e other composed ft. But, in Mr Cotton's translation,
he was so puzzled with this enormous parenthesis that he has quite
left it out"--Coste.]

I borrow from the vulgar opinion, which is false, notwithstanding the
witty conceit of Arcesilaus in answer to one, who, being reproached that
many scholars went from his school to the Epicurean, but never any from
thence to his school, said in answer, "I believe it indeed; numbers of
capons being made out of cocks, but never any cocks out of capons."
--[Diogenes Laertius, Life of Archesilaus, lib. iv., 43.]--For, in truth,
the Epicurean sect is not at all inferior to the Stoic in steadiness, and
the rigour of opinions and precepts. And a certain Stoic, showing more
honesty than those disputants, who, in order to quarrel with Epicurus,
and to throw the game into their hands, make him say what he never
thought, putting a wrong construction upon his words, clothing his
sentences, by the strict rules of grammar, with another meaning, and a
different opinion from that which they knew he entertained in his mind
and in his morals, the Stoic, I say, declared that he abandoned the
Epicurean sect, upon this among other considerations, that he thought
their road too lofty and inaccessible;

["And those are called lovers of pleasure, being in effect
lovers of honour and justice, who cultivate and observe all
the virtues."--Cicero, Ep. Fam., xv. i, 19.]

These philosophers say that it is not enough to have the soul seated in
a good place, of a good temper, and well disposed to virtue; it is not
enough to have our resolutions and our reasoning fixed above all the
power of fortune, but that we are, moreover, to seek occasions wherein to
put them to the proof: they would seek pain, necessity, and contempt to
contend with them and to keep the soul in breath:

"Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita."

["Virtue is much strengthened by combats."
or: "Virtue attacked adds to its own force."
--Seneca, Ep., 13.]

'Tis one of the reasons why Epaminondas, who was yet of a third sect,
--[The Pythagorean.]--refused the riches fortune presented to him by
very lawful means; because, said he, I am to contend with poverty, in
which extreme he maintained himself to the last. Socrates put himself,
methinks, upon a ruder trial, keeping for his exercise a confounded
scolding wife, which was fighting at sharps. Metell