a heart, a tongue, a hand, at all distances. When friends see one another personally, they do not see one another as they do when they are divided, where the meditation dignifies the prospect; but they are effectually in a great measure absent even when they are present.
Consider their nights apart, their private studies, their separate employments, and necessary visits; and they are almost as much together divided as present. True friends are the whole world to one another; and he that is a friend to himself is also a friend to mankind. Even in my very studies, the greatest delight I take in what I learn is the teaching of it to others; for there is no relish, methinks, in the possession of anything without a partner; nay, if wisdom itself were offered me upon condition only of keeping it to myself, I should undoubtedly refuse it.
Lucilius tells me, that he was written to by a friend, but cautions me withal not to say anything to him of the affair in question; for he himself stands upon the same guard. What is this but to affirm and to deny the same thing in the same breath, in calling a man a friend, whom we dare not trust as our own soul? For there must be no reserves in friendship: as much deliberation as you please before the league is struck, but no doubtings or jealousies after. It is a preposterous weakness to love a man before we know him, and not to care for him after. It requires time to consider of a friendship, but the resolution once taken, entitles him to my very heart. I look upon my thoughts to be as safe in his breast as in my own: I shall, without any scruple, make him the confidant of my most secret cares and counsels.
It goes a great way toward the making of a man faithful, to let him understand that you think him so: and he that does but so much as suspect that I will deceive him gives me a kind of right to cozen him.
When I am with my friend, methinks I am alone, and as much at liberty to speak anything as to think it, and as our hearts are one, so must be our interest and convenience; for friendship lays all things in common, and nothing can be good to the one that is ill to the other. I do not speak of such a community as to destroy one another’s propriety; but as the father and the mother have two children, not one apiece, but each of them two.
But let us have a care, above all things, that our kindness be rightfully founded; for where there is any other invitation to friendship than the friendship itself, that friendship will be bought and sold. He derogates upon the majesty of it that makes it only dependent upon good fortune. It is a narrow consideration for a man to please himself in the thought of a friend, “because,” says he, “I shall have one to help me when I am sick, in prison, or in want.” A brave man should rather take delight in the contemplation of doing the same offices for another. He that loves a man for his own sake is in an error. A friendship of interest cannot last any longer than the interest itself, and this is the reason that men in prosperity are so much followed, and when a man goes down the wind, nobody comes near him.
Temporary friends will never stand the test. One man is forsaken for fear of profit, another is betrayed. It is a negotiation, not a friendship, that has an eye to advantages; only, through the corruption of times, that which was formerly a friendship is now become a design upon a booty: alter your testament, and you lose your friend. But my end of friendship is to have one dearer to me than myself, and for the saving of whose life I would cheerfully lay down my own; taking this along with me, that only wise men can be friends, others are but companions; and that there is a great difference also betwixt love and friendship; the one may sometimes do us hurt, the other always does us good, for the one friend is hopeful to another in all cases, as well in prosperity as in affliction. We receive comfort, even at a distance, from those we love, but then it is light and faint; whereas, presence and conversation touch us to the quick, especially if we find the man we love to be such a person as we wish.
It is usual with princes to reproach the living by commending the dead, and to praise those people for speaking truth from whom there is no longer any danger of hearing it. This is Augustus’s case: he was forced to banish his daughter Julia for her common and prostituted impudence; and still upon fresh informations, he was often heard to say, “If Agrippa or Mecenas had been now alive, this would never have been.” But yet where the fault lay may be a question; for perchance it was his own, that had rather complain for the want of them than seek for others as good. The Roman losses by war and by fire, Augustus could quickly supply and repair; but for the loss of two friends he lamented his whole life after.
Xerxes, (a vain and a foolish prince) when he made war upon Greece, one told him, “It would never come to a battle”;another, “That he would find only empty cities and countries, for they would not so much as stand the very fame of his coming;” others soothed him in the opinion of his _prodigious numbers_; and they all concurred to puff him up to his destruction; only Damaratus advised him not to depend too much upon his numbers, for he would rather find them a burden to him than an advantage: and that three hundred men in the straits of the mountains would be sufficient to give a check to his whole army; and that such an accident would undoubtedly turn his vast numbers to his confusion. It fell out afterward as he foretold, and he had thanks for his fidelity.
A miserable prince, that among so many thousand subjects had but one servant to tell him the truth!
CHAPTER XIX.
HE THAT WOULD BE HAPPY MUST TAKE AN ACCOUNT OF HIS TIME.
