observes) “will correct and amend us.”  And therefore with good discretion, [3625]Jovianus Pontanus caused this short sentence to be engraven on his tomb in Naples:  “Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness, want and woe, to serve proud masters, bear that superstitious yoke, and bury your clearest friends, &c., are the sauces of our life.”  If thy disease be continuate and painful to thee, it will not surely last:  “and a light affliction, which is but for a moment, causeth unto us a far more excellent and eternal weight of glory,” 2 Cor. iv. 17. bear it with patience; women endure much sorrow in childbed, and yet they will not contain; and those that are barren, wish for this pain; “be courageous, [3626]there is as much valour to be shown in thy bed, as in an army, or at a sea fight:”  aut vincetur, aut vincet, thou shalt be rid at last.  In the mean time, let it take its course, thy mind is not any way disabled.  Bilibaldus Pirkimerus, senator to Charles the Fifth, ruled all Germany, lying most part of his days sick of the gout upon his bed.  The more violent thy torture is, the less it will continue:  and though it be severe and hideous for the time, comfort thyself as martyrs do, with honour and immortality. [3627]That famous philosopher Epicurus, being in as miserable pain of stone and colic, as a man might endure, solaced himself with a conceit of immortality; “the joy of his soul for his rare inventions, repelled the pain of his bodily torments.”

Baseness of birth is a great disparagement to some men, especially if they be wealthy, bear office, and come to promotion in a commonwealth; then (as [3628]he observes) if their birth be not answerable to their calling, and to their fellows, they are much abashed and ashamed of themselves.  Some scorn their own father and mother, deny brothers and sisters, with the rest of their kindred and friends, and will not suffer them to come near them, when they are in their pomp, accounting it a scandal to their greatness to have such beggarly beginnings.  Simon in Lucian, having now got a little wealth, changed his name from Simon to Simonides, for that there were so many beggars of his kin, and set the house on fire where he was born, because no body should point at it.  Others buy titles, coats of arms, and by all means screw themselves into ancient families, falsifying pedigrees, usurping scutcheons, and all because they would not seem to be base.  The reason is, for that this gentility is so much admired by a company of outsides, and such honour attributed unto it, as amongst [3629]Germans, Frenchmen, and Venetians, the gentry scorn the commonalty, and will not suffer them to match with them; they depress, and make them as so many asses, to carry burdens.  In our ordinary talk and fallings out, the most opprobrious and scurrile name we can fasten upon a man, or first give, is to call him base rogue, beggarly rascal, and the like:  Whereas in my judgment, this ought of all other grievances to trouble