WITS MISERY, and the World's Madness: Discovering the devils Incarnate of this Age.  
LONDON, Printed by Adam Islip, and are to be sold by Cuthbert Burby, at his shop by the Roiall-Exchange. 1596.   

TO THE RIGHT worshipful brothers, Nicholas Hare of Stow Bardolfe Esquire and Recorder of Lyn, Hugh Hare Esquire, Bencher of the inward Temple, and john Hare Esquire, Clerk of her majesties Court of Wards, Tho. Lodge Gentleman, wisheth health, wealth, and heaven.  
RIght Worshipful, understanding how like Scilirus the Scythians faggot you are all so tied together with the brotherly bond of amity, that no division or dissension can departed you; In memory of your rare and united loves (the like whereof this barren age scarcely affordeth any) and in regard you are three ornaments in this Honourable City, whereof I esteem myself a member: To consecrate your virtues with my fame, I have boldly made you the pa●…rons of this my work, which both becometh your gravities to read, and your devotions to think upon. Accept (I most humbly entreat you) this deserving kindness from a gentleman, whose labours and courtesies being well construed, shall embolden him hereafter to adventure on far greater. Till when, I most humbly commend me: Written in haste, from my house at Low-Laiton, this 5. of November. 1596.  
Your Worships in all kindness, T. L.   

To the Reader of either sort.  
REaders whatsoever (courteous I desire it, if otherwise I care not) I present you as subtle vintners are wont, with my quart at the end of a large reckoning, wherein though I strive to delight your taste, you must hold yourself assured to pay for your pleasures; for books crave labour, and labour deserves money, pay therefore the Printer for his pains, and if you meet not Carp in your dish, you may hap have Gogins if you angle: You run sweeting to a play though there want a spirit of wit, I mean merriment in it, then stick not to give freely for this, for my Comedy is pleasure, the world is my sta●…e and stage, and mine actors so well trained, that without a fool and a Devil I pass nothing, (and that's no small credit in a country town where horned beasts yield most pleasure and profit) Kind heart shall not show you so many teeth tipped with silver in his Sunday hat, as I Devils incarnate in cloaks of the new fashion, But what Devils say you? (for if Plato lie not, they are in the air like Atomies in sole, moths in the son.) Faith, earthly Devils in human habits, whereof some sit on your pillows when you sleep, wait on your tasters when you drink, dress ladies heads when they attire them, perfume courteours when they trim them, and become Panders if you hire them: and if you know them not rightly, they may hap to leave their horns behind them among some of you. Buy therefore this Crystal, and you shall see them in their common appearance; and read these exorcisms advisedly, & you may be sure to conjure them without cross: but if any man long for a familiar for false dice, a spirit to tell fortunes, a charm to heal diseased, this only book can best fit him, let him but buy it, read it, and remember it, and if he be not well instructed when he hath ended it, he shall be a Devil himself on my conscience without ending. Farewell and thank him that hath studied thee so much profit; if thou dost not I pardon thee because thou dost as the world teacheth thee. Farewell.  
Thine in charity and love: T. L.   

THE DEVILS INCARnate of this age.  
LOoking lately into the customs of these times, and conjecturing men's inward affections by their outward actions; I gather with Jerome, that this world is the house of confusion, & that the old Proverb in these days hath greatest probability and truth, that Homo est homini doemon, Man unto man is a devil. For who considereth wis●…ly what he seeth, and compareth that which should be, with that which is; may rightly say, that the Epicure conceited not so many Imaginary worlds, as this world containeth Incarnate devils. Incarnate devils, quoth you? why there are none such: then are there no men, say I, that delight to be vicious; and that true sentence is frustrate, Totus mundus in maligno positus est, The whole world is set on mischief. Come, come, let us take the painting from this foul face, pull off the cover from this cup of poison, rip up the covert of this bed of serpents, and we shall discover that palpably, which hath long time been hidden cunningly: How? say you: Marry thus if you please: Compare things past, and you shall conceit harms present.  
When that old serpent the devil (who with his tail, drew 
Apoc. 12.  unto him the third part of the stars, and with his seven heads and ten horns, combated with Michael and his Angels) was overcome: knowing (like a wily fox as he is) that his power was limited by a greater, and himself restrained by the mighty: yet willing to become God's Ape (whom in envy he could not overcome) he sent out seven devils to draw the world to capital sin, as God had appointed seven capital Angels (who continually minister before him) to infuse virtues into men, and reduce souls to his service. And as the seven good are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Ariel, Euchudiel, Barchiel, and Salthiel: So of Satan's ministers, Leviathan is the first, that tempteth with Pride; Mammon the second, that attempteth by Avarice; Asmodeus the third, that seduceth by Lechery: Beelzebub the fourth, that inciteth to Envy: Baalberith the fist, that provoketh to Ire: Beelphogor the sixth, that moveth Gluttony: Astaroth the seventh, that induceth Sloth and jolenes.  
These seven capital sins sent out into the world, wanted no allurements to bewitch the eye; no oratory, to seduce the ear; no subtlety, to affect the senses: so that finally, seizing on the hearts of men, and wedded to their thoughts, they have brought forth many and pernicious children, to the general mischief of all nature. Some like Centaurs, begotten of clouds, (as Ambition:) some like Serpents, nourished in corrupt dunghills, (as Sensuality:) some like vapours, raised up to be consumed, (as Flattery.) Generally all so dangerous, that as rust devonreth the iron, and the moth the garment, so do these sins our souls.  

The fearful race of Leviathan, with the generation of his Incarnate breed.  
LEuiathan the eldest, after that (in the former ages and infancy of the world) he had perverted Nembrod, brought Nious to confusion, begun tyranny in the first, and monarchy in the next; when in the kingdoms of the East he had left no regal seat unstained with blood; & in the West, the true faith affronted by many heresies: at last waxing old (& more fruitful and subtle in doing mischief) he raised up these contentious spirits to pervert our world (which retaining now a days and that very scarcely the only memory of the temperance of their forefathers, are wholly diverted and turned from the mean, and accustomed for the most part in the extremes of all virtue and godliness.) His first son is Vainglory, who seeing his father waxed old in complotting villainies, broken by fatal contentions, spent by many poisons, and impouer●…hed by meere-excesse, hath preferred him to the mastership of an hospital, where he now teacheth new paintings, to cover ages wrinkles; strange policies, to supplant zealous proceedings; and subtle heresies, to infect the hearts of the simple. This lusty younker (taught to play the Protheus by his old Grandsire the devil) appeareth in divers shapes to men, applying himself to all natures and humours. To Eve he appeared 
〈◊〉. 16.  like a Serpent, Et eritis sicut d●…, And you shall be as gods, said he: but in this world he is Incarnate, meeting gentlemen commonly at their ordinaries, scholars in their schools, handicrafts men in their shops, soldiers in their exploits, shrouding 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 1.  himself always in the shadow of virtue, whereas in truth he is but the effect of vice: he is backed with Boasting his familiar brother; grounded in Discord, a branch of his nature; attended by Inobedience, the fruit of presumpti●…. In chief places he appears not but in the coat of Singularity, rejoicing vainly in those stratagems, which at last are determined in his own ruin: witness Alcibiades, who (as Plutarch reporteth) nourished in his vain felicities, perished unhappily by inconsideration and incontinency. Of late days knowing that his grandfather determines to keep grand Christmasses in hell, he hath insinuated himself into the city in these kind of furnitures & apparitions, to provide him store of fuel to furnish Satan's house of Distress, and common place of Confusion. In powl's he walketh like a gallant Courtier, where, if he meet some rich chuffs worth the gulling, at every word he speaketh, he makes a mouse of an elephant, he telleth them of wonders done in Spain by his ancestors: where, if the matter were well examined, his father was but Swabber in the ship where Civil Oranges were the best merchandise: draw him into the line of history, you shall hear as many lies at a breath, as would breed scruple in a good conscience for an age: talk with him of travels, ware thirty thousand crowns in eggeshels at a Venetian banquet: if any worthy exploit, rare stratagem, plausible policy, hath ever past his hearing, he maketh it his own by an oath: nay, to speak the whole pith of his commendations, truths are as rare in his mouth, as adulteries in Sparta. Touch me his hat, it was given him by Henry the second of France, when he kissed the Reintgraves' wife at his going into Almain: commend the fashion of his beard, he tells you it is the work of a Turkish barber: his band was a prize gotten in Transiluania; where the truth is, he bought it in the Exchange for his money: Charles the Emperor gave his cloak: his sword was Mountdragons, all that he hath if you believe him, are but gifts in reward of his virtue: where (poor ass as he is) were he examined in his own nature, his courage is boasting, his learning ignorance, his ability weakness, and his end beggary: yet is his smooth tongue a fit bait to catch Gudgeons; and such as sail by the wind of his good fortune, become Chameleons like Alcibiades, feeding on the vanity of his tongue with the foolish credulity of their ears. Sometime like a Merchant he haunteth the Exchange; there jets he in the dispo●…ls of a Broker's shop, grave in looks, courtly in behaviour, magnificent to the simple sort, affable to the wiser, now inquiring of news from Tripoli, strait boasting of his commodities from Ozante, filling all men's ears with so great opinion of his wealth, that every one holdeth him happy that trust him, till in the end, both he and they, prove bankrupts. In his hood and habit he will prove Ramus, to be a deeper Philosopher than Aristotle, and presume to read the Mathematics to the studious, when he knows not what either Axis, Equator, or Circulus is: draw him to Geometry, he will protest that Dodochedron is not a figure of twelve angles: urge him in Music, he will swear to it, that he is A per s●… in it, where he is skilless in Proportion, ignorant in Discord, negligent in Time, unapt for Harmony, being both in soul & body a mere adversary to all Science. For he that delighteth to challenge all things to himself, defraudeth his reason of Light, and his mind of judgement. Beware of this Devil friends, for if you make him a soldier, you shall find a false heart, or howsoever you think him, a very idiot. A Father speaking of him, saith, Et seipsum perdit, & alium i●…sicit, He looseth himself, and infecteth others. Those only that have calculated his nativity, say this of him, that if ever he be attached by good counsel, he will hang himself: or if he be crossed in his opinion, kill himself in despair, that all the wiser sort may have cause to laugh at him.  
The next son Leviathan presenteth, is Ambition, catching at nothing but stars, climbing for nothing but crowns. This gallant Devil moving at the first (before his Incarnation) a mutiny in heaven among the Angels, hath now assumed a body to raise tumults on the earth, and break sacrum societatis vinculum, the sacred bond of society. In former times it was he only that perverted laws, neglected affinity, invented conspiracy, circumvented authority, giving those pens occasion to report his exceeding tragedies, who were resolved to ground their eternity on the happy peace earnestly affected among all civil policies. It was Ambition at first that of Deioces a just judge, made an unjust Mede, and a tyrant. It was he that brought Tarqvinius in hate amongst the Romans: it was he that corrupted Nero, seduced▪ Chabades of Persia, incensed Tiberius and Maximinus, provoked Polycrates to assault the Samians: and not content to work these troubles on the Continent; Sicily standeth amazed at the murders contrived by him, and the waves were an ins●…fficient wall for the Isles of the midland sea, to keep out adulteries, murders, and ambitions. Phalaris and Agathocles groan under his burdens: and Gréede, 〈◊〉 yet in memory, that he alone made Athanaeus murder his son, and Ajax through envy and emulation assault his friends: neither hath his sinister influence had working only in men's hearts, but it in●…amed women also, as Semiramis; Athalia, Agrippina in Nero's time, Brunechild in France: so that whosoever readeth the ancient and modern Chronicles, shall scarcely find any memorable act, except it be either grounded, seconded, c●…tinued, or ended in Ambition. But since the object of the sense is a help to the memory, I will show him particularly in his right coat, discover him by his due circumstances, so that whosoever considerately weigheth how I describe him, shall be able to know him if he meeteth him. If he arise from obscurity, (as Changuis a smith, who as Lewis Regius witnesseth became Emperor of the Tarters) or from the potter's furnace, as Agathocles:) he laboureth tooth and nail to be skilful in those things which are most plausible to the greater sort, and tolerable among the commons: his study is for ostentation, not virtues sake: his books like Mansolus' tomb, are comely without, but within nothing but rotten bones, corrupt practices▪ his apparel increaseth with his fortune, and as the inconstancy of worldly affairs direct him, so suiteth he both fashions and affections: and as vainly he desireth all things, so miserably feareth he all men. In his study he affecteth singularity, and is more proud in being the author of some new sect or heresy, than a good man is humble in the fullness of his knowledge: come he into the eye of the world, he creepeth into service with men of good credit, in feeding whose humours (having perhaps for want of some issue, made intrusion into some heritage) he matcheth not according to his birth, but the increase of his fortune: and by hook or creak so st●…reth in the world, that not only he attaineth pre-eminence in the city, but some place in Court: there gins he with gifts to win hearts, by feigned humility to avoid emulation, by offices of friendship to bind his equals, by subtle insinuations to work his superiors, that he is both held worthy to be a statesman, or a state himself. Grown this step higher, the authority likes him not without the style, wherein if any cross him, look for poison in his cup, or conspiracy in his walks, or detractions among his equals: yea, so pestilent is his nature, that (like fire in the embers) he never showeth but to consume both himself and others: if he perceive any that by ripe judgement c●…nteiteth his courses, with him he joineth as if he sought his only protection under the wing of his glory: but the very truth is, he hath no other intent but this, to imp the wings of his renown for fear he fly beyond him. Will you know his method? marry this it is: if the nature of the noble man whom he envieth be flexible, he bringeth him in fear either of his faithful servants in his private family, or his trusty familiars that love his honour, or (if he hath but some inkling of suspect, or some mislike betwixt his Prince and him,) he playeth Lucian in lying, leaving no means unsought, but (as the Orator saith, Omnem moltens lapidem) either to enforce fear or move hatred: this done, he worketh on the contrary side, incensing the Prince by some probable surmises (sworn and confirmed by his flatterers and intelligencers,) till the Noble looseth either his land, authority, or place, and he attain both his style and promotion. Then at his burial who mourneth chiefest but he? yet play he never so cun●…ngly, as Cornelius Gallus saith:  Certè difficile est abscondere pectoris oectus, Panditur & clauso saepiùs ore furor. 
If he endeavour to strengthen himself, he doth but avoid his own danger, that after his own assurance, he may be more able in others mischiefs: to those he favoureth, and such as further his proceedings, he is a Patron to protect their writings, and a judge to dissemble their escapes: yea, if any of his train hath offended the law, he writes as Agesilaus did to Hidrieus Cares in the behalf of Nicias, Niciam si nihil peccaui●…, dimit; sin peccavit, nostri causa dimit: omnino autem dimit. If Nicias (saith he) hath offended nothing, dismiss him; if he be faulty, release him for my sake: howsoever it be, set him at liberty. If (according to Machiavels' doctrine) he have a great State opposed against him to prevent his increase, with him he playeth as the Ape with his young ones, he kills him with coaksing him, he gives aim to his error, shows patience if he thwart him, encourageth him to dangers, urgeth on his rashness, and thus like a little worm, eateth through a great tree, and by observing times, winneth his triumph: of all things a likes not to hear of Theophrastus' lesson, that cum vivere incipimus, tune morimur: when we begin to live, than we die: for of all his suspects this is the greatest, that his actions in this world can not work felicity in another: yet with Alexander in his life time he longeth to be flattered: and though in soul he knows himself to be a Devil; yet to the world forsooth he would be deified. Alas, how many are shipwrecked on this rock? (as that Atheist julian the Apostata) how many of these sorts (as Caesar, Phocas) in their age, Caesar Borgia (otherwise called Duke Valentinian) Corradine in Naples, Christian of Denmark, Ericus of Swethland, have unhappily drowned themselves in this puddle?  
But leave we him as sufficiently discovered, and let us see the third Devil incarnate, which Leviathan hath brought forth to corrupt and haunt this world: and who is he think you? Forsooth no beggar, but a gallant of the first head, called Boasting, who hath an impure Cleon flattering at his heels (as had Alexander) or a lascivious martial (as Domitian.) He with Nabuchodonoser will boast that he hath builded Babylon, with the King of Ti●…e vaunt that he is God, and with the proud Pharisie accuse the Publican, and justify himself. This is a lusty bruit amongst all other Devils, his beard is cut like the spier of Grantham ●…eeple, his eyes turn in his head like the Puppets in a motion, he draweth his mouth continually awry in disdain, and what day soever you meet him, he hath a sundry apparel: Among Sectaries he walketh poorly, daubing his face with the white of Spain to look pale; fixing his eyes still on heaven, as if in continual contemplation; demeaning himself like an Anabaptist, (as Sleidan disciphereth 
Sleid. lib. 10. de stat. relig.  them) to the end he may be reputed as mortified, and a contemner of the world: then backbiteth he the Clergy, commending the simplicity of his conscience, and getting Presumption, pertinacity and Contention, his sworn brothers, into his company, he maligneth all men that commend him not, swears that gospeler to be a dronckard whom he never knew, protests this Bishop to be a Nestorian, who notwithstanding with Cirile and the Counsel of Ephesus condemneth his saying, Ego ●…imestrem & trimestrem haud quoquam confiteor deum. He condemneth all men's knowledge but his own, raising up a Method of experience with (mirabile, miraculoso, stupendo, and such faburthen words: as Fierovanti doth) above all the learned Galienists of Italy, or Europe. Bring him to counsel, he disturbeth the fathers: make him a Lawyer, he nourisheth contentions: thwart him in his opinion, he will swear that Capicanu Muscio the Spaniard, was a moderate soldier, where in the expedition against the Turk (when Sebastiana Venero was General of the Army of the venetians, and Marco Antonio Colbuno General for the Pope, and Lieutenant of Don john D'Austria) he and two of his companions, were hanged for sedition and insolence. Though he look with a counterfeit eye, none must see further than he, and whatsoever he saith, must he held an Aphorism, or he flings house out of the window with his boastings. If he hear any man praised, he either obscureth his fame by condemning him of dissoluteness, or detracteth from his credit by urging some report of intemperance. So that he wholly ascribeth desert to himself, and lays the burden of imperfection on all others men's backs. In the Stationer's shop he sits daily, jibing and flearing over every pamphlet with Ironical jests; yet hear him but talk ten lines, and you may score up twenty absurdities: I am not as this man is is his common protestation, yet a more aranter Devil is there not betwixt S. davis and London. Make him a schoolmaster and let him liu●… on his Accidence, no man passeth the same ford with him but he drowns him; Perseus is a fool in his style, & an obscure Poet. Statius, nim●…um tumidus, too swelling. He hath an oar in every man's boat; but turn him lose to write any Poem, God amercie on the soul of his numbers: they are dead, dull, harsh, sottish, unpleasant, yea Eldertons nose would grin at them if they should but equal the worst of his Ballads. But soft who comes here with a lean face; and hollow eyes, biting in his lips for fear his tongue should leap out of his mouth, studying over the revertions of an ordinary, how to play the ape of his age? I know him well, it is Derision, a pretty Devil I promise you, at his heels waits Rash judgement in a cloak of Absurdities: Ho Apelles look to your pictures, for these Devils will reprove them; Sirrah, cut not your meat with the left hand, spit not without the comely carriage of your head, speak not an accent amiss I charge you; for if Derision catch you in one trip, Rash judgement shall condemn you, and he will execute you. But how I pray you? Marry he will run over all his variety of filthy faces, till he light on yours: beat over all the antic conceits he hath gathered, till he second your defect, and never leave to deride you, till he fall drunk in a Tavern while some grow sick with laughing at him, or consult with Rash judgement how to delude others, that at the length he proveth deformity himself. This cursed Cam cares not to mock his father; & as the Rabin Hanany saith, He never sitteth but in the chair of Pestilence, his méerest profession is Atheism: and as job saith, To mock at the simplicity of the just: to be brief 
job. 12.  with Seneca in Medea.  
Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis.  
No time too sho●… for bad men to do hurt.  
It is meat and drink to him when he is mocking another man: Christ his Saviour is a Carpenter's son: Christians, Galileans in contempt: Nay such blasphemy uttereth he betwixt the Holy ghost and the blessed and Immaculate virgin Marie, as my heart trembleth to think them, and my tongue abhoreth to speak them.  
Next him marcheth Hypocrisy in a long gown like a scholar; how like his father Leuiatha●… he looks? But that his horns are not yet budded, because he moulted them very lately, in the lap of an Harlot. Oh how ancient a Gentleman would he be! he claims from Simon Magus his pedigree, and by descent tells of Silene the Harlot his first by the mother's side, then cometh he to Menander the conjuror, from him reckons he to the Nicola●…ts, who held the a●…ome of Aristotle in a sinister sense, Bonum qu●… communius e●… melius, A good fair wench the commoner she were, the better she were: Then Cherinthus, Ebion, the one confirming that circumcision was necessary, the other, that Christ was not before his mother: next these the year 109 Martion, denying God the creator to be the father of Christ: then Valentinian, alleging that Christ participated nothing with the virgin Marie: From them to the Cataphrigi, Tatiani and Severians; after these to Florus and Blastus in the time of Eleutherius the first. It were too long to reckon the whole of them, but this I am sure of, the last sectary of his kin now alive (as he saith) is a Brownist, and an Heretic he is I warrant him. This Devil (as most conjured by the constant and ghostly writings of our fathers and schoolmen,) I leave to discover, only this much of him as a true mark to know him by; he gins his innovations, because he is crossed in his requests, as Blastus; neither is he favoured but by the ignorant and unlettered, as by Theodotus 
Niceph●…r. lib. 3. cap. 7. Augustin Psal. 67. verse congregatio.  a cobbler: to be short, as Augustine saith, Ad hoc haereses sinuntur esse ut probati manifesti fiant, Therefore (saith he) are heresies suffered to flourish, to the end that being proved they may be made manifest.  
Another son hath he, and his name is Curiosity, who not content with the studies of profit and the practice of commendable sciences, setteth his mind wholly on Astrology, necromancy, and Magic. This Di●…l prefers an Ephemerideses before a Bible; and his Ptolomey and Hali before Ambrose, golden Chrisostome, or S. Augustine: Promise him a familiar, and he will take a fly in a box for good payment: if you long to know this slave, you shall never take him without a book of characters in his bosom. Promise to bring him to treasure-trove, he will sell his land for it, but he will be cozened: bring him but a table of lead, with crosses (and Adonai, or Elohim written in it) he thinks it will heal the ague, and he is so busy in finding out the houses of the planets, that at last he is either feign to house himself in an Hospital, or take up his Inn in a prison: he will not eat his dinner before he hath looked in his Almanac: nor pair his nails while Monday, to be fortunate in his love: if he lose any thing, he hath ready a siue and a key; and by S. Peter and S. Paul the fool rideth him: he will show you the Devil in a Crystal, calculate the nativity of his gelding, talk of nothing but gold and silver, Elixir, calcination, augmentation, citrination, commentation; and swearing to enrich the world in a month, he is not able to buy himself a new cloak in a whole year: such a Devil I knew in my days, that having sold all his land in England to the benefit of the cozener, went to Antwerp with protestation to enrich Monsieur the King's brother of France, Le feu Roy Harry I mean; and missing his purpose, died miserably in spite of Hermes in Flushing. Of this kind of Devil there was one of late days flourishing in Lions (a famous city in France) who was so much besotted with star gazing, that he credibly believed that there was a certain Divinity in the Sun, the Moon, and other Planets, saying that the Son was true God, which he termed the chiefest light and Supremum genus, above all the Categories of Aristotle, but after a little Eleborus had purged him, and reason convicted him, he recanted. This Devil if he fall acquainted with you (as he did with the Arians) he ties you to Martinet their familiar, maketh you honour Satan in form of a Bull, binding you to horrible and abominable crimes, as first to adore the Devil as God, then to disavow your Baptism, next to blaspheme your creator, four, to sacrifice to the Devil, fifthly, to vow and dedicate your own children to his service, sixtly, to consecrate those that are unborn, seventhly, to seduce others to your power, eightly to swear by the name of the Devil, ninthly, to procure abortion to prevent Baptism, tenthly, to eat your children before birth as Horace writeth and partly insinuateth.  
Neu pransalameae viwm puerum extra●…at alu●….  
Then teacheth he you to kill and poison, again to rot eattell by charms, then to raise storms and tempests by invocation of Devils: what need more horror? Blasting of corn, inducing of famine, prodigious incests, the son with the mother, the daughter with the father, Magical ingendring ●…etwixt the sorcerer and the Devil, called by the Hebrews Titeth; all this (as Barkly C●…prian in his Recantation confesseth, Malleus maleficorum: and Prieras in his Book De demonum mirandis witness) are the fruits of Curiosity, and the working of sorceries, and the instructions of the Devil. There are many in London now adays that are besotted with this sin, one of whom I saw on a white horse in Fléets●…réet, a tanner knave I never looked on, who with one figure (cast out of a scholars study for a necessary servant at Bocardo) promised to find any man's oxen were they lost, restore any man's goods if they were stolen, and win any man love, where, or howsoever he settled it; but his juggling knacks were quickly discovered, and now men that in their opinions held him for a right conjuror, dare boldly swear that he is a rank cozener.  
Another son Luiathan hath that deserves discevering, for of all the children his father hath, he is most befriended & least suspected: his name is Superfluous Invention, or as some term him Novel-monger or Fashions. Sometimes he is a cook, inventing new sauces and banquets, sometimes devising strange confections to besot an idolater of his belly, sometimes for an ireful man he deviseth strange revenges, sometime for a fearful, strong towers to keep him in: he is excellent at billiment laces to devise new, and for powders to break the cannon, and poisons to kill lingeringlie, he yields neither place to Fierovanti nor any Italian. If Ladies lack paintings and Bele●…ze, Venice affords not the like; and if your mastership lack a fashion, commend me to none but him. This is he who first found out the inventions to curl, and to him it is ascribed the changing and dying of hair: For he could be no less than a Devil in my opinin, that durst falsify God's words, where he saith, Non potes unum capillum facere album aut nigrum, Yet dare he adventure 
Matth. 5.  to know all. Cleopatra in her time was his dear friend, and in our age he is sought too both in Town and Country. The chines of Beef in great houses are scantled to buy chains of gold; and the alms that was wont to relieve the poor, is husbanded better to buy new Rebates: it is monstrous in our opinion to see an old man become effeminate, but is it not more monstrous to see the old woman made young again! the Elephant is admired for bearing a little castle on his back, but what say you to a tender, fair, young, nay a weakling of womankind, to wear whole Lordships and manor houses on her back without sweeting? Vestium luxum (saith Tully) arguit animum parum sobrium, Alas sobriety where shalt thou now be sought, where all men affect pomp? The Ploughman that in times past was contented in Russet, must now adays have his doublet of the fashion with wide cuts, his garters of fine silk of Granado to meet his Sister on Sunday: the farmer that was contented in times passed with his Russet Frock & Mockado sleeves, now sells a Cow against Easter to buy him silken gear for his credit. Is not this Fashions a jolly fellow that worketh this? 
Con●…it. Apo●…. lib. 1. ca 4. & 9  Urge the constitution of the Apostles to our gallants, O hom●… mors aeterna ●…ibi parata est, quoniam propter ornatum tuum illaqueasti mulierem ut amore tui flagraret, Man eternal death is prepared for thee, because thou hast alured women to sin by thy dissolute garments. Tut say they, we stand not on credit nor on conscience; and yet they lie too, for so long they stand on their credits that they utterly fall by them. Cry out with them to the woman, and will her not paint her visage; now I faith Sir fool (will she say) help of nature is no sin, to please my husband: Nay, whispers Fashion in her ears, if you be God's works, you had the more reason to be adorned because his. Impiety thus always attending on this Devil, he forgeth excuses to dispense with conscience. It is a great matter saith Tertulian to see the vanity of women in these days, who are so trimmed and tricked, that you would rather say they bear great forests on their necks, then modest and civil furnitures: Tut answers Fashion, it keeps their faces in compass; To wear wires and great ruffs, is a comely cops to bide a long wrinkled face in. Bolsters for crooked shoulders, who but Fashions first sold them in Venice? and since busks came in request, horn 〈◊〉 grown to such a scarcity, that Leviathan hath cast his own beakers of late to serve the market. There are bolsters likewise for the buttocks as well as the breast, and why forsooth? The smaller in the waist, the better handled. Believe me, I think in no time Jerome had better cause to cry out on pride then in this, for painting now adays is grown to such a custom, that from the swartfaste Devil in the Kitchen to the fairest Damsel in the city, the most part look like Uizards for a Momerie, rather than Christians trained in sobriety: O poor woman (cried the Father) canst thou lift up thy face to heaven, considering God knows thee not? Tut all this moves not (quoth Invention of Novelties) we must have more new Fashions: well be it so master Devil, yet let your dames take this verse of Marshals for a conclusion:  
Omnia cum fecit Thaida Thais olet. 
Lib. 6. 1 pag.   
When Thais hath done all, yet Thais smells.  
But let us leave this Devil at his cutting board intentive for new fashions against next Christmas, and see what Devil and son of pride marcheth next, forsooth Ingratitude, careless both in apparel and looks: This is a general fellow, and thinks scorn to be unseen in all the sins of the world. If he receive graces from God, it not his mercy that giveth them, but his own industry; he is a right Pelagian, presuming by natural virtue (without the grace of God) to attain Paradise: Give him what you can, he condemns you for your labour: he calls his master old dunce that taught him learning; and to his father that brought him up, he protests he knows him not poor groom, nay if he beg he scorns to relieve him: his benefactors might have kept their money with a vengeance: and for his Lord (if he serve at any time) none but Ingratitude if he decay, will soon sell him to a sergeant, he is the fittest instrument to hang his Master, so that of Plautus is very aptly applied unto them.  

