accident beyond all human expectation, so that he saw himself delivered without any manner of inconvenience.  Whereas Brutus and Cassius, on the contrary, threw away the remains of the Roman liberty, of which they were the sole protectors, by the precipitation and temerity wherewith they killed themselves before the due time and a just occasion.  Monsieur d’Anguien, at the battle of Serisolles, twice attempted to run himself through, despairing of the fortune of the day, which went indeed very untowardly on that side of the field where he was engaged, and by that precipitation was very near depriving himself of the enjoyment of so brave a victory.  I have seen a hundred hares escape out of the very teeth of the greyhounds: 

“Aliquis carnifici suo superstes fuit.”

["Some have survived their executioners.”—­Seneca, Ep., 13.]

              “Multa dies, variusque labor mutabilis nevi
               Rettulit in melius; multos alterna revisens
               Lusit, et in solido rursus fortuna locavit.”

["Length of days, and the various labour of changeful time, have
brought things to a better state; fortune turning, shews a reverse
face, and again restores men to prosperity.”—­AEneid, xi. 425.]

Piny says there are but three sorts of diseases, to escape which a man has good title to destroy himself; the worst of which is the stone in the bladder, when the urine is suppressed.

["In the quarto edition of these essays, in 1588, Pliny is said to mention two more, viz., a pain in the stomach and a headache, which, he says (lib. xxv. c. 9.), were the only three distempers almost for which men killed themselves.”]

Seneca says those only which for a long time are discomposing the functions of the soul.  And some there have been who, to avoid a worse death, have chosen one to their own liking.  Democritus, general of the AEtolians, being brought prisoner to Rome, found means to make his escape by night:  but close pursued by his keepers, rather than suffer himself to be retaken, he fell upon his own sword and died.  Antinous and Theodotus, their city of Epirus being reduced by the Romans to the last extremity, gave the people counsel universally to kill themselves; but, these preferring to give themselves up to the enemy, the two chiefs went to seek the death they desired, rushing furiously upon the enemy, with intention to strike home but not to ward a blow.  The Island of Gozzo being taken some years ago by the Turks, a Sicilian, who had two beautiful daughters marriageable, killed them both with his own hand, and their mother, running in to save them, to boot, which having done, sallying out of the house with a cross-bow and harquebus, with two shots he killed two of the Turks nearest to his door, and drawing his sword, charged furiously in amongst the rest, where he was suddenly enclosed and cut to pieces, by that means delivering his family