Princes favours for if to them not onely Honours Riches Reputation but even in a sort much of the administrative divinity of Kings is indulged as Theodoric the Gothish King wrote to a Vice-king under him What fidelity ought they express to their benefactor in not neglecting their service disobliging their people misusing their trusts as did Wolsey who fraudulently got a warrant from H. 8. to execute the E. of Kildare though the Lieutenant of the Towers honesty in not executing it made it void by the Kings Countermand a Speed p. 775. p. 849. And Gardiner from Qu. Mary to execute the Lady Elizabeth the after happy Queen of this Land What conscience and reverence to themselves not to do any thing rashly and improvidently by which they may lose their ground and be outed the occasion of so general good For Princes favours being of delicate and casual composure are not to be put to the stress of gross and dull mettalled ones but to be humbly and modestly improved which the wise King Solomon adviseth to He that loveth pureness of heart Prov. 22. 11. Fuit enim illi nobile ingenium furebundi regis Impatiens Senec. Nat. Quest. lib. 6. c. 22. for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend The failer of which in Calisthenes the Favourite of Alexander lost him both his interest in the King and in his own life That being true of Favourites over-confidence and peremptoriness which a friend of the Earl of Essex Sir Henry Wotton work p. Favourite to Queen Elizabeth told him O Sir These courses are are like hot waters which help at a pang but if they be too often used will spoil the stomach as it was wofully made good in him whose impatience to have any companion in favour with him or any grists of greatness go by the Mill of his only influence declined both his lustre and his life Yea above all what caution are they that have these intrusts to express in avoyding envy Sect. 2. Eicon Bâ—silic upon the E. Sraâ—â—ord Who moving in so high a Sphere and with so vigorous lustre raise many envious exhalations which condensed by popular odium are capable to cast a cloud upon the brightest merit and integrity as the divine Kings words are and to chuse such choice servants and friends whose intâ—grity conscience prudence and industry they being responsible for Holinshed p. 324 p. 511. may not be defeated in and then they will be secure if not from the calumâ—y yet from the desert of envy which had the Spensers in E. 2. time p. 555. the Earl of March temps H. 4. Earl of Arundel and Lord Percy temps R. 2. guarded themselves against they could not have fallen as they did For much suspected by me does no hurt when nothing proved can be is true All which in such measures and proportions as God shall permit their prudences to method to themselves being protected and blessed by him makes Favourites not crazy but hayle and happy in their Princes favour then which there is no speedier way to Rise Riches Nobility Prelacy Splendour and Endowments of all kinds possible to be imagined for though Riches Industry and Frugality give many rounds to the ascents of men yet the Master Caper and the Noblest Capreol to advance is the Kings Favour which as it is too full a blessing for any but a Magnanimous and Royall minded person to disgest and well manage so to such as already have or hereafter may have it I beseech God it may be continued and enlarged for it is an opportunity to serve God the King the people and the havers to all beneficially Noble purposes it being under the King the spring that moves all without which nothing runnes currant but has cheques too many to pass by as is evident in the vivid representation of it in Haman who is said to have his seat set by Abashuerus above all the Princes that were with him Ver. 2. Esther 3. and to command that all the Kings servants should bow before him and his word so prevail'd with the King that he gave him his Royal Signet and said The Silver is given to thee the people also to do with them as it seemeth good to thee Ver. 10 11. and what Haman issues forth is dispatched to the Kings Lieutenants to be accordingly executed Ver. 12 13. In that I say these are the bounties of Princes to their Favourits from whom they seem to withhold nothing but the Throne it self there is great cause to conclude That no way to advance Men and Families is more expedite and energical then Service to and Favour from Princes For if the displeasure of a King be as the messenger of death Prov. 16. 14. and the fear of a King is as the roaring of a Lyon who so provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul Pro. 20. 