crosses, fables, and baubles. Had he read the Golden Legend, the Turks'
Alcoran, or Jews' Talmud, the Rabbins' Comments, what would he have
thought? How dost thou think he might have been affected? Had he more
particularly examined a Jesuit's life amongst the rest, he should have
seen an hypocrite profess poverty, [277]and yet possess more goods and
lands than many princes, to have infinite treasures and revenues; teach
others to fast, and play the gluttons themselves; like watermen that
row one way and look another. [278]Vow virginity, talk of holiness, and
yet indeed a notorious bawd, and famous fornicator, lascivum pecus, a
very goat. Monks by profession, [279]such as give over the world, and
the vanities of it, and yet a Machiavellian rout [280]interested in all
manner of state: holy men, peace-makers, and yet composed of envy,
lust, ambition, hatred, and malice; firebrands, adulta patriae pestis,
traitors, assassinats, hac itur ad astra, and this is to supererogate,
and merit heaven for themselves and others. Had he seen on the adverse
side, some of our nice and curious schismatics in another extreme,
abhor all ceremonies, and rather lose their lives and livings, than do
or admit anything Papists have formerly used, though in things
indifferent (they alone are the true Church, sal terrae, cum sint
omnium insulsissimi). Formalists, out of fear and base flattery, like
so many weather-cocks turn round, a rout of temporisers, ready to
embrace and maintain all that is or shall be proposed in hope of
preferment: another Epicurean company, lying at lurch as so many
vultures, watching for a prey of Church goods, and ready to rise by the
downfall of any: as [281]Lucian said in like case, what dost thou think
Democritus would have done, had he been spectator of these things?
Or had he but observed the common people follow like so many sheep one
of their fellows drawn by the horns over a gap, some for zeal, some for
fear, quo se cunque rapit tempestas, to credit all, examine nothing,
and yet ready to die before they will adjure any of those ceremonies to
which they have been accustomed; others out of hypocrisy frequent
sermons, knock their breasts, turn up their eyes, pretend zeal, desire
reformation, and yet professed usurers, gripers, monsters of men,
harpies, devils in their lives, to express nothing less.
What would he have said to see, hear, and read so many bloody battles,
so many thousands slain at once, such streams of blood able to turn
mills: unius ob noxam furiasque, or to make sport for princes, without
any just cause, [282]for vain titles (saith Austin), precedency, some
wench, or such like toy, or out of desire of domineering, vainglory,
malice, revenge, folly, madness, (goodly causes all, ob quas universus
orbis bellis et caedibus misceatur,) whilst statesmen themselves in the
mean time are secure at home, pampered with all delights and pleasures,
take their ease, and follow their lusts, not considering what
intolerable misery poor soldiers endure, their often wounds, hunger,
thirst, &c., the lamentable cares, torments, calamities, and
oppressions that accompany such proceedings, they feel not, take no
notice of it. So wars are begun, by the persuasion of a few debauched,
hair-brain, poor, dissolute, hungry captains, parasitical fawners,
unquiet hotspurs, restless innovators, green heads, to satisfy one
man's private spleen, lust, ambition, avarice, &c.; tales rapiunt
scelerata in praelia causae. Flos hominum, proper men, well
proportioned, carefully brought up, able both in body and mind, sound,
led like so many [283]beasts to the slaughter in the flower of their
years, pride, and full strength, without all remorse and pity,
sacrificed to Pluto, killed up as so many sheep, for devils' food,
40,000 at once. At once, said I, that were tolerable, but these wars
last always, and for many ages; nothing so familiar as this hacking and
hewing, massacres, murders, desolations—ignoto coelum clangore remugit,
they care not what mischief they procure, so that they may enrich
themselves for the present; they will so long blow the coals of
contention, till all the world be consumed with fire. The [284]siege of
Troy lasted ten years, eight months, there died 870,000 Grecians,
