The Anatomy of Melancholy Part 21

SUBSECT. X.--_Discontents, Cares, Miseries, &c. Causes_.

Discontents, cares, crosses, miseries, or whatsoever it is, that shall cause any molestation of spirits, grief, anguish, and perplexity, may well be reduced to this head, (preposterously placed here in some men's judgments they may seem,) yet in that Aristotle in his [1741]Rhetoric defines these cares, as he doth envy, emulation, &c. still by grief, I think I may well rank them in this irascible row; being that they are as the rest, both causes and symptoms of this disease, producing the like inconveniences, and are most part accompanied with anguish and pain. The common etymology will evince it, _Cura quasi cor uro, Dementes curae, insomnes curae, d.a.m.nosae curae, tristes, mordaces, carnifices_, &c. biting, eating, gnawing, cruel, bitter, sick, sad, unquiet, pale, tetric, miserable, intolerable cares, as the poets [1742]call them, worldly cares, and are as many in number as the sea sands. [1743]Galen, Fernelius, Felix Plater, Valescus de Taranta, &c., reckon afflictions, miseries, even all these contentions, and vexations of the mind, as princ.i.p.al causes, in that they take away sleep, hinder concoction, dry up the body, and consume the substance of it. They are not so many in number, but their causes be as divers, and not one of a thousand free from them, or that can vindicate himself, whom that _Ate dea_,

[1744] "Per hominum capita molliter ambulans, Plantas pedum teneras habens:"

"Over men's heads walking aloft, With tender feet treading so soft,"

Homer's G.o.ddess Ate hath not involved into this discontented [1745]rank, or plagued with some misery or other. Hyginus, _fab. 220_, to this purpose hath a pleasant tale. Dame Cura by chance went over a brook, and taking up some of the dirty slime, made an image of it; Jupiter eftsoons coming by, put life to it, but Cura and Jupiter could not agree what name to give him, or who should own him; the matter was referred to Saturn as judge; he gave this arbitrement: his name shall be _h.o.m.o ab humo, Cura eum possideat quamdiu vivat_, Care shall have him whilst he lives, Jupiter his soul, and Tellus his body when he dies. But to leave tales. A general cause, a continuate cause, an inseparable accident, to all men, is discontent, care, misery; were there no other particular affliction (which who is free from?) to molest a man in this life, the very cogitation of that common misery were enough to macerate, and make him weary of his life; to think that he can never be secure, but still in danger, sorrow, grief, and persecution.

For to begin at the hour of his birth, as [1746]Pliny doth elegantly describe it, "he is born naked, and falls [1747]a whining at the very first: he is swaddled, and bound up like a prisoner, cannot help himself, and so he continues to his life's end." _Cujusque ferae pabulum_, saith [1748]Seneca, impatient of heat and cold, impatient of labour, impatient of idleness, exposed to fortune's contumelies. To a naked mariner Lucretius compares him, cast on sh.o.r.e by shipwreck, cold and comfortless in an unknown land: [1749]no estate, age, s.e.x, can secure himself from this common misery. "A man that is born of a woman is of short continuance, and full of trouble," Job xiv. 1, 22. "And while his flesh is upon him he shall be sorrowful, and while his soul is in him it shall mourn. All his days are sorrow and his travels griefs: his heart also taketh not rest in the night." Eccles. ii. 23, and ii. 11. "All that is in it is sorrow and vexation of spirit. [1750]Ingress, progress, regress, egress, much alike: blindness seizeth on us in the beginning, labour in the middle, grief in the end, error in all. What day ariseth to us without some grief, care, or anguish? Or what so secure and pleasing a morning have we seen, that hath not been overcast before the evening?" One is miserable, another ridiculous, a third odious. One complains of this grievance, another of that. _Aliquando nervi, aliquando pedes vexant_, (Seneca) _nunc distillatio, nunc epatis morbus; nunc deest, nunc superest sanguis_: now the head aches, then the feet, now the lungs, then the liver, &c. _Huic sensus exuberat, sed est pudori degener sanguis_, &c. He is rich, but base born; he is n.o.ble, but poor; a third hath means, but he wants health peradventure, or wit to manage his estate; children vex one, wife a second, &c. _Nemo facile c.u.m conditione sua concordat_, no man is pleased with his fortune, a pound of sorrow is familiarly mixed with a dram of content, little or no joy, little comfort, but [1751]everywhere danger, contention, anxiety, in all places: go where thou wilt, and thou shalt find discontents, cares, woes, complaints, sickness, diseases, enc.u.mbrances, exclamations: "If thou look into the market, there" (saith [1752]

Chrysostom) "is brawling and contention; if to the court, there knavery and flattery, &c.; if to a private man's house, there's cark and care, heaviness," &c. As he said of old,

[1753] "Nil homine in terra spirat miserum magis alma?"

