Ut locuples moriaris egenti vivere fato.
SUBSECT. XIII.—Love of Gaming, &c. and pleasures immoderate; Causes.
It is a wonder to see, how many poor, distressed, miserable wretches, one shall meet almost in every path and street, begging for an alms, that have been well descended, and sometimes in flourishing estate, now ragged, tattered, and ready to be starved, lingering out a painful life, in discontent and grief of body and mind, and all through immoderate lust, gaming, pleasure and riot. 'Tis the common end of all sensual epicures and brutish prodigals, that are stupefied and carried away headlong with their several pleasures and lusts. Cebes in his table, St. Ambrose in his second book of Abel and Cain, and amongst the rest Lucian in his tract de Mercede conductis, hath excellent well deciphered such men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia, whom he feigns to dwell on the top of a high mount, much sought after by many suitors; at their first coming they are generally entertained by pleasure and dalliance, and have all the content that possibly may be given, so long as their money lasts: but when their means fail, they are contemptibly thrust out at a back door, headlong, and there left to shame, reproach, despair. And he at first that had so many attendants, parasites, and followers, young and lusty, richly arrayed, and all the dainty fare that might be had, with all kind of welcome and good respect, is now upon a sudden stripped of all, [1866]pale, naked, old, diseased and forsaken, cursing his stars, and ready to strangle himself; having no other company but repentance, sorrow, grief, derision, beggary, and contempt, which are his daily attendants to his life's end. As the [1867]prodigal son had exquisite music, merry company, dainty fare at first; but a sorrowful reckoning in the end; so have all such vain delights and their followers. [1868]Tristes voluptatum exitus, et quisquis voluptatum suarum reminisci volet, intelliget, as bitter as gall and wormwood is their last; grief of mind, madness itself. The ordinary rocks upon which such men do impinge and precipitate themselves, are cards, dice, hawks, and hounds, Insanum venandi studium, one calls it, insanae substructiones: their mad structures, disports, plays, &c., when they are unseasonably used, imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes. Some men are consumed by mad fantastical buildings, by making galleries, cloisters, terraces, walks, orchards, gardens, pools, rillets, bowers, and such like places of pleasure; Inutiles domos, [1869]Xenophon calls them, which howsoever they be delightsome things in themselves, and acceptable to all beholders, an ornament, and benefiting some great men: yet unprofitable to others, and the sole overthrow of their estates. Forestus in his observations hath an example of such a one that became melancholy upon the like occasion, having consumed his substance in an unprofitable building, which would afterward yield him no advantage. Others, I say, are [1870] overthrown by those mad sports of hawking and hunting; honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base inferior person; whilst they will maintain their falconers, dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth, saith [1871]Salmutze, “runs away with hounds, and their fortunes fly away with hawks.” They persecute beasts so long, till in the end they themselves degenerate into beasts, as [1872]Agrippa taxeth them, [1873]Actaeon like, for as he was eaten to death by his own dogs, so do they devour themselves and their patrimonies, in such idle and unnecessary disports, neglecting in the mean time their more necessary business, and to follow their vocations. Over-mad too sometimes are our great men in delighting, and doting too much on it. [1874]“When they drive poor husbandmen from their tillage,” as [1875]Sarisburiensis objects, Polycrat. l. 1. c. 4, “fling down country farms, and whole towns, to make parks, and forests, starving men to feed beasts, and [1876]punishing in the mean time such a man that shall molest their game, more severely than him that is otherwise a common hacker, or a notorious thief.” But great men are some ways to be excused, the meaner sort have no evasion why they should not be counted mad. Poggius the Florentine tells a merry story to this purpose, condemning the folly and impertinent business of such kind of persons. A physician of Milan, saith he, that cured mad men, had a pit of water in his house, in which he kept his patients, some up to the knees, some to the girdle, some to the chin, pro modo insaniae, as they were more or less affected. One of them by chance, that was well recovered, stood in the door, and seeing a gallant ride by with a hawk on his fist, well mounted, with his spaniels after him, would needs know to what use all this preparation served; he made answer to kill certain fowls; the patient demanded again, what his fowl might be worth which he killed in a year; he replied 5 or 10 crowns; and when he urged him farther what his dogs, horse, and hawks stood him in, he told him 400 crowns; with that the patient bad be gone, as he loved his life and welfare, for if our master come and find thee here, he will put thee in the pit amongst mad men up to the chin: taxing the madness and folly of such vain men that spend themselves in those idle sports, neglecting their business and necessary affairs. Leo Decimus, that hunting pope, is much discommended by [1877]Jovius in his life, for his immoderate desire of hawking and hunting, in so much that (as he saith) he would sometimes live about Ostia weeks and months together, leave suitors [1878]unrespected, bulls and pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice, and many private men's loss. [1879]“And if he had been by chance crossed in his sport, or his game not so good, he was so impatient, that he would revile and miscall many times men of great worth with most bitter taunts, look so sour, be so angry and waspish, so grieved and molested, that it is incredible to relate it.” But if he had good sport, and been well pleased, on the other side, incredibili munificentia, with unspeakable bounty and munificence he would reward all his fellow hunters, and deny nothing to any suitor when he was in that mood. To say truth, 'tis the common humour of all gamesters, as Galataeus observes, if they win, no men living are so jovial and merry, but [1880]if they lose, though it be but a trifle, two or three games at tables, or a dealing at cards for two pence a game, they are so choleric and testy that no man may speak with them, and break many times into violent passions, oaths, imprecations, and unbeseeming speeches, little differing from mad men for the time. Generally of all gamesters and gaming, if it be excessive, thus much we may conclude, that whether they win or lose for the present, their winnings are not Munera fortunae, sed insidiae as that wise Seneca determines, not fortune's gifts, but baits, the common catastrophe is [1881]beggary, [1882]Ut pestis vitam, sic adimit alea pecuniam, as the plague takes away life, doth gaming goods, for [1883] omnes nudi, inopes et egeni;
[1884]Alea Scylla vorax, species certissima furti,
Non contenta bonis animum quoque perfida mergit,
Foeda, furax, infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina.
I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together.
[1896]Qui vino indulget, quemque aloa decoquit, ille
In venerem putret———
That other madness is on women, Apostatare facit cor, saith the wise man, [1900]Atque homini cerebrum minuit. Pleasant at first she is, like Dioscorides Rhododaphne, that fair plant to the eye, but poison to the taste, the rest as bitter as wormwood in the end (Prov. v. 4.) and sharp as a two-edged sword, (vii. 27.) “Her house is the way to hell, and goes down to the chambers of death.” What more sorrowful can be said? they are miserable in this life, mad, beasts, led like [1901]“oxen to the slaughter:” and that which is worse, whoremasters and drunkards shall be judged, amittunt gratiam, saith Austin, perdunt gloriam, incurrunt damnationem aeternam. They lose grace and glory;