And therefore it was, that Agesilaus made answer to one that was saying, "What a happy young man the King of Persia was to come so young to so mighty a kingdom." "'Tis true [said he], but neither was Priam unhappy at his years." In a short time, of kings of Macedon, successors to that mighty Alexander, were made joyners and scriveners at Rome; of a tyrant of Sicily, a pedant at Corinth; of a conqueror of one-half of the world, and general of so many armies, a miserable suppliant to the rascally officers of a king of Egypt. So much the prolongation of five or six months of life cost the great and noble Pompey, and no longer since than our fathers' days, Ludovico Sforza, the tenth duke of Milan, whom all Italy had so long truckled under, was seen to die a wretched prisoner at Loches, but not till he had lived ten years in captivity, which was the worst part of his fortune. The fairest of all queens (Mary, Queen of Scots), widow to the greatest king in Europe,[24] did she not come to die by the hand of an executioner? Unworthy and barbarous cruelty! and a thousand more examples there are of the same kind; for it seems that as storms and tempests have a malice to the proud and overtow'ring heights of our lofty buildings, there are also spirits above that are envious of the grandeurs here below. [Footnote 24: Francis II of France, to whom she was married in 1558 and who died two years afterward.] _Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quædam Obterit, et pulchros fasces, sævasque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur._ --_Lucret._, l. 5.