No creature so miserable as man, so generally molested, [1754]"in miseries of body, in miseries of mind, miseries of heart, in miseries asleep, in miseries awake, in miseries wheresoever he turns," as Bernard found, _Nunquid tentatio est vita humana super terram_? A mere temptation is our life, (Austin, _confess. lib. 10. cap. 28_,) _catena perpetuorum malorum, et quis potest molestias et difficultates pati_? Who can endure the miseries of it? [1755]"In prosperity we are insolent and intolerable, dejected in adversity, in all fortunes foolish and miserable." [1756]"In adversity I wish for prosperity, and in prosperity I am afraid of adversity. What mediocrity may be found? Where is no temptation? What condition of life is free?" [1757]"Wisdom hath labour annexed to it, glory, envy; riches and cares, children and enc.u.mbrances, pleasure and diseases, rest and beggary, go together: as if a man were therefore born" (as the Platonists hold) "to be punished in this life for some precedent sins." Or that, as [1758]Pliny complains, "Nature may be rather accounted a stepmother, than a mother unto us, all things considered: no creature's life so brittle, so full of fear, so mad, so furious; only man is plagued with envy, discontent, griefs, covetousness, ambition, superst.i.tion." Our whole life is an Irish sea, wherein there is nought to be expected but tempestuous storms and troublesome waves, and those infinite,

[1759] "Tantum malorum pelagus aspicio, Ut non sit inde enatandi copia,"

no halcyonian times, wherein a man can hold himself secure, or agree with his present estate; but as Boethius infers, [1760]"there is something in every one of us which before trial we seek, and having tried abhor: [1761]

we earnestly wish, and eagerly covet, and are eftsoons weary of it." Thus between hope and fear, suspicions, angers, [1762]_Inter spemque metumque, timores inter et iras_, betwixt falling in, falling out, &c., we bangle away our best days, befool out our times, we lead a contentious, discontent, tumultuous, melancholy, miserable life; insomuch, that if we could foretell what was to come, and it put to our choice, we should rather refuse than accept of this painful life. In a word, the world itself is a maze, a labyrinth of errors, a desert, a wilderness, a den of thieves, cheaters, &c., full of filthy puddles, horrid rocks, precipitiums, an ocean of adversity, an heavy yoke, wherein infirmities and calamities overtake, and follow one another, as the sea waves; and if we scape Scylla, we fall foul on Charybdis, and so in perpetual fear, labour, anguish, we run from one plague, one mischief, one burden to another, _duram servientes servitutem_, and you may as soon separate weight from lead, heat from fire, moistness from water, brightness from the sun, as misery, discontent, care, calamity, danger, from a man. Our towns and cities are but so many dwellings of human misery. "In which grief and sorrow" ([1763]as he right well observes out of Solon) "innumerable troubles, labours of mortal men, and all manner of vices, are included, as in so many pens." Our villages are like molehills, and men as so many emmets, busy, busy still, going to and fro, in and out, and crossing one another's projects, as the lines of several sea-cards cut each other in a globe or map. "Now light and merry,"

but ([1764]as one follows it) "by-and-by sorrowful and heavy; now hoping, then distrusting; now patient, tomorrow crying out; now pale, then red; running, sitting, sweating, trembling, halting," &c. Some few amongst the rest, or perhaps one of a thousand, may be Pullus Jovis, in the world's esteem, _Gallinae filius albae_, an happy and fortunate man, _ad invidiam felix_, because rich, fair, well allied, in honour and office; yet peradventure ask himself, and he will say, that of all others [1765]he is most miserable and unhappy. A fair shoe, _Hic soccus novus, elegans_, as he [1766]said, _sed nescis ubi urat_, but thou knowest not where it pincheth.

It is not another man's opinion can make me happy: but as [1767]Seneca well hath it, "He is a miserable wretch that doth not account himself happy, though he be sovereign lord of a world: he is not happy, if he think himself not to be so; for what availeth it what thine estate is, or seem to others, if thou thyself dislike it?" A common humour it is of all men to think well of other men's fortunes, and dislike their own: [1768]_Cui placet alterius, sua nimirum est odio sors_; but [1769]_qui fit Mecoenas_, &c., how comes it to pa.s.s, what's the cause of it? Many men are of such a perverse nature, they are well pleased with nothing, (saith [1770]

Theodoret,) "neither with riches nor poverty, they complain when they are well and when they are sick, grumble at all fortunes, prosperity and adversity; they are troubled in a cheap year, in a barren, plenty or not plenty, nothing pleaseth them, war nor peace, with children, nor without."

This for the most part is the humour of us all, to be discontent, miserable, and most unhappy, as we think at least; and show me him that is not so, or that ever was otherwise. Quintus Metellus his felicity is infinitely admired amongst the Romans, insomuch that as [1771]Paterculus mentioneth of him, you can scarce find of any nation, order, age, s.e.x, one for happiness to be compared unto him: he had, in a word, _Bona animi, corporis et fortunae_, goods of mind, body, and fortune, so had P.

Mutia.n.u.s, [1772]Cra.s.sus. Lampsaca, that Lacedaemonian lady, was such another in [1773]Pliny's conceit, a king's wife, a king's mother, a king's daughter: and all the world esteemed as much of Polycrates of Samos. The Greeks brag of their Socrates, Phocion, Aristides; the Psophidians in particular of their Aglaus, _Omni vita felix, ab omni periculo immunis_ (which by the way Pausanias held impossible;) the Romans of their [1774]

Cato, Curius, Fabricius, for their composed fortunes, and retired estates, government of pa.s.sions, and contempt of the world: yet none of all these were happy, or free from discontent, neither Metellus, Cra.s.sus, nor Polycrates, for he died a violent death, and so did Cato; and how much evil doth Lactantius and Theodoret speak of Socrates, a weak man, and so of the rest. There is no content in this life, but as [1775]he said, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit;" lame and imperfect. Hadst thou Sampson's hair, Milo's strength, Scanderbeg's arm, Solomon's wisdom, Absalom's beauty, Croesus' wealth, _Pasetis obulum_, Caesar's valour, Alexander's spirit, Tully's or Demosthenes' eloquence, Gyges' ring, Perseus' Pegasus, and Gorgon's head, Nestor's years to come, all this would not make thee absolute; give thee content, and true happiness in this life, or so continue it. Even in the midst of all our mirth, jollity, and laughter, is sorrow and grief, or if there be true happiness amongst us, 'tis but for a time,

[1776] "Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne:"

"A handsome woman with a fish's tail,"

a fair morning turns to a lowering afternoon. Brutus and Ca.s.sius, once renowned, both eminently happy, yet you shall scarce find two (saith Paterculus) _quos fortuna maturius dest.i.turit_, whom fortune sooner forsook. Hannibal, a conqueror all his life, met with his match, and was subdued at last, _Occurrit forti, qui mage fortis erit._ One is brought in triumph, as Caesar into Rome, Alcibiades into Athens, _coronis aureis donatus_, crowned, honoured, admired; by-and-by his statues demolished, he hissed out, ma.s.sacred, &c. [1777]Magnus Gonsalva, that famous Spaniard, was of the prince and people at first honoured, approved; forthwith confined and banished. _Admirandas actiones; graves plerunque sequuntur invidiae, et acres calumniae_: 'tis Polybius his observation, grievous enmities, and bitter calumnies, commonly follow renowned actions. One is born rich, dies a beggar; sound today, sick tomorrow; now in most flourishing estate, fortunate and happy, by-and-by deprived of his goods by foreign enemies, robbed by thieves, spoiled, captivated, impoverished, as they of [1778]"Rabbah put under iron saws, and under iron harrows, and under axes of iron, and cast into the tile kiln,"

[1779] "Quid me felicem toties jactastis amici, Qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu."

He that erst marched like Xerxes with innumerable armies, as rich as Croesus, now shifts for himself in a poor c.o.c.k-boat, is bound in iron chains, with Bajazet the Turk, and a footstool with Aurelian, for a tyrannising conqueror to trample on. So many casualties there are, that as Seneca said of a city consumed with fire, _Una dies interest inter maximum civitatem et nullam_, one day betwixt a great city and none: so many grievances from outward accidents, and from ourselves, our own indiscretion, inordinate appet.i.te, one day betwixt a man and no man. And which is worse, as if discontents and miseries would not come fast enough upon us: _h.o.m.o homini daemon_, we maul, persecute, and study how to sting, gall, and vex one another with mutual hatred, abuses, injuries; preying upon and devouring as so many, [1780]ravenous birds; and as jugglers, panders, bawds, cozening one another; or raging as [1781]wolves, tigers, and devils, we take a delight to torment one another; men are evil, wicked, malicious, treacherous, and [1782]naught, not loving one another, or loving themselves, not hospitable, charitable, nor sociable as they ought to be, but counterfeit, dissemblers, ambidexters, all for their own ends, hard-hearted, merciless, pitiless, and to benefit themselves, they care not what mischief they procure to others. [1783]Praxinoe and Gorgo in the poet, when they had got in to see those costly sights, they then cried _bene est_, and would thrust out all the rest: when they are rich themselves, in honour, preferred, full, and have even that they would, they debar others of those pleasures which youth requires, and they formerly have enjoyed. He sits at table in a soft chair at ease, but he doth remember in the mean time that a tired waiter stands behind him, "an hungry fellow ministers to him full, he is athirst that gives him drink" (saith [1784]Epictetus) "and is silent whilst he speaks his pleasure: pensive, sad, when he laughs."

