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Though these perhaps do, more than they,
The life of mankind sway.

Although no part of mighty Nature be
More stor'd with beauty, power and mystery;
Yet, to encourage human industry,
God has so order'd, that no other part
Such space and such dominion leaves for Art.

We no-where Art do so triumphant see,
As when grafts or buds the tree :
In other things we count it to excel,
If it a docile scholar can appear

To Nature, and but imitate her well;

It over-rules, and is her master, here.
It imitates her Maker's power divine,

And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine :

It does, like grace, the fallen tree restore
To its blest state of Paradise before:
Who would not joy to see his conquering hand
O'er all the vegetable world command?
And the wild giants of the wood receive
What law he's pleas'd to give?
He bids th' ill-natur'd crab produce
The gentler apple's winy juice,

The golden fruit, that worthy is
Of Galatea's purple kiss :

He does the savage hawthorn teach
To bear the medlar and the pear:
He bids the rustic plum to rear
A noble trunk, and be a peach.
Ev'n Daphne's coyness he does mock,
And weds the cherry to her stock,
Though she refus'd Apollo's suit;
Ev'n she, that chaste and virgin tree,
Now wonders at herself, to see

That she's a mother made, and blushes in her fruit.

Methinks, I see great Dioclesian walk
In the Salonian garden's noble shade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made:
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain

T'entice him to a throne again.
"If I, my friends" (said he) "should to you show
All the delights which in these gardens grow,
"Tis likelier much, that you should with me stay,
Than 'tis, that you should carry me away:
And trust me not, my friends, if every day,
I walk not here with more delight,
Than ever, after the most happy sight,
In triumph to the Capitol I rode,

purged from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition, I should think it hard measure, without being convinced of any crime, to be sequestered from it, and made one of the principal officers of state. But the reader may think that what I now say is of small authority, because I never was, nor ever shall be, put to the trial: 1 can therefore only make my protestation,

If ever I more riches did desire
Than cleanliness and quiet do require:
If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat,
With any wish, so mean as to be great;
Continue, Heaven, still from me to remove
The humble blessings of that life I love.

I know very many men will despise, and some pity me, for this humour, as a poor-spirited fellow; but I am content, and, like Horace, thank God for being so.

Di bene fecerunt, inopis me quódque pusilli
Finxerant animi 8.

I confess, I love littleness almost in all things, A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast; and, if I were ever to fall in love again (which is a great passion, and therefore, I hope, I have done with it) it would be, I think, with prettiness, rather than with majestical beauty. I would neither wish that my mistress, nor my fortune, should be a bona roba, nor, as Homer uses to describe his beauties, like a daughter of great Jupiter for the stateliness and largeness of her person; but, as Lucretius says,

Parvola, pumilio,Xagírav μía, tota merum sal 9.

Where there is one man of this, I believe there are a thousand of Senecio's mind, whose ridiculous affectation of grandeur Seneca the elder describes to this effect: "Senecio was a man of a turbid and confused wit, who could not endure to speak any but mighty words and sentences, till this humour grew at last into so notorious a habit, or rather disease, as became the sport of the whole town: he would have no servants, but huge, massy fellows; no plate or household-stuff, but thrice as big as the fashion: you may believe me, for I speak if without raillery, his extravagancy came at last into such a madness, that he would not put on a pair of shoes, each of which was not big enough for both his feet: he would eat nothing

To thank the gods, and to be thought myself, but what was great, nor touch any fruit but horse

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plums and pound-pears: he kept a concubine, that was a very giantess, and made her walk too always in chiopins, till at last he got the surname of Senecio Grandio, which Messala said, was not his cognomen, but his cognomentum: when he declaimed for the three hundred Lacedæmonians, who alone opposed Xerxes's army of above three hundred thousand, he stretched out his arms, and stood on tiptoes, that he might appear the taller, and cried out, in a very loud voice; 1 rejoice, I rejoice.'-We wondered, I remember, what new great fortune had befallen his eminence.

8 1 Sat. iv. 17. Suasoriarum Liber.

