It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom, to have lived free from folly.  You see with what toil of mind and body you avoid those things which you believe to be the greatest evils, a small fortune and a shameful repulse.  An active merchant, you run to the remotest Indies, fleeing poverty through sea, through rocks, through flames.  And will you not learn, and hear, and be advised by one who is wiser, that you may no longer regard those things which you foolishly admire and wish for?  What little champion of the villages and of the streets would scorn being crowned at the great Olympic games, who had the hopes and happy opportunity of victory without toil?  Silver is less valuable than gold, gold than virtue.  “O citizens, citizens, money is to be sought first; virtue after riches:”  this the highest Janus from the lowest inculcates; young men and old repeat these maxims, having their bags and account-books hung on the left arm.  You have soul, have breeding, have eloquence and honor:  yet if six or seven thousand sesterces be wanting to complete your four hundred thousand, you shall be a plebeian.  But boys at play cry, “You shall be king, if you will do right.”  Let this be a [man’s] brazen wall, to be conscious of no ill, to turn pale with no guilt.  Tell me, pray is the Roscian law best, or the boy’s song which offers the kingdom to them that do right, sung by the manly Curii and Camilli?  Does he advise you best, who says, “Make a fortune; a fortune, if you can, honestly; if not, a fortune by any means”—­that you may view from a nearer bench the tear-moving poems of Puppius; or he, who still animates and enables you to stand free and upright, a match for haughty fortune?

If now perchance the Roman people should ask me, why I do not enjoy the same sentiments with them, as [I do the same] porticoes, nor pursue or fly from whatever they admire or dislike; I will reply, as the cautious fox once answered the sick lion:  “Because the foot-marks all looking toward you, and none from you, affright me.”  Thou art a monster with many heads.  For what shall I follow, or whom?  One set of men delight to farm the public revenues:  there are some, who would inveigle covetous widows with sweet-meats and fruits, and insnare old men, whom they would send [like fish] into their ponds:  the fortunes of many grow by concealed usury.  But be it, that different men are engaged in different employments and pursuits:  can the same persons continue an hour together approving the same things?  If the man of wealth has said, “No bay in the world outshines delightful Baiae,” the lake and the sea presently feel the eagerness of their impetuous master:  to whom, if a vicious humor gives the omen, [he will cry,]—­“to-morrow, workmen, ye shall convey hence your tools to Teanum.”  Has he in his hall the genial bed?  He says nothing is preferable to, nothing better than a single life.  If he has not, he swears the married only are happy.  With what noose can I hold this Proteus, varying thus his forms?  What does the poor man?  Laugh [at him too]:  is he not forever changing his garrets, beds, baths, barbers?  He is as much surfeited in a hired boat, as the rich man is, whom his own galley conveys.