MEMBER 7 Against rejection, abuse, injuries, contempt, disgrace, Insults, slander, mockery and the like.

I cannot yet conclude, or think of calming the passions or quieting the mind, until I have also removed some of their other more prominent and common causes, which produce such grievous torment and discontent. I cannot hope to turn them all aside; my aim is only to point out a few of the chief ones.

Rejection and disgrace are two chief causes of discontent, but a sensible person need not take them so hard. Caesar himself has been refused; and when two candidates are equal in fortune, birth and every other qualification, one must necessarily lose. Why should you take it so grievously? You yourself have often refused others. If everyone could have whatever he wanted, we should all be gods, emperors, kings and princes. If everything that vain hope suggests, insatiable appetite desires or our perverse judgement approves were granted, we should instantly have another Chaos: utter confusion.

It offers some consolation to the rejected man that dignities, honours and offices are not always awarded for merit or worth, but through love, family connections, friendship, partiality or letters from powerful men; or, as commonly happens, they are bought and sold. As an old courtier observes, honours at court are bestowed according to a man’s wealth or powerful friends, rather than his virtues and good character.

“Among us in France”—so their own countryman reports—“matters are mostly settled by favour and patronage; whoever can secure a powerful man as his intermediary carries off all the advancement.” “The least worthy is generally preferred: Vatinius before Cato, the unpraised before the most highly praised.”

Slaves rule; asses Are decked with trappings, while horses are stripped of theirs.

An ignorant fool occupies another man’s seat, and the common people consider him learned, dignified and wise. As Cardan rightly observes, one man holds a professorship for a thousand crowns although he does not deserve ten, while another who deserves a thousand cannot obtain ten. “The salary does not provide many with even their salt.” Horses just as good as those drawing coaches pull carts.

Often, as Machiavelli confirms, “those whose outstanding virtue makes them worthy to rule are not rulers.” The worthiest man lacks employment; the skilled pilot lacks a ship; and the man who could govern a commonwealth, a whole world—a king in his own imagination—lacks the means to exercise his abilities and has not even a minor office to administer.

Yet the man fit to reign, “even though he lacks a kingdom,” is a better man than one who possesses a kingdom but does not know how to rule it. A lion does not always serve his keeper; often the keeper serves the lion. As Polydore Vergil puts it, “many kings, like wards, do not govern but are governed because of their ignorance.” Hiero of Syracuse was a fine king but lacked a kingdom; Perseus of Macedon had nothing of a king except the bare name and title, for he could not govern his kingdom. Thus great positions are often badly bestowed and worthy people disregarded.

Often, too, servants have greater resources than the masters they serve, which Epictetus considers an eyesore and a disadvantage. But who can help it?

Nowadays it is common to see a base, shameless ass—ignorant, unworthy and incompetent—advanced before his betters because he can push himself forward, look important, bustle about in the world, make an impressive appearance, adapt to the times, flatter and ingratiate himself, or command plenty of friends and money; meanwhile a more judicious, modest and deserving man remains obscure or is rejected.

It was so in the past and always will be; and the advice Tiresias gave Ulysses in the poet

Listen to how you can grow rich, and so on,

is still followed: lie, flatter and dissemble. Otherwise, as he concludes, “then you will be poor”: go about like the beggar you are. Erasmus, Melanchthon, Lipsius, Budé and Cardan lived and died poor. Gesner was a poor old man, “leaning on a staff,” among all those swaggering cardinals and pompous bishops who flourished in his time and rode on richly caparisoned horses.

Honesty, learning, worth and wisdom do not secure advancement. “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,” but, as the wise man said, chance—and sometimes a ridiculous chance. “An often ridiculous accident has raised many men.”

It is Fortune’s doing, as they say. This made the dying Brutus exclaim, “O wretched virtue! So you were nothing but words, yet I practised you as though you were something real; but you were Fortune’s servant.” Believe it from now on, my friends: virtue serves Fortune.

Yet do not be discouraged, you deserving spirits, by what I have said. Things may happen otherwise: seldom, I admit, but sometimes they do. For your further consolation, I shall tell you a tale. In Pious Moronia, or Happy Moronia—I do not know which, how long ago, or in which cathedral—a lucrative prebend became vacant. The corpse was scarcely cold before many applicants sprang up. The first had rich friends and a full purse; he was determined to outbid anyone rather than lose the post, and everyone supposed he would win it.

The second was chaplain to my lord bishop, who had the right to appoint to it, and considered the post his due. The third was nobly born and intended to obtain it through his powerful relatives, patrons and connections. The fourth rested his claim on merit: he had recently discovered remarkable secrets in alchemy and other rare inventions which he would reveal for the public good.

The fifth was a hardworking preacher, recommended by his whole parish, whose signatures he had on his testimonial. The sixth was the son of the recently deceased prebendary; his father had died in debt—for the post, they said—leaving a wife and many poor children. The seventh relied on generous promises formerly made to him and his noble friends that he would receive the next vacancy in his lordship’s gift.