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 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
Jri^w^Mm 
 
 aMr^L.^ 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY 
 
 OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 WITH OTHER 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, 
 
 OF ROSEHAUGH, 
 
 '• ADVOCATE TO KING CHARLES II. AND KING JAMES VII. 
 
 They weary themselves to commit iniquity. Jer. ix. 5. 
 
 Though God did not know, nor men would not punish Vice, yet would 
 I not commit it, so mean a thing is Vice. Seneca; 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 T. Hamilton, Paternoster-Row, B. J. Holdsworth, 
 
 St. Paul's Churchyard, and J. Nisbet, Castle-street, Oxford-street ; 
 
 David Brown, 6, South St. Andre w's-street, W. Oliphant, South Bridge, 
 
 James Robertson, Parliament-square, Edinburgh; and 
 
 Jackson & Orr, 144, Trongate, Glasgow. 
 
 1821. 
 

 © 
 
 CHAPMAN, PRINTER, GLASGOW. 
 
TO THE 
 
 NOBILITY AND GENTRY. 
 
 My Lords and Gentlemen, 
 
 HAVING lighted this, though the smallest and dimmest 
 of virtue's torches, at honour's purest flame ; I thought it 
 unsuitable to place it under the bushel of a private protec- 
 tion ; but rather to fix it upon such a conspicuous elevation 
 as your exalted names ; that virtue might launch out from 
 thence its glorious beams more radiantly; and the better 
 direct those who intend to be led by it. Narrower souls than 
 yours have not room enough to lodge such vast thoughts, as 
 virtue and honour should inspire : and that which raised you 
 to that height which deserves this compliment from virtue, 
 does deserve that ye should not, when ye have attained to 
 that height, neglect its address, though sent you by the 
 meanest of its and your servants. 
 
 Ye may (My Lords and Gentlemen) make yourselves il- 
 lustrious by your virtue ; and which is yet noble (because 
 more extensive) ye may illustrate virtue by your greatness ; 
 and as the impressa of a great prince makes gold more cur- 
 rent, though not more pure ; so your patrociny and example 
 may render virtue more fashionable and useful, than now it 
 is. Undervalued virtue makes then its application to vou, 
 
vi TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. 
 
 as to those whom, or whose predecessors it hath obliged ; and 
 persecuted virtue deserves your patronage, as rewarded vir- 
 tue is worthy of your imitation. And seeing it did raise 
 your families, and offers still to raise monuments for your 
 memory ; ye do in that assistance but pay your debt, and 
 buy fame from succeeding ages. And as what is engraven 
 upon growing trees does enlarge itself as the tree rises ; so 
 virtue will be serious to advance you, knowing that it will 
 receive extension accordingly as ye are promoted. Virtue 
 is nothing else, but the exercise of these principles, which 
 respect the universal good of others ; and therefore nature 
 out of kindness to its own productions, and mankind in fa- 
 vour to their own interests, have ennobled and adored such 
 as were strict observers of those. The only secure and noble 
 way then to be admired and honoured, is to be virtuous ; 
 this will make you, as it did Augustus, the ornament of your 
 age ; and as it did Titus Vespasian, the delight of mankind. 
 This is (though to my regret) the way to be nobly singular^ 
 and truly great. For men follow you, when ye are vicious, 
 in compliment to their own depraved humours ; but when 
 they shall assimilate themselves to you hi your virtues, they 
 will show truly their dependance ; and that they follow you, 
 and not their own inclinations. In vice ye but follow the 
 mode of others ; but in re-entering virtue into the bon-grace 
 of the world, ye will be leaders : by this your lives will be- 
 come patterns, and your sentences laws to posterity ; who 
 shall inquire into your actions, not only that they may ad- 
 mire, but (which is more) that they may imitate you in them. 
 I intend not by this discourse (My Lords and Gentlemen) 
 that all virtues should shrink into the narrowness of a cell, 
 or philosopher's gown : no, no ; public virtues are in their 
 extension, as much preferable to private, as the one place is 
 more august than the other ; of which to give you but one 
 instance (for the principle is too well founded to need more) ; 
 there is more virtue in relieving the oppressed, than in ab- 
 
TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. vii 
 
 staining from oppression ; for that comprehends this, and 
 adds to it the nobleness of courage, and the humanity of 
 compassion. The one is the employment of philosophers, 
 but the other of that omnipotent God, whom these philoso- 
 phers with trembling adore : in the one we vanquish, but in 
 the other we only fly, temptations. Virtue has employment 
 for you, great souls, as well as for retired contemplators ; 
 and though justice, temperance, and those virtues wherein 
 none share with you, be more intrinsically nobler than the 
 achieving the greatest victories, wherein fate, soldiers and 
 accidents, challenge an interest ; yet virtue loves to bestow 
 laurels as well as bays ; and hath its heroes, as well as philo- 
 sophers. Rouse up then your native courage, and let it 
 overcome all things, except your clemency ; and fear noth- 
 ing but to stain your innocence ; undervalue your ancestors 
 no otherwise, than by thinking their actions too small a pat- 
 tern for your designs ; and assist your Prince, till he make 
 the world (which is washed by the sea on all quarters) that 
 isle which should acknowledge his sceptre. Your time makes 
 the richest part of the public's treasure ; and every hour ye 
 mispend of that, is sacrilegious theft committed against your 
 country. Throw not then so much time away (though some 
 be allowable) in hunting and hawking, which are not the 
 noblest exercises, seeing they favour always the strongest, 
 and do incline men (though surdly) to oppression and cruel- 
 ty ; (for which reason, I believe, Nimrod, the first tyrant, is 
 in Scripture observed to have been a mighty hunter;) and 
 with Lucullus, that glorious Roman, think it the noblest 
 hunting to pursue malefactors by justice in peace, and irre- 
 claimable enemies by armies in war. Raise siege from before 
 these coy ladies, (I speak not of the nobler sort, for to court 
 such will oblige you to learn wit, liberality, patience and 
 courage,) who do heighten their obstinacy, of design to make 
 you lengthen your pursuits, and lay it down before these 
 strong cities, which are by no forced metaphor called the 
 
viii TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. 
 
 Mistress of the World ; level their proud walls, when they 
 refuse your just commands, with the ground whereon they 
 stand, and leave it as a doubt to your posterity, when they 
 see their ruins, to judge whether your fury, or the thunder, 
 has lighted there. But, if ye will justify your compliments 
 to deserving beauties, employ your courage, as well as affec- 
 tion, in their service ; (for till then ye serve them up but by 
 halves.) And as Caesar at his parting, told Cleopatra, Think 
 yourselves unworthy of them, till ye have raised your own 
 value by such exploits as courage has made great, and virtue 
 has made generous. Court them, as he did her, with no 
 other serenades than the pleasant noise of your victories ; 
 and after ye have returned, covered not with perfumes or 
 tissue, but with deserved and blossoming laurels ; then that 
 same virtuous courage, which hath forced a passage through 
 walls and ramparts, (piercing where shot of cannon lan- 
 guished, or gave back,) will find an entry into the hardest 
 heart ; which, if it yield not to those gallant importunities 
 of fate and fame, it is certainly more unworthy of your pains, 
 than ye of its choice. But forget not amidst all your tro- 
 phies, rather to chastise pride, than to be proud of any your 
 plumpest successes; (which become cheats, not victories, 
 when men are vain of them ;) for by so doing you shall be- 
 come vassals to it. Whilst ye toil to enslave others to you, 
 endeavour rather to deserve, than to court, fame : for in the 
 one case, ye will make it your trumpet ; whereas in the 
 other, it will become your imperious mistress, and ye will 
 thus oblige it to follow you ; whereas otherwise you may 
 weary yourselves in following it. The noblest kind of vanity 
 is to do good, not to please others, or to expect a reward 
 from them ; and fame is nothing else, but to do so of de- 
 sign to gratify your own gallant inclinations, judging that 
 the having done what is good and great, is the noblest re- 
 ward of both ; and scattering, like the sun, equal light, when 
 men look, or look not upon it. The noblest kind of detrac- 
 
TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. ix 
 
 fcion, is to lessen those who rival your virtue, not by obscur- 
 ing their light, as the dull earth eclipses the moon ; but by 
 outshining it, as the sun renders all these other stars incon- 
 spicuous, which shine, but appear not at the same time with 
 it ; raise your spirits, by these heroic exploits, to so generous 
 a pitch, that ye need not think heaven itself too high for 
 you ; and as if all things here below were too unworthy a 
 reward for that courage, to which all those things do at last 
 stoop ; attempt heaven, (if ye will be truly courageous) which 
 the Scripture tells us is taken by violence, and the violent take it 
 by force. And when virtue hath made you too great for this 
 lower world, the acclamations and plaudits of such as consi- 
 der the heroicness and justice of your actions, shall be driven 
 upwards with such zeal and ardour, that they shall (as it 
 were) rent the heavens, to clear an entry for you there? 
 where, when ye are mounted, though Caesar or Augustus, 
 Alexander or Antoninus, were adorning the skies, trans- 
 formed into stars, as their adorers vainly imagined, yet we 
 may with pity look down upon them, as spangles, which at 
 best do but embroider the outside of that canopy whereupon 
 ye are to trample. Ye shall there have pleasure, to see our 
 blessed Saviour intercede for such as were virtuous, and wel- 
 come such as come there under that winning character ; and 
 shall from these lofty seats see such terrestrial souls, as by 
 their love to the earth, were united and transformed into it, 
 burn in those flames, which took fire first from the heat of 
 their lusts here ; which though it be an insupportable pun- 
 ishment, yet yields in horror to those checks they shall re- 
 ceive from their conscience, for having undervalued, or op- 
 pressed, that virtue which I here recommend. 
 
THE 
 
 AUTHOR'S DESIGN AND APOLOGY. 
 
 THOUGH I can by no other calculation than that of my 
 sins, be found to be old ; yet in that small parcel of time 
 which I have already transacted, I have by my own practice 
 been so criminal, and by my example adopted so many of 
 other men's sins into the number of my own, that though I 
 should spend the residue of my allowance without one error, 
 (which is equally impossible and desirable,) yet that negative 
 goodness being a duty in itself, could expiate my foregoing 
 sins no more, than the not contracting new debts can be 
 accounted a payment of the old. The consideration of 
 which prevailed with me to endeavour to reclaim others 
 from their vices by discourses of this nature; that in their 
 proselyted practice I might be virtuous, as I have been vi- 
 cious in the practice of such as have followed my example : 
 and that I might, in the time they should employ well, re- 
 deem what I myself had so misspent. In order to which, I 
 did resolve to address myself to the Nobility and Gentry, as to 
 those whose reason was best illuminated ; and by prevailing 
 with whom, the world (who imitates them, as they depend 
 upon them) may be most compendiously gained to the pro- 
 fession of philosophy ; and to such as have most leisure to 
 reflect upon what is offered, and fewest temptations to ab- 
 
THE AUTHOR'S DESIGN AND APOLOGY, xi 
 
 atract them from obeying their own persuasions. And as 
 physicians do judge their medicaments will be most success- 
 ful, when they rather second than force nature ; so I resolved 
 to use the assistance of their own inclinations, in my dis- 
 courses to them ; laying aside an enemy, and gaining thus 
 a friend, by one and the same task. Wherefore finding that 
 most of them were either taken by an itch for honour or a 
 love to ease, I have fitted their humours with two discourses; 
 in the one whereof, I endeavour to prove, That nothing is so 
 mean as Vice ; and in the next I shall prove, That there is no- 
 thing so easy as to be Virtuous. I had, I confess, some thoughts 
 of this discourse, when I first undertook the defence of Soli- 
 tude ,- but I thought it fit to acquaint myself with writing, 
 by writing to private persons, before I attempted to write to 
 such as were of a more elevated condition : and that it was 
 fit to invite all men first to solitude ; which I prefer as the 
 securest harbour of virtue. But if some would pursue a pub- 
 lic life, as the more noble, I thought it fit to demonstrate to 
 them, that there is nothing truly noble, but what is sincerely 
 virtuous. I doubt not but some will, out of mistake, (I hope 
 few will, out of malice,) think, that the writing upon such 
 foreign subjects, binds this double guilt upon me, That I 
 desert my own employment, and do invade what belongs to 
 those of another profession. But if we number the hours 
 that are spent in gaming, drinking, or bodily exercises, (at 
 none of which I am dexterous); if we consider what time is 
 spent in journeys, and in attending the tides and returns of 
 affairs, we will find many more vacant interludes, than are 
 sufficient for writing ten sheets of paper in two years space ; 
 especially upon a subject which requires no reading, and 
 wherein no man can write happily, but he who writes his 
 own thoughts. "With which, pardon me, to think him a 
 sober wit, who cannot fill one sheet in three hours ; by which 
 calculation, there need go only thirty select hours to ten 
 sheets : and his life is most usuriously employed, who cannot 
 
xii THE AUTHOR'S DESIGN AND APOLOGY. 
 
 spare so many out of two years to his divertisements ; espe- 
 cially, where the materials are such daily observations as are 
 thrust upon me, and all others, by our living in the world ; 
 and are so orthodox and undeniable, that an ordinary dress 
 cannot but make them acceptable. And so few (I may say, 
 none) have written upon the subject, that I am not put to 
 forge somewhat that may be new. But whatever others 
 judge of this, or me, I find that it is a part of my employ- 
 ment, as a man and Christian, to plead for virtue against 
 vice. And really, as a barrister, few subjects will employ 
 more my invention, or better more my unlaboured elo- 
 quence, than this can do. And I find, that both by writing 
 and speaking Moral Philosophy, I may contract a kindness 
 for virtue ; seeing such as repeat a lie, with almost any fre- 
 quency, do at least really believe it. Neither is there any 
 thing more natural, than to have much kindness for either 
 those persons, or sciences, wherewith we are daily conver- 
 sant : and by this profession and debate, I am obliged (though 
 I fear that I satisfy not that obligation) by a new and strong 
 tie to be virtuous, lest I else be inconsequential to my own 
 principles, and so be reputed a fool, either in not following 
 what I commend, or in commending so much, what by my 
 practice I declare is not worth the being followed. And 
 therefore if I cannot pleasure others, (which is my great aim, 
 and will yield me great satisfaction,) I will at least profit 
 myself: which, because it is more independent, is therefore 
 more noble ; and so will suit best with my subject, though 
 the other would suit better with my desires. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
 The intrinsic merit of the following Essays will 
 apologize for their republication. They are now 
 become extremely scarce, and are only to be found 
 in the Collection of the Author's Works, in two 
 large folio volumes. 
 
 Should they meet that favourable reception to 
 which they are so justly entitled, the Editor intends 
 to republish a uniform edition of the Authors 
 Moral Essays, accompanied by a short Biographi- 
 cal Memoir. 
 
Contents. 
 
 Page 
 Moral Gallantry, a Discourse, &c 1 
 
 Moral Paradox 77 
 
 Consolation against Calumnies .,133 
 
 Paraphrase on the CIV. Psalm — ~~» ~~ 155 
 

MORAL GALLANTRY 
 
 A DISCOURSE, ENDEAVOURING TO PROVE, THAT 
 POINT OF HONOUR OBLIGES MEN TO BE VIR- 
 TUOUS ! AND THAT THERE IS NOTHING SO 
 MEAN AS VICE, OR SO UNWORTHY OF A GEN- 
 TLEMAN. 
 
 JdY how much the more the world grows older, 
 by so much (like such as wax old) its light grows 
 dimmer; and in this twilight of its declining age, 
 it too frequently mistakes the colours of good and 
 evil; and not infrequently believes that to be the 
 body, which is but its shadow. But amongst all 
 its errors, those which concern Honour, are the 
 most (because conspicuous, therefore) dangerous; 
 every fault being here an original sin, and be- 
 coming, because of the authority of the offender, 
 a law, rather than an example. Some conceive 
 
2 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 themselves obliged in honour, to endeavour to 
 be second to none; and therefore, to overturn 
 all who are their superiors : others to think every 
 thing just, whereby they may repay (though to 
 the ruin of public justice) the favours done to 
 their private persons, or fortunes. Some imagine, 
 that they are in honour bound to live at the rate, 
 and maintain the grandeur of their predecessors, 
 though at the expense of their starving creditors; 
 (obedient to nature in nothing oftimes, but in 
 this fantastic keeping of their ranks ;) and there 
 want not many who judge it derogatory to theirs, 
 to acknowledge these errors of which they stand 
 convinced. Young gallants likewise look upon 
 virtue, as that which confines too narrowly their 
 inclinations; judging every thing mean, which 
 falls short of all the length, to which power or 
 fancy can stretch itself; and as a genteel wit 
 hath handsomely expressed it, they believe that, 
 
 Honour is nothing but an itch of blood; 
 A great desire to be extravagantly good. 
 
 And thus whilst every man mistakes his fancy 
 for his honour, they make honour to be like the 
 wind; (from which at that rate it doth little dif- 
 fer ;) than which nothing sounds higher, and yet 
 nothing is less understood. To vindicate honour 
 from these aspersions, and reclaim persons other- 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 3 
 
 wise noble from these errors, I have undertaken 
 this discourse: the nobleness of whose subject 
 deserves, that it had been illuminated by the 
 victorious hand of mighty Ccesar; and to have 
 been writ by a quill plucked from the wing of 
 Fame. But I hope, the readers will consider, 
 that seeing I am able to say so much upon it, 
 that more sublime wits would be able to say 
 much more. And as in refining of metals, the 
 first workmen require usually least skill; so I 
 hope, that after 1 have digged up, with rather 
 pains than art, the first ore, it will hereafter be 
 refined by some happier hand. 
 
 I have in great esteem those honours which 
 are derived from ancestors ; (though that be, to 
 be great by our mother's labours, rather than 
 our own,) and to those which princes bestow; 
 (though that be but to be gallant in livery,) and 
 I believe that we may justly interpret Nebuch- 
 adnezzar's image (whereof the head is said to 
 have been of gold, the breast silver, and the 
 belly brass, the legs iron, and the feet clay) to 
 be a hieroglyphic of this lower world, wherein 
 nature hath impressed the several ranks of man- 
 kind with gradual advantages suitable to their 
 respective employments ; the meaner sort falling 
 like dregs to the bottom, whilst the more refined 
 spirits do like the cream rise above ; these like 
 
4 .MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 sparkles flying upward, whilst the others do like 
 the contemned ashes lie neglected upon the level. 
 And seeing the wise Former of the world did 
 design by its fabric, the manifestation of his 
 glory; it is most reasonable to conclude, that 
 He would adorn such as are most conspicuous 
 in it, with such charms and accomplishments, as 
 might most vigorously ravish the beholders into 
 the admiration of that glorious essence they re- 
 present. The Almighty being hereby so kind 
 to such whom He hath deprived of the pleasure 
 of commanding others, as to give them the plea- 
 sure of being commanded by such as they need 
 not be ashamed to obey; and so just to those 
 whom He had burdened with that command, as 
 to fit them for it by resembling endowments : 
 and as by the heroicness of these who represent 
 him, He magnifies his own wisdom in that 
 choice ; so by their public-spiritedness, he ma- 
 nifests his love to these who are to be governed. 
 Thus, as amongst the spheres, the higher still 
 roll with the greatest purity ; and as in natural 
 bodies, the head is as well the highest as the 
 noblest part of that pretty fabric, (from being 
 vain whereof nothing could let us, but that as 
 the apostle says, It is given us, and it is not our 
 own workmanship;) so amongst men (each there- 
 of is a little world, or rather a noble draught of 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 5 
 
 the greater) the highest are ordinarily the more 
 sublime; for such as attain by election to that 
 height, must be presumed best to deserve it; 
 such as force a passage to it, could not do so 
 without abilities far raised above the ordinary 
 allowance : and such as by their birth are ac- 
 counted noble, have ordinarily (like water) their 
 blood so much the more purified, by how much 
 the farther it has run from its first fountain. An- 
 tiquity is an abridged eternity; and that being 
 one of God's attributes, these do oft resemble 
 him most in his other attributes, who can pre- 
 tend with greatest justice to this : and as in na- 
 tural bodies, duration doth argue fineness and 
 strength of constitution, so we cannot but ac- 
 knowledge, that those families have been most 
 worthy, who have worn out the longest track of 
 time, without committing any such enormous 
 crime, or being guilty of either such rashness or 
 infrugality, as moth away these their lineages; 
 which, like Jonah's gourd, rather appear to sa- 
 lute the world, than to fix any abode in it. 
 
 Yet there is a nobility of extraction much 
 raised above what can owe its rise to flesh or 
 blood ; and that is virtue, which being the same 
 in souls, that the other is in bodies and families, 
 must, by that analogy surpass it as far as the 
 soul is to be preferred to the body ; and this 
 
«■ MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 mortal honour and nobility, prizes its value so 
 far above all other qualities, that the stoical 
 Satirist, following the dictates or doctrines of 
 that school, is bold to say, That nothing but 
 virtue deserves the name of nobility. 
 
 Nobilitas sola est atqus ; unica virtus. 
 
 And in opposition to this nobility, but most con- 
 sequentially to that doctrine, Seneca, a partisan 
 of the same tribe, doth with a noble haughtiness 
 of spirit tell us, That licet Deus nesciret t nee homo 
 puniret, peccatum, non tamen peccarem, ob peccati 
 vilitatem ; though God did not know, nor man 
 would not punish vice, yet I would not sin; so 
 mean a thing is \ice. For proving of which, I 
 shall advance and confirm these two great truths, 
 that men are, in point of honour, obliged to be 
 virtuous : and that there is no vice which is not 
 so mean, that it is unworthy of a gentleman : and 
 shall lead you unto that seraglio of private vices, 
 of which, though the weakest seem in our expe- 
 rience to have strength enough to conquer such 
 who pass for great spirits, or wits in the world ; 
 a philosopher will yet find, that these defeats 
 given by them to noble spirits, do not proceed 
 from the irresistibleness of their charms, but 
 from the inadvertence of such as are captivate ; 
 and is rather a surprise than a conquest: for 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 1 
 
 those great souls being busied in the pursuit of 
 some other project, want nothing but time to 
 overcome these follies, or else these vices and 
 passions (which is a great argument of their 
 weakness) do then assault such heroes, when 
 they are become now mad with their prosperity. 
 But if we will strip vice or passion of these 
 gaudy ornaments, which error and opinion lend 
 them, or advert to our own actions, we will find 
 that these overcome us not, but that we by our 
 own misapprehension of them overcome our- 
 selves ; as will appear, first, by some general re- 
 flections ; to which, iu the second place, I shall 
 subjoin some particular instances, and shall by 
 a special induction of the most eminent virtues 
 and vices, clear, That there is nothing so noble 
 as virtue, nor nothing so mean as vice. 
 
 As to the general reflections, I shall begin 
 with this ; That if advancement be a noble prize, 
 doubtless virtue must by this be more noble 
 than vice, seeing it bestows oftest that so much 
 desired reward. For further proving of which 
 from reason, consider, that no man will associate 
 with vicious persons, (without which no project 
 for advancement can be promoted). For who 
 will hazard his life and fortune with one whom 
 he cannot believe ? And who can believe one 
 who is not virtuous ? Trust, fidelity, and sin- 
 
8 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 cerity, being themselves virtues : or, who should 
 expect to gain by favours the friendship of such, 
 as by their vices are ingrate to God and nature ? 
 Who have been to such liberal, infinitely far 
 above human reach ; (and thus likewise vicious 
 persons are contemptibly mean, seeing they are 
 so infinitely ingrate.) And in this appears the 
 meanness of vice, that it can effectuate nothing 
 without counterfeiting virtue, or without its real 
 assistance : when robbers associate, they enter- 
 tain something analogical to friendship and trust, 
 else their vices would be but barren ; and with- 
 out humility showed to inferiors, the proudest 
 men and tyrants would owe but little to the 
 greatness of their spirit. When undertakers 
 league together, either they trust one another 
 because of their oaths, or because of their inter- 
 ests only ; if the first, they owe their success to 
 virtue ; if the second, then they never fully ce- 
 ment, but assist each other by halves; reserv- 
 ing the other half of their force to attend that 
 change, which interest may bring to their asso- 
 ciates : and do such as fight for hire (interest 
 being nothing else) acquit themselves with such 
 valour, as those whose courage receives edge 
 from duty, charity, religion, or any such virtu- 
 ous principles ? Vicious persons have [many 
 rivals, and so meet in their rising with much 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 9 
 
 opposition : the covetous fear the promotion of 
 him who is such ; and the ambitious of him who 
 is of the same temper : but because all expect 
 civility from the courteous, and money from the 
 liberal ; they therefore wish their preferment, as 
 what will contribute to their own interest : and 
 princes are induced to gratify such, as knowing 
 that in so doing they transmit to their people 
 what they bestow upon such favourites ; and 
 that they preclude the challenges of those, who 
 repine at their favours as misplaced, when not 
 bestowed upon themselves. 
 
