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it is probable that all men will endeavour, that greater and more lasting buildings may be erected, than what they have: loft. May they be lasting indeed, and built under more happy aufpices! For, fcarce an hundred years have paffed, fince this colony was first founded; (which is not the extremeft age of man himself) under the conduct of Plancus (b), and by reafon of its agreeable fituation, it soon grew very populous; and yet hath suffered the most grievous calamaties within the

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Let the mind therefore be taught to understand, and patiently to bear, whatever may be its lot; and let it know, there is nothing beyond the daring of Fortune. That she hath the same power over kingdoms themfelves, as over the rulers thereof. We are to repine at none of these things; we have entered upon a world, where we live fubject to these conditions. Are you not pleased with it? Regret not the being taken out of it (i). You might well be angry, was any thing to happen particularly to you. But if the fame neceffity binds both high and low, you have nothing to do but to reconcile yourself to Fate, by whom all things are determined (to their proper end.) There is no need to measure man by his tomb, or by those monuments that are fpread on each fide the road of an unequal fize. The grave sets all men upon this level. We are born unequal, but we die equal.

The fame I fay of cities, as of the inhabitants thereof. Ardea (k) hath been taken as well as Rome. The fupreme Author of mankind hath not distinguished us in our birth and nobility, but during life. When we come to the end of all mortal things, Be gone, faith he, Ambition; and let there be the fame law to all things that tread the earth. We are alike born to variety of fuffering: no one is more frail than another; no one more fure of seeing to-morrow's fun.

Alexander, king of Macedonia, wretch as he was, begun to learn geometry, that he might know how little the earth was, of which he poffeffed fo small a part: I call him wretched, because he ought to have known from hence, that he had no title to the furname of Great;

for

for what can be called Great in fo fmall a fpace? The things taught him were fubtle, and not to be learned but by clofe attention, and conftant application, not fuch as a madman could well comprehend, whose thoughts were intent upon plunder, and roving beyond the ocean.. Teach me, faith he, eafy things. To which his tutor replied, Thefe things are the fame to all: every one finds in them the like difficulty. Suppofe now, Lucilius, Nature to fay the fame thing to you. The things whereof you complain are the fame to all men: fhe admits, no one on eafier terms: but every one that pleases may make them cafier. Do you ask how? by æquanimity.

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You must neceffarily feel pain, be hungry, and thirst, and grow old; and though a longer time be given you among men, you must one day be fick, and die. Yet there is no neceffity for believing all that is faid by those who are continually buzzing about you with complaints. " None of these things are properly evils; none intolerable, or even hard to be borne. They became dreadful by prejudice and common confent. Ye are as afraid of death, as of a falfe report. But what can be more ridiculous than to be afraid of mere words? Our Demetrius used pleasantly to say, that the reports of the ignorant were to him like breaking wind. What is it to me, he faid, whether the found comes from above or below? (1) How abfurd is it to be afraid of infamy from infamous men? And as you are caufeleffly afraid of what fame fays of you, fo are ye of thofe things which ye would never have, feared, had not fame or report commanded ye so to do. What detriment can a good man receive from being fcandalized by malicious tongues? for even Death is alike fcandalized. No one of those who accufe him, fpeaks from experience. In the mean time we should not condemn what we do not know. But this you know, that it hath proved a great benefit to many in delivering them from tortures, from want, from complaints,. from punishment, from anxiety. We are subject to the one, when it is in the power of death to deliver us (m).

power

of no

ANNO

ANNOTATIONS, &c.

(a) Æbutius Liberalis, to whom Seneca infcribed his book (de beneficiis) of benefits.

(6) Tacit. Ann. 1. 16. To the inhabitants of Lyons, as a as a relief for their late calamity by fire, the Emperor prefented 100,000 crowns, to repair the damages of the city.

As in David's complaint-Yea, my own familiar friend in whom I trufted, which did eat of my bread, bath lift up his heel against me. Pf. xli. 9.

!

(c) Euripides Phan. 561.

"Ο δ' όλβος ο βέβαιος ἀλλ' ἔφημερες

Wealth is the unstable bleffing of a acq

So Diphilus (ap. Stobæ.) Άπροςδοκητον ἔδεν ανθρωποις πάθος.

