the beauty of a contrary image: and, by
representing to him what honour, esteem, and goodwill he would acquire by
clemency and good nature, diverted him to ambition. Thus a man is to
deal in such cases.

If your passion of love be too violent, disperse it, say they, and they
say true; for I have often tried it with advantage: break it into several
desires, of which let one be regent, if you will, over the rest; but,
lest it should tyrannise and domineer over you, weaken and protract, by
dividing and diverting it:

"Cum morosa vago singultiet inguine vena,"

["When you are tormented with fierce desire, satisfy it with the
first person that presents herself."--Persius, Sat., vi. 73.]

"Conjicito humorem collectum in corpora quaeque,"

[Lucretius, vi. 1062, to the like effect.]

and provide for it in time, lest it prove troublesome to deal with, when
it has once seized you:

"Si non prima novis conturbes vulnera plagis,
Volgivagaque vagus venere ante recentia cures."

["Unless you cure old wounds by new."-Lucretius, iv. 1064.]

I was once wounded with a vehement displeasure, and withal, more just
than vehement; I might peradventure have lost myself in it, if I had
merely trusted to my own strength. Having need of a powerful diversion
to disengage me, by art and study I became amorous, wherein I was
assisted by my youth: love relieved and rescued me from the evil wherein
friendship had engaged me. 'Tis in everything else the same; a violent
imagination hath seized me: I find it a nearer way to change than to
subdue it: I depute, if not one contrary, yet another at least, in its
place. Variation ever relieves, dissolves, and dissipates.

If I am not able to contend with it, I escape from it; and in avoiding
it, slip out of the way, and make, my doubles; shifting place, business,
and company, I secure myself in the crowd of other thoughts and fancies,
where it loses my trace, and I escape.

After the same manner does nature proceed, by the benefit of inconstancy;
for time, which she has given us for the sovereign physician of our
passions, chiefly works by this, that supplying our imaginations with
other and new affairs, it loosens and dissolves the first apprehension,
how strong soever. A wise man little less sees his friend dying at the
end of five-and-twenty years than on the first year; and according to
Epicurus, no less