Si quid benefacias lenior pluma gratias.  
Si quid peccatum est plumb as iras gerunt.   

Lighter than feather, thanks if thou befriendest.  
But leaden wrath they bear if thou offendest.   
To be short with jevenal in his Satyrs.  
Ingratis ante omnia pone sodales.  
Of all men fly ungrateful friends.  
Nihil augetur ingrato (saith Barnard) sed quod accipit, vertitur ●…i in perniciem, To an ungrateful man nothing is increased, and that which he receiveth, turneth to his destruction. Pliny in the Prologue of his natural History calleth them fures & infelices, thieves, and unhappy, that acknowledge no benefits: and Seneca the Philosopher counteth them worse than Serpents, for Serpents (saith he) cast out their poison to other men's destruction, but ungrateful men without their own disgrace cannot be unthankful. Hermes Trimegestus counteth the best sacrifice to God to be Thankfulness, it followeth then à contrarijs that the worst thing in his sight is Ingratitude. The commenter upon Aristotle's Book De animalibus telleth a story to this purpose: A certain husbandman nourished an Aspis in his house, feeding him daily at his own table, and cheering him with his own meat; it fortuned a little while after that he brought forth two young ones, the one of which poisoned the husbandman's son, and brought sorrow to his household: The old breeder considering this (in the sight of the father) murdered the offender, and as if ashamed of his ingratitude, departed the house with the other. Behold sense of benefit in a Serpent, and will man be unthankful? The Lion that was healed by Andronicus in the wood, did he not save his life in the Theatre? Man consider this, and to bring thee the more in hatred with this fiend, weigh this one example of Seneca written in his fourth Book De beneficijs: A certain sold for endangered by shipwreck, and floating (for the space of twenty days) on a broken mast in a sore tempest, was at last cast a shore in a Nobleman's Lordship, by whom he was relieved with meat, clothes, and money: This Nobleman coming to Philip of Macedon his King, and encountering a little after with this unthankful soldier, was by him accused of false Treason: and so much for the time did iniquity prevail, that not only he endangered the Nobleman's life, but possessed his goods likewise, by the benevolence of the King: notwithstanding truth (which according to Seneca in Oedipus, adit moras, hateth delay) being at last discovered, and the king ascertained of the wretched soldiers ingratitude, he branded him in the face with a burning iron, and dispoiling him of his ill gotten goods, restored the other: so deal you by this Devil of our age, and beware of his subtleties, for if once he prove an intelligencer, he will help to hang you.  
The next Harpy of this breed is Scandal and Detraction, This is a right malcontent Devil, You shall always find him his hat without a band, his hose ungartered, his Rapier punto r'enuerso, his looks suspicious and heavy, his left hand continually on his dagger: if he walk Paul's, he skulks in the back Isles, and of all things loveth no societies: if at any time he put on the habit of gravity, it is either to backbite his neighbour, or to work mischief: well spoken he is, and hath some languages, and hath red over the conjuration of Machiavelli: In belief he is an Atheist, or a counterfeit Catholic; hating his country wherein he was bred, his gracious Prince under whom he liveth, those grave counsellors under whom the state is directed, not for default either in government, or policy, but of mere innated and corrupt villainy; and vain desire of Innovation. He hath been a long traveler, and seen many countries, but as it is said of the toad, that he sucketh up the corrupt humours of the garden where he keepeth; so this wretch from all those Provinces he hath visited, bringeth home nothing but the corruptions, to disturb the peace of his country, and destroy his own body and soul. If he study, it is how to dispense and frustrate statutes, and (being grounded by ill counsel, and prepared for mischief) he laboureth (as the Legist saith) not to avoid the sin, but the penalty. This fellow spares neither Nobility, Clergy, nor laity, but (like that Roman Emperor, unworthy the naming) desireth that the whole people and commonalty had but one head, that he might cut it off at one stroke. Let him have no cause, he wisheth Vitellius misery to majesty, and swears by no small bugs, that all the world is imprudent that employs him not: This is he that in priute Conventicles draws discontented Gentlemen to conspiracies, and having brought them past the ●…ercie of the law, he bewra●…es them first; bringing them to a violent end, and binding himself to perpetual prison: But woe be unto him (saith Christ) by whom the scandal and offence cometh, it were better for him that a millstone hung about his neck, and that he were cast into the bottom of the sea: It is a position in the Apothegms of the Rabms, that he that draweth many men to sin, can hardly settle himself to repentance; then in what miserable estate is this wretch that delighteth in nought else but traitorous and devilish stratagems? his daily companion in walk, bed, and board, is rebellion and disobedience; and of the seed of this Serpent are raised so many monsters, that no city in Italy hath been unstained with them, and no Kingdom in Europe unmolested by them. Ill would they observe that golden sentence of Cornelius Tacitus registered by Machiavelli, who saith, That men ought to honour things past, and obey the present, desiring and wishing for good Princes, and howsoever they prove to endure 
3.  them: I but (answers Scandal) I never respect how things be, but how I wish them to be: notwithstanding (sir Devil) let this be your looking glass, That never scandal or conspiracy hath been raised, ●…ut the practiser hath at last rued it. The little Spaniard that assailed Ferdinando the wise king with a knife; Deruis the Turkish Priest that assaulted Bajazeth, what end came they to? Either their envy (to their shame) was discovered by their fear, or drowned in their bloods. The schoolmaster that betrayed the P●…alerians children, was he not whipped home by Camillus? Antigonius, Caesar, and all these Monarches, have they not loved the Treason, but hated the Traitor? Read all the annals and observations of antiquity, and there hath nothing begun in corruption, but hath ended in mischief. But for your detraction, Scandal, blush you not to use it? No, say you, the Devil delighteth in mischief●…, yet will I give your Mastership short horns since you are so 〈◊〉 a beast, that you may hurt no man: your course is you say to backbite superiors, to scandal the fathers and governors of the church, to bring Christians and Catholic Religion in hatred; but wretch as thou art, know this, that he that toucheth the credit of the Clergy, toucheth the apple of God's e●…e; and who so loveth 
〈◊〉 2 〈◊〉 ●… Prou. 24. Da●…. ●….  to detract, is hateful to God: the wise man saith, that the detractor is abhominatio hominum, the abomination of men: and Gerson saith, that detraction is grievouser than theft. This Devil is fitly figured in that beast which Daniel saw having three ranks of teeth, to whom it was said, Arise and eat m●…ch flesh: These three orders of teeth are three manners of detraction: The first is to diminish or misinterpret the action of a man, as if done under corrupt intention; or comparing one desert with another, to show that the action was not done so virtuously as it ought, neither so perfectly as it might have been: The second manner, is (under an intent of de●…amation) to publish a man's hidden defects, which by the law of charity should be hidden, and in reason may be winked at: The third manner is the most mischievous, which is to imagine treasons and impose them on innocents. These teeth Peter teacheth all Christians 
1. Pet. 2.  to beat out when he saith, Laying apart all malice, and deceit, simulation, enuse, and detraction, desire milk: And what milk is this? Truly sweet, and charitable words, for it is the nature of the tongue to speak good and virtuous things; what otherwise it uttereth, it is but the corruptions of the heart. A detractor (as a father saith) may rightly be compared to Cadmus of Gréece, who sowed Serpent's teeth on the 
Ovid 4. 〈◊〉.  earth, out of which arose men who slew one another: so the Detractor spreadeth nothing but corrupt and venomous seed, out of which spring contentions, wars, and dissensions among men. A Detractor likewise (saith Holgot) is like a stinking sepulchre, for as out of the one issueth foul and 
Holg●…▪ 〈◊〉 sapi.  poisonous savours, so out of the others mouth cometh sedious, and pernicious conspiraces. It is a conclusion of Austin's, that Qui negligit famam crudelis est, He that neglecteth his fame is cruel; and another Philosopher witnesseth, that he that looseth his credit, hath nought else to lose. Beware therefore of this devilish Scandal, Rebellion, and Detraction, and cross you from this Devil, lest he cross you in your walks.  
Another Devil of this age (and the son of Leviathan) is Adulation, who goes generally jetting in noblemen's cast apparel, he hath all the Sonnets and wanton rhymes the world of our wit can afford him, he can dance, leap, sing, drink up-se-frise, attend his friend to a bawdy house, court a Harlot for him, take him up commodities, feed him in humours; to be short, second and serve him in any villainy: If he meet with a wealthy young heir worth the clawing, Oh rare cries he, do he never so filthily, he pulls feathers from his cloak if he walk in the street, kisseth his hand with a courtesy at every nod of the younker, bringing him into a fools Paradise by applauding him; If he be a martial man or employed in some Courtly tilt or Tourney, Mark my Lord (quoth he) with how good a grace he sat his horse, how bravely he broke his lance: If he be a little bookish, let him write but the commendation of a flea, strait begs he the copy, kissing, hugging, grinning, & smiling, till he make the young Princocks as proud as a Peacock. This Damocles amongst the retinue carries always the Tobacco Pipe, and his best living is carrying tidings from one Gentleman's house to another: some think him to be a bastard intelligencer but that they suspect his wit is too shallow. This is as courtly an Aristippus as ever begged a Pension of Dionysius, and to speak the only best of him, he hath an apt and pleasing discourse, were it not too often sanced with Hiperboles and lies: and in his apparel he is courtly, for what fool would not be brave that may flourish with begging? The sword of a persecutor woundeth 
〈◊〉. Psal. 6. 9  not so deeply as he doth with his tongue. Neither doth the voice of a Siren draw so soon to ship wrack as his words: yet (as Aristotle and Cicero think) he is but a servile fellow, and 
●…icero lib. 2. Tuscul. quest.  according to Theophrastus, he is an ant to the grain of good nature: Of all things he cannot abide a scholar, and his chiefest delight is to keep down a Poet, as Mantuan testifieth in these verses: 
Mant. in 〈◊〉.   

Est & apud reges rudis, invida, rustica turba.  
Mimus, adula●…or, leno, assentator, adulter,  
Histrio, scurra quibus virtu●… odiosa poetas.  
mill m●…dis abigunt: ut quande cadavera cer●…i.  
Inuenere, fugant alias volucresque ferasque.   
There is in Princes and great men's courts (saith he) a rude, envious, and rustic troop of men, jesters, flatterers, bawds, soothers, adulterers, players, and scoffers, who hating all virtue find a thousand inventions to drive Poets thence, like to ●…arrion crows, that having found a carcase, drive all other birds from it: and as the Culuer (as Ovid saith) always seeketh and 
Aspicis v●… veniant ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 columb●…?  haunteth the cleanest Dovecoat, so this flattering Devil is still conversant in the house of the mighty: and as in the fattest ground grows the rankest grass, so with the men of greatest ability dwelleth the chiefest flattery (S. Jerome calls him a Domestical 
Herome in Pro. 1. s●…er illud si ●…e lac●…auerit. Cal. Ro●…. lib. 11. Er●…s. 〈◊〉. 4. chap. 33.  enemy.) This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek ●…earmes it, hath but little difference from ravening, for if we believe Caeleius Rodeginus, & Erasmus in his Apothegms, the only changing of a letter, will make Corachas & Colachas crows & flatterers all one. Alexander meeting with this Devil in the person of Aristobulus, conjured him quickly, for as Politian writeth on Suetonius, he not only scorned his flatteries, but cast his Chronicles into the river of Hidaspes, telling him that he deserved no less, who had so fabulously handled his victories: had Herod done no less when the Tyrians called him God, his pride had not been notified to the world; neither strooken by an Angel, should he have been devoured by worms. This fiend is continually attended and accompanied with four of his brethren, Lightness of mind, Vain joy, Singularity, & Defence of a man's sins: Lightness of mind teacheth him to presume, Vain joy swelleth him with temporal prosperities, Singularity makes him affect innovations to please, Defence of his sins groundeth him in his own mischiefs; This sin is the only perverter of friendship, and disturber of society, and unhappily saith Tully is that possession good, 
Cicer. 〈◊〉. 3.  which is purchased by simulation & flattery: so that great cause had both the fathers and Philosophers to detest this sin, because they knew that man is naturally apt to flatter himself, and is best pleased to hear his imperfections dissembled. The ancient emperors desirous to avoid this error, and to banish this poison from their palaces, sought out the wisest men to be their Counsellors, who most of all detested this vice, as Solomon who was advised by Nathan and Sadoch: Carolus P●…us the Emperor, by learned Alcuinus: trajan the just, by learned Plutarch: Nero the unjust, by grave Seneca: Alexander (though a conqueror) by ingenious Aristotle: Prolomey of Egypt, by the 70 interpreters. To conclude therefore the discourse of this Devil, I will end with two notable actions of the Romans, whereby you may perceive by them, to make estimation of truth, and to grow in detestation of Flattery and Falsehood: The Emperor Augustus in his triump●…●…er Anthony and Cleopatra, led to Room (amongst his other spoils) 
Second. sell de Messia lib. 2. cap. 117.  a grave Egyptian Priest of sixty years old, whose life was so full of continence, and words so stored with truth, that it was never heard of him in all his life time that he had told untruth, or used flattery; for which cause it was concluded by the Senate, that he should presently be set free, and made chief Priest, commanding (that among the statues of famous and renowned men) one in especial should be reared for him. Spartianus on the contrary side, showeth an example quite opposite to this, and this it was: during the Empire of Claudius, there died a certain Roman called Pamphilus, who as was clearly proved, had not in all his life time spoke one true word, but wholly delighted in lying and flattery: for which cause the Emperor commanded that his body should be left unburied, his goods should be confiscate, his house overthrown, and his wife and children banished Room, to the end that the memory of a creature so venomous, should not live and have residence in his Commonweal. In which two things Messia useth this observation, that in the time that these first effects happened, the Romans were mortal enemies of the Egyptians, for which cause it may easily be seen how powerful the force of truth is, since the Romans raised a statue to their Enemy, and deprived their home-born son and Citizen of burial for being a flattering liar: Hitherto he, and here conclude I the description of this fiend.  
Behold next I see Contempt marching forth, giving me the Fico with this thumb in his mouth, for concealing him so long from your eye sight: He was first nursed by his own sister, Custom to sin, and therefore according to Thomas Aquine, Magis peccat peccans ex habitu, quam aliter, He sinneth more, sinning in habitude then otherwise: Contumacy hath stéeld his looks, so that he disdains his superiors, and Rashness so confounds him with will and passion, that he is wholly subject to headlong Precipitation: Arrogancy maketh him sumptuous in apparel, lofty in gate, affecting in speech, and thus marcheth forth thi●…●…ncarnate Devil, God bless your eye sight. This is he dare break statutes, bl●…b the lip a●… superiors, Mock Preachers, beat Constables, and resist Writs, nay, which is the sin of the Devils, contemn God. If a poor man salute him, he looks as if he scorned him, and if he give him but a beck with his finger, he must take it as an alms from an Emperor: The wisest man is a fool in his tongue, and there is no Philosophy (saith he) but in my Method and carriage: he never speaks but he first wags his head twice or thrice like a wanton mare over hirbit, and after he hath twinkled with his eyes (as he would read his destiny in the heavens) and chewed the words between his lips (as if nought but the flower of his Phrase could delight or become him) out braies he forth so simple a discourse as would make a man's heart burst with laughing to hear it: To the cobbler he saith, set me two semicircles on my suppeditaries; and he answers him, his shoes shall cost him two pence: to his servant he chaps the fragments of Latin in every feast of his phrase, My diminutive and defective slave (quoth he) give me the coverture of my corpses to ensconse my person from frigidity; (and all this while he calls but for his cloak.) Get him write letters to his friend, and mark me his Method: Sien of my Science in the Catadupe of my knowledge, I nourish the Crocodile of thy conceit; my wrath-venger (he means his sword) shall annichilate their identities, and separate the pure of their spirits from the filthy of their flesh, that shall frustrate thy forwardness, or put out the candle of thy good conceit towards me. Should I register the whole, it would rather wax tedious then delightful: and as his speech is extremely affected and fond, his writing ridiculous and childish, so is his life so far out of square, that nothing can reform him: Talk to him of obedience, he saith itis the seal of a base mind: Tell him of good government, it is the gift of fortune, not the fruit of consideration: Rip up the success of battles, he says they were not well followed. In brief, nothing can please him, who despiseth all things. If you say that (as Publius Mimus saith) the smallest hair hath his shadow (& with Rabin Ben-Aza●…) that no man living is to be contemned, for every man shall have his hour, and every thing hath his place; He will answer aquila non capit muscas, Every base groom is not for my company. Beware of this Doemon, for though he be the last of Leviathans race, yet is he the arrantest and subtilest Atheist of all these Devils. Hitherto have I discovered pride and his children; now having taught you to know them, let me instruct you to avoid them.  
As every mischief is best avoided by opposing against him his contrary, so arm yourselves with Humility against Pride and his faction, and he shall not confound you: For as Augustine saith, Pride sinketh to Hell, and Humility 
August. Epist. 38.  leadeth to Heaven: Pride is the step to Appostasie, and being opposed against God, is the greatest sin in man. All other vices (saith Augustine) are to be taken heed of in 
August. ad Di●…scor.  sins, but this, in good doings, lest those things that are laudably done, be lost in the desire of praise. Fellow Christ quia mitis est, and hear a Father crying to you, Ecce habes humilitatis exemplum superbiae medicamentum, Behold thou hast an example of Humility, and a medicine against Pride: Why swellest thou therefore Oh man? Thou loathsome and carrion skin, why art thou stretched? Thou filthy matter, why art thou inflamed? Thy Prince is humble and thou proud; Caput humile, & membra superba, The head humble, the members lofty, thus far he. Let us resemble the Peacock (according to the counsel of Jerome) which no longer delighteth in the brightness and beauty of his feathers, but whilst ●…he beholdeth them, and seeing the deformity of his feet, is confounded and ashamed: so let us, considering our infirmi●…ies, be ashamed of our lostinesse, remembering daily that of Seneca:  
Sequitur superbos victor à tergo Deus.  
Revenging God attends upon the proud.  
Amongst many other plagues of a proud man this is one, that Dominus deridebit eos, as the Psalmist saith, Our Lord shall laugh them to scorn: where, of the just and humble man it is said, Laetabitur cum viderit vindictam, He shall rejoice when he 
Prou 1. Et ego quoque in interi●…u vestro ridebo.  seethe the revenge. Very rightly is a proud man compared to smoke, the which the more it ascendeth, the more it vanisheth▪ so the lofty and proud minds of this world, the more they are mounted, the more suddenly are they consumed. To be short, (and in a small lesson to shut a true remedy against Pride and all his followers) use this: first, consider how God hath grievously punished that sin: next, call to thy consideration man's mortal weakness and infirmity: thirdly, keep in memory the reward of Humility, and the heinousness of Pride, expressed in Boetius by these words, Cum●…mnia vicia fugiant à Deo, sola superbia se ei opponit, Whereas all vices fly from God, only Pride opposeth herself against him. And let this serve for a due conclusion set down by Solomon, that Vbi supenrbia, ibi & contumelia est; ubi autem humilitas, ibi sapientia cum gloria, Where pride is, there contumely is also; but where humility is, there is wisdom with glory.  
Tut preachers can better teach this (say you) return you to your devils: I confess it my friends, absolve me therefore, and you shall hear me tell of strange devils raised by Avarice and cursed Mammon: your silence saith, Do, and therefore thus make I an entrance to my second discourse.   

