442 WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 



to the nature and manners of the person the court, or solicit ; who, 

 if he be a man not of the same gifts and endowments, but altogether 

 of a haughty and contemptuous behaviour, here represented by the 

 person of Juno, they must entirely drop the character that carries the 

 least show of worth, or gracefulness ; if they proceed upon any other 

 footing, it is downright folly ; nor is it sufficient to act the deformity 

 of obsequiousness, unless they really change themselves, and become 

 abject and contemptible in their persons. 



XVI.-THE FABLE OF CASSANDRA. 



EXPLAINED OF TOO FREE AND UNSEASONABLE ADVICE. 



THE poets relate, that Apollo, falling in love with Cassandra, was 

 still deluded and put off by her, yet fed with hopes, till she had got 

 from him the gift of prophecy ; and having now obtained her end, she 

 flatly rejected his suit. Apollo, unable to recall his rash gift, yet 

 enraged to be outwitted by a girl, annexed this penalty to it, that though 

 she should always prophesy true, she should never be believed ; whence 

 her divinations were always slighted, even when she again and again 

 predicted the ruin of her country. 



EXPLANATION. This fable seems invented to express the insig 

 nificance of unseasonable advice. For they who are conceited, 

 stubborn, or intractable, and listen not to the instructions of Apollo, 

 the god of harmony, so as to learn and observe the modulations anil 

 measures of affairs, the sharps and flats of discourse, the difference 

 between judicious and vulgar ears, and the proper times of speech and 

 silence, let them be ever so intelligent, and ever so frank of their 

 advice, or their counsels ever so good and just, yet all their 

 endeavours, either of persuasion or force, are of little significance, and 

 rather hasten the ruin of those they advise. But, at last, when the 

 calamitous event has made the sufferers feel the effect of their neglect, 

 they too late reverence their advisers, as deep, foreseeing, and faithful 

 prophets. 



Of this we have a remarkable instance in Cato of Utica, who dis 

 covered afar off, and long foretold, the approaching ruin of his country, 

 both in the first conspiracy, and as it was prosecuted in the civil war 

 between Crcsar and Pompey, yet did no good the while, but rather hurt 

 ihe commonwealth, and hurried on its destruction, which Cicero wisely 

 observed in these words : &quot; Cato, indeed, judges excellently, but preju 

 dices the state ; for he speaks as in the commonwealth of P!ato, and 

 not as in the 4regs of Romulus.&quot; 



