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is a full ftop to advancement. Can the fun receive any addition to his greatnefs? or the moon make a further progrefs than ufual? the feas ftill keep their bounds: and the world maintains one conftant order and measure. Such things as have attained their juft and proper magnitude, can rife no higher.

All men that are truly wife, are equal and alike; though each may be endowed with a peculiar gift; as one may be more affable, another more expeditious; another more prompt in declaiming; and another more eloquent; but the particular under confideration, what conflitutes the happy man, will be equal in all. I know not whether your Etna will fink and be confumed; or whether the fire by degrees will first eat away its lofty summit, now fo confpicuous many leagues at fsea: but this I know, that no flame, no ruin can ever fubdue virtue. The majesty of this alone is not to be depreffed, no nor exalted nor perverted. Her magnitude is fixed like that of the heavenly bodies. To this then let us fashion ourselves; we have gone a great way towards it already; a great way, did I fay? I am miftaken. To confefs the truth, we have advanced but a little way as yet; It is not goodnefs, to be better than the worst: who can boast of those eyes, that can behold and admire the brightness of the fun only through a cloud; though in the mean time it is fome fatisfaction not to be in the dark; yet we enjoy not the pure benefit of light. Then will the mind have wherewithal to congratulate itfelf, when, fet free from the darkness wherein it is now involved, it fhall fee things as they are; not with these dim visual rays: but a full and continual day, without night, fhall fhine upon it; and, returning to its own heaven, it fhall be restored to the happy manfion, from whence it came into the world. Its firft original fummons is to foar aloft; it may be there even before it is fet free from this prifon of clay; when it has thrown off all vice, and fhines out pure and fplendid with the brightness of divine contemplation.

This then, dearest Lucilius, is what we muft do. To accomplish this we must use our utmost endeavours: though few men know it and fcarce any can fee it. Glory is the fhadow of virtue; and E 2

attends

attends on its profeffors whether they will or not. But as fometimes our fhadows go before, and fometimes follow us: fo glory fometimes precedes, and is visible to all; at other times it stalks behind us, and is fo much the larger, as it is later, ere envy is quite destroy'd. How long was Democritus taken for a madman? Fame fcarce took any notice of Socrates. How long was it ere Rome knew the value of Cato? She even rejected him and knew him not, till she had loft him. The innocence and virtue of Rutilius, had never been known, had he not been treated injuriously; but having been wronged, his glory fhone out; and he could not but thank his fortune, and enjoy his banishment. I am speaking of thofe, whom fortune honoured, while fhe perfecuted them. But how many are there, whofe merit was never published, till after their decease! how many, whom fame paffed difrefpectfully by, while living, and raised them, as it were, again, when dead! you fee Epicurus, whom not only the better learned, but the most ignorant rabble now admire. He was fcarce known at Athens, where he lived and died in obfcurity. He survived his friend Metrodorus many years, and making grateful mention, in an Epistle, of their friendship, he added in the conclufion, that as they had happily partook of manifold bleffings in life, it was of very little confequence, that fo renowned a country as Greece, should not only pretend not to know them, but scarce ever to have heard of them. May he not therefore be faid to have been found when he was no more in being? and did not his opinion and reputation ftill grow more famous? this is also what Metrodorus confeffeth in a certain epistle, that himfelf and Epicurus were not indeed as yet fufficiently known, but that the time would come when they both should be readily and highly extolled among thofe efpecially who would walk in the fame fteps.

No virtue can lie unconcealed long: and even to lie concealed is no detriment thereto. The day will come that fhall draw it from the obfcurity, wherein through the malignity of the age it is hid and oppreffed. He is born but to few, whofe thoughts are taken up with those only of his own time. Many thousand years, many thousand people fhall come after us. Let these have your regard. Though envy hath enjoyed filence to all your cotemporaries, another race will spring up,

that

that shall judge you without prejudice or partiality. And if fame be
any recompence for virtue, it will not foon die. Tis' true, what pof-
terity will say of us, will not concern, or perhaps reach us.
Yet igno-
rant as we may be of what they are doing, it may please them to re-
verence our memory, and do us honour. Not that there is any man
whom virtue hath not recompenfed and dignified, in life as well as in
death; provided that he followed her with fincerity and integrity; that
he dreffed not up himself with a painted outfide; that he was still the
fame man, whether upon warning given, or set upon unprepared, and
suddenly surprised. Diffimulation profiteth nothing, A feigned coun-
tenance occafionally and lightly put on, can impose upon but very few.
Truth is always the fame; turn her which way you will. But there
is no folidity in falfehood. A lye is generally fo thin, that it is tranf-
parent, and easily seen through, when narrowly inspected.

