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1. I Have had a very great losse, if the forgoing of so worthy a man may be called a loss.
2. Coraelius Rufus is deceased, and indeed of his own vo∣luntary will, which doth exasperate my grief.
3. For it is a most sorrowfull kind of death, which seemeth to ••e neither naturall nor fatall.
4. For howsoever there is great comfort to be taken from ve∣ry necessity, touching those that die upon some disease; in those
who die a voluntary death, the grief is incurable, because they are thought to have been able to live a long time.
5. Indeed a main reason, which wise men account as a ne∣cessity, enforced Corellius to this course, though he had many rea∣sons to live, a very good conscience, a very good repute, a very great authority; besides, he had a daughter, a wife, a nephew, a sister, and amongst so many pledges of love, true friends.
6. But he strugled with such a long and such a grievous sick∣nesse, that these so great engagements to live were outvied with the reasons of his death.
7. He had been troubled with the gout (as I heard him say) three and thirty years.
8. This was hereditary to him; for diseases too, for the most part, as well as other things, are delivered by certain suc∣cessions.
9. Whilst his youth lasted, he overcame and mastered it by abstinence and sanctity: now at last he bare it with the strength of his minde, as it encreased in his old age, when indeed he en∣dured incredible tortures, and most cruell torments.
10. For now the pain did not settle in his feet only, as it did afore, but went over all his limbs.
11. I came unto him in the time of Domitian, as he lay in his Country-house.
12. His servants went away out of the chamber, for he used this fashion, as oft as any friend that was more trusty, came in; and his wife also, though she was very able to conceal any secret, went aside.
13. He cast his eyes about, And why do you think (said he) do I abide these so great pains so long a time? Truly, that I may outlive that villain but one day.
14. Had one given this Mind a Body like it, he had done what he desired.
15. Yet God heard his wish; which after he had obtained, as one that was now like to die without care, and free, he brake those many, but lesser stays, which would have kept him alive.
16. His sicknesse had encreased, which his temperance strived to mitigate, and his constancy avoided when it continued still.
17. Now a second, third, and fourth day he forbore food:
his wife Hispulla sent to me our common friend Cajus. Geminius with a very sad errand, that Coraellius had resolved to dye, and could neither be perswaded by hers nor his daughters entreaties; and that I was the onely man who was able to recall him to life.
18. I ra•• I was come into the next room, when Julius Atti∣cus told me from the same Hispulla, that now not so much as I could prevail with him, that he was grown more and more ob∣stinately resolute.
19. He had said indeed to the Physician, that advised him to take meat, I am dead; which word left as much want, as ad∣miration of him in my mind.
20. I consider what a friend, what a man I want.
21. He had lived full threescore and seven years; which age is lo••g enough, even for those that are the most lustie.
22. I know, he hath got away from a continuall sicknesse; I know, he dyed leaving his friends alive after him; and when the Commonwealth was in its flourish, which he valued more than he did all his friends, I know this too.
23. Yet I grieve as for the death both of a young man, and one that was very strong; but I grieve, although you may think me weak, for my own sake.
24 For I have lost, I have lost the witnesse, the ruler, the master of my life; let me tell you in short, what in my fresh sor∣row I told my friend Calvisius; I am affraid lest I should live more carelesly.
25 Do you therefore apply comforts to me; not such as these: He was an old man, he was infirm (for I know these) but some new ones, but great ones; such as I never heard, such as I never read.
26. For those which I have heard, and those which I have read, came into my mind of themselves, but they are overborn by so great sorrow. Farewell.