OF AVARICE OR COVETOUSNESS
THE SUMMARY
[If there be any excess in the world that troubleth the repose and tranquillity of the spirit, causing our life to be wretched and miserable, it is avarice; against which the sages and wise men of all ages from time to time have framed sharp and terrible invectives, which in sum and effect do shew thus much; That this covetousness and greedy desire of gathering goods is (as it were) the capital city and seat-town of all wickedness; the very sink of sin and receptacle of all vices. Now albeit all men with one voice, yea, and the most covetous persons of all others do confess as much, yet the heart of man is so affectionate a friend to the earth, that needful it is to propose and set down divers instructions for to avert the same from thence, and to cause it to range and sort with other occupations and affairs, more beseeming itself than is the over-curious searching after transitory and corruptible things. This is the reason that those philosophers who have handled the doctrine as touching manners are employed herein: and Plutarch among the rest, who teacheth us here in few words with what considerations we ought to be furnished and fortified, that we do not permit such a pestilent plague as this to seize upon our souls: and therewith he sheweth the miseries that befall unto avarice; whereof this is the first and principal; That instead of giving contentment, it maketh her slave most wretched, and putteth him to the greatest pain and torture in the world. And hereupon he interlaceth and inserteth a description of three sorts of covetous persons. First, of those who covet things rare and dangerous, whereas they should seek after necessaries. Secondly, of such as spend nothing, have much, and yet desire more and more; and these he depainteth in all their colours. Thirdly, of them that be niggards and base-minded pinch-pennies. Which done, he discovereth the second misery of covetous wretches, to wit; That avarice doth tyrannise over her caitiff and slave, not suffering him to use that which she commanded him to win and get. The third is this; That it causeth him to gather and heap up riches, for some promoter or catch-poll, or else for a tyrant, or else for some wicked and graceless heir, whose nature and properties he doth represent and describe very lively. Afterwards having concluded that covetous persons are herein especially miserable; for that the one sort of them use not their goods at all, and other abuse the same: he prescribeth three remedies against this mischievous malady. The first; That those who greedily gape after riches, have no more in effect than they who stand contented with that which is necessary for nature. The second; That we are not to
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