THE DEATHS OF SOCRATES AND OF ARISTIDES. 166 them, while so many are dejected by them, erects on his very misfortunes a trophy to his honour; for such is the frame and temper of our minds, that nothing strikes us with greater admiration than a man intrepid in the midst of misfortunes. Of all ignominies an ignominious death must be allowed to be the greatest, and yet where is the blasphemer who will presume to defame the death of Socrates? (Sen. de Con. ad Hel.) This saint entered the prison with the same countenance with which he reduced thirty tyrants, and he took off ignominy from the place; for how could it be deemed a prison when Socrates was there? Aristides was led to execution in the same city; all those who met the sad procession cast their eyes to the ground, and with throbbing hearts bewailed, not the innocent man, but justice herself, who was in him condemned. Yet there was a wretch found, for monsters are sometimes produced in contradiction to the ordinary rules of nature, who spit in his face as he passed along. Aristides wiped his cheek, smiled, turned to the magistrate, and said, 'Admonish this man not to be so 'nasty for the future.' Ignominy then can take no hold on virtue (Sen. de Con. ad Hel.), for virtue is in every condition the same, and challenges the same respect. We applaud the world when she prospers; and when she falls into adversity we applaud her. Like the temples of the gods, she is venerable even in her ruins. After this must it not appear a degree of madness to defer one moment acquiring the only arms capable of defending us against attacks, which at every moment we are exposed to? Our being miserable or not miserable, when we fall into misfortunes, depends on the manner in which we have enjoyed prosperity If we have applied ourselves betimes to the study of wisdom and to the practice of virtue, these evils become indifferent; but if we have neglected to do so, they become necessary. In one case they are evils in the other they are remedies for greater evils than themselves. Zeno (Diog. Laer.) rejoiced that a shipwreck had thrown him on the Athenian coast, and he owed to the loss of his fortune the acquisition which he made of virtue, of wisdom, of immortality. There are good and bad airs for the mind as well as for the body. Prosperity often irritates our chronical distempers, and leaves no hopes of finding any specific but in adversity. In such cases banishment is like change of air, and the evils we suffer are like rough medicines applied to inveterate diseases. What Anacharsis (Seneca.) said of the vine may aptly enough be said of prosperity,-She bears the three grapes of drunkenness, of pleasure, and of sorrow, and happy it is if the last can cure the mischief which the former work. When afflictions fail to have their due effect, the case is desperate. They are the last remedy which indulgent Providence uses, and if they fail, we must languish and die in misery and contempt. Vain men! how seldom do we know what to wish or to pray for? When we pray against misfortunes, and when we fear them most, we want them most. It was for this reason that Pythagoras forbid his diciples to ask anything in particular of God. The best prayer which we can address to Him who knows our wants, and our ignorance in asking, is this, 'Thy will be done.' 6 Tully says, in some part of his works, that, as happiness is the object of all philosophy, so the disputes among philosophers arise from their different notions of the sovereign good. Reconcile them in that point, you reconcile them in the rest. The school of Zeno placed this sovereign good in naked virtue, and wound the principle up to an extreme beyond the pitch of nature and truth. A spirit of opposition to another doctrine, which grew into great vogue while Zeno flourished, might occasion this excess. Epicurus placed the sovereign good in pleasure. His terms were wilfully or accidentally mistaken. His scholars might help to pervert his doctrine, but rivalship inflamed the dispute; for in truth there is not so much difference between stoicism reduced to reasonable intelligible terms, and genuine orthodox epicurism, as is imagined. The 'fælicis animi immota tranquillitas,' and the ' voluptas' of the latter are near enough akin; and I much doubt whether the firmest hero of the Portic would have borne a fit of the stone on the principles of Zeno, with greater magnanimity and patience than Epicurus did on those of his own philosophy. However,' Aristotle took a middle way, or explained himself better, and placed happiness in the joint advantages of the mind, of the body, and of fortune. They are reasonably joined ; but certain it is, that they must not be placed on an equal foot. We can much better bear the privation of the last than of the others; and poverty itself, which mankind is so afraid of, 'per mare pauperiem fugens, per saxa, per ignes,' is surely