Ep. 1. To Alcibous.
Vide Ep. 21, 70.

I Know the good news which I send you will cut you to the heart, and be welcomed with tears. Polyclitus of Messana, whom, for his attendance upon me, you accuse as a Betrayer of the Pub­lick, hath recovered me out of a despe­perate sickness. But you are sick of a Disease, out of which, neither can Ascle­pius the God of Physick himself, nor all the Gods in Heaven can recover you. The Distempers of the Body may be removed by the Physician, but for a Diseased Soul, there's no other Remedy but Death. That Remedy therefore expect you from my hands, as your many unjust and villa­nous [Page 2] practices require: And those, not such which you were Forced upon by any necessity, (asV. Ep. 3, 23 29, 80, &c. were the things you lay to my charge Forced upon me) but the pure effect of your own deliberate Choice: Nor for the putting you to the End I design, will any man say I am too Cruel, or call me Tyrant upon your ac­count.

Ep. 2. To the Megareans.
V. Ep. 252

I Do not find fault with you for your In­gratitude, who after having received at my hands so many obligations, yet in the late dispute between me and my Neigh­bours about the Limits, gave in a false Evi­dence against me, but I find fault with my self for my own Insensibility; who, after so many Indignities offered to me from the same persons, have yet learnt no more Wit. You remember none of the good [Page 3] servicesV. Ep. 52. I have done you; and I conti­nue still to serve you, as if you never forgat any of them.

Ep. 3. To Tyrrhenus.

IF even those whom Necessity puts upon Criminal practices, must needs be filled with dismal expectations of what's to follow, as you were pleased to preach to the Aegestaeans; advising them to submit with Patience to the Decrees of Providence, and leave it to Divine Justice to take vengeance on me: then what may you your self expect, so load­ed with guilt as you are, and whose Crimes cannot be charged upon the score of Necessity, but are all of them purely owing to the free Choice of a malicious heart?

Ep 4. To Lucinus.

'TWas but poorly done of you in that Harangue you made upon me before the Leontines, to Insult me with your malepert questions, as if I had been present to answer them: What am I? and whence came I? and what is the name of my Father? Well Sir, I'll tell You then both what I am, and what you are. I am Phalaris, the Son of Leodamas; by my Birth, an Astypalaean; by my Fate, first a Fugitive out of my own Country, now a Soveraign at Agragas; the^* Foot­ball of Fortune, but still her Favourite: And that am I. Now I'll tell you what Lucinus is; An Infamous Debauchee, a Rascally Pimp, a Letcherous Whore­master, a Turbulent Knave, a Fa­ctious Declamator, a Coxcomb in the City, and a Coward in the Camp. And that are you, Sir. And this Cha­racter of you I shall make good, if not before, yet at least then, when the Leon­tines shall be glad to purchase their Peace, by delivering you up into my hands. And then may I take occasion to call you to ac­count, as for all your other Doings, so among the rest for these your choice Ora­tions.

Ep. 5. To the Leontines.

IF you wou'd put an end to the War, you must without more ado deliver me up Lucinus, and the vengeance I shall take on him, shall atone for you all. Nor shall he suffer more at my hands, than what I am sure you all wish he may.

Ep. 6. To Zeuxippus.

I Pardon your Son because of his Youth, and you because of your Old age; though indeed both of you Unpardona­ble. If ever you repeat the like Inso­lencies, neither shall his Youth secure Him, nor your Grey hairs You: but the same which now pleads your Excuse, shall then aggravate your Punishment. Vid. Not. Ox. in loc.

Ep. 7. To Euenus.

HAving taken your Son Prisoner, I had resolved to have put him to death, for the Affront he offered to my Sea Commanders: but upon second thoughts I spared him; chusing rather to punish you by Giving him his life, than him by Taking it away. Fare you well.

Ep. 8. To Sameas.
V. Ep. 85.

COnsidering theVid. Not. Ox­on. in. loc. Make of your Na­ture, and what is the Common af­fection you bear toward all mankind, and knowing that no Misfortune befal­ling yourself could more sensibly afflict you, than do the Happy successes of your neighbours; I thought it worth my while to give you a short account of my af­fairs: which with all possible speed take as follows. Both in my Controversie at Law, and in my Engagement at Sea, and in my Battel at Land, and in my Horses at the Course, I am come off Victor. Such a Glut of good news at once I hope may break your heart; and to that end and purpose do I send it you.

Ep. 9. To Cleostratus.

'TIs really a strange thing that I hear of you, and whether I should more admire or laugh at it, I know not; that you should set up for a Reformer of Manners. For certainly one would ex­pect that He who takes upon him to cor­rect others, should be altogether Spotless himself. But where can you find The man to reprove, whose very Self same faults you yourself have not in the first place, and together with them an Accumulation of all others. And yet can you Reprove and Censure as boldly, as if Cleostratus were a man Censure-proof.

Ep. 10. To Lacritus.

THat you should so grievously regret the loss of your Son, is what no man can blame you for; not I, I am sure, who am your Fellow-sufferer in it, and who, looking upon my self as part of the Mourning Family, share the deepest in its sorrows: though otherwise of a Spi­rit somewhat resolv'd and hardned a­gainst such kind of Impressions; as having often reflected upon it, how Insignificant [Page 8] a thing it is to indulge the Excesses of a Dolorous passion, from which I have ne­ver yet seen any good effect proceed. Though as to the present case, the mis­fortune itself carries in it many Argu­ments of Comfort. As first, that he made so glorious an Exit, expiring in the Bed of Honour, and breathing out his last in the Defence of his Country. Then that he Conquer'd as he Dy'd; and what more could the Fates have done for him than to Crown his Death with Victory. And lastly, that as he liv'd Honourably, so by his having died such a Death, his Honour is secured and Sealed up to him. For he that lives on, how^* Honourably, soever he may have behaved himself in his life past, yet is not exempt from the hazard of a future^* Miscarriage. Fortune having a greater hand in the disposal of Vs ^* than our own Choice. But he that hath made a glorious End of his life, hath his Ho­nour irrevocably confirmed unto him, and rendred Inviolable. Take therefore your Son's having persisted in Virtue to the Last, and been such an Ornament to his Family, as a competent requital for all the cares he hath cost you: and do you, in requital to so Deserving a Son, by the moderation of your Sorrow, te­stifie [Page 9] the sence you have of his Merits, and shew to the world with what Satis­faction you can think of him

Ep. 11. To Megacles.

I Have both sent you the Horses compleatly Caparison'd for the Course, and have order'd Teucrus to supply you with Moneys. If your occasions require any thing else, fail not to let me know; you cannot desire that Thing of me, which I shall not gladly grant.

Ep. 12. To Aglaus.

YEs! I have out of that share of Wealth with which Providence hath blest me, laid in a stock against the Vicissitudes of Fortune: not lodg [...]d in­deed (as you advised me) in dark Holes, and Buried in the Earth, but dispersed abroad among such of my Friends as would Honour me with the acceptance of it. But this is more than You would [Page 10] ever vouchsafe to do, who, by refusing to receive a gift from my hands, deny me (as much as in you lies) the liberty of placing (should my present Indepen­dance fail me) a Reserve of Hope in my Friends. But though you have stood out hitherto, yet do it no longer. Admit of what I now send you, and by suffering me to Lodge it in your hands, give me an Assurance of your friendship. For in what place of the Universal world shall I be able to give a sure footing to my Hopes, if I must past by you the best of my friends, for no better than a tot­tering foundation? in whose fate I count my own involved, whose Prosperities (how different soever my own condition may prove) will be sufficient to sweeten my Misfortunes, and who while they are Happy, I shall never think my self Mise­rable. [...]. I guess I come near to his meaning.

Ep. 13. To Herodicus.

ANother man having received an in­jury, would, instead of discovering to his Enemy his intentions of Revenge, labour to stisle his Resentments, and [Page 11] keep himself Unsuspected. But as for my part, I think it an Ungenerous thing to take a man at Unawares. And therefore since you have Affronted me, I give you fair warning, and plainly tell you before-hand, that I am resolved upon Satisfaction; and so look to yourself. And thus doing I doubly punish you; first with the Fright before the Stroke, and then with the Stroke after the Fright.

Ep. 14. To Eumelus.

THat he that begins an Affront should be called to Account for it, neither is a thing Unjust, nor can he be Censured for such. Since therefore you have done the Former, expect from me the Latter.

Ep. 15. To Teucrus.
V. E. 31. 33.

REturn to the Tauromenites the Ransome Money theyEp. 85. paid me for their Pri­soners, letting them know that 'tis not me they are to thank for it, but Stesicho­rus. For as for him, who procured of me this Grace on their behalf, though bu­ried in the Dust of the Grave, they find him still Alive to them: but as for They themselves; all the kindnesses bestow'd [Page 12] on such Ungrateful creatures, I shall find but thrown away, and^* buried in the Grave of forgetfulness.

Ep. 16. To Ariphaetes

I^* Send you Money, not News:] Your Merits well deserving this and much more; and my Circumstances being such, that the best I can do for you is to let you know nothing of them.

Vid. Ep. 50, & 43.

Ep. 17. To Amphinomus.

WHen I bestow a Gift upon a de­serving person, I think I rather Receive an obligation from him, than Lay one upon him. Since therefore you have been pleased to Accept of the things I sent you, set it down in your Books, Phalaris your Debtor, not you his. Farewel.

Ep. 18. To Erythia.

I Thank you heartily, my dear Erythia, for your Love and Goodness both to Me my self, and our dear Child, whom I left in your hands. To Me; in that though I have been long since forced to fly my Country, and still remain an Exile: yet you chuse rather to continue in a state of Widowhood, than to accept of any other Husband, though impor­tuned by many. To my Child; in that you are to him a Father, Nurse, and Mother, all in one; refusing to be a Wife to any Hus­band but Phalaris, or Mother to any Son but Paurolas. Continue your care, I be­seech you, and finish the Work both for your Husband and your Son, till being come of years to know what it is to Live in the World, he may be able to stand upon his own Legs, and no longer want either Father or Mother for a Tender. 'Tis not as if I distrusted the care of a Mother (especially of such a Mother) over her own Child, that makes me thus sollicit you: but the Concern which a Father cannot but have for his only Son. By Yourself judge of me. If a Mother be so sollicitous for the welfare of her Child, [Page 14] think not a Father less so. And if I seem too importunate, let that plead my Ex­cuse. Farewell.

Ep 19. To Paurolas.

'TIs your duty, my Son to love and honour both your Parents; nor nor can a Child too much Reverence them from whom he derives his Being, and to whom he stands so deeply in­debted. But of the two, 'twere more pardonable to neglect the Father than the Mother. For the Father claims up­on his Children, do not near amount to those of the Mothers. Besides her Bear­ing you in the Womb, her Bringing you into the World, her Nursing you at her Breasts; a Thousand more are the cares and toils which she hath sustained for you: while the Father, without any of the Labours which the Mothers undergo in bearing and breeding up their Children, shares in all the Comforts of them. And if this be the case of all Children toward their Parents, there is something Singular in yours, who by reason of my Exile, be­ing left Wholly to your Mothers care, Doubled her work, and made her both in one to you, both Father and Mother. [Page 15] So that you owe to One parent all the ob­ligations, which with other Children are divided between Both, and by a grate­ful behaviour toward your Mother, may acquit yourself of all your debt to your Father. Yes! do but discharge the Du­ties of a Child to her, and I'll demand nothing of you for My self; nay more, I'll own my self your Debtor. You see what an Advantage you have gotten over me, since by paying the many Obligations you owe to your Mother, you may lay as Many upon your Father.

Ep. 20. To Paurolas.
V. Ep. 67.

IN nothing that a Father is bound to do for a Son, have I been wanting to you, Paurolas. That you do not (when it lyes in your power) answer the Cares of a Father, with the Duties of a Son; is a fault lying at your door. For I hear that you still neglect (though so often re­proved for it) the applying your mind to Learning. If you deny me this One thing, Nothing else that your can do will please me. And so Valuable a prize is Learning, that if you will oblige me here­in, it cannot be a greater Satisfaction to me, than it will be of Advantage to your self.

Ep. 21. To the Messanians.
V. Ep. 1. & 70.

I Hear you have conceived a mighty displeasure against your Countryman, Polyclitus the Physician, upon my account; charging him with being an Enemy to the Publick, and a Betrayer of the Liber­ties of the Agragantines: since in my late sickness, when he had me lying at his mer­cy, and might fairly have Dispatched me out of the World, he brought me back from the Brink of the Grave. Nor are you ashamed to urge against him the Evi­dence of his intregrity as a Conviction of his injustice. Well! you plainly shew what Notions of things you have. 'Twas the Duty of the Physician (say the Messanians) to have Murdered his Patient. But as for my part, how much soever I am be­holding to his Art, I value him more for his Probity than for his Skill; that having my Life put into his hands, he would not Murder me for a Tyrant, but Save me as his Patient. And as for your dis­pleasure, he suffers nothing by that; but by my Gratitude he is able to vye wealth with the greatest Lords in Sicily. And I dare engage for you, that upon the like [Page 17] Consideration there's not a man of you would not be content rather to be called a Betrayer of Agragas, than a Destroyer of Phalaris.

Ep 22. To Androcles.
V. Ep. 73 & 147

I Have with my own hands written very particularly to Stesichorus not to be concerned at Eubulus and his Com­plices having accused him to me. I must desire you to be my Second herein, and vouch for me to him that I harbour not the least evil thought concerning him. For I should rather believe that there never was any such thing as a Plot against me, (though the Conspirators themselves have confessed it) than I should believe that they were put upon it by his Poems, and not by the malice of their ownhearts

Ep. 23. To Pythagoras.
V. Ep. 74.

THere cannot be any two things in the world that seem to stand in greater opposition the one to the other, than the Tyranny of Phalaris, and the Philosophy of^* Pythagoras. And yet why may we not look one another in the face, fairly [Page 18] meet and compare our selves together? Distance shews things under false shapes, a nearer view would give a surer judg­ment. Conversation might reconcile the seeming Antipathies, and shew that you and I are not Creatures so mightily unlike one another. The opinion that I have of you, is that you are a very Extraordi­nary Man, and Common Fame is my Author for it. But do not you judge of me by the same Rule: For Common Fame hath taken part with my Enemies, and strangely misrepresented me to the world. My circumstances (such is the hard fate of envied Tyrants) will not admit me to visit you. I cannot with safety to my person travel without my Guards and Souldiers, and to put myself upon the road with them would give Jealousies. But you are not so tyed up; you may safely come and go as you please. Let me have your company therefore, and spend some time together with me. And when you shall have made the Tryal of me, You will be able to pass a true judgement upon me. But when you come to that, if you Try me as a Tyrant, you will find more of the private man in me, than of the Ty­rant; but if as a private man, you will [Page 19] find in me something of the Tyrant: though not in my nature, but as forced upon me by necessity. For Absolute power cannot be maintained by him that will never be Cruel. Or if you think otherwise; that it is a thing not impos­sible for a Tyrant to be gentle and yet safe: for that very reason among others, do I the more earnestly desire your pre­sence. For I will certainly follow your directions, and use softer methods; if you can bring it to pass that the^† Nature of the thing shall be able to bear it, and shew me the way how to reconcile Lenity and Security, the Necessities of a Ty­rant with the Sweetness of a Philoso­pher, and the^† Practices of the world with the Precepts of Pythagoras.

Ep. 24. To Thorax

WHether I Write so blindly as not to be understood, or whether you are Resolved not to understand me, I know not: but this I know, that you fall two Millions short with me. If you know not how to do it yourself, I'll take care to send some certain persons to you, to Teach you how to Calculate your Accounts: And that in such a manner as you would not be willing to Learn, and sooner than perhaps you expect. Fare­well.

Ep. 25. To Leontiades.

AS I have often told you before, so I tell you again, I expect no other Thanks of you for my having holpen you to so good a Wife (if you think that such a kindness) than that you should Love the person for whom you think yourself obliged to thank me, and by whom you have the Happiness (for so you call it) of that Relation to our Fa­mily, with which you seem so well satis­fied.

Ep. 26. To Ariphrades.

THe juvenile Audacity and Heedless­ness of Young persons, their Ad­venturous and Inconsiderate Attempts, have often proved Fatal to them. In both these respects your Son hath ren­dred himself very Obnoxious. Yet, though sufficiently provoked by his In­solent behaviour toward me, I have hi­therto Spared him. But 'tis for Your sake, not his Own, that I have done so. For as for You Yourself, every one gives you the Character of a right Honest man; which made me unwilling to punish the offences of the Son upon the Innocent Father. For though he be a very Rascal, yet being an Only Son, and the last Stay of your Family, you cannot but retain a Fondness for him: the Affections of a Father being too strong to be over-ruled by the Vices of the Son. But if he doth not mend his Manners, but continue to shew himself equally Disobedient to his Parent, and Disloyal to his Prince, you must not think it strange if I call him to an account for Both of us, and give him that Correction which his behaviour both to You and Me requires. And that he [Page 22] may not when he comes to feel the Smart of it, (which if he goes on as he begins, I assure him he shall) pretend to be sur­prized, shew him these lines, and let him take what is Written to you as meant to him. Farewel.

Ep. 27. To Antimachus.

IF you have wherewithal to pay your Debts, and do not do it, you Wrong me, and that Willingly: but if you have not wherewithal, though even so you Wrong me, yet, it being against your Will that you do so a Reasonable man would Forgive you it. But when I say Forgive it, Mistake me not: he that For­gives the Time of payment, doth not For­go all hopes of ever having his own again.

Ep. 28. To Aristomenes.

MY having received several Wounds in the late Engagement, is not a matter requiring your Condolements. I thank you however, and take it as a proof of the Affection you bear me. But so far am I from accounting such Casualties a Misfortune, (though I were within an Hairs breadth of dying upon [Page 23] the Spot) that I could be well con­tent, even before the Term that Fate hath set me, (were it never so long an one) to give up my life in the Field of War. For what greater Wish could a Generous Soul make, than to breath out his last in the Bed of Honour, and Dye fighting for Glory and Victory.

Ep. 29. To Xenopithes.
V. Ep. 139

I Value not what ignorant persons, and such as are not able to make a true judgment of things, say or think con­cerning me. They may Accuse me of some things, from which I shall not pre­tend to Vindicate my self. But this I know, that when other men venture up­on Unjustifiable actions, 'tis of their own Choice and Malice that they do so. If I Transgress, 'tis Necessity (whose power is above the Gods) that forces me to it. The only difference is this, that as I am Absolute and have the Law in my hands; what I do, I Own and stand to: but you private persons, as you are under Command, and in fear of being called to an Account, instead of plainly Shewing your selves to be what [Page 24] you are, are forced to take shelter in Dissimulation and Denyal.

Ep. 30. To the Catanaeans.

THose Prisoners of yours that are fal­len into my hands, when they had not the least grain of hope left, I have given them their Lives. And that be­cause I knew you did not much care for them, nor matter it whether they Liv'd or Dy'd. For I would not have you think me the less your Enemy for this, or that I begin to forget old Scores. I should be a very forgetful man indeed, if ever I left you till I had made you feel the Weight of my Displeasure, and that in full Proportion to the Cause of it. What that is, if you know not, I shall not tell you. The time is coming when your Sufferings shall call to mind your Deservings.

Ep. 31. To Stesichorus his Daughters.
V. Ep. 15. 85.

AS for the Tauromenites, on whose behalf (according to the last Com­mand, as you tell me, of your Dying fa­ther) [Page 25] you have written to me; they do not deserve the least Mercy at my hands; who without any manner of Provocation in the world began an unjust War upon me. But I will not measure my Respects to Stesichorus, by the Merits of the Tauro­menites. They shall, according to your Letter, have the Ransom-money which they paid for their Prisoners, returned to them. Nor do I in This only readi­ly Obey when Stesichorus Commands, but there could not have been That thing which he should have asked of me in vain. For Though Dead to the rest of the World (who think^* Dying and being Buried the same thing [...] he shall always be Alive to me. Nor shall my passion against the Tauromenites so far Transport me as to suffer Stesi­chorus to be Denied any thing that Phalaris can Grant. A Deference due to him from all the World, but more especially from me, who, out of the vast Multitudes of men my occasions have led me to know and observe, have ne­ver yet met with so Illuminated a Soul. I have therefore ordered them their Moneys again: and in so doing, I do not think the Memory of your Father so much Honoured by me, as I think [Page 26] my self Honoured by answering his De­sires.

