semper et retinebitur, they are a debauched company most part, still spoken against, as well they deserve some of them (for I so relish and distinguish them as fiddlers, and musicians), and yet ever retained.  “Evil is not to be done (I confess) that good may come of it:”  but this is evil per accidens, and in a qualified sense, to avoid a greater inconvenience, may justly be tolerated.  Sir Thomas More, in his Utopian Commonwealth, [3307]"as he will have none idle, so will he have no man labour over hard, to be toiled out like a horse, ’tis more than slavish infelicity, the life of most of our hired servants and tradesmen elsewhere” (excepting his Utopians) “but half the day allotted for work, and half for honest recreation, or whatsoever employment they shall think fit for themselves.”  If one half day in a week were allowed to our household servants for their merry meetings, by their hard masters, or in a year some feasts, like those Roman Saturnals, I think they would labour harder all the rest of their time, and both parties be better pleased:  but this needs not (you will say), for some of them do nought but loiter all the week long.

This which I aim at, is for such as are fracti animis, troubled in mind, to ease them, over-toiled on the one part, to refresh:  over idle on the other, to keep themselves busied.  And to this purpose, as any labour or employment will serve to the one, any honest recreation will conduce to the other, so that it be moderate and sparing, as the use of meat and drink; not to spend all their life in gaming, playing, and pastimes, as too many gentlemen do; but to revive our bodies and recreate our souls with honest sports:  of which as there be diverse sorts, and peculiar to several callings, ages, sexes, conditions, so there be proper for several seasons, and those of distinct natures, to fit that variety of humours which is amongst them, that if one will not, another may:  some in summer, some in winter, some gentle, some more violent, some for the mind alone, some for the body and mind:  (as to some it is both business and a pleasant recreation to oversee workmen of all sorts, husbandry, cattle, horses, &c.  To build, plot, project, to make models, cast up accounts, &c.) some without, some within doors; new, old, &c., as the season serveth, and as men are inclined.  It is reported of Philippus Bonus, that good duke of Burgundy (by Lodovicus Vives, in Epist. and Pont. [3308]Heuter in his history) that the said duke, at the marriage of Eleonora, sister to the king of Portugal, at Bruges in Flanders, which was solemnised in the deep of winter, when, as by reason of unseasonable weather, he could neither hawk nor hunt, and was now tired with cards, dice, &c., and such other domestic sports, or to see ladies dance, with some of his courtiers, he would in the evening walk disguised all about the town.  It so fortuned, as he was walking late one night, he found a country fellow dead drunk, snorting on