Xerxes

9 Lucr. iv. 1155. Suas. 11.

(cays he) is all mine own. He, who took away the sight of the sea, with the canvas veils of so many ships' "—and then he goes on so, as I know not what to make of the rest, whether it be the fault of the edition, or the orator's own burley way of nonsense.

This is the character that Seneca gives of this hyperbolical fop, whom we stand amazed at, and yet there are very few men who are not in some things, and to some degrees, Grandios. Is any thing more common, than to see our ladies of quality wear such high shoes as they cannot walk in, without one to lead them; and a gown as long again as their body, so that they cannot stir to the next room without a page or to two hold it up? I may safely say, that all the ostentation of our grandees is, just like a train, of no use in the world, but horribly cumbersome and incommodious. What is all this, but a spice of Grandio? how tedious would this be, if we were always bound to it! I do believe there is no king, who would not rather be deposed, than endure every day of his reign all the ceremonies of his coronation.

playing at dice; and that was the main fruit of his sovereignty. I omit the madnesses of Caligula's delights, and the execrable sordidness of those of Tiberius. Would one think that Augustus himself, the highest and most fortunate of mankind, a person endowed too with many excellent parts of nature, should be so hard put to it sometimes for want of recretations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding-stones, with little Syrian and Moorish boys, whose company he took delight in, for their prating and their wantonness?

The mightiest princes are glad to fly often from these majestic pleasures (which is, methinks, no small disparagement to them) as it were for refuge to the most contemptible divertisements and meanest recreations of the vulgar, nay, even of children. One of the most powerful and fortunate princes2 of the world, of late, could find out no delight so satisfactory, as the keeping of little singing birds, and hearing of them, and whistling to them. What did the emperors of the whole world? If ever any men had the free and full enjoyment of all human greatness (nay that would not suffice, for they would be gods too), they certainly possessed it: and yet one of them, who styled himself lord and god of the earth, could not tell how to pass his whole day pleasantly, without spending constantly two or three hours in catching of flies, and killing them with a bodkin, as if his godship had been Beelzebub 3. One of his predecessors, Nero, (who never put any bounds, nor met with any stop to his appetite) could divert himself with no pastime more agreeable, than to run about the streets all night in a disguise, and abuse the women, and affront the men whom he met, and sometimes to beat them, and sometimes to be beaten by them: this was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures. His chiefest in the day was, to sing and play upon a fiddle, in the habit of a minstrel, upon the public stage: he was prouder of the garlands that were given to his divine voice (as they called it then) in those kind of prizes, than all his forefathers were, of their triumphs over nations: he did not at his death complain, that so mighty an emperor, and the last of all the Cæsarian race of deities, should be brought to so shameful and miserable an end; but only cried out, "Alas, what pity it is, that so excellent a musician should perish in this manner 4!" His uncle Claudius spent half his time at

3 Louis XIII.-The Duke de Luynes, the Constable of France, is said to have gained the favour of this powerful and fortunate prince by training up singing birds for him. ANON.

3 Beelzebub signifies the lord of flies. CoWLEY. Qualis artifex pereo! Sueton. Nero.

Was it for this that Rome's best blood he spilt
With so much falsehood, so much guilt?
Was it for this that his ambition strove
To equal Cæsar, first; and after, Jove?
Greatness is barren, sure, of solid joys;
Her merchandize (I fear) is all in toys;
She could not else, sure, so uncivil be,
To treat his universal majesty,

His new-created Deity,

With nuts, and bounding-stones, and boys. But we must excuse her for this meagre entertainment; she has not really wherewithal to make such feasts as we imagine. Her guests must be contented sometimes with but slender cates, and with the same cold meats served over and over again, even till they become nauseous. When you have pared away all the vanity, what solid and natural contentment does there remain, which may not be had with five hundred pounds a year? Not so many servants or borses; but a few good ones, which will do all the business as well: not so many choice dishes at every meal, but at several meals all of them, which makes them both the more healthy, and the more pleasant; not so rich garments, nor so frequent changes; but as warm and as comely, and so frequent change too, as is every jot as good for the master, though not for the taylor or valet de chambre: not such a stately palace, nor gilt rooms, or the costliest sorts of tapestry; but a convenient brick house, with decent wainscot, and pretty forest-work hangings. Lastly (for I omit all other particulars, and will end with that which I love inost in both conditions) not whole woods cut in walks, nor vast parks, nor fountain or cascade-gardens; but herb, and flower, and fruit gardens, which are more useful, and the water every whit as clear and wholesome, as if it darted from the breasts of a marble nymph, or the urn of a river-god.

