other side, in adversity many mutter and repine, despair, &c., both
bad, I confess,

[3846] ------"ut calceus olim
Si pede major erit, subvertet: si minor, uret."

"As a shoe too big or too little, one pincheth, the other sets the foot
awry," _sed e malis minimum_. If adversity hath killed his thousand,
prosperity hath killed his ten thousand: therefore adversity is to be
preferred; [3847]_haec froeno indiget, illa solatio: illa fallit, haec
instruit_: the one deceives, the other instructs; the one miserably happy,
the other happily miserable; and therefore many philosophers have
voluntarily sought adversity, and so much commend it in their precepts.
Demetrius, in Seneca, esteemed it a great infelicity, that in his lifetime
he had no misfortune, _miserum cui nihil unquam accidisset, adversi_.
Adversity then is not so heavily to be taken, and we ought not in such
cases so much to macerate ourselves: there is no such odds in poverty and
riches. To conclude in [3848]Hierom's words, "I will ask our magnificoes
that build with marble, and bestow a whole manor on a thread, what
difference between them and Paul the Eremite, that bare old man? They drink
in jewels, he in his hand: he is poor and goes to heaven, they are rich and
go to hell."

MEMB. IV.
_Against Servitude, Loss of Liberty, Imprisonment, Banishment_.

Servitude, loss of liberty, imprisonment, are no such miseries as they are
held to be: we are slaves and servants the best of us all: as we do
reverence our masters, so do our masters their superiors: gentlemen serve
nobles, and nobles subordinate to kings, _omne sub regno graviore regnum_,
princes themselves are God's servants, _reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis_.
They are subject to their own laws, and as the kings of China endure more
than slavish imprisonment, to maintain their state and greatness, they
never come abroad. Alexander was a slave to fear, Caesar of pride,
Vespasian to his money (_nihil enim refert, rerum sis servus an hominum_),
[3849] Heliogabalus to his gut, and so of the rest. Lovers are slaves to
their mistresses, rich men to their gold, courtiers generally to lust and
ambition, and all slaves to our affections, as Evangelus well discourseth
in [3850]Macrobius, and [3851]Seneca the philosopher, _assiduam servitutem
extremam et ineluctabilem_ he calls it, a continual slavery, to be so
captivated by vices; and who is free? Why then dost thou repine? _Satis est
potens_, Hierom sait