dvantage; 'tis the true
and sovereign liberty here on earth, that fortifies us wherewithal to
defy violence and injustice, and to contemn prisons and chains:

"In manicis et
Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo.
Ipse Deus, simul atque volam, me solvet. Opinor,
Hoc sentit; moriar; mors ultima linea rerum est."

["I will keep thee in fetters and chains, in custody of a
savage keeper.--A god will when I ask Him, set me free.
This god I think is death. Death is the term of all things."
--Hor., Ep., i. 16, 76.]

Our very religion itself has no surer human foundation than the contempt
of death. Not only the argument of reason invites us to it--for why
should we fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented?
--but, also, seeing we are threatened by so many sorts of death, is it not
infinitely worse eternally to fear them all, than once to undergo one of
them? And what matters it, when it shall happen, since it is inevitable?
To him that told Socrates, "The thirty tyrants have sentenced thee to
death"; "And nature them," said he.--[Socrates was not condemned to death
by the thirty tyrants, but by the Athenians.-Diogenes Laertius, ii.35.]--
What a ridiculous thing it is to trouble ourselves about taking the only
step that is to deliver us from all trouble! As our birth brought us the
birth of all things, so in our death is the death of all things included.
And therefore to lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence,
is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago.
Death is the beginning of another life. So did we weep, and so much it
cost us to enter into this, and so did we put off our former veil in
entering into it. Nothing can be a grievance that is but once. Is it
reasonable so long to fear a thing that will so soon be despatched?
Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long,
nor short, to things that are no more. Aristotle tells us that there are
certain little beasts upon the banks of the river Hypanis, that never
live above a day: they which die at eight of the clock in the morning,
die in their youth, and those that die at five in the evening, in their
decrepitude: which of us would not laugh to see this moment of
continuance put into the consideration of weal or woe? The most and the
least, of ours, in comparison with