taken with endlesse trauails of the minde. And what at length hath this poore soule attained after so many miseries? This Deuill of couetise by his illusions, and enchantments, beares him in hand that he hath some rare and singuler thing: and so it fareth with him, as with those seely creatures, whome the Deuill seduceth vnder couler of releeuing their pouertie, who finde their hands full of leaues, supposing to finde them full of crownes. He possesseth or rather is possessed by a thing, wherein is neither force nor vertue: more vnprofitable, and more base, then the least hearbe of the earth. Yet hath he heaped togither this vile excrement, and so brutish is growne, as therewith to crowne his head, which naturally he should tread vnder his feete. But howsoeuer it be, is he therewith content? Nay contrarywise lesse now, then euer. We commend most those drinks that breede an alteration, and soonest extinguish thyrst: and those meates, which in least quantitie do longest resist hunger. Now hereof the more a man drinkes, the more he is a thirst, the more he eates, the more an hungred: It is a dropsie, (and as they tearme it) the dogs hunger: sooner may he burst then be satisfied. And which is worse, so strange in some is this thyrst, that it maketh them dig the pits, and painefully drawe the water, and after will not suffer them to drinke. In the middest of a riuer they are dry with thirst: and on a heape of corne cry out of famine: they haue goodes and dare not vse them: they haue ioyes it seemes, and do not enioy them: they neither haue for themselues, nor for another: but of all they haue, they haue nothing: and yet haue want of all they haue not. Let vs then returne to that, that the attaining of all these deceiuable goods is nothing else but weerines of body, and the possession for the most part, but weerines of the minde: which certenly is so much the greater, as is more sensible, more subtile, and more tender the soule then the body. But the heape of all misery is when they come to loose them: when either shipwracke, or sacking, or inuasion, or fire, or such like calamities, to which these fraile things are subiect, doth take and cary them from them. Then fall they to cry, to weepe, and to torment themselues, as little children that haue lost their play-game, which notwithstanding is nothing worth. One cannot perswade them, that mortall men haue any other good in this world, but that which is mortall. They are in their owne conceits not only spoyled, but altogither flayed. And for asmuch as in these vaine things they haue fixed all their hope, hauing lost them, they fall into despaire, out of the which commonly they cannot be withdrawen. And which is more, all that they haue not gained according to the accompts they made, they esteeme lost: all that which turnes them not to great and extraordinary profit, they accompt as damage: whereby we see some fall into such despaire, as they cast away themselues. In short, the