SCALIGER'S FUNERAL ORATION. 181 



all mortals, the most ingenious and erudite, trusted indeed 

 that he would not vanquish me, but who does not see 

 that I expected hard-earned praise out of his life, through 

 his assent, not idle quiet through his death, and as it were 

 desertion of the argument. 



" Especially, illustrious men, might I have been allowed 

 to enjoy the benignity and beneficence of one whom I 

 knew to be most acute and confident in his own great- 

 ness. For it was easy to obtain from him, the most 

 courteous of men, even by the simplest little letters an 

 exchange of friendship. Was it for one long exercised in 

 battles or accustomed to meet with audacity all perils, for 

 one almost worn down among incessant disputations, con- 

 sumed with daily cares of writing, to dispute supinely 

 with so great a hero? in so great a conflict and so great a 

 dust, it was not likely that I should have set my heart 

 upon the winning of a sleepy victory. 



" Such victory is not in reason absent, nor in the opinion 

 of judicious men should it be absent, but it is of no use 

 to my fame. For to this opinion my mind always has 

 adhered, that every man (since we are all of us but little 

 more than nothing) is so capable of fault that he might 

 contend, if he pleased, even against himself. But if this 

 be the case with a most consummate man as it is often 

 with me and some others, his slips from truth are not to 

 be set down in the register of errors unless he shall after- 