670,000 Trojans, at the taking of the city, and after were slain
276,000 men, women, and children of all sorts. Caesar killed a million,
[285]Mahomet the second Turk, 300,000 persons; Sicinius Dentatus fought
in a hundred battles, eight times in single combat he overcame, had
forty wounds before, was rewarded with 140 crowns, triumphed nine times
for his good service. M. Sergius had 32 wounds; Scaeva, the Centurion,
I know not how many; every nation had their Hectors, Scipios, Caesars,
and Alexanders! Our [286]Edward the Fourth was in 26 battles afoot: and
as they do all, he glories in it, 'tis related to his honour. At the
siege of Hierusalem, 1,100,000 died with sword and famine. At the
battle of Cannas, 70,000 men were slain, as [287]Polybius records, and
as many at Battle Abbey with us; and 'tis no news to fight from sun to
sun, as they did, as Constantine and Licinius, &c. At the siege of
Ostend (the devil's academy) a poor town in respect, a small fort, but
a great grave, 120,000 men lost their lives, besides whole towns,
dorps, and hospitals, full of maimed soldiers; there were engines,
fireworks, and whatsoever the devil could invent to do mischief with
2,500,000 iron bullets shot of 40 pounds weight, three or four millions
of gold consumed. [288]Who (saith mine author) can be sufficiently
amazed at their flinty hearts, obstinacy, fury, blindness, who without
any likelihood of good success, hazard poor soldiers, and lead them
without pity to the slaughter, which may justly be called the rage of
furious beasts, that run without reason upon their own deaths:
[289]quis malus genius, quae furia quae pestis, &c.; what plague, what
fury brought so devilish, so brutish a thing as war first into men's
minds? Who made so soft and peaceable a creature, born to love, mercy,
meekness, so to rave, rage like beasts, and run on to their own
destruction? how may Nature expostulate with mankind, Ego te divinum
animal finxi, &c.? I made thee an harmless, quiet, a divine creature:
how may God expostulate, and all good men? yet, horum facta (as
[290]one condoles) tantum admirantur, et heroum numero habent: these
are the brave spirits, the gallants of the world, these admired alone,
triumph alone, have statues, crowns, pyramids, obelisks to their
eternal fame, that immortal genius attends on them, hac itur ad astra.
When Rhodes was besieged, [291]fossae urbis cadaveribus repletae sunt,
the ditches were full of dead carcases: and as when the said Suleiman,
great Turk, beleaguered Vienna, they lay level with the top of the
walls. This they make a sport of, and will do it to their friends and
confederates, against oaths, vows, promises, by treachery or otherwise;
[292]—dolus an virtus? quis in hoste requirat? leagues and laws of
arms, ([293]silent leges inter arma,) for their advantage, omnia jura,
divina, humana, proculcata plerumque sunt; God's and men's laws are
trampled under foot, the sword alone determines all; to satisfy their
lust and spleen, they care not what they attempt, say, or do, [294]Rara
fides, probitasque viris qui castra sequuntur. Nothing so common as to
have [295] father fight against the son, brother against brother,
kinsman against kinsman, kingdom against kingdom, province against
province, Christians against Christians: a quibus nec unquam
cogitatione fuerunt laesi, of whom they never had offence in thought,
word, or deed. Infinite treasures consumed, towns burned, flourishing
cities sacked and ruinated, quodque animus meminisse horret, goodly
countries depopulated and left desolate, old inhabitants expelled,
trade and traffic decayed, maids deflowered, Virgines nondum thalamis
jugatae, et comis nondum positis ephaebi; chaste matrons cry out with
Andromache, [296]Concubitum mox cogar pati ejus, qui interemit
Hectorem, they shall be compelled peradventure to lie with them that
erst killed their husbands: to see rich, poor, sick, sound, lords,
servants, eodem omnes incommodo macti, consumed all or maimed, &c. Et
quicquid gaudens scelere animus audet, et perversa mens, saith Cyprian,
and whatsoever torment, misery, mischief, hell itself, the devil, [297]
fury and rage can invent to their own ruin and destruction; so
abominable a thing is [298]war, as Gerbelius concludes, adeo foeda et