In the distribution of human life, we find that a great part of it passes away in _evil doing_; a greater yet in doing just _nothing at all_: and effectually the whole in doing things _beside our business_.
Some hours we bestow upon ceremony and servile attendances; some upon our pleasures, and the remainder runs at waste. What a deal of time is it that we spend in hopes and fears, love and revenge, in balls, treats, making of interests, suing for offices, soliciting of causes, and slavish flatteries! The shortness of life, I know, is the common complaint both of fools and philosophers; as if the time we have were not sufficient for our duties. But it is with our lives as with our estates, a good husband makes a little go a great way; whereas, let the revenue of a prince fall into the hands of a prodigal, it is gone in a moment. So that the time allotted us, if it were well employed, were abundantly enough to answer all the ends and purposes of mankind.
But we squander it away in avarice, drink, sleep, luxury, ambition, fawning addresses, envy, rambling, voyages, impertinent studies, change of counsels, and the like; and when our portion is spent, we find the want of it, though we gave no heed to it in the passage: insomuch, that we have rather _made_ our life short than _found_ it so. You shall have some people perpetually playing with their fingers, whistling, humming, and talking to themselves; and others consume their days in the composing, hearing, or reciting of songs and lampoons. How many precious morning hours do we spend in consultation with barbers, tailors, and tire-women, patching and painting betwixt the comb and the glass! A council must be called upon every hair we cut; and one curl amiss is as much as a body’s life is worth. The truth is, we are more solicitous about our dress than our manners, and about the order of our periwigs than that of the government. At this rate, let us but discount, out of a life of a hundred years, that time which has been spent upon popular negotiations, frivolous amours, domestic brawls, sauntering up and down to no purpose, diseases that we have brought upon ourselves, and this large extent of life will not amount perhaps to the minority of another man. It is a _long being_, but perchance a _short life_. And what is the reason of all this? We live as we should never die, and without any thought of human frailty, when yet the very moment we bestow upon this man or thing, may, peradventure, be our last. But the greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our own power; we look forward to that which depends upon Fortune; and so quit a certainty for an uncertainty. We should do by time as we do by a torrent, make use of it while we have it, for it will not last always.
The calamities of human nature may be divided into the _fear of death_, and the _miseries and errors of life_. And it is the great work of mankind to master the one, and to rectify the other; and so live as neither to make life irksome to us, nor death terrible. It should be our care, before we are old, to live well, and when we are so, to die well; that we may expect our end without sadness: for it is the duty of life to prepare ourselves for death; and there is not an hour we live that does not mind us of our mortality.
Time runs on, and all things have their fate, though it lies in the dark. The period is certain to nature, but what am I the better for it if it be not so to me? We propound travels, arms, adventures, without ever considering that death lies in the way. Our term is set, and none of us know how near it is; but we are all of us agreed that the decree is unchangeable. Why should we wonder to have that befall us to-day which might have happened to us any minute since we were born?
Let us therefore live as if every moment were to be our last, and set our accounts right every day that passes over our heads. We are not ready for death, and therefore we fear it, because we do not know what will become of us when we are gone, and that consideration strikes us with an inexplicable terror. The way to avoid this distraction is to contract our business and our thoughts—when the mind is once settled, a day or an age is all one to us; and the series of time, which is now our trouble will be then our delight; for he that is steadily resolved against all uncertainties, shall never be disturbed with the variety of them. Let us make haste, therefore, to live, since every day to a wise man is a new life—for he has done his business the day before, and so prepared himself for the next, that if it be not his last, he knows yet that it might have been so. No man enjoys the true taste of life but he that is willing and ready to quit it.
The wit of man is not able to express the blindness of human folly in taking so much more care of our fortunes, our houses, and our money, than we do of our lives—everybody breaks in upon the one _gratis_, but we betake ourselves to fire and sword if any man invades the other.
There is no dividing in the case of patrimony, but people share our time with us at pleasure, so profuse are we of that only thing whereof we may be honestly covetous. It is a common practice to ask an hour or two of a friend for such or such a business, and it is as easily granted, both parties only considering the occasion, and not the thing itself. They never put time to account, which is the most valuable of all precious things; but because they do not see it they reckon upon it as nothing: and yet these easy men when they come to die would give the whole world for those hours again which they so inconsiderately cast away before; but there is no recovering of them. If they could number their days that are yet to come as they can those that are already past, how would those very people tremble at the apprehension of death, though a hundred years hence, that never so much as think of it at present, though they know not but it may take them away the next immediate minute!
