THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
itself well recognised for a sufficient cause of melancholy. And when we consider the other misfortunes which are rather to be esteemed essential than accidental to such a life: the slow decay of hope, the loneliness of days and weeks and years, the scorn of others, and (often) the contempt of one's very self, it will readily be received that whosoever doth aught to mitigate the hardships of this estate is most worthy of praise, thankofferings, and lowly service. The which hath been Your Grace's office, I mean to entertain a sort of men mighty little esteemed in the Commonwealth, being held by the most of the people at an equal price with mere strollers or common vagabonds; differing only in this, that we scholars so far from roaming about do rather use not to venture out of doors, for fear and shame lest our ragged small-clothes and greasy doublets should draw on us open scorn and derision. But I suspect that in this particular I shall scarcely gain much credit, scholarship and shame being generally accounted as incompatibles, and as little likely to coexist in one person as heat and cold, at the same time, in one and the same substance. And indeed it were well for us if this should be so: and let him that leaveth the shelter of his chimney corner (though it be in a kitchen) and adventureth up to town to make his fortune by letters, take heed that he have about his heart that harness of strong oak and triple brass that Horace writes of. I say nothing of them that are driven by ill hap to try their luck (as the phrase goes), they have no choice, and may be are as well off as they expected. But I would have him who abandons of his own free will a good home, kindred, acquaintance, and the life to make account of these things. That for plenty, he shall have want, for love, scorn and contempt, for familiarity, loneliness and desolation. For pure air he shall gain a Stygian fume, a black mist, a sooty smoke: for those delicious meadows, heathery mountains, rustling woods, and all such prospects of delight, a Cretan labyrinth, a stony wilder-
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