The Anatomy of Melancholy

Though such hypocrites, such opportunistic foxes, often flourish and blind the world through flattery, bribery, concealment of their character or the weakness of others who cannot quickly detect their tricks, they will eventually be exposed and thrown down in an instant. “Surely,” says David, “you have set them in slippery places,” Psalm 37:5. Like so many Sejanuses, they will come down to the Gemonian Steps; like Eusebius in Ammianus, whose authority extended “to giving orders to the emperor,” they will suddenly be hurled headlong down.

Or suppose they escape and remain unmasked to the end of their lives: after death their memory stinks like the smoking wick of a candle just put out. Those who dared not even mutter against them while they lived will attack their name with satires, libels and bitter curses. They will “be spoken ill of” in every succeeding age, and be hated until the world’s end.