ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 177 



and wholesome topic; bat the prerogatives of mankind are 

 not hitherto described. Pindar, in his praise of Hiero, says, 

 with his usual elegance, that he cropped the .tops of every 

 virtue; 5 and methinks it would greatly contribute to the 

 encouragement and honor of mankind, to have these tops, 

 or utmost extents of human nature, collected from faithful 

 history: I mean the greatest length whereto human nature 

 of itself has ever gone, in the several endowments of body 

 and mind. Thus it is said of Caesar, 6 that he could dictate 

 to five amanuenses at once. We read, also, of the ancient 

 rhetoricians, as Protagoras and Grorgias; and of the ancient 

 philosophers, as Callisthenes, Possidonius, and Carneades, 

 who could with eloquence and copiousness dispute offhand, 

 on either side of an argument, 7 which shows the power of 

 the mind to advantage. So does, also, what Cicero relates 

 of his master Archias, viz., that he could make extempore 

 a large number of excellent verses upon the common trans 

 actions of life. It is a great honor to the memory, that 

 Cyrus or Scipio could call so many thousands of men by 

 their names. 8 Nor are the victories gained in the moral 

 virtues less signal than those of the intellectual faculties. 

 What an example of patience is that of Anaxarchus, who, 

 when put to the torture, bit off his own tongue, and spit it in 

 the tyrant s face! Nor, to come to our own times, is that 

 a less example of scorn of suffering, which the murderer of 

 the prince of Orange displayed in the midst of his tortures. 

 This Burgundian, though scourged with iron thongs and 

 torn with red-hot pincers, did not heave a sigh; and when 

 a broken fragment of the scaffold fell on the head of one 

 of the bystanders, he, even girt around with flames, could 

 not repress his laughter. We have many instances of great 

 serenity and composure of mind at the time of death, as 

 particularly in the centurion mentioned by Tacitus, who 



5 Pindar, Olymp. i. The triumphs of men, and the summits of human 

 nature. 



6 Suetonius s Life. Quint ilian a Institutes, iii., and Laertius s Lives. 

 8 Xenophon s Cyropredia, v. ; and Quintihan s Institutes, xi. 



