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CHAPTER II
OF DRUNKENNESSE
THE world is nothing but variety and dissemblance.
Vices are all alike, inasmuch as they are all vices:
And so doe haply the Stoikes meane it. But though
they are equally vices, they are not equall vices; and
that hee who hath started a hundred steps beyond the
limits Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum, 1
On this side, or beyond the which
No man can hold a right true pitch—
is not of worse condition than he that is ten steps
short of it, is no whit credible: and that.sacrilege is not
worse than the stealing of a colewort out of a garden.
Nec vincet ratio, tantumdem utpeccet, idemque,
Qui teneros caules alieni fregent horti,
Et qui nocturnus dwum sacra legerity
No reason can evict, as great or same sinne taints
Him that breakes in anothers Garden tender plants,
And him that steales by night things consecrate to Saints.
There is as much diversity in that as in any other
thing. The confusion of order and measure of crimes
is dangerous : Murtherers, Traitors and Tyrants, have
too much gaine by it: it is no reason their conscience
should be eased, in that some other is either idle or
lascivious, or lesse assiduous unto devotion. Every
man poiseth upon his fellowes sinne, and elevates his
owne. Even teachers do often ranee it ill in my
conceit. As Socrates said, that the chiefest office of
wisdome was to distinguish goods and evils. We
¹ HOR. 1. i Sat. i 107. ² lb. iii. 115.
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