[65] These were the followers of Zeno, a philosopher of Citium, in Cyprus, who founded the Stoic school, or “School of the Portico,” at Athens. The basis of his doctrines was the duty of making virtue the object of all our researches. According to him, the pleasures of the mind were preferable to those of the body, and his disciples were taught to view with indifference health or sickness, riches or poverty, pain or pleasure. [66] “Who reckons the close of his life among the boons of nature.” Lord Bacon here quotes from memory; the passage is in the tenth Satire of Juvenal, and runs thus:— “Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem, Qui spatium vitæ extremum inter munera ponat Naturæ”— “Pray for strong resolve, void of the fear of death, that reckons the closing period of life among the boons of nature.” [67] He alludes to the song of Simeon, to whom the Holy Ghost had revealed, “that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” When he beheld the infant Jesus in the temple, he took the child in his arms and burst forth into a song of thanksgiving, commencing, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”—_St. Luke_ ii. 29. [68] “When dead, the same person shall be beloved.”—_Hor. Ep._ ii. 1, 14. [69] “Behold, he is in the desert.”—_St. Matthew_ xxiv. 26. [70] “Behold, he is in the secret chambers.”—_Ib._ [71] He alludes to 1 Corinthians xiv. 23: “If, therefore, the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?” [72] Psalm i. 1: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” [73] This dance, which was originally called the Morisco dance is supposed to have been derived from the Moors of Spain; the dancers in earlier times blackening their faces to resemble Moors. It was probably a corruption of the ancient Pyrrhic dance, which was performed by men in armor, and which is mentioned as still existing in Greece, in Byron’s “Song of the Greek Captive:”— “You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet.” Attitude and gesture formed one of the characteristics of the dance. It is still practised in some parts of England.—_Rabelais, Pantag._ ii. 7. [74] 2 Kings ix. 18. [75] He alludes to the words in Revelation, c. iii. v. 14, 15, 16: “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.—I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Laodicea was a city of Asia Minor. St. Paul established the church there which is here referred to. [76] St. Matthew xii. 30. [77] “In the garment there may be many colors, but let there be no rending of it.”