THE FIRST BOOK. 51 



yet, since the argument I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am 

 glad that men shall perceive I am as willing to flatter (if they 

 will so call it) an Alexander, or a Caesar, or an Antoninus that 

 are dead many hundred years since, as any that now liveth 

 ior it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty 

 that I propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming 

 m any man s praises. Observe, then, the speech he used of 

 Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state of one of the 

 greatest questions of moral philosophy : whether the enjoyin* 

 of outward things, or the contemning of them, be the greatest 

 happiness ; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly contented 

 with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition 

 Were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes &quot; But 

 Seneca inverteth it, and saith, &quot;Plus erat, quod hie nollet 

 accipcre, qudm quod ille posset dare.&quot; There were more things 

 which Diogenes would have refused than those were which 

 Alexander could have given or enjoyed. 



&amp;lt;f Si 3 ^ ^ 86 ^ 6 a ? ain that s P eech whi ch was usual with him, 

 That he felt his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and 

 lust ; and see if it were not a speech extracted out of the 

 depth of natural philosophy, and liker to have come out of the 

 mouth of Aristotle or Democritus than from Alexander. 



(14) See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy when 

 upon the bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his 

 flatterers, that was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and 

 said, Look, this is very blood ; this is not such a liquor as 

 Homer speaketh of, which ran from Venus hand when it was 

 pierced by Diomedes.&quot; 



(15) See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in the 

 speech he used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made 

 against his father Antipater ; for when Alexander happened to 

 say, Do you think these men would have come from so far to 

 complin except they had just cause of grief ? &quot; and Cassander 

 answered, Yea, that was the matter, because they thought 

 they should not be disproved ; &quot; said Alexander, laughing 



bee the subtleties of Aristotle, to take a matter both ways 

 pro et contra, &c.&quot; 



(16) But note, again, how well he could use the same art 

 which he reprehended to serve his own humour : when bearin^ 

 a secret grudge to Callisthenes, because he was against the 

 new ceremony of his adoration, feasting one night where the 

 same Callisthenes was at the table, it was moved by some 

 after supper, for entertainment sake, that Callisthenes who 

 was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or purpose 

 it nis own choice ; which Callisthenes did, choosing the praise 



