because one of them when he might have had Pyrrhus poysoned by the Samnites he refused it as dishonourable 5. Coruncani such another noble family one of them being a very wiseman was sent Ambassadour to the Queene of Illyria and was slaine in his returne backe contrary to the Law of Armes Another dyed in a battaile against Amilcar in Sicilia 6. Appius Claudius a Senator of Rome who having not been a long time in the Senate by reason of his blindnesse when he heard that the Senators for the confirmation of a Peace betweene them and Pyrrhus would admit him into the City he came thither and with all his might disswaded them 7. Pyrrhus King of the Epirots descended by the fathers side from Hercules and by the mothers side from Achilles who when the people would have slaine him for his fathers cruelty towards them he was by his mother conveyed to Heroa the wife of Glaucus King of Illyria from whence being 11 yeer old he came to his own Kingdom where he grow up in all vertue and after ayded the Tarentines against the Romans at last he was slaine with a Tyle sheard at the taking of Argos 8. Censor an Office at the first created by the Senate to look to the Tables of the Lawes and such like they grow to such pride and authority that they would tax all men correct the manners and discipline of the Senators make whom they listed chiefe and displace whom they listed from the Office of Senator as Cato Major did the first Censors were Papirius and Sempronius 9. Carthage cbiefe City of Lybia built by Dido 70 yeeres after Rome it had three long warres with the Romans Haniball being their Captain but he being slain the Senate by the counsell of Cato sent P. Scipio into Affrica who in the third war ' utterly destroyed it and raced it to the ground 10. Naeuius a comicall Poet who writ Satyricall playes in the time of the first Carthaginian warre which warre he also wrote in verse he was banished at length for his railing CHAP. VII BUt you will say their memory is wasted t is truth and I beleeve it unlesse you exercise it or be dull of your selfe by nature Themistocles knew all the names of the citizens of Athens and do you think that when he was aged he would so much forget himselfe as to salute 1 Lysimachus by the name of 2 Aristides And for my own part I not only remember the names of those men which now live but also their fathers and grand-fathers neither do I fear to read monuments least as they say I should lose my memory for by them the memory of the dead is revived neither ever did I hear any old man that had forgot where he had hid his treasure All things that they care for they remember who to them and to whom they owe any thing How much have the Lawyers Priests Augurs and old Philosophers remembred Memorie remaineth in old men if they continue studious and industrious and that not only in states of honourable men but also in the private and quiet life 3 Sophocles wrote Tragedies in the extreamest age who because of his study when he seemed to neglect his houshold affairs was brought into Question by his own sonnes that according to our custome that the good of old men that dote and cannot well use them should be taken from them so that the Iudges would remove his goods from him as from a dotard and givethem to his sonnes Then the old man is reported to have recited a Tragedy of 4 Oedippus Coloneus which he had last written and had in his hands and to have demanded whether that seemed the verse of a dotard or no for which he was delivered and freed by the sentence of the Judges whether hath age therefore made 5 Hesiodus 6 Simonides 7 Stesicorus or those whom I spake of before 8 Isocrates Gorgias 9 Homer or the Prince of Philosophers 10 Pythagoras 11 Democritus Plato 12 Zenocrates or afterwards 13 Zeno 14 Cleanthes or him whom you saw at 15 Rome 16 Diogenes the Stoick to be dumb or cease in their studies were not all these mens studies like to their life VII Table of Annotations 1. LYsimachus son of Agathedes who for some offence Alexander caused to be cast to a hungry lion whom he very valiantly slew and plucked the tongue out of his head with bare hands wherefore ever after he was greatly honoured and esteemed of Alexander 2. Aristides a noble Athenian in the time of Themistocles with whom he falling out about one Stesilea a beauteous maid whom they both loved was by him banished and after being restored by Xerxes the Persian King he passed many great offices in Athens but at last died so poor that he had not enough to pay for his buriall 3. Sophocles an excellent Tragedian in Athens he was called for his excellent sweetnes of speech Apis or the Bee he wrote twenty three Tragedies some say more he lived almost a hundred years and obtained twenty three victories whereof the last so evercame him with joy that he died immediately his sonnes were three Jophontes Leostines and Aristo 4. The Tragedie of Oedipus Coloneus was written by Sophocles This Oedipus was sonne to the King of Thebes and having slain Laius his Father not knowing him to be so he marryed his own mother and on her begat two sons and one