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Very early up, and, hearing that the Duke of York, our Lord High admiral, would go on board to-day, Mr. Pickering and I took waggon for Scheveling. His epitaph, is concluded thus: "Tandem Bello Anglico tantum non victor, certe invictus, vivere et vincere desiit." There is a sea-fight cut in marble, with the smoake, the best expressed that ever I saw in my life.
Huic ab Aureliano vivere concessum est. Ferturque vixisse cum liberis, matronae jam more Romanae, data sibi possessione in Tiburti quae hodieque Zenobia dicitur, non longe ab Adriani palatio, atque ab eo loco cui nomen est Conche." Hist. Aug. Lugd. Batav. 1661, p. 787. Also what Aurelian himself says in a letter to the Roman Senate, preserved by Pollio.
But common thought comes before us at the outset as a piece of very composite alluvial ground. It is a beginning of positive science, and also a residue of all philosophical opinions which have had some vogue. That, however, is not its primary basis. Primum vivere, deinde philosophari, says the proverb. In certain respects, "speculation is a luxury, whilst action is a necessity."
At any rate, let me not, on my return, have occasion to apply to you the motto, "Strenua me exercet inertia," nor that other of "Operose nihil agit." But so improve your time that you may with pleasure review and commit it to journal. "Hoc est, Vivere bis, vita priori frui." And let it, at no very distant period, be said of you, "Tot, tibi, sunt, ergo dotes, quot sidera coelo."
Primum vivere, deinde philosophari. If our contemporary musicians really wished the people to sing, they would have written songs for them; but they seem to have no desire to achieve honour that way. So there is nothing else to be done but to have recourse to the musicians of other days; and even there the choice is very limited.
"Scire mori sors prima viris, sed proxima cogi," and again "Victurosque dei celant, ut vivere durent, Felix esse mori." So in cursing Crastinus, Caesar's fierce centurion, he wishes him not to die, but to retain sensibility after death, in other words to be immortal. The sentiment occurs, not once but a hundred times, that of all pleasures death is the greatest.
That is his translation; and in his indignation he puts other words, as it were, into the mouth of his literary brother of two thousand years before. "Why did not somebody kill him?" The Latin words themselves are added in a note, "Cum vivere ipsum turpe sit nobis." Hot indignation has so carried the translator away that he has missed the very sense of Cicero's language.
Se alle sei della mattina le quattro mile piastre non sono nelle mie mani, alla sette il conte Alberto avra cessato di vivere. Luigi Vampa. "If by six in the morning the four thousand piastres are not in my hands, by seven o'clock the Count Albert will have ceased to live."
Martial has given us a very pretty Picture of one of this Species in the following Epigram: Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem, Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te. In all thy Humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant Fellow; Hast so much Wit, and Mirth, and Spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
So that the cheerfulness of the composer shall be for us and for other people. And Vivace is not merely quickly, but vivaciously. Now what does vivacious mean? It means what its root-word vivere means, to live. It is a direction that the music must be full of life; and the true life of happiness and freedom from care is meant.
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