pass by him in a wretched habit, with a bucket to draw water, though his friends about him were so concerned as to break out into tears and lamentations at the miserable sight; yet he himself remain'd unmov'd, without uttering a word of discontent, with his eyes fix'd upon the ground and seeing moreover his son immediately after led to execution, still maintain'd the same gravity and indifference; till spying at last one of his domestics dragg'd away amongst the captives, he could then hold no longer, but fell to tearing his hair, and beating his breast, with all the other extravagancies of a wild and desperate sorrow. A story that may very fitly be coupled with another of the same kind, of a late prince of our own nation, who being at Trent, and having news there brought him of the death of his elder brother, but a brother on whom depended the whole support and honour of his house, and soon after of that of a younger brother, the second hope of his family, and having withstood these two assaults with an exemplary resolution, one of his servants happening a few days after to die, he suffer'd his constancy to be overcome by his last accident; and parting with his courage, so abandon'd himself to sorrow and mourning, that some from thence were forward to conclude, that he was only touch'd to the quick by this last stroak of fortune; but, in truth, it was, that being before brim full of grief, the least addition overflow'd the bounds of all patience. Which might also be said of the former example, did not the story proceed to tell us, that Cambyses asking Psammenitus, why, not being mov'd at the calamity of his son and daughter, he should with so great impatience bear the misfortune of his friend? It is (answer'd he) because this last affliction was only to be manifested by tears, the two first exceeding all manner of expression. And peradventure something like this might be working in the fancy of the ancient painter who being in the sacrifice of Iphigenia to represent the sorrow of the assistants proportionably to the several degrees of interest every one had in the death of this fair innocent virgin; and having in the other figures laid out the utmost power of his art, when he came to that of her father, he drew him with a veil over his face, meaning thereby, that no kind of countenance was capable of expressing such a degree of sorrow. Which is also the reason why the poets feign the miserable mother Niobe, having first lost seven sons, and successively as many daughters, to be at last transform'd into a rock, Diriguisse malis,-Ovid. Met. lib. 6. -Whom grief alone, Had power to stiffen into stone. Thereby to express, that melancholick, dumb, and deaf stupidity, which benumbs all our faculties when opprest with accidents greater than we are able to bear; and indeed the violence and impression of an excessive grief, must of necessity astonish the soul, and wholly deprive her of her ordinary functions: as it happens to every one of us, who 22 VEHEMENCY OF SORROW SOMETIMES FATAL. upon any sudden alarm of very ill news, find our selves surpriz'd, stupified, and in a manner depriv'd of all power of motion, till the soul beginning to vent it self in sighs and tears, seems a little to free and disingage it self from the sudden oppression, and to have obtain'd some room to work it self out at greater liberty. Et via vix tandem voci laxata dolore est.-Æneid, lib. 11. Yet scarce at last by struggling grief, a gate Unbolted is for sighs to sally at. In the war that Ferdinand made upon the widow of king John of Hungary about Buda, a man at arms was particularly taken notice of by every one for his singular gallant behaviour in a certain encounter ; unknown, highly commended, and as much lamented, being left dead upon the place but by none so much as by Raisciac a German lord, who was infinitely enamour'd of so unparallell'd a vertue. When the body being brought off, and the Count with the common curiosity coming to view it, the arms were no sooner taken off, but he immediately knew him to be his own son. A thing that added a second blow to the compassion of all beholders; only he, without uttering a word, or turning away his eyes from the woful object, stood fixtly contemplating the body of his son, till the vehemency of sorrow having overcome his vital spirits made him sink down stone dead to the ground. Chi puo dir com' egli arde è in picciol fuoco?-Petrarca, Son. 158. -What tongue is able to proclaim How his soul melted in the gentle flame? say the Inamorato's when they would represent an unsupportable passion. -misero quod omnes Eripit sensus mihi. Nam fimul te, Tinniunt aures, gemina teguntur --all conquering Lesbia, thine eyes With a black veil of double darkness bound. Neither is it in the height and greatest fury of the fit, that we are in a condition to pour out our complaints, or to sally into courtship, the soul being at that time over-burthened, and labouring with profound thoughts and the body dejected and languishing with desire, all : passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested, are but moderate. Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.-Seneca Hippol., Act 2, Scen. 3. His grief's but easie, who his grief can tell, But piercing sorrow has no article. A surprise of unexpected joys does likewise often produce the same effect. Ut me conspexit venientem, et Troia circum Arma amens vidit, magnis exterrita monstris, Labitur, et longo vix tandem tempore fatur.-Virg. Æneid. Soon as she saw me coming, and beheld The Trojan ensigns waving in the field, O'er-joy'd, and ravish'd at th' unlook'd for sight, She turn'd a statue, lost all feeling quite ; Life's gentle heat did her stiff limbs forsake, She swoon'd, and scarce after long swooning spake. To these we have the examples of the Roman lady, who died for joy to see her son safe returned from the defeat of Cannæ ; and of Sophocles, and Dionysius the tyrant, who died of joy; and of Talva, who died in Corsica, reading news of the honours the Roman senate had decreed in his favour. We have moreover one, in the time of Pope Leo the tenth, who upon news of the taking of Milan, a thing he had so ardently and passionately desir'd, was rapt with so sudden an excess of joy, that he immediately fell into a fever and died. And for a more authentick testimony of the imbecility of human nature, it is recorded by the ancients, that Diodorus the logician died upon the place, out of an extream passion of shame, for not having been able in his own school, and in the presence of a great