much happier she was, to be removed out of this world, than to have stayed in it, conceived so lively an apprehension of the eternal and heavenly beatitude, that she begged of her husband, with the extremest importunity, to do as much for her; and God, at their joint request, calling her to him shortly after, it was a death embraced on both sides with singular content. CHAPTER XXXIII. Fortune is often met with in the Train of Reason. SUCH is the inconstancy of the various biasses of fortune, that she cannot avoid appearing to us with all sorts of faces. Can there be a more express act of justice than this? The duke of Valentenois* having resolved, in 1503, to poison Adrian, cardinal of Cornetto, with whom pope Alexander the Sixth, his father, and himself, were to sup at his house in the Vatican, he sent before a bottle of poisoned wine, and withal strict order to the butler to keep it very safe. The pope being come before his son, and calling for a whet, the butler, supposing this wine was so strictly recommended to his care only upon account of its excellence, served a glass of it to the pope, and the duke himself coming in presently after, and believing his bottle had not been touched, took also his glass; so that the father died immediately upon the place, and the son, after having been long tormented with sickness, was reserved to another and a worse fortune. * History of Francis Guiccardin, lib. vi. p. 267, printed at Venice, by Gabriel Giolito, in 1568. Fortune times to us. Sometimes she seems to play upon us, just in the seems some- nick of time. Monsieur d'Estree, at that time sport with guidon to Monsieur de Vendosme; and Monsieur de Liques, lieutenant to the company of the duke of Arscot, being both suitors to the Sieur de Foungeselles's sister, though of different parties (as it oft falls out among frontier neighbours), the Sieur de Liques carried her; but on the very day he was married, and which was worse, before he went to bed to his wife, the bridegroom, having a mind to break a lance in honour of his new bride, went out to skirmish, near to St. Omers, where the Sieur d'Estree proving the stronger, took him prisoner, and to render his victory the more brilliant, the lady herself was fain (Conjugis ante coacta novi dimittere collum) his pri Con to request the favour of him, to deliver up * Catullus ad Manl. ver. 81, &c. without any effort made against them, on a sudden tumbled down. But she did quite contrary in our Milan war; for captain Rense laying siege to the city Verona, and having carried a mine under a great part of the wall, it was lifted from its base, by the springing of the mine, but dropt down again, nevertheless, whole and entire, and so exactly upon its foundation, that the besieged suffered no inconvenience by it. sometimes turns doc Sometimes she plays the physician. Jason Phereus, Fortune being given over by the physicians, by reason of an imposthume in his breast, and having a mind to rid tor. himself of it by death, rushed desperately into the thickest ranks of the enemy, where he was fortunately wounded quite through the body, so that the imposthume broke, and he was cured.* rior to art. Did she not also excel the painter Protogenes in Sometimes the knowledge of his art? This man finished the she is supe picture of a dog quite tired, and out of breath, in all the other parts excellently well to his own liking, but not being able to express, as he would, the slaver and foam of his mouth, he was so vexed with his work, that he took a spunge, which, by cleaning his pencils, had imbibed a variety of colours, and threw it in a rage against the picture, with an intent utterly to deface it; when fortune guiding the spunge to hit just upon the mouth of the dog, it there performed what art could not attain to.t corrects Does she not sometimes direct our counsels, and And some. correct them? Isabel, queen of England, being to times she return from Zealand to her own kingdom in 1326, our coun with an army in favour of her son, against her hus.sels. band, had been lost had she come into the port she *Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 50. Valerius Maximus who mentions this accident, lib. i. cap. 9, in Externis, represents the fact in a manner still more miraculous, for he says, that Jason received this important service from an assassin. Seneca ascribes this accident to the same cause. De Benef. lib. ii. cap. 19. † Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv. cap. 10, She-sur intended, being there laid wait for by the enemy; but fortune, against her will, threw her into another haven, where she landed in safety. And he of old, who, throwing a stone at a dog, hit and killed his mother-in-law; had he not reason to pronounce this verse: Ταυτόματον ἡμῶν καλλίω βελεύεται. * By this you see, Fortune takes surer aim than we. Icetest had tampered with two soldiers to kill passes the Timoleon, at Adrano in Sicily. They took their rules of hu- time to do it, when he was performing a sacrifice; man pru dence. when thrusting into the crowd, as they were makingsigns to one another, that now was a fit time for their business, in steps a third, who, with a sword struck one of them violently over the pate, and laying him dead upon the place, runs away. His companion concluding himself discovered and undone, ran to the altar, and begged for protection, promising to discover the whole truth. And while he was laying open the whole conspiracy, behold a third man, who, being apprehended, was, as a murderer, pulled and haled by the people through the crowd, towards Timoleon, and other the most eminent persons of the assembly, to whom he cried. for pardon, pleading that he had justly slain his father's murderer; and proving upon the spot, by sufficient witnesses, which his good fortune very opportunely supplied him withal, that his father was really killed in the city of the Leontines by that very man on whom he had taken his revenge, he was rewarded ten Attic minæ, for having had the good fortune, while he was taking satisfaction for the death of his father, to preserve the life of the com * Menander. He was a Sicilian, born at Syracuse, that aimed to oppress the liberty of his country, of which Timoleon was the protector. Plutarch in the Life of Timoleon, chap. 7. The old Attic mina was seventy-five drachms. mon father of the Sicilians. Thus fortune, in her conduct, surpasses all the rules of common prudence. and son gether, by favour of To conclude, is there not a direct application of The father her favour, bounty, and piety, manifestly discovered proscribed in this action? Ignatius, the father, and Ignatius, to die the son, being proscribed by the Triumviri of Rome, a special resolved upon this generous act of mutual kindness, fortune. to fall by the hands of one another, and by that means to frustrate the cruelty of the tyrants. Accordingly, with their swords drawn, they rushed one upon another, where fortune so guided the points, that they gave two wounds equally mortal, affording withal so much honour to so brave a friendship, as to leave them just strength enough to draw out of their wounds their bloody weapons, that they might have liberty to clasp one another in this condition with so close an embrace, that the executioners cut off both their heads at once, leaving the bodies fast linked together in this noble knot, and their wounds close to each other, affectionately sucking in the blood and the remainder of one another's lives. CHAPTER XXXIV. Of one Defect in our Government. of a pro My deceased father, who, for a man that had no The utility other advantages than experience only, and his own natural parts, was nevertheless of a very clear judg-office of inment, has formerly told me that he once had quiry. thoughts of endeavouring to introduce this practice; that there might be in every city a certain place assigned, to which such as stood in need of any thing might repair, and have their business entered by an * Appian Alexand. de Bellis Civilibus, lib. iv. p. 969. |