 If there be any thing that is noble and desir- 
 able in fame, virtue is the only (at least as the 
 straightest, so the nearest) road to it ; posterity 
 taking our actions under their review without 
 the bias of prejudice, passion, interest, or flattery. 
 And of such as story canonizes for its grandees, 
 Alexander is not so truly glorious for defeating 
 the Indians, as for refusing to force Darius's 
 fair daughters ; for in the one a great part is due 
 to the courage of his soldiers, and the brutish- 
 ness of his opposers ; whereas in the other he 
 overcame the charms of such, as might have 
 overcome all others ; and was put to combat his 
 own youth, which had gained for him all his 
 victories : the meanest of his soldiers could have 
 forced a prisoner, but fame reserved it as a re- 
 
10 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 ward worthy of Alexander in his chastity, to 
 vanquish a monarch, and gratify a generous 
 lady ; to displease whom was as great a crime as 
 it was to ravish others. Nor was William the 
 Conqueror more honoured for subjecting a war- 
 like nation, than for pardoning Gospatrick and 
 Eustache of Bulloign, after so many revoltings : 
 for in the one, he conquered but these who were 
 less than himself; but in the other he conquered 
 himself who was their conqueror. Aristides 
 was esteemed more noble in undergoing a pa- 
 tient banishment, than these usurpers who con- 
 demned him to it, whose names remain as obscure 
 as their crimes are odious ; whilst his is the con- 
 tinual ornament of pulpits and theatres. And 
 all the Roman glories do not celebrate Nero's 
 memory to the same pitch with that of Seneca's, 
 who did (like the sun) then appear greatest when 
 he was nearest to the setting. Alexander is 
 only praised, when we remember not his killing 
 Parmenio: and the famous Hugh Capet of 
 France ends his glory, where we begin to talk 
 of his usurpation; and (to dispatch) this is one 
 great difference betwixt virtue and vice, in re* 
 lation to fame ; that vice, like a Charletan, is 
 applauded by the unacquainted, or like rotten 
 wood may shine in the dark ; but its lustre les- 
 sens at the approach of either time or light ; 
 
MORAL GALLANTKY. 11 
 
 wbereas though virtue may for a time lie under 
 the oppression of malice, (which martyrdom it 
 suffers only when it is mistaken for vice) ; yet 
 time ennobles it, and light does not lend it splen- 
 dour, but serves only to illuminate its beholders ; 
 and so to enable them to discover what native 
 excellencies it possesses. 
 
 If Amphialus or Orondates had been charged 
 in these romances ye so dote upon, with drunk- 
 enness, oppression, or envy, certainly it had 
 lessened their esteem even with such as most 
 admire, though they will not imitate, these vir- 
 tues. And to show how much kindness virtue 
 breeds for such as possess it, consider how, 
 though ye know these to be but imaginary ideas 
 of virtue, yet we cannot but love them for that, 
 as ye can love them for nothing else, seeing they 
 never obliged you or your relations ; and since 
 abstract virtue conciliates so much favour, cer- 
 tainly virtue in you will conciliate much more : 
 for besides that idea which will be common to 
 you with them, some will be obliged thereby to 
 love you as their benefactors ; and others because 
 they know not when ye will become so ; and at 
 least they will honour your virtue as that which 
 will secure them against your wrongs ; and 
 which will assure them of your good wishes, if 
 you cannot lend them your assistance. Would 
 
12 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 not the most prostitute ladies hate Statira or 
 Parthenissa, if they had been represented under 
 any one of these their own vices ; whose number 
 ean find their account no where but in the mo- 
 ments they live, nor excuses no where but in the 
 madness of such as commit them ? And would 
 not our gallants think it ridiculous to see these 
 heroes brought in by the author of Cassandra 
 or Parthenissa, glorying in, having made their 
 comrades brutish by drinking, or poor maids mi- 
 serable by uncleanness ? and though whoring be 
 cried up as one of these genteel exercises, that are 
 the price of so much time and pains ; yet we hear 
 of none of these who are so much as said to have 
 had a whore, far less to glory in it. But to 
 turn the medal ; consult your own experience, 
 and it will remember you of many hopeful gen- 
 tlemen, whose advancement has been so far dis- 
 appointed by these vices, that they fell so low as 
 to become objects of pity to such as feared them 
 once, as their accomplished rivals. And to let 
 us see the folly of sin ; I have known such as 
 hated niggardliness so much, as that to shun it, 
 they spent their abortive estates before they were 
 full masters of them ; brought by that excess to 
 flee creditors, starve at home, walk in rags, and 
 which is worse, beg in misery ; and so to fall 
 into the extremity of that vice, whose first and 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 13 
 
 most innocent degrees they laughed at in others ; 
 and when they begged from these who were both 
 authors and companions in their debaucheries, 
 (expecting to be supplied as well by their justice, 
 as their compassion) did get no return but that 
 laughter which was a lesson taught by them- 
 selves : or at best, a thousand curses for having 
 bred them in a way of living, that did naturally 
 occasion so much mischief. If then poverty be 
 mean and ignoble, certainly vice must be so too ; 
 seeing besides sickness, infirmity and infamy, it 
 hales on poverty upon such as entertain it. 
 
 When the world was yet so young as to be 
 led by sincerity, in place of that experience which 
 makes our age rather witty than honest; its 
 heroes, who equally surpassed and ennobled man- 
 kind by their virtue, were for it deified, even by 
 these their contemporaries, who in possessing 
 much more both riches and power than they, 
 wanted nothing but this virtue to be much greater 
 than they were. And thus Nimrod's kingdom 
 could not build him altars, though sincere Rha- 
 damanthus had fire kindled on his by the heat 
 of their zeal, who knowing him to be mortal, 
 could not, even in spite of his dying, but wor- 
 ship that immortal virtue which shined in him. 
 And as Cicero informs, these gods of the Pa- 
 gans were at first but illustrious heroes whose 
 
14 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 virtue, rather than their nature, rendered them 
 immortal, and worthy to be worshipped* even in 
 the estimation of such undisciplined brutes, as 
 thought the laws of nature a bondage, and the 
 laws of God a fable. We find, though Lycur- 
 gus in Lacedemon, Aristides in Athens, and 
 Epaminondas in Thebes, were not born to com- 
 mand, yet their virtue bestowed on them what 
 their birth denied ; and both without, and against 
 factions, they were elected by their citizens to 
 that rule, which they did not court ; and were 
 preferred to such as both by birth and pains had 
 fairer pretences to it. And whilst Greece 
 flourished, reges philosophabant, et philosophi re- 
 gebant ; these commonwealths being more nu- 
 merous than their neighbours in nothing but the 
 sincere exercise of reason. And when tyranny 
 and pride had, by wasting these commonwealths, 
 made place for the Roman glory ; nothing con- 
 quered so much the confiners of that glorious 
 state, (whose centre was virtue, and circumfer- 
 ence fame) as their virtue. Thus the Phalerions 
 are by Plutarch said to have sent ambassadors 
 to Rome, resigning themselves over to the Roman 
 government, because they found them so just and 
 noble, as to send back their children who had 
 been betrayed by a schoolmaster. When Pyr- 
 rhus was advertised by the Romans to beware 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 15 
 
 of poison from one of his own subjects, who had 
 offered to despatch him ; he did then begin to 
 fear that he should be conquered by their arms, 
 who had already subdued him by their civilities. 
 And such esteem had their justice gained them, 
 that they were chosen umpires of all neighbour- 
 ing nations ; and so gained one of the opposites 
 first to a confederacy, and then to a dependency 
 upon them. And Attalus king of Pergamus, 
 did in legacy leave them his kingdom, as to 
 those whose virtues deserved it as a reward; 
 which occasioned St. Augustine to fall out into 
 this eloquent expression : — Because GW(saithhe) 
 would not bestow heaven upon the Romans, they 
 being Pagans ; he bestowed the empire of the world 
 upon them, because they were virtuous. And many 
 have been raised to empires by no other assis- 
 tance than that of their virtue ; as Numa Pom- 
 pilius, Marcus Antonius, Pertinax, and Ves- 
 pasian ; whilst the want of this hath in spite of 
 all the power with which vicious governors have 
 been surrounded, degraded others from the 
 same imperial honours ; as Tarquinius Superbus, 
 Domitian, Commodus. And generally there is 
 but one emperor to be seen in that long Roman 
 list, who was unfortunate being virtuous : and 
 not one whose vice was not the immediate cause 
 of ruin to its author. 
 
16 MORAL GAIXANTRY. 
 
 Antiquity hath also transmitted to us the me- 
 mory of Socrates, Zeno, and other philosophers, 
 under as obliging eulogies, as these of the most 
 famous emperors ; whom virtue (to let us see that 
 riches and honour are but the instruments of fame 
 and not the dispensers of it) hath without any as- 
 sistance raised to this pitch above these princes, 
 that they have conquered our esteem without the 
 aid of armies, treasures, senates, or flattering his- 
 torians, and cease not like them to command 
 when they ceased to live, but by their precepts 
 and discourses force worthy souls yet to a more 
 entire obedience, than the others did whilst they 
 were alive by their sanctions and penal statutes. 
 For princes govern but a short time one nation; 
 and by these laws they awe but such vicious 
 persons, whom it is more trouble than honour to 
 command. But these illustrious philosophers, 
 and such as imitate their virtue, have thereby 
 attained to a sovereignty, over both the wills and 
 judgments of the best of all such as are scattered 
 amongst all the other kingdoms of the world. 
 And Marcus Aurelius, who was one of the great- 
 est emperors, doth recommend to kings as well 
 as subjects, to think that one of these philosophers 
 is beholding all their actions, as a most efficacious 
 mean to keep men in awe, not to commit that 
 vice to which they are tempted. 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 17 
 
 I have seen very great men shun to own even 
 their beloved vices, in the presence of such as 
 they needed not fear for any thing but their vir- 
 tue. And it is most remarkable, that Nero, who 
 exceeded all who then lived in power, and all 
 who shall live (I hope) in cruelty, did still judge 
 himself under some restraint whilst Seneca was 
 at court to be a witness to his actions. And 
 every vicious person must flee public and the 
 light, (which shows the meanness and cowardli- 
 ness of vice,) when he is to resign himself over 
 to any of these criminal exercises; by which 
 likewise when committed, men become yet more 
 cowards; for who having spent his life at that 
 unworthy rate, will not (if he be master of any 
 reason) tremble and be afraid to venture up- 
 on such exploits, which by taking his life from 
 him, may and will present him before the tribunal 
 of that God whom he hath offended ? And from 
 whom (which will not a little contribute to his 
 cowardliness) he cannot expect that success, 
 whereof the expectation lessens or heightens to 
 its own measures the courage of such as are en- 
 gaged. 
 
 We may easily conclude the meanness of vice 
 
 from this also, that servants without pains or art 
 
 equal us in them ; for these can whore, drink, 
 
 lie, and oppress : but to be temperate, just, and 
 
 c 
 
18 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 compassionate, are qualities whereby we deserve, 
 and are by such as know us not, judged to be 
 masters and well descended. And have not 
 servants reason to think themselves as deserving 
 persons as their masters, when they find them- 
 selves able to equal or surpass them in what they 
 glory in, as their great accomplishments ? 
 
 Seeing what is imitated is still nobler than 
 what imitates, certainly vice must be the less no- 
 ble, because it but copies virtue, and owes to its 
 mask and our errors, what it possesses of plea- 
 sure or advantage. Cruelty pretends to be zeal, 
 liberality is counterfeited by the prodigal, and 
 lust endeavours to pass for love. 
 
 Is there any thing more ignoble than fear, 
 which does as slaves subject us to every attempt- 
 er ? And have not all vices somewhat of that 
 unmanly passion ? In covetousness we fear the 
 want of money, in ambition the want of honour, 
 in revenge the want of justice, in jealousy rivals; 
 and when we lie we fear to speak openly. 
 
 Is there any thing more mean than depend- 
 ence ? And does not ambition make us to de- 
 pend upon such as have honours ? Covetousness 
 upon such as have riches ? And lust upon the 
 refuse of women ? Whereas, virtue seeks no 
 other reward than is paid in doing what is virtu- 
 ous, and owes its fee only to itself; leaving vice 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 19 
 
 in the servile condition of serving for a fee, even 
 those whom it most hates. And generally in all 
 vices we betray a meanness, because in all these 
 we confess want and infirmities : in avarice we 
 appear either fools in desiring what is not neces- 
 sary, in disobliging friends, hazarding our health, 
 and other necessaries, for what is not so in itself; 
 or else we confess that our necessities are both 
 greater and more numerous than these of others, 
 by heaping together riches and money, which 
 serve for nothing when they serve us not in sup- 
 plying our wants. In ambition we confess the 
 want of native honour and excellency : in lust, 
 want of continency: in anger, we want command 
 of ourselves; and in jealousy, we declare we 
 think not ourselves worthy of that love alone, 
 wherein we cannot fear rivals upon any other ac- 
 count. And in jealousy, men likewise wrong 
 their own honour in suspecting their ladies or 
 friends; whereas virtue persuades us, that our 
 necessities may be confined to a very small num- 
 ber; and that these may be repaired without any 
 loss of friends, and but little of time. It teaches 
 us that riches were created to serve us ; and that 
 therefore we disparage ourselves, when we sub- 
 ject our humour to our servants. And from it 
 we learn to rate so justly the excellencies of that 
 rational soul which is the image of God Almigh- 
 
20 MOllAL GALLANTRY 
 
 ty, as to expect from it, and no where else under 
 the sun, any true and solid happiness ; and to 
 account nothing more noble than it, except the 
 Almighty God whose offspring it is, and whom 
 it represents. 
 
 There is nothing more mean than to be cheat- 
 ed, and all vices cheat us ; treason promises 
 honour, but leads to a scaffold; lust pleasure, 
 but leads to sickness ; and flattery cheats all such 
 as hear it; and such as are proud are double mi- 
 serable, because they are both the cheaters and 
 the persons cheated. Thus vice cannot please 
 without a crime; and these are even then gaining 
 the hatred and contempt of others, when they 
 are enquiring or hearing from flatterers, that the 
 people seek no where without them objects of 
 love and admiration: whereas sacred virtue allows 
 us to admire ourselves, and which is more, to 
 believe that all these things for which vicious 
 men neglect the care of their souls, are unworthy 
 of our research ; and certainly the soul is a more 
 noble creature than that earth, or metal, which 
 we stain our souls to get : for our souls do cen- 
 sure all these things, it finds defects in the no- 
 blest buildings, and shows by desiring more, an 
 unsatiableness in all extrinsic objects; it deter- 
 mines the price of all other creatures, and like 
 the magistrate in this commonwealth, assigns to 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 21 
 
 every thing its rate ; to day it cries up the dia- 
 mond, and to morrow it allows preference to the 
 ruby : these traits and colours which ravish this 
 year, pass the next for no beauty. Red hair 
 pleases the Italian, and our climate hates it; and 
 it is probable that this change of inclination is 
 not a culpable inconstancy in man, but a mark 
 of his sovereignty over all his fellow-creatures. 
 Virtue teaches him not to owe his happiness to 
 the stars, nor to be like them foolish emperors, 
 so fondly vain, as to think that he shall have no 
 other reward for his virtue, than the being trans- 
 formed into one of these lesser lights, which he 
 knows to have been created only for a lanthorn 
 to him ; or at the best but to adorn with their 
 numberless associates that firmament, which was 
 created to be one of these arguments, whereby 
 he was to be courted into a belief of, and love 
 for, that God who thinks him so excellent a 
 creature, that he is said to be glad at the con- 
 version of a sinner, and to grieve at his obstinacy. 
 And if we will consider the miraculous fabric of 
 our bodies, which though we be but dull, yet we 
 may see to be all workmanship; and wherein the 
 number of wonders equals that of nerves, sinews, 
 veins, bones, or ligaments ; the curious fabric of 
 that brain, which lodges (without crowd or con- 
 fusion) so many thousand of different and noble 
 
22 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 thoughts; the artifice of those various organs, 
 that express so harmonious airs and ravishing 
 expressions; the charmingness of these lines and 
 features in ladies, which like the sun scorch as 
 well as illuminate the beholders : we may con- 
 clude that our soul must be a most excellent 
 piece, seeing all this contexture is appointed to 
 be but a momentary tabernacle for it, when it is 
 in its lowest and un worthiest estate ; and which 
 when the soul deserts, is thrown out with all its 
 wonders, lest it should by its stink trouble the 
 meanest of these senses, which serves the souls 
 of these who are alive. Consider, how this soul 
 grasps in one thought all that globe for which 
 ambitious men fight, and for some of whose fur- 
 rows the avaricious man doth so much toil. 
 Consider, how it despises all that avarice has 
 amassed ; how it is pleased with no external ob- 
 ject longer than it fully considers it ; and what a 
 great vacuity is left in our desires, after these 
 are thrown into them ; and by all this we may 
 learn that vice disparages too much the soul, 
 when it imagines that any finite thing can bound 
 its thoughts ; and we are but cheated when we 
 listen to these proffers which vice makes use of, 
 honour, pleasure, or advantage : for who can be 
 so mean to think that all these faculties were 
 bestowed upon our souls, these features upon our 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 23 
 
 bodies, and so much care taken of both by pro- 
 vidence, for no other end than that we should 
 admire that wine which peasants make ? Those 
 colours which prostitute whores wear? That 
 we should gain fortunes, which serve too oft to 
 corrupt these for whom they are prepared ? Or 
 respect from such as bow not to us, but to our 
 stations ? 
 
 Having thus over-run these general consider- 
 ations, whereby men who are gallant may be 
 courted to a love for virtue, my method leads 
 me now to fall down to those instances of parti- 
 cular vices and virtues, wherein I may make 
 nearer approaches to the actions of mankind : 
 and seeing there is too much of ease, too little 
 of cogency, in writing full and tedious essays 
 upon these common themes, I shall consider 
 them only as they relate to gallantry ; promising 
 no other tract of art in all this discourse, but 
 that I shall pursue my design so closely, as not 
 to employ any argument against vice, nor assist 
 virtue with one thought, but such as may descry 
 the one as mean, and cry up the other as gen- 
 teel and handsome. 
 
 We owe that deference to great men, that 
 even their vices should have the precedency of 
 all others ; and therefore I shall begin this in- 
 vective with dissimulation, which is peculiarly 
 
24 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 their sin ; for when the meaner sort are guilty 
 of the same thing, it is in them called falsehood ; 
 from which dissimulation differs nothing, but 
 that it is the cadet of a nobler family. And this 
 evinces what an ugly and ungenteel vice dissim- 
 ulation is, seeing he is no gentleman who would 
 choose rather to die or starve, than to be thought 
 false : all dissemblers show an inability to com- 
 pass without these pitiful shifts, what in dissem- 
 bling they design, for this is the last refuge ; and 
 by this courage becomes unnecessary : and we 
 oft see that cowards dissemble best, gallant men 
 laying that weight upon their courage, which 
 others do upon dissimulation. And at this un- 
 worthy game it is not requisite to be gallant, 
 provided men be wicked. Dissimulation is but 
 a courtly cowardliness, and a stately cheat : and 
 certainly he is too much afraid of his own either 
 courage or fate, and values too much his prize 
 above his honour, or innocence, who can stoop 
 to play his underboard game : whereas a gallant 
 and generous soul will not fear any event so much, 
 as to leave his road for it ; and will own what is 
 just with so much nobleness of resolution, that 
 though fate should tumble down upon him 
 mountains of misfortune, they may perhaps over- 
 whelm, but they shall never be able to divert him. 
 Where are then these gallant resolutions of our 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 25 
 
 forefathers ; who scorned even victories gained by 
 treachery, falsehood, poisons, and such other 
 unhandsome means? Where is the Roman 
 fortitude, which advertised Pyrrhus of his phy- 
 sicians' offer to poison him, though their greatest 
 enemy? And which caused Marcus Regulus 
 choose to return to be a martyr for virtue rather 
 than stain the Roman faith? Where are these 
 resentments of the lie in frivolous causes, when 
 great men magnify in their dissimulation what 
 is in effect lying and treachery ? To deceive 
 one who is not obliged to believe us, is ill ; but 
 to cheat one whom our own fair pretences have 
 induced to believe us, is much worse ; for this 
 is to murder one whom we have persuaded to 
 lay aside his arms : and as dissimulation thrives 
 never but once, so to use it cuts off from the dis- 
 sembler that trust and confidence which is ne- 
 cessary in great undertakings ; for who will de- 
 pend on these whom they cannot trust? And 
 after Dissemblers are catched, as seldom they 
 escape, the abused people hate and persecute 
 them as violators of that without which the world 
 cannot subsist. I appeal to the reader, if he hath 
 not heard enemies loved for their ingenuity ; and 
 if he hath not seen these cut-throat lights blown 
 out, and end in a stinking snuff; and as if every 
 man had escaped a cut-purse, if every man did 
 
 D 
 
26 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 not bless himself, and rejoice to see these dis- 
 semblers fall. And I may justly say, that dis- 
 simulation is but the theory of cut-pursing, or 
 murder : consider how unpleasant any thing ap- 
 pears that is crooked, and ye will find natural ar- 
 gument against dissimulation; and though it hath 
 great patrons, and can pretend to an old posses- 
 sion, and much breeding at some courts, (though 
 all who are gallant there hate it,) yet it is never 
 able to gain esteem ; and can defend itself no 
 other ways than by a cowardly lurking, and 
 shunning to be discovered. Neither can there 
 be so much wit in this art, as can justify its er- 
 ror ; for women, and the meanest wits are oftimes 
 most expert in it : all can do it in some measure, 
 and none ever used it long without being dis- 
 covered ; and such only are rendered its prey, 
 as make it no great conquest ; they being either 
 our friends, who expected not our invasion, or 
 fools who are worthy to be glorified in as our 
 trophies. 
 
 There are none of the vices which rage amongst 
 them, more destructive to either their honour, 
 or to the honour of that commonwealth which 
 they compose, than envy, and (which follows it, 
 and aggravates its guilt) detraction. Envy is 
 mean, because it confesses that the envier is not 
 so noble or excellent as tjie person envied ; for 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 27 
 
 none are envied, but such as possess somewhat 
 that overreaches, or excels what is possessed by 
 such as do envy. This vice acknowledges, that 
 he who useth it, wants much of what is desirable ; 
 and which is meaner, much of what another 
 possesses ; and as if we despaired of rising to 
 another's height, it makes us endeavour to pull 
 him down to the stature of our own accomplish- 
 ments. Most men essay to imitate the actions 
 of these whom they envy ; so that in detracting 
 from these, they leave others to undervalue what 
 they themselves design ardently to perform. 
 And thus, if these detractors be so much favoured 
 by fate, as to achieve any such great action ; as 
 that is which they undervalue in others, they get 
 but a barren victory ; and which is more insup- 
 portable, they see themselves punished by their 
 own vice. And to convince us how mean vices, 
 envy and detraction are ; we may observe, that, 
 such as are victorious, judge it their honour, to 
 magnify these who were vanquished ; and men 
 wound extremely their own honour, when they 
 detract from persons who are more deserving in 
 the eyes of the world than themselves ; for they 
 force their hearers to conclude, That the detrac- 
 tors themselves must be undeserving; seeing 
 these who deserve better, are by their confession, 
 cried down as being of no merit ; which remem- 
 
£8 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 bers me of this excellent passage in Plinius the 
 Second, Tibi ipsi ministras in alio laudando ; 
 aut enini is quern laudas, tibi superior est, aut in- 
 ferior ; si inferior, et laudandas tu multo magis ; 
 si superior, nequejure laudandus, tu multo minus: 
 Thou servest thine own interest when thou 
 praisest others ; for either he whom thou prais- 
 est, is thy inferior, and then if he deserves to be 
 praised, much more thou ; if he be thy superior* 
 and deserves not to be praised, much less thou. 
 All men are either our friends, or our enemies* 
 or such who have not concerned themselves in 
 our affairs. We are base because ingrate, when 
 we detract from our friends ; and we assert our 
 own folly, when by detraction we endeavour to 
 lessen the worth of those whom we have chosen 
 for such : we lessen likewise our honour, when 
 we detract from our competitors and enemies, 
 because to contest with undeserving persons is 
 ignoble ; and to be vanquished by them has lit- 
 tle of honour in it: whereas as all events are 
 uncertain, if we be overcome by such as our de- 
 tractions have made to pass for undeserving, our 
 overthrow will by so much become the more 
 despicable ; and to detract from such as expected 
 no wrong from us, and who are strangers to us 
 and our affairs, is not only imprudent and un- 
 just* but is as dishonourable and little gallant, 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 29 
 
 as that is to wound one who expects not our as- 
 sault, and whose innocency as to us, leaves him 
 disarmed ; and the word backbiting clears to us, 
 that detraction is a degree of cowardliness ; for 
 it assaults only such as are unprepared or absent, 
 which is held dishonourable among the least of 
 such as have gallantry in any esteem. He who 
 praises, bestows a favour, but he who detracts, 
 commits a robbery, in taking from another what 
 is justly his ; and certainly to give, is more noble 
 than to take. Envy is almost prejudicial to 
 great undertakings, seeing such as are engaged, 
 must resolve either not to act what is necessary 
 for completing so great projects, or if they do, 
 to fall under the envy of these for whom they 
 act them ; and the undertakers do obstruct by 
 envy their own greatness, because they are by 
 that vice persuaded to crop such as begin to 
 perform in their service, attempts worthy of the 
 being considered. How destructive likewise 
 this vice is to the glory of kingdoms and com- 
 monwealths, does but too clearly appear from 
 this* that all who are in them are either despi- 
 cable by not being worthy of the being envied, 
 or else will be destroyed by that vice, which 
 levels its murdering engines at such only who 
 are the noblest spirits, and who deserve most 
 promotion from their country. Carthage was 
 
30 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 destroyed by the envy which Hanno and Bomil- 
 car bore to Hannibal, who by denying him forces 
 to prosecute his Italian conquests, did involve 
 themselves with him in the common ruins of 
 their country; which shows the dishonourable 
 folly of envy in conspiring against itself, with 
 these, who being enemies to both the opposites, 
 sides first with the one in gratifying his envy, 
 and then destroys the other, whose passsion it 
 first served. Pitiful examples whereof our own 
 age affords us, wherein many great men were 
 by envy driven to oppose principles, whereon 
 they knew the public safety and their own private 
 interest to depend. Flaminius, the Roman 
 general, endangered Rome ; and Terentius Var- 
 ro did almost lose it out of envy to Fabius Maxi- 
 mus ; and such was the force of envy, that it did 
 defeat the great Scipio, and banished him from 
 that Rome which he had made both secure and 
 great; and did by his example cool the zeal of 
 such who retained their blood in its veins, as in 
 an arsenal, for no other end than the service of 
 their country ; as a consequence of which envy, 
 it was observed, That in the next age most of 
 Rome's citizens declined rather to entertain that 
 fame, which the former courted, than to be ex- 
 posed to the cruelty of that envy which did 
 usually attend it. Detraction brings likewise 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 31 
 
 these great disadvantages to our reputation, that 
 it engages both these from whom we detract, and 
 their friends, partly out of revenge, and partly 
 for self-defence, to inquire into our errors and 
 frailties; and to publish such as upon inquiry 
 they have found, or to hatch calumnies, if truth 
 cannot supply them : and in that case, rate of 
 game obliges us to favour the counterer ; for we 
 defend what may be our own case, in favouring 
 what is at present but the defence of others. It 
 legitimates likewise these calumnies which are 
 vented by us, by such as our detraction hath not 
 yet reached, who will think it their prudence 
 (like those who fear invasion) to carry the war 
 into the territories of such, from whom they do 
 upon well founded suspicions expect acts of hos- 
 tility. If then our own honour be dear to us, 
 we should not invade the honour of others : for 
 revenge, the activest of passions (when added to 
 that love of honour, which is equal in us and 
 them) will oblige them to do more against our 
 honour, than we can do in its defence. 
 
