CIVIL AND MORAL. 



their girdles and Barters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men 

 are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not always best 

 subjects ; for they are light to run away ; and almost all fugitives arc 

 of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen : for charity 

 will hardly water the ground, where it must first fill a pool. It is 

 indifferent for judges and magistrates: for if they be facile and cornipt, 

 you shall have a sen-ant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, 

 I find the generals commonly, in their hortativcs, put men in mind of 

 their wives and children. And I think the despising of marriage 

 amongst the Turks, maketh the vulgar soldiers more base. Certainly, 

 wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity ; and single 

 men, though they be many times more charitable, because their means 

 are less exhaust ; yet, on the other side, they arc more cruel and hard 

 hearted, good to make severe inquisitors, because their tenderness is 

 not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore 

 constant, arc commonly loving husbands : as was said of Ulysses, 

 vctulam sunm pnctulit immortalitati.&quot; Chaste women arc often proud 

 and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one 

 of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she 

 think her husband wise : which she will never do if she find him 

 jealous. Wives are young men s mistresses ; companions for middle 

 ages ; and old men s nurses. So as a man may have a quarrel to 

 marry when he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men, that 

 made answer to the question, when a man should marry? &quot;A young 

 man not vet, an elder man not at all.&quot; It is often seen, that bad 

 husbands have very good wives ; whether it be, that it raiscth the 

 price of their husband s kindness when it comes ; or that the wives take 

 a pride in their patience. But this never fails if the bad husbands 

 were of their own chusing, against their friends consent ; for then they 

 will be sure to make good their own folly. 



IX. OF ENVY. 



There be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate 

 or bewitch, but love and envy. They both have vehement wishes ; 

 they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions : and 

 they come easily into the eye ; especially upon the presence of the 

 objects ; which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such 

 thing there be. We sec likewise, the Scripture callcth envy an evil 

 eye : and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars, evil 

 aspects ; so that still there scemcth to be acknowledged in the act of 

 envy, an ejaculation, or irradiation of the eye. Nay, some have been 

 so curious, as to note, that the times when the stroke or percussion of 

 an envious eye doth most hurt, are, when the party envied is beheld in 

 glory or triumph ; for that sets an edge upon envy : and, besides, at 

 such times, the spirits of the person envied do come forth mot into 

 the outward parts, and so meet the blow. 



But leaving these curiosities, though not unworthy to be thought 

 in fit place, we will handle, what persons are apt to envy others : what 