daughter after having knowledge what he had done he pulled out his eyes and dyed miserably his mother hanged her selfe and his two sonnes slew each other and after when after the custome of the Country their bodies should be burnt the flame parted and would not burn whole so great was their hatred in their life that dead one fire would not burne them 5. Hesiodus being sent by his father into a mountaine to keepe sheepe dreamed that he was sodainely made a Poet and afterward wrote a catalogue of noble weomen and many other workes 6. Simonides a Poet who would boast that in the fourescore yeere of his age he taught verses some thinke that he wrote the Art of memory it is said that when he was one day bidden to a banquet he was suddainly called out from dinner and before he returned the house was fallen down and all the ghests so pasht with the ruines that when they came to bury them no man knew which was which but Simonides by reason of his excellent memory remembring in what place every man sate and their aparel shewed to each man which was his friend he dyed when he was ninety yeares old 7. Stesicorus A Poet of Siculia 8. Isocrates an excellent Orator of Athens he was borne the same day that Diana was and lived seventy yeeres 9. Homer Prince of the Poets was blind he wrote the warre of the Grecians with the Trojans which he called Illiads he is and hath been of great estimation so that Alexander having taken a most rich casket among the spoyle of Darius thought
Attillius were made Consuls but he dyed when he was threescore and tenne yeers old Cepiâ— and Philippus being Consuls the second time when I being threescore and five in good strength and with a cleere voyce pleaded the 5 Voconian Law For so long lived Ennius he bore two burdens old age and poverty in such sort that he seemed almost to be delighted with them V. TABLE of Annotations 1. PLato the sonne of Aristo and Periander borne at Athens the same yeere and day that Apollo was borne at Delos a swarme of Bees when he was young light on his mouth when he lay in his Cradle in token of his Eloquence to come he was Scorates his Scholer after whose death he went to Philolanuan among the Pythagoreans and from thence to Egypt where he was healed of a disease by the Seawater wherefore he was wont to say the Sea ebbe dand flowed all manner of diseases When he dwell at Athens he brought into one volumn al the works of Pythag. Heraclitus and Socrates Dionysius the Tyrant when he had caused him to be sold and hearing that he was safely returned into his owne Country wrote to him that he would not either speake or write evil of him Who answered that he had not so much idle time as once to thinke of him he dyed being 84 yeere old 2. Socrates the sonne of Sophroniscus a Lapidary and Phenareta a Midwife borne at Athens master to Plato a man of great patience he had two wives Xantippe and the daughter of Aristidas he was wont to say that whether a man did marry or no he should repent he was often troubled with the scolding of Xantippe his curst wife but never moved Alcibiades whom he deerely loved was wont to tell him that he could not abide the railing of Xantippe yet quoth Socrates I can for I am used to it but quoth he canst thou abide the gagling of thy Geese at home Yea quoth Alcibiades for they lay me egges so quoth Socrates Xantippe brings me children He seldome wrote any thing saying that wisdome should be printed in mens hearts not on beasts skins He was judged to be the wisest man that lived by the Oracle of Apollo for which he was envyed and accufed that he would not worship Images and was condemned by fourescore judges to be poysoned which was forthwith done by the executioners 3. Panathenaicus a booke which Socrates wrote of all the noble ghests and deeds of the Athenians which Book is lost 4. Gorgias of Leontia an excellent Rhetorician the Scholler of Empedocles and master to Socrates and other excellent Phylosophers he got so much by his Art that he first set up a golden Statua in the Temple of Apollo He dyed as Plyny saith being a hundred and nine yeere old 5. The Voconian Law was made by Caius Voconius which was that no man should make his daughter his sole heyre which was after repealed by Domitianus Caesar CHAP. VI BUt when I consider in my mind I finde 4. causes why age may seem miserable the first that it hindereth men from doing their affaires the second it weakneth the body the third it taketh away all pleasures the fourth that it is neere death of these causes as much as they may prevaile and are just if you please we will see a little Doth age hinder us from our affaires From what From those which are done in youth and in strength are then the businesses of old men nothing Which though with weake bodies yet with strong minds may be done Then neither Quintus Maximus nor 1 Lucius Paulus your father Scipio the father in Law to my now dead 2 sonne and other old men when with counsel and authority they defended the Common-wealth did nothing The 3 Curii the 4 Fabritii the 5 Corimcam did nothing it happen that 6 Appius Claudius was blind