 Whoring renders men contemptible, whilst 
 it tempts them to embrace such as are not only 
 below themselves in every sense, but such as are 
 scarce worthy to serve these handsomer ladies, 
 whom they either do, or may lawfully enjoy. 
 Doth not this vice persuade men to lie in cottages 
 
32 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 with sluts, or (which is worse) strumpets ? To 
 lurk in corners ; to fear the encounter of such as 
 know them; and to bribe and fear those servants, 
 who by serving them at such occasions, have by 
 knowing their secrets, attained to such sc servile 
 mastery over them, that I have been ashamed to 
 hear gentlemen upbraided by these slaves, in 
 terms which were the adequate punishment, as 
 well as the effect of their vice. Men in whoring 
 must design either to satisfy their own necessities, 
 or their fancy ; if their necessities, then as mar- 
 riage is more convenient, so it is as much more 
 noble than whoring ; as it is more genteel for a 
 person of honour, rather to lodge constantly in 
 a well appointed palace, than to ramble up and 
 down in blind ale-houses ; in the one a man en- 
 joys his own, whereas in the other he only lives 
 as thieves do by purchase; if to satisfy fancy, 
 certainly it should please more, at least it is more 
 honourable to be secure against rivals, than to 
 be sure to be equalled by them. Who will fancy 
 a divided affection ? And who can be sure that 
 she who destroys her honour for us, will not re- 
 sign the same to a second, or a third ; for besides 
 the experiment we have of her change, oaths, 
 honour, and obligations can be no convincing 
 evidences of, or sureties for, what she promises; 
 seeing she is then breaking these, when she gives 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 33 
 
 strangers these new assurances. And this makes 
 me laugh to hear women so foolish as to rely 
 upon such promises as are given by men who 
 destroy their nuptial oaths when they make them. 
 And if women be such excellent persons as to 
 deserve that respect, and these adorations, which 
 are passionate enough to be paid before altars ; 
 certainly every man should endeavour to secure 
 the esteem of one of these rare creatures, which 
 is more noble than to rest satisfied with a tenth, 
 or sixteenth part, like men sharing in a caper. 
 And therefore seeing fancy nor honour allow no 
 rivals, I am confident that no man can satisfy 
 his fancy, nor secure his honour, in preferring 
 a whore to a wife, or in using whores when he 
 wants one. Have not whores ruined the repute 
 of some great men who entertained them, by 
 causing them to neglect to pursue their victories, 
 as Thais did to Alexander, and Cleopatra to 
 Mark Antony ? Have they not betrayed their 
 secrets wherein their fame was most interested, 
 as Dalilah did to Samson ? And there is no- 
 thing more ordinary to hear such (like Herod) 
 sware that they dare not refuse their mistresses 
 whatever is within their reach; and thus they 
 must either prove base in perjuring themselves, 
 if they think not what they say ; or are con- 
 temptible slaves both to their passions and to 
 
34 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 these who occasion them, if they resolve to per- 
 form what they promise ; which makes likewise 
 these to be dangerous masters, who depend 
 upon the humour of a woman ; and so concludes 
 them unfit to be great. It were then a generous 
 expiation of this vice in such as are oppressed 
 by it, to use it (not its objects) as Mahomet the 
 great did his gallant mistress Irene, whose life 
 and head he sacrificed to the repinings of his 
 court and Janizars ; who challenged him justly 
 for loving rather to be conquered by one silly 
 woman, than to conquer the world wherein she 
 had many, but he no equals. It is noble to de- 
 liver ladies out of danger, but not to draw dan- 
 gers on them; and to punish such as scoff" at 
 them, rather than to make them ridiculous : and 
 what thousands of dangers are drawn upon ladies 
 by being debauched, when married ; and if they 
 be not married, are they not thereby made the 
 proverb of all such as know them ? And to these 
 I recommend Tamar's words, who when Am- 
 nion offered to lie with her, told him, Thou shalt 
 be as one of the fools in Israel ; and /, whither shall 
 J cause my shame to go ? And after this, let them 
 remember that when he had satisfied his lust, 
 then he instantly (as is too ordinary) de- 
 spised her person. And since ladies will not 
 stain their honour with this vice till thev be 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 35 
 
 married, I conceive they should much less after, 
 for there the obligation is doubled. From all 
 which it follows, that lust is equally base and ig- 
 noble, whether it discharge itself upon equals or 
 inferiors; betwixt which two there is only this 
 difference, that it is brutal in the one case, and 
 cruel in the other. 
 
 There is no vice whereby gallantry is more 
 stained, than by breach of promise ; which be- 
 comes yet more sacrilegious when ladies are 
 wronged by it. And of this, whoring makes 
 men likewise guilty, when it robs from ladies 
 their husbands ; robbing likewise such upon 
 which it bestows them, both of their honour and 
 quiet. And thus, though it makes such as use it 
 barren, (God in this resisting the propagation of 
 sin) yet itself brings forth its faults in full clusters. 
 And Nathan's parable to David proves it like- 
 wise to be so high an oppression, that no man of 
 honour would commit it, if he would but seriously 
 reflect upon his own actions. From which pa- 
 rable this new observation may be likewise made, 
 *that though David was guilty of murder and 
 whoring, yet the prophet made choice only of 
 this last to astonish this warlike monarch, and 
 raise his indignation against this vice, when sha- 
 dowed out under a foreign and borrowed repre- 
 sentation; though murder be so barbarous a crime 
 
36 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 in itself, that the barbarians did instantly con- 
 clude Paul guilty of it, when they saw the viper 
 fasten upon his hand. The unjustest extrava- 
 gance of lust is that, whereby men contemn such 
 as become their wives, though they admired 
 them when they were their mistresses ; for in 
 this they confess it is a meanness to be theirs ; 
 for since that time the neglecters thought them 
 amiable, they, sweet creatures, have oft con- 
 tracted no guilt, nor lessened the occasion of that 
 esteem no otherwise, than by marrying their in- 
 constant gallants, who seemed to have so warm 
 a passion for them. And it is strange, that men 
 should admire their own eloquence, courage, es- 
 tates, and all things else they possess, for no 
 other cause, than because they are their own; 
 and yet should undervalue their wives (the no- 
 blest thing they possess) upon this and no other 
 account. 
 
 I cannot think nature such a cheat, as that if 
 women had not been the excellentest of creatures, 
 it would have beautified them with charms, and 
 armed their eyes with such piercing glances, thaiQ 
 to resist them is the next impossibility to the find- 
 ing a creature that is more accomplished than 
 they ; and I confess, the love we bear them is 
 not only allowable in itself, as an inclination that 
 is of its own nature noble and virtuous, but like- 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 37 
 
 wise, because it obliges such as are engaged in 
 it to despise all mean vices, such as avarice or 
 fear; and is incompatible with all disingenuous 
 arts, such as dissimulation or flattery. And 
 though such as are guilty of whoring, do justify 
 their debording by a love to that glorious sex ; 
 yet by this pretext they are yet more unjust and 
 vicious than their former guilt made them ; for 
 by roving amongst so many, they intimate that 
 they are not satisfied with their first choice ; and 
 that not only there are some of that sex, but 
 that there is none in it who deserves their entire 
 affection. Or else by dividing them amongst 
 so many, they think their kindness sufficient to 
 make numbers of ladies happy ; by both which 
 errors, they wrong not only themselves by swear- 
 ing otherwise to the ladies to whom they make 
 love, but they wrong likewise the innocence and 
 amiableness of that sweet sex, in whom no ra- 
 tional man can find a blemish, besides their es- 
 teem for such persons as these, who indeed ad- 
 mire them no where but in their compliments ; 
 Hand who are oft so base, that not only their so- 
 ciety is scandalous, but they are ready to tempt 
 such as they frequent ; or if they fail in this, are 
 oft so wicked, that they, to satisfy either their 
 revenge or vanity, do brag of intimacies and al- 
 lowances which they never possessed. If then, 
 
38 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 gallants would be loved by their mistresses, they 
 must be virtuous, seeing such love only these 
 who are secret, many things passing amongst 
 even Platonics, which should not be revealed. 
 These who are courageous, seeing this is ap- 
 pointed to be a protection to the weakness of 
 their sex ; and these who are constant, seeing to 
 be relinquished infers either a want of wit, in 
 having chosen such as would quit them without 
 a defect ; or else that they w T ere abandoned be- 
 cause of defects, by such as the world may justly 
 from their first ardency, conclude, would never 
 have abandoned them without these ; what lady 
 without a cheat, will be induced to love one wast- 
 ed with pox and inconstancy ? one whom drun- 
 kenness makes an unfit bedfellow, as well as a 
 friend ? And though some worship the relics of 
 saints, yet none but these who are mad as well 
 as vicious, will worship the relics of sinners. 
 
 Neither is the meanness of this vice taken off, 
 by the greatness of these with whom it is shared, 
 which may be clear from this, that either affec- 
 tion, interest, or ambition, are in the design of* 
 these offenders. If affection, it should excuse 
 no more her who is whore to a monarch, than 
 her who is such to a gentleman; for affection 
 respects the person, but not the condition of such 
 as are loved ; and it is certainly then most pure, 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 39 
 
 when it cannot be ascribed to, or needs the help 
 of either riches to bribe, or power to recommend 
 it. But if riches be designed, then the commit- 
 ter is guilty both of avarice and whoring ; and 
 she is not worthy to be a mistress, who can stoop 
 to a fee like a servant. And she who designs ho- 
 nour and repute by these princely amours is far 
 disappointed : for though she may command re- 
 spect, yet esteem is not subject to sceptres. And 
 I am confident that Lucretia, who choosed rather 
 to open her veins to a fatal lance, than her heart 
 to the embraces of a sovereign, is more admired 
 than Thais, Popcea, Jane Shore, and Madame 
 Gabriel; whose obedience to their own kings was 
 a crime in them, though it was loyalty in others. 
 Blushes are then the noblest kind of paint for 
 ladies, and chastity is their most charming orna- 
 ment : and if these would send out their emissa- 
 ries, to learn by them how to reform their errors, 
 as they oft do to reform their revenge, they would 
 easily perceive, that loose men laugh at their 
 kindness, virtuous men undervalue them and it. 
 And whenever any judgment is poured out upon 
 the kingdom, or misfortune overtakes these mi- 
 nions, then all is ascribed by divines to their 
 looseness; and it is one of the allowablest cheats 
 in devotion, to invent miraculous resentments 
 from heaven upon their failures. Young ladies, 
 
40 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 to recommend their own chastity, are obliged in 
 good breeding, at least to say they hate them ; 
 such as are married, are bound by their interest 
 to decry such as may debauch their husbands; 
 and these who are old, rail against them, as those 
 who place all happiness in what, because of age, 
 they cannot pretend to; whereas such as are 
 chaste, are recommended with magnifying prais- 
 es, for patterns to such as are vicious ; and are 
 copied as admirable originals by such as are vir- 
 tuous. And I cannot omit this one reflection, 
 that chaste women are more frequently tainted 
 with pride, than with any other vice ; nature as 
 it were allowing to them to raise their own value 
 far above others, whom they have (almost) reason 
 to contemn as persons who prostitute themselves; 
 (which, and the word humbling, are lessening 
 epithets of whoring ;) and such who are nasty, 
 spotted, and unclean. 
 
 Lust and obscenity in discourse run in a vicious 
 circle, and by an odious incest beget one another; 
 for as lust prompts men to obscenity, so obscenity 
 pimps men into lust; but in this, obscenity is 
 more culpable than lust, that in the one, men al- 
 lege a natural advantage, and some a necessity; 
 but in the other they have no temptation, and so 
 fall under that curse, Wo unto them that sin with- 
 out a cause. In the one men sin covertly, making 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 41 
 
 by their blushes, as by a tacit confession, some 
 atonement for their guilt; but in the other men 
 divulge their sin, and by gracing it with what, 
 if the subject were honest, might pass for wit, 
 do invite such as wish to be reputed wits, first 
 to admire, and then to imitate them in their sin- 
 ning; and the best of such as use that eloquence, 
 become thereby most ignoble ; being in effect but 
 cooks, who prepare sauces for provoking a lust- 
 ful appetite in their hearts. And I admire, that 
 seeing comedians are hissed off the stage when 
 they attempt it, that such as are so far greater 
 than these, as masters are above buffoons, should 
 imagine that they can magnify themselves by it. 
 This vice may well enough be ranged under one 
 of the species of sodomy, seeing such as use it, 
 employ in their lust these members, which were 
 so far from being destinate for so low uses, that 
 the Psalmist, in saying, He will praise God with 
 his glory, (which interpreters render to be the 
 tongue,) doth show us, that our tongues are 
 amongst the noblest parts of our body. And 
 when I consider how melodious it is in its har- 
 monies ; how eloquent in its expressions ; how 
 whole multitudes are reclaimed from their great- 
 est furies by it; and how Cicero is, in spite of all 
 his other faults, so admired for it, that thousands 
 sweat and toil daily to make one in that number, 
 
42 MORAL GALLANTRY 
 
 wherein he is acknowledged to be by them all 
 far the first ; when I consider how miraculously 
 it expresses, with the same motion, so varying 
 sounds, that though mankind be innumerable, yet 
 each in it hath his distinct tone and voice ; and 
 how with little different positions, it signets the 
 same air with words so extremely differing, that 
 one may think that each man hath a spirit speak- 
 ing out of him : I must tell out in regrets and 
 wonders, that, and how so excellent a faculty is 
 so much abused ! Neither must we conclude, 
 that because such go away unanswered, that they 
 owe this to the sharpness of their wit, but rather 
 to the depravedness of its subject ; wherewith the 
 greatest part of accurate spirits are so little ac- 
 quainted, that some know not the terms, and 
 others know them only to hate them. We must 
 not think, that we admire for wits such still at 
 whom we laugh: and I believe many laugh at 
 such as are profane, as they do at such as they 
 see slip and catch a fall, though never so dan- 
 gerous. I regret in this vice, both to see sharp 
 men so vicious, and so much wit so misemployed; 
 for though we may say here that materiam supera- 
 bat opus, yet such is the abjectness and worth* 
 lessness of the matter, that it is not capable of 
 ornament, no more than excrements are to be 
 admired, though they were^ijded, and carved out 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 43 
 
 by the most curious hand; and their wit is at 
 least to be charged with this error, that it chooses 
 not subjects worthy of their pains ; for whereas 
 the quaintness of fancy doth, when employed 
 about indifferent subjects, beget its masters re- 
 spect ; and when upon excellent admiration, all 
 that it can do here, is but to excuse the faults it 
 makes; and so at least is so beggarly an employ- 
 ment, that it is scarce able to defray its own 
 charges. I account him no wit who cannot de- 
 serve that name, though he be barred any one 
 subject, especially such a subject as obscenity is; 
 wherein former traffickers have beeen so nume- 
 rous, and so vacant from other employments, 
 that as nothing which is excellent, so little that 
 is new can be said upon it ; and what is said, is 
 transmitted from ear to ear, with so much of se- 
 crecy, that as no historian will write it, so fewer 
 will know it, than will know any of these witty 
 productions of learning, or moral philosophy, 
 which all men indifferently desire to read and 
 repeat: whereas this will be altogether suppressed 
 from succeeding ages; and of the present, ladies, 
 statesmen, lawyers, divines, and physicians, are 
 not allowed to give it audience. I have heard 
 women, though loose, say, that they loved none 
 of these who publish their shame, though they 
 satisfied their lust ; apd that such did often eva- 
 
44 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 porate their lust in these railleries, or design to 
 supply their defects in such discourses. And I 
 know that lacquies or bawds, will be more accu- 
 rate in that kind of eloquence, than the noblest 
 of such as use it, (if any who are noble use it at 
 all). Men must either think women great cheats, 
 in loving what they weep and blush at; or else 
 they are very cruel, in tormenting their ears with 
 so grating sounds. And if women be such ex- 
 cellent creatures, as mens' oaths and comply 
 ments make them, certainly obscenity must be a 
 mean vice, seeing of all others, such decry it 
 most : for compliance with whom, it is strange 
 that these who offer to die, will not much rather 
 abandon a piece of imaginary wit, and which 
 passeth not even for such, but among these who 
 are scarce competent judges. It is most unbe- 
 seeming a gentleman, for such as frequent ladies, 
 to spend so much time in studying a kind of wit, 
 that not only cannot be serviceable, but which 
 cannot in any case be acceptable or recreative to 
 these lovely persons; for whose divertisement 
 and satisfaction, even those obscene ranters do 
 pretend that they employ all their time and pains; 
 and whom they will doubtless at some occasions 
 offend, by slipping into one of these criminal ex- 
 pressions, which custom will so familiarize, that 
 it will be as impossible for them to abstain, as it 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 45 
 
 will be for these others to hear what is so spoke 
 without trouble and dissatisfaction. Such as 
 have their noble souls busied about great mat- 
 ters, find little time to invent expressions, or 
 mould thoughts concerning such pitiful subjects. 
 And I appeal to the worst of these, if they do 
 not abominate such as are in history noted for 
 obscenity ; and if they would not hate any, who 
 would adorn their funeral harangue with no other 
 praises but that they were so wittily profane, that 
 they would force ladies to blush, debauchees to 
 laugh, statesmen to undervalue them, and chase 
 divines from their table. 
 
 Avarice is so base a vice, that the term sordid 
 is improperly used in morality, when it is other- 
 wise applied ; and by terming one a noble person, 
 we intend to signify, that he is liberal : this is 
 that vice, which by starving great designs, hin- 
 ders them to grow up to their full dimensions. 
 None will carry about dismembered bodies, and 
 wear scars in their service, nor gain victories for 
 these, whose avarice will so little reward their 
 pains, that they oftimes refuse to supply these 
 necessities which were contracted in their own 
 employments. No great man hath both the 
 hearts and the purses of his inferiors. And few 
 have been famous or prosperous, but such as 
 have been as ready to bestow riches upon their 
 
46 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 friendsj as they have been ready to take spoil 
 from their enemies. Themistocles finding him- 
 self tempted to look upon a great treasure, 
 blushed at his error ; and turning to his servant* 
 said, Take thou that money, for thou art not The^ 
 mistocles. Rome then begun to be jealous of 
 Caesar's greatness, when he begun to put the 
 army in his debt. It was said of that noble 
 Duke of Guise, that he was the greatest usurer 
 in France ; for he laid out his estate in obliga- 
 tions. And Tacitus observes, that Vespasian 
 had equalled the greatest of the Roman heroes* 
 if his avarice had not lessened his other virtues : 
 which is the observation made by Philip de 
 Comines, upon Lewis the XI. of PVance. Per- 
 seus, out of love to his treasures, lost both his 
 kingdom and these ; being as a punishment to his 
 avarice, led in triumph in the company of his 
 coffers by a Roman general, who gloried, and is 
 yet famous for having died almost a beggar. 
 The world love esteem, and follow such as are 
 liberal ; historians celebrate their names ; sol- 
 diers fight their battles; and their beadsmen 
 importune heaven for success to their arms ; but 
 no man can have a kindness for such as will 
 prefer to them a little stamped earth ; or value 
 no obligations but these which bind to a paying 
 of money. And it is well concluded by the 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 47 
 
 world, that no vast soul can restrict all its 
 thoughts to that employment, which is the task 
 of porters and cobblers. In this vice we make 
 our souls to serve our riches ; whereas in 
 its opposite virtue, riches, and every thing- 
 else, (whose price these may be,) are by such as 
 are truly liberal, subjected to the meanest em*- 
 ployment, to which the soul can think them con^ 
 ducive. And the soul is too noble and well 
 appointed an apartment, to be filled with coffers, 
 bags, and such like trash, which even these, 
 who value them most, hoard up in their darkest 
 and worst furnished rooms : and such as are li- 
 beral are the masters (for it belongs to these 
 only to spend), whereas the avaricious are in 
 effect but their cash-keepers; who have the power 
 to keep, but not the allowance to spend what is 
 under their custody. I am confident, that Zeno 
 is more famous (and to be rich serves for nothing- 
 else) for throwing away his money, when it be- 
 gun to trouble his nobler thoughts, than Croesus 
 whose mountainous treasures served only to 
 bribe a more valiant prince to destroy them and 
 him. And Marcus Crassus, the richest Roman, 
 was so far undervalued by Julius Caesar, that he 
 said, he would make himself richer in one hour, 
 than these riches could their master; which 
 came accordingly to pass, when by his liberality 
 
48 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 he gained the Roman soldiery ; and they gained 
 for him the empire of that world, whereof Cras- 
 sus's estate was but a small one, though his ava- 
 rice made it a great spot in him. This vice 
 implies a present sense of want, and a fear of 
 future misery, to be hoarding up what serves 
 for nothing else, except to prevent, or supply us 
 in these conditions. But noble spirits, who de- 
 sign fame and conquests, virtue and religion, 
 raise their thoughts above this low vice; and 
 design not to gain riches, but men, who are 
 masters of these : and with whom when gained, 
 they can soon bring all things to their devotion : 
 and therefore in point of honour we are obliged 
 to hate avarice, and cherish liberality. 
 
 Though treason cheats with fair hopes of 
 glory and advancement; and at least this vice 
 pretends to have whole woods of laurels at its 
 disposal; yet the most or dinary preference it gains 
 men, is the being first amongst fools and vicious 
 persons, for they are then wronging both that 
 honour they possess, and that to which they as- 
 pire ; when they by their usurpation learn others 
 how sweet it is to rebel against their superiors : 
 and such as employ the commons against their 
 sovereign, must expect to allow them greater li- 
 berty than suits with the honour of governors ; 
 and must style themselves the servants of the 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 49 
 
 people. How meanly must these flatter that 
 unreasonable crew ? Swear friendship with such 
 as have wronged their honour ? Lie, dissemble, 
 cheat, beg ; meet in dark corners with their as- 
 sociates ; and suffer so much toil and misery, as 
 wants nothing but the nobleness of the quarrel 
 to make them martyrs ? It is not safe for any 
 man in point of honour, to undertake designs 
 wherein it is probable he will fail, and wherein if he 
 fail, it is most certain that his honour will suffer : 
 and there is no crime wherein men are more 
 like to fail, than in this ; the rabble whom they 
 employ, being as uncertain, as they are a furious 
 instrument : and like the elephant, ready still to 
 turn head against such as employ them in battle : 
 and who will trust the promise of these leaders, 
 (for without large promises, rebellion can never 
 be effectuate,) who in these promises are betray- 
 ing their own allegiance ? And such as these 
 employ, will (at least may) consider, that how 
 soon they have effectuate these treacherous de- 
 signs ; they will either disdain the instruments as 
 useless, or destroy them as dangerous and as 
 such, who by this late experience, are abler to 
 ruin them, than they were their predecessors. 
 And when such traitors are disappointed of their 
 designs, they are laughed at as fools ; for nothing 
 but success can clear them from that imputation ; 
 
50 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 and exposed to all the ludibry, and thereafter to 
 the tortures of enemies ; who cannot but be vio- 
 lent executioners, seeing their ruin was sought 
 by the rebellion. Is there any thing more igno- 
 ble than ingratitude? And these traitors are 
 ingrate ; seeing none can pretend to those arts, 
 but such as have been by the bounty of these, 
 against whom they rebel, advanced to that height, 
 which hath made them giddy ; and to that favour 
 with the people, upon which they bottom their 
 hopes. And do not men and story talk more 
 advantageously of footmen and slaves who have 
 relieved their masters, than of the greatest of 
 such as have rebelled against their princes ? 
 All mankind being concerned to magnify that 
 wherein their own safety is concerned ; and to 
 decry these arts whereby their ruin is sought. 
 That same people who cut Sejanus in as many 
 pieces as he had once favourites, did raise a sta- 
 tue to Pompey's slave, for staying by the car- 
 case of his dead master. And as Alexander 
 hanged Bessus, who had betrayed to him his 
 master; Spitamenes and Antigonus caused to 
 massacre these Higerspides, who had betrayed 
 the gallant Eumenes. So Charles the Ninth of 
 France, did refuse to punish such as had opposed 
 him, when he was in rebellion; for, said he, 
 Such as have been faithful to the king against 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. SI 
 
 me, when I was but Duke of Orleans, will be 
 faithful to me, when I am raised from being Duke 
 of Orleans, to be King of France. 
 
