Let them but remember Lewis
XI., who to a Clerk of the Exchequer that came to be Lord Treasurer,
and had (for his device) represented himself sitting on fortune's
wheel, told him he might do well to fasten it with a good strong
nail, lest, turning about, it might bring him where he was again.
As indeed it did.
De bonis et malis.--De innocentia.--A good man will avoid the spot
of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose
his way in his life as he would in his journey. The ill man rides
through all confidently; he is coated and booted for it. The
oftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in
fashion. His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is worn is
the less cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, and the
ways he travels in. An innocent man needs no eloquence, his
innocence is instead of it, else I had never come off so many times
from these precipices, whither men's malice hath pursued me. It is
true I have been accused to the lords, to the king, and by great
ones, but it happened my accusers had not thought of the accusation
with themselves, and so were driven, for want of crimes, to use
invention, which was found slander, or too late (being entered so
fair) to seek starting-holes for their rashness, which were not
given them.
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