those that are our equals, or such as cannot benefit or hurt us, is a far more irrational idolatry than worshipping of images or beasts. All the good that can proceed from friendship is but this, that it puts men in a way to betray one another. The best parents, who are commonly the worst men, have naturally a tender kindness for their children, only because they believe they are a part of themselves, which shews that self-love is the original of all others, and the foundation of that great law of nature, self preservation, for no man ever destroyed himself wilfully that had not first left off to love himself. Therefore, a man's self is the proper object of his love, which is never so well employed as when it is kept within its own confines and not suffered to straggle. Every man is just so much a slave as he is concerned in the will, inclinations, or fortunes of another, or has anything of himself out of his own power to dispose of; and therefore he is resolved never to trust any man with that kindness, which he takes up of himself, unless he has such security as is most certain to yield him double interest; for he that does otherwise is but a Jew and a Turk to himself, which is much worse than to be so to all the world beside. Friends are only friends to those who have no need of them, and when they have, become no longer friends; like the leaves of trees that clothe the woods in the heat of summer when they have no need of warmth, but leave them naked when cold weather comes; and since there are so few that prove otherwise, it is not wisdom to rely on any.

He is of opinion that no men are so fit to be employed and trusted as fools or knaves, for the first understand no right, the others regard none; and whensoever there falls out an occasion that may prove of great importance, if the

infamy and danger of the dishonesty be not too apparent, they are the only persons that are fit for the undertaking. They are both equally greedy of employment, the one out of an itch to be thought able, and the other honest enough to be trusted, as by use and practice they sometimes prove; for the general business of the world lies, for the most part, in routines and forms, of which there are none. so exact observers as those who understand nothing else to divert them, as carters use to blind their fore-horses on both sides, that they may see only forward and so keep the road the better; and men that aim at a mark use to shut one eye, that they may see the surer with the other. If fools are not notorious, they have far more persons to deal with of their own elevation (who understand one another better) than they have of those that are above them, which renders them fitter for many businesses than wiser men, and they believe themselves to be so for all; for no man ever thought himself a fool that was one, so confident does their ignorance naturally render them, and confidence is no contemptible qualification in the management of human affairs. And as blind men have secret artifices and tricks to supply that defect, and find out their ways, which those who have their eyes and are but hoodwinked are utterly unable to do; so fools have always little crafts and frauds in all their transactions, which wiser men would never have thought upon, and by those they frequently arrive at very great wealth, and as great success, in all their undertakings. For all fools are but feeble and impotent knaves, that have as strong and vehement inclinations to all sorts of dishonesty as the most notorious of those engineers, but want abilities to put them in practice; and as they are always found to be the most obstinate and intractable people to be prevailed upon by

reason or conscience, so they are as easy to submit to their superiors—that is, knaves, by whom they are always observed to be governed, as all corporations are wont to choose their magistrates out of their own members. As for knaves, they are commonly true enough to their own interests, and, while they gain by their employments, will be careful not to disserve those who can turn them out when they please, what tricks soever they put upon others; and therefore such men prove more useful to them in their designs of gain and profit, than those whose consciences and reason will not permit them to take that latitude.

And since buffoonery is, and has always been so delightful to great persons, he holds him very improvident that is to seek in a quality so inducing that he cannot at least serve for want of a better, especially since it is so easy that the greatest part of the difficulty lies in confidence, and he that can but stand fair and give aim to those that are gamesters, does not always lose his labour, but many times becomes well esteemed for his generous and bold deineanour, and a lucky repartee, hit upon by chance, may be the making of a man. This is the only modern way of running at tilt with which great persons are so delighted to see men encounter one another, and break jests as they did lances heretofore; and he that has the best beaver to his helmet has the greatest advantage, and as the former passed upon the account of valour, so does the latter on the score of wit, though neither, perhaps, have any great reason for their pretences, especially the latter, that depends much upon confidence, which is commonly a great support to wit, and therefore believed to be its betters, that ought to take place of it, as all men are greater than their dependants- so pleas ant it is to see men lessen one another, and strive who shall

shew himself the most ill-natured and ill-mannered. As in cuffing all blows are aimed at the face, so it fares in these rencounters, where he that wears the toughest leather on his visage comes off with victory, though he has ever so much the disadvantage upon all other accounts; for a buffoon is like a mad dog that has a worm in his tongue, which makes him bite at all that light in his way; and as he can do nothing alone, but must have somebody to set him that he may throw at, he that performs that office with the greatest freedom, and is contented to be laughed at to give his patron pleasure, cannot but be understood to have done very good service, and consequently deserves to be well rewarded; as a mountebank's pudding, that is content to be cut and slashed, and burnt and poisoned, without which his master can shew no tricks, deserves to have a considerable share in his gains.

As for the meanness of these ways, which some may think too base to be employed to so excellent an end, that imports nothing; for what dislike soever the world conceives against any man's undertakings, if they do but succeed and prosper, it will easily recant its error and applaud what it condemned before, and therefore all wise men have ever justly esteemed it a great virtue to disdain the false values it commonly sets upon all things, and which itself is so apt to retract; for as those who go up hill use to stoop and bow their bodies forward, and sometimes creep upon their hands, and those that descend to go upright; so the lower a man stoops and submits in these endearing offices, the more sure and certain he is to rise, and the more upright he carries himself in other matters, the more like in probability to be ruined. And this he believes to be a wiser course for any man to take than to trouble himself

with the knowledge of arts or arms, for the one does but bring a man an unnecessary trouble, and the other as unnecessary danger; and the shorter and more easy way to attain to both is to despise all other men and believe as steadfastly in himself as he can, a better and more certain course than that of merit.

What he gains wickedly he spends as vainly, for he holds it the greatest happiness that a man is capable of to deny himself nothing that his desires can propose to him, but rather to improve his enjoyments by glorying in his vices; for glory being one end of almost all the business of this world, he who omits that in the enjoyment of himself and his pleasures loses the greatest part of his delight. And therefore the felicity which he supposes other men apprehend that he receives in the relish of his luxuries, is more delightful to him than the fruition itself.

A LEADER OF A FACTION

Sets the psalm, and all his party sing after him. He is like a figure in arithmetic, the more ciphers he stands before, the more his value amounts to. He is a great haranguer, talks himself into authority, and, like a parrot, climbs with his beak. He appears brave in the head of his party, but braver in his own; for vainglory leads him as he does them, and both many times out of the king's highway, over hedges and ditches, to find out byways and shorter cuts, which generally prove the furthest about, but never the nearest home again. He is so passionate a lover of the liberty of the people, that his fondness turns to jealousy; he interprets every trifle in the worst sense to the prejudice of her honesty, and is so full of caprices and scruples, that if

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