erence (he grumbles) between Laplolly and Pheasants, to
tumble i' th' straw and lie in a down bed, betwixt wine and water, a
cottage and a palace. "He hates nature" (as [3732]Pliny characterised him)
"that she hath made him lower than a god, and is angry with the gods that
any man goes before him;" and although he hath received much, yet (as
[3733]Seneca follows it) "he thinks it an injury that he hath no more, and
is so far from giving thanks for his tribuneship, that he complains he is
not praetor, neither doth that please him, except he may be consul." Why is
he not a prince, why not a monarch, why not an emperor? Why should one man
have so much more than his fellows, one have all, another nothing? Why
should one man be a slave or drudge to another? One surfeit, another
starve, one live at ease, another labour, without any hope of better
fortune? Thus they grumble, mutter, and repine: not considering that
inconstancy of human affairs, judicially conferring one condition with
another, or well weighing their own present estate. What they are now, thou
mayst shortly be; and what thou art they shall likely be. Expect a little,
compare future and times past with the present, see the event, and comfort
thyself with it. It is as well to be discerned in commonwealths, cities,
families, as in private men's estates. Italy was once lord of the world,
Rome the queen of cities, vaunted herself of two [3734]myriads of
inhabitants; now that all-commanding country is possessed by petty princes,
[3735]Rome a small village in respect. Greece of old the seat of civility,
mother of sciences and humanity; now forlorn, the nurse of barbarism, a den
of thieves. Germany then, saith Tacitus, was incult and horrid, now full of
magnificent cities: Athens, Corinth, Carthage, how flourishing cities, now
buried in their own ruins! _Corvorum, ferarum, aprorum et bestiarum
lustra_, like so many wildernesses, a receptacle of wild beasts. Venice a
poor fisher-town; Paris, London, small cottages in Caesar's time, now most
noble emporiums. Valois, Plantagenet, and Scaliger how fortunate families,
how likely to continue! now quite extinguished and rooted out. He stands
aloft today, full of favour, wealth, honour, and prosperity, in the top of
fortune's wheel: tomorrow in prison, worse than nothing, his son's a
beggar. Thou art a poor servile drudge, _Foex populi_, a very slave, thy
son may come to be a prince, with Maximinus, Agathocles, &c. a senator, a
g