2. If not only in case of Felony or Treason but upon displeasures penalties are not only inflicted upon persons but upon Lands Cambden in Doaset Britan. p. 214. and that indelibly as Mr. Cambden tells us the Lands of Hinde and others in New Forrest were charged and yet pay white hart Silver for killing a white Hart of H. 3. in that Forrest If these terrours and mulcts are in the disfavour of a King whose frown and word has killed the heart of subjects of courage who durst have out-lived any other hardship what joy and freedom is in the Kings favour No less sure then dew upon the grass Prov. 19 12. Ch. 20. v. 8. v. 26. Eccles. 8. 4. no less then scattèring all evil and bringing the wheel over the wicked no less then power and that visible in the testimonies of his favour and the effects of it the prosperity of which is such as the Princes in soul and government are whose the favour is and the design of the soul is who is a suitor for and obtainer of it For as to be in favour with Terrible Princes whose reigns are butcheries and whose instruments must be rigorous and cruel as was Peirce Exton to H. 4. who to be as that Kings words were The faithfull friend which will deliver me of him whose life will be my death and whose death will be the preservation of my life Holinshed in H. 4. p. 517. undertook and effected the execrable and damnable Parricide of good King Rich. 2. is to be a divel in Flesh and a miscreant more unhappy then almost Hell can make one So to be in favour with a vertuous and serene Prince whose soul is so serious and sincere that he dare appeal to God as his Compurgator and beseech God to try and search him if there be any malicious and premeditated iniquity in him and in his government by his privity To be a Favourite to a Prince whose faith in and relyance upon God comforts him Eicon Basil. Sect. 15. That no black veils of calumny shall
visible return of good to them For even worldly perpetuation as sanctified and consistent with Gods eternal intendments without which they are not worth having but curses and to be deprecated are sure to be the just and merciful mans portion So Prov. 12. 7. Ier. 22. 28. Gen. 35. 12. Deut. 4. 37. chap. 11. v. 9. ch 34. v. 24. 2 Sam. 7. v. 12. c. 22. v. 51. 2 Kings 5. v. 17. 2 Chron. 20. v. 7. Psalm 18. v. 50. Psalm 25. 13. Esay 54. 3. c. 66. v. 22. in many other places assertive that the Tabernacle of righteous men shall be in peace that their seed shall be great and their off-spring as the grass of the earth Job 5. v. 24 25. It is not then how much Wealth how great Honours how potent Friends how politique Counsels how hopeful Successors men leave in their Families and are carefully improved after them though these be excellent outward comforts and preliminaries to establishment but how Just and Honest mens acquisitions of them were and how little they were Cruel False and Oppressive to others in them that leaves the blessing of God with them and adds no sorrow to the enjoyers of them one Achans wedge in a Fortune is able to curse both it and them that have it that is only durable riches and honour which is Gods in the aym of the seeker and tends to God in the expression of the finder and enjoyer which because sacrilegious men who rob God of his right and prey upon his patrimony have not well considered they have by this injury to and oppression of God intailed his curse blast upon their Families So God cursed the Sacriledge of Israel Mal. 3. 6. Ye are cursed with a curse Why Ye have robbed me even this whole Nation â—pist Bonisac ad Aethelbaldum Regem Spelman in Conciliis p. 235. and that in Tythes and Offerings V. 5. And so he cursed Ceâ—lred and Osred two of the Saxon Kings and sent miserable death upon them The fret and consumption of which is irreparable by diligence or thrift because till expiation be made the sin is prosecuted in the punishment Temps H. 8. which if I mistake not Chief Justice Fitz Herbert considering on his death-bed called his children together charging them that they should neither buy nor take into their hands any of the Church-land which the King said he is now alienating for if you doe my curse shall be upon you and so will Gods too and it will eate out all the Patrimony I leave you And Sir Henry Spelman was resolute in the observation that nothing had eaten out Noble and Generous Families since H. 8. time more then Church-lands For if Injustice between man and man is a sin of provocation to and punishment from God how much more the injury that man does to God and the prey such covetise and violence makes upon his rights whose mans life breath being is and to whose mercy and power they are everlasting debtors SECT XV. Insinuates Prodigality and Incirumspection a ready way to ruine THirdly Prodigality and ill conduct of life is a great worm to the flourishing Gourd of an Estate I rank them