Seneca’s Morals
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page 11
SENECA's MORALS;
BY WAY OF ABSTRACT
To which is added
A DISCOURSE, UNDER THE TITLE OF AV
AFTER-THOUGHT.
BY
Sir ROGER UESTRANGE, Knt.
A NEW EDITION.
Consort:
PRINTED BY J. CUNDEE, TVY TAKE,
TOR T. HURST, PATERNOSTER ROW;
T. Gibbons, and C. Smith, Bath ; T. Richards, Plymouth ; J. and E.
Lpham, fcxeter; J. Dingle, and J. Deck, "Bury ; T. Combe,
Leicester; C. Woodward, Liverpool j
and A. Borhamley, Leeds.
1803.
page 13, segment 1/2
ADVERTISEMENT.
In this enlightened age, when every day brings
forth something new on the subject of education and
morality, it is matter of considerable surprise, that
Writings of such intrinsic value as the present should
The talents of Seneca
so long have lain dormant.
werejustly estimated by his contemporaries, and long
after his decease;
and as modern times cannot boast
of similar works of superior merit, the proprietors,
anxious to restore to society every thing valuable and
essential to the interests of the present generation,
have been induced to bring forward a new, being
the sixteenth edition, of Seneca's Morals, differing only from the former editions in some arrangements relative to the typographic department, particularly in affixing to the head of each page a Hem
title, which, they trust, wftl be considered not only
as a matter of improvement, but of utility; as the
head-lines will, in a great measure, guide the reader
How
in finding out whatever subject he may want.
far they have claim to the encouragement of an impar~
tial, but indulgent public, the success of the present
edition can alone determine; but
they presume, in
bringing forward a work, printed in a size the most
convenient to readers in general, and calculattd not
only to " raise the genius," but, "to mend the heart,"
they will contribute much to the entertainment and
improvement of the gentleman, the man of letters, and
youth in particular,* Impressed with this idea, they
offer this edition, with some degree of confidence, to
the attention of the public.
* This Edition is expressly intended for the younger
branches of society, and for the use of schools, and seminaTliere is another Edition,
ries of education in general.
printed in a still superior style, in two volumes, small octavo,
page 13, segment 2/2
intended as an elegant library booh,
-
32
796284
page 14, segment 1/2
TO THE READER.
1 T has been a long time in my thought to turn Seneca int*
English, but whether as a translation, or an abstract, was
translation I perceive it must not be, at
She question.
First, it is a thing already done
last, for several reasons.
to my hand, and above sixty years standing ; though with
as little credit, perhaps, to the author, as satisfaction to
Secondly, there is a great deal in him that is
the reader.
wholly foreign to my business as his philosophical Treatises
of Meteors, Earthquakes, the Original of Rivers, several
frivolous Disputes betwixt the Epicureans and the Stoics,.
&c. to say nothing of the frequent repetitions of the same
thing again in other words, (wherein he very handsomely
excuses himself, by saying - that he does but inculcate,
over and over the same counsels, to those that over and
over commit the same faults). Thirdly, his excellency
consists rather in a rhapsody of divine and extraordinary
hints and notions than in any regulated method of discourse ; so that to take him as he lies, and so to go through
with him, were utterly inconsistent with the order and'
brevity which I propound ; my principal design being only
to digest and common-place his Morals, in such sort, that
A
:
any man, upon occasion, may know where to find them
and I have kept myself so close to this proposition^ that I
have reduced all his scattered ethics to their proper
heads, without any additions of my own, more than of abSoma
solute necessity for the tacking of them together.
other man in my place would, perchance, make you twenty
apologies, for his want of skill and address in governing
this affair, but these are formal and pedantic fooleries
as if any man that first takes himself for a coxcomb in his
own heart, would afterwards make himself one in print
page 14, segment 2/2
This abstract, such as it is, you are extremely weltoo.
come to and I am sorry it is no better, both for your
for if it were written, up to the spirit
sakes, and my own
of the original, it would be one of the most valuable presents that ever any private man bestowed upon, the public,
and this too, even in the judgriient of both parties, as well
Christian as Heathen: of which in its due place.
Next to my choice of the author, and of the subject, together with the manner of handling it, I have likewise
had some regard, in this publication, to the timing of it,
;
:
and to the preference of this topic of Benefits above
all
page 15, segment 1/2
OF
SENECA's WRITINGS.
IT
appears that our author had, amort;* the ancients, threeprofessed enemies.
In the first place, Caligula, who called*
alluding to the starts of hishis writings - sand without lime
But Seneca
fancy, and the incoherence of his sentences.
was never the worse for the censure of a person that propounded even the suppression of Homer himself; and of
;
The
casting Virgil and Livy out of all public libraries.
next was Fabius, who tasks him for being too bold with the
eloquence of former times, and failing in that point himself; and likewise for being too quaint and finical in his
expressions: which Tacitus imputes, in part, to the freedom of his own particular inclination, and partly to the humour of the time*. He is also charged by Fabius as no
profound philosopher but with all this, he allows him to
be a man very studious and learned, of great wit and invention, and well read in all sorts of literature, a severe reprover of vice, most divinely sententious, and well worth
the reading, if it were only for his morals adding, that if
his judgment had been answerable to his wit, it had been
much the more for his reputation but he wrote whatever,
came next so that I would advise the reader, says he, to
distinguish where he himself did not; for there are many
things in him, not only to be approved, but admired, and
it was great pity, that he that could do what he would,
His third advershould not always make the best choice.
:
;
:
sary is Agellius, who falls upon him for his style, and a
kind of tinkling in bis sentence, hut yet commends hirn for
On the other side, Columello
his piety and good counsels.
calls him a man of excellent wit and learning; Pliny, the
prince of erudition; Tacitus gives him the character of a
wise man, and a fit tutor for a
page 15, segment 2/2
prince; Dto reports him to
have been the greatest man of his age.
Of those pieces of his that are extant, we shall not need
to give any particular account,
and of those that are lost,
we cannot, any further than by lights to them from other
authors as we find them cited much to his honour, and
we may reasonably compute them to be the greater part of
;
bis works.
That he wrote several Poems, in his banish-
page 16, segment 1/2
vni
raent,
may be gathered partly frora himself, but more ex-
-
who says " that he was reproached
with his applying himself to poetry, after he saw that Nero
took pleasure in it, out of a design to curry favour,"
St.
Jerome refers to a Discourse of his concerning Matrimony.
Lactantius takes notice of his History and his books of
Moralities,
St. Augustine quotes some passages of his out
of a book of Superstition ; some references we meet with
Fabius makes mention of his
to his books of Exhortations.
Dialogues and he himself speaks of a Treatise of his own,
concerning Earthquakes, which he wrote in his youth. But
the opinion of an Epistolary Correspondence that he had
with St. Paul, does not seem to have much colour for it.
Some few fragments, however, of those books of his that
are wanting, are yet preserved in the writings of other eminent authors; sufficient to shew the world how great a treasure they have lost, by the excellency of that little that is
pressly out of Tacitus,
:
left.
Seneca, says Lactantius*, that was the sharpest of all
the Stoics, how great a veneration has he for the Almighty :
as for instance, discoursing of a violent death---" Do you
not understand," says he, " the majesty and the authority
of your Judge, he is the supreme Governor of heaven and
earth, and the God of all your gods ; and it is upon him
that all those powers depend which we worship for deities."
Moreover, in his exhortations " This God," says he,
" when he laid the foundations of the universe, and entered
upon the greatest and the best work in nature, in the ordering; of the government of the world, though he was himself
all in all, yet he substituted other subordinate ministers,
And how many other
fis the servants of his commands."
things does this heathen speak of God, like
page 16, segment 2/2
one of us ?
Which the acute Seneca (says Lactantius t again) saw in
"We." says he, " have our dependence
his Exhortations
elsewhere, and should look up to that power, to which we
are indebted for all we can pretend to that is good.
And again $, Seneca says very well in his Morals -
" They worship the images of the gods," says he, " kneel
to them, and adore them ; they are hardly ever from tliem,
either plying them with offerings, or sacrifices, and yet
after all this reverence to the image, they have no regard
-
-
at all to the workman that made it."