_Pleno se proluit auro_: he feasts, revels, and profusely spends, hath variety of robes, sweet music, ease, and all the pleasure the world can afford, whilst many an hunger-starved poor creature pines in the street, wants clothes to cover him, labours hard all day long, runs, rides for a trifle, fights peradventure from sun to sun, sick and ill, weary, full of pain and grief, is in great distress and sorrow of heart. He loathes and scorns his inferior, hates or emulates his equal, envies his superior, insults over all such as are under him, as if he were of another species, a demiG.o.d, not subject to any fall, or human infirmities. Generally they love not, are not beloved again: they tire out others' bodies with continual labour, they themselves living at ease, caring for none else, _sibi nati_; and are so far many times from putting to their helping hand, that they seek all means to depress, even most worthy and well deserving, better than themselves, those whom they are by the laws of nature bound to relieve and help, as much as in them lies, they will let them caterwaul, starve, beg, and hang, before they will any ways (though it be in their power) a.s.sist or ease: [1785]so unnatural are they for the most part, so unregardful; so hard-hearted, so churlish, proud, insolent, so dogged, of so bad a disposition. And being so brutish, so devilishly bent one towards another, how is it possible but that we should be discontent of all sides, full of cares, woes, and miseries?

If this be not a sufficient proof of their discontent and misery, examine every condition and calling apart. Kings, princes, monarchs, and magistrates seem to be most happy, but look into their estate, you shall [1786]find them to be most enc.u.mbered with cares, in perpetual fear, agony, suspicion, jealousy: that, as [1787]he said of a crown, if they knew but the discontents that accompany it, they would not stoop to take it up.

_Quem mihi regent dabis_ (saith Chrysostom) _non curis plenum_? What king canst thou show me, not full of cares? [1788]"Look not on his crown, but consider his afflictions; attend not his number of servants, but mult.i.tude of crosses." _Nihil aliud potestas culminis, quam tempestas mentis_, as Gregory seconds him; sovereignty is a tempest of the soul: Sylla like they have brave t.i.tles, but terrible fits: _splendorem t.i.tulo, cruciatum animo_: which made [1789]Demosthenes vow, _si vel ad tribunal, vel ad interitum duceretur_: if to be a judge, or to be condemned, were put to his choice, he would be condemned. Rich men are in the same predicament; what their pains are, _stulti nesciunt, ipsi sentiunt_: they feel, fools perceive not, as I shall prove elsewhere, and their wealth is brittle, like children's rattles: they come and go, there is no certainty in them: those whom they elevate, they do as suddenly depress, and leave in a vale of misery. The middle sort of men are as so many a.s.ses to bear burdens; or if they be free, and live at ease, they spend themselves, and consume their bodies and fortunes with luxury and riot, contention, emulation, &c. The poor I reserve for another [1790]place and their discontents.

For particular professions, I hold as of the rest, there's no content or security in any; on what course will you pitch, how resolve? to be a divine, 'tis contemptible in the world's esteem; to be a lawyer, 'tis to be a wrangler; to be a physician, [1791]_pudet lotii_, 'tis loathed; a philosopher, a madman; an alchemist, a beggar; a poet, _esurit_, an hungry jack; a musician, a player; a schoolmaster, a drudge; an husbandman, an emmet; a merchant, his gains are uncertain; a mechanician, base; a chirurgeon, fulsome; a tradesman, a [1792]liar; a tailor, a thief; a serving-man, a slave; a soldier, a butcher; a smith, or a metalman, the pot's never from his nose; a courtier a parasite, as he could find no tree in the wood to hang himself; I can show no state of life to give content.

The like you may say of all ages; children live in a perpetual slavery, still under that tyrannical government of masters; young men, and of riper years, subject to labour, and a thousand cares of the world, to treachery, falsehood, and cozenage,

[1793] ------"Incedit per ignes, Suppositos cineri doloso,"

------"you incautious tread On fires, with faithless ashes overhead."