 Inconstancy is likewise an ignoble vice, seeing 
 it shows, that either men were foolish in their 
 first choice, or that they were foolish in relin- 
 quishing it; it shows, that men are too much 
 subject to the impressions of others ; and small 
 or light things are these which are soonest blown 
 off from their first stations : whereas virtuous 
 and constant persons do show their greatness in 
 the impossibility of their being removed. This 
 vice likewise is unfit for such as design great 
 matters, seeing no party will care much to gain 
 such for friends, whom they cannot retain ; and 
 when they tell you that such are not worth their 
 pains, they tell you how mean an esteem they 
 put upon inconstancy. All affairs in the world 
 are subject to change ; and it is most certain that 
 some occasion or other will somewhat raise all 
 parties. To be constant then to any one, will 
 gain him who is fixed, the honour of being sure 
 to his friends, which will magnify him amongst 
 such as are in difference, and procure him respect 
 even from his enemies ; who will admire him for 
 that quality, which by insurin gtheir own friends 
 to them, will advantage their interest more than 
 they can be prejudged by him, as their enemy, 
 
52 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 how considerable soever he be. Augustus* great- 
 ness cannot persuade the world to pardon him 
 this fault ; nor can Cato's severity, nor self-mur- 
 der, dissuade them from admiring that constancy, 
 which had as much extraordinary gallantry in it 
 as may be a remission for his crime : besides, 
 that it made Caesar (even when his victories had 
 raised him to his greatest height and vanity) re- 
 gret the losing an opportunity to gain so great a 
 person. 
 
 There is amongst many others one effect of 
 inconstancy, which I hate, as mean, and unworthy 
 of a gentleman ; and that is, to alter friendships 
 upon every elevation of fortune ; as if (forsooth) 
 men were raised so high, that they cannot, fi;om 
 these pinnacles, know such whom they have left 
 upon the first level. But really this implies a 
 weakness of sight in them, and no imperfection 
 in their friends, upon whom they cast down their 
 looks, and who continue still of their first stature, 
 though the others eyes continue not to possess the 
 same clearness. A generous person should not 
 entertain so low thoughts of himself, as to think 
 what is the gift of another, can add so much to 
 his intrinsic value, as to make him confess in the 
 undervaluing of his former friends, the meanness 
 of his own parts, and former condition : and he 
 obstructs extremely his own greatness, who ob- 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 53 
 
 liges his friends, to stop and retard it ; as what 
 may be disadvantageous to their interest, by rob- 
 bing them of so rare an advantage as is a friend. 
 Whereas the noblest trial of power is, to be able 
 to raise these whom men honoured formerly with 
 that title ; for by this, others will be invited to 
 depend upon them ; and they may thereby justify 
 their former choice ; and let the world see, that 
 they never entered upon any friendship that was 
 mean or low. Friendship, the greatest of com- 
 manders, hath commanded us to stay by our 
 friend; and he who quits the post assigned to 
 him, is either cowardly, or a fool ; and a gentle- 
 man should think it below his courage, as well 
 asJbis friendship, to be boasted from a station 
 which he thought so advantageous, out of either 
 fate or interest : which recommends much to me 
 that gallant rant in Lucan, when after he had pre- 
 ferred Cato to other men, he in these words ex- 
 tols him above the gods : — 
 
 Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 
 
 The gods did the victorious approve, 
 
 But the great Cato did the vanquished love. 
 
 But least my tediousness should make the constan- 
 cy I plead for, seem a vice, I shall say no more 
 of a subject, whereof I can never say enough. 
 Drunkenness is so mean a vice, that I scorn 
 
54 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 to take notice of it ; knowing that none will al- 
 low it, but such as are mad; and such as are 
 mad are not to be reclaimed by moral discourses. 
 Yet I cannot but press its meanness from this, 
 that though Noah was a person of the greatest au- 
 thority, his once being drunk is remarked in 
 Scripture, to have made him despicable in the 
 eyes even of his own children ; (whom he had 
 also lately obliged to a more than natural respect, 
 by saving them from that deluge, which drowned 
 the rest of mankind in their sight). And yet he 
 might have excused himself more than those of 
 this age; as knowing not the strength of that 
 new found wine: and having been . drunk but 
 once, might have defended himself by curiosity, 
 which too few now can allege. It is a mean and 
 mad compliment, to requite the kindness £>f such 
 as come to visit us, with forcing them (after the 
 weariness of travel) to drink to such excess, that 
 they commit and speak such follies, as make 
 them return home from that strange place, with- 
 out being remarked for any thing else, than the 
 ridiculous expressions they vomited up with their 
 stinking excrements. Why are servants turned 
 out of doors, and each man (which is very mean) 
 obliged to serve himself, when men enter upon 
 that beastly employment ? Is it not, that ser- 
 vants may not hear, or see what- extravagancies 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 55 
 
 are there to be committed ? And is it not an ig- 
 noble part in persons of honour, to do resolutely 
 what they dare not own before the meanest who 
 attend them? Men by this vice bring themselves 
 to need their servants' legs to walk upon, and 
 their eyes to see by ; but which is worse, they 
 must be governed at that time by the servile dis- 
 cretion of such, who will be emboldened by this, 
 to undervalue both them and their commands ; 
 and these masters are accounted wisest, who do 
 most submissively follow their directions. Judge 
 if that exercise can be noble, which in disabling 
 us to serve our friends, make us incapable to 
 discern the favours they do us; and measures 
 its disadvantages by this, that when men have 
 their senses benighted with the vapours of wine, 
 they are thereby unfitted to lead armies, to as- 
 sist at councils, to sit in judicatories, to attend 
 ladies ; and differ nothing from being dead, but 
 that they would be much more innocent if they 
 were so. Men are then very ready to attack 
 unjustly the honour of others, and most unable 
 to defend their own; and such as they wrong- 
 then, do with a scornful mercy pardon their fail- 
 ings, with the very same disdain which makes 
 them forgive fools or furious persons ; and that, 
 in my judgment, should be the most touching of 
 all affronts. And if we esteem roots according 
 
56 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 to the prettiness of the flowers they display, (as 
 if they would give a grateful account to the sun, 
 of what its warmness has produced,) certainly 
 we will find drunkenness (as the Apostle speaks 
 of avarice) the root of all bitterness. For this is 
 that vice, which keeps men at present from at- 
 tending such of their own, and of their friends' 
 interests, as concern most their fame : and as to 
 the future, begets such diseases and indisposi- 
 tions, as makes their bodies unfit instruments 
 for great achievements. And seeing to talk idly, 
 (a character so unworthy, that a gentleman would 
 scarce suffer another to give it of him, without 
 hazarding his life in the revenge,) is the most 
 pardonable of its errors, its other madness must 
 be beyond all remission. By this, men are 
 brought to disgorge the deepest buried secrets ; 
 to reveal the intimacies, or asperse the names of 
 ladies ; to enter upon foolish quarrels ; and the 
 next morning either to abjure what they said, or 
 fight unjustly their comrades ; and victory is not 
 in that case rewarded with fame, but is tainted 
 with the aspersion of drunken quarrel; and is 
 not ascribed to courage, but to necessity. 
 
 I confess, whoring is in this a more extensive 
 vice than others; that it corrupts still two at once, 
 for no man can sin so alone : but drinking (as if 
 it scorned not to be the greatest vice) does sur- 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 57 
 
 pass it in another quality ; which is, that one 
 vicious person can force or tempt whole tables 
 and companies to be drunk with him. And if 
 great men should be known to love this vice, all 
 such as have need to accost them, would be in 
 danger, either by complacency or interest, to 
 plunge themselves into this miserable excess. 
 In other vices, men bebauch only their own ra- 
 tional souls ; but here men add to that, the in- 
 gratitude of employing against God and nature, 
 these rents and estates, which were kept by pru- 
 dence from more pious persons, that great men 
 might by that testimony of his kindness, be en- 
 gaged to a religious retribution. So that such 
 as employ their estates in maintaining their 
 drunkenness, commit almost the same sacrilege 
 with Belteshazzar, who was terrified by a mira- 
 culous hand upon the wall, delivering his fatal 
 sentence, for carousing with his nobles in the 
 sacred vessels that were robbed from the temple 
 of Jerusalem. 
 
 My employment, as well as philosophy, obliges 
 me to implead injustice as the worst of vices ; 
 because it wrongs the best of men, and the best 
 of things ; the best of men, seeing they have still 
 the best of pleas ; and so injustice can only reach 
 them ; and these will not by flattery, bribing, or 
 cheats, conciliate the esteem of such as have a 
 
 H 
 
58 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 latitude, to return them this unjust advantage; 
 which good men neither need, nor will accept. 
 Injustice likewise debauches the laws, which is 
 the best of things ; and in affronting whereof, of 
 all others, great men are (when guilty) most un- 
 great ; because it is their guardian and fence, by 
 which they exact respect and treasures from 
 others ; and without which such magistrates who 
 are unjust, could not escape these hourly massa- 
 cres, which a robbed and oppressed people would 
 pour upon them. And though such as are ge- 
 nerally unjust, intend thereby to compliment 
 their friends, to repay old favours ; yet in effect 
 this requital is as base, as if one should rob a 
 church, to pay his particular debts. He is not 
 worthy of your friendship, who will expect such 
 returns: and virtue is not like vice, so penurious 
 or poor, as that it cannot build upon any other 
 foundation than the ruins of another. Such as 
 intend by their injustice to gain esteem from the 
 party advantaged thereby, are much mistaken ; 
 for though they should gain the esteem thereby 
 of one, yet they would lose that of many thou- 
 sands ; and he who is wronged will disclose the 
 injustice done him, more than the other dare 
 brag of the favour. And I have myself heard, 
 even the gainer hate and undervalue his unjust 
 patron, loving not the traitor but the treason; 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 59 
 
 considering, that by that precedent, himself was 
 laid open to more hazard, than he thereby reaped 
 of advantage ; for that same injustice which cen- 
 sured him of his late conquest, made him unsure 
 both of it, or all that he had or should gain 
 thereafter. And to be unjust for a bribe, is as 
 mean, as to serve in the worst of employments 
 for a fee ; it is to be as base as a thief, and less 
 noble than a robber; and it deserves all these 
 base reproaches that are due to avarice, lying, 
 flattery, ingratitude, treachery, and perjury; all 
 which are sharers in this caper when it prospers, 
 and when it prospers not, it leads to the ignoble 
 ports, infamy, poverty, the scaffold, pillory, or 
 gibbets. 
 
 Though my having usurped so far upon the 
 reader's patience, makes all 1 can say for the fu- 
 ture criminal, yet such respect I owe, and such 
 I bear to the memory of those noble patriots, 
 who have by their public spiritedness, settled for 
 us that peace, whose native product all our joys 
 are, that I cannot but recommend that protecting 
 virtue to such as live now, for the noblest orna- 
 ment of a great soul ; and if our actions be spe- 
 cified and measured by their objects, certainly 
 those souls must be accounted greatest, which 
 centre all their cases upon the public good ; 
 scorning to wind up their designs upon so small 
 
60 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 a bottom, as is private interest. By this, the 
 heathens became gods, and christians do by it 
 (which is more) resemble theirs. This is the 
 task of kings and princes ; whereas private inte- 
 rest is the design of churls and cobblers: who can 
 so justly expect universal praise, as those who 
 design universal advantage ? And none will 
 grudge, that riches should be carried into his 
 treasures, who keeps them but as Joseph did his 
 corn, in granaries, till others need to have their 
 necessities supplied. 
 
 These are deservedly styled Patres Patria, ; 
 and it is accounted moral parricide, to wound 
 the reputation of such as the commonwealth 
 terms its parents. And when these treasures 
 which private interest have robbed from the pub- 
 lic, shall after they stained the acquirer with the 
 names of avarice and cruelty, invite posterity to 
 recall them from his offspring as not due to 
 them ; then such as have, like providence, toiled 
 only for the good of their country and mankind, 
 shall find their fame, like medals, grow still the 
 more illustrious, by all accessions of time; and 
 that the new born generations shall augment the 
 number of their admirers, more than following 
 years can moulder away these heaps of coin, 
 which avaricious men raised as a monument for 
 their memory. Epaminondas is more famous 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 61 
 
 and admired than Croesus ; and fame may be 
 better believed concerning him, seeing he left 
 neither gold nor money to bribe from it a suf- 
 frage. And, albeit, he was so busied in raising 
 the glory of his country, that he had no time to 
 gain as much money, as to raise the meanest for 
 his own; yet we find him at no loss thereby, see- 
 ing each Theban assisted at his funeral as a 
 mourner : and nature lays it as a duty upon all 
 whom it brings to the world, to magnify him who 
 endeavoured to resemble it, in the universalities 
 of his favours. That glorious Roman, who threw 
 himself into the devouring gulph, to divert the 
 wrath of the gods from his country, did, in ex- 
 change of a few years (which he might have 
 lived) add an eternity of fame to his age ; and 
 by the gloriousness of that action, has buried no- 
 thing in that gulf, but his personal faults. And 
 Brutus, by dying for his country, is not more 
 justly called the last of Romans, than he may be 
 called the first of men; and for my part, I think 
 that he sacrificed Caesar rather as a victim to his 
 injured country, than to his private malice. For 
 as Mr. Cowley well remarks ; the pretext of 
 friendship can be no reason, why a man should 
 suffer without resentment, his mother to be vio- 
 lated before his eyes. Paul likewise, whom grace 
 had raised as much above these, as reason had 
 
62 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 raised these above others, was so zealous in this 
 virtue, that after he had known the joys of heaven 
 more intimately than others, who had not like him 
 travelled through all these starry regions, yet such 
 was his affection to his country, that he was con- 
 tent to have his name expunged out of the book 
 of life, that room might be made for theirs. But 
 if men will love nothing but what will advance 
 their private interest, they will at least, upon this 
 score, love their country, because, when it be- 
 comes famous, they will share in the advantage; 
 as the being a Roman was sufficient to make one 
 terrible when Rome flourished. And I imagine, 
 that it was sufficient to incite one of that glorious 
 republic, to undertake, or suffer the hardest of 
 things, to remember him that he was a Roman ; 
 and at all times the unacquainted still esteem us, 
 according to the presumptions they can gather, 
 from our country, race, and education. For 
 besides that a hawk of a good nest is still pre- 
 ferred, we see, that example and emulation, are 
 the strongest motives that can either induce, or 
 enable men to be noble and valorous; and though 
 some term this but fancy ; yet granting it were 
 no more, it is such a fancy as tends much to our 
 honour; because it heightens in others a fear of 
 us, and lessens in us the fear of them. I may 
 then conclude with this; that as the rays of the 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 63 
 
 sun are accounted a more noble light than any 
 that is projected from a private candle, so amongst 
 souls, those are the most excellent which respect 
 most the advantage of others. 
 
 I confess there are some vices, which by shroud- 
 ing themselves under the appearance of good, 
 do advance themselves too far in ill-governed 
 esteems; as we see in ambition and revenge; yet 
 to our severer inquiries it will appear, that ambi- 
 tion is ignoble ; seeing such as desire to be pro- 
 moted, confess the meanness of that state they 
 press to leave. This vice obliges men to serve 
 such as advance its designs, exchanging its pre- 
 sent liberty, for but the uncertain expectation of 
 commanding others; and paying greater respects 
 to superiors for this expectation, than it will be 
 able to exact from those whom it designs to sub- 
 ject. What is advancement but the people's 
 livery? And such as expect their happiness 
 from them, must acknowledge that the rabble is 
 greater and nobler than themselves : and by ex- 
 changing their natural happiness, for that which 
 is of its bestowing, they confess their own to be 
 of the least value; for no man will exchange for 
 what is worse. A courtier admiring the philo- 
 sopher gathering his herbs, told him, That if he 
 flattered the emperor, he needed not gather herbs; 
 but was answered, That if he could satisfy him- 
 
64 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 self with herbs, he needed not flatter the empe- 
 ror ; and without doubt flattery infers more de- 
 pendence, than gathering of herbs. And in the 
 dispute for liberty, Diogenes had the advantage 
 of the Stagyrite, when he told him, Diogenes did 
 dine when it pleased Diogenes; but Aristotle not 
 till it pleased Alexander. 
 
 Vanity is too airy a vice to be noble; for it is 
 but a thin crust of pride ; and but a pretending 
 cadet of that gallant sin : it is, I confess, less hurt- 
 ful than pride, because it magnifies itself, without 
 disparaging others ; (for if we admire others when 
 compared with ourselves, we are not vain, but 
 proud,) and it is oft the spur to great actions; 
 being to our undertakings, what some poisons 
 are to medicines ; which, though they be hurtful 
 in a dose apart, yet make the compounds enter 
 more operative and pointed. And I have heard 
 some defend, that vanity was no sin; because, in 
 admiring ourselves at a greater rate than we de- 
 served, we, without detracting from our neigh- 
 bour, heightened our debt to our Maker; which 
 might be an error, but was no fault. But vanity, 
 being an error in our judgment, it cannot but 
 be mean, as all errors are ignoble : and he is a 
 very fool (which is the ignoblest of names) who 
 understands not himself; he who understands 
 not his own measures, cannot govern himself; 
 
MOKAL GALLANTRY. 65 
 
 and so is unfit to govern others ; and it is the 
 employment of a great soul, rather to do things 
 worthy to be admired, than to admire what him- 
 self hath done. But leaving to pursue the crowd 
 of its ill effects, I shall single out some of these 
 I judge most enemies to true gallantry; amongst 
 which, I scruple not to prefer in meanness, the 
 being vain of prosperity, and derived power: 
 which shows, that we prefer and admire more 
 what others can bestow, than what we possess 
 ourselves; whereas virtuous persons may just- 
 ly think, that nothing can make them greater ; 
 and to be vain of prosperity, shows we cannot 
 bear it; and so concludes us under a weak- 
 ness; to take advantages of others, when we 
 are more powerful than they, is as base, as it 
 is for an armed man to force his enemy to fight, 
 when he has no weapon: this is cowardliness 
 not courage; and who defers not his revenge 
 till his rival be equal with him, implies a fear of 
 grappling upon equal terms. That one expres- 
 sion, of one of the kings of France, That he 
 scorned when he was king of France, to remem- 
 ber the wrongs done to the duke of Orleans, 
 makes his name grateful in history : and if great 
 men would reflect seriously, how a word from 
 him they serve, (though but a man, who must 
 himself yield oftimes to a mean disaster,) or 
 
<S6 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 how the least error in their own conduct, can 
 overturn the fixedst of their endeavours ; and 
 make them, in being unfortunate, ridiculous 
 withal ; certainly they would call this presump- 
 tion rather madness than vanity; and would 
 conclude it more gallant, to bear adversity with 
 a generous courage, than to be a fool or flattered 
 by prosperity ; which vanquishes as oft these for 
 whom, as these against whom it fights. 
 
 Neither can I leave this period, till I inveigh 
 against that meanest of vanities^ whereby men are 
 vain of estates and territories : for, seeing man is 
 born lord of all the world, why should he retrench 
 his own right, by glorying in so little a part of it 
 that his share will escape an exact geographer. 
 I wish such would remember, that Pompey be- 
 stowed kingdoms upon his slaves ; and yet Epic - 
 tetus, who was a slave, is more admired than he; 
 and yet admired for nothing but his virtue ; and 
 why should men be proud of enjoying that, upon 
 which the meanest beggar pours out his excre- 
 ments : if these be vain, because they may call 
 it their own, what hath the master, but that (as 
 Solomon says) he behold eth it with his eyes ? 
 And at this rate I may glory, in that the glorious 
 heavens are spread over me ; for I may behold 
 the one with as impropriating eyes as he can do 
 the other. And he who wants a tomb, which 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 67 
 
 these have, hath the heaven for a vault and bu- 
 rying place; — Ccelo tegitur, qui non habet urnam. 
 
 But if the answer be, that these rents will al- 
 low them the keeping of a table for their gran- 
 deur (which I wish were the only excuse), that 
 answer makes them servants, and burdens them 
 with a necessity to provide for such as they en- 
 tertain ; and so they are vain of being servants, 
 and servants to such as will rise from their table 
 to read and admire above them, Plato, Socrates, 
 or, which is less, the author of a well-contrived 
 play. But to leave this folly, — these may have 
 some pretext for preferring their own estates 
 above those of others, but why should they ad- 
 mire themselves for their estates ? Which is 
 no part of themselves, and so they should not 
 in reason think better of themselves than others 
 for it. Under the same condemnation fall such 
 as are vain of their horses, lacqueys, or such- 
 like things, which is most unjust, except their 
 horses and they were all one. 
 
 Such as crust themselves over with embroide- 
 ries, and after they have divided their time be- 
 twixt their comb and their mirrors, are vain of 
 these silly toys which are the creatures and work- 
 manship of servants, must be certainly very low 
 and mean-spirited, when they imagine to add to 
 their natural value, by things that have no value 
 
68 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 in them, but what our fancy (which is the most 
 despicable quality of that soul they neglect) gives 
 them. And do not they among the rest of man- 
 kind, disparage very much even these mistresses 
 upon whom they bestow these adorations, which 
 they deny their mighty Maker, when they ima- 
 gine by such contemptible means, to screw them- 
 selves into their esteem ? How ignobly under- 
 value they their own thoughts — the noble con- 
 versation of excellent men and accurate books 
 (to write some whereof, Caesar and the greatest 
 of the emperors have laid aside their swords) — 
 when they impend upon ribbons and laces, that 
 age of time, which would be misemployed, 
 though it were let but out in moments, upon such 
 womanly exercise ? But if ladies or their suitors 
 will magnify these handsome shapes and colours, 
 which are too often bestowed upon them, to re- 
 pair the want of these noble qualities, of which 
 those who are masters may be more justly vain, 
 why are not they afraid, by whoring, fairding, 
 drinking, gluttony, or macerating envy, to blast 
 these florid advantages, upon which themselves 
 do, and would have others to dote ? 
 
 I must here endeavour to subdue one error ; 
 which is by so much the more dangerous, that it 
 wears the fairest mask of all other vices : and this 
 is that whereby men are induced to believe, that 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 69 
 
 true honour is but a consequent of preferment ; 
 and that preferments seldom without honour; but 
 honour comes never without preferment ; and not 
 only are the lees of the people taken with this opin- 
 ion, but the gallantest of men, who are sphered far 
 above those, do in this, slide easily into the sense 
 of the neighbourhood. Yet it remains still an 
 error ; for true honour is an innate elevation of 
 the soul, whereby it scorns every thing which is 
 more mortal than himself: and nothing is more 
 frail than preferment, whose paint is washed off 
 by the least storm, and whose being depends 
 upon the fancy or humour of others : whereas, 
 true honour is independent ; and, as it cannot 
 flow from any other, so it cannot stoop to them. 
 He is truly gallant, whose innocence fears not the 
 jurisdiction of men ; and who looks upon sceptres, 
 and such gilded trifles as impertinent toys, when 
 they are not swayed by the hand of virtue ; and 
 who would not value power for any other end, but 
 to be a second to these inclinations, which are 
 so reasonable, that they should not need power 
 to make them to be obeyed ! Tyrants can 
 bestow the tallest preferments, but they cannot 
 make men truly honourable ; which shows that 
 these two differ. And Heliogabolus' cook was 
 still but a base fellow, though his master's dot- 
 ing made him as great as were his own vices. 
 
70 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 A statue becomes not taller by the height of 
 its basis; nor a head more wise or noble for 
 being adorned with a shaggy plumage. Julius 
 Caesar, though no emperor, has a more lasting 
 glory than Tiberius, who was so : and Cata 
 gloried more in that the people asked why he 
 was not preferred, than he would have done in 
 enjoying the greatest honours they had to be- 
 stow. Preferment is but the creation of men ; 
 but true honour is of God's own creation ; and 
 as we should esteem this last, as a piece done 
 by the nobler master, so we should love it best, 
 because it is more our own, than what rises from 
 another's favour. Greatness, when most advan- 
 tageously bestowed, can but produce love or 
 fear; to beget fear is not noble, because the 
 Devil doth this most ; and these who come next 
 to him in baseness, come nearest to him in this ; 
 brutes, savages, and madmen, have sufficiency 
 enough for that undertaking : but to beget love 
 is peculiar to true honour ; and so generous a 
 passion is love, that it is soonest elicit, when 
 least commanded. A virtuous person is like- 
 wise a greater governor, than he who suffers 
 himself to be commanded by a vicious woman, 
 and a thirsty appetite ; or than that king who 
 suffers himself to be led by the ears with flat- 
 terers, and to be forced by his own pride to 
 
MORAL, GALLANTRY. 71 
 
 disobey his reason, by which alone he is truly 
 great ; and which when any man disowns abso- 
 lutely, he is to be thrown into a dungeon or 
 bedlam. Preferment leaves and obliges us to 
 bow to others for satisfying our interest ; so that 
 interest is confessed by great men to be greater 
 than they : but virtue and true honour teacheth 
 us to subject our interest to ourselves, and puts 
 it in our own power to make ourselves happy. 
 And what a pilot is in the ship, a general in an 
 army, the soul in the body, that is a philosopher 
 amongst these with whom he converses. Nee 
 enim unquam in tan turn sic convalesce t nequitia ; 
 nunquam sic contra virtutes conjurabitur ; ut non 
 virtutis nomen venerabile et sacrum maneat. — Sen. 
 Epist. 14. To which purpose I must cite Stat. 
 Silv. 
 
 Vive Mitle gazis, et Lido ditior auro, 
 Troica et Euphrate supra diademata felix, 
 Quern non ambigui fasces non mobile vulgus, 
 Spemque metumque domas, vitio sublimior omni. 
 Exemptus fatis. 
 