¶ Of strange and msraculous Devils engendered by Mammon.  
AVarice which (as Augustine defineth it) is an insatiable & dishonest desire of enjoying everything (our second Etynnis & Mammon, the son of Satan) tormented & waxed old with intolerable desire, finding the world insufficient to satisfy his affections, by cold cathars of jealousy feeling his senses choked, and with a Paralisis of fear, shaken almost one joint from another; betook himself at last to his ca●…e of suspicion, where he suffereth his evidences to be wormeaten for want of opening, and his gold and silver to rust for want of use. Yet bein●… loath the world should lack members to supply his office, or Satamn want ministers to conduct souls to hell, in like sort as Pallas is feigned by the Poets to be begotten in the brain of jupiter without mother, so did Avarice in the concanity of his codshead, beget seven Devils, which after a belike of surfeit having breathed into the world, it is necessary you knew them, the you might the better a●…oid them. The first of them is Usury (a Deuil●… of good credit in the city) who having primly stolen a sufficient stock foom the old miser his father, hath lately set up for himself, and hath four of his brothers his apprentices. The first of them is Hardness of heart, who bringing into his bank contempt of the poor, is set by him to beat beggars from his door, & arrest his debtor by Latitats. The second is, Unmeasurable care, and Trouble of mind, who hath brought this portion to be employed; destruction of the mind, neglect of God's service, want of faith, and jealousy of loss: he keeps the cash, and suffers not a mouse to enter, but he scores him. The third is Violence, & for him he hath bought a sergeant office, who hath so many eyes like Argus to watch, that no poor creditor can escape him▪ His stock is a bunch of writs, and a hanger, and ordinarily h●… wears his mace at his back in stead of a dagger. The fourth is 〈◊〉 and he jets about the streets to steal for him, he is a passing good hooker and picklock; and for a short knife & a horn thimble, turn him lose to all the fraternity: his stock is false keys, engines, & sword and bookler: Him he imploses to rob from them he hath lent moneyto, to the end they may be the fit to commit a forfeiture. This Usury is jumped of the complexion of the Baboon his father; he is haired like a great Ape, & swart like a tawny Indian, his horns are sometime hidden in a button cap (as Th. N. described him) but now he is fallen to his flat cap, because he is chief warden of his company: he is narrow browed, & Squirrel eyed, and the chiefest ornament of his face is, that his nose sticks in the midst like an embosment in Terrace work, here & there embellished and decked with veruca for want of purging with Agarick; some Authors have compared it to a Kutters' codpiece, but I like not the allusion so well, by reason the tiings have no correspondence: his mouth is always mumbling, as if he were at his matins: and his beard is bristled here & there like a sow that had the lousy: double chinned he is, and over h●…s throat hangs a bunch of skin like a money bag: band wears he none, but a welt of course Holland, & if you see it stitched with blue thread, it is no workaday wearing: his truss is the piece of an old packcloth, the mark washtout; and if you spy a pair of Bridges satin sleeves to it, you may be assured it is a holy day: his points are the edging of some cast packsaddle, cut out sparingly (I warrant you) to serve him & his household for trussing leather: his tacket for sooth is faced with motheaten budge, and it is no less than Lisle Grogeram of the worst: it is bound to his body with a Cordeliers girdle; died black for comeliness sake: & in his bosom he bears his handkerchief made of the reversion of his old tablecloth: his spectacles hang beating over his codpiece like the flag in the top of a maypole: his breeches and stockings are of one piece I warrant you, which having served him in pure ●…ersie for the tester of a bed some twenty years, is by the frugality of a dier & the courtesy of a Tailor for this present made a sconce for his buttocks: his shoes of the old cut, broad at the toes and crosse-buckled with brass, and have loop-holes like a sconce for his toes to shoot out at: his gown is suitable, and as seemly as the 〈◊〉, full of threads I warrant you, wheresoever the wool is employed, welted on the back with the clipping of a bare cast velvet hood, and faced with foines that had kept a widow's tail warm twenty winters before his time. Thus attired, he walks powl's, coughing at every step as if he were broken wound, grunting sometime for the pain of the stone & strangury: and continually thus old, and seeming ready to die, he notwithstanding lives to confound many families. If you come to borrow money, he will take no usury, no marry will he not; but if you require ten pound, you shall pay him forty shillings for an old cap, and the rest is yours in ready m●…ny; the man loves good dealing. If you desire commodities at his hand, why sir you shall have them, but how? not (as the caterpillars wont to sell) at high prizes, but as the best and easiest pennyworth, as in conscience you can desire them: only this, at the insealing of the assurance, if you help him away with a chest of glass for ten pound of ten shillings price, you shall command his warehouse another time. Tut he is for you at casual marts, commodities of Proclamations, and hobby-horses, you shall have all that you please, so he receive what he desires. It is a common custom of his to buy up cracked angels at nine shillings the piece. Now sir if a gentleman (on good assurance of land) request him of money, Good sir, (saith he, with a counterfeit sigh) I would be glad to please your worship, but my good money is abroad, and that I have, I dare not put in your hands. The gentleman thinking this conscience, where it is subtlety, and being beside that, in some necessity, ventures on the cracked angels, some of which can not fly for soldering, and pays double interest to the miser, under the cloak of honesty. If he fails his day, God forbidden he should take the forfeiture, he will not thrive by other men's curses, but because men must live, and we are Infidels if we provide not for our families, he is content with this his own; only a lease, a toy, of this or that manor, worth both his principal and ten times the interest, this is easy for the gentleman to pay, and reasonable in him to receive. If a citizen come to borrow, my friend, quoth he, you must keep day, I am glad to help young men without harming myself: then paying him out the money and receiving his assurance, he casts jolly Robbins in his head how to cousin the simple fellow. If he have a shop well furnished, a stock to receive out of the Chamber, possibility after the death of his father, all this he hearkens after: and if he fail of his day, Well, saith he, for charity sake I will forbear you, mine interest paid: mean while (unknown to the wretch) he sues him upon the original to an outlawry, and if the second time he fail (as by some flight encouragement he causeth him to do) he turns him out a doors like a careless young man, yet for christianity sake, he lets him at liberty, and will in charity content him with his goods, and as Plautus saith in Trinummo:  
Sapiens quidem pol, ipse fingit fortunam sibt.  
A right Achab, he will not lose Naboths' vineyard for the catching after: and if an office falls, he buys it to raise more profit in the sale thereof: He hath false weights to sell all the wares he retaleth: and if the reversion of an heritage fall in his laps, he will not let to poison him that is in possession. He is the only friend to a prison house, enriching it by his prisoners. As for his door, there are more staves in hand to beat the beggars thence, than morsels▪ se●…t out to relieve their necessity▪ Ask him why he hoards up m●…ny, forsooth saith he, against age; and yet for every tooth he can show me at these years, I will promise him a kingdom. Ask him why he marries not? Oh, saith he, I am of Bias opinion, In youth it is too soon, and in age too late: promise him a great dowry, his answer is, The saurum volo, non foeminam: The money (man) for me, the wench likes me not. Let the learned counsel him to forsake the world & fall to rest, O saith he, with Periander, Bon●…res est quies, sed periculosa est temeritas: Rest is good, but rashness is dangerous. Urge him to hospitality, O saith he, Quam suavis parcimonia? How sweet is f●…ugality? On my conscience he had rather die lousy with Phaer●…cides, 
Di●…g. Iae●…s, lib. 1. in vit●… Phaerecid.  then buy a shirt to shift him with. At his repasts, he weighs the meat his mouth devoureth, and hath more mercy of his money then his body, for he keeps the one locked up safely from sun and wind, but for his body he suffers it to be pinched with famine and winter, nay, to be subject to all the inconveniences and tyrannies of nature. To conclude with Claudian:  

— T●…tumque exhau serit Hermu●…,  
Ardebi●… maiore siti.   

And though all Hermus he drink up at first,  
Yet will he bu●…ne with far more greater thirst.   
Neither ought we to marvel her 〈◊〉, if we consider the reason: for (as Chri●…ostome saith) Usury may be compared to the 
.  venom of a 〈◊〉 serpent▪ whose biting at the first is so sweet, that it engendereth a desire to sleep, and in sleep▪ killeth. So▪ he that is delighted with usury, or intang●…ed in the nets of those that practise it; the one is ●…laine by the poison thereof, in the sleep of his desire and insatiate affection; and the other thinking in the beginning to receive some profit, slumbereth & dreameth of his profit, and in the end (not acquitting himself of the principal) he is wholly consumed and confounded. Oh beware 
●…ald. lib. 3. 〈◊〉. 449.  of this Devil, for (as Baldus saith) he resembleth a worm, which having made a hole in a tree where in she may turn herself, she engendereth another worm of the same malice, until all be consumed▪ Some compares it to that ●…ulture which 
Ho●…. odys. 11.  gnaws on Titius' liver. Some compare it to fire, which is so active and insatiate an element●… that it 〈◊〉 all things it 
Lib. 2. lib. 3 〈◊〉.  toucheth. Ca●…o (as Cice●…o reporteth) compares an 〈◊〉 to a Homi●…ide: and Pausanius saith:  
Et▪ velox 〈◊〉 usurd trucidat.  
And speedy usury doth kill the poor.  
But to show the villainy of this Devil more fitly, I will not only prove that usury is against the law of nature, but also against the law of God. That in the law of nature Usury was hateful, it appeareth in this, that Plato in his laws hath forbidden 
〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 2. de ●…egib.  the use thereof; and Plutarch in a whole treatise hath purposely disproved it: The Turk, the Moor, the Saracene, and Tartar, all these Enemies of the policied world of Christendom, 
.  do with horror detest it. It is contrary to nature, you know, for a barten thing to yield fruit: How can it then be possible, that money (being a barren thing) should e●…gender money. Another reason is this, He that selleth one thing twice, committeth 〈◊〉 and larceny: but the Usurer doth so (for in receiving the sum, he recei●…eth silver for silver in the same equality, and then in exacting the surplusage, he seileth the use, 
.  which is to sell twice) and the reason is (as Ba●…t. Medina wr●…teth) that the use can not be separated from the thing.  
That Usury is against the law of God, it appeareth in the old Testament, Exod▪ ●…2, Leuit. 25. and in another place, Thou 
.  shalt ●…end neither gold●…, fruit, nor any other thing in usury do thy brother, David Ezechiel, and Luke, all conclude in this: so that by God's law how coutemptible it is, it manifestly appeareth. General councils have condemned it, as the Council of U●…enna: the law Gabinium amongst the Romans taxed them: 
.  the Canon and Civil laws disable them of 〈◊〉 and dignities, debar them of communicating, deny them Christ●…an burial, permit them not to make Testaments. A 〈◊〉 more penalties may you find in Panormitane and others, to long for me to write, only fit for the curious, not the simple. For mine own part, Master Usury, I hope I have indifferently handled you: if there grow any s●…ruple or doubt in any man's mind to know him better, let him but give me warning against the next Impression, I will make the old mole wary hang himself in his own garters to see his villainies opened.  
By your leave, my masters, here mar●…heth forth another Devil▪ by my faith if a man knew him not inwardly, he would take him for a handsome citizen: Would you know how I call him? Marry shall you: This is Brocage, a crafty Devil is he if you mark him: he likewise hath three brothers to attend him, which be his apprentices: Craft, to keep his shop, & corrupt his commodities: Deceit, to take up upon trust, and never pay the principal: and Perjury, to swear to the prizes of every commodity. Graze never returns him less than a suit of Satin for a Capon: and Deceit (a pretty Scrivener) hath great come in▪ for making false conveyances for him: only Perjury hath of late days ill fortune, for of mere good will (a sew Terms ago) swearing for his master's credit in the Star chamber, he was committed to the pillery ●…ay, this year 96 hath been very fatal for all of them▪ for not so much as the whip but hath had a jerk at some of their back parts. This devil at his first coming from his father was a poor knave in a white coat, and some have known him sell brooms for coney skins, though now he be a gentleman. See you his hat with the brooch in it? he never paid for it: and all these gay garments which attire him, are but the fruits of one forfeiture. This dapper slave when I knew him first, had neither credit nor beard, but well far a woman for the first, and oft shaving for the next: do you wonder how he grows so fat? why it is by eating on other men's charges: and what if his house be well furnished, and he pay not for it? 
Tibul. lib. 1. Eleg. 1.   
Parcite, demagno prada petenda gr●…ge.  
Tut the wealthy citizen may well spare it: he laughs at Pyttacus if he bid him pay that he was trusted with: and his reason is, because the world is mistrustful, he will keep them in a lively faith, and a stirring hope: Crede quod habes & habes (quoth the Clerk to the Bishop) and it is his ordinary motto, though scarce formal. This is he that keeps a Catalogue or Calendar of all the bawdy houses in a city, that is acquainted with all the usurers in a country, that can command any knight of the post for a crown and a breakfast, that revels it in all companies to grow acquainted with gentlemen. At powl's you shall see him in the mid Isle, ready to discourse with all comers, and no sooner can a sufficient man let slip a word of want, but forth he steps and saith, I am for you sir: Will you borrow upon pawns? It's done for you (quoth he) because I love you: & if he get fifty shillings on a fair cloak, the gentleman is content with forty, and I thank you: but come the day of redeeming, if the money be tendered him, Faith my friend is not at home, quoth he, but your cloak is safe. The gentleman thinking him to be a man of his word, trusteth him, and lets it run upon interest; and in the mean time the Broker and Usurer consult, the cloak is forfeited, the money shared, and the poor gentleman made a woodcock: if he seem aggrieved and discontented at the loss, Alas●…e si●… (quoth my companion) it is not my act, I'll bring you to the principal, and let him answer you. The gentleman thinking all good faith, accompanies him, where Master Usurer assures him that the first interest was paid him, and for default of the last he made seizure of the pawn, so that the Broker is not to be blamed: but sir (quoth he) if I have done you one wrong one way, I will right you another? And how, think you? Marry he lets him have a new upon trust, on his own bond and the Brokers, and of such a price as he may well cry fie on the win: now if money comes with this commiditie, what follows then? The Broker for his pains hath his part of it, a part of the good cheer at the insealing, a part of the gains with the Usurer, a part of the fees with the Scrivener, and the Gentleman himself hath only left him the whole sum of misery. This thief in society (as I 
Diog. 〈◊〉▪ lib. 8 de 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉.  may rightly term him) hath as many shifts in his head, as Chrysippus hath written volumes, (and yet hath he written of the parts of Logic no less than three hundredth and eleven volumes, besides many of other kinds:) He can sell walnut leaves for Tobacco, artificial Balsamo and Rhubarb for the right; and if any Merchant hath commodities scarce Marchandable by reason of wetting, master Broker will fit him with his price and a chapman. If he lack money himself, he takes it up on another man's name, and to the Merchant he protests he doth it of charity to help his friend, where in deed he doth it to relieve his own necessity: you shall never find him without a counterfeit chain about him; Bristol Diamonds set in gold in steed of right, and these puts he away at what rate he list to men that are in extremity. Alas I had almost forgot myself; why sirs there is this covenant between his brother Devil the Usurer and he, that whatsoever bond he enters into it shall never be exacted at his hands. This is an only fellow to train a man to an arrest, & bidding him to breakfast, to thrust him into the hands of a sergeant: or to toll a yoncker to an harlot, & so help him to be conniecatch: truly Campania hath not so many vices as this companion hath villainies: He is dog at recognizances and statutes, and let him but get them sealed by a sufficient man, a hundredth pound to a penny if they escape without forfeiture, for what with winding him into bonds for more money paiable on the same day, or false surmised assumpfits betwixt the Scrivener and him, he is as sure to be entangled as 〈◊〉 at Minturnum 
〈◊〉 in vita 〈◊〉.  to be imprisoned. Rightly therefore said Demosthenes in his first Oration against Aristogiton, that Impr●…bitas ●…st audax & alieni cupida, and more rightly may a Gentleman say that hath been entangled in a Broker's lurches with him in Eunucho: 
Mal●… ego nos prospicere quam ulcisci accept●… iniuri●….  
I had rather we should foresee, then revenge our injuries.  I have a whole Legend to write of this devil, but that I am distracted otherwise: well master Broker let this suffice you, you are known for a devilish companion, grumble not at this assault, for the next will be the breach of your credit.  
Cross yourselves my masters more Devils are abroad, and Mammon's sons begin to muster: what! a fiend in a square cap, a scholars gown! nay, more, in his hands a Testament! Eh●… miracul●…m dicis; by my sooth sir it is Simony This fellow is a buyer and seller of benefices, a follower of Balaam, that iold the gift of Prophecy to Baalac, and of Giezi that sold the gift of 
Numb. 22. 23. 2. 4. Reg. 5.  health to the prince of Syria, Naaman Sirus: nay, to speak more plainly, he is a right judas that sold Christ for money; Simony the purchaser is of the race of Simon Magus, that would bu●… the gift of the Holyghost from Peter, to whom he said, Pecuni tua tibi 
Act. 8.  si●… in perditionem, Fie upon thee and thy money. This fellow though he can scant read, will be a Nobleman's chaplain, and at chopping and changing benefices there is none like him. This ●…iend hath twenty pound to give the chancellors man to nominate him for a parsonage: and for a little money and a written Latin sermon, can purchase to be a Bachelor of Divinity: he is practised to covenant with his Patron, and to suffer him to reserve some pension. And in election of Scholars he 
2. 〈◊〉. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  hath gold to pay for the preferment of his kinsman. In the Chapter house he takes order that any Cannon shall be admitted for money. To be brief, the Mystery of iniquity now breaketh out in him: This is the only dispenser with laws, and corrupter of the purity of the Clergy. But I leave this Devil to be conjured by the Bishops and the Preachers, and only end with this curse of them published in the scripture: We illis q●…i 〈◊〉 Balaam mercede effusi sunt, which is as much to say, I pray God mend all that is amiss among the Clergy men. How say you my masters do I not construe prettily?  
Who is this with the Spanish hat, the Italian ruff, the French doublet, the 〈◊〉 cloak, the Toledo rapier, the German hose, the English stocking, & the Flemish shoe? For 〈◊〉 a son of Mammon's that hath of long time been a tra●…ailer, his name is Lying, a Devil at your commandment: if you talk with him of strange countries, why you bring him a bed, he will hold you prattle from morningsberie to candle lighting; he will tell you of monsters that have faces in their breasts, and men that cover their bodies with their feet in steed of a Penthouse, he will tell you that a league from Poiti●…rs 〈◊〉 to Crontelles, there is a family, that by a special grace from the father to the son, can heal the biting of mad dogs: and that there is another company and sort of people called Saweurs, that have Saint Catherines Wheel in the palate of their mouths, that can heal the stinging of Serpents▪ He will tell you near Naples of miraculo●…s wells, and of a stone in Calabria that fell from heaven, and no sooner touched the ●…arth, but it became a fair chapel: if you put him to it, he will swear he hath taken Saint Thomas by the hand in his tomb: nay, he will offer you the earth which our Lady sat on when Christ was borne, he hath oil of Saint james, Saint Peters ●…orefinger, Saint Anne's skirt of her neckerchiefe, Saint Dunston's walking staff, The stone the Devil ●…ffered Christ to make bread on, the top of Lungs spear, the bark of the tree of life in Paradise, a stone of Traian's Tomb, a piece of Caesar's chair where in he was slain in the Senate house. Tell him of battles, it was he that first pulled off Francis the first his spur, when he was taken by the Emperor, and in the battle of Lepante, he only gave Don john De Austria encouragement to charge a fresh after the wind turned; at Bulloyne he thrust three Swissers thorough the belly at one time with one Partisan, & was at the hanging of that sellow that could drink up a whole barrel of beer without a breathing: At the battle of Serisoles he will only tell you that he lent Marquis Guasto a h●…rse when he fled from the Duke of Anjou, and retired to Alst; and that he healed his shot in the knee, with only three dress of his Balsamo. There is no end of his falsehood except his tongue be cut out of his head, he will lie against God, and misinterpret the scriptures, he will falsify history, and verify false miracles, he will swear to any inconvenience to further his profit, and ascribe honour to any man, let him but pay him for his commendations: he will testify a falsehood marvelous cunningly, and excuse a sin as smoothly as is possible: This is the likest Devil to his father as any of his kindred, for Mammon mendax est, and so is he. If Solon say to him menti●…i noli, lie not, he will answer him in a sentence, Veritas odium parat: Truth procures hatred: Quid plura? He is as perfidious and forsworn as Tisaphernes: and if he were hanged for it, it were no matter. Soft swift (qd. master Lie-monger) you are too hasty, you are too passionate, hear a little reason: May not a man dissemble to save his life, use fraud for God's honour, and practi●…e subtle stratagems for the behalf of his country? is not an obsequions lie lawful, according to Origen, Chrisostome, jerom, 
Origen. lib. 6. 〈◊〉. Chrisost. de sacerd. Hieron in Epist. ad Gal. Cas. lib. 16. coll. 〈◊〉. R●…m. 3.  & Cassian, his Disciple (especially to avoid a greater evil, or to conceal a man's graces & virtues, to the end to avoid vainglory) and like as Eleborus is wholesome to those that are attainted with the falling sickness, and hurtful to those that are healthful, so is not a lie profitable to avoid the danger that there is in speaking truth, and pernicious when there is no present necessity? Sir, sir, you shall be a●…swered & that quickly: avant Satan thou canst not tempt us, Paul shall answer thee, Non sunt facienda mala ut inde veniant bona, Evil is not to be done that good may come of it; and Aristotle assures thee (though an E●…hnicke) that a lie (both according to essence and form) is a sin, and that it admitteth no circumstances: beware therefore of this Devil my friends, for he is a right Priscillianist, who held it lawful to forswear and lie for profit or secrecy sake.  
jura, periura, secretum, prodere noli.  
Swear and forswear, disclose no secret thing.  
Nay this favoureth of the Elchesaits heresy, who said it was lawful to deny the faith by tongue, but not in heart; to avoid torments. Touching Origen, since he was known to be superstitiously addicted to the opinion of Plato, Herodotus, and Menander, we leave him as a Cabalist condemned by Gelasius, and a general counsel: and touching Chrisostome, Jerome and Cassian, as men they may, & did err: for though they have scripture that seemeth in part to favour their opinion (That a man may let slip an untruth to the end that good may come of it;) yet it is to be marked that they erred in this, in construing those things literally which should have been taken figuratively: for whereas jacob told his father that he was Esau the first borne, he lied not; for in truth according to the disposition of the Divine providence he was such, & destinate to enjoy the right of the primogeniture or first begotten: and touching all other places of scripture, to answer with Augustine in a word, verity in them was concealed, and no lie committed; as in Abraham calling Sara his sister, etc. But Master Lie-monger you shall not so scape, I have a new fling for you, a rope is well bestowed to hang a thief that is past all reformation: Hark what an army of authorities are brought to condemn thee, Os quod mentitur (saith the wise 
〈◊〉. 1.  man) occidit animam, The mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul: and Homer saith, That he that hath one thing in his heart, and another in his mouth, was more hateful unto him then the gates of Hell: Phocilides he saith, Ne celes, Hid not one thing in thy heart, and speak another by thy tongue. And touching Cleobulus and Menander, the one tells thee that a lie is abominable, the other that false report is a plague of life. What saith Sophocles? Lying hasteneth age. Aristotle, Plato in his Timae●…, and 2. De Repub. Caietanus, & Aquinas, all condemn it. Get thee back therefore to Hell, thou fiend, for the world is too full of thee already.  
The next of this progeny is Unlawful lucre, look what a handsome Mumpsimus she is, will you know her profession? Forsooth she keeps a bawdy house, and her tapster that tends the score is a shag●…heard slave called Cousenag●…: This i●… she that lays wait at all the carriers, for wench's 〈◊〉 come up to London: and you shall know her dwelling by a dish of stewed prunes in the window, & two or three fleering wenches sit knitting or sowing in her shop: She is the excellent of her age at a ring & a basket: & for a bawdy bargain, I dare turn her lose to Chaucer's Pandace. She served first as a servant in the house with Lais four year, and Flora five more, and after she had learned all the subtleties of painting, dying, and surfling, some three years in Venice, she was brought hither in an Argosy: and left behind by Italians, fell at last to set up for herself in Shoreditch. This old featherbed driver can weep when she list, and is so deuo●…t in outward appearance, that she will not swear, no truly will she not; and she will do as she would be done unto, by God's grace, in observation of the commandments. Say you are a stranger, and pray her to be your cater for the provision of a moonshine banquet, Now fie upon you merry man (says she) your wife shall know it I warrant you, I will not crack my credit with my neighbours for more than I speak on, go seek your flurts sir jack, I am not for your mowing. Trust me, if it were not that she fumbls because her teeth are rotten out with eating sweet meats, it would be a passing pleasure to hear her talk: She will reckon you up the story of Mistress Sanders, and weep at it, and turn you to the Ballad over her chimney, and bid you look there, there is a goodly sample: I wenches (says she, turning herself to her maidens of the second scise) look to it, trust not these dissimulation men, there are few good of them, that there are not. But touch me her with a pint a sack, & a French crown, if you like any of her fry; Well (saith she) you seem to be an honest gentleman, go pretty maid & show him a chamber; now maux you were best be unmannerly & not use him well: There may you go to hell with a vengeance if you please, so you pay for your mounting. But if you hire her to seduce some merchant's wife, Lord how cunning she is! her new worsted kirtle goes on I warrant you, & she hath as many rings on her finger, as kindheart hath teeth in his hat. If she find her opportunity, she is a sure hound to lay holdfast: & if the modest wife stand on terms of her honesty, she hath this kind of speech to entice & allure her, Now in faith mistress (but you must presuppos●… that she hath delivered the gentleman's ring before she speaks) you must needs take it, a sin unseen is half quitted: I know you are fair & young, fresh, & full as a pullet, & this is not to be lost & laid up niggardly; prove, prove the pleasures of love, o●… my conscience you will blame yourself for deferring so long to enjoy them: I pray you sweet heart why was beauty made? what for cobwebs to overgrow it? Come, come, believe me for I have experience, the gentleman is trusty & rich, & my house shall be at both your commandments. This is her manner of Dratory in beating bargains, and if she win her purpose, Lancelot gloried not so much in his conquests, as she to her neighbours of her exploit. If she meet a young maid in the street she hath lodging forher, & God forbidden a Christian should want her help: but will you know the mischief? the wench is fair & for her turn, & that knows she before the next morning, for some ruffian or other is sure the night to board her. If some rich young merchant fall in her laps, and seeks game to his disadvantage, she welcomes him in at first with, What doth it please your worship to have for breakfast? If he call for a capon she dresses two, and he hath sour sauce to his raw flesh I warrant him: the feast past & he heated with wine, if he strive to construe Glicerium vitiate, Pamphilus the wench gives him a watchword, them up starts Cozenage with a bum dagger, she with a hot spit, and out she cries, villain slander my house, ravish my maid; nay, they put the poor fellow into such a passion, that they rifle him ere he part of cloak, ring's, & money; so that he may cry wothe pie of his winning. If a married man fall into her hell of cófusion, she turns him lose to a trull that hath new quickened, and finding him at his filthiness, with some of her society, she works out money at that time, and when the harlot is brought a bed, she sends her to his door, makes her ruffians threaten him, so the poor fornicator though he never deserve it, and another got it, he (lest his wise know thereof) both father's the bastard, and finds the whore, fees the bawd, and feasts the villain, besides all other charges soap and candle: were I not afraid that julius Scaliger should have cause to check me of teaching sin in discoursing and discovering it, it were impossible for you to think what practices of hers I could di●…couer: but since you know her ●…welling and have her picture so publicly showed you, I doom you to Cornelius Tub if you trust him, and her to hell as she desernes it.  
They say likewise there is a Player Devil, a handsome son of Mammon's, but yet I have not seen him, because he skulks in the country, if I chance to meet him against the next impression, he shall shift very cunningly, but I'll pleasantly con●…ure him, and though he hath a high hat to hide his huge horns, I'll have a wind of Wit to blow it off speedily: For all of that sect I say thus much, If they use no other mirth but Eutrapelian urbanity, and pleasure mixed with honesty, it is to be borne withal; but filthy speaking, Scurrility, unfit for chaste ears, that I wish 
〈◊〉. 4. Eth. Eph●…s. 5.  with the Apostle, that it should not be named amongst Christians. Again in stage plays to make use of Historical Scripture, I hold it with the Legists' odious, and as the Council of Trent did, Sess. § 4. Fin. I condemn it. The conclusion shall be Tully's, and good fellows mark it: Nihil est tam tetrum, nihil tam aspernandum, nihil homine indignius, quam turpitud●…, There is nothing more vild, nothing more to be despised, nothing more unworthy a man, than villainy and filthiness, and if you will follow my counsel therefore, writ this over your Theaters:  
Nil dictu foedum visuque, hae. limina tangat. 
Juvenal sa●…ir. 5.   