[1794]old are full of aches in their bones, cramps and convulsions, _silicernia_, dull of hearing, weak sighted, h.o.a.ry, wrinkled, harsh, so much altered as that they cannot know their own face in a gla.s.s, a burthen to themselves and others, after 70 years, "all is sorrow" (as David hath it), they do not live but linger. If they be sound, they fear diseases; if sick, weary of their lives: _Non est vivere, sed valere vita._ One complains of want, a second of servitude, [1795]another of a secret or incurable disease; of some deformity of body, of some loss, danger, death of friends, shipwreck, persecution, imprisonment, disgrace, repulse, [1796]

contumely, calumny, abuse, injury, contempt, ingrat.i.tude, unkindness, scoffs, flouts, unfortunate marriage, single life, too many children, no children, false servants, unhappy children, barrenness, banishment, oppression, frustrate hopes and ill-success, &c.

[1797] "Talia de genere hoc adeo sunt multa, loquacem ut Dela.s.sare valent Fabium."------

"But, every various instance to repeat, Would tire even Fabius of incessant prate."

Talking Fabius will be tired before he can tell half of them; they are the subject of whole volumes, and shall (some of them) be more opportunely dilated elsewhere. In the meantime thus much I may say of them, that generally they crucify the soul of man, [1798]attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them as so many anatomies ([1799]_ossa atque pellis est totus, ita curis macet_) they cause _tempus foedum et squalidum_, c.u.mbersome days, _ingrataque tempora_, slow, dull, and heavy times: make us howl, roar, and tear our hairs, as sorrow did in [1800]Cebes' table, and groan for the very anguish of our souls. Our hearts fail us as David's did, Psal. xl. 12, "for innumerable troubles that compa.s.sed him;" and we are ready to confess with Hezekiah, Isaiah lviii.

17, "behold, for felicity I had bitter grief;" to weep with Herac.l.i.tus, to curse the day of our birth with Jeremy, xx. 14, and our stars with Job: to hold that axiom of Silenus, [1801]"better never to have been born, and the best next of all, to die quickly:" or if we must live, to abandon the world, as Timon did; creep into caves and holes, as our anchorites; cast all into the sea, as Crates Theba.n.u.s; or as Theombrotus Ambrociato's 400 auditors, precipitate ourselves to be rid of these miseries.

SUBSECT. XI.--_Concupiscible Appet.i.te, as Desires, Ambition, Causes_.

These concupiscible and irascible appet.i.tes are as the two twists of a rope, mutually mixed one with the other, and both twining about the heart: both good, as Austin, holds, _l. 14. c. 9. de civ. Dei_, [1802]"if they be moderate; both pernicious if they be exorbitant." This concupiscible appet.i.te, howsoever it may seem to carry with it a show of pleasure and delight, and our concupiscences most part affect us with content and a pleasing object, yet if they be in extremes, they rack and wring us on the other side. A true saying it is, "Desire hath no rest;" is infinite in itself, endless; and as [1803]one calls it, a perpetual rack, [1804]or horse-mill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring. They are not so continual, as divers, _felicius atomos denumerare possem_, saith [1805]Bernard, _quam motus cordis; nunc haec, nunc illa cogito_, you may as well reckon up the motes in the sun as them. [1806]"It extends itself to everything," as Guianerius will have it, "that is superfluously sought after:"' or to any [1807]fervent desire, as Fernelius interprets it; be it in what kind soever, it tortures if immoderate, and is (according to [1808]

Plater and others) an especial cause of melancholy. _Multuosis concupiscentiis dilaniantur cogitationes meae_, [1809]Austin confessed, that he was torn a pieces with his manifold desires: and so doth [1810]

Bernard complain, "that he could not rest for them a minute of an hour: this I would have, and that, and then I desire to be such and such." 'Tis a hard matter therefore to confine them, being they are so various and many, impossible to apprehend all. I will only insist upon some few of the chief, and most noxious in their kind, as that exorbitant appet.i.te and desire of honour, which we commonly call ambition; love of money, which is covetousness, and that greedy desire of gain: self-love, pride, and inordinate desire of vainglory or applause, love of study in excess; love of women (which will require a just volume of itself), of the other I will briefly speak, and in their order.

