might accompany him in exile; or some great want, that they might
relieve him; or a disease, that they might sit by him. They make a
causeway to their country by injury, as if it were not honester to
do nothing than to seek a way to do good by a mischief.

Injuria.--Injuries do not extinguish courtesies: they only suffer
them not to appear fair. For a man that doth me an injury after a
courtesy, takes not away that courtesy, but defaces it: as he that
writes other verses upon my verses, takes not away the first
letters, but hides them.

Beneficia.--Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that
friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry
our boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or
meats, that they be nourishing. For these are what they are
necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not.
It is true, some men may receive a courtesy and not know it; but
never any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men have
been cured of diseases by accidents; but they were not remedies. I
myself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water;
another whipped out of a fever; but no man would ever use these for
medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheth
the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with his
pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not to
me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being shipwrecked; was the
wreck a benefit therefore? No; the doing of courtesies aright is
the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He that
doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds his cattle
to sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.