becomes master of the Place In the beginning it is soone pacified as greene wounds are easily cured But if unfortunately you fall into an act of choller repaire it againe with one of sweetnesse towards the party offended Your Lordships nature is so little addicted to Mirth that it were a sinne to prescribe limits to your joy Notwithstanding if you have a desire to bee merry within compasse it is but going into Spaine where you may buy Rules to laugh by I rather feare your erring in the sad extreame to which I can not devise what should move you You have as loving a mother as ever man had in whom are all the vertues required in a Woman and with these the rationall abilities of a man To double this blessing you have a sister in whom who should have the greatest interest a man would think Nature and Vertue should be at strife both of them having equally and infinitely obliged her in whose due praises even they agree who in all things else are opposite But you will say Fortune may take all these from me It is most true she may but the memorie of their vertues shee can not deprive you of It were more then folly in you to envy Death his due Triumph over Creatures of whose life 70. is the ordinarie period and 120. the utmost who know the Worlds fairest body the lovely Frame of Heaven in it selfe incorruptible and in his course observ'd so many thousand yeeres immutable to bee subject to destruction and that all his glorious tapours shall loose that light with which they now glad the Movers in this inferiour Globe This Fatall Law is not new being almost as ancient as the World the penalty whereof only two have escaped of all that ever yet breathed this aire You will yet object that God may deny you Children the rejoycing fruits of Matrimony Suppose it to be so Will you therfore be displeased with his good pleasure It may be he does this for your good foreseeing that they would prove so many corroding Cankers in your heart For ought you know he may detaine from you not the comforts of your life but so many hasteners of your Death Perhaps hee with-holds from you a Traitour a Murderer a Whore a Blasphemer All this is but to arme you against the want of these reputed blessings they being such indeed to the greater part of men for I trust in God hee will bestow on you many children and such as shall be so many Cordials to your heart so many honours to their Nation and so many ornaments to the Age they live in I should in vaine arme your generous mind against the deprivation of the senselesse things you possesse as Iewels Gold Silver and the rest The Aristotelians disdaining that one and the same word should expresse their love to Men and Riches stiled their affection to the former Amor to the latter Amatio The reason urging them thereunto was that they were possessed with an opinion a Man did basely and foolishly to doate on that which could not reaffect him An Italian Author therefore very properly gives Gold the Epithet of Amato non riamando Beloved not reaffecting Your course of Life I Have much and long importuned your Lordship with the opinions of a weake judgement I will therfore onely touch three points which are very materiall The first is your Course of Life The second your Discourse The third your Studies The first is of great consequence if you well consider it Your Lordship knowes I have heretofore over-vehemently perswaded you to affect the life of a statist by which course you might advance your Estate and attaine to a higher degree of Honour I now most submissively and earnestly beseech you to commit this proposition to your riper consideration and except you finde yourselfe impregnable against the hazards that attend it resolve not on it but fetter even your very thoughts from the Court so many inconveniences being incident to that Calling If you be not advanced to places of Eminency and that you see men in al things short of you preferred before you from hence will spring a repining and a disturbance of your soules peace Grave est a deterioribus honore anteiri It is odious to a free spirit to be outstripped in Honor by one lesse deserving then himselfe Are you not satisfied with your present possessions Beware in seeking for more you consume not what you have or that you loose it not by falling under the Plot of some Potent Enemy Inimicitiae potentum graves sunt saith Seneca The Enmities of great men are vehement he maketh no mention of their love You can not there live without entring into some Faction or other which is an adventure for a yonger brother not for a man of your certainty and Possibilities But admit you raise your selfe to the degree of Honour and proportion of Fortune you aime at Thinke you the Maw of Ravenous ambition will bee filled with that Hee that is led by her nothing can stay his adventures Heaven it selfe could not give her contentment from whence she was throwne down Excellently singular Seneca Cum omnia quae excesserunt modum noceant periculosissima foelicitatis intemperantia Since all things exceeding measure hurt the intemperancy of Felicity must needs bee most dangerous Hannibal argued Marius Attillius of weakenesse in that he was not able to set a gage to his prosperitie But make a supposition you have your hearts desire it being a thing possible though difficult and that you have hold of the highest round save one in Fortunes Escalade You are never sure of holding fast and ever in danger of a shamefull fall Now imagine you were secured from falling yet would Pride and Disdaine two stirring humours so puffe you up that you would forget from whence you came and whither you are going Seeing al things waiting your will the thought of what to enjoy first would afflict you as what first to weare what first to taste what Musicke first to heare what conversation first to make choise of which Mistris first to dally with and other delights which prosperity envites to You would not bee much unlike to those soules Bellarmine maketh mention of in his tract of Purgatory which wander up and downe in a faire spacious sweet sented Meadow and are with a dilation of Beatitude an overfilling joy tormēted Are you ambitious of your Princes favour Do him acceptable service in your coūtry and you shall surely obtaine it But you will answer I would have frō him a superlative Grace above all other men bee made the cabinet of his most secret thoughts This were indeed the most ready way to procure the envy of your fellow Peeres and to incurre the suspition of your Prince For the love of Heaven banish all such thoughts out of your bosome Let it be your Meditation how to attaine to the perfection of a devout life So shall you become the favorite of a Deity Being
