ras is composed of several parcels, some
wrought of silk, some of gold, silver, crewel of diverse colours, all to
serve for the exornation of the whole: music is made of diverse discords
and keys, a total sum of many small numbers, so is a commonwealth of
several unequal trades and callings. [3834]If all should be Croesi and
Darii, all idle, all in fortunes equal, who should till the land? As
[3835]Menenius Agrippa well satisfied the tumultuous rout of Rome, in his
elegant apologue of the belly and the rest of the members. Who should build
houses, make our several stuffs for raiments? We should all be starved for
company, as Poverty declared at large in Aristophanes' Plutus, and sue at
last to be as we were at first. And therefore God hath appointed this
inequality of states, orders, and degrees, a subordination, as in all other
things. The earth yields nourishment to vegetables, sensible creatures feed
on vegetables, both are substitutes to reasonable souls, and men are
subject amongst themselves, and all to higher powers, so God would have it.
All things then being rightly examined and duly considered as they ought,
there is no such cause of so general discontent, 'tis not in the matter
itself, but in our mind, as we moderate our passions and esteem of things.
_Nihil aliud necessarium ut sis miser_ (saith [3836]Cardan) _quam ut te
miserum credas_, let thy fortune be what it will, 'tis thy mind alone that
makes thee poor or rich, miserable or happy. _Vidi ego_ (saith divine
Seneca) _in villa hilari et amaena maestos, et media solitudine occupatos;
non locus, sed animus facit ad tranquillitatem_. I have seen men miserably
dejected in a pleasant village, and some again well occupied and at good
ease in a solitary desert. 'Tis the mind not the place causeth
tranquillity, and that gives true content. I will yet add a word or two for
a corollary. Many rich men, I dare boldly say it, that lie on down beds,
with delicacies pampered every day, in their well-furnished houses, live at
less heart's ease, with more anguish, more bodily pain, and through their
intemperance, more bitter hours, than many a prisoner or galley-slave;
[3837]_Maecenas in pluma aeque vigilat ac Regulus in dolio_: those poor
starved Hollanders, whom [3838]Bartison their captain left in Nova Zembla,
anno 1596, or those [3839]eight miserable Englishmen that were lately left
behind, to winter in a stove in Greenland, in 77 deg. of lat., 1630, so
pitifully forsak