base and contumelious a condition." This was spoken as became the
bravest man who was ever born in the bravest commonwealth. But with
us, generally, no condition passes for servitude that is accompanied
with great riches, with honours, and with the service of many
inferiors. This is but a deception the sight through a false
medium; for if a groom serve a gentleman in his chamber, that
gentleman a lord, and that lord a prince, the groom, the gentleman,
and the lord are as much servants one as the other. The
circumstantial difference of the one getting only his bread and
wages, the second a plentiful, and the third a superfluous estate,
is no more intrinsical to this matter than the difference between a
plain, a rich and gaudy livery. I do not say that he who sells his
whole time and his own will for one hundred thousand is not a wiser
merchant than he who does it for one hundred pounds; but I will
swear they are both merchants, and that he is happier than both who
can live contentedly without selling that estate to which he was
born. But this dependence upon superiors is but one chain of the
lovers of power, Amatorem trecentae Pirithoum cohibent catenae. Let
us begin with him by break of day, for by that time he is besieged
by two or three hundred suitors, and the hall and anti-chambers (all
the outworks) possessed by the enemy; as soon as his chamber opens,
they are ready to break into that, or to corrupt the guards for
entrance. This is so essential a part of greatness, that whosoever
is without it looks like a fallen favourite, like a person
disgraced, and condemned to do what he please all the morning.
There are some who, rather than want this, are contented to have
their rooms filled up every day with murmuring and cursing
creditors, and to charge bravely through a body of them to get to
their coach. Now I would fain know which is the worst duty, that of
any one particular person who waits to speak with the great man, or