28o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



In ihtfirji place, there is nothing that aggravates and embitters 

 misfortunes more than furprife and difappointment ; while, on 

 the contrary, nothing alleviates them fo much as expeding them, 

 and io being prepared for them : And they will ftill fit lighter 

 upon us, if we know that they are of abfolute neceflity. No man 

 of good natural fenfe will grieve tha the muft die, becaufe he knows 

 that to be the fate of whatever is born, and, if he be a philoibpher„ 

 he will likewife know, that families, and even nations, muft pe- 

 rifh, as well as the individuals of which they are compofed, and 

 muft become old, like individuals, before they die, and confcquently 

 weak and difeafed. 



2<r/<?, If a man, in the declining age of a nation, has a difpofition 

 toward friendfhip, which every good man will have, he may have 

 more enjoyment of it than in a better age. For, in the firft place, 

 he will not be apt to be difappointed, hardly exped:ing to find any 

 man of worth and goodnefs fit to make a friend of j and, if he does 

 find fuch a man, he will be doubly fond of him, and will love him, 

 as Hamlet does Horatio in the play "^ ; and with him retiring, and 

 getting, as it were, under the fhelter of a wall, (to borrow a fimi- 

 litude from Plato), w^ill let the ftorm of life blow over him. 



Lajlly^ There remains yet to be told the greateft advantage which, 

 this philofophy affords. It muft convince us that, if our hopes arc 



in 



• Hamlei fays to Horatio, 



* bince my dear foul was miftrefs of her choice,. 



* And could of men dillinguifh, her election 



* Hath fealed thee for herftif. 



And a little after he adds, 



' GIre 



