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"calamity in others. For examples make a quicker impreffion than arguments; and be"fides, they inform us of that which the Scrip"ture also propounds to us for our fatisfaction, "that no new thing has happened to us.

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they do the better, by how much the examples 66 are more like in circumftances to our own "cafe, and yet more particularly, if they fall

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upon perfons who are greater and worthier "than ourselves. For as it favours of vanity to "match ourselves highly in our own conceit; “fo, on the other fide, it is a good and found "conclufion, that if our betters have sustained "the like events, we have the lefs caufe to be grieved.

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"In this kind of confolation I have not been "wanting to myself, though as a Christian I "have tafted (through God's great goodness) "of higher remedies. Having therefore, through "the variety of my reading, fet before me many

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examples, both of ancient and latter times, my "thoughts, I confefs, have chiefly stayed upon "three particulars, as both the most eminent and "most resembling; all three perfons who had "held chief place and authority in their coun"tries; all three ruined, not by war or any "other difafter, but by juftice and fentence, as 66 delinquents and criminals; and all three fa"mous writers. Infomuch as the remembrance

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"of their calamity is now to pofterity but as "fome little night-piece, remaining amongst the "fair and excellent tables of their acts and "works. And all three (if that were anything "to the matter) are fit examples to quench any "man's ambition of rifing again; for that they

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were, every one of them, reftored with great glory; but to their further ruin and destruction, all ending in a violent death.

"The men were Demofthenes, Cicero, and "Seneca; perfons with whom I durst not claim any affinity at all, if the fimilitude of our fortunes had not contracted it.

"When I caft mine eyes upon these exam"ples, I was carried further on to observe, how 66 they bore their fortunes; and principally how

they employed their times, being banished, "and difabled for public bufinefs; to the end "that I might learn by them, that fo they might "be as well my counfellors as my comforters.

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Whereupon I happened to note how diversly their fortunes wrought upon their minds, ef"pecially in that point at which I aimed most; "which was, the employing of their times and

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pens. In Cicero, I faw that, during his ba"nifhment (which was almoft for two years) he was fo foftened and dejected, as that he wrote "nothing but a few womanish epistles, And

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66 yet, in my opinion, he had leaft reafon of the "three to be discouraged; because, though it "were judged (and judged by the highest kind "of judgment in form of a ftatute and law) "that he should be banished, and his whole "eftate confiscated and seized, and his houses pulled down; and that it fhould be highly "penal for any man to propound his repeal; 66 yet his cafe, even then, carried no great blot "of ignominy with it; for it was thought to be "but a tempeft of popularity which overthrew

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❝ him.

"Demofthenes, on the contrary fide, though "his cafe were foul, he being condemned for "bribery, and bribery in the nature of treason "and difloyalty, took yet fo little knowledge of "his fortune, as that, during his banishment, he "bufied himself, and intermeddled as much "with matters of State by letters, as if he had "been still at the helm, as appears by fome epiftles of his which are extant.

"Seneca indeed, who was condemned for 66 many corruptions and crimes, and banished "into a folitary island, kept a mean for though "his pen did not freeze, yet he abstained from "intruding into matters of business; but spent "his time in writing books of excellent argu

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ment and ufe for all ages. These examples "confirmed me much in a resolution (to which "I was otherwife inclined) to spend my time "wholly in writing, and to put forth that

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poor talent, or half talent, or what it is, which "God hath, given me, not as heretofore, to par"ticular exchanges, but to banks or mounts of perfpicuity, which will not break.

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VERULAM."

"Lord Chancellor Bacon," fays Howell in his Letters, "is lately dead of a long languish❝ing illness. He died fo poor, that he scarce "left money to bury him, which (though he "had a great wit) did argue no great wisdom, "it being one of the effential properties of a "wife man to provide for the main chance. I "have read, that it had been the fortunes of all

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t

poets commonly to die beggars; but for an "Orator, a Lawyer, and a Philofopher, to die fo, 'tis rare. It feems the fame fate befell him that attended Demofthenes, Seneca, and "Cicero (all great men), of whom the two first. "fell by corruption. The faireft diamond may "have a flaw in it; but I believe he died poor "from a contempt of the pelf of fortune, as alfo out of an excefs of generofity, which appeared 26 (as in divers other paffages) fo once, when the King had fent him a ftag, he fent up for the

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"under

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"under-keeper, and having drank the King's "health to him in a great filver gilt bowl, he "gave it to him for his fee.

"He wrote a pitiful letter to King James not "long before his death, and concludes, "Help cc me, dear Sovereign, Lord and Master, and "pity me fo far, that I who have been born to "a bag, be not now, in my age, forced in effect "to bear a wallet; nor that I, who defire to "live to study, may be driven to study to live."

"I write not this to derogate from the noble "worth of the Lord Viscount Verulam, who "was a rare man, recondita fcientia et ad falutem "literarum natus; and, I think, the eloquenteft "that was born in this Ifle.

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Wilfon, in his Life of King James, fays, Though Lord Bacon had a penfion allowed "him by the King, he wanted to his last; living obfcurely in his lodging at Gray's Inn ; where "his lonenefs and defolate condition wrought upon his ingenious (and therefore then more melancholy) temper, that he pined away. And "he had this unhappiness, after all his height of "plenitude, to be denied beer to quench his "thirst. For having a fickly taste, he did not "like the beer of the house, but fent to Sir Fulk "Greville, Lord Brooke, in his neighbourhood, "(now and then,) for a bottle of his beer, and,

"after

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