preferable to madness or the stone, though Chrysippus 2 thought it better to live mad, than not to live! If banishment, therefore, by taking from us the advantages of fortune, cannot take from us the more valuable advantages of the mind and the body, when we have them; and if the same accident is able to restore them to us, when we have lost them, banishment is a very slight misfortune to those who are already under the dominion of reason, and a very great blessing to those who are still plunged in vices which ruin the health both of body and mind. It is to be wished for, in favour of such as these, and to be feared by none. If we are in this case, let us second the designs of Providence in our favour, and make some amends for neglecting former opportunities by not letting slip the last. 'Si nolis sanus, · curres hydropicus.' We may shorten the evils which we might have prevented, and as we get the better of our disorderly passions, and 1 Compare the representations made so frequently of the doctrine of volupty taught by Epicurus, with the account which he himself gives in his letter to Menoeceus, of the sense wherein he understood this word. Vid. DIOG. LAer. ? In his third book of nature, cited by Plutarch, in the treatise on the contradictions of the Stoics. 168 ALL THE APPROACHES TO VIRTUE ARE COMFORTABLE. vicious habits, we shall feel our anxiety diminish in proportion. All the approaches to virtue are comfortable. With how much joy will the man, who improves his misfortunes in this manner, discover that those evils, which he attributed to his exile, sprung from his vanity and folly, and vanish with them? He will see that, in his former temper of mind he resembled the effeminate prince who could drink no (Plut. on Banishment.) water but that of the river Choaspes; or the simple queen, in one of the tragedies of Euripides, who complained bitterly, that she had not lighted the nuptial torch, and that the river Ismenus had not furnished the water at her son's wedding. Seeing his former state in this ridiculous light, he will labour on with pleasure towards another as contrary as possible to it; and when he arrives there, he will be convinced by the strongest of all proofs, his own experience, that he was unfortunate because he was vicious, and not because he was banished. If I was not afraid of being thought to refine too much, I would venture to put some advantages of fortune, which are due to exile, into the scale against those which we lose by exile. One there is which has been neglected even by great and wise men. Demetrius Phalereus after his expulsion from Athens, became first minister to the King of Egypt; and Themistocles found such a reception at the court of Persia, that he used to say his fortune had been lost if he had not been ruined. But Demetrius exposed himself by his favour under the first Ptolemy to a new disgrace under the second; and Themistocles, who had been the captain of a free people, became the vassal of the prince he had conquered. How much better is it to take hold of the proper advantage of exile, and to live for ourselves, when we are under no obligation of living for others? Similis, a captain of great reputation under Trajan and Adrian, having obtained leave to retire, passed seven years in his retreat, and then dying, ordered this inscription to be put on his tomb; that he had been many years on earth (Xiphil.), but that he had lived only seven. If you are wise, your leisure will be worthily employed, and your retreat will add new lustre to your character. Imitate Thucydides in Thracia, or Xenophon in his little farm at Scillus. In such a retreat you may sit down, like one of the inhabitants of Elis, who judged of the Olympic games without taking any part in them. Far from the hurry of the world, and almost an unconcerned spectator of what passes in it, having payed in a public life what you owed to the present age, pay in a private life what you owe to posterity. Write, as you live, without passion; and build your reputation, as you build your happiness, on the foundations of truth. If you want the talents, the inclination, or the necessary materials for such a work, fall not however into sloth. Endeavour to copy after the example of Scipio at Linternum. Be able to say to yourself, 'Innocuas amo delicias doctamque quietem.' Rural amusements and philosophical meditations will make your hours glide smoothly on; and if the indulgence of Heaven has given you a friend like Lelius, nothing is wanting to make you happy. These are some of those reflections which may serve to fortify the mind under banishment, and under the other misfortunes of life, which it is every man's interest to prepare for, because they are common to all men (Sen. Ep. 107.); I say they are common to all men, because even they who escape them are equally exposed to them. The darts of adverse fortune are always levelled at