Page:Essays - Abraham Cowley (1886).djvu/59

 word will hardly bear up to that sense, and therefore Mr. Broome translates it very well: Or from a life, led as it were by stealth. Yet we say in our language, a thing deceives our sight, when it passes before us unperceived, and we may say well enough out of the same author: Sometimes with sleep, sometimes with wine we strive The cares of life and troubles to deceive. But that is not to deceive the world, but to deceive ourselves, as Quintilian says, Vitam fallere, To draw on still, and amuse, and deceive our life, till it be advanced insensibly to the fatal period, and fall into that pit which Nature hath prepared for it. The meaning of all this is no more than that most vulgar saying, Bene qui latuit, bene vixit, He has lived well, who has lain well hidden. Which, if it be a truth, the world, I'll swear, is sufficiently deceived. For my part, I think it is, and that the pleasantest condition of life, is in incognito. What a brave privilege is it to be