together because much of prodigality arises from ignorance of life and the advantages or disadvantages of it in all the expectations and rencounters of it for to spend vastly and with no eye to the possibility and duration of the supply is as if an insecation should be made of every veyn in the body at once Addiximus auimum voluptati cum indulgere initium omnium malorum est Senec. Ep. 110. and is to the fortune by its plurality of vent a suitable disperiting for Estates are made up of savings as much as gettings and so are they kept together when got parsimony being the penning up of the floats of gain which raises the depth of the estate procuring therefrom not only supplies to necessity but inundations of purchase Nor did or will ever any man grow in his Estate according to the estimation of common wisdom who from what he gets or has given him saves not the matter of his increase therefore to know what frugality is has done or yet can do and to approve and well-mannage it is a great mastership in vitall prudence which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince of all vertues because it so governeth the reines of life that it keeps every deportment and expression of man in its proper activity of regiment and subordination according to the law of respective prudence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solen apud Stobâ—eum Serm. 25. and the quality of mans station To God To men To a mans self and thence becomes as absolute in the vertues of practice as the eyes are in the account of senses where the precedency is given taem Nor dos any man here well as wise and worthy that vainly and loosly expends his time parts fortune â—ealth in courses of deboshery and disâ—epute which Plato consented to when â—he saw a rude unthrift catching at the â—naps and offalls of a good hous-keepers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato apud Stobaeum Serm. 75. Table O said he if you had oftner dined â—paringly you might have supped now more â—leasingly and plentifully Although then men are fondlily imposed upon when they â—ancy that luxury is liberality and that good husbandry is beneath a great mind which Tacitus condemns Falluntur quibus luxuria sub specie liberalitatis imponit Tacit. 1. Hist. as a fashionable gullery and a fraud of circumvention â—n great favour with ayery youth which â—elights in becoming thereby seduced yet is prodigality the truer argument of a low and mean soul which looks at no end above that of a beast nor uses any more reason in provision for the end of his actions then beasts do for God having given man reason to weigh and consider actions and events according to his apprehension of them to regulate himself to or from them as they are dependent on Providence in the good or evil of them not to use our reason in things of such consequence nor to be secured by its efficacy well expressed by us in the prudent use of time friends fortune pleasures is to cast away the reverence of God so enabling us and to reproach the dignity of the enablement rightly managed and to lose the result of those vertues which by a rectitude of application to emergent providence might have been advantageous to us for that is true liberality which is steered by the rules of reason directive to and associate with it whereby all those assistances to obligement Ambitio jactantia effusio quidvis potius quam liberalitas existimands est Cui ratio non constat Plin. Panegyr being orderly introduced and improved according to the proportion of their use and created designment without any diminution or diversion become praiseworthy for some men to do and comfortable for other men to partake of For as
may be thought inconsistent with this world and with the men and things of and in it yet secundum quid and in compare with courses diametral to frugality and the benedictions of industrious deligence the principles of growth and beauty of Families it promises much towards its establishment at least more then the sensual and senseless courses of prodigality and loose living which are not springs to but dreyns of estates and let them run at wast by intemperance and neglect I know the activity and concerns of the Romans in the severalties of their conquests dispersing those of them that were strenuous and learned into the several quarters of it made the generosity of their spirits at home not seem so much and quick as it would had they been kept nearer their heart and seat of life and not distributed into the remote veins and arteries of their growing body which they were to inform and quicken Yet did they in their transplantation not dye Orta omnia aut serius aut ocyus tandem occident senescunt volvet motu continuo rotans fortuna de gente