Manna is so strong an Antidote that neither the poison of bad affections nor the contagiō of wicked conversation can worke upon that soule to hurt it which is once fortified with it This is the tree of life by which wee triumph over Death and with the Lord of life become fellowe heires of that Kingdome which from before all ages hee hath prepared for us Before you pluck and taste this Divine fruit knock your selfe on the Breast and say Lord I am unworthy Thus doing I with joy assure my selfe dearest Sir that your dayes shall bee long in the land which the Lord your God hath given you Thus doing blessings shall not stay your wishes but come before and above your expectation Thus doing you shall sleepe and wake rise and lie down in security knowing that you are under the protection of a Guard which neither the policy nor power of Man or Divell can force Thus doing you shall give your enemies no cause to rejoyce and your Friends none to greive To conclude thus doing you shall go out of this World with honour and enter the other with Glory leaving behind you the Fame of a life wel lead and so ended Care of your private Estate I Have seene one of the Athenian Sages pictur'd with one eye cast up to Heaven the other fixed on the Earth The conceit no doubt implyes that the view of these two remote objects do beget in a wise brest two different cares the first whereof hath an eye to the end of his journey the latter to the meanes The one seekes for the fairest and the nearest way the other lookes to the Viaticum or provision for the voyage Thus must you doe excellent Sir you must not with too much thinking whither you are going forget where you are As you minde the joyes and glory of the other life so must you also the necessities of this Thales the Philosopher was derided by the old Governesse of his house in that through the earnest fixing of his mind and sight upon the starres he fell into a ditch the Contemplation of things a far off taking from him the remembrance of those neere hand So are they worthily censur'd and scoff'd at whom an ignorant zeale maketh give ouer this World while they are yet in it neglecting their estates and posterity nay utterly forgetting those humane offices wherin being defective wee can not deservedly bee stiled men These should consider that if Nature would have exempted them from the condition of men shee would by a third sexe have distinguish'd them from the rest The misunderstanding of our Saviours words in the 6. of S. Matthew verse 25. hath abused many they thinking that Christ in this place forbids all thought for this life whereas indeed he only prohibiteth such a care as any way tends to a distrust of Gods Providence My humble advice is that you walke doubly provided at once relying upon Gods supernaturall helpe and yet using the ordinarie meanes hee hath given you Doe so be an understanding Lord and let your wisedome warrant you worthy your Title Thinke twice how to maintaine your Greatnesse for once how to set it forth and your Honor admitting it oblige more your Posterity then your Ancestors have done you To be plainer encrease your Estate if you can doe it without the decrease of your Reputation Bee not like those who thinke it the prime and essentiall part of a Lord to bee ignorant of what hee hath Enquire into the particularities of your fortunes Know how and where your Mannors and Rents lie Let not your least revenue passe unexamin'd but informe your selfe of the former and present vallue of it Learne what successively it hath yeelded your predecessors and the Lease being expired let it according to the current rate of these times else in shewing your selfe a Mercifull Land-lord you may prove a cruell Father Consider who have beene true to your Parents and your selfe and let your reward ore waigh their deserts Omit not to take a role of all them who hold any thing of you and marke such Names as have beene faithfull to your Family These cherrish both with your purse and countenance taking the better deserving of them into your service To the off-spring of those whom you shall fynde branded with disloyaltie to your House bee neither uncharitable nor uncourteous yet let them neither have so great a share of grace or benefit as the former except you see apparent and extraordinary signes of Truth and merrite in them Beleeve me or if not me Story that there is a Fatality in these things and that perfidiousnesse often runs in a Blood I may adde the despaire will possesse the most honest heart ever to please you who shall come to your service clogged with the memory of his fore-fathers demerits and the comfortable advantage he shal come with who can assure himselfe that his errours shall bee buried in the merits of his Ancestours With the former take this generall caution that you set your Leases at such rates as no man can have just cause to call you oppressour Wisely consider that though a poore wronged man can not take from you your Titles Riches or Friends yet hee may fortake you from them Despaire as she hopes no good so shee feares no ill Vitae tuae Dominus est quisquis suam contempsit Hee is Master of your life who will forsake his own Of this we have a fresh example in one of your Lordships own Ranke This is one of the crying sinnes and the voyce of it reacheth a note higher then any of the rest Thus farre of your commings in now of your layings out Keepe a good set table that may not feare the approache of halfe a score good fellowes To this in case Strangers of extraordinary quality come you may adde according to your pleasure An orderly yet liberal table continued is by much more commendable then these intemperate Feasts which commonly are