CHAPTER XVII.

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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