y Antigonus, and sold for a slave, who being by
his master commanded to some base employment: "Thou shalt see," says the
boy, "whom thou hast bought; it would be a shame for me to serve, being
so near the reach of liberty," and having so said, threw himself from the
top of the house. Antipater severely threatening the Lacedaemonians,
that he might the better incline them to acquiesce in a certain demand of
his: "If thou threatenest us with more than death," replied they, "we
shall the more willingly die"; and to Philip, having written them word
that he would frustrate all their enterprises: "What, wilt thou also
hinder us from dying?" This is the meaning of the sentence, "That the
wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can; and that the
most obliging present Nature has made us, and which takes from us all
colour of complaint of our condition, is to have delivered into our own
custody the keys of life; she has only ordered, one door into life, but a
hundred thousand ways out. We may be straitened for earth to live upon,
but earth sufficient to die upon can never be wanting, as Boiocalus
answered the Romans."--[Tacitus, Annal., xiii. 56.]--Why dost thou
complain of this world? it detains thee not; thy own cowardice is the
cause, if thou livest in pain. There needs no more to die but to will to
die:

"Ubique mors est; optime hoc cavit deus.
Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest;
At nemo mortem; mille ad hanc aditus patent."

["Death is everywhere: heaven has well provided for that. Any one
may deprive us of life; no one can deprive us of death. To death
there are a thousand avenues."--Seneca, Theb:, i, I, 151.]

Neither is it a recipe for one disease only; death is the infallible cure
of all; 'tis a most assured port that is never to be feared, and very
often to be sought. It comes all to one, whether a man give himself his
end, or stays to receive it by some other means; whether he pays before
his day, or stay till his day of payment come; from whencesoever it
comes, it is still his; in what part soever the thread breaks, there's
the end of the clue. The most voluntary death is the finest. Life
depends upon the pleasure of others; death upon our own. We ought not to
accommodate ourselves to our own humour in anything so much as in this.
Reputation is not concerned in such an enterprise; 'tis folly to be
concerned by any such apprehensi