living, apply himself to each man’s humours, to win and please, &c., and be buffeted when he hath all done, as Ulysses was by Melanthius [2279]in Homer, be reviled, baffled, insulted over, for [2280]_potentiorum stultitia perferenda est_, and may not so much as mutter against it.  He must turn rogue and villain; for as the saying is, Necessitas cogit ad turpia, poverty alone makes men thieves, rebels, murderers, traitors, assassins, “because of poverty we have sinned,” Ecclus. xxvii. 1, swear and forswear, bear false witness, lie, dissemble, anything, as I say, to advantage themselves, and to relieve their necessities:  [2281] Culpae scelerisque magistra est, when a man is driven to his shifts, what will he not do?

[2282]  ------“si miserum fortuna Sinonem
Finxit, vanum etiam mendacemque improba finget.”

he will betray his father, prince, and country, turn Turk, forsake religion, abjure God and all, nulla tam horrenda proditio, quam illi lucri causa (saith [2283]Leo Afer) perpetrare nolint. [2284]Plato, therefore, calls poverty, “thievish, sacrilegious, filthy, wicked, and mischievous:”  and well he might.  For it makes many an upright man otherwise, had he not been in want, to take bribes, to be corrupt, to do against his conscience, to sell his tongue, heart, hand, &c., to be churlish, hard, unmerciful, uncivil, to use indirect means to help his present estate.  It makes princes to exact upon their subjects, great men tyrannise, landlords oppress, justice mercenary, lawyers vultures, physicians harpies, friends importunate, tradesmen liars, honest men thieves, devout assassins, great men to prostitute their wives, daughters, and themselves, middle sort to repine, commons to mutiny, all to grudge, murmur, and complain.  A great temptation to all mischief, it compels some miserable wretches to counterfeit several diseases, to dismember, make themselves blind, lame, to have a more plausible cause to beg, and lose their limbs to recover their present wants.  Jodocus Damhoderius, a lawyer of Bruges, praxi rerum criminal. c. 112. hath some notable examples of such counterfeit cranks, and every village almost will yield abundant testimonies amongst us; we have dummerers, Abraham men, &c.  And that which is the extent of misery, it enforceth them through anguish and wearisomeness of their lives, to make away themselves; they had rather be hanged, drowned, &c., than to live without means.

[2285] “In mare caetiferum, ne te premat aspera egestas,
        Desili, et a celsis corrue Cerne jugis.”

       “Much better ’tis to break thy neck,
          Or drown thyself i’ the sea,
        Than suffer irksome poverty;
          Go make thyself away.”