yet still in all callings, as some degenerate, some are well deserving, and most worthy of their honours.  And as Busbequius said of Suleiman the Magnificent, he was tanto dignus imperio, worthy of that great empire.  Many meanly descended are most worthy of their honour, politice nobiles, and well deserve it.  Many of our nobility so born (which one said of Hephaestion, Ptolemeus, Seleucus, Antigonus, &c., and the rest of Alexander’s followers, they were all worthy to be monarchs and generals of armies) deserve to be princes.  And I am so far forth of [3676]Sesellius’s mind, that they ought to be preferred (if capable) before others, “as being nobly born, ingenuously brought up, and from their infancy trained to all manner of civility.”  For learning and virtue in a nobleman is more eminent, and, as a jewel set in gold is more precious, and much to be respected, such a man deserves better than others, and is as great an honour to his family as his noble family to him.  In a word, many noblemen are an ornament to their order:  many poor men’s sons are singularly well endowed, most eminent, and well deserving for their worth, wisdom, learning, virtue, valour, integrity; excellent members and pillars of a commonwealth.  And therefore to conclude that which I first intended, to be base by birth, meanly born is no such disparagement. Et sic demonstratur, quod erat demonstrandum.

MEMB.  III.
Against Poverty and Want, with such other Adversities.

One of the greatest miseries that can befall a man, in the world’s esteem, is poverty or want, which makes men steal, bear false witness, swear, forswear, contend, murder and rebel, which breaketh sleep, and causeth death itself. [Greek:  ouden penias baruteron esti phortion], no burden (saith [3677]Menander) so intolerable as poverty:  it makes men desperate, it erects and dejects, census honores, census amicitias; money makes, but poverty mars, &c. and all this in the world’s esteem:  yet if considered aright, it is a great blessing in itself, a happy estate, and yields no cause of discontent, or that men should therefore account themselves vile, hated of God, forsaken, miserable, unfortunate.  Christ himself was poor, born in a manger, and had not a house to hide his head in all his life, [3678]"lest any man should make poverty a judgment of God, or an odious estate.”  And as he was himself, so he informed his Apostles and Disciples, they were all poor, Prophets poor, Apostles poor, (Act. iii.  “Silver and gold have I none.”) “As sorrowing” (saith Paul) “and yet always rejoicing; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things,” 1 Cor. vi. 10.  Your great Philosophers have been voluntarily poor, not only Christians, but many others.  Crates Thebanus was adored for a God in Athens, [3679]"a nobleman by birth, many servants he had, an honourable attendance, much wealth, many manors, fine apparel; but when he saw this, that all the wealth of the world