able, that I may grow old under it. Not that I am greatly affected in this matter: our prefent question is concerning our loss of a most excellent old man (o); for he truly may be said to be full of days, who defires no more should be added to his life, for his own fake, but for theirs to whom he may be serviceable. He acts generously in that he ftill lives. Some men would not so long have endured their pains, but he thinks it as fcandalous to fly to death as to fly from it. But fuppofing him otherwife perfuaded, fhall be not go? Why not; if he can be no longer of service to any one; if he can do nothing more than attend upon his pain? But this, my Lucilius, is to put philofophy into practice, and to be exercifed in the truth; to fhew how a prudent man can fortify his mind against death, and against pain, when either that approacheth, or this oppreffeth him. What is to be done, must be learned from the doer of it. Thus far then we have argued, whether it be poffible to resist pain; and whether death, how near foever, can make a great mind stoop and tremble. And what need is there of many words? The thing speaks itfelf. Let us obferve this, that neither death makes fuch a one more courageous and ftrong against pain, nor pain against death: he arms ́himself against both, and puts his confidence therein. Neither thro' hopes of death, does he more patiently endure pain; nor does the irkfomeness of pain make him die more willingly: he bears the one, and waits the other (p). Thofe indeed who have no internal refource of happinefs will find themselves uneafy in every stage of human life: but to him who is accustomed to derive all his felicity from within himself, no state will appear as a real evil into which we are conducted by the common and regular course of Nature. Melm. (a) See Ep. 23.—For every creature of God is good, and not to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. i. Tim. 44. (b) This is fpoken of Ripheus, a juft and good man, whofe hard fate Encas is lamenting; and thinking that he deferved much better, he checks himself with this excellent reflection, that it was the will of the Gods that he should fuffer with the reft. Cato, p. 8. "Vain men! how feldom do we know what to with, or pray for! When we pray against misfortunes, and when we fear them moft, we want them moft. It was for this reafon Pythagoras for bade bade his difciples to afk any thing particular of God; the fhorteft and the best prayer we can make to him, who knows our wants, and our ignorance in afking, is this, Thy will be done. Bolingbroke on Exi e. The Chriftian on the like occafion is taught and commanded, by our Lord himself to fay, O Father of Heaven, thy will be done. Matth. 6. 10, Luke, 11.2. (c) Ovid. Met. ix. 496.—Dii melius-The Gods forbid.--Sewell. (d) So the charge of our Lord to his Difciples, Be ye as wife as ferpents, and innocent as doves. Matth. 10. 16. (e) Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself: fufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matth. 6. 34. And St. Paul, I would have you without carefulness. i. Cor. 7. 32. (f) Obliti hujus petauri, quo humana jactantur. Pincian al. hujus peccati,-al. obliti fatis quo An magis oblectant animum jactata petauro Corpora-Mart. Ad numeros etiam ille ciet cognata per artem (g) Muret. obferves that Metrodoras borrowed this fentence from Euripidesάλβος. (b) Like the Christian charity, it never faileth. i. Cor. 13. 8. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Θνητῶν δὲ θνητὸς Or, like the word of God, Matth. 24. 25. (i) Fabricius was in the higheft veneration among the Romans, as a man of virtue, and a good foldier, but extremely poor. Being fent embaffador to Pyrrhus, Pyrrhus received him with great kindness, and pressed him in private to accept of a handfome prefent in gold, not to engage him in any thing difhonourable, but as a pledge of friendship and hofpitality. Fabricius however would not accept it upon any terms. See Plutarch. Life of Pyrrhus. (k) Elius Tubero, the very best of men, and who above all the Romans knew how to fupport his poverty with magnificence. Id. in the Life of Emilius. See Ep. 95. (1) See Ep. 59. (m) The nature of man as it now is cannot justly be fet up as a proper rule or standard of virtue, but muft itself be regulated by an higher caufe, by which we are to judge of its rectitude, and of its corruptions and defects; and therefore the ableft of the Stoics in judging of what is according. to nature, were for confidering the nature of man as in a conformity to the law of reafon and the nature of the whole. But this way of talking feems not well fitted to furnish us with clear notions; and only ferves to enhance our obligation to the Almighty for the further difcovery of his will in his holy word. (z) In order to which great end, it is neceffary we should ftand watchful as centinels, to difcover the fecret wiles and open attacks of this capricious goddefs, before they reach us. When she falls upon us unexpected, it is hard to refift, but those who wait for her will repel her with ease. "I learned this important leffon long ago, and never trusted to Fortune, even while fhe feemed' to be at peace with me. The riches, the honours, the reputation, and all the advantages which her treacherous treacherous indulgence poured upon me, I placed them fo that fhe might fnatch them away, but she could not fear them from me. No man fuffers by bad fortune, but he that hath been deceived by good.If we do not fuffer ourselves to be tranfported by profperity, neither fhall we be reduced by adverfity. Our fouls will be of proof against the dangers of both thefe ftates; and having explored our ftrength we fhall be fure of it. For in the midst of felicity, we fhall have tried how we can bear misfortune." Bolingbroke on Exile. (0) There being no mention made before of any perfon to whom these words are referable, Muret. concludes that this Epiftle is imperfect, (as certainly it