3–5
As for my expenses in the city upon setting forth of shows, or whatsoever else is remarkable in me, though naturally it procure envy in other citizens, yet to strangers this also is an argument of our greatness. Now, it is no unprofitable course of life when a man shall at his private cost not only benefit himself but also the commonwealth.
Nor doth he that beareth himself high upon his own worth and refuseth to make himself fellow with the rest wrong the rest; for if he were in distress, he should not find any man that would share with him in his calamity. Therefore, as we are not so much as saluted when we be in misery, so let them likewise be content to be contemned of us when we flourish;
or if they require equality, let them also give it. I know that such men, or any man else that excelleth in the glory of anything whatsoever, shall as long as he liveth be envied, principally of his equals, and then also of others amongst whom he converseth; but with posterity they shall have kindred claimed of them, though there be none; and his country will boast of him, not as of a stranger or one that had been a man of lewd life, but as their own citizen and one that had achieved worthy and laudable acts.