Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/334

 five contemptible; nor have one quarter of that hundred thriven by following the course which their parents put them into. I do perfectly approve of your advice concerning Mountebank players; but we eate toads and wash our hands in molten lead to sell of our oyntments for the itch. ... I gave the King a paper at Windsor,' he goes on to tell Southwell 'entitled "the weight of the Crown of England in 20 short articles," more stupendous than what I sent you. I desired the King to pick out of the whole one article which he wisheth to be true, and another which he thinketh to be false, and command me within 24 hours and within one sheet of paper, to shew him my further thoughts concerning them. All was very well taken, but without getting butter to my parsnips, or Hobnayles for my shoes; and poor Mr Newton will certainly meet with the same fate, for I have not met with one man that putt an extraordinary value on his book. Now because you cannot believe that my Projects can gaine the Nation 140 millions, I send you another paper to shew how 619 millions might be gotten in 25 years, and have the five points whereon the same is bottom'd, as well demonstrated as in the Pulpit and at the Bar. As usual you will ask me why I persist in these fruitless labours. I say they are labours of pleasure; of which ratiocination is the greatest and most angelicall; and, being by my age near Heaven, I think it high time to build myself a Tomb on Earth, out of these Materialls to which I hope you will furnish mortar in due time. You will say the "double-bottom" hath poysoned my proposals, to which I say that ye Closet I shew'd you containes the solution of all questions in Shipping and Sayling. A vehement combination against me made the fourth attempt worse than the first; I courted the King's mysteries, and like Actæon would have seen Diana naked, and was therefore sett upon by many cruel dogs.'

The end was now very near. In December he was taken ill, but without apparently entertaining any serious fear for his life at the moment, and he wrote to Southwell, the old combative spirit reviving: ' On Saturday I was taken with a great lameness. I have nevertheless shewn how the Farmers are overpaid all their demands by 2,183l.;' and he announces