upon them, could never be said to be happy till they
had been seen to pass over the last day of their lives," by reason of the
uncertainty and mutability of human things, which, upon very light and
trivial occasions, are subject to be totally changed into a quite
contrary condition. And so it was that Agesilaus made answer to one who
was saying what a happy young man the King of Persia was, to come so
young to so mighty a kingdom: "'Tis true," said he, "but neither was
Priam unhappy at his years."--[Plutarch, Apothegms of the
Lacedaemonians.]--In a short time, kings of Macedon, successors to that
mighty Alexander, became joiners and scriveners at Rome; a tyrant of
Sicily, a pedant at Corinth; a conqueror of one-half of the world and
general of so many armies, a miserable suppliant to the rascally officers
of a king of Egypt: so much did the prolongation of five or six months of
life cost the great Pompey; and, in our fathers' days, Ludovico Sforza,
the tenth Duke of Milan, whom all Italy had so long truckled under, was
seen to die a wretched prisoner at Loches, but not till he had lived ten
years in captivity,--[He was imprisoned by Louis XI. in an iron cage]--
which was the worst part of his fortune. The fairest of all queens,
--[Mary, Queen of Scots.]--widow to the greatest king in Europe, did she
not come to die by the hand of an executioner? Unworthy and barbarous
cruelty! And a thousand more examples there are of the same kind; for it
seems that as storms and tempests have a malice against the proud and
overtowering heights of our lofty buildings, there are also spirits above
that are envious of the greatnesses here below:

"Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam
Obterit, et pulchros fasces, saevasque secures
Proculcare, ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur."

["So true it is that some occult power upsets human affairs, the
glittering fasces and the cruel axes spurns under foot, and seems to
make sport of them."--Lucretius, v. 1231.]

And it should seem, also, that Fortune sometimes lies in wait to surprise
the last hour of our lives, to show the power she has, in a moment, to
overthrow what she was so many years in building, making us cry out with
Laberius:

"Nimirum hac die
Una plus vixi mihi, quam vivendum fuit."

["I have lived longer by this one day than I should have
done."--Macrobius, ii. 7.]