How many are there that, betwixt the apprehensions of death and the miseries of life, are at their wits’ end what to do with themselves? Wherefore let us fortify ourselves against those calamities from which the prince is no more exempt than the beggar. Pompey the Great had his head taken off by a boy and a eunuch, (young Ptolemy and Photinus.) Caligula commanded the tribune Dæcimus to kill Lepidus; and another tribune (Chæreus) did as much for Caligula. Never was a man so great but he was as liable to suffer mischief as he was able to do it. Has not a thief, or an enemy, your throat at his mercy? nay, and the meanest of servants has the power of life and death over his master; for whosoever contemns his own life may be master of another body’s. You will find in story, that the displeasure of servants has been as fatal as that of tyrants: and what matters it the power of him we fear, when the thing we fear is in every body’s power? Suppose I fall into the hands of an enemy, and the conqueror condemns me to be led in triumph; it is but carrying me thither whither I should have gone without him, that is to say, toward death, whither I have been marching ever since I was born. It is the fear of our last hour that disquiets all the rest. By the justice of all constitutions, mankind is condemned to a capital punishment; now, how despicable would that man appear, who, being sentenced to death in common with the whole world, should only petition that he might be the last man brought to the block?