the vastly greater Number of
Human Race, the Dead. When the Iniquity of the Times brought _Socrates_
to his Execution, how great and wonderful is it to behold him,
unsupported by any thing but the Testimony of his own Conscience and
Conjectures of Hereafter, receive the Poison with an Air of Mirth and
good Humour, and as if going on an agreeable Journey bespeak some Deity
to make it fortunate.

When _Phocion's_ good Actions had met with the like Reward from his
Country, and he was led to Death with many others of his Friends, they
bewailing their Fate, he walking composedly towards the Place of
Execution, how gracefully does he support his Illustrious Character to
the very last Instant. One of the Rabble spitting at him as he passed,
with his usual Authority he called to know if no one was ready to teach
this Fellow how to behave himself. When a Poor-spirited Creature that
died at the same time for his Crimes bemoaned himself unmanfully, he
rebuked him with this Question, Is it no Consolation to such a Man as
thou art to die with _Phocion?_ At the Instant when he was to die, they
asked him what commands he had for his Son, he answered, To forget this
Injury of the _Athenians. Niocles_, his Friend, under the same Sentence,
desired he might drink the Potion before him: _Phocion_ said, because he
never had denied him any thing he would not even this, the most
difficult Request he had ever made.

These Instances [1] were very noble and great, and the Reflections of
those Sublime Spirits had made Death to them what it is really intended
to be by the Author of Nature, a Relief from a various Being ever
subject to Sorrows and Difficulties.

_Epaminondas_, the _Theban_ General, having received in Fight a mortal
Stab with a Sword, which was left in his Body, lay in that Posture 'till
he had Intelligence that his Troops [had] obtained the Victory, and then
permitted it to be drawn [out], at which Instant he expressed himself in
this manner,

_This is not the end of my Life, my Fellow-Soldiers; it is now your_
Epaminondas _is born, who dies in so much Glory_.

It were an endless Labour to collect the Accounts with which all Ages
have filled the World of Noble and Heroick Minds that have resigned this
Being, as if the Termination of Life were but an ordinary Occurrence of
it.

This common-place way of Thinking I fell into from an awkward Endeavour
to throw off a real and fresh Affliction, by turning over Books in a
mela