both of meat and drink. And lastly, which beareth me that tread
upon it, and beareth with me that so many ways do abuse it,
or so freely make use of it, so many ways to so many ends.
V. No man can admire thee for thy sharp acute language,
such is thy natural disability that way. Be it so:
yet there be many other good things, for the want of
which thou canst not plead the want or natural ability.
Let them be seen in thee, which depend wholly from thee;
sincerity, gravity, laboriousness, contempt of pleasures;
be not querulous, be Content with little, be kind, be free;
avoid all superfluity, all vain prattling; be magnanimous.
Doest not thou perceive, how many things there be,
which notwithstanding any pretence of natural indisposition
and unfitness, thou mightest have performed and exhibited,
and yet still thou doest voluntarily continue drooping downwards?
Or wilt thou say. that it is through defect of thy
natural constitution, that thou art constrained to murmur,
to be base and wretched to flatter; now to accuse,
and now to please, and pacify thy body: to be vainglorious,
to be so giddy-headed., and unsettled in thy thoughts? nay
(witnesses be the Gods) of all these thou mightest have been
rid long ago: only, this thou must have been contented with,
to have borne the blame of one that is somewhat slow and dull.
wherein thou must so exercise thyself, as one who neither doth
much take to heart this his natural defect, nor yet pleaseth
himself in it.

Vi. Such there be, who when they have done a good turn to any,
are ready to set them on the score for it, and to require retaliation.
Others there be, who though they stand not upon retaliation,