But that I should plant my felicity in your general saying, good,
or well, etc., were a weakness which the better sort of you might
worthily contemn, if not absolutely hate me for.

BEN JONSON;
and no such,

Quem
Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum.



THE ARGUMENT


AELIUS SEJANUS, son to Seius Strabo, a gentleman of Rome, and born
at Vulsinium; after his long service in court, first under
Augustus; afterward, Tiberius; grew into that favour with the
latter, and won him by those arts, as there wanted nothing but the
name to make him a co-partner of the empire. Which greatness of
his, Drusus, the emperor's son, not brooking; after many smothered
dislikes, it one day breaking out, the prince struck him publicly
on the face. To revenge which disgrace, Livia, the wife of Drusus
(being before corrupted by him to her dishonour, and the discovery
of her husband's counsels) Sejanus practiseth with, together with
her physician called Eudemus, and one Lygdus an eunuch, to poison
Drusus. This their inhuman act having successful and unsuspected
passage, it emboldeneth Sejanus to further and more insolent
projects, even the ambition of the empire; where finding the lets
he must encounter to be many and hard, in respect of the issue of