Ep. 32. To Critophemus.

THe large Encomiums which you and my other friends bestow upon me for my Bravery in the Field, I inter­pret as the Testimony of your good Af­fections. But you have somewhat too high an Opinion of me, if you ascribe my Victory over the Leontines to my own Courage and Conduct. I my self have a different Notion of the matter: for as I avow my Cause against them to be just, so I receive my successes as the gift of Fortune. For be it in greater Affairs, or be it in lesser, when all comes to all, let us Mortals do what we can, 'tis Fortune turns the Scales.

Ep. 33. To Ctesippus.
V. Ep. 15, 31, 85.

AS it was not for their own Sake that I formerly Released to the Tauro­menites their Prisoners taken in that un­just War they made upon me, but be­cause [Page 27] I would not violate the Common Law of Greece (a),V. Not. Ox. in loc. so neither was it to Caress and soften my Enemies (as you re­proach me) that I have since re­stored to them their Ransom-money; but because I could not deny Stesichorus his Request, who sent his Daughters in an Embassy to me, on purpose to procure this Favour for them. So that the Tauro­menites are beholding to even Dead Ste­sichorus, for what they have gotten of me, and Stesichorus to his own Merits. I am indebted to Stesichorus upon many Accounts, but upon none more than for his having sent me such an Embassy upon such an Errand: since his Making such a Request to me, and my Granting it, hath done some service indeed to the Tauromenites in saving them their Money; but a far Greater to me, in affording me the Opportunity of shewing to the World (what it is so unwilling to be­lieve) how ready I am to Forgive an injury, and Do a kindness.

Ep. 34. Io Polluz.

YOu seem to wonder in your Letter what should have made such a change in me, that whereas heretofore I were [Page 28] used to venture my Person abroad somewhat too fearlessly for a Tyrant, I should now become so Shy and Re­served, as not to admit so much as even the nearest of my Relations to the sight of me. And yet, let me tell you, with all this care I am but^* too little Shy and Reserved. Such cause have I to shun the Approaches of all Mankind, since by Experience I have found that there is no such thing as Faith and Truth in Man, my very Friends themselves not ex­cepted. So that all things considered, one would rather chuse to Sojourn in the [...]ybian Deserts, and pass ones life with the Wild Beasts of the Wilderness, than among the Race of Mankind. I might more safely lodge in the Lyons Den, and play with Serpents, than trust my self to the men of this Generation. So many repeated Experiments have the Varieties of my Fortune, and the Tryals I have passed, given me both of my own Dangers and their Base­ness.

Ep. 35. To Polignotus.

VVEll Polignotus! I'll give over send­ing to you any more either Gifts or Letters: and pray do you give over your Magnifying me at that Rate I hear you do in all Companies. For since you still refuse to Accept of any of those things I send you; you do more Con­demn me by your Actions, than you can Commend me by your Words. ^* 'Tis not the Shadow makes the Substance, but the Substance the Shadow. And [...], say the Wise men, Words are the Shadows of Deeds.

Ep. 36. To Cleomenides.

I Have sent you all necessary Provisions for your Exhibition of the Publick Exercises; Two hundred^* Measures of Oyl,^* a proportionable quantity of Wheat: and for the Young men, a [Page 30] Quantity of Wine to your Son, with some Young Gentlemen to be his Scribes, and Stesichorus his Poems. But I am a­fraid some of your Wise Syracusians will smell out a Plot in this too; and cry, 'Ware the Gifts of a Tyrant.

Ep. 37. To Gorgias.

ALL the rest of your Epistle I like ve­ry well; but the Exhortation you are pleased to bestow upon me; not to Amuse my self about the Future might have been spared. I am not of so Weak an Understanding as to be dismay'd, ei­ther at the thoughts of Death itself, or at the Manner after which I may Dye. The Decrees of Fate fall not under the Cognizance of men, nor change their Course at our Arbitrement. So that up­on all Accounts, I cannot but conclude it a great folly, for a man to be Prying into them, or giving himself any Anxi­ous thoughts concerning the Future, whether it be for the better or for the worse: whether he conceive it, either [Page 31] in the first place a thing possible to fore­know the Future, or in the next fore­knowing it, a thing possible to avoid it. If he think the Foreknowing it indeed possible, but the Avoiding it impossible; why then should he be curious to know that, which Known or Unknown remains still the same; but if a man shall think, that together with the Foreknowing the Future, he may be also able to Avert it, so as to New-make the Order of things, putting Good in the place of Evil, and causing that which Should have been Not to be: how That is to be effected, is what I cannot conceive. For this I should think to be the work of God on­ly, not of Man. And while a man shall consider that the^* Off-spring of Jove himself, (b) Aeacus, Minos, V. Not. Ox. in loc. and Rhada­manthus, with the other Demi-gods, were neither born to Immortality, nor came to any other Death than what eve­ry ones Fate had allotted him; must he not (think you) have lost the com­mon Reason of a man that shall com­plain of Fate, or Tremble at the Thoughts of Dying. Do you Your­self put on the same Resolution you direct me to, and trouble not your head about the Uncertainties of un­known [Page 32] Futurity. As for my own part, I assure you they give me no Distur­bance.

Ep. 38. To Demoteles.
V. Ep. 61.

I Forgive you your good Advice. You that have never been a Tyrant your self, counsel Him that is one, to lay aside his Usurped power, and return to the condition of a Private Man. Had some of the Gods joyned with you, and of­fered me their Bond to save me Harm­less, then perhaps I might have been tempted to have hearkned to you. But when you think your own single word a Security sufficient for me in a matter of this Consequence, you shew how lit­tle you Understand the World; who know not how much greater Hazard a man runs in Laying down such a Power, after once he hath taken it up, than he did in first Assuming it. For as a Pri­vate man is safer while he still keeps him­self a Private man, than when he makes himself a Tyrant: So he that hath once made himself a Tyrant, can never be [Page 33] Safely any other than a Tyrant. So that upon the whole, by the same Rule we may judge of the Fate of being a Tyrant, as we may of the Fate of all Mankind in respect of their being Born into the world, and leading their lives in it. For as, had it been possible for a man to have foreseen^* before his Birth, the miseries he must have run through in this World, he would never by his good will have been born into it; so neither could a private man Foresee the Unhappiness of being a Tyrant, would he ever covet to change his Private condition for that of a Sove­raign. Thus, Demoteles, I think it had been Better for every man never to have been Born, than to have been Born, and for every private man never to have been a Tyrant, than to have been a Ty­rant. Had therefore your Counsel came in Time, and given me before-hand a True Knowledge of the many Mischiefs I should find in being a Tyrant, I had been ruled by you, and never quitted my private Station. But since I now unhap­pily am a Tyrant, and have thereby (as it is impossible it should be otherwise) ran into some excesses, and made my self ^† many Enemies; neither shall You, nor Any man else,Vid. Not, Ox. in loc nor all the Gods in [Page 34] Heaven perswade we to strip my self of my power, and so lye at the Mercy of them who now lye at mine: which, when once I do, I well know how short a time I have to Live, and how Cruel a death to Dye.

Ep. 39. To Polystratus.

I Have Summoned all the rest of my Friends to repair forthwith to Agra­gas, and I desire you to be here before the Olympicks. For within that time I design to hold a Grand Council, and therefore would willingly have together a sufficient number of such of my Friends upon whom I may depend, and by the joint advice of whom (which upon the like Occasions I always desire) we may take the Necessary Measures for the pre­sent Exigencies, and come to some Re­solutions upon Affairs of the greatest Importance, and of very doubtful Con­sequence. Not that I would lay any Difficulties or Odium upon you, (all that [Page 35] I'll take upon myself) but only to re­ceive your Directions. That so if I still maintain my Ground, and hold the So­veraignty of which I am possessed, I may have the oftner Opportunity of meeting you, and expressing the Esteem I have for you. But if it be otherwise Decreed, and this should prove our last Meeting, you may always retain in mind a grate­ful Remembrance of the good Services I have done you. Delay not therefore the affording me your Presence, and by your wonted Readiness upon such occa­sions, shew how much better Phalaris is known to you, than he is to the rest of the World.

Ep. 40. To Paurolas.

THe Golden Crown you sent me (and 'tis of a noble size) is come safe to my hands: which for the^* Omen sake, as well as for the Donor's, I gladly re­ceived. I wore it myself one day when I Sacrificed to our Patron Gods my Con­quest-Offerings for my Victory over the Leontines: after which I sent it a Present to Erythia, as judging it too precious an ornament for any other Head than your Mother's. But You yourself will be a [Page 36] Crown of greater Glory to your Parents, if, Living up to the Laws of Virtue and Honour, you answer the Wishes we make for you.

Ep. 41. To Hippolytio.
V. Ep. 43.

I Admit you, since you desire it, to appear before me in Person, and Speak for yourself. But I shall not give you my Oath not to offer any Violence to you. I give you my Word. And if you distrust my Promise; whether those Other things objected against you be true or not, Now I am sure you do me Injustice: Since, though you cannot Al­ledge against me one Instance that ever I have been guilty of Breach of Faith, yet by your Demanding an Oath, you Con­demn me for a man whose Word is not to be taken. And what Difference is there, as to the Reason of the thing, whether a man Violate his Word or his Oath, since the Conscience is bound by the One as well as by the Other? Fare you well.

Ep. 42. To Polytimon

IF Measuring other men by Yourself, your own Consciousness makes you suspect my Sincerity; 'tis my Wisdom, not my Honesty that you are Jealous of. But if you simply suspect me for my Own sake, 'tis because you Know me not. So far am I from Breach of Faith myself, that I scarce know how to sus­pect others of it. So that (as the best Natures are always the least Mistrustful) my too forward Belief in this respect hath often betrayed me into many Incon­veniencies. Fear not therefore, but come on Boldly. There are no Traps nor Snares in the way. The worst you shall suffer by the Visit, is to be made a Witness to the World, That Phalaris is a man of his Word.

Ep. 43. To Teucrus.

YOur friend Aristomenes is restor'd to his Estate, and Hippolytio discharg­ed of the Prosecution. I expect to see you here according to your promise. I am well: if a man may be said to be so, who having Adventured much, and Suc­ceeded [Page 38] in most of his Adventures,^* yet for the sake of the Unhappiness cleaving to his Happiness, repents of even his Happiness.

Ep. 44. To Nicias.

THe same Reason which makes you Hate your Son, that is, his not Tak­ing after his Father, makes all others Love him. And by this you may know what Opinion the World hath of you: All that Love him, Hate you.

Ep. 45. To Adimantus.

I Hear there is a great Controversie be­tween you and your brother, which of you Twain is the greater Rogue; you saying that he is, and he that you are. Now to give you my sense of the matter, 'tis this: I believe, nay, I am sure of it, that of all other Mortals he is the great­est Rogue, but a greater than you, nei­ther is he, nor any man upon Earth.

Ep. 46. To the Aegestaeans.

I Warn you not to harbour any more of my Fugitives. None can do either a good Office or a bad one to Phalaris, without being out-done by him in the same kind. For a proof of this, take the example of the Melitaeans and the Leon­tines. To me the Melitaeans owe the en­joyment of their Liberty, and to the same hand the Leontines the loss of theirs: the one for having sunk one of my Galleys, the other for having endea­voured to save one of them from sinking. Fare ye well.

Ep. 47. To Antisthenes and Theotimus.

OF the gifts which I sent to them, Antisthenes hath taken his part, Theotimus hath refused to take his; for which I thank the one, and find no fault with the other: for the one hath made me never the poorer by receiving, and the other's not receiving, hath left me somewhat the richer. ^*

Ep. 48. To Menecles.

DO not fall back from good begin­nings, nor think yourself obliged not to be an honester man than your Father. Lose not the Reputation you have gain'd, nor suffer the Camarinaeans to say, 'Twas not in his Nature,^* (What's bred in the bone will never ont of the flesh) 'twas only to serve a Turn.

Ep. 49. To Epistratus.

YOu seem to congratulate me for an happy man. I shall give you therefore in few words, the History of my self. An Orphan almost as soon as born; scarce a man, when by an unlucky Adventure forced to fly my Country; despoiled of my Fortunes; the best of my years spent amongst Uncultivated Barba­rians; persecuted from Nation to Nati­on, and no where secure; betray'd not only by my Enemies, but by my Friends, that is, if kindness could have made 'em such; at last a Tyrant, and at the same time an^* Abhorrer of Tyranny, and wish­ing [Page 41] that I could be any thing else than a Tyrant; if this be to be an Happy man, then am I an Happy man.

Ep. 50. To Onetor.
V. Ep. 16. 43.

THe greatest favour you or any of my other friends can do me is, neither to enquire farther into my Affairs, nor to concern yourselves farther about them, than as I shall desire you. For such are my circumstances, that it must be a great­er Joy to my Enemies to know what they are, than Trouble to my Friends to know nothing of them.

Ep. 51. To Eteonicus.
V. Ep. 18.

'TIs indeed a wise saying that you put into my head, ‘Since men must dye, so should their anger too.’

But suppose I were able to follow your Advice, and could forget and forgive all my other enemies, and all that ever they have done against me; yet that Carsed Python neither can I, neither will I, nei­ther [Page 42] ought I ever to forgive. Death buries all Injuries, but Death itself shall not bury his: No, I'll hate him even af­ter Death, and persecute him beyond the Grave. Of all that all the men in the world have either done or attempted to do against me, nothing comes near to him: who, because my Erythia proved true to her first Vows, was resolved to follow her Banished husband, and reject­ed his Courtships (Execrable Villain!) gave her a dose of Poyson, and murder'd her.^*

Ep. 52. To the Megaraeans
V. Ep. 2.

'TIs not in expectation of any Requital that I have released to you your three Galleys, though manifestly designed against my self: Since had you known how to be Grateful, you would not have forgotten that I had more than once or twice saved you from perishing, when you were ready to starve for want of Bread.

Ep. 53. To the Leontines.

YOur Spy, Leonidas, being fallen in­to my hands, I might have put him to death; but I have spared him: not out of any kindness to you, but to save myself the trouble of finding out some other Messenger to give you a full and true Account of my Preparations against you. For as for the state of your Affairs, he hath (without forcing us to put him to the Rack) very faithfully in­formed me of them; as that you are in want of every thing else but Hunger and Fear: ^* but with these two Conveniencies, he saith, you are very plentifully stored.

Ep. 54. To the Himeraeans.
V. Ep. 103.

THere is nothing which I would not gladly do for Stesichorus. Were it his Life that lay at stake, I would have Fought not only all the Men on Earth, but even^* Fate itself in his defence, ra­ther [Page 44] than let her Unresistedly deprive you, nay all mankind of that Heavenly man, that Adored master of inspired Hymn; whom alone out of all their Worshippers the Sacred Muses chose to set melodious Anthems to the Dance. But as for the Bones of Stesichorus; what cause of War for that? Where-ever Ste­sichorus his Ashes be enshrin'd, Stesichorus is still an Himeraean. His virtues reach throughout the Universe, and give all Nations a claim to him; but he Himself is Yours. And why should you Quarrel about the Corps of Stesichorus? Stesicho­rus is Still Alive. His Fame, his Wit, his Verse, Live throughout the World. Be satisfied therefore, ye Himeraeans, and take it as a special favour of Heaven; That with You Stesichorus was born, with you he grew up to an Hero, with you he spent the vigour of his Muse, with you his head grew Gray in Heavenly Verse. Since therefore you have enjoy'd the Glory of Stesichorus his having spent his days with you, envy not the Catanae­ans the priviledge (which they themselves wished for, and which you see they are ready to fight for) of his having laid down his Carcass with them. But let me Compound the matter between you. [Page 45] Do you, Himeraeans, to perpetuate the Memory of his having been born with you, erect a Temple to Stesichorus: and let the Catanaeans, to perpetuate the Memory of his having Dyed with them, erect a Monument over him. I should take this to be a fair Medium in this Dis­pute. But I will not Prescribe to you. If you are resolved to Fight it out for the Bones of Stesichorus; so long as I have ei­ther Men or Money, you shall want nei­ther. And yet I would have you consi­der twice before you begin. For to me your Undertaking seems neither Honou­rable nor Safe. If you beat the Catanae­ans, and take their City (as without that you lose you end, for the Catanaeans will rather lose themselves, City and all, than the Bones of Stesichorus) yet for Si­cilians to destroy a Sicilian City will not redound to your Honour: or if you take not Catana the Catanaeans may take Hi­mera. A weighty Point this, and I would have you well consider of it, whether it be worth the while to run the risque of all for Dry Bones. But as for Stesichorus himself, let him sleep quiet in his Grave, and disturb not his Ghost with your un­reasonable Lamentations. 'Tis only the Body of Stesichorus is Dead. Renowned [Page 46] ^† in Life, Blessed in Death, his name shall live for ever in the Hearts of men, and Consecrated to an Everlasting Re­membrance, outstand the Ruins of time. But his Odes, his Hymns, and all his other Poems of what kind soever, them I would advise you to have Inscribed both pub­lickly in your Temples, and every one of you on the Walls of his own house. For then, and not till then will Stesicho­rus dye, when^a these are Lost. Nor keep them among yourselves only, but let them be from you dispersed over the whole Universe; as knowing,^b That the World will more admire the City which produc'd the Author of such Heavenly Rap­tures, than it will the Author of them him­self.

Ep. 55. To Thrasenor.

THe Castle which you Besieged in vain, Teucrus in his Incursion took by Storm; and that in less time than I write this Letter.

Ep. 56. To Abaris.

I Understand your desire of acquaint­ing yourself with the Illustrious Heads of Wisdom in Greece hath brought you from the distant Regions of the North, into these Parts of the World. The Conversations of Pythagoras the Philoso­pher, Stesichorus the Poet, and some o­ther of our Renowned Greeks you have [Page 48] already enjoyed; and from them made fresh Additions to the large stock of knowledge you before had of your own. You are still (I hear) upon the same Quest, and seeking to enlarge your Acquain­tance with persons of the like Character. If you are praepossessed with the Reports of Common Fame, and really believe me to be the man my Enemies every where Represent me; tis in vain for me to in­vite you to Agragas, as being before hand sure of a Denyal. But if you are not for taking things at second hand, but suspend your faith till you have thorough­ly informed yourself, and that of Capable judges: then Come to me yourself, and spend some time together with me; which is no more than many persons of known worth and wisdom have done. And you will find upon Tryal that there is more of Virtue and Moderation, nay, I shall not fear to say it, of Goodness and Humanity in Phalaris, than Fame allows him. And that though as a Tyrant he is^* engaged in Affairs seemingly Inconsist­ent with this Character; yet that he is in these very Qualities themselves no way Inferiour to those who make them their proper Profession, and claim them as their peculiar Excellencies.

Ep. 57. Abaris to that Tyrant Pha­laris.

THou Bloody Monster! Thou shewest what thou art, and of what thou art made. Thou art not born of Hu­man Race, but engendred between a Lyoness and a Wild Boar. Thy hands are full of violence, and Dy'd in Human goar. Thou Gloriest in being excessive­ly^* wicked, Might is thy Boast, and the Cruelty of a Wild Beast thy Pride. Dost thou invite Abaris to Agragas? but Abaris is not a man like thee. Where Malice, Cruelty, Revenge and Folly have taken their Abode; there is no Room for Abaris. If you would make me willing to see your face, lay down your Lawless power, Level yourself with your Equals, and submit to the Common Laws of Greece. Let me hear that you have done this, and then you may freely invite me. With a man of pure hands and a^* Pure heart, ^† whether Friend or Stranger, whether Greek or Scythian, I will sit down at the same Table. And till you are so Qualify'd, fare you well for Abaris.

Ep. 58. To Polystratus and Daiscus.

