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CHAPTER XXXII
A DEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARKE
THE familiarity I have with these two men, and the aid
they affoord me in my old age, and my booke meerely
framed of their spoiles, bindeth me to wed and maintaine
their honour. As for Seneca, amongest a thousand
petty pamphlets those of the pretended reformed
religion have published, for the defence of their cause,
which now and then proceede from a good hand, and
which, pity it is, it should not be employed in more
serious and better subjects, I have heretofore seene one
who, to prolong and fill up the similitude he would
finde betweene the government of our unfortunate late
King Charles the Ninth and that of Nero, compareth
the whilom Lord Cardinall of Lorraine unto Seneca;
their fortunes to have been both chiefe men in the
government of their Princes, and therewithall their
manners, their conditions, and their demeanours.
Wherein (in mine opinion) he doth the said Lord
Cardinall great honour: for although I be one of those
that highly respect his spirit, his worth, his eloquence,
his zeale towards his religion, and the service of his
King; and his good fortune to have beene borne in an
age wherein he was so new, so rare, and therewithall so
necessary for the commonwealth, to have a clergie man
of such dignitie and nobility, sufficient and capable
of so weighty a charge; yet to confesse the truth,
I esteeme not his capacitie such, nor his vertue so
exquisitely unspotted, nor so entire or constant, as that
of Seneca. Now this booke whereof I speak, to come
to his intention, maketh a most injurious description
of Seneca, having borrowed his reproaches from Dion