For vertue is nothing but the tranquility quietnes of the affections what be affections but a sodaine tempest in the soule that are raised by a very smal wind which overthrow the mightiest ship that is in a moment and maketh the most skilfull mariners to strike saile and reason it selfe to give over the stern And if our end of felicity should be in vertue what were more miserable than man that must fight continually against his affections which neverthelesse will not be overcome as the mariners labour to save themselves in a tempest from the raging of the sea that gapeth every moment to devoure them So that in this life vertue cannot bring us to felicity and in the other life it can stand us in no stead where wee shall have no affections Therefore vertue cannot bee our end or Soveraigne good Neither is prudence the thing we seeke for which is nothing but the right use of reason in exercising the affaires of this world And what bee the affaires of this world but contention strifes sutes warres bloudshed spoile murders burnings and sackings of townes and countries with an infinite number of such like stuffe Neither can they that have the charge of government in common-wealths which are all subject to these things be accounted happy but they rather are happy that are defended from them by their cares and unqui◅nesse for the Physitians care is more profitable to the f◅che body than to himselfe Besides that men are turned to dust and the world will be destroyed but the soule liveth and forsaketh these kind of affaires Therefore prudence cannot bee the end and felicity of man that is included within the limits of this world CHAP. II. Divine co◅ the best wisedome That our greatest knowledge is ◅eere ignorance Of wonderfull and strange secrets in nature The excellency of faith Religion our reconciliation to God All nations acknowledge a supreame Deity That no vertues are vertues that swerve from religion and godlinesse Of the only true religion Salvation of man the only true beatitude Markes by which the true religion is knowne The necessity of a Mediatour Who and what our Mediatour is And that the soveraigne beatitude is onely to be attained unto by our blessed Saviour Christ Iesus the Righteous LEt vs now examine sapience after Morney as we have done the rest or that part of wisedome which is conversant in the contemplation of God and divine matters for that in all mens judgements seemeth to bee a mostexcellent thing By instinct of nature every man knoweth that there is a God for the workes of God doe present him continually to us But how should we enter throughly into the knowledge of the Creator of all things when we know not the things before our eyes Socrates confessed freely that he knew this one thing That he knew nothing Which confession as himselfe thought was the cause he was by the Oracle called the wisest man of his time And Porphyrius said that all Philosophy was but a conjecture or light perswasion delivered from one to another and nothing in it that was not doubtfull and disputable But he that knoweth God in this wherein is hee the more happy Reason sheweth us that God is good that he is just that hee loveth the good and hateth the evill Our conscience whispereth us in the
we consider onely the workes of nature which if wee consider the power of God are not only possible but also very easie by him to be done All these things concurre together in Christ Iesus only Hee is the seede of the woman that crusheth the Serpents head Hee it is that â—…filleth the promise made to Abraham All nations shall be blessed in thy seed He is the Mediator that pacifieth his father and 〈◊〉 himself between his justice and our injustice that reconcâ—… us to God againe He is the very 〈◊〉 promised to be the Saviour of mankind and his Redeemer from spirituall servitude not only by the mouth of the Prophets and testimony of holy Scripture but also by the confession of the devils whose mouthes hee stopped that had long before seduced the world For at his comming all Oracles ceased through the whole world their Temples with their Idols in some places fell down together Apollo being asked the cause answered That place must be given to the more mighty And the same Spirit being demanded in the time of the Emperour Augustus in whose reigne Christ was borne who should succeede him answered that an Hebrew boy which had power over the godds commanded him to leave that house and to goe into hell But quoth he to the Priest depart thou with silence from our altars plutarch reciteth a notable history of this matter I remember saith he I have heard upon the death of the Spirits of Emilian the Orator a wise and a milde man knowne to some of you that his father comming on a time toward Italie by sea and passing in the night by an Iland not inhabited called 〈◊〉 as all they 〈◊〉 the shippe were quiet and at rest they heard a great and terrible voice which came from the Iland that is called 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 