ingentium volubilia regnâ— versabit Facies illa cum volet reges ex servis servos ex regibus in urbem Romam in orbem Romanam suam ineluctibilem poteutiam exercebit Petrarcha Ep. 4. sine Tit lo Tom. 2. p. 714. but by their change of climate more improve For since it is the good pleasure of God that the Ague of time should by variations serve to the revolution of this vicissitudinary world in which all the Natives of what edition soever are by their principle of composition and the regency of Gods Decree inclined to change and not without miracle to be preserved from the fate of their declention and variation which is but the gradual preface to their interition They that â—ix Absolom's Pillar on this Pedestal of dust do but fancy their own deceit and consent to their posterities delusion For though it may please God that some Families are so happy that they produce as many Heroicks as men Qui tot annis continuus simul splendeâ— claritate virtutis quamvis rara siâ— gloria non agnoscitur in tam longo stemmate variata seculis suis producit nobilis vena primarios nescit inde aliquid nasci mediocre Tot probaâ—ii quot geniti quod dissicile provenit electa frequentius ita ut quod addidit familiae juvenes tot reddidit curiae consulares Theodoric Rex Ep. 6. Importuno apud Cassiod Var. lib. 3. every one born in it proving not only not a blemish but an Ornament companion to the Nobles and best of men in whom nothing trite or prostrate appears but every thing that proves a spring to the emulation of their contemporaries as the Decian Family is remembred to have which lasted for hundreds of years unallayed and in its prime and encreasing keenness so that to be of it was to be whatever is expectable from manhood incarnate Or as the Domitian Family Omnes ad consulatum sacerdotiaque ad triumphantium paoene omnes pervenerunt insignia Pater lib. 2. p 438. 440. Plurimas vivendi causas habentem Plin. de Correllâ—o Rufo of whom Paterculus writes all of them either arrived at Consular Sacerdotal or Triumphal Grandeur Or the Brethren of Metellus who triumphed in one and the same day I know there have been these Instances of auspicious providence to some who with Corellius Rufus have had felicities of all kinds constellated in them and have had the issue of their prosperity imponderated by the massiness of their own wishes yea by those concentrated accommodations which have advanced them above parallel and declared them single in those not almost to be believed enjoyments To have a clear reputation and great power Wife Daughter Sons Nephews dutiful and virtuous a number of choice Friends and all this with a chast and unviciated Conscience is that which but few Romans besides him had Nor of many English men can that be said which our Learned Cambden writes of the Earl of Wiltshire Britannia p. 267. Treasurer to King Edward the sixth who well understood the different times he lived in and was to steer his course by That he was raised not suddenly but by degrees in Court that he built Noble and Princely Buildings was temperate in all other things full of years for he lived ninety seven years fruitful in his generation for he saw one hundred and three issue from him by his Wife I say though God leave these Instances and such like to assert and make good the imperativeness and priviledge of his pleasure yet mostly it is otherwise Statues do not more gather moss and moulder away with weather nor Vegetables fade and dye by the currency of their season and the aridness of their root the decay of whose succulency appears in the contraction and cessation of the Flowre then Men and Families do by Time which has swept away with its Besome and carried down its Current Kingly Peery and Gentry Families and set them and their Honours on shore in that Terra incognita wherein they are extinguisht Yea in our own Nation how has the same Carere and fate mortified the quondam being and greatness of Name in the Brittish and Saxon Families yea and in the Families from the Conquest by name Albanay Fitz-Hugh Mountacute Mountford Beauchampt Brewier Cameis Bardolf Mortimer Valtort Botereaux Chaumond Curcey De la Beche Carminow Brewire Fitz-lewis Marmion Deincourt Burnell Plantagenet all right Noble and Knightly Families in their times but now either wholly eraced or couched under Families who married their Heirs and with their Lands and Blood carry their Names only in their Title I say this Vulture and vehemence in time tells us that as here there is no Permanency so here good brave Men must expect rather to be deplorable objects of desertion and poverty then the Favourites of credit and abundance nor do I observe the lines of life crosser or the channels of prosperity lower to any then to these