abominanda res est bellum, ex quo hominum caedes, vastationes, &c., the
scourge of God, cause, effect, fruit and punishment of sin, and not
tonsura humani generis as Tertullian calls it, but ruina. Had
Democritus been present at the late civil wars in France, those
abominable wars—bellaque matribus detestata, [299]where in less than
ten years, ten thousand men were consumed, saith Collignius, twenty
thousand churches overthrown; nay, the whole kingdom subverted (as
[300]Richard Dinoth adds). So many myriads of the commons were
butchered up, with sword, famine, war, tanto odio utrinque ut barbari
ad abhorrendam lanienam obstupescerent, with such feral hatred, the
world was amazed at it: or at our late Pharsalian fields in the time of
Henry the Sixth, betwixt the houses of Lancaster and York, a hundred
thousand men slain, [301]one writes; [302]another, ten thousand
families were rooted out, that no man can but marvel, saith Comineus,
at that barbarous immanity, feral madness, committed betwixt men of the
same nation, language, and religion. [303]Quis furor, O cives? Why do
the Gentiles so furiously rage, saith the Prophet David, Psal. ii. 1.
But we may ask, why do the Christians so furiously rage? [304]Arma
volunt, quare poscunt, rapiuntque juventus? Unfit for Gentiles, much
less for us so to tyrannise, as the Spaniard in the West Indies, that
killed up in 42 years (if we may believe [305]Bartholomeus a Casa,
their own bishop) 12 millions of men, with stupend and exquisite
torments; neither should I lie (said he) if I said 50 millions. I omit
those French massacres, Sicilian evensongs, [306]the Duke of Alva's
tyrannies, our gunpowder machinations, and that fourth fury, as
[307]one calls it, the Spanish inquisition, which quite obscures those
ten persecutions, [308]———saevit toto Mars impius orbe. Is not this
[309]mundus furiosus, a mad world, as he terms it, insanum bellum? are
not these mad men, as [310]Scaliger concludes, qui in praelio acerba
morte, insaniae, suae memoriam pro perpetuo teste relinquunt
posteritati; which leave so frequent battles, as perpetual memorials of
their madness to all succeeding ages? Would this, think you, have
enforced our Democritus to laughter, or rather made him turn his tune,
alter his tone, and weep with [311]Heraclitus, or rather howl,
[312]roar, and tear his hair in commiseration, stand amazed; or as the
poets feign, that Niobe was for grief quite stupefied, and turned to a
stone? I have not yet said the worst, that which is more absurd and
[313]mad, in their tumults, seditions, civil and unjust wars, [314]quod
stulte sucipitur, impie geritur, misere finitur. Such wars I mean; for
all are not to be condemned, as those fantastical Anabaptists vainly
conceive. Our Christian tactics are all out as necessary as the Roman
acies, or Grecian phalanx, to be a soldier is a most noble and
honourable profession (as the world is), not to be spared, they are our
best walls and bulwarks, and I do therefore acknowledge that of
[315]Tully to be most true, All our civil affairs, all our studies, all
our pleading, industry, and commendation lies under the protection of
warlike virtues, and whensoever there is any suspicion of tumult, all
our arts cease; wars are most behoveful, et bellatores agricolis
civitati sunt utiliores, as [316]Tyrius defends: and valour is much to
be commended in a wise man; but they mistake most part, auferre,
trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus virtutem vocant, &c. ('Twas
Galgacus' observation in Tacitus) they term theft, murder, and rapine,
virtue, by a wrong name, rapes, slaughters, massacres, &c. jocus et
ludus, are pretty pastimes, as Ludovicus Vives notes. [317]They
commonly call the most hair-brain bloodsuckers, strongest thieves, the
most desperate villains, treacherous rogues, inhuman murderers, rash,
cruel and dissolute caitiffs, courageous and generous spirits, heroical
and worthy captains, [318]brave men at arms, valiant and renowned
soldiers, possessed with a brute persuasion of false honour, as Pontus
Huter in his Burgundian history complains. By means of which it comes
to pass that daily so many voluntaries offer themselves, leaving their
sweet wives, children, friends, for sixpence (if they can get it) a
