Effects of fancy.

beseech you? where is that estate that may not be reduced to beggary; that dignity which may not be followed with banishment, disgrace, and extreme contempt; that kingdom that may not suddenly fall to ruin, change its master, and be depopulated; that prince that may not pass the hand of a common hangman? That which is one man's fortune may be another's, but the foresight of calamities to come, breaks the violence of them.

IT IS ACCORDING TO THE TRUE OR FALSE ESTIMATE OF THINGS, THAT WE ARE HAPPY, OR

MISERABLE.

How many things there are that the fancy makes terrible by night, which the day turns into ridiculous? what is there in labour, or in death, that a man should be afraid of? they are much slighter in act than in contemplation, and we may contemn them, but we will not: so that it is not because they are hard, that we dread them; but they are hard because we are first afraid of them. Pains, and other violences of fortune, are the same thing to us that goblins are to children: we are more scared with them, than hurt. We take up our opinions upon trust, and err for company, still judging that to be best, that has most competitors. We make a false calculation of matters, because we advise with opinion, and not with nature; and this misleads us to a higher esteem for riches, honour, and power, than they are worth; we have been used to admire and recommend them, and a private error is quickly turned into a public. The greatest and the smallest things are equally hard to be com

We should be content with our lot.

prehended: we account many things great, for want of understanding what effectually is so; and we reckon other things to be small, which we find frequently to be of the highest value. Vain things only move vain minds; the accidents that we so much boggle at, are not terrible in themselves, but they are made so by our infirmities; but we consult rather what we hear, than what we feel, without examining, opposing, or discussing the things we fear; so that we either stand still and tremble, or else directly run for it; as those troops did, that, upon the raising of the dust, took a flock of sheep for the enemy. When the body and mind are corrupted, it is no wonder that all things prove intolerable; and not because they are so in truth, but because we are dissolute and foolish: for we are infatuated to such a degree, that betwixt the common madness of men, and that which falls under the care of the physician, there is but this difference-the one labours of a disease, the other of a false opinion.

The Stoics hold, that all those torments that commonly draw from us groans and ejaculations, are in themselves trivial and contemptible. But these highflown expressions apart (how true soever), let us discourse the point, at the rate of ordinary men, and not make ourselves miserable before our time; for the things we apprehend to be at hand, may possibly never come to pass. Some things trouble us more than they should, other things sooner; and some things again disorder us, that ought not to trouble us at all: so that we either enlarge, or create, or anticipate our disquiets. For the first part, let it rest as a matter in controversy, for that which I account light, another perhaps will judge insupportable; one man laughs under the lash, and another

What is one man's evil is another's good.

whines for a Philip. How sad a calamity is poverty ta one man, which to another appears rather desirable, than inconvenient? for the poor man, who has nothing to lose, has nothing to fear: and he that would enjoy himself to the satisfaction of his soul, must be either poor indeed, or at least look as if he were so. Some people are extremely dejected with sickness and pain, whereas Epicurus blessed his fate with his last breath, in the acutest torments of the stone imaginable. And so for banishment, which to one man is so grievous, and yet to another is no more than a bare change of place: a thing that we do every day for our health and pleasure, nay, and upon the account even of our common business. How terrible is death to one man, which to another appears the greatest providence in nature, even towards all ages and conditions. It is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all. It sets the slave at liberty, carries the banished man home, and places all mortals upon the same level insomuch, that life itself were punishment without it. When I see tyrants, tortures, and violences, the prospect of death is a consolation to me, and the only remedy against the injuries of life.

Nay, so great are our mistakes in the true estimate of things, that we have hardly done any thing that we have not had reason to wish undone; and we have found the things we feared to be more desirable than those we coveted our very prayers have been more pernicious than the curses of our enemies, and we must pray again to have our former prayers forgiven. Where is the wise man that wishes to himself the wishes of his mother, nurse, or his tutor, the worst of enemies, with "the intention of the best of friends? We are undone

.

Our prayers are often curses.-We are vain, and will not believe it.

if their prayers be heard; and it is our duty to pray, that they may not; for they are no other than wellmeaning execrations. They take evil for good, and one wish fights with another; give me rather the contempt of all those things whereof they wish me the greatest plenty. We are equally hurt by some that pray for us, and by others that curse us: the one imprints in us a false fear, and the other does us mischief by mistake. So that it is no wonder if mankind be miserable, when we are brought up from the very cradle under the imprecations of our parents. We pray for trifles, without so much as thinking of the greatest blessings; and we are not ashamed, many times, to ask God for that, which we should blush to own to our neighbour.

It is with us, as with an innocent that my father had in his family; she fell blind on a sudden, and nobody could persuade her she was blind. She could not endure the house (she cried), it was so dark, and was still calling to go abroad. That which we laughed at in her, we find to be true in ourselves; we are covetous and ambitious, but the world shall never bring us to acknowledge it, and we impute it to the place: nay, we are the worse of the two; for that blind fool called for a guide, and we wander about without one. It is a hard matter to cure those that will not believe they are sick. We are ashamed to admit a master, and we are too old to learn. Vice still goes before virtue, so that we have two works to do; we must cast off the one, and learn the other.

By one evil we make way to another, and only seek things to be avoided, or those of which we are soon weary. That which seemed too much when we wished for it, proves too little when we have it; and it is not, as

Nature is limited, but fancy boundless.

some imagine, that felicity is greedy, but it is little and narrow, and cannot satisfy us. That which we take to be very high at a distance, we find it to be but low, when we come at it. And the business is, we do not understand the true state of things; we are deceived by rumours; when we have gained the thing we aimed at, we find it to be either ill, or empty, or perchance less than we expect, or otherwise perhaps great, but not good.

THE BLESSINGS OF TEMPERANCE AND MODERATION.

THERE is not any thing that is necessary to us, but we have it either cheap, or gratis; and this is the provision that our heavenly Father hath made for us, whose bounty was never wanting to our needs. It is true, the belly craves, and calls upon us, but then a small matter contents it: a little bread and water is sufficient, and all the rest is but superfluous. He that lives according to reason shall never be poor; and he that governs his life by opinion, shall never be rich; for nature is limited, but fancy is boundless. As for meat, clothes, and lodging, a little feeds the body, and as little covers it, so that if mankind would only attend human nature, without gaping at superfluities, a cook would be found as needless as a soldier: for we may have necessities upon very easy terms, whereas we put ourselves to great pains for excesses. When we are cold we may cover ourselves with the skins of beasts, and against violent heats we have natural grottos, or with a few osiers, and a little clay, we may defend ourselves against all seasons. Providence has been kinder to us than to leave us to live by our wits,