servants, &c. I acknowledge this change of Fortune to proceed from the
mighty hand of God, which I will by no means go about to withstand."

But you will say, that there are some things else, and of greater
regard than the former. The first is the reverend respect that is held
of great men, and the honor done unto them by all sorts of people. And
it is true indeed: provided, that an inward love for their justice and
piety accompany the outward worship given to their places and power;
without which what is the applause of the multitude, but as the outcry
of an herd of animals, who without the knowledge of any true cause,
please themselves with the noise they make? For seeing it is a thing
exceeding rare, to distinguish Virtue and Fortune: the most impious
(if prosperous) have ever been applauded; the most virtuous (if
unprosperous) have ever been despised. For as Fortune's man rides the
horse, so Fortune herself rides the man; who when he is descended and
on foot, the man taken from his beast, and Fortune from the man, a
base groom beats the one, and a bitter contempt spurns at the other,
with equal liberty.

The second is the greatening of our posterity, and the contemplation
of their glory whom we leave behind us. Certainly, of those which
conceive that their souls departed take any comfort therein, it may
be truly said of them, which Lactantius spake of certain heathen
philosophers, "quod sapientes sunt in re stulta."[13] For when our
spirits immortal shall be once separate from our mortal bodies,
and disposed by God; there remaineth in them no other joy of their
posterity which succeed, than there doth of pride in that stone, which
sleepeth in the wall of the king's palace; nor any other sorrow for
their poverty, than there doth of shame in that, which beareth up a
beggar's cottage. "Nesciunt mortui, etiam sancti, quid agunt