day, prostitute their lives and limbs, desire to enter upon breaches,
lie sentinel, perdu, give the first onset, stand in the fore front of
the battle, marching bravely on, with a cheerful noise of drums and
trumpets, such vigour and alacrity, so many banners streaming in the
air, glittering armours, motions of plumes, woods of pikes, and swords,
variety of colours, cost and magnificence, as if they went in triumph,
now victors to the Capitol, and with such pomp, as when Darius' army
marched to meet Alexander at Issus. Void of all fear they run into
imminent dangers, cannon's mouth, &c., ut vulneribus suis ferrum
hostium hebetent, saith [319]Barletius, to get a name of valour, humour
and applause, which lasts not either, for it is but a mere flash this
fame, and like a rose, intra diem unum extinguitur, 'tis gone in an
instant. Of 15,000 proletaries slain in a battle, scarce fifteen are
recorded in history, or one alone, the General perhaps, and after a
while his and their names are likewise blotted out, the whole battle
itself is forgotten. Those Grecian orators, summa vi ingenii et
eloquentiae, set out the renowned overthrows at Thermopylae, Salamis,
Marathon, Micale, Mantinea, Cheronaea, Plataea. The Romans record their
battle at Cannas, and Pharsalian fields, but they do but record, and we
scarce hear of them. And yet this supposed honour, popular applause,
desire of immortality by this means, pride and vainglory spur them on
many times rashly and unadvisedly, to make away themselves and
multitudes of others. Alexander was sorry, because there were no more
worlds for him to conquer, he is admired by some for it, animosa vox
videtur, et regia, 'twas spoken like a Prince; but as wise [320]Seneca
censures him, 'twas vox inquissima et stultissima, 'twas spoken like a
Bedlam fool; and that sentence which the same [321]Seneca appropriates
to his father Philip and him, I apply to them all, Non minores fuere
pestes mortalium quam inundatio, quam conflagratio, quibus, &c. they
did as much mischief to mortal men as fire and water, those merciless
elements when they rage. [322]Which is yet more to be lamented, they
persuade them this hellish course of life is holy, they promise heaven
to such as venture their lives bello sacro, and that by these bloody
wars, as Persians, Greeks, and Romans of old, as modern Turks do now
their commons, to encourage them to fight, ut cadant infeliciter. If
they die in the field, they go directly to heaven, and shall be
canonised for saints. (O diabolical invention!) put in the Chronicles,
in perpetuam rei memoriam, to their eternal memory: when as in truth,
as [323]some hold, it were much better (since wars are the scourge of
God for sin, by which he punisheth mortal men's peevishness and folly)
such brutish stories were suppressed, because ad morum institutionem
nihil habent, they conduce not at all to manners, or good life. But
they will have it thus nevertheless, and so they put note of
[324]divinity upon the most cruel and pernicious plague of human kind,
adore such men with grand titles, degrees, statues, images,
[325]honour, applaud, and highly reward them for their good service, no
greater glory than to die in the field. So Africanus is extolled by
Ennius: Mars, and [326]Hercules, and I know not how many besides of
old, were deified; went this way to heaven, that were indeed bloody
butchers, wicked destroyers, and troublers of the world, prodigious
monsters, hell-hounds, feral plagues, devourers, common executioners of
human kind, as Lactantius truly proves, and Cyprian to Donat, such as
were desperate in wars, and precipitately made away themselves, (like
those Celts in Damascen, with ridiculous valour, ut dedecorosum
putarent muro ruenti se subducere, a disgrace to run away for a rotten
wall, now ready to fall on their heads,) such as will not rush on a
sword's point, or seek to shun a cannon's shot, are base cowards, and
no valiant men. By which means, Madet orbis mutuo sanguine, the earth
wallows in her own blood,
[327]Savit amor ferri et scelerati insania belli; and for that, which
if it be done in private, a man shall be rigorously executed, [328]and
which is no less than murder itself; if the same fact be done in public
in wars, it is called manhood, and the party is honoured for it.
