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Furthermore, he had written at length, in the De Consolatione, on the folly which parents for the most part display in the education of their children. "They show their affection in such foolish wise, that it would be nearer the mark to say they hate, rather than love, their offspring.

In the following year, in 1537, he made a beginning of two of his books, which were subsequently found worthy of being finished, and which may still be read with a certain interest: the treatises De Sapientia and De Consolatione.

His De Consolatione Philosophiae is a book good for any man, full of wholesome and godly doctrine. For centuries it ranked as high as the highest classics; higher perhaps at times than any book save the Bible, among not merely scholars, but statesmen. It is the last legacy of the dying old world to the young world which was trampling it out of life; and therefore it is full of sadness.

From Pavia, where in prison awaiting death he had written his De Consolatione Philosophiae which was so largely to inform the new Europe, he was carried to "the ager Calventianus" a few miles from Milan; where he was tortured, a cord was twisted round his forehead till his eyes burst from their sockets, and then he was clubbed to death.

His remaining philosophical works, viz.: the Hortensius, which was a defence of philosophy; De Gloriâ; De Consolatione, written upon Platonic principles on his daughter's death; De Jure Civili, De Virtutibus, De Auguriis, Chorographia, translations of Plato's Protagoras, and Xenophon's OEconomics, works on Natural History, Panegyric on Cato, and some miscellaneous writings, are, except a few fragments, entirely lost.

He next cites the De Consolatione to demonstrate the futility of lamentation over misfortune past or present, or indeed over any decree of fate. He bids Gian Battista reflect that he is human not a brute, a man not a woman, a Christian not a Moslem or Jew, an Italian not a barbarian, sprung from a worthy city and family, and from a father whose name by itself will prove a title to fame.

Ovid and Statius were widely read, and so was the late Latin poet, Boethius, whose De Consolatione Philosophiæ had been translated into English by King Alfred and by Chaucer. Little was known of Vergil at first hand, and he was popularly supposed to have been a mighty wizard, who made sundry works of enchantment at Rome, such as a magic mirror and statue.

Uxor viro si clam domo egressa est foras, Viro fit causa, exigitur matrimonio. Utinam lex esset cadem quae uxori est viro! Aulus Gellius, i, 6. De Consolatione ad Marciam, xvi, 1. Quintilian, Instit. Orat., vi, 1, 5. Pliny, Letters, vi, 4 and 7, and vii, 5. Great admiration expressed for Paulina, wife of Seneca, who opened her veins to accompany her husband in death Tacitus, Annals, xv, 63, 64.

King Alfred was learned himselfe, and giuen much to studie, insomuch that beside diuerse good lawes which he translated into the English toong, gathered togither and published, he also translated diuerse other bookes out of Latine into English, as Orosius, Pastorale Gregorij, Beda de gestis Anglorum, Boetius de consolatione philosophiæ, and the booke of Psalmes; but this he finished not, being preuented by death.

The second despatch of a messenger, in great haste to bring the best reputed operator in Gravesend recalls Murphy's words: "Of sickness and poverty he was singularly patient and under pressure of those evils he could quietly read Cicero de Consolatione; but if either of them threatened his wife he was impetuous for her relief."