Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

LOGOPANDECTEISION. 327
20. But as a certain shepheard on a time, according to the Epimythist, would have Excusatio
perswaded the fox not to destroy his flock, till he had got their fleeces, the wool whereof avarlt,a! est
r . annulare
was to be employed in cloth for the royal robes of the Soveraign of the land ; unto pro filiis.
whom the fox replied, That his main interest being to fatten himself and his cubbs,
he did not find himself so much concerned in either Soveraign or subject, that upon any
such pretext, how specious soever, he would leave his terrier unmagazined of all
manner of provision competent for his vulpecularie family.
21. Even so may I avouch, that the nature of the most part of this strange kind of Nullum est
flagitators, being without any consideration or regard to the condition of a gentleman, cou iibus il-
or whether the improvement or impairing of his fortunes should further or retard the 'orumvesti-
, . , . gium.inqui-
progress of the countrie s fame, totally to employ themselves in a coin-accumulating bus avaritia
way towards the multiplying of their trash, and heedful accrescing of the Mammon Slblfecltha -
drosse, wherein their lucre-hailing minds and consopiated spirits lie intombed and im-
buryed.
22. For again, as the old Hyena of Quinzie, as it is reported in some outlandish Omnium
stories, after he had seized upon the sublimest witted Gymnosophist of that age, on trav^sima
purpose to feed upon him, being a hungred, did vilifie and misregard the tears and est avaritia,
sorrow, justly shed and conceived by the inhabitants of that popidous and magnificent human""!*
city, for the apparent loss of such unparallelled wisdom and exquisite learning, as divina jura,
through the death of so prime a philosopher was like for ever to redound to the ve l ipsius
whole Empire of China ; and altogether postposing them to the satisfying of his base <! ei P essun -
appetite with one poor meal of meat, and that only in a sorry breakfast he was to take suevit, cum
out of his bowels, killed him, tore him in pieces, and greedily snatched up that repast, mmlsittam
the better to dispose his stomach within three houres thereafter for another of the like quod avari-
nature. tia violate
non soleat.
23. Just so, amongst many of my father's creditors, hath there bin a generation of Quid non
such tenacious publicans, that cared so little what the countrev in general mig-ht be mortalia
. ,.. . ,, . pectora co-
eoncerned in any mans private interest, though much by some singular good friends gis, aurisa-
of mine hath been spoke to them in my own particular, that through their cruelty and Qufmahnt
extreme hard usage, I have beene often necessitated to supply out of my brains what locupletari
was deficient in my purse, and provide from a far what should have been ailbrded at q^^Ca-
home, one half tearm's interest, although but of a pettie and trivial summe, being in m^nas con.
their eyes of more esteem then the quintessence of all the liberal arts, together with Ar/ipsis
that of the moral vertues, epitomized in the person of any, though imbellished to the ettamstatu-
boot, with all other accomplishments whatsoever ; for diseategorically, in despight of all lua'iunT,"''
order, by marshalling quality after habere, they have still preferred the possession of a farinas -
little lumber and baggagely pelf to all the choicest perfections of both body and mind.
24. And indeed, to speak ingenuously, as the sparrow, whom a late Archbishop of
Canterbury weeped to see as often forced to fall back, as it strove to flye upwards, by
reason of a little peeble stone, fast at the end of a string, that was tyed to her foot ;
the contemplatively devout prelate thereby considering that the sincerest minds, even