[88] Job ii. 10.—“Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”
[89] By “public revenges,” he means punishment awarded by the state with the sanction of the laws.
[90] He alludes to the retribution dealt by Augustus and Anthony to the murderers of Julius Cæsar. It is related by ancient historians, as a singular fact, that not one of them died a natural death.
[91] Henry III. of France was assassinated in 1599, by Jacques Clement, a Jacobin monk, in the frenzy of fanaticism. Although Clement justly suffered punishment, the end of this bloodthirsty and bigoted tyrant may be justly deemed a retribution dealt by the hand of an offended Providence; so truly does the Poet say:—
“neque enim lex æquior ulla
Quam necis artifices arte perire suâ.”
[92] Sen. Ad Lucil. 66.
[93] Ibid. 53.
[94] Stesichorus, Apollodorus, and others. Lord Bacon makes a similar reference to this myth in his treatise “On the Wisdom of the Ancients.” “It is added with great elegance, to console and strengthen the minds of men, that this mighty hero (Hercules) sailed in a cup or ‘urceus,’ in order that they may not too much fear and allege the narrowness of their nature and its frailty; as if it were not capable of such fortitude and constancy; of which very thing Seneca argued well, when he said, ‘It is a great thing to have at the same time the frailty of a man, and the security of a God.’”
[95] Funereal airs. It must be remembered that many of the Psalms of David were written by him when persecuted by Saul, as also in the tribulation caused by the wicked conduct of his son Absalom. Some of them, too, though called “The Psalms of David,” were really composed by the Jews in their captivity at Babylon; as, for instance, the 137th Psalm, which so beautifully commences, “By the waters of Babylon there we sat down.” One of them is supposed to be the composition of Moses.