other that account wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because1 they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, Such an one is a great rich man, and another except to it, Yea, but he hath a great charge of children; as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous2 minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are like to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen; 3 for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives put men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and sin 1 Because. In order that. 2 Humorous. 4 Controlled by humors; whimsical, capricious. "As humorous as winter." Shakspere. II. King Henry IV. iv. 4. Churchmen. Clergymen. "Strike-for your altars and their fires; Marco Bozzaris. gle men, though they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust,1 yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted, (good to make severe inquisitors,) because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands; as was said of Ulysses,2 vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati.3 Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds both of chastity and obedience in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses. So as a man may have a quarrel,1 to marry when he will,But yet he was reputed one of the wise men, that made answer to the question when a man should marry?—A young man not yet, 1 Exhaust. Condensed preterit for exhausted. The form is common in the Bible and in Shakspere. "Our State to be disjoint and out of frame." Shakspere. Hamlet. i. 2. 2 Ulysses (Greek, Odysseus), in Greek legend a king of Ithaca and one of the heroes of the Trojan war. The Odyssey, an epic poem attributed to Homer, celebrates the adventures of Odysseus during ten years of wandering spent in repeated efforts to return to Ithaca after the close of the Trojan war. 3 He preferred his aged wife to immortality. The goddess Calypso entreated Ulysses to share her immortality, instead of returning to Ithaca. Compare the Advancement of Learning I. viii. 7: "Ulysses, qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati being a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency." The thought is Plutarch's, Opera Moralia. Gryllus. 1. Plutarch took it from Cicero, De Oratore. I. 44. 4 Quarrel. Cause, reason. "and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel!" Shakspere. Macbeth. iv. 3. This means, 'May the success of right be as well warranted as our cause is just!' an elder man not at all.1 It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it comes; or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly." IX. OF ENVY. THERE be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate or bewitch, but love and envy. They both have vehement wishes; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions; and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the objects; which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such thing there be. We see likewise the scripture calleth envy an evil eye; and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars evil aspects; so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, an ejaculation2 or irradiation of the eye. Nay some have been so curious as to note, that the times when the 1 This epigrammatic reply is quoted of Thales of Miletus, 640-546 B.C., one of the 'seven wise men' of Greece. The anecdote is told by Plutarch, Opera Moralia. Symposiaca. III. vi. 3. (Plutarch's Miscellanies and Essays. Edited by W. W. Goodwin, with an Introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Vol. III. p. 276.) "Thales being asked when a man should marry, said: "Young men not yet, old men not at all." Bacon. Apophthegmes New and Old. 220. 2 Ejaculation. The art of throwing or darting out. stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph; for that sets an edge upon envy: and besides, at such times the spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the outward parts, and so meet the blow. But leaving these curiosities,1 (though not unworthy to be thought on in fit place), we will handle,2 what persons are apt to envy others; what persons are most subject to be envied themselves; and what is the difference between public and private envy. A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds will either feed upon their own good or upon others' evil; and who3 wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another's fortune. A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envious. For to know much of other men's matters cannot be because all that ado1 may concern his own estate; therefore it must needs be that he taketh a kind of play-pleasure5 in looking upon the fortunes of others. Neither can he that mindeth but his own business find much matter for envy. For envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets, and doth 1 Curiosities. Niceties. 2 Handle. To treat, or discourse on. 3 Who. 4 A do. He who. Fuss; difficulty. In Norse the infinitive was at do, where the English says to do. Compare Shakspere's title, 'Much Ado About Nothing.' 5 Play-pleasure is the pleasure of one looking on at a play. not keep home: Non est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus.1 Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise. For the distance is altered; and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back. Deformed persons, and eunuchs, and old men, and bastards, are envious. For he that cannot possibly mend his own case will do what he can to impair another's; except these defects light upon a very brave and heroical nature, which thinketh to make his natural wants part of his honour; in that it should be said, that an eunuch, or a lame man, did such great matters; affecting the honour of a miracle; as it was in Narses2 the eunuch, and Agesilaus and Tamberlanes,3 that were lame men. The same is the case of men that rise after calamities and misfortunes. For they are as men fallen out with the times; and think other men's harms a redemption of their own sufferings. They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of levity and vain glory, are ever envious. For they cannot want work; it being impossible but many in some one of those things should surpass 1 No one is curious without being also malevolent. The thought of the spite and malignity of idle curiosity is uppermost in Plutarch's essay, Of Curiosity, or on Over-Busy Inquisitiveness into Things Impertinent. Plutarch's Morals (Vol. II. pp. 424-445. Ed. W. W. Goodwin). 2 Narses 478 (?)−573(?) A.D., a general of the Byzantine empire, joint commander in Italy with Belisarius, 538-539. 3 Timur, or Timour, or Timur Bey, also called Timur-Leng (Timur the Lame), corrupted into Tamerlane, 1333-1405. Tamerlane was a Tatar conqueror who overran the provinces of Asia from Delhi to Damascus, and from the Sea of Aral to the Persian Gulf. i.e. Matter for envy to work upon: ubique enim occurrunt objecta invidiæ. S. |