TO Arms forthwith, and take the Field against me. For since 'tis an enter­prize like to be Crowned with such Glo­ries as in your Speeches to the Leontines you ensure them of, I can neither envy you your share in it, nor disswade you from pursuing it.³⁶

Ep. 62. To Timosthenes.

LEt the one half of the Souldiers be kept at the Castle, and Demolish [Page 52] the Works, the other half be employed in casting up Banks to keep out the Sea; that so, the Fens being Drained, we may gain so much waste ground: and let the Encouragement proposed be given to them that shall first have done their work.

Ep. 63. To Aristolochus.

IF because Stesichorus could be my Pri­soner, and fare never the worse for it, that emboldens you to make Trage­dies upon me, as if I could not find in my heart to punish a Poet; I must tell you, you are under a mighty mistake. I am not in love with all Poets, but with good Poets; nor shall I forgive every Enemy, but a Generous Enemy. And canst thou, as Wretched a Poet as thou art a Despi­cable Enemy, either in Generosity or Poetry pretend to compare with Stesi­chorus? But I know how to distinguish; and of that to your cost I shall speedily convince you: not for your Scribbling against me, (for I am not so Insipid a fool as to regard thy dull Lampoons) but because such a Dunce of a Poet and Rascal of an Enemy pretends to stand upon the same terms with Stesichorus.

Ep. 64. To Amphidamas and Thrasybulus.

YOu tell me that you have paid in the Money I lent you to Teucrus; but he denies that ever he Received it. In good faith I know not what to say to it. I am not willing to suspect you of a Falshood, nor would I willingly Dis­believe him. He challenges you to pro­duce your Receipt; you Reply, that thinking you had a Friend and an Ho­nest man to deal with, you paid it with­out demanding a Receipt. Well! since it is as it is, rather than be thought to call the Honesty of either of you into Question, though I have not Received it, yet I will count it as Received. And may the truth for ever lye concealed, rather than I know at whose door the Cheat lyes. For I had rather lose many a summ of Money, than one Friend. And should the matter be brought to Light, he of you that hath put this Abuse upon me, must of necessity from that time forward become my Enemy.

Ep. 65. To Pelopidas.
V. Ep. 78.

NEither can I request that of Stesicho­rus which you desire, neither should I Request it would he Grant it; to write a Poem upon any person now living. I am sufficiently indebted to him already for the Ode which at my desire he composed upon the Wife of Nicocles; nor can I importune him any further. If you can think of any thing that lies in my Own power to do for you, not at the discretion of another man; let me know it.

Ep. 66. To Teleclides.
V. Ep. 1 22.

'TIs the good Opinion you have of yourself, makes you take such care to let my Friends know (on purpose, I suppose, that they should, as they have done, bring it to me) how much you disapprove of my proceedings; especi­ally as to the matter of the Brazen Bull: alledging that I ought not after the Ma­ker of it, Perilaus, to have put any other to that kind of Death; destroying by [Page 55] these After Executions the Applause I had gained by the Former. But neither do I value myself upon the Applause, it seems, I have gained for my Justice up­on Perilaus (for I do not Punish to be Applauded for it) nor fear the Censures of my Severities exercised upon othes. The Executions of Justice are Indepen­dant upon the Good or Bad opinions of men. But as to the present case, had Perilaus been as the first, so the last that dyed in the Belly of his Bull, even he himself had suffered unjustly. For 'twas not the Curiosity of the Art, but the Cruelty of the Artist that I punished: but there had been nothing of Cruelty in it, had I kept his Bull only for a Shew, and not applied it to the use he designed. So that this whole Accusation of Cruelty terminates in the Inventor of this hor­rid Instrument of it, and in those Despe­rate Wretches whose unhappy Destiny carries them to such Extremities. But if the whole he causelessly charged upon me, I matter it not, so long as I can shew that those that dye this death have done things deserving it. For beginning with the first that suffered this kind of Death, by burning whom in his own Bull I Avenged the cause of all Mankind, [Page 56] or rather of Humane Nature itself, by the same Rule let us judge of all that followed after. For if ye allow Perilaus his Sufferings to be Just, and Applaud me for inflicting them upon him; ye cannot Disallow of my having given to other Offenders their Just deserts, and made them suffer for the Injuries they offered to their fellow Creatures. Much less can you blame me for having made Examples of those Implacable Wretches that plotted even my own Destruction. If in punishing Perilaus as a Common Ene­my to Mankind, I have done Justice to all of You, and in so doing I am by all of you approved: I hope you will give me leave by the punishing my own Ene­mies to do Justice to my self. For if I take care to bring them to punishment who commit injuries upon other men, though having never offered any thing but kindness to me; I may well be count­ed a man strangely incautious, to let those who have been taken manifestly designing upon my own Life, escape scot­free; and while to avenge the Cause of other men, in which I am not at all in­terested, I can be content to be called Cruel and Tyrannical, yet I must be afraid of incurring the like censure in [Page 57] providing for my own security. But as for your part, you need not give your­self any further trouble to let me know how you stand Affected: you have done that sufficiently already. Take your ease therefore, and let me hear no more of you

Ep. 67. To Paurolas.
V. Ep. 20.

MY necessary occasions having led me to Himera, I heard there the Daughters of Stesichorus warbling over their Odes to the Lyre. Some of them were of Stesichorus his penning, and some of them of the young Ladies own ma­king. His Daughters Compositions were inferiour to Stesichorus his own, but in­comparably (could any have stood a Comparison with them) excelling those of all other men. Happy then, thought I, the Father who bred up such Daugh­ters, and happy the Daughters, who by the vast Attainments of Learning have so far surpassed the common stint of their Sex. And now Paurolas, let me Expo­stulate the matter with you. What mean [Page 58] you by Exercising your Body in Arms, Huntings, and other such like Toils and Labours, to shew the care you have for That? but suffer still the Rational facul­ties of your Soul (which should have been your first and chiefest care) to lye Unexercised to Ingenuous Studies and the Literature of Greece? The care of the Body ought to terminate in the establish­ment of it in a state of health and strength, fit for the common actions of Life. All beyond that is superfluous; unless a man design to set up for an^* Athlete, and be ambitious of making part of a Shew at the Sacred Agons. But the mind cannot be too Richly cultivated by him, who being to live in a Free State, would maintain a just Dignity to his person, without aspiring to excel his Equals in any thing but Virtue. But you perhaps (for that I hear some suspect you of) have your thoughts set upon a Soveraign­ty, as thinking your^† Relation to me gives you a just Claim and Title to it. And for that reason (it may be) the more ad­dict yourself to those Robust exercises, that you may have a body timely inured to such a course of life, which the posses­sion of a Power, not to be maintained but by meer Strength of Arm, will oblige [Page 59] you to. If this be your Aim, you make an ill choice: and for that you may take my word, who have found sad cause to repent of my ever having taken into my hands the Sole Dominion; though not so much Courted by me, as forced upon me. He that hath tryed both would much rather choose to Live under the Tyranny of another, than be a Tyrant himself. The one hath only One man to fear; the other fears Every man: and more his Nearest Friends than his Declared Enemies: for safer is the Tyrant in the Field than in his Bedchamber; and amidst all his Dangers and Terrors, nothing is he more afraid of than his own Guards. As therefore no man can wish you better than your own father, conclude he gives you good Advice when he bids you keep yourself within the compass of a Private Station. Chuse rather to be with Safety a part of the People with whom you live, than violently to make yourself the Head of them; and wish to your Enemies, and the Children of your Enemies, the pos­session of a Power surrounded with end­less and incessant Fears and Dangers. But if you still admire the outside Splendour and Felicity of a Tyrant's fortune, and are blind to the hidden miseries and ca­lamities [Page 60] that attend it; 'tis from the Ig­norance and Inexperience of your youth, that you make so mistaken a Judgment. But, Paurolas, take my word for it: and pray to Heaven for yourself, as I pray for you; That you may never Experi­mentally know, what 'tis to be a Tyrant.

Ep. 68. To Paurolas.

BY Heavens not I! I do not think your demands Extravagant, or that you cost me too much Money. Nay, on the contrary, I think I have been but too Sparing a Father to so Liberal a Son. No, Paurolas; since I find how well you know how to bestow your Money, you shall sooner weary out your Friends with Giving, than your Father with Asking.^* For to him that giveth bountifully, boun­tifully should be given; and where Nature hath led the way with a Generous Inclinati­on, 'twere a shame for Fortune not to fol­low after with as Liberal an Allowance. Be [Page 61] free with me therefore, my Son; away with your excuses, and ask boldly. I shall never think I part with too much to him, for whose sake I have all that I have. And so far am I from disliking your Free-heartedness to your Companions, that I am over-joy'd to see you of so hap­py a Disposition, and pray that you may always persist in it. Go you on as you begin, and let not the increase of your [...]ears lessen the Goodness of your nature, but so long as the same Fortune shall serve you, depart not from the same Ge­nerous Resolutions. I shall joyfully give you the most that you can ask, my Brave Paurolas; ay, and thank you too for making so good use of it. Now you make me hope I have a Son like his Fa­ther.

Ep. 69. To Erythia.

IF it be the Apprehension you have of the danger we Tyrants live in, makes you unwilling to venture Paurolas his coming to Agragas, I can easily pardon [Page 62] both the fearfulness of a Woman, and the carefulness of a Mother over her only Child. But if you think Paurolas all your own, and therefore are for keeping him all to yourself, as if I had no share in him; You are too partial a Judge of a Parent's Right. For according to the Rigor of Law, the Fathers Title to his Son is stronger than the Mother's; but in the Fairness of equity both alike. Or if you look upon the Lending of your Son to his Father but for a Season only a Loss to yourself, then what must I think of it, to be denied him even for a Season only? Nay, prithee be not so selfish; but spare him to me some lit­tle time, and you shall speedily receive him again; and together with him such a Cargo, as one might expect Erythia's Son should carry from his Father Phala­ris. For since we cannot enjoy the hap­piness of living all together, I will take care that however divided we may be by distance of place, you two may come in Shares with me in the Plenties of my Fortune. For who can be nearer to a man than a Wife and a Son? and for the sake of whom would a man wish to him­self the Abundances of wealth, if he could forget them? As therefore I [Page 63] am a most Affectionate, both Husband and Father, so shall I empty into your Bosomes no small part of my Treasures, as not knowing where better to bestow them. But send him to me forth­with; as for other reasons so more espe­cially upon consideration of the En­croachments that Old Age makes upon me, and the Dangerous distemper of body that hath lately seized me, which puts me in mind of the Fatal Point we are all hasting to, and makes me be­gin to look upon every day as my Last. As for his Safe passage from Crete to A­gragas, and from hence thither again, I shall effectually provide: nor can his Mothers fears of danger be greater than are his Fathers cares for his security.

Ep. 70. To Policlitus.
V. Ep. 1. 21.

I Know not for which the most to ad­mire you, Polyclitus, for your Art or for your Honesty: Your Art which Con­quer'd the Disease that would have de­stroy'd the Tyrant, or your Honesty which Conquer'd the Temptation of de­stroying him yourself. Assaulted thus by a double danger, to your Justice I [Page 64] owe my Deliverance from both; the violence of a Disease, which threatned to have taken away my life, and the base­ness of my Enemies, who offered a price for my Death. So that on both sides it lay in your Breast; either to have let Nature alone to have finished her work with me, and yet you to have gained by my death the Reputation of a De­liverer: or would Nature have spared me, yet under the colour of Admini­string Antidotes for the saving of my life, you might unsuspectedly have ta­ken it away. And as on the one side the very opinion of your having mur­der'd me would have gained you the Reward;^* (so on the other, your actually having done it, would have exposed you to no danger) But you scorned to prefer the Reward of an Unjust action, before the duty of your office, or Popular Ap­plause before an^† Unaccusing Conscience. And [a] though perhaps you may be in your Principles an hater of Tyrants, yet you could not think any Cause suffici­ent to justifie a breach of trust, or make a Physician's murdering his Patient be­cause a Tyrant, a Lawful Act. As there­fore I lay entirely at your mercy, and you might have made your bargains of [Page 65] me which way you had pleased; I must confess my self unable to express my Ac­knowledgements in words equal to your worth. All that I can say is this, You shew of whom Physicians are Taught, having yourself Acted as would the God of Physick himself. But though no Re­quital can answer your deservings, yet something more I must pay you than meer Words. I have sent you therefore, in Testimony of your Skill and Fidelity, and as a lasting Memorial to whom I owe my life, together with this Letter four Beakers of the purest Gold, two Silver Bowls of a workmanship not to be matcht in our Age, ten couple of Thericlaeans, twenty comely young Slaves, and 50000 Atticks. I have also written to Teucrus, the Steward of my House, to make you the same Annual Pension as is paid to my Sea Commanders, the Gentlemen of my Bedchamber, and the principal Officers in my Army. A small Recompence I confess for so great a service. But where the Debtor is Insolvent, payment in part must pass for the whole, and the rest be made up in Confession. And that's my case with you; who have laid me under an Obligation beyond the possibility of Requital.^*

Ep. 71. To Polyclitus.

I Have for your sake discharged Calles­chrus, though so manifestly taken in a Design upon my Life, that he confes­sed not only himself, but his Complices, the place where, the time when, and the manner how they were to have Dis­patched me. But it had been Ungrate­ful in me to have refused the Gift of ano­ther mans life to him who had given me my own. And as I thought my self obli­ged to give a Life when he that gave me [Page 67] mine demanded it, so I thought no per­son more proper to receive such a Grant than he, who as the Prince of Physici­ans, is the Arbiter between Life and Death, and who never denyed a life to the man that sought to him to save it. In the mean time, let Calleschrus observe the strangeness of his Fortune, who is forced to be beholding to you for his own Life, when he was basely seeking the Life of him whom you had saved from Death. For as for his part, I were alrea­dy a dead man, had not fortune stept between and prevented his Intentions.

Ep. 72. To Peristhenes.
V. Ep. 73

THe Prisoners you sent me, Peristhenes, the Wives, I mean, of those Con­spirators Eubulus and Ariphantus, I had fully resolved (nor could you or any man else expect otherwise) to have put to death: yet I have spared them. You will wonder, considering the Just Indig­nation I had conceived against them, how they can have escaped. But you will won­der more when you shall have heard the Reason of it; that Brave and Masculine Spirit which upon this occasion they dis­covered. [Page 68] I asked them whether they were Privy to the Designs of their hus­bands against me: they owned them­selves not only Privy to, but Assisting in the Design of Destroying a Tyrant. Why, said I, what wrong have I ever done to any of you? No wrong, replyed they, to us in particular, but wrong to the Publick; for to enslave a Free people we think a Common wrong, and such as every one ought to resent as his own. And what Satisfaction, said I, can you give me for so insufferable an Attempt? Our lives said they. No, said I, since you can Dye so Re­solvedly, you shall not Dye but Live. I may not punish Virtue though in an Ene­my; your generous Resolution hath conquer'd my Revenge. Thus, Peristhenes, I have (as I thought my self in Honour bound to do) given them their Lives: and I desire you upon the receipt of this Letter to send for some of their nearest Relations, and deliver into their hands all those things of theirs, which you sei­zed when you Apprehended their per­sons; and be sure take care that they may not be able to complain, that we have in the least matter whatsoever wronged them.

Ep. 73. To Evandrus.
V. Ep. 22. 147.

I Hope both you yourself, and all the Himeraeans, nay, and I might add, all Sicily, are satisfied now who is the juster person, Phalaris, or those that Conspire against him. By my happy Escape at Himera Heaven itself hath, I think, de­termined that Point: that is, if you will admit^* Jupiter for a Competent Judge; in whose very Temple the bloody Fact was to have been perpetrated; and who certainly, were I a person Justly deserv­ing such a Death, would not before his own Altars have delivered into my hands those that were (upon that supposition) Justly seeking my Life. That had been to have protected the Guilty, and be­trayed the Innocent. A thought none of you will entertain concerning your God. But whereas I hear Stesichorus is deeply afflicted at it, that Eubulus and the rest of the Conspirators should pre­tend to have been Put upon this horrid Attempt by means of his Poems; he may set his heart at ease, and assure him­self that I believe nothing of the matter. The Poems of Stesichorus (had they paid [Page 70] that regard to them which they pretend) would have directed them a different Course, and instead of loading them with the Infamies of Punishment, have Crown­ed them with the Rewards of Virtue.

Ep. 74. To Orsilochus.
V. Ep. 23.

IF the Philosopher Pythagoras his refu­sing to come near me (though often invited) was a manifest Condemnation of me in the sight of the whole world; as you were pleased to express it, in the Panegyrick you made upon him for his Renouncing my Friendship: then, by the Rule of contraries, his being come to me, and having for now five months together to our mutual satisfaction con­tinued with me, gives me as ample a Re­commendation. For this you may be sure of, Pythagoras would not have born me company one quarter part of a day, had not he found in me a Spirit agreeable to his own.

Ep. 75. To Leontides.
V. Ep. 101.

YOu cannot give over teizing the Camarinaeans with your Speeches, to make War upon me. Now to shew you how poor a Politician you are, and to let them see what they would have gotten by following your advice; I shall begin with your self: not falling upon you (as you do upon me) with Noisie words only, which do no Execution, but with Substantial Deeds; and those such, which they who have once tryed, have never after given me any Distur­bance. That's my way of dealing with my enemies: and that the Camarinaeans well know: and therefore have no mind to have the Experiment made upon themselves; having already found how much better it is to have Phalaris their Friend than their Enemy.

Ep. 76. To Demaratus.

ARe you surprized at the Cruelty of the Execution of Alcinus and Dory­menes, and think it too Tyrant-like? I'll tell you what may surprize you more: [Page 72] They dyed not till after having been once, twice and thrice pardon'd by the Tyrant.

Ep. 77. To Hegesippus.
V. Ep. 95. 110.

'TIs not till now at last, when he hath nothing left him but Repen­tance, that you and the rest of his Friends too sadly see what false Measures Clisthe­nes took, when his Ambition of becom­ing a Patriot put him upon those Methods of serving (as he thought) his Country, which his grateful Country-men have re­warded with Banishment: But even then when he was in the Height of his Glo­ries, and swam with a full Stream, I tru­ly pitied him, and wrote a Letter to him on purpose to let him know that I foresaw where it would end. But my Words were Wind with him: bewitched with Popular Applause he was Deaf to the Reason of them: thinking Me, I sup­pose, a very Improper person to direct a man how to behave himself in a Popu­lar Government; or perhaps imagining that the Jealousies a Tyrant must needs have against a Free State could not suffer him to be much a Friend to the Man that so [Page 37] studiously promoted (as he fancied him­self to do) its Welfare. Thus pufft up with his own Vain imaginations, he Swells till he Bursts, and knew not the ground he stood on, till Fatal Experience hath at last convinced him, That Phalaris was not so much a Stranger to the Methods of Popular Government, because a Tyrant, as Clisthenes a Stranger to the Humours of the Multitude, be­cause he had the Lucky hit of Taking with them for a moment. Popular Ap­plause is but a flattering Bait to draw a man into the Crowd, and when it hath him there scarce ever fails (in the Con­clusion) to Betray him to an End far dif­ferent from the Promising Beginnings. As for my own part (and any man of sense, I should think, would be of the same mind) I had rather be the Hissing of the unthinking Multitude than their Idol. For as for their Hatred, 'tis as soon Laid as Rais'd. Their Passions, as they take fire at nothing, so 'tis but letting them alone, and they dye of themselves: a meer Clap of Thunder, a Flash and a Noise, and all's over: or if the Grum­bling hold for some little time, there's no great danger in it. But Banishment, Death, Confiscation, or something else as [Page 74] bad or worse, is the Consequence of the very Opinion of one's being Deep in their Affections. To tell you what I think of the People, Hegesippus, 'tis plain­ly this. The People! That is, a Num­ber of Fools joyned together in one Herd; Senseless, Helpless, Faithless; Fickle, Fierce, False; a Voice and that's all; good for just nothing in the world; pufft forward backward with the Blast of a mans Breath; Pleased they know not why, and Dis­pleased at they know not what; in their Aversions and in their Fondnesses equally Unreasonable. This is what I think of the people; and no more do I say of them than what I have found by them. So that to take the Measures of ones con­duct from the Humours of the people, and strive to Please the Multitude, is but Inviting them the more Scornfully to In­sult one. And yet this is what some are so Mad upon, there's no Holding them in, but, like^* a Dog at a Bull-baiting, they Break through all to get into the Middle of the Ring, and be the Shouting of the Mob. Neither can a Child be so Doted on by its fond Mother, nor a Wife by her Admiring Husband, nor Gold by the Miser, nor Battel by the Brave, nor Conquest by the General, nor [Page 75] Victory by the Olympick, as do these Patriots Dote on the Humms and Caresses of the Multitude, which in the End do but Shout them to their Ruin; while their Friends cannot but Pity their short­liv'd Glories, and their Enemies Triumph over their Approaching Fate. But as for poor Clisthenes, do you that are his Friends afford him the best Consolations you are able, advising him to bear a Common calamity with the Spirit of a Man: and withal Admonish him, that since to his cost he hath found his Mistake, he should lay aside for the future all thoughts of Mending his Fortunes by the same Methods by which he hath Ru­in'd them.

