a spendthrift, a drunkard, a whoremaster, a gamester, how shall the family
live at ease? [700]_Ipsa si cupiat solus servare, prorsus, non potest hanc
familiam_, as Demea said in the comedy, Safety herself cannot save it. A
good, honest, painful man many times hath a shrew to his wife, a sickly,
dishonest, slothful, foolish, careless woman to his mate, a proud, peevish
flirt, a liquorish, prodigal quean, and by that means all goes to ruin: or
if they differ in nature, he is thrifty, she spends all, he wise, she
sottish and soft; what agreement can there be? what friendship? Like that
of the thrush and swallow in Aesop, instead of mutual love, kind
compellations, whore and thief is heard, they fling stools at one another's
heads. [701]_Quae intemperies vexat hanc familiam_? All enforced marriages
commonly produce such effects, or if on their behalves it be well, as to
live and agree lovingly together, they may have disobedient and unruly
children, that take ill courses to disquiet them, [702]"their son is a
thief, a spendthrift, their daughter a whore;" a step [703]mother, or a
daughter-in-law distempers all; [704]or else for want of means, many
torturers arise, debts, dues, fees, dowries, jointures, legacies to be
paid, annuities issuing out, by means of which, they have not wherewithal
to maintain themselves in that pomp as their predecessors have done, bring
up or bestow their children to their callings, to their birth and quality,
[705]and will not descend to their present fortunes. Oftentimes, too, to
aggravate the rest, concur many other inconveniences, unthankful friends,
decayed friends, bad neighbours, negligent servants [706]_servi furaces,
Versipelles, callidi, occlusa sibi mille clavibus reserant, furtimque;
raptant, consumunt, liguriunt_; casualties, taxes, mulcts, chargeable
offices, vain expenses, entertainments, loss of stock, enmities,
emulations, frequent invitations, losses, suretyship, sickness, death of
friends, and that which is the gulf of all, improvidence, ill husbandry,
disorder and confusion, by which means they are drenched on a sudden in
their estates, and at unawares precipitated insensibly into an inextricable
labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent and melancholy
itself.

I have done with families, and will now briefly run over some few sorts and
conditions of men. The most secure, happy, jovial, and merry in the world's
esteem are princes and great men, free from melancholy: