Timidus Plutus, an old proverb, As fearful as Plutus:  so doth Aristophanes and Lucian bring him in fearful still, pale, anxious, suspicious, and trusting no man, [1856]"They are afraid of tempests for their corn; they are afraid of their friends lest they should ask something of them, beg or borrow; they are afraid of their enemies lest they hurt them, thieves lest they rob them; they are afraid of war and afraid of peace, afraid of rich and afraid of poor; afraid of all.”  Last of all, they are afraid of want, that they shall die beggars, which makes them lay up still, and dare not use that they have:  what if a dear year come, or dearth, or some loss? and were it not that they are both to [1857]lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges, and make away themselves, if their corn and cattle miscarry; though they have abundance left, as [1858]Agellius notes. [1859]Valerius makes mention of one that in a famine sold a mouse for 200 pence, and famished himself:  such are their cares, [1860]griefs and perpetual fears.  These symptoms are elegantly expressed by Theophrastus in his character of a covetous man; [1861]"lying in bed, he asked his wife whether she shut the trunks and chests fast, the cap-case be sealed, and whether the hall door be bolted; and though she say all is well, he riseth out of his bed in his shirt, barefoot and barelegged, to see whether it be so, with a dark lantern searching every corner, scarce sleeping a wink all night.”  Lucian in that pleasant and witty dialogue called Gallus, brings in Mycillus the cobbler disputing with his cock, sometimes Pythagoras; where after much speech pro and con, to prove the happiness of a mean estate, and discontents of a rich man, Pythagoras’ cock in the end, to illustrate by examples that which he had said, brings him to Gnyphon the usurer’s house at midnight, and after that to Encrates; whom, they found both awake, casting up their accounts, and telling of their money, [1862]lean, dry, pale and anxious, still suspecting lest somebody should make a hole through the wall, and so get in; or if a rat or mouse did but stir, starting upon a sudden, and running to the door to see whether all were fast.  Plautus, in his Aulularia, makes old Euclio [1863]commanding Staphyla his wife to shut the doors fast, and the fire to be put out, lest anybody should make that an errand to come to his house:  when he washed his hands, [1864]he was loath to fling away the foul water, complaining that he was undone, because the smoke got out of his roof.  And as he went from home, seeing a crow scratch upon the muck-hill, returned in all haste, taking it for malum omen, an ill sign, his money was digged up; with many such.  He that will but observe their actions, shall find these and many such passages not feigned for sport, but really performed, verified indeed by such covetous and miserable wretches, and that it is,

[1865]  ------“manifesta phrenesis
Ut locuples moriaris egenti vivere fato.”

A mere madness, to live like a wretch, and die rich.