highly esteemed of others In such a case be not troubled with a frivolous report of Dishonour rather be prodigal of thy Reputation than thy life run not wilfully into an Aceldama into the Grave into Hell to be counted valorous care not so much for the shame of the world as the danger of thy body and soul Men of great Valour have rejected Challenges which have proceeded from those who have had more heart than brain more head than wit and that without any blemish at all to their Credit When Anthony challenged Augustus he answered That if Anthony were weary of life there were ways enough to death besides Duelling But say some will call thee a Coward yet fear not shame so much as sin thou hast but one body do not adventure it upon the Sword of an Enemy but one Soul do not adventure it upon the Sword of God Love a good Name but yet as an Handmaid of Vertue woo and court common Fame no further than it follows upon honest courses and vertuous actions and think thy self but base if thou shouldst depend upon vulgar breath which is commonly none of the sweetest It is as great a Symptom of a crazy Reputation as it is of a crazy body to be too impatient upon every slight touch And truly methinks it is strange that men should so eagerly pursue Honour and so hotly court her as to vindicate her upon any man who should but touch her though never so slightly with the hazard both of body and soul Whilst in their impious and inhumane Duels they make themselves if they survive their Antagonists either liable to be hanged by the Laws of men or to be damn'd by the Laws of God or finally liable to both if God shew not more mercy to them than they did to their Brethren whose blood they spilt in some vain or perhaps drunken Brabble But let them pass as dangerous men to be conversed withal only 't were good men would hearken to Gonsalvo that famous Commander who was wont to say that a Gentlemans honour should be de telâ crassiore of a stronger warp or web than that every slight thing should catch in it and be thought able to break it Think besides the bloody fact being once committed of those terrours which will if thou hast any Grace left in thee dog thy Conscience with the srightful Vissions of thy murthered Friend and think moreover how together with him thou hast murdered unless thou canst procure a pardon thy poor Children and undone thy whole Family and laid such a blemish upon thy posterity after thee as peradventure shall never be blotted out again the stain being laid so deep in blood LXXIV Be not too ventrous in exposing thy self like a Knight Errand to needness dangers 't is an unhappy Proverb He that courts perils shall dye the Devils Martyr I have heard that in our last Civil Wars a young Cavaliero being well mounted started out to pickeer with another of the Enemies side and killed him and returning in a vain glorious manner to his Company Prince Rupert who then commanded that Party and was a Spectator of his Bravery asked him this Question Sir pray resolve me whether you are an elder or a younger Brother who replying that he was an elder Brother the Prince told him That he had then that day shewed his younger Brother fair play for it And what got my Gallant by this but instead of the applause he expected the estimation of being Fool Hardy rather than truly valiant As I would not have thee kneel with the Camel to take up a burden under which thou canst not rise again so with the Elephant I would have thee like a stout man to bear a Castle if it be laid upon thy back There is a time for the tolerancy of a mans crosses and therefore neither like the wild Beast bred in a cold Climat run from the fire nor like a Moth flittering about the Candle run into it LXXV Come not presumptuousty into places where some are contagiously sick lest thou come untimely to thy Grave come not within the lists of destruction he that would not fall into the pit must not approach the brink Likewise bestow cost as long as thou mayst to continue thy life by upholding and repairing thy Cottage of clay It is against the course of Nature and a way to tempt the very God of Nature to destroy thee wilfully to hinder thy health or not to seek means to preserve it God sendeth several Diseases and hath appointed several Medicines as Remedies to encounter them therefore honour the Physician and with King Hezekiah lay a plaister upon the Boil say not mans life hath a period as the Sea hath its bounds beyond which it cannot pass and therefore think not like a Turk that if thy time be not yet come that though thou thrust thy head into a Cannon it cannot kill thee for though no man can live one minute beyond the set time God hath appointed him to live yet by refusing the due means to preserve thy self or by thy sins and deb nicheries thou mayst cut thy days the shorter God that predestines the end doth as well predestine the means tending to the attainment thereof This