Cleo. You have now a very fine opportunity, Horatio, of looking into your heart, and with a little of my assistance, examining yourself. If you can condescend to this, I promise you that you shall make great discoveries, and be convinced of truths you are now unwilling to believe. A lover of justice and probity, as you are, ought not to be fond of a road of thinking, where he is always forced to skulk, and never dares to meet with light or reason. Will you suffer me to ask you some questions, and will you answer them directly and in good humour? Hor. I will, without reserve. Cleo. Do you remember the storm upon the coast of Genoa? Hor. Going to Naples? Very well; it makes me cold to think of it. Cleo. Was you afraid? Hor. Never more in my life: I hate that fickle element; I cannot endure the sea. Cleo. What was you afraid of? Hor. That is a pretty question: do you think a young fellow of six-and-twenty, as I was then, and in my circumstances, had a great mind to be drowned? The captain himself said we were in danger. Cleo. But neither he nor any body else discovered half so much fear and anxiety as you did. Hor. There was nobody there, yourself excepted, that had half a quarter so much to lose as I had: besides, they are used to the sea; storms are familiar to them. I had never been at sea before, but that fine afternoon we crossed from Dover to Calais. Cleo. Want of knowledge or experience may make men apprehend danger where there is none; but real dangers, when they are known to be such, try the natural courage of all men; whether they have been used to them or not: sailors are as unwilling to lose their lives as other people. Hor. I am not ashamed to own, that I am a great coward at sea: give me terra firma, and then-- Cleo. Six or seven months after you fought that duel, I remember you had the small-pox; you was then very much afraid of dying. Hor. Not without a cause. Cleo. I heard your physicians say, that the violent apprehension you was under, hindered your sleep, increased your fever, and was as mischievous to you as the distemper itself. Hor. That was a terrible time; I am glad it is over: I had a sister died of it. Before I had it, I was in perpetual dread of it, and many times to hear it named only has made me uneasy. Cleo. Natural courage is a general armour against the fear of death, whatever shape that appears in, Si fractus illabatur erbis. It supports a man in tempestuous seas, and in a burning fever, whilst he is in his senses, as well as in a siege before a town, or in a duel with seconds. Hor. What! you are going to show me, that I have no courage. Cleo. Far from it; it would be ridiculous to doubt a man's bravery, that has shown it in such an extraordinary manner as you have done more than once: what I question, is the epithet you joined to it at first, the word natural; for there is a great difference between that and artificial courage.