The Anatomy of Melancholy

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.