die, most men are willing to suffer; and Mecenas added also a wish, rather to be crucified than to die: and though his wish was low, timorous, and base, yet we find the same desires in most men, dressed up with better circumstances. It was a cruel mercy in Tamerlane, who commanded all the leprous persons to be put to death, as we knock some beasts quickly on their head, to put them out of pain, and lest they should live miserably: the poor men would rather have endured another leprosy, and have more willingly taken two diseases than one death. Therefore Casar wondered that the old crazed soldier begged leave he might kill himself, and asked him, Dost thou think then to be more alive than now thou art? We do not die suddenly, but we descend to death by steps and slow passages and therefore men (so long as they are sick) are unwilling to proceed and go forward in the finishing that sad employment. Between a disease and death there are many degrees, and all those are like the reserves of evil things, the declining of every one of which is justly reckoned amongst those good things which alleviate the sickness and make it tolerable. Never account that sickness intolerable, in which thou hadst rather remain than die: and yet if thou hadst rather die than suffer it, the worst of it that can be said is this, that this sickness is worse than death; that is, it is worse than that which is the best of all evils, and the end of all troubles; and then you have said no great harm against it. : 6. Remember, that thou art under a supervening necessity. Nothing is intolerable that is necessary: and therefore when men are to suffer a sharp incision, or what they are pleased to call intolerable, tie the man down to it, and he endures it. Now God hath bound this sickness upon thee by the condition of nature; (for every flower must wither and drop:) it is also bound upon thee by special providence, and with a design to try thee, and with purposes to reward and to crown thee. These cords thou canst not break; and therefore lie thou down gently, and suffer the hand of God to do what He please, that at least thou mayest swallow an advantage, which the care and severe mercies of God force down thy throat. 7. Remember that all men have passed this way; the bravest, the wisest, and the best men have been subject to sickness and sad diseases; and it is esteemed a prodigy, that a man should live to a long age and not be sick and it is recorded for a wonder concerning Xenophilus the musician, that he lived to 106 years of age in a perfect and continual health. No story tells the like of a prince, or a great or a wise person; unless we have a mind to believe the tales concerning Nestor and the Eubœan Sybil, or reckon Cyrus of Persia, or Masinissa the Mauritanian to be rivals of old age, or that Arganthonius the Tartessian King did really outstrip that age, according as his story tells, reporting him to have reigned eighty years, and to have lived 120. Old age and healthful bodies are seldom made the appendages to great fortunes and under so great and so universal precedents, so common fate of men, he that will not suffer his portion deserves to be something else than a man, but nothing that is better. 8. We find in story that many Gentiles, who walked by no light but that of reason, opinion, and human Cicero de Senectute. examples, did bear their sickness nobly, and with great contempt of pain, and with huge interests of virtue. When Pompey came from Syria, and called at Rhodes to see Posidonius the philosopher, he found him hugely afflicted with the gout, and expressed his sorrow that he could not hear his lectures, from which by this pain he must needs be hindered. Posidonius told him, But you may hear me for all this: and he discoursed excellently in the midst of his tortures, even then when the torches were put to his feet, that nothing was good but what was honest; and therefore nothing could be an evil if it were not criminal; and summed up his lectures with this saying, O pain, in vain didst thou attempt me; for I will never confess thee to be an evil as long as I can honestly bear thee. And when Pompey himself was desperately sick at Naples, the Neapolitans wore crowns and triumphed, and the men of Puteoli came to congratulate his sickness, not because they loved him not, but because it was the custom of their country to have better opinions of sickness than we have. The boys of Sparta would at their altars endure whipping till their very entrails saw the light through their torn flesh, and some of them to death, without crying or complaint. Cæsar would drink his portions of rhubarb rudely mixed, and unfitly allayed, with little sippings, and tasted the horror of the medicine, spreading the loathsomeness of his physic so, that all the parts of his tongue and palate might have an entire share and when C. Marius suffered the veins of his leg to be cut out for the curing his gout, and yet shrunk not, he declared not only the rudeness of their physic, but ▾ Cùm faces ei doloris admoverentur.-Cicero. Tusc. Qu. ii. 25. the strength of a man's spirit, if it be contracted and united by the aids of reason or Religion, by resolution or any accidental harshness, against a violent disease. 9. All impatience, howsoever expressed, is perfectly useless to all purposes of ease but hugely effective to the multiplying the trouble; and the Impatience and vexation is another, but the sharper disease of the two; it does mischief by itself, and mischief by the disease. For men grieve themselves as much as they please; and when by Impatience they put themselves into the retinue of sorrows, they become solemn mourners. For so have I seena the rays of the sun or moon dash upon a brazen vessel, whose lips kissed the face of those waters that lodged within its bosom; but being turned back and sent off with its smooth pretences or rougher waftings, it wandered about the room, and beat upon the roof, and still doubled its heat and motion. So is a sickness and a sorrow, entertained by an unquiet and a discontented man, turned back either with anger or with excuses; but then the pain passes from the stomach to the liver, and from the liver to the heart, and from the heart to the head, and from feeling to consideration, from thence to sorrow, and at last ends in Impatience and useless murmur; and all the way the man was impotent and weak, but the sickness was doubled, and grew imperious and tyrannical over the Soul and body. Masurius Sabinus tells, that the image of the goddess Angerona was with a muffler upon her mouth placed upon the altar of Volupia, to represent, that those persons who bear their sicknesses and sorrows without Tantum doluerunt, quantum doloribus se inseruerunt.-S. Augustine. ■ Virgil. viii. 4. murmur shall certainly pass from sorrow to pleasure, and the ease and honours of felicity; but they that with spite and indignation bite the burning coal, or shake the yoke upon their necks, gall their spirits, and fret the skin, and hurt nothing but themselves. 10. Remember that this sickness is but for a short time: If it be sharp, it will not last long; if it be long, it will be easy and very tolerable. And although S. Eadsine, Archbishop of Canterbury, had twelve years of sickness, yet all that while he ruled his Church prudently, gave example of many virtues, and after his death was enrolled in the calendar of Saints who had finished their course prosperously. Nothing is more unreasonable than to entangle our spirits in wildness and amazement, like a partridge fluttering in a net, which she breaks not, though she breaks her wings. SECT. V. REMEDIES AGAINST IMPATIENCE, BY WAY OF EXERCISE. 1. THE fittest instrument of esteeming sickness easily tolerable is, to remember that which indeed makes it so; and that is, that God doth minister proper aids and supports to every of His servants whom He visits with His rod. He knows our needs, He pities our sorrows, He relieves our miseries, He supports our weakness, He bids us ask for help, and He promises to give us all that, and He usually gives us more: and indeed it is observable, that no story tells of any godly man, who, living in the fear of God, fell into a violent and unpardoned Impatience in his |