And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
Ver. 6. Lord, my servant lieth at home, &c.] Not thrown out of doors, not cast sick into a corner, to sink or swim, for any care his master would take of him; no, nor left to be cured at his own charges. The good centurion was not a better man than a master. So was that renowned Sir Thomas Lucy, late of Charlecott in Warwickshire, to whose singular commendation it was in mine hearing preached at his funeral, and is now since published, by my much honoured friend Mr Robert Harris, that (among many others that would dearly miss him) a houseful of servants had lost not a master, but a physician who made their sickness his, and his cost and medicine theirs.
" Cui blanda in vultu gravitas, et mite serena
Fronte supercilium, sed pectus mitius ore. "
Or (as mine Alter Ego) mine entirely beloved kinsman, Mr Thomas Dugard, expresseth it in his elegant epitaph: His servants' sickness was his sympathy, and their recovery his cost. In quo viro ingenium pietas, artemque modestia vincit In which man, a holy nature and humility overcame skill.