ide
an entertainment according to the direction of Arrius; and as much corn
as is cut in Africa. Whether I have willed this rightly or wrongly, it
was my will; be not severe against me, [cries the testator]. I imagine
the provident mind of Staberius foresaw this. What then did he moan,
when he appointed by will that his heirs should engrave the sum of their
patrimony upon his tomb-stone? As long as he lived, he deemed poverty a
great vice, and nothing did he more industriously avoid: insomuch that,
had he died less rich by one farthing, the more Iniquitous would he have
appeared to himself. For every thing, virtue, fame, glory, divine and
human affairs, are subservient to the attraction of riches; which
whoever shall have accumulated, shall be illustrious, brave, just--What,
wise too? Ay, and a king, and whatever else he pleases. This he was in
hopes would greatly redound to his praise, as if it had been an
acquisition of his virtue. In what respect did the Grecian Aristippus
act like this; who ordered his slaves to throw away his gold in the
midst of Libya; because, encumbered with the burden, they traveled too
slowly? Which is the greater madman of these two? An example is nothing
to the purpose, that decides one controversy by creating another. If any
person were to buy lyres, and [when he had bought them] to stow them in
one place; though neither addicted to the lyre nor to any one muse
whatsoever: if a man were [to buy] paring-knives and lasts, and were no
shoemaker; sails fit for navigation, and were averse to merchandizing;
he every where deservedly be styled delirious, and out of his senses.
How does he differ from these, who boards up cash and gold [and] knows
not how to use them when accumulated, and is afraid to touch them as if
they were consecrated? If any person before a great heap of corn should
keep perpetual watch with a long club, and, though the owner of it, and
hungry, should not dare to take a single grain from it; and should
rather feed upon bitter leaves: if while a thousand hogsheads of Chian,
or old Falernian, is stored up within (nay, that is nothing--three
hundred thousand), he drink nothing, but what is mere sharp vinegars
again--if, wanting but one year of eighty, he should lie upon straw, who
has bed-clothes rotting in his chest, the food of worms and moths; he
would seem mad, belike, but to few persons: because the greatest part of
mankind labors, under the same malady.

Thou dotard, hatef