As to Seneca, amongst a million of little pamphlets that those of the
so-called reformed religion disperse abroad for the defence of their cause
(and which sometimes proceed from so good a hand, that 'tis pity his pen
is not employed in a better subject), I have formerly seen one, that to
make up the parallel he would fain find out betwixt the government of our
late poor King Charles IX. and that of Nero, compares the late Cardinal
of Lorraine with Seneca; their fortunes, in having both of them been the
prime ministers in the government of their princes, and in their manners,
conditions, and deportments to have been very near alike. Wherein, in my
opinion, he does the said cardinal a very great honour; for though I am
one of those who have a very high esteem for his wit, eloquence, and zeal
to religion and the service of his king, and his good fortune to have
lived in an age wherein it was so novel, so rare, and also so necessary
for the public good to have an ecclesiastical person of such high birth
and dignity, and so sufficient and capable of his place; yet, to confess
the truth, I do not think his capacity by many degrees near to the other,
nor his virtue either so clean, entire, or steady as that of Seneca.

Now the book whereof I speak, to bring about its design, gives a very
injurious description of Seneca, having borrowed its approaches from Dion
the historian, whose testimony I do not at all believe for besides that
he is inconsistent, that after having called Seneca one while very wise,
and again a mortal enemy to Nero's vices, makes him elsewhere avaricious,
an usurer, ambitious, effeminate, voluptuous, and a false pretender to
philosophy, his virtue appears so vivid and vigorous in his writings, and
his vindication is so clear from any of these imputations, as of his
riches and extraordinarily expensive way of living, that I cannot believe
any testimony to the contrary. And besides, it is much more reasonable
to believe the Roman historians in such things than Greeks and