is) and that much is wanting at the beginning. Lipfius thinks the fame; but makes a doubt whether the perfon here alluded to may not be the Marullus mentioned in the next Epistle. (2) Hunc fert, illam expectat] Whatever Seneca may have faid elsewhere feemingly in favour of fuicide, is fufficiently confuted by the example here recommended, which breathes the pure and found doctrine of Christianity. I HAVE fent you, Lucilius, the Epiftle I wrote to Marullus on the death of his young fon; for whom I was told he indulged an unmanly forrow; and therefore I have fwerved from my ufual ftyle as not thinking that he ought to be treated gently, when more worthy of reproof than confolation. To one indeed afflicted with a deeper wound than he knows how to bear, it is proper to give way a little: let him fatiate himself; at least let him give vent to the figh, and gushing tear : but let fuch as take upon them to weep at every trifling accident, be chaftifed, and taught to know, that even tears have their folly. --- Do you expect comfort? No: I fhall rather reprove you. Are you fo effeminately moved at the death of your fon; what would you have done if you had loft a friend? Your fon is departed, a child, an infant, in whom you could place no certain hope: nothing then is loft but a little time. We are too apt to feek occafions of forrow, and unjuftly to complain of Fortune; as if she would not give us, at fome time or other, just causes of complaint. Truly I thought your mind strong enough enough to fupport real afflictions, and confequently would defpife fuch shadows of evil, at which men grieve merely for custom fake (a). Had you even loft a friend, (which furely is the greatest of all loffes) you ought rather to rejoice in having had fuch a friend, than to mourn for having loft him. But few, alas! take any account of what courtefies they have received, or what favours they have formerly enjoyed. This evil then, among many other, attends upon forrow; it is not only fuperfluous, but ungrateful. And is it then all in vain, that you once had a friend? Is it nothing that you lived fo many years in ftrict amity; and a focial communication of improvements in ftudy? Haft thou buried friendship too with thy friend? Or, if he was not serviceable to you, while living, why fhould you grieve at having loft him? Believe me, great part of thofe whom we loved, though chance hath taken them from us, still remains with us. The time paffed is all our own; nor can any thing be more fafe and furely ours, than what hath been. But we are indeed ungrateful for what is past, through the hopes of what is to come; as if this too, were we to fucceed herein, would not foon come under the fame predicament. He fets too narrow bounds on the enjoyment of life, who only rejoiceth in the prefent. Both the things that are to come, and the things that are past have their endearments; the former from expectation, the latter from memory: but thofe are ftill depending, and may not happen, whereas these cannot but have been. madness is it therefore to forego that which is moft certain! acquiefce in those things which we have tasted; unless we entrusted them to fo leaky a bofom as tranfmits every thing that it receives. What Let us There are innumerable inftances of those who have loft their young children without a tear: who returned from the funeral rites to the fenate-house, or fome public office, and were taken up with their proper regards; and that wifely too: for, 1st, it is in vain to grieve where grief can do no good: 2dly, it is unjust to complain of that happening to one, which happens unto all; and, laftly, it is a folly to lament and mourn, when there is fo little difference between the perfon loft and VOL. II. E e the the friend that lofeth him. We ought therefore to be of a more equal and steady mind, because we must certainly follow thofe we have lost. It is Confider the celerity of moft rapid Time: think on the fhort race we fo fwiftly run: obferve the whole affembly of mankind, all going the fame way; and feparated by the fhorteft intervals, however long they feem. He whom we thought dead, is only gone before us: what then can be greater folly, than to bewail him who hath just stepped before you, when you yourfelf are travelling the fame road? ridiculous to mourn, that an accident hath happened, which a man could not but know must one day happen: or, he must be very ignorant indeed, and impofe upon himself, who knows not that man carries the feeds of death about him. It is to mourn a thing, which he allows could not be otherwise than as it is. Whoever complains at the death of any one, complains of his having been born. The fame conditions bind all men. Every one that is born muft die. We are diftinguished The space between I fay by fmall intervals, but are all equal in death. our first and our laft day is various and uncertain: if you confider the troubles of life; even the life of a boy is long: if the velocity of it, the life of an old man is fhort. There is nothing that is not uncertain, deceitful, and variable as the weather. All things are toffed to and fro, and are transferable to their contraries, at the command of fortune. And in fuch a rotation of human affairs, there is nothing certain, I fay, but death and yet all men complain of that in which alone no one is deceived. But I But he died a child! Perhaps it may be the better for him. am not as yet speaking of an early death. Let us confider the old man; and how little hath he exceeded the infant! Set before your view the ample round of Time; reflect upon the ages paft and to come; and then compare with Time's immenfity the space we call the age of man, fo fhall you fee how little a thing it is that we fo earneftly covet, and would fain extend. Confider likewife how much of this little is taken up with tears, with troubles, with the wifhing for death before it comes: how much is tortured with a bad state of health, and with fear; how |