the Psalmist makes evident when he tells us The wicked and blood-thirsty men shall not live out half their days And we may observe by our daily experiences that men in Feavers Squinancies and Pleurisies are preserved many years longer by timely Phlebotomy who without such means would unavoidably and immediately perish To this purpose I have read a remarkable Spanish Story and it is this There was in Toledo a debauched young Gentleman scarce twenty years of age who for Robbery and Murder was condemned to dye and being hanged on the day of Execution upon a Gibbet suddenly there grew out of his a little before unflidged Chin a long Beard white as Snow which when the Archbishop of the place coming to the Gallows observed he gave the amazed people that stood by this conjecture of so strange an Accident that God by this wonderful thing had shewn that if the young Man had not cut himself off by his vitious and abominable courses he might have lived to an extreme old age Say not when thy Glass is run do what thou wilt thou canst stay no longer and the Clock will strike when the Minutes be past neither say that that which must be shall be and let death seek thee yet it shall not find thee till thy time be come and therefore away with Physick what shall means do For then a Rope upon thee try every Knife eat Coloquintida thy belly full frequent places where the Air about thee doth infect and where the breath of one body is poyson to another and by the like reason thou mayst excuse thy wickedness and be desperately and dissolutely careless But in matters of Hope where the end is not known use means with Asa though thou relye not upon
valiant Captain Achilles that he did more abhor lying than death remember how that the Cretans for lying became a by-word to the whole world much less do thou add to thy lying execrable wishes Munster writeth of Popiel the Second King of Poland who had ever this word in his mouth if it be not true I would the Rats might eat me but shortly after being at a Banquet he was so fiercely assailed by Rats that neither his Guard Fire or Water could preserve him from them Neither be thou like those Jesters who practice lying and telling strange inventions of their own which are most false to please for a time the Hearers nor like those who devise and spread false News and account it good sport to deceive the simple but be thou slow to tell News and Tales whatsoever thou seest or hearest of others either meddle not with it but strive to be quiet and do thine own business or if it so concern thee that thou must needs speak of it take heed that thou do not mistake any part of it many things are so spoken that they may be taken well or ill yea and what can be said but some one or other may turn it into an evil Meaning as the Spider that out of the best Flowers will suck some Poison but be thou of the mind to take every thing the best way and as it were by the right handle knowing that it is the Devils property to make the worst of every thing Thou mayest be deceived in what thou hearest another speak because thou canst not see the Heart and Meaning of the Person much more in that which thou hast of him by Hear-say for Reports are commonly very faulty and seldom hold truth in all points and those that told it thee are apt to deny it again if thou hast not witness and so thou mayest run thy self into great trouble therefore imitate Epimenides the Painter who after his return from Asia being enquired of News answered I stand here to sell Pictures not to tell News Neither follow thou the example of vain Travellers and Praters who meerly out of vanity and because they would say something set such things as they have seen or heard upon the Tenter-hooks stretching them most palpably beyond all credit or coining incredible things out of their own Mint that never before saw any light and have no more affinity with Truth than the opinion of Copernicus of the motion of the earth or that Relation of our Country-man of the New World in the Moon or of Domingo Gonzales and his flight thither upon the Wings of his Ganzas I have read of a Knight who shall be nameless that rendred himself ridiculous by this Means for using to make multiplying Glasses of what he in his long and great Travels had observed professed that he once conversed with a Hermite who was in the opinion of all men able to commute any Metal into Gold with a Stone he kept still hanging at his Girdle and being asked of what kind it was and not readily answering the witty Lord of Saint Albans standing by said he did verily believe it was a Whet-stone Make not Lies upon thy self as many do boasting vain-gloriously of themselves praising their knowledge and bragging of what great acts they have done as if they only were wise when alas it is well known they are otherwise such men may fitly be compared to the Bell in the Clock-house at Westminster which had this Inscription