confusion which blinded them to their advantage, and they conveyed him to
his destination as peaceably as he could desire."

Possibly, gentlemen, you may fancy that, on the model of Cæsar's address
to his poor ferryman,--"_Cæsarem vehis et fortunas ejus_"--M. Des Cartes
needed only to have said,--"Dogs, you cannot cut my throat, for you carry
Des Cartes and his philosophy," and might safely have defied them to do
their worst. A German emperor had the same notion, when, being cautioned to
keep out of the way of a cannonading, he replied, "Tut! man. Did you ever
hear of a cannon-ball that killed an emperor?" As to an emperor I cannot
say, but a less thing has sufficed to smash a philosoper; and the next
great philosopher of Europe undoubtedly _was_ murdered. This was Spinosa.

I know very well the common opinion about him is, that he died in his bed.
Perhaps he did, but he was murdered for all that; and this I shall prove
by a book published at Brussels, in the year 1731, entitled, _La Via de
Spinosa; Par M. Jean Colerus_, with many additions, from a MS. life, by one
of his friends. Spinosa died on the 21st February, 1677, being then little
more than forty-four years old. This of itself looks suspicious; and M.
Jean admits, that a certain expression in the MS. life of him would warrant
the conclusion, "que sa mort n'a pas été tout-à-fait naturelle." Living in
a damp country, and a sailor's country, like Holland, he may be thought to
have indulged a good deal in grog, especially in punch,[1] which was then
newly discovered. Undoubtedly he might have done so; but the fact is that
he did not. M. Jean calls him "extrêmement sobre en son boire et en son
manger." And though some wild stories were afloat about his using the juice
of mandragora (p. 140,) and opium, (p. 144,) yet neither of these articles
appeared in his druggist's bill. Living, therefore, with such sobriety, how
was it possible that he should die a natural death at forty-four? Hear his
biographer's account:--"Sunday morning the 21st of February, before it was