Page:Essays - Abraham Cowley (1886).djvu/60

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58
COWLEY'S ESSAYS.

free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving and from paying all kind of ceremonies? It is in my mind a very delightful pastime, for two good and agreeable friends to travel up and down together in places where they are by nobody known, nor know anybody. It was the case of Æneas and his Achates, when they walked invisibly about the fields and streets of Carthage, Venus herself

A veil of thickened air around them cast,
That none might know, or see them as they passed.

The common story of Demosthenes's confession that he had taken great pleasure in hearing of a Tanker-woman say as he passed, "This is that Demosthenes," is wonderful ridiculous from so solid an orator. I myself have often met with that temptation to vanity (if it were any), but am so far from finding it any pleasure, that it only makes me run faster from the place, till I get, as it were, out of sight shot. Democritus relates, and in such a manner, as if he gloried in the good