[329]———Prosperum et felix scelus,
Virtus vocatur.———
We measure all as Turks do, by the event, and most part, as Cyprian
notes, in all ages, countries, places, saevitiae magnitudo impunitatem
sceleris acquirit; the foulness of the fact vindicates the offender.
[330]One is crowned for that which another is tormented: Ille crucem
sceleris precium tulit, hic diadema; made a knight, a lord, an earl, a
great duke, (as [331]Agrippa notes) for that which another should have
hung in gibbets, as a terror to the rest,
[332]———et tamen alter,
Si fecisset idem, caderet sub judice morum.
A poor sheep-stealer is hanged for stealing of victuals, compelled
peradventure by necessity of that intolerable cold, hunger, and thirst,
to save himself from starving: but a [333]great man in office may
securely rob whole provinces, undo thousands, pill and poll, oppress ad
libitum, flea, grind, tyrannise, enrich himself by spoils of the
commons, be uncontrollable in his actions, and after all, be
recompensed with turgent titles, honoured for his good service, and no
man dare find fault, or [334] mutter at it.
How would our Democritus have been affected to see a wicked caitiff or
[335]fool, a very idiot, a funge, a golden ass, a monster of men, to
have many good men, wise, men, learned men to attend upon him with all
submission, as an appendix to his riches, for that respect alone,
because he hath more wealth and money, [336]to honour him with divine
titles, and bombast epithets, to smother him with fumes and eulogies,
whom they know to be a dizzard, a fool, a covetous wretch, a beast, &c.
because he is rich? To see sub exuviis leonis onagrum, a filthy
loathsome carcass, a Gorgon's head puffed up by parasites, assume this
unto himself, glorious titles, in worth an infant, a Cuman ass, a
painted sepulchre, an Egyptian temple? To see a withered face, a
diseased, deformed, cankered complexion, a rotten carcass, a viperous
mind, and Epicurean soul set out with orient pearls, jewels, diadems,
perfumes, curious elaborate works, as proud of his clothes as a child
of his new coats; and a goodly person, of an angel-like divine
countenance, a saint, an humble mind, a meet spirit clothed in rags,
beg, and now ready to be starved? To see a silly contemptible sloven in
apparel, ragged in his coat, polite in speech, of a divine spirit,
wise? another neat in clothes, spruce, full of courtesy, empty of
grace, wit, talk nonsense?
To see so many lawyers, advocates, so many tribunals, so little
justice; so many magistrates, so little care of common good; so many
laws, yet never more disorders; Tribunal litium segetem, the Tribunal a
labyrinth, so many thousand suits in one court sometimes, so violently
followed? To see injustissimum saepe juri praesidentem, impium
religioni, imperitissimum eruditioni, otiosissimum labori, monstrosum
humanitati? to see a lamb [337]executed, a wolf pronounce sentence,
latro arraigned, and fur sit on the bench, the judge severely punish
others, and do worse himself, [338] cundem furtum facere et punire,
[339]rapinam plectere, quum sit ipse raptor? Laws altered,
misconstrued, interpreted pro and con, as the [340]judge is made by
friends, bribed, or otherwise affected as a nose of wax, good today,
none tomorrow; or firm in his opinion, cast in his? Sentence prolonged,
changed, ad arbitrium judicis, still the same case, [341]one thrust out
of his inheritance, another falsely put in by favour, false forged
deeds or wills. Incisae leges negliguntur, laws are made and not kept;
or if put in execution, [342]they be some silly ones that are punished.
