commodity, and the goddesse we adore Dea moneta, Queen money, to whom we daily offer sacrifice, which steers our hearts, hands, affections, all: that most powerful goddess, by whom we are reared, depressed, elevated, esteemed the sole commandresse of our actions, for which we pray, run, ride, go, come, labor, and contend as fishes do for a crum that falleth into the water. Its not worth, vertue, (that's bonum theatrale) wisdom, valor, learning, honesty, religion, or any sufficiency for which we are respected, but 'money, greatnesse, office, honour, authority; honesty is accounted folly; knavery, policie; men admired out of opinion, not as they are, but as they seem to be such shifting, lying, cogging, ploting, counterploting, temporizing, flattering, cozening, dissembling, ""that of necessity one must highly offend God if he be conformable to the world," Cretizare cum Crete, "or else live in contempt, disgrace and misery." One takes upon him temperance, holinesse, another austeritie, a third an affected kinde of simplicity, when as indeed he, and he, and he, and the rest are "hypocrites, ambodexters," out sides, so many turning pictures, a lyon on the one side, a lamb on the other. How would Democritus have been affected to see these things? To see a man turn himself into all shapes like a camelion, or as Proteus, omnia transformans sese in miracula rerum, to act twenty parts and persons at once, for his advantage, to temporize and vary like Mercurie the Planet, good with good; bad with bad; having a several face, garb, and character for every one he meets; of all religions, humors, inclinations; to fawn like a Spaniel, mentitis & mimicis obsequiis, 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 tygre, weep like a crocodile, insult over some, and yet others domineer over him, here command, there crouch, tyrannize in one place, be baffed 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 parasanges betwixt tongue and heart, men like stage-players act variety of parts, give good precepts to others, sore aloft, whilest they themselves grovel on the ground. Prima fere vota & "Per 5 Paucis charior est fides quam pecunia. Salust. cunctis, &c. Et genus & formam regina pecunia donat. Quantum quisque sua nummorum servat in arca, tantum habet & fidei. Non à peritiâ sed ab ornatu & vulgi vocibus habemur excellentes. Cardan. 1. 2. de cons jurata suo postponit numina lucro, Mercator. Ut necessarium sit vel Deo displicere, vel ab hominibus contemni, vexari, negligi. Qui Curios simulant & Bacchanalia vivunt. Tragelapho similes vel centauris, sursum homines, deorsum equi. Præceptis suis coelum promittunt, ipsi interim pulveris terreni vilia mancipia. a Το To see a man protest friendship, kisse his hand, quem mallet truncatum videre smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes, magnifie his friend unworthy with hyperbolical eulogiums; his enemy albeit a good man, to vilifie and disgrace him, yea all his actions, with the utmost that livor and malice can invent. To see a servant able to buy out his Master, him that carries the mace more worth then the magistrate, which Plato lib. 11. de leg. absolutely forbids, Epictetus abhors. An horse that tils the 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 fashions in tires, gestures, actions: if the King laugh, all laugh; Rides? majore chachinno Concutitur, flet si lachrimas conspexit amici." Alexander stooped, so did his Courtiers; Alphonsus turned his head, and so did his parasites. Sabina Poppea, Nero's wife, wore amber-colour'd hair, so did all the Roman ladies in an instant, her fashion was theirs. To see men wholly led by affection, admired and censured out of opinion without judgement: an inconsiderate multitude, 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 favor, or commended by some great one, all the world applauds him; if in disgrace, in an instant al 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 wear his brains in his belly, his guts in his head, an hundred oaks on his back, to devour 100 oxen at a meal, nay more, to devour houses and towns, or as those Anthropophagi," to eat one another. To see a man roll himself up like a snow ball, from base beggery to right worshipfull and right honourable titles, injustly to ¿Eneas Silv. Arridere homines ut sæviant, blandiri ut fallant. Cyp: ad Donatum. *Love and hate are like the two ends of a perspective glass, the one multiplies, the other makes less. f Ministri locupletiores iis quibus mins ratur, servus majores opes habens quam patronus. 8 Qui terram colunt equi paleis pascuntur, qui otiantur caballi avenâ saginantur, discalceatus discurrit qui calces aliis facit. h Juven. Bodin, lib. 4. de repub. cap. 6. Plinius 1. 37. cap. 3. capillos habuit succineos, exinde factum ut omnes puellæ Romanæ colorem illum affectarent. 1Odit damnatos. Juv. i pa ep. 28. 1. 7. Quorum cerebrum est in ventre, ingenium in patinis. They eat up my people as bread. E 3 Agrip Psal. screw screw himself into honours and offices; another to starve his genius, damn his soul to gather wealth, which he shall not enjoy, which his prodigal son melts and consumes in an instant. To see the xxxoniav 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 scraps, crept and whin'd, crying to all, and for an old jerkin ran of errands, now ruffle in silk and sattin, 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 pesant for a meal's meat; a scrivener better paid for an obligation; a faulkner receive greater wages than a student: a lawyer get more in a day then a philosopher in a year, better reward for an hour, then a scholar for a twelve moncths studie; him that can *paint Thais, play on a fiddle, curl hair, &c. sooner get preferment than a philologer or a poct. To see a fond mother, like Esop's ape, hug her child to death, a wittal wink at his wive's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other affairs; one stumble at a straw, and leap over a block; rob Peter, and pay Paul; scrape unjust sums with one hand, purchase great Mannors