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poverty. O, but to strike blind the people with our wealth and pomp is the thing! What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and 5 precious! We serve our avarice, and, not content with the good of the earth that is offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He knew were profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and Nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it were more honor for us if we could contemn necessary. What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of 15 waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough but such a state for which a man may be brought into a præmunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? O! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he were in 25 a better way to happiness than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions. But we make our selves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery. Have not I seen the pomp of a whole kingdom, and what a foreign 30 king could bring hither also to make himself gazed and wondered at, laid forth, as it were, to the show, and vanish all away in a day? And shall that which could not fill the expectation of few hours, entertain and take up our whole lives, when even it appeared as superfluous 35

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to the possessors as to me that was a spectator? The bravery was shown, it was not possessed; while it boasted itself it perished. It is vile, and a poor thing to place our happiness on these desires. Say we wanted them all, 5 famine ends famine.

De mollibus et effœminatis.-There is nothing valiant or solid to be hoped for from such as are always kempt and perfumed, and every day smell of the tailor; the exceedingly curious that are wholly in mending such an To imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphew in the neck, or bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming and bridling their beards, or making the waist small, binding it with hoops, while the mind runs at waste: too much pickedness is not manly. Not from those that will 15 jest at their own outward imperfections, but hide their ulcers within, their pride, lust, envy, ill-nature, with all the art and authority they can. These persons are in danger, for whilst they think to justify their ignorance by impudence, and their persons by clothes and outward 20 ornaments, they use but a commission to deceive themselves where, if we will look with our understanding, and not our senses, we may behold virtue and beauty (though covered with rags) in their brightness; and vice and deformity so much the fouler, in having all the 25 splendor of riches to gild them, or the false light of honor and power to help them. Yet this is that wherewith the world is taken, and runs mad to gaze on clothes and titles, the birdlime of fools.

De stultitia. What petty things they are we wonder 30 at, like children that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing before their fathers! What difference is between us and them but that we are dearer fools, coxcombs at a higher rate? They are pleased with cockleshells, whistles, hobbyhorses, and such like; we with statues, marble 35 pillars, pictures, gilded roofs, where underneath is lath

and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we take pleasure in the lie, and are glad we can cozen ourselves. Nor is it only in

our walls and ceilings, but all that we call happiness is mere painting and gilt, and all for money. What a thin membrane of honor that is, and how hath all true reputa- 5 tion fallen, since money began to have any! Yet the great herd, the multitude, that in all other things are divided, in this alone conspire and agree to love money. They wish for it, they embrace it, they adore it, while yet it is possessed with greater stir and torment 10 than it is gotten.

De sibi molestis. Some men what losses soever they have they make them greater, and if they have none, even all that is not gotten is a loss. Can there be creatures of more wretched condition than these, that 15 continually labor under their own misery and others' envy? A man should study other things, not to covet, not to fear, not to repent him; to make his base such as no tempest shall shake him; to be secure of all opinion, and pleasing to himself, even for that wherein 20 he displeaseth others; for the worst opinion gotten for doing well, should delight us. Wouldst not thou be just but for fame, thou oughtest to be it with infamy; he that would have his virtue published is not the servant of virtue, but glory.

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Periculosa melancholia. — It is a dangerous thing when men's minds come to sojourn with their affections, and their diseases eat into their strength; that when too much desire and greediness of vice hath made the body unfit, or unprofitable, it is yet gladded with the sight and 30 spectacle of it in others; and for want of ability to be an actor, is content to be a witness. It enjoys the pleasure of sinning in beholding others sin, as in dicing, drinking, drabbing, etc. Nay, when it cannot do all these, it is offended with his own narrowness, that 35

excludes it from the universal delights of mankind, and oft times dies of a melancholy, that it cannot be vicious enough.

Falsa species fugiendæ. I am glad when I see any 5 man avoid the infamy of a vice; but to shun the vice itself were better. Till he do that he is but like the prentice, who, being loth to be spied by his master coming forth of Black Lucy's, went in again; to whom his master cried, "The more thou runnest that way to Io hide thyself, the more thou art in the place." So are those that keep a tavern all day, that they may not be seen at night. I have known lawyers, divines yea, great ones of this heresy.

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Decipimur specie. - There is a greater reverence had 15 of things remote or strange to us than of much better if they be nearer and fall under our sense. Men, and almost all sorts of creatures, have their reputation by distance. Rivers, the farther they run and more from their spring, the broader they are, and greater. And 20 where our original is known, we are the less confident; among strangers we trust fortune. Yet a man may live as renowned at home, in his own country, or a private village, as in the whole world. For it is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere. It is only 25 that can naturalise him. A native, if he be vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth as an alien.

Dejectio aulicorum]. A dejected countenance and mean clothes beget often a contempt, but it is with the 30 shallowest creatures: courtiers commonly. Look up

even with them in a new suit, you get above them straight. Nothing is more short-lived than [their] pride; it is but while their clothes last: stay but while these are worn out, you cannot wish the thing more wretched or 35 dejected.

Poesis et pictura. - Poetry and picture are arts of a like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy. For they both invent, feign, and devise many things, and accommodate all they s invent to the use and service of Nature. Yet of the two the pen is more noble than the pencil; for that can speak to the understanding, the other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit as their common object; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest 10 they should err from their end, and, while they seek to better men's minds, destroy their manners. They both are born artificers, not made. X Nature is more powerful in them than study

De pictura.- Whosoever loves not picture is injurious 15 to truth and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to Nature. It is itself a silent work, and always of one and the same habit; yet it doth so enter and penetrate the inmost affection (being done by an excellent artificer) as 20 sometimes it o'ercomes the power of speech and oratory. There are divers graces in it, so are there in the artificers. One excels in care, another in reason, a third in easiness, a fourth in nature and grace. Some have diligence and comeliness, but they want majesty. They can express a 25 human form in all the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, but they miss the authority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much as they are rather lovers of likeness and beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said 30 to be contemporaries; the first found out the reason of lights and shadows in picture, the other more subtlely examined the lines.

De stilo. In picture light is required no less than shadow; so in style, height as well as humbleness. But 35

style,