Is the most impotent man, though neither blind nor lame, as wanting the
more necessary limbs of life, without which limbs are a burden. A man
unfenced and unsheltered from the gusts of the world, which blow all in
upon him, like an unroofed house; and the bitterest thing he suffers is
his neighbours. All men put on to him a kind of churlisher fashion, and
even more plausible natures are churlish to him, as who are nothing
advantaged by his opinion. Men fall out with him before-hand to prevent
friendship, and his friends too to prevent engagements, or if they own
him 'tis in private and a by-room, and on condition not to know them
before company. All vice put together is not half so scandalous, nor
sets off our acquaintance farther; and even those that are not friends
for ends do not love any dearness with such men. The least courtesies
are upbraided to him, and himself thanked for none, but his best
services suspected as handsome sharking and tricks to get money. And we
shall observe it in knaves themselves, that your beggarliest knaves are
the greatest, or thought so at least, for those that have wit to thrive
by it have art not to seem so. Now a poor man has not vizard enough to
mask his vices, nor ornament enough to set forth his virtues, but both
are naked and unhandsome; and though no man is necessitated to more ill,
yet no man's ill is less excused, but it is thought a kind of impudence
in him to be vicious, and a presumption above his fortune. His good
parts lie dead upon his hands, for want of matter to employ them, and at
the best are not commended but pitied, as virtues ill placed, and we may
say of him, "Tis an honest man, but tis pity;" and yet those that call
him so will trust a knave before him. He is a man that has the truest
speculation of the world, because all men shew to him in their plainest
and worst, as a man they have no plot on, by appearing good to; whereas
rich men are entertained with a more holiday behaviour, and see only the
best we can dissemble. He is the only he that tries the true strength of
wisdom, what it can do of itself without the help of fortune; that with
a great deal of virtue conquers extremities; and with a great deal more;
his own impatience, and obtains of himself not to hate men.