 In revenge, we must use instruments who 
 exact more and will upbraid us more than the 
 law will do when it satisfies us our wrongs. 
 And does not the philosopher, who denies that 
 he can be wronged, more nobly than he who 
 confesses, that he is both subject to wrongs and 
 
72 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 hath received so great a one, that he cannot but 
 pursue his revenge? He who conceals his 
 wrongs, is only wronged in private, whilst he 
 who revenges his wrong, is wronged in public ; 
 and certainly the public wrong is more ignoble. 
 And, seeing we conceive ourselves concerned in 
 honour to punish such as would divulge an af- 
 front that was smothered as soon as given, we 
 cannot be said to wrong our own honour, when 
 we in seeking revenge proclaim such wrongs as 
 had else either vanished or been lessened by the 
 concealment ; which remembers me of a story 
 that goes of an old man, at whose bald head a 
 rotten orange being thrown in the street, clapt 
 his hat upon it, and said, I shall spoil the vil- 
 lain's sport, who expected me to come showing 
 my head all besmeared over, and complaining 
 of the injury. It is one of the most picquant 
 revenges, to undervalue our enemies so far as 
 not to think them worthy of our noticing ; and 
 we show ourselves to be greater than they, when 
 we let the world see that they cannot trouble us. 
 When children and fools do the same things 
 that we fret at in others of more advanced years, 
 we pass them without a frown ; which shows, 
 that it is not the acts done us by our enemies, 
 but our own resentment, which in effect injures 
 us ; so that it is still in our power to vex such 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 73 
 
 as design to affront us, by laughing at, or under- 
 valuing these, and such-like little endeavours, 
 as what cannot reach our happiness. He who 
 pardons, proclaims that by so doing he fears not 
 his enemies for the future ; but revenge implies 
 a fear of what we desire upon that account to 
 lessen. Thus cowards, and none but they, are 
 cruel ; seeing they then only account themselves 
 secure when their enemies have lost all capacity 
 to resist. In revenge, we act the executioner, 
 but we personate a prince when we pardon; 
 in the one we bestow a favour, and so are noble, 
 but in the other we disclose our infirmity, which 
 is ignoble. 
 
 I admire passive courage, as a virtue which 
 deserves its palms best of all others, because it 
 toils most for them. Honours and rewards are 
 but gifts to them, but they are conquests to it ; 
 and it merits as much praise as it meets with in- 
 juries. Avida est periculi virtus, et quo tendant 
 nnn quid passura sit, cogitat ; quoniam et quod 
 passura est ; gloria pars est : — This virtue hath 
 rather a greediness for, than a desire to find 
 dangers ; and seeing its sufferings make the 
 greatest part of its glory, it runs out to meet 
 them, thinking that to attend them is a degree 
 of cowardliness. And if we remark narrowly, 
 we will find that all other virtues owe their gal- 
 
 K 
 
74 MORAL GALLANTRY. 
 
 lantry to this, and have no other title to that 
 glorious quality but in so far as they borrow ex- 
 cellencies from it. Friendship is then only gal- 
 lant, when to gratify our friends we expose to 
 injuries for them either our persons or interest. 
 Gratitude is then noble, when we consider not 
 what we are to suffer, but what we owe, or 
 (which is more gallant) what is requisite for the 
 service of such ^,s have obliged us. Justice is 
 always excellent, but is then only most to be 
 admired, when we resist temptations, and where 
 we resolve to suffer, for having been just, the 
 envy and rage of these, who consider only how 
 much they have been prejudged, but not how 
 much the public good hath been thereby advan- 
 ced. 
 
 But thus it is that a virtuous person shows 
 how great he truly is ; and that power and com- 
 mand were the instruments only, but not parts 
 of his former worth. He who yields to afflic- 
 tion, shows that those who inflict it are greater 
 than himself, but he who braves it, shows that 
 it is not in the power of any thing but of guilt 
 to make him tremble. It is easy for one who is 
 assisted by power and fate to urge these advan- 
 tages, but to dare these, shows a pitch beyond 
 them ; and this induces me to think, that pas- 
 sive courage is more noble than what is active. 
 
MORAL GALLANTRY. 75 
 
 For one who fights gallantly in an open field, 
 and in the view or front of an army, is assisted 
 by the example of others, by hope of revenge, 
 or victory, and needs not much fear that death 
 which he may shun as probably as meet; but 
 he who in a noble quarrel adorns that scaffold 
 whereupon he is to suffer, evinces that he can 
 master fate, and make danger less than his 
 courage, and to serve him in acquiring fame 
 and honour. But this virtue deserves a larger 
 room than my present weariness will allow it in 
 this paper, and therefore I will leave it for praises 
 to its own native excellencies. 
 
 I shall (my lords and gentlemen) leave these 
 reflections to your own improvement ; for I am 
 confident, that the heat of your own zeal for 
 virtue, will kindle in your breasts such noble 
 flames, as that by their blaze ye may see further 
 into this subject than I can discover : and in 
 this essay I desire to be esteemed no otherwise 
 presumptuous, than a servant is, who lights his 
 master up these stairs which himself intends to 
 mount. 
 
MORAL PARADOX : 
 
 MAINTAINING THAT IT IS MUCH EASIER TO BE 
 VIRTUOUS THAN VICIOUS. 
 
 They weary themselves to commit iniquity — J E R. ix. 5. 
 
 AS these spies deserved ill of the Israelitish 
 camp (Numb, xiii.) ; who having inflamed their 
 breasts with desires of conquering Canaan, by 
 presenting them of its vines, who each cluster 
 was a vintage, and each grape a bottle; did 
 thereafter, by a cruel parricide, destroy these 
 same inclinations which they had begot, by tell- 
 ing these their hopeful brethren, That the coun- 
 try was as unconquerable, as pleasant ; and that 
 its men were giants, as well as its fruits. So by 
 the same measures we have reason to fear, that 
 
78 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 these divines and moralists are unhappy guides 
 to us poor mortals ; who after they have edged 
 our inclinations for virtue, as the most satisfying 
 of all objects, do thereafter assure us, that it is 
 attended with as much difficulty as it is furnished 
 with pleasure ; and that like some coy lady, it 
 possesses charms, not to satisfy, but to exact our 
 longings. This unfortunate error hath in all 
 probability, sprung either from the vanity of 
 these bastard philosophers, who have cheated the 
 people into an esteem for themselves, as virtuous, 
 resolved by the second artifice, to heighten that 
 esteem, by persuading these their admirers, that 
 virtue was a work of much difficulty, as it met 
 with praise ; or else from the zeal of some preach- 
 ers, who to make us antedate our repentance, 
 resolved to persuade us, that faith and these 
 other spiritual virtues, could not but be hardly 
 attainable, as certainly they are, when moral 
 virtue, which was a lower story of perfection, 
 was of so difficult an ascent; or else, which is 
 yet most probable, our laziness and vicious habits 
 being called to an account for these misfortunes, 
 which they occasion, have run themselves under 
 the protection of this defence, That virtue is 
 most difficult and uneasy, and is destitute of both 
 pleasure and advantage : by which conceit, many 
 are dissuaded in this age from undertaking a re-. 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 79 
 
 solution of being virtuous, though otherwise 
 they much honour it; and wickedness is not 
 only furnished by this with an excuse to detain 
 such as it hath already overtaken, but with 
 charms to entangle these who are yet stated in 
 an indifferency for either. And though the heat 
 of zeal in preachers, should not be too much dis- 
 proved in this age ; wherein the coldness of 
 their hearers' charity, needs those warmer influ- 
 ences : and though they may be allowed to bend 
 our crooked humours to the contrary side of 
 what they incline to, of design to bring them to 
 a desired straightness ; yet if we consider that 
 infallible theology, delivered by our Saviour, 
 we may find, that He invited His disciples, by 
 assuring them, That his yoke was easy, and his 
 burden very light ; and by upbraiding them, for 
 wearying themselves with their sins, and for troub- 
 ling themselves about many things. And since 
 the former artifice hath either, by being too fa- 
 miliarly preached, lost its operation with such 
 as love curiosity ; or by being too severely prest, 
 discouraged too much these who love too well 
 their own flesh and blood, to welcome any doctrine 
 that stands so opposite to it : I wish these same 
 preachers would now endeavour to reclaim man- 
 kind, by assuring them, that virtue is much easier, 
 and much more advantageous than vice; imita- 
 
80 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 ting in this their great master, who after his 
 disciples had wearied themselves with catching 
 no fish all the night over, did, by persuading 
 them to throw out their nets upon the other side 
 of the boat, put them on the way of catching 
 more at one draught, than they had catched in 
 their former whole night's fishing. But leaving 
 (with much resignation) my ghostly fathers to 
 manage the course of our devotion, as their know- 
 ledge and piety shall judge most fit, I shall 
 endeavour to clear from reason and experi- 
 ence, that moral virtue is of less weariness, 
 and suits better with our natural inclinations, 
 than vice or passion doth. And although I 
 fail in an undertaking, which is too noble an 
 enterprize to receive its accomplishment from so 
 weak a hand, yet if I shall excite others, out of 
 pity to me, or glory because of the subject, to 
 defend what I could not, or to love that virtue 
 which I recommend, I shall rest satisfied with a 
 return, which because it will be above my merit, 
 I have already placed above my expectation; 
 and so I may meet with a foil, but cannot with 
 a disappointment. 
 
 All creatures design ease ; and for this not 
 only brutes do toil, but inanimate things like- 
 wise show for it so much of inclination, that they 
 will destroy all intermediate objects, that hinder 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 81 
 
 them for joining to their centre, to which they 
 have no other tendency, but because they find 
 that ease which is desired by their nature ; and 
 because all things find ease in it, therefore all 
 things flee thither, as to the loveliest of all sta- 
 tions. And that happiness consists in ease, is 
 clear from this — That either we want that we 
 need, as the accomplishment of our nature, and 
 then nature must move towards the acquisition 
 of what it wants ; or else we want nothing, and 
 then nature will enjoy itself without any farther 
 motion — nam natura nihil agit frustra ; and it 
 were most frustraneous for nature, to seek what 
 it wants not: from which we may conclude, 
 when we see any creature restless, and in mo- 
 tion, that certainly it either wants something to 
 which it moves, or is oppressed by a surcharge 
 of somewhat, from which it flies. This hath 
 made philosophers conclude, That all motion 
 tends to some rest: lawyers, That all debates 
 respect some decision ; statesmen, That all war 
 is made in order to peace; physicians, That 
 all fermentations or boiling of the blood or hu- 
 mours, betokens some dissatisfaction in the part 
 affected, (and to show how much happiness they 
 place in ease, they term all sickness diseases,) 
 which imports nothing more than the absence 
 of ease, that happiest of states, and root of all 
 
 L 
 
82 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 perfections. And that divinity may sing a part 
 in this requiem, scripture tells us, That God 
 hallowed the seventh day, because upon it He 
 rested from his creation; and that heaven is 
 called an eternal Sabbath, because there we shall 
 find ease from all our labours ; there God is said, 
 when well pleased, to have savoured a sweet savour 
 of rest ; and He recommends his own gospel as 
 a burden that is easy. That then wherewith I 
 shall task myself in this discourse, shall be to 
 prove, That Virtue is more easy than Vice. 
 
 For clearing whereof, consider, that all men 
 who design either honour, riches, or to live hap- 
 pily in the world, do either intend to be virtuous, 
 or at least pretend it; these who resolve to destroy 
 the liberties of the people, will style themselves 
 keepers of their liberties ; and such as laugh at 
 all religion, will have themselves believed to be 
 reformers ; and of these too the pretenders have 
 the difficultest part, for they must not only be at 
 all that pains which is requisite in being virtuous, 
 but they must superadd to these all the troubles 
 that dissimulation requires ; which certainly is a 
 new and greater task than the other; and not 
 only so, but these must over-act virtue, upon de- 
 sign to take off that jealousy, which because they 
 are conscious to themselves to deserve, they 
 therefore vex themselves to remove. Moses, the 
 
" A MOKAL PAKADOX. 83 
 
 first, and amongst the best of the reformers, was 
 the meekest man upon the face of the earth; but 
 Jehu, who was but a counterfeit zealot, drove 
 furiously, and called up by-standers to see, what 
 else he knew they had reason not to believe; 
 and the justest of all Israel's chairmen, took not 
 so much pains to execute justice, as Absalom, 
 who is said to have staid as long in the gates of 
 Jerusalem, as the sun staid above them, inform- 
 ing himself of all persons and affairs, though 
 with as little design to redress their wrongs, as 
 he showed much inclination to know them ; and 
 all this, that the people might be gained to be 
 the instruments of his unnatural rebellion : and 
 such is the laboriousness of these seeming copies 
 of virtue, that in our ordinary conversation we 
 are still jealous of such as are too studious to 
 appear virtuous ; though we have no other rea- 
 son to doubt their sincerity, but what arises from 
 their too great pains. From which we may con- 
 clude, that these who intend to be virtuous, have 
 a much easier task than these pretenders have ; 
 because they have not their own conscience, nor 
 the jealousness of others to wrestle against; and 
 which is yet worse, these want that habit of vir- 
 tue which renders all the pains of such as are 
 really virtuous easy to them : and what is more 
 difficult, than for these to act against custom, 
 
84 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 which time renders a second nature ; and which, 
 as shall be said hereafter, is so prevalent as to 
 facilitate to virtuous persons the hardest part of 
 what virtue commands ? Besides this, these dis- 
 semblers have a difficult part to act, seeing they 
 act against their own inclination ; which is to of- 
 fer violence to nature, and the working not only 
 without the help of that strongest of all seconds, 
 but the toiling against it, and all the assistance it 
 can give; which how great a torment it proves, 
 appears from this, that such as have as much 
 generosity as may entitle them to the name of 
 man, Will rather weary out the rage of torture, 
 than injure their own inclinations. I imagine 
 that Haman was much distressed, by being put 
 to lead Mordecai's horse, in compliance with 
 his master's command ; and one who is obliged 
 by that interest which makes him dissemble, to 
 counterfeit a kindness for one whom he hates, or 
 amit an applause of What he undervalues, is cer- 
 tainly by that necessity more cruciate, by a thou- 
 sand stages, than such as intend upon a virtuous 
 account to love the person, and really to praise 
 that in him, which they are forced to commend ; 
 which is so far from being a torment, when it is 
 truly virtuous, that real love makes him who has 
 it, hungry of an occasion to show it, and to pur- 
 sue all means for heightening that applause, 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 85 
 
 which torments the other. Consider what diffi- 
 culty we find in going one way, whilst we look 
 another, and with what hazard of stumbling that 
 attempt is attended, and ye will find both much 
 difficulty and hazard to wait on dissimulation; 
 wherein we are tied to a double task; for we 
 must do what we intend, because of our inclina- 
 tions ; and what we pretend, because of our pro- 
 fession ; and if we fail in either, which is more 
 probably, than where simplicity only is professed, 
 (two tasks being difficulter than one,) then the 
 world laughs at us, for failing in what we pro- 
 posed ; and if we fret at ourselves, for failing in 
 what we privately designed. And not only does 
 dissimulation tie us to a double, but it obliges us 
 to two contrary tasks ; for we needed not dis- 
 semble, if what we intend be not contrary to 
 what we pretend : and thus men in dissimulation 
 do but (like Penelope) undo in the night, what 
 they were forced to do in the daytime. 
 
 Dissimulation makes vice likewise the more 
 difficult, in that dissemblers are never able to 
 recover the loss they sustain by one escape ; for 
 if they be catched in their dissimulation, or 
 dogged out to be impostors, (which they can- 
 not miss, but by a more watchful attendance 
 than any that virtue requires,) then they of 
 all persons are most hated ; not only by these 
 
86 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 whom they intended to cheat, but by all others, 
 though unconcerned in the crime; and both 
 the one and the other do yet hate it, as what 
 strikes at the root of all human society ; and for 
 this cause, murder under trust is accounted so 
 impious and sacrilegious a breach of friend- 
 ship, that lawyers have heightened its punishment 
 from that of ordinary murder, to that of treason ; 
 and the grossest politicians have confest this dis- 
 simulation to be so horrid a crime, that it was 
 not to be committed for a less hire than of a 
 kingdom: whereas virtuous persons have their 
 escapes oftener pitied than punished; both be- 
 cause these escapes are imputed to no abiding 
 habit, and because it is not to be feared that 
 they will offend for the future ; seeing what they 
 last failed in, was not the effect of any innate 
 and permanent quality, but was but a transient 
 and designless frailty. 
 
 Dissimulation is from this, likewise, more pain- 
 ful than virtue, which it emulates, that the dis- 
 sembler is obliged not only so to dissemble, as 
 that these whom he intends to cheat, may believe 
 him serious, but so, likewise, as that others may 
 understand that he is not serious. Thus I have 
 myself seen a gentleman, who dissembled a love 
 and fondness for one whom he was obliged to 
 persuade that she was his mistress, act so covertly 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 87 
 
 that perfidious part, that his real mistress was 
 really jealous that he dissembled with her, and 
 not with the other ; and to remove this, put the 
 gallant to as much new pains as his former cheat 
 had cost him. And I have heard of the like 
 accidents, though in different actions ; — as of a 
 rebel, who counterfeited loyalty so, that his 
 complices did really distrust his fixedness to 
 these damned principles which he still retained. 
 And in ordinary conversation ye will often find, 
 that in dissembling with the one party, ye lose 
 still the other ; and it is impossible to regain 
 them who are so lost, but by a shameful disco- 
 very of the former cheat : and after all that loss, 
 this doubt is still left, — How can I know but 
 this man dissembles with me, who is so exqui- 
 site in that art, as even to have made me jealous, 
 that his dissimulation was not counterfeit ? 
 
 Let us a little consider how few instruments 
 virtue requires, and we will find it easy to be 
 virtuous ; it requires no arms, exchequer, guards, 
 nor garrison ; it is all these to itself, in every 
 sense wherein it needs them. Whereas, vice is 
 a burden to its votaries, as well in the abun- 
 dance of those attendants which it requires, as 
 in the difficulty of those attainments which it 
 proposes. And this is that happy topic from 
 which our wise Saviour reproved Martha, when 
 
88 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 He told her, That she wearied herself about many 
 things, whereas there was one thing necessary. By 
 which, seeing he commended devotion, I may 
 well press from it the excellency of moral vir- 
 tue. The ambitious man is obliged to have his 
 house planted with a wood of partizans, as well 
 to secure that condition which so many envy and 
 rival, as to magnify himself by so unequalled 
 attendance. This desire to command, made 
 Hannibal force a passage through the rocky 
 Alps, — Caesar to commit himself to the mercy 
 *)f a stormy sea, and so many weary journeys : 
 — this obliged Xerxes to entertain vast navies, 
 and Darius such armies, as reduced all man- 
 kind into one incorporation. And so much doth 
 ambition tie its dependers to depend upon such 
 numbers, that though that army of lacqueys 
 which attend them signifies no more than so 
 many following cyphers, yet the subtracting of 
 any of these doth by so much lessen the value of 
 what they follow. Doth not pride require flat- 
 terers, and those flatterers salaries, and the pro- 
 vision of those salaries much pains and anxiety ? 
 — Doth not it require precedency ? — A suitable 
 estate and applause ? — And are not these inat- 
 tainable, without more toil and fatigue than any 
 thing that virtue enjoins? Covetousness re- 
 quires assiduous drudgery, and mines as bot- 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 89 
 
 tomless as the desires which crave them; it 
 craves every thing which itself can imagine. 
 Luxury seeks only after what is unusual, and 
 what is rare: it must, in Apicius, crave food 
 from the Indies, — fetch to Rome, in Helioga- 
 balus, fishes when far from the sea, — and more 
 for one belly, than might enrich thousands of 
 nobler creatures. Lust requires plurality of 
 women, abundance of strength, numbers of 
 pimps, and much money ; whereas virtue craves 
 only what is fit, and persuades us to believe 
 that only to be fit which is absolutely necessary. 
 Cato's table is completely furnished with one 
 dish, and his body with one vesture : 
 
 Hide cquilcc vicisse famem. 
 
 And the philosopher, going by well and rich 
 furnished shops, could cry out with pleasure, — 
 Oh ! how many things are there of which I 
 stand not in need ! Not only are these many 
 instruments troublesome, because they are su- 
 perfluous, but likewise because by their number 
 they add to these natural necessities, under which 
 even virtuous men are weighed, as long as they 
 are men. These who have so numerous fami- 
 lies, cannot remove when their necessity calls 
 them ; but they must expect till their retinue be 
 
 M 
 
90 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 ready ; and when these are prepared, it is no 
 easy clog to draw so many after them ; or when 
 any misfortune overtakes any of these many, 
 they must suffer in these as oft as each of these 
 suffers in themselves ; and their miseries are 
 augmented by every new increment that is ad- 
 ded to their fortunes. A great treasure is not 
 only an enticement to make its master be as- 
 saulted, or betrayed, but is likewise uneasy to 
 be transported; and Crcesus' many bags are 
 overtaken, when moneyless Solon escapes with 
 safety. I shall then conclude — That virtue is 
 easier than vice, because it requires fewer in- 
 struments. 
 
 Virtue is likewise easy, because it is fitted for 
 all places and occasions ; whereas vice is stinted 
 to select ones. One may be just every where ; 
 but bribing requires opportunity, meditation of 
 others, and that these others be dexterous in 
 the conveyance, and close as to their humour. 
 Adultery must busy itself to find a convenient 
 room; it. requires the husband's absence — a 
 faithful, and yet a faithless servant ; and albeit 
 with the concourse of these provisions, it may 
 attain its aim oftener than it is fit, yet will it 
 want that satisfaction oftener than it wishes : 
 whereas chastity is circumscribed by no such 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 91 
 
 limits; but it is as free as pure, depending 
 upon nothing that is extrinsic, and debtor for 
 its happiness to nothing that is not itself. 
 
 I cannot here but reproach vice for tying us, 
 not only to place, times, and numbers of instru- 
 ments, but, which is worse, for referring all our 
 endeavours to designs that are either unfeasible 
 in themselves, or, at best, do become so because 
 of our fancy or excess. Vanity is not satisfied 
 without applause from others ; which being an 
 act of their free-will who bestow it, doth there- 
 fore depend upon their election : whereas virtue 
 is satisfied with its own testimony ; and is satis- 
 fied with nothing that others say, except it be 
 bottomed upon what they are conscious to them- 
 selves to deserve. Advancement proceeds not 
 from him who desires it, but he must expect it 
 from another ; and no man can satisfy his own 
 lust. O then, happy virtue ! who art thy own 
 treasure and expectation, thou alone mayest dote 
 upon thyself, without a fault ; and in thee only, 
 self-love is no way criminal : whereas vice is 
 uneasy, because it fetches its satisfactions from 
 abroad ; and is barren, because it cannot find 
 them at home. Covetousness must scorch in 
 Indies its suitors ; it must freeze them in Nova 
 Zembla ; it terrifies them at sea, and shipwrecks 
 them upon the shore : whilst virtue recom- 
 
92 A MOllAL PARADOX. 
 
 mends to us, to seek our happiness in no foreign 
 pleasure : and Diogenes finds without danger 
 in his tub, what these sailors pursue in their 
 dangerous bottoms. But vice might plead itself 
 less guilty, if its design was only difficult ; but 
 difficulty is not all — for vice either requires what 
 is impossible, or what, by not being bounded, 
 may very easily become so. Covetousness makes 
 nothing enough, and proposes not only what 
 may satisfy, but what may be acquired. Ambi- 
 tion likewise will have every man to be highest ; 
 which is impossible, because there cannot be many 
 highest; and the first attainer leaves nothing to his 
 implacable rivals, but the impatience of being dis- 
 appointed ; which not only disquiets their present 
 ease, but begets in them projects of attacking 
 him by whom they conceive themselves van- 
 quished: and these designs being formed by 
 persons whose judgments are much disordered 
 by interest, (which like fired powder, flees out 
 not always where it may,) and against persons 
 already secured by power, fame, law, and other 
 advantages, they ripen into no other issue, than 
 a last ruin to these who were so foolish, as not 
 to satisfy their present humour with their pre- 
 sent fortune. 
 
 Philosophers have divided all vices into these 
 which consist in excess, and these which imply 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 93 
 
 a defect ; the one shooting as far over the mark 
 as the other comes short of it ; and if we compare 
 virtue with either of these, we will find it more 
 easy than either ; for as to these which overreach 
 virtue, they must be as much more uneasy than 
 it, as they exceed it ; for having all in them 
 which that virtue possesses which they exceed, 
 they must require either in acquisition or main- 
 tenance, all the pains that the exceeded virtue 
 extracts. Thus prodigality requires all the 
 spending and pains that liberality needs; and 
 running equally with all its length, it begins to 
 require more pains and travel where it outshoots 
 the other : and thus prodigality bestows not only 
 enough as liberality does, but it lavishes out 
 more than is fit, taking for the standard of its 
 bounty, all that it hath to bestow ; and not either 
 what itself can spare, or what its object needs : 
 jealousy pains itself more than true love, with all 
 those extravagancies, which are so insufferable 
 to the party loved, and so disquieting to the 
 lover himself, that physicians have accounted this 
 a disease, and the law hath made it a crime. 
 As to these vices, which by being placed in de- 
 fect, seem to require less trouble than the virtue 
 they fall short of; as the others require more, 
 because of their excess ; yet so uneasy is vice, 
 that even these, though they exceed not virtue 
 
94 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 in their measures, do yet exceed it in their toil : 
 for nature designs accomplishment in all its pro- 
 ductions ; and therefore frets, and is disquieted 
 at these immature effects ; and is as much more 
 wounded by these than by virtuous productions, 
 as the crafts are by being spoiled of their greener 
 fruits, or as a woman by her too early birth. 
 We see a miser more cruciate by his scanting 
 penuriousness, than a noble person by his gene- 
 rous liberality: for these are obliged to keep 
 themselves out of these occasions of spending, — a 
 task great enough, because all men endeavour, 
 both out of envy, and out of humour and sport, 
 to draw them unto these snares, and when they 
 are within their own circle, they are forced by 
 that restless vice, to descend to thousands of 
 tricks, which are as wearying as unhandsome. 
 I have seen some so careful of their estates, that 
 they brooked better to have their names and 
 souls burdened, than these; and to preserve 
 which, they were at more trouble, than any can 
 have the faith to believe, besides these who had 
 the humour so to do. If to hold or draw with 
 our full force be a trouble, both these are the 
 postures of covetousness, wherewith it is kept 
 upon constant guard, and hi continual employ- 
 ment ; and if at any time they remit any thing 
 of that anxiety, they repine at their own negli- 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 95 
 
 gence, and imagine that they lost as much as 
 they hoped once to have gained. Fear is the 
 defect of courage, but yet it is more uneasy than 
 courage ; and really this alone hath more uneasi- 
 ness, than all the fraternity of virtues; for virtue 
 is at worst busied about what is : but fear is af- 
 frighted at what is not, equally with what is. 
 
