"We must not quarrel heaven in our affairs."
But we can never enough decry nor sufficiently condemn the senseless and ridiculous sallies of our unruly passions.
THAT MEN ARE NOT TO JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS TILL AFTER DEATH[23]
Every one is acquainted with the story of King Croesus to this purpose, who being taken prisoner by Cyrus, and by him condemn'd to die, as he was going to execution, cry'd out, "O Solon, Solon!" which being presently reported to Cyrus, and he sending to inquire what it meant, Croesus gave him to understand that he now found the advertisement Solon had formerly given him true to his cost, which was, "That men, however fortune may smile upon them, could never be said to be happy, till they had been seen to pass over the last day of their lives, by reason of the uncertainty and mutability of human things, which upon very light and trivial occasions are subject to be totally chang'd into a quite contrary condition."
[Footnote 23: The translation of Cotton, before it was revised by Hazlitt.]
And therefore it was, that Agesilaus made answer to one that was saying, "What a happy young man the King of Persia was to come so young to so mighty a kingdom." "'Tis true [said he], but neither was Priam unhappy at his years." In a short time, of kings of Macedon, successors to that mighty Alexander, were made joyners and scriveners at Rome; of a tyrant of Sicily, a pedant at Corinth; of a conqueror of one-half of the world, and general of so many armies, a miserable suppliant to the rascally officers of a king of Egypt. So much the prolongation of five or six months of life cost the great and noble Pompey, and no longer since than our fathers' days, Ludovico Sforza, the tenth duke of Milan, whom all Italy had so long truckled under, was seen to die a wretched prisoner at Loches, but not till he had lived ten years in captivity, which was the worst part of his fortune. The fairest of all queens (Mary, Queen of Scots), widow to the greatest king in Europe,[24] did she not come to die by the hand of an executioner? Unworthy and barbarous cruelty! and a thousand more examples there are of the same kind; for it seems that as storms and tempests have a malice to the proud and overtow'ring heights of our lofty buildings, there are also spirits above that are envious of the grandeurs here below.