In
the year following, a pestilential sickness infected Rome, which,
besides an infinite number of the common people, swept away most
of the magistrates, among whom was Camillus; whose death cannot be
called premature, if we consider his great age, or greater
actions, yet was he more lamented than all the rest put together
that then died of that distemper.
Pericles
We are inspired by acts of virtue with an emulation and eagerness
that may lead on to imitation. In other things there does not
immediately follow upon the admiration and liking of the thing
done, any strong desire of doing the like. Nay, many times, on the
very contrary, when we are pleased with the work, we slight and
set little by the workman or artist himself, as, for instance, in
perfumes and purple dyes, we are taken with the things themselves
well enough, but do not think dyers and perfumers otherwise than
low and sordid people. It was not said amiss by Antisthenes, when
people told him that one Ismenias was an excellent piper, "It may
be so, but he is a wretched human being, otherwise he would not
have been an excellent piper." And King Philip, to the same
purpose, told his son Alexander, who once at a merry meeting
played a piece of music charmingly and skillfully, "Are you not
ashamed, my son, to play so well?" For it is enough for a king or
prince to find leisure sometimes to hear others sing, and he does
the muses quite honor enough when he pleases to be but present,
while others engage in such exercises and trials of skill.
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