in his age yet he doubted not when the Senate inclined to Peace with 7 Pyrrhus to say that which Ennius hath set dovvn in verses Whether now bend your minds a headlong fall to bring Which heretofore hadwont to stand as straight as any thing And many other things most gravely for you knovv the verse and Oration of Alpius is extant and these things he did seventeen yeere after his second Consulship vvhen there vvas ten yeeres betvveen each Consulship and he had been 8 Censor before the first of vvhich vvarre of Pyrrhus before spoken it is recorded it vvas great for so vve have received it from our fore-fathers Therefore they bring nothing vvhich affirme that old age is not busied in affaires and they are like them vvhich say the Pylatin sailing doth nothing vvhen some mad fellovves climbe the ropes others leap up and dovvn the hatches and others Pumpe But he holding the Sterne and sitting quietly in the Poope doth nâ—t as the young men do but farre better and that of more import great matters are compassed not by strength swiftnes and celerity of body but by counsel authority and vvisdome of vvhich things age is not deprived but stored unlesse you vvill say that I vvho have been souldier Tribune and Legate and Consul in divers vvarres do novv seeme to loyter vvhen I vvage not vvarre yet do I prescribe to the Senate vvhat things may be done and I shew them long before hovv Siege may be laid to subtill 9 Carthage of vvhich I vvill never cease to feare till I be assured that it bee rased to the ground which victorie I beseech the immortall Gods to reserve for you O Scipio that you may follovv the example of your Grandfather from whose death it is now this 33 yeeres yet his fame remains to all posterity he dyed a yeere before I was Censor nine yeeres after my Consullship who I being in the office was the second time made Consull Therefore if he had lived an hundred yeer should he have been aweary of his age Running leaping tilt and barriers are not fit exercises for age but wisdome counsell and discretion which unlesse they had been in old men our ancestors would never have called the chief councel a * Senate Among the Lacedemonians they which bear greatest Offices as they be so also are they called old men and if you will read of forrainge matters you shall find many Common-wealths overthrown by young men but restored and held up by old men Tell me how you have lost your great Common-wealth so quickly Thus it is answered in the play of the 10 Poet Naevius There came forth new Orators fooles and young men For rashnesse is a quality of youth but prudence of age VI TABLE of Annotations 1. LUcius Paulus Aemylianus an excellent man father to Scipio and brother in Law to Cato 2. Cato the sonne of Cato Major who valiantly fighting under Paulus Aemylius against Perseus was slaine he marryed Tertia the daughter to Paulus Aemylius 3. Curii 4. Fabritii a noble stock not only memorable for their severe life but their justice and continency
the thunder-bolts of warre Publius was Affricanus his father and Cnaeus father to Scipio Nausica 2. Cyrus There were three of this name two Kings and one Poet who for his fingular wit was made a Bishop by Theodosius the Emperour 3. Xenophon a man of great wisdome and beauty the sonne of Grillus He was Scholler to Socrates 4. Lucius Metellus Consul with M. Fabius Aburb condit 506. He was High Priest twice Consul Dictator master of the Horse and Decemvir He first led Eléphants in Triumph in the first Carthaginian warre in his age he lost his sight when he would have spoyled the Temple of Vesta 5. Nestor King Pylion sonne of Nelius and Adonidis a man of great experience and wisdome he went with Agamemnon to Troy and lived three hundred yeeres 6. Captaine of Greece was Agamemnon the sonne of Atreus King of Argives he led the Army of the Grecians to Troy to be revenged for the Rape of Helen where when he had obtained the victory returning home Clytemnestra his wife presented him with a headlesse shirt which while he was putting on and searching where to put forth his head Aegisthus his wifes adulterer slew him 7. Ajax a strong and valiant Captaine under Agamemnon who striving with Ulysses for the Armor of Achilles and being overcome of him ranne mad and slew himselfe 8. Troy a famous City in the lesser Asia built by Tros King thereof it was three times sacked twice by Hercules and lâ—stly cleane overthrown by Agamemnon and the Greekes for the cause above said 9. Thermopylae a mountaine in Grecia so called of the hot matters that flow from thence there was fought a great battaile between Attilius Glabrio and Antiochus King of Macedon at which was Cato 10. Titus Pontius who when the Capitoll had be enlike to be taken swam over Tibur Pliny writes that he had the sinewes of his arms and hands double 11. Masinissa King of Numidia he was received into the Romane leaÌ„gue by Publius Scipio Africanus CHAP. XI STrength is not in old age neither indeed is strength required of age therefore both by the laws and statutes our age is free from those offices which cannot be exercised without