himself a servant and a slave to that which should be subject unto him? Riches serve wise men, but command a fool: for a covetous man serveth his riches, and not they him: and he is said to have goods as he hath a fever, which holdeth and tyrannizeth over a man, not he over it. What thing more vile, than to love that which is not good, neither can make a good man? Yea is common, and in the possession of the most wicked in the world; which many times perverts good manners, but never amends them: without which, so many wise men have made themselves happy; and by which so many wicked men have come to a wicked end. To be brief; what thing more miserable, than to bind the living to the dead, as Mezentius did, to the end their death might be languishing, and the more cruel; to tie the spirit unto the excrement and scum of the earth; to pierce through his own soul with a thousand torments, which this amorous passion of riches brings with it; and to entangle himself with the ties and cords of this malignant thing, as the Scripture calls them, which doth likewise term them thorns and thieves, which steal away the heart of man, snares of the devil, idolatry, and the root of all evil? And truly he that shall see the catalogue of those envies and molestations which riches engender into the heart of man, as their proper thunderbolt and lightning, they would be more hated than they are now loved. Poverty wants many things, but covetousness all: a covetous man is good to none, but worse to himself." Thus much of Charron, a wise and great man. My next testimony is yielded by an author not unlikely to take with some sort of people for his wit; may they equally value his morality, and the judgment of his riper time.