study to compass and
attain. Riches I deny not are God's good gifts, and blessings; and _honor
est in honorante_, honours are from God; both rewards of virtue, and fit to
be sought after, sued for, and may well be possessed: yet no such great
happiness in having, or misery in wanting of them. _Dantur quidem bonis_,
saith Austin, _ne quis mala aestimet: mails autem ne quis nimis bona_, good
men have wealth that we should not think, it evil; and bad men that they
should not rely on or hold it so good; as the rain falls on both sorts, so
are riches given to good and bad, _sed bonis in bonum_, but they are good
only to the godly. But [3681]compare both estates, for natural parts they
are not unlike; and a beggar's child, as [3682]Cardan well observes, "is no
whit inferior to a prince's, most part better;" and for those accidents of
fortune, it will easily appear there is no such odds, no such extraordinary
happiness in the one, or misery in the other. He is rich, wealthy, fat;
what gets he by it? pride, insolency, lust, ambition, cares, fears,
suspicion, trouble, anger, emulation, and many filthy diseases of body and
mind. He hath indeed variety of dishes, better fare, sweet wine, pleasant
sauce, dainty music, gay clothes, lords it bravely out, &c., and all that
which Misillus admired in [3683]Lucian; but with them he hath the gout,
dropsies, apoplexies, palsies, stone, pox, rheums, catarrhs, crudities,
oppilations, [3684]melancholy, &c., lust enters in, anger, ambition,
according to [3685]Chrysostom, "the sequel of riches is pride, riot,
intemperance, arrogancy, fury, and all irrational courses."

[3686] ------"turpi fregerunt saecula luxu
Divitiae molles"------

with their variety of dishes, many such maladies of body and mind get in,
which the poor man knows not of. As Saturn in [3687]Lucian answered the
discontented commonalty, (which because of their neglected Saturnal feasts
in Rome, made a grievous complaint and exclamation against rich men) that
they were much mistaken in supposing such happiness in riches; [3688]"you
see the best" (said he) "but you know not their several gripings and
discontents:" they are like painted walls, fair without, rotten within:
diseased, filthy, crazy, full of intemperance's effects; [3689]"and who can
reckon half? if you but knew their fears, cares, anguish of mind and
vexation, to which they are subject, you would hereafter renounce all
riches."

[3690] "O si pateant pector