Let nought unfit to see or to be said,  
Be touched, or in these houses be bewrayed.   
The last son of Mammon, and breed of Avarice, is a Devil called Dicing, and Dishonest sport, he like a gallant haunts the cockpits, like a Gentleman follows the ordinaries; he is at Bedlam once a day I dare assure you, and if he scape the bowling ally one day, he will not come at the Church a month after for pure anger. This fellow is excellent at a Bum Card, and without the help of Bomelius dog, he can burn the knave of clubs, and find him in the stock, or in his bosom, he hath cards for the nonce for Prima vista, others for Sant, other for Primero; and he is so cunning in shuffling & conveying his thumb, that whensoever he deals, you shall be sure of no good dealing: As for Dice, he hath all kind of sorts, Fullams, Langrets', hard quater trays, high men, low men, some stopped with quick ●…iluer, some with gold, some ground; so that if you seek for hominem quadratum amongst them, you may hap to lose your labour. This Devil is well seen in blasphemy, and banqueting, in watching, and drunkenness; and ere he will want money for Come-on-●…iue, he will have it by five and a reach, or hang for it. He stabs if you touch his stake; and stop me his dice, you are a villain. At bowls if he see you ouermatcht, he will wager with you, being assured to win; which kind of betting (by the Italian called Scomesse, and the Spaniard Apuestas) is both forbidden by the laws and taxed to restitution: wife, children, all shall want, but this humour must be satisfied; lands, goods, and all must go, but fortune must be followed; hell, sudden death, and plagues will be had, if this be not considered.  
You men that are endued with reason and profess Christianity, 
Matthiol. lib. 6. cap. 11.  considering the force of this poison, touch it not: beware of this Caerastis, for his sting is mortal, and banish him from your companies, by reason of these inconveniences he breedeth. Dicing causeth avarice in a man to desire his neighbour's goods; next a corrupt will, to carry them away; thirdly lying, to deceive the believer; four perjury, to maintain a wrong; fifthly, the corruption of youth, leading to prodigality; sixtly, contempt of love, which utterly forbiddeth it; seventhly, loss of time, which is a precious treasure; eightly, a world of fraud and deceit; ninthly, wrath and debate; tenthly, it nourisheth & 
Arist. 4. Eth. Alcator est illiber alis.  breedeth idleness; eleventhly, it causeth illiberality and niggardize, for (as Aristotle saith) the gainester Au●…rus est tenax, Co●…etous and a boldfast: twelfthly, it giveth example of negligence, corrupts a family, seduceth children, making them set light by substance, which God by his providence hath imparted to man, not to nourish his passions, affections, and desires vainly, but to secure and relieve his neighbour mercifully: thirtéenthly, it prou●…keth murders and homicides, deep wounds, & bitter strokes, causing an improvident gamester to discharge the venom of his choler, on his wife, children, and servants. How many blasphemies and perjuries (eternal God) proceed from hence? how many thefts, frauds, and deceits? how many are they that after they have lost their wealth, do desperately hang themselves like judas or Achitophel? Who can hear this without grief? or conceit it without admiration? that a man form according to the Image of God, and endued with reason, should so far forget himself, that after he had consumed himself even unto his shirt in gaming, was not ashamed to hazard his own wife, and had not failed to have prostituted and yielded her to a lechers lust, had she not been hidden by her neighbours, as john Benedicti in his Some de Pesches witnesseth. Nay, shall I tell you a true & certain story, not reported as an act done in times past, but a thing fresh in memory, which happened within these twenty years in the city of Lions in France; a matter worthy the noting, & not more worthy than certain?  
A certain gamester and drunkard, drowned in prodigality & sensuality, (more unthrifty than Epicharides the dwarf, who in five days spent all his patrimony in Athens; and like Ethiopus the Corinthian, who sold all his possessions to Archias, that he might follow dishonest drinking) having consumed his whole estate: One day (being vehemently incensed by loss and misthiefe) in so bitter and terrible sort beat his poor wife, (who came to seek relief from his hands, for her and her poor children) in the sight of his ruffianly companions, that as he thought (and happily it had so fallen out) he left her dead, and past recovery. This desolate wretch at last returning to herself, and repairing back again to her household, behold, two her young babes, who grievously oppressed with hunger, with tears in their eyes (taught not to speak by age, but misery) required and desired her of sustenance; Mother, saith one, Meat, or I die: Mam, saith the other, and with signs speaks the rest. Alas, poor babes, saith the mother with bitter sighs, Where shall I get it? your father hath lost his patience, with his wealth; & we our hope, with his mishap: Alas, alas, what shall become of me? or who shall secure you my children? better it is to die with one stroke, then to languish in continual famine. Pressed by these miseries, and brought to this despair, she took a knife in her hand, and cut her children's throats, setting herself down purposely to die, & perish in her sorrows. Her husband the same evening returning laden with wine, & more fit to take rest then examine these tragedies, cast himself on his bed, neither dreaming on his losses, nor her miseries: She urged on by Satan, that ever watcheth opportunities, seeing him asleep, that regarded not her sorrow, which the same knife where with she had killed her children, she cut his throat, the cause of her confusion; speaking thus boldly during the time of her execution: Thou shalt die thou negligent man, since thy ill government hath been the ruin of me and my children. Day & time discovering these murders, the woman was apprehended; & examined by the justice, confessed the fact. Finally, she was condemned, & dying with much constancy, left examples to wives to beware of too much fury, & admonitions to husbands to be more circumspect. See here how this cursed invention of the Lydians hath been the occasion of the murder of four persons: In reading therefore this history, be provident to avoid and shun this Devil.  
Having thus described the children of Mammon, let these motives draw you in hatred both with them & their father, consider that this Avarice is a burning fever, exceeding the flames of Aet●…a, nay likewise that it burneth the souls of miserable usurers incessantly; weigh this, that the covetous man hath as much need of that he hath, as of that he hath not, according to that of Jerome, 
Hieron. ad Paul●…. Polit. lib. 1. Iwen. 〈◊〉. 14.  Tam de est auar●… quod habet, qua quod non habet. Aristotle for this cause saith, that the desire of riches hath no end: and Juvenal the Poet sings thus:  

Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsapecunia crescit,  
Et minus hunc optat qui non habet—   

The more we have the more we do require,  
And who possesseth lest doth least desire.   
It were too long to reckon up all other authorities of Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, for this were but to heap up reading and moon no affection, I only urge to consideration, and by it to hatred of the sin. Let us therefore leave foolish carking in this world, and remember we are made men to behold heaven, and not moles to dig in the earth. Denounce (saith Paul to Timothy) to them that are rich in this world that they be not proud, neither fix their hope on the incertenty of riches, but in the living God, who giveth us all things abundantly whatsoever we need. Let the Magistrate consider this, that as when the Moon appeareth in the spring time, the one horn spotted and hidden with a black and great cloud, from the first day of his apparition to the fourth day after, it is some sign of tempests and troubles in the air the Summer after: so if Secular and temporal Magistrates (who according to Ecclesiastes are changed like the Moon) shall have their minds 
Eccles. 27.  spotted with the clouds of Avarice and earthly desires, it is a sign of subsequent trouble amongst the people: For the Sovereign's covetousness is the oppression of the subject. O worldling, look as the interposition of the earth betwixt the Sun and the Moon, is the cause of the Eclipse of the same; so the interposition of worldly goods betwixt our minds and God, is the cause of our blindness in understanding. Hear Augustine what 
Aug. lib. de doctr. Christ.  he saith, Amas pecuniam quam nunquam videbis, caecus possides, caecus moriturus es, quod possides hic relicturus es: Thou lovest money which thou shalt never see, blind thou possessest it, blind thou must die, and that which thou enjoyest, thou must leave behind thee. A covetous man is like him that is sick of the dropsy, who the more he aboundeth in disordinate humours, the more exceedingly he desireth and thirsteth; and the more he thirsteth, the more he drinketh, till at last he dieth: So the more stored a covetous man is with riches, which he useth not, the more ardently desires he the possession of more.  
The Covetous man likewise is very rightly compared to hell, for with possessing in excess, he is still insatiate. The covetous man buyeth earth, and sells his soul made for heaven: and look as water (saith Augustine) is poured on the earth, so thirst they after the blood of their neighbours. All beasts of ravin do never pray on other till they be a hungry, and being fully satisfied, they refrain from further spoil: but the cou●…tous man doth ever desire and is never satisfied, he neither feareth God, nor regardeth man; he neither obeyeth father, nor respecteth mother; to his friend he is untrusty, to the widow injurious, the fatherless he despiseth, the free he brings in bondage, he corrupteth false witnesses, & occupieth the goods of the dead as if he should never die. Oh what madness is this for man to get gold, & to lose heaven? The cure hereof is gotten by alms deed, according to that of Esay, Frange efurienti panem t●…um: 
〈◊〉. ●….  Break thy bread to the hungry: and it followeth, Tunc erumpet quasimane lumen tuum, & sanitas tua citius orietur: Then shall thy light break forth like the morning, and thy health shall quickly rise. I will trouble you no further: I fear me I preach too tediously, only let me end with this of Manilius: 
〈◊〉. 〈◊〉.   
Pudeat tanto bona velle caduca.  

O be ashamed so much your hearts to 〈◊〉,  
On things so frail that swiftly pass away.    

The discovery of Asmodeus, and his lecherous race of devils Incarnate in our age.  
NO sooner came Asmodeus into the world by Satan's direction, but presently procured he Loathes incest with his daughters, Semiramis unlawful whoredom with her own son, and Dinas unhappy and fatal ravishment; he made Thamar be enforced by her own brother, and forced David to commit murder on Urias, and adultery with Bersabe: Pasiphae he brought enamoured with a Bull, and Xerxes with a Plantain tree: he caused a young Athenian to fall in love with the lifeless picture of Fortune standing near the Pritaneum, and to offer a great quantity of money to the Senate to buy it from their hands; of which being denied, and for which wholly enraged, after embracing, kissing, (and such other ceremonies) he crowned the statue, & lamenting, slew himself: he made Glauca of Cythera to love a dog, a young Spartan to be besotted on a bird, Xenophon to affect a hound, nay the better part of the Philosophers to be Sodomites: read Plutarch's book of Love, and he will testify for me: yet thinking these gains too little in expression of his envy, watching Sardanapalus one night, he practised this monstrous villainy: He assembled his heinousest thoughts, & compacted them together, he chained his losest desires, to the inward workings and motions of the same; and after he had drunk of Letheo, which (as the Poet saith) causeth forgetfulness,  
Laetheos' potat latices oblivia mentis. 
Sil. Itall. 13.   
He drinks Laethean springs which moon forget.  
He slumbered awhile, and during sleep, presented them to his Imagination; and Imagination forming them, he no sooner al●…oke, but from his eyes (like corrupt rays which from menstrual women infect glasses) out start these devils, & made impression in men's hearts, & ever since have been incarnate, & now in our world are most pratchant & busy. The first of them is Fornication (a notorious ●…ocher) he goes daily appareled like a lord though he be but a devil, his hair frizzled & perfumed, that should Vespasian but smell him (as once he did a knight in Rome, as Suetonius reporteth) he would banish him his court for his labour: By day he walks the streets & the Erchange, to spy out fair women; by night he courts them with masks, consorts, and music; he will sigh like a dog that hath lost his master, if his miseres refuse him, & weep like a Crocodile till he have won himself credit: if his mistress saith, It is against her conscience, Tut (saith he) lechery is no sin, find me one Philosopher that held simple fornication for offensive. This is he that corrupts maidens to unlawsull desires for money, and calls Adultery by another name, A fit of good fellowship: This is the lord of all bawdy houses, & patron of Peticote-lane, one that would build an hospital for decayed whores, but that he is loath to be at the charges. If he take up commodities, it is Cock-sparrows, Potatoes, and Herrings, and the hottest wines are his ordinary drink to increase his courage: his table talk is but of how many wenches he hath courted that week, and (Blindness of heart waiting like a page on his trencher) you shall hear him laugh at his greatest villani●…s most hearty: when he rides you shall know him by his fan; & if he walk abroad, & miss his mistress favour about his neck, arm, or thigh, he hangs the head like the soldier in the field that is disarmed: put him to a sonnet, Du Portes cannot equal him; nay in the nice terms of lechery he exceeds him: at Riddles, he is good; at Purposes, better; but at Tales he hath no equal, for Bandello is more perfect with him then his Paternoster. Tell him the Turks & Iewes severely punish such sin, & admit no stews: I, (saith he, like a cursed Atheist) that proves then stocks & no men. His care is for nothing but perfumes & Elixir, y● one to make him smell sweet, that other to lengthen life, for of all things he will not hear of death. A fit companion is this man for such as be idle: & if any ask, what shall we do to pass the time after the end of an Ordinary: Faith (saith he) let's search whorehouses, for that's the best exercise. If you talk to him of God, Hardness of heart says it concerns him not: If you counsel him to fast, he commands his cook to make ready a fat capon for his supper: he is wholly the devils, of whom he is begotten. Tell him he hath the pox, tut it is a gentlemen's disease: & the cause of purging corrupt humours, are the effects of health. Such is this Devil incarnate, who both deserves to be known & avoided, & the rather, by reason of his page, blindness of heart, for he it was the first made the Sodomites inwardly & outwardly blind: & he it was that corrupted the false judges to seduce Susanna: this is he that distracteth our eyes lest we should see heaven, & blindeth our hearts, lest we should behold Gods just judgements. And therefore Antiquity in painting the god of love, have made him blind, because affection is blind, & maketh them blind that follow it. As therefore the eye of the soul (by which as Plato witnesseth, we behold the essence of God) is a great blessing of the Holy ghost; so blindness of understanding his 
Lib. 7. de 〈◊〉  opposite (whereby we are tied to carnal desires) is the worst of many infirmities. Plato in his Dialogues compares this concupiscence to a sieve, into which the more water you pour, the more it spills, & yet in the end it is never filled. In like sort a man that thinks to satisfy himself in this Fornication, demeaneth himself like him 
C●…r. Par. ●… 〈◊〉. d●… diuer●…. temp.  that strives to fill a sleeve with water. The Doctor Gerson speaking to this purpose, brings an example of him that is seized with a burning fever, who if he drink a glass of fresh water, thinks himself sufficiently cooled, but in less than a quarter of an hour after he is more distempered then ever: As likewise one that is troubled with the Itch, the more he scratcheth the more his flesh tingleth; so the more a man seeketh to assuage Lust, the more it increaseth. The only conquest of this Devil, is to fly him; and for that cause this is a Maxim held amongst the Fathers, that Facilius vincitur luxuria fugiendo, quam pugnando: Lechery is better conquered in flying it, then resisting it. Tully (though an Ethnic) entering into the consideration of Fornication 
Cl●…. l. 2. Offic.  and Lust, saith thus, that It closeth up the eyes of our souls, and hindereth judgement. And Plutarch reporting Hannibal's follies at Cannae, holdeth Lust and effeminate pleasure to be the downfall of his fortunes. Why stand I so long on this Devil, when a greater presseth forth, and presents himself? And who is that but Adultery, an arranter knave than his brother: Look upon his lips, the one is single, the other double: and though he be appareled like a Citizen, he hath doings in all countries: This is he will let his wife want, to maintain a harlot; and laugh at his children's misery, so his lust be satisfied: This fiend hath a concubine in every corner, and ordinarily a whore in his household: he hath two of his own kindred continually attending him, Precipitation, and Inconsideration; the one hindereth his providence and counsel, and without regard transports him with amorous passions: for where Blindness of heart marcheth before, Precipitation must needs follow to make him careless in his actions: For (as Plato saith) Voluptas omnium insolentissima est, Pleasure and Lust is the most insotent of all things: for it perturbeth our spirits, and taketh away ●…he empire of liberty. This fellow perverts memory, hurteth consideration, kills providence, and treads down advice: The other, called Inconsideration, hinders both reason and judgement, by fleshly delights; dulleth the memory in respect of God, breedeth an Apoplexy and benumbing of the soul. Furnished with these two followers, what impiety leaves Adultery undone? his neighbour is made jealous, his wife a strumpet, his door is hourly haunted with a Sumner, and catch him out of the Arches one term, he will forfeit his upper garment for default, his own house is hell to him, a bawdy house his heaven; and for his companions he chooseth none but the arrantest dronckards in a country. He hath no spirit to goodness, neither is he moved to godliness: his felicity is the surfeits of his flesh, and pain with him is no more thought of then it is felt: he is ready at a jar to set strife betwixt man and wife, and to this intent forsooth, that he may take possession of another man's free hold, and make a common of his neighbour's enclosure. He spites him most that examines his proceedings, and will chafe till he sweat again, if a man touch him with his infirmities. Speak aught that breeds a hate of sin, it is a very Hell to him: bless yourself out of this fiends company, for these certain and exampler respects, that follow, First because adultery is a greater sin, and more hateful (as some schoolmen say, in the sight of God) than perjury. 
Lenit. 20. Deut. 21.  Next, because God's law forbids it, and example dissuades it. By the law adulterers were stoned to death. Before the law they were punished by death; as appeareth by judas justice on Thamar: examples of the heinousness of this sin appeareth in many places; thousands of men died in the fields of Moab for this fault, and sixty thousand of the children of Israel were put to the sword for the only ravishing of a Levites wife. thirdly, for these respects is this adultery to be eschewed, first because it impugneth the law of nature, Next the law of countries; and last, for that it hath been the ruin of many Cities and kingdoms. If in the law of nature it had not been odious, Pharaoh and Abimelech had not answered Abraham, That had they supposed Sara for his wife, they had not taken her. Touching the laws of countries, Solon in his, adjudged 
Gen. 12. Pano●…mit.  the adulterer to die: the Locrensians, Persians, Arabians, and Egyptians most cruelly punished it: Plato consenteth with Solon, the law of the twelve tables with both: By the Civil laws, the husband adulterer looseth his marriage, and the adulteress his wife the thirds of the goods of her husband. And as concerning the exemplary miseries it hath fatally wrought, Sodom and Gomorra were consumed with fire for adultery and Sodomy: Troy a proud city made a ploughed land.  
Nune seges est ubi Troia fuit.  
And corn now grows where Troy once stood.  
Agamemnon for refusing to keep to Clytaemnestra, and defiling himself with Briseis, was prosecuted by deadly hatred by his wife, and slain in Treason by her adulterous paramour Aegisthus. Ulysses rather refused immortality at Calipsos hand, then to consent to this sin; and Lewis of France as the Hystorian saith, Maluit mori quam violare fidem sues centhorali, He had rather die then break his faith to his espoused wife: it was the only adulteries of the French that caused a Massacre of 8000 upon 
Fulgos. lib. 6.  the ringing of one Bell in the Isle of Sicily, Nectabanus & Olympus love, the miseries of unhappy Dalida, of Tereus, & many others, might be here alleged, but I will end with that in Horace, touching the punishments of adulterers, and the rather to 
Horace lib. 1. s●…t 2.  bring men in horror of the sin:  

Hic se praecipitem tecto dedit, ille flagellis  
Ad mortem caesus, fugiens hic decidit acren●…  
Proedonum in turbam, dedit hic pro corpore nummos,  
Hunc perminxerant calones, quin etiam illud  
Accidit, ut quidamtestes, caudamque saluce●….  
Demeteret ferro.   

This lecher from a window headlong skipped,  
This, till he suffered death was sound whipped;  
He flying, fell in cursed felons hands.  
This, money gave to ransom him from bands.  
Him, clowns bepissed; and this doth often hap,  
That some lewd lechers caughtin cunning trap,  
Scorned and disdained (and worthy of the scoff)▪  
Have both their saltie tail and stones cut off.   
But herein some man perhaps will take occasion to reprove me, that describing adultery with a double lip, I discover not the cause why I present him so: to him let this reason suffice, which wanteth not his authority, I therefore give adultery a single and double lip, because there is a single and a double adultery; that adultery which is called single, is when as one of the two that commits the sin is married, and the other is not; and the double, wherein man commits Bigamy▪ or both the offenders are coupled in marriage: touching two of these, I have sufficiently discoursed (as I hope) before this▪ only of Bigamy and polygamy this much and so an end: both these (as against nature) the Ethnics and Pagans despised: and that they are 
Genes●…▪ ●….  condemned by God it appeareth by his own words, Erunt duo in carne una, They shall be two in one flesh: he saith not, three or four: by this place shameless Lamech of the cursed race of Cam is condemned for beginning the plurality of wives, and the lascivious and sensual Emperor Valentinian, who coupled with his wife Seneca, a young maiden called justine, whom he espoused as Socrates witnesseth.  
Too long am I on this, behold another more hainons spirit incarnate in the body of a youthly & brave gallant, who comes freshly from the Tailors in a new suit of crimson Satin, and must to Paul's presently to meet with his Pander: this fellow is called Ravishment, an unnatural fiend, he weareth a feather in his beaver hat which is called the plume of Inconstancy, and howsoever that waveth, his wit wandereth: this is he will give a bawd ten pound for the breaking up of a wench, nay which is most horrible, before that nature enable her: he never walks without a full purse, nor sleeps before a mischief, nor weeps but for pure envy: he may not smile nor laugh, but at the despoiles of chastity. He holds this ariome, That there is no pleasure sweet that is not accompanied with resist; and that no flowers are pleasant but those of the first gathering. He it was that ravished Danae in a golden shower, & Mica the chaste virgin in the days of Aristotimus. All worldly delights he hath to entangle innocency with, and his grandsire Satan hath given it him from the cradle, to attempt the chastest: entertain him to your guest, your Uirgines are corrupted, your kindred desamed, your children pointed at, and that which is a great misery in these miseries, he only publisheth your shame, & rejoiceth at it: he is excellent at Italian, & I think he be one by the mother's side: be not of his fraternity if you be afraid of a general counsel, for the Elibertine Synod condemus & excommunicates him. If you would know a bawd male, or female, you shall find them by him: for with none else is he acquainted: one mark he hath, his beard is cut after the Turkish fashion, & he is lame of one leg like Agesilaus, & that he broke leaping in Florence out of a window. These tokens being sufficient to know him by, let these reasons serve to bring him in hate: Things they say the more rarer they be, the more dearer they be, Now then since that virginity and chastity is rare, and by that reason dear, how great reason have we to hate him that despoileth us of the ornament? unworthy is he the name of a man that doth the work of a beast, nay most detestable of all men is the ravisher, who destroyeth the which God can not repair. According to the opinion of Aristotle in his Ethics, & jerom upon Amos, fly therefore this Hydra, this hateful to God 
Eth. 3.  & man: & since according to Chrisost: Pudicitia & virginit as imbecillis est, Modesty & virginity is weak, let us banish the sin from our societies 
Chrisost. des virg. cap. 80.  that is likest to disturb & attempt it. Another spirit there is incorporated very cunningly whichin all apparitions I ever could see him in, hath his face covered with a vail & in it is written Incest, & he it was that made Herod abuse his sister's wife, and I fear me plays the devil covertly in our country, if I may chance to know it, he may be sure I will unmask him. Another fiend there is, but he haunts not our country, but travaileth Flanders & the low countries like a soldier, this devil robs churches, ravisheth religious women, scorns the Clergy, beats down bells & steeple, & committeth filthy absurdities in the churches, whom I only name in this place because I wish the ports might be laid if he attempt to arrive here, for of all chaffer he sells best a chalice, cope, & communion cup; & if he be permitted to enter among us, no minister shall save him a surplice to say service on sunday in. But what visio is this, enough to affright the world? Self-love, the idolater of his body, an infernal & master angel; accompanied with Love of this world, the loathes to hear of piety: Hate of God (in that he prohibits sin) & horror of the world to come, in that he feareth judgement: these four loathsome ministers, bring in a three headed & ugly monster; nature walks apart & hides her face in her hands for fear to behold him, the first head is Mollities inventing voluntary pollution: the second Sodomy, perverting the order of nature: the third Bestiality, called by the schoolmen (crimen pessimum:) this monsters eyes are still hanging down, as if ashamed to behold the light, & in his brows are written, signum reprobrationis, the mark of reprobation; the first 
.  head whispers in mine ear the Her & Onan were slain by an angel through his corruption. The second tells me that Italy can best teach me if I would know his qualities; alas chaste ears, I dare not name it, though I fear it is to much used, I dare not think it, Pedrastia, Socrates sin. The third tells me he is a monster getter, and hath followers amongst men are unworthy naming: wretches avant, you brood of hell, you causes of the general Cataclisme and deluge, fly from these bounds of Christ endome, I am afraid to name you, I c●…ure you by my prayers from my country, the infernal pours themselves in their copy of sin, hate you▪ & have oftentimes slain those that have been exercised in your villainies. That very night Christ was born, all your sodomitical crew perished, & depart you to darkness whilst I discover your father's villainies. God be thanked the monsters are vanished, saw you not one of them kissing a sow, another dallying with a boy, another using voluntary pollution, fie away with them they are damned villains▪ come let's examine the workings of their father, & arm ourselves against him, stand forth you pocky devil Asmodius for I mean to swinge you.  
Augustin discoursing upon the effects of lechery & lust, hath this 
Lib. de da●… christ.  notable saying, Luxuria est inimica deo, inimica virtutibus, perdit substantiam, & ad tempus voluptatem diligens, futuram non sciunt cogitare paupertatem, Lust (saith he) is an enemy to God, an enemy to virtue, it consumeth wealth, & loving pleasure for a while, it suffereth us not to think of our future poverty: approving hereby in a few words, and they effectual, that he who is entangled in the snares of desires, is distracted from God, forsaken by virtue, drowned in sensualtie, and besotted with inconsideration. This spiritual infirmity is compared to the disease of leprosy, which procéeedeth from corrupt and disordinate heat; and as the leprosy 
3. Reg. 8.  is an incurable disease, even so is lust an irremediable mischief: With this infirmity was Solomon infected, who had seventy Quienes and three hundredth concubines, so that even in his age his heart was depraved: and whereas in all other sins their venom is not contracted by society, in lust a man by conversation may be corrupted: so that neither the wise man's wit, neither the strong man's arms, nor the holy man's meditation is defenced against lust, but as Jerome saith, ad Paulum & Eus●…ochaim, Ferreas mentes libido domat,  
Lust conquereth the most untamed minds. As soon saith Gregory, as lust hath possession of the mind, it scarcely suffereth it to conceive any good desires, and in that the desires thereof are vicious by the suggestion thereof riseth corrupt thought, and of thought the like affection, & of affection delèctation, & of delight consent, & of consent operation, & of operation custom, & of custom desperation, and of desperation, defence of sin and glorying therein, and of glorying in sin, damnation. Lururious men have outwardly the Devil suggesting them; and inwardly concupiscence incensing them; and of these two, all carnal sins are begotten. It is likewise to be noted, that the word of God, is two ways indemnified by lascivious men, the one way is conculcator a transeuntibus, It is trodden down by them as they pass by it: This treading down and oppression of the word of God, is the custom of evil thoughts, whereby the Gospel is oppressed: The second is, that it is devoured of birds; which devouring is the suggestion of the Devil. Against these defects there are likewise two remedies, the first is, that we fence in the enclosure of our hearts, with the thorns of the memory of the passion of Christ, according to that of the wise man, Popule sepi aures 
Eccles. 28.  tuas spinis. For there is no greater remedy saith Origen, nor better means against evil cogitations, than the remembrance of Christ's passion. The second remedy is, to fatten this enclosure of our hearts with the virtue of charity; for of it it is said, That it covereth the multitude of sins. To conclude a sea of matter in a short circle of admonition, refrain lust and her progeny for these causes, First it destroyeth the infused graces of God, and the gifts of the holy ghost: Secondly, it consumeth the four cardinal virtues: Thirdly, it weakeneth the body, inféebleth the spirit, and hardeneth the heart against all devotion. The armour against this envy, is, The consideration of his deformity, The avoidance of occasions and motions of desire, The tempering and moderation of our corrupt bodies, The continual thought of impendent death, The imagination of God's continual presence, The consideration of those infirmities wherewith it cloieth the spirit: Lastly in assaults, The office of prayer; which as Cassianus saith, is a sufficient buckler against all the 
.  assaults of the world. I have discovered the sore, and given a plaster, I beshrew those that are wounded if they make not use of it.   

