the
third lived a great while after.

Chalcondylas, a writer of good credit, in the records he has left behind
him of things that happened in his time, and near him, tells us, as of
the most excessive torment, of that the Emperor Mohammed very often
practised, of cutting off men in the middle by the diaphragm with one
blow of a scimitar, whence it followed that they died as it were two
deaths at once; and both the one part, says he, and the other, were seen
to stir and strive a great while after in very great torment. I do not
think there was any great suffering in this motion the torments that are
the most dreadful to look on are not always the greatest to endure; and I
find those that other historians relate to have been practised by him
upon the Epirot lords, are more horrid and cruel, where they were
condemned to be flayed alive piecemeal, after so malicious a manner that
they continued fifteen days in that misery.

And these other two: Croesus, having caused a gentleman, the favourite of
his brother Pantaleon, to be seized, carried him into a fuller's shop,
where he caused him to be scratched and carded with the cards and combs
belonging to that trade, till he died. George Sechel, chief commander of
the peasants of Poland, who committed so many mischiefs under the title
of the Crusade, being defeated in battle and taken bu the Vayvode of
Transylvania, was three days bound naked upon the rack exposed to all
sorts of torments that any one could contrive against him: during which
time many other prisoners were kept fasting; in the end, he living and
looking on, they made his beloved brother Lucat, for whom alone he
entreated, taking on himself the blame of all their evil actions drink
his blood, and caused twenty of his most favoured captains to feed upon
him, tearing his flesh in pieces with their teeth, and swallowing the
morsels. The remainder of his body and his bowels, so soon as he was
dead, were boiled, and others of his followers compelled to eat them.

CHAPTER XXVIII

ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON

Such as compare Cato the Censor with the younger Cato, who killed
himself, compare two beautiful natures, much resembling one another.
The first acquired his reputation several ways, and excels in military
exploits and the utility of his public employments; but the virtue of the
younger, besides that it were blasphemy to compare any to it in vigour,
was much more pure and unblemished. For who could ab