 Vice likewise is therefore less easy than virtue, 
 because virtue proposes only one aim, which is 
 fixed and stable ; whilst vice and fancy leave us 
 to undetermination, that is uneasy as well as 
 dangerous. When it hath prest us, to make 
 armies fall as sacrificed to the idol of our ambi- 
 tion ; and for humouring that passion, to bring 
 cities as well as men level to the ground ; then 
 it will in the next thought persuade us even to 
 laugh at our ambition, and to exchange it for 
 love to a mistress or companionry, as it once 
 served the otherwise great Alexander. 
 
 As virtue makes good neighbours, so all the 
 virtues are so far such amongst themselves, that 
 not only they interfere not with one another ; but 
 the exercise likewise of the one, facilitates the 
 practice of the others : thus whilst we practice 
 temperance, we learn to be just ; because tem- 
 perance is the just measure of enjoying and using 
 all contingents ; and we learn by it to be patient ; 
 patience being a temperance in grief, sorrow or 
 
9G A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 affliction : patience is likewise the exercise of 
 fortitude ; and fortitude is a just proportion of 
 courage, and a temperate exercise of boldness. 
 And this occasioned the philosophers to term 
 this noble alliance, the golden chain of virtue ; 
 each being linked with, and depending upon its 
 fellow. But if we turn the prospect we will find, 
 that though dissention be a special vice so char- 
 actered, yet all vices, have somewhat of their ill- 
 natured humour in them, and agree in nothing 
 but in this, That each of them both disagree 
 with each other, which makes the practice of 
 them both tedious and disagreeable ; for all of 
 them, consisting the one in excess, the other in 
 defect, they cannot but disagree : excess and de- 
 fect being in themselves most contrary : thus 
 prodigality opposes avarice, cowardliness cou- 
 rage, and fondness hatred ; and as virtuous per- 
 sons have a kindness for one another, because 
 the object of their love requires, as well as ad- 
 mits rivals; so vice, endeavouring to engross 
 what it pursues, makes rivals altogether unsup- 
 portable. Ambition inciteth each of its depen- 
 ders to be chief; and yet allows only one of these 
 many to enjoy what it makes all of them desire. 
 Thus avarice's task is to impropriate the posses- 
 sion of what was created, and is necessary to be 
 distributed amongst many thousands ; and envy 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 97 
 
 will not only have its master to be full of ap- 
 plause, but will likewise starve the desires and 
 merits of others ; judging that itself cannot be 
 happy if others be. Vice then must be less easy 
 than virtue, because it hath more enemies than 
 virtue; and because the virtues are more har- 
 monious amongst themselves than vices are. 
 
 Vices not only makes enemies to themselves, 
 but by a civil war (as a just judgment upon 
 them) they destroy one another ; providence in- 
 tending thereby to hinder the growth of what, 
 though it prosper not well, yet is already too 
 noxious to mankind : and upon the same prin- 
 ciple of kindness to what bears his image, God 
 Almighty, and his providence, do design the 
 unsuccessfulness of vice, as being obstructive of 
 his glory, as well as destructive to his creatures, 
 being equally thereto engaged by a love to his 
 honour and service, and by a hatred as well to 
 those who commit vice, as to the vice which is 
 committed. Thus God confounded those tongues 
 which had spoke so much blasphemy against him, 
 whilst they were endeavouring to raise a tower 
 as high as their sins. And when David inten- 
 ded to spill Nabal's blood, God is said to have 
 stopped him from being an unjust executioner, 
 whom He intended to make a most just judge. 
 And since Balaam's ass opened its mouth to 
 N 
 
98 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 speak this truth, they must be more stupid than 
 asses who will not believe it. The law likewise 
 by its punishments, contributes all its endeavours 
 to crush vice, and to arrest its success, forbidding 
 by its edicts, any person to assist it ; and mak- 
 ing not only assistance, but counsel ; not only 
 counsel, but connivance; not only connivance, 
 but concealment of it, to be in most cases so 
 criminal, that all the honours which vice pro- 
 miseth, or the treasures it gives, cannot be able 
 to redeem those who are found to have slighted 
 this prohibition. Must it not then be difficult 
 to be vicious, where assistants and counsellors 
 are so overawed, and the intenders so terrified, 
 that few will engage as instruments ? And these 
 who do, are so disordered by fear, that vicious 
 projectors are as little to expect success, as vir- 
 tuous persons are to wish it for them. And to 
 evidence how much opposition the law intends 
 for vice, it not only punishes vice with what it 
 presently inflicts, but it presumes it still guilty 
 for the future : semel malus semper prcesumitur 
 malus ; and upon that presumption many vicious 
 persons have suffered for that whereof they were 
 otherwise innocent. Though rebellion hath pro- 
 mising charms, to allure the idolaters of ambi- 
 tion and fame; yet the law doth so far stand 
 against it, that few will concur with the contriv- 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 99 
 
 ers, except such fools as have not the wit to 
 promote it, or some desperate persons, with 
 whom few will join, because they are known to 
 be discontent: and though revenge relishes 
 blood with a pleasing taste, yet the severity of 
 excellent law cools much of that inhuman heat, 
 and lessens the pleasure by sharpening the 
 punishment. Vice then must be uneasy, seeing 
 the law opposes it, and renders its commission 
 dangerous, as well as odious. 
 
 Men likewise join with God and the law in a 
 confederacy against vice; and though they too 
 oft approve it in the warmness and disorder of 
 their passions, yet in their professions and con- 
 ventions they laugh at it, and inveigh against it; 
 and though the pressure of a present temptation 
 overcome them so far as to commit what they 
 disallow ; yet they do but infrequently, and with 
 so many checks from within, as that its commis- 
 sion cannot be thought easy: consider, how 
 amongst men, we hate even these vices in others 
 which we are guilty of ourselves ; and how we 
 even hate these vices in others, by which we our- 
 selves reap no small advantage. Alexander glo- 
 ried to destroy that base person who had mur- 
 dered his greatest enemy, Darius; and David 
 is commended, for having caused to kill him, 
 who but said, That he had killed Saul. Who 
 
100 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 will employ one that is perfidious? And so 
 uneasy is vice, that much pains and discourse 
 will not persuade us to believe one who uses to 
 tell a lie; whilst we will soon believe what is 
 really a lie, from one that uses not to abuse our 
 trust : few judges are so precisely just, as not to 
 think that they favour a virtuous person ; good 
 men do likewise reward such as own an interest 
 so allowable ; and wicked men own such as are 
 virtuous, out of design thereby to expiate their 
 former vice, and to persuade the world that they 
 are not really vicious, though they be esteemed 
 so : so that, seeing reward as well as inclination, 
 and just men as well as unjust, advance virtue 
 and oppose vice, vice cannot but be more uneasy 
 than virtue, which is all to be proved. 
 
 I am, from reflecting upon the progress and 
 growth of vice, convinced very much of its un- 
 easiness. If we look upon rebellion, revenge, or 
 adulteries, we find them hatched in corners, as 
 remote from commerce as those vices are them- 
 selves from virtue ; and as black as the guilt of 
 their contrivers ; and almost as terrifying as the 
 worst of prisons are to such who are but in any 
 measure virtuous. None of the contrivers dares 
 trust his colleague ; and which is yet worse, none 
 of them hath courage enough to reflect upon 
 what he is to do ; he must be too bad to be sue* 
 
A MORAL PAKADOX. 101 
 
 cessful, who is so desperately wicked as not to 
 tremble at the wickedness he projects ; and these 
 blessings which adorn the face, when they are 
 the motions of modesty, become stains and ble- 
 mishes, when they are sent there by fear, or a 
 troubled conscience : and it is very pretty to ob- 
 serve, with how much art and pains such as are 
 guilty of vice, endeavour to shun all discourses 
 that can renew to them the least reflection upon 
 their former failings ; and how they must often- 
 times disoblige their own envy and malice, in not 
 daring to vent or reproach others with that guilt 
 which might be easily retorted ; and thus vicious 
 men have as many masters as their vices have 
 witnesses : and though they are bold enough to 
 commit vice, yet they oftentimes want the cou- 
 rage to own it ; and servants, if conscious to 
 these crimes, become thereby necessary to their 
 masters ; nor do wicked and vicious persons fear 
 only such as do, but (which is more extensive) 
 such as may know their vices, and tremble at its 
 memory, as if the sun or moon would divulge 
 their secrets; and, by accident, they have oft 
 confessed crimes upon mistake, and have made 
 apologies for that whereof they were not ac- 
 cused ; which hath made the confessors to be 
 laughed at for their error, as well as hated for 
 their crimes. 
 
J 02 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 Another argument to enforce, That Virtue is 
 more easy than Vice, is : That seeing nature is 
 the spring of all operations, certainly that must 
 be most easy, which is most natural ; and when 
 we would express any thing to be easy to a per- 
 son or nation, we say, it is natural to them ; and 
 miracles are uneasy and difficult, because they 
 run the counter-track of nature, being either 
 above, against, or beside its assistance : but so 
 it is, that virtue is a more natural operation than 
 vice; both because it less infests nature than 
 vice does, — and because nature discovers more 
 of a bent to act viciously than virtuously; which 
 are the only two senses in which any thing is 
 said to be natural. 
 
 That virtue, of these two, prejudges nature 
 least, is clear from this : that sobriety cherisheth 
 it, when it is run down by intemperance; murder 
 kills it; gluttony chokes it; and jealousy keeps 
 it not alive but to torment it: and generally, 
 whenever nature is distressed it flies to virtue — 
 either for protection, as to courage, justice, and 
 clemency; or for recovery, as to temperance, 
 industry, and chastity : few gray hairs owe their 
 whiteness, except to that innocence whose livery 
 it is ; rapine, oppression, and these other vices, 
 heightening their insolence against man, to that 
 point, that he must serve them in being his own 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 103 
 
 cut-throat; to be commended for nothing else, 
 save that they rid the world of such who came 
 only into it to deface that glorious fabric, where- 
 of the Almighty resented so the pleasure of hav- 
 ing created it, that he appointed a day of each 
 seven to celebrate its festivals. Art not some 
 sins said to be Sins against our own bodies ? Not 
 because all are not so in some measure ; but be- 
 cause some are so in so eminent a measure, that 
 the Apostle, who knew much of all men's incli- 
 nations, thought that their being so much such, 
 was enough to restrain such persons from com- 
 mitting them, as were yet so wicked as not to 
 obey a Saviour who died for them. And why is 
 it that laws are so severe against vice, but be- 
 cause it destroys and corrupts the members of 
 the commonwealth ? I have oft, notwithstanding 
 the precepts of Stoicism, which forbids me to be 
 so effeminate as to pity any thing ; and notwith- 
 standing the principles of justice, which forbids 
 me to pity persons, that I have no more remem- 
 bered even the wrongs that they done me: to 
 see the pox wear out a face which had been so 
 oft fairded, and the gout fetter feet, that, as the 
 Psalmist says, were swift to do ill, are but too or- 
 dinary encounters to excite compassion : but to 
 see the wheel fattened with the marrow of tor- 
 tured miscreants; and the rack pull to pieces 
 
104 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 their receptacles of vice ; are great instances how 
 great an enemy vice is to nature ; under whose 
 ill conduct, and for whose errors, it suffers tor- 
 ments which are much sooner felt than expressed. 
 Since, then, Nature is opposed by vice, it can- 
 not be itself so unwise, in the meanest of these 
 many degrees which we ascribe to many crea- 
 tures whom it makes wise, if it disposed not 
 mankind to entertain an aversion for vice, which 
 is so much its enemy. Shall the sheep, the silli- 
 est of all animals, or the earth, the dullest of all 
 the elements, flee from its oppressors ? And shall 
 Nature, which should be wiser than these, be- 
 cause it bestows these inclinations upon them 
 which makes them pass for wise, be so impru- 
 dent, as not to mould men so as to incline them 
 to hate vice, which so much hurts it? Is there 
 any vice committed, to which we may not find 
 another impulsive cause than Nature ? And are 
 not most vices either committed by custom, by 
 being mistaken for good, by interest, or inadver- 
 tence, as shall be showed in the close of this dis- 
 course ? And seeing Nature deigns to do nothing 
 in vain, it is not imaginable that it should prompt 
 us to vice, wherein nothing but vanity can be 
 expected, or from which nothing else can be 
 reaped. These who are so injurious to Nature, 
 (because it appears Nature hath been less libe- 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 105 
 
 ral to them of understanding than to others,) as 
 to fasten this reproach upon it of inclining men 
 to vice, do contradict themselves when they say, 
 That nature is satisfied with little, and desires 
 nothing that is superfluous : whereas all these 
 vices which consist in excess, do stretch them- 
 selves to superfluity; whilst, upon the other 
 side, these vices which consist in defect, are yet 
 as unnatural ; because in these the committers 
 deny themselves what is necessary for them, and 
 so are most unnatural: nature desiring to see 
 every thing accomplished in its just proportions, 
 and satisfied in its just desires. 
 
 All vices have their own peculiar diseases, to 
 which they inevitably lead ; envy brings men to 
 leanness, as if it were fed with its master's flesh, 
 as well as with its enemies' failings; lust, the 
 pox and consumptions; drunkenness, catarrhs 
 and gouts; and rage, fevers and phrenzies; 
 which is a demonstration of their uneasiness and 
 incommodiousness : and I might almost say, that 
 those vices are like frogs, lice, and other despi- 
 cable and terrible insects, generated and knead- 
 ed out of excrementitious humours. Lust is 
 occasioned by the superfluity and heat of the 
 blood ; drunkenness by a dryness of the vessels; 
 and rage by the corruption and exuberancy of 
 choler. Consider how much the frowns of anger 
 
106 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 disfigure the sweetest face — how much rage dis- 
 composes our discourse ; and by these and its 
 other postures, ye will find vice an enemy to 
 nature : so that in all these, nature labours un- 
 der some distemper, and is distressed in its ope- 
 ration ; and acts them not out of choice, but as 
 sick men rise to hunt for what their physicians 
 deny them. And for all this it follows, that vice 
 is neither natural in its productions, nor in its 
 tendencies ; not being designed by nature in the 
 one, nor designing to preserve nature in the 
 other. 
 
 1 confess there is a rank of virtues, which are 
 supernatural, — such as faith, hope, and repent- 
 ance ; but either there could be no contradis- 
 tinction of these from such as I treat of, or else 
 these of which I here speak must be natural. 
 To deny ourselves, if we will follow Christ; 
 and, what flesh and blood did not teach Peter, 
 to emit that noble confession of Christ's being 
 the Son of the Eternal God, proves that some 
 spiritual truths are above the reach of reason ; 
 yet with relation to those other moral virtues, 
 that same inspired volume assures us, That the 
 Gentiles, who have no law, do by nature the things 
 contained in the law, are a law nnto themselves ; 
 which show the work of the law written in their 
 hearts ; their conscience also bearing witness, and 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 107 
 
 their thoughts in the mean time accusing, or else 
 excusing one another : and elsewhere the wicked 
 are said to be without natural affection. Are not 
 all sins, even in the dialect of philosophers and 
 lawgivers, as well as in the language of Canaan, 
 termed unnatural ? What is parricide, ingrati- 
 tude, oppression, lying, &c. but the subversion 
 of these laws, whereof our own hearts are the 
 tables ? Doth not nature, by giving us tongues 
 to express our thoughts, teach us, that to disguise 
 our thoughts, or contradict them, is to be un- 
 natural ? And seeing the not-acknowledgment 
 of favours, obstructs the future relief of our ne- 
 cessities, it must be as unnatural to be ingrate, 
 as it is natural to provide supplies for our crav- 
 ing wants. 
 
 I will not fully exhaust the miseries that wait 
 upon vice, by telling you, that no man who is 
 really vicious, sinneth without reluctancy in the 
 commission ; but I must likewise tell you, That 
 though all the preceding disadvantages were 
 salved, yet the natural horror which results from 
 the commission of vice, is great enough to ren- 
 der it a miracle that any man should be vicious. 
 Conscience can condemn us without witnesses, 
 though we bribe off all witnesses from without ; 
 or though by sophistry and art, we render their 
 depositions unsuccessful : and though remissions 
 
108 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 can secure us against all external punishments, 
 yet the arm of that executioner cannot be stopped. 
 And if ye consider how men become thereby in- 
 consolable, by the attendance of friends, and the 
 advantage of all exterior pleasures, ye cannot but 
 conclude that vice is to be pitied, as well as shun- 
 ned ; and that this alone makes it more uneasy 
 than virtue, whereby the greatest of misfortunes 
 are sweetened ; and outward torments, by having 
 their prospects turned upon future praise and 
 rewards, rendered pleasures to such as suffer 
 them; and are looked upon as ornaments, by 
 such as see them inflicted, and draw praises 
 from succeeding ages. 
 
 Hie raurus ahenus esto 
 
 Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa ; 
 
 was the determination of a pagan, who could de- 
 rive no happiness from the divine promises, up- 
 on which we are obliged to rely for rewards; 
 which though they be too great to be understood 
 by the sons of men, yet are not so great, but 
 that they may be expected by us, when we shall 
 be adopted to be the sons of that God, whose 
 power to bestow can be equalled by nothing, 
 but by His desire to gratify. After success hath 
 crowned vicious designs, yet vice meets with 
 this uneasiness of remorse, wherein the souls of 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 109 
 
 men are made to forget the pleasure of success, 
 and are punished for having been successful : 
 and these will either not remember their success, 
 in which case they want all pleasure, or, if they 
 think upon it, that thought will lead them back 
 to consider the guilt and baseness to which they 
 owe it, which will vex and fret them. Virtue 
 afflicts at most but the body, and in these pains 
 philosophy comforts us; but vice afflicts our 
 souls, and the soul being more sensible than the 
 body, (seeing the body owes its sensibleness to 
 it,) certainly the torments of vice must be the 
 greatest. And this seems the reason why our 
 Saviour, in describing the torments of hell, 
 placeth the worm that never dies, before the fire 
 that never goeth out : and that the rebukes of a 
 natural conscience, are of all torments the most 
 unsupportable, appears from this, — that albeit 
 death being the most formidable of all torments, 
 (men suffering tortures, physic, contumelies, 
 poverty, and the sharpest of afflictions, to shun 
 its encounter,) yet men, in exchange of these, 
 will not only welcome death, but will assume it 
 to themselves, adding the guilt and infamy of 
 self-murder, the confiscation of an estate, and 
 the infamous wants of burial, to the horrors of 
 an ordinary death ; and all this, to shift the pre- 
 sent gnawings of a conscience. The horrors 
 
■110 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 likewise of a guilty conscience do in this appear 
 most disquieting, — that those who have their 
 conscience so burdened, do acknowledge, that 
 after confession they find themselves as much 
 eased, as a sick stomach is relieved by vomiting 
 up these humours, whose disquietness makes 
 such as suffered them rather sick persons than 
 patients ; whereas, whatever be the present 
 troubles which arise from virtue, yet, if they 
 continue not, they are tolerable, and if they con- 
 tinue, custom and the assistance of philosophy 
 will lessen their weight ; and at best, the pain 
 is but temporary, because the cause from which 
 they descend is but momentary : if they be not 
 sharp and violent, they are sufFerable ; and if 
 they be violent, they cannot last, or at least, the 
 patient cannot last long to endure them : where- 
 as these reflections that disquiet us in vice, aris- 
 ing from the soul itself, cannot perish whilst 
 that hath any being. And so the vicious soul 
 must measure its grief by the length of eternity, 
 though vice did let out its joys but the length 
 of a moment, and did not fill even the narrow 
 dimensions of that moment with sincere joy; 
 the knowledge that these were to be short-lived, 
 and the fear of succeeding torment, possessing 
 much of that little room. 
 
 The first objection, whose difficulty deserves 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. Ill 
 
 an answer, is, that virtue obliges us to oppose 
 pleasures, and to accustom ourselves with such 
 rigours, seriousness and patience, as cannot but 
 render its practice uneasy : and if the reader's 
 own ingenuity supply not what may be rejoined 
 to this, it will require a discourse, that shall 
 have no other design besides its satisfaction ; 
 and really to show by what means every man 
 may make himself easily happy, and how to 
 soften the appearing rigours of philosophy, is a 
 design, which, if I thought it not worthy of a 
 sweeter pen, should be assisted by mine; and 
 for which I have in my current experience, ga- 
 thered together some loose reflections and ob- 
 servations, of whose cogency I have this assu- 
 rance — that they have often moderated the wild- 
 est of my own straying inclinations — and so 
 might pretend to a more prevailing ascendant 
 over such, whose reason and temperament make 
 them much more reclaimable: but at present 
 my answer is, That philosophy enjoins not the 
 crossing of our own inclinations, but in order to 
 their accomplishment ; and it proposes pleasure 
 as its end, as well as vice ; though, for its more 
 fixed establishment, it sometimes commands 
 what seems rude to such as are strangers to its 
 intentions in them. Thus temperance resolves 
 to heighten the pleasures of enjoyment, by de- 
 
112 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 fending us against all the insults of excess and 
 oppressive loathing; and when it lessens our 
 pleasures, it intends not to abridge them, but to 
 make them fit and convenient for us ; even as 
 soldiers, who, though they propose not wounds 
 and starvings, yet, if without these they cannot 
 reach those laurels to which they climb, they will 
 not so far disparage their own hopes, as to think 
 they should fix them upon any thing whose pur- 
 chase deserves not the suffering of these. Phy- 
 sic cannot be called a cruel employment, be- 
 cause to preserve what is sound it will cut off 
 what is tainted ; and these vicious persons, whose 
 laziness forms this doubt, do answer it, when 
 they endure the sickness of drunkenness, the 
 toiling of avarice, the attendance of rising vani- 
 ty, and the watchings of anxiety, — and all this 
 to satisfy inclinations, whose shortness allows 
 little pleasures, and whose prospect excludes all 
 future hopes. Such as disquiet themselves by 
 anxiety (which is a frequently repeated self- 
 murder), are more tortured than they could be 
 by the want of what they pant after ; that longed- 
 for possession of a neighbour's estate, or of a 
 public employment, makes deeper impressions 
 of grief by their absence than their enjoyment 
 can repair : and a philosopher will sooner con- 
 vince himself of their not being the necessary 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 113 
 
 integrants of our happiness, than the miser will, 
 by all assiduousness, gain them. 
 
 There are but three instances of time, and in 
 each of these vicious persons are much troubled ; 
 the prospect of usual insuccessfulness, difficul- 
 ties or inconveniences, do torment before the 
 commission ; horror, trembling and reluctancy, 
 do terrify in the act ; and conscience succeeds 
 to these after commission, as the last, but not 
 the least of these unruly torments. And as to 
 the pleasures of vice, it can have none in any 
 of these parcels of time, beside the present ; 
 which present is by many philosophers scarce 
 allowed the name of time, and is at best so swift, 
 that its pleasures must be too transient to be 
 possessed. I confess that revenge is the most 
 enticing of all vices ; insomuch, that a wicked 
 Italian said, That God Almighty had reserved 
 it to himself, because it was too noble and satis- 
 fying a prerogative to be bestowed upon mortals : 
 yet it discharges at once pleasures with its 
 fury ; and, like a bee, languishes after it hath 
 spent its sting ; and when it is once acted, which 
 is oft in one moment, it ceaseth from that mo- 
 ment to be a pleasure ; and such as were tickled 
 once with it, are afraid of its remembrance, and 
 think worse of it than they did formerly of the 
 affront, to expiate which it was undertaken. 
 
114 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 Thirty pieces of silver might have had some 
 lechery in them, at Judas's first touch ; but they 
 behoved to have a very unresembling effect, when 
 he took no longer pleasure in them, than to have 
 come the next week to offer them back ; and be- 
 cause they were refused, to rid himself of his life 
 and them together. 
 
 The pains of vice may be concluded greater 
 than these of virtue, from this ; That virtuous 
 persons are in their sufferings assisted by all the 
 world : vicious persons doing so to expiate their 
 own crimes; and virtuous persons doing the 
 same, to reward the virtue they adore ; and if 
 these endeavours prove unsuccessful, every man 
 by bearing a share in their grief, do all they can 
 to lessen it ; but vicious persons have their suf- 
 ferings augmented by the disdain, and just op- 
 probries thrown upon them by such as were wit- 
 nesses to their vices ; and such as had any incli- 
 nation for them, dare not appear to be their 
 well-wishers, lest they be reputed complices of 
 their crimes. 
 
 I need not fear so much weakness in this my 
 theme, as to bring up a thousand of these instances 
 to its aid, that lie every where obvious to the least 
 curious observation : what is more laborious than 
 pride ? wherein by robbing from others what is 
 due to them, the acquirers are still obliged to 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 11.5 
 
 defend their new conquests with more vigilance 
 than virtue needs ? The proud man must be 
 greater than all others, and so must toil more 
 than they all, his task being greater than all 
 their' s jointly. And the jealous man must never 
 be satisfied, till he knows not only what is truth, 
 but what he fears to be so ; being most unhappy 
 in this, that if he get assurance of what he sus- 
 pects, then he is made really miserable ; or if he 
 attain not to that assurance, he must still toil for 
 it, and make himself miserable by his pains, till 
 he become really so, by being informed of what 
 at one instant he wishes to be false, and endea- 
 vours to make true. Revenge is most painful, 
 both in persuading us that these are affronts, 
 which of their own nature are no affronts ; and 
 then in bringing on us much more hazard than 
 their satisfaction can repay. For one word spoke 
 to us, which (it may be) the speaker intended as 
 no injury, how many have, by murdering the 
 speaker, or some rash attempt, deprived them- 
 selves of the privilege of seeing their friends 
 without horror; or of coming abroad without 
 imminent danger; skulking in dens like thieves; 
 imprisoned for fear of prison ; and dying daily 
 to shun the death they fear ? Whereas Socrates, 
 by laughing at him who spat in his face, had then 
 the pleasure to see himself at present satisfied; and 
 
116 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 did foresee the hopes of future praises. Guilti- 
 ness must search out corners ; it must at all rates 
 secure favourites; it must shun to meet with 
 such as are conscious to its guilt ; and whenever 
 two men speak privately in presence of such as 
 are vicious, they persuade themselves that some- 
 what is there spoke to their disadvantage ; and 
 like one who labours of a sore, they must still 
 be careful that their wound be not touched. 
 
