reserved for a triumph, to
avoid the infamy." Antonius the Roman, [1679]"after he was overcome of his
enemy, for three days' space sat solitary in the fore-part of the ship,
abstaining from all company, even of Cleopatra herself, and afterwards for
very shame butchered himself," Plutarch, _vita ejus_. Apollonius Rhodius
[1680]"wilfully banished himself, forsaking his country, and all his dear
friends, because he was out in reciting his poems," Plinius, _lib. 7. cap.
23._ Ajax ran mad, because his arms were adjudged to Ulysses. In China 'tis
an ordinary thing for such as are excluded in those famous trials of
theirs, or should take degrees, for shame and grief to lose their wits,
[1681]Mat Riccius _expedit. ad Sinas, l. 3. c. 9._ Hostratus the friar took
that book which Reuclin had writ against him, under the name of _Epist.
obscurorum virorum_, so to heart, that for shame and grief he made away
with himself, [1682]_Jovius in elogiis_. A grave and learned minister, and
an ordinary preacher at Alcmar in Holland, was (one day as he walked in the
fields for his recreation) suddenly taken with a lax or looseness, and
thereupon compelled to retire to the next ditch; but being [1683]surprised
at unawares, by some gentlewomen of his parish wandering that way, was so
abashed, that he did never after show his head in public, or come into the
pulpit, but pined away with melancholy: (Pet. Forestus _med. observat. lib.
10. observat. 12._) So shame amongst other passions can play his prize.

I know there be many base, impudent, brazenfaced rogues, that will [1684]
_Nulla pallescere culpa_, be moved with nothing, take no infamy or disgrace
to heart, laugh at all; let them be proved perjured, stigmatised, convict
rogues, thieves, traitors, lose their ears, be whipped, branded, carted,
pointed at, hissed, reviled, and derided with [1685]Ballio the Bawd in
Plautus, they rejoice at it, _Cantores probos_; "babe and Bombax," what
care they? We have too many such in our times,

------"Exclamat Melicerta perisse
------Frontem de rebus."[1686]

Yet a modest man, one that hath grace, a generous spirit, tender of his
reputation, will be deeply wounded, and so grievously affected with it,
that he had rather give myriads of crowns, lose his life, than suffer the
least defamation of honour, or blot in his good name. And if so be that he
cannot avoid it, as a nightingale, _Que cantando victa moritur_, (saith
[1687]Mizaldus,) dies fo