Miser abstinet & timet uti, Hor. He is of a wearish, dry, pale constitution, and cannot sleep for cares and worldly business, his riches, saith Salomon, will not let him sleep, and unnecessary business which he heapeth on himself; or if he do sleep, ’tis a very unquiet, interrupt, unpleasing sleep: with his bags in his armes,

congestis undique saccis Indormit inhians,

And though he be at a banquet, or at some merry feast, he sighes for grief of heart (as Cyprian hath it) and cannot sleep though it be upon a down bed: his wearish body takes no rest, troubled in his abundance, and sorrowful in plenty, unhappy for the present, and more unhappy in the life to come. Basil.

He is a perpetual drudge, restless in his thoughts, and never satisfied, a slave, a wretch, a dust-worm, semper quod idolo suo immolet, sedulus observat, Cypr. prolog. ad sermon. still seeking what sacrifice he may offer to his golden god. Per fas & nefas, he cares not how, his trouble is endless, crescunt divitiæ, tamen curtæ nescio quid semper abest rei: his wealth increaseth, and the more he hath, the more he wants; like Pharaohs lean Kine, which devoured the fat, and were not satisfied.

Austin therefore defines covetousness, quarumlibet rerum inhonestam & insatiabilem cupiditatem, an unhonest and unsatiable desire of gain; and in one of his Epistles compares it to Hell; which devoures all, and yet never hath enough, a bottomeless pit, an endless misery; in quem scopulum avaritiæ cadaverosi senes ut plurimum impingunt, and that which is their greatest corrosive, they are in continual suspition, fear, and distrust. He thinkes his own wife and children are so many theeves, and go about to cozen him, his servants are all false:

Rem suam periisse, seque eradicarier, Et divum atque hominum clamat continuo fidem, De suo tigillo si qua exit foras.

If his doores creek, then out he cryes anon, His goods are gone, and he is quite undone.

Timidus Plutus, an old proverb, As fearful as Plutus: so doth Aristophanes, and Lucian bring him in fearful still, pale, anxious, suspicious, and trusting no man, They are afraid of tempests for their corne; they are afraid of their friends lest they should ask something of them, beg or borrow; they are afraid of their enemies lest they hurt them, theeves lest they rob them; they are afraid of war and afraid of peace, afraid of rich and afraid of poor; afraid of all.

Last of all, they are afraid of want, that they shall die beggers, which makes them lay up still, and dare not use that they have: what if a dear year come; or dearth, or some loss? and were it not that they are loth to lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges, and make away themselves, if their corne and cattle miscarry; though they have abundance left, as Agellius notes. Valerius makes mention of one that in a famine, sould a Mouse for 200 pence, and famished himself: Such are their cares, griefes and perpetual fears.

These symptomes are elegantly expressed by Theophrastus in his Character of a covetous man: lying in bed, he asked his wife whether she shut the trunkes, and chests fast, the capcase be sealed, and whether the Hall door be bolted; and though she say all is well, he riseth out of his bed in his shirt, bare foot and barelegged, to see whether it be so, with a dark Lanthorne searching every corner, scarce sleeping a wink all night.

Lucian in that pleasant and witty dialogue called Gallus, brings in Mycillus the Cobler disputing with his Cocke, sometimes Pythagoras; where after much speech Pro and Con, to prove the happiness of a meane estate, and discontents of a rich man, Pythagoras his Cock in the end, to illustrate by examples that which he had said, brings him to Gnyphon the Usurers house at mid-night, and after that to Eucrates; whom they found both awake, casting up their accounts, and telling of their money, lean dry, pale and anxious, still suspecting least some body should make a hole through the wall, and so get in: or if a Rat or Mouse did but stir, starting upon a sudden, and running to the door to see whether all were fast.

Plautus in his Aulularia, makes old Euclio, commanding Staphyla his wife to shut the doors fast, and the fire to be put out, least any body should make that an errant to come to his house; when he washed his hands, he was loath to fling away the foul water: complaining that he was undone, because the smoak got out of his roofe. And as he went from home, seeing a Crow scrat upon the muck-hill, returned in all hast, taking it for malum omen, an ill signe, his mony was digged up:

with many such. He that will but observe their actions, shall finde these and many such passages not fained for sport, but really performed, verified indeed by such covetous and miserable wretches, and that it is,

manifesta phrenesis Ut locuples moriaris egenti vivere fato,

A meer madness, to live like a wretch, and die rich.