auditory, to disingage himself from a nice argument that was propounded to him. I for my part am very little subject to these violent passions; I am naturally of a stubborn apprehension, which also by discourse, I every day harden and fortifie more and more. CHAP. III. THAT OUR AFFECTIONS CARRY THEMSELVES BEYOND US. SUCH as accuse mankind of the folly of gaping and panting after future things, and advise us to make our benefits of those which are present, and to set up our rest upon them, as having too short a reach to lay hold upon that which is to come, and it being more impossible for us, than to retreive what is past; have hit upon the most universal of human errours, if that may be call'd an errour to which nature it self 24 OUR AFFECTIONS CARRY THEMSELVES BEYOND US. has dispos'd us, who in order to the subsistence, and continuation of her own work, has, amongst several others, prepossess'd us with this deceiving imagination, as being more jealous of our action, than afraid of our knowledge. For we are never present with, but always beyond our selves. Fear, desire and hope, are still pushing us on towards the future, depriving us in the mean time of the sense and consideration of that, which is to amuse us, with the thought of what shall be, even when we shall be no more. Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius.--Seneca, Epist. 98. Is still abroad, finding no rest at home. We find this great precept often repeated in Plato, do thine own work, and know thyself. Of which two parts, both the one and the other generally comprehend our whole duty, and consequently do each of them complicate and involve the other; for, who will do his own work aright, will find that his first lesson is to know himself: and who rightly understands himself, will never mistake another man's work for his own, but will love and improve himself above all other things, will refuse superfluous employments, and reject all unprofitable thoughts and propositions. And, as folly on the one side, though it should enjoy all it can possibly desire, would notwithstanding never be content; so on the other, wisdom does ever acquiesce with the present, and is never dissatisfied with its immediate condition: and that is the reason why Epicurus dispences his sages from all fore-sight and care of the future. Amongst those laws that relate to the dead, I look upon that to be the best, by which the actions of princes are to be examined and sifted after their decease. They are equal at least, while living, if not above the laws, and therefore what justice could not inflict upon their persons, 'tis but reason should be executed upon their reputations, and the estates of their successors, things that we often value above life it self: a custom of singular advantage to those countries where it is in use, and by all good princes as much to be desired, who have reason to take it ill, that the memories of the tyrannical and wicked should be us'd with the same reverence and respect with theirs. We owe, 'tis true, subjection and obedience to all our kings, whether good or bad, alike, for that has respect unto their office; but as to affection and esteem, those are only due to their vertue. Let it be granted, that by the rule of government we are with patience to endure unworthy princes, to conceal their vices, and to assist them in their indifferent actions, whilst their authority stands in need of our support: yet the relation of prince and subject being once at an end, there is no reason we should deny the publication of our real wrongs and sufferings to our own liberty and common justice, and to interdict good subjects the glory of having submissively and faithfully serv'd a prince, whose imperfections were to them so perfectly known, were to deprive posterity of so good an example; and such as out of respect to some private obligation, shall, against their own knowledge and conscience, espouse the quarrel, and vindicate the memory of a faulty prince, do a particular right at the expence, and to the prejudice, of the publick justice. Livy does very truly say, that the language of men bred up in courts, is always founding of vain ostentation, and that their testimony is rarely true, every one indifferently magnifying his own master, and stretching his commendation to the utmost extent of vertue and sovereign grandeur : and 'tis not impossible but some may condemn the freedom of those two soldiers, who so roundly answer'd Nero to his face, the one being ask'd by him, why he bore him ill will? I lov'd thee, answer'd he, whilst thou wert worthy of it, but since thou art become a parricide, an incendiary, a waterman, a fidler, a player, and a coachman, I hate thee as thou dost deserve: and the other, why he should attempt to kill him? because, said he, I could think of no other remedy against thy perpetual mischiefs. But the publick and universal testimonies that were given of him after his death (and will be to all posterity, both of him and all other wicked princes like him) his tyrannies and abominable deportment considered, who, of a sound judgment can reprove them? I am scandaliz'd, I confess, that in so sacred a government as that of the Lacedæmonians, there should be mixt so hypocritical a ceremony at the enterment of their kings; where all their confederates and neighbours and all sorts and degrees of men and women, as well as their slaves, cut and slash'd their fore-heads in token of sorrow, repeating in their cries and lamentations, that that king (let him have been as wicked as the devil) was the best that ever they had; by this means attributing to his quality the praises that only belong to merit, and that of right is properly due to the most supreme desert, though lodg'd in the lowest and most inferior subject. Aristotle (who will still have a hand in every thing) makes a quære upon the saying of Solon, that none can be said to be happy untill he be dead. Whether then any one of those who have liv'd and died according to their hearts desire, if he have left an ill repute behind him, and that his posterity be miserable, can be said to be happy? Whilst we have life and motion, we convey ourselves by fancy and preoccupation, whither and to what we please; but once out of being, we have no more any manner of communication with what is yet in being; and it had therefore been better said of Solon, that man is never happy, because never so till after he is no more. Quisquam Vix radicitus è vita se tollit, et ejicit, Sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius ipse, |