EPISTLE LXXXII. On the Study of Philofophy, Virtue, and the Fear of Death. I AM no longer, my Lucilius, under any great concern for your welfare. What God then, you fay, do I depend upon for your fafety? Why truly on one that deceiveth no man; viz. A mind, that purfues what is right and fit with pure affection. Hence the better part of you is in full fecurity. Fortune perhaps may do you fome mifchief; but what is of much greater moment, I have no fear left you should prove your own enemy. Go on as you have begun. Go on as you have begun. Fix yourself in fuch a habit of life as may fhew complacency, not effeminate delicacy. I had rather, you should live ill, than in foft idleness: by ill I mean here, an hard, rough, and laborious life. We often hear the lives of fome men praised, (being much envied too) after this fort, fuch a one lives most delicately. Now, what is this but faying He is a bad man? For the mind is rendered effeminate by degrees, and foften'd down, as it were, into the likeness of that indolence and idlenefs wherein it lies buried. And would it not be better for a man to be quite stiff, and senseless ? But the delicate are afraid of death, however like it they render life: though I allow there is fome difference between repose and the grave. And is it not better, perhaps you will fay, fo to live, than be toffed about in the whirlpools of officious bufinefs? They are indeed alike fatal, both the convulfion of the nerves and the languor of the mind. I think him as truly dead, who lies buried in his perfumes (a), as he that is drawn about the streets with a hook (6). Retirement without study is death, and the fepulchre of a living man. Befides, what does it avail a man to have retired? As if the caufes of follicitude and trouble would not follow him, even beyond the feas? What fo fecret place is there, excludes the fear of death? What place of or of reft fo well guarded as to be raised above the dread of pain and grief? Whereever you hide yourself, human miferies will alarm you. There are many external things which surround us, and either deceive us, press hard upon us there are many internal paffions which enflame us in the midst of folitude. We must therefore throw ourselves into the arms of philofophy; it is an impregnable wall (c), which fortune with all her engines cannot penetrate. The mind that hath once difclaim'd all external things, and is determined to quit the field, ftands upon an infuperable eminence, protecting itfelf in its own citadel: while every hostile weapon falls beneath it. Fortune hath not fuch long hands, as she is generally fuppos'd to have; the feizeth on none but such as willingly cleave to her. Let us leap from her as far as we can. But it is the knowledge of felf and nature that can enable us to do this. Let a man therefore know and confider, from whence he came: and whither he is going; what is good for him, what the contrary: what to purfue, and what to avoid: what that reafon is which can diftinguish between fuch things as are defireable, and such as are to be efchewed: and which can affuage the madnefs of luft, and foften the severity of fear. There are fome indeed who think that even without philofophy, fuch a mastery is to bẹ gained over the paffions; but their fecurity being once put to the trial, they are forced too late to confefs the truth. Their big words fail them, when the executioner takes them by the hand, and death stares them in the face. We may juftly fay to them; 'Twas an eafy matter to bid defiance to abfent evils: behold the pains now threaten which you boafted were tolerable: behold death, against whom you have often Spoke fo courageoufly: the whips yerk; the fword glitters; Nunc animis opus, Ænea, nunc pectore firmo. Now is the time firm courage to affume. Virg. Ib. 261. And nothing but daily meditation can infpire this conftancy; if you exercise not the tongue, but the mind; if you are prepared against death; which you cannot you cannot be fufficiently exhorted or ftrengthen'd against, by thofe who, with certain cavils would fain perfuade you, that Death is no evil. And here, Lucilius, beft of men, I have a mind to ridicule fome trifling argumentations among the Greeks, which, as much as you wonder at them, I have not quite difcarded: our Zeno, for inftance, thus argues fyllogistically; No evil is glorious, But Death is glorious; Therefore, Death is no evil. You have prevailed, Zeno, you have deliver'd me from the fear of death. I shall most willingly ftretch out my neck to the sword. Will you not fpeak more seriously, but make even a dying man to fmile? But truly I cannot eafily fay which I take to be the more filly of the two: he who thought by this question to extinguish the fear of death, or he who pretends to answer it, as if it was at all pertinent to the matter. Nay, he himself, hath oppofed thereto a contrary argument, taken from our placing death among things indifferent, which the Greeks call αδιαφορα Nothing that is indifferent is glorious: But Death is glorious; Therefore Death is not an indifferent thing. You see where this question halts, and would impofe upon us. Death in itself is not glorious; but to die bravely is glorious. And when he faith, nothing that is indifferent is glorious, I grant it, but with this restriction, that