He ranges beyond his pale, and lives without compass. His expense is
measured, not by ability, but will. His pleasures are immoderate, and
not honest. A wanton eye, a liquorish tongue, a gamesome hand, have
impoverished him. The vulgar sort call him bountiful, and applaud him
when he spends; and recompense him with wishes when he gives, with pity
when he wants. Neither can it be denied that he raught true liberality,
but overwent it. No man could have lived more laudably, if, when he was
at the best, he had stayed there. While he is present, none of the
wealthier guests may pay aught to the shot without much vehemence,
without danger of unkindness. Use hath made it unpleasant to him not to
spend. He is in all things more ambitious of the title of good
fellowship than of wisdom. When he looks into the wealthy chest of his
father, his conceit suggests that it cannot be emptied; and while he
takes out some deal every day, he perceives not any diminution; and when
the heap is sensibly abated, yet still flatters himself with enough. One
hand cozens the other, and the belly deceives both. He doth not so much
bestow benefits as scatter them. True merit doth not carry them, but
smoothness of adulation. His senses are too much his guides and his
purveyors, and appetite is his steward. He is an impotent servant to his
lusts, and knows not to govern either his mind or his purse.
Improvidence is ever the companion of unthriftiness. This man cannot
look beyond the present, and neither thinks nor cares what shall be,
much less suspects what may be; and while he lavishes out his substance
in superfluities, thinks he only knows what the world is worth, and that
others overprize it. He feels poverty before he sees it, never complains
till he be pinched with wants; never spares till the bottom, when it is
too late either to spend or recover. He is every man's friend save his
own, and then wrongs himself most when he courteth himself with most
kindness. He vies time with the slothful, and it is a hard match whether
chases away good hours to worse purpose, the one by doing nothing, or
the other by idle pastime. He hath so dilated himself with the beams of
prosperity that he lies open to all dangers, and cannot gather up
himself, on just warning, to avoid a mischief. He were good for an
almoner, ill for a steward. Finally, he is the living tomb of his
forefathers, of his posterity; and when he hath swallowed both, is more
empty than before he devoured them.