V. MISTAKEN.

I BEHELD honour as of a mounting and aspiring nature, and therefore I expected, rationally enough as I conceive, to have found it ascending to the clouds.

I looked upon wealth as what was massy, ponderous, and by consequence probable to settle and be firmly fixed on the earth.

But oh! how much is my expectation frustrated and defeated! For David, Psalm vii. 5, maketh mention of honour lying in the dust; and Solomon his son, Prov. xxiii. 5, informeth me, how riches certainly make themselves wings, and flee away as an eagle toward heaven: what I looked for below is towered aloft, and what I expected above is fallen below.

Our age hath afforded plentiful experiments of both: honour was near the dust, when a new nobility of a later stamp were in a fair likelihood to have outshined those of a purer standard. The wealth of the land doth begin (to use the falconer’s phrase), to fly to lessen. And if these taxes continue, will soon fly out of sight. So uncertain and unsafe it is for men to bottom their happiness on any earthly perfection.