Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts; the one concerning manners, the other concerning business: for the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive; reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead; observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case; but the best receipt, (best I say to work, and best to take,) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many, (especially of the greater sort,) do commit for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune; for, as St. James saith, they are as men "that look sometimes into "a glass and presently forget their own shape "and favour:" as for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or, that a gamester seeth always more than a looker on; or, that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or, that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon

K

تو

a rest; and such other fond and high imagi nations to think himself all in all: but when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight; and if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business of one man, and in another business of another man; it is as well, (that is to say, better perhaps than if he asked none at all,) but he runneth two dangers; one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth it: the other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe, (though with good meaning,) and mixt partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and, therefore, may put you in a way for present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind, and so cure the disease and kill the patient: but a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate, will beware, by

furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience; and, therefore, rest not upon scattered counsels; for they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

After these two noble fruits of friendship, (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment,) followeth the last fruit, which is, like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say, "that a friend is another him"self; for that a friend is far more than him"self." Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him; so that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but

*

where friendship is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot with any face or comeliness say or do himself? A man can scarce alledge his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like: but all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So again, a man's person hath many proper relations which he cannot. put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person : but to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend he may quit the stage.

OF EXPENSE.

be

RICHES are for spending, and spending for honour and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion: for voluntary undoing may be as well for a man's country as for the kingdom of heaven; but ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man's estate, and governed with such regard as it be within his compass; and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best shew, that the bills may less than the estimation abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he think to wax rich, but to the third part. It is no baseness for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken: but wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate at all had need both choose well those whom he

« AnteriorContinuar »