He undertakes without rashness, and performs without fear; he seeks not for dangers, but, when they find him, he bears them over with courage, with success. He hath ofttimes looked death in the face, and passed by it with a smile; and when he sees he must yield, doth at once welcome and contemn it. He forecasts the worst of all events, and encounters them before they come in a secret and mental war. And if the suddenness of an unexpected evil have surprised his thoughts, and infected his cheeks with paleness, he hath no sooner digested it in his conceit than he gathers up himself, and insults over mischief. He is the master of himself, and subdues his passions to reason, and by this inward victory works his own peace. He is afraid of nothing but the displeasure of the Highest, and runs away from nothing but sin: he looks not on his hands, but his cause; not how strong he is, but how innocent: and, where goodness is his warrant, he may be over-mastered; he cannot be foiled. The sword is to him the last of all trials, which he draws forth still as defendant, not as challenger, with a willing kind of unwillingness: no man can better manage it, with more safety, with more favour; he had rather have his blood seen than his back, and disdains life upon base conditions. No man is more mild to a relenting or vanquished adversary, or more hates to set his foot on a carcase. He had rather smother an injury than revenge himself of the impotent, and I know not whether he more detests cowardliness or cruelty. He talks little, and brags less; and loves rather the silent language of the hand, to be seen than heard. He lies ever close within himself, armed with wise resolution, and will not be discovered but by death or danger. He is neither prodigal of blood to misspend it idly, nor niggardly to grudge it, when either God calls for it, or his country; neither is he more liberal of his own life than of others. His power is limited by his will, and he holds it the noblest revenge, that he might hurt and doth not. He commands without tyranny and imperiousness, obeys without servility, and changes not his mind with his estate. The height of his spirits overlooks all casualties, and his boldness proceeds neither from ignorance nor senselessness; but first he values evils, and then despises them. He is so balanced with wisdom that he floats steadily in the midst of all tempests. Deliberate in his purposes, firm in resolution, bold in enterprising, unwearied in achieving, and howsoever happy in success; and if ever he be overcome, his heart yields last.
OF A PATIENT MAN.
The patient man is made of a metal, not so hard as flexible: his shoulders are large, fit for a load of injuries; which he bears not out of baseness and cowardliness, because he dare not revenge, but out of Christian fortitude, because he may not: he has so conquered himself that wrongs cannot conquer him; and herein alone finds that victory consists in yielding. He is above nature, while he seems below himself. The vilest creature knows how to turn again; but to command himself not to resist being urged is more than heroical. His constructions are ever full of charity and favour; either this wrong was not done, or not with intent of wrong; or if that, upon mis-information; or if none of these, rashness (though a fault) shall serve for an excuse. Himself craves the offender's pardon before his confession; and a slight answer contents where the offended desires to forgive. He is God's best witness; and when he stands before the bar for truth his tongue is calmly free, his forehead firm, and he with erect and settled countenance hears his just sentence, and rejoices in it. The jailors that attend him are to him his pages of honour; his dungeon, the lower part of the vault of heaven; his rack or wheel, the stairs of his ascent to glory: he challenges his executioners, and encounters the fiercest pains with strength of resolution; and while he suffers the beholders pity him, the tormentors complain of weariness, and both of them wonder. No anguish can master him, whether by violence or by lingering. He accounts expectation no punishment, and can abide to have his hopes adjourned till a new day. Good laws serve for his protection, not for his revenge; and his own power, to avoid indignities, not to return them. His hopes are so strong that they can insult over the greatest discouragements; and his apprehensions so deep that, when he hath once fastened, he sooner leaveth his life than his hold. Neither time nor perverseness can make him cast off his charitable endeavours and despair of prevailing; but in spite of all crosses and all denials, he redoubleth his beneficial offers of love. He trieth the sea after many shipwrecks, and beats still at that door which he never saw opened. Contrariety of events doth but exercise, not dismay him; and when crosses afflict him, he sees a divine hand invisibly striking with these sensible scourges, against which he dares not rebel nor murmur. Hence all things befall him alike; and he goes with the same mind to the shambles and to the fold. His recreations are calm and gentle, and not more full of relaxation than void of fury. This man only can turn necessity into virtue, and put evil to good use. He is the surest friend, the latest and easiest enemy, the greatest conqueror, and so much more happy than others, by how much he could abide to be more miserable.