It is an usual saying “I would give my life for such or such a friend,” when, at the same time, we do give it without so much as thinking of it; nay, when that friend is never the better for it, and we ourselves the worse. Our time is set, and day and night we travel on.
There is no baiting by the way, and it is not in the power of either prince or people to prolong it. Such is the love of life, that even those decrepit dotards that have lost the use of it will yet beg the continuance of it, and make themselves younger than they are, as if they could cozen even Fate itself! When they fall sick, what promises of amendment if they escape that bout! What exclamations against the folly of their misspent time—and yet if they recover, they relapse. No man takes care to live well, but long; when yet it is in everybody’s power to do the former, and in no man’s to do the latter. We consume our lives in providing the very instruments of life, and govern ourselves still with a regard to the future, so that we do not properly live, but we are about to live. How great a shame is it to be laying new foundations of life at our last gasp, and for an old man (that can only prove his age by his beard,) with one foot in the grave, to go to school again! While we are young we may learn; our minds are tractable and our bodies fit for labor and study; but when age comes on, we are seized with languor and sloth, afflicted with diseases, and at last we leave the world as ignorant as we came into it—only we _die_ worse than we were _born_, which is none of Nature’s fault, but ours; for our fears, suspicions, perfidy, etc., are from ourselves.
I wish with all my soul that I had thought of my end sooner, but I must make the more haste now and spur on like those that set out late upon a journey—it will be better to learn late than not at all—though it be but only to instruct me how I may leave the stage with honor.
In the division of life, there is time _present_, _past_, and _to come_. What we _do_ is _short_, what we _shall do_ is _doubtful_, but what we _have done_ is _certain_, and out of the power of fortune. The passage of time is wonderfully quick, and a man must look backward to see it; and, in that retrospect, he has all past ages at a view; but the present gives us the slip unperceived. It is but a moment that we live, and yet we are dividing it into _childhood_, _youth_, _man’s estate_, and _old age_, all which degrees we bring into that narrow compass. If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are to come. The purest part of our life runs first, and leaves only the dregs at the bottom; and “that time which is good for nothing else, we dedicate to virtue;” and only propound to begin to live at an age that very few people arrive at. What greater folly can there be in the world than this loss of time, the future being so uncertain, and the damages so irreparable? If death be necessary, why should any man fear it? and if the time of it be uncertain, why should not we always expect it? We should therefore first prepare ourselves by a virtuous life against the dread of an inevitable death; and it is not for us to put off being good until such or such a business is over, for one business draws on another, and we do as good as sow it, one grain produces more. It is not enough to philosophize when we have nothing else to do, but we must attend wisdom even to the neglect of all things else; for we are so far from having time to spare, that the age of the world would be yet too narrow for our business; nor is it sufficient not to omit it, but we must not so much as intermit it.
There is nothing that we can properly call our own but our time, and yet every body fools us out of it that has a mind to it. If a man borrows a paltry sum of money, there must be bonds and securities, and every common civility is charged upon account; but he that has my time, thinks he owes me nothing for it, though it be a debt that gratitude itself can never repay. I cannot call any man poor that has enough still left, be it never so little: it is good advice yet to those that have the world before them, to play the good husbands betimes, for it is too late to spare at the bottom, when all is drawn out to the lees.
He that takes away a day from me, takes away what he can never restore me. But our time is either _forced away_ from us, or _stolen_ from us, or _lost_; of which the last is the foulest miscarriage. It is in life as in a journey; a book or a companion brings us to our lodging before we thought we were half-way. Upon the whole matter we consume ourselves one upon another, without any regard at all to our own particular. I do not speak of such as live in notorious scandal, but even those men themselves, whom the world pronounces happy, are smothered in their felicities, servants to their professions and clients, and drowned in their lusts. We are apt to complain of the haughtiness of _great men_, when yet there is hardly any of them all so proud but that, at some time or other, a man may yet have access to him, and perhaps a good word or look into the bargain. Why do we not rather complain of _ourselves_, for being of all others, even to ourselves, the most deaf and inaccessible.
Company and business are great devourers of time, and our vices destroy our lives as well as our fortunes. The present is but a moment, and perpetually in flux; the time past, we call to mind when we please, and it will abide the examination and inspection. But the busy man has not leisure to look back, or if he has, it is an unpleasant thing to reflect upon a life to be repented of, whereas the conscience of a good life puts a man into a secure and perpetual possession of a felicity never to be disturbed or taken away: but he that has led a wicked life is afraid of his own memory; and, in the review of himself, he finds only appetite, avarice, or ambition, instead of virtue. But still he that is not at leisure many times to live, must, when his fate comes, whether he will or not, be at leisure to die. Alas! what is time to eternity? the age of a man to the age of the world? And how much of this little do we spend in fears, anxieties, tears, childhood! nay, we sleep away the one half. How great a part of it runs away in luxury and excess: the ranging of our guests, our servants, and our dishes!
