I conclude this subject with the example of a Pagan's son, which will shame most Christians. Pomponius Atticus, making the funeral oration at the death of his mother, did protest, that, living with her threescore and seven years, he was never reconciled unto her, se nunquam cum matre in gratiam rediisse ; because (take the comment with the text) there never happened betwixt them the least jar which needed reconciliation.*

CHAPTER VII.

THE GOOD MASTER.

He is the heart in the midst of his household, primum vivens et ultimum moriens, first up and last a-bed, if not in his person, yet in his providence. In his carriage he aimeth at his own and his servants' good, and to advance both.

MAXIM I.

He oversees the works of his servants.-One said, that "the dust that fell from the master's shoes was the best compost to manure ground." The lion, out of state, will not run whilst any one looks upon him; † but some servants, out of slothfulness, will not run except some do look upon them, spurred on with their master's eye. Chiefly he is careful exactly to take his servants' reckonings. If their master takes no account of them, they will make small account of him, and care not what they spend who are never brought to an audit.

II.

He provides them victuals, wholesome, sufficient, and seasonable. -He doth not so alloy his servants' bread, or debase it so much, as to make that servants' meat which is not man's meat. He alloweth them also convenient rest and recreation: whereas some masters, like a bad conscience, will not suffer them to sleep that have them. He remembers the old law of the Saxon

• In Vitâ Attici in fine Epist. ad Atticum. cap. 16.

+ PLINII Nat. Hist., lib. viii.

king Ina: "If a villain work on Sunday by his lord's command, he shall be free." *

III.

The wages he contracts for, he duly and truly pays to his servants.-The same word in the Greek, lós, signifies "rust" and "poison:" and some strong poison is made of the rust of metals; but none more venomous than the rust of money in the rich man's purse unjustly detained from the labourer, which will poison and infect his whole estate.

IV.

He never threatens † his servant, but rather presently corrects him.-Indeed, conditional threatenings, with promise of pardon on amendment, are good and useful. Absolute threatenings torment more, reform less, making servants keep their faults and forsake their masters: wherefore, herein he never passeth his word, but makes present payment, lest the creditor run away from the debtor.

V.

In correcting his servant, he becomes not a slave to his own passion.-Not cruelly making new indentures of the flesh of his apprentice. To this end, he never beats him in the height of his passion. Moses, being to fetch water out of the rock, and commanded by God only to speak to it with his rod in his hand, being transported with anger, smote it thrice. Thus some masters, who might fetch penitent tears from their servants with a chiding word, (only shaking the rod withal for terror,) in their fury strike many blows which might better be spared. If he perceives his servant incorrigible, so that he cannot wash the blackamoor, he washeth his hands of him, and fairly puts him

away.

VI.

He is tender of his servant in sickness and age.—If crippled in his service, his house is his hospital. Yet how many throw away those dry bones out of which themselves have sucked the marrow! It is as usual to see a young serving-man an old beggar, as to see a light-horse, first from the great saddle of a nobleman, to come to the hackney-coach, and at last die in drawing a car. But the good master is not like the cruel hunter in the fable, who beat his old dog because his toothless mouth let go j the game. He rather imitates the noble nature of our prince

vi. 9.

SIR HENRY SPELMAN in Conciliis, anno Christi 692, p. 188,

C

+ Ephes.

2

Henry, who took order for the keeping of an old English mastiff which had made a lion run away.* Good reason good service in age should be rewarded. Who can without pity and pleasure behold that trusty vessel which carried sir Francis Drake about the world?

Hitherto our discourse hath proceeded of the carriage of masters toward free covenant-servants, not intermeddling with their behaviour towards slaves and vassals, whereof we only report this passage: When Charles V., emperor, returning with his fleet from Algiers, was extremely beaten with a tempest, and the ships overloaden, he caused them to cast their best horses into the sea, to save the life of many slaves, who, according to the market-price, were not so much worth.† Are there not many that, in such a case, had rather save Jack the horse than Jockey the keeper? And yet those who first called England "the purgatory of servants," sure, did us much wrong; purgatory itself being as false in the application to us, as in the doctrine thereof; servants with us living generally in as good conditions as in any other country. And well may masters consider how easy a transposition it had been, for God to have made him to mount into the saddle that holds the stirrup; and him to sit down at the table who stands by with a trencher.

