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own planting than in all the delicacies of luxury and expense. Prudence and religion are above accidents, and draw good out of every thing; affliction keeps a man in use, and makes him strong, patient, and hardy.

6 Providence treats us like a generous father, and brings us up to labors, toils, and dangers; whereas the indulgence of a fond mother makes us weak and spiritless. No man can be happy that does not stand firm against all contingencies.

SECTION VIII.

Of levity of mind, and other impediments of a happy life. 1 Now, to sum up what is already delivered, we have showed what happiness is, and wherein it consists; that it is founded upon wisdom and virtue; for we must first know what we ought to do, and then live according to that knowledge.

2 We have also discoursed the helps of philosophy and precepts towards a happy life; the blessing of a good conscience; that a good man can never be miserable, nor a wicked man happy; nor any man unfortunate, that cheerfully submits to Providence. We shall now examine, how it comes to pass that, when the certain way to happiness lies so fair before us, men will yet steer their course on the other side, which as manifestly leads to ruin.

3 There are some who live without any design at all, and only pass in the world like straws upon a river; they do not go, but they are carried. Some there are that torment themselves afresh with the memory of what is past: "Lord! what did I endure? never was any man in my condition; every body gave me over; my very heart was ready to break,"&c.

4 Others, again, afflict themselves with the apprehension of evils to come; and very ridiculously both: for the one does not now concern us, and the other not yet: beside that, there may be remedies for mischiefs likely to happen.

5 Levity of mind is a great hindrance to repose; it is only philosophy that makes the mind invincible, and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that all her arrows fall short of us. This it is that reclaims the rage of our passions, and sweetens the anxiety of our fears.

6 Place me among princes or among beggars, the one shall not make me proud, nor the other ashamed. I can take as sound a sleep in a barn as in a palace, and a bundle of hay makes me as good a lodging as a bed of down. I will not

transport myself with either pain or pleasure; but yet for all that, I could wish that I had an easier game to play, and that I were put rather to moderate my joys than my sorrows.

7 Never pronounce any man happy that depends upon fortune for his happiness; for nothing can be more preposterous than to place the good of a reasonable creature in unreasonable things. If I have lost any thing, it was adventitious; and the less money, the less trouble; the less favor the less envy.

8 That which we call our own is but lent us; and what we have received gratis we must return without complaint. That which fortune gives us this hour, she may take away the next; and he that trusts to her favor, shall either find himself deceived, or if he be not, he will at least be troubled, because he may be so.

9 But the best of it is, if a man cannot mend his fortune, he may yet mend his manners, and put himself so far out of her reach, that whether she gives or takes, it shall be all one to us; for we are neither the greater for the one, nor the less for the other.

SECTION IX.

A sensual life is a miserable life.

1 The sensuality that we here treat of, falls naturally under the head of luxury; which extends to all excesses of gluttony, effeminacy of manners'; and, in short, to whatsoever concerns the over-great care of the body.

2 To begin now with the pleasures of the palate, (which deal with us like Egyptian thieves, that strangle those they embrace,) what shall we say of the luxury of Nomentagus and Apicius, that entertained their very souls in the kitchen; they have the choicest music for their ears; the most diverting spectacles for their eyes; the choicest variety of meats and drinks for their palate.

3 What is all this, I say, but a merry madness? It is true they have their delights, but not without heavy and anxious thoughts, even in their very enjoyments; beside that, they are followed with repentance, and their frolics are little more than the laughter of so many people out of their wits.

4 They cross the seas for rarities, and when they have swallowed them, they will not so much as give them time to digest. Wheresoever nature has placed men, she has provided them aliment: but we rather choose to irritate hunger by expense, than to allay it at an easiér rate.

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we are routed and pursued, traws good out of evil, that d unmoved with any external little moved, that the keenest e is but as the prick of a needle ; and all her other weapons fall the roof of a house, that crackles out any damage to the inhabitant. to exempt a wise man out of the 3 had no sense of pain; but I reckon body and soul; the body is irrational, urnt, tortured; but the rational part is and not to be shaken,

5 Our forefathers (by the force of whose virtues we are now supported in our vices) lived every jot as well as we, when they provided and dressed their own meat with their own hands; lodged upon the ground, and were not as yet come to the vanity of gold and gems; when they swore by their earthen gods, and kept their oath, though they died for it.

6 Let any man take a view of our kitchens, the number of our cooks, and the variety of our meats; will he not wonder to see so much provision made for one stomach? We have as many diseases as we have cooks or meats; and the service of the appetite is the study now in vogue.

7 From these compounded dishes arise compounded diseases, which require compounded medicines. It is the same thing with our minds that it is with our tables; simple vices are curable by simple counsels, but a general dissolution of manners is hardly overcome; we are overrun with a public as well as with a private madness.

8 The physicians of old understood little more than the virtue of some herbs to stop blood, or heal a wound; and their firm and healthful bodies needed little more before they were corrupted by luxury and pleasure; and when it came to that once, their business was not to allay hunger, but to provoke it by a thousand inventions and sauces. So long as our bodies were hardened with labor, or tired with exercise or hunting, our food was plain and simple; many dishes have made many diseases.

9 It is an ill thing for a man not to know the measure of his stomach, nor to consider that men do many things in their drink that they are ashamed of sober; drunkenness being nothing else but a voluntary madness, it emboldens men to do all sorts of mischief; it both irritates wickedness and discovers it.

10 It was in a drunken fit that Alexander killed Clytus. It makes him that is insolent prouder, him that is cruel fiercer; it takes away all shame. He that is peevish breaks out presently into all ill words and blows.

11 Luxury steals on us by degrees; first it shows itself in a more than ordinary care of our bodies, it slips next into the furniture of our house; and it gets then into the fabric, curiosity, and expense of the house itself. It appears, lastly, in the fantastical excesses of our tables.

12 The most miserable mortals are they that deliver them. selves up to their palates, or to their passions: the pleasure is short, and turns presently nauseous, and the end of it is

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