Ep. 78. To Stesichorus.
V. Ep. 79. 144.

NIcocles the Syracusian (no new name to you, I suppose, for he is of too Illustrious a Family to be unknown to [Page 76] Stesichorus) having lately lost his Wife, Groans under the load of an Unexpres­sible grief. And not without cause; for she was endeared to him under a Double Relation, both his Neece and his Wife. This Nicocles therefore (understanding, it seems, the Intimacy that was between us) hath sent to me his brother Cleonicus on purpose to desire me to be his Sollicitor to you, and procure from you the favour of bestowing a Poem upon the Memory of his deceased Wife. And by the Elo­gies I hear given to her by the Syracusians, as for all her other Virtues, so especially for (that Ornament of the Sex) her Mo­desty, she is a Theme not unworthy of even Your Muse. I know the Vow you have made not to write upon any per­son of this present Age, lest you should seem to prostitute your Pen for Reward. But she hath left the World, and is no longer of the present Age. Make not this therefore your pretence to deny me, since I desire nothing of you inconsistent with your Resolution. And I hope you will not let it be said, that Stesichorus refused Phalaris his Request. Not that you are any way Indebted to me, but that you may Confirm to the World the Opinion they have that you are my [Page 77] Friend. Envy me not this Honour; but according to your wonted Goodness, Gratifie my Ambition, who shall receive the Obligation to My self, though the Gift to my Friend. Supposing therefore my Request granted, Cleariste, you must know, was by birth a Syracusian, her Fa­ther Echecratidas, the Neice and Wife of the Person before-named; with whom she lived sixteen years a Wife, in All Thirty; the Mother of two Children; she dyed of a Consumption. Here's the Ground of the Work; the Management of the Particulars must be left to you. And may those Deities, whose Inspired Prophet you are, assist you in it. The Blessings of all the Muses be upon you, and Crown the Sacred Head of their Darling Favourite with the Glories of Immortal Verse; as upon other subjects, so upon this, concerning which I now write to you, the Praises of Cleariste.

Ep. 79. To Stesichorus.
Vid. Ep. 78

FOr your Poem upon Cleariste I return you now my most hearty Thanks, and shall wait the Opportunity of making my farther Acknowledgments. You [Page 78] have Effectually fulfilled my desire, and in the whole, and every part, Nobly an­swered the Dignity of the Subject. Be­sides which, the Artfulness of the Compo­sure appeared Admirable, I will not say to me (for I Admire every thing that comes from Stesichorus) but to all the Agragantines that heard it; before a Nu­merous Assembly of whom I caus'd it to be Rehearsed. Nor will the Admiration it hath gained you stand confined within a single Auditory, or Dye with the men of this Generation, but carry your Name throughout all the Ages that shall follow. As 'tis upon my Request that you Com­posed this Divine Poem, so I take the whole Debt upon my self: though at the same time by granting my Request you have bestow'd a Blessing upon all Man­kind, both of the present and future Generations. But as for what you Hint in your Letter concerning My self, &c. by all that's Sacred I conjure you, what­ever your thoughts may be concerning me, whether Good or Bad, not a word of me in any of your Writings. * Alas! Fortune hath Blackned my Name, and rendred it unfit to be a Poets Theme. Be I Better than Common opinion makes me, or be I Worse, let me be but writ­ten [Page 79] in the Heart of Stesichorus, I desire not to be written in his Verse.

Ep. 80. To Cleaeneta and Theano.
Vid. Ep. 79. 146.

I Very kindly accept of your friendly Intentions, who so Affectionately of­fer the Inserting the name of Phalaris into your Poems. But that's an honour, which though I covet, yet Fortune will not admit of. From my Ancestors indeed I derive a Spotless and Unblemish'd Name. But the necessities of a Cruel fate have forced me upon many Actions, which (Heaven knows!) I do not pretend to justify. Though after all, the only thing that renders me Incapable of be­ing the subject of Panegyrick is, That I stand above the Command of the Laws, my Self a Law to my Subjects. The Honour therefore you designed me of inserting me into your Poems, I must desire you to change into the Kindness of not so much as once naming in them the Name of Phalaris.

Ep. 81. To the Ennaeans.
Ep. 137, 148.

DO not think that I write this to you O ye Ennaeans, as if I repented of my having forgiven you the Moneys you owed me; but that by making you force Periander to give in his Accounts, you may enjoy the Benefit of my Grant. For that your City was not in^* Reality unable to pay her Debts, but only made use of that pretence to defraud her Cre­ditors, I must take for granted, if what you gave out concerning Periander's ha­ving Defrauded the Publick prove a false Accusation, and you are not able to make good your Charge against him For 'tis a thing Inconsistent that the same persons should appear one while like Bankrupts, with Petitions in their hands, craving Forbearance▪ and Pleading their Pover­ty; and yet that at the same time, as if they had More Money than they knew what to do with, they should stand still, and see Cheats running away with the Publick Cash, without so much as offer­ing to stop them. You ought either to be Rich to your Creditors, or Poor to your Devourers. But if you can afford [Page 81] to pay your Creditors their own, as if you had not wherewithal to do it: then in the First place (which an Honest man would in the first place consider) you are manifestly Unjust, and grossly im­pose upon the Good nature of your Friends, who, though they may be wil­ling to be Kind to you, yet cannot de­sign to be Abused by you: and in the Next, 'tis much more Reasonable, that (since be it which way it will you are ne­ver the better by it) you should pay your Just Debts, and let every one have his own again; than that Phalaris, in consideration of your Necessities, having freely forgiven your Debt, Periander should fairly come and Take up all that Phalaris Laid down. One of these two therefore you must Resolve upon; either to Recover your own Rights, and there­by at the same time to Confirm to your selves my Grant: or if you are so Able to lose your Own Money, then you must Resolve to pay me Mine.

Ep. 82. To Timander. ***

Ep. 83. To the Melitaeans.

I Have, upon the Representation of your Ambassadors, agreed to lend you the summ required, though by rea­son of my long and expensive Wars, I am not at present over full of Money. But that's not my way, to answer my friends with Excuses instead of Perfor­mances. And I hope you will not let me find the same of you as most men do of their Debtors, who Bless when they Borrow, and Curse when they Pay. When we are to lend we are the best men in the world with them; but when to receive our own again, the hardest names they can find are too good for us. A thing equally Unjust and Ungrateful. All Lenders, how different soever in other Respects, are of one and the same kind to the Borrowers, that is, Bene­factors, and ought by them to be treated as such; at least till they are paid. If they dislike their Creditor, let them Pay him first, and Rail at him afterward. If [Page 83] he be an Honest man, they ought the more readily to pay him because he is an Honest man; if he be a Knave, let them make haste to come out of a Knave's Debt. For whether I be a Good man, or a Bad man, 'tis but just I should receive my own. As for my own part, whether Lending, or calling in my Debts, I am the self same man, as much a friend when I do the one as when I do the other. But Borrowers (as they say the Camelion doth his Colours) change both their Stile and their Thoughts with their occasions. When I lend, I am a Benefactor, a Bles­sing, a God to them: when I put them in mind of Payment; an Oppressor, an Accursed wretch, not fit to Breathe upon Earth, or enjoy the common Rights of Mankind. I know withal that 'tis much better to lose a Debt by a Private person than by a Community. For he that is Defrauded by a Private person makes himself but One Enemy, and him no very Dreadful one: but he that is Abu­sed by a whole City, as his Loss is not less, so the Damage is far greater, gain­ing himself, instead of One, a Multitude of Enemies. Not that I would imagine any such thing of you. When I lend to you, I lend without Suspecting. I know [Page 84] you to be a People as Grateful upon all occasions, so particularly most Exact ob­servers of your Covenants, and Jealously maintaining the Honour of the Publick Faith.^* Nor are you Ignorant that when Controversies of this nature arise between a single Adversary and a Multi­tude, and the Question lyes, Who hath offered the Wrong, the One or the Ma­ny; Common Opinion gives the Advan­tage to the Former: for it will be much sooner believed that a Multitude should think themselves able to Outface a Single person in an unjust action, than that a Single person should think himself able to Outface a Multitude.

Ep. 84. To the Messanians.
V. Ep. 140.

I am not surprized to hear what is be­come of the Delphick Tripods, the Golden Crowns, and the many other Costly oblations, which I sent to the Tu­telar * Deities of your Country, to have been placed in their Temple at^a Mes­sana, [Page 85] for a lasting Mouument of the protection I received from them in my late ^b Deliverance. One of these two things I knew you would^c do with them; ei­ther that you would (as in Duty you were bound) Dedicate them to the Gods for whom they were designed, and give them a Standing in their Temple: or else that Detaining them from the Gods you would share them among your selves. Which latter you have done. And thus under pretence of fixing a mark of Infamy upon me, as if the Gifts were polluted by the Guilt of the Offerer, you have committed Sacriledge upon your Gods. For when once a thing is Devo­ted to the Gods, what difference is there whether you steal it before the Conse­cration or after? whether you take it out of the Temple, or will not let it go in? So that 'tis the Gods you have plun­dered, not Me: For what I once gave to them, was no longer Mine but Theirs: and both my Devotion and your Impie­ty needs no other Proof: For they know both who sent them the Gifts, and who stole them. 'Tis sufficient for me that I have made my Oblations, though they have not Received them. And as for you, I have my Satisfaction; in that I have [Page 86] exposed you to the wrath of those Gods whose Rights you have Invaded, and who are Able to Avenge their own Cause. Besides, by the Applying them to your own Uses you declare there was nothing of Impurity in the Gifts them­selves; unless the same things can be at the same time of a different nature, Pure and Impure: Pure,^d Quatenus you have occasion for them yourselves; Impure,^e Quatenus the Gods have any thing to do with them. Again; by your own Plea you Convict your selves of Impiety. For if one ask your Magistrates, how they could Confiscate to the Publick, the things offered to the Gods; they lay it upon the People, The People, say they, demanded to have them Condemned for Lawful Prize, as being the Effects of an Enemy: but if one ask the people the same question, they discharge it from themselves, and cast it upon the Magi­strates. Nay, (which is an Impudence beyond all the rest) ye stick not to Arraign even the very Gods themselves, and speak it openly of them (and what worse could you have said of the worst of men) that should your Gods accept of the Gifts of a Tyrant, your Gods were [Page 87] no better than Traytors. And yet those very Patriots of yours, to whom you commit the Administratiou of all your Publick affairs, though they have more than once or twice directly offered me their service (if I would but Pay them for it) to make me as Absolute a Tyrant over Messana as I am at Agragas; these your Patriots, I say, Honest men as they are, you have nothing to say against them. And good reason for it; since in that matter you know yourselves to be all alike; and therefore dare not call others to an account for a Crime which they could so easily Retort upon their Accusers: for were that Cause to be brought under Examination, it would appear that (how streightly soever you confine your Gods) you yourselves have all of you been but too willing to Re­ceive gifts. ‘But^e do not think that I speak this of your having Intercepted my oblations. 'Tis no such matter, such losses are beneath my Concern. Neither doth the Miscarriage of those I have already sent, nor the stop put to my sending the Rest, which I had De­voted to the same Use, at all affect me.’

But as for what You have done, I leave it to the Gods whom ye have spoiled to [Page 88] Avenge the Injury offered both to me and to Themselves. Adieu^f But this word, Adieu, may be Construed to a bad meaning as well as to a good, and you may be sure I design it in the worst.

Ep. 85. To Timonax.
V. Ep. 8.

I Have ended my War with the Leon­tines by Conquest. But that I may not quite break the heart of you, and Dispatch you out of your pain in a mo­ment by telling you all in a breath; I shall say nothing of my having, together with them, made a Conquest also over the [...]a [...]r [...]menites and Zancleans, their Confederates, nor of my having receiv­ed an Hundred Talents for the Ransom of their Prisoners. To have loaded you [Page 89] with the News of all my Successes at once, would have been present Death to you: and I were not willing to be counted the Murderer of a Thing that is called a Man.

Ep. 86. To Hiero.

I Had a great deal to say to you, both as to your Person and Conduct; those Blessed Orations of yours, I chiefly mean, with which you Caress the Mob of Leontium. But to dispatch al [...]m a word; The Indian Elephant despises the Gnat.

Ep. 87. To Aristenetus.

'T'Is no Troublesome thing to me to think that I am an Old man (I am not yet, nor ever shall I be too Old to hold the Reins of Government and make my Enemies tremble) but those Frights you are in upon my account are very Troublesome to me. Fate will take its Course, nor can all Aristenetus his fears put a stop to it. And therefore to give you my sense in the words of the Poet;

Ep. 88. To the Himaereans.
V. Ep. 93, 108, 121.

YOu have sufficiently declared your Inclinations, and fairly given me to Understand that you look upon it as a matter Indifferent to you, whether Phalaris be your Enemy or your Friend. Heaven be praised, that put it into your mind to make so plain a discovery of your selves! Having received this Assu­rance of its favour, I doubt not of my after Successes. Conon, as I wrote to you in my Last, I ordered to be forthwith put to death, as knowing him to be a very Villain,^* and a Ringleader of all mischief among you; and withal, that he had neither Parent nor Relation in your Ci­ty; So ^† that tis purely upon his own Ac­count and Yours that he suffered, nor in his Death do I punish any Innocent person. To Drepid [...]s I have paid the Regard he de­served, and remitted him safe to your hands; an Honest man, and one that hath neither Done you, nor Designed me [Page 91] any Hurt. How to dispose of Stesichorus I shall take time to consider.

Ep. 89. To Neolaidas.

I Do not design you any hurt: for I find that your Good Actions are more than your Bad. To the number of your Good, farther add the not forcing me upon Harsher thoughts concerning you than I would willingly admit.

Ep. 90. To Mnesicles.

I Heartily congratulated your happi­ness when I heard that you had a Daughter born to you, though I knew how desirous you were of a Son. And I believe you yourself will be well pleased with what you have, when you shall find what a Gainer you are by the Loss of your Wish; in having a Girl instead of a Boy. For Daughters are Naturally more tenderly affected toward their Pa­rents than Sons. I shall think my Pre­sents meet with a kind Reception at your hands, when you shall not only readily [Page 92] entertain what I send, but let me know what you want. And now I am sure you will every day find yourself in a wanting condition. For Daughters are Chargeable.

Ep. 91. To Alcander.

I imagine that (without my telling you so) neither you nor any man else supposes me a man that can be Frightned with Words only; and as little, let me tell you, by more than Words only. I can with the same Indifference hear that men Act against me, as I can that they Talk against me. I very well know what a thing War is; and therefore never undertake one without both a Cause to Justifie it, and Strength to go through with it. The Difference of Times, the Doubtfulness of Events, the Suddenness of Change, and the Fickleness of For­tune, I am fitter to Teach than to be Taught. Nor can any man in the World have greater Reason to Depend upon himself, than I have. But I depend more upon the^* Blessings of Heaven, the^† As­surances of whose favour my constant Successes have given me; and to the same Goodness I still^* Trust, that no [Page 93] man shall begin with me, without being himself a Loser by the Adventure. For if I may judge of^† what's to come by what's past, I have reason to expect to see all my Enemies under my Feet.

Ep. 92. To Stesichorus.

I Hear that you have been at Aluntium, and at Alaesa, going and sending a­bout from City to City to collect Mo­neys and raise Souldiers; and that all these preparations are against me. Fye, Stesichorus, an Old a man as you are, ne­ver have done with Politicks? Is it not time for you to give over busying your head with State Affairs? Have you no Regard to those Sacred Deities whose peculiar Adorer you Profess yourself? No more Wit than to pick Quarrels with them that are above your Match, and make the Muses the tools to your follies? Have you no Compassion on your Sons, now almost men, on your Native Coun­try, while (like a Rash man, or rather Doting Old Fool) by Raising Moneys [Page 94] and Levying an Army against Phalaris, you draw upon them an Enemy that will in the end most certainly^* Root and Branch confound them? And I hear you are at this very time writing the Returns of the Greeks, and therein shewing (very pertinently) the Mistakes of which some of the Heroes were guilty. But how you yourself shall Return from Alaesa to Himera, That you think not of. But as­sure yourself you will meet with Cepha­ridan Rocks, Floating Islands, a Devour­ing Charibdis, and a Nauplian Fleet in your way. Nor shall you escape me, no not though (as you Poets have it) a God should descend to wrap you up in a Cloud, and snatch you out of my hands.

Ep. 93. To the Himeraeans.
V. Ep. 88, 92, 108, 109.

I Have dismissed Stesichorus, O ye Hi­meraeans, and forgiven him all his Practices against me: Not upon your Petitioning for his Life (that should have procured him more Deaths than one) but out of the Veneration I bear both to [Page 95] those Sacred Deities in particular, whose Inspired Prophet he is, and to all the rest of your Himeraean Gods and Heroes. For I have no cause of Quarrel against them, though much against you. How studi­ously he pursued my Ruin, you yourselves know. But I durst^* not joyn a person so Sacred by his Profession, so Venerable for his Wisdom, in the same Fate with that Execrable Villain, that Infamous Debauchee, Conon, nor suffer the De­voted Client of the Muses to dye by my Hands. How much rather do I wish, that it lay in my power to rescue such persons from the stroak of Fate? So should they never dye. And let me Conjure you, ye Himeraeans, no more to twist Stesichorus into your Broken Interests, nor push him upon those desperate At­tempts, so disagreeable to his Spirit, and Unbecoming his Profession. For what have Poets to do with Politicks? Nor did he (as I am inform'd by those that have been at Alaesa) voluntarily intrude himself, but unable to withstand your Imporunities was forced to comply with your Follies. Put not the like violence upon him for the future; but making choice of more proper Tools for the work you have to employ them upon, [Page 96] let Stesichorus alone, and leave him to his Muse and Lyre. Create not to me any more Enemies like him; or if you do, they are not sure of meeting with the like [...]reatment. But if you must of necessity have some or other to Head the Cause against me; chuse out from among your selves some such persons, whom, when they fall into my hands, I may (according as I shall see cause, and ac­cording to the Obligations you shall lay upon me) dispose of at my own discreti­on, ^* without having upon me any scru­ple of Conscience.

Ep. 94. To Stesichorus.
Vid. Ep. 121.

TIs true, Stesichorus, I am a Tyrant: but 'tis over the Agragantines, not the Himeraeans that I am so. [...]nd there­fore you have done me a singular kind­ness, who, by pretending to Break my Power, have Enlarged it, and instead of depriving me of my Soveraignty at A­gragas have given me the like over Himera. For of this you may assure [Page 97] yourself, That by the same power by which I am able to teach my own Sub­jects their Duty at home, I am also able to Right my self upon my Enemies a­broad. And so shall the Himeraeans shortly find it.^*

Ep. 95. To Autonoe.
Vid. Ep. 77, 110.

I No sooner received your Letter, but that I forthwith remitted to you the summ demanded, as knowing that the occasion required not only Money but Dispatch. I have therefore, according to your desire, supplyed you with the three Talents, to pay off your Sons Fine, and purchase his Restoration to his Country. I know by my own Expe­rience, what a Miserable thing it is to be Banished ones Country, and forced to spend ones life in Rambles. I have withal of my own accord added three Talents more, to buy off the Confiscati­on, and redeem his Estate. And let me advise Clisthenes not to be dabbling any [Page 98] more in Politicks, but keep himself clear of having any thing to do in those kind of Affairs; wherein if they succeed well, all the Benefit goes to the Publick in Common; but if there be any Miscarri­age, all that is Charged upon the Ma­nagers in particular. And if that full Experiment now made upon himself be not sufficient to teach him more Wisdom, let him learn it from the Fate of our Family, and add my Example to his own. For I too (young FoolV. Ep. 49. as I were) must needs be meddling with the Pub­lick, till the Publick forced me to fly my Country. And though I have been able to oblige Strangers to receive me for their Lord, yet I have never been able to oblige my own Countrymen to re­ceive me for their fellow Citizen. Nor do the thoughts of my being a Soveraign in a Foreign Country so much Satisfie me, as my being an Exile from my own afflicts me. I do not write this (Heaven knows) as grudging you the Moneys I now send you, but as Condoling your Misfortunes: nor as fearing lest I should have the same Occasion offered me of Giving again, but as Desirous that you may never be brought under the same Necessity of Asking again. For much more [Page 99] Joyfully, and more Magnificently should I give to support the Prosperities of our Family, than to relieve their Distresses.

Ep. 96. To Nicophemus.

AS for the large Catalogue of those unhappy wretches, whose misera­ble Sufferings you so pathetically repre­sented in your Speech upon me to the Leontines; let me tell you, that not One of the whole number Dyed undeserving Death. They only felt themselves what they were designing for me. For All and every one of them were in a Con­spiracy against my own Life. And let me farther observe to you, how indis­creet an Orator you are. For while you produce these Instances of those of whom I have (and that with so good reason) made examples of Justice, and Urge their Sufferings as an Argument against me; in the first place you plainly disco­ver yourself to be one of their Compli­ces, and so give me fair notice how to use you when you shall fall into my hands: and then you Disanimate the Leontines from (which was the very Design of your Oration) Engaging themselves in a War against me, by shewing them what an E­nemy [Page 100] they have to deal with, and how much better it were to let me alone. For at the same time that you Represent me to them as so Cruel a man, to engage their Hatred against me; you also Re­present me to them as a Not Despicable Enemy, which will cool their Courage, and make them unwilling to begin with me, without a good cause for it.V. Ep. 58. But if the Success be so certain as you assure them it is, I neither envy you the Glory of Entring them upon so Grand an Un­dertaking, nor Disswade you from pur­suing it.

Ep. 97. To Lysinus.

THou incorrigible Blockhead, Lysi­nus! Wilt thou never be a Man? Thirty year old, and a Fool still? For how else wouldest thou have dared to pull upon thy back an Enemy for whom neither thou thy self, nor Armies more of such like Impotent Creatures as thy self are an equal match? But you must still go on writing Copies of Verses and making Tragaedies upon me; little think­ing in how Tragical a^* Catastrophe your Mirth and Wit will end.

Ep. 98. To Epicharmus.

SInce single You declare me to be a Just person, I am satisfied though not One else should joyn with you in it. For One such man to me out-weighs all Sici­ly. But as for the indiscriminating Mul­titude, I look upon them only as so much Land stock, good for nothing but just to People the Ground, and keep the Wild Beasts from Over-running us. And per­haps it may be but necessary for me to have them misunderstand me, and think me a worse man than I am. And yet you are not so Singular in your Judgment, but that there are Many others like your self (Many I call them, because I count men not by number but by their worth) who are ready to afford me the same Character, that Phalaris is in very Deed a Just and Virtuous man. Though were you Singular in this matter, I should be proud of even your Single Testimony, and Court no other Approbation.

Ep. 99. To Cebron.

THey who are so much amaz'd at the Unnaturalness of my Temper, and Cruelty of the Punishments I inflict; why do they not make that an Argu­ment to Affrighten their Neighbours from Plotting against me? But you, while you spend yourselves in Lamenting the Fate of them that fall into Phalaris his hands, never think of Cautioning your Friends not to provoke that Phala­ris, whom to provoke is so dreadful a thing. It had been my Happiness never to have been forced upon so severe Methods, and your Interest to have been more wary in your Conduct to­ward me. But since I am what I am, and yet with all my Rigour I find you so Untractable; what would you have been to a man less Vindicative? Since you venture so boldly where there is no Hope of Mercy, what would you have done where there had been no fear of Punishment? Know ye therefore that I will Cease my Severities, when you shall cease your Provocations.

Ep. 100. To Euctemon.

YEs Euctemon; All the Stories you have been telling the Syracusians concerning me are True, nor do I deny any part of the Accusation. But if you would shew yourselves as ready to for­bear your Furious practices, (more De­structive to yourselves than to me) as I have shewed my self ready to forgive those that have even to an Unpardona­ble degree provoked me; there would be no room left for you to complain, either of my Severities or of your own Sufferings.

Ep. 101. To Cleobulus.
V. Ep. 75

YOu put yourself, as I am told, to a great deal of unnecessary trouble upon my account. The Camarinaeans can never have a Publick Assembly but that you are Speeching them into a War a­gainst me. But all you Speechings are hi­therto in vain. The Camarinaeans well know that War is to be managed with o­ther Instruments than the Tongue, and that good Speakers may make [Page 104] but poor Generals. So that if you would have them begin a War upon me; First Demonstrate to them the Grounds you go upon, and what Assurance you can give them of the Issue. And when you shall have done this, if they will not hearken to you then neither, change your Note, and Preach Peace to them, and so perhaps you may carry your Point, and enter them into a War. For as the Case now stands with you, 'tis plain that 'tis one of these two things they stick at: either that they think the Counsel you give them dangerous, or that they think the Counseller of it a Fool. As for my part I think both a­like. In the mean time (to tell you what I am at) I am resolving to come upon you not with Weaponless Words, as you begin with me, but with substantial Deeds, and those such, which they who have once Tryed, have never after gi­ven me any Disturbance. That's my way of dealing with my Enemies, and that the Camarinaeans well know, and therefore have no mind to have the Ex­periment made upon themselves. For they are not now to Learn how much better it is to have Phalaris their Friend than their Enemy.

Ep. 102. To Cleodicus.

YOu have been carrying on Grand Designs against me, Cleodicus, but much above your Reach. Shall the Stallion of that Thracian Tanner's Neece (the Wife of that Slave Autander, who got his Estate by murdering his Patroon) think himself a Match for Phalaris? that Beast, that Buggerer, that Unnatural— but I will not suffer my Pen to foul it self by naming thy Filthy Actions. Were it worth my while to Chastise thee, (as whether it be or no I shall take time to consider) I would do it with Blows, not Words, and to the utter Confusion of yourself, and the whole Generation of you, turn the mischief you designed a­gainst me upon your own head.

Ep. 103. To Stesichorus his Sons.
V. Ep. 54

VVHat more proper Consolation can one Administer to you, Young men, under your present Sorrows, than to put you in mind of the Glories of that Father, whose Death is the Cause of your Grief? Stesichorus his Hearse is [Page 106] not to be attended with Tears but Hymns. And indeed when I bid you cease those Sobs and Smitings of the Breast, 'tis not as if I supposed it a thing possible for a man to be insensible to the Resentments of Grief, (a Passion inse­parable from our Nature) but because I think them better bestowed upon more proper Objects; upon those, I mean, the miseries of whose Life require our Com­passions, not their Death: though the Death of even the Miserable too may justly be Lamented: but not so the Death of Stesichorus, who attained to so Honourable an old Age, spent so many years in the service of those venerable Deities the Sacred Muses; past all his days in the Delights of Verse, and has left behind him a Name crowned with Immortal Glories. ‘For certainly to be a Poet^a is a Glory greater than which neither could I my self nor any man else Aspire to: to stand so nearly Related to the Deity as Poets do. For that Immortal Spirit which Diffuses it self throughout the Universe, and Ani­mates the whole Mass of Nature, seems to me nothing else but Measure and Harmony.’ Do you therefore, the Sons of that Great and Admirable man, en­tertain [Page 107] thoughts worthy of such a Fa­ther. You have a great Task set before you, to support the Honour of your Name, and bear some tolerable Propor­tion to him that beg [...]t you▪ But weep not over him, nor let the Happy Fate of that Hero, whose name will be had in^b everlasting Remembrance, be to you a matter of Lamentation. Despoil not you your Father of the Honours the Himoraeans have done him: Since they haveV. Ep. 54. Decreed him to be Adored for a God, do not you destroy the^c Belief they have of him by Mourning o­ver him as over a man that is Dead. For neither did he himself (and so much I know of him) unwillingly submit to the Common Fate, or Grieve at the Thoughts of Dying. But as in his incomparable Poems, (that Treasure of Wisdom to which you are more nearly Entituled, and from whence all Mankind may learn to Copy after the Examples of virtue) he celebrated the Fame of those Renowned Heroes who laid down their Life for Glory: so when his own Period was come, he quietly submitted to the stroak of Fate, and yielded up his breath with­out a Trembling thought. And when before that he fellV Ep. 33, 92, 108▪ into my hands as [Page 108] then his Enemy, and lay under the ex­pectation of a most Cruel End, by his un­daunted behaviour, he plainly shewed that he did not conceive of what was coming upon him as a Dreadful thing; but on the contrary, discovered a more Resolved Spirit when my Prisoner and in Chains, than when in Arms against me in the [...]ield. Thus wisdom Triumphed over Might, and Disabled the Tyrant from hurting the Poet. For ^d so I found it: Life or Death, Liberty or Torture were to him one and the same thing. And therefore could I not Hurt him, because I could not offer any thing to him, with which he was not well pleased. Sur­prized with so generous a Resolution, my Anger turned into Adoration, and I who had been at such a world of pains to get him into my hands, when I had him (as if I had been his Prisoner, not he mine) could do nothing else but supplicate him to accept of some Tokens of my Favour, and thank him for doing me that Ho­nour. Nor do I think I hereby made him my Debtor, for having given him Twelve years of Life, (for so long after was it before he dyed) but I shall always own my self his; as for that strength of Spirit with which he Inspired me in Ge­neral, [Page 109] so particularly for his having placed me (which only he could have done) above the Fear of Dying.

Ep. 104. To the Catanaeans.

FOr the insufferable injuries commit­ted by you upon my self and my Subjects, you may think perhaps that you have already paid enough, and more than enough to make Satisfaction: for the Thirty of my men whom you impi­ously cast into the Flames, having lost five hundred of your own, and for the seven Talents of which you plundered me, being despoiled of the best Branches of your Revenues. But let me tell you, what you have hitherto suffered is but a praelude to what's to follow.^a ‘And [Page 110] that you may not charge all the Cala­mities that have overtaken you, upon my being Confederated with your E­nemies, and therefore think to salve the matter by making peace with them; assure yourselves that shall not do your work. Be you at Peace with all the world besides, yet I am still your Ene­my:’ And sooner shall Nature forget its Course, and that^* Soul which Ani­mates the Universe expire, than Pha­laris cease to be an Enemy to the Catanae­ans. Nor is it upon my own account so much that I make War upon you, as upon the Account of the Gods themselves, who are able to Save, and who are a­ble to destroy, and whose vengeance you have incurred. Unless we can suppose that Divine Spirit which runs through­out all the Elements of Nature, and maintains the Harmony of the Universe, to have nothing to do with those Trea­sures of Fire lodged in Aetna: whose Flames you having polluted with the blood of disarmed Innocents; 'tis that [b] Eye of the Universe and Fountain of Life you made your Enemy, rather than Phalaris.

Ep. 105. To Nicenaetus.
V. Ep. 26.

PErhaps my having so often written to your Father concerning you, ad­monishing him to curb your Insolency, hath made you so much the more Pre­suming; as imagining that I should not have employed him to take you off from your hot-headed Designs against me, had I not been afraid of them, and looked up­on you as an Enemy to be dreaded. That 'tis no such matter, I shall not spend words to prove. But understanding him to be an Honest old man, and you his only Son; in Compassion to his Grey hairs, and making Allowances for the Follies of your youth, I have hitherto forbore you. But you have no Compas­sion either on him or on yourself, who, without any sense of the danger, of which you have had so fair warning gi­ven you, still proceed in your wonted [Page 112] Petulancy. And that perhaps because I having hitherto let you alone, and con­tented my self with only Admonition, you may imagin that you have still time enough before you to think of making your Retreat. But this is what far greater persons than yourself have not been able to do. Consult your safety therefore while you may, and make your choice before it be too late. Tread not in the steps of Timander; but rather follow the advice of an Enemy which would save you, than that of a Friend, which will certainly be your Ruin.

Ep. 106. To Pollux.

THe Indignities I suffer, Pollux, are far more Outrageous than the Re­venges I take: So that you do not state the Case fair, when you make both the one and the other equally Excessive. I have many times Once, Twice, and Again pardoned the self same persons Conspi­ring my Death: but not one of them who have been over and again pardon­ed by me have been ashamed of Repeat­ing over and again the same Practices a­gainst me. Farewel.

Ep. 107. To the Angyines.

I Think I want neither cause to de­mand Satisfaction of you, nor Power to take it were I so minded: And that I must do, unless you do me Right, and release to me those men, whom you have (without any Reason in the world for it, but that That Beast of a man, that Flagitious Instrument of your Lust, Papi­on, would have it so) detained Prisoners for now three months time.

Ep 108. To the Himeraeans.
V. Ep. 88, 92, 93, 103

THese are to inform you, that Stesicho­rus, Conon and Dropidas, as they were passing from Pachinum to Pelopo [...] ­nesus, have lost their Course, and instead of reaching Corinth, whether you sent them, are arrived at Agragas. Dropidas perhaps I may return to you, Conon I dispatched out of the world at first sight; Stesichorus is yet alive, till I shall have considered what death to put him to.

Ep. 109. To Stesichorus.
Vid. Ep. 88, 103, 108.

I Understand you are in a dreadful Fright at what is like to become of you; as well you may, lying absolutely at the mercy of him, your Practices a­gainst whom are but too well known to yourself. But I wonder that the Fright should take you but now, and that you did not Then begin your Fears when you ‘ventured upon that (as you yourself forebodingly expressed it)^* Desperate Vndertaking, of engaging the Himerae­ans in a Quarrel against me, and put­ting yourself at the Head of them: and yet at the same time your own thoughts told you that things might possibly fall out as unluckily to the Himeraeans as your † Ominous Expression implyed.’ If therefore you were Then (as a Profes­sor of Wisdom ought to be) above the fear of Death, Thou Old Fool, what makes thee shake and tremble now? Since you were so Daring at a Distance, when yet you foresaw what was like to follow; what breaks your Courage, when the no Surprizing Event is come? But if you were (as in your heart you [Page 115] always were) a Coward, and did even then in your own Thoughts quake at the approaching vengeance I should take upon you: thou Mad man, what be­witched thee to make that Bellowing against me? What meanedst thou (by those Outcrys to the Mob upon that Cru­el, Cursed and Abominable Wretch, by the exhortationsV. Ep. 147. of thy Verse to De­stroy the bloody Tyrant) to draw upon thy self an Enemy, the very thoughts of whom shook thee with fear? And why must you, a Poet and Musician, put on another Garb, and push yourself upon Affairs too hot for Poets to handle? You might, had you been so pleased, have lain still, and slept in a whole skin. But since of a Poet you must needs set up for a Politician, expect the Fate not of Poets and Musicians, but of those Demagogues who begin Quarrels they cannot main­tain, when once they fall into the hands of their Enemies.

Ep. 110. To Clisthenes.
V. Ep. 77. 95.

AS most men are apt to conceive it for an Affront to have their Coun­sels rejected, so they are well enough pleased to see the Wisdom of them justi­fied, and the Neglect punished by the Event: and therefore in such cases are generally more forward to Insult their Unfortunate Friends than to Commiserate them. But 'tis not so with me: Nor is it the Design of these Lines by my Upbraid­ings, to make my self an Addition to that Misfortune, which (contrary to your Expectation, but not contrary to my Forewarnings) hath now at last Over­taken you. I see not to what such Up­braidings tend, but to prove a man a greater Admirer of himself, than Lover of his Friend; whose Sufferings, while he charges upon him as the fruit of his own Folly, in neither having been Wise enough to chuse what was best himself, nor to hearken to them who could have taught him better: What else doth he do, than make the Miscarriages of his friend the Theme of his own Glory, from the Mistakes of the One the more to [Page 117] Magnifie the Greater Wisdom and Fore­sight of the Other? But as to the pre­sent case, as foreseeing (and would to Heaven I had been a false Prophet) the unhappy Consequences of the Methods you took, I were most Passionately de­sirous to have prevented them: So since they are now fallen upon you, I make both the Mistake and the Misfortune my own. 'Twas to have saved you from ever feeling what you now feel that I forewarned you; but since 'tis now (whe­ther by your Fate or your Fault) come upon you, I share in your sorrows. No, Clisthenes, I do not Upbraid your Suffer­ings, but am doing all that possibly I can to Remove them. Of this you may be more fully informed of your Mother, who can tell you how zealous I have been to Serve you. But you, methinks, shew yourself somewhat to Peevish and out of Humour toward me, who, though now a Banished man, and forced to shift from place to place, yet will not vouch­safe to give a visit to me. You have not a Friend in the world from whom you would meet with a kinder Reception, or where you might better take up your Rest. If your Shyness of me proceed from any worse cause, you do me In­justice▪ [Page 118] justice: but if it be your Shame to see the Face of him whose Admonitions you Despised; I must confess I am pleased with it, and glad to see you on the mend­ing hand. For 'tis to be hoped, that he who is ashamed of his past Errors, will not be found Repeating them.

Ep. 111. To Nic ippus.

FOr your having accepted the Present I made you, I return you my Thanks. And 'tis well you have. For as for that excuse which you pretended, that you were afraid of the Mischief it might bring upon you, should the Syracusians discover that you received Money at my hands; I'll tell you how I had laid the Plot. Should you have persisted in your Refu­sal to receive it, I would have charged you with having received it. So that Receiving it or not Receiving it, the case should have been the same with you on both sides. Nay, rather the danger should have been much more in your Refusing, than in your Admitting it. For though you had Refused to Receive it, yet my declaring that I had sent it, would have laid you under the suspicion of your having Received it. And now you have [Page 119] in Fact Received it, yet I declaring that I never sent it, will beyond peradventure discharge you. For this is Demonstration, if no Moneys were sent, no Moneys were Received.

Phalaridan Generosity. V. & Ep. 145.

Ep. 112. To Hieronymus.

SInce in your Letter you ask me, whe­ther I think I shall not meet with my Match in the Leontines, who have openly declared against me, and already commenced their Hostilities by Ravaging my Territories; and what I have left me to Depend upon now: I might An­swer, That as they Begin with me, not I with them, so that I am not Invading the Rights of other men, but Defending my own, I might Depend upon the Ju­stice of my Cause; But that's a thing I know you matter not. I shall tell you therefore, what though you will not own, you cannot but know, That I have Arms, and Money, and Men, and Horses, and Shipping, and all this in Abundance; and in the hands of one that knows how to use them; to which I might add, that Fortune hath hitherto always Declared on my side. And these are some of those [Page 120] things I Depend upon; especially having to do with an Enemy, as Unprovided in all Respects, as I am Provided.

Ep. 113. To Lamachus.

YOu are always telling the Camarinae­ans, when you can get them to­gether to give you a Hearing, of my Bar­barous inhumanity in having Entombed no less than Seven and Thirty men in the Belly of my brazen Bull. Most hear­tily could I wish (hear me Almighty Jove!) never to exceed this Number. But I find there are some certain persons in the world will not give me leave to stop here. As for instance, I see that you yourself and that Mad man Epiterses are pushing on upon me, and will force me to advance the summ to Thirty nine. ‘^* Do you go on and I'll go on, and let the World call me Cruel still. Till such Desperate Wretches as you are shall cease their Vnjust clamours against me, I shall not cease to give such as you are their Just Rewards.’

