f Pythagoras and Plato, and that the
sentences of Chile and Bias tend to the same issue with those that
are found in the authors which children read. Therefore must we
industriously show them that these poetical sentences,

Not these, O daughter, are thy proper cares,
Thee milder arts befit, and softer wars;
Sweet smiles are thine, and kind endearing charms;
To Mars and Pallas leave the deeds of arms;

Jove's angry with thee, when thy unmanaged rage
With those that overmatch thee doth engage;
("Iliad," v. 248; xi. 543.)

differ not in substance but bear plainly the same sense with that
philosophical sentence, Know thyself, And these

Fools, who by wrong seek to augment their store,
And know not how much half than all is more;

Of counsel giv'n to mischievous intents,
The man that gives it most of all repents;
(Hesiod, "Works and Days," 40 and 266.)

are of near kin to what we find in the determination of Plato, in his
books entitled Gorgias and Concerning the Commonwealth, to wit, that
it is worse to do than to suffer injury, and that a man more endamageth
himself when he hurts another, than he would be damnified if he were the
sufferer. And that of Aeschylus,

Cheer up, friend; sorrows, when they highest climb,
What they exceed in measure want in time,

we must inform them, is but the same famous sentence which is so much
admired in Epicurus, that great griefs are but short, and those that
are of long continuance are but small. The former clause whereof is that
which Aeschylus here saith expressly, and the latter but the consequent
of that. For if a great and intense sorrow do not last, then that which
doth last is not great nor hard to be borne. And those words of Thespis,

Seest not how Jove,--because he cannot lie
Nor vaunt nor laugh at impious drollery,
And pleasure's charms are things to him unknown,--

Among the gods wears the imperial crown?

wherein differ they from what Plato says, that the divine nature is
remote from both joy and grief? And that saying of Bacchylides,

Virtue alone doth lasting honor gain,
But men of basest souls oft wealth attain;

and those of Euripides much of the same import,

Hence temperance in my esteem excels,
Because it constantly with good men dwells;

However you may strive for honor
And you may seem to have secured by wealth virtue,
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