followed by as penurious fasts So that vaine-gloriously to entertaine our guests wee basely starve our Servants Men of great ranke I would seldome invite for it draws mony from you and censure from them such ever making 2the prodigallity or defects of your table the discourse of theirs I may adde the dangerous engagements they will invite you to which you must either with the losse of your Wisdome grant or with the purchase of their envy deny But if any eminēt Person without any invitation of myne should voutsafe me a visit I would like himselfe and my selfe receive him Some and those wise know every night the expenses of the passed day I am not of opinion that your Lordship should be so strict or put your selfe to that trouble but I would perswade you to take an account of every weekes charges and that at an appointed day and houre which I would not breake without a cause of great importance Entertaine not many followers least you leave behind you many beggars and few
passages of Sylla his Dictatorshippe his Resignation his Death and Funerall Plutarch I confesse lightly toucheth them in the life of Sylla This brings you to the time of Catilines Conspiracie for which you need no other then Salust After that Caesars Commentaries will clearely shew you the Growth of Caesar in the North and the whole dissention betweene him and Pompey the great Then Dion Cassius doth at large relate the rest of Caesars Honours his Death and what followed in that troublesome time of the Triumviri This is the most compleat and largest Historie of those times Then besides Tacitus and Suetonius you may reade Xiphilinus a little booke an abreviation of Dion of Nice which is lost He speakes of two and twenty Emperours as low as to the reigne of Alexander Severus under whom hee lived Then Herodian a short but pithy Historian goes to the time of Gordianus Caesar speaking of twelve Emperours and hee begins at the death of Marcus Aurelius Then Ammianus Marcellinus speaketh at large of five Emperours of which Iulian the Apostate is one though his Historie doth not immediatlie followe So that for the Series of the Storie I advise you omitting Dionisius Halicarnassaeus Polybius Suetonius Plutarch and Tacitus to reade Livy Appianus Salust Caesars Commentaries Dion Cassius Xiphilinus Herodian and Ammianus Marcellinus To these you may adde the perusall of the two famous moderne Histories Guicciardine and Commines equall even to the best of the Ancients The deeds of Scanderbeg of the Turkes and Barbarians I hold fitter to be sung then Storied Heere I would also give you my judgement of the Greeke Storie but that it would be fruitlesse for mee to insist longer upon this subject by reason that I shall shortly write you a peculiar Tract of Historie and Dedicate that to your Lordships Name as I have already my selfe to your service I am once more returned to my first Mistresse my Booke to whom my future Constancy shall make satisfaction for my passed disloyalty The Night which I formerly consumed in Riot I now divide betwixt Sleepe and Cogitation nor doe I shut my Bookes out of Bed my most inward Friends I make fast my Dore upon the Vulgar and encompass'd with so many Learned and Blessed Soules it seemes to mee I sit in the lappe of Eternity I exclude Lust Ambition and others like of whom Sloath is the Parent and unexperience the Nurse Images and Grandies I behold in their proper places a farre off and pitty those Great ones that know not this great Happinesse It now onely resteth that in all submission and reverence I begge your Lordships Pardon for with-holding you from better imploying your time with these feeble but affectionate Lines to the writing whereof two Motives have wonne mee The first is my Zeale to your Good I having a strong Desire that you should bee of your truly Great House though not in Fortune or Fame in Vertue the greatest and in the Celestiall Kingdome have a Seate above them And give me leave to tell you Dearest Sir that this is no hard thing for you to Compasse it being onely the adding of Endeavour to your Disposition which of it selfe leadeth to goodnesse In this you have no small advantage of other great ones it being if the Authoritie of Seneca will serve a maine requisite of Nobility Quis nobilis a Natura ad virtutem bene compositus Who is Noble Hee whose Nature invites him to Vertue My second lesse principall Motive is a feare not of Death but that paradventure I might unfortunatly die without leaving you a Testimony of my Gratitude for all those Graces and Favours which it hath beene your Lordships good pleasure to deigne me your unworthy servant My owne indisposition of body and the dayly sight of these Turve fires minister occasion to mee of Contemplating the howrely consuming of the Earth whereof I am made Quaelibet res dum in sua resolvitur Principia tunc apparet qualis revera sit quidnam sub illa specie latebat Every thing being resolved into his first Principles doth then appeare what indeed it is and discovereth what lurked under that shape It is no otherwise I everie day burne as good earth as mine owne and if heere I die it is likely that this or the next Generation will make fires of mee But Civillity calles upon mee to make an end I therefore once more humbly implore your Lordships forgivenesse for detaining you from your more serious affaires with this long Discourse which hath passed the bounds I first set it downe If I have inserted any thing pleasing or good imagine I have done like an ugly Painter who hath by chance made a Beautifull Peece What ere it bee you are the Master of it to whom it standes or falles as doth Your Lordships most humble loyall Servant Antony Stafford Errata PAge 30. line 5. read onely but. p. 48. l. 9. fortake r. take p. 59. l. 19. r. blend with it p. 97. l. 1. reade Marcus p. 125. l. 3. r Twining The polish Crown Ex resolutione partium Of your Expences This is not so consonant to the Doctrine of Christ as I would it were Wherfore prudently and Christiāly shun all occasiō◠of quarrel What a wretched age do we live in that maketh effusion of blood the onely meanes for reparation of honour teacheth us to make Gods dishonor the foundation of our Fame Anger