never prove a kind nurse: Yet whilst you may, seek you better masters; for it is a pity men of such rare wits should be subject to the pleasures of such rude grooms. wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture 5 of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine what the In this I might insert two more, that both have writ against these buckram Gentlemen: but let their own works serve to witness against their own wickedness, if they persevere to maintain any such peasants. For other new comers, I leave them to the mercy of these 10 pains of death are when the whole body is painted monsters, who (I doubt not) will drive the best minded to despise them, for the rest, it skills not though they make a jest at them. corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb-for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense: and by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, "Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa." Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks,2 and obsequies, and the like, show death ter But now return I again to you three, knowing my misery is to you no news; and let me 15 heartily entreat you to be warned by my harms. Delight not (as I have done) in irreligious oaths; for from the blasphemers house, a curse shall not depart. Despise drunkenness, which wasteth the wit, and maketh men all 20 rible. It is worthy the observing, that there equal unto beasts. Fly lust, as the deathsman of the soul, and defile not the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Abhor thou Epicurus, whose loose life hath made religion loathsome to your ears; and when they soothe you with terms 25 of mastership, remember Robert Greene, whom they have so often flattered, perishes now for want of comfort. Remember, Gentlemen, your lives are like so many lighted Tapers, that are with care delivered to all of you to maintain; 30 tenderest of affections) provoked many to die is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it, grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety: "Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, these with wind-puffed wrath may be extinguished, which drunkenness put out, which negligence let fall: for man's time of itself is not so short, but it is more shortened by sin. The fire of my life is now at its last snuff, and 35 aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest." "A the want of wherewith to sustain it, there is no substance left for life to feed on. Trust not then (I beseech ye) to such weak stays; for they are as changeable in mind, as in many attires. Well, my hand is tired, and I am forced 40 to leave when I would fain begin; for a whole book cannot contain these wrongs, which I am forced to knit up in some few lines of words. Desirous that you should live, though himself be dying, ROBERT GREENE. Francis Bacon 1561-1626 OF DEATH (Essays, 1597, 1612, 1625) Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over." It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment: "Livia, conjugii nostri memor vive, et vale."4 Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, "Jam 45 Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant:"5. . . Galba with a sentence, "Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani,” holding forth his neck: Septimus Severus in despatch, “Adeste si quid mihi restat agendum," and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost 1 The trappings of death terrify more than death itself. 2 Hired mourners, or mutes, who were dressed in funeral black. 3 Marcus Salvius Otho. Emperor of Rome, who committed suicide A. D. 69, after his overthrow by Vitellius, who succeeded him. 4 Livia, mindful of our wedlock, live, and farewell. Already the mental powers and bodily strength were leaving Tiberius, but not his dissimulation. Strike, if it be for the benefit of the Roman people. 7 Dispatch, if there is anything left for me to do. 5 benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, "qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat naturæ." It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the 10 works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to dolours of death: but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth 15 envy: "Extinctus amabitur idem."10 OF ADVERSITY (From the same) have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant where they are incensed, or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF (From the same) It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that the "good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is but the good things that belong to adversity 25 a shrewd1 thing in an orchard or garden; and certainly men that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others, especially to thy king and country. It is a poor center of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth; for that only stands fast2 upon his own center; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens move upon the center of an are to be admired"-"Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia." Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high 30 for a heathen) "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God"-"Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei." This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies1 35 other, which they benefit. The referring of all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince, because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune: but it is a desperate evil are more allowed; and the poets, indeed, have been busy with it—for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery; nay, and to have some approach to 40 in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a rethe state of a Christian, "that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher, lively describing Christian resolution, that 45 saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean,3 the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the 50 blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater 8 Who places the final end of life among the gifts of nature. Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." 55 St. Luke, xi., 29. 10 The same man will be loved when dead. 1 Lofty flights, language not held down to prosaic fact 2 Without an allegorical meaning. 3 In moderate style, i. e. to come down from the lofty heights of poetry. public; for whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends, which must needs be often eccentric, to the ends of his master or State: therefore, let princes or States chuse such servants as have not this mark, except they mean their service should be made but the accessary. That which maketh the effect more pernicious is, that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough for the servant's good to be preferred before the master's; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the master's: and yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false But then, you will say, they may be of use to 5 lently expressed, that it is in imagination, and and corrupt servants, which set a bias3 upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of their master's great and important affairs. And for the most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their own fortune, but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model of their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set a house on fire and it were but to roast their eggs; and 10 cheerfully, and leave contentedly: yet have no yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to please them, and profit themselves; and for either respect they will abandon the good of their affairs. abstract or friarly contempt of them, but distinguish, as Cicero saith well of Rabirius Posthumus, "In studio rei amplificandæ, apparebat, non avaritiæ prædam, sed instrumentum 15 bonitati quæri.”3 Hearken also to Solomon, and beware of hasty gathering of riches: "Qui festinat ad divitias, non erit insons."4 The poets feign that when Plutus (which is riches) is sent from Jupiter, he limps, and goes Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing: it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house some time before its fall: it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and 20 slowly, but when he is sent from Pluto, he made room for him: it is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are "sui amantes sine rivali" are many times un- 25 fortunate: and whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned. OF RICHES (From the same) runs, and is swift of foot; meaning, that riches gotten by good means and just labour pace slowly, but when they come by the death of others (as by the course of inheritance, testaments, and the like) they come tumbling upon a man: but it might be applied likewise to Pluto taking him for the devil: for when riches come from the Devil (as by fraud, and oppression, and unjust means) they come upon speed. 30 The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul: parsimony is one of the best, and yet it is not innocent, for it withholdeth men from works of liberality and charity. The improvement of the ground is the most natural obtaining of riches, for it is our great mother's blessing, the earth; but it is slow: and yet, where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly. I knew a nobleman of England that had the greatest audits of any man in my time,-a great grazier, a great sheep master, a great timber man, a great collier, a great corn master, a great lead man, and so of iron, and a number of the like points of husbandry; so 45 as the earth seemed a sea to him in respect of the perpetual importation. It was truly observed by one, "that himself came very hardly to little riches, and very easily to great riches:" for when a man's stock is come to that, that I cannot call riches better than the baggage 35 of virtue: the Roman word is better-impedimenta; for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue it cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the 40 victory. Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit; so saith Solomon, "Where much is, there are many to consume it; and what hath the owner but the sight of it with his eyes?" The personal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of them, or a power of dole, and a donative of them, or a fame of them, but no solid use to the owner. Do you not see what feigned prices are set upon 50 he can expect the prime of markets, and overlittle stones or rarities-and what works of ostentation are undertaken, because there might seem to be some use of great riches? In the game of bowls, the bowl (or ball) was not perfectly round, but disproportionately swelled out on one side to prevent it from running in a straight course; this irregularity in shape was called the bias. Sometimes the same end was gained by weighting one side of the bowl. 4 Lovers of themselves without rivals. 1 Eccles. v., 11. 2 Prov. x., 15. In his zeal to increase his fortune, it was evident that not the gain of avarice was sought, but the means of beneficence. "He that maketh haste to be rich, shall not be inProv. xxviii., 20. nocent." i. e., Money receipts as shown by his accounts. i. e., afford to wait until the market-price has risen to its highest point before he sells. By this means he can, through his wealth, capture (overcome) those bargains, which few men can afford to take advantage of and thus share in the industries of younger men. Believe not much them that seem to despise riches, for they despise them that despair of them; and none worse when they come to them. Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and 5 sometimes they fly away of themselves, sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more. Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the Public; and moderate portions prosper best in both. A great estate left to an heir, come those bargains, which for their greatness are few men's money, and the partner in the industries of younger men, he cannot but increase mainly. The gains of ordinary trades and vocations are honest, and furthered by two things, chiefly, by diligence, and by a good name for good and fair dealing; but the gains of bargains are of a more doubtful nature, when men shall wait upon others' necessity;8 broke by servants, and instruments to draw 10 is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better established in years and judgment: likewise, glorious gifts and foundations are like sacrifices without salt; 15 and but the painted sepulchres of them on; put off others cunningly that would be better chapmen, 10 and the like practices, which are crafty and naughty. As for the chopping of bargains, 11 when a man buys not to hold, but to sell over again, that commonly 15 alms, which soon will putrify and corrupt in grindeth double, both upon the seller and upon the buyer. Sharings do greatly enrich, if the hands be well chosen that are trusted. Usury 12 is the certainest means of gain, though "'13 and wardly. Therefore measure not thine advancements by quantity, but frame them by measure: and defer not charities till death: for, certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he than his own. OF STUDIES (From the same) one of the worst, as that whereby a man doth 20 that doth so is rather liberal of another man's eat his bread, "in sudore vultus alieni," besides, doth plough upon Sundays; but yet certain though it be, it hath flaws; for that the scriveners and brokers do value unsound men to serve their own turn. The fortune in 25 being the first in an invention, or in a privilege, doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches; as it was with the first sugar man in the Canaries: therefore, if a man can play the true logician, to have as well judgment 30 as invention, he may do great matters, especially if the times be fit. He that resteth upon gains certain, shall hardly grow to great riches; and he that puts all upon adventures, doth oftentimes break and come to poverty: it is 35 good, therefore, to guard adventures with certainties that may uphold losses. Monopolies, and coemption of wares for re-sale, where they are not restrained, are great means to enrich; especially if the party have intelligence what 40 things are like to come into request, and so store himself beforehand. Riches gotten by service, though it be of the best, rise; yet when they are gotten by flattery, feeding humours, and other servile conditions, they may be placed 45 among the worst. As for "fishing for testaments and executorships," (as Tacitus saith of Seneca, "Testamenta et orbos tanquam indagine capi,")14 it is yet worse, by how much men submit themselves to meaner persons 50 for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, than in service. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness, and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar; they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience-for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be 15 Among the Greeks, Romans, and other ancient peoples, salt was an indispensable element in the sacrificial offering, at least when it was partly or wholly cereal. 16 Here, probably, gifts, whether by will or otherwise. 1 The weakness peculiar to the scholastic tempera ment. read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand," which they thought a 5 malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do and, therefore, if a man write little, he had io honour his memory on this side idolatry as need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that some "Suflaminadus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: "Cæsar, thou dost me wrong." He replied: "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause;" and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; 15 time it was necessary he should be stopped. matics, for in demonstrations, if his wit be more in him to be praised than to be pardoned. De piis et probis.5—Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live and illustrate the times. God never let them be wanting to the world: as Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of purity, Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith, and so of the rest. These, sensual men thought mad because they would not be partakers or prac35 tisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all virtue, looked down on the stage of the world and contemned the play of fortune. For though the most be players, some must be spectators. 40 Amor nummi.-Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of Nature is not only without the sense but the fear of poverty. O, but to strike blind the people with our wealth and 45 pomp is the thing! What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious! We good of the earth that is offered us, we search, and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He knew were profitable for us, The character and scope of this work of Jonson, is indicated in its title: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men or Matter, as they have flowed out of his daily reading; or had their reflux to his peculiar notions of the time. The book, in other words, is a reflection upon men and things, 50 serve our avarice, and, not content with the suggested by Jonson's "daily reading." It is similar to Bacon's Essays, but Jonson's thoughts are jotted down as they occur to him, with little regard to logical order or grouping. The unsystematic, miscellaneous character of the book is indicated by its main title, Timber. Jonson uses Timber (i. e. a forest) as the English equivalent of the Latin word Silva (a wood, a crowded mass), which as Jonson explains, was applied by the ancients "to those of their books in which were collected random articles upon diverse and various topics.' Timber, the crude wood of the forest is thus "the raw material of facts and thoughts:" the "promiscuous' growth, undeveloped by art. *Of Shakespeare, our fellow-countryman. He ought to have been clogged. Haterius was senator under the Emperors Augustus and Tiberius. 4 Julius Cæsar. III. i. 47. Of devout and honorable men. 6 Illuminate, make glorious. The love of money. |