ove:" friends, children, love of women, [4508]all
delightful and pleasant objects, are referred to the second. The love of
honest things consists in virtue and wisdom, and is preferred before that
which is profitable and pleasant: intellectual, about that which is honest.
[4509]St. Austin calls "profitable, worldly; pleasant, carnal; honest,
spiritual. [4510]Of and from all three, result charity, friendship, and
true love, which respects God and our neighbour." Of each of these I will
briefly dilate, and show in what sort they cause melancholy.

Amongst all these fair enticing objects, which procure love, and bewitch
the soul of man, there is none so moving, so forcible as profit; and that
which carrieth with it a show of commodity. Health indeed is a precious
thing, to recover and preserve which we will undergo any misery, drink
bitter potions, freely give our goods: restore a man to his health, his
purse lies open to thee, bountiful he is, thankful and beholding to thee;
but give him wealth and honour, give him gold, or what shall be for his
advantage and preferment, and thou shalt command his affections, oblige him
eternally to thee, heart, hand, life, and all is at thy service, thou art
his dear and loving friend, good and gracious lord and master, his
Mecaenas; he is thy slave, thy vassal, most devote, affectioned, and bound
in all duty: tell him good tidings in this kind, there spoke an angel, a
blessed hour that brings in gain, he is thy creature, and thou his creator,
he hugs and admires thee; he is thine for ever. No loadstone so attractive
as that of profit, none so fair an object as this of gold; [4511]nothing
wins a man sooner than a good turn, bounty and liberality command body and
soul:

"Munera (crede mihi) placant hominesque deosque;
Placatur donis Jupiter ipse datis."

"Good turns doth pacify both God and men,
And Jupiter himself is won by them."

Gold of all other is a most delicious object; a sweet light, a goodly
lustre it hath; _gratius aurum quam solem intuemur_, saith Austin, and we
had rather see it than the sun. Sweet and pleasant in getting, in keeping;
it seasons all our labours, intolerable pains we take for it, base
employments, endure bitter flouts and taunts, long journeys, heavy burdens,
all are made light and easy by this hope of gain: _At mihi plaudo ipse
domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca_. The sight of gold refresheth our
spirits, and ravisheth