If, for all this, you ke better the substance of that former estate of life, do but consider the inseparable accidents of both: servitude, disquiet, danger, and most commonly guilt, inherent in the one; in the other liberty, tranquillity, security, and innocence. And when you have thought upon this, you will confess that to be a truth which appeared to you, before, but a ridiculous paradox, that a low fortune is better guarded and attended than an high one. If, indeed, we look only upon the flourishing head of the tree, it appears a most beautiful object,

-sed quantum vertice ad auras Ætherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit 5,

5 Virg. Georg. ii. 291.

As far up towards Heaven the branches grow, So far the root sinks down to Hell below.

Another horrible disgrace to greatness is, that it is for the most part in pitiful want and distress: what a wonderful thing is this! Unless it degenerate into avarice, and so cease to be greatness, it falls perpetually into such necessities, as drive it into all the meanest and most sordid ways of borrowing, cozenage, and robbery:

Mancipiis locuples, eget æris Cappadocum rex.

This is the case of almost all great men, as well as of the poor king of Cappadocia: they abound with slaves, but are indigent of money. The ancient Roman emperors, who had the riches of the whole world for their revenue, had wherewithal to live (one would have thought) pretty well at ease, and to have been exempt from the pressures of extreme poverty. But yet with most of them it was much otherwise; and they fell perpetually into such miserable penury, that they were forced to devour or squeeze most of their friends and servants, to cheat with infamous projects, to ransack and pillage all their provinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their estates, two other thirds they must expend in vanity; so that they remain debtors for all the necessary provisions of life, and have no way to satisfy those debts, but out of the succours and supplies of rapine: "as riches increase" (says Solomon) so do the mouths that devour them 7." The master mouth has no more than before. The owner, methinks, is like Ocnus in the fable, who is perpetually winding a rope of hay, and an ass at the end perpetually eating

it.

66

Out of these inconveniences arises naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be satisfied or contented with itself: still, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy, if it could gain but that point, it would obtain all its desires; but yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the Pic of Teneriff, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downwards, but in no possibility of ascending upwards into the seat of tranquillity above the Moon. The first ambitious

men in the world, the old giants, are said to have made an heroical attempt of scaling Heaven in despite of the gods: and they cast Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa: two or three ountains more, they thought, would have done their business: but the thunder spoilt all the work, when they were come up to the third story:

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absolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the Heaven which he affected, is believed to have died with grief and discontent, because he could not attain to the honest name of a king, and the old formality of a crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked usurpation. If he could have compassed that, he would perhaps have wanted something else that is necessary to felicity, and pined away for want of the title of an emperor or a god. The reason of this is, that greatness has no reality in nature, being a creature of the fancy, a notion that consists only in relation and comparison: it is indeed an idol; but St. Paul teaches us, "that an idol is nothing in the world." There is in truth no rising or meridian of the Sun, but only in respect to several places: there is no right or left, no upper-hand in nature; every thing is little, and every thing is great, according as it is diversely compared. There may be perhaps some village in Scotland or Ireland, where I might be a great man: and in that case I should be like Cæsar (you would wonder how Cæsar and I should be like one another in any thing); and choose rather to be the first man of the village, than second at Rome. Our country is called Great Britany, in regard only of a lesser of the same name; it would be but a ridiculous epithet for it, when we consider it together with the kingdom of China. That, too, is but a pitiful rood of ground, in comparison of the whole Earth besides: and this whole globe of Earth, which we account so immense a body, is but one point or atom in relation to those numberless worlds that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the sky which we behold.

The other many inconveniences of grandeur I have spoken of dispersedly in several chapters; and shall end this with an ode of Horace, not exactly copied, but truly imitated.

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Ev'n so in the same land, [stand; Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers, together Alas! Death mows down all with an impartial hand.

