or else for want of means, many torturers arise, debts, dues, fees, dowries, joynters, legacies to be paid, annuities issuing out, by means of which, they have not wherewithal to maintain themselves in that pomp as their Predecessors have done, bring up or bestow their children to their callings, to their birth and quality, and will not descend to their present fortunes.

Oftentimes too, to aggravate the rest, concur many other inconveniences, unthankful friends, decayed friends, bad neigbors, negligent servants servi furaces, Versipelles, callidi, occlusa sibi mille clavibus reserant, furtimque raptant, consumunt, liguriunt;

casualties, taxes, mulcts, chargeable offices, vain expenses, entertainments, losse of stock, enmities, emulations, frequent invitations, losses, suretiship, sicknesse, death of friends, and that which is the gulf of all, improvidence, ill husbandry, disorder and confusion, by which means they are drenched on a sudden in their estates, and at unawares precipitated insensibly into an inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, and melancholy it self.

I have done with families, and will now briefly run over some few sorts and conditions of men. The most secure, happy, jovial and merry in the worlds esteem are Princes and great men, free from melancholy: but for their cares, miseries, suspicions, jealousies, discontents, folly and madnesse, I refer you to Xenophons Tyrannus, where King Hieron discourseth at large with Simonides the Poet, of this subject.

Of all others they are most troubled with perpetual fears, anxieties, insomuch, that as he said in Valerius, If thou knewest with what cares and miseries this robe were stuffed, thou wouldst not stoop to take it up.

Or put case they be secure and free from fears and discontents, yet they are void of reason too oft, and precipitate in their actions; reade all our histories, quos de stultis prodidere stulti, Iliades, Æneides, Annales, and what is the subject? Stultorum regum, & populorum continet æstus.

How mad they are, how furious, and upon small occasions, Rash and inconsiderate in their proceedings, how they dote, every page almost will witnesse, — delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.

Next in place, next in miseries and discontents, in all manner of hair-brain-actions are great men, procul a Jove, procul a fulmine, the nearer the worse. If they live in Court, they are up and down, ebb and flow with their Princes favors, Ingenium vultu statque caditque suo, now aloft, to morrow down, as Polybius describes them, like so many casting Counters, now of gold, to morrow of silver, that vary in worth as the computant will; now they stand for mites, to morrow for thousands; now before all, and anon behinde.

Beside they torment one another with mutual factions, emulations: one is ambitious, another enamoured, a third in debt, a prodigal, over-runs his fortunes, a fourth solicitous with cares, gets nothing, &c. But for these mens discontents, anxieties, I refer you to Lucians Tract, de mercede conductis, Æneas Sylvius (libidinis & stultitiæ servos, he cals them) Agrippa, and many others.

Of Philosophers and Scholars, priscæ sapientiæ dictatores, I have already spoken in general terms, those superintendents of wit and learning, men above men, those refined men, Minions of the Muses, — mentemque habere queis bonam Et esse a corculis datum est. —

These acute & subtil Sophisters, so much honored, have as much need of Hellebor as others. — ô Medici mediam pertundite venam. Reade Lucians Piscator, and tell how he esteemed them; Agrippa’s Tract of the vanity of Sciences; nay read their own works, their absurd tenets, prodigious paradoxes, & risum teneatis amici?

You shall finde that of Aristotle true, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ, they have a worm as well as others; you shall finde a phantastical strain, a fustian, a bumbast, a vainglorious humor, an affected stile, &c. like a prominent thred in an uneven woven cloth, run parallel throughout their works.

And they that teach wisdom, patience, meeknesse, are the veriest dizards, hairbrains, and most discontent. In the multitude of wisdom is grief, and he that encreaseth wisdom, encreaseth sorrow. I need not quote mine author; they that laugh and contemn others, condemn the world of folly, deserve to be mocked, are as giddy-headed, and lie as open as any other.

Democritus that common flouter of folly, was ridiculous himself, barking Menippus, scoffing Lucian, satyrical Lucilius, Petronius, Varro, Persius, &c. may be censured with the rest, Loripedem rectus derideat, Æthiopem albus.

Bale, Erasmus, Hospinian, Vives, Kemnisius, explode as a vast Ocean of Obs and Sols, School divinity, A labyrinth of intricable questions, unprofitable contentions, incredibilem delirationem, one cals it.

If School divinity be so censured, subtilis Scotus lima veritatis, Occam irrefragabilis, cujus ingenium vetera omnia ingenia subvertit, &c. Baconthrope, Dr. Resolutus, and Corculum Theologiæ, Thomas himself, Doctor Seraphicus, cui dictavit Angelus, &c. what shall become of humanity? Ars stulta, what can she plead? what can her followers say for themselves?

Much learning cere-diminuit-brum, hath crackt their skonce, and taken such root, that tribus Anticyris caput insanabile, Hellebor it self can do no good, nor that renowned Lanthorn of Epictetus, by which if any man studied, he should be as wise as he was.

But all wil not serve; Rhetoricians, in ostentationem loquacitatis multa agitant, out of their volubility of tongue, will talk much to no purpose, Orators can perswade other men what they will, quo volunt, unde volunt, move, pacifie, &c. but cannot settle their own brains, what saith Tully? Malo indisertam prudentiam, quam loquacem stultitiam; and as Seneca seconds him, a wise mans Oration should not be polite or solicitous.