Of the great Devil Belzebub, and what monstrous and strange Devils he hath bred in our age.  
BElzebub the envious, grand God of flies, Archduke of Grecian fantasies, and patron of the pharisees, thou Prince of Devils, I must strain your patience a little to reckon up your pedigrée: and though your infecting 
〈◊〉.  Cain, perverting Esau, seducing Saul, incensing Absalon, and gathering all the heresies in the church were enough to condemn your horns to be sawed off of your head for villainy: yet it shall suffice me to find out the beginning of your sinful progeny. Your wife I trow was jealousy the daughter of a corrupt spirit, who could never find in her heart to dress herself, for fear a pin should kill her; nor look into the air, for fear she should be blasted▪ nor drink of water, in doubt she should be poisoned: God a-mercy for that nod horned beast for it shows thy confession. Well then, jealousy thy wife, how were thy children gotten? for soothe it fortuned (as some poetical humour inspires me) that being vexed with a sever & passion of the spleen, thou wert by the advice of Wrath (the Physician in ordinary in thy household) let blood on the back of thy hand, in that vain which is next the little finger, out of which having gathered much blood, jealousy (that was still afraid of thee, and shunned thy company for fear in lubberlepping her thou shouldst press her to death) drunk up this corrupt excrement fasting, & after one stolen kiss from thy mouth, fell in such sort a swelling, that within the space of one month at one birth (now the devil bless them) brought thee forth these sons as I orderly describe them. The first by Satan (his grandsire) was called Hate-Vertue, or (in words of more circumstance) Sorrow for another man's good success) who after he had learned to lie of Lucian, to flatter with Aristippus, & conjure of Zoroaster, wandered a while in France, Germany, & Italy, to learn languages & fashions, & now of late days is stolen into England to deprave all good deserving. And though this fiend be begotten of his fathers own blood, yet is he different from his nature, & were he not sure the jealousy could not make him a cuckold, he had long since published him for a bastard: you shall know him by this, he is a soul lu●…ber, his tongue tipped with lying, his heart stéeld against charity, he walks for the most part in black under colour of gravity, & looks as pale as the Uisard of the ghost which cried so miserally at the Theatre like anoisterwife, Hamlet, revenge: he is full of infamy & slander, insomuch as if he ease not his stomach in detracting somewhat or some man before noontide, he falls into a fever that holds him while supper time▪ he is always devising of Epigrams or scoffs, and grumbles, murmurs continually, although nothing cross him, he never laughs but at other men's harms, briefly in being a tyrant over men's fames, he is a very Titius (as Virgil saith) to his own thoughts.  

Titijque vultur intus  
Qui semper lacerat comestque mentem.   
The mischief is that by grave demeanour, and news bearing, he hath got some credit with the greater sort, and many fools there be that because he can pen prettily, hold it Gospel what ever he writes or speaks: his custom is to prefer a fool to credit, to despite a wise man, and no Poet lives by him that hath not a flout of him. Let him spy a man of wit in a Tavern, he is an arrant dronckard; or but hear that he parted a fray, he is a harebrained guarreller: Let a scholar write, Tush (saith he) I like not these common fellows: let him write well, he hath stolen it out of some note book: let him translate, Tut, it is not of his own: let him be named for preferment, he is insufficient, because poor: no man shall rise in his world, except to feed his envy: no man can continue in his friendship, who hateth all men. Divine wits, for many things as sufficient as all antiquity (I speak it not on slight surmise, but considerate judgement) to you belongs the death that doth nourish this poisen: to you the pain, that endure the reproof. Lily, the famous for facility in discourse: Spencer, best read in ancient Poetry: Daniel, choice in word, and invention: Draiton, diligent and formal: Th. Nash, true English Aretine. All you unnamed professors, or friends of Poetry, (but by me inwardly honoured) knit your industries in private, to unite your fames in public: let the strong stay up the weak, & the weak march under conduct of the strong; and all so embattle yourselves, that hate of virtue may not embase you. But if besotted with foolish vain glory, emulation, and contempt, you fall to neglect one another, Quod Deus omen avertat, Doubtless it will be as infamous a thing shortly, to present any book whatsoever learned to any Maecenas in England, as it is to be headsman in any free city in Germany: 
Claudite iam rivos pueri sat prata viverunt.  The mean hath discoursed, let the mighty prevent the mischief. But to our Devil, by his leave, we can not yet shake him off: hark what Martial saith to thee, thou depraver: 
Omnibus invideas, invide nemo tibi.  
Envy thou all men, let none envy thee.  And why thinkest thou, wisheth he thus? Marry to the end thou mayst be the more tormented. Thou vice of nature; thou error without excusation: though it nothing profiteth me to speak truth against thee, yet shall it hinder thy venom to molest & poison many. Know thou (scum of imperfections) that howsoever thou defraut est other of praise, thou be wraiest thine own infirmities: and although I am past hope to reform thee by my just reasen, yet (false devil as thou art) I leave thee to the martyrdom of thy thoughts, and since example expresseth imperfection, I'll tell the world a story wherein with Lira I will prettily discover thy nature.  
A great and mighty Lord desirous to know the difference betwixt an envious & covetous man commanded a servant of his to bring one of both sorts to his presence: to whom (after some courtly salutations) he made this offer, that ask what they would he would grant it them, on that condition, that he might give the second the double of that the first demanded: these two understanding the sum of the Nobleman's intent, fell at debate betwixt themselves which of them should wish first; the covetous, desiring to wish last, by reason of the commodity depending thereon, and the envious disdaining the other should have more than he. At last the Nobleman seeing their contention without end, & desirous to see the issue of his expectation, commanded the envious to begin, reserving the covetous the latter choice; But what desired he think you, being preferred to this election? Forsooth, nought else but that one of his eyes might be pulled out, to the end the other might lose both his, choosing rather the loss than the profit, to the end that he whom he envied might have mischief with the advantage: whereby we may easily understand, in what blindness and error that miserable man is, that suffereth himself to be conquered by this cursed humour: to conclude with job, this sort 
job. 5.  of maligning envy killeth a fool, I wish therefore that all wise men should fly it.  
The next Devil incarnate of this breed is Malicious hatred, whose fovedelicity is to rejoice at other men's harms, giving affliation 
●…oh. ●….  to those that are troubled with affliction. This fellow still walks with his hat over his eyes, confirming that of john, He that hateth his brother liveth in darkness. If a man offend him, he admits no reconcilement. He was a persecutor in the primitive Church, when blindness of heart was executioner of the saints: and to cause any man's confusion is his chiefest felicity. It was he drew the French king to invade Cicilie, Italy, and Naples: and some say his council ma●…e the Spaniard enter into Navarre. It was he that fleshed the Turk upon the Christians, and wrought that deadly debate betwixt the Tarter & Muscovite: when he hears of peace, then is he pensive, and if he want credit with the mighty, he falls at working among the commonalty: he never colours with anyman, but to betray him; nor lends any man money but to undo him, nor contrives any stratagem without murder, or dwells by any neighbour, but to hurt him: he hath a cause at law in every court, and prefer him conditions of accord, he will fret himself to death. His envies the older they be, the better they please him▪ for inveterate wrath still ●…oileth in his breast: if he counsel any man in his own humour, he laboureth him to mistake all courtesies, to misconstrue all reconcilements: if a man salute him, it is in mockery; if a man salute him not, he is proud and shall be pulled lower: if a man advise him in worldly affairs, he insinuates; to be brief, nothing can please him but to hear of other men's perdition. Fly this fiend and his humour, you that love peace or look for felicity, for he that loveth not (saith john) remaineth in death: follow the course of the Hermit Agathon, who never slept in anger, nor to his▪ power suffered any displeased man to part from him without reconciliation: rather make thine enemy ashamed by thy courtesies, them incensed by thy hatreds; & being thyself mortal, let not thy hate be immortal. The last devil of this race (for jealousy is barren, but in increasing her own mischiefs) is Worldly fear, he never walks abroad but in suspicion, if a butcher's hook do but catch him by the sleeve, he cries out, At whose suit? he is still in jealousy that every man will exceed him, & attempreth nothing in virtue, through the suspect of his corrupt nature: because he wanteth charity, he is still in dread, & the only fee of his fortune is the suspect of his ability: he hath courage enough to adventure on any sin, but touching the damages of his body, there is not an arranter coward. He trusts no man for fear he deceive him, if he hear of any of his equals in election of an office, he trembles like an aspen leaf, in doubt that his advancement should be a hindrance to him: according to that in Claudian,  

Est malus inter pres rerum metus, omne trahebat  
Augurum peiore vid.—   

Fear misseinterprets things, each Augury  
The worse way he fond doth imply.   
And that of Tully in his Epistle to Torquatus, Plus in metuendo est mali, quam in eo ipso quod timetur: There is more evil in fearing, then in that which is feared. This fiend was he that possessed Dionysius the elder, giving him a greater hell by his suspicion, than danger by his enemy's hatred. Of all other devils let good men bless them from this; for though he seem contemptible in his own abiectives, yet whatsoever mind he seizeth upon, (as Granatensis saith) he shows himself to be a powerful perturbation, making of little things, great; and of great, monstrous. The children of Beelzebub thus briefly brought in knowledge, let us with some consideration examine the workings, & give remedy against the assaults of the father. Envy in his nature is aggrieved at the prosperity of another man; he envieth the great, since he can not equal them: he envieth the weak, dreading they should compare themselves with him: finally, he envieth his equals, because he were very loath they should be his companions. In Kingdoms, Commonweals, Princes courts, and private families, he is still working; no man hunteth after honour, but he affronts him: only the miserable man he maligneth not, because he suspects not his rise; yet hath he a scorn for him, such as Phalaris had to hear Perillus groaning and roaring in his brazen Bull. This capital sin of all other is of most antiquity, and shall be of longest continuance. Grievous were the wars raised by this fiend betwixt the Romans and Carthaginians, and as fatal those betwixt Caesar and Pompey, who contended not upon injuries but upon envies. He it was that poisoned Socrates, slew Crassus, destroyed Darius, overthrew Pyrrhus, brought Cyrus to his end, made Catiline infamous, and Sophomy be unfortunate. Hermocrates the tyrant of Cicely knowing the venom of this vice, gave his son this last, and not the least instruction: That he should not be envious, (adding thereunto this consequence) But do thou (saith he) such deeds, that others may envy thee: for to be ewied is the token of good deserts; but to be envious, the sign of a corrupt nature. It is Tullius in his Orator; that the most flourishing fortune is always envied: agreeing with that in Quid,  
Summa petit livor, perflant altissima venti:  
Hate climes unto the head: winds force the tallest towers.  
This infirmity is compared to a simple fever, that is now hot, strait cold; for now doth the envious man rejoice at the adversity of the good, now wax sad at the prosperity of the righteous. Cain was sick of this disease, envying the prosperity of Abel: Rachel envied the fecundity and fruitfulness of Lea; Saul, the felicity of David. To conclude, the fall of the world, and the death of Christ, was wrought by this sin. Wisely saith Cassiodorus, Quicquid ex inu●…dia dicitur, veritasnon reputatur: For who hath envy in his heart, is never without lying in his tongue. There is no man rightly envieth another man's knowledge, but he that suspecteth his own. The remedy of this vice (as Albertanus saith). Is the love of God, and of our neighbour: and in ascribing all things to the goodness of God, we shall have nothing to malign at, which is good in his creatures. Besides, if we hate death (as a thing most contrary and grievous to nature) we must néedly hate Envy, that first brought it into the world. The blessed souls (saith Gregory) do as much rejoice at the felicity of others, as their own. It is then consequently an act of the cursed, to be aggrieved at any man's prosperity. Not to detain you long, with this I end with Tully, Est buius seculi 
Ci●…. pr●… L. Cornel. O●…a. 24. li. 3  labes quaedam & macula virtuti invidere, It is a certain infirmity and deformity of this world, to envy virtue. And not to forget Horace,  

Virtutem incolumen odimus,  
Sublatum ex oculis quaerimus invidi.   

Virtue assigned we envy cursedly,  
But rest from us, we seek for greedily.    

The incarnate monsters begotten by the Arch-devill Baalberith.  
AMongst all the monstrous ingendring, and wonders of nature, (set down by Pliny, Aristotle, and Elian in his histories) the begetting of Baalberiths children is the most miraculous: for touching procreation by mouth, by ears, and by other parts, they are confirmed by knowledge & experience; but for the heart to be a place of conception, I held it a thing impossible, except it be in a Devil. Yet as impossible as it is, true it is, and in a Devil it was; and thus Baalberith became a father: When by those tyrannies that ranged in the Primitive Church from Aurelius to Valerian, this cursed spirit of wrath, rather augmented then dismembered the faithful, he sat him down in a mere agony, and began to imagine in his thoughts how to destroy Patience in men's hearts, which is an opposed enemy to all his proceedings. Hereon inflaming his heart (by the hot choleric and swift blood which he sent out of his veins by Cava vena to it) there rose certain speedy and vehement spirits encountering with his sinister thoughts, that (forced out by his beating and heavy lungs) took passage with his breath▪ and no sooner entered the air but attained bodies, in which they work, and by which they are known. Tec first of them became a Ruffian, a Swashbuckler, and a Braggart, they call him Brawling contention; his common gate is as proud as a Spaniards, his ordinary apparel is a little low crowned hat with a feather in it like a fore-horse; his hairs are curled, and full of elves locks, and nitty for want of kembing; his eyes are still staring, and he never looks on a man but as if he would eat him: his doublet is of cast Satin, cut sometime upon Taffeta, but that the bombast hath eaten through it, and spotted here and there with pure fat, to testify that he is a good trencher man: his common course is to go always untrust, except when his shirt is a washing, & then he goes woolward: and his breeches are as desperate as himself, for they are passed mending: his weapons are a basket hilted sword, and a bu●… dagger; and if he keep these from pawn, he is sure of a living: his prayers in the morning are, Gog's wounds hostess one pot more: and his daily exercise is to be champion in a bawdy house: you shall have him for twelvepences to brave and brawl with any men living: and let any men fall together by the ears; to the field (cries he) I'll see fair play▪ he hath a Punk (as the Pleasant Singer calls her) that finds him spending money; and if she provide not his drinking penny, she is sure of the bas●…inado: give him the lie▪ he strikes you suddenly; and call him less than a gentleman soldier, Zown●…s you are a villain. He is a passing good railer, specially if an old bawd anger him; and let him but look into a vaulting house, he shall play his tricks without charges. In Term time he is a Setter, to further horse stealers; and to cunnyeatch a countryman, he shall give place to none in Newgate. In a ●…ray in Fléetstréet you shall daily see him foremost, for but in fight, chiding, and scolding, he hath no countenance. You shall hire him for a special bailie if you come off with an angel; and sometimes he may carry a ring in his mouth, if he have a cast livery for his labour. He is the only man living to bring you where the best liquor is, and it is his hat to a half penny but he will be drunk for company. Then let the host cross him, out goes his dagger; let the hostess entreat him, she is a whore for her labour, and though he drink beyond his stock, that's but a custom. ●…ut (mine host, cries he) score it up, it is the credit of your ale house. Bring a Sergeant and him together, you shall hear villainy with a vengeance: and if they conspire any man's arrest, gog's wounds he will haulse him. This is a chief caterpillar in a city, and too much winked at: he hath already infected the most part of the suburbs, it were great pity to grant him harbour in the city. Isidorus saith of this Devil that he is subject to three evil conditions of a dog: 
 First, he is always ready to Quarrel: secondly, he taketh his best pleasure in Strife & Debate: thirdly, he provoketh others unto Discord. Of all Baalberiths breed, there can not be an arranter or more currish villain, and perverter of peace; and his impatience in injury, cometh of his carnal mind. Of all companions there is none that more deserveth the avoiding then he; for whosoever falleth into his humour of impatience, he presently becometh the disciple of the Devil, and fit and apt for all evil things. Nay, whosoever delighteth in contentions and debates, seemeth wholly to contradict his natural inclination 
〈◊〉. sup. A●…ath. 8. cap.  and being: for (as Chrysostome saith) Non est creatus cum cornibus, ut Ceruus, Tigris, aut Centaurus, etc. He is not created with horns, as the heart, Tiger, and Centaur, that with them he should gore another man; neither with a hard and horny hoof, like a horse, to kick at another man: neither with a sharp fang, as the Wolf, Dog, and Lion, to bite any man; neither with a sharp bill, or crooked and strong nails, to the end he should tear, or prey upon another man; as the Falcon, the Herne, the Hawk, and the Eagle: but be is created with all his members, very competent and humble, to the end he should behave himself justly and humbly in all things towards his neighbour: whereupon it is to be inferred, that a brawling and contentious fellow, is a beast amongst men. Comparatus est minent●…s insipientibus similis factus est illis, He is compared to bruit beasts, and is made like unto them: and not only is the contentious quarreler like the savage beast, but he resembleth likewise the devil himself. For as the one soweth cockle among 
Matth. 13.  the corn, so the other engendereth contentions among societies. The Wise man calls him an Apostata, and unprofitable; 
Proverb. 6.  adding this, In omni tempore iurgium seminat, He continually soweth debate. hereupon Gregory saith, That if they be the sons of God, that seek peace and ensue it; they truly are the sons of Satan, that pervert peace, and destroy society. Let not therefore this devil have any title among you, for he is beneficial to none but four: to the U●…ttailer, for ridding his drink; to the Surgeon, for curing his wounds; to the Physician for purging his disease, and the earth for feeding it with dead bodies. As this Devil only haunteth the suburbs, and ●…ildome but skulkingly and in company entereth the city; so is there another Devil of his race that haunts both court, city, and country, nay there is none so private meeting, none so solemn disport, but he is there for a stickler to increase the multitude of sins: this Devil is called Blasphemy, that is continually clamorous, ready to swell in envy, prone and forward in indignation, he cares not to swear God his maker and governor from top to ●…oe like the French man, and curse all his creatures in dishonour of their creator; his delight is hourly to make idols of every vain thing he seethe sretting▪ ●…hafing and perplexing himself if he want oaths to difiest his displeasure. He haunts ordinaries, and places of exercise, schools and houses of learning, nay I fear me (would God it were a lie) there are more oaths sworn in Paul's in a day, th●…n devout prayers said in it in a month: every shop hath one at least, beside the master, to swear to the price, and without an oath now adays there is no buying or chaffer: faith and troth are the least hazard; yea and nay is a puritan. This fiend accounts it an impeach of his honour if any outswear him, and a token of cowardice, if he want oaths to reply with▪ he is a man that day he coins some loathsome jest out of the s●…ipture; and is never so little crossed, but (if he wants a fit English oath to put in) he will up with Can●…re, vie●…ne la bosie, la pest ●…estrangle, lafoy ●…able, le ragete puisso em●…rter: if he want French blaspheamy, Pota d'i●…dio, putana d'iddi●…, cties he with the Italian Atheist: if you talk of Divine justice, he saith there is no God: if he by sickness and plagues be forced to confess him; he calls him tyrant, unjust, and without equity: if another man be preferred before him, he saith God doth wrong to his honour: if he fling the dice (after the loss of two or three hazards,) In spite of God he will now cast in: and though he be justly accused of an offence, I forsake God (saith he) and I did it. Let any man promise him a familiar to further him in gaming, he will vow that Devils know all things, that the thoughts of men's hearts are open unto them, that they may save and give man Paradise. Hire him to write a comedy, he is as arrant an A theift as Rabelais in his Pantag●…uel, so that it is wonder y● (with Theodectus the Poet) he is not strooken blind, & by divine justice lose his ences as Theopompus did for many months: and not only in this habit breaketh forth Blasphemy in our age and nation; but amongst the jews and rabbins he hath been more impious: saying that God roareth three times a day like a lion, Alas, alas, alas, woe is me, that I have destroyed my people: and in their Peruchines and expositions upon the sixth chapter of Genesio they say that God hath reproved himself for creating five things; First, the Chaldeans; secondly, the Ismalites; thirtly, Original sin and concupiscence; four, Idolatry; fifthly, that he suffered the captivity of the children of Israel in Babylon. It was he that taught them in their Talmud to excommunicate God for taking R. Ehezers part against them: and incensed that cursed limb of their synagogue to say, That entering Paradise by subtlety, he deceived both God and the Devil. I dare not write further of those impieties I have read, not only in these reprobates, but also in the lives of many Christians in profession, Devils in deed, who led by this spirit, have like julian, Blastus, and Florinus, and many others, filled their times with impieties: Only let me persuade you by these examples to gather the loathsomeness of this sin, and fly it in all your speeches and conversation. Among the Grecian gods and Idolatrous Dracles, contempt had his punishment, as it appeared in Daphides. And Misoeve, for threatening the gods with war, was utterly subverted: Sena cherib for blaspeaming the true Immortal god, had eight hundredth thousand men defa●…ted in one night by the Angels: Antiochu●…, Nicanor, and Holophernes, the one was devoured with worms, the next had his tongue plucked out and cast unto the fowls; the third had his head cut off by a woman, and all for blaspheamie: Himinaeus, and Alexander, were possessed ●…y the Devil: Olympus the Arrian, was slain by lightning: Pheraecides was consumed with 〈◊〉: nay a young child (as Cir●…le reporteth) was fech●… away by the Devils, for blaspheming the name of God. Let all sorts consider on this, and govern that little member their tongue, lest justice that hath forborn long time, stri●…e home at last to their confusion. What malcontent is this that follows him; Looking suspitiouslie, as fearing to ●…ée apprehended; scattering Li●…els in Court, Westminster, and London? By his apparel he should be a Frenchman, but his language shows him to be English. Oh I know him now, it is Sedition the Trouble world; This Devil de●…ected for some notable villainy in his country, or after the lewd and prodigal expense of his living, flying under colour of Religion beyond the seas, is lately come over with seditious books, false intelligences, and defamatory Libels, to disgrace his Prince, detract her honourable c●…unsell, and seduce the common sort: This fellow in Paul's takes up all the malcontents, telling them wonders of the entertainment of good wi●…s in other countries, and calls them fools for living so long hear, where men of good wits are most neglected. In the country, he storms, and rails, against enclosures, telling the husbandmen that the pleasure of their Lords, eats away the fat from their fingers; and these racked rents (which in good sooth authority might wisely look into) are the utter ruin of the yeomanry of England: the conclusion of his talk always is insurrection, and commotion; for saith he the world will never be mended with the poor whilst these carm●…rants be hanged higher. This is he that saith that war is a good tree, and bringeth forth good fruit, namely store of good crowns: and it is a paradox of his, That it is better live a Rebel then die a beggar. If any mis●…ke his talk, and threaten to bring him in question, My friend (quoth he) I do but try the natures of men how they are inclined, that they may be looked into by the better sort, whose intelligencer I am. This is a pestilent ●…iend, and the more secret he lurketh, the more harm he worketh, the whole scope of his discourse is the cause of much inconvenience, for there, through on every side groweth hate, and of hate saith Machiavelli come divisions, and of divisions sects, and of sects ruin. Another method of Sedition is this, to innovate in religion, to detract the policy of the Clergy, to disgrace the reverend fathers & eyes of religion, our Bishops, objecting against them these corruptions, which as they never thought, so they never practised. Of this race was Martin Marprelat, who had he been attached with a writ of C●…pias Hangvillaine, he had not troubled the world, nor left such fraternities of his sect in England. D●…acos laws written in blood were fit for them, who only stir up seditions to spill innocent blood. Biesius in his book De Repub. (setting down the difference betwixt good and evil) saith, That such things as maintain us in evil, or change our goodness to wickedness, are rightly called evil; but such as maintain or increase our felicities are rightly termed good: this considered what shall we account these seditious libertines but wicked, who maintain the inferiors in evil thoughts toward their superiors, and alter the simplicity and good affection of the subject toward his Prince, to the subversion of themselves, and the hate both of their country, and ruin of their kingdom? Constantinus the Emperor (seeing the inconveniences that arise by these sort of men) in his Epistle to the Alexandrians, causeth them to be punished severely. And one of the hastners on of the destruction of jerusalem was the seditions and factions within 
〈◊〉. 4. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. 32.  the city: as josephus witnesseth. The nobility amongst the jews listening to whisperers, and detractors of their equals, would subscribe to no election or superiority, so that (in the time that Antiochus Epiphanes fought with P●…olomey for Syria) the whole country had like to be subverted, (as Nicephorus witnesseth.) 
〈◊〉 E●…cles. 〈◊〉. ●…. cap. 6.  Princes in authority, nobles, and counsels of Commonweals, Citizens and subjects in each country, beware of these seditions; for they deserve trust on neither fide. For how can a foreign king in reason trust those who are false to their country? or suppose them faithful, who (only serving for profit and maintenance with them) will more willing (upon assurance of life and livelihood) discover your practices to their natural Prince? And how can their lawful and rightful Prince trust them, who having once past the limits of honesty are in Tully's opinion past recovery?  
Having thus far brought you in knowledge of the fatal even my of societies, called Sedition, now look upon this other side a little, and mark what Devil marcheth there: For soothe it is War, in one hand bearing a brand to set cities on fire, in that other a sword bathed and imbrued with blood; This fiend soweth a spice of tyranny wheresoever he marcheth, having Fear, Clamour, Sorrow▪ Mourning, Crying, Groaning, continually attending his chariot; of whose effects Lucan most heroically singeth in his second book of civil wars, in these verses:  

Nobilitas cum plebe perit, luteque vagatur  
Ensis, & ●…nullo revocatum est pectore ferrum.  
Stat cruor in templis, multaque rubentia cord  
Lubrica saxamadent, nulli sua profuit aetas  
Non senis extremum pigint feruen●…ibus annis  
Praecipitusse diem, nec primo in limine vitio  
Infantis miseri nascentiam rumpere fat●…:  
Crimene quo parvi caede●… potuere mereri?  
Sed satis est vani posse mori.   

