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from all calamities, yet the torments and feare of death 

 should stil offend them. But besides them, behold, what, 

 and how manye euilles there bee, that unlesse the cloude 

 of error be remoued, impossible it is to see the truth, or 

 receiue allay of our earthly woes." 



After treating in succession of those ills of life most 

 commonly deplored, enriching his text with much shrewd 

 wit, with a great deal of anecdote, and with the proper 

 store of classical quotations and allusions, arguing also 

 sometimes out of a firm belief in curiously false opinions 

 current among men of science in those days, Jerome thus 

 draws his work of consolation to a close. He has through- 

 out taught that the best safeguard against tribulation is to 

 have a clean heart and a busy hand. Urging that fact 

 again emphatically, he passes from the last of human 

 sorrows, death, and ends by leaving man secure from 

 further need of consolation, in enjoyment of that peace 

 which is to be found only beyond the grave. Thus 

 Jerome wrote about Calamity and thoroughly meant 

 what he wrote at a time when he himself was bearing 

 much : 



" Wherefore to bear everythinge resolutely, is not only 

 the parte of a wise man, but also of a man wel aduised, 

 seinge there is nothing in this life that may iustly be said 

 to be against us. Therefore Homerus fayned Aten the 

 Goddes of Calamitye to be barefooted, as one that could 



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