strength therefore we are not compelled to do those things which we cannot no nor so much as we can but some men are so weak that they can scarcely execute any office or duty of life at all yet that is not the proper fault of age but most commonly of sicknesse how weak was Scipio the sonne of Publius Africanus he which adopted you Scipio of how small or rather of no health which had it not been so he had shined like another light in the city for to his fathers magnanimity of mind in him was added most plentifull learning what wonder is there then in old men if they be sometimes weak since youth it selfe cannot avoid it Age is to be resisted Laelius and Scipio and his faults are to be ruled with diligence we must strive against age as against a disease we must have a care of our health we must use moderate exercises so much meat and drinke must be taken that the strength may be refreshed not oppressed neither must we only feed the body but the minde and understanding much more for they also are extinguished with age unlesse you alwayes adde to them by study and instill as it were oyle into a lampe For though mens bodies grow heavy and weary with much exercise yet the minde is made more light and ready by exercising it selfe They whom Caecilius cals foolish old men are such as are credulous forgetfull and dissolute whith are not generally the faults of all age but of a sluggish drowsie and slothfull age For as wantonnesse and lust is more in young men then in old and yet not in all young men but in the dishonest so that folly of age which is wont to be called doating is in light-headed old men but not in all Appius being both an old man and a blind man governed foure valiant sonnes and five beautifull daughters a great houshold and many retayners for he had his mind ready bent as a bow neither fainting did he yeild to age He held not only authority but also command over his own his servants feared him his children reverenced him he was dear to all the ancient manners and discipline of the countrey flourished in that house For age is so excellent if it keep its authority if it be bound to no man that even to the last gaspe it beareth rule over its own And as I like a youth in whom there is some gravity so I like an old man in whom there is some youthfulnesse which who so observeth may be an old man in body but in minde he never shall be I am now writing my seventh book of 1 Originales and of excellent causes whatsoever I have heretofore defended now especially I compile oratioÌ„s I handle the sooth-sayers the Priests and the Civil law I also use the Greek tongue much And after the manner of the Pythagoreans for to exercise my memory I call to mind in the evening what I have spake heard or done all that day These are indeed the cases of the minde these the exercises of the wit in which studies while I busie my selfe I do not greatly desire the strength of body I am present with my friends I come into the senate often and of my own accord I bring discourses long and well thought upon which I there defend not by streÌ„gth of body but of mind which if I could not do yet lying on my bed the remembrance of the good I have done would much delight me But hitherto I have so lead my life that I am yet able to performe the like fore one which liveth in these labours and studies never perceives how age creepeth on him for it doth by little and little wax old without feeling neither is life suddainly dissolved but by long continuance exstinguished XI TABLE of Annotations 1. THe Book of Originals was in manner of a Chronicle which Cato wrote there are but a few fragments of them extant the rest are lost CHAP. XII THere followeth the third Objection to age they say that it wanteth pleasures Oh excellent gift of age if it take away that which makes our youth vitious therefore hear now O yee excellent young men the old oration of 1 Architas the Tarentine a singular and worthy man which was delivered me when I was a young man with Q. Maximus at Tarentum He said that there was no deadlier plague given by nature tomen then the pleasure of the body the greedy lusts whereof are rash and unbrideledly stirred up to get and gain From hence are derived treasons from hence arise the overthrowes of Common-wealths and the privy conspiracies and whisperings with the enemies That to conclude there was no wickednesse nor no evill deed to the undertaking of which the lust of pleasure did not incite a man and that