OF THE TRUE FRIEND.
His affections are both united and divided; united to him he loveth, divided betwixt another and himself; and his one heart is so parted, that whilst he has some his friend hath all. His choice is led by virtue, or by the best of virtues, religion; not by gain, not by pleasure; yet not without respect of equal condition, of disposition not unlike; which, once made, admits of no change, except he whom he loveth be changed quite from himself; nor that suddenly, but after long expectation. Extremity doth but fasten him, whilst he, like a well-wrought vault, lies the stronger, by how much more weight he bears. When necessity calls him to it, he can be a servant to his equal, with the same will wherewith he can command his inferior; and though he rise to honour, forgets not his familiarity, nor suffers inequality of estate to work strangeness of countenance; on the other side, he lifts up his friend to advancement with a willing hand, without envy, without dissimulation. When his mate is dead, he accounts himself but half alive; then his love, not dissolved by death, derives itself to those orphans which never knew the price of their father; they become the heirs of his affection, and the burden of his cares. He embraces a free community of all things, save those which either honesty reserves proper, or nature; and hates to enjoy that which would do his friend more good. His charity serves to cloak noted infirmities, not by untruth, not by flattery, but by discreet secrecy; neither is he more favourable in concealment, than round in his private reprehensions; and when another's simple fidelity shows itself in his reproof, he loves his monitor so much the more, by how much more he smarteth. His bosom is his friend's closet, where he may safely lay up his complaints, his doubts, his cares; and look how he leaves, so he finds them; save for some addition of seasonable counsel for redress. If some unhappy suggestion shall either disjoint his affection or break it, it soon knits again, and grows the stronger by that stress. He is so sensible of another's injuries, that when his friend is stricken he cries out and equally smarteth untouched, as one affected not with sympathy, but with a real feeling of pain: and in what mischief may be prevented, he interposeth his aid, and offers to redeem his friend with himself. No hour can be unseasonable, no business difficult, nor pain grievous in condition of his ease: and what either he doth or suffers, he neither cares nor desires to have known, lest he should seem to look for thanks. If he can therefore steal the performance of a good office unseen, the conscience of his faithfulness herein is so much sweeter as it is more secret. In favours done, his memory is frail; in benefits received, eternal: he scorneth either to regard recompense or not to offer it. He is the comfort of miseries, the guide of difficulties, the joy of life, the treasure of earth, and no other than a good angel clothed in flesh.
OF THE TRULY NOBLE.
