those that seek to prevail upon their reason and understanding, especially in things so delightful to them as their own praises, no matter how false and apparently incredible; for great persons may wear counterfeit jewels of any character, with more confidence and security from being discovered than those of meaner quality; in whose hands the greatness of their value (if they were true) is more apt to render them suspected. A flatterer is like Mahomet's pigeon, that picks his food out of his master's ear, who is willing to have it believed that he whispers oracles into it, and accordingly sets a high esteem upon the service he does him, though the impostor only designs his own utilities; for men are, for the most part, better pleased with other men's opinions, though false, of their happiness, than their own experiences; and find more pleasure in the dullest flattery of others than all the vast imaginations they can have of themselves, as no man is apt to be tickled with his own fingers; because the applauses of others are more agreeable to those high conceits they have of themselves, which they are glad to find confirmed, and are the only music that sets them a dancing like those that are bitten with a tarantula.

He accounts it an argument of great discretion, and as great temper, to take no notice of affronts and indignities put upon him by great persons; for he that is insensible of injuries of this nature can receive none, and if we lose no confidence by them, can lose nothing else; for it is greater to be above injuries than either to do or revenge them; and he that will be deterred by those discouragements from prosecuting his designs, will never obtain what he proposes to himself. When a man is once known to be able to endure insolences easier than others can impose them, they will raise the siege and leave him as impregnable; and therefore he resolves never to omit the least opportunity of pressing his affairs for fear of being baffled and affronted; for if he can, at any rate, render himself master of his purposes, he would not wish an easier nor a cheaper way, as he knows how to repay himself, and make others receive those insolences of him for good and current payment, which he was glad to take before. And he esteems it no mean glory to show his temper of such a compass as is able to reach from the highest arrogance to the meanest and most dejected submissions. A man that has endured all sorts of affronts may be allowed, like an apprentice that has served out his time, to set up for himself and put them off upon others; and if the most common and approved

way of growing rich is to gain by the ruin and loss of those who are in necessity, why should not a man be allowed as well to make himself appear great by debasing those that are below him? for insolence is no inconsiderable way of improving greatness and authority in the opinion of the world. If all men are born equally fit to govern, as some late philosophers affirm, he only has the advantage of all others who has the best opinion of his own abilities, how mean soever they really are; and therefore he stedfastly believes that pride is the only great, wise, and happy virtue that a man is capable of, and the most compendious and easy way to felicity; for he that is able to persuade himself, impregnably, that he is some great and excellent person, how far short soever he falls of it, finds more delight in that dream than if he were really so; and the less he is of what he fancies himself to be, the better he is pleased, as men covet those things that are forbidden and denied them more greedily than those that are in their power to obtain; and he that can enjoy all the best rewards of worth and merit without the pains and trouble that attend it, has a better bargain than he who pays as much for it as it is worth. This he performs by an obstinate implicit believing as well as he can of himself, and as meanly of all other men; for he holds it a kind of self-preservation to maintain a good estimation of himself; and as no man is bound to love his neighbour better than himself, so he ought not to think better of him than he does of himself; and he that will not afford himself a very high esteem will never spare another man any at all. He who has made so absolute a conquest over himself (which philosophers say is the greatest of all victories) as to be received for a prince within himself, is greater and more arbitrary within his own dominions than he that depends upon the uncertain loves or fears of other men without him. And since the opinion of the world is vain, and for the most part false, he believes that it is not to be attempted but by ways as false and vain as itself; and therefore to appear and seem, is much better and wiser than really to be, whatsoever is well esteemed in the general value of the world.

Next pride, he believes ambition to be the only generous and heroical virtue in the world that mankind is capable of; for as nature gave man an erect figure, to raise him above the grovelling condition of his fellow-creatures the beasts; so he that endeavours to improve that, and raise himself higher, seems best to comply with the design and intention of nature, Though the stature of man is confined to a certain

height, yet his mind is unlimited and capable of growing up to heaven; and as those who endeavour to arrive at that perfection are adored and reverenced by all, so he that endeavours to advance himself as high as possibly he can in this world, comes nearer to the condition of those holy and divine aspirers. The purest parts of nature always tend upwards, and the more dull and heavy downwards; so, in the little world, the noblest faculties of man, his reason and understanding, that give him a prerogative above all other earthly creatures, mount upwards; and therefore he who takes that course, and still aspires in all his undertakings and designs, does but conform to that which nature dictates. Are not the reason and the will, the two commanding faculties of the soul, still striving which shall be uppermost? Men honour none but those that are above them, contest with equals, and disdain inferiors. The first thing that God gave man was dominion over the rest of his inferior creatures; but he that can extend that over man, improves his talent to the best advantage. How are angels distinguished but by dominions, powers, thrones, principalities? Then he who still aspires to purchase those comes nearest to the nature of those heavenly ministers, and in all probability is most like to go to heaven. No matter what destruction he makes in his way if he does but attain his end, for nothing is a crime that is too great to be punished; and when it is once arrived at that perfection, the most horrid actions in the world become the most admired and renowned. Birds that build highest are most safe; and he that can advance himself above the envy or reach of his inferiors is secure against the malice and assaults of fortune. All religions have ever been persecuted in their primitive ages, when they were weak and impotent; but, when they propagated and grew great, have been received with reverence and adoration by those who otherwise had proved their cruellest enemies; and those that afterwards opposed them have suffered as severely as those that first professed them. So thieves,

