you

sure, was such, both to you and to all her relations, that she can by no means desire should abandon yourself to this excess of grief. Restrain it then, I conjure you, for her sake, and for the sake of the rest of your family and friends, who lament to see you thus afflicted. Restrain it, too, I beseech you, for the sake of your country; that whenever the opportunity shall serve, it may reap the benefit of your counsels and assistance. In short, since such is our fortune, that we must necessarily submit to the present system of public affairs, suffer it not to be suspected, that it is not so much the death of your daughter, as the fate of the republic, and the success of our victors, that you deplore.

But it would be ill-manners to dwell any longer upon this subject, as I should seem to question the efficacy of your own good sense. I will only add, therefore, that as we have often seen you bear prosperity in the noblest manner, and with the highest applause, shew us, likewise, that you are not too sensible of adversity, but know how to support it with the same advantage to your character. In a word, let it not be said, that fortitude is the single virtue to which my friend is a stranger.

As

10 Sulpicius has drawn together, in this admired letter, whatever human philosophy has of force to compose the perturbations of a mind under the disquietude of severe afflic

As for what concerns myself, I will send you an account of the state of this province, and of what is transacting in this part of the world, as soon as I shall hear that you are sufficiently composed to receive the information. Farewel.

LETTER IV.

[A. U. 708.]

TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS.

I JOIN with you, my dear Sulpicius, in wishing that you had been in Rome when this most severe calamity befel me. I am sensible of the advantage I should have received from your presence, and I had almost said your equal participation of my grief, by having found myself somewhat more composed after I had read your letter. It furnished me, indeed, with arguments extremely proper to sooth the anguish of affliction, and evidently flowed from a heart that sympathized with the sorrows it endeavoured to assuage. But, although I could not enjoy the benefit of your own good offices in person, I had the advantage, however, of your son's, who gave me a proof, by every tender as

sistance

tions. But, it is evident, that all arguments of the sort here produced, tend rather to silence the clamours of sorrow, than to soften and subdue its anguish. It is a much more exalted philosophy, indeed, that must supply the effectual remedies for this purpose; to which, no other but that of christianity alone, will be found, on the trial, to be in any rational degree suffi

never any

1

sistance that could be contributed upon so melancholy an occasion, how much he imagined that he was acting agreeably to your sentiments, when he thus discovered the affection of his own. More pleasing instances of his friendship, I have frequently received, but that were more obliging. As to those for which I am indebted to yourself, it is not only the force of your reasonings, and the very considerable share you take in my afflictions, that have contributed to compose my mind; it is the deference, likewise, which I always pay to the authority of your sentiments. For, knowing, as I perfectly do, the superior wisdom with which you are enlightened, I should be ashamed not to support my distresses in the manner you think I ought, I will acknowledge, nevertheless, that they sometimes almost entirely overcome me; and I am scarce able to resist the force of my grief when I reflect, that I am destitute of those consolations which attended others, whose examples I propose to my imitation. Thus Quintus Maximus' lost a son of consular rank, and distinguished by many brave

I

Quintus Fabius Maximus, so well known for his brave and judicious conduct in opposing the progress of Hannibal's arms in Italy, was five times advanced to the consular office; the last of which was in the year of Rome 545. At the expiration of his fourth consulate, he was succeeded in that office by his son, Marcus Fabius, who, likewise, distinguished

himself

brave and illustrious actions; Lucius Paulus was deprived of two sons in the space of a single week, and your relation Gallus3, together with Marcus Cato4, had both of them the unhappiness to survive their respective sons, who were endowed with the highest abilities and virtues.

himself by his military achievements. It does not appear when, or by what accident, Marcus died; but his illustrious father was so much master of his grief upon that occasion, as to pronounce a funeral eulogy in honour of his son, before a general assembly of the people. Liv. xxiv. 43. Plut. in vit. Fab.

2 A very few days before Paulus Æmilius made his public entry into Rome, in the year 585, on occasion of his victory over Perseus, he had the misfortune to lose one of his sons; and this calamity was succeeded by another of the same kind, which befel him about as many days after his triumph. Liv.

xlv. 41.

3 Manutius conjectures, that the person here mentioned, is Caius Sulpicius Gallus, who was consul in the year 586.

4 The censor. His son was prætor in the year of Rome 638, and died whilst he was in the administration of that office. I cannot forbear transcribing upon this occasion a noble passage from Cicero's treatise concerning old age, as I find it extremely well translated to my hand, by a late ingenius writer (Mr. Hughes, if I mistake not) in the Spectator. Our author represents Cato as breaking out into the following rapture at the thoughts of his approaching dissolution: "O happy day," (says this amiable moralist) "when I "shall escape from this crowd, this heap of pollution, and "be admitted to that divine assembly of exalted spirits! "when I shall go-to my Cato, my son; than whom a better

man was never born, and whose funeral rites I myself per"formed; whereas, he ought rather to have attended mine. "Yet has not his soul deserted me, but seeming to cast a "look on me, is gone before to those habitations to which it was sensible I should follow him. And though I might appear to have borne my loss with courage, I was not unaffected "with it; but I comforted myself in the assurance, that it "would not be long before we should meet again, and be di-: "vorced no more." Pigh. Annal. ii. 99. Plut. in vit. Caton. Cic. de Senect. 23. Spect. Vol. 7. Numb. 537.

I could no

virtues. Yet these unfortunate parents lived in times when the honours they derived from the republic might, in some measure, alleviate the weight of their domestic misfortunes. But as for myself, after having been stripped of those dignities you mention, and which I had acquired by the most laborious exertion of my abilities, I had one only consolation remaining; and of that I am now bereaved! longer divert the disquietude of my thoughts, by employing myself in the causes of my friends, or the business of the state; for I could no longer, with any satisfaction, appear either in the forum, or the senate. In short, I justly considered myself as cut off from the benefit of all those alleviating occupations in which fortune and industry had qualified me to engage. But I considered, too, that this was a deprivation which I suffered in common with yourself, and some others; and, whilst I was endeavouring to reconcile my mind to a patient endurance of those ills, there was one to whose tender offices I could have recourse; and, in the sweetness of whose conversation I could discharge all the cares and anxiety of my heart. But this last fatal stab to my peace, has torn open those wounds which seemed in some measure to have been tolerably healed. For I can now no longer lose my private sorrows in the prosperity of the commonwealth,