Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...

How it is that Wicked drunken Men think well of themselves. [ 1355]

THere is a Story of a French-man, that lodging one night in a Curtizan's house at Rome,* 1.1 when in the Morning he took his gold Chain, he found it would go but thrice about his neck, whereas it was formerly wont to go four times: And thereupon he guessed, that the Curtizan had (as she had indeed) taken away some of the links▪ but she cunningly dissembling to excuse her fault, would needs make the French-man believe, that his head was much swol∣len that night; and to confirm her words, she caused him to view himself in a false glasse, which made all things seem a great deal bigger then indeed they were; And so not knowing how to help himself, he was fain to perswade him∣self,* 1.2 that all the fault was in the growth of his head. To this chain may be like∣ned the Soul of Man, which being sober, perceives that, by Intemperance, the Me∣mory

and Understanding (which are two main links of it) are taken away; but the Devill (like a cunning Curtezan) as it were by a false glasse, makes Men be∣lieve it is nothing so;* 1.3 but on the contrary, that all things are greater then they were, their Memory greater, their understanding greater, their strength grea∣ter, their wits riper; whereas it is nothing so, their Understanding is infa∣tuated, their Will perverted, their Memory enfeebled, their Comelinesse deform∣ed, all out of order.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Othon. Me∣landri Iaco∣seria.
• * 1.2

  Nath. Shute Serm. at S. Mild. Poultry Lond. 1633.
• * 1.3

  Multum me∣••um pauca cogit sapere. Menand.