in Horace, proves that all mortal men dote by fits, some one way, some
another, but that covetous men [1844]are madder than the rest; and he
that shall truly look into their estates, and examine their symptoms,
shall find no better of them, but that they are all [1845]fools, as
Nabal was, Re et nomine (1. Reg. 15.) For what greater folly can there
be, or [1846] madness, than to macerate himself when he need not? and
when, as Cyprian notes, [1847]he may be freed from his burden, and
eased of his pains, will go on still, his wealth increasing, when he
hath enough, to get more, to live besides himself, to starve his
genius, keep back from his wife [1848]and children, neither letting
them nor other friends use or enjoy that which is theirs by right, and
which they much need perhaps; like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth
only keep it, because it shall do nobody else good, hurting himself and
others: and for a little momentary pelf, damn his own soul? They are
commonly sad and tetric by nature, as Achab's spirit was because he
could not get Naboth's vineyard, (1. Reg. 22.) and if he lay out his
money at any time, though it be to necessary uses, to his own
children's good, he brawls and scolds, his heart is heavy, much
disquieted he is, and loath to part from it: Miser abstinet et timet
uti, Hor. He is of a wearish, dry, pale constitution, and cannot sleep
for cares and worldly business; his riches, saith Solomon, will not let
him sleep, and unnecessary business which he heapeth on himself; or if
he do sleep, 'tis a very unquiet, interrupt, unpleasing sleep: with his
bags in his arms,
———congestis undique sacc
indormit inhians,———
And though he be at a banquet, or at some merry feast, he sighs for
grief of heart (as [1849]Cyprian hath it) and cannot sleep though it be
upon a down bed; his wearish body takes no rest, [1850]troubled in his
abundance, and sorrowful in plenty, unhappy for the present, and more
unhappy in the life to come. Basil. He is a perpetual drudge,
[1851]restless in his thoughts, and never satisfied, a slave, a wretch,
a dust-worm, semper quod idolo suo immolet, sedulus observat Cypr.
prolog. ad sermon still seeking what sacrifice he may offer to his
golden god, per fas et nefas, he cares not how, his trouble is endless,
[1852]crescunt divitiae, tamen curtae nescio quid semper abest rei: his
wealth increaseth, and the more he hath, the more [1853]he wants: like
Pharaoh's lean kine, which devoured the fat, and were not satisfied.
[1854]Austin therefore defines covetousness, quarumlibet rerum
inhonestam et insatiabilem cupiditatem a dishonest and insatiable
desire of gain; and in one of his epistles compares it to hell;
[1855]which devours all, and yet never hath enough, a bottomless pit,
an endless misery; in quem scopulum avaritiae cadaverosi senes
utplurimum impingunt, and that which is their greatest corrosive, they
are in continual suspicion, fear, and distrust, He thinks his own wife
and children are so many thieves, and go about to cozen him, his
servants are all false:
Rem suam periisse, seque eradicarier,
Et divum atque hominum clamat continuo fidem,
De suo tigillo si qua exit foras.
If his doors creek, then out he cries anon,
His goods are gone, and he is quite undone.
Timidus Plutus, an old proverb, As fearful as Plutus: so doth
Aristophanes and Lucian bring him in fearful still, pale, anxious,
suspicious, and trusting no man, [1856]They are afraid of tempests for
their corn; they are afraid of their friends lest they should ask
something of them, beg or borrow; they are afraid of their enemies lest
they hurt them, thieves lest they rob them; they are afraid of war and
afraid of peace, afraid of rich and afraid of poor; afraid of all. Last
of all, they are afraid of want, that they shall die beggars, which
makes them lay up still, and dare not use that they have: what if a
dear year come, or dearth, or some loss? and were it not that they are
both to [1857]lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith,
and sometimes die to save charges, and make away themselves, if their
corn and cattle miscarry; though they have abundance left, as
[1858]Agellius notes. [1859]Valerius makes mention of one that in a
famine sold a mouse for 200 pence, and famished himself: such are their
cares, [1860]griefs and perpetual fears. These symptoms are elegantly
expressed by Theophrastus in his character of a covetous man;
[1861]lying in bed, he asked his wife whether she shut the trunks and
chests fast, the cap-case be sealed, and whether the hall door be
bolted; and though she say all is well, he riseth out of his bed in his
shirt, barefoot and barelegged, to see whether it be so, with a dark
lantern searching every corner, scarce sleeping a wink all night.
