Or that, as Pliny complains, Nature may be rather accounted a step-mother, then a mother unto us, all things considered: No creatures life so brittle, so full of fear, so mad, so furious; onely man is plagued with envy, discontent, griefs, covetousness, ambition, superstition.

Our whole life is an Irish Sea, wherein there is naught to be expected, but tempestuous storms, and troublesom waves, and those infinite,

Tantum malorum pelagus aspicio, Ut non sit inde enatandi copia.

no Halcyonian times, wherein a man can hold himself secure, or agree with his present estate: but as Boethius infers, There is something in every one of us, which before tryal we seek, and having tryed abhor: We earnestly wish, and eagerly covet, and are eftsoons weary of it.

Thus betwixt hope and fear, suspitions, angers, Inter spemque metumque, timores inter & iras, betwixt falling in, falling out, &c. we bangle away our best days, befool out our times, we lead a contentious, discontent, tumultuous, melancholy, miserable life; insomuch, that if we could foretel what was to come and it put to our choice, we should rather refuse, then accept of this painful life.

In a word, the World it self is a maze, a labyrinth of errors, a desert, a wilderness, a den of theeves, cheaters, &c. full of filthy puddles, horrid rocks, precipitiums, an ocean of adversity, an heavy yoke, wherein infirmities and calamities overtake, and follow one another, as the Sea waves; and if we scape Scylla, we fall foul on Charybdis, and so in perpetual fear, labor, anguish, we run from one plague, one mischief, one burden to another, duram servientes servitutem, and you may as soon separate weight from lead, heat from fire, moystness from water, brightness from the Sun, as misery, discontent, care, calamity, danger from a man:

Our Towns and Cities are but so many dwellings of humane misery. In which grief and sorrow (as he right well observes out of Solon) innumerable troubles, labors of mortal men, and all maner of vices, are included, as in so many pens. Our villages are like mole-hills, and men as so many Emots, busie, busie still, going to and fro, in and out, and crossing one anothers projects, as the lines of several Sea-cards cut each other in a Globe or Map.

Now light and merry, but (as one follows it) by-and-by sorrowful and heavy; now hoping, then distrusting; now patient, tomorrow crying out; now pale, then red; running, sitting, sweating, trembling, halting, &c. Some few amongst the rest, or perhaps one of a thousand, may be Pullus Iovis, in the Worlds esteem, Gallinæ filius albæ, an happy and fortunate man, ad invidiam felix, because rich, fair, well allied, in honor and office; yet peradventure ask himself, and he will say, That of all others he is most miserable and unhappy. A fair shooe, Hic soccus novus, elegans, as he said, sed nescis ubi urat, but thou knowest not where it pincheth.

It is not another mans opinion can make me happy; but as Seneca well hath it, He is a miserable wretch, that doth not account himself happy, though he be Soveraign Lord of a world; he is not happy, if he think himself not to be so: for what availeth it what thine estate is, or seem to others, if thou thy self dislike it?

A common humor it is of all men to think well of other mens fortunes, and dislike their own: Cui placet alterius, sua nimirum est odio sors: but qui fit Mecænas, &c. how comes it to pass, what’s the cause of it? Many men are of such a perverse nature, they are well pleased with nothing (saith Theodoret) neither with riches, nor poverty, they complain when they are well, and when they are sick, grumble at all fortunes, prosperity and adversity; they are troubled in a cheap yeer, in a barren, plenty or not plenty, nothing pleaseth them, war nor peace, with children, nor without.

This for the most part is the humor of us all, to be discontent, miserable, and most unhappy, as we think at least; and shew me him that is not so, or that ever was otherwise? Quintus Metellus his felicity is infinitely admired amongst the Romans, insomuch, that as Paterculus mentioneth of him, you can scarce finde of any Nation, order, age, sex, one for happiness to be compared unto him: he had in a word, Bona animi, corporis & fortunæ, goods of minde, body, and fortune, so had P. Mutianus Crassus.

Lampsaca that Lacedemonian Lady, was such another in Plinies conceit, A Kings wife, a Kings mother, a Kings daughter: And all the world esteemed as much of Polycrates of Samos. The Greeks brag of their Socrates, Phocyon, Aristides; the Psophidians in particular of their Aglaus, Omni vitâ felix, ab omni periculo immunis (which by the way Pausanias held impossible) the Romans of their Cato, Curius, Fabricius, for their composed fortunes, and retired estates, government of passions, and contempt of the world: yet none of all these was happy, or free from discontent, neither Metellus, Crassus, nor Polycrates, for he died a violent death, and so did Cato: And how much evil doth Lactantius and Theodoret speak of Socrates, a weak man, and so of the rest.

There is no content in this life, but as he said, All is vanity and vexation of spirit; lame and imperfect. Hadst thou Sampsons hair, Milo’s strength, Scanderbegs arme, Solomons wisdome, Absolons beauty, Cræsus his wealth, Pasetis obulum, Cæsars valor, Alexanders spirit, Tullies or Demosthenes eloquence, Gyges ring, Perseus Pegasus, and Gorgons head, Nestors years to come, all this would not make thee absolute; give thee content, and true happiness in this life, or so continue it. Even in the midst of all our mirth, jollity and laughter, is sorrow and grief: or if there be true happiness amongst us, ’tis but for a time,

Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè: