¶ A brief declaration of the great/ and innumerable miseries/ & wretchednesses used in courts rial, made by a letter, which master Alayn Charatre wrote to his brother, which desired to come dwell in the court, for to advise, & counsel him not to enter into it, lest he after repent, newly augmented, amplified, & inrytched, By Francis Segar.  
1549  
He that doth covet the courtly life to know  
If it will please him, to take a little pain  
To read this treatise, which here doth follow  
Wherein it is described, briefly, and plain.   

¶ F.S. to the reader.  

Here hast thou expressed before thy eyse  
The misery and wretchedness of the life curial  
And how that by fortune some daily do rise.  
And contrary wise by he again do fall,   

Trust not to fortune which always is variable  
For some she doth exalt & some she bringeth low  
●he is never true, constant and sta●le  
But as tides use their times, to ebb & to flow   

Covetousness causeth mischief to rise  
Desire of dignity with pompous ambition  
Which the wise man, doth alway despise  
And is content, with his vocation   

When froward fortune, with frowning face  
At your enhancing, taketh grudge or envy  
In short time, she will you displace  
And bring you to shame ruin and misery   

Ill you that are called, unto any high place  
Be true unto your, anointed King  
And call unto God, to give you the grace  
So to continue, to your lives ending,   
AMEN.   

court, that they that be simple, be dispraised, the virtuous envy, & the proud arrogauntes, in mortal peril. And if thou be placed under the other courchiers, thou shalt envy at their power, if thou be in mean estate, in the which thou hast not suffisance, thou shalt labour & strive for to mount & rise higher, & if thou mayst come to the high secrets which be strongly to doubt, fear, & dread, in the doubtous courteyns of the most high princes, them shalt thou be most infortunate, for so much as yn s●i●est to be most fortunate & happy, so much more shalt thou be in great danger & peril to fall, like to him that is mounted into the most his place, for to them, whom fortune the variable hath most highly lift up, and inhaunsed, resteth no more, but for to fall fro so high, down, because she oweth to them, nothing but shame, ruin, and destruction if that thou hast taken of her all that thou mightst, and that she would give, than art thou debtor of thyself, to the end that she render & yield the infortunate, and unhappy, whom she had before enhanced. And that she mock him of his mischief whom she had made blind of vain glory of his enhancing for the great winds that blow in high courts, be of such nature, and condition, that they only that be highest enhanced, be after their dispoyntment/ as a spectacle of envy, detraction or of hate, unto all people, and find themself, subjects, till they be shamed and put down among the people, and that they that before siewed to them and flattered them report of them more greater blames and divisions, than the other, for the multitude of people dispraise them always that fortune hath most altered, & thrown down, and also is envious at them