midst of the
most talked-of and talking country in the world, they had lived so
long, not only without fame, but almost without being heard of; and
yet, within a very few years afterward, there were no two names of men
more known or more generally celebrated.

If we engage into a large acquaintance and various familiarities, we
set open our gates to the invaders of most of our time; we expose our
life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences, which would make a
wise man tremble to think of. Now, as for being known much by sight,
and pointed at, I can not comprehend the honor that lies in that;
whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor,
and the hangman more than the lord chief-justice of a city. Every
creature has it, both of nature and art, if it be anyways
extraordinary.

It was as often said: "This is that Bucephalus,"[92] or, "This is that
Incitatus,"[93] when they were led prancing through the streets, as,
"This is that Alexander," or, "This is that Domitian"; and truly, for
the latter, I take Incitatus to have been a much more honorable beast
than his master, and more deserving the consulship than he the empire.

I love and commend a true good fame, because it is the shadow of
virtue: not that it doth any good to the body which it accompanies,
but it is an efficacious shadow, and like that of St. Peter, cures the
diseases of others. The best kind of glory, no doubt, is that which is
reflected from honesty, such as was the glory of Cato and Aristides;
but it was harmful to them both, and is seldom beneficial to any man
whilst he lives; what it is to him after his death, I can not say,
because I love not philosophy merely notional and conjectural, and no
man who has made the experiment has been so kind as to come back to
inform us. Upon the whole matter, I account a person who has a
moderate mind and fortune, and lives in the conversation of two or
three agreeable friends, with little commerce in the world besides,
who is esteemed well enough by his few neighbors that know him, and is
truly irreproachable by anybody; and so, after a healthful quiet life,
before the great inconveniences of old age, goes more silently out of
it than he came in--for I would not have him so much as cry in the
exit: this innocent deceiver of the world, as Horace calls him, this
_muta persona_, I take to have been more happy in his part than the
greatest actors that fill the stage with show and noise; nay,