querors: I will not tell that many of them fall into the condition of fervants, and their subjects rule over them, and ftand upon the ruins of their families, and that to fuch perfons the for Vilis fervus habet regni bona, celláque capti Deridet feftam Romule ámque cafam. Petron. Omnia, crede mihi, etiam felicibus dubia funt. Seneca. row is bigger than usually happens in smaller fortunes: but let us suppose them still conquerors, and fee what a goodly purchase they get by all their pains, and amazing fears, and continual dangers. They carry their arms beyond Ifther, and pass the Euphrates, and bind the Germans with the bounds of the river Rhine: I speak in the style of the Roman Greatness; for now-a-days the biggest fortune swells not beyond the limits of a petty province or two, and a hill confines the progress of their profperity, or a river checks it: But whatsoever tempts the pride and vanity of ambitious perfons is not so big as the smalleft Star which we see scattered in disorder and unregarded upon the pavement and floor of Heaven. And if we would suppose the Pismires had but our understanding, they also would have the method of a Man's greatness, and divide their little Molehills into Provinces and exarchats: and if they also grew as vicious and as miferable, one of their Princes would lead an army out, and kill his neighbour-Ants, that he might reign over the next handful of a Turf. But then if we confider at what price and with what.felicity all this is purchased, the fting of the painted fnake will quickly appear, and the fairest of their fortunes will properly enter into this account of human infelicities. We may guess at it by the conftitution of Auguftus's fortune, who struggled for his power first with the Roman Citizens, then with Brutus and Caffius, and all the fortune of the Republic, then with his Colleague Mark Antony, then with his kindred and nearest Relatives, and after he was wearied with flaughter of the Romans, before he could fit down and reft in his Imperial chair, he was forced to carry arms into Macedonia, Galatia, beyond Euphrates, Rhine and Danube, and when he dwelt at home in greatness and within the circles of a mighty power, he hardly escaped the sword of the Egnatii of Lepidus, Cepio and Muræna: and after he had entirely reduced the felicity and grandeur into his own family, his Daughter, his only child, confpired with many of the young Nobility, and being joined with adulterous complications as with an impious facrament, they affrighted and destroyed the fortune of the old man, and wrought him more forrow than all the troubles that were hatched in the baths and Et adulterio velut facramento adacti. Tacit. lier. Plúfque et iterum ti beds of Egypt between Antony menda cum Antonio muand Cleopatra. This was the greatest fortune that the world had then or ever fince, and therefore we cannot expect it to be better in a less prosperity. 6. The profperity of this world is fo infinitely foured with the overflowing of evils, that he is counted the most happy who hath the feweft; all conditions being evil and miferable, they are only distinguished by the number of calamities. The Collector of the Roman and foreign examples, when he had reckoned two and twenty inftances of great fortunes, every one of which had been allayed with great variety of evils; in all his reading or experi Ορος τῶν μεγέθους τοῦ ἡδο ξαίρεσις. ence he could tell but of two who had been famed for an entire profperity, Quintus Metellus, and Giges the King of Lydia: and yet concerning the one of them he tells, that his felicity was so inconfiderable (and yet it was the bigger of the two) that the Oracle said, that Aglaus Sophidus the poor Arcadian Shepherd was more happy than he, that is, he had fewer troubles; for fo indeed we are to reckon the pleafures of this life; the limit of our νῶν, ἡ παντὸς τοῦ ἀλγεινοῦ ὑπε- joy is the abfence of fome degrees of forrow, and he that hath the leaft of this is the most profperous perfon. But then we must look for prosperity, not in palaces or Courts of Princes, not in the tents of Conquerors, or in the gaieties of fortunate and prevailing finners; but fomething rather in the Cottages of honeft, innocent and contented perfons, whose mind is no bigger than their fortune, nor their virtue less than their security. As for others, whofe fortune looks bigger, and allures fools to follow it like the wandering fires of the night, till they run into rivers or are broken upon rocks with ftaring and running after them, they are all in the condition of Marius, than whose condition nothing was more conftant, and nothing more mutable: If we reckon them amongst the happy, they are the most happy men; if we reckon them amongst the miserable, they are the most miferable. For juft as is a man's condition, great or little, so is the state of his misery: All have their share; but Kings and Princes, great Generals and Confuls, Rich men and Mighty, as they have the biggest business and the biggest charge, and are an Quem fi inter miferos pofueris, miferrimus; inter felices, feliciffimus reperiebatur. fwerable to God for the greatest accounts, fo they have the biggest trouble; that the uneafiness of their appendage may divide the good and evil of the world, making the poor man's fortune as eligible as the greatest; and also restraining the vanity of man's fpirit, which a great fortune is apt to fwell from a vapour to a bubble; but God in mercy hath mingled wormwood with their wine, and fo reftrained the drunkenness and follies of Profperity. 7. Man never hath one day to himself of entire peace from the things of the world, but either fomething troubles him, or nothing satisfies him, or his very fulness fwells him and makes him breathe short upon his bed. Men's joys are troublesome; and befides that the fear of losing them takes away the prefent pleasure, (and a man hath need of another felicity to preserve this) they are also wavering and full of trepidation, not only from their inconstant nature, but from their weak foundation: they arife from vanity, and they dwell upon ice, and they converse with the wind, and they have the wings of a bird, and are serious but as the refolutions of a child, commenced by chance, and managed by folly, and proceed by inadvertency, and end in vanity and forgetfulness. So that as Livius Drufus faid of himself, he never had any play-days or days of quiet when he was a boy; for he was troublesome and bufy, a restless and unquiet man: the fame may every man observe to be true of himself; he is always restless and uneasy, he dwells upon the waters, and leans upon thorns, and lays his head upon a sharp stone. Uni fibi nec puero un quam ferias contigiffe. Seditiofus et foro gravis. SECT. V. This Confideration reduced to Practice. HE effect of this Confideration is this, That the fadneffes of this life help to fweeten the bitter cup of Death. For let our life be never fo long, if our ftrength were great as that of oxen and camels, if our finews were strong as the cordage at the foot of an Oak, if we were as fighting and profperous people as Siccius Dentatus, who was on the prevailing fide in an hundred and twenty battles, who had three hundred and twelve public rewards affigned him by his Generals and Princes for his valour and conduct in fieges and sharp encounters, and, befides all this, had his share in nine triumphs; yet ftill the period fhall be, that all this shall end in Death, and the people fhall talk of us a while, good or bad, according as we deserve, or as they please, and once it shall come to pass that concerning every one of us it fhall be told in the Neighbourhood, that we are dead. This we are apt to think a sad story; but therefore let us help it with a fadder: For we therefore need not be much troubled that we shall die, because we are not here in eafe, nor do we dwell in a fair condition: but our days are full of forrow and anguish, dishonoured and made unhappy with many fins, with a frail and a foolish spirit, entangled with difficult cafes of conscience, enfnared with Paffions, amazed with fears, full of cares, divided with curiofities and contradictory interests, made airy and impertinent with vanities, abused with ignorance and prodigious errors, |