of a good service is the service itself."--Seneca, Ep., 8.]

It were, peradventure, excusable in a painter or other artisan, or in a
rhetorician or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise himself a name by his
works; but the actions of virtue are too noble in themselves to seek any
other reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in the
vanity of human judgments.

If this false opinion, nevertheless, be of such use to the public as to
keep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stirred up to virtue;
if princes are touched to see the world bless the memory of Trajan, and
abominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of that great
beast, once so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and reviled by every
schoolboy, let it by all means increase, and be as much as possible
nursed up and cherished amongst us; and Plato, bending his whole
endeavour to make his citizens virtuous, also advises them not to despise
the good repute and esteem of the people; and says it falls out, by a
certain Divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves oft-times, as
well by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the virtuous from the
wicked. This person and his tutor are both marvellous and bold
artificers everywhere to add divine operations and revelations where
human force is wanting:

"Ut tragici poetae confugiunt ad deum,
cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt:"

["As tragic poets fly to some god when they cannot explain
the issue of their argument."--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 20.]

and peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him,