our heads. Some reach us, some graze against us, and fly to wound our neighbours. Let us therefore impose an equal temper on our minds, and pay without murmuring the tribute which we owe to humanity. The winter brings cold, and we must freeze. The summer returns with heat, and we must melt. The inclemency of the air disorders our health, and we must be sick. Here we are exposed to wild beasts, and there to men more savage than the beasts; and if we escape the inconveniencies and dangers of the air and the earth, there are perils by water and perils by fire. This established course of things it is not in our power to change; but it is in our power to assume such a greatness of mind as becomes wise and virtuous men; as may enable us to encounter the accidents of life with fortitude, and to conform ourselves to the order of nature, who governs her great kingdom, the world, by continual mutations. Let us submit to this order, let us be persuaded that whatever does happen ought to happen, and never be so foolish as to expostulate with nature. The best resolution we can take is to suffer what we cannot alter, and to pursue, without repining, the road which Providence, who directs everything, has marked out to us; for it is not enough to follow; and he is but a bad soldier who sighs, and marches on with reluctancy. We must receive the orders with spirit and cheerfulness, and not endeavour to slink out of the post which is assigned us in this beautiful disposition of things, whereof even our sufferings make a necessary part. Let us address ourselves to God, who governs all, as Cleanthes did in those admirable verses, which are going to lose part of their grace and energy in my translation of them. Parent of nature! Master of the world! Where'er thy Providence directs, behold Fate leads the willing, drags the backward on. Why should I grieve, when grieving I must bear ? Or take with guilt, what guiltless I might share? Thus let us speak, and thus let us act. Resignation to the will of God is true magnanimity. But the sure mark of a pusilanimous and base spirit, is to struggle against, to censure, the order of Providence, and instead of mending our own conduct, to set up for correcting that of our Maker. BOLINGBROKE ON THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM. MY LORD, 1736. You have engaged me on a subject which interrupts the series of those letters I was writing to you, but it is one which, I confess, I have very much at heart. I shall, therefore, explain myself fully, nor blush to reason on principles that are out of fashion among men, who intend nothing by serving the public, but to feed their avarice, their vanity, and luxury, without the sense of duty they owe to God or man. It seems to me, that in order to maintain the moral system of the world at a certain point, far below that of ideal perfection (for we are made capable of conceiving what we are incapable of attaining) but, however, sufficient upon the whole to constitute a state easy and happy, or at the worst tolerable; I say, it seems to me, that the Author of nature has thought fit to mingle, from time to time, among the societies of men, a few, and but a few, of those on whom He is graciously pleased to bestow a larger proportion of the ethereal spirit, than is given in the ordinary course of His providence to the sons of men. These are they who engross almost the whole reason of the species; who are born to instruct, to guide, and to preserve; who are designed to be the tutors and the guardians of human kind. When they prove such, they exhibit to us examples of the highest virtue and the truest piety, and they deserve to have their festivals kept. When these men apply their talents to other purposes, when they strive to be great, and despise being good, they commit a most sacrilegious breach of trust; they pervert the means, they defeat, as far as lies in them, the designs of Providence, and disturb, in some sort, the system of infinite wisdom. To misapply these talents is the most diffused, and therefore, the greatest of crimes in its nature and consequences; but to keep them unexerted and unemployed is a crime too. Look about you, my lord, from the palace to the cottage; you will find that the bulk of mankind is made to breathe the air of this atmosphere, to roam about this globe, and to consume, like the courtiers of Alcinous, the fruits of the earth. 'Nos numerus sumus, et 'fruges consumere nati,' When they have trod this insipid round a certain number of years, and begot others to do the same after them, they have lived; and if they have performed in some tolerable degree the ordinary moral duties of life, they have done all they were born to do. Look about you again, my lord, nay look into your own breast, and you will find that there are superior spirits, men who show, even from their infancy, though it be not always perceived by others, per |