of virtue assailed by calamity (through the sufferance of Heaven, to
teach patience and constancy to men), under the same guidance becoming
finally successful, and triumphing over chance and change. In Helicanus
we have beheld a notable pattern of truth, of faith, and loyalty, who,
when he might have succeeded to a throne, chose rather to recall the
rightful owner to his possession, than to become great by another's
wrong. In the worthy Cerimon, who restored Thaisa to life, we are
instructed how goodness directed by knowledge, in bestowing benefits
upon mankind, approaches to the nature of the gods. It only remains to
be told, that Dionysia, the wicked wife of Cleon, met with an end
proportionable to her deserts; the inhabitants of Tarsus, when her cruel
attempt upon Marina was known, rising in a body to revenge the daughter
of their benefactor, and setting fire to the palace of Cleon, burnt both
him and her, and their whole household: the gods seeming well pleased,
that so foul a murder, though but intentional, and never carried into
act, should be punished in a way befitting its enormity.
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