, trifles, and
impertinent occasions, spend ourselves, goods, friends, fortunes, to be
revenged on our adversary, to ruin him and his. 'Tis all our study,
practice, and business how to plot mischief, mine, countermine, defend and
offend, ward ourselves, injure others, hurt all; as if we were born to do
mischief, and that with such eagerness and bitterness, with such rancour,
malice, rage, and fury, we prosecute our intended designs, that neither
affinity or consanguinity, love or fear of God or men can contain us: no
satisfaction, no composition will be accepted, no offices will serve, no
submission; though he shall upon his knees, as Sarpedon did to Glaucus in
Homer, acknowledging his error, yield himself with tears in his eyes, beg
his pardon, we will not relent, forgive, or forget, till we have confounded
him and his, "made dice of his bones," as they say, see him rot in prison,
banish his friends, followers, _et omne invisum genus_, rooted him out and
all his posterity. Monsters of men as we are, dogs, wolves, [4611]tigers,
fiends, incarnate devils, we do not only contend, oppress, and tyrannise
ourselves, but as so many firebrands, we set on, and animate others: our
whole life is a perpetual combat, a conflict, a set battle, a snarling fit.
_Eris dea_ is settled in our tents, [4612]_Omnia de lite_, opposing wit to
wit, wealth to wealth, strength to strength, fortunes to fortunes, friends
to friends, as at a sea-fight, we turn our broadsides, or two millstones
with continual attrition, we fire ourselves, or break another's backs, and
both are ruined and consumed in the end. Miserable wretches, to fat and
enrich ourselves, we care not how we get it, _Quocunque modo rem_; how many
thousands we undo, whom we oppress, by whose ruin and downfall we arise,
whom we injure, fatherless children, widows, common societies, to satisfy
our own private lust. Though we have myriads, abundance of wealth and
treasure, (pitiless, merciless, remorseless, and uncharitable in the
highest degree), and our poor brother in need, sickness, in great
extremity, and now ready to be starved for want of food, we had rather, as
the fox told the ape, his tail should sweep the ground still, than cover
his buttocks; rather spend it idly, consume it with dogs, hawks, hounds,
unnecessary buildings, in riotous apparel, ingurgitate, or let it be lost,
than he should have part of it; [4613]rather take from him that little
which he hath, than relieve him.