The Anatomy of Melancholy

“And though he be perjured, without ancestry, bloodstained”—they may pass to heaven through the eye of a needle if they wish. They may be canonised as saints, honourably buried in grand tombs, praised by poets, recorded in histories, and have temples and statues erected in their names: “from those departed shades violets will spring.”

If he is bountiful in life and generous at death, he will find someone to swear, as a man did for the emperor Claudius in Tacitus, that he saw his soul go to heaven; and he will be mourned with pitiful lamentation at his funeral. “The companies of flute-girls,” and so on. In Petronius, “Trimalchio’s all-in-all went straight to heaven”: she went straight to heaven—a low woman from whom, even in your misery, you would once have scorned to take a penny. And why? “She measured her money by the bushel”: she measured her money by the bushel.

These privileges commonly belong to people who merely appear rich, as much as to the rich themselves. Let a man present a fine exterior and he wins the day; he will be worshipped as a god, as Cyrus was among the Persians, “because of his splendid appearance,” for his magnificent dress. Nowadays most people are valued according to their clothes.

In these gullible times, you may politely give way to someone whose dress deceives you into taking him for a man of great standing. Believe me, if you investigate his circumstances, he will probably turn out to be a servant of little importance, my lady’s tailor, his lordship’s barber or some such fool: a Fastidious Brisk, a Sir Petronel Flash, a mere show of a man. This much respect, however, is paid him: wherever he goes, he can call for what he wants and claim precedence because of the clothes he wears.

But on the contrary, if he is poor, “all his days are miserable,” Proverbs 15:15. He is down in the world, dejected, rejected and abandoned, poor in purse and poor in spirit: “as our affairs go, so goes our state of mind.” Money gives life and soul.

Although he is honest, wise, learned, deserving, noble by birth and highly gifted, his poverty and poor prospects of advancement, honour, office or a good income make him despised and neglected. “He is wise to no purpose; he starves among his books, an unwelcome friend.” If he speaks: “What babbler is this?” Ecclesiasticus. His nobility without wealth is “worth less than seaweed cast ashore,” and he counts for nothing: “we are worthless chicks hatched from unlucky eggs.”