We will add this in general, touching the affection of envy; that of all other affections it is the most importune and continual. For of other affections there is occasion given but now and then and therefore it was well said, invidia festos dies non agit:[1] for it is ever working upon some or other. And it is also noted that love and envy do make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not so continual. It is also the vilest affection, and the most depraved; for which cause it is the proper attribute of the devil, who is called The envious man, that soweth tares amongst the wheat by night;[2] as it always cometh to pass, that envy worketh subtilly, and in the dark; and to the prejudice of good things, such as is the wheat.
X. Of Love.
The stage is more beholding[3] to Love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a syren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent), there is not
- ↑ Envy keeps no holidays.
- ↑ "But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way." Matthew xiii. 25.
- ↑ Beholding. Beholden. A common Elizabethan error. "A justice of peace sometime may be beholding to his friend for a man." Shakspere. The Merry Wives of Windsor. i. 1.