As if we were to eat and drink not for satiety, but ambition. The nights may well seem short that are so dear bought, and bestowed upon wine and women; the day is lost in expectation of the night, and the night in the apprehension of the morning. There is a terror in our very pleasures; and this vexatious thought in the very height of them, that _they will not last always_: which is a canker in the delights, even of the greatest and the most fortunate of men.
CHAPTER XX.
HAPPY IS THE MAN THAT MAY CHOOSE HIS OWN BUSINESS.
Oh the blessings of privacy and leisure! The wish of the powerful and eminent, but the privilege only of inferiors; who are the only people that live to themselves: nay, the very thought and hope of it is a consolation, even in the middle of all the tumults and hazards that attend greatness. It was Augustus’ prayer, that he might live to retire and deliver himself from public business: his discourses were still pointing that way, and the highest felicity which this mighty prince had in prospect, was the divesting himself of that illustrious state, which, how glorious soever in show, had at the bottom of it only anxiety and care. But it is one thing to retire for pleasure, and another thing for virtue, which must be active even in that retreat, and give proof of what it has learned: for a good and a wise man does in privacy consult the well-being of posterity. Zeno and Chrysippus did greater things in their studies than if they had led armies, borne offices, or given laws; which in truth they did, not to one city alone, but to all mankind: their _quiet_ contributed more to the common benefit than the _sweat_ and _labor_ of other people. That retreat is not worth the while which does not afford a man greater and nobler work than business. There is no slavish attendance upon great officers, no canvassing for places, no making of parties, no disappointments in my pretension to this charge, to that regiment, or to such or such a title, no envy of any man’s favor or fortune; but a calm enjoyment of the general bounties of Providence in company with a good conscience.
A wise man is never so busy as in the solitary contemplation of God and the works of Nature. He withdraws himself to attend the service of future ages: and those counsels which he finds salutary to himself, he commits to writing for the good of after-times, as we do the receipts of sovereign antidotes or balsams. He that is well employed in his study, though he may seem to do nothing at all, does the greatest things yet of all others, in affairs both human and divine. To supply a friend with a sum of money, or give my voice for an office, these are only private and particular obligations: but he that lays down precepts for the governing of our lives and the moderating of our passions, obliges human nature not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.
He that would be at quiet, let him repair to his philosophy, a study that has credit with all sorts of men. The eloquence of the bar, or whatsoever else addresses to the people, is never without enemies; but philosophy minds its own business, and even the worst have an esteem for it. There can never be such a conspiracy against virtue, the world can never be so wicked, but the very name of a _philosopher_ shall still continue venerable and sacred. And yet philosophy itself must be handled modestly and with caution. But what shall we say of Cato then, for his meddling in the broil of a civil war, and interposing himself in the quarrel betwixt two enraged princes? He that, when Rome was split into _two factions_ betwixt Pompey and Cæsar, declared himself against _both_. I speak this of Cato’s last part; for in his former time the commonwealth was made unfit for a wise man’s administration.
All he could do then was but bawling and beating of the air: one while he was lugged and tumbled by the rabble, spit upon and dragged out of the _forum_, and then again hurried out of the senate-house to prison.
There are some things which we propound originally, and others which fall in as accessory to another proposition. If a wise man retire, it is no matter whether he does it because the commonwealth was wanting to him, or because he was wanting to it. But to what republic shall a man betake himself? Not to Athens, where Socrates was condemned, and whence Aristotle fled, for fear he should have been condemned too, and where virtue was oppressed by envy: not to Carthage, where there was nothing but tyranny, injustice, cruelty, and ingratitude. There is scarce any government to be found that will either endure a wise man, or which a wise man will endure; so that privacy is made necessary, because the only thing which is better is nowhere to be had. A man may commend navigation, and yet caution us against those seas that are troublesome and dangerous: so that he does as good as command me not to weigh anchor that commends sailing only upon these terms. He that is a slave to business is the most wretched of slaves.
