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NERO then not well in health, when his Flatterers told him, The Empire would be at an end, should it be his Fate to die, made answer, &c.
Says D'Ablancourt; One day that he was ill, his Courtiers, in Flattery, told him that the Empire would expire with him.
This piece of Flattery is a certain proof of the Impertinency of Flatterers. For, for a Man to tell such a Prince as Nero, who made it his chiefest Glory, to be an excellent Charioteer, a good Musician, and an elegant Poet, as much as to say, Eminent in every thing that was beneath a Prince, that the Welfare of the Empire depended wholly upon him, and that expiring with his Life, it was never to rise again, was either to laugh at the Emperor, or make himself ridiculous. Nevertheless we meet with Compliments every day altogether as vain and impertinent, which however are kindly accepted. So true is that Re∣mark of Tacitus, That Assiduous Adula∣tion corrupts and blinds the understand∣ing of Great Personages.