even
than Augustus himself, who asked, with his last breath, whether he had
not played his farce very well.

II

OF PROCRASTINATION[94]

I am glad that you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself
from all tumult and business of the world, and consecrating the little
rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly
inclined me, and from which fortune, like a step-mother, has so long
detained me. But, nevertheless, you say (which _but_ is _aerugo mera_,
a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon)--but you say you
would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to stay a
while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an
estate as might accord me--according to the saying of that person,
whom you and I love very much, and would believe as soon as another
man--_cum dignitate otium_. This were excellent advice to Joshua, who
could bid the sun stay too. But there's no fooling with life, when it
is once turned beyond forty: the seeking for a fortune then is but a
desperate after-game; 'tis a hundred to one if a man fling two sixes,
and recover all; especially if his hand be no luckier than mine.

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for if a man can
not attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by
cutting of them shorter. Epicurus writes a letter to Idomeneus--who
was then a very powerful, wealthy, and, it seems, a bountiful
person--to recommend to him, who had made so many rich, one Pythocles,
a friend of his, whom he desired might be made a rich man too; "but I
entreat you that you would not do it just the same way as you have
done to many less deserving persons; but in the most gentlemanly
manner of obliging him, which is, not to add anything to his estate,
but to take something from his desires."

The sum of this is, that for the certain hopes of some conveniences,
we ought not to defer the execution of a work that is necessary;
especially when the use of those things which we would stay for may
otherwise be supplied, but the loss of time never recovered; nay,
farther yet, tho we were sure to obtain all that we had a mind to, tho
we were sure of getting never so much by continuing the game, yet when
the light of life is so near going out, and ought to be so precious,
_le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_, the play is not worth the expense
of the candle; after having been long tossed in a tempest, if our
masts be standing,