Ep. 114. To Nicarchus.

YOu are not able, with all your De­clamations, to force the Camarinae­ans to make War upon me; but you may force me to make War upon them should they have the Patience to hear you. And this (as they are wise men) they foresee; and therefore both know­ing you to be a Fool, and Weighing Things above Words, and from the Be­ginnings looking through to the Endings, have for a long time stopped their Ears to all your Exhortations. And yet (as you have not sense enough to be asha­med) ‘you cannot leave off your old Trade of Speech [...]making upon me, till you are now become as^* Rediculous an Orator to them, as you have always been a Despicable Enemy to me.’

Ep. 115. To Nicaeus.

MY Bull (I find) and the other En­gines I keep by me for the same use, are no Terrible things in your eyes. If they were so, you would never by be­ginning a Quarrel with me, have thrown away all hopes of Escaping them.

Ep. 116. To Cleomedon.

AS I understand you make it your whole business to expose me to the Publick hatred, and to that purpose are every where Declaiming upon the Tragical Story of Cleombrotus: So shall I make it mine, Cleomedon, to get you yourself (an Enemy far more Insolent and less Powerful) into my hands. And then Cleomedon shall be as Tragical a Story as Cleombrotus.

Ep. 117. To the Melitaeans.

TIs not because I despise the Ho­nours you designed me, O ye Melitaeans, that I return to you by the hands of your Ambassador those Marks of your Esteem sealed up as you sent [Page 123] them; but because my Fortune will not admit me to Receive your Encomiums. You, indeed, may suppose other men as ready to Entertain a good Opinion concerning me, as you to give me your Testimonial. But I know that's a thing never to be expected. Being already condemned by the Common Vogue of the world for a Cruel and Unrighteous man, though the contrary known to you, yet your Single Dissent will stand for nothing against a General Mistake. Fame having once begun a false Cry, will not be put out of her Note; aud I despair of ever seeing the Just Judgment of the few Wise able to turn the Stream of Popu­lar prejudice. On the contrary, your Approbation of a man so Universally condemned will be Interpreted to pro­ceed from a Likeness of Manners; so that while you pretend to vindicate me, you your selves will incur the like heavy Censure. Since therefore by the Ho­nours you designed me, you would have Shipwrackt your own Reputation, but could not have Redeemed mine, I thought it an Unreasonable thing to admit them.

Ep. 118. To the Camarinaeans.

AS I have already sent to Gella, and to the Leontines, I thought fit to send to you also upon the same account; that is, to assist me as my present occasi­ons require, not with Arms, Horses, or Men, (of which you say your City is Unprovided) but with Money. The Le­ontines have at first speaking sent me five Talents, the Gelloans promised me ten▪ I hope I shall not find you either Slower than the I contines, or more Sparing than the Gelloans.

Ep. 119. To the Astypalaeans.
V. Ep. 49, 95.

NEver do I remember myself to have been in all my Life time either more afflicted with Grief (though I have run through vast variety of Tryals) or more Ravished with Joy (for neither have I wanted my Rejoycing hours) than I were, my Dear Countrymen, at the Receipt of your Letter: With Grief, at the bitter Remembrance of the day when I were unjustly forced to fly my Native Soil; an Unhappiness hard to be [Page 125] born even by him that hath deserved it: With Joy, to see that my Country had not forgotten me, nor thought me a per­son Unworthy of whom to crave an As­sistance. For this is certain, I should ne­ver have heard from you in such a man­ner, had you still looked upon me as your Enemy, and not your Friend. The Assurance with which you Apply your selves to me, sufficiently declares the Opinion you have concerning me. And perhaps 'twas not because the Necessities of my Country required that Assistance that made her send me this Embassy, but her desire to give this Publick Testimo­nial to my Innocence, and condemn the unjust Authors of my Exile. So that indeed you did not so much Petition, as Acquit me. For neither would any man willingly Request a favour but of a Friend, nor Accept of one from an Ene­my. ‘As therefore your^a present Acti­on will not permit me to own you^b under any other Character than that of Friends:’ So instead of Upbraiding you with^c past Disobligations, I must thank you for the greater present^d Obligation you now lay upon me; who by vouch­safing to Request a favour at my hands, do a greater Honour to me, than ‘Ser­vice [Page 126] to yourselves.’ Nor did I less joyfully bestow the Grant than I re­ceived the Petition. For what great­er Ambition could a Generous Soul conceive, than to be looked upon as the prop of his Country, and wear the Title (which your Letter gives me) of a Publick Benefactor? That what I send you comes later to your hands, than you could have wished, lay not the blame either upon me or upon your Ambassadors, but upon the season of the year. There was no diligence wanting on my part to have dispatched them away sooner: but this Winter hath been so exceedg Tempestuous, that the most daring Sailor that is, would not have ventured himself to Sea. When the Mo­neys and what other Effects I have sent you shall have escaped the dangers of so hazardous a Voyage, and come safe to your hands, return your thanks in the first place to Heaven for its preservati­on of them at Sea, and in the next to your Ambassadors, of whose Faithfulness in making a true Delivery of the whole. I have not the least Suspicion. Yet I have sent along with them the Bearer hereof, Eubulus, as Super-cargo. From whom, having received an account of [Page 127] both the Species and number of the se­veral Particulars; all the rest you may dispose of at your pleasure: but the Mo­neys I would have employed in the Re­pairing and Beautifying your City, as I suppose your own wisdom and care of the Publick, without my Direction, would have led you to have done: For Ho­nest men need not be taught their Duty. But if (a thing I would not so much as I magin concerning you) what I designed for the Real and lasting Service of my Country, you should fling away upon useless and unnecessary extravagancies; the Abuse of the Gift will fix a greater Reproach upon the Receivers of it, than the having given it can add Glory to the Donor. For if it may well seem a strange thing that a man unjustly Banished his Native City, and never like to see it a­gain, should yet take care to repair its Breaches, and restore the ruinated foun­dations in it to their antient Splendor: much stranger will it seem, that the ve­ry Inhabitants themselves, whose home it is, should suffer the Foundations, as yet standing, to fall into Ruines, for want of bestowing upon them Necessary Repairs; especially when they might do it at the Expences of not their own, but [Page 128] another's Purse: But if you consider that what I have sent you was not designed on­ly for the present use of you into whose hands it is to be Delivered, but for the use of your Posterities to come, and of the Gods you Adore; and accordingly bestow it upon your Publick Aedifices and Sacred Temples: You will be more Admired for your Wisdom and Probity, than I for my Liberality. The giving away Money is what every Fool can do that hath it to give, but to manage it aright is the Talent of only Wise and Good men. The Gift may serve to Re­commend the good Inclinations of the Giver; the use of the Gift proves the true worth of the Receiver. And I had rather have my Bounty be made the Te­stimony of your Merits, than of my Wealth: Virtue being the Beauty of the Soul, and the true commendation of a man; Riches only the Gift of Fortune, and no Praise to the Possessor. I'are ye well.

Ep. 120. To Axiochus.

A Man may have some kind of reason to value himself, as upon the other Advantages of Fortune, so upon that of being Nobly born. But as for my part I think no man Nobly born, but he that is born to virtue. All else is the Lottery of Chance. A Brave Man born of Ob­scure Parents may Out-shine the Nobi­lity of Princes and Emperors: And a Raskally Son of an Honourable Parent levels himself with the Dregs of Mankind, and is the Scandal of his own Name. Boast yourself therefore to the Syracusi­ans of the Virtues of your own Soul, and not of the Glories of your Ancestors, which are all bury'd in a Degenerating Off-spring.

Ep. 121. To the Himeraeans.

I Commanded you forthwith to send to me Stesichorus, Conon and Hermo­crates. But you, instead of Hermocrates, Conon and Stesichorus have sent me Same­as [Page 130] and Nicarchus. Were I the man you suppose me to be, I should have known how^a to have Managed you; and Ste­sichorus, Conon and Hermocrates had not been long after Sames and Nicarchus. Unless that Beast of a man, Conon, be such a Jewel you cannot part with: Sa­meas and Nicarchus, two persons, both for their Worth and Quality, the very Best of your City, be of no consideration with you. But neither would I offer any violence to persons of their Merit, who have neither done me nor you any wrong; nor would I, to revenge the Affront you have put upon me, violate the^b common Law of Greece. Though you in your Conduct toward me have not stuck at violating any of the Com­mon Laws of Greece, and that not once nor twice, but many and many a time. How and when you know as well as I, and therefore I may spare the Labour of telling you. But herein neither have I imitated you, neither will I. No! bloody Monster as I am, Abominable and Accursed Wretch, or whatever else the world may call me, yet it shall never be said of me, that I am like you. And therefore though I might either have forced you to have redeemed Sameas [Page 131] and Nicarchus, by sending to me Stesi­chorus, Conon, and Hermocrates, or else have executed upon those I had in my hands the vengeance due to the others: yet I scorned to take my Advantage against you, and have suffered your Ambassadors to return in Safety. Though such are the Circumstances of my Fortune, and the necessity I am brought under of Trespassing upon the ordinary Rules of Justice, that should I have put your Em­bassadors to death, I should not have been thought much the Worse for it, than what I am thought already, nor much the Better for my having spared them. For as to Fame, I am long since lost: My Name is already too deeply Sullyed to receive a fresh Stain. Be what I do Right or Wrong, Just or Un­just, it returns to much the same Account with me: I cannot be one either side ei­ther much less Loved, or much more Hated than I am. And 'tis You, ye Hi­meraeans, and those Demagogues of yours, to whom I am chiefly obliged for the Character I bear. All the other mis­chiefs they have done me, I could for­give and bury in Forgetfulness: But for their having forced me out of my own Inclinations, and constrained me to make [Page 132] use of such violent methods, which I my­self condemn, how can I give them their Just Rewards? Who can be more de­servedly Sufferers by that Unjustice of which I am accused, than they by whose means I have been necessitated to be so unjust? Yet, all this notwithstanding, O ye Himeraeans, though Provoked as I am, and a Tyrant, and having in my hands, if not the very persons I desired, at least those whose Death would have been no less a punishment to you; I have both spared them, and dismist them with the Honours due to their Character. If therefore you will deal with me as I have done with you, and answer my Reasonable Demands, you will consult your own Interests. And I leave it to yourselves to consider which were better for you to do;^c either to suffer me to discharge the whole weight of my Displeasure upon two or three persons, and thereby Avert the Dan­ger which threatens you All: or else by resolving still to protect that common Instrument of your Infamous Lusts, Conon, to Abide the utter Subversion of your whole State, and see your City levell'd with the Ground. For if you will force me upon extremities, I will take care that [Page 133] you shall effectually find me no more merciful than you suppose me.

Ep. 122. To the Athenians.

'TIs some time since, O ye Athenians, that your Statuary ^a Perilaus came to Agragas, and presented me with some of the Performances of his Art, which were indeed extraordinary in their kind. The Entertainment he re­ceived at my hands, and the Rewards with which I dismist him, were a suffi­cient Proof of the Regard I had to him, both upon the Account of his own In­genuity; [Page 134] and more especially of his Re­lation to You. Not long after he re­turns to us again, bringing with him a Bull made in Brass, and of a Size far exceeding the Natural. I were mightily taken both with the Curiosity of the Workmanship, and the subject upon which it was bestowed, that laborious Animal so serviceable to the Uses of man, and so contentedly bearing the Yoke. 'Twas indeed a noble Spectacle, and proper ^b Ornament for the Palace of a Ty­rant. And as such I received it. For as yet he had not discovered to me the Murderous use for which it was designed.^c But when he opened to me the Side of it, and exposed to naked view the^d Hell of Torments lodged within its Bowels; I were equally smitten with Admiration at the Artificialness of the Contrivance, and Abhorrence of the Cruelty of it▪ and therefore forthwith resolved to have the first Proof of his new Engine made upon himself, as not being able to find out a person more Deserving with whom to begin the Experiment of such an Invention, than the Inventor of it. Into the Belly of his own Bull therefore we force him to go, and having disposed the fire about it, according to the Di­rections [Page 135] he himself had before given, it answered our expectations, and fatal­ly verifyed upon the Artist the exactness of his Art. For neither did we see the person tormented, nor hear any of his Out-cries, but the Shrieks and Groans of the Dying Wretch within were Tuned by the Brass into the Natural Lowings and Bellowings of a Bull, so that they came forth rather a Divertisement than Horrour to the Spectators. But that you, O ye Athenians, should be so mightily displeased, as I hear you are, at my putting the Author of his Inven­tion to this kind of Death, is what I am much surprized at, and what I cannot yet believe. If it be that you think I have given him too Gentle a Punishment; my answer is, that I could not find out any more Terrible. But if it be the thing it self of my having put him to any Death at all that you complain of; then do you your selves, who Glory so much in your Humanity, incur the Censure of the Deepest Cru­elty, and while you pretend to Vindi­cate your Citizen, Condemn your City. For either it was the Fact of that one single person, or else the Fact of you All: and which of these two we must take it [Page 136] to be, your behaviour towards me up­on this occasion will declare. For if you grant that he dyed Deservedly, and hath not left behind him amongst all the Athenians, the like Example of a Cruel Nature, what should make you Resent my having put him to Death? Since the example of his Punishment cannot in the least Affect any of you so Unlike him in his Qualities. But if you say he dyed Undeservedly; then do you plainly de­clare your selves to be of the same Stamp with Perilaus, and by defending his Act, make it your own. Or however, say you what you will, I shall not think my self guilty of Injustice, in putting to death such persons only as I my self in the first place know justly to deserve death: and so long as^d I satisfie my own Con­science, I little value whom else I dissa­tisfy. For though we Tyrants are commonly supposed very Improper Judges of Right and Wrong, making all other Considerations stoop to that of Securing our selves: yet I am not so ignorant as not to know, that Justice is the Support of Power, and that whenever I shall forsake her Laws, and shew my self a man that Rewards and Punishes not by Rule but by Humour; I shall at the [Page 137] same time forsake my own Security, and undermine the very prop of Authority. But that the Projector of new Inventi­ons of Cruelty should have his own En­gines tryed upon himself, is what I pre­sume neither any of you your selves, nor any of all the Greeks will call an Unjust Execution; it being but giving to him the same that he designed to others. Which to me my self seemed a thing so exactly Reasonable, that I cannot con­ceive any one else to be of a different Opinion. For though the Horrid Instru­ment was by the Contriver of it design­ed for my service, and to have been ex­ercised upon none but those who should Plot my Destruction: Yet as by his pre­senting it to me he made me his Judge, I were obliged to proceed upon him by the Laws of Universal Justice▪ and therefore laying aside all partial Regard to my own Private Interests, and consi­dering what was Simply and in itself Just or Unjust; I sentenced him not by what he had deserved of me, but by what he had deserved of all Mankind. For as for my own part, I knew very well, both that the greater Barbarity of other men would^e serve to take off part of the General Odium against my­self, and that therefore it was for my [Page 138] Interest not to have punished such a Sa­vage Nature▪ but rather to have encourag­ed it; and also that for me to appear more averse to Cruelty than Common Opini­on supposes me, would but expose me to greater hazards, by giving a greater boldness to them that conspire my Ruin; and that this Example of my Seventy against one who designed only my service, will keep back others from the like forwardness to espouse my In­terests; and that considering the despe­rateness of my Enemies, 'tis Force not Mercy I must depend upon. All this, though I knew very well, and though I wanted not other matter to have Re­commended my name to Posterity: yet I could not allow such an Enemy to all mankind as the Inventor of this New Torture, to 'scape Unpunished. And therefore in the same Engine, which he most Inhumanly contrived for the Roast­ing of others to Death, (by whom he could never pretend himself to have been any ways Injured,) most Justly did I, (the person whom he pretended to oblige by such a Gift) cause himself to be Inclosed. But if, may some of you say, this be my Rule; that the Inventor of Cruelty against others, ought himself to suffer the same which he invented a­gainst [Page 139] them; what then will become of Phalanis? Or how can all the Furies in Hell give that single Soul the full of his Deserts? So that by the Law of my own making I stand Condemned. But if you would consider things without prejudice, you would find that neither have I been willingly Guilty of those things of which I stand Accused, nor if my unhappy Fate hath violently forced me upon some Extremities, ought they to be charged upon me as Crimes. For tho my Absolute Command gives me the Power of exercising what Rigours I please, yet I my self condemn such me­thods: and not being able to undo what is done, [and ^e return to that state of life in which a man may live Inno­cent,] that many of my Actions are Unju­stifyable, I own;^f that they are vo­luntary I deny: And Oh that Fate had not laid me under this sad Necessity! Then should no man have been called more Humane and Merciful than my self. But who of you your selves, O ye Atheni­ans, or what man else soever, would not take a Just Revenge upon his Ene­mies, and secure his own safety by the Destruction of those that conspire his Ruin?^g Since therefore Phalaris hath done no more than what under the like [Page 140] Circumstances any of you would do, why should he be so Abhorred a Crea­ture? So that the Comparison between Perilaus and Phalaris is not a Parallel Case. Nothing could have put him up­on so Cruel a thought but the Savage­ness of his own Nature: I own my self to have been guilty of some Excessive Se­verities, but then I have this to plead on my own behalf (which is more than any of those who have suffered by my hands can pretend to) that 'twas much against my own will that I did what I did. But while I, a Tyrant, study, Most Wise and Noble Athenians, to Imitate your Man­ners, [So renowned for the Goodness of your Nature, and the Easiness of your Go­vernment]: Your Citizen must be Em­ploying his Art upon matters proper on­ly for us Tyrants, that is, the Inventions of Cruelty. Justly therefore did I prove my self to him not what in my own Na­ture I am, but what in his Thoughts he Imagined me to be. Upon the whole you may conclude, That neither should I, had I been a private man,^h have been aⁱ Perilaus, nor would Perilaus, had he been a Monarch, have been a^k] Phalaris. And as for you, it will be a Reproach to you not only to shew your [Page 141] selves Displeased with the Punishment I have given to him, but also should you yourselves suffer any persons like him to go Unpunished. All mankind, ^l against whom in Common he hath in­vented such a new Death, may justly have him in abhorrence: but none more than you, upon whom, as your Country­man, he hath fixed the Imputation of Cruelty, and defaced the Glory of A­thens, which was the Humanity of her Natives. I doubt not therefore but that you will all of you (as in a Common Cause) by your Approbation of the Ju­stice I have done upon him, vindicate your own Honour. But if^m there be any among you shall still think Pha­laris too Cruel; so did Perilaus.

Ep. 123. To Lysicles.

I Wonder not, Lysicles, that you should be so unlike both to your Father and to your Son: for neither are you the Son of Lysicrates, nor the Father of Ne­optolemus. And this, they say, both your Mother and your Wife have positively declared in the presence of many of the Sicilians. For which they are deservedly Admired: For as 'tis a proof of one's Honesty to own the Truth in the face of the whole World, so 'tis no less a point of Wisdom not to Disown it to them that known it^* before.

Ep. 124. To Pollux.
Vid. Ep. 106.

THey that prepare War against me, Pollux, upon the account of those whom I have (not without good reason) put to Death: if they do it not till after having duly informed themselves of the Matter of Fact, may fairly pretend a Just Revenge for the cause of their Quar­rel. But you, Pollux, while in your Speeching upon me to the Syracusians, you profess yourself a mighty Zealot for Ju­stice, and cry aloud for Revenge, yet never vouchsafe so much as to mention (which should have been Principally ob­served) the Causes for which those un­happy Wretches suffered. A person of your Character, Pollux, the Steers man of the State, and Mouth of your People, ought to carry yourself Evenly on all sides, and give your Countrymen a true state of the Question; and therefore at the same time that you told them of the Death of those men, you ought also to have told them how Vnjustly they were put to death: that so acquainting them with the Vnreasonableness of my Proceed­ings, you might more effectually have [Page 144] Engaged them against me. But if they Suffered for such Causes which you are ashamed to speak of, I cannot see how their Sufferings can be a Just cause of War against me.