Envy or some other mischievous accident either calmming their design so that they can make no Port before they are ruined or else the surges of the storms in which they and their honest projects ride suffering them never to be happier then a shipwrack of all can make them and the breaking of their hearts for greif superadded can by it detriment the world in their loss This I the rather introduce to turn Men and my self upon rumination of Gods proceedings herein more abstruse then the nature of unmortified man is capable to submit to or patient to acquiesce in Nor is there anything that I know wherein the carnal Heart and inquisitive Wit more covets to fathom and concerns it self to circumvolve then Gods wrapping of himself up in the Cloud executing the pleasure of his Will in this which our dwarfy reason and insolent ignorance tearms with reverence I write it the hysteron
Honour and esteem who never see the Prince or transiently only being added to by him as they are attested to him by those that have reason and interest to give them a good character Those then that are favoured by the Prince as they are the better sort of subjects so are they better dealt with in the shares and participations of their Favours And if Princes be to Subjects as bodies to shadows and souls to words and Princes are as absolute by their Generous and Just Government as their own consciences and Noble desires wish themselves to be Regnum vestrum imitatio vestra Forma est boni propositi unici exemplar Imperii qui quantum vos sequimur tantum gentes alias anteimus Theodoric Rex Anastasio Imper Var lib. 1. c. 1. Regulations or directions being as it were needless and supernumerary where true Christian piety and paternal Royalty are guides to Princes then cannot their Favourites that are dear to them but be great by them For theirs are the Offices of Revenue the Titles of Honour the Embassies of Credit the Matches of Fortune the dispose of Trusts to bestow or have undenyable influence upon Excepit â—e noster affectus implevit beneficiis manus fecitque esse votum quod nostrum expetisses imperium Theodoric rex Eâ— 2. Felici Var lib. 2. And if these be the waies to Greatness and they are commanded by Princes then to be favoured by them whose so much is to bestow is to have all accesses to Honour and Wealth unfolded to them The knowledge and practicability of this inclines men of good person ready wit quaint speech generous garb confident spirit to apply themselves to Princes services and by it become either Rich Respected Honourable or some or all of them Yea by this has the Worlds greatness in Persons and Families first been obtained and after augmented with that which is remarkable in them Thus Hadad in holy Writ is history'd to have favour with K. Pharaoh whereby he became his brother in law by which means his sonne begot upon the Queens sister was born and brought up in the Kings house 1 Kings 11. 19 20. And thus David by the favour of Saul 1 Sam. 18. obtained first his daughter then his Generalship and at last his Kingdom This not needfull to be further instanced in because a truth of every daies ratifying is the reason that the Wise man informs us that he that seeketh good procureth favour Prov. 10. 27. Which I take not so much to be meant of Favour as the consequent of goodness as the opportunity to seek good for a mans self and others also for whom he that is favoured interposeth Hence those passages of Solomon Prov. 14. 35. The Kings favour is towards a wise servant And ch 16. v. 15. In the light of the Kings countenance is life and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain Which Text is affirmative of whatever is issuant from the prealledged notation For in that the favour of the King is said to be life which is optimum bonorum the most delectable and desirable of all created goods And in that it is said to be as a cloud of the latter rains which is increasive and has fertility included in it what can the expectations of men in their service amount to which this grandeur of theirs doth not answer and exceed And as I think Princes happy in the opportunities they have to oblige and reward servants wise in heart active in dispatch diligent in attendance sober in counsel sincere in love and duty and who are as faithful to them as the Sunne is to his course as Pyrrhus said of Fabritius So do I not believe them otherwise happy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suidas in Fabricio nor do I read or see that any Favourites who are not such long continue happy in such favour For rival envy and popular jealousie hovering about and laying ginns for them by cooperating accidents of diminution ruine them unless their personal and publique vertues are dissipative of those gatherings and supersedall to the efficacy of them Therefore Solomons advice to Take away the wicked from before the King and the Throne shall be established in righteousness Prov. 25. 