about it King Edward made me Thirty thousand and three Take me down and weigh me And more shall ye find me But when this Bell was taken down and weighed this and two more were found not to weigh twenty thousand Such vain-glory as this being like a Window Cushion specious without but stuft with Hay within or some such Trash wherefore when a Souldier bragged of a Wound in his Forehead Augustus asked him whether he did not get it when he lookt back as he fled XXVI Go not vauntingly and proudly as some who go as if they were the only men of their Country and speak and look very high and losty when they have scarce any home to go to or any thing to maintain their Highness and Lostiness imitating the Spaniards who are highly conceited of themselves great Braggers and extreamly proud even in the lowest ebb of Fortune which appeareth by the Tale of the poor Cobler on his death bed who commanded his eldest Son coming to him for his last Blessing to endeavour to retain the honour worthy so noble a Family also a Woman of that Country attended on by three of her Brats went a begging from door to door some French Merchants travelling that way and pitying her case offered her to take into their Service the bigger of her Boys but she proud though poor scorning as she said that any of her Lineage should endure an Apprentiship returned this answer that for ought she or any knew her Son simple as he stood there might live to be King of Spain such Braggadocios as these are like the Peacock who though he be hatched on a Dunghill yet is he the proudest of Birds Nay some of these are so proud that they are ashamed of their Parents resembling those Beasts who think themselves well hid if they can but hide their Heads never remembring Sir Thomas Moor who being Lord Chancellor in his time and consequently in an Office next and immediately to the King himself and having his own Father living and at that time but one of thâ— inferiour Judges of the Kings Bench that then was never went to Westminster Hall to sit in the Chancery there but he would go up to the Kings Bench where his Father then sate and there on his Knees would ask him blessing before a multitude of beholders so little was he ashamed of his Father though then in a far lower Condition than himself XXVII Take heed of being too ceremonious and complemental lest thou give others an occasion to think that thou art full of Craft because thou art full of Courtesie the bowings bendings and cringings of some resemble but such gestures as men use when they go about to catch â—otterils yet there are some Cereâ—â—â—â—es in giving men their due Titles of Honour according to their several Degrees either when we write to them or talk with them which we cannot omit without the imputation of being ill-bred thou must not write to a Knight or an Esquire thus To Mr. B. G. Knight or Esquire but must call the one Right-Worshipful the other Worshipful nor must thou stile a Lord Right Worshipful but Right Honourable or a King or Prince Right Honourable but in discourse thou shalt say to a King and it please your Majesty to a Prince and it like your Highness to a Lord and it like your Honour to a Knight or an Esquire and it like your Worship to an Arch-Bishop and it like your Grace to a Bishop and it please your
Communication if thou art too brief thou shalt not be understood if too long thou wilt be tedious XVII Neither do thou follow the Example of those who will prefer themselves in all things above others who will put themselves in the best Beds in the best Chambers and in the highest Places will like nothing but what they themselves invent or do but will set aside and suspend others with a Jest and will have themselves accounted best in solemn Feasts or Banquets in Horsmanship in Plays and in all Refreshments of the Body and Exercises of the Mind to excel all others and boast much of what they have and what they have done which things are odious and therefore I advise thee to avoid them and remember that nothing makes a mans breath stink worse than commendations of himself Speech of thy self ought to be seldom and well chosen I knew one saith Sir Francis Bacon who was wont to say in scorn he must needs be a wise man he speaks so much of himself and there is but one case wherein thou mayst commend thy self with good Grace and that is in commending Vertue in another especially if it be such a Vertue whereunto thou thy self pretendest Never speak well of thy self unless thou be taxed for any dishonesty by a slanderous Tongue for a man may tell his Slanderer that he is as honest a man as himself or any of his Generation and if a man shall say I am an honest man he is not to be taxed of vain-glory but if he say I am a learned man or I am a wise man he will shew himself to be very vain so then a man may praise himself as to his Morals but not as to his Intellectuals XVIII Resemble not those who when a