Study Edition · Essay 11
How the Distempers of these Times should affect Wise Men
Source: Resolves: Divine, Moral, Political, no. LXXXIII (1840 ed., pp. 359–60), from the Internet Archive scan. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
Feltham's Resolves are short moral essays, each ending in a personal resolution. This one is a catalogue of the follies of the age: “To see how … To see how …”. Each item would make a wise man laugh or rage. It ends quietly: since the world can't be cured, he will pray, speak only when called, and fight only in a just cause. Note: most of the “To see…” items are fragments, not full sentences; each one depends on the opening “would make a wise man merry (or mad) to see…”
20 sentences: 2 simple, 8 moderate, 10 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- distempersdisorders; diseases (of the body or of society)
- frustrate(old adjective) frustrated; disappointed
- appalto terrify; to dismay
- impotencypowerlessness
- officesofficial government posts
- gina trap or snare
- cozento cheat; to trick
- projectora schemer; a speculator with money-making plans
- affectto put on; to adopt for show
- apishsilly and imitative, like an ape
- prodigala reckless spender; a wastrel
- pot-valourcourage that comes from drinking
- Machiavela follower of Machiavelli; a cunning, ruthless schemer
- tenetsprinciples; beliefs
- gullto fool; to deceive
- posterityfuture generations
- vizora mask
- declaimto speak out forcefully in public
- deputationofficial appointment or authority to act
- warrantablejustifiable; lawful
The Essay
The distempers of these times would make a wise man both merry and mad: merry, to see how vice flourishes but a while, and being at last frustrated of all her fair hopes, dies in a dejected scorn; which meets with nothing in the end, but beggary, baseness, and contempt.1 To see how the world is mistaken in opinion, to suppose those best that are wealthiest.2 To see how the world thinks to appal the mind of nobleness with misery; while true resolution laughs at their poor impotency, and slights even the utmost spite of tyranny.3 To see how men buy offices at high rates, which, when they have, prove gins to catch their souls in, and snare their estates and reputations.4 To see how foolishly men cozen themselves of their souls, while they think they gain, by their cunning, defrauding another.5 To see how the projectors of the world, like the spoke of the wheel of Sesostris' chariot, are tumbled up and down, from beggary to worship; from worship to honour; from honour to baseness again.6 To see what idle compliments are current among some that affect the fantastic garb; as if friendship were nothing but an apish salute, glossed over with nothing but the varnish of a smooth tongue.7 To see a strutting prodigal overlook a region, with his waving plume, as if he could as easily shake that, as his feather; yet, in private, will creep, like a crouching spaniel, to his base, muddy prostitute.8 To see how pot-valour thunders in a tavern, and appoints a duel, but goes away, and gives money to have the quarrel taken up underhand.9 Mad on the other side, to see how vice goes trapped with rich furniture, while poor virtue has nothing but a bridle and saddle, which only serve to increase her bondage.10 To see Machiavel's tenets held as oracles; honesty reputed shallowness; justice bought and sold; as if the world went about to disprove Zorobabel, and would make him confess money to be stronger than truth.11 To see how flattery creeps into favour with greatness, while plain dealing is thought the enemy of state and honour.12 To see how the Papists (for promotion of their own religion) invent lies, and print them; that they may not only cozen the present age, but gull posterity with forged actions.13 To see how well-meaning simplicity is foot-balled.14 To see how religion is made a politician's vizor, which, having helped him to his purpose, he casts by, like Sunday apparel, not thought on all the week after.15 And which would mad a man more than all, to know all this, yet not know how to help it.16 These would almost distract a man in himself.17 But since I find they are incurable, I will often pray for their amendment in private; never declaim but when I am called to it.18 He loses much of his comfort, that without a just deputation, thrusts himself into danger.19 Let me have that once; and it shall never grieve me to die in a warrantable war.20
Sentence Notes
In plain English: The disorders of our age would make a wise man both laugh and rage. He would laugh to see how wickedness thrives only briefly, then, its hopes dashed, dies scorned and miserable, ending in nothing but poverty, disgrace and contempt.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The essay's frame in four words: the same sights can provoke laughter or fury.
Reference & context: Structure tip: the whole essay hangs on this sentence. Every following “To see…” is another reason to be “merry” (and later “mad”).
Modernized: frustrate → frustrated
In plain English: To see how wrong the world is in thinking that the richest people are the best people.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A plain statement of a mistake every age repeats.
In plain English: To see how the world tries to frighten a noble mind with hardship, while true determination laughs at its feeble power and ignores even the worst that tyranny can do.
