While I was thus talking to my self, there enter'd the gallery an old man, with a face as pale as age had made his hair; and seem'd, I know not how, to bring with him the air of a great soul; but viewing his habit, I was easily confirm'd in my opinion, since fortune seldom deals favourably with learned men. In short, he made up to me, and addressing himself, told me he was a poet; and, as he hop'd, above the common herd: if, added he, my merrit don't suffer by applause that's promiscuously given, to the good and bad.
Why, therefore, interrupted I, are you so meanly clad? On this account return'd he, because learning never made any man rich.
The merchant's profit well rewards his toil: The souldier crowns his labours with the spoil: To servile flattery we altars raise: And the kind wife her stallion ever pays: But starving wit in rags takes barren pain: And, dying, seeks the muses aid in vain.
"'Tis certain," added he, "that a lover of virtue, on account of his singularity, meets with contempt; for who can approve what differs from himself? And that those who admire riches, wou'd fain possess every body, that nothing is more reasonable than their opinion; whence they ridicule, as well as they can, the learned few; that they, like themselves, might seem within the power of money."
"I don't know, how learning and poverty became relations," said I, and sigh'd: "You justly lament," return'd he, "the condition of scholars."
"You mistake me," said I, "that's not the occasion of my sighs, there's another and much greater cause:" And, as all men are naturally inclin'd to communicate their grief; I laid open my case to him, beginning with Ascyltos's treachery, which I aggravated; and, with repeated sighs, often wisht his injustice to me might have deserv'd pardon: but that now he was a staunch villain, and in lust more subtle than the bawds themselves.
The old man, seeing me sincere, began to comfort me; and the better to effect it, told me what formerly had happen'd to himself on the like occasion.
"In Asiam cum a quaestore essem stipendio eductus, hospitium Pergami accepi. Ubi cum libenter habitarem non solum propter cultum aedicularum, sed etiam propter hospitis formosissimum filium, excogitavi rationem, qua non essem patri familiae suspectus amator. Quotiescunque enim in convivio de usu formosorum mentio facta est, tam vehementer excandui, tam severa tristitia violari aures meas obsceno sermone nolui, ut me mater praecipue tanquam unum ex philosophis intueretur. Iam ego coeperam ephebum in gymnasium deducere, ego studia eius ordinare, ego docere ac praecipere, ne quis praedator corporis admitteretur in domum. . . .