ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 6. 

XXVII. Of friendship. XXVIII. Nine-and-twenty sonnets of Estienne de la Boetie. XXIX. Of moderation. XXX. Of cannibals. XXXI. That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances. XXXII. That we are to avoid pleasures, even at the expense of life. XXXIII. That fortune is oftentimes observed to act by the rule of reason. XXXIV. Of one defect in our government. XXXV. Of the custom of wearing clothes. XXXVI. Of Cato the Younger. XXXVII. That we laugh and cry for the same thing. XXXVIII. Of solitude. 

CHAPTER XXVII

OF FRIENDSHIP

Having considered the proceedings of a painter that serves me, I had amind to imitate his way. He chooses the fairest place and middle of anywall, or panel, wherein to draw a picture, which he finishes with hisutmost care and art, and the vacuity about it he fills with grotesques, which are odd fantastic figures without any grace but what they derivefrom their variety, and the extravagance of their shapes. And in truth, what are these things I scribble, other than grotesques and monstrousbodies, made of various parts, without any certain figure, or any otherthan accidental order, coherence, or proportion?

 "Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne. "

 ["A fair woman in her upper form terminates in a fish. " --Horace, De Arte Poetica, v. 4. ]

In this second part I go hand in hand with my painter; but fall veryshort of him in the first and the better, my power of handling not beingsuch, that I dare to offer at a rich piece, finely polished, and set offaccording to art. I have therefore thought fit to borrow one of Estiennede la Boetie, and such a one as shall honour and adorn all the rest of mywork--namely, a discourse that he called 'Voluntary Servitude'; but, since, those who did not know him have properly enough called it "Lecontr Un. " He wrote in his youth, --["Not being as yet eighteen yearsold. "--Edition of 1588. ] by way of essay, in honour of liberty againsttyrants; and it has since run through the hands of men of great learningand judgment, not without singular and merited commendation; for it isfinely written, and as full as anything can possibly be. And yet one mayconfidently say it is far short of what he was able to do; and if in thatmore mature age, wherein I had the happiness to know him, he had taken adesign like this of mine, to commit his thoughts to writing, we shouldhave seen a great many rare things, and such as would have gone very nearto have rivalled the best writings of antiquity: for in natural partsespecially, I know no man comparable to him. But he has left nothingbehind him, save this treatise only (and that too by chance, for Ibelieve he never saw it after it first went out of his hands), and someobservations upon that edict of January--[1562, which granted to theHuguenots the public exercise of their religion. ]--made famous by ourcivil-wars, which also shall elsewhere, peradventure, find a place. These were all I could recover of his remains, I to whom with soaffectionate a remembrance, upon his death-bed, he by his last willbequeathed his library and papers, the little book of his works onlyexcepted, which I committed to the press. And this particular obligationI have to this treatise of his, that it was the occasion of my firstcoming acquainted with him; for it was showed to me long before I had thegood fortune to know him; and the first knowledge of his name, provingthe first cause and foundation of a friendship, which we afterwardsimproved and maintained, so long as God was pleased to continue ustogether, so perfect, inviolate, and entire, that certainly the like ishardly to be found in story, and amongst the men of this age, there is nosign nor trace of any such thing in use; so much concurrence is requiredto the building of such a one, that 'tis much, if fortune bring it butonce to pass in three ages. 

There is nothing to which nature seems so much to have inclined us, as tosociety; and Aristotle, says that the good legislators had more respectto friendship than to justice. Now the most supreme point of itsperfection is this: for, generally, all those that pleasure, profit, public or private interest create and nourish, are so much the lessbeautiful and generous, and so much the less friendships, by how muchthey mix another cause, and design, and fruit in friendship, than itself. Neither do the four ancient kinds, natural, social, hospitable, venereal, either separately or jointly, make up a true and perfect friendship. 

