Fright not people from thy presence with the terror of thy intolerable impatience. Some men, like a tiled house, are long before they take fire, but once on flame there is no coming near to quench them.

Take heed of doing irrevocable acts in thy passion; as the revealing of secrets, which makes thee a bankrupt for society ever after; neither do such things which once are done forever, so that no bemoaning can amend them. Samson's hair grew again, but not his eyes: time may restore some losses, others are never to be repaired. Wherefore in thy rage make no Persian decree, which cannot be reversed or repealed; but rather Polonian laws, which (they say) last but three days; do not in an instant what an age cannot recompense.

to carry

Anger kept till the next morning, with manna, doth putrefy and corrupt; save that manna corrupted not at all, and anger most of all, kept the next Sabbath. St. Paul saith, "Let not the sun go down on your wrath; news to the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful nature. Yet let us take the apostle's meaning rather than his words, with all possible speed to depose our passion, not understanding him so literally that we may take leave to be angry till sunset; then might our wrath lengthen with the days; and men in Greenland, where day lasts above a quarter of a year,

And as the

have plentiful scope of revenge. English (by command from William the Conqueror) always raked up their fire and put out their candles when the curfew-bell was rung, let us then also quench all sparks of anger and heat of passion.

He that keeps anger long in his bosom giveth place to the devil. And why should we make room for him, who will crowd in too fast of himself? Heat of passion makes our souls to chap, and the devil creeps in at the crannies. Yea, a furious man in his fits may seem possessed with a devil: foams, fumes, tears himself, is deaf and dumb in effect, to hear or speak reason; sometimes wallows, stares, stamps, with fiery eyes and flaming cheeks. Had Narcissus himself seen his own face when he had been angry, he could never have fallen in love with himself.

OF EXPECTING PREFERMENT.

THERE as many several tenures of

HERE are

expectation as of possession; some nearer, some more remote; some grounded on strong, others on weaker reasons. (As for a groundless expectation, it is a wilful self-delusion.) We come to instructions how men should manage their hopes herein.

Hope not for impossibilities. For though the object of hope be futurum possibile, yet some are so mad as to feed their expectation on things, though not in themselves, yet to them impossible, if we consider the weakness of the means whereby they seek to attain them. He needs to stand on tiptoes that hopes to touch the moon; and those who expect what in reason they cannot expect, may expect.

Carefully survey what proportion the means thou hast bear to the end thou expectest. Count not a courtier's promise of course a specialty that he is bound to prefer thee. Seeing compliments oftentimes die in the speaking, why should thy hopes (grounded on them) live longer than the hearing? Perchance the text of his promise intended but common courtesies, which thy apprehension expounds speedy and special favors. Others make up the weakness of their means with conceit of the strength of their deserts, foolishly thinking that their own merits will be the undoubted patrons to present them to all void benefices.

The heir-apparent to the next preferment may be disinherited by an unexpected accident. A gentleman, servant to the Lord Admiral Howard, was suitor to a lady above his deserts, grounding the confidence of his success on his relation to so honorable a lord; which lord gave

the anchor as badge of his office; and therefore this suitor wrote in a window,

"If I be bold,

The anchor is my hold."

But his corrival to the same mistress, coming into the same room, wrote under,

"Yet fear the worst:

What if the cable burst?"

Thus useless is the anchor of hope (good for nothing but to deceive those that rely on it), if the cable or small cords of means and causes whereon it depends fail and miscarry. Daily experience tenders too many examples. A gentleman who gave a basilisk for his arms or crest, promised to make a young kinsman of his his heir, which kinsman, to ingratiate himself, painted a basilisk in his study, and beneath it these verses:

"Falleris aspectu basiliscum occidere, Plini,
Nam vitæ nostræ spem basiliscus alit."

The basilisk's the only stay

My life preserving still;

Pliny, thou li'dst when thou didst say

The basilisk doth kill."

But this rich gentleman dying, frustrated his expectation, and bequeathed all his estate to another; whereupon the epigram was thus altered:

"Certe aluit, sed spe vana, spes vana venenum:
Ignoscas, Plini, verus es historicus."

"Indeed, vain hopes to me he gave,
Whence I my poison drew:
Pliny, thy pardon now I crave,
Thy writings are too true."

Proportion thy expenses to what thou hast in possession, not to thy expectancies. Otherwise, he that feeds on wind must needs be griped with the colic at last.

Imbrue not thy soul in bloody wishes of his death who parts thee and thy preferment, a murder the more common because one cannot

be arraigned for it on earth. But those are charitable murderers which wish them in heaven, not so much that they may have ease at their journey's end, but because they must needs take death in the way.

In earthly matters expectation takes up more joy on trust than the fruition of the thing is able to discharge. The lion is not so fierce as painted; nor are matters so fair as the pencil of the expectant limns them out in his hopes. They forecount their wives fair, fruitful, and rich, without any fault; their children witty, beautiful, and dutiful, without any frowardness and as St. Basil held that roses in paradise, before man's fall, grew without prickles, they abstract the pleasures of things from the troubles annexed to them, which, when they come to enjoy, they must take both together.