Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

Essay ix.] Of Envy. 91
the other; and whoso' is out of hope to attain another's virtue,
will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.
A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envious;
for to know much of other men's matters cannot be because all
that ado2 may concern his own estate; therefore it must needs
be that he taketh a kind of play-pleasure in looking upon the
fortunes of others; neither can he that mindeth but his own
business find much matter for envy; for envy is a gadding
passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not keep home:'Non
est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus.'3
Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new
men when they rise: for the distance is altered; and it is like
a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back.
Deforired persons and eunuchs, and old men and bastards,
are envious; for he that cannot possibly mend his own case,
will do what he can to impair another's; except these defects
light upon a very brave and heroical nature, which thinketh to
make his natural wants part of his honour; in that it should be
said,'That an eunuch, or a lame man, did such great matters;'
affecting4 the honour of a miracle: as it was in Narses the
eunuch, and Agesilaus and Tamerlane, that were lame men.
The same is the case of men who rise after calamities and
misfortunes; for they are as men fallen out with the times, and
think other men's harms a redemption of their own sufferings.
They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of levity
and vain glory, are ever envious, for they cannot want workit being impossible but many, in some one of those things,
should surpass them; which was the character of Adrian the
emperor,5 that mortally envied poets and painters, and artificers
in works wherein he had a vein6 to excel.
Lastly, near kinsfolks and fellows in office, and those that
Whoso. Whoever.' Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me.'-Ps. 1. 23.
2 Ado. Bustle-really the infinitive mood of a verb equivalent to the ex.
pression' to do.'-Used in the plural adoes in the old Scottish Acts of Parliament
-Rev. H. Cotton.' Let's follow, to see the end of this ado.''Much Ado about Nothing.'-Shakespere.'There is none curious that is not also malevolent.'-Cf. Plut. de Curios. 1.
4Affecting. See page 1. Spartian. Vit. Adrian. 15.
6 Humour; fancy.'Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.' —Shakespere.'