V. Contemplate the anxieties of a Lamech, so violently pressed by the recollection of the murder, or murders, which he had committed, that, wanting power to remain the repository of his own secret, he throws it up like one who has swallowed poison, which excites a coughing or tickling in the throat, and runs the hazard of infamy and punishment, for the sake only of enjoying a trivial and temporary relief. Plutarch relates of one Apollodorus, that the memory of his crimes, haunted him in his sleep; for he dreamed every night, that after being quartered, his members were dissolved in boiling water, and that while he suffered this martyrdom, his heart screamed out, “I am the cause and motive of these torments.” SECT. II. VI. I acknowledge it to be true, that all men are not so susceptible of interior remorse, and that, as St. Paul expresses it, there are consciences so cauterized, as to lose all sensation; and hearts, which by a long habit of sin are become petrified; _Sic læthalis hyems paulatim in pectora venit._ VII. O men, of all the most unhappy! This obdurateness of the breast, is a schirrous of the soul, for which, by appealing to miracles only, you can hope relief. Such people are apt to amuse themselves with the hope, that during this mortal life at least, they shall pass on with mirth and enjoyment; but how much are they deceived, who feed themselves with such hopes, for these are the people who experience the most toil. This will appear by a survey of the three vices, within whose boundaries, almost every evil lays distributed, to wit, ambition, avarice, and luxury. VIII. The ambitious man is the slave of all the world. Of the Prince, that he may bestow a place on him; of his client, because he solicits him; and of other men, for fear they should put obstacles in his way. His soul and body are in continual agitation, from an apprehension of the consequences, with which the loss of an instant of time may be attended, and he dreads all mankind, lest some one by an accusation, may occasion all his solicitude to vanish in smoke. How forced are his looks! for he smiles on those, to whom he bears a mortal enmity. What labour does it cost him, to suppress those vicious inclinations, that might throw obstructions in the way of his manœuvres! All the other passions, are the victims of the ruling one, and the vice of ambition, like a tyrant master, adds to the torment that itself inflicts, by the prohibition of all those pleasures which the inclination prompts to. He sees one go to a comedy, another amuse himself with innocent recreation, another go to a feast, and another to a ball; he sees them all, and envies them all; for his passions, though furious, may be compared to the winds, which are confined and shut up in the prisons of Æolus; _Illi indignantes magno cum murmure montis_ _Circum claustra fremunt._