Page:Bacons Essays 1908 West.djvu/36

Rh commanded to forgive our Enemies; But you never read that wee are commanded to forgive our Friends. But yet the Spirit of Iob was in a better tune; Shall wee (saith he) take good at God's Hands, and not be content to take evill also? And so of Friends in a proportion. This is certaine, That a Man that studieth Revenge keepes his owne Wounds greene, which otherwise would heale and doe well. Publique Revenges are, for the most part, Fortunate ; As that for the Death of Caesar; For the Death of Pertinax; for the Death of Henry the Third of France; And many more. But in private Revenges it is not so. Nay rather, Vindicative Persons live the Life of Witches, who, as they are Mischievous, So end they Infortunate.

 

was an high speech of Seneca, (after the manner of the Stoickes,) ''That the good things, which belong to Prosperity, are to be wished; but the good things, that belong to Adversity, are to be admired. Bona Rerum Secundarum, Optabilia; Adversarum, Mirabilia.'' Certainly, if Miracles be the Command over Nature, they appeare most in Adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his then the other, (much too high for a Heathen,) ''It is true greatnesse, to have in one the Frailty of a Man and the Security of a God. Verè magnum habere Fragilitatem Hominis, Securitatem Dei.'' This would have done better in Poesy, where Transcendences are more allowed. And the Poets indeed have beene busy with it; For it is, in effect, the thing which is figured in that Strange Fiction of the Ancient Poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery ; Nay, and to have some approach to a proportionate extent 