Ambition is a proud covetousness, a dry thirst of honour, the longing
disease of reason, an aspiring and gallant madness. The ambitious climbs
up high and perilous stairs, and never cares how to come down; the
desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall. Having once
cleaved like a burr to some great man's coat, he resolves not to be
shaken off with any small indignities, and, finding his hold thoroughly
fast, casts how to insinuate yet nearer. And therefore he is busy and
servile in his endeavours to please, and all his officious respects turn
home to himself. He can be at once a slave to command, an intelligencer
to inform, a parasite to soothe and flatter, a champion to defend, an
executioner to revenge anything for an advantage of favour. He hath
projected a plot to rise, and woe be to the friend that stands in his
way. He still haunteth the court, and his unquiet spirit haunteth him,
which, having fetched him from the secure peace of his country rest,
sets him new and impossible tasks, and, after many disappointments,
encourages him to try the same sea in spite of his shipwrecks, and
promise better success. A small hope gives him heart against great
difficulties, and draws on new expense, new servility, persuading him
like foolish boys to shoot away a second shaft, that he may find the
first. He yieldeth, and now secure of the issue, applauds himself in
that honour, which he still affecteth, still misseth; and, for the last
of all trials, will rather bribe for a troublesome preferment than
return void of a title. But now, when he finds himself desperately
crossed, and at once spoiled both of advancement and hope, both of
fruition and possibility, all his desire is turned into rage, his thirst
is now only of revenge, his tongue sounds of nothing but detraction and
slander. Now the place he fought for is base, his rival unworthy, his
adversary injurious, officers corrupt, court infectious; and how well is
he that may be his own man, his own master, that may live safely in a
mean distance, at pleasure, free from starving, free from burning? But
if his designs speed well, ere he be warm in that feat, his mind is
possessed of an higher. What he hath is but a degree to what he would
have. Now he scorneth what he formerly aspired to. His success doth not
give him so much contentment as provocation; neither can he be at rest
so long as he hath one, either to overlook, or to match, or to emulate
him. When his country friend comes to visit him, he carries him up to
the awful presence, and now in his sight, crowding nearer to the chair
of state, desires to be looked on, desires to be spoken to by the
greatest, and studies how to offer an occasion, lest he should seem
unknown, unregarded; and if any gesture of the least grace fall happily
upon him, he looks back upon his friend, lest he should carelessly let
it pass, without a note; and what he wanteth in sense he supplies in
history. His disposition is never but shamefully unthankful, for unless
he have all he hath nothing. It must be a large draught, whereof he will
not say that those few drops do not slake but inflame him. So still he
thinks himself the worse for small favours. His wit so contrives the
likely plots of his promotion, as if he would steal it away without
God's knowledge, besides His will. Neither doth he ever look up, and
consult in his forecasts with the supreme Moderator of all things, as
one that thinks honour is ruled by fortune, and that heaven meddleth not
with the disposing of these earthly lots; and therefore it is just with
that wise God to defeat his fairest hopes, and to bring him to a loss in
the hottest of his chase, and to cause honour to fly away so much the
faster, by how much it is more eagerly pursued. Finally, he is an
importunate suitor, a corrupt client, a violent undertaker, a smooth
factor, but untrusty, a restless master of his own, a bladder puffed up
with the wind of hope and self-love. He is in the common body as a mole
in the earth, ever unquietly casting; and, in one word, is nothing but a
confused heap of envy, pride, covetousness.