[106] “Select that course of life which is the most advantageous; habit will soon render it pleasant and easily endured.”
[107] His meaning is, that if clergymen have the expenses of a family to support, they will hardly find means for the exercise of benevolence toward their parishioners.
[108] “He preferred his aged wife Penelope to immortality.” This was when Ulysses was entreated by the goddess Calypso to give up all thoughts of returning to Ithaca, and to remain with her in the enjoyment of immortality.—Plut. Gryll. 1.
[109] “May have a pretext,” or “excuse.”
[110] Thales, Vide Diog. Laert. i. 26.
[111] So prevalent in ancient times was the notion of the injurious effects of the eye of envy, that, in common parlance, the Romans generally used the word “præfiscini,”—“without risk of enchantment,” or “fascination,” when they spoke in high terms of themselves. They supposed that they thereby averted the effects of enchantment produced by the evil eye of any envious person who might at that moment possibly be looking upon them. Lord Bacon probably here alludes to St. Mark vii. 21, 22: “Out of the heart of men proceedeth—deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye.” Solomon also speaks of the evil eye, Prov. xxiii. 6, and xxviii. 22.
[112] To be even with him.
[113] “There is no person a busybody, but what he is ill-natured too.” This passage is from the Stichus of Plautus.
[114] Narses superseded Belisarius in the command of the armies of Italy, by the orders of the Emperor Justinian. He defeated Totila, the king of the Goths (who had taken Rome), in a decisive engagement, in which the latter was slain. He governed Italy with consummate ability for thirteen years, when he was ungratefully recalled by Justin the Second, the successor of Justinian.
[115] Tamerlane, or Timour, was a native of Samarcand, of which territory he was elected emperor. He overran Persia, Georgia, Hindostan, and captured Bajazet, the valiant Sultan of the Turks, at the battle of Angora, 1402, whom he is said to have inclosed in a cage of iron. His conquests extended from the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to the Grecian Archipelago. While preparing for the invasion of China, he died, in the 70th year of his age, A. D. 1405. He was tall and corpulent in person, but was maimed in one hand, and lame on the right side.