“But how shall I get myself at liberty? We can run any hazards for money: take any pains for honor; and why do we not venture also something for leisure and freedom? without which we must expect to live and die in a tumult: for so long as we live in public, business breaks in upon us, as one billow drives on another; and there is no avoiding it with either modesty or quiet.” It is a kind of whirlpool, that sucks a man in, and he can never disengage himself. A man of business cannot in truth be said to live, and not one of a thousand understands how to do it: for how to live, and how to die, is the lesson of every moment of our lives: all other arts have their masters.
As a busy life is always a miserable life, so it is the greatest of all miseries to be perpetually employed upon _other people’s business_; for to sleep, to eat, to drink, at their hour; to walk their pace, and to love and hate as they do, is the vilest of servitudes. Now, though business must be quitted, let it not be done unseasonably; the longer we defer it, the more we endanger our liberty; and yet we must no more fly before the time than linger when the time comes: or, however, we must not love business for business’ sake, nor indeed do we, but for the profit that goes along with it: for we love the reward of misery, though we hate the misery itself. Many people, I know, seek business without choosing it, and they are even weary of their lives without it for want of entertainment in their own thoughts; the hours are long and hateful to them when they are alone, and they seem as short on the other side in their debauches. When they are no longer _candidates_, they are _suffragans_; when they give over other people’s business, they do their own; and pretend business, but they make it, and value themselves upon being thought men of employment.
Liberty is the thing which they are perpetually a-wishing, and never come to obtain: a thing never to be bought nor sold, but a man must ask it of himself, and give it to himself. He that has given proof of his virtue in public, should do well to make a trial of it in private also. It is not that solitude, or a country life, teaches innocence or frugality; but vice falls of itself, without witnesses and spectators, for the thing it designs is to be taken notice of. Did ever any man put on rich clothes not to be seen? or spread the pomp of his luxury where nobody was to take notice of it? If it were not for admirers and spectators there would be no temptations to excess: the very keeping of us from exposing them cures us of desiring them, for vanity and intemperance are fed with ostentation.
He that has lived at sea in a storm, let him retire and die in the haven; but let his retreat be without ostentation, and wherein he may enjoy himself with a good conscience, without the want, the fear, the hatred, or the desire, of anything, not out of malevolent detestation of mankind, but for satisfaction and repose. He that shuns both business and men, either out of envy, or any other discontent, his retreat is but to the life of a mole: nor does he live to himself, as a wise man does, but to his bed, his belly, and his lusts. Many people seem to retire out of a weariness of public affairs, and the trouble of disappointments; and yet ambition finds them out even in that recess into which fear and weariness had cast them; and so does luxury, pride, and most of the distempers of a public life.
There are many that lie close, not that they may live securely, but that they may transgress more privately: it is their conscience, not their states, that makes them keep a porter; for they live at such a rate, that to be seen before they be aware is to be detected. Crates saw a young man walking by himself; “Have a care,” says he “of lewd company.” Some men are busy in idleness, and make peace more laborious and troublesome than war; nay, and more wicked too, when they bestow it upon such lusts, and other vices, which even the license of a military life would not endure. We cannot call these people men of leisure that are wholly taken up with their pleasures. A troublesome life is much to be preferred before a slothful one; and it is a strange thing, methinks, that any man should fear death that has buried himself alive; as privacy without letters is but the burying of a man quick.
There are some that make a boast of their retreat, which is but a kind of lazy ambition; they retire to make people talk of them, whereas I would rather withdraw to speak to myself. And what shall that be, but that which we are apt to speak of one another? I will speak ill of myself: I will examine, accuse, and punish my infirmities. I have no design to be cried up for a great man, that has renounced the world in a contempt of the vanity and madness of human life; I blame nobody but myself, and I address only to myself. He that comes to me for help is mistaken, for I am not a physician, but a patient: and I shall be well enough content to have it said, when any man leaves me, “I took him for a happy and a learned man, and truly I find no such matter.” I had rather have my retreat pardoned than envied.
There are some creatures that confound their footing about their dens, that they may not be found out, and so should a wise man in the case of his retirement. When the door is open, the thief passes it by as not worth his while; but when it is bolted and sealed, it is a temptation for people to be prying. To have it said “that such a one is never out of his study, and sees nobody,” etc.; this furnishes matter for discourse. He that makes his retirement too strict and severe, does as good as call company to take notice of it.
Every man knows his own constitution; one eases his stomach by vomit—another supports it with good nourishment; he that has the gout forbears wine and bathing, and every man applies to the part that is most infirm. He that shows a gouty foot, a lame hand, or contracted nerves, shall be permitted to lie still and attend his cure; and why not so in the vices of his mind! We must discharge all impediments and make way for philosophy, as a study inconsistent with common business.
