Part 5 (1/2)
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 cas.h.i.+er 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 wors.h.i.+pful 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, t.i.tio, Seioque, decebat Crispinum”------
”For what would be base in good men, t.i.tius, 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 mult.i.tude of lawyers, and compose controversies, _lites l.u.s.trales 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 succ.u.mbas_, 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, friends.h.i.+p, fear of G.o.d, 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 cas.h.i.+er him: which [355]
Cato counts a great indecorum, to use men like old shoes or broken gla.s.ses, 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 Ba.s.sa, 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 G.o.ddess we adore _Dea moneta_, Queen money, to whom we daily offer sacrifice, which steers our hearts, hands, [358]affections, all: that most powerful G.o.ddess, 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 s.h.i.+fting, lying, cogging, plotting, counterplotting, temporizing, nattering, cozening, dissembling, [362]”that of necessity one must highly offend G.o.d if he be conformable to the world, _Cretizare c.u.m 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, _ment.i.tis 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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 fas.h.i.+ons in tires, gestures, actions: if the king laugh, all laugh;
[371] ”Rides? majore chachiano Concut.i.tur, 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 fas.h.i.+on was theirs.
To see men wholly led by affection, admired and censured out of opinion without judgment: an inconsiderate mult.i.tude, 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 s...o...b..ll, from base beggary to right wors.h.i.+pful and right honourable t.i.tles, unjustly to screw himself into honours and offices; another to starve his genius, d.a.m.n his soul to gather wealth, which he shall not enjoy, which his prodigal son melts and consumes in an instant. [377]
To see the [Greek: kakozaelian] 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 sc.r.a.ps, 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; sc.r.a.pe 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 n.o.ble 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 h.e.l.l-fire; To wish and hope for immortality, desire to be happy, and yet by all means avoid death, a necessary pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sim toto volitantes aethere curas.”
”Blind hopes and wishes, their thoughts and affairs, Whispers and rumours, and those flying cares.”
That he could _cubiculorum obductas foras recludere et secreta cordium penetrare_, which [388]Cyprian desired, open doors and locks, shoot bolts, as Lucian's Gallus did with a feather of his tail: or Gyges' invisible ring, or some rare perspective gla.s.s, or _Otacousticon_, which would so multiply species, that a man might hear and see all at once (as [389]
Martia.n.u.s Capella's Jupiter did in a spear which he held in his hand, which did present unto him all that was daily done upon the face of the earth), observe cuckolds' horns, forgeries of alchemists, the philosopher's stone, new projectors, &c., and all those works of darkness, foolish vows, hopes, fears and wishes, what a deal of laughter would it have afforded? He should have seen windmills in one man's head, an hornet's nest in another. Or had he been present with Icaromenippus in Lucian at Jupiter's whispering place, [390]and heard one pray for rain, another for fair weather; one for his wife's, another for his father's death, &c.; ”to ask that at G.o.d's hand which they are abashed any man should hear:” How would he have been confounded? Would he, think you, or any man else, say that these men were well in their wits? _Haec sani esse hominis quis sa.n.u.s juret Orestes_? Can all the h.e.l.lebore in the Anticyrae cure these men? No, sure, [391]”an acre of h.e.l.lebore will not do it.”
That which is more to be lamented, they are mad like Seneca's blind woman, and will not acknowledge, or [392]seek for any cure of it, for _pauci vident morb.u.m suum, omnes amant_. If our leg or arm offend us, we covet by all means possible to redress it; [393]and if we labour of a bodily disease, we send for a physician; but for the diseases of the mind we take no notice of them: [394]l.u.s.t harrows us on the one side; envy, anger, ambition on the other. We are torn in pieces by our pa.s.sions, as so many wild horses, one in disposition, another in habit; one is melancholy, another mad; [395]and which of us all seeks for help, doth acknowledge his error, or knows he is sick? As that stupid fellow put out the candle because the biting fleas should not find him; he shrouds himself in an unknown habit, borrowed t.i.tles, because n.o.body should discern him. Every man thinks with himself, _Egomet videor mihi sa.n.u.s_, I am well, I am wise, and laughs at others. And 'tis a general fault amongst them all, that [396]