us, all things considered: no creature's
life so brittle, so full of fear, so mad, so furious; only man is plagued
with envy, discontent, griefs, covetousness, ambition, superstition." Our
whole life is an Irish sea, wherein there is nought to be expected but
tempestuous storms and troublesome waves, and those infinite,

[1759] "Tantum malorum pelagus aspicio,
Ut non sit inde enatandi copia,"

no halcyonian times, wherein a man can hold himself secure, or agree with
his present estate; but as Boethius infers, [1760]"there is something in
every one of us which before trial we seek, and having tried abhor: [1761]
we earnestly wish, and eagerly covet, and are eftsoons weary of it." Thus
between hope and fear, suspicions, angers, [1762]_Inter spemque metumque,
timores inter et iras_, betwixt falling in, falling out, &c., we bangle
away our best days, befool out our times, we lead a contentious,
discontent, tumultuous, melancholy, miserable life; insomuch, that if we
could foretell what was to come, and it put to our choice, we should rather
refuse than accept of this painful life. In a word, the world itself is a
maze, a labyrinth of errors, a desert, a wilderness, a den of thieves,
cheaters, &c., full of filthy puddles, horrid rocks, precipitiums, an ocean
of adversity, an heavy yoke, wherein infirmities and calamities overtake,
and follow one another, as the sea waves; and if we scape Scylla, we fall
foul on Charybdis, and so in perpetual fear, labour, anguish, we run from
one plague, one mischief, one burden to another, _duram servientes
servitutem_, and you may as soon separate weight from lead, heat from fire,
moistness from water, brightness from the sun, as misery, discontent, care,
calamity, danger, from a man. Our towns and cities are but so many
dwellings of human misery. "In which grief and sorrow" ([1763]as he right
well observes out of Solon) "innumerable troubles, labours of mortal men,
and all manner of vices, are included, as in so many pens." Our villages
are like molehills, and men as so many emmets, busy, busy still, going to
and fro, in and out, and crossing one another's projects, as the lines of
several sea-cards cut each other in a globe or map. "Now light and merry,"
but ([1764]as one follows it) "by-and-by sorrowful and heavy; now hoping,
then distrusting; now patient, tomorrow crying out; now pale, then red;
running, sitting, sweating, trembling, halting," &c. Some few amongst the
rest, or