To all other things we must deny ourselves openly and frankly, when we are sick refuse visits, keep ourselves close, and lay aside all public cares, and shall we not do as much when we philosophize? Business is the drudgery of the world, and only fit for slaves, but contemplation is the work of wise men. Not but that solitude and company may be allowed to take their turns: the one creates in us the love of mankind, the other that of ourselves; solitude relieves us when we are sick of company, and conversation when we are weary of being alone; so that the one cures the other. “There is no man,” in fine, “so miserable as he that is at a loss how to spend his time.” He is restless in his thoughts, unsteady in his counsels, dissatisfied with the present, solicitous for the future; whereas he that prudently computes his hours and his business, does not only fortify himself against the common accidents of life, but improves the most rigorous dispensations of Providence to his comfort, and stands firm under all the trials of human weakness.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH MAKES ALL THE MISERIES OF LIFE EASY TO US.
It is a hard task to master the natural desire of life by a philosophical contempt of death, and to convince the world that there is no hurt in it, and crush an opinion that was brought up with us from our cradles. What help? what encouragement? what shall we say to human frailty, to carry it fearless through the fury of flames, and upon the points of swords? what rhetoric shall we use to bear down the universal consent of people to so dangerous an error? The captious and superfine subtleties of the schools will never do the work: these speak many things sharp, but utterly unnecessary, and void of effect. The truth of it is, there is but one chain that holds all the world in bondage, and that is the love of life. It is not that I propound the making of death so indifferent to us, as it is, whether a man’s hairs be even or odd; for what with self-love, and an implanted desire in every being of preserving itself, and a long acquaintance betwixt the soul and body, friends may be loth to part, and death may carry an appearance of evil, though in truth it is itself no evil at all. Beside, that we are to go to a strange place in the dark, and under great uncertainties of our future state; so that people die in terror, because they do not know whither they are to go, and they are apt to fancy the worst of what they do not understand: these thoughts are indeed sufficient to startle a man of great resolution without a wonderful support from above. And, moreover, our natural scruples and infirmities are assisted by the wits and fancies of all ages, in their infamous and horrid description of another world: nay, taking it for granted that there will be no reward and punishment, they are yet more afraid of an annihilation than of hell itself.
But what is it we fear? “Oh! it is a terrible thing to die.” Well; and is it not better once to suffer it, than always to fear it? The earth itself suffers both _with_ me, and _before_ me. How many islands are swallowed up in the sea! how many towns do we sail over! nay, how many nations are wholly lost, either by inundations or earthquakes!
and shall I be afraid of my little body? why should I, that am sure to die, and that all other things are mortal, be fearful of coming to my last gasp myself? It is the fear of death that makes us base, and troubles and destroys the life we would preserve; that aggravates all circumstances, and makes them formidable. We depend but upon a flying moment. Die we must; but when? what is that to us? It is the law of Nature, the tribute of mortals, and the remedy of all evils. It is only the disguise that affrights us; as children that are terrified with a vizor. Take away the instruments of death, the fire, the ax, the guards, the executioners, the whips, and the racks; take away the pomp, I say, and the circumstances that accompany it, and death is no more than what my slave yesterday contemned; the pain is nothing to a fit of the stone; if it be tolerable, it is not great; and if intolerable, it cannot last long. There is nothing that Nature has made necessary which is more easy than death: we are longer a-coming into the world than going out of it; and there is not any minute of our lives wherein we may not reasonably expect it. Nay, it is but a moment’s work, the parting of the soul and body. What a shame is it then to stand in fear of anything so long that is over so soon!
Nor is it any great matter to overcome this fear; for we have examples as well of the _meanest_ of men as of the greatest that have done it.
There was a fellow to be exposed upon the theatre, who in disdain thrust a stick down his own throat, and choked himself; and another on the same occasion, pretended to nod upon the chariot, as if he were asleep, cast his head betwixt the spokes of the wheel, and kept his seat until his neck was broken. Caligula, upon a dispute with Canius Julius; “Do not flatter yourself,” says he, “for I have given orders to put you to death.” “I thank your most gracious Majesty for it,” says Canius, giving to understand, perhaps, that under his government death was a mercy: for he knew that Caligula seldom failed of being as good as his word in that case. He was at play when the officer carried him away to his execution, and beckoning to the centurion, “Pray,” says he, “will you bear me witness, when I am dead and gone, that I had the better of the game?” He was a man exceedingly beloved and lamented, and, for a farewell, after he had preached moderation to his friends;