# The Essays of Francis Bacon/XXXIV Of Riches

XXXIV. Of Riches.
I cannot call Riches better than the baggage of virtue. The Roman word is better, impedimenta. For as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue. It cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit. So saith Salomon, Where much is, there are many to consume it; and what hath the
* ↑ Hindrances.
* ↑ "But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor." Pope. Epistle III. To Allen, Lord Bathurst. ll. 351–352.
* ↑ "When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?" Ecclesiastes v. 11.
* ↑ Dole. Dealing out or distribution of gifts. "Pleasures stinted in the dole." Browning. La Saisiaz. 431.
* ↑ "The rich man's wealth is his strong city." Proverbs x. 15.
* ↑ In his desire to increase his wealth, it appeared that he sought not the gratification of avarice, but the means of doing good (ut in augenda re non avaritiae praedam, sed instrumentum bonitati quaerere videretur. M. Tullii Ciceronis Pro C. Rabirio Postumo Oratio. II. 3). In the year 54 B.C. Cicero defended Caius Rabirius Postumus, a Roman knight, who by helping Pompey to restore King Ptolemy Auletes to the throne of Egypt had laid himself open to the crime of extortion. Bacon quotes inaccurately. Cicero makes the statement, not of Rabirius Postumus, but of his father, Caius Curius, who made the fortune Rabirius lost through his connection with Pompey's political schemes.
* ↑ "He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." Proverbs xxviii. 20.
* ↑ Upon. At, with.
* ↑ Audits. Rent-rolls, accounts of income.
* ↑ To expect the prime of markets is to wait until the market is at its best for buying and selling. Compare expect meaning to wait for in the Bible and Shakspere. "From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." Hebrews x. 13. "Sweet soul, let 's in, and there expect their coming." Shakspere. The Merchant of Venice. v. 1.
* ↑ Overcome. To come over suddenly; to take by surprise.
* ↑ Mainly. Greatly.
* ↑ Broke. To broke is to transact business by means of an agent, but the context shows that here it means, as it often did, to deal craftily.
* ↑ Chapmen. Traders. "Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy." Shakspere. Troilus and Cressida. iv. 1. Notice Bacon's explanation of chopping of bargains, in the next sentence.
* ↑ Naught, or naughty. Bad, wicked. "Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now I 'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good." Shakspere. As You Like It. i. 2.
* ↑ In the sweat of the brow of another.
* ↑ Scrivener. A money-lender.
* ↑ Value. To give out or represent as wealthy, or financially sound.
* ↑ Adventure. A pecuniary risk, a venture, a speculation.
* ↑ Coemption. The act of purchasing the whole quantity of anything, 'cornering the market.'
* ↑ Rise. Value, worth, price. Bacon means to say that riches got by service, though that service may have been of the highest price, is yet often the worst, as when a man grows rich at the sacrifice of his honor or his conscience.
* ↑ Wills and childless couples taken as with a net. (Romae testamenta et orbos velut indagine ejus capi.) Cornelii Taciti Annalium Liber XIII. 42.
* ↑ "For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away, as an eagle toward heaven." Proverbs xxiii. 5.
* ↑ Stablish. Establish.
* ↑ Glorious. Possessing glory; entitled to brilliant and lofty renown.
* ↑ Advancement. In legal language, the promotion of children in life, especially by the application beforehand of property or money to which they are prospectively entitled under a settlement or will; also, the property so applied.