e of a single life is liberty, especially in
certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of
every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and
garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best
masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are
light to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A
single life doth well with churchmen; for charity will hardly water
the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for
judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall
have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the
generals commonly in their hortatives put men in mind of their wives
and children; and I think the despising of marriage among the Turks
maketh the vulgar soldier more base.

Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and
single men, tho they may be many times more charitable, because their
means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel
and hard-hearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their
tenderness is not so oft called upon.

Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly
loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses,[40] _vetulam suam praetulit
immortalitati_. Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming
upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds both of
chastity and obedience in the wife, if she think her husband wise;
which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's
mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses. So as a
man may have a quarrel to marry when he will. But yet he was reputed
one of the wise men, that made answer to the question, when a man
should marry--_A young man not yet, an elder man not at all._ It is
often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that
it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it comes; or
that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails,
if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends'
consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

VI

OF ENVY

There be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate or
bewitch, but love and envy. They both have vehement wishes; they frame
themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions; and they come
easily into the eye, especially upon the presence o