Lucian in that pleasant and witty dialogue called Gallus, brings in
Mycillus the cobbler disputing with his cock, sometimes Pythagoras;
where after much speech pro and con, to prove the happiness of a mean
estate, and discontents of a rich man, Pythagoras' cock in the end, to
illustrate by examples that which he had said, brings him to Gnyphon
the usurer's house at midnight, and after that to Encrates; whom, they
found both awake, casting up their accounts, and telling of their
money, [1862]lean, dry, pale and anxious, still suspecting lest
somebody should make a hole through the wall, and so get in; or if a
rat or mouse did but stir, starting upon a sudden, and running to the
door to see whether all were fast. Plautus, in his Aulularia, makes old
Euclio [1863]commanding Staphyla his wife to shut the doors fast, and
the fire to be put out, lest anybody should make that an errand to come
to his house: when he washed his hands, [1864]he was loath to fling
away the foul water, complaining that he was undone, because the smoke
got out of his roof. And as he went from home, seeing a crow scratch
upon the muck-hill, returned in all haste, taking it for malum omen, an
ill sign, his money was digged up; with many such. He that will but
observe their actions, shall find these and many such passages not
feigned for sport, but really performed, verified indeed by such
covetous and miserable wretches, and that it is,
[1865]———manifesta phrenesis
Ut locuples moriaris egenti vivere fato.
A mere madness, to live like a wretch, and die rich.
SUBSECT. XIII.—_Love of Gaming, &c. and pleasures immoderate; Causes_.
It is a wonder to see, how many poor, distressed, miserable wretches,
one shall meet almost in every path and street, begging for an alms,
that have been well descended, and sometimes in flourishing estate, now
ragged, tattered, and ready to be starved, lingering out a painful
life, in discontent and grief of body and mind, and all through
immoderate lust, gaming, pleasure and riot. 'Tis the common end of all
sensual epicures and brutish prodigals, that are stupefied and carried
away headlong with their several pleasures and lusts. Cebes in his
table, St. Ambrose in his second book of Abel and Cain, and amongst the
rest Lucian in his tract de Mercede conductis, hath excellent well
deciphered such men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia, whom he
feigns to dwell on the top of a high mount, much sought after by many
suitors; at their first coming they are generally entertained by
pleasure and dalliance, and have all the content that possibly may be
given, so long as their money lasts: but when their means fail, they
are contemptibly thrust out at a back door, headlong, and there left to
shame, reproach, despair. And he at first that had so many attendants,
parasites, and followers, young and lusty, richly arrayed, and all the
dainty fare that might be had, with all kind of welcome and good
respect, is now upon a sudden stripped of all, [1866]pale, naked, old,
diseased and forsaken, cursing his stars, and ready to strangle
himself; having no other company but repentance, sorrow, grief,
derision, beggary, and contempt, which are his daily attendants to his
life's end. As the [1867]prodigal son had exquisite music, merry
company, dainty fare at first; but a sorrowful reckoning in the end; so
have all such vain delights and their followers. [1868]Tristes
voluptatum exitus, et quisquis voluptatum suarum reminisci volet,
intelliget, as bitter as gall and wormwood is their last; grief of
mind, madness itself. The ordinary rocks upon which such men do impinge
and precipitate themselves, are cards, dice, hawks, and hounds, Insanum
venandi studium, one calls it, insanae substructiones: their mad
structures, disports, plays, &c., when they are unseasonably used,
imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes. Some men are consumed
by mad fantastical buildings, by making galleries, cloisters, terraces,
walks, orchards, gardens, pools, rillets, bowers, and such like places
of pleasure; Inutiles domos, [1869]Xenophon calls them, which howsoever
they be delightsome things in themselves, and acceptable to all
beholders, an ornament, and benefiting some great men: yet unprofitable
to others, and the sole overthrow of their estates. Forestus in his
observations hath an example of such a one that became melancholy upon
the like occasion, having consumed his substance in an unprofitable
building, which would afterward yield him no advantage. Others, I say,
are [1870] overthrown by those mad sports of hawking and hunting;
honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base
inferior person; whilst they will maintain their falconers, dogs, and
hunting nags, their wealth, saith [1871]Salmutze, runs away with
hounds, and their fortunes fly away with hawks. They persecute beasts
so long, till in the end they themselves degenerate into beasts, as
[1872]Agrippa taxeth them, [1873]Actaeon like, for as he was eaten to
death by his own dogs, so do they devour themselves and their
patrimonies, in such idle and unnecessary disports, neglecting in the
mean time their more necessary business, and to follow their vocations.
Over-mad too sometimes are our great men in delighting, and doting too
much on it. [1874]When they drive poor husbandmen from their tillage,
as [1875]Sarisburiensis objects, Polycrat. l. 1. c. 4, fling down
country farms, and whole towns, to make parks, and forests, starving
men to feed beasts, and [1876]punishing in the mean time such a man
that shall molest their game, more severely than him that is otherwise
a common hacker, or a notorious thief. But great men are some ways to
be excused, the meaner sort have no evasion why they should not be
counted mad. Poggius the Florentine tells a merry story to this
purpose, condemning the folly and impertinent business of such kind of
persons. A physician of Milan, saith he, that cured mad men, had a pit
of water in his house, in which he kept his patients, some up to the
knees, some to the girdle, some to the chin, pro modo insaniae, as they
were more or less affected. One of them by chance, that was well
recovered, stood in the door, and seeing a gallant ride by with a hawk
on his fist, well mounted, with his spaniels after him, would needs
know to what use all this preparation served; he made answer to kill
certain fowls; the patient demanded again, what his fowl might be worth
which he killed in a year; he replied 5 or 10 crowns; and when he urged
him farther what his dogs, horse, and hawks stood him in, he told him
400 crowns; with that the patient bad be gone, as he loved his life and
welfare, for if our master come and find thee here, he will put thee in
the pit amongst mad men up to the chin: taxing the madness and folly of
such vain men that spend themselves in those idle sports, neglecting
their business and necessary affairs. Leo Decimus, that hunting pope,
is much discommended by [1877]Jovius in his life, for his immoderate
desire of hawking and hunting, in so much that (as he saith) he would
sometimes live about Ostia weeks and months together, leave suitors
[1878]unrespected, bulls and pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice,
and many private men's loss. [1879]And if he had been by chance crossed
in his sport, or his game not so good, he was so impatient, that he
would revile and miscall many times men of great worth with most bitter
taunts, look so sour, be so angry and waspish, so grieved and molested,
that it is incredible to relate it. But if he had good sport, and been
well pleased, on the other side, incredibili munificentia, with
unspeakable bounty and munificence he would reward all his fellow
hunters, and deny nothing to any suitor when he was in that mood. To
say truth, 'tis the common humour of all gamesters, as Galataeus
observes, if they win, no men living are so jovial and merry, but
[1880]if they lose, though it be but a trifle, two or three games at
tables, or a dealing at cards for two pence a game, they are so
choleric and testy that no man may speak with them, and break many
times into violent passions, oaths, imprecations, and unbeseeming
speeches, little differing from mad men for the time. Generally of all
gamesters and gaming, if it be excessive, thus much we may conclude,
that whether they win or lose for the present, their winnings are not
Munera fortunae, sed insidiae as that wise Seneca determines, not
fortune's gifts, but baits, the common catastrophe is [1881]beggary,
[1882]Ut pestis vitam, sic adimit alea pecuniam, as the plague takes
away life, doth gaming goods, for [1883] omnes nudi, inopes et egeni;
[1884]Alea Scylla vorax, species certissima furti,
Non contenta bonis animum quoque perfida mergit,
Foeda, furax, infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina.
