This is but a short
apprenticeship, after which we are made free of a royal company. If
we fall in love with any beauteous woman, we must be content that
they should be our mistresses whilst we woo them. As soon as we are
wedded and enjoy, 'tis we shall be the masters.
I am willing to stick to this similitude in the case of greatness:
we enter into the bonds of it, like those of matrimony; we are
bewitched with the outward and painted beauty, and take it for
better or worse before we know its true nature and interior
inconveniences. "A great fortune," says Seneca, "is a great
servitude." But many are of that opinion which Brutus imputes (I
hope untruly) even to that patron of liberty, his friend Cicero.
"We fear," says he to Atticus, "death, and banishment, and poverty,
a great deal too much. Cicero, I am afraid, thinks these to be the
worst of evils, and if he have but some persons from whom he can
obtain what he has a mind to, and others who will flatter and
worship him, seems to be well enough contented with an honourable
servitude, if anything, indeed, ought to be called honourable in so
base and contumelious a condition.
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