The saying is not so old as true, He that refuseth to buy counsel cheap
shall buy repentance dear; neither let any work [mock?] a man in his
misery, but rather beware by him how to avoid the like misfortune; if
thou intend to do any good, defer it not till the next day, for thou
knowest not what may happen over night to prevent thee. Behold thyself
in a looking glass, if thou appearest beautiful do such things as may
become thy beauty; but if thou seem foul or deformed, let the actions of
thy life make good that splendor which thy face lacketh. Tell not thy
mind to every man, make thy self indebted to no man, be friend to few
men, be courteous to all men, let thy wit be thy friend, thy mind thy
companion, thy tongue thy servant, let vertue be thy life, valour thy
love, honour thy fame and heaven thy felicity. These (Reader) be good
documents for thee to follow, and I am now to present thee with a
worthy president to imitate; observe his beginning, forget not the
middle passage of his life, and thou wilt no question crown his head. He
that made all things of nothing can of a little make much, and multiply
a mite into a magazine, as will easily appear by the succeeding history.

This Richard Whittington was so obscurely born that he could scarcely
give account of his parents or kindred, and being almost starved in the
country, necessity compelled him up to London, hoping to find more
charity in the town than in the country: to beg he was ashamed, to steal
he did abhor: two days he spent in gaping upon the shops and gazing upon
the buildings feeding his eyes but starving his stomach. At length meer
faintness compell'd him to rest himself upon a bench before a merchant's
gate, where he not long sat but the owner of the house having occasion
of business into the town finding him a poor simple fellow, and thinking
that he had no more within him than appeared without, demanded of him
why he loytered there, and being able to work for his living did not