Ep. 125. To Lacritus.
V. Ep. 10. 133.

AS they who are possessed of a Prize, the thoughts of losing which they cannot bear, ought not to run the Risk of it: So I were unwilling to have ex­posed you to any Hazardous Adven­tures. But since you have been able to force my Fears to give way to your Valour, you think your Work half done already: and^a may the Event answer your Expectation, and make you as Successful in Executing the Design upon which you are sent, as you were Forward in Undertaking it. In the mean time your Assurance cannot Rebate my Fears, which during your Absence en­crease still more and more upon me: and till I see you Safe in my arms, the only Relief I have against them is to hear often of your Safety abroad. Remem­ber therefore the charge I gave you when I sent you thither, That whatever [Page 145] became of the Country, you should be sure to take care of not losing me Lacri­tus, whom I value far above many Pro­vinces, Cities, Kingdoms; nay, (Heaven knows) above my own Soul.

Ep. 126. To Lacritus.

REmember, Lacritus, your own Pro­mise and my Nakedness. You are not ignorant how few Friends I have left me. That my Letters betray such a Fearfulness in me, is not my being under any Apprehensions from the pow­er of the Multitude, (that's too well Broken to give me any Jealousies) nor from the weakness of my Allies, (I am able of my self to Cope with all my E­nemies) but 'tis you, Lacritus, that keep me in a Fright: Your daring boldness in the Field, and your too Martial Inclina­tions. I am afraid, lest now you are once Entered, I shall never be able to call you in again; lest you should Affect the Glory of being a Warriour, and be Dissatisfyed with me if I suffer you not to have your share in all and every [Page 146] Action. But remember that you are Mine, and but trusted out for a while to your own Keeping, and that you pro­mised me to bring yourself safe home. Let me beg you therefore (not to do a­ny thing unbecoming your Honour, for that's impossible, but) to Reserve your self for Greater Services and expect more Glorious occasions of signalizing your va­lour. And though you should now upon my Request Rebate somewhat of your Vigour, I'll take care to supply you with Opportunities of Exerting your whole self.

Ep. 127. To Epistratus.

BAffle not my patience with your Obstinacy, nor constrain me after having thrice pardoned you, now at last to proceed to Severity.^a ‘Make it not a matter Indiffereut to you, whether Phalaris be Merciful or Cruel, a For­giving or a Revengeful man: with them who will not suffer him to be the Former he must be the Latter.’

Ep. 128. To Ariphaetes.

REckon not up those who have been consumed in my Bull by the Tale of their Heads, but by the Quality of their Actions: And then you will find the Number of their Crimes to exceed the Number of their Persons. Or how ma­ny soever they were, you see I have been able to Master them all. But as for your own part, as you are a young man, let me advise you not to take upon yourself Concerns more proper for Graver heads. That those who set themselves in Opposition against me procure their own Ruin, I have proved by Instances sufficient. I know you also to be one of them that are so ^a Impatient of Subjection, and desi­rous of Change, and therefore would gladly see the world rid of me. But let me seri­ously warn you to forbear, not (I as­sure you) that I think my self in any danger from your hands (such a pret­ty [Page 148] Smock-fac'd Creature was not made for a Destroyer of Tyrants) but because I would not have you add your self to the number of those that have been put into my Bull, and encrease against me the unjust Accusation of Cruelty. But if you will not hearken to me, you may ex­pect to be speedily called to an Account, as for other things, so particularly for your having despised the Advice I now give you.

Ep. 129. To Timolaus.

NEver to commit a Mistake is the pri­viledge of God alone: by past Mistakes to be taught more Wisdom for the future, the common Lot of men. But he that hath both played the fool and smarted for his Folly, and yet grows never the Wiser; what shall we say of him but that he is a Lost creature? Doubly Unhappy therefore, (to bring the matter home) is that man, the Ex­ample of whose Rashness proves a warn­ing to others, but whose own Sufferings can do no good upon Himself.

Ep 130. To Phaedimus.

TIs now the Third time that you have been accused of Evil Practices against me, and yet I will not Believe; though the Charge comes still closer and closer upon you every time than other. But what I am desirous you should prove toward me, and what, I am sure, in Ju­stice you ought to be; such were I wil­ling to suppose you. And therefore I the more readily admitted the matters alledged against you to pass for False, because I was unwilling to have had them Proved true. But at the same time this let me tell you, That how^a much so­ever I favoured your cause, yet I look upon your escape as a kind of Miracle: for he that is often brought to the Bar, and still comes off with a Not Guilty, seems more beholding to his Fortune than to his Innocence. ‘Give me not occasion therefore to hate your Person or your Fortune, nor tempt me to Inter­pret her Indulgency's to you as Partia­lities against my self.’ And withal con­sider how unreasonable a thing it is, not only by your perpetual requiting Kind­ness with Injuries, not to Correspond to [Page 150] ‘to the good Intentions I bear you, nor suffer them to take effect (for I must not see a Good nature endlesly Triumphed over by Insolence:) but also that even Interest it self should not be able to bind you to your good beha­viour, nor oblige you (tho contrary to the Bent of your Nature) to put on at least a Shew of Common Humanity to­wards the person that Studies nothing more than how he may serve you.’

Ep. 131. To Philodemus.
V. Ep. 135, 142, 143.

'TIs plain, Philodemus, you are a ve­ry Honest man, and mean well. But as when I deposited the five Talents [Page 151] in your name, I never expected to see them again, as being in greater fear then of losing you than my money: so you are strangely mistaken in me. if you imagin 'twas upon any other considerati­on than that of a mutual Friendship, that I offered up all those Vows and Sa­crifices for your safe Return; and Hea­ven knows how much more I value my Friend than all the Treasures in the world. But if you are resolved your Daughter shall not receive her Portion from any other hand than from your own; That [...]s as much your Own as any thing that is your Own can be so. Or if you think o­therwise, to those five Talents of mine add as many more of your own, and make her Fortune Ten: and so (with your good Leave) for one half of her Portion let her thank Phalaris his Boun­ty, for the other her Fathers Estate. As for Theano's telling you so great things of me, I am overjoyed at it; since I see she remembers now she is a Mother, who were her Friends when she was a Maid.

Ep. 132. To Agesilaus.

TElesippe is almost Distracted at the Stay you make at Syracuse. Nor is the impatience of a Loving and Vertuous Wife at the Absence of her Husband to be wondered at. She hath been with me about it, and bid me in plain terms shew my self a Tyrant to you, and exer­cise my Authority, telling me that she could no longer bear your Absence; and protesting that she would call in her own Father to her assistance. You know, I suppose, what she means by that, and assure your self, she'll do it. I will never endure it, saith she, to see my Husband used as if he were a stranger, and none of the Family. Then she ap­peals to me again; you may Force him home, saith she, if you please, he dare not Disobey you. To which I answer­ed, that I thought she was better able to do that her self. For I believe, as much a Tyrant as I am, you do not so much ^* Dread the displeasing of Phalaris, as you Dread the displeasing of Telesippe. But whether the one or the other be the greater, either your Regard for me, or your Love (as she well deserves it) for [Page 153] her; let me joyn my request with hers, and desire you forthwith to return, and bless your Longing Friends with the sight of you.

Ep. 133. To Polymnestor.

LAcritus hath given me an ample Testi­mony of your Merit, as upon other accounts, so more especially for your ha­ving Joyned him with your Targeteers. He informs me that 'twas by the Brave­ry of You and your Men that the Place was taken, and that (in Deference, I suppose, to your Person) he gave you also the Command of his own Horse. Had you received All as well as Some of the Presents I made you; yet even so I should have been jealous that my Ac­knowledgments had fallen Short of your Deservings. But now your lessening my Requital by refusing to accept of it in as ample a manner as I designed it, forces a Prince to own himself Outdone by a Private man, and keeps me still your Debtor. But if you will not now, upon [Page 154] my own Appointment, take the Thirds of the Booty, and distribute it among your Soldiers, which you would not receive from Lacritus up [...]n the Spot, I must tell you, that you will make me for the future more Unwilling, not to bestow a Kindness (you are too Great, I find, to admit of me for a Benefactor) but more unwilling to Accept of an Ob­ligation from your hands.

Ep. 134. To Polymnestor.

SO then! I see you are afraid of the Threatning I made you, never to be again obliged to you, since you have, according to my Directions, distributed among your men the Reward of their Bravery, and Recompence of their Ha­zards. Now you have effectually Ob­liged me, and now can I heartily thank you; since you have now both given me the Boldness to crave of you again, should my occasions require it, the like Assistance, and Heartned you men to shew the like Forwardness. For who that hath the Spirit of a man having re­ceived a double Reward, would not strive to merit it by a double Service? What I have given you only passes [Page 155] through your hands to Others: and while you employ it in engaging your Soldiers to stand firm to my Interests; 'tis neither them nor yourself, but me that you serve in accepting of it.

Ep. 135. To Teucrus.
V. Ep. 131, 142, 143.

I Hear that the Marriage of Philodemus his Daughter was brought to a Con­clusion much sooner than your Letter signified to me. Fame Anticipates the most Industrious Intelligencer. The Dis­patches of that Goddess, how long soe­ver a Journey they have to take, arrive before the Post. And indeed I have just cause of Quarrel against her. As many other occasions have fixed upon me the unjust Reproach of Cruelty, so chiefly by her means is it that I am Con­demned even before I am heard. She Trumpets out my Name where-ever she goes, and fills the world with the Re­ports of my Infamy. So that Multitudes who have never seen my face, nor know any thing of me, believe me to be some bloody Monster, born for the Destru­ction of Mankind. But this is my single Misfortune, and no mans else. As to the [Page 156] present Affair, see that you keep Leo and Theano in the possession of the same House where they first made their Happy Congress, nor let Hymen be forced to quit the Thresholds where he celebrated his Festivals. I make them this Present, as concluding it will prove Grateful to the Receivers. For a Mar­ry'd Couple cannot but Retain a Fond­ness for the place where they exchanged Virginitys. And I will shew the Syracusi­ans that Philodemus is more worthy of their Envy than their Pity; and grieve their Envious Souls to see, that no man can be more Happy in his Prosperities, than I shall make him in his Misfor­tunes. And let them all hate Phalaris, (I value not their Stingless hatred) but at the same time they shall pray within their own Souls (how much soever they Dissimulate it) that they too might meet with Friends like Phalaris.

Ep. 136. To Timander.

YOur Practisings at Camarina, Timan­der, and the exaggerating Condole­ments you make over them already exe­cuted by my Command, have forced me, though much (Heaven knows) against [Page 157] my will to shut up^* Cleombrotus too, and his Complices in the Bull. I were afraid lest upon my pardoning them, you should have given over your pushing your Countrymen upon the beginning a Quarrel with me. 'Tis a perfect plea­sure to me to hear what work you and your Mob make with my Name, which I should be deprived of, should once the Camarinaeans come to have more Wit, and be ashamed of hearkening to any thing that such a Tool of an Orator as you are can say to them; whose im­potent Attempts are too Harmless, I will not say for Phalaris, but for any of Phalaris his Slaves to be afraid of. Or though it had been their Interest to have made War against the Agragantines, yet to have done it upon your perswasions, would have been their Infamy. But now they are like to meet with a War that will prove more mischievous to them than even their Orator himself; or rather their Orator, as he brought this War upon them, so he is himself a Great­er Plague to them, than all the Calami­ties of War. But when you put your Countrymen upon taking up Arms a­gainst me, it had been but fair in you at the same time to have given them [Page 158] some reason for their so doing: that while the State, depending upon the Conduct of so Martial a Spirit as your self, thought fit to undertake a War, she might also have had her Manifesto in Readiness to Declare to all the World the injuries that forced her upon that last Remedy. But this was more than you would do: for after ye had been Ham­mering upon the matter as long as you could, one offering one Reason, another another, at last you were content to let them all drop and leave the cause to shift for itself. But if one might divide your Person from your Office, and with a Salvo to the Reverence due to a Magistrate, consider what you are of a Man; one might venture to say, that all the Arts of Cruelty would be but too gentle a reward for your Deservings, who after having sold your House and Land, and (if your Father left you any) your Houshold goods, to prove yourself no better an Husband for the Publick than you were for your Family, must now be raising a Mercenary Army against me, and enga­ging the Camarinaeans in New and Ha­zardous Adventures. As for your own part indeed, that a man who hath nothing to lose should be so Daring [Page 159] an Undertaker, is no great wonder. For nothing but the thoughts of your own Desperate Fortune could have made you run a Tilt at me, at whose hands you are sure to meet with a Treatment an­swerable to your Merits. But 'twas Uncon­scionably done of you to mix the Fate of your Country with your own, and force me to Exact upon them the Punishment of your Folly.

Ep. 137. To the Anneans.
V. Ep. 81. 148.

OF the large Sums ye borrowed of me having been prevailed with to re­mit all to eight Talents, though at a time when I were in great want of Mo­ny my self, I might have expected you would have kept your word with me for them; which yet is more than you have done; but after having with much ado and very Grumblingly sent me Four, the other four you still keep in your hands. I am not (I assure you) so much concerned [Page 160] at my not having received them, as at my having remitted the rest. For your defrauding me of my Due (that, is sup­pose I should let it pass so) is but a four Talent Damage, but your Ingratitude I compute at a more than Ten Talent Loss. For what is given to an Ungrateful man, that I count most properly Loft. And you made me the same promise of pay­ing what remained Unremitted as you did of Shewing your selves Grateful for what was Remitted.^a As therefore you have failed in the One, I have no rea­son to depend upon you for the other. All which notwithstanding, If the case be re­ally so with you as your Ambassadors re­present it, that your Publick Stock is exhausted, and that you were forced to raise the payment you made me out of your private Purses; I remit to your Ci­ty the remaining four Talents also. Nay more; I am ready to return to you what I have received, provided that your City may receive the Benefit of it, and that you suffer not those who keep you poor by cheating you of your Own, to Run a­way with Mine also. But as to the De­sign which your Ambassadors tell me you are upon of erecting Statues to me as a Publick Benefactor; let that alone: I [Page 161] can willingly spare you the paying me my own Moneys, can as willingly spare you the putting your selves to that ex­pence.

Ep. 138. To Lysander.

YOur Supplies came too late for the service upon which they were sent. For before the Arrival of Euclides's Foreign Troops we got sight of the of the Ene­my. So that though by reason of the slowness of their March they signified nothing to us in the Field, yet we think our selves so much the more obliged to them, for the Honour they have done us in letting us Few beat the Enemy without their help. And the greater was the hazard we Ran, the greater Glo­ry did we win.

Ep. 139. To Antimachus.
V. Ep. 29

I Matter not (as the world now goes) what men say or think of me. For seeing that whether Just or Unjust, 'tis now one and the same thing, or rather [Page 162] that the man in Reality the most Un­just, shall in Common Opinion be Re­ported for the most Just; instead of dis­guising my self, I am proud of being what I am: as knowing, that when o­ther men venture upon unjustifyable Actions; 'tis of their own free choice that they do so: if I trangress; 'tis Necessity that forces me to it. I acknowledge I have had my Irregularities, as no man living is without them. The only diffe­rence is this, that we Soveraigns, as we have Power to maintain our own Do­ings, So we are not afraid of shewing our selves to be what we are. But pri­vate persons, as they live under Com­mand, and are in danger of being called to an Account, are forced to take shelter in Dissimulation and Denial.

Ep. 140. To Polystratus.
V. Ep. 84.

I Shall not give either to you or any man else, the names of any of those persons to whom I have been a Bene­factor: nor shall your Scornful rejecting my Presents, force me upon the Vanity of urging against you the many examples of those who have not Disdained to ac­cept [Page 163] of a Benevolence from my hands. That would be at the same time a Boasting of my self, and an Upbraiding of them. For, for a man either to Report his Good Deeds himself, or to delight in hearing others do it for him, I take to be neither better nor worse, than a Re­proaching the Receivers.^a What no­tion you may have of the matter, ^b I know not: of this I am sure, other men think not the worse of any thing that's worth the Taking for its having once belonged to Pha­laris. How much I have lost by the fraud and violence of those, who made no scruple of laying hold on whatever they could meet with of mine, I leave it to you to imagin. There are but too many (and those great pretenders to Justice) who look upon whatever they can Steal from me as Lawful Prize; and therefore having once seized it, no­thing but the Power of the Sword can oblige them to Restore: Others have despoiled the very Gods themselves of the Gifts which came from Me, and ta­ken into their own Hands the most Sa­cred and Inviolable things in the world. For certainly had they looked upon 'em as Abominable and Accursed, they would not have ran such hazards in [Page 164] maintaing to themselves by Force of Arms the possession of that, the admitting of which to come near them they ought by Force of Arms to have Resisted. What No­tion therefore have you of my Gifts, or for what Reason do you refuse them? for ^c all the excuses you have hitherto made what hath already been said (and much more might have been added) is sufficient to silence. That there is no­thing of Impurity in the things themselves even my Enemies declare, Unless to them who seized them by force, adding Rapine to Sacriledge, they are Pure; Impure to you, to whom the voluntary Gift of your Friend, the Owner of them, gives a just Title to them.

