OF THE MANNERS OF THE NOBILITY.
Of manners that proceed from the several _ages_ we have already spoken.
We are next to speak of those that rise from several _fortunes_.
The manners of the _nobility_ are: to be ambitious. To undervalue their
ancestors' equals; for the goods of fortune seem the more precious for
their antiquity.
_Nobility_ is the virtue of a stock. And _generosity_, is not to
degenerate from the virtue of his stock. For as in plants, so in the
races of men, there is a certain progress; and they grow better and
better to a certain point; and change, viz. subtile wits into madness,
and staid wits into stupidity and blockishness.
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