count them happy who be richly furnished with things unprofitable. And the last; That it is virtue wherein we ought to ground and seek for contentment; for there it is to be found and not in riches.]
Hippomachus, a great master of wrestling and such exercises of the body, hearing some to praise a certain tall man, high of stature, and having long arms and hands, commending him for a singular champion, and fit to fight at buffets: A proper fellow he were (quoth he) if the garland or prize of the victory were hung on high, for to be reached with the hand; semblably it may be said unto them who esteem so highly and repute it a great felicity to be possessed of much fair lands, to have many great and stately houses, to be furnished with mighty masses and sums of money, in case felicity were to be bought and sold for coin. And yet a man shall see many in the world, chuse rather to be rich and wretched withal, than to give their silver for to be happy and blessed: but surely it is not silver nor gold that can purchase either repose of spirit void of grief and anguish, or magnanimity, nor yet settled constancy and resolution, confidence, and suffisance, or contentment with our own estate. Be a man never so rich, he cannot skill thereby to contemn riches, no more than the possession of more than enough worketh this in us; That we want not still, and desire even things that be superfluous. What other evil and malady then doth our wealth and riches rid us from, if it delivereth us not from avarice? By drink men quench their thirst, by meat they slake their hunger. And he that said:
Give Hipponax a cloak to keep him warm,
For cold extreme I shake, and may take harm,
if there were many clothes hung or cast upon him, would be offended therewith and fling them from him; but this their strong desire and love of money, it is neither silver nor gold that is able to quench: and let a man have never so much, yet he coveteth nevertheless to have more still. And well it may be verified of riches which one said sometime to an ignorant and deceitful physician:
Your drugs and salves augment my sore,
They make me sicker than before.
For riches verily, after that men have once met therewith (whereas before they stood in need of bread, of a competent house to put their heads in, of mean raiment, and any viands that come next hand), fill them now with an impatient desire of gold, silver, ivory, emeralds, horses, and hounds, changing