" An invective," says Seneca, in his
Lactantius again.
Exhorttaions, "is the master-piece of most of our. philoso|(
*Dmn. Inst. lib. 1. cap. 1.
+ Cap. 2.
I Lib. 3. Cap. L5.
* Lib. 31.
cap. 8.
page 17, segment 1/2
We
are
the ground-work of my first Essay.
an age of vain philosophy (as the holy
apostle calls it), and so desperately over-run with drolls
and Sceptics, that there is hardly any thing so certain, or
so sacred, that is not exposed to question, or contempt.
Insomuch, that betwixt the hypocrite and the Ati.t-ist, the
very foundations of religion and good manners are shaken,
and the two tables of the Decalogue dashed to pieces, the
one against the other the laws of government are subjected to the fancies of the vulgar, public authority to the
private passions and opinions of the people, and the supernatural motions of grace confounded with the common
In this state of corruption, who so fit
dictates of nature.
as a good honest Christian Pagan, for a moderator among
others,
for
fallen
into
:
Pagan- Christians ?
To pass now from the general scope of the whole work,
to the particular argument of the first part of it, I pitched
upon the theme of Benefits, Gratitude, and Ingratitude, to
begin withal, as an earnest of the rest, and a lecture ex-
pressly calculated for the unthankfulness of these times,
the foulest, undoubtedly, and the most execrable of all
nay, if I
others, since the very apostacy of the angels
durst but suppose a possibility of mercy for those damned
spirits, and that they might ever be taken into favour
again, my charity would hope even better for them, than
we have found from some of our revolters, and that they
would so behave themselves, as not to incur a second forfeiture.
And to carry the resemblance yet one point farther, they do both of them agree in an implacable malice
against those of their fellows that keep their stations. But,
what could ingratitude do without hypocrisy, the
alas
inseparable companion of it ; and, in effect, the bolder and
page 17, segment 2/2
the blacker devil of the two ? For Lucifer himself never
had the face to lift up his eyes to heaven, and talk to the
Almighty, at the familiar rate of our pretended patriots
and zealots, and at the same time to make him party to a
cheat. It is not for nothing, that the Holy Ghost has denounced so many woes, and redoubled so many cautions
against hypocrites, plainly intimating, at once, how dangerous a snare they are to mankind, and no less odious to
God himself: which is sufficiently denoted in the force of
that dreadful expression " And your portion shall be with,
hypocrites." You will find, in the Holy Scriptures, (as I
have formerly observed) that God has given the grace of
repentance to persecutors, idolators, murderers, adulterers,
&c. but I am mistaken, if the whole Bible affords you any
one instance of a converted hypocrite.
:
!
-
page 18, segment 1/2
VI
To descend now from truth itself, to our own experience,
have we not seen, even in our days, a most pious (and almost faultless) prince brought to the scaifold by his own
subjects ? the most glorious constitution upon the face of
the earth, both ecclesiastical and civil, torn to pieces, and
dissolved ? the happiest people under the sun enslaved ?
our temples sacrilegiously profaned, and a license given
to all sorts of heresy and outrage ?
And by whom,' but by
a race of hypocrites, who had nothing in their mouths all
this while, but, the purity of the gospel, the honour of the
king, and the liberty of the people ; assisted underhand
•with defamatory papers, which were levelled at the king
himself, through the sides of his most faithful ministers ?
This project succeeded so well against one government,
that it is now again set on foot against another ; and by
some of the very actors too in that tragedy, and after a
most gracious pardon also, when Providence had laid
their necks and their fortunes at his majest3''s feet.
It is a
wonderful thing, that libels and libellers, the most infamous of practices and of men, the most unmanly sneaking
methods and instruments of mischief, the very bane of
human society, and the plague of all governments, it is a
wonderful thing (I say) that these engines and engineers
should ever find credit enough in the world to engage a
parly
but it would be still more wonderful, if the same
trick should pass twice upon the same people, in the same
age, and from the very same impostors.
This contemplation has carried me a little out of my way, but it has at
length brought me to my text again ; for there is in the
bottom of it the highest opposition imaginable, of ingrati:
tude and obligation.
The reader will, in some measure, be able to judge