The Prevention of Poverty, Chapter 11
CHAP. XI.
SIxthly, another sore judgement which God inflicts upon the merciless mnckworm, for his monstrous unthankfulness, is, he injoyes not a merry day, no not a pleasant hour in seven yeers, ye if you observe it, he resembles Agelaustus, Grandfather to Crassus, who never laughed in all his life, save once when he saw a mare eating of thistles: or rather Anaxagorus Clazoenius, who was never seen to laugh or smile from the day of his birth. Joyes never so much as look in at the door of his heart; worldly delights to him, are but like delicate meates to him that hath lost his tast.
But O the cares, fears, anxieties, sighs, sorrows, suspitions, sad thoughts, restless desires, the horrors, troubles, tortures, torments, vexations, distractions, griefs, girdes, gripes, grudgings, repinings, doubts, dolors, desperation, that are the ordinary companions of the covetous. How is he hurried with desires to get, distracted with getting, vexed for what he cannot get, tortured for what he loseth, or another gaineth, troubled with fear of losing what he hath already gained? yea his labor to gather riches is restless, his care to keep them boundless, his sorrow if he chance to lose them endless, and his fear lest he should hereafter lack cureless.
Of all plagues sent into Egypt, that of the Flies was one of the most troublesome, for they never suffered men to rest, for the more they were beaten off, the more they came upon them: so of all miseries and vexations that God layes upon worldlings; this is not the least, to be continually vexed and tormented with cares, which they neither can (nor indeed would) beat off by any means they are able to devise; for they rush in upon them in the morning so soon as they awake, accompany them in the day, forsake them not at night, they follow them to bed, and will not suffer them to sleep: their thoughts will not permit them to sleep, nor their sleep permit them to rest. They afflict them in their dreams, as giving them no quiet either by day, or night, as God threatneth to wicked men by the Prophet Jeremiah, Jer. 6. I could give you a large bill of particulars; but fear of cloying is alwayes at hand to curb me: wherefore take these few for a taste. Want does not break so many sleeps for provision the next day, as abundance does for increase. His nights are as troublesome and unquiet as his dayes; and his dayes as the dayes of Babylons downfall. Never is more watchfulness, then where is most purpose of wickedness: see Micha 2. 1. Luk. 16. 8. Psal. 36. 4. Eccles. 5. 12. Twas Chilons sentence, Misery and Usury go commonly together.
If his plot be crossed, and his hand cannot act that wickedness by day, which his head hath devised by night, he is taken with a fit of of melancholy, sick of the sullens, as was Ahab. He thinks it a death, that he cannot be suffered to dye; it is a hell to him, that the gates of hell are shut against him.
Having ingrossed a commodity, if he cannot have his expected price for it, or prevail not in his sute, or cannot recover what he expected, or if any one breaks in his debt, or if he hear of a Taxe, or some unavoidable payment, and an hundred the like, every of them adds to the care and grief of his heart, which was ready to burst with care and grief before; for he had rather be damned, then damnified; and in case he cannot have his will of another, he will be revenged of himself, like Nanplius King of Euboea, who when he could not revenge his sons death upon Ulysses, cast himself into the Sea. Yea in case he sustain any great loss, he is ready to make himself away: as Menippus of Phenicia did, who having lost his goods, strangled himself. Or like Dinarcus Phidon, who at a certain loss, cut his own throat, to save the charge of a cord. At least he feels more sorrow in losing his mony, then ever he found pleasure in getting it: nor will any condition content him; for the lightness of his purse, gives him an heavy heart, which yet filled, doth fill him with more care. His medicin is his malady. These rich men, are no less troubled with that they possess (lest they should lose it) then poor men are for that they want. In the day time, he dares not go abroad for fear of robbing; nor stay at home for fear of killing. His thoughts are so troubled with fear of thieves, that he cannot, that he dares not sleep: yea he fears a thief worse then the devil, therefore will he be beholding to the devil for a spell to save him from the thief; which once obtained, a little Opium may rock his cares asleep, and help him to a golden dream; for all his minde and heart is to get mony; if waking, he talks of nothing but earth, if sleeping, he dreams of it. Lastly, as if all his delight were to vex himself, he pines himself away with distrustful fear of want, and projecting how he shall live hereafter, and when he is old: resembling Ventidius the Poet, who would not be perswaded but he should dye a begger. And Apicius the Romane, who when he cast up his accounts, and found but an hundered thousand crowns left, murthered himself for fear he should be famished to death.