And all ye men, whom greatness does so please,
Ye feast, I fear, like Damocles:
If ye your eyes could upwards move
(But ye, I fear, think nothing is above)
Ye would perceive by what a little thread
The sword still hangs over your head:
No tide of wine would drown your cares;
No mirth or music over-noise your fears:
The fear of Death would you so watchful keep,
As not t' admit the image of it, Sleep.

Sleep, is a god too proud to wait in palaces, And yet so humble too, as not to scorn

The meanest country cottages: "His poppy grows among the corn." The halcyon Sleep will never build his nest In any stormy breast.

"Tis not enough that he does find Clouds and darkness in their mind; Darkness but half his work will do: 'Tis not enough; he must find quiet too.

The man, who in all wishes he does make,
Does only Nature's counsel take,
That wise and happy man will never fear
The evil aspects of the year;

Nor tremble, though two comets should appear;
He does not look in almanacs, to see

Whether he fortunate shall be;

Let Mars and Saturn in the heavens conjoin, And what they please against the world design, So Jupiter within him shine.

If of your pleasures and desires no end be found,
God to your cares and fears will set no bound.

What would content you? who can tell?
Ye fear so much to lose what ye have got,
As if ye lik'd it well:

Ye strive for more, as if ye lik'd it not.

Go, level hills, and fill up seas, Spare nought that may your wanton fancy please; But, trust me, when you have done all this, Much will be missing still, and much will be amiss.

VII.

OF AVARICE.

THERE are two sorts of avarice: the one is but of a bastard kind, and that is, the rapacious appetite of gain; not for its own sake, but for the pleasure of refunding it immediately through all the channels of pride and luxury: the other is the true kind, and properly so called; which is a restless and unsatiable desire of riches, nor for any farther end or use, but only to hoard, and preserve, and perpetually increase them. The covetous man, of the first kind, is like a greedy ostrich, which devours any metal; but it is with an intent to feed upon it, and in effect, it makes a shift to digest and excern it.

second is like the foolish chough, which loves to steal money only to hide it. The first does much harm to mankind; and a little good too, to some few: the second does good to none; no, not to himself. The first can make no excuse to God, or angels, or rational men, for his actions: the second can give no reason or colour, not to the Devil himself, for what he does; he is a slave to Mammon without wages. The first makes a shift to be beloved; ay, and envied too by some people; the second is the universal object of hatred and contempt. There is no vice has been so pelted with good sentences, and especially by the poets, who have pursued it with stories, and fables, and allegories, and allusions; and moved, as we say, every stone to fling at it: among all which I do not remember a more fine and gentleman-like correction, than that which was given it by one line of Ovid:

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The beggars but a common fate deplore,
The rich poor man's emphatically poor.

I wonder how it comes to pass, that there has never been any law made against him: against him do I say? I mean, for him: as there are public provisions made for all other madmen: it is very reasonable that the king should appoint some persons (and I think the courtiers would not be against this proposition) to manage his estate during his life (for his heirs commonly need not that care): and out of it to make it their business to see, that he should not want alimony befitting his condition, which he could never get out of his own cruel fingers. We rebut have no care at all of these really poor men, lieve idle vagrants, and counterfeit beggars; who are, methinks, to be respectfully treated, in regard of their quality. I might be endless against them, but I am almost choaked with the super-abundance of the matter; too much plcn

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The HUR D

ty impoverishes me, as it does them. I will conclude this odious subject with part of Horace's first satire, which take in his own familiar style:

I admire, Mæcenas, how it comes to pass,
That no man ever yet contented was,
Nor is, nor perhaps will be, with that state
In which his own choice plants him, or his fate.
Happy the merchant, the old soldier cries:
The merchant, beaten with tempestuous skies,
Happy the soldier! one half-hour to thee
Gives speedy death, or glorious victory :
The lawyer, knockt up early from his rest
By restless clients, calls the peasant blest :
The peasant, when his labours ill succeed,
Envies the mouth, which only talk does feed.
'Tis not (I think you'll say) that I want store
Of instances, if here I add no more;
They are enough to reach, at least a mile,
Beyond long orator Fabius's style.
But hold, ye, whom no fortune e'er endears,
Gentlemen, malecontents, and mutineers,
Who bounteous Jove so often cruel call,
Behold, Jove's now resolv'd to please you all.
Thou soldier, be a merchant: merchant, thou
A soldier be and lawyer, to the plough.
Change all your stations straight: why do they stay?
The devil a man will change, now when he may.
Were I in general Jove's abused case,
By Jove I'd cudgel this rebellious race:
But he's too good; be all, then, as ye were;
However, make the best of what ye are,
And in that state be cheerful and rejoice,
Which either was your fate, or was your choice,
No, they must labour yet, and sweat, and toil,
And very miserable be awhile;