Ambition, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of honour, a great torture of the mind, composed of envy, pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness, one [1811]defines it a pleasant poison, Ambrose, "a canker of the soul, an hidden plague:" [1812]Bernard, "a secret poison, the father of livor, and mother of hypocrisy, the moth of holiness, and cause of madness, crucifying and disquieting all that it takes hold of." [1813]Seneca calls it, _rem solicitam, timidam, vanam, ventosam_, a windy thing, a vain, solicitous, and fearful thing. For commonly they that, like Sisyphus, roll this restless stone of ambition, are in a perpetual agony, still [1814]

perplexed, _semper taciti, tritesque recedunt_ (Lucretius), doubtful, timorous, suspicious, loath to offend in word or deed, still cogging and colloguing, embracing, capping, cringing, applauding, flattering, fleering, visiting, waiting at men's doors, with all affability, counterfeit honesty and humility. [1815]If that will not serve, if once this humour (as [1816]Cyprian describes it) possess his thirsty soul, _ambitionis salsugo ubi bibulam animam possidet_, by hook and by crook he will obtain it, "and from his hole he will climb to all honours and offices, if it be possible for him to get up, flattering one, bribing another, he will leave no means unessay'd to win all." [1817]It is a wonder to see how slavishly these kind of men subject themselves, when they are about a suit, to every inferior person; what pains they will take, run, ride, cast, plot, countermine, protest and swear, vow, promise, what labours undergo, early up, down late; how obsequious and affable they are, how popular and courteous, how they grin and fleer upon every man they meet; with what feasting and inviting, how they spend themselves and their fortunes, in seeking that many times, which they had much better be without; as [1818]Cyneas the orator told Pyrrhus: with what waking nights, painful hours, anxious thoughts, and bitterness of mind, _inter spemque metumque_, distracted and tired, they consume the interim of their time. There can be no greater plague for the present. If they do obtain their suit, which with such cost and solicitude they have sought, they are not so freed, their anxiety is anew to begin, for they are never satisfied, _nihil aliud nisi imperium spirant_, their thoughts, actions, endeavours are all for sovereignty and honour, like [1819]Lues Sforza that huffing Duke of Milan, "a man of singular wisdom, but profound ambition, born to his own, and to the destruction of Italy,"

though it be to their own ruin, and friends' undoing, they will contend, they may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so [1820]Budaeus compares them; [1821]they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top. A knight would be a baronet, and then a lord, and then a viscount, and then an earl, &c.; a doctor, a dean, and then a bishop; from tribune to praetor; from bailiff to major; first this office, and then that; as Pyrrhus in [1822]Plutarch, they will first have Greece, then Africa, and then Asia, and swell with Aesop's frog so long, till in the end they burst, or come down with Seja.n.u.s, _ad Gemonias scalas_, and break their own necks; or as Evangelus the piper in Lucian, that blew his pipe so long, till he fell down dead. If he chance to miss, and have a canva.s.s, he is in a h.e.l.l on the other side; so dejected, that he is ready to hang himself, turn heretic, Turk, or traitor in an instant. Enraged against his enemies, he rails, swears, fights, slanders, detracts, envies, murders: and for his own part, _si appet.i.tum explere non potest, furore corripitur_; if he cannot satisfy his desire (as [1823]Bodine writes) he runs mad. So that both ways, hit or miss, he is distracted so long as his ambition lasts, he can look for no other but anxiety and care, discontent and grief in the meantime, [1824]madness itself, or violent death in the end. The event of this is common to be seen in populous cities, or in princes' courts, for a courtier's life (as Budaeus describes it) "is a [1825]gallimaufry of ambition, l.u.s.t, fraud, imposture, dissimulation, detraction, envy, pride; [1826]the court, a common conventicle of flatterers, time-servers, politicians," &c.; or as [1827] Anthony Perez will, "the suburbs of h.e.l.l itself." If you will see such discontented persons, there you shall likely find them. [1828]And which he observed of the markets of old Rome,

"Qui perjurum convenire vult hominem, mitto in Comitium; Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cluasinae sacrum; Dites, d.a.m.nosos maritos, sub basilica quaerito," &c.

Perjured knaves, knights of the post, liars, crackers, bad husbands, &c.

keep their several stations; they do still, and always did in every commonwealth.

SUBSECT. XII.--[Greek: philarguria], _Covetousness, a Cause_.

Plutarch, in his [1829]book whether the diseases of the body be more grievous than those of the soul, is of opinion, "if you will examine all the causes of our miseries in this life, you shall find them most part to have had their beginning from stubborn anger, that furious desire of contention, or some unjust or immoderate affection, as covetousness," &c.