whoredome adultery and all such evill was stirred up by no other bait then pleasure And forasmuch as nature or some God hath given nothing more excellent to a man then his minde to this divine gift there is no greater enemy then pleasure For lust bearing rule there is no place for temperance neither in the Kingdome of pleasure can virtue consist To the better understanding whereof he bade one imagine in his minde some one nusled in as great pleasure as could be he thought that no man would doubt but that while he was thus delighted he could deeply consider of nothing in his minde nor performe any thing by his reason therefore nothing is so detestable as pleasure especially if it be great and of long continnance for then it cleane extinguisheth the light of the mind These things 2 Nearchus the Tarentine our friend who was in the league of Rome said that Architas spake to 3 Caius Pontius the Samnite his father of whom * Spurius Posthumus and T. Viturius the Consuls were overcome in the 4 Caudine war and that he had heard it of his ancestors when there was present at that speech Plato of Athens whom I find to have come to Tarentum * Lucius Camillus Appius Claudius being Consuls But to what end is all this that you may understand that if we cannot despise pleasure by wisedome and reason we ought to give great thanks to old age which brings to passe that we shall not lust to do that which we ought not to do For pleasure the enemy of reason hindereth counsell and as I may so say it blindeth the eyes of the minde that it cannot have fellowship with vertue It was against my will that I cast 5 Lucius Flaminius the brother to that valiant man Titus Flaminius out of the senate seven yeers after he had been Consul but I thought his lust was noted for he when he was Consul in France was intreated to behead one of his prisoners for sport by a Harlot in a banquet which he did he his brother Titus being Censor who was next before me escaped but to me and * Flaccus such hainous and wicked lust could not be in any wise allowed which with his own private shame might joyn a blot to the Empire I have often heard it of my Elders who said that they have heard it of old men that Caius Fabritius was wont to marvell that when he was Embassad or with King Pyrrhus he heard 6 Cinaeas the Thessalonian say that there was * one at Athens who professed himselfe a wise man and affirmed that all our actions ought to be referred to pleasure and that M. Curius and T. Coruncanus were wont to wish that he could perswade that thing to Pyrrhus and the Samnits whereby they might be the easilier overcome when they had given themselves to pleasure Marcus Curius lived with 7 Publius Decius who in his fourth Consulship five years before Curius was Consul bequeathed himself to death for the Common-wealth Fabritius Coruncanus knew him wel who as wel by the life as by the deeds of this Publius Decius of whom I speak did judge that there was some other thing more excellent in its own nature then pleasure to be followed which every good man pleasure being contemned ought to seek after But to what end speak we so much of pleasure because that you may see that no blame but much praise is to be given to age because it doth not lust after pleasure which is so dangerous a thing XII TABLE of Annotations 1. ARchitas of Tarentum a Pythagorean Philosopher he was the Governour of the city he learned Geometry of Plato and by that art made an artificiall dove which flew like a live one 2. Nearchus a Pythagorean Philosopher and Host to Cato as Plutarch writes 3. Caius Pontius the sonne of Hernius who wished that he might live till the Romans grew covetous for then he thought that they might be overcome 4. Caudine war was fought at a wooddy hill so called between the Romans and the Samnites 5. Lucius Flaminius Consul 562 years ab urbe cond. who after he was put out of his degree of Senator by Cato sitting in the lowest and common place of the Theater was so pitied by the People for his humility thatwith great acclamations they advanced him to the seate where the Consuls sate 6. Cinaeas Schollar to Demosthenes a man of such eloquence that by his perswasion Pyrrhus gat many cities and therefore much honoured by him 7. Publius Decius Coss. with Fab. Max. Quintil. An. ab urb cond. 458. his father fighting against the Latines when by the oracle of Apollo it was told that that Army should have the victory whose Captain was first slain he valiantly and willingly cost himselfe among the enemies and for the good of his countrey was there slain whose example his sonne following did the like CHAP. XIII AGe wanteth banquetting gluttony and quaffing it is also without surfeting drunkennesse or dreaming but yet if we may any wayes take some pleasure because we do not easily resist her flatteries for divine Plato calleth pleasure the bait of evils because men are caught therwith as fishes with a hook tho age despiseth immoderate banquets yet may it be delighted with moderate meetings When I was a boy I remember I have seen 1 Caius Duillus the sonne of * Marcus he which first overcame the Carthaginians by sea comming from supper he took great pleasure to have lighted torches carried before him and musicians to play before him which use he being a private man without any example had taken to himselfe But wherefore speak I so much of others I will now returne to my selfe First I had companions like my selfe and divers companies and fellowships I being Questor were by me in stituted the holy writs of the 2 great mother being performed I did banquet then with my equals neither did I esteem the delight of those banquets by the bodies pleasure more then for the company and conference of my friends