Εφημερες γὰρ τὰς τυχας κεκλημεθα.

There is no evil, while we fojourn here,
But what poor mortals daily have to fear.
Και μια ημερα τη

Τὸν μὲν καθεῖλον ὑψοθεν, τὸν δ' ρ' ανω..

— one day ferves

Some to deprefs, and others to exalt.

(d) Incrementa lente.] Tacitus (in Agricola) Naturâ infirmitatis humanæ, targiora funt remedia quam mala; et ut corpora lentè augefcunt, cito extinguuntur: fic ingenia facilus opprefferis, quàm recreaveris. Such is the frailty of man, and its effects, that much more flow is the progrefs of the remedies than of the evils and as human bodies attain their growth by degrees, and are fubject to be deftroyed in an inftant; fo it is much easier to fuppress than to revive the efforts of genius and fudy. Gordon..

(e)*

A

War, famine, peft, volcano, form, and fire, .). Intestine broils, oppreffion, with her heart Wrapt up in triple brafs, befiege mankind.

Want and incurable difeafe, (fell pair!).

On hapless multitudes remorfelefs feize,

At once, and make a refuge of the grave. Young.

(F) Alluding to the feven hills, on which Rome was built.

(g) A Rhetorician and Hiftorian of Alexandria. He was brought captive to Rome by Gabinias, under Pompey the Great, and redeemed by Fauftus; the fon of Sylla; but was expelled the city on account of his malevolent tongue; though Ammian speaks well of him. He died in his exile.

Rupet Hiarbitam Timagenis æmula lingua.

But Pincian fuppofes that Seneca meant this of. the Emperor Caligula, who, as Suetonius reports, was most inveterate against the profperity of Rome.

(b) A Planco deducta] So Lipfius; which from among the various readings feems to be right. For, according to Eufebius, Munacius Plancus. Ciceronis difcipulus, orator habetur infignis; qui cum Galliam comatam regeret, Lugdunum condidit; Munarius Plancus, a difciple of Cicero, was efteemed an excellent orator, who when be commanded in Gaul (beyond the Alps) founded the city Lyons. An. U. C. 811.

(i). Non plaket ? quacunque vis exi.] This alfo is an expreffion which I thought myself obliged pot to tranflate literally; it being a doctrine totally repugnant to the Chriftian; and indeed to what Seneca

templo hoc medium, qui terra dicitur. The condition of man's exiflence is,

that he garrison that globe Upon this Macrobius ob

which you fee in the middle of this temple, and which is called the earth. ferves, that every one who is admitted into this temple, (i. e. every mortal) ought to live as righteous, as if he were a priest, in the faid temple. Quidquid humano afpectui fubjicitur templum ejus vocavit, qui fola mente concipitur, ut qui hæc veneratur ut templa, cultum tamen maximum debeat conditori: fciatque quifquis in ufum templi hujus inducitur, ritu fibi vivendum facerdotis. Philo Judæus, Des veuer TEP OUμτaνTR Xpй Roskov Arai, n. T. X. That every one ought to think the univerfe the Temple of God; forafmuch as it has a fextry, i. e. the purest part of the nature of things, Heaven: its ornaments, the ftars; its priests, the Angels, and minifters of his power. For, fays Cicero (Stoically speaking, De Nat. Dear. ii.) Nihil omnium rerum melius eft mundo, nihil præftabilius, nihil pulchrius: nec folum nihil eft fed ne cogitari quidem quidquam melius poteft. Certainly there is nothing better, more excellent, or more beautiful than the world, nor can we conceive any thing to excel it.

I.

(bb) There are seven different ways of accounting for the origin of mankind. 1. By Prometheus, with clay, and fire stole from heaven; and after a deluge repaired by his fon Deucalion, poetical and merely fabulous. 2. According to Anaximander the Milefian, they were formed of water and mud, but were only fish at first, and afterwards turned into men. 3. Empedocles fuppofes them born of the earth, but only part at a time, and to grow as a blite or beat. 4. Democritus fuppofes they rife in and from the ground, like worms, entirely of themselves. Democritus ait homines vermiculorum modo, effufos de terrâ, nullo autore, nullâque ratione. Lactant. vii. 7.-5. Epicurus, Haud, ut opinor, enim mortalia fecla fupernè

Aurea de cœlo demifit funis in arva.