nothing is glorious but what hath some connection with things indifferent: by things indifferent, I mean fuch, as are neither good nor bad, confider'd in themselves, as fickness, pain, poverty, punishment, death: and I maintain, that none of these things are glorious; but may be made fo by their connexion. Poverty is not commendable; but it is commendable not to be dejected and bowed down by it: fo neither is banishment; but he that is not grieved at fuffering it, is praife-worthy. No man praiseth death; but he is juftly praised, who is deprived of life, before death could give him any perturbation. All these things therefore are neither honourable, nor glorious in themselves; but whenever virtue joins herself thereto, and hath the management management of them, they are indeed both honourable and glorious. 'They are, as it were in common, and have no other difference than what they obtain by their connection with virtue or the contrary difpofition. For death which in Cato was glorious, was foon after vile and shameful in Brutus: I mean that Brutus (d), who when he was about to die, fought all poffible means to delay the time; nay he pretended to go afide to ease himself (e), and when called forth to die, and commanded to lay his head upon the block; I will, fays he, fo I may but live. What madness is it to fly when it is impoffible to escape? I will bow my neck, fays he, so I may but live: he had almost faid-even a flave to Anthony. O worthy man to have thy life given thee! but as I was faying; from hence you may observe, that death, confidered in itself, is neither good nor evil; seeing that Cata made a glorious use of it; and Brutus a most difhonourable one. Every thing not honourable in itself is ennobled by the acceffion of virtue. We say fuch a room is light and magnificent: but how dark and dull is the fame by night? It is the day that gives it all its fplendour, which the night foon deprives it of. fo of those things which we call common and indifferent, as riches, strength, beauty, honours, a kingdom; and on the other hand, banishment, fickness, pain, death, and the like, which we dread more or lefs, a virtuous or vicious behaviour under them, gives them the title of good or evil. A mafs of iron, is neither hot nor cold in itself. It grows hot in the furnace, and is foon made cold by being thrown into the water. Death is honourable, through fuch means as are honourable, in virtue: and a mind exalting, itself above the gifts of fortune. There is alfo, my Lucilius, a great. difference even in thefe common things; for death is not fo indifferent a thing, as whether our hair be cut even or not. Death is one of those things, which are not evil, but have the appearance of evil. There is implanted in every breaft a certain felf-love, an innate defire of felf-prefervation, and a dread of diffolution; which threatens to deprive us of many good things, and the enjoyment of fuch as we have been long accustomed to. This alfo is what alienates our minds from death; we know the things we enjoy at prefent; but we know not not what we shall meet with, whither we are going (ƒ), and always apt to dread things unknown. Besides, nothing is more natural than the fear of darknefs; and this is what death seems to threaten us with. And therefore, however indifferent a thing death may be, yet it is not to be reckon'd among those which may easily be flighted and contemn'd: the mind must be strengthen'd and harden'd by continual exercise against the fight and approach of death; not that it ought to be dreaded so much as it generally is. Many ftrange things are believ'd concerning it, and many a genius hath been employ'd in encreafing the infamy (g). What a terrible defcription is given of the infernal prison, and the difmal region that labours under perpetual night, where the monftrous keeper of Hell- gates Offa fuper recubans antro femefa cruento. Virg. 8. 297. The triple porter of the ftygian feat, Now feiz'd with fear forgot his mangled meat Still may the dog his wandring troops conftrain, Of airy ghofis, and vex the guilty train. Dryden. Nay, though you should be perfuaded that these are mere fictions and idle ftories; and that the dead have nothing to fear, yet very far is this perfuafion from taking away all fear; for men are as much afraid of annihilation, as of dwelling in the infernal region. Seeing then that these thoughts often affail us, which long perfuafion hath made habitual, to fuffer death courageously, cannot but be glorious, and worthy a place amongst the strongest efforts of the human mind. The mind can never rife to virtue, fo long as it thinks death an evil: but thither it will rife, if it looks upon death merely as an indifferent thing. It is not in the nature of things for any one to address with magnanimity what he thinks an evil; flothful and dilatory will be his approach thereto. Now, that cannot be glorious, which is done untowardly, and with an unwilling mind. Virtue does nothing by constraint. Add also that nothing can be done decently and well, to which the whole mind hath not bent its strongest application and efforts, and is in no refpect whatever repugnant. But when an evil is fet before us, it often happens, that the patient fuffering of one fingle evil, shall be swallow'd up, |