The nobles with the common sort are slain,  
Each where the conquering sword unsheathed smites▪  
And from no breast his fury doth contain:  
The temples stream with gore by bloody fights.  
The slippery stones are moist and crimson red,  
No age was spared, nor took the sword remorse,  
These troublous times, of old man's silver head;  
Ne left he late borne infants to enforce,  
How could young babes deserve this cruelty?  
But now 'tis well to have the power to die.   
This fiend is the bolster of Ambition, and serveth only the crowned sort to digest their mislikes & perturbations: & not only with his entrance, but also with his fear bringeth he calamity, for no sooner draweth he his forces into any place, but before any assault or violence be offered, the fields are forsaken, husbandry is given over, merchandise cease, & fear triumphs: the expectation of his intent, is the perturbation of those that expect him, and whosoever serves him, is bound to obey his necessities: the laws of justice are perverted by him, and vainglory that be got him is oftentimes the cause of his overthrow, This devil is the scourge of God, the son of wrath, the plague of nations, the p●…ison of peace, and Bartas thus learnedly describes him in his effects,  

La guerre vient apres, casse-loix, casse-meurs  
Raze-fortes, verse-sang, brufle-hostels, aime-pleurs,  
Desus ses pieds d'arrain croulle toute la terre, etc.   

Next marcheth war, breake-law, and custom-breaker,  
Race-fort, spil-bloud, burne-hostry, loving-teares.  
Under her brazen feet stoops all the earth,  
His mouth a flaming brand, his voice a thunder:  
Each finger of his hand a canon is,  
And each regard of his a flaming lightning flash.  
Disorder, fear, despair, and speedy flight,  
Do raged march before his mu●…thering host:  
As likewise, burning, pride, impiety,  
Rage, discord, saccage, and impunity,  
Horror, and spoil, ruin, and cruelty,  
Each where attends, where barbarous he walks,  
Moon, solitude, with fear, do still accost  
The bloody steps of his undaunted host.   
Wonderful are the mischiefs that this fiend hath raised in the world, in leaving countries desolate, cities despoiled, and flourishing Realms utterly wasted: many are the examples & woeful the histories that entreat hereof, & nature hath received the greatest wounds by this envy: let us therefore fly it with prudence. For than proud wretch y● desirest change for thy profit as thou supposest; know this, that war is blind in his cruel●…y, & respects not what thou wilt, but where thou art: all sorts perish by his sword, he regards not religion, affection, desert, all is one to him in intending execution; let us therefore love peace and pursue it, for as Ovid saith,  
Candi●…a par homines trux decit ira fera, 
Lib. 3. de art●…. 〈◊〉.   
Peace is for men, and wrath for felon beasts.  
Augustine speaking in commendation of peace saith, that 
 it is so good a thing that amongst all created things nothing is heard of, with more delight; nothing desired for, with greater affection, and nothing possessed with more profit. Christ knowing the commodities and perfection of this peace, not only in word but also in example, not only in life and death, but also after death, taught us to embrace it. In life he taught it 
〈◊〉 2.  us, for at his birth the Angel's song, Peace be to men on earth. 
〈◊〉. 10.  In life he taught his Disciples to preach it, saying, Into what house soever you come, say first of all, Peace be unto this house. He commended it in his death, when he suffered himself to be taken, whipped, crucified, and slain, that he might reduce us to Peace with God. He commended peace unto us after his death; For after his resurrection (and in his visiting the Apostles) his first salucation was, Peace be among you: who therefore is an enemy of peace, is an enemy of God, who lived, suffered, and arose from death to life, to establish and form our peace. Nihil est tam 〈◊〉 (saith Tully) quampax, etc. Nothing is so popular as peace, for not only they to whom nature hath given sense, but even the houses & sields seem to me to revive thereat. And to conclude, not only let all men ●…schew this fatal Devil of war, and entertain the sweet benefit of Civil peace in their societies, but let them get them the true peace also, which (as Leo saith) is not divided from God's will, but only delighted in those things which are of God: for when sensuality tesisteth not our will, & our will in no part contradicteth reason, then have we the clearness, s●…renitie, & peace of mind, and then is the kingdom of God.  
Next War followeth a froward fury called Vengeance: if you long to know him he hath these marks his face pale his eyes inflamed, his brows bend, his hand shaking, his 〈◊〉 yawing, his passion expressed with oaths, & satisfied with blood; he will not stand lawing to dis●…est his injuries, but a word and a blow with him; no man must a●…use him, no m●…n contreule him: he is generally blind in his own affairs, and 〈◊〉 in all his actions, his custom is either to purchase the gallows by murders, or to be beggared by the law: be not acquamted with him in any case, for he that feedeth on Revenge, respecteth not reason; Plato knowing the force of this infirmity, being displeased with his servant who had grievously offended him, would not punish him himself, but gave him to be corrected by his friend Tenocrates with these words; Chastise me this boy (saith he) for in that I am angry I cannot punish him: Seneca reporteth the same of Socrates, and Saint lerome of Architas Tarentinus, and all such like actions of memory are worthy to be registered. For (to accord with Philosophy and Poesy) Revenge is but an 〈◊〉 thing, an infirmity of the spirit, a default in judgement, whi●…h becomes not Thales or Chrysippus, (as Juvenal saith) but rather an intemporate and dissolute Thais: where 
〈◊〉 Sat●…r. 13.  contrariwise clemency, and remission, and forgiveness of injury, it is an act of piety; wherein Caesar (though otherwise an usurper) gloried, telling one (and swearing it by the immortal gods) that in no act of his he more justly deserved glory, or more perfectly delighted himself, then in pardoning those who had offended him, and in gratifieng those who had served him. To make short, whosoever Revengeth, is sure of God's vengeance, for the law of God especially interdicted and forbiddeth it, in these words, Seek not revenge; neither 
Levit. 19  remember thou the injuries which thy neighbours have done unto thee. The Philosophers likewise accorded herein, as appeareth by Socrates and P●…ato, who in his first of his Common weal saith thus, that Reterr●… inturiam, est infer, To render and do injury is all one.  
But leave we this fiend to the tyranny of his own thought, for here marcheth forward the spirit of Impatience now incarnate, a fleshly fiend I warrant him: This is he will beat his wise, lame his children, break his servants backs, upon every light occasion; he will not dine for anger if his napkin have a spot on it, nor pray if he have not that granted him which at the first he requireth: he will not stay to heart an answer whilst a man may excuse himself, nor endure any reading if it fit not his purpose, nor affect any learning that ●…eedes not his humour: he will bea●… his Physician if his purge work not presently; and kill his horse, if he gallop not when he commands him: he is like captain Cloux fool of Lions that would needs die of the sullens, because his master would entertain a new fool besides himself: this devil is an arrant swearer, a swift striker, a short liver, three good marks to know him by, and of all his imperfections this is not the least, that if he be detracted he stormeth, be it either justly or unjustly, not considering what an honour it was for Zerxes, Caesar, Domitian, Titus, trajan, and Tiberius, who being certified that a certain man had spoken ill of him, answered, That tongues are free in a city. For to hear a man's fault is wisdom, but to be flattered is mere misery. A certain Emperor confirming the laws of Theodosius, Arcadius, and of Homer, said thus: If any one not knowing the law of modesty, so far forth forget himself to speak ill of us, our will is, that he be not punished for the same, for if it proceed of lightness of spirit, and readiness of tongue, it is to be neglected: if it proceed of folly or choler, it is to be pitied: and if it proceed of injury, it is to be pardoned: A golden saying, and worthy an Emperor, which if you follow my friends, you have a sufficient spell about you, to conjure the spirit of Impatience from you. Thus have I briefly showed you the whelps of Wraths litter: now for a conclusion, let us a little canvas this cursed fiend Baalberith. To discourse therefore of this immoderate passion (proceeding from the sensetive appetite, as Aquine saith) it is the increase of the gall (according to the Physicians) but the decrease of all modesty, by the law of reason: for he that is affected with this short madness (according to Seneca) is angry with his quill if it deliver not ink; with his dice, if he play and lose, and then he bites them: his gesture is inconstant, he looks red in the gills like a Turkey cock, his eye lids are depressed, his lips tremble, his tongue stutters, and he is unquiet in all his body. Sometimes from words he breaketh into cries, from cries into slanders, from slanders into contumely, from contumelies into cursings, from cursing into blasphemies. Sometime like an ague it seizeth the whole body, & sometimes like a fre●…sie, perverteth the mind: sometime it lifteth by the hand to hurt another man, sometimes himself: sometimes sometimes he hears not, eats not, speaks not, but is his own plague. What shall I say? this Devil in all men darkeneth reason, & confoundeth memory: and as smoke drweth a man out of his house, so wrath erpelleth the holy-ghost from our hearts. Those that writ of Ire, dissuade and debar men from the use thereof for three causes: First, because it iniureth God; next, their neighbours; and lastly themselves. For from God it taketh the effect of his power; from our neighbour it taketh the affect of due benevolence; and from men's selves it taketh the aspect of reason and use of intelligence. For first of all, it behoveth God in respect of his power, judicially to revenge and punish sin, spiritually to inhabit the good, and liberally to bestow his benefits on them. But the Ireful man is contrarious to God in all these things: first, he taketh from God his revenge, because Ire is a disordinate appetite of revenge: and God saith, To me belongeth revenge, Et ipse retribuum, For God 
Rom. 13.  hath reserved two things unto himself, glory, & revenge; and the proud man robbeth him of the one, and the ireful man of the other: secondly, an Ireful man iniureth God, because he expelleth him from the rest of his habitation: In pace factus est locus eius, His place is made in peace: but according to the Proverbs, An Ireful man provoketh brawls, erga he displaceth God of that habitation wherein he would dwell, by corrupting his heart with contentions: thirdly, God is injuried, in that the peace he sent into the world, is by the ●…refull man disturbed. Secondly, Ire taketh from our neighbour the affect of due benevolened, for we are bound to defend him in substance, fame, and person: and contrariwise this Ire compelleth usto hurt him in raui●…ing his substance, impe●…ching his forne, and killing his person. 
Arist. lib 3. de animal.  Ariltoile (a great searches into nature) saith, that as soon as the be looseth her sting, she dieth: and so fareth it (if we morrally allude) with the Ireful and revenging man; for whilst ●…ther in deed or word he exerciseth his malice on his neighbour, hurting him in his substance, person, or fame, he first of all spiritually 
job. 5.  killeth himself, according to that of job, Virum stul●…●…terficit iracundia●…: Ire killeth the foolishmen▪ Thirdly, wrath drewneth & destroyeth in a man's own self three kind of goods: For first of all, it subverteth the honestly of corporal disposition: secondly, it hindereth reason: and thirdly, shorteneth life. That it destroyeth the honesty and comeliness of man's disposition, it appeareth, because how fair soever a man be, it deformeth his looks, it discomlours his face, it altereth his gesture, it transporteth his tongue, and every way disgraceth him. And therefore Seneca faith▪ Nothing more profiteth an Ireful man then to behold his own deformity: and therefore another Philosopher said, that it was requisite for a wrathful man to see his own face in a mirror, to the end, that by the reflection thereof, he might behold his unnatural alteration. It is said of Minerva, that being delighted in the music of a cornet, she once played by a transparent and crystal fountains side, wherein spying her cheeks mightily puffed and swollen with winding, she cast away her instrument, and repined the further use of it: As it happened to Minerva the goddess of wit, so fortuneth it often times to many wise men subject to indignation, who sometimes distracted with Ire, and perceiving in the clear fountain of their judgement, the undecency and error thereof, utterly disclaim●…: secondly wrath hindereth the power of reason, according to Cato's saying: 
Impedit ingenium ne possit cernere verum,  It hindereth the judgement and understanding, lest it should discern truth: and for that cause the Devil behaveth himself like a cunning fisherman, who purposing to catch and insuare the fish more cunningly, troubleth the waters, to the end, that blinding their sight, they may the sooner fall in his net. In like manner doth the Devil demean himself, who striving to draw men to sin, he stirreth perturbation, strife, and dissentious among them, to the end they may the sooner fall into sin, and be seduced by his malice. Aristotle in the first of his Topiques saith, that Ire never subverteth reason, but when the mind and soul is perverse and froward: and even as it is the craft of the 
1. 〈◊〉  Sophister (as the same Philosopher saith) to provoke his adversary to Ire, to the end he may hinder his judgement, so it is the pollicte of the Devil to blind our understanding with wrath, lest we would discern his villainy: thirdly, Ire shorteneth life, as may appear in beasts, which being naturally choleric, have but short time of continuance; as namely, in the dog, and that in Ecclesiastes it is approved, where it is said, Zelus & iracundia minuent dies, & ante tempus senectam adducent, Zeal and wrath shorten life, end hasten age. It is said of the Duyr (a stone gathered in India and Arabia) that it ●…ieth spirits, presenteth doleful visions, multiplieth strife, & causeth brawls: The like may be said of Wrath, for it banisheth all good thoughts from the heart, ●…lleth the imagination with untoward visions, and increaseth envy, wrong, and contention: and as the stone Sardius hindereth the properties thereof, so doth Patience mollify & pacify trouble: according to that of the Wise man, Responsio mollis frangit iram, A soft answer putteth down strife. Seneca in his third book de Ira faith, If it be a friend that offended, he did that he would not: if an enemy, he did as he ought: So howsoever displeasures come, if they be wisely construed, they are easily digested. Wrath by the Schoolmen likewise is compared to a burning fever, which as it hath two accidents (according to Constantine) continual heat, and great thirst; so a wrathful 
Lib. 7. crat. cap. de cause.  man upon every froward word in gesture, words, and looks, is drawn into a great heat, and afterward is seized with a great thirst of revenge. A wrathful man likewise is compared to a beast called Abbane, which being a creature of the bigness of a Hart, yet (against the custom of all other beasts) hath her 
Axist. 2. de Animal.  gall in her ear: so a wrathful man (although he be kindly spoken to) yet taketh he all things in bitterness: and according as be interpreteth words, so giveth he short and cross answers. Thus far have I drawn a line, to square the foundation against 
Gal. de cogn●…scendis curandisque animi affectibus. Ber. Don●…o incorp.  the assaults and battery of Baalberith. Now with Galen I will mortify some chief stones of the building, and leave the rest to your finishing: and thus saith he in a certain treatise of his, That from our tender youth we ought to tame this passion of choler, and not attend till our years be ripened; at which time having taken root, it is the harder to be weeded out: for if we yield this head strong fury one foot, it will take two, and by little: and little will in such sort creep and attain to the feiguurie of the heart, that by no means or medicine it will be vuseated therefrom. The heaven (said Galen) hath so much favoured me, that I had a just, good, and courteous father, & no ways oppressed with passion and choler; whose good precepts and instructions, I have ever retained: for at no time, in what choler soever he hath been, have I seen him transported so far, as to strike any man, but (which more is) he had always a custom to reprehend those, that beat and struck their subjects and servants. But if I were fortunate in a father (said he) I was less fortunate in a mother, for I had one the most choleric and troublesome woman living upon the earth, she was always at the staffs end with my father, to whom she was no less troublesome, then was erst Xantippe to her Socrates: she never ceased to rail against him, continually filling the house with tumult, yea, choler had such power in her from her youth, that when she entered into any discontents, she finng, stamped, struck, yea so far forgot herself, that she struck her chambermaids. The same author saith like wise, that the first time he began to detest that vice, was, that being a young lad he beheld a man seized with this passion, who was so far disguised by choler, that he seemed rather a monster then a man, for he had his countenance changed, his eyes staring, his hairs bristling on his head, his looks furious, and all the rest of his body trembling, and agitated with fury; he cried, he stamped, he threatened, he foamed at the mouth like a boar, and to conclude, he showed such strange, insolent, and prodigious countenauces, that he gave manifest evidence that this brutal passion, brings a man besides himself, and makes him like unto beasts. Thus far Galen, by whose counsel if we propose unto ourselves the image and picture of a distempered and wrathful man, no doubt but the obscene, filthy, and loathsome behaviour which he useth, will bring us in detestation of his vice, and determination to avoid and conquer such like perturbations and affections.   

The intemperate and unnatural Devils raised by Beelphogor, Prince of belly cheer.  
IN that time that Gera the Emperor had made his festival of three days long, and his messes were served in according to the order of an Alphabet; Beelphogor gorged with multitude of dishes, and dead drunk with variety of wines, at last fell fatally sick of an extreme surfeit. Sleep his Physician was sent for, but he could not digest it; Manna, Rhubarb, and the best easy & pure drugs were ministered, but they wrought nothing in his gorged stomach. His brother Devils loath to lose so kind a friend, and necessary member of the commonweal of confusion, sent to Persia for the high priest of Bel who was held a great Magician and a Physician. This holy father, faced like the North wind of a map, mounted on a horned. Devil instead of a Spanish Gen●…et, speedily posted to his court▪ and was atdast admitted to his presence, where after sight of his urine and feeling of his pulse▪ with a bitter sigh (as terrible as a Tarnado on the coast of Spain) he began in these words to tell his opinion: Palsgrave of the pipes of wine, Grand disposer of delicates, it is no receipt of the Hipocratists, nor potion of the Galtenists, can dissolve the trudities and surcharging hu●…rs of your stoi●…atke: but as among the Barbarians and Cannibuls the priests are physicians and never fail of their c●…re, so the patient think thei●… able, & the thing possible; so I, the priest in your rights & sacrifi●…s, (if so your great Bellyship have a good opinion of my experience) am both able, and 〈◊〉▪ rid you of your surset without pain or trouble Beelphogor. glad of this, poured ●… tun of Greek wine down his throat for his good counsel, and assuring him that he confidently trusted in his cunning, our cure-devill at last began his Incantation. Long had he not mubled in a great cane, which he had brought in his wide sleeve, and washed the patient's temples in a Fat ●…: unpurged Malmsey, but Beelphogor began to cast or discharge, (let it please chaste ears to let slip this unreverent word) and in stead of voiding corrupt fle●…me, Adust choler, and other indigested excrements, he sent forth (oh procreation incredible to be thought of) five fiends, dull winged like Bats, spirits of the elements next neighbouring the earth, whoin clouds of fogs and mists, having haunted Asia, Africa, and Europe: for the most part have by a Southern wind of late days been blown into England, and become incarnate after this manner following (yet reserving those names to themselves which their grandsire Satan gave them.) The first is D●…este of spirit, and he dwells in an English man late come out of Germany, who having been an apprentice to drunkenness since the years of his discretion, is lately arrived, to make a dearth of S●…ks in England. If you mark his gate in the streets, it is sausages and neat's tongues: he shawn●…es like a cow had broke her forelegs: you shall ever see him sweeting, and his laundress, I know, hath a good master of him, for the very pure grease of his handkerchief, is sufficient to find her candles for a winter time: his eyes are full of cathars, and had he not a vent by them to discharge his head, his brains long since had sunk in a ●…uagmire: he hath cheeks dropsy proof, and a nose, such a nose as never nose was greater: from the waist to the foot of equal proportion: his neck drowned in his head and shoulders, his body in his buttocks, and his buttocks in his calves: all pure beef of twenty pence a stone, a dog would not eat it. This Devil of a drunkard hath no felicity but in a tavern, and for every day if he make not a man drunk, he hath spent much idle tune: he hath all the terms of art set down by T. N. in his Supplication to the Devil, Primum ad fund●…m, secundum his medium, tertium v●… primum, sic debes bibere vinum. He hath a sausage always in his pocket to drive down drink, and in stead of the stories of the nine worthies, he hath painted in a book in their antiques all the faithful drunkards of his age: he th●… k●… himself with ●…uita, another with Ke●…h win●… an●…●…sters, another with herrings and pickled h●…rings: he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their names (and Epigrams to them) of the best maker of this age. Of all nations and citizens he can not abide a Roman: ask him why, Fie on them (quoth he) the slaves kill their wives for drunkenness. Draw him but into the common place of wine, he will weary the whole company (with one quart & a morsel more, and so God be at your sport M. Tatlton:) first he saith that it is vitis, quasi vita, a man were as good miss his life as wine: again, that (in Almain and France) wine is the most honourable present to strangers: he allegeth you these verses out of Ralblais (but with this breathing poing, One pottle more of that next the door Ned,)  

Furiena est de bon sens ne iovist,  
Quibeit been vin & ne s'en reiovist.   

Mad is the knave and his wits have the colic,  
That drinks good wine and is not frolic.   
After the company hath drunk carouse about, and sung Chorobent, and Gaude plurimum, forward goes he, By gets hundred thousand tun a devils, all Caesar's army had been lost without wine: and the only medicine for the phlegm is (in his knowledge) three cups of Charnico fasting: he hath the Proverb of the old Physicians (post crudum purum) a gallon of wine to an apple is pure symmetry and proportion in drinking: fill his cup again of Madera wine, and let him wipe his eyes after his fashion, you shall have stories too, as true as the voyage of Pantagruel. I was (will he say) sometime in a Tavern, and it was with some of my neighbours that it was (this drinks too flat john, fill better, saith he, and carousing in stead of a full point he prosecutes his matter,) and it chanced as we were a drinking I saw mine host carry two pitchers full of water into his wine seller, having two other carried after by his apprentice full of good wine (as I supposed:) now Sir, (suspecting same knavery) I thrust my head out of the window, and cried mainly with a full throat, Fire, fire, fire; By reason it was somewhat towards night (now a bit, & then a cup more) I was quickly heard, so that at the last, the Tavern was full of all sorts of people, some bringing water, (as the contrary to fire,) others oil, (good to quench lightning,) some ladders to climb the house top, some vinegar to lay on scalding: The people entering into the chamber where I was, and seeing neither fird, nor sinoake, fearfully ask me where the fire was? I also hoarse with crying, at last answered them that it was in the seller, and I was sure of it, and for proof thereof (quoth I) I saw the host very now carry down store of water. They hearing this, suddenly ran down into the seller, where they found the Taverner with his apprentice mingling wine and water together, all the company detesting his knavery, one cast his pail of water at his head, another his oil, another his vinegar, another broke a stick out of his lather, and all to bebeat him: the host soused in souse like a pickled herring, ran away to save himself, the people fell a drinking till they left him never a drop in his seller, and I (a pottle more of Charnico, Edward) without paying penny for my Wine, went away with the goblet, (and I drink to you good man Pouling) this last period is a pottle at least, and how say you by my taleteller? Will you have yet more? Take him from this his daily exercise, he is as dead as a door nail, he hath no more sense than a shoat in pickle: Get him to church, he sleeps out the sermon: persuade him to abstinence, tut saith he it engenders Cathars, & nourisheth the Megrim; examine him in his worldly affairs, talk of that to morrow: the only means to wake him is to tell him the Uintage is come home, for against that time he makes him a doublet a quarter wider in the waist then the first, because he will walk and drink easily. It would make a good wit drunk to dream●… of his qualities, I will therefore here leave him, and as I have painted him out to the eye, so will I convict his detestable course by reason. First maketh he that which was ordained to be the temple of the Holy-ghost a den of Devils, next drowneth he that spirit which was created for heavenly contemplations, in earthly and transitory pleasures then by his Gast imargia and Epicurism, he dulleth his conscience with an apoplery & nombnes, so that it hath no power to distinguish mortal sins, from heavenly & intellectual delights; lastly by detesting continency, he suffereth the plagues of excess, and looseth the benefits of abstinence, which maintain the soul in his harmony, and the body in health and temperature, and as Horace saith,  

— Quin corpus ●…nustum 
Satura. 2. lib. 2.   
Hesternis vitijs animum quoque pergravat una,  
Atque adfigit humi divinae particulam aurae.   

