laniantur cogitationes meae_, [1809]Austin confessed,
that he was torn a pieces with his manifold desires: and so doth [1810]
Bernard complain, "that he could not rest for them a minute of an hour:
this I would have, and that, and then I desire to be such and such." 'Tis a
hard matter therefore to confine them, being they are so various and many,
impossible to apprehend all. I will only insist upon some few of the chief,
and most noxious in their kind, as that exorbitant appetite and desire of
honour, which we commonly call ambition; love of money, which is
covetousness, and that greedy desire of gain: self-love, pride, and
inordinate desire of vainglory or applause, love of study in excess; love
of women (which will require a just volume of itself), of the other I will
briefly speak, and in their order.

Ambition, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of honour, a great torture
of the mind, composed of envy, pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness,
one [1811]defines it a pleasant poison, Ambrose, "a canker of the soul, an
hidden plague:" [1812]Bernard, "a secret poison, the father of livor, and
mother of hypocrisy, the moth of holiness, and cause of madness, crucifying
and disquieting all that it takes hold of." [1813]Seneca calls it, _rem
solicitam, timidam, vanam, ventosam_, a windy thing, a vain, solicitous,
and fearful thing. For commonly they that, like Sisyphus, roll this
restless stone of ambition, are in a perpetual agony, still [1814]
perplexed, _semper taciti, tritesque recedunt_ (Lucretius), doubtful,
timorous, suspicious, loath to offend in word or deed, still cogging and
colloguing, embracing, capping, cringing, applauding, flattering, fleering,
visiting, waiting at men's doors, with all affability, counterfeit honesty
and humility. [1815]If that will not serve, if once this humour (as
[1816]Cyprian describes it) possess his thirsty soul, _ambitionis salsugo
ubi bibulam animam possidet_, by hook and by crook he will obtain it, "and
from his hole he will climb to all honours and offices, if it be possible
for him to get up, flattering one, bribing another, he will leave no means
unessay'd to win all." [1817]It is a wonder to see how slavishly these kind
of men subject themselves, when they are about a suit, to every inferior
person; what pains they will take, run, ride, cast, plot, countermine,
protest and swear, vow, promise, what labours undergo, early up, down late;
how obsequious and affable they are,