affairs. And for the most part, the good such servants receive, is after the model of their own fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good, is after the model of their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme selflovers, as they will set a house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs: and yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to please them, and profit themselves: and for either respect they will abandon the good of their affairs. Wisdom for a man's self is in many branches thereof a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which, as Cicero says of Pompey, are "sui amantes sine rivale," are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought by their selfwisdom to have pinioned. OF DESPATCH. Affected despatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be. It is like that which the physicians call predigestion, or hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the body full of crudities and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not despatch by the times of sitting, but by the advancement of the business. And as in races, it is not the large stride, or high lift, that makes the speed; so in business, the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of it too much at once, procureth despatch. It is the care of some, only to come off speedily for the time; or to contrive some false periods of business, because they may seem men of despatch. But it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off: and business so handled at several sittings or meetings, goeth commonly backward and forward in an unsteady manner. I know a wise man that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner.' * On the other side, true despatch is a rich thing. For time is the measure of business, as money is of wares; and business is bought at a dear hand, where there is small despatch. The Spartans and Spaniards have been noted to be of small despatch: "Mi venga la muerte de Spagna;" Let my death come from Spain; for then it will be sure to be long in coming. Give good hearing to those that give the first information in business; and rather direct them * Believed to have been Sir Amyas Paulet, Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to the court of France. in the beginning, than interrupt them in the continuance of their speeches: for he that is put out of his own order, will go forward and backward, and be more tedious while he waits upon his memory, than he could have been if he had But sometimes it is gone on in his own course. seen, that the moderator is more troublesome than the actor. Iterations are commonly loss of time: but there is no such gain of time, as to iterate often the state of the question; for it chaseth away many a frivolous speech as it is coming forth. Long and curious speeches are as fit for despatch, as a robe or a mantle with a long train is for race. Prefaces, and passages, and excusations, and other speeches of reference to the person, are great wastes of time; and though they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery. Yet beware of being too material, when there is any impediment or obstruction in men's wills; for pre-occupation of mind ever requireth preface of speech; like a fomentation to make the unguent enter. Above all things, order, and distribution, and singling out of parts, is the life of despatch: so as the distribution be not too subtile: for he that doth not divide, will never enter well into business and he that divideth too much, will never come out of it clearly. To choose time, is to save time; and an unseasonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business; the preparation, the debate or examination, and the perfection. Whereof, if you look for despatch, let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of few. The proceeding upon somewhat conceived in writing, doth for the most part facilitate despatch: for though it should be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more pregnant of direction than an indefinite; as ashes are more generative than dust. OF SEEMING WISE. It hath been an opinion, that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are. But howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man. For as the apostle saith of godliness, "Having a show of godliness, but denying the power thereof;" so certainly there are in point of wisdom and sufficiency that do nothing or little very solemnly; "Magno conatu nugas." It is a ridiculous thing, and fit for a satire to persons of judgment, to see what shifts these formalists have, and what prospectives to make superficies to seem body that hath depth and bulk. Some are so close and reserved, as they will not show their wares but by a dark light; and seem always to keep back somewhat; and when they know within themselves, they speak of that they do not well know, would nevertheless seem to others to know of that which they may not well speak. Some help themselves with countenance and gesture, and are wise by signs; as Cicero saith of Piso, that when he answered him, he fetched up one of his brows up to his forehead, and bent the other down to his chin: "Respondes, altero ad frontem sublato, altero ad mentum depresso supercilio, crudelitatem tibi non placere." Some think to bear it by speaking a great word, and being peremptory; and go on, and take by admittance that which they cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is beyond their reach, will seem to despise or make light of it as impertinent or curious; and so would have their ignorance seem judgment. Some are never without a difference, and commonly, by amusing men with a subtilty, blanch the matter; of whom A. Gellius saith, "Hominem delirum, qui verborum minutiis rerum frangit pondera." Of which kind also, Plato in his "Protagoras" bringeth in Prodicus in scorn, and maketh him make a speech that consisteth of distinctions from the beginning to the end. Generally such men in all deliberations find ease to be of the negative side, and affect a credit to object and foretell difficulties: for when propositions are denied, there is an end of them; but if they be allowed, it requireth a new work: which false point of wisdom is the bane of business. To conclude, there is no decaying merchant, or inward beggar, hath so many tricks to uphold the credit of their wealth, as these empty persons have to maintain the credit of their sufficiency. Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment, for certainly you were better take for business a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal. OF FRIENDSHIP. It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together, in few words, than in that speech; "Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast, or a god." For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversion towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast: but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all of the Divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little; "Magna civitas, magna solitudo;" because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go farther, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude, to want true friends, without which the world is but a And even in this sense also of wilderness. solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza* to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flour of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum+ for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart, to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession. It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak; so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except, to make themselves capable thereof, they raise some persons to be as it were companions, and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favourites or privadoes, as if it were matter of grace or conversation: but the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them "participes curarum;" for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly, that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned, who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, using the word which is received between private men. L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey, after surnamed the Great, to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's over-match. