eneral of an army; thou standest bare to him now, workest for him,
drudgest for him and his, takest an alms of him: stay but a little, and his
next heir peradventure shall consume all with riot, be degraded, thou
exalted, and he shall beg of thee. Thou shalt be his most honourable
patron, he thy devout servant, his posterity shall run, ride, and do as
much for thine, as it was with [3736]Frisgobald and Cromwell, it may be for
thee. Citizens devour country gentlemen, and settle in their seats; after
two or three descents, they consume all in riot, it returns to the city
again.

[3737] ------"Novus incola venit;
Nam propriae telluris herum natura, neque illum.
Nec me, nec quenquam statuit; nos expulit ille:
Illum aut nequities, aut vafri inscitia juris."

------"have we liv'd at a more frugal rate,
Since this new stranger seiz'd on our estate?
Nature will no perpetual heir assign,
Or make the farm his property or mine.
He turn'd us out: but follies all his own,
Or lawsuits and their knaveries yet unknown,
Or, all his follies and his lawsuits past,
Some long-liv'd heir shall turn him out at last."

A lawyer buys out his poor client, after a while his client's posterity buy
out him and his; so things go round, ebb and flow.

"Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli
Dictus erat, nulli proprius, sed cedit in usum
Nunc mihi, nunc aliis;"------

"The farm, once mine, now bears Umbrenus' name;
The use alone, not property, we claim;
Then be not with your present lot depressed,
And meet the future with undaunted breast;"

as he said then, _ager cujus, quot habes Dominos_? So say I of land,
houses, movables and money, mine today, his anon, whose tomorrow? In fine,
(as [3738]Machiavel observes) "virtue and prosperity beget rest; rest
idleness; idleness riot; riot destruction from which we come again to good
laws; good laws engender virtuous actions; virtue, glory, and prosperity;"
"and 'tis no dishonour then" (as Guicciardine adds) "for a flourishing man,
city, or state to come to ruin," [3739]"nor infelicity to be subject to the
law of nature." _Ergo terrena calcanda, sitienda coelestia_, (therefore I
say) scorn this transitory state, look up to heaven, think not what others
are, but what thou art: [3740]_Qua parte locatus es in re_: and what thou
shalt be, what thou mayst be. Do