and of twenty Theodores; and how many more she was not acquainted with we may imagine.  Who hinders my groom from calling himself Pompey the Great?  But after all, what virtue, what authority, or what secret springs are there that fix upon my deceased groom, or the other Pompey, who had his head cut off in Egypt, this glorious renown, and these so much honoured flourishes of the pen, so as to be of any advantage to them?

          “Id cinerem et manes credis curare sepultos?”

     ["Do you believe the dead regard such things?”—­AEneid, iv. 34.]

What sense have the two companions in greatest esteem amongst me, Epaminondas, of this fine verse that has been so many ages current in his praise,

          “Consiliis nostris laus est attrita Laconum;”

     ["The glory of the Spartans is extinguished by my plans. 
     —­“Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., v. 17.]

or Africanus, of this other,

          “A sole exoriente supra Maeotis Paludes
          Nemo est qui factis me aequiparare queat.”

     ["From where the sun rises over the Palus Maeotis, to where it sets,
     there is no one whose acts can compare with mine”—­Idem, ibid.]

Survivors indeed tickle themselves with these fine phrases, and by them incited to jealousy and desire, inconsiderately and according to their own fancy, attribute to the dead this their own feeling, vainly flattering themselves that they shall one day in turn be capable of the same character.  However: 

                              “Ad haec se
          Romanus Graiusque, et Barbaras induperator
          Erexit; caucus discriminis atque laboris
          Inde habuit:  tanto major famae sitis est, quam
          Virtutis.”

["For these the Roman, the Greek, and the Barbarian commander hath aroused himself; he has incurred thence causes of danger and toil:  so much greater is the thirst for fame than for virtue.”  —­Juvenal, x. 137.]

CHAPTER XLVII

OF THE UNCERTAINTY OF OUR JUDGMENT

Well says this verse: 

     ["There is everywhere much liberty of speech.”—­Iliad, xx. 249.]

For example: 

     ["Hannibal conquered, but knew not how to make the best use of his
     victorious venture.”—­Petrarch, Son., 83.]

Such as would improve this argument, and condemn the oversight of our leaders in not pushing home the victory at Moncontour, or accuse the King of Spain of not knowing how to make the best use of the advantage he had against us at St. Quentin, may conclude these oversights to proceed from a soul already drunk with success, or from a spirit which, being full and overgorged with this beginning of good fortune, had lost the appetite of adding to it, already having enough to do to digest what it had taken in:  he has his arms full, and