 To conclude then this period, consider, that 
 every thing that is uneasy must be unpleasant ; 
 and that vice is more uneasy than virtue, appears 
 from the whole foregoing discourse. 
 
 I hope the preceding discourse hath cleared 
 off all these doubts, that can oppose this well- 
 founded truth ; leaving only this objection here 
 to be answered: if vice be less easy, and less 
 natural than virtue, why do the greater part of 
 mankind range themselves to its side, leaving 
 virtue as few followers, as it professes to desire 
 admirers? In answer whereto, I confess that 
 this objection proves men to be mad, but not 
 vice to be easy; even as when we see men throw 
 away their clothes, run the fields over, and ex- 
 pose themselves to storms, leaving their conve- 
 nient homes and kind family, we conclude such 
 as do so to be mad ; but are not induced to be- 
 lieve that what they do is easy. And certainly 
 
A MOltAL PARADOX. 117 
 
 vice is a madness, as may appear convincingly 
 from this, that when we see others run to these 
 excesses, (which we thought gallantry in our- 
 selves, when we were acting the like,) we ask 
 them seriously, What, are ye mad ? And Ha- 
 zael, when the cruelty he was to (and did) com- 
 mit, was foretold him by the prophet, did with 
 admiration ask, What ? am I a dog that I should 
 do these things ? And the prodigal, when he 
 freed himself from these vicious rovings, is said 
 to have come to himself; by which word madness 
 is usually expressed. Men are said to be mad 
 when they offer violence to their bodies ; and it 
 is a more advanced degree of madness, to offer 
 violence to our souls ; which we then do (besides 
 the ruining of our bodies) when we are vicious. 
 And to such as prefer their bodies to their souls, 
 I recommend the survey of such bodies as have 
 wasted themselves in stews and taverns, or have 
 left limbs upon the field where they last quar- 
 relled after cups, for vanity or mistresses. The 
 second answer is, That men mistake oftimes vice 
 for virtue ; and are enticed to it by an error in 
 their judgments, rather than any depravedness 
 in their affections. Thus drunkenness recom- 
 mends itself to us, under the notion of kindness; 
 and prodigality under that of liberality : com- 
 placency likewise is the great pimp of much 
 
116 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 viciousness to well-disposed persons, and many 
 are by it enticed to err, to gratify a mistake in 
 their friendship; for they are persuaded, that 
 friendship and kindness are so innocent and 
 sweet qualities, that they cannot command, what 
 are not just as themselves. 
 
 Custom, also, as it is a second nature, so it is 
 a step-mother to virtue,* and whilst we endea- 
 vour to shun the vice of being vain and singular^ 
 we slip into these vices, which are too familiar to 
 be formidable ; and which we would not have 
 committed, if the mode and fashion had not de- 
 termined us thereto, against our first and pure 
 inclinations. Thus the Germans believe drink- 
 ing to be kindness ; and the Italian is, by the 
 custom of his country, induced not to tremble, 
 but to love sodomy. We have interest likewise 
 to blame for much of that wickedness which we 
 falsely charge upon nature ; for this bribes us to 
 oppose what naturally we would follow: but 
 above all, want of consideration is the frequent 
 occasion of many of these disorders ; so that vir- 
 tue is not postponed by choice, but by negli- 
 gence ; neither would it be more difficult for us 
 to be virtuous in many of our actions, than it 
 would be for us to consider what we are about to 
 do. And I may seal up this period with the 
 blunt complaint made by a poor woman, who 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 119 
 
 after her affection and interest had forced from 
 her many passionate regrets against her son's 
 debordings, concluded thus : — Alas ! any son 
 will never recover, for he cannot think. There- 
 fore, I must conclude, that seeing it is easy to 
 think, it must be likewise easy to be virtuous. 
 
 It is indeed hard for one who is drunk to stand 
 upright, or for one who hath his eyes covered 
 with mire to see clearly ; and yet standing up- 
 right, or seeing clearly, are not in themselves 
 difficult tasks : just so virtue is easy in itself, 
 though our pre-engagement to the contrary ha- 
 bit, rather than to the vice itself, renders its 
 operation somewhat uneasy ; whereas, if we had 
 once imbrued our souls with a habit of virtue, 
 its exercise would be far easier to us than that of 
 its contrary ; for it would be assisted by reason, 
 nature, reward, and applause ; all which oppose 
 the other. He who becomes temperate, finds 
 his temperance much less troublesome, than the 
 most habitual drunkard can his excess, who can 
 never render it so familiar, but that he will be 
 constrained to make faces, when he quaffs off 
 a tedious health; and will at sometimes find 
 either his quarrels, the betraying his friend's se- 
 cret, or his crudities to importune him. No liar 
 has so much accustomed himself to that trade, 
 but he will discover himself sometimes in his 
 
120 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 blushes, and will be oft distressed to shape out 
 covers for his falseness ; whereas he who is free 
 from the bondage of that habit, will always find 
 it so easy, that he will never hear a lie, without 
 admiring with what confidence it could have been 
 forged. 
 
 Whereas to know the easiness of virtue, we 
 need only this reflection, That every vicious 
 person thinks it easier to conquer the vice he 
 sees in another. He who whores, admires the 
 uneasiness and unpleasantness of drinking ; and 
 the drunkard laughs at the fruitless toil of am- 
 bition ; which shows that vice is an uneasy con- 
 quest, seeing the meanest persons can subdue it. 
 
 Though truth and newness do of all other mo- 
 tives, court us soonest to complacency, and that 
 my present theme may pretend to both, yet so 
 studious am I of success, where I have a tender- 
 ness for the subject for which I contend, that for 
 further conviction of its enemies, I must recom- 
 mend to them to go to the courts of monarchs, 
 and there learn the uneasiness and unpleasant- 
 ness of vice, from its splitting those in opposi- 
 tions and factions, which afford the reasonable 
 lookers-on as disagreeable a prospect, as that of 
 a shipwrecked vessel. And when faction has 
 once dismembered a society, is it not strange to 
 see what pains and anxiety must be showed by 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 121 
 
 both opposites, to discover and ruin each others 
 projects ? Other men toil only to make them- 
 selves happy ; but those must labour likewise to 
 keep their opposites from being so ; they must 
 seek applause for themselves, and must stop it 
 from their enemies ; they must shun all places 
 where these are entertained, and all occasions 
 which may bring them to meet, though inclina- 
 tion or curiosity do extremely bend them to go 
 thither; they must oppose the friends of their ene- 
 mies, though they be desirous, and obliged upon 
 many other scores to do them good offices ; they 
 grow pale at their appearances, and are disorder- 
 ed at what praise is given those, though bestowed 
 upon them for promoting that public good, 
 wherein the contemners share for much of their 
 own safety ; and it is most ordinary to hear such 
 factious zealots swear, that they would choose 
 rather to be destroyed by a public enemy, than 
 preserved by a rival; from all which it is but 
 too clear, that all vicious persons are slaves, 
 which though the uneasiest of states, yet to shun 
 a loss of supposed liberty, most men refuse to 
 be virtuous. If we go to physicians, we will 
 find their shambles hung round with the trophies 
 of vice. For temperance, chastity, or the other 
 virtues send few thither : but wantonness repays 
 there its own moment's pleasure with a year's 
 
122 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 cure; and makes them afraid to see that disfigured 
 face, for whose representation they once doted 
 upon their flattering mirrors. There lie such 
 prisoners, as the drunken gout hath fettered; 
 and there lie louring such as gluttony hath op- 
 pressed. Let us go to prisons and scaffolds, 
 and there we will see such furnished out with 
 the envoys of injustice, malice, revenge, and 
 murders. Let us go to divines, and they will 
 tell us of the horrid exclamations of such, as 
 have upon their death-bed seen mustered before 
 them, those sins, which how soon they had their 
 vizards of sensuality and lust pulled off, did ap- 
 pear in figures monstrous enough to terrify a 
 soul which took leisure to consider them. 
 
 Hi sunt qui trepidant, et ad omnia fulgura paUent. Juv. 
 
 And though the consciences of soldiers have 
 oftimes their ears so deafened with warlike 
 sounds, or welcome applauses, that they cannot 
 hear ; and their eyes so covered with their ene- 
 mies' gore, that they cannot see these terrifying 
 shapes of inward revenge; yet, if we believe 
 Lucan, neither could the wrongs done to Caesar 
 so far legitimate his fury; nor the present joy, or 
 future danger, so far divert him from reflecting 
 upon his by-past actions ; nor could the want of 
 Christianity (which enlivens extremely these ter- 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 123 
 
 rors beyond the Creed of a Roman, who believed 
 that gallantry was devotion) so far favour his 
 cruelty, — but that he and his soldiers were, the 
 night of Pharsalia's battle, thus disturbed. Z,w- 
 can, book 7. 
 
 But furious dreams disturb their restless rest, 
 
 Pharsalia's Jight remains in every breast ; 
 
 Their horrid guilt still works ; the battle stands 
 
 In all their thoughts, they brandish empty hands 
 
 Without their swords : you would have thought the field 
 
 Had groaned, and that the guilty earth did yield 
 
 Exhaled spirits, that in the air did move, 
 
 And Stygian fears possest the night above ; 
 
 A sad revenge on them their conquest takes ; 
 
 Their sleeps present the Furies hissing snakes, 
 
 And brands ; their countrymen's sad ghosts appear : 
 
 To each the image of his proper fear. 
 
 One sees an old man's visage, one a young; 
 
 Another's tortured all the evening long 
 
 With his slain brother's spirit; their father'' s sight 
 
 Daunts some ; but Caesar's soitl all ghosts affright. 
 
 But that I may rest your thoughts from the 
 noise and horror of these objects, let me lead 
 them into a philosopher's cell or house; (for 
 virtue is not like vice, confined to places,) and 
 there ye will see measures taken, by no less no- 
 ble nor less erring pattern, than Nature. His 
 furniture is not the offspring of the last fashion ; 
 and so he must not be at the toil, and keep spies 
 for informing him, when the succeeding mode 
 
124 A MOKAL PARADOX. 
 
 must cause these be pulled down ; and needs not 
 be troubled, to fill the room yearly of that con- 
 temned stuff' he but lately admired. He is not 
 troubled that another's candlesticks are of a later 
 mould ; nor vext, that he cannot muster so many 
 cabins or knacks as he does. He spends no 
 such idle times as is requisite for making great 
 entertainments ; wherein nature is oppressed to 
 please fancy ; and must be, by the next day's 
 physic, tortured to cure its errors : his soul lod- 
 ges cleanly; neither clouded with the vapours, 
 nor cloyed with the crudities of his table : he 
 applies every thing to its natural use ; and so 
 uses meat and drink, not to express kindness, 
 (friendship doing that office much better) but to 
 refresh, and not to occasion his weakness. His 
 dreams are neither disturbed by the horrid re- 
 presentation of his last day's crimes, nor by the 
 too deep impressions of the next day's designs, 
 but are calm as the breast they refresh, and 
 pleasant as the rest they bring. His eyes suffer 
 no such eclipse in these, as the eyes of vicious 
 men do, when they are darkened with drunken- 
 ness, or excessive sorrow ; for all his darknesses 
 succeed as seasonably to his recreations, as the 
 day is followed in by the night. In his clothes, 
 he uses not such as require two or three hours 
 to their laborious dressing; or which overawe 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 125 
 
 the wearer so, that he must shun to go abroad 
 to all places, or at all occasions, lest he offend 
 their lustre ; but he provides himself with such 
 as are most easy for use ; and fears not to stain 
 these, if he keep his soul unspotted: he considers 
 his body and organs as the easement and servants 
 of that reasonable soul he so much loves, and 
 therefore he eases them, not upon design to 
 please them, but to refresh them, that the soul 
 may be thereby better served; and if at any time he 
 deny these their satisfaction, he designs not there- 
 by to torture them: for gratitude obliges him to re- 
 pay better their services ; (and a man should not 
 be cruel even to his beast;) but he does so, lest 
 they exceed these measures, whose extent virtue 
 knows better to mark out than they ; or else he 
 finds that, during the time he ministers to these 
 appetites, he may be more advantageously em- 
 ployed in enjoying the pure and spiritual plea- 
 sures of philosophy. But leaving this outer- 
 court, let us step into a philosopher's breast, (a 
 region as serene as the heaven whence it came,) 
 and there view how sweet virtue inspires gentle 
 thoughts, whose storms raise not wrinkles, like 
 billows in our face, and blow not away our dis- 
 obliged friends. Here, no mutinous passion re- 
 bels with success ; and these petty insurrections 
 of flesh and blood, serve only to magnify the 
 
126 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 strength of reason in their defeat. Here, all his 
 desires are so satisfied with virtue as their reward, 
 that they need, nor do not run abroad, begging 
 pleasures from every unknown object; and there- 
 fore it is, that, not placing his happiness upon 
 what is subject to the empire of fate, capricious 
 fortune cannot make him miserable; for it can 
 resume nothing but what it hath given : and 
 therefore, seeing it hath not bestowed virtue and 
 tranquillity, it cannot call it away, and whilst 
 that remains all other losses are inconsiderable. 
 And as few men are grieved to see what is not 
 their own destroyed, so the virtuous philosopher, 
 having always considered what is without him as 
 belonging to fortune, and not to him; he sees 
 those burned or robbed with a disinterested in- 
 differency: and when all others are alarmed with 
 the fears of ensuing wars and invasions, he stands 
 as fixed (though not as hard) as a rock, and suf- 
 fers all the foaming waves of fate and malice, to 
 spend their spite and froth at his feet. Virtue, 
 and the remembrance of what he hath done, and 
 the hopes that he will still act virtuously, are all 
 his treasures ; and these are not capable of being 
 pillaged; these are his inseparable companions, 
 and, therefore, he can never want a divertising 
 conversation ; and seeing he is a citizen of the 
 world, all places are his country; and he is always 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 127 
 
 at home, and so can never be banished ; and see- 
 ing he can still exercise his reason equally in all 
 places, he is never (like vicious persons) vexed 
 that he must stay in one place, and cannot reach 
 another ; like a sick man, whose diseases make 
 him always tumble through all the corners of his 
 bed. He is never surprised, because he forecasts 
 always the worst ; and as this arms him against 
 discontents, so if a milder event disappoint his 
 apprehensions, this heightens his pleasure. He 
 lives without all design, except that one of obey- 
 ing his reason ; therefore it is that he can never 
 be miserable, seeing such are only so, who are 
 crossed in their designs ; and thence it is, that 
 when he hears that his actions displease the 
 world, he is not troubled, seeing he designed not 
 to please them; and if he see others carry weal- 
 thy pretences to which he had a title, he is little 
 troubled, seeing he designed not to be rich. 
 The frowns or favours of grandees alter him not, 
 seeing he neither fears the one, nor expects pro- 
 motion from the other. He desires little, and 
 so is easily happy ; seeing these are without con- 
 troversy happy, who enjoy all they desire ; and 
 that man puts himself in great debt, who widens 
 his expectations by his desires : thus, he who 
 designs to buy a neighbouring field, must straiten 
 himself to lay up what will reach its price, as 
 
128 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 much as if he were debtor in the like sum ; and 
 desire leaves still an emptiness which must be 
 filled. He finds not his breast invaded (like 
 such as are vicious) by contrary passions : envy 
 sometimes persuading, that others are more de- 
 serving ; and vanity assuring, that none deserves 
 so much. His passions do not interest him with 
 extreme concern in any thing; and seeing he 
 loves nothing too well, he grieves at the loss of 
 nothing too much ; joy and grief being like the 
 contrary motions of a swing or pendula, which 
 must move as far (exactly) to the one side, as it 
 run formerly to the other. He looks upon all 
 mankind as sprung from one common stock with 
 himself; and these are as glad to hear of other 
 men's happiness, as others are to hear of their 
 kindred and relations' promotion. If he be 
 advanced to be a statesman, whilst he con- 
 tinues so, he designs more to discharge well 
 his present trust than to court a higher, which 
 double task burdens such as are vicious; and, 
 having no private design, if the public which 
 he serves find out one fitter for the employ- 
 ment, he is well satisfied, for his design of 
 serving the public is thereby more promoted : 
 and if he be preferred to be a judge, he looks 
 only to the law as his square, and is not dis- 
 tracted betwixt the desires to be just, to please 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 129 
 
 his friends, to gratify his dependers, and to ad- 
 vance his private gain. The philosopher is not 
 raised by his greatness above, nor depressed by 
 his misfortunes below, his natural level; for, 
 when he is in his grandeur, he considers that 
 men come to him but as they go to fountains ; 
 not to admire its streams (though clear as crys- 
 tal), but to fill their own pitchers ; and there- 
 fore he is neither at much pains to preserve 
 that state, nor to heighten men's esteem of it, 
 but considers his own power as he doth a river, 
 whose streams are always passing, and are then 
 only pleasant when they glide calmly within 
 their banks. Injuries do not reach him, for 
 his virtue places him upon a height above their 
 shot ; and what calumnies or offences are inten- 
 ded for him, do but like the vapours and fogs 
 that rise from the earth, not reach the heaven, 
 but fall back in storms and thunder upon the 
 place from which they were sent. Injuries may 
 strike his buckler, but cannot wound himself, 
 who is sensible of no wounds but of those his 
 vices give him. And if a tyrant kill his body, he 
 knows his immaterial soul cannot be stabbed, but 
 is sure it will fly as high as the spheres, (nothing 
 but that clog of earth hindering it to move up- 
 ward to that its centre,) and that from thence he 
 will with great Pompey (in Lucan), smile down, 
 
130 A MORAL PARADOX. 
 
 when he shall see, with illuminate eyes, his own 
 trunk to be so inconsiderable a piece of neglec- 
 ted earth. And to conclude, the philosopher 
 does in all his actions go to the straightest way, 
 which is, because of that, the shortest, and there- 
 fore the easiest. 
 
 When I have constellate all these towering 
 eulogies, which gratitude heaps upon its bene- 
 factors, which foolish youths throw away upon 
 their mistresses, and which flatterers buzz into 
 the depraved ears of their patrons, — when I 
 have impoverished invention, and emptied elo- 
 quence of their most flowery ornaments, — when I 
 shall have decocted the pains of a whole writing 
 age into one panegyric, to bestow a compliment 
 upon virtue for the ease it gives us, and the 
 sweets of its tranquillity, I shall have spent my 
 time better, than in serving the most wealthy or 
 recreating vice ; and yet I shall oblige virtue by 
 it less, than by acting the least part of what is 
 reasonable, or gaining the soonest reclaimable 
 of such as are vicious ; and therefore I shall leave 
 off to write, that I may begin to act virtuously, 
 though one of my employment may find a de- 
 fence for writing moral philosophy, in the exam- 
 ples of Cicero, Du Vaire, that famous French 
 president, the Lord Verulam, and thousands of 
 others. 
 
A MORAL PARADOX. 131 
 
 I have (to deal ingenuously) written these two 
 essays to serve my country, rather than my fame 
 or humour ; and if they prove successful, heaven 
 has nothing below itself, wherewith it can more 
 bless my wishes : but if these succeed not, I 
 know nothing else wherewith I would flatter my 
 hopes ; and so whatever be the event of this un- 
 dertaking, (as my resolutions stand now formed,) 
 adieu for ever to writing. 
 
CONSOLATION AGAINST 
 CALUMNIES: 
 
 SHOWING HOW TO BEAR THEM EASILY AND 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 1 HOUGH my friendship pay its incense no 
 where with so much devotion, as when it bows to 
 your merit; and though your charming letter 
 had a bait hung at its each line, yet I am equally 
 afraid and ashamed to return, in answer to either, 
 that desired consolation, which may show very 
 much vanity in me to undertake, and very little 
 friendship to be able to perform. For either 
 your misfortunes are not so pointed as ye repre- 
 sent, and then I must show your weakness when 
 I detect the defects of what conquers you ; or if 
 
 * "Written in return to a Person of Honour, and at his 
 desire subjoined to the foregoing Discourse, because of the 
 contingency of the subjects. 
 
134 A CONSOLATION 
 
 they have powers resembling the greatness of 
 these complaints which ye form of them, then it 
 will show too much disunion in our friendship 
 (pardon the levelingness of that word, seeing ye 
 have authorized what it expresses) to be able to 
 comfort you, when you are not able to comfort 
 yourself; and. not to be discomposed by the same 
 absences of spirit and courage that obliges you 
 to crave that assistance, which my modesty or 
 sympathy should make me to decline to offer. 
 Yet seeing ye possibly crave this, to try rather 
 my obedience than to supply your necessities ; 
 I will expose my own real defects, to help these 
 imaginary ones in you : and this being the last 
 thing I am ever to print, I shall think my repu- 
 tation expires nobly, when it dies a martyr in 
 your quarrel. 
 
 The misfortune you complain of is, that your 
 name is loaded with misreports ; and that your 
 innocence doth not protect you against that in- 
 justice : and albeit I am sorry to see so noble a 
 name as your's so ill lodged, as in the venomous 
 mouths of the indiscreet world ; yet I am glad 
 to hear that your fortunes are so full, as that ye 
 find no incommodity, but what is so foreign, 
 and what may be so easily removed. 
 
 Be pleased therefore to consider, that though 
 ye imagine all the world talks of you, yet that is 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 135 
 
 your and not their error ; for few have either 
 time, convenience or humour, to inquire into, 
 or hear such reports as these which trouble you : 
 and I know by experience, that where men fall 
 in your misfortunes, or under any affront, they 
 conceive all they meet or know consider nothing 
 so much as their case; whereas I myself have 
 met such persons, without any lessening thoughts 
 of them, and without any change in my humour 
 towards them, besides what was wrought by a 
 pity to see reasonable men slip into such an er- 
 ror : it is the nearness of concern which induces 
 men to believe this; and so they should conclude, 
 that seeing others are not so concerned in these 
 misinformations, they will not apprehend them 
 with the same feelings. Every man imagines 
 his own disease greatest, and admires why 
 others are not sensible of his sufferings ; whilst 
 these admire why he sees not his own to be 
 much less than he imagines. And as self-love 
 makes us imagine, that all the world hears of our 
 advantages ; so it is an equal error to believe that 
 all men are informed of our misfortunes ; and I 
 have regretted to my friends (who of all others 
 should have known best my misfortunes) what 
 they knew not, but from my own apologies. 
 
 Of these few who hear such reports, reason 
 should oblige us to believe, that fewer believe 
 
136 A CONSOLATION 
 
 them : for reason teaches us to presume men to 
 be just; and really they so are, except they be 
 biassed by prejudice or interest ; whereas if they 
 be just, they will little credit such discourses ; it 
 being so indispensable an essential of justice, not 
 to condemn such as we have not heard to de- 
 fend themselves against what they are accused 
 of; that though God could not but know what 
 Adam had done when he had sinned in Eden, 
 yet He would not sentence him, till He cited 
 him to appear in his own defence — Adam, where 
 art thou ? And when the cries of Sodom's sins 
 were become as great as the guilt was which oc- 
 casioned them, yet God says, We will go down 
 and see. 
 