A body loaden with the night's excess,  
At once the mind with dullness doth oppress.  
Affixing to the earth by dull desire,  
The heavenbread soul that should to heaven aspire.   
Of all detestable sins drunkenness is most vildest, for it breedeth loathsomeness in those that most delight in it; It is a a luxurious thing as the wise man saith, and the immoderate 
Proverb. 20.  use of wine hurteth a man four kind of ways: first it is the cause of thraldom, secondly the confusion of honesty, thirdly, the complement of vice and vol●…ptuòusnesse, four▪ the sign of folly: The first is manifest in this, because the original root and occasion of disgrace was in wine, whereby Noah 
Gene. 6.  became the slave of drunkenness, and the scorn of his son Cam: That it is the confusion of honesty it appeareth, because whosoever is accustomed therein, he is banished the society of good men, and subject to mighty discredits; What is more filthy than a drunken man, saith Innocentius? who hath stench in his mouth, trembling in his body, folly in his tongue, and want of secrecy in his heart: his mind is alienated, his face is deformed, and no secret can be had where ●…brietie is sovereign. And Seneca saith, That the mind entangled by drunkenness, hath no power of itself; and if it be rightly considered of, it is but a voluntary madness. Alexander transported with this sin, slew Chtus his faithful friend at a banquet, and after he had recovered himself, he would have murdered and stabbed himself for sorrow. The Romans figuring out the image of Ebriety, painted it in this sort; First, they set down the image of a boy, and next they painted a horn in his hand, and on his head they set a crown of glass: A child they painted him, in sign that it maketh a man childish and past his sense or government: They ga●… him a horn in his hand, in token that he alwairs soundeth and publisheth secrets whatsoever, and they crowned him with glass, because the dronckard reporteth himself a glorious and rich man, where he is as poor as Irus: Paup●…rior Iro, as the Poet saith. Valerius in his ●…ixt Book and second Chapter reporteth this History: A certain innocent and guiltless woman, was condemned by Philip King of Macedon in his drunkenness, who confident and affuted of her own innocency, cried out, I appeal from Philip drunken, to Philip sober. The King ashamed at this reprehension, shaked of sleep, recovered his senses, and gave more diligent regard to the cause, and at last finding right on her side, reversed the judgement, and acquitted the woman. By which it appeareth, that the shaking off of drunkenness, is the establishing of reason, and the custom thereof the destruction of honesty: That it is the complement of voluptuousness and pleasure it appeareth likewise, for modesty restraineth many men from sin, and where it is taken away and subdued by wine, the pleasure that lies hidden in the heart, is discovered without shame. Whereupon Seneca saith, Plures pudere peccana●… qu●…m bou●… voluntate prohibiti sunt à peccato & scelere, Moore men are prohibited from offence and wickedness by the shame of sin, then by good intention and will; but where the mind is possessed with too much force of wine, whatsoever evil lurked in the heart, is discovered by the tongue. That Wine likewise is the experiment and sign of folly it is manifest, because if a man be inclined to any evil whatsoever, a trial and experience of the same must be made in his drunkenness, and therefore the Germans never consult before they drink, perhaps alluding and relying on that of Ecclesiastes, Vinum corda superb●…rum 
Eccles. c●…. 31.  arguit, Wine openeth and argueth the secrets of proud men: upon all which premises I infer, that drunkenness and all disordinate riot, is hurtful to all estates, for if it seize the poor man, he shall not be rich, if it deprive the rich man, his substance shall be consumed; if it distraught the young man, he will not be instructed; if it take hold on the old man, it makes him a fool: For this cause Origen upon Genesis speaking of Lot saith, Ebri et as peior fuit quam Sodoma, qui●… quem 
Orig. hom 5. ●…n Gen.  Sodoma nondecepit illa caepit. Drunkenness was worse than Sodom, for when Sodom could not deceive, he overtook: These considered, let this fiend be avoided, if not in regard that he defameth us in this world, yet in respect that he keeps and excludeth us out of heaven.  
The second fiend of this race is Immoderate and Disordinate joy, and he became incorporate in the body of a ●…easter, this fellow in person is comely, in apparel courtly, but in behaviour a very ape, and no man: his study is to coin bitter jests, or to show antic motions, or to sing bawdy sonnets and ballads: give him a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing and making of mouths: he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances about the house, leaps over tables, out-skips men's heads, trips up his companions heels, burns Sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a Lord of misrule in the country: feed him in his humour, you shall have his heart, in mere kindness he will hug you in his arms, kiss you on the cheek, and rapping out an horrible oath, cry God's Soul Tum, I love you, you know my poor heart, come to my chamber for a pipe of Tobacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more honour; In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a special mark of him at the table, he sits and makes faces: keep not this fellow company, for in juggling with him, your Wardrobes shall be wasted, your credits cracked▪ your crowns consumed, and time (the most precious riches of the world) utterly lost. Nemo sal: at sobrius, saith the Proverb, A wise man never danceth: fli●… therefore this Devil, except you long to be fools with him, and unfortunately end in your dancing (like Lewis Archbishop of Magdemburge) who in treading his lauo●…tos and corrant●…s with his mistress, in trying the horsetrick broke his neck: remember yourselves likewise of this verse in the old Poet,  
Post flores fructus post maxima gaudia luctus,  
Fruits follows flowers, and sorrow greatest joy.  
Beside consider what Seneca writeth of worldly joy, where he saith it is the messenger of future misery; Fly it therefore, for it is always seconded by some sorrow or mischief. Another son of this race is Multiplication of words, and he first incarnated himself in the body of an Intelligencer, this is a notable knavish fiend to entangle any man; for he never ceaseth to give occasion in his cups for men to overshoot themselves, he will of purpose cast out suspicious words of his Prince, to see how men are affected, & talk of forbidden books to get some man confess if he conceal any of them: I would you should well know he hath been a travailer, and can play the Nullifidian as well as any of Satan's succession: whittle him a little (like the King of France his Swisser when he had drunk up the bottle of Greek wine) he will tell you the secrets of all the Commonweals of Christendom, he is an inward man in the emperors estate, and dare assure you that he hath nothing of the Empire but certain sums of money which he receiveth annually of the imperial towns, and of certain Gentlemen that hold their lands immediately of the Empire; and if you draw him to computation, he saith it is about some 200 thousand Florins by year; As for that in Boheme and Mora●…a, and places appertaining to the said Realm, he gathereth no more in them then 700 thousand Florins annually: Touching Silesia, Lausatia and Hungary, he saith they hold all in fee of the Empire. He can assure you that Denmark, Sue●…ia, Hungary, and Boheme, are electives; and that in Wallachia the Turk ordaineth the governors, yet Christians necessarily, because all the nation follow the Greek church. Bring him into Poland, he is able to say thus much of that kingdom, that the King hath for revenue but six or seven hundredth thousand collars for the entertainment of his house, and that when he maketh war, it is upon the expense of the country, without the consent of whom he can otherwise do nothing. And if you inquire of his forces, he thinks the country may well bring 140 thousand furnished horse into the field upon occasion of service. If you fall in question of the Turk his knowledge is this that he hath always in priest for the war 130 thousand Timariste, (who are waged by lands which the Turk hath given them, to the end they should entertain so many horse at his command) he hath beside them 14 thousand janissaries, and 36 thousand Spays, continually waged by money: Besides all those that go into the war or have any place or dignity under him, are either Apostates, or the sons of Renegadoes; as for the Turks by race, they are always kept in servitude and poverty, either exercised in Merchandise or serving in the Temples. Touching his revenue he hath nine millions of gold, (besides the presents which his officers send him, and the lands of his own demesne,) besides he hath Daces or taxes of the jews and Christians every one paying him a Shikin a year. And touching his governors, he saith they are Basshawes, and that the continuance of their authorities is but from three years to three years. Bring the Pope in question, he can tell you this (for perhaps he hath known his benevolence) that he built the Seminary of the jesuits of an hospital, contrary to the will of the dead; and how he hath taken three hundredth crowns of pension lately from them, so that now they have but six hundredth to maintain themselves: he is seen in many other things likewise which I must not speak of, but beware of multiplying words with him, for though he butt not with his horns because he will not be thought a cuckold, he will give a shroud wound with his tongue, that may bring a man to his neck-verse: he hath continually a warrant in his pocket, and under colour of attaching Traitors, troubles and spoils many honest men. Bless yourselves from him Masters, for though he hath a smooth tongue, his heart is deceitful. Of his race was Sinon that betrayed Troy, and of his faction be all such most to be feared and fled from.  
Qui Curi●…s simulant & Bacchanalia viwnt,  
That seem grave men but are lascivious knaves.  
Wonderful it is to see his course, he is general and open in discourse, but under intent to deceive, he will play the good fellow but to make 〈◊〉 profit of any man, he will speak in serious matter, though he show himself a fool, and conclude upon any thing though it be without reason: & though the course of intelligence (according to Machiavelli) be necessary in an estate, and worthy the execution of a considerate and good man (for his country's sake) yet the Sparta being laid on his shoulders that hath no honesty, maketh that estate odious, which otherwise would be honest: Thus much in description of a disordinate babbler, now let us hear somewhat against the incontinency of language, and the unbounded babble of the tongue. He that keepeth his tongue (saith Solomon) keepeth his soul, and 
Proverb 13. Lac. 3.  he that is inconsiderate in his speech shall find mischief: he that hath not offended in his words is a wise and perfect man, and according to Cato it is the chiefest virtue to set a hatch before the door of our tongues, Solon, S●…onides, and Zenocrates, being 
.  demanded why they spoke so little, answered that they never repent themselves that they had held their peace, but contrariwise in speaking and returning answers. It was noted by Aeschilus' the Tragedian, that God in our bodies hath planted two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and the brain above the tongue, to gives us to understand, that we ought rather see, hear, and conceive, then speak: jeremy in his Lamentations written in verse; hath (contrary to the order of the Hebrew Alphabet put the Letter Pe, before Ghain, (as Rabbi Solomon saith) to advertise us to speak nothing which we have not heard, (for Pe in Hebrew signifieth the month, and Ghain signifieth the eyes.) It is written of the Philosopher Anacharsis, that he said that two members of the body ought carefully to be kept, namely the tongue, and the parts undecent to be named, for nearest (saith he) approach they to God that can moderate them both; and Horace saith, 
  

Sed tacitus pascisi posset coruus, haberet  
Plus dapis & rixae multo min●…, invidiaeque.   

If so the crow could feast him without prate,  
More meat he should receive, less brawl, and hate.   
Let therefore this fiend and fury of the tongue be banished from us, for as Barnard saith, Non est capillu●… de capit●…, ●…ec momentum de tempore, de quo rationem non reddemus: There is not a hair of our heads nor a moment of time, of which we shall not yield account: and as Augustine saith, Exigetur a nobis omne tempus impensum, qualiter fuerit expensum, We shall have an account exacted at our hands how we bestowed the time, which hath been granted us to live in. And as the Rabine saith, The eye of God seeth, and his ear heareth, and all our works are written in his book: let therefore loquacity be banished, and let Cato's words be considered, that 
Proximus ille deo est qui scit ratione tacere,  
The man is wise can wisely hold his peace.  For the vanity of words showeth the slightness of wit; & inconsideration, breaketh no ways out sooner than by the tongue; by it hates are increased, blasphemies published, and (being but the least member) it is the only key that openeth the doors of hell. By it we wrong our neighbour, break commandments, deprave Magistrates, accuse innocents, seduce Uirgines, corrupt young men, mock age: briefly, if it be not governed in man (I mean his tongue) it is able to kindle a greater fire (as the Philosopher saith) than the whole world shall be able to quench.  
Let this suffice for babbling, for here marcheth forth Scurrility, (as untoward a Devil as any of the rest) the first time he looked out of Italy into England, it was in the habit of a Zany: This is an only fellow for making faces, showing lascivious gestures, singing like the Great Organ pipe in Paul's, counterfeiting any deformity you can devise, and perfect in the most unchristian abominations of Priapism: he hath jests to set an edge on lust, and such bitter gibes, as might drive a Cato to impatience; if he see an old man march in the street, he returns him a nichil habet; by a light housewife he dare say, that she is as rotten as an openarse: he that longs to know more of him let him read Bouch●…ts Ser●…s, and if he find a leaf without a gross jest he may burn the Book I warrant him. And if he require further insight into the filthy nature of this fiend, in Artine in his mother N●…na, Rab●…ais in his Legend of ribaldry, and Bonaventure de Perriers in his Novels, he shall be sure to lose his time, and no doubt, corrupt his soul. I could amplify this title as largely as any, and point out with the finger many Epicures of this age, that are excellent in this abomination; but I fear me to corrupt in reporting corruptions, and to infect good & chaste ears, with that which many of this godless world earnestly affect. Pity it is that toward wits should be enchanted with such wickedness, or that great men's studies should entertain that, which Philosophers schools shamefully hist away. In a word, let the Apostles counsel be entertained amongst them, where he saith, Fornicatio autem & omnis immunditia, 
Ephes. 5.  aut avaritia, etc. Fornication, and all uncleanness or avarice, let it not so much as be named among you, as it becometh saints, or filthiness, or foolish talk, or scurrility, being to no purpose: but let men so season their behaviours and discourses, that Menander's words may be falsified in them, That the vanity of the tongue hath been the ruin of many men.  
The last Erinys of this line, is Slouenlin●…s & Vnclean●…es: this spirit at first became incorporate in the person of an Italian, who, banished Padua for buggery, traveleth here and there in England to meet with more of his fraternity: he is a mere enemy to the Sopemakers, for he washeth not a shirt in a twelvemonth, & at that time for frugality sake, he buys not another, but lies in bed till the first be washed: he never washes his hands and face, because he faith that Sol urit pur●…ora, The sun burneth and tanneth the purest: neither wears he apparel, except it come of benevolence; for (saith he) Bene venit, qu●…d gratis venit, It comes well, that comes of free cost. In wearing his apparel he is a Cynic, for brushing (saith he) weareth away the wool; beating drives the dust in a man's eyes, and the heavier the garment is, the better it wears: he is as free as the king in a bawdy house, and so his belly be full and lust satisfied, Cuc●…llus non facit monachum, A man of worth is not known by his good apparel: he shifts his lodging every month, partly for necessity sake, partly for his pleasure: and his whole delight is to have a well faced boy in his company: he is a great acquaintance of the Brokers, and will not stick to bring a man to a harlot: he hath a heavy look, a thread bare cloak, a long fore coloured hair, and his mouth is like a Barbary purse full of wrinkles; he is the secretary to the spittle whores, and a mortal enemy to all that disdain an Alehouse: he wild scold prettily, but a very boy may swinge him; but for lying, cogging, surfeiting, whoredom, blasphemy, scurrility, gluttony, and more than these, the Epicure is a continent man in comparison. Of all men let a scholar beware of this infecting spirit, for if a man of good parts be bewitched with this beastliness, no man will wax more deformed than he, especially let him fly dishonest and filthy women, that are able to infect nature by their society: otherwise I may say as Martial said to Oppian: 
Mart. lib. 6. Epigram. 42.   
Illotus meri●…ris Oppiane.  
Sir you shall die a filthy sloven.  
It resteth now (according to course) that I speak somewhat of the deformity of Beelphogor the father, since I have in part scored out the uncleanness of his children. Gluttony (as the Schoolmen writ) is (both according to the habitude and act) a disordinate delight in eating and drinking, a mortal enemy of the virtue of temperance; offending both in quantity, quality, time, and manner. It was first introduced from Asia into Rome, where (corruptions commonly being the swiftest in springing) it became from a servile thing, the delight of the sovereigns: so that Apicius (an abject cook that professed the art of cookery in the kitchen) was not ashamed afterward to step into the school, and declaim in praise of it, whom for his insatiable abuses and inventions, Pliny (and that rightly) called the Gulf of prodigality. To this sin Milo Crotoniates and Tagon (the belly-ged) were so addicted, that the one bare an Ox on his shoulders, and after denoured it; and the other (at the table of Autelian the Emperor) eat a Goat, a Hog, and drunk a Tierse of wine, and far more in boast of his intemperance. A●…boinus and Maximinus Emperors, yielding nothing in sensuality to this; for the one devoured at a supper an hundred Peaches, ten Pippins, five hundred figs, beside divers other things: the other, in one day eat forty pound of flesh, and drunk a whole vessel of nine gallons of wine, to digest it. And now a days our world rather superior then inferior to other ages, in these kind of infirmities, neglecteth nothing in sensuality: our banquets are sauced with surfeits, so that Beelphogor may (I fear me) claim as many followers and fautors in our age, as either he had in Persia, Rome, or Media: for our banquets exceed nature, and where our fathers were content with bread and water, which at first nourished man's life after the creation of the world: now neither the fruit of trees, nor the variety of corn, nor the roots of herbs, nor the fishes of 
Lib. de ●… 〈◊〉▪ con●…t.  the sea, nor the beast of the earth, nor the fowls of the air, can satisfy our intemperance: but (as Innocentius saith) paintings are sought for, spices are bought, fowls are nourished, & cooks hired, to please appetite: one stamps and strains, another infuseth and maketh confections; turning the substance into the accident, and nature into art. For which cause Seneca (deriding the variety of banquets) saith, una s●…lua pluribus Elephantibus sufficit, 
Epist. 8.  homo vero pascitur terra & mari. One wood sussiseth to nourish divers Elephants, but man feedeth both on sea and earth. And in his tenth book of his Declamations, he saith, Whatsoever bird flieth, whatsoever fish swimmeth, whatsoever beast runneth, is buried in our bodies: all which in the truth of things is both against nature and Art: for both Art and nature, forbiddeth that contraries should be mixed together: which not withstanding in our festivals are often done. But if we consider how hurtful it is to our bodies, and damnable for our souls, doubtless except we be blinded in heart, we shall quickly detest it. In many meats (saith Ecclesiastes) there is much infirmity; and (according to Seneca) we therefore die suddenly, because we live upon dead things. Why then should we delight 
Lib. 〈◊〉. 10. 〈◊〉. 8. cap. 6.  in that which causeth our detriment? Polycrates saith, that the intemperancy of meat subverteth manners, and preiudizeth man's health: and Hypocrates maintaineth this, that gross and fat bodies, grown beyond measure, except by letting blood, they be somewhat abated, become numb and insensible, and fall into most dangerous diseases. Chrysostome saith, that excess of meat consumeth and rotteth man's body by continual sickness, and at last bringeth cruel death. Galen (the interpreter of Hypocrates) saith, That they that are grossesed, can not be long time healthful: concluding, that those souls can not meditate or conceive celestial things, whose bodies are overgrown with blood, flesh, and fat. It is reported of Dionysius the tyrant, that being too much swallowed up by surfeit and drunkenness, he lost his eye sight; for there is nothing sooner dulleth the eye, than excess: because (as Portuminus saith) Edacitas cibos terit, sed oculos v●…rat, Gluttony spendeth meat, but devoureth the eyes. Macrobius in his Saturnals, proposeth a very pretty and disputable question; namely, whether uniform and simple meat, be better and easier of digestion, then divers and different? and to this a certain Philosopher answereth, that divers and different meat is the hardest of digestion for these causes: first it appeareth in beasts, which because they feed on a simple and pure nutriment, are most healthful; and if any of them be diseased, it is when by variety of medicine and man's folly, they are nourished against the course of their nature: secondly, because all simple meat is more easily digested, in sign whereof, every Physician recovereth and ministereth to his patient in one kind of food, that nature may more easily convert the simple meat into herself: thirdly, because as the variety of wine, hurteth more than one sort of wine in the same quantity, in like sort doth the variety of meat: four, because he that observeth one kind of simple diet, may more easily judge and guess at the cause of his infirmity (if at any time he feel himself distempered) and consequently can more easily avoid such kind of food: whereas if he should have used divers, he should utterly be ignorant, to which of many he should impute the cause of his sickness: fistly, because in the stomach, the nature of divers meats is very different, therefore (nature working uniformity for her own part) certain are sooner digested then other, (the rest remaining in the stomach being crude) and consequently that r●…ts which is afterwards to be digested: by which reasons it followeth, that these rich men using divers kind of dishes, do by that means shorten their own lives. But perhaps to particularise diseases will be held more forcible argumenes, I will therefore tell you what infirmities surfeit breedeth. First (as Avicen saith) it hindereth the brain, the liver, and the nerves, it causeth convulsions, sowndings, Epilepsies, the falling sickness, and the palsy: it engenders the lameness in the legs, the gout, the Sciatica, the Apoplexy, and a thousand defluxions, cathars, and crudities of the stomach, which proceed from nought else, but from the insatiable desire of drinking and eating. All philosophy will confess unto me, that the more a man stuffs and chargeth his stomach, the more he grieveth it; for first of all it is necessary that he surmount and exceed the nutriment and meat, and digest it also; and in the surmounting he must strive, and in striving he wearieth himself, and in wearying himself he waxeth feeble, and in waxing feeble he finally consumeth, and then his cook (I mean his stomach) unable to work or boil, it followeth of necessity that he must die. But leave we this to Physicians to decide, and like Christians let us learn to say with Seneca (though a Pagan) Maius sum, & ad maiora natus sum, quam ut fiam mancipium corporis mei, I am greater, and borne to greater things, then to become the bondslave of mine own body. Briefly, (since according to Augustine) Gluttony marcheth never 
Lib. 4. de b●…i. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉.  but accompanied with other vices: and (in his fourth book ad Sacras virgins) since Ebriety is the mother of all vice, the trouble of the head, the subversion of the sense, the tempest of the tongue, the storm of the body, the shipwreck of sanctity, and the soul; let us conquer this monster by our abstinence, living according to the examples of Paul, the first Hermit Hilarius, Macharius, and others; that that saying may be truly verified in us, that In carne esse, etc. To be in the flesh and not to live after the flesh, is rather the life of Angels than men. And thus far for Gluttony and Beelphogor, whom (I hope) I have so conjured, as he shall have little welcome to those that have any spark of piety: the vanguard and battle are already discoinsited, now Astaroth look to your rearward, for I assure myself to discomfit you.   

The lumpish and heavy fiends begotten by the Arch-devill Astaroth.  
INdustrious Labour, that hast thus long kept me from Idleness, guiding the sails of my conceit through the Seas of reason; now help to arrange my squadrons, to describe & confound him: lead me a path untracted by courser spirits, that I may bear down envy by desert, & puzzle detraction in his depraving knowledge. It is not unknown to men of reading, how Astaroth after he had received many sacrifices by the Israelites (as appeareth in the book of judges) and persuaded Solomon (the wisest of Kings) in his old and retired years to build him an Altar, was (by the prayers and persuasions of many Prophets) at last banished from the chosen nations: so that enforced to live in exile, he ranged up and down Media, Persia, and Arinenia, and at last spread his renown in Rome: whence banished by the busy affairs of Princes from their Courts, and from other places of Spain, France, and Italy; he at last retired himself to the Northern parts: Amongst whom finding contentions in the Clergy, and affectation of glory and arms in Prince and subject; he took his Idle wings and flew to the Southern and lately discovered land, where honoured by the Brasilians, that greatly delighted in Idleness, he hath yet a sufficient signory and dominion to maintain himself: Yet willing that the Civil world (which he deadly hateth) should be infected with his humour, he hath lately upon an Indian Negro be gotten five sons at one clap: and (the sooner to practise his malice) hath procured their abortion and untimely birth, to the end they might with the more speed be sent into Europe. The first is, Desperation, the second Pusillanimity, the third Dullness of the spirit, the fourth Negligence, the ●…sto Sleepiness. These five well instructed and better provided for, he shipped in a Brasile man for Civil, but the ship being unfortunately taken by an English man, they were brought into England, and no sooner set foot on land, but ran away from their Captain. Now sir, having all languages perfectly, they follow strange directions, not tying their spirits to one determinate body, but flying here and there, and infecting all places, and exempting themselves from no persons: yet as subtle as they are, I have sounded them out; and that I know them, I will resolve you if you please to read their descriptions. The eldest of them Desperation (a peculiar vice proceeding from Idleness, but not the which is the sin against the Holy-ghost,) is such a sin, that if he meet which a rich man, he makes him distrust himself for getting up on his horse without help; he causeth him forbear the reading of books in suspect of his understanding, he drives him to be dainty of his meats, telling him his stomach is squeasie; he feedeth him in his dreams with terrible visions, he drives him to mistrust himself in whatsoever he pretendeth, enforcing such a diffidence in himself, that both he maketh him an enemy to his body, and the ruin of his own soul. He persuades the Merchant not to traffic, because it is given him in his nativity to have loss by sea; and not to lend, lest he never receive again. He makes the Scholar loath to read books if they be long, careless to hear lectures, because he understands not at the first. He causeth a lover to lie sighing in his bed, and rather die sick of the sullens than tell his grief. The poor man he teacheth to curse his birth, and desperately to give over labour, where otherwise if he would show diligence, he might be relieved. He tells a Lady it is best keeping her bed, when the Physicians assure her the disease is cured with exercise: and let him but light on a séeble heart, he will die first before he take a medicine. If a friend entreateth his friend to speak in his behalf, out steps he, and counsels him to forbear the demand, for fear he be denied: and if a husband man have a good crop, in the midst of his harvest he teacheth him this tetch of unthankfulness, I would I were a beast, so I were rid of this trouble. How say you by this spirit of darkness? Is he not cunning and subtle? Are not his treasons coloured and plausible? Is not his persuasion conformable to weak nature? If you say nay, you err; if you confess it, then learn thus to prevent him: First, remember that Volenti nihil difficile, A good will winneth all things: and to condemn our own ability in good things, is to suspect Gods merciful providence in furtherance of justice and virtue: observe that lesson in Seneca, 
Qui nihil potest sperare, desperet nihil.  
Who nothing hopes, let him despair in nought.  Let the rich know this, that he that feareth a little frost of infirmity, shall have a great snow fall upon him: let him consider, that to help nature, winneth ease; and that to endeavour willingly, is half the mean to attain happily: let him remember this, that God openeth the understanding, if we offer the endeavour; and commanding us temperance, killeth the fear of ercesse; and being all in all things, is defective in nothing that is virtuous. Let the superstitious Merchant trust the creator, and he shall not superstitiously be tied to creatures; and secure his neighbour's necessities with good intent, and God shall ●…eward him. Let the scholar know, that the harder he is to conceive, the surer he is to retain: and as no way is too long to him that seeketh a place desired; so no book can be too tedious that le●…s any path to knowledge. Let the poor labour to prevent need, and he may be assured to find no cause to suspect necessities. Let the Lady fast in continence, she shall not languish in excess: and let all men build on God, and desperation shall not hurt them. Let us draw nearer this fiend, and conjure him more cunningly: he hath more motives in man, & let us therefore examine them. Saith he, fasting killeth worldly comfort, and therefore it is to be fled. Answer him boldly, that it is transitory, and momentary which delighteth, but eternal that mortifieth. If he say, thy sins are great; tell him, God's mercy is greater: If he induce desperation by thy often fall, oppose Christ's words against his suspect, Non dico ●…bi usque septies, sed 
Mat. 18.  usque septuagies septies, I say not to thee, seven times, but seventy times seven times. And remember that of Leo, Misericordiae Domini nec mensuras possum●…s povere, ●…c tempora definire, We can neither measure the mercies of God, nor define the time: and (to give a sword utterly to confound this fury) use hope, which (though every ways thou be assaulted) will maintain thy constancy; And conclude thus (when troubles or doubts distraught thee,) with Ovid,  
Magna tamen spes est in bonitate dei,  
Yet in God's goodness is our hope increased.  
The second fury (now adays ranging up and down our country, and infecting frail and inconstant hearts) is Pusailanimitie and Worldly fear, who (wheresoever he lurketh,) is known by these tokens; he maketh the eye inconstant, the colour come and go, the heart beat, the thought suspicious, he kills weak desire, by suspicious fears; and as a little water (as Aristotle saith) is sooner corrupted then a great deal; so with this abastardizing spirit, the weaker minds are sooner attainted than the great. This fiend maketh easy things impossible by mistrust, and so transporteth affections that they can claim no title in their own natures. This is a temporal and foolish kind of fear, rising either from the love of transitory things, or the supposed difficulties of life. The ordinary seat of this humour is in the sensuality of the heart: With this weakness of spirit was Anthony the Roman seized, who seeing the increases of Caesar, when his means of resist were sufficient, retired himself to his Timoneum, leaving both Cleopatra and his business, as destitute of all hope, before the assurance of his danger: mortal is this sin if it be accompanied with the consent of the will, the Apostle writing to the Colossians saith, Fathers provoke not your children unto indignation, lest they become weak in mind, and lose their courage, (according to the Syriac:) noting hereby, that this infirmity accompanieth for the most part those that are of the weakest ability and judgement. This dejection of spirit likewise is an effeminate and womanish disease, expressed often by foolish housewives in those words, Good God what shall I do? How shall I dress my house? Make ready my children? Do this, and do that? being things easy and rediculons to be forced. Against this infirmity, and inve noming spirit of fear, I will apply that of Doctor Gerson, where he saith, That there are divers that think they offend by despair, which offend not: For this proceedeth from a certain Pusillanunitie of their hearts, or of emotive or feeling of despair, which they esteem to be a consent, but it is not. For whatsoever feeling they may have, (yea, although it press so far as that they think themselves almost attainted with this temptation) they lose not charity, as long as they are sorrowful, and the reason is contrary and consenteth not thereto: So that the spirit of a man is overcome by the enemy, except there be consent of the will: For the seuce maketh not the sin, but the consent. You that are or may happen to be entangled in these briers, and assailed by this temptation, make your general recourse to God, saying with the Apostle, Omnia possum in co qui me 〈◊〉: I can do all things by the grace of him that comforteth me. To conclude, let no man hide his Talon whatsoever, which God hath bestowed on him to traffic and profit his neighbour, lest he incur this vice of Pusillanimity; but let us all cleave unto Magnanimity his opposite, considering this of Tully's, Qui magno animo est & forti; omnia quae cadore in hominem possunt desp●…cit, & pro nihiloputas. He that hath a noble and resolute mind, despiseth all miisfortunes that are incident to man, holding them of no reckoning. And that of Lucan's,  

— Fortissimus ille est,  
Qui promptus metuenda pati si cominus instent.   