From whence "are wars and contentions amongst you?" [1830]St. James asks: I will add usury, fraud, rapine, simony, oppression, lying, swearing, bearing false witness, &c. are they not from this fountain of covetousness, that greediness in getting, tenacity in keeping, sordidity in spending; that they are so wicked, [1831]"unjust against G.o.d, their neighbour, themselves;" all comes hence. "The desire of money is the root of all evil, and they that l.u.s.t after it, pierce themselves through with many sorrows,"

1 Tim. vi. 10. Hippocrates therefore in his Epistle to Crateva, an herbalist, gives him this good counsel, that if it were possible, [1832]

"amongst other herbs, he should cut up that weed of covetousness by the roots, that there be no remainder left, and then know this for a certainty, that together with their bodies, thou mayst quickly cure all the diseases of their minds." For it is indeed the pattern, image, epitome of all melancholy, the fountain of many miseries, much discontented care and woe; this "inordinate, or immoderate desire of gain, to get or keep money," as [1833]Bonaventure defines it: or, as Austin describes it, a madness of the soul, Gregory a torture; Chrysostom, an insatiable drunkenness; Cyprian, blindness, _speciosum supplicium_, a plague subverting kingdoms, families, an [1834]incurable disease; Budaeus, an ill habit, [1835]"yielding to no remedies:" neither Aesculapius nor Plutus can cure them: a continual plague, saith Solomon, and vexation of spirit, another h.e.l.l. I know there be some of opinion, that covetous men are happy, and worldly, wise, that there is more pleasure in getting of wealth than in spending, and no delight in the world like unto it. 'Twas [1836]Bias' problem of old, "With what art thou not weary? with getting money. What is most delectable? to gain." What is it, trow you, that makes a poor man labour all his lifetime, carry such great burdens, fare so hardly, macerate himself, and endure so much misery, undergo such base offices with so great patience, to rise up early, and lie down late, if there were not an extraordinary delight in getting and keeping of money? What makes a merchant that hath no need, _satis superque domi_, to range all over the world, through all those intemperate [1837]Zones of heat and cold; voluntarily to venture his life, and be content with such miserable famine, nasty usage, in a stinking ship; if there were not a pleasure and hope to get money, which doth season the rest, and mitigate his indefatigable pains? What makes them go into the bowels of the earth, an hundred fathom deep, endangering their dearest lives, enduring damps and filthy smells, when they have enough already, if they could be content, and no such cause to labour, but an extraordinary delight they take in riches. This may seem plausible at first show, a popular and strong argument; but let him that so thinks, consider better of it, and he shall soon perceive, that it is far otherwise than he supposeth; it may be haply pleasing at the first, as most part all melancholy is. For such men likely have some _lucida intervalla_, pleasant symptoms intermixed; but you must note that of [1838]Chrysostom, "'Tis one thing to be rich, another to be covetous:" generally they are all fools, dizzards, madmen, [1839]miserable wretches, living besides themselves, _sine arte fruendi_, in perpetual slavery, fear, suspicion, sorrow, and discontent, _plus aloes quam mellis habent_; and are indeed, "rather possessed by their money, than possessors:" as [1840]Cyprian hath it, _manc.i.p.ati pecuniis_; bound prentice to their goods, as [1841]Pliny; or as Chrysostom, _servi divitiarum_, slaves and drudges to their substance; and we may conclude of them all, as [1842]Valerius doth of Ptolomaeus king of Cyprus, "He was in t.i.tle a king of that island, but in his mind, a miserable drudge of money:"

[1843] ------"potiore metallis libertate carens"------

wanting his liberty, which is better than gold. Damasippus the Stoic, in Horace, proves that all mortal men dote by fits, some one way, some another, but that covetous men [1844]are madder than the rest; and he that shall truly look into their estates, and examine their symptoms, shall find no better of them, but that they are all [1845]fools, as Nabal was, _Re et nomine_ (1. Reg. 15.) For what greater folly can there be, or [1846]

madness, than to macerate himself when he need not? and when, as Cyprian notes, [1847]"he may be freed from his burden, and eased of his pains, will go on still, his wealth increasing, when he hath enough, to get more, to live besides himself," to starve his genius, keep back from his wife [1848]and children, neither letting them nor other friends use or enjoy that which is theirs by right, and which they much need perhaps; like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it, because it shall do n.o.body else good, hurting himself and others: and for a little momentary pelf, d.a.m.n his own soul? They are commonly sad and tetric by nature, as Achab's spirit was because he could not get Naboth's vineyard, (1. Reg. 22.) and if he lay out his money at any time, though it be to necessary uses, to his own children's good, he brawls and scolds, his heart is heavy, much disquieted he is, and loath to part from it: _Miser abstinet et timet uti_, Hor. He is of a wearish, dry, pale const.i.tution, and cannot sleep for cares and worldly business; his riches, saith Solomon, will not let him sleep, and unnecessary business which he heapeth on himself; or if he do sleep, 'tis a very unquiet, interrupt, unpleasing sleep: with his bags in his arms,

