I do but slightly touch upon all these particulars of the slavery of
greatness; I shake but a few of their outward chains; their anger,
hatred, jealousy, fear, envy, grief, and all the et cetera of their
passions, which are the secret but constant tyrants and torturers of
their life. I omit here, because though they be symptoms most
frequent and violent in this disease, yet they are common too in
some degree to the epidemical disease of life itself. But the
ambitious man, though he be so many ways a slave (O toties servus!),
yet he bears it bravely and heroically; he struts and looks big upon
the stage, he thinks himself a real prince in his masking habit, and
deceives too all the foolish part of his spectators. He's a slave
in Saturnalibus. The covetous man is a downright servant, a draught
horse without bells or feathers; ad metalla damnatus, a man
condemned to work in mines, which is the lowest and hardest
condition of servitude; and, to increase his misery, a worker there
for he knows not whom. He heapeth up riches and knows not who shall
enjoy them; 'tis only that he himself neither shall nor can enjoy
them. He is an indigent needy slave, he will hardly allow himself
clothes and board wages; Unciatim vix demenso de suo suum defraudans
Genium comparsit niser. He defrauds not only other men, but his own
genius. He cheats himself for money. But the servile and miserable
condition of this wretch is so apparent, that I leave it, as evident
to every man's sight, as well as judgment. It seems a more
difficult work to prove that the voluptuous man too is but a
servant. What can be more the life of a freeman, or, as we say
ordinarily, of a gentleman, than to follow nothing but his own
pleasures? Why, I'll tell you who is that true freeman and that
true gentleman; not he who blindly follows all his pleasures (the
very name of follower is servile), but he who rationally guides
them, and is not hindered by outward impediments in the conduct and