Well did our Ancestors call the sitting together of friends at a feast * Convivium because it hath a conjunction of life better then the Greeks which call it both compotatio and concaenatio a drinking together and a supping together But I am delighted with moderate feasts for the delight of conference and that not only with my equals of which but few now remain but also with men of your age and with you and I give great thankes to age that hath taken away the desire of meat and drinke in me and increased the desire of study but if any of these things do also delight any man least I should seem to be at utter defiance with pleasure in which peradventure there may be a naturall mean I do not see but that in these pleasures themselves age may have sense feeling For those stewardships in feasts do much delight me and that speech which is used by
fetters of this body we performe a certain grievous burden and duty of necessity For the soule is divine and is thrust down from a most heavenly dwelling and is as it were drowned in the earth a place contrary to divine and eternall nature and surely I thinke that the immortall gods have put soules into men for this cause that beholding the earth and the order of the heavens they should imitate them in the order and constancie of their life neither doth reason and disputation only drive me to thinke so but the authority and opinion of the best Philosophers I have heard that Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans that were almost our neighbours who were called 1 Italian Philosophers never doubted but that we had our soules chosen out of the most divine essence I have heard also that Socrates who was judged the wisest in all the world by the 2 oracle of 3 Apollo did dispute concerning the immortality of the soule But what need many words so I thinke and so I have perswaded my selfe that seeing there is such swiftnesse of understanding such memory of things past such fore-sight of things to come such arts such sciences and such inventions that that spirit which containeth these things cannot but be immortall And for as much as the soule is alwayes moved and hath no beginning of motion because it moveth it selfe nor shall have no end of motion because it shall never leave it selfe and seeing that the nature of the soule is simple of it selfe and hath nothing mingled with it contrary to it I beleeve it cannot be divided and therefore cannot die and it is a great argument that men know many things before they are borne because when they are boyes and learne hard arts they so swiftly conceive innumerable things that they seem not then to learne them but as it were to remember them again These are almost the very words of Plato XXII Table of Annotations 1. PYthagoreans he calleth them his neighbours because they were of Calabria which joyned on the borders of Italy and Rome 2. Oracle of Apollo stood in Delphos an Isle where in the name of Apollo the devill through a brazen image made doubtfull answers to questions that were asked it continued till the birth of Christ and about that time it ceased 3. Apollo the sonne of Jupiter and Latona born at one birth with his sister Diana in the Isle Delos he is accounted for the sonne and the god of Physicians Musicians Painters and Poets CHAP. XXIII 1. Cyrus the great in Xenophon at his death said thus Doe not suppose O my dear children that I when I shall depart from you shall turne to nothing or become no where for while I lived with you you did not see my soule but you understood that it was in my body by the things which I did therefore beleeve that it is the same still though hereafter you shall not see it For the honours and good name of noble men should not live after their deaths if in their lives their soules or mindes did nothing worthy remembrance Verily I could never be perswaded that the soules of men did only live while they were in mortall bodies and not afterwards nor that the soule is any longer foolish then while it is in the foolish body but that after being freed and pure from the mixture of the body it becomes wise and seeing that man is dissolved by death the end of all other things is apparent for all things go from whence they came the soule only neither when it cometh nor when it goeth doth appeare Now there is nothing more like death then sleep and the soules of them that sleep do greatly declare the divinesse thereof for sometime they are freed from the body for a time and do behold many things to come whereby may be gathered what they will after be when they have clearly freed themselves out of the bonds of the body wherefore if the soul be thus immortall saith he worship me as a god but if it die with the body yet yee fearing the gods which do behold and governe all this faire world shall keep my memory inviolable This spake Cyrus on his death-bed XXIII TABLE of Annotations 1. CYrus the great sonne of Cambises he slew Astyages last King of the Medes and translated the monarchy to the Persians rule He left behind him two sonnes Cambises and Tranvazares CHAP. XXIV BUt if you please