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(a) According to Salluft-Ea (abforpta) circa Tauromenitanum litus egerit. Vid. Strabo, I. vi. Dextrum Sylla fatus, lævu implacata Charybdis

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Obfidet, &c. Virg. iii. 420.

Far on the right, her dogs foul Sylla hides,

Charybdis roaring on the left prefides:

And in her greedy whirlpool finks the tides:

Then Spouts them from below, with fury driv❜n,

The waves mount up, and wash the face of Heav'n s
But Sylla from her den, with open jaws,

The finking veel in her eddy draws,

Then dashes on the rocks:Dryden.

(6) Ælian. Var. Hift. 1. f. c. ii.

(c) Plin. l. iv. c. 27.

EPISTLE,

EPISTLE LXXX.

True Felicity lies in the Mind.

I Am entirely my own master to-day, Lucilius, not only at my own re

queft, but a great match at ball (a), hath withdrawn all troublesome vifitants. No one breaks in upon me to disturb my thoughts: which from this affurance now take a larger range. My door has not creaked as ufual; nor has the curtain been lifted up. I can now think as I please; which you know is agreeable to one who loves to have his own way. Do I then not follow the ancients? yes certainly, in fome things; but I take the liberty to find out something myself; to change or leave what I dislike; I am not a flave to them, but a follower. But I faid too much when I promised myself an uninterrupted privacy. For lo; a great noife reaches me from the Stadium, which does not indeed take me from myself, but transfers all my contemplation to the sports there going on. I confider with myself, how many there are who exercise their bodies and how few the mind: what a concourse of people flock to these fights, vain and trifling as they are; and how deferted are the liberal sciences; how weak they are in understanding, whofe broad shoulders and brawny limbs we are apt to admire.

But this I chiefly reflect upon, that if the body may be trained up to fuch hardiness as to bear the blows and kicks of more than one man (b); and a man, besmeared with his own blood and duft, can endure all the day long the fcorching heat of the fun (c), as reflected too from the hot fands; how much eafier would it be for him fo to ftrengthen his mind, as to be invincible against the strokes of fortune; and though flung down and trod upon, to be able to raise himself up again, and conquer! The body wants many external things, to render it firm and strong: the mind grows great of itfelf; is its own nutriture, and exercife: the body ats meat and drink to fupport it; much oyl to make it lightfome;

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and much labour to make it hardy; whereas virtue is attainable without What can make you good, is ever in your,

any apparatus or expence.

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And what can you will better, than to deliver yourself from the fervitude, which tyranniseth over the world: and which even slaves of the meanest fort, and who were born to this vile condition, endeavour by

all means to caft off? All the little stock of cattle which they can pick pecuiium up, by pinching their own bellies they are ready to give up, for liberty.

And will not you, who thinkest thyself a free-born man, defire this attainment at any rate? why do you caft a look upon your coffers? it is. not to be bought. It is an idle thing therefore to fet the name of liberty in the tables of manumiffion; fince neither the buyer nor the feller are in poffeffion of it. It is a good which you must bestow upon yourself, there apply for it. And first of all extricate yourself from the Fear of Death. This is what lays upon us the first and heavieft. yoke (d).

Proceed next to discharge the Fear of Poverty. If you would be
certain that there is no great harm in this, only compare
only compare the counte-
nances of the rich and the poor: and you will find that the poor man,
laughs more frequently and more heartily. No anxiety racks his bofom:
whatever befalleth him, it paffeth away like a light cloud. Whereas:
the gayety of those we call happy, is all feigned. Sorrow lies heavy
and fuppurates at the bottom; and fo much the heavier is it, as they
cannot give it vent, and dare not difcover their wretchednefs; but
amidst the forrows that are preying upon their hearts, they are obliged
to fet a face of felicity upon difcontent. I often make ufe of this ex-
ample, nor can any other fo well exprefs this farce on the flage of life
(e), wherein are affigned to us our feveral parts, which we act fo auk-
wardly (f). The fellow who ftruts about the flage, and with his head
aloft bellows out,

En! impero Argis, regna mihi liquit Pelops,
Quâ Ponto ab Helles, atque ab Ionio mari,
Urgetur Ifthmos-(g)

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