As, put case it be fornication, the father will disinherit or abdicate
his child, quite cashier him (out, villain, be gone, come no more in my
sight); a poor man is miserably tormented with loss of his estate
perhaps, goods, fortunes, good name, for ever disgraced, forsaken, and
must do penance to the utmost; a mortal sin, and yet make the worst of
it, nunquid aliud fecit, saith Tranio in the [343]poet, nisi quod
faciunt summis nati generibus? he hath done no more than what gentlemen
usually do. [344]Neque novum, neque mirum, neque secus quam alii
solent. For in a great person, right worshipful Sir, a right honourable
grandee, 'tis not a venial sin, no, not a peccadillo, 'tis no offence
at all, a common and ordinary thing, no man takes notice of it; he
justifies it in public, and peradventure brags of it,
[345]Nam quod turpe bonis, Titio, Seioque, decebat
Crispinum———
For what would be base in good men, Titius, and Seius, became
Crispinus.
[346]Many poor men, younger brothers, &c. by reason of bad policy and
idle education (for they are likely brought up in no calling), are
compelled to beg or steal, and then hanged for theft; than which, what
can be more ignominious, non minus enim turpe principi multa supplicia,
quam medico multa funera, 'tis the governor's fault. Libentius
verberant quam docent, as schoolmasters do rather correct their pupils,
than teach them when they do amiss. [347]They had more need provide
there should be no more thieves and beggars, as they ought with good
policy, and take away the occasions, than let them run on, as they do
to their own destruction: root out likewise those causes of wrangling,
a multitude of lawyers, and compose controversies, lites lustrales et
seculares, by some more compendious means. Whereas now for every toy
and trifle they go to law, [348]Mugit litibus insanum forum, et saevit
invicem discordantium rabies, they are ready to pull out one another's
throats; and for commodity [349]to squeeze blood, saith Hierom, out of
their brother's heart, defame, lie, disgrace, backbite, rail, bear
false witness, swear, forswear, fight and wrangle, spend their goods,
lives, fortunes, friends, undo one another, to enrich an harpy
advocate, that preys upon them both, and cries Eia Socrates, Eia
Xantippe; or some corrupt judge, that like the [350]kite in Aesop,
while the mouse and frog fought, carried both away. Generally they prey
one upon another as so many ravenous birds, brute beasts, devouring
fishes, no medium, [351]omnes hic aut captantur aut captant; aut
cadavera quae lacerantur, aut corvi qui lacerant, either deceive or be
deceived; tear others or be torn in pieces themselves; like so many
buckets in a well, as one riseth another falleth, one's empty,
another's full; his ruin is a ladder to the third; such are our
ordinary proceedings. What's the market? A place, according to
[352]Anacharsis, wherein they cozen one another, a trap; nay, what's
the world itself? [353]A vast chaos, a confusion of manners, as fickle
as the air, domicilium insanorum, a turbulent troop full of impurities,
a mart of walking spirits, goblins, the theatre of hypocrisy, a shop of
knavery, flattery, a nursery of villainy, the scene of babbling, the
school of giddiness, the academy of vice; a warfare, ubi velis nolis
pugnandum, aut vincas aut succumbas, in which kill or be killed;
wherein every man is for himself, his private ends, and stands upon his
own guard. No charity, [354]love, friendship, fear of God, alliance,
affinity, consanguinity, Christianity, can contain them, but if they be
any ways offended, or that string of commodity be touched, they fall
foul. Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small
offences, and they that erst were willing to do all mutual offices of
love and kindness, now revile and persecute one another to death, with
more than Vatinian hatred, and will not be reconciled. So long as they
are behoveful, they love, or may bestead each other, but when there is
no more good to be expected, as they do by an old dog, hang him up or
cashier him: which [355] Cato counts a great indecorum, to use men like
old shoes or broken glasses, which are flung to the dunghill; he could
not find in his heart to sell an old ox, much less to turn away an old
servant: but they instead of recompense, revile him, and when they have
made him an instrument of their villainy, as [356]Bajazet the second
