544 Epigrams, Fragments, and Fugitive Pieces, from the Greek. [July 1, 
» Toy ba'varoy tt poteiSe, tav heuying yeveriipe. 
AGATHIAS- 
Why fear ye Death, the parent of repofe, 
Who numbs the fenfe of penury and pain ? 
Afecond dart no preftrate victim knows ; 
Triumphant once, he never frikes again. 
But varying oft, and num’rous are the train 
Of grim difeafes that on life intrude, 
And on they pafs, my friends, oppos’d in 
vain, 
Recurring oft, in fad viciffitude. 
Monfieur la Mothe le Vayer, who, 
from all the accounts we have of his life, 
nray, in evely point of view, be claffed 
among the moft happy and fortunate of 
-men, bis fituation eafy and honcurable, 
his life trict and temperate, his reputation 
highly exalted among men of learning and 
virtue, feems to think with equal fatti- 
dioufnefs on the vanity and nothingnels 
of life. ‘ Life (fays he) appears to me 
fo indifferent, to fay no worfe of it, that I 
would not only refufe to recommence its 
career if the choice were given me, but I 
would net exchange the three days of pain 
and ficknefs which my advanced age may 
yet look ferward to, for all the long years 
of happirefs and enjoyment, of which, in 
pav and fanguine youth, we flatter our- 
felves with the pofleffion.”” Nor do I 
think it at all neceflary to fuppofe, with 
Bayle (from whom I have taken this ex- 
traét), that ail he meant was, that he 
would not again tread over precifcly the 
fame fteps. The tedioufnefs of mere re- 
petition is too obvious te every perfon ; 
and IJ believe there are very few old men, 
who have no particular flings of remortfe 
to difturb ther minds during the latter 
days of their exiftence, who would not go 
tothe full length of what La Mothe inti- 
mates, and refule a change for any worldly 
fituation or profpects. 
Aleander, the godd Cardinal Archbi- 
fhop of Brindifi, whofe life appears to 
have been far from a mejancholy or un- 
happy one (notwithftanding it fubjected 
_ him to the cenfures of the fatirical Eraf- 
mus) made the following epitaph for ° 
himfelf : 
KatSavoy ex atuwy, ort mavropaes wy Emiysaptus 
TlcAAwy ‘wvatep udev aryioy ny Covare. 
_$ 7 dié not unwillingly,: fince I hal! fo 
ceafe to bea witnels of many things, the 
- fight of which is more painful than death 
* itfelf.”” 
hour’s uneafinefs contains more evil than 
there is good in the fpace of fix or feven 
days. He tells us the ftory of a man who 
had killed himfelf after three or four 
weeks uneafinefs. He had laid (fays he) 
his {word uncer his pillow every night, in 
4 
~ 
M. -Bayle obferyes, that, one 
hopes that he fhould have the courage to 
difpatch himfelf when darknefs would .- - 
have increafed his forrows; but his heart 
failed him feveral nights together ; at 
length he was unable to bear his. mifery *' 
any longer, and cut the veins of his arm. 
From this ftory he afferts, that all the 
pleatures which this man had enjoyed for 
thirty years together, would net equal 
the evils which tormented him during the 
laft month of his life. The proportion of 
ood to evil contained in the noted diflich 
of the poet Diphylus, is one to three : 
“‘Aonep nuabileo eves? ‘new “n run 
‘Ev ayadoy "emvyeaca Tot’ exavTher Mane. 
The diftribution of Archytas the Py- 
thagorean is more equal. ‘He’ fays; 
«© There are three ages in the life of man, 
one of happinefs, another of mifery, and a 
third compounded of the two.” 
{n facrt, however tesrible may be the 
imaginations of the ancients with refpeét 
‘to the grave and futurity, we‘aie hardly 
furprifed at finding even among them re- 
peated wifhes that the toils and mileries of 
life were over. Death, gloomy and un- 
certain as it may appear in profpeét, is to 
the mind which has been long and con- 
Rantly brooding over the evils cf the 
world, a refuge and.a blefiing. The an- 
fwer of Secundus the Pythagorean to the 
queftion, * What is death?’ is a proof 
that its fuppofed horrois were not fufh- 
cient to outweigh, among the ancient phi- 
lofophers, the certain miferies to which it 
puts a termination. ‘* It is (fays he) 
eternal fleep, the breaking up of the body, 
the defire of the afflicted, the departure of 
the ipirit, the flight and abdication of life, 
the tear of the rich, the confolation of the 
poor, the loofening of the limbs, the father 
‘of ileep, the boundary and diffolution of 
all things.” wedi 
I have already quoted ene epigram — 
which correfponds with thefe obfervations. — 
Another, by an uncertain auther, is 
equally to the purpofe : ; 
Mowe T15 avev bavare. 
- Who, but for death, could find repofe ° 
From life, and life’s unnumberd wees, 
From ills that mock our art to cure, 
As hard to fly as to endure ? 
Whate’er is fweet without alloy, 
And fheds a more exalted joy, —- 
Yon’ giorious orb that gilds the day, , 
Or, placid moon, thy filver ray, 
Earth, fea, whaté’er we gaze upon, 
Isthine, oh Nature, thine aldne ! 
The gifts that to ourfelves we owe 
(Infidious race) are fear and woe, 
Chance-pleafure, bardly worth poilefiing, 
Ten curfes to a fingle bieliing. ; 
Menander 
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