Most strong is he when dangers are at hand,  
That lives prepared their fury to withstand.   
Dullness of spirit (the next borne to Pusillanimity) hath great conformity with him, for Pusillanimity hinders the beginning and enterprise of a good work, and this fiend letteth the performance of it when it is begun, & maketh a man give over in the midst of his business. This monster hath three heads wheresoever he seizeth one body: the first is Idleness, (slack to perform any thing, and a poison that confoundeth many men;) the second is Slowness, that deferreth to follow virtue, or conversion from sin: the third is Tepidity, which causeth a man do his work coldly, without courage or fervour in his business. This fiend haunteth most commonly among those sort of men, that are too much subject to their flesh, and being bondslaves to their sensual lusts, have their reasons obscured, and their desires dulled: they hate Music, despise Arts, accounting their excellence to be in ignorance; if they speak, it is so abruptly and loathsomely, as it moveth not; and if they be silent, they rather look like some blind statues of marble, then living and moving men. If they writ, it is Inuita Minerva, so coldly and without conceit, as they (like the untunable ring of Bells) rather fill the ears with jarring and noise, than delight or reason. Many & too many are possessed with this spirit, and this spirit is incarnate in them. For they only like beasts respect present things, having no care of that which is to come: you shall see a sloven sleeping in his bed, that for want of rising loseth the commodity of preferment: another so cold in his enterprises, that he is unfortunate in all business. Whatsoever cometh from such men, seemeth to be enforced, (so is the eye of their judgements blinded in perceiving that which best behoveth them.) I knew one of this faction in Oxford, who (after he had studied seven years, & often beaten over the Predicables,) at last thanked God that he had a little sight in Genus: This was as slovenly a lout as ever I looked upon, who often found in his heart to lose his breakfast for want of fetching: come into his study, you should still see him sleeping over his book. In all exercises he was always the last: & in all disputations so cold, & duncicall, that neither any man understood him, nor he, himself. With this spirit was those two Serving men seized, the first of which being asked by his master sitting at dinner, what he had brought from the Sermon? In faith Sir, (said he) your hat and cloak, and nothing else. The second examined in the like manner, answered thus: Faith I marked not the beginning, I was asleep in the midst, and came away before the end. This is a dangerous fiend wheresoever he gets footing, causing men to make shipwreck of their time, which being short and swift once past is irrecoverable, & which lost (saith Bias and Theophrastus) a great treasure is lost. This made certain discontented (as Timon and Apermantus) wax 
Plutarch  careless of body and soul, fretting themselves at the world's ingratitude, and giving over all diligent endeavour, to serve the fury of their unbridled minds. The stories registered by learned men are full of men thus affected, and who so considereth the most policies and Common weals of Christians, shall I fear me (and let me write it with grief) find more opportunity lost by coldness, slackness, and delay, than consideration can remedy with many years heart break and study. By delay and protraction, enemies wax strong, and linger hate giveth prevention a diligenter eye; and though Affricanus admitteth not officious diligence, yet am I so contrary to him, that I dare boldly avow, that the most stratagems that are done happily, are done suddenly: yet desire I not to be misconstrued in this, for before action, I admit counsel, and secrecy: But matters once intended, I hold all time lost till they be executed; for delay giveth the enemy opportunity of intelligence, weakeneth the heart of the soldier, generally more fervent in the first exploits; and afflicteth the heart of the governor till the issue be discovered. To conclude, as waters without stirring & moving, wax corrupt; so without diligence all affairs are either lost or weakened.  
But leave we this (yet not as impertinent to this place, but as such a thing if well looked into, deserves a whole volume) and let us now have an eye to the next ftend of this breed, which Satan first named Negligence. Negligence incarnate in our world, hath generally a running head, he is full of rancour, and replenished with idleness; Instability, and Mutability, continually attend upon him; so that he beginneth many things, but endeth nothing: he will execute no office by reason of trouble, keep no house lest he take too much care for his family: put him in trust with a message, he forgets it: and commit your affairs to his handling, all comes to nought: reading good books troubles his wits, but for Palmerine, that's a pretty story, and why, because it teacheth him no wit: This fiend lets his books be covered with dust for want of looking too, his garments fall in pieces for want of amending, his hair overgrow his shoulders, for want of barbing, his face covered with dirt for want of washing, and he walks generally untrust, not for exercise sake, but for idleness: he is still thinking and devising on things, but he executeth nothing, and (like a lunatic person) runs into strange imaginations, and only speaks them without effecting them: he defers in all that he doth, and thereby loseth the most of his thrift; and in neglecting to solicit his friends, he loseth & smothereth his fortunes; so that Occasion may rightly say and cry to him out of Ausonius, 
〈◊〉 lib. 〈◊〉.   

Tu quoque dum recitas dum perc●…ntando moraris,  
Elap same dices me quoque de manibus.   

And whilst thou askest and ask dost delay,  
Thou wilt confesle that I am slipped away.   
Isodore (in his book of etymologies, writing of this sin) saith 
.  that the negligent man is called negligens, quasi nec eligens; that is, negligence, because he hath no choice in any thing: for who so is subject to this infirmity, is void of all election, by reason that he wanteth consideration: for a considerate man in foreseeing preventeth, which prevention is the death of negligence. This fiend my friends must be earnestly avoided, for by him Anthony dallying in delights with Cleopatra, gave Caesar opportunity in many victories; And Hannibal lying idle at Cannas, corrupted 
Diogen. Lacr●…us.  both his soldiers, and strengthened his enemies. It is a Cynics life not a Christians, which is overpast in negligence, and nothing worse becometh a man, then to be careless and improvident: For as fruits unlooked unto, are for want of turning soon rotten, so minds for lack of virtuous meditation, become corrupt and polluted: memory without use decai●…th, and the body without exercise becometh loathsome, negligence therefore is fitly compared to a sleep, for as in it man resteth and is deprived of all that he hath, so in the sleep of negligence and sin, all virtues are despoiled: which is very prettily figured in the sleep of jonas, of whom it is said, That he fled from the face of our Lord in Tharsis, and entering into a ship fell into a profound sleep, and there arose a great wind, and the tempest increased, and the ship was in danger; Finally, jonas was cast into the sea, where falling into the belly of a Whale, he lost his hairs of his head, ●…ud became bald. On which place the gloss saith, That the great and heavy sleep of the Prophet signifieth a man loaden and drowsied in the sleep of error, for whom, it sufficeth not to fly from our Lord, but furthermore (overwhelmed with a certain carelessness) he is ignorant of God's wrath and securely sleepeth, and at last is cast into the Whale's belly, which is the bosom of hell. For as the Whale dwelleth in the deepest floods, and profoundest seas; so Hell is said to be in great obscurity, and in the depth of the earth. Whereupon in the Gospel it is said, To be in the heart of the earth: For as the heart is in the midst of a creature, so is Hell in the midst of the earth. At the last he is made bald and spoiled of his hair, that is, deprived of his virtues and graces. And where it is said, jonas sleeping the winds arose; it implieth thus much, that a man sleeping in idleness, negligence, and carelessness, the winds and storms of temptations suddenly and vehemently arise: For then are we most suddenly surprised with error, when we are most entangled with improvidence and negligence. And as Caesar in his Senate house was assailed when he least suspected, by his conspirators, so men in their securities are soon subdued by the assaults of wickedness; which conspireth the death of the soul. The Poets feign thus of the sirens which haunt about Sicily (and of late days have appeared in the Sea in India) That with their sweet tunes they draw the Mariners asleep, that whilst they sleep sound, they may sink their ship. The like may be said of the Devil, who lulleth us in the lap of inconsiderate security, and singeth us asleep with the notes of Negligence, till he sink the ship of our soul, which is our body, in the bottomless seas of confusion, which is Hell.  
Let us fly from Negligence therefore, as being the first cause of the downfall both of men and Angels, let us be forward in curing our corrupt natures, let us not resemble the foolish buzzard in Horace, who because he could not see as clear as Linx, would not anoint his eyes with Collirium; but let us seek out of celestial heritage's, not negligently (as those of the tribe of D●…n, sent out to search the promise land,) but diligently, like those that brought back the fat thereof, that we may be worthy the heritage. Fi●… how far have I wandered when Sleepiness the last Devil of this breed hath overtook me to interat of his nature: Sat down drowsy fiend, I will dispatch thee presently.  
Somnolence and Sleepiness lurketh continually with unfortunate persons, and the excess thereof showeth the spirit hath small working: he is a fiend that (wheresoever he inhabiteth) dulleth the senses, maketh the head heavy, the eyes swollen, the blood hot, corrupt, and excessive, the face puffed, the members unlusty, the stomach irksome, the feet feeble: Look in a morning when you see a fellow stretching himself at his window, yawing, and starting, there be assured this Devil hath some working: This is a shroud spirit wheresoever he gets seizure, for he liveth by the expense of life, and he that entertains him, hath rheums, cathars, defluxions, repletions, and oppilations, as ordinarily about him, as every substance hath his shadow. This fiend and his brother Negligence are of one nature, and where Duloesle of spirit, and these meet, God, nature, law, counsel, profit, soul, body, and all are neglected.  
This considered, let this Devil incarnate (too ordinary a guest in this country) be banished from our society, least being corrupted by his example, we fall into the same sin wherewith he is entangled: for as Plato saith, Dormieus est nullius praetis, A sleepy man is of no worth; and in the seventh of his laws, he thus writeth, Somnus multus, nec animis, nec corporibus▪ nec rebus preclare gerendis, aptus est à natura, Excessive sleep is neither good for the soul or body, or available in any virtuous or laudable action: For he that sleepeth, is no more accounted of then he that is dead: and truly I am of this opinion, that he took this custom and law from Homer, and no other, who saith, That sleep is the brother of death: The same allusion also used Diogenes, who when he had slept said, Frater fratem invisit, The brother hath visited his brother, that is, sleep hath visited death: the same likewise intimateth Ovid in this verse,  
Stulte quid est somnus gelidaenisi mortis imago?  
Fool what is sleep but image of chill death?  
The like consideration likewise had the Doctors of Israel: so that one amongst them (called Rabi-Dosa the son of Harkinas) writeth, The morning's sleep, and the evenings drunkenness, shorten a man's life: corporal sleep likewise oftentimes engendereth the sleep of the soul, which spiritual sleep is far more dangerous than the other, and therefore Cato dissuadeth youth from it.  

— Somno ne deditus esto,  
Nam diuturna quies vitijs alimenta ministrat.   

Be not addict to sleep, for daily rest  
Yields food to vice and nurseth sin in feast.   
And that divine Petrarch most wittily singeth,  

La gola il somno, & Potiose piume,  
Hanno dol mundo ●…gni virtusbandita.   

Incontinence, dull sleep, and idle bed,  
All virtue from the world have banished.   
So that human nature is wandered from his scope, and overcome by evil custom. Thexe is another Poet (as I remember it is Ovid) that saith it is sufficient for children to sleep seven hours: and another contemplative father saith, that to repose five hours, is the life of saints; to sleep six, is the life of men; but to slug seven, is the life of beasts: sayst thou thus O father? Oh that thou couldst have lived to have seen this age, wherein if thy words sound truth, thou shouldest find (whatsoever way thou seekest) as many reasonable beasts as there be motes in the Sun, thinking eight, ten, twelve hours, but a Method of Moderation. These are they that sleep in their beds of ivory, and play the 
Ames 6.  the wantoness on their soft couches: Pauca verba, this is a subject for a Preacher. Let me therefore draw to my conclusion, and finish both my book, and the discovery of further wretchedness, in she wing the detestable effects of Astaroth, adding certain dissuasions to the same.  
Damascene (defining this sin) saith, That it is a spiritual 
Damas. lib. 2. Ortho. ca 14.  heaviness, which depresseth and weigheth down the soul so much, that it taketh no delight or taste in executing goodness. Tully he defines it to be a weariness and tediousness of the spirit, by which a man groweth in loathing of that good he hath begun. So that by them it is to be gathered that Sloth is a languishing infirmity of the spirit, a dullness of the mind, a diffidence of God's help, a distrust of our own strength. The sins it maketh those subject too that are entangled therewith, are forgetfulness of God, carelessness of our estates, obscurity of our souls, loathsomeness of our bodies, and irrecuperable loss of time. This sin (by the Fathers) is compared to the disease (called by the Physicians) Paralisis, with which, whosoever is seized, his members are dissolved▪ his vital powers and natural faculties are weakened, and he himself is wholly not himself, neither being able to move, nor master his own limbs. So fareth it by a slothful man, who looseth by this sickness the light of his mind, the use of his understanding, the good affections that are the props and pillars of the same, and becometh but the image of that which in effect he is not: and as this infirmity is healed by ver●… hot Pultesies and inward potions, so except the heat of charity, and the remembrance of hell fire, be applied to the wounds and dullness hereof it remaineth wholly incurable. Besides, this sin is against nature, for as the bird to fly, the fish to swim, the flower to grow, the beast to feed, so man was ordained to labour; which if he do not, he wrongs nature, wrongs his body, and which worse is, dams hissoule. N●…li esse piger, (saith Augustine) 
Serm. 2. de tim. lib. 6.  Be not slow, labour earnestly and God will give thee eternal life. Helinandus in his Chronicies reporteth, that when a certain Bishop (called Philippus Beluacensis) was for a night lodged in their Monastery, he slept so long, that he was neither present at God's service, neither ashamed to let the sun (it being then Winter time) to behold him sleeping, which when Helinandus perceived, and saw no man ready or bold enough to tell him of his fault, he confidently stepped near unto his bed, and in brief spoke thus unto him, Sir the Sparrows have long since forsaken their nests to salute God, and will a Bishop y●…t lie sleeping in his chamber? Consider (father) what the Psalmist saith, Mine eyes have prevented the day; and that of Ambrose, It is uncomely for a Christian that the beam of the Sun should behold him idle; and let this persuade you to cast off your slugginesse: The Bishop (roused with these words all in rage) said unto him, go wretch as thou art and louse thyself, I disdain thy counsels: to whom the Monk answered in a pleasant manner, Take heed father lest your worms kill you, for mine are already slain: he meant the worm of conscience, which shall at last bite them, who are given over to their sensualities. I have read also a pretty story in an old dunce called Petrus de Lapiaria, which because of the pithy allusion I will not stick to tell you. A certain King (saith he) having three sons, and being well kept in years, resolved to make his Testament, certifying his children, that which of them was most slothful, on him he would bestow his kingdom; to whom the first said, to me belongs the kingdom, for I am so sluggish, that as I sit by the fire I rather suffer my shins to be burnt, then to draw them from the flame: the second he said, the crown in all reason belongs to me, since I am far more slothful than thou art, for having a rope about my neck, and being ready to be hanged, and a sword in my hand, suficient to cut the same, yet am I so slothful, that I will not stretch out my hand to save my life: after him the third stepped up, and in these words m●…e his claim, nay saith he I alone ought to reign, for I excel you all in flothfulnesse, For lying continually on my back, water stilleth upon mine eyes, yet I for sloth sake forsake not my bed, neither turn to the right nor to the left hand: and on this son the King bestowed his Crown and kingdom. To yield this a Moral interpretation, these three sons are three sorts of idle persons; The first that cares not for fire, signifieth him, that being in the company of evil and luxurious men, will not forsake them: The second, (knowing himself hanged in the snaro of the Devil, as the covetous man) yet having and knowing the sword of Prayer sufficient to cut the rope, neverlesse he will not use it: The third (that will neither turn his eye to the right or to the left hand) signifieth him that neither considereth the pains of Hell, nor the rewards of Heaven, So that neither for fear of punishment, nor hope of reward, he will rise again from sin: On him the Devil his father (who as job saith, is the King ever the children of pride) bestoweth the kingdom of Hell, where no order but continual horror inhabiteth. And truly to the jowl and slothful person Hell doth most justly appertain, because having eyes to see his infirmity he blindeth them; a mind to understand his remedy, he disdaineth it; and times made for labour, yet refuseth it: but as Solomon saith, Omnis piger in egestate erit, The slothful man shall live in poverty, and Hell justly shall be his inheritage that negligently forbeareth to labour for heaven. Oh thou slothful man if this persuade thee not, look further; the male stork scenteth the adulteries of the female, except she wash herself, doth not God then both see and will punish thy sin except thou mend thyself? The Lion smelleth the filthiness of his adulteress, and will not he think you look into the offences of his creatures, yet assuredly he that seeth all things beholdeth thy wickedness, and except thou repent thee, will do justice on thy negligence.  
Having already heard the deformities of this monster, now at the last let us consider the ren edies against him. First, let us intentively ponder and weigh how much our Saviour hath laboured and travailed for the salvation of mankind: It is said that he passed the nights in prayer, after whose example if we desire to be his, we must (with the holy Martyrs of the Primitive Church) mortify our earthly members, and follow him in the like exercise: secondly, (in that this sin of Idleness hindereth both soul and body, and by that means is the occasion of many mischiefs, as well corporal as spiritual.) It hath been as well detested both in holy scriptures, as in fathers of the Primitive Church, as appeareth by johannes Clymachus, where he saith, Idleness is a dissolution of the spirit, an abject fear in all good exercises, an hatred and grief of any godly profession. He saith likewise that worldly men are happy, he speaketh till of God, accounting him cruel, and without humanity; he maketh a man astonished in heart, and weak in prayer; more hard than iron in the service of God, & both slothful and rebellious to travel with his hands, or to do obedience. Behold the right effects of devilish Astaroth: consider likewise what fruits spring from this cursed fiend. Thirdly, one of the best means to resist the craft of this fiend, is to travel and to be always doing somewhat, to the end we be not surprised suddenly, as Saint Jerome counseleth. To this purpose, the ancient monks of Egypt, had always these words in their mouths▪ That he 
Cass lib. 10. cap. 23.  which occupieth himself in any good exercise, is not tempted by the Devil; but he that doth nothing, but liveth Idly, is tormented and possessed with divers. And if the Heavens, the Sun, the Moon, and other planets, the birds, beasts, and fishes. are in continual motion, and without ceasing apply those offices for which they were created; what ought man to do, who is created for travel, and whose soul is defined by the Philosopher to be a perpetual motion? Let the Idle go 
〈◊〉. ●…b. de an●…mal. Proverb. 6.  to school to the Ant (as saith Solomon) and learn of her to behave himself: and let him take heed that he prove not that unfruitful tree, which must be cast into eternal fire, and that barren figtrée which Christ cursed. Let him always remember the Idleness is the nurse of all evils, & that it is & hath been the overthrow of many millions of souls. Let him consider that by labour we obtain reward; by negligence, lose ourselves. It is reported of Cyrus the King of the Persians, that being willing to enkindle the hearts of the common sort to war against the Medes, 
Ba●…. S●…x. lib. ●…stra. a 41.  he used this policy and stratagem: He led his army to a certain wood, where, for the whole day, he occupied the people in cutting down the wood, and in continual toil in lopping the trees. But the next day, he caused very sumptuous feasts to be prepared, & commanded his host to feast, sport, and make holy day with gladness; and going to every company in the midst of their sports, he asked them which of those two days best liked them: who answered, that the second was more pleasant than the first. To whom he replied in this sort: As by yesterdays labour you came together and were assembled to this days banquet, so can you not be happy and blessed, till first of all you overcome the Medes. So (in alluding to this after a moral meaning) we can not attain to blessedness, except we overcome in this world the Medes, which are the devils, by virtuous actions; neither can we be admitted to the banquet, except by labour in this life time. Agamemnon, Ulysses, and Hercules, the one besieged and razed Troy; the other, subdued and overcame Polyphemus; the third achieved twelve incredible labours for glories sake: Let not us therefore refuse labour for heavens sake. The Angels are not idle, but sing praises; the celestial bodies (as I say) are not Idle, but observe their motions; all airy, earthly, and watery creatures, are in continual exercise: air is continually tossed by the wind; water continually ebbs and flows. If therefore all creatures detest Sloth, and embrace Labour, to give man example; let us forsake loathsome Idleness, for many foretold and these set down by Ovid:  

Add quod ingenium longa rubigine laesum  
Torpet, & est multo quam fuit ante minus:  
Fertilis assi●…uo si non removetur aratr●…  
Nil nisi cum spinis gramen habebit ager,  
Tempore qui l●…ngo steterit malecurrit, & inter  
Carceribas missus ultimus ibit equus:  
Vertitur in teneram Cariem rimisque dehiscet,  
Siquae aiusolitis cymba vacabit aquis.   
Which coarsely and hastily I have thus translated,  

The wit long hurt because not used more,  
Grows dull, and far less toward than before.  
Except the plough prepare the field for come,  
In time it is oregrowen with grass or thorn.  
Who long hath rested can not run apace:  
The fettered horse is hindmost in the race.  
The boat consumes and rives in every rim,  
If on long beaten seas he cease to swim.   
As therefore all things ware worse for want of exercise & use, and study refineth both Arts and all manner knowledge whatsoever, let us detest Astaroth, flee his breed, tie ourselves to exercises both of mind and body, use the practice of Themistocles, occupy our heads when we walk solitary, and so dispose of all our actions, that the Enemy of all virtue find us not Idle, who thinketh that fort easily won, where the watchman sleepeth; & that mind quickly overcome, that entertaineth Idleness. Let us follow Paul, who wrought with his hands, lest he should be troublesome to his brethren. Let exercise never forsake us, either of mind or of body: for the Devil (as Jerome saith) is like a thief, who finding a horse idle in the fields, gets upon the back of him, where contrary of those that labour, he can catch no holdfast. Idleness (saith Bernard) Est matter nugarum, noverca virtutum, Is the mother of toys, and the stepdame of virtue: for it casteth the strong man headlong into offence, and choking virtue, nourisheth pride, and squareth out the path to hell. If the castle be unwalled, the Enemy enters; if the earth be unmanured, it bringeth forth thorns; if the vine be neglected, it groweth fruitless: So if our bodies and mind●… be unexercised, they are the sooner seduced and distracted.   

The conclusion of this book to the courteous Reader.  
THus far with regard to profit, & desire to please, I have drawn my discourse and employed my readings: what my pain hath been, you may recompense with your acceptance. For as to the traveler the hope of rest maketh his journey seem light; so to the studious, the expectation of profit and good respect, lesseneth the tediousness of labour, and long watchings. It fareth now with me as with shipwrecked sailors that esyie their port, and weary pilgrims that are in sight of jerusalem; for my present joy drowneth my passed Travel, and after I have finished my journey, I hang up my offerings at the shrine of your courtesies: If you accept them, it satisfieth my labour, and showeth your thankfulness. I am not of Caius lucilius opinion, That no man should read my writings; for I had rather he misinterpreted then thought negligent. Accept my good intent (I pray you) and it shall encourage my endeavour; for a Father saith, The giving of thanks, is an augmentation of desert. The desire is tedious that hath no end, and the labour loathsome that is misconstrued. You buy that cheap, which cost me dear; and read that with pleasure, which I have written with travel: Only if you pay me with the seed of acceptance, you make me forward toward another harvest: and in giving me thanks, you shall lose nothing. For (as Tully saith) he that giveth it hath it, and he that hath it, in that that he hath, restoreth it. You have the advantage of my goods, they are already in your hands: if you pay me that you own me, I may hap trust you with a greater sum of Science. Farewell, and wish me no worse, than I am careful to increase thy knowledge.   
FINIS.