No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share
of the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity--if
not out of good nature, at least out of vanity,--to retail them in the
imperial ear. If the moment were but favourable, who knows but what at
some oblivious and crapulous moment the Emperor might be induced to sign
an order for our philosopher's recall?
Let us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are stern trials, and
it is difficult for him to brave a martyr's misery who has no conception
of a martyr's crown. To a man who, like Seneca, aimed at being not only
a philosopher, but also a man of the world--who in this very treatise
criticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life--there would not have
seemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a private effusion of
insincere flattery intended to win the remission of a deplorable
banishment. Or, if we condemn Seneca, let us remember that Christians,
no less than philosophers, have attained a higher eminence only to
exemplify a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Claudius
are not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgraceful, than those
which fawning bishops exuded on his counterpart, King James.
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