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet: for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting. With Julius Cæsar Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Cæsar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and especially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him, he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till his wife had dreamed a better dream. And it seemeth, his favour was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's Philippics, calleth him "venefica," witch; as if he had enchanted Cæsar. Augustus raised Agrippa, though of mean birth, to that height, as when he consulted with Mecenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Mæcenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Cæsar Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith: "Hæc pro amicitia nostra non occultavi:" and the whole senate dedicated an altar to friendship as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship between them two. The like or more was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus, and would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son: and did write also in a letter to the senate, by these words: "I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me." Now if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were; it proveth most plainly, that they found their own felicity, though as great as ever happened to mortal men, but as a half piece, except they might have a friend to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were princes which had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship. It is not to be forgotten what Comminius observeth of his first master Duke Charles the Hardy, namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith, that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair, and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comminius might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master Louis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true; "Cor ne edito," eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable, wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship, which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth of operation upon a man's mind of like virtue, as the alchemists used to attribute to their stone, for man's body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet, without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression; and even so it is of minds. The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts: neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another: he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse, than by a day's meditation. It was well said by Themistocles to the King of Persia, that speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends, as are able to give a man counsel: they indeed are best: but even, without that, a man learneth of himself and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there 25 is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self, fold use of friendship, is to cast and see how as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two many things there are which a man cannot do sorts; the one concerning manners, the other himself; and then it will appear that it was a concerning business. For the first, the best pre-sparing speech of the ancients to say, That a servative to keep the mind in health is the faith-friend is another himself; for that a friend is ful admonition of a friend. The calling a man's far more than himself. self to a strict account is a medicine sometimes and die many times in desire of some things Men have their time, too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books which they principally take to heart; the bestowof morality is a little flat and dead. Observing ing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. our faults in others is sometimes improper for If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost our case: but the best receipt, best, I say, to secure, that the care of those things will continue work, and best to take, is the admonition of a friend. after him. So that a man hath as it were two It is a strange thing to behold what lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and gross errors and extreme absurdities many, especially of the greater sort, do commit for friendship is, all offices of life are as it were that body is confined to a place; but where want of a friend to tell them of them, to the granted to him and his deputy: for he may exergreat damage both of their fame and fortune. For as St James saith, they are as men "that there, which a man cannot with any face or cise them by his friend. How many things are look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce their own shape and favour."* As for business, allege his own merits with modesty, much less a man may think if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth al- supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. extol them: a man cannot sometimes brook to ways more than a looker-on; or that a man in But all these things are graceful in a friend's anger is as wise as he that hath said over the mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So four-and-twenty letters; or that a musket may again, a man's person hath many proper relations, be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest; which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak and such other fond and high imaginations, to to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a think himself all in all. But when all is done, husband; to his enemy, but upon terms; whereas the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that a friend may speak as the case requires, and not he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; these things were endless; I have given a rule, as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate asking counsel in one business of one man, and where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if in another business of another man; it is well, he have not a friend, he may quit the stage. that is to say, better perhaps than he asked none at all, but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe, though with good meaning, and mixed partly of mischief, and partly of remedy: even as if you would call a physician that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind, and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate, will beware by furthering any present business how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct. After these two noble fruits of friendship, peace in the affections, and support of the judgment, followeth the last fruit, which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid, and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the mani * James i. 24. OF EXPENSE. honour and good actions. Therefore extraordinRiches are for spending; and spending for ary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion; for voluntary undoing may be as well for a man's country, as for the kingdom of heaven. But ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man's estate, and governed with such regard as it be within his compass; and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. Certainly if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he no baseness for the greatest, to descend and look think to wax rich, but to the third part. It is into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find searching. He that cannot look into his own it broken. But wounds cannot be cured without estate at all, had need both choose well them whom he employeth, and change them often: for new are more timorous and less subtile. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it behoveth him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other. 26 As if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in OF REGIMEN OF HEALTH. There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of mirth rather than joy, variety of delights rather than frequent use of physic, except it be grown OF SUSPICION. Suspicions amongst thoughts, are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be repressed, or at the least well guarded: for they cloud the mind, they lose friends, and they check with business, whereby business cannot go on currently and constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects not in the heart, but in the brain: for they take place in the stoutest natures; as in the example of Henry the Seventh And such a composiof England; there was not a more suspicious man, nor a more stout. are not admitted but with examination, whether tion they do small hurt. For commonly they they be likely or no? But in fearful natures they gain ground too fast. There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little: and therefore men should remedy suspicion, by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions in smother. What would men have? Do they think those they employ and deal with are saints? Do they not think they will have their own ends, and be truer to themselves than to them? Therefore there is no better way to moderate suspicions than to account upon such suspicions as true, and yet to bridle them as false: for so far a man ought to make use of suspicions, as to provide, as if that should be true that he suspects, yet it may do him no hurt. Suspicions that the mind of itself gathers are but buzzes: but suspicions that are artificially |