As for those who think there is one positive state of life, which is always serene, — some fancying it to be of the husbandmen, others of those which are unmarried, and some of kings, — Menander clearly shows them their error in these verses: — I thought those men, my Phania, always best, Who take no money up at interest; Who disengaged from business spend the day, And in complaints don’t sigh the night away, Who, troubled, lamentable groans don’t fetch, Thus breathing out, Ah! miserable wretch! Those whom despairing thoughts don’t waking keep, But without startings sweetly take their sleep. He goes on and observes to us, that the same lot of misfortune falls to the rich as well as the poor: — These neighbors slender confines do divide, — Sorrow and human life are still allied. It the luxurious liver doth infest, And robs the man of honor of his rest; In stricter ties doth with the poor engage, With him grows old to a decrepit age. But as timorous and raw sailors in a boat, when they grow sick with the working of the waves, think they shall overcome their pukings if they go on board of a ship but there being equally out of order, go into a galley, but are therefore never the better, because they carry their nauseousness and fear along with them; so the several changes of life do only shift and not wholly extirpate the causes of our trouble. And these are only our want of experience, the weakness of our judgment, and a certain impotence of mind which hinders us from making a right use of what we enjoy. The rich man is subject to this uneasiness of humor as well as the poor; the bachelor as well as the man in wedlock. This makes the pleader withdraw from the bar, and then his retirement is altogether as irksome. And this infuseth a desire into others to be presented at court; and when they come there, they presently grow weary of the life. Poor men when sick do peevishly complain, The sense of want doth aggravate their pain. For then the wife grows officious in her attendance, the physician himself is a disease, and the bed is not made easy enough to his mind; even his friend importunes him with his visits: — He doth molest him when he first doth come, And when he goes away he’s troublesome, as Ion expresseth it. But when the heat of the disease is over and the former temperature of the body is restored, then health returns, and brings with it all those pleasant images which sickness chased away; so that he that yesterday refused eggs and delicate cakes and the finest manchets will now snap eagerly at a piece of household bread, with an olive and a few water-cresses.