that rob in small parties, and break houses, when they are taken, are hanged; but when they multiply and grow up into armies, and are able to take towns, the same things are called heroic actions, and acknowledged for such by all the world. Courts of justice, for the most part, commit greater crimes than they punish, and do those that sue in them more injuries than they can possibly receive from one another; and yet they are venerable, and must not be told so, because they have

authority and power to justify what they do, and the law (that is, whatsoever they please to call so,) ready to give judgment for them. knows when a physician cures or kills? and yet he is equally rewarded for both, and the profession esteemed never the less worshipful. And therefore he accounts it a ridiculous vanity in any man to consider whether he does right or wrong in any thing he attempts, since the success is only able to determine and satisfy the opinion of the world which is the one and which the other. As for those characters and marks of distinction which religion, law, and morality fix upon both, they are only significant and valid when their authority is able to command obedience and submission; but when the greatness, numbers, or interest of those who are concerned out-grows that, they change their natures; and that which was injury before becomes justice, and justice injury. It is with crimes as with inventions in the mechanics, that will frequently hold true to all purposes of the design while they are tried in little; but when the experiment is made in great, prove false in all particulars to what is promised in the model. So iniquities and vices may be punished and corrected, like children while they are little and impotent; but when they are great and sturdy they become incorrigible, and proof against all the power of justice and authority.

Among all his virtues there is none which he sets so high an esteem upon as impudence, which he finds more useful and necessary than a vizard is to a highwayman. For he that has but a competent stock of that natural endowment has an interest in any man he pleases, and is able to manage it with greater advantages than those who have all the real pretences imaginable, but want that dexterous way of soliciting by which, if the worst fall out, he is sure to lose nothing if he does not win. He that is impudent is shot free, and, if he be ever so much overpowered, can receive no hurt; for his forehead is impenetrable, and of so excellent a temper, that nothing is able to touch it, but turns edge and is blunted. His face holds no correspondence with his mind, and therefore whatsoever inward sense or conviction he feels, there is no outward appearance of it in his looks, to give evidence against him; and in any difficulty that can befall him, impudence is the most infallible expedient to fetch him off, that is always ready, like his angel guardian, to relieve and rescue him in his greatest extremities; and no outward impression, nor inward neither (though his own conscience take part against him), is able to beat him from his guards. Though

innocence and a good conscience be said to be a brazen wall, a brazen confidence is more impregnable, and longer able to hold out; for it is a greater affliction to an innocent man to be suspected, than it is to one that is guilty and impudent to be openly convicted of an apparent crime. And in all the affairs of mankind, a brisk confidence, though utterly void of sense, is able to go through matters of difficulty with greater ease than all the strength of reason less boldly enforced; as the Turks are said by a small slight handling of their bows to make an arrow without a head pierce deeper into hard bodies than guns of greater force are able to do a bullet of steel. And though it be but a cheat and imposture, that has neither truth nor reason to support it, yet it thrives better in the world than things of greater solidity; as thorns and thistles flourish on barren grounds, where nobler plants would starve; and he that can improve his barren parts by this excel lent and most compendious method, deserves much better, in his judg ment, than those who endeavour to do the same thing by the more studious and difficult way of downright industry and drudging. For impudence does not only supply all defects, but gives them a greater grace than if they had needed no art; as all other ornaments are commonly nothing else but the remedies or disguises of imperfections. And therefore he thinks him very weak that is unprovided of this excellent and most useful quality, without which the best natural and acquired parts are of no more use than the Guanches darts, which the virtuosos say are headed with butter hardened in the sun. It serves him to innumerable purposes, to press on and understand no repulse, how smart or harsh soever; for he that can sail nearest the wind has much the advantage of all others; and such is the weakness or vanity of some men, that they will grant that to obstinate importunity which they would never have done upon all the most just reasons and considerations imaginable, as those that watch witches will make them confess that which they would never have done upon any other

account.

He believes a man's words and his meanings should never agree together for he that says what he thinks lays himself open to be expounded by the most ignorant; and he who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart, deserves to have it pulled out like a traitor's, and shown publicly to the rabble. For as a king, they say, cannot reign without dissembling, so private