Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/200

 delay of indulgence which I have suffered, will endanger my whole.'

He goes on to tell Southwell that he sees no chance of any redress: nought indeed save 'promises and vapours;' but he is determined to continue the fight 'in the hope of the resurrection of slain truth, like the seven sons in the Macchabees.' Southwell, in a letter full of sympathy and good sense, advised a little prudence and moderation under the circumstances. 'You may imagine,' he writes, 'whether it be not a grief to me, to see you involved in the anguish and depredation of the law, beginning the year with one complaint and ending it with twenty; running in consequence the hazard of your life or the ruin of your wife and children by the life of others. Nor can I foresee a period of such calamities, till you resolve absolutely on other measures than what you have taken. But if "Right be Immortall," yet you have not a Corporation of lives to assert it, in all that variety of channels and courses wherein it runs. And there are some wrongs whose scourge must be remitted to God Almighty alone; and therefore if even soe dear a thing as the Right Eye be offended, pluck it out; and enter maimed into the smooth things and Peace of this Life, which is next door to the Joys of another. And suffer from me this expostulation, who wish you prosperity as much as any man living; and having opportunities to see and hear what the temper of the world is towards you, I cannot but wish you well in Port, or rather upon the firm land, and to have very little or nothing at all left to the mercy and goodwill of others. For there is generally imbibed such an opinion and dread of your superiority and reach over other men in the wayes of dealing, that they hate what they feare, and find wayes to make him feare that is fear'd. I do the more freely open my soul to you in the matter, because I see 'tis not for the vitalls that you contend, but for outward limbs and accessories, without which you can subsist with plenty and honor; and therefore to throw what you have quite away, or at least to put it in daily hazard, only to make it a little more than it is, is what you would condemn a thousand times over