by corruption, fraud and cozenage, and liberally to distribute to the poor with the other, give a remnant to pious uses, &c. Peny wise, pound foolish; Blind men judge of colours; wise men silent, fools talk; 'finde fault with others, and do worse themselves; denounce that in publike 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 colone toil and moil, till and drudg for a prodigal idle drone, that devours all the gain, or lasciviously consumes with phantastical expences; A noble man in a bravado to encounter death, and for a small flash of honor to cast away himself; A worldling tremble at an Executor, and yet not fear hel-fire; To wish and hope for immortality, desire to be happy, Absumit hæres cæcuba dignior servata centum clavibus, & mero distinguet pavimentis superbo, pontificum potiore cœnis. Hor. * Qui Thaidem pingere, inflare tibiam, crispare crines. Doctus spectare lacunar. Tullius. Est enim proprium stultitiæ aliorum cernere vitia, oblivisci suorum. Idem Aristippus Charidemo apud Lucianũ. Omnino stultitiæ cujusdam esse puto, &c. * Execrari publice quod occultè agat. Salvianus lib. de pro. acres ulciscendis vitiis quibus ipsi vehementer indulgent. and and yet by all means avoyd death, a necessary passage to bring him to it. To see a fool-hardy fellow like those old Danes, qui decollari malunt quam verberari, die rather then be punished, in a sottish humor imbrace death with alacrity, yet "scorn to lament his own sins and miseries, or his dearest friends departures. To see wise men degraded, fools preferred, one govern Towns and Cities, and yet a silly woman over-rules him at home; * Command a Province, and yet his own servants or children prescribe laws to him, as Themistocles son did in Greece; 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; sheep demolish towns, devour men, &c. And in a word, the world turned upside downward. O viveret Democritus. To insist in every particular were one of Hercules labors, there's so many ridiculous instances, as motes in the Sun. Quantum est in rebus inane? 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, easie to be discerned. How would Democritus have been moved, had he seen the secrets of their hearts? If every man had a window in his brest, which Momus would have had in Vulcan's man, or that which Tully so much wisht it were written in every man's forehead, Quid quisque de republică sentiret, what he thought; or that it could be effected in an instant, which Mercurie did by Charon in Lucian, by touching of his eyes, to make him discern semel & simul rumores & susurros. Spes hominum cæcas, morbos, votumque labores, Et passim toto volitantes æthere curas." Blinde hopes and wishes, their thoughts and affairs, • Adamus eccl. hist. cap. 212. Siquis damnatus fuerit, lætus esse gloria est; nam lachrymas & planctum cæteraq; compunctionum genera quæ nos salubria censemus, ita abominantur Dani, ut nec pro peccatis nec pro defunctis amicis ulli flere liceat. *Orbi dat leges foras, vix famulum regit sine strepitu domi. * Quicquid ego volo hoc vult mater mea, & quod mater vult, facit pater. Oves, olim mite pecus, nunc tam indomitum & edax ut homines devorent, &c. Morus Utop. lib. 1. * Diversos varns tribuit natura furores. * Democrit. ep. præd. Hos dejerantes & potantes deprehendet, hos vomentes, illos litigantes, insidias molientes, suffragantes, venena miscentes, in amicorum accusationem subscribentes, hos gloria, illos ambitione, cupiditate, mente captos, &c, That he could cubiculorum obductas foras recludere, & secreta cordium penetrare, which y 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 glass, or Otacousticon, which would so multiply species, that a man might hear and see all at once (as Martianus 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 alcumists, the philosopher's stone, new projectors, &c. and all those works of darknesse, foolish vows, hopes, fears and wishes, what a deal of laughter would it have afforded? He should have seen Wind-mils 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, a and heard one pray for rain, another for fair weather; one for his wive's, another for his father's death, &c. "to ask that at God'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? "Hæc sani esse hominis quis sanus juret Orestes?" Can all the Hellebor in the Anticyræ cure these men? No sure, 66* an acre of Hellebor will not do it." C b That which is more to be lamented, they are mad like Seneca's blind woman, and will not acknowledge, or any cure of it, for pauci vident morbum suum, omnes amant, seek for If our leg or arm offend us, we covet by all means possible to redresse it; and if we labor of a bodily disease, we send for a physician; but for the diseases of the minde we take no notice of them: Lust harrows us on the one side, envy, anger, ambition on the other. We are torn in pieces by our passions, as so many wilde horses, one in disposition, another in habit; one is melancholy, another mad; and which of us all seeks a y Ad Donat. ep. 2. 1. 1. O si posses in specula sublimi constitutus, &c. Lib. 1. de nup. Philol. in qua quid singuli nationũ populi quotidianis motibus agitarent, relucebat. tas da Jupiter annos, Dementia quanta est hominum, turpissima vota diis inO Jupiter contingat mihi aurũ, hæreditas, &c. Mulsusurrant, si quis admoverit aurem, conticescunt; & quod scire homines nolunt, Deo narrant. Senec. ep. 10. 1. 1. Hellebori jugere obtinerier. *Plautus Menech. non potest hæc res clitanti. Eoq; gravior morbus quo ignotior periQuæ lædunt oculos, festinas demere; si quid est animum, differs curandi tempus in annum. Hor. dicum accersimus, recte & honeste, si par ctiam industria in animi morbis poSi caput, crus dolet, brachium &c. Meneretur. Joh. Peletius Jesuita. lib. 2. de hum. affec. morborumque cura. quotusquisque tamen est qui contra tot pestes medicum requirat vel ægrotare se * Et agnoscat ebullit ira, &c. Et nos tamen ægros esse negamus. Incolumnes medicum recusant. Fræsens ætas stultitiam priscis exprobrat. Bud. de affec. lib. 5. for |