CHAPTER XVII.. Of the Manners of the Nobility.

OF THE MANNERS OF THE NOBILITY.

Of manners that proceed from the several ages we have already spoken. We are next to speak of those that rise from several fortunes.

The manners of the nobility are: to be ambitious. To undervalue their ancestors' equals; for the goods of fortune seem the more precious for their antiquity.

Nobility is the virtue of a stock. And generosity, is not to degenerate from the virtue of his stock. For as in plants, so in the races of men, there is a certain progress; and they grow better and better to a certain point; and change, viz. subtile wits into madness, and staid wits into stupidity and blockishness.

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