should be this: Thy speech is not right, O man! if thou
supposest that he that is of any worth at all, should apprehend
either life or death, as a matter of great hazard and danger;
and should not make this rather his only care, to examine his
own actions, whether just or unjust: whether actions of a good,
or of a wicked man, &c. For thus in very truth stands the case,
O ye men of Athens. What place or station soever a man
either hath chosen to himself, judging it best for himself;
or is by lawful authority put and settled in, therein do I think
(all appearance of danger notwithstanding) that he should continue,
as one who feareth neither death, nor anything else, so much
as he feareth to commit anything that is vicious and shameful,
&c. But, O noble sir, consider I pray, whether true generosity
and true happiness, do not consist in somewhat else rather,
than in the preservation either of our, or other men's lives.
For it is not the part of a man that is a man indeed, to desire
to live long or to make much of his life whilst he Iiveth:
but rather (he that is such) will in these things wholly refer
himself unto the Gods, and believing that which every woman can
tell him, that no man can escape death; the only thing that
he takes thought and care for is this, that what time he liveth,
he may live as well and as virtuously as he can possibly, &c. To
look about, and with the eyes to follow the course of the stars
and planets as though thou wouldst run with them; and to mind
perpetually the several changes of the elements one into another.
For such fancies and imaginations, help much to purge away the dross
and filth of this our earthly life,' &c. That also is a fine passage
of Plato's, where he speaketh of worldly things in these words:
'Thou must also as from some higher place look down, as it were,
upon the things of this world, as flocks, armies, husbandmen's labours,
marriages, divorces, generations, deaths: the tumults of courts
and places of judicatures; desert places; the several nations
of barbarians, public festivals, mournmgs, fairs, markets.'
How all things upon earth are pell-mell; and how miraculously
things contrary one to another, concur to the beauty and perfection
of this universe.