CHAP. XXI. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 



173 



selves with corroding cares, to keep what they have, probably, 

 unconscionably got. Let us, therefore, be thankful for health 

 and a competence ; and, above all, for a quiet conscience. 



Let me tell you, scholar, that Diogenes walked on a day, 'with 

 his friend, to see a country fair ; where he saw ribbons and 

 looking-glasses and nut-crackers and fiddles and hobby-horses 

 and many other gimcracks ; and, having observed them and all 

 the other finnimbruns that make a complete country fair, he said 

 to his friend, < T.ord ? how many things are there in this world of 

 ivhMijni^cimp^jiath no need 1^ And truly it is so, or might 

 be so, with very many who vex and toil themselves to get what 

 they have no need of. Cpn any man chaise, God f^f |if> ^^ fV> 

 nol given him enough to make his life happy ? No, doubtless ; 

 for nature is content witn a ntne. And vet you shall hardly 

 meet with a man that complains not of some want though he, 

 indeedT'wants' nothing but his will ; it may be, nothing but his 

 will of his poor neighbour, for not worshipping or not flattering 

 him : and th^g wfrpr) \^^ t might be happy and quiet, we create 

 I have heard of a man that Was angry 

 " 



trouble to ourselves, 

 with himself because "he was no taller ; and of a woman that 

 broke her looking-glass because it would not show her face to 

 be as young and handsome as her next neighbour's was. And 

 I knew another to whom God had given health and plenty, but 

 a wife that nature had made peevish, and her husband's riches 

 had made purse-proud ; and must, because she was rich, and 

 for no other virtue, sit in the highest pew in the church ; which 

 being denied her, she engaged her husband into a contention f< 

 it, and at last into a lawsuit with a dogged neighbour who wa! 

 as rich as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the 

 other: and this lawsuit begot higher oppositions, and actionable 

 words, and more vexations and lawsuits ; JET 7 r>n TT" Tg t rf * rr " arn - 

 ber that both were rich, and jr^ist t^prpfnrp have their will. 

 Well, this wiitui, purse-proud lawsuit lap^ rlr^j thr ljf Q of 

 the first husband ; after which his wife vext and chid, and chid 