5. is good counsel for Princes to avoyd trouble to themselves and for Favourites to secure their favour and stability by being good and vertuous and by that to establish the Throne of their Masters and themselves under the protection and favour of it Nor is Princely favour at all dangerous to but desirable by wise men and next to the favour of God to be sought after if it be constant and vertuous in the Prince and transport not the Favourite beyond the true end and use of it Gods glory the Princes service and the peoples ease and thrift together with such advantages as the forementioned great ends thorowly answered allow to his private emolument which Brewier Baron of Odgcomb the Favourite of H. 2. and R. 1. observing was highly advanced and continued in Wealth Honour and Love with all men Cambden in Somersetshire p. 267. and Beauchamp the great Earl of Warwick so favoured by H. 6. that he was Crowned King of Wight yet lived and died beloved So did Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk p. 469. Itâ— enim virtutes magnis viris decori gloriaeque sunt si illis salutaris potentia est Nam pestiferavis est valere ad nocendum illius demum magnitudo stabilis fundataque est quam omnes tam supra se esse quam pro se seiunt cujus curam excubare pro salute sin gulorum atque universorum quotidie experiuntur lib. 1. de Câ—emenâ—â—a c. 3. the Favourite of H. 8. and others Which the Despencers in H. 2. time Delapool and others in R. 2. time E. Rivers temps E. 4. Wolsey temps H. 8. and others not considering made themselves hated infamous and ruined For Vertues saith Seneca are often useful to men of place and power when they qualifie sweeten and wisely manifest themselves in power delegated to them for pestilent Might it is that is nocive and then only beloved and prayed for is authority and power when men finde the power over them is for their good and not directed so much to cow them into stupidity as to cherish them in a loyal freedom And then does it deserve the duty and subjection of all and every particular subject when it intends the prosperity and protection of every particular subject The consideration whereof lessons Favourites to petition God whose the judgment of every ones course and conclusion is Damus quidem tibi equos enses clypeos reliqua instrumenta bellorum sed quae sunt omnimodis fortiora Largimur tibi nostra judicia summus enim inter gentes esse crederis qui Theodorici sententia comprobaris Ep. 2. Regi Herulorum Var. lib. 4. Cassiod to direct and fortunate them in the religious just judicious improvement of their
Officers in Courts Attendants on Circuits Stewards in Mannor Undersheriffs in Shires Judges in Corporations which shews their abilities and their possibilities to improve them to their enriching For by this they know the nature of Estates and the condition of their Owners and can thereby pleasure themselves more and surer then other men can And if to these their patebility to honors be added when the High Chancellourship the Chief Justice and other Justiceships Mastership of the Rolls Presidencies of the Privie Council Attorney Solicitor Sergeantship to the King which à re for the most part all Trusts and honours of Lawyers If these so great rich trusty noble places be theirs theirs they will be while the Inns of Courts yield royal Wits and noble Minds to deserve and mannage them to the Kings honour the peoples content and their own renown as thanks be to God and his sacred Majesty whom God long preserve and keep their and our Royal Master they now are The conclusion that they study and practice of the Law is a rise to honour and riches is very easie to be made And how can it be otherwise since the Students and Practicers of the Law being knowingly bred well-descended richly fortuned amply allyed assiduously versed or bred under such as are these or the most of them but that Riches and Honour should fall in to them and be conspicuous upon them For as they they drive a trade of gain with no Money-stock nor hazard their gain by no credit nor exhaust themselves by no charge upon their Chambers their Inns being their Sanctuaries and their Attendance on Courts their Privilege so need they not nor seldom do they let their money lye dead any time by them but either they know where safely to place it and hedge it in by a legal and undeceivable Security or else they have Attorneys and Negotiators that depend upon them who can serve them in that Expedition Hence come they to purchase the best Seats the noblest Royalties the