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OF DEATH

EN fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations, there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole. body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philospher, and natural man, it was well said, "Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa." Groans and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity, which is the tenderest of affections, provoked many to die, out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety; "cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest." A man would die, though he were neither valiant, nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment; "Livia, conjugii nostri, memor vive, et vale." Tiberius in dissimulation; as Tacitus saith of him: "Fam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant." Vespasian in a jest; sitting upon the stool: "Ut puto, Deus fio." Galba with a sentence: "Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani,” holding forth his neck. Septimius

Severus in despatch: "Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum"; and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better saith he: " Qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponit naturæ." It is as natural to die, as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolors of death; but above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is "Nunc dimittis"; when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy. « Extinctus ama

bitur idem.»

Complete. From "Essays Civil and Moral.»

R

OF REVENGE

EVENGE is a kind of wild justice, which the more a mans nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over he is superior, for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith: "It is the glory of a man to pass by an offense." That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come: therefore they do but trifle with themselves that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy; but then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh: this is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to

be not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent; but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. "You shall read," saith he, "that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends." But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune: "Shall we," saith he, "take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also?" And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate: as that for the death of Cæsar; for the death of Pertinax; for the death of Henry III. of France, and many more. But in private revenges it is not so; nay, rather, vindictive persons live the life of witches, who as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.

Complete. From "Essays Civil and Moral.»

IT

OF ADVERSITY

T WAS a high speech of Seneca, after the manner of the Stoics, that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired: "Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia." Certainly if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, much too high for a heathen, "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a God." Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis securitatem Dei. This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed. And the poets, indeed, have been busy with it, for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian; that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus, by whom human nature is represented, sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean: the virtue of prosperity

is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearselike airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Complete. From "Essays Civil and Moral.»

D

OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION

ISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth and to do it. Therefore, it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith, Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband and dissimulation of her son; attributing arts or policy to Augustus and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius, he saith, We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius. These proper

ties of arts or policy, and dissimulation or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be distinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be showed at half-lights, and to whom and when, which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them, to him a habit of dissimulation is a hindrance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him, generally, to be close and a dissembler. For where a man

cannot choose, or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general; like the going softly by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing and a name of certainty and veracity; but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn: and at such times, when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good faith, and clearness of dealing made them almost invisible.

There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy, when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second, dissimulation in the negative, when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that he is. And a third, simulation in the affirmative, when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

For the first of these, secrecy; it is indeed the virtue of a confessor; and assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions; for who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? but if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery; as the more close air sucketh in the more open: and as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to knowledge of many things in that kind, while men rather discharge their minds than impart their minds. In a few words, mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides, to say truth, nakedness is uncomely as well in mind as body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. As for talkers and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh what he knoweth will also talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it down, that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral. And in this part it is good that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak. For the discovery of a man's self by the tracts of his countenance is a great weakness and betraying; by how much it is many times more marked and believed than man's words.

For the second, which is dissimulation; it followeth many times upon secrecy, by necessity: so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree. For men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and

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