[Sidenote:  Ben Johnson]

Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way; but “The devil take all!” quoth he that was choked i’ the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.

[Sidenote:  Ben Johnson]

A good man will avoid the spot of any sin.  The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life as he would in his journey.  The ill man rides through all confidently; he is coated and booted for it.  The oftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in fashion.  His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is worn is the less cared for.  It is good enough for the dirt still, and the ways he travels in.

[Sidenote:  Ben Johnson]

Money never made any man rich, but his mind.  He that can order himself to the law of Nature is not only without the sense but the fear of poverty.  O, but to strike blind the people with our wealth and pomp is the thing!  What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious!  We serve our avarice, and, not content with the good of the earth that is offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden.  God offered us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He knew were profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid.  Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and Nature hath buried them.  We covet superfluous things, when it were more honour for us if we could contemn necessary.  What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins?  She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious.  Can we think no wealth enough but such a state for which a man may be brought into a praemunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned?  O! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions.  But we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery.

[Sidenote:  Ben Johnson]

I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line.  My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted out a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech.  I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour,