4 8 a most brave and valiant manner, he took it up and replaced it upon his head.1 Even Epicurus at his death comforts himself with reflections of the usefulness and eternity of his writings: 2 omnes clari et nobilitati labores fiunt tolerabiles ; "all labours that are illustrious and renowned are supportable;" and the same wound, the same fatigue, is not, says Xenophon, so intolerable to a general of an army as to a common soldier; Epaminondas died much more cheerful, having been informed that the victory remained to him; hæc sunt solatia, hæc fomenta summorum dolorum;5 “these are lenitives, and fomentations to the greatest pains;" and other such circumstances amuse, divert, and turn our thoughts from the consideration of the thing in itself. Even the arguments of philosophy are always diverting, and putting by the matter, so as scarce to rub upon the sore; the greatest man of the first philosophical school, and superintendent over all the rest, the great Zeno against death, forms this syllogism; "No evil is honourable; but death is honourable; therefore death is not evil; 996 against drunkenness this: "No one commits his secrets to a drunkard, but every one commits his secrets to a wise man; therefore a wise man is no drunkard."7 Is this to hit the mark? I love to see that these great and leading souls cannot rid themselves of our company; as perfect men as they may be, they are yet but men. longing for re Revenge is a sweet passion, of great and natural impression; I discern this well enough, though The way to dissiI have no manner of experience of it. From pate a violent which, not long ago, to divert a young prince, venge. I did not tell him that if a man struck him on one cheek he must turn the other to him, to fulfil the duties of charity; nor did I go about to represent the tragical events which poetry attributes to that passion; I left those strings untouched, and 1 Val. Max. iv. 10. Ext. 2. Diog. Laertius, in Vita. Elian, Hist. Var. iii. 3. 2 In his Letter to Hermachus. de Finib. ii. 30. Laertius, in Vitâ. 3 Cicero, Tusc. Quæs. ii. 24. Cicero, 4 Id. ib. 25. 5 Id. ib. 6 Seneca, Epist. 82. occupied myself with making him relish the beauty of a contrary image; by representing to him what honour, esteem, and good-will he would acquire by clemency and good-nature, I diverted him to that ambition. Thus a man is to deal in such cases. If your passion of love be too violent disperse it, say they; and they say well; for I have oft tried it with advantage; break it into several desires, of which let one be regent, if you will, over the rest; but, lest it should tyrannize and domineer over you, weaken and protract, in dividing and diverting it: Cum morosa vago singultiet inguine vena; 1 Conjicito humorem collectum in corpora quæque; 2 and look to't in time, lest it prove too troublesome to deal with, when it has once seized you; Si non prima novis conturbes vulnera plagis, "Unless you fancy every one you view. Revel in love, and cure old wounds by new." I once was wounded with a vehement displeasure, according to my complexion; and withal, more just than vehement; I might perhaps have lost myself in it, if I had merely trusted to my own strength. Having need of a powerful diversion to disengage me, I made it my business, by art and study, to fall in love, in which I was assisted by my youth; love relieved and rescued me from the evil wherein friendship had engaged me. 'Tis in every thing else the same; a violent imagination hath seized me; I find it a nearer way to change than to subdue it; I depute, if not one contrary, yet another at least in its place; variation always relieves, dissolves, and dissipates. If I am not able to contend with it. I escape from it; and in avoiding it, slip out of the way and cheat it; shifting place, business, and company, I secure my 1 Pers. vi. 73. 2 Lucret. iv. 1062. 3 Id. ib. self in the crowd of other thoughts and fancies, where it loses my trace, and I escape. sions. After the same manner does nature proceed, by the benefit of inconstancy; for time, which she has Time the physigiven us as the sovereign physician of our cian of our paspassions, principally gains its effect by this means; by supplying our imaginations with other and new affairs, it unties and dissolves the first apprehension, how strong soever. A wise man sees his friend little less dying at the end of five and twenty years, than in the first year; and, according to Epicurus, not less at all; for he did not attribute any alleviation of afflictions either to our foresight, or to the antiquity of the evils themselves; but so many other thoughts traverse the first, that it languishes and tires at last. Alcibiades, to divert the inclination of common rumours, cut off the ears and tail of his beautiful dog, and turned him out into the public place, to the end that, giving the people this occasion to prate, they might let his other actions alone.1 I have also seen, for this same end of diverting the opinions and conjectures of the people, and to stop their mouths, some women conceal their real affections by others that were only counterfeit; but I have likewise seen one who, in counterfeiting, has suffered herself to be caught indeed, and has quitted the true and original affection for the feigned; by which I have learned that they who find their affections well placed are fools to consent to this disguise; the favourable and public reception being only reserved for this apposted servant, a man may conclude him a fellow of very little address, if he does not in the end put himself into your place, and you into his; this is properly to cut out and make up a shoe for another to draw on. either engages or A little thing will turn and divert us, because a small matter a little thing holds us. We do not much con- disengages the sider subjects in gross and in themselves; but mind. 1 Plutarch, in Vitâ, c. 4. there are little and superficial circumstances that strike us, the vain, useless husks that fall off from those subjects, Folliculos ut nunc teretes æstate cicadæ Linquunt; 1 "Such as the hollow husks or shells we find In summer, grasshoppers do leave behind." Even Plutarch himself laments his daughter for the little apish tricks of her infancy. The remembrance of a farewell, of a particular action or grace, of a last recommendation, afflicts us. The sight of Cæsar's robe troubled all Rome, which was more than his death had done. Even the sound of names ringing in our ears, as "My poor master!" or "My valued friend!" "Alas! my dear father!" or "My sweet daughter!" makes us melancholy and sad. When these repetitions torment me, and that I examine them a little nearer, I find them but a grammatical and verbal complaint; I am wounded with the word and tone; as the exclamations of preachers very often work more upon their auditory than their reasons, and as the mournful eyes and voice of a beast killed for our service; without my weighing or penetrating at the same time into the true and real essence of my subject:His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit; 3 "With these incitements grief itself provokes;" these are the foundations of our mourning. The obstinacy of the stone has sometimes thrown me into so long a suppression of urine, for three or four days together, and so near death, that it had been folly to have hoped to evade it; and it was much rather to have been desired, considering the miseries I endure in those cruel fits. Oh, how great a master in the art of hangmanship was that worthy emperor, who caused criminals to be tied in such a manner, that they might die for want of making water! Finding myself in this condition, I considered by how many light 1 Lucret. v. 801. 2 In his Consolation to his Wife. 3 Lucret. ii. 42. 4 Tiberius. Suetonius, in Vitâ, c. 69 causes and objects imagination nourished in me the regret of life; and of what atoms the weight and difficulty of this dislodging was composed in my soul; and to how many idle and frivolous thoughts we give way in so great an affair; a dog, a horse, a book, a glass, and what not, were considered in my loss; in others, their ambitious hopes, their money, their knowledge, not less foolish considerations in my opinion than mine. I look upon death carelessly, when I look upon it universally as the end of life. I insult over it in gross; but in retail it domineers over me; the tears of a footman, the disposing of my clothes, the touch of a friendly hand, an ordinary phrase of consolation, discourages and melts me. Thus do the complaints in poetry infect our souls with grief; and the sorrows of Dido and Ariadne touch with compassion even those that don't believe in them, in Virgil and Catullus. It is an example of an obstinate and obdurate nature to be sensible of no emotion; as 'tis reported for a miracle of Polemon; but then he did not so much as alter his countenance at the biting of a mad dog, that tore away the calf of his own leg.1 And no wisdom proceeds so far as to conceive so lively and entire a cause of sorrow by judgment, that it suffers no increase by presence, where the eyes and ears have their share; parts that are not to be moved but by vain accidents. the comedian Is it reason that even the arts themselves should make an advantage of our natural imbecility and weak- The orator and ness? The orator, says rhetoric, in the farce touched to the of his pleading, shall be moved with the sound their parts, quick by acting of his own voice and feigned emotions, and suf- though in fiction. fer himself to be imposed upon by the passion he represents; he will imprint in himself a true and real grief by means of the part he plays, to transmit it to the judges, who are yet less concerned than he; as they do who are hired at funerals to assist in the ceremony of sorrow, who sell their tears and mourning by weight and measure. For although they act in 1 Laertius, in Vita. |