Ep. 141. To Agemortus

I Find at last, Agemortus, how ill I have consulted my own Happiness. This Invidious Soveraignty, to attain to which (fool as I were) I stuck at no Difficulties, hath but Loaded me with so many the [Page 165] more Melancholy Reflections. Many are the Miseries I have gotten by being a Tyrant, but none greater than this, That no Deserving person will accept of me for his Benefactor, but I am under a Ne­cessity either of doing no Good with what I have, or flinging it away upon Knaves and Fools. For I know not what should be the reason of it, (but so it is) that you few Honest men, whom alone I de­sire to serve, turn your backs upon me, and are afraid of nothing more than of Receiving a kindness at my hands. For how else should it come to pass that of so many School-fellows, and Play-fellows, and old Acquintance that I have among you, not a man should come near me? nay, not one of you ever so much as promise me a visit, save Callisthenes? and yet I am sure neither will He pay it. And as for the rest, they may have some kind of Evasion to excuse themselves for their not having accepted of my Offers: that 'twas no Aversion to my person, but with Some their bodily Infimities, with Others their dependance upon their Fa­thers, with Others their Publick Engage­ments, As for your own part, I never gave you the Invitation, as knowing. you too well, and being before hand sure of [Page 166] a Denyal. Nor shall I give it you now; especially since I hear of your Indisposi­tion, and of the Children with which, since my having left your Country, your beloved Praula hath blessed you. 'Twas the Rejoycing of my Heart (Heaven knows) to hear of the Increase of my Kindred by so numerous an Off-spring; and for that Reason were I the less de­sirous to separate your Person from your Family. But as you are my Kinsman, what pretence can you make for being afraid of owning the Relation you bear to me? For what else should be the meaning of it, that when I lately sent you a no Wag­gonly Present, to have been Trumpeted through the Streets at noon day, and have drawn upon you the Envy of your Neighbours; but a little parcel of Gold, and that by night, when no man could have observed it: yet you, as if it had been an Accursed thing, and under the Sentence of an Anathema, startled at the sight of it, and would not so much as touch it; And good reason was there for it? 'Twas the Gift of an hideous Wretch, a bloody Monster, delighting in Murder, and be-dy'd in Human gore. Ah! Agemortus, you are perverse in your Constructions, and strangely uncharita­ble, [Page 167] nay, Unmerciful to me, that do not Compassionate my Unhappy Fate, and the miserable Necessities under which I am placed. For no other end were I ambitious of Soveraign Power than that I might be in a Capacity of obliging my Friends in a manner answerable to the Largeness of my Soul: and having now, by the Blessing of Heaven, obtained my desires, I have no Friends left to receive the Effects of my Generosity. Thus what alone I proposed to myself as the only Compensation of all the Labours and Ha­zards I underwent, That you my Friends deprive me of, by not vouchsafing to Share with me in my Prosperities. So that you, for whom alone I wished my­self to be what I am, refusing to accept of my Favours, I am laid under a Neces­sity of bestowing the Rewards of Virtue, and the Bounties of a Monarch upon the Cravings of Fools and Flatterers.^*

Ep. 142. To Teucrus.
Vid. Ep. 131, 135

I Had designed to have given a visit in person to Cleoeneta, the Wife of Phi­lodemus, (you know whom I mean, Teu­crus) upon the Affair of her Daughters Marriage, but that some other pressing Occasions, which may not be Postponed, prevented me: and which are such as would have made me call you home to my Assistance, had I not rather chose to leave you at Syracuse, to pursue the Busi­ness upon which I now write to you: and by that you may see how much Con­cerned I am about it. Wait upon her therefore yourself, and engage for the Payment of five Talents to her Son-in-law, as soon as her Daughter shall have made her that new Relation. But so or­der the matter, that it may not seem the Giving of a Gift, but the Payment of a Debt which I owed to her Husband. If she ask you, how Philodemus should come to have so much Money, you need only answer you know not how: that you know no more of the matter than what you had from me, that so much Money of Philodemus's I have lying in my hands. [Page 169] And if you can Fairly bring it about, let Leo be the person. For he hath been with me to sollicit the Match, and I readily Assured him of my best Endea­vours; and with that promise have Re­mitted him to you. But if the Mother of the young Lady shall pitch upon some other Husband for her Daughter, make the same Engagement (as to her Portion) to him, and oppose not their Intentions. For I would not confine her Choice or my Liberality only to the person of Leo, nor because I give the Money take up­on me to make the Match too; as if it were not Philodemus his Daughter, but my own Friend that I preferr'd. To whomsoever she shall dispose of her Daughter, I charge you, be as Quick and Punctual to your Engagements, as a man would be that had Appointed not to Pay Money but to Receive it. Heaven forbid, that the change of the Person to whom I wish the Gift, should prevent my Gi­ving it, and lay me open to the shame­ful Suspicion of catching at the Oppor­tunity of Leo's not having her, to Re­tract the offer which I first made to them freely, and without any such Reserve! The Eye that sees all things knows, how I abhor so base a thought: I look [Page 170] upon the Money as so much Loss to me, while it lies in my own hands, nor shall I till Then think my self the Richer for it, When the young Lady shall have chosen an Husband upon whom I may bestow it. Worse than such a thing as That they that know nothing of me could not ima­gin concerning me. And oh, that Fame would once do Justice to the Name of Phalaris. and speak no worse of him than what he deserves! When she shall be Married, present to her the four young Damosels, (whose Age suits with hers, and makes them fit to be her At­tendants and Companions) as also the Vestments I have sent you for that pur­pose, and 60 pieces of Gold. Forward the matter as much as you can, for me­thinks it goes on but slowly. And when the time comes see the Presents delivered with all Dispatch: since by so doing, though the Expence be wholly mine, a great part of the Thanks will be yours, and you will come in for a Joynt Bene­factor with Phalaris. As to these parti­culars, take care to see my Orders ob­served. And in every things else let them find such a Friend of you, that nei­ther the Daughter in the absence of her Father, nor the Wife in the absence of [Page 171] her Husband, may have any cause to Complain that their Family wants its Sup­port. Do you provide them with all Necessaries, and when the Nuptial Cere­monies shall be performed, see them done with due magnificence, you depositing the Moneys to answer all Expences. That on the day made for Rejoycing, there may be no mixture of Sorrow, nor any of the Brides Relations be able to accuse the Fortune of the Family, or call Philo­demus an Unhappy man. I'll let the Syra­racusians see, that I am able to over rule the Malignity of his Fat [...]e.

Ep. 143. To Cleoeneta.
V. Ep. 131, 135, 142.

THe absence of your Husband, my unvaluable Friend, Philodemus, upon his long Voyage may be the more supportable to You, as adding a fresh Lustre to your already established Repu­tation: but it doth not fall out alike For­tunately to your Daughter, who hath now seen the Twentieth year of her Age without taking a flight out of the House of her Father. The longer an Husband continues absent from his Wife, the greater opportunity doth he give [Page 172] her of approving her Fidelity; but the longer a young Lady, whose years might expect the change of her Condition, con­tinues without an Husband, may bear a Different Reflection. Common Opinion (and herein it is in the Right) makes a Daughter, beyond the Course of Nature, Undisposed of an Objection against the Care of her Parents. 'Tis now high time (and somewhat of the Latest) that your Daughter should have merited the Cha­racter which yourself most deservedly wear, of making an excellent Wife. Per­haps you find it some relief to you in the Absence of Philodemus to have always in your Eyes, that pledge of mutual Love, and dear Remembrance of him, that is your Daughter, as in Her enjoy­ing part of Him. But'tis praeposterous not to be content to part with your Daughter, because in her you Enjoy the Remembrance of your Husband, and yet at the same time to deny her the Happiness of a Relation, in which you yourself find such Satisfaction, and of which her years making her now capable; the Absence of an Husband, e're long to return, ought not to be Interpreted by you a greater Infelicity to yourself, than the not yet Having one to your Daugh­ter. [Page 173] Especially when neither her want of Pa­rents to make that Provision for her, nor their want of Money wherewith to do it, is in the cause; as neither is with her, which renders her Case so much the more Un­fortunate. For let me tell you. Cleoeneta, what I suppose you little imagin, Philode­mus at his Departure▪ put into my hands five Talents as a Portion for his Daughter. Nor is that all: While Phalaris hath Money, Philodemus and his Family shall not want it. Why therefore, Cleoeneta, since you have in your hands the means of doing it, should you any longer defer the bestow­ing her upon an Husband? For I see no reason for your putting it off till Philode­mus his Return. What may conveni­ently be let alone till then let us not meddle with before: but the Demands of Nature wait not our Leisure. There is no putting a stop to Time. While we are Debating the matter, her Years are flying away. That Philodemus Disposed not of her himself, he was prevented, 'tis pro­bable, by some of those Reasons which force a Father to see his Daughter un­married beyond her time. But for her being longer detained in the same State, you can make no pretence. She should now be past wanting a Father, being a fitter Companion for a Husband. Add [Page 174] not therefore Indiscretion to Misfortune, nor, by the Cruel fondness of keeping her still to your self, make the Absence of her Fa­ther less a punishment to her, than the presence of her Mother. Accept the Advice I give you, and consult at once the Felicity of your Family, and your Daughters Honour. As many other mat­ters have successfully passed through your hands, without the assistance of Philodemus: so in the bringing this one Affair (in which the happiness of all of you is so much Interested) to an happy Conclusion, and giving him upon his Return the sight of a Worthy Son-in-law, you will encrease the Admiration he already hath of your Prudence, and let him see how little the Daughter of such a Mother stand, in need of a Fa­ther. The Money Teucrus shall pay upon Demand; and whatever else the Occa­sion shall require, 'tis but letting him know your Pleasure, and it shall be done for you. As for Philodemus, you may pray indeed to Heaven for his Return before the Nuptial day; but defer not your Daughters happiness upon that Ex­pectation. And that he will return both Safe and Within the time, as you have many other Reasons to hope, so particu­larly [Page 175] the Regard which the Gods have to the Prayers of Pious Souls.

Ep. 144. To Nicocles.
V. Ep. 78, 79.

I Have according to your desire written to Stesichorus about the Poem upon your Wife, and given him the Particulars of the Subject. He readily undertook the [Page 176] Work,V. Not. Ox. and promised to exert the utmost of his Abilities upon it, as hoping * by the Charms of his Muse to allay the Excesses of your Grief. 'Tis true indeed, your Unhappiness may seem too great to ad­mit of Comfort, or be lessened by words, having lost in One and the same Person two most endearing Relations: The partner of your Blood, a Neece; and of your Bed, a Wife, both in Beauty and Virtue, far surpassing any Second▪ of her Sex. Thus pierced with a double wound, wasting your breath in doleful Lamentations, you languish in despair, and little matter whither you Live or Dye. Be not, Nicocles, so Cruel to your self, nor load Nature with a burden she is unable to bear. Such violent Resent­ments, both betray a weakness unwor­thy of a man, and will render your Wound uncurable. But come, Nicocles, let me argue the matter with you a little. Remove your thoughts some minute space from off your own Misfortunes, and place them upon the Common Fate of all Mankind, and the sad Necessities of our Mortal condition. We are all of us born to run through a world of Miseries, of which when every one hath received his allotted Portion; then hath he finished his Pilgri­mage, [Page 177] and is come to the end of his Course. The only thing that makes us in love with a Life so Miserable, is be­cause we think nothing more Miserable than Death: and when we express such grief at the Death of our Friends, we consider not that 'tis ourselves we La­ment; the Tears we shed at the Funerals of them that go before us being but be­stowed upon our Own, so soon after to follow. This, Nicocles, is what we are all Born to. When we receive the Gift of Life we receive the Sentence of Death: a Sentence so Impartially execu­ted upon all, that none have cause of Complaint. For the Tyranny of Fate is not more Irresistible than it is Impartial. Neither can Force withstand, nor Art elude, nor Intreaty Avert the Stroak. All Tyrant as I am, yet Fate is still a greater Tyrant than Phalaris. Lawless, Cruel, Inexorable, or whatever else the World may say of me, her Cruelty sur­passes Mine. I am called an Absolute So­veraign, but how Improperly so called, that fatal Hour will prove, when all my Castles, Guards and Arms shall be in vain. Or could I be that Absolute Soveraign, which no man can; not for my own sake would I wish it, to rescue myself out of [Page 178] the hands of Fate (I am one whom many think, nor can I contradict it, unworthy to take out even my Appointed time) but that I might be able to save such men from Dying, who, let them live ne­ver so Long, yet dye too Soon. But since we lye at her Disposal, not she at ours, we must submit with Patience: [Cease therefore, Nicocles, your unmea­surable Grief] not only as being a thing vain in itself, but for fear of disquieting the Ghost of your Wife, to whom (if the Spirits of the Departed know what's done by them they leave behind) your Lamentations cannot but create Distur­bance. She, who in her life made it her only business to study your Satisfacti­on, and whose only Pleasure it was to see you Pleased, must even after death be grieved to see you grieved: nay, dou­bly Grieved, not only at your Loss in being deprived of such a Wife, but at her Own also, in being taken away from such an Husband. Since therefore you are neither the First, nor the Only per­son that hath felt the like Misfortune, bear a Common calamity with the Spirit of a man. The various Incidents of my Fortune have Familiarized me to the thoughts of Death: the common Fate of [Page 179] kind, and the daily Spectacles of Mor­tality, ought to do the like with you. Our Concernments cannot alter the Law of Nature▪ and the less a man Resents the Miseries of life, the more doth he Enjoy the Blessings of it.

Ep. 145. To Stesichorus.

I Have sent you a Quantity of Oyl, not for your own use (mistake me not) but for your Grand-Son; theV. Ep. 36. Business he is now upon requiring such a Supply, and he himself deserving all Encourage­ment. Nor would I have the^a Pub­lick Exercises he is to Exhibit fall any whit short of those of Agesilaus; or if they do, it shall be no fault of mine. The Money which you would not ac­cept of at my hands, when you were present with me yourself, if you refuse now that I have sent it after you, I will certainlyEp. 3. accuse you to the Syra­cusians of holding Secret Correspondence with Phalaris, and being in a Plot against the State: and then bring your self off if you can^b Not Politicks, Stesichorus, but Poetry is your Talent: [Page 180] Keep to That therefore; and those Stu­dies which have so Advanced you above the rest of Mankind, and wherein you may excel without a Rival, still pursue. But meddle not with such Affairs, where­in, how successful soever you should prove, the worst of Men may be your Equals.

Ep. 146. To Stesichorus.

NOt a word of me, Stesichorus, I be­seech you,V. [...] either in your Odes, or any where else. I am lost to Fame, and Silence is the greatest Honour you can do me. In every thing else use your own pleasure, and freely pursue the In­clinations of your Nature, and the Inspi­rations of your Muse. But whatever you do, meddle not with the Affairs of State; and for that let my Example be your warning, whose very Successes have been my greatest Misfortune, and who upon the self same Account for which the world envies me as an Happy man, find [Page 181] my self most Miserable. Or if you think it may be justly so with me, who by Usurping to myself a Lawless power, de­servedly suffer the Punishment of my own Presumption: but that you, pursu­ing so different a Course, and studying only the welfare of your Country, and the Common Liberty, have no reason to expect the like Difficulties; lay me aside, and consider yourself, Stesichorus; yourself, Stesichorus, and be taught by your own Example. Never did man put himself upon serving his Country with a purer Intention and more Disin­terested affections. And yet consider, Stesichorus, what you have gotten by all your pains, and how much worse it had been with you, had you met with an Enemy unlike my self. Though indeed had a man Wind and Tyde on his side, and sailed with never so full a Gale, yet it would not be his Wisdom to make too bold with his Fortune.^a ‘By the same methods by which you’ (nei­ther a Tyrant over your Country▪ nor ‘hated by all the world, as I am,) gain­ed the Applauses of the Multitude and made yourself (at least you thought so) many Friends, did you make Me your Enemy: and by the same method [Page 182] had I been in your place, a Patriot in­stead of a Tyrant, might I have met with the same successes▪ and been as much the Himeraeans Darling. And yet consider how ill your Country hath requited all the services you perform'd, and the hazards you ran upon her Ac­count, and how much better it is with the hated Tyrant, than with the applaud­ed Patriot.’ Would you see the Man that receives the Blessings of his Coun­try, and feels not her Displeasures, nor ever finds himself so ungratefully used, as you have been, by those whom he most strives to serve: you will find 'tis He, that will never have any thing to do with the Publick, but wisely keeps himself to himself, and minds only his own business; nor takes any other Business for his own, but how to enjoy himself.

Ep. 147. To Stesichorus. V. Ep. 22, 73.

VAlue not, Stesichorus, what Eubulus and Ariphantus have told me con­cerning you, nor let their pretending themselves to have been put upon that Bloody design by you and your Poems, give you the least disturbance. How narrowly I escaped their hands at Hi­mera, you yourself know; but since I have escaped them, their naming your Verse as the Motive of so desperate an Undertaking, ought to be rather a mat­ter of Rejoycing to you, than the Con­trary. And^a that both upon your own Account, and upon mine: upon your own; their very Accusation prov­ing what a Command those Poems, with which the Sacred Muses inspire you, have over the very Hearts and Souls of Men: upon mine; my Deliverance (if that be a thing worth your Regard) proving me to be placed above the Power of my Enemies. If Stesichorus his Lyre can put men upon Destroying Ty­rants, the Lyre, in his hands, is a more dreadful Instrument, than the Trumpet: but still the Fortune of Phalaris is too [Page 184] strong for the Lyre of Stesichorus. And now, the Horrid danger past, I know both where to shew my self a Tyrant, and where a Friend. Nor is Stesichorus a person to be involved in the same Fate with Ariphantus and Eubulus. To them I have been what they have deserved, to you I am and ever shall be what I al­ways were. So far from altering my Sentiments concerning You yourself, be­cause some who pretended themselves your Admirers, designed my Destructi­on, that had they Effected as well as Designed it, I should have been unwil­ling to have had the Blame laid at your door. Nor, had I fallen by their hands could it have been said that you were any whit concerned in it. You may perhaps, in some or other of your Hea­venly and Majestick Poems have Magni­fied the Destroying of Tyrants as a Glori­ous Action. Nor do I myself contradict it. But to Destroy. Tyrants is one thing, to Kill Phalaris another. This is not▪ as you well know) the first proof I have hadEp. 138.: Neither hathEp. 138. Dropidas, nor any other man in the world, (not deserving it) found me a Tyrant; no, not one. Nor would Jupiter himself (who well merits of Me the Title of Deliverer, and [Page 185] who best knows how to distinguish the Just from the Unjust) when only Eubulus, Ariphantus and Phalaris were left in his Temple, have so miraculously delivered the two Conspirators into the hands of the one Tyrant, had he Judged me wor­thy of that Fate which they designed me. 'Tis true, that Sink of Lust, Conon; that projector of my Destruction, Theagoras; that Antimedes and Pericles, and what others like them I have been able to get into my hands, I have put to death: but not Unjustly; their Actions against me having been such, which, had I been placed in a far lower Station than I am, I would rather have lost my life than not have Revenged. Let such as they are call me Murderer, Monster, Atheist, Tyrant, Enemy to God and Man, or what worse Names they can Invent, and Spare me not. To have their Praises, would, in the sight of all Wise and Good men, be my Reproach, and Mercy to them a Crime; and Such a Crime which I shall ne're be guilty of. Some of them there­fore have I caused to be shut up and roasted in the Belly of my Brazen Bull; others to be nailed to the Cross, and hoisted up into the Empty Air, a mise­rable Spectacle of Slow death, and dis­mal [Page 186] warning to all Beholders not to At­tempt any thing against Phalaris; others have had their eyes burnt out of their heads, others their hands, legs, and the other extreme parts of their Bodies lop­ped off; others all their Bones broken upon the Wheel; and others the skin of their heads drawn over their faces: and others have I put to several other kinds of death, the very same which they were contriving against myself; which who can call Vnjust? To all these I must confess I have been a Tyrant: and for their sakes alone was it that I were so Ambitious (nor do I deny it) of getting into my hands a power above Controul, that I might be able to give such Miscre­ants their due Rewards. But to all Just and Good men, the same am I now a Monarch, that I were when a Private man: over them I am no Vsurper. Think not therefore, Stesiehorus, when in any of your Poems the Muses inspire you with an Indignation against the Ex­orbitancies of a Lawless Power, that I am the person you aim at. Receive their Inspirations with a willing mind, and freely give them Vent; nor let any re­gard to me check the Current of your Noble Thought. No hand can slaughter [Page 187] Phalaris. (how much soever a Tyrant) be­fore the Term his Fate hath allotted him. His Destiny is long since decreed, and when the fixed period is come, though there were not a Poet in the world to write Verses against Tyrants, Phalaris must dye. And whether sooner or later, I submit to my Doom. In the mean time Eubulus and his fellow Con­spirators, who thought Fate too tardy with the Tyrant, and were for taking her work out of her hands, have recei­ved the reward their daring Folly re­quir'd: not that reward the Laws of Greece propose to those vain-glorious Fools that shall venture their lives to murder a Tyrant, but that which such Fools may expect when they fall into the Hands of a Tyrant, who is above the Laws of Greece. For causing them to be let down breast high into the Cage where the Himeraeans keep their wild Beasts, in that posture, with the addition of seve­ral other Tortures, they continued one whole day and night together before they dyed. As for your self, Stesichorus, long may you live and Happy. Fare you well. And may you never, I will not say meet with a Fate like theirs, (your own Worth will secure you from that) [Page 188] but may you never meet with Enemies that would force you to be as Cruel as Phalaris. As the Muses are your Glory, so forsake them not. And to give [...]e some relief under the multiplicity of Cares with which I am distracted, send me some or other of your Heavenly Com­positions.

Ep. 148. To the Ennaeans.
Vid. Ep. 81, 137.

I Think, That you enjoy your Liberty is owing to me; but the Enjoyment of your Liberty I shall not charge to you as a debt, nor call you Ungrateful upon that Account. But pay me, I beseech you, the Moneys which you borrow'd of me. For I have at present extraordinary occasion for Money, and am fain to send all Sicily over a borrowing. And some [Page 189] have supplied me of Free Gift, as the Ep. 118 Geloans and Leontines; others promised me a Loan, as the Hyalaeans and the Phin­tians. What therefore mean you, O ye Ennaeans, not to repay me my own Mo­ney, when others, no way oblig'd to me as you have been, freely supply me with Theirs? And if those who have pro­mised to lend me Moneys should hear, that instead of calling upon my Debtors, I should press upon others, upon whom I can pretend no claim, would they not, think you, be tempted to fall back from their word, as having too great reason to suspect, that the man who can so easi­ly Forget the Debts owing to himself, would not much better Remember the Debts he owes to others. All these things consider'd, I hope you will be a­shamed any longer to delay me the pay­ment of my Money. But if Reason and Argument be of no force with you, as­sure your selves I shall speedily find out some more powerful means than bare words, which will force you to be Ho­nest, if they may be said to be so, who are not so till they are forced to it.