But 'tis with a design only to gain
What may their age with plenteous case main-

tain.

The prudent pismire does this lesson teach,
And industry to lazy mankind preach:
The little drudge does trot about and sweat,
Nor does he straight devour all he can get;
But in his temperate mouth carries it home
A stock for winter, which he knows must come.
And, when the rolling world to creatures here
Turns up the deform'd wrong-side of the year,
And shuts him in, with storms, and cold, and
wet,

He cheerfully does his past labours eat:
O, does he so? your wise example, th' ant,
Does not, at all times, rest and plenty want;
But, weighing justly a mortal ant's condition,
Divides his life 'twist labour and fruition.
Thee, neither heat, nor storms, nor wet, nor cold,
From thy unnatural diligence can withhold:
To th' Indies thou would'st run, rather than see
Another, though a friend, richer than thee.
Fond man! what good or beauty can be found
In heaps of treasure, buried under ground?
Which rather than diminish'd e'er to see,
Thou would'st thyself, too, buried with them be:
And what's the difference is 't not quite as bad
Never to use, as never to have had?

In thy vast barns millions of quarters store;
Thy belly, for all that, will hold no more
Than mine does. Every baker makes much bread:
What then? He's with no more, than others,

fed.

Do you within the bounds of nature live,
And to augment your own you need not strive
One hundred acres will no less for you
Your life's whole business, than ten thousand, do,
But pleasant 'tis to take from a great store.
What, man! though you 're resolv'd to take no

more

Than I do from a small one? If your will
Be but a pitcher or a pot to fill,

To some great river for it must you go,
When a clear spring just at your feet does flow?
Give me the spring, which does to human use
Safe, easy,
and untroubled stores produce;

He who scorns these, and needs will drink at Nile,
Must run the danger of the crocodile,
And of the rapid stream itself, which may,
At unawares, bear him perhaps away.
In a full flood Tantalus stands, his skin
Wash'd o'er in vain, for ever dry within:
He catches at the stream with greedy lips,
From his toucht mouth the wanton torrent slips:
You laugh now, and expand your careful brow;
'Tis finely said, but what's all this to you?
Change but the name, this fable is thy story,
Thou in a flood of useless wealth dost glory,
Which thou canst only touch, but never taste;
Th' abundance still, and still the want, does last.
The treasures of the gods thou would'st not spare:
But when they're made thine own, they sacred

are,

And must be kept with reverence; as if thou
No other use of precious gold didst know,
But that of curious pictures, to delight,
With the fair stamp, thy virtuoso sight.
The only true and genuine use is this,
To buy the things, which nature cannot miss
Without discomfort; oil and vital bread,
And wine, by which the life of life is fed,
And all those few things else by which we live :
All that remains, is giv'n for thee to give.
If cares and troubles, envy, grief, and fear,
The bitter fruits be, which fair riches bear;
If a new poverty grow out of store;
The old plain way, ye gods! let me be poor,

Paraphrase on HORACE, B. III. Od. xvi,

A TOWER of brass, one would have said,
And locks, and bolts, and iron bars,
And guards, as strict as in the heat of wars,
Might have preserv'd one innocent maidenhead,
The jealous father thought he well might spare
All further jealous care;

And, as he walk'd, t' himself alone he smil❜d,
To think how Venus' arts he had beguil'd;

And, when he slept, his rest was deep:
But Venus laugh'd to see and hear him sleep.
She taught the amorous Jove

A magical receipt in love,

Which arm'd him stronger, and which help'd him

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