He stands not upon what he borrowed of his ancestors, but thinks he must work out his own honour: and if he cannot reach the virtue of them that gave him outward glory by inheritance, he is more abashed of his impotency than transported with a great name. Greatness doth not make him scornful and imperious, but rather like the fixed stars; the higher he is, the less he desires to seem. Neither cares he so much for pomp and frothy ostentation as for the solid truth of nobleness. Courtesy and sweet affability can be no more severed from him than life from his soul; not out of a base and servile popularity, and desire of ambitious insinuation, but of a native gentleness of disposition, and true value of himself. His hand is open and bounteous, yet not so as that he should rather respect his glory than his estate; wherein his wisdom can distinguish betwixt parasites and friends, betwixt changing of favours and expending them. He scorneth to make his height a privilege of looseness, but accounts his titles vain if he be inferior to others in goodness: and thinks he should be more strict the more eminent he is, because he is more observed, and now his offences are become more exemplar. There is no virtue that he holds unfit for ornament, for use; nor any vice which he condemns not as sordid, and a fit companion of baseness; and whereof he doth not more hate the blemish, than affect the pleasure. He so studies as one that knows ignorance can neither purchase honour nor wield it; and that knowledge must both guide and grace, him. His exercises are from his childhood ingenious, manly, decent, and such as tend still to wit, valour, activity: and if (as seldom) he descend to disports of chance, his games shall never make him either pale with fear or hot with desire of gain. He doth not so use his followers, as if he thought they were made for nothing but his servitude, whose felicity were only to be commanded and please: wearing them to the back, and then either finding or framing excuses to discard them empty; but upon all opportunities lets them feel the sweetness of their own serviceableness and his bounty. Silence in officious service is the best oratory to plead for his respect: all diligence is but lent to him, none lost. His wealth stands in receiving, his honour in giving. He cares not either how many hold of his goodness, or to how few he is beholden: and if he have cast away favours, he hates either to upbraid them to his enemy, or to challenge restitution. None can be more pitiful to the distressed, or more prone to succour; and then most where is least means to solicit, least possibility of requital. He is equally addressed to war and peace; and knows not more how to command others, than how to be his country's servant in both. He is more careful to give true honour to his Maker than to receive civil honour from men. He knows that this service is free and noble, and ever loaded with sincere glory; and how vain it is to hunt after applause from the world till he be sure of Him that mouldeth all hearts, and poureth contempt on princes; and shortly, so demeans himself as one that accounts the body of nobility to consist in blood, the soul in the eminence of virtue.
OF THE GOOD MAGISTRATE.
He is the faithful deputy of his Maker, whose obedience is the rule whereby he ruleth. His breast is the ocean, whereinto all the cares of private men empty themselves; which, as he receives without complaint and overflowing, so he sends them forth again by a wise conveyance in the streams of justice. His doors, his ears, are ever open to suitors; and not who comes first speeds well, but whose cause is best. His nights, his meals, are short and interrupted; all which he bears well, because he knows himself made for a public servant of peace and justice. He sits quietly at the stern, and commands one to the topsail, another to the main, a third to the plummet, a fourth to the anchor, as he sees the needs of their course and weather requires; and doth no less by his tongue than all the mariners with their hands. On the bench he is another from himself at home; now all private respects of blood, alliance, amity are forgotten; and if his own son come under trial he knows him not. Pity, which in all others is wont to be the best praise of humanity and the fruit of Christian love, is by him thrown over the bar for corruption. As for Favour, the false advocate of the gracious, he allows him not to appear in the court; there only causes are heard speak, not persons. Eloquence is then only not dis-couraged when she serves for a client of truth. Mere narrations are allowed in this oratory, not proems, not excursions, not glosses. Truth must strip herself and come in naked to his bar, without false bodies or colours, without disguises. A bribe in his closet, or a letter on the bench, or the whispering and winks of a great neighbour, are answered with an angry and courageous repulse. Displeasure, Revenge, Recompense stand on both sides the bench, but he scorns to turn his eye towards them, looking only right forward at Equity, which stands full before him. His sentence is ever deliberate and guided with ripe wisdom, yet his hand is slower than his tongue; but when he is urged by occasion either to doom or execution, he shows how much he hateth merciful injustice. Neither can his resolution or act be reversed with partial importunity. His forehead is rugged and severe, able to discountenance villainy, yet his words are more awful than his brow, and his hand than his words. I know not whether he be more feared or loved, both affections are so sweetly contempered in all hearts. The good fear him lovingly, the middle sort love him fearfully, and only the wicked man fears him slavishly without love. He hates to pay private wrongs with the advantage of his office; and if ever he be partial, it is to his enemy. He is not more sage in his gown than valorous in arms, and increaseth in the rigour of discipline as the times in danger. His sword hath neither rusted for want of use, nor surfeiteth of blood; but after many threats is unsheathed, as the dreadful instrument of divine revenge. He is the guard of good laws, the refuge of innocence, the comet of the guilty, the paymaster of good deserts, the champion of justice, the patron of peace, the tutor of the Church, the father of his country, and as it were another God upon earth.