makeshifti their children is an harmful error, makes them O base, acquaints them with shifts, makes them sort with mean company, and makes them surfeit more Let parents choose betimes the vocations and own Jamilu Pledges Jew enat he will run ricks as praible 22 ESSAYS OR COUNSELS CIVIL AND MORAL VIII. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE HE that hath wife and children hath given hos tages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public 5 have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times, unto which they know they 10 must transmit their dearest pledges.° Some there are who, though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences; nay, there are some other that account wife and children but 15 as bills of charges; nay more, there are some foolish, rich, covetous men that take a pride in having no in de children, because they may be thought so much the that richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, 'Such an one is a great rich man," and another 20 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 humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as 25 they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, neutral best servants, but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with Churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent°5 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 Dricting their wives and children. And I think the despising pucker of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more bases Certainly, wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they be many times more charitable, because their means are less 15 exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hard-hearted (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 20 Ulysses, "Vetulam° suam prætulit immortalitati.” 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 25 will never do if she find him jealous. о Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses; so as a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men that made 30 ground answer to the question, when a man should marry. "A young man not yet, an elder man not at all." It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of 5 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 10 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 15 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 20 acknowledged in the act of envy an ejaculation," or irradiation, of the eye. Nay, some have been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph, 25 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 (though not unworthy to be thought on in fit place), we will handle what persons are apt to envy others; what persons are most 5 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 who 10 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 15 cannot be because all that ado may concern his own estate; therefore it must needs be that he taketh a kind of play-pleasure 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 20 passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not keep home: "Non est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus." 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 25 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 30 |