of their life, and to break them off before the hour. 9. But death is a doleful messenger to a usurer, and fate untimely cuts their thread; for it is never mentioned by him, but when rumors of war and civil tumults put him in mind thereof. And when many hands are armed, and the peace of a city in disorder, and the foot of the common soldiers sounds an alarm on his stairs, then perhaps such a one (broken in thoughts of his moneys abroad, and cursing the monuments of coin which are in his house) can be content to think of death, and (being hasty of perdition) will perhaps hang himself, lest his throat should be cut; provided that may do it in his study, surrounded with wealth, to which his eye sends a faint and languishing salute, even upon the turning off; remembering always, that he have time and liberty, by writing, to depute himself as his own heir. he For that is a great peace to his end, and reconciles him wonderfully upon the point. 10. Herein we all dally with ourselves, and are without proof of necessity. I am not of those, that dare promise to pine away myself in vainglory, and I hold such to be but feat boldness, and them that dare commit it, to be vain. Yet, for my part, I think nature should do me great wrong, if I should be so long in dying, as I was in being born. To speak truth, no man knows the lists of his own patience, nor can divine how able he shall be in his sufferings, till the storm come, (the perfectest virtue being tried in action ;) but I would (out of a care to do the best business well) ever keep a guard, and stand upon keeping faith and a good con science 11. And if wishes might find place, I would die together, and not my mind often, and my body once; that is, I would prepare for the messengers of death, sickness, and affliction, and not wait long, or be attempted by the violence of pain. Herein I do not profess myself a Stoic, to hold grief no evil, but opinion, and a thing indifferent. But I consent with Cæsar, that the suddenest passage is easiest, and there is nothing more awakens our resolve and readiness to die than the quieted conscience, strengthened with opinion that we shall be well spoken of upon earth by those that are just, and of the family of virtue; the opposite whereof is a fury to man, and makes even life un sweet. Therefore, what is more heavy than evil fame deserved? Or, likewise, who can see worse days, than he that, yet living, doth follow at the funerals of his own reputation? I have laid up many hopes, that I am privileged from that kind of mourning, and could wish the like peace to all those with whom I wage love. 12. I might say much of the commodities that death can sell a man; but, briefly, death is a friend of ours, and he that is not ready to entertain him, is not at home. Whilst I am, my ambition is not to foreflow the tide; I have but so to make my interest of it as I may account for it; I would wish nothing but what might better my days, nor desire any greater place than the front of good opinion. I make not love to the continuance of days, but to the goodness of them; nor wish to die, but refer myself to my hour, which the great Dispenser of all things hath appointed me; yet, as I am frail, and suffered for the first fault, were it given me to choose, I should not be earnest to see the evening of my age; that extremity, of itself, being a dis ease, and a mere return into infancy: so that, if perpetuity of life might be given me, I should think what the Greek poet said: "Such an age is a mortal evil." And since I must needs be dead, I require it may not be done before mine enemies, that I be not stript before I be cold; but before my friends. The night is even now: but that name is lost; it is not now late, but early. Mine eyes begin to discharge their watch, and compound with this fleshly weakness for a time of perpetual rest; and I shall pres ently be as happy for a few hours, as I had died the first hour I was born. THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS A SERIES OF MYTHOLOGICAL FABLES. writ. PREFACE. THE earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion, excepting the remains we have of it in sacred l'his silence was succeeded by poetical fables, and these, at length, by the writings we now enjoy; so that the concealed and secret learning of the ancients seems separated from the history and knowledge of the following ages by a veil, or partition-wall of fables, interposing between the things that are lost and those that remain.2 Many may imagine that I am here entering upon a work of fancy, or amusement, and design to use a poet ical liberty, in explaining poetical fables. It is true, fables, in general, are composed of ductile matter, that may be drawn into great variety by a witty talent or an 'Most of these fables are contained in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Fasti, and are fully explained in Bohn's Classical Library translation. 2 Varro distributes the ages of the world into three periods; viz: the unknown, the fabulous, and the historical. Of the former, we have no accounts but in Scripture; for the second, we must consult the ancient poets, such as Hesiod, Homer, or those who wrote still earlier, and then again come back to Ovid, who, in his Metamorphoses, seems, in imitation perhaps of some ancient Greek poet, to have intended a complete collection, or a kind of continued and connected history of the fabulous age, especially with regard to changes, revolutions, or transforma |