Emperor of the Turks did by Acomethes Bassa, make him away, or instead
of [357]reward, hate him to death, as Silius was served by Tiberius. In
a word, every man for his own ends. Our summum bonum is commodity, and
the goddess we adore Dea moneta, Queen money, to whom we daily offer
sacrifice, which steers our hearts, hands, [358]affections, all: that
most powerful goddess, by whom we are reared, depressed, elevated,
[359]esteemed the sole commandress of our actions, for which we pray,
run, ride, go, come, labour, and contend as fishes do for a crumb that
falleth into the water. It's not worth, virtue, (that's bonum
theatrale,) wisdom, valour, learning, honesty, religion, or any
sufficiency for which we are respected, but [360]money, greatness,
office, honour, authority; honesty is accounted folly; knavery, policy;
[361]men admired out of opinion, not as they are, but as they seem to
be: such shifting, lying, cogging, plotting, counterplotting,
temporizing, nattering, cozening, dissembling, [362]that of necessity
one must highly offend God if he be conformable to the world, Cretizare
cum Crete, or else live in contempt, disgrace and misery. One takes
upon him temperance, holiness, another austerity, a third an affected
kind of simplicity, when as indeed, he, and he, and he, and the rest
are [363]hypocrites, ambidexters, outsides, so many turning pictures, a
lion on the one side, a lamb on the other. [364]How would Democritus
have been affected to see these things!
To see a man turn himself into all shapes like a chameleon, or as
Proteus, omnia transformans sese in miracula rerum, to act twenty parts
and persons at once, for his advantage, to temporise and vary like
Mercury the planet, good with good; bad with bad; having a several
face, garb, and character for every one he meets; of all religions,
humours, inclinations; to fawn like a spaniel, mentitis et mimicis
obsequis; rage like a lion, bark like a cur, fight like a dragon, sting
like a serpent, as meek as a lamb, and yet again grin like a tiger,
weep like a crocodile, insult over some, and yet others domineer over
him, here command, there crouch, tyrannise in one place, be baffled in
another, a wise man at home, a fool abroad to make others merry.
To see so much difference betwixt words and deeds, so many parasangs
betwixt tongue and heart, men like stage-players act variety of parts,
[365]give good precepts to others, soar aloft, whilst they themselves
grovel on the ground.
To see a man protest friendship, kiss his hand, [366]quem mallet
truncatum videre, [367]smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen
him whom he salutes, [368]magnify his friend unworthy with hyperbolical
eulogiums; his enemy albeit a good man, to vilify and disgrace him, yea
all his actions, with the utmost that livor and malice can invent.
To see a [369]servant able to buy out his master, him that carries the
mace more worth than the magistrate, which Plato, lib. 11, de leg.,
absolutely forbids, Epictetus abhors. A horse that tills the [370]land
fed with chaff, an idle jade have provender in abundance; him that
makes shoes go barefoot himself, him that sells meat almost pined; a
toiling drudge starve, a drone flourish.
To see men buy smoke for wares, castles built with fools' heads, men
like apes follow the fashions in tires, gestures, actions: if the king
laugh, all laugh;
[371]Rides? majore chachiano
Concutitur, flet si lachrymas conspexit amici.
[372]Alexander stooped, so did his courtiers; Alphonsus turned his
head, and so did his parasites. [373]Sabina Poppea, Nero's wife, wore
amber-coloured hair, so did all the Roman ladies in an instant, her
fashion was theirs.
To see men wholly led by affection, admired and censured out of opinion
without judgment: an inconsiderate multitude, like so many dogs in a
village, if one bark all bark without a cause: as fortune's fan turns,
if a man be in favour, or commanded by some great one, all the world
applauds him; [374]if in disgrace, in an instant all hate him, and as
at the sun when he is eclipsed, that erst took no notice, now gaze and
stare upon him.
To see a man [375]wear his brains in his belly, his guts in his head,
an hundred oaks on his back, to devour a hundred oxen at a meal, nay
more, to devour houses and towns, or as those Anthropophagi, [376]to
eat one another.
