Sweet apples, and whate'er thy fields afford,
Before thy Gods be serv'd, let serve thy Lord.
But on the contrary, if he be poor, Prov. xv. 15, “all his days are miserable,” he is under hatches, dejected, rejected and forsaken, poor in purse, poor in spirit; [2238]prout res nobis fluit, ita et animus se habet; [2239]money gives life and soul. Though he be honest, wise, learned, well-deserving, noble by birth, and of excellent good parts; yet in that he is poor, unlikely to rise, come to honour, office, or good means, he is contemned, neglected, frustra sapit, inter literas esurit, amicus molestus. [2240]“If he speak, what babbler is this?” Ecclus, his nobility without wealth, is [2241]projecta vilior alga, and he not esteemed: nos viles pulli nati infelicibus ovis, if once poor, we are metamorphosed in an instant, base slaves, villains, and vile drudges; [2242]for to be poor, is to be a knave, a fool, a wretch, a wicked, an odious fellow, a common eyesore, say poor and say all; they are born to labour, to misery, to carry burdens like juments, pistum stercus comedere with Ulysses' companions, and as Chremilus objected in Aristophanes, [2243] salem lingere, lick salt, to empty jakes, fay channels, [2244]carry out dirt and dunghills, sweep chimneys, rub horse-heels, &c. I say nothing of Turks, galley-slaves, which are bought [2245]and sold like juments, or those African Negroes, or poor [2246]Indian drudges, qui indies hinc inde deferendis oneribus occumbunt, nam quod apud nos boves et asini vehunt, trahunt, &c. [2247]Id omne misellis Indis, they are ugly to behold, and though erst spruce, now rusty and squalid, because poor, [2248]immundas fortunas aquum est squalorem sequi, it is ordinarily so. [2249]“Others eat to live, but they live to drudge,” [2250]servilis et misera gens nihil recusare audet, a servile generation, that dare refuse no task.—[2251]Heus tu Dromo, cape hoc flabellum, ventulum hinc facito dum lavamus, sirrah blow wind upon us while we wash, and bid your fellow get him up betimes in the morning, be it fair or foul, he shall run fifty miles afoot tomorrow, to carry me a letter to my mistress, Socia ad pistrinam, Socia shall tarry at home and grind malt all day long, Tristan thresh. Thus are they commanded, being indeed some of them as so many footstools for rich men to tread on, blocks for them to get on horseback, or as [2252]“walls for them to piss on.” They are commonly such people, rude, silly, superstitious idiots, nasty, unclean, lousy, poor, dejected, slavishly humble: and as [2253]Leo Afer observes of the commonalty of Africa, natura viliores sunt, nec apud suos duces majore in precio quam si canes essent: [2254]base by nature, and no more esteemed than dogs, miseram, laboriosam, calamitosam vitam agunt, et inopem, infelicem, rudiores asinis, ut e brutis plane natos dicas: no learning, no knowledge, no civility, scarce common, sense, nought but barbarism amongst them, belluino more vivunt, neque calceos gestant, neque vestes, like rogues and vagabonds, they go barefooted and barelegged, the soles of their feet being as hard as horse-hoofs, as [2255]Radzivilus observed at Damietta in Egypt, leading a laborious, miserable, wretched, unhappy life, [2256]“like beasts and juments, if not worse:” (for a [2257]Spaniard in Incatan, sold three Indian boys for a cheese, and a hundred Negro slaves for a horse) their discourse is scurrility, their summum bonum, a pot of ale. There is not any slavery which these villains will not undergo, inter illos plerique latrinas evacuant, alii culinariam curant, alii stabularios agunt, urinatores et id genus similia exercent, &c. like those people that dwell in the [2258]Alps, chimney-sweepers, jakes-farmers, dirt-daubers, vagrant rogues, they labour hard some, and yet cannot get clothes to put on, or bread to eat. For what can filthy poverty give else, but [2259]beggary, fulsome nastiness, squalor, contempt, drudgery, labour, ugliness, hunger and thirst; pediculorum, et pulicum numerum? as [2260] he well followed it in Aristophanes, fleas and lice, pro pallio vestem laceram, et pro pulvinari lapidem bene magnum ad caput, rags for his raiment, and a stone for his pillow, pro cathedra, ruptae caput urnae, he sits in a broken pitcher, or on a block for a chair, et malvae, ramos pro panibus comedit, he drinks water, and lives on wort leaves, pulse, like a hog, or scraps like a dog, ut nunc nobis vita afficitur, quis non putabit insaniam esse, infelicitatemque? as Chremilus concludes his speech, as we poor men live nowadays, who will not take our life to be [2261] infelicity, misery, and madness?
If they be of little better condition than those base villains, hunger-starved beggars, wandering rogues, those ordinary slaves, and day-labouring drudges; yet they are commonly so preyed upon by [2262] polling officers for breaking the laws, by their tyrannising landlords, so flayed and fleeced by perpetual [2263]exactions, that though they do drudge, fare hard, and starve their genius, they cannot live in [2264]some countries; but what they have is instantly taken from them, the very care they take to live, to be drudges, to maintain their poor families, their trouble and anxiety “takes away their sleep,” Sirac. xxxi. 1, it makes them weary of their lives: when they have taken all pains, done their utmost and honest endeavours, if they be cast behind by sickness, or overtaken with years, no man pities them, hard-hearted and merciless, uncharitable as they are, they leave them so distressed, to beg, steal, murmur, and [2265] rebel, or else starve. The feeling and fear of this misery compelled those old Romans, whom Menenius Agrippa pacified, to resist their governors: outlaws, and rebels in most places, to take up seditious arms, and in all ages hath caused uproars, murmurings, seditions, rebellions, thefts, murders, mutinies, jars and contentions in every commonwealth: grudging, repining, complaining, discontent in each private family, because they want means to live according to their callings, bring up their children, it breaks their hearts, they cannot do as they would. No greater misery than for a lord to have a knight's living, a gentleman a yeoman's, not to be able to live as his birth and place require. Poverty and want are generally corrosives to all kinds of men, especially to such as have been in good and flourishing estate, are suddenly distressed, [2266]nobly born, liberally brought up, and, by some disaster and casualty miserably dejected. For the rest, as they have base fortunes, so have they base minds correspondent, like beetles, e stercore orti, e stercore victus, in stercore delicium, as they were obscurely born and bred, so they delight in obscenity; they are not thoroughly touched with it. Angustas animas angusto in pectore versant. [2267]Yet, that which is no small cause of their torments, if once they come to be in distress, they are forsaken of their fellows, most part neglected, and left unto themselves; as poor [2268]Terence in Rome was by Scipio, Laelius, and Furius, his great and noble friends.
Nil Publius Scipio profuit, nil ei Laelius, nil Furius,
Tres per idem tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillime,
Horum ille opera ne domum quident habuit conductitiam.[2269]
[2271]Dum fortuna favet vultum servatis amici,
Cum cecidit, turpi vertitis ora fuga.
Whilst fortune favour'd, friends, you smil'd on me,