innate purity can have left you nothing to fear, and whose genuine
piety must have made you feel, that every thing is yours to hope. Why
then do I find you in this seclusion? what good is to arise from this
servile renunciation of yourself, this forgetfulness of the dignity of
human nature, this disgraceful sinking under afflictions which are the
common lot of all mankind? tis but too frequently the fate of man to
encounter calamity; but to bear it with resignation is always his duty.
Now speak, Venoni, and say, what arguments can defend your present
conduct.

_Venoni._ (_weakly and despondingly_) Benvolio-- I am wretched! I have
lost every thing; my strength of mind is broken; my heart is the prey of
despair.

_Vice._ Of despair? oh, blush to own it! true, you have met with
sorrows; and who then is exempt from them? true, your hopes have been
deceived; accident has dissolved your dream of happiness; death has
deprived you of the mistress of your choice: but you are a man and a
citizen; you have a country which requires your services, and yet, oh
shame! you resign yourself to despair, Venoni, where is your fortitude?

_Venoni._ Fortitude? oh! I have none-- none but to sue for death at the
hand of heaven: had I possessed less fortitude, my own hand would have
given me what I sue for long since!

_Vice._ And say, that death be the only blessing left yourself to wish
for; is it then only for yourself, that you wish for blessing? say, that
your heart be dead to pleasure, ought it not still to live for virtue?
your prospects of happiness may indeed be closed, but the field of your
duties remains still open. Mark me, Venoni; life may become to man but
one long scene of misery; yet surely the spirit of benevolence should
never perish but with life.

_Venoni._ Nor shall mine perish even then, Benvolio. In the hands of
those virtuous men to whom I shall confide my treasures, they will
become the patrimony of the widow and the orphan, of the wanderer in a
foreign land, and of him on whom the hand of sickness lies heavy. When
my bones shall be whitened by time, still shall my riches feed the
fainting beggar. When this heart, itself so heavy, shall be mouldered
away into dust, my bounty shall still make light the heavy hearts of my
fellow-sufferers! yes; even in his grave, Venoni shall still make others
happy!

_Vice._ And how can you hope that these friars will perform that duty
hereafter, which you now through indolence re