best to be improved Lands in the Nation and to match their Children with least Portions and to most Advâ—ntage of any men Quid enim aliud Iuris Consulti domus quam Oraculum Civitatis Cicero Add to this their Influence on the People whose Kindred Counsel and Stewards they are by which they become presented to the Parliaments as their Deputies no Parliament having less then many of the Long Robe of which the Speaker is mostly one and those potent in passing Lawes and their Power with Courtiers and Favourites whom they are allyed or usefull to as Counsel or Stewards they become presented to the King honoured by him with Knighthood See the most ingenious and learned Preface of that renowned Lawyer and so enter their Posterity into Riches and Honour See Sir Iohn Davis his Irish Reports in the Epistle dedicated to the Lord Elsmore which Sir Edward Cook the Learned Chief Justice and Helluo of Experience taking notice of has collected near 200 Gentile and Noble Families there named in England raised by Lawyers most of which and many added since to them do continue in great Wealth and Honour which he gives as an Encouragement to the Students of the Law in these Words Cast thine eye upon the Sages of the Law that have been before thee Preface to the 2 Reâ—ort and never shalt thou find any that hath excelled in the knowledge of these Laws but hath sucked from the breasts of that divine knowledge Honesty Gravity and Integirty and by the goodness of God hath obtained a greater Blessing and Ornament then any other Profession to their Families and Posterities for it is an undoubted Truth That the just shall flourish as the Palm-tree and spread abroad as the Cedars of Leâ—anon Psal. 91. 13. Nor has the Law onely been thus fertile of Rise and Honour to Families but Trade in Cities and Corporations â—hiefly that of Famous London I dare say the glory of England and that which is known where England is not This City the City that I glory to be born in In mandandis honoribus nobilitas majorum claritudo militiae illustres domi artes spectandae Tacit. 4. Annal. and to have long liv'd in though I thank God of a Family Knightly I hope I may without vanity say out of it has been the place wherein many men of no generous breed and bloud and many of generous breed and bloud have raised and augmented estates and dignifyed Families no less then the former and though some of them seated near the Town where they are subject to vices of waste have not kept their estates so long nor marryed so advisedly as those further-off Gentlemen do yet is not their impermanency to be attributed to the ill-acquisition of those estates left them but to the accidents of snare that attend this populous City which is the common randezvous of all both good and bad See my Discourse of Arms and Armory Printed 1660. and to the liberality of Citizens who preferr their Daughters with great Portions whereby the greatness of their Sons is detracted from nor do I believe but that Trades may be as gentilely managed and as becoming free and noble bred Persons in it as other Professions may and I may self have known as genesincere royal minded men Traders as ever I have done either Noblemen Lawyers or Divines as zealous to God as true to their Prince as free to their Relations as charitable to the Poor as good to their Servants as patient to their Debtors as ready to reward merit as restless to be indebted to it Take notice of this ye despisers of London as real in friendship as pregnant in business as wary against fraud These I have known and seen living freely and dying wealthy and creditable and to the honour of the Societies of London which consist solely of Freemen it may be with much truth averred that they are the truest and most unbyassed Trustees of any in the Nation their Works do praise them in the Gates For alas sharking in Trade is but of a late date since luxury and high-living came into general use For when Traders liv'd low and rose by degrees suting their port to their estate to be honest in word and currant in payment was their ambition and the life of their thrift but when they began as in these late combustible times they did to be vain and boundless then they cared not to undervalue their words over-ask in their wares shirk for one anothers Customers steal Excise and Custom cavil and sue Neighbours contract vast Debts and pay them with becoming Prisoners These are the flawes that are disparaging to Tradesmen and to all others that practise the like and all because they spend high and live pleasurably as if their Trades would maintain their ryot and be kept together without their diligence This loose attendance of Trade together with its diffusion into so many hands every of which must