Question is proposed unto them are so long before they give their Opinion that they prove very troublesom in making a very long Circumstance or Excuse saying Sirs I am the unworthiest and the unlearnedest in the whole Company here are Gentlemen who are far worthier and far more learned than I am and are better able to answer the Question propounded when indeed he is by the confession of all the learnedest there and best able to give a resolution yet for the sake of obedience I shall willingly submit my self to your commands whilst these and many other vain Preambles are made they put a stop to the present business and in that time the Question might have been answered when a Fidler is long and tedious in tuning his Fiddle who will care for his Musick XIX Be not thou like those who are so heady sharp sullen and rough that nothing can please them howsoever or by whomsoever it is done who whatsoever is said unto them do answer with a grim or sower countenance and in whosoevers company they are chide their Servants nay sometimes beat them so that they disturb the whole company to whom all humours are odious but what are Debonaire and to jar scold and ruffle with those about thee just when thy Guests are ready to sit down at thy Table is as if thou shouldst scrape thy Trenchers to set their Teeth on edge before they begin to eat their meat be not angry at thy Table whatsoever happens but rather contain thy self and dissemble it lest there should a sign of trouble appear in thy countenance and so thy Guests be induced to believe that some in the company are not so welcome as they should be but rather be merry and facetious at thy Meals for this like Poynant sauce will make thy Meal the more savoury XX. Be not contrary to others desires neither oppose the delights of others when they talk of what Sports they most delight in do not thou undervalue them nor if they desire thee to make one at their Recreations refuse their desires for that argues morosity complacency is hugely pleasing to all those with whom we converse and one jarring string spoils the harmony of a whole set of Musick XXI Be not rough or strange but rather pleasant and familiar accustom thy self to salute every one very kindly to talk with them and answer them very pleasantly and familiarly it is a true token of Nobility and the certain mark of a Gentleman to be courteous to all and especially to Strangers Themistocles was so full of courtesie that he never entred the Market-place without saluting every Citizen by his name or some other friendly compellation as a Bell is known by the sound so is a mans Gentility by his courteous affability Ferdinando King of Spain was wont to say that proud looks lose hearts but courteous words win them Courtesie will drew unto thee the love of Strangers and the good liking of thine own Country-men XXII Avoid the custom of many who will always be of a sad countenance and will never be merry with their friends but refuse all things that are offered to make them merry and when any one sends commendations unto them they will answer the Messenger what am I the better for his commendations and if any one tells them that such or such a friend of late asked for them whether they were in good health or no they will answer he may come and see if he please XXIII Thou must not be melancholy and thoughty in that place where any one is as if thou wert snatcht and placed without thy self yea although this may be born with in those who have spent many years in the consideration and contemplation of the Liberal Arts and Sciences yet I tell thee in others without doubt it is not to be approved of yea thou dost well at that time in which thou thinkest to meditate to go in from the company of others either into thy Study or some other solitary Place the solitary Nightingale sings sweetest when all other Birds are fast asteep XXIV Be not of too nice and delicate a Mind and too precise in thy discourse for I say that talk with such men as are so is rather a Bondage than an equal Society there are some who are so nice and curious in all their words and actions that to live and converse with them is no other than to be surrounded with brittle Glasses so that men greatly fear to touch them they must handle and observe them very softly and gently they must fitly and carefully salute them visit them and answer their questions otherwise they will be very angry they are so delighted with their titles that unless any one shall have them at his fingers ends and use them at every word they will be displeased nay they will scarce answer him or if they do it will be thus I truly as thou knowest am called Master but thou dost forget to put a M under thy Girdle Take heed of lying for if thou usest this vice often thou wilt lose thy credit amongst all men the Persians and Indians deprived him of all honour and further speech that lyed Homer writeth of the great and