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Ecc_9:15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.
Ver. 15. Now there was found in it a poor wise man.] Such as was Anaximenes at Lampsacum, {a} and Archimedes at Syracuse, of whose wisdom Plutarch testifieth, that it was above the ordinary possibility of a man, it was divine. {b} And of whose poverty Silius assures us, that he was
“ Nadus opum, sed cui coelum terraeque paterent. ”
By his warlike devices and engines he so defended his city against Marcellus, the Roman general, that the soldiers called him Briareus and Centimanus, a giant invincible; there was no taking of the town, as Livy relates it. The city of Abel was delivered by a wise woman that was in it. {2Sa_20:16-22} The city of Coecinum in the isle of Lemnos, by Marulla, a maiden of that city. {c} Hippo could not be taken while Augustine was in it; nor Heidelberg, while Pareus lived. Elisha preserved Samaria from the Syrians; and the prophet Isaiah, Jerusalem from the Assyrians. "They shall not shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it," saith the Lord. {Isa_37:33} Jeremiah had preserved it longer, but that his counsel was slighted. Indeed he was a physician to a dying state,
“ Tunc etenim docta plus valet arte malum. ”
Yet no man remembered that same poor man.] Had he been some Demetrius Phalereus, or suchlike magnifico, he should have had a hundred statues set up in honour of his good service. He should have heard, Saviour, saviour, as Flaminius the Roman general did, or, Father, father, as Huniades, after he had defeated Mesites the Turk. But being poor, he is soon set aside, and neither succoured nor honoured. This is merces mundi, the world’s wages. The Dutch have a proverb, that a man should bow to the tree that hath sheltered him in a storm. But many well deserving persons have cause to complain, as Elijah did when he sat under the juniper; or as Themistocles did when he compared himself to a plane tree, whereunto his countrymen, in a tempest, would run for refuge; but when once took up, they would not only leave him, but pull the leaves from him. {d} Are you weary, said he once to them, of receiving so many good turns from one man?
{a} Val. Max.
{b} Oíïìá å÷å, äáìïíéïõ ôéíïò, óõíåóåùò . - Plut., lib: xiv.
{c} Turkish History, 413.
{d} Sed restituta serenitate abeuntes vellicarent.