Sed genuit tellus eadem, quæ nunc alit ex fc. Lucret. ii. 1153.

For who can think these pygmies fram'd above,

The little bufinefs of fome meddling Jove?

And thence to people this inferior ball,

By Homer's golden chain let gently fall?

Nor did they rife from the rough feas, but earth,

To what he now fupports, at first gave birth. Creech.

Crefcebant uteri terræ radicibus apti

Quos ubi tempore maturo patefecerat ætas

Infantum, &c. V. Gob.

Next beafts, and thoughtful man receiv'd their birth:

For then much rural heat in mother earth,

Much moisture lay; and where fit place was found

There wombs were form'd and faften'd to the ground.

In these the yet imperfect embryos lay,

Through thefe when grown mature they forc'd their way,

Broke forth from night, and faw the chearful day.

The fixth opinion was that of the Stoics, (fo very near the truth) that they were born of God. Cic.

(de Leg. 1.)

Hoc animal providum, fagax, multiplex, quem vocamus

Hominem, præclarâ quadam conditione generatum esse

Summo Deo. So Ovid. Met. i. 76.

Sanctius his animal mentifque capacius altæ

Deerat adhuc, et quod dominari in cætera poffet

Natus

Natus homo eft, five hunc divino femine fecit
Ille opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo
Sive recens tellus, feductaque nuper ab alto
Ethere, cognati retinebat femina cœli.
A nobler creature yet was undefign'd,
Of higher pow'rs, and more exalted mind;
Of thought capacious, whofe imperial fway
The lower mute creation must obey:

Then man was made, whose animated frame

Or God inform'd with a celeftial flame,

Or earth from purer heaven but lately freed,

Retains fome particles of kindred seed;

And on the noble work was then impress'd,

The Godhead's image in the foul express'd. Sewell.

The last opinion was that of the vulgar, that men fprung out of the ground, like mushrooms, first in Arcadia, and elsewhere. All which serve to enhance the value of divine revelation; and to make us the more thankful to God, for the advantages we enjoy by the Gofpel, both for religious and moral improvement.

(ii) Tertullian (de Anima, c. 14.) fays, The foul is divided by Plato and Pythagoras into tro parts; the rational, and irrational; or, more accurately, into three, by dividing the latter into the irafcible and concupifcible: Ariftotle into five, Panatius into fix; Soranus into feven; Chryfippus, and most of the Stoics into eight: by adding to the five fenfes, fays Varro, (fextam quâ cogitamus, feptimam quâ progeneramus, octavam, quâ vocem emittimus) the powers, cogitative, procreative, and vocal. The Stoics (ap. Stoba.) make one, the principal, (Tò nyeμovinòv) the governing power, the reft minifterial. See Ep. 92. Lipf. Phyfiol. iii. 17.

(kk) Nam vita videtur nobis quod mors eft, et contra. Lipf.As in a violent fit of fickness at Eton, in 1720, I defigned the following for part of my epitaph.

March 18, 1702.

Ut moriar fuit illa dies mihi janua vitæ,

Ut vivam, hacce (cùm Deus voluerit.) Dies janua mortis erat.

(I) Anacharfis, a philofopher of Scythia, which being looked upon as fomewhat extraordinary, it became proverbial. Anacharfis inter Scythas. Cicero gives him a great character for fobriety and temperance. Sobrius, continens, abftinens, et temperans, (Tufc. 5.) Being asked whether there were any musicians in Scythia? No, faid he; neither have they any vines. Being asked likewise, whether they had any Gods? yes, faid he; and they understand the speech of mortals.Endeavouring to introduce the Athenian laws, he was ordered to be fhot with an arrow, by his brother, then king of the place.

Strabo reproves Euphorus for giving the invention of the potters wheel to Anacharfis, as mention is

made of it in Homer. 11. E. 600.

——Ὡς ὅτε τις τροχών άρμενον ἐν παλάμησιν

Εζόμενος κεραμεύς πειρήσεται ἄικε θεησιν.

As when the potter fitting on the ground,

Forms a new veel as the wheel whirls round.

(mm) This likewife, as Lipfius obferves, is a miftake, as ivory by way of ornament is mentioned more than once by Homer. I. f. 141.

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