Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

to that end, are but things captious, and ora cles not well inspired: therefore it is an happy thing in a state when kings and states do often consult with judges: and again, when judges do often consult with the king and state: the one, when there is matter of law intervenient in business of state; the other when there is some consideration of state intervenient in matter of law; for many times, the things deduced to judgment may be "meum" and "tuum," when the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate: I call matter of estate, not only the parts of sovereignty, but whatsoever introduceth any great alteration, or dangerous precedent; or concerneth manifestly any great portion of people: and let no man weakly conceive that just laws, and true policy have any antipathy; for they are like the spirits and sinews, that one moves with the other. Let judges also remember, that Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both sides: let them be lions, but yet lions under the throne; being circumspect that they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty. Let not judges also be so ignorant of their own right, as to think there is not left to them, as a

principal part of their office, a wise use and application of laws; for they may remember what the Apostle saith of a greater law than theirs; "Nos scimus quia lex bona est, modo "quis ea utatur legitime."

OF ANGER.

To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: "Be angry, but sin not: let not the sun go "down upon your anger." Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and habit, "to be angry," may be attempted and calmed; secondly, how the particular motions of anger may be repressed, or, at least, refrained from doing mischief; thirdly, how to raise anger, or appease anger in another.

For the first, there is no other way but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life: and the best time to do this, is to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly over. Seneca

1

[ocr errors]

saith well," that anger is like rain, which "breaks itself upon that it falls.". The scripturę exhorteth us, "to possess our souls in "patience;" whosoever is out of patience, is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees;

"Animasque in vulnere ponunt."

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

[ocr errors]

For the second point, the causes and motives of anger are chiefly three: first, to be too sensible of hurt; for no man is angry that feels not himself hurt; and, therefore, tender and delicate persons must needs be oft angry, they have so many things to trouble them, which more robust natures have little sense of: the next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered to be, in the circumstances

thereof, full of contempt: for contempt is that which putteth an edge upon anger as much or more than the hurt itself; and, therefore, when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much lastly, opinion of the touch of a man's reputation doth multiply and sharpen anger; wherein the remedy is that a man should have, as Gonsalvo was wont to say, "telam "honoris crassiorem." But in all refrainings of anger it is the best remedy to win time, and to make a man's self believe that the opportunity of his revenge is not yet come; but that he foresees a time for it, and so to still himself in the mean time, and reserve it.

To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be two things whereof you must have special caution: the one, of extreme bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate and proper; for "communia male"dicta" are nothing so much; and again, that in anger a man reveal no secrets; for that makes him not fit for society: the other, that you do not peremptorily break off in any business in a fit of anger; but howsoever you shew bitterness, do not act any thing that is not revocable.

S

For raising and appeasing anger in another, it is done chiefly by choosing of times, when men are forwardest and worst disposed to incense them; again, by gathering, (as was touched before,) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt. and the two remedies are by the contraries: the former to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry business, for the first impression is much; and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion, or what you will.

OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.

SOLOMON saith, "there is no new thing upon "the earth" so that as Plato had an imagination that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Solomon giveth his sentence, “that "all novelty is but oblivion;" whereby you may see, that the river of Lethe runneth as well above ground as below. There is an abstruse astrologer that saith, if it were not for two things that are constant, (the one is,

« AnteriorContinuar »