Nam vera voces tum demum pectore ab imo
Ejiciuntur, et eripitur persona, manet res.
[Footnote: LUCEET. 1. iii. 57.]

For then are sent true speeches from the heart,
We are ourselves, we leave to play a part.

Loe heere, why at this last cast, all our lives other actions must
be tride and touched. It is the master-day, the day that judgeth all
others: it is the day, saith an auncient Writer, that must judge of
all my forepassed yeares. To death doe I referre the essay
[Footnote: Assay, exact weighing.] of my studies fruit. There shall
wee see whether my discourse proceed from my heart, or from my
mouth. I have scene divers, by their death, either in good or evill,
give reputation to all their forepassed life. Scipio, father-in-law
to Pompey, in well dying, repaired the ill opinion which untill that
houre men had ever held of him. Epaminondas being demanded which of
the three he esteemed most, either Chabrias, or Iphicrates, or
himselfe: "It is necessary," said he, "that we be scene to die,
before your question may well be resolved." [Footnote: Answered.]
Verily, we should steale much from him, if he should be weighed
without the honour and greatnesse of his end. God hath willed it, as
he pleased: but in my time three of the most execrable persons that
ever I knew in all abomination of life, and the most infamous, have
beene seen to die very orderly and quietly, and in every
circumstance composed even unto perfection. There are some brave and
fortunate deaths. I have seene her cut the twine of some man's life,
with a progresse of wonderful advancement, and with so worthie an
end, even in the flowre of his growth and spring of his youth, that
in mine opinion, his ambitious and haughtie couragious signes,