To see a man roll himself up like a snowball, from base beggary to
right worshipful and right honourable titles, unjustly to screw himself
into honours and offices; another to starve his genius, damn his soul
to gather wealth, which he shall not enjoy, which his prodigal son
melts and consumes in an instant. [377]
To see the κακοζηλίαν of our times, a man bend all his forces, means,
time, fortunes, to be a favorite's favorite's favorite, &c., a
parasite's parasite's parasite, that may scorn the servile world as
having enough already.
To see an hirsute beggar's brat, that lately fed on scraps, crept and
whined, crying to all, and for an old jerkin ran of errands, now ruffle
in silk and satin, bravely mounted, jovial and polite, now scorn his
old friends and familiars, neglect his kindred, insult over his
betters, domineer over all.
To see a scholar crouch and creep to an illiterate peasant for a meal's
meat; a scrivener better paid for an obligation; a falconer receive
greater wages than a student; a lawyer get more in a day than a
philosopher in a year, better reward for an hour, than a scholar for a
twelvemonth's study; him that can [378]paint Thais, play on a fiddle,
curl hair, &c., sooner get preferment than a philologer or a poet.
To see a fond mother, like Aesop's ape, hug her child to death, a [379]
wittol wink at his wife's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other
affairs; one stumble at a straw, and leap over a block; rob Peter, and
pay Paul; scrape unjust sums with one hand, purchase great manors by
corruption, fraud and cozenage, and liberally to distribute to the poor
with the other, give a remnant to pious uses, &c. Penny wise, pound
foolish; blind men judge of colours; wise men silent, fools talk; [380]
find fault with others, and do worse themselves; [381]denounce that in
public which he doth in secret; and which Aurelius Victor gives out of
Augustus, severely censure that in a third, of which he is most guilty
himself.
To see a poor fellow, or an hired servant venture his life for his new
master that will scarce give him his wages at year's end; A country
colon toil and moil, till and drudge for a prodigal idle drone, that
devours all the gain, or lasciviously consumes with fantastical
expenses; A noble man in a bravado to encounter death, and for a small
flash of honour to cast away himself; A worldling tremble at an
executor, and yet not fear hell-fire; To wish and hope for immortality,
desire to be happy, and yet by all means avoid death, a necessary
passage to bring him to it.
To see a foolhardy fellow like those old Danes, qui decollari malunt
quam verberari, die rather than be punished, in a sottish humour
embrace death with alacrity, yet [382]scorn to lament his own sins and
miseries, or his clearest friends' departures.
To see wise men degraded, fools preferred, one govern towns and cities,
and yet a silly woman overrules him at home; [383]Command a province,
and yet his own servants or children prescribe laws to him, as
Themistocles' son did in Greece; [384]What I will (said he) my mother
will, and what my mother will, my father doth. To see horses ride in a
coach, men draw it; dogs devour their masters; towers build masons;
children rule; old men go to school; women wear the breeches;
[385]sheep demolish towns, devour men, &c. And in a word, the world
turned upside downward. O viveret Democritus.
[386]To insist in every particular were one of Hercules' labours,
there's so many ridiculous instances, as motes in the sun. Quantum est
in rebus inane? (How much vanity there is in things!) And who can speak
of all? Crimine ab uno disce omnes, take this for a taste.
But these are obvious to sense, trivial and well known, easy to be
discerned. How would Democritus have been moved, had he seen [387]the
secrets of their hearts? If every man had a window in his breast, which
Momus would have had in Vulcan's man, or that which Tully so much
wished it were written in every man's forehead, Quid quisque de
republica sentiret, what he thought; or that it could be effected in an
instant, which Mercury did by Charon in Lucian, by touching of his
eyes, to make him discern semel et simul rumores et susurros.
Spes hominum caecas, morbos, votumque labores,
Et passim toto volitantes aethere curas.
Blind hopes and wishes, their thoughts and affairs,
Whispers and rumours, and those flying cares.