------"congestis undique sacc indormit inhians,"------

And though he be at a banquet, or at some merry feast, "he sighs for grief of heart" (as [1849]Cyprian hath it) "and cannot sleep though it be upon a down bed; his wearish body takes no rest," [1850]"troubled in his abundance, and sorrowful in plenty, unhappy for the present, and more unhappy in the life to come." Basil. He is a perpetual drudge, [1851]restless in his thoughts, and never satisfied, a slave, a wretch, a dust-worm, _semper quod idolo suo immolet, sedulus observat_ Cypr. _prolog.

ad sermon_ still seeking what sacrifice he may offer to his golden G.o.d, _per fas et nefas_, he cares not how, his trouble is endless, [1852]_cresc.u.n.t divitiae, tamen curtae nescio quid semper abest rei_: his wealth increaseth, and the more he hath, the more [1853]he wants: like Pharaoh's lean kine, which devoured the fat, and were not satisfied.

[1854]Austin therefore defines covetousness, _quarumlibet rerum inhonestam et insatiabilem cupiditatem_ a dishonest and insatiable desire of gain; and in one of his epistles compares it to h.e.l.l; [1855]"which devours all, and yet never hath enough, a bottomless pit," an endless misery; _in quem scopulum avaritiae cadaverosi senes utplurimum impingunt_, and that which is their greatest corrosive, they are in continual suspicion, fear, and distrust, He thinks his own wife and children are so many thieves, and go about to cozen him, his servants are all false:

"Rem suam periisse, seque eradicarier, Et divum atque hominum clamat continuo fidem, De suo tigillo si qua exit foras."

"If his doors creek, then out he cries anon, His goods are gone, and he is quite undone."

_Timidus Plutus_, an old proverb, As fearful as Plutus: so doth Aristophanes and Lucian bring him in fearful still, pale, anxious, suspicious, and trusting no man, [1856]"They are afraid of tempests for their corn; they are afraid of their friends lest they should ask something of them, beg or borrow; they are afraid of their enemies lest they hurt them, thieves lest they rob them; they are afraid of war and afraid of peace, afraid of rich and afraid of poor; afraid of all." Last of all, they are afraid of want, that they shall die beggars, which makes them lay up still, and dare not use that they have: what if a dear year come, or dearth, or some loss? and were it not that they are both to [1857]lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges, and make away themselves, if their corn and cattle miscarry; though they have abundance left, as [1858]Agellius notes. [1859]Valerius makes mention of one that in a famine sold a mouse for 200 pence, and famished himself: such are their cares, [1860]griefs and perpetual fears.

These symptoms are elegantly expressed by Theophrastus in his character of a covetous man; [1861]"lying in bed, he asked his wife whether she shut the trunks and chests fast, the cap-case be sealed, and whether the hall door be bolted; and though she say all is well, he riseth out of his bed in his shirt, barefoot and barelegged, to see whether it be so, with a dark lantern searching every corner, scarce sleeping a wink all night." Lucian in that pleasant and witty dialogue called Gallus, brings in Mycillus the cobbler disputing with his c.o.c.k, sometimes Pythagoras; where after much speech pro and con, to prove the happiness of a mean estate, and discontents of a rich man, Pythagoras' c.o.c.k in the end, to ill.u.s.trate by examples that which he had said, brings him to Gnyphon the usurer's house at midnight, and after that to Encrates; whom, they found both awake, casting up their accounts, and telling of their money, [1862]lean, dry, pale and anxious, still suspecting lest somebody should make a hole through the wall, and so get in; or if a rat or mouse did but stir, starting upon a sudden, and running to the door to see whether all were fast. Plautus, in his Aulularia, makes old Euclio [1863]commanding Staphyla his wife to shut the doors fast, and the fire to be put out, lest anybody should make that an errand to come to his house: when he washed his hands, [1864]he was loath to fling away the foul water, complaining that he was undone, because the smoke got out of his roof. And as he went from home, seeing a crow scratch upon the muck-hill, returned in all haste, taking it for _malum omen_, an ill sign, his money was digged up; with many such. He that will but observe their actions, shall find these and many such pa.s.sages not feigned for sport, but really performed, verified indeed by such covetous and miserable wretches, and that it is,