 It were likewise injustice to condemn men upon 
 the depositions of such as shall have no warrant 
 for what they talk, but common fame ; which is 
 so infamous a witness, that it hath been convicted 
 of a thousand million of gross lies, and stands 
 condemned in the registers both of sacred and 
 profane story. And so unworthy is the offspring 
 of this common whore, that ye will scarce find 
 one in an age who will own it for his ; and as if 
 every man condemned it, even these who relate 
 these discourses will still disown to be authors 
 of them : and I may say of them, as the laws 
 say of bastards, that patrem demonstrare nequeunt. 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 137 
 
 Why then should we think that just men will 
 believe, what even unjust men are ashamed to 
 maintain ; and what is told with so much cau- 
 tion and secrecy, as may convince such to whom 
 it is told, that the relater dares not undergo the 
 trial ? The other warrants of their discourses 
 are the testimonies of such, as men may see by 
 the feverish zeal of the relaters, that they are too 
 much interested to be believed ; and when we 
 hear such discourses, we should examine, why 
 was the relater at the pains to disperse these in- 
 formations ? Which if we do, we will find that 
 interest or prejudice does prompt them; and so 
 in believing these, we give the informer reason to 
 laugh at our simplicity, in being so easily prompt 
 by him (which may justly give him ground to 
 prefer his wit to our's) ; and we become but the 
 executioners of his revenge and malice : should 
 not, and will not, reasonable men think, that 
 these who are so officious as to report such dis- 
 courses, wherein they are not interested, will be 
 so unjust as to make, as well as tell such calum- 
 nies ? And these who are busy-bodies in inter- 
 esting themselves in such tattles, may be liars 
 in forging what they want. None should be be- 
 lieved, but such as are virtuous ; and such will 
 never be authors of misreports, or curious to 
 talk of other men's affairs ; for virtuous persons 
 
138 A CONSOLATION 
 
 will be ashamed to have it thought, that they 
 spend their time so meanly, as to have leisure 
 to hear or inquire into what does not concern 
 them: and as the law, so men should always sus- 
 pect witnesses, who offer themselves to depose 
 without being commanded or interrogate. Wise 
 men will likewise examine, upon what ground 
 the relater founds himself; and if they do not, 
 they are unjust; or if they do, they will easily 
 find that the weakest presumptions make the 
 strongest of his arguments; and, in place of 
 making you criminal, your accusers will thus 
 make themselves ridiculous. Who will condemn 
 upon presumptions, and upon such as are only 
 presumptions to persons ignorant and malicious ? 
 What may be, may not be ; and therefore it is 
 bad logic to infer, that such an evil thing is done, 
 because it may be so ; for the conclusion should 
 follow the weakest proposition ; and, therefore, 
 we should rather conclude, that such an evil is 
 not done, because it may be that it is not done. 
 No rational man should judge of any action, 
 whereof he knows not the design of the actor ; 
 for some actions are good or evil, according as 
 the design is. St. Jerome went to taverns to 
 observe and reform, which was a virtue in him, 
 though it was a crime in others : and, therefore, 
 seeing we know not other men's designs, we 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. tt9 
 
 should not censure their actions. One circum- 
 stance, also, will vary the case ; and, seeing few 
 men know all circumstances of other men's ac- 
 tions, it is rashness to censure what but may be 
 vicious J and injustice to be rash in censuring, 
 seeing what we censure may be virtuous. Ano- 
 ther ground which persuades me that few believe 
 what is disadvantageous to another man's honour, 
 is, that though fame and life be but paralleled 
 in law, yet in honour, fame is much dearer than 
 life, because it lasts longer than life, and because 
 life without it is a torment ; but it without life is 
 so much a happiness, that more die for fame, 
 than by courage. Seeing, then, we need not 
 fear that just men will pronounce against our 
 life without impregnable evidences, why should 
 we fear that they will pronounce against our 
 honour, upon foundless and slight misreports ? 
 It is likewise men's own interest not to believe 
 such discourses of others, lest they thereby esta- 
 blish a precedent against themselves ; for will not 
 they think that the next turn may be theirs, and 
 that being mortal as you, they are liable to the 
 same accidents; and that if such discourses should 
 receive access, their innocence and pains are ea- 
 sily disappointed ? And, therefore, I hope you 
 will think, that common interest is a sufficient 
 security for your fame amongst wise men ; and 
 
140 A CONSOLATION 
 
 that upon that score, prudent men will not be- 
 lieve such reports, as just men will not upon the 
 former; it is also most ordinary to find, that 
 such as have been once cheated, will be more 
 cautious for the future ; brutes themselves being 
 so wise, as to beware of that snare where they 
 were once entrapped. It is then most probable, 
 that seeing most men have once, and many too 
 often been cheated with misreports, having been 
 induced to wrong their friends hereby, and their 
 relations ; that such therefore, even amongst 
 these who can be unjust, yet will be so no more, 
 and, that we will be secured by the experience, 
 though not by their virtue. 
 
 As to these who will talk to your disadvantage, 
 I shall class them thus ; some will out of raillery, 
 some will through misinformation, some by in- 
 terest and malice. Those who talk out of raillery, 
 deserve not your malice ; nor should their dis- 
 courses fret you, seeing their humour is generally 
 known to design rather jest than truth ; and so 
 what they say, may divert others as a treat of 
 wit, but cannot wrong you as a disobliging truth, 
 no more than Virgil can be believed a fool, be- 
 cause he is antic in burlesque verse ; and seeing 
 these use you as they use their friends and 
 themselves, ye should be no more angry than 
 the king is, when he sees his face posted up for 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 141 
 
 a sign to a country tavern. Scripture and devo- 
 tion suffer with you on this account; and, because 
 the finest things are most universally known, 
 therefore, they are most ordinarily the subject 
 of such entertainment; that being the object 
 thought only worthy to rail at, which deserves 
 not to be so used ; and men being used to make 
 that appear ridiculous, which is not so in itself. 
 
 These who talk to your prejudice through 
 misinformation, receive but so slight an impres- 
 sion, as will make them speak but faintly, and as 
 will not hinder them from being easily removed 
 from their received intelligence ; and after they 
 are reclaimed by your friends, or a ripened in- 
 formation, they will judge it a duty to expiate 
 their former error, by confessing to the world 
 their former injustice ; so that by one of those 
 penitents more will be regained, than can be de- 
 bauched by twenty misinformers ; men being 
 generally more inclined to believe such as have 
 experienced both, than such as pretend only an 
 acquaintance with one of the opposite sides. 
 
 As to such who speak out of malice, they do 
 either press their design with such vehemency, 
 as they may easily be suspected; or else they 
 overact themselves by telling so improbable un- 
 truths, that they are easily discovered : few like- 
 wise are unacquainted with the humour of such ; 
 
142 A CONSOLATION 
 
 and God has in a manner put Cain's mark up- 
 on them, that they may not be believed. Malice 
 cannot conceal itself, no more than it can the 
 faults of others ; and the authority of such is or- 
 dinarily of so little advantage to the cause they 
 manage, that it hangs contempt upon a report, 
 that they spread it : and how soon it is known to 
 have begun at them, it leaves off" to be either re- 
 garded or believed. 
 
 Those whom interest persuades to talk of you, 
 as being rivals to either your fame or love, do 
 soon discover themselves and their passion, and 
 by that discovery they secure you ; for after that, 
 the hearers consider more their interest, than 
 your crimes ; and in place of hating you, because 
 of that alleged guilt, they pity and favour you, 
 as a person who is so persecuted. Others do 
 feed such misreport, not because they rival you, 
 but because they would have you to rival them ; 
 designing to have you loaded with the like guilt 
 with which themselves stand charged ; and ex- 
 pecting either to divert thereby the public noise, 
 and make you the seat of that war ; or hoping 
 to lessen their own guilt by sharing it with you ; 
 these you should pardon, even as we pardon 
 those who grip us when they are like to drown ; 
 neither need ye fear such informers, seeing their 
 interest is known ; and, therefore, none will be- 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. H3 
 
 lieve them but such who are simple ; as that their 
 belief is not worthy your pains or anger. 
 
 Having thus cleared off many of those, whom 
 your Lordship suspected as enemies, my next 
 chapter shall be to comfort you against what im- 
 pression those who remain can leave on you. In 
 pursuance whereof, my first conclusion shall be, 
 that nothing can be arbiter of your fate, but 
 what hath power to make you happy as well as 
 miserable ; by the application whereof, and of 
 the rule of contraries, pardon me to assure you, 
 that except ye thought the rabble might have 
 made you happy, making you great or famous, 
 ye had never feared nor courted their suffrage ; 
 and seeing they are so miserable and inconstant 
 a crew, what an empty and unfixed happiness 
 must that be which ye expected ? The way, then, 
 not to value common reports, is, not to value 
 what favours the multitude can do you; that hap- 
 piness which ye pursue amongst them, your own 
 breast, and it only, can bestow : and as nothing 
 that is not spiritual can make your spirit happy, 
 so nothing can wound a spirit, that is nothing 
 else but breath and air ; and I assure you, that 
 these detract too much from the nobleness of 
 man's soul, who imagine, that there is any thing 
 else under the sun, whereupon his happiness or 
 unhappiness doth depend ; for all exterior enjoy- 
 
144 A CONSOLATION 
 
 merits do not otherwise enrich or impoverish it, 
 than these rivulets which disgorge themselves 
 into that bason of the ocean, do by their access 
 or recess fill or empty its still equal waters. 
 How can man be said to be lord of all the crea- 
 tion, if his happiness does depend upon riches, 
 territories, or any thing without him ? And, 
 therefore, it was nobly concluded by Epictetus, 
 That what is without us, and does not depend 
 upon our choice, should not affect us. 
 
 And, therefore, seeing reports cannot reach 
 us, they should not grieve us ; unjust calumnies 
 fall no otherwise upon a wise man, than hail up- 
 on a strong house, whose fall causeth greater 
 noise than prejudice. It is true, that these may 
 hinder us from being preferred, but a virtuous 
 person knows that his happiness lies not in pre- 
 ferment, and so he values no more what can ob- 
 struct that, than a covetous man does the loss of 
 what may promote his knowledge ; or the amo- 
 rous what cannot disappoint his love. A virtu- 
 ous man may by want of preferment, be stopped 
 from doing what good the diffusiveness of his 
 noble humour would stretch towards others ; but 
 his country is only a loser in this, and not he, 
 for he pleases himself in the doing what good is 
 within his present reach, and in being willing to 
 do more, if occasion offer. 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 145 
 
 I confess that misreports do sometimes grieve 
 our spirits ; but it is our fancy, and not those, 
 who have that ascendant over us; as is clear 
 from this, that the same words spoke by a friend 
 or fool, will not trouble us, which would enrage 
 us if they slipt from any other person ; and till 
 we know what is spoke of us, what is spoken 
 does not trouble us ; which shows that not our 
 enemies, but we wound ourselves: and seeing 
 they never trouble us, but when, and at what 
 proportion we do value them ; it is clear that not 
 these, but our own reflections do grieve us. For 
 if these grieved us, the measures of our grief 
 would be ruled by any thing in us ; and all af- 
 fronts and injuries should be to all equally dis- 
 quieting, whereas now they yield to our humours; 
 nor is a jovial, serene spirit, troubled like a me- 
 lancholian, whose humour gives much of that 
 black tincture to our crosses which so affright 
 us. The way then to assure ourselves against 
 misreports, is, not by informing all that great 
 mass of our acquaintances, or by shunning what 
 displeases others ; (for what will persuade them 
 that they have a right to judge us) ; but the 
 nearer cut is to tame our own affections, and 
 bring them so under rod to our reason, that no- 
 thing may offend us, but what offends it ; even 
 as the way to preserve a body from diseases, is 
 
 T 
 
146 A CONSOLATION 
 
 to purge away these noxious humours which 
 corrupt the best of aliments. 
 
 Let us consider that men are either just, or 
 unjust; if just, we need not fear their reproaches, 
 for they never reproach innocency, and we should 
 not fear to have our guilt reproached ; if unjust, 
 we should not fret, because it is natural to them 
 to reproach even the innocent ; and we have as 
 just reason to think ourselves unhappy because 
 dogs bark at us, or the winds and storms stop 
 our journeys. This requires submission, but not 
 grief; and is a misfortune to them, but not to us. 
 And, as we should conform ourselves to the laws 
 of the place where we live ; so seeing the decrees 
 of providence have appointed the wicked to per- 
 secute the just, it is reason to obey, not only be- 
 cause we cannot help it, but because our Maker 
 hath commanded it. Such as calumniate us, do, 
 in so doing, show either ignorance or malice; 
 and that being the worst of ills, they prejudge 
 themselves more than us, and we have our re- 
 venge in their offence. Fear not that their ma- 
 lice will be constant if it be vigorous, for it must 
 want in length what it grows to in height, and 
 some fresh object will divert them from toothing 
 upon you; or, at least, their natural inconstancy 
 will make them stagger from what they are at ; 
 and they will sooner fix no where, than fix long 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 14? 
 
 any where; and, like a swing, they will probably 
 run as far in the other extreme of admiring you$ 
 as they did to that of speaking to your prejudice, 
 and, as those upon whom the plague breaks need 
 never fear a relapse, so your surmounting this* 
 report will secure you against all future invasions. 
 
 Men should do generous things, not for es- 
 teem, but for virtue ; and, I may say, they are 
 then most generous, when they meet not with 
 applause ; for then they make the world their 
 debtors, but when the world applauds them they 
 pay them : and, whereas, they use the world in 
 the one case as a prince does his subjects ; the 
 world uses them in the other case, as a man doth 
 his merchant or servant. 
 
 Nothing that is not in our power should grieve 
 us, and so it holds truer in philosophy than po- 
 licy, that quisquis est faber sua for tuna: ; a wise 
 man's inclinations are his stars ; and nothing can 
 make him unhappy, but what can pollute these. 
 Seeing, then, we are not answerable for other 
 men's follies, why should their misreports (which 
 are the chiefest of these) trouble us ? And, if it 
 be made arbitrary to them to grieve us, what a 
 precarious happiness is ours, which is subject to 
 the caprice of such as are capricious, ignorant, 
 and malicious ; to escape one of which three, is 
 as impossible as to please them all. No man is 
 
148 A CONSOLATION 
 
 worsted in his esteem, because another commits 
 a fault ; why then should I be grieved as if I 
 were guilty, because another man is so guilty as 
 to calumniate me ? And it is too much compas- 
 sion in me to be sorry for him who wrongs me. 
 There is no man so foolish, as to pursue a 
 prize not worthy of his pains ; or to grapple with 
 one who is not worthy to be defeated. Consider 
 then, that your adversaries acknowledge, that 
 they fear your worth when they endeavour to 
 lessen it by calumny ; knowing, that they dare 
 not enter the lists with you upon equal terms ; 
 and therefore they call the world, by this com- 
 mon Fame, to their assistance ; which imports, 
 that nothing less than a multitude can overcome 
 so heroic a spirit. No place is undermined, but 
 what is too strong for the assilant's open force ; 
 and no man was ever painfully maligned, but 
 such as were of so noble an humour, that nothing 
 but malice joined with pains could ruin. Level- 
 ling is the natural effect of man's pride ; and as 
 no great soul will descend to consider his in- 
 feriors, so such as fate has placed below you, 
 do naturally design either to rise to your height, 
 or to pull you down to their own stature : and 
 hence it is, that your endowments making the 
 first unpracticable, self-interest makes the se- 
 cond necessary : and the liberty of repining is 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 149 
 
 a charitable allowance, which should be indulged 
 to those, to whom providence having denied 
 what we possess, we should, in recompense of 
 that partage, suffer some expressions from them; 
 which, when granted, does noways make up that 
 loss. The consideration whereof made that ge- 
 nerous prince, Henry the Fourth of France, say, 
 when he heard that his subjects talked of him 
 with more liberty than justice ; that he could not 
 but pardon them, seeing they had nothing else 
 to recompense their not being kings of France. 
 It were injustice in you to desire both the price, 
 and the thing whereof ye have the price : so 
 that, seeing ye possess that happiness which de- 
 serves public Envy, it were unjust that ye should 
 not suffer it, and unmerciful that ye should not 
 suffer a word to pass with the losers. 
 
 Consider, likewise, that all mankind is bom 
 to misery, that is a law, not a punishment ; and 
 envy is too common to be a misfortune : who 
 escapes it in some measure, but such as never 
 attempt any thing that was worthy of considera- 
 tion ? And who thinks death a misfortune, since 
 all must submit to it ? So that I may say to your 
 Lordship, That nothing can cure this better, 
 than to wear about your arm the names of three 
 persons, who have passed through this valley of 
 tears, without being soiled by some drops of ca- 
 
150 A CONSOLATION 
 
 lumny ; and to find these three will be as hard 
 as to find the philosopher's stone. Men should 
 not repine, then, because they are pursued by 
 some trouble ; but they should consider, whether 
 their trouble be greater than that of other men : 
 and by this rule we will find, that they escape 
 easily to whose share of this general taxation, 
 nothing falls but misreports. For such as lie 
 entombed in prison, or are starved in poverty, 
 to be relieved, and which is less, the ambitious 
 for preferment, or the vindictive for satisfying 
 his revenge, would allow the world to talk of 
 them at their own rates : so that your torment is 
 but their choice ; and ye do at the same altars 
 complain of what they would beg from them. 
 
 No merchant esteems himself miserable, be- 
 cause he owes some debt ; but he compares his 
 debt and credit, and is satisfied, if more be ow- 
 ing to him than he owes to others. Do then, 
 my Lord, consider what advantage ye possess ; 
 and think not that providence deals churlishly 
 with you, when ye find that even malice must 
 find more things to admire in you, than it can 
 find to carp at ; for to have but one trouble is a 
 happiness, seeing if ye wanted all, ye would be 
 a god ; and it is sufficient happiness to possess 
 that quiet, which differs but by one remove from 
 His. Number your friends, and I am confident 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 151 
 
 ye will find these to surpass the number of such 
 as dare say they are your enemies : but though 
 they were fewer than your enemies, yet be not 
 so unjust to your friends, as to think that one 
 friend is not worth a thousand enemies. Wise 
 men number not, but ponder vices ; but ye may 
 securely do both. Will not a courtier value the 
 opinion of his prince, and a lover the esteem of 
 his mistress, above all the suffrages of all the 
 remnant of mankind ? And should not a virtu- 
 ous person content himself with the approbation 
 of God Almighty ? and which is next, with the 
 esteem of a friend, whose knowledge and virtue 
 makes him all these to such as rightly rate 
 friendship. 
 
 —Sat, amico te rnihi felix. 
 
 His friendship is a constant purchase, but the 
 multitude's applause is uncertain and painful ; 
 and these should rather be laughed at who court 
 it, than they who want it. 
 
 Consider seriously, whether it be not more 
 easy and pleasant to be enjoying yourselves with 
 a generous friend, than by running up and down 
 the world, gaining such as serve for nothing, but 
 to say, You are a brave gentleman ; which, if it 
 were a fine thing, they would not have it to be- 
 stow : for it is not reasonable to think that pro- 
 
152 A CONSOLATION 
 
 vidence would deposite fine things in such hands; 
 and it choses its servants ill, if these be its stew- 
 ards. 
 
 I having, then, spoken formerly to you as a 
 philosopher, let me use the style of a gentleman ; 
 and in that tell you, That the world hath no 
 right to judge you ; you are a peer, and should 
 not be judged by commons : laugh at them when 
 they usurp, and let not your melancholy be the 
 executioner of their sentence. It is alleged, 
 that no beast dares pursue a man, if he holds 
 his face undauntedly to it; these pursue not 
 men, but cowards ; and the rabble knows not 
 when ye err, but because ye blush. Do not 
 then by your anxiety wrong innocency, and 
 establish not a preparative by your yielding, 
 whereby other virtuous persons may be op- 
 pressed ; but be so charitable even to these un- 
 just creatures who calumniate you, as to reclaim 
 them from that humour, by laughing them out 
 of it ; for I assure you, they will use you as men 
 do children, who continue to hold out their fin- 
 gers to them, when they find it vexes them. No 
 man will lose his pains ; and upon this account 
 ye will find, that seeing men calumniate you 
 because they think to vex you, they will give 
 themselves no longer that trouble, than they 
 find they are able to give it you. 
 
AGAINST CALUMNIES. 153 
 
 The example of these Bethshemites, who fell 
 the sacrifice of their own sin, for prying into the 
 bosom of the ark, forbids my eyes to be so sacri- 
 legious, as to look inwardly into the designs of 
 God Almighty, (whereof it was but a type,) in 
 raising that dust wherewith your name seems to 
 be at present somewhat sullied : and seeing it is 
 unjust to judge of these men's actions, with 
 whose designs we are not too intimate, it were 
 unmannerly to repine at God's dispensations, 
 whose actions are fitted more for our wonder 
 than our inquiry. But yet I may at a pious 
 distance judge, that providence hath designed 
 these reports rather for trophies, than trials to 
 your courage ; intending in your case to teach 
 the world, that it is as easy for a generous soul 
 to conquer, as to complain of calumnies : and so 
 I hope your repute shall rise more glorious after 
 this resurrection. Do, then, my Lord, retire 
 from under the empire of Fame, to the sanc- 
 tuary of friendship ; where generous souls, by 
 mingling together, become themselves greater. 
 And from that secure post, consider how the 
 happy angels admire to see us, who are designed 
 to be sharers of their happiness, so foolish as to 
 be vain of fame, or vexed when we want it; see- 
 ing they possess those joys for which we pray, 
 and yet value not a far more noble fame than 
 
154 A CONSOLATION, &c. 
 
 that after which we pant. Ye who are innocent, 
 and may adore your Maker, which completes 
 the pleasures of these blessed spirits : and what 
 can be wanting to one who possesses so much ? 
 Consider, likewise, how these hummings, and 
 this noise of us poor mortals, outlive not the 
 present age : for who knows what was said of the 
 noblest ladies who lived in Queen Elizabeth's 
 court, much less in the country during her reign ? 
 And history scorns to preserve such ridiculous 
 fopperies, as have no surer foundations than ru- 
 mour or malice : but though it did, yet a little 
 time shall consume us and them. And there- 
 fore I shall finish this letter, as Virgil doth his 
 reflection, upon the battles, toils, and noise of 
 the bees : 
 
 Hi motus animorum, atqiie hoec certamina tanta* 
 Pulveris exiqui jactu, compressa quiescunt. 
 
>pmm*n 
 
 AUTHOR'S POETICAL TALENTS. 
 
 A PARAPHRASE ON THE CIV. PSALM. 
 
 From humble heart, thy lofty praise I'll sing ; 
 
 By love my Father, and by pow'r my King. 
 
 Thy powerful hands the heav'nly reins do hold, 
 
 And glory shades thee, with its wings of gold, 
 
 Dark'ned to mortals by that dazzling light, 
 
 Which, as a garment, hides thee from our sight. 
 
 Thou the vast heavens spreads for thy stately tent, 
 
 And the pure streams, above the firmament 
 
 Bow'd by thy pow'r, in crystal arches stand ; 
 
 Thou bends to vaults the heavens, by thy strong hand, 
 
156 A PARAPHRASE 
 
 Emboss'd by stars, gilded by flaming light, 
 They magnify thy pow'r, and charm our sight. 
 Swift, like our thoughts, or light, thy chariots fly, 
 And find glad passage through the yielding sky. 
 By its own weight, the earth hangs pois'd in air, 
 An equal instance of thy pow'r and care : 
 To wash 't from sins, thou did'st in seas it drown, 
 The seas, as vales, did its high mountains crown : 
 But when thy thund'ring voice began to roar, 
 The trembling floods soon shrunk within their shore : 
 Hills rais'd their heads, the valleys humbly sunk : 
 The thirsty sun, its floods in vapours drunk : 
 And now these seas, gather'd in heaps, must stand, 
 Press'd in by the strong bars of thy command : 
 Though their hoarse waves beat the complaining shore, 
 Yet they thy marches dare transgress no more. 
 The filt'ring hills suck waters from the plain, 
 Which purg'd from salt, the springs restore again : 
 To these high tops, they climb by secret veins, 
 And murmuring tumble on the longing plains ; 
 Fatt'ning, in gratitude, the yielding ground, 
 Through which their gentle streams a passage found : 
 These are the source of health, and balm of youth, 
 Where beasts may cool their heat, and quench their 
 drowth : 
 
ON PSALM CIV. 15? 
 
 The trees suck growth, and greenness from these floods. 
 And mix their well busk'd branches with the clouds. 
 Thou decks and baths the hills with pearly dew, 
 By which their age and colour they renew. 
 The tow'ring clouds are sifted into rain, 
 And drop in life, and raise the buried grain. 
 By thy strange art, the dull earth's formless mass, 
 Starts up for men in bread, for beasts in grass ; 
 Rich wine, which often elevates men's souls, 
 Cheers their sunk hearts, and all their cares controls. 
 The swimming oil, which makes the face to shine, 
 And checks the vapours of inspiring wine. 
 A crown for Lebanon tall cedars make, 
 Whence houses men, there birds their nests do take. 
 In firs amongst the clouds, the storks do breed, 
 And their desires bound not their craving need. 
 For fearful deer, the desert hills are made, 
 Who their swift heels trust more than armed head. 
 Thou rocks for trembling conies dost provide, 
 And the wild goats in wilder hills abide. 
 With borrowed light thou variously dost fill 
 The low'ring moon, in changing constant still. 
 Thou cloth'st the flaming sun with massy light, 
 Whose rays confound, ev'n while they charm our sight : 
 Thou to his winged haste points out the way, 
 And makes him mark the year, and mark the day : 
 
158 A PARAPHRASE 
 
 To his drown'd beams, succeeds the silent night. 
 Which spreads its veil, where'er he sows his light. 
 Then beasts which were o'eraw'd by light and men, 
 Start from thick wood, and creep from silent den ; 
 With starved voice, from heaven their food they crave, 
 (Juster than men) no more than they should have. 
 But when the sun rekindles his new fire, 
 Men take the fields, and beasts to caves retire. 
 And till the night of new the heavens invade, 
 Some plough the ground, and some in cities trade : 
 Thus thou thy power and goodness dost apply 
 To all our wants and needs, commodiously. 
 Nor is 't to earth alone that thou art kind ; 
 The boundless seas, thy boundless favours find ; 
 Whose moisture is soon shap'd in any forms, 
 And breeds strange monsters, terrible as storms. 
 There the stout ships which dare control the wind, 
 In their own strength anchors and harbours find. 
 There whales, those hills of fish, vast rainbows show'r 
 From their large nostrils ; there they play and low'r 
 On the smooth surface of that watery-plain, 
 That polish'd marble of the glassy main. 
 Thus from thy open hands, large plenty's sent, 
 Men's wishes they exceed, and hopes prevent ; 
 With trembling sobs, thou seals their parting breath, 
 To flying dust, they're crumbled down by death. 
 
ON PSALM CIV. 159 
 
 That earth which thou did'st fix'dly make to stand, 
 
 Trembles, when touch'd by thy Almighty Hand. 
 
 The lofty hills for fear do nod and quake ; 
 
 The rowling clouds of smoke thou dost them shake. 
 
 While life's kind flame within this lantern burns, 
 
 Blood goes by arters, and by veins returns ; 
 
 The strength thou giv'st, I'll in thy praises spend, 
 
 And here begin what there shall never end. 
 
 In thy sweet law some of these joys I taste, 
 
 On which the ravish'd angels ever feast. 
 
 My soaring thoughts reach here vast heavens of bliss, 
 
 And sweetly lose themselves in this abyss. 
 
 But sinners shall for ever ruin'd be : 
 
 Oh ! what a curse not to be lov'd by Thee. 
 
 To Thee, the incense of our praise we'll bring : 
 
 We'll love our Father, and adore our King. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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