but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy Vinum Dæmonum,1 because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos, then he breathed light into the face of man, and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests in the vale below, so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is

1 The allusion is to a passage either in Jerome (Epistle 146) or Augustine (Confessions, I, 16).

2 LUCRETIUS, De Rerum natura, II, 1-10.

heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business, it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like allay in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth is as much to say as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. 1 For a lie faces God and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men, it being foretold that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.

OF DEATH

MEN 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 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 1 Essays, II, 18.

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 philosopher and natural man it was well said: Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa.1 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 pre-occupateth 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 dis

2

1 It is the accompaniments of death that are frightful rather than death itself. SENECA, Epistles, 24.

2 ibid., 77.

3 Farewell, Livia, and forget not the days of our marriage.-SUETONIUS, Augustus, ch. 99.

4

simulation, as Tacitus saith of him, Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant;1 Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool, Ut puto Deus fio; 2 Galba with a sentence, Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani,3 holding forth his neck; Septimius Severus in dispatch, 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 ponat naturæ.5 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 dolours 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 amabitur idem.

OF ADVERSITY

It was an 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

1 His powers of body left Tiberius, not his dissimulation.-Annals, VI, 50.

2 I think I am becoming a God. SUETONIUS, Vespasian, ch. 23. 3 Strike, if it be for the good of Rome.-TACITUS, History, I, 41. 4 Make haste, if there is anything more for me to do.-DIO CASSIUS, LXXVI, 17.

5 Who accounts the close of life as one of the benefits of nature.JUVENAL, Satires, X, 358.

6 When he is dead the same man (who was envied when alive) shall be loved.-HORACE, Epistles, II, i, 14.

secundarum, optabilia; adversarum mirabilia.1 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.2 This would have done better in poesy, where transcendences 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 Salomon. 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, 1 Epistles, 56.

2 ibid., 53.