How's "Continuation of Stow's Chronicle," p. 836.

part iii. De illust. Germ., et alii autores.

+ PANTALEON,

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GOOD SERVANT.

He is one that, out of conscience, serves God in his master; and so hath the principle of obedience in himself. As for those servants who found their obedience on some external thing, with engines, they will go no longer than they are wound or weighed up.

MAXIM I.

He doth not dispute his master's lawful will, but doth it.— Hence it is that simple servants (understand such whose capacity is bare measure, without surplusage, equal to the business they are used in) are more useful, because more manageable, than abler men, especially in matters wherein not their brains but hands are required. Yet if his master, out of want of experience, enjoins him to do what is hurtful, and prejudicial to his own estate, duty here makes him undutiful, (if not to deny, to demur in his performance,) and, choosing rather to displease than hurt his master, he humbly represents his reasons to the contrary.

II.

He loves to go about his business with cheerfulness.-One said, he loved to hear his carter, though not his cart, to sing. "God loveth a cheerful giver:" and Christ reproved the Pharisces for disfiguring their faces with a sad countenance. Fools, who, to persuade men that angels lodged in their hearts, hung out a devil for a sign in their faces! Sure, cheerfulness in doing renders a deed more acceptable. Not like those servants, who doing their work unwillingly, their looks do enter a protestation against what their hands are doing.

III.

He dispatcheth his business with quickness and expedition.Hence the same English word SPEED signifies "celerity," and "success;" the former, in business of execution, causing the latter. Indeed, haste and rashness are storms and tempests, breaking and wrecking business: but nimbleness is a fair, full wind, blowing it with speed to the haven. As he is good at hand, so he is good at length, continually and constantly careful in his service. Many servants, as if they had learned the

nature of the besoms they use, are good for a few days, and fterwards grow unserviceable.

IV.

He disposeth not of his master's goods without his privity or consent.-No, not in the smallest matters. Open this wicket, and it will be in vain for masters to shut the door. If servants presume to dispose small things without their masters' allowance, (besides that many little leaks may sink a ship!) this will widen their consciences to give away greater. But though he hath not always a particular leave, he hath a general grant, and a warrant dormant, from his master, to give an alms to the poor in his absence, if in absolute necessity.

V.

His answers to his master are true, direct, and dutiful.—If a dumb devil possesseth a servant, a winding cane is the fittest circle, and the master the exorcist to drive it out. Some servants are so talkative, one may as well command the echo as them not to speak last; and then they count themselves conquerors, because last they leave the field. Others, though they seem to yield, and go away, yet, with the flying Parthians, shoot backward over their shoulders, and dart bitter taunts at their masters; yea, though, with the clock, they have given the last stroke, yet they keep a jarring, muttering to themselves a good while after.

VI.

Just correction he bears patiently, and unjust he takes cheerfully.-Knowing that stripes unjustly given more hurt the master than the man: and the logic maxim is verified, Agens agendo repatitur, "The smart most lights on the striker.” Chiefly he disdains the baseness of running away.

VII.

Because charity is so cold, his industry is the hotter to provide something for himself, whereby he may be maintained in his old age. If under his master he trades for himself, (as an apprentice may do, if he hath covenanted so beforehand,*) he provides good bounds and sufficient fences betwixt his own and his master's estate, (Jacob "set his flock three days' journey" from Laban's, Gen. xxx. 36,) that no quarrel may arise about their property, nor suspicion that his remnant hath eaten up his master's whole cloth.

• BRACTON, lib. v. tract. 2, cap. 3, num. 7.