of wealth than in spending, and no delight in the world like unto it.  ‘Twas [1836]Bias’ problem of old, “With what art thou not weary? with getting money.  What is most delectable? to gain.”  What is it, trow you, that makes a poor man labour all his lifetime, carry such great burdens, fare so hardly, macerate himself, and endure so much misery, undergo such base offices with so great patience, to rise up early, and lie down late, if there were not an extraordinary delight in getting and keeping of money?  What makes a merchant that hath no need, satis superque domi, to range all over the world, through all those intemperate [1837]Zones of heat and cold; voluntarily to venture his life, and be content with such miserable famine, nasty usage, in a stinking ship; if there were not a pleasure and hope to get money, which doth season the rest, and mitigate his indefatigable pains?  What makes them go into the bowels of the earth, an hundred fathom deep, endangering their dearest lives, enduring damps and filthy smells, when they have enough already, if they could be content, and no such cause to labour, but an extraordinary delight they take in riches.  This may seem plausible at first show, a popular and strong argument; but let him that so thinks, consider better of it, and he shall soon perceive, that it is far otherwise than he supposeth; it may be haply pleasing at the first, as most part all melancholy is.  For such men likely have some lucida intervalla, pleasant symptoms intermixed; but you must note that of [1838]Chrysostom, “’Tis one thing to be rich, another to be covetous:”  generally they are all fools, dizzards, madmen, [1839]miserable wretches, living besides themselves, sine arte fruendi, in perpetual slavery, fear, suspicion, sorrow, and discontent, plus aloes quam mellis habent; and are indeed, “rather possessed by their money, than possessors:”  as [1840]Cyprian hath it, mancipati pecuniis; bound prentice to their goods, as [1841]Pliny; or as Chrysostom, servi divitiarum, slaves and drudges to their substance; and we may conclude of them all, as [1842]Valerius doth of Ptolomaeus king of Cyprus, “He was in title a king of that island, but in his mind, a miserable drudge of money:” 

[1843]  ------“potiore metallis
libertate carens”------

wanting his liberty, which is better than gold.  Damasippus the Stoic, in Horace, proves that all mortal men dote by fits, some one way, some another, but that covetous men [1844]are madder than the rest; and he that shall truly look into their estates, and examine their symptoms, shall find no better of them, but that they are all [1845]fools, as Nabal was, Re et nomine (1.  Reg. 15.) For what greater folly can there be, or [1846] madness, than to macerate himself when he need not? and when, as Cyprian notes, [1847]"he may be freed from his burden, and eased of his pains, will go on still, his wealth increasing, when he hath enough, to get more, to live besides