such Servants as have not this marke;[1] Except they meane their Service should be made but the Accessary.[2] That which maketh the Effect more pernicious is, that all Proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough for the Servant's Good to be preferred before the Master's; But yet it is a greater Extreme, when a little Good of the Servant shall carry Things[3] against a great Good of the Master's. And yet that is the case of Bad Officers, Treasurers, Ambassadours, Generals, and other False and Corrupt Servants; which set a Bias upon their Bowie, of their owne Petty Ends and Envies, to the overthrow of their Master's Great and Important Affaires. And for the most part, the Good such Servants receive is after the Modell of[4] their owne Fortune; But the Hurt they sell for that Good is after the Modell of their Master's Fortune. And certainly, it is the Nature of Extreme Selfe-Lovers, As[5] they will set an House on Fire, and[6] it were but to roast their Egges; And yet these Men, many times, hold credit with their Masters, Because their Study is but to please Them, and profit Themselves; And for either respect[7] they will abandon the Good of their Affaires.[8]
Wisedome for a Man's Selfe is, in many Branches thereof, a depraved Thing. It is the Wisedome of Rats, that will be sure to leave a House somewhat before it fall. It is the Wisedome of the Fox, that thrusts out the Badger, who digged and made Roome for him. It is the Wisedome of Crocodiles, that shed teares when they would devoure. But that which is specially to be noted is that those which (as Cicero saies of Pompey) are Sui Amantes sine Rivali,[9] are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to Themselves, they become in the end themselves Sacrifices to the Inconstancy of Fortune, whose Wings they thought, by their Self-Wisedome, to have Pinnioned.[10]