let us see a little of our later times no man shall perswade me Scipio that either your two grandfathers Paulus and Africanus or the Uncle of Africanus or many other excellent men whom it is not now necessary to name would have indeavoured so much in great affaires unlesse they had known that in their posterity their memory should live together with their praise Do you thinke that after the manner of old men I may boast something of my selfe that I would have taken such paines in the City and in the Campe if I should have ended my fame together with my life Were it not better to lead a quiet and peaceable old age without labour and contention but I know not by what meanes the soule lifting it selfe up doth so behold the memory that shall be left to posterity as if it should then live when it had once died Which unlesse it were so that memory remained and the soule were immortal scarce would any excellent minde indevour to get renown and glory But suppose that every wise man dieth with a good soule and every foole with a bad doth it not seem to you that that soule which knoweth more and is of deeper understanding doth see that it shall go to a better place then that soule whose intellect is more dull and mortall Truely I am verry desirous to fee your fathers whom I love so well and I not onely wish to see them whom I have known but also them of whom I have heard and read therefore from the place whether I am going shall no man withhold me nor from thence as a ball strike mee back and if any god would grant me to be now a child in my cradle againe and to be young I would refuse it Neither would I having runne my full course be called back again For what profit hath life or rather what trouble but say it have some commodity yet when it hath a fulnesse and satiety it ought to have an end I will not deplore my life forespent as many learned men have done neither do I repent that I have lived because I have so lived that I think I was not borne in vaine and I depart out of this life as from an Inne not as from a continuall habitation for nature hath given us a place to rest in not to dwell in O happy shall that day be when I shall come into the company and counsell of those men of whom I spake before and not onely to them but to my deare sonne Cato then whom no man was better or more excellent in piety whose body was by me interred which thought to dye before him but his soule not forgetting me but continually beholding me is gone thither where he perceived that I should come whose death I did the better beare not that I take it very patiently but I comforted my selfe with this hope that I should not live long after him And in these things Scipio for you say that you and Loelius were wont to marvell at it is mine age light and not onely not troublesome but also pleasant But if I do erre that the soules of men bee immortall I do erre willingly neither will I while I live be wrested from mine opinion wherein I am delighted but if when I am dead as some small Philosophers say I shall feel nothing I fear not least the dead Philosophers should laugh at this my error But if we were not immortall yet it were to be wished that a man die in his due time for of nature as of all things else there is an end But old age is the last act of our life as of a play of which there ought to be an end especially when there is satiety and fulnesse of time joyned with it Thus much I had to say concerning old age which I wish you may obtain that those things which you have heard me speak of you might know by experience FINIS PRinted or sold by Wlliam Leake at the signe of the Crown in Fleetstreet between the two Temple gates Thefe Books Callis learned readings upon the statute 23 of H. 8. Cap. 5. of Sewers Perkins on the Law in English 8o The Parsons Law in English 8o Topicks in the Lawes of England 8o Nyes artificiall Fire-workes and Gunnery Wilbies second set of musick 3. 4. 5 and 6. parts The Fort-Royall of the Scriptures or a vade mecum Concordance presenting to the world a 100 of the most usefull heads of Scripture common placed for present use Mathematical Recreations 8o Dellamans Vse of the Horizontall Quadrant 8o Garden of Naturall Contemplations by D. Fulke 8o Brinlleys Corderius in English 8o * In a book of the Consolation of Philosophy which is lost * Turpe est dicere non putaram * Pares cum paribus facillime congregantur * Consul 550 yeeres ab urbe cond. * Coss. breifly for Consul * A Senio In the Play called Attellana * Cons. An. 333. * Cons. An. 337. * Censor with Cato * An Epicure of the sect of Aristippus * Tribune with L. Menenius * A con vivo * rebus Venereis * L. Andronius he was made free for his good wit by L. Salinator * An excellent Orator * Assidue discens plurima fio senex * occatio * An excellent Physician he cured King Philips eye when it was shot out with an arrow * A Town in Persia * High Priest Anno 671. * Coss with Sulp. Paterculus Anno 672. * High Priest Anno 671. The fourth Objection to age neernesse to death * A place neer the sea-shore of Gades * Slain by Hanniball in the Carthage warre