which was the name of the Pilot of the ship an Egyptian born And although hee and some others heard the voyce once or twice yet they durst not answer untill the third time when Tamus said Who is hee that calleth mee What will yee Then the voyce pronounceth more loud than before these words Ataman I will that when thou commest before the Gulfe called Laguna thou cry out aloud and say that the great god 〈◊〉 is dead When they within the ship heard these things they were in a great feare and consulting upon the matter they determined to proceed and not to say as the Pilot was commanded When the morning was come they had a merry wind sayled pleasantly untill they came before the Gulfe where he was appointed to speak the words by the voice and suddenly the wind ceased and the sea became calme so as they could go no further by meane whereof they all agreed that Tamus should do his message for which purpose he 〈◊〉 up to the top of the ship and cried as loud as he could I give you to understand that the great God Pan is dead Which words were no sooner out of his mouth but they heard such a number of voyces cry out and such wonderfull lamentation that the sea rang withall which continued a long space the men being greatly amazed and having presently a merry wind againe went on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and reported this history at Rome which being come to the 〈◊〉 of Tiberâ—…s the Emperour in whose time Christ was crucified he examined the matter and found it to bee true This Pan was one of the principall Spirits among the Gentiles and had in great reputation It is reported that Tiberins having some intelligence of Christ by the Christians upon the occasion of this matter consulted with the Senatours of Rome to erect a Temple to Christ but they disswaded him and said that then Christ would take away all the credit and 〈◊〉 from their goddes And because the Gentiles held Pan for a God it is evident that the death of this Pan was the spirituall death of the devill or Prince of devils for the destruction of his kingdome and the ruine of his errours by the which hee hath kept captive all mankinde who were redeemed out of that thraldome by the merits and passion of Christ Iesus The same Authour affirmeth that about the same time one 〈◊〉 passing by Ilands called Orcades neare England was told that not long 〈◊〉 there was heard great whispering and howlings in the 〈◊〉 and many fearefull things seene the wisemen of those Ilands construing those prodigious things to the death of some great God Iosephus writeth that about the same time there was in the Temple of Hiresalem where was then no living creature a voyce heard saying Let us forsake and avoyd this Country quickly These and a great many more were the confessions of the divels that knew by Christs comming their reigne was at an end their power by which they had long abused the world was abrogated and their mouthes stopped For these strange sights and significations in divers parts of the world are the very true testimonies of the strangenesse of the death of our Saviour Iesus Christ and of the victories which hee hath obtained together with his triumphant glory Seeing then the Iustice of God and the wickednesse of men by our owne reason hath brought us to the necessitie of a Mediator betweene God and man who by his owne strength is able with God to deliver man from the bonds of eternall death and purchase to man felicity and 〈◊〉 and that the way to the fame is true religion by which wee know God and how to worshippe him and our Mediatour and Saviour Iesus 〈◊〉 by whom we must be reconciled to God and attaine to our soveraigne good Letus frame our selves to come before God after Saint Pauls counsell with such feare and holiness as wee may be like poore offenders with halters about their neckes so as wee should go to hell if he plucked us not back of his infinite goodnesse and to live like true Christians by whose Helpe if wee call upon him as wee ought wee shall obtaine Gods grace to our indeavours that we may bee able to make resistance to those intemperate motions that allure us to the desire of those things that divert us from our felicity and beatitude and to withstand the temptations and subtill practices of the old Serpent our common adversary who 〈◊〉 continually for opportunity to draw us from the true worshippe and service of God which is the way to our soveraigne good to the inventions and traditions of men that is to superstition and idolatry which casteth us downe headlong to extreame infelicitie and misery Hee is not borne in vaine saith one that dyeth well nor he hath lived unprofitably that hath ended his race happily And though wee finde our selves prone to sinne through the frailty of the flesh and every houre ready to fall yet wee must indevour to lift our selves up againe and call for Gods grace and not despaire though our sinnes be great and many following Saint Augustines counsell let no