At that word there was heard a lamentable cry, and at the same time a venerable old man, as pale as if he had no blood in his veins, came up to Lucifer, and told him that his emblem of the sponge came very pat to his case; “for,” says he, “I was a great favourite, and a great hoarder of treasure, a Spaniard by birth, the tutor and confidant of Nero, and my name is Seneca. Indeed his bounties were to excess, he gave me without asking, and in taking I was never covetous but obedient. It is in the nature of princes, and it befits their quality, to be liberal where they take a liking, both of honour and fortunes; and ’tis hard for a subject to refuse, without some reflection upon the generosity or discretion of his master. For ’tis not the merit or modesty of the vassal, but the glory of the prince that is in question; and he is the best subject that contributes the most to the splendour and reputation of his sovereign. Nero indeed gave me as much as such a prince could bestow, and I managed his liberalities with all the moderation imaginable; yet all too little to preserve me from the strokes of envious and malicious tongues, which would have it, that my philosophising upon the contempt of the world was nothing else but a mere imposture, that with less danger and notice I might feed and entertain my avarice, and with the fewer competitors. Finding my credit with my master declining, it stood me upon to provide some way or other for my quiet, and to withdraw myself from being the mark of a public envy. So I went directly to Nero, and with all possible respect and humility made him a present back again of his own bounties. The truth is, I had so great a passion for his service, that neither the severity of his nature nor the debauchery of his manners could ever deter me from exhorting him to nobler courses, and paying him all the duties of a loyal subject. Especially in cases of cruelty and blood, I laid it perpetually home to his conscience, but all to little purpose; for he put his mother to death, laid the city of Rome in ashes, and indeed depopulated the empire of honest men. And this drew on Piso’s conspiracy, which was better laid than executed; for upon the discovery, the prime instruments lost their lives; and by Divine Providence this prince was preserved, in order (as one would have thought) to his repentance and change of life. But upon the issue the conspiracy was prevented, and Nero never the better. At the same time he put Lucan to death, only for being a better poet than himself. And if he gave me my choice what death to die, it was rather cruelty than pity; for in the very deliberation which death to choose, I suffered all even in the terror and apprehension that made me refuse the rest. The election I made was to bleed to death in a bath, and I finished my own dispatches hither; where, to my further affliction, I have again encountered this infamous prince, studying new cruelties and instructing the very devils themselves in the art of tormenting.”