_Essay on Man_, Ep. ii. 1. 2. Indeed, Lord Bacon seems to have misunderstood the saying of Epicurus, who did not mean to recommend man as the sole object of the bodily vision, but as the proper theme for mental contemplation. [127] Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur.—_Pub. Syr. Sent._ 15. (A. L. ii. proœ. 10.) [128] He refers here to the judgment of Paris, mentioned by Ovid in his Epistles, of the Heroines. [129] Montaigne has treated this subject before Bacon, under the title of _De l’incommodité de la Grandeur_. (B. iii. ch. vii.) [130] “Since you are not what you were, there is no reason why you should wish to live.” [131] “Death presses heavily upon him, who, well known to all others, dies unknown to himself.”—_Sen. Thyest._ ii. 401. [132] “And God turned to behold the works which his hands had made, and he saw that everything was very good.”—See _Gen._ i. 31. [133] “As a matter of course.” [134] Too great easiness of access. [135] Predilections that are undeserved. [136] Proverbs xxviii. 21. The whole passage stands thus in our version: “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. To have respect of persons is not good; for, for a piece of bread, that man will transgress.” [137] “By the consent of all he was fit to govern, if he had not governed.” [138] “Of the emperors, Vespasian alone changed for the better _after his accession_.”—_Tac. Hist._ i. 49, 50 (A. L. ii. xxii. 5). [139] Plut. vit. Demosth. 17, 18. [140] It is not improbable that this passage suggested Pope’s beautiful lines in the _Essay on Man_, Ep. i. 125-28. “Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.” [141] Auger Gislen Busbec, or Busbequius, a learned traveller, born at Comines, in Flanders, in 1522. He was employed by the Emperor Ferdinand as ambassador to the Sultan Solyman II. He was afterwards ambassador to France, where he died, in 1592. His “Letters” relative to his travels in the East, which are written in Latin, contain much interesting information. They were the pocket companion of Gibbon, and are highly praised by him.