For a little pleasure they take, and some small gains and gettings now
and then, their wives and children are ringed in the meantime, and they
themselves with loss of body and soul rue it in the end. I will say
nothing of those prodigious prodigals, perdendae pecuniae, genitos, as
he [1885] taxed Anthony, Qui patrimonium sine ulla fori calumnia
amittunt, saith [1886]Cyprian, and [1887]mad sybaritical spendthrifts,
Quique una comedunt patrimonia coena; that eat up all at a breakfast,
at a supper, or amongst bawds, parasites, and players, consume
themselves in an instant, as if they had flung it into [1888]Tiber,
with great wages, vain and idle expenses, &c., not themselves only, but
even all their friends, as a man desperately swimming drowns him that
comes to help him, by suretyship and borrowing they will willingly undo
all their associates and allies. [1889] Irati pecuniis, as he saith,
angry with their money: [1890]what with a wanton eye, a liquorish
tongue, and a gamesome hand, when they have indiscreetly impoverished
themselves, mortgaged their wits, together with their lands, and
entombed their ancestors' fair possessions in their bowels, they may
lead the rest of their days in prison, as many times they do; they
repent at leisure; and when all is gone begin to be thrifty: but Sera
est in fundo parsimonia, 'tis then too late to look about; their
[1891]end is misery, sorrow, shame, and discontent. And well they
deserve to be infamous and discontent. [1892]Catamidiari in
Amphitheatro, as by Adrian the emperor's edict they were of old,
decoctores bonorum suorum, so he calls them, prodigal fools, to be
publicly shamed, and hissed out of all societies, rather than to be
pitied or relieved. [1893]The Tuscans and Boetians brought their
bankrupts into the marketplace in a bier with an empty purse carried
before them, all the boys following, where they sat all day
circumstante plebe, to be infamous and ridiculous. At [1894]Padua in
Italy they have a stone called the stone of turpitude, near the
senate-house, where spendthrifts, and such as disclaim non-payment of
debts, do sit with their hinder parts bare, that by that note of
disgrace others may be terrified from all such vain expense, or
borrowing more than they can tell how to pay. The [1895]civilians of
old set guardians over such brain-sick prodigals, as they did over
madmen, to moderate their expenses, that they should not so loosely
consume their fortunes, to the utter undoing of their families.
I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human
kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of
people; they go commonly together.
[1896]Qui vino indulget, quemque aloa decoquit, ille
In venerem putret———
To whom is sorrow, saith Solomon, Pro. xxiii. 39, to whom is woe, but
to such a one as loves drink? it causeth torture, (vino tortus et ira)
and bitterness of mind, Sirac. 31. 21. Vinum furoris, Jeremy calls it,
15. cap. wine of madness, as well he may, for insanire facit sanos, it
makes sound men sick and sad, and wise men [1897]mad, to say and do
they know not what. Accidit hodie terribilis casus (saith [1898]S.
Austin) hear a miserable accident; Cyrillus' son this day in his drink,
Matrem praegnantem nequiter oppressit, sororem violare voluit, patrem
occidit fere, et duas alias sorores ad mortem vulneravit, would have
violated his sister, killed his father, &c. A true saying it was of
him, Vino dari laetitiam et dolorem, drink causeth mirth, and drink
causeth sorrow, drink causeth poverty and want, (Prov. xxi.) shame and
disgrace. Multi ignobiles evasere ob vini potum, et (Austin) amissis
honoribus profugi aberrarunt: many men have made shipwreck of their
fortunes, and go like rogues and beggars, having turned all their
substance into aurum potabile, that otherwise might have lived in good
worship and happy estate, and for a few hours' pleasure, for their
Hilary term's but short, or [1899]free madness, as Seneca calls it,
purchase unto themselves eternal tediousness and trouble.
That other madness is on women, Apostatare facit cor, saith the wise
man, [1900]Atque homini cerebrum minuit. Pleasant at first she is, like
Dioscorides Rhododaphne, that fair plant to the eye, but poison to the
taste, the rest as bitter as wormwood in the end (Prov. v. 4.) and
sharp as a two-edged sword, (vii. 27.) Her house is the way to hell,
and goes down to the chambers of death. What more sorrowful can be
said? they are miserable in this life, mad, beasts, led like [1901]oxen
to the slaughter: and that which is worse, whoremasters and drunkards
shall be judged, amittunt gratiam, saith Austin, perdunt gloriam,
incurrunt damnationem aeternam. They lose grace and glory;
[1902]———brevis illa voluptas
Abrogat aeternum caeli decus———
they gain hell and eternal damnation.
SUBSECT. XIV.—_Philautia, or Self-love, Vainglory, Praise, Honour,
Immoderate Applause, Pride, overmuch Joy, &c., Causes_.