Reference & context: Philosophical: an echo of Stoicism (Seneca, Epictetus): no external suffering can conquer a resolute mind.
In plain English: To see how men pay huge sums for government posts which, once they have them, turn out to be traps that catch their souls and ensnare their fortunes and reputations.
Reference & context: Historical: under James I and Charles I, public offices and even titles were openly sold. Buyers then had to recover the cost, often through corruption.
In plain English: To see how foolishly men cheat themselves out of their souls while thinking they are profiting by cleverly cheating someone else.
In plain English: To see how the world's speculators, like the spokes of Sesostris's chariot wheel, are flung up and down: from poverty to respectability, from respectability to high honour, and from honour back to disgrace.
Reference & context: Legend: the Egyptian king Sesostris harnessed captured kings to his chariot. One kept staring at the turning wheel; asked why, he said the spokes rising and falling reminded him of fortune. Sesostris took the point and freed them. “Projectors” were notorious get-rich-quick schemers.
In plain English: To see the empty compliments passed around among people who wear outlandish fashions, as if friendship were only a silly, copied gesture of greeting, polished with nothing but smooth talk.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: “The varnish of a smooth tongue” captures flattery as a shiny surface over nothing.
In plain English: To see a swaggering spendthrift look down over a whole region, tossing the feather in his hat as if he could shake the land as easily; yet in private he crawls like a cringing dog to some low, filthy prostitute.
Reference & context: Fashion: large ostrich plumes in hats were a sign of a fashionable gallant.
In plain English: To see how drunken bravado roars in a tavern and arranges a duel, but then slinks off and pays someone to settle the quarrel quietly.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: “Pot-valour” is a vivid compound for courage that disappears with sobriety; today we say “Dutch courage.”
Reference & context: Historical: duelling was a fashionable craze in the early 1600s, despite royal bans.
In plain English: On the other hand, it would make him furious to see vice parading like a horse in rich, decorated harness, while poor virtue has only a plain bridle and saddle, which just make her servitude heavier.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: An image of injustice: vice and virtue are both harnessed, but only vice is dressed up for it.
Reference & context: Here the essay turns from “merry” to “mad.” “Trappings” and “furniture” are the decorative harness of a horse.
Modernized: hath → has
In plain English: To see Machiavelli's cynical principles treated as sacred truth, honesty regarded as stupidity, and justice bought and sold, as if the world wanted to prove Zerubbabel wrong and make him admit that money is stronger than truth.
Reference & context: Historical: Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (1532) was a byword in England for political wickedness. Biblical: in 1 Esdras 3–4, three young guards debate what is strongest. Zerubbabel wins by arguing that “great is truth, and mighty above all things.”
In plain English: To see how flattery worms its way into the favour of the powerful, while honest speaking is treated as a threat to government and status.
In plain English: To see how Catholics, to promote their religion, make up lies and print them, so as to deceive not only people now but future generations too, with invented stories.
Reference & context: Context: “Papists” was a hostile Protestant term. Religious propaganda on both sides was fierce in Feltham's England, and his remark is partisan, not neutral.
In plain English: To see how innocent good intentions get kicked around.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A single surprising verb that makes the abstract idea vivid.
Reference & context: Football in the 1600s was a violent, chaotic street game, often banned.
In plain English: To see how politicians wear religion as a mask, and once it has got them what they want, toss it aside like their Sunday best, forgotten for the rest of the week.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Two images for hypocrisy in one: religion as a mask, and religion as clothes worn once a week.
In plain English: And what would drive a man madder than anything: to understand all this and still not know how to fix it.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The real source of frustration is not the world's folly but our helplessness before it.
In plain English: These things could almost drive a man out of his mind.
In plain English: But since I can see these evils can't be cured, I'll pray in private that they improve, and I'll never make public speeches about them unless I'm called on to do so.
In plain English: A person who rushes into danger without proper authority loses much of his peace of mind.
Modernized: loseth → loses
In plain English: But give me that proper authority, and I will never regret dying in a just war.
Reference & context: Historical: within a generation of these words England was at war with itself (the Civil War, 1642–1651), and the question of what made a war “warrantable” became painfully real.
Fun Fact
Feltham said he wrote the first collection of his Resolves when he was about eighteen. That makes this world-weary catalogue of corruption, duelling, flattery and hypocrisy the work of a very young man. The book was a long-running bestseller, reprinted again and again through the 1600s, so readers clearly found that his complaints about “these times” never went out of date.