He holds
it no great matter to live, and his greatest business to die; and is so
well acquainted with his last guest that he fears no unkindness from
him: neither makes he any other of dying than of walking home when he is
abroad, or of going to bed when he is weary of the day. He is well
provided for both worlds, and is sure of peace here, of glory hereafter;
and therefore hath a light heart and a cheerful face. All his
fellow-creatures rejoice to serve him; his betters, the angels, love to
observe him; God Himself takes pleasure to converse with him, and hath
sainted him before his death, and in his death crowned him.
THE SECOND BOOK.
CHARACTERISMS OF VICES.
THE PROEM.
I have showed you many fair virtues: I speak not for them; if their
sight cannot command affection let them lose it. They shall please yet
better after you have troubled your eyes a little with the view of
deformities; and by how much more they please, so much more odious and
like themselves shall these deformities appear. This light contraries
give to each other in the midst of their enmity, that one makes the
other seem more good or ill. Perhaps in some of these (which thing I do
at once fear and hate) my style shall seem to some less grave, more
satirical: if you find me, not without cause, jealous, let it please you
to impute it to the nature of those vices which will not be otherwise
handled. The fashions of some evils are, besides the odiousness,
ridiculous, which to repeat is to seem bitterly merry.
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