That of children to parents is rather respect: friendship is nourished bycommunication, which cannot by reason of the great disparity, be betwixtthese, but would rather perhaps offend the duties of nature; for neitherare all the secret thoughts of fathers fit to be communicated tochildren, lest it beget an indecent familiarity betwixt them; nor can theadvices and reproofs, which is one of the principal offices offriendship, be properly performed by the son to the father. There aresome countries where 'twas the custom for children to kill their fathers;and others, where the fathers killed their children, to avoid their beingan impediment one to another in life; and naturally the expectations ofthe one depend upon the ruin of the other. There have been greatphilosophers who have made nothing of this tie of nature, as Aristippusfor one, who being pressed home about the affection he owed to hischildren, as being come out of him, presently fell to spit, saying, thatthis also came out of him, and that we also breed worms and lice; andthat other, that Plutarch endeavoured to reconcile to his brother:"I make never the more account of him, " said he, "for coming out of thesame hole. " This name of brother does indeed carry with it a fine anddelectable sound, and for that reason, he and I called one anotherbrothers but the complication of interests, the division of estates, andthat the wealth of the one should be the property of the other, strangelyrelax and weaken the fraternal tie: brothers pursuing their fortune andadvancement by the same path, 'tis hardly possible but they must ofnecessity often jostle and hinder one another. Besides, why is itnecessary that the correspondence of manners, parts, and inclinations, which begets the true and perfect friendships, should always meet inthese relations? The father and the son may be of quite contraryhumours, and so of brothers: he is my son, he is my brother; but he ispassionate, ill-natured, or a fool. And moreover, by how much these arefriendships that the law and natural obligation impose upon us, so muchless is there of our own choice and voluntary freedom; whereas thatvoluntary liberty of ours has no production more promptly and; properlyits own than affection and friendship. Not that I have not in my ownperson experimented all that can possibly be expected of that kind, having had the best and most indulgent father, even to his extreme oldage, that ever was, and who was himself descended from a family for manygenerations famous and exemplary for brotherly concord:

 "Et ipse Notus in fratres animi paterni. "

 ["And I myself, known for paternal love toward my brothers. " --Horace, Ode, ii. 2, 6. ]

We are not here to bring the love we bear to women, though it be an actof our own choice, into comparison, nor rank it with the others. Thefire of this, I confess, "Neque enim est dea nescia nostri Qux dulcem curis miscet amaritiem, "

 ["Nor is the goddess unknown to me who mixes a sweet bitterness with my love. "---Catullus, lxviii. 17. ]

is more active, more eager, and more sharp: but withal, 'tis moreprecipitant, fickle, moving, and inconstant; a fever subject tointermissions and paroxysms, that has seized but on one part of us. Whereas in friendship, 'tis a general and universal fire, but temperateand equal, a constant established heat, all gentle and smooth, withoutpoignancy or roughness. Moreover, in love, 'tis no other than franticdesire for that which flies from us:

 "Come segue la lepre il cacciatore Al freddo, al caldo, alla montagna, al lito; Ne piu l'estima poi the presa vede; E sol dietro a chi fugge affretta il piede"

 ["As the hunter pursues the hare, in cold and heat, to the mountain, to the shore, nor cares for it farther when he sees it taken, and only delights in chasing that which flees from him. "--Aristo, x. 7. ]

so soon as it enters unto the terms of friendship, that is to say, into aconcurrence of desires, it vanishes and is gone, fruition destroys it, as having only a fleshly end, and such a one as is subject to satiety. Friendship, on the contrary, is enjoyed proportionably as it is desired;and only grows up, is nourished and improved by enjoyment, as being ofitself spiritual, and the soul growing still more refined by practice. Under this perfect friendship, the other fleeting affections have in myyounger years found some place in me, to say nothing of him, who himselfso confesses but too much in his verses; so that I had both thesepassions, but always so, that I could myself well enough distinguishthem, and never in any degree of comparison with one another; the firstmaintaining its flight in so lofty and so brave a place, as with disdainto look down, and see the other flying at a far humbler pitch below. 

As concerning marriage, besides that it is a covenant, the entrance intowhich only is free, but the continuance in it forced and compulsory, having another dependence than that of our own free will, and a bargaincommonly contracted to other ends, there almost always happens a thousandintricacies in it to unravel, enough to break the thread and to divertthe current of a lively affection: whereas friendship has no manner ofbusiness or traffic with aught but itself. Moreover, to say truth, theordinary talent of women is not such as is sufficient to maintain theconference and communication required to the support of this sacred tie;nor do they appear to be endued with constancy of mind, to sustain thepinch of so hard and durable a knot. And doubtless, if without this, there could be such a free and voluntary familiarity contracted, wherenot only the souls might have this entire fruition, but the bodies alsomight share in the alliance, and a man be engaged throughout, thefriendship would certainly be more full and perfect; but it is withoutexample that this sex has ever yet arrived at such perfection; and, bythe common consent of the ancient schools, it is wholly rejected from it. 

That other Grecian licence is justly abhorred by our manners, which also, from having, according to their practice, a so necessary disparity of ageand difference of offices betwixt the lovers, answered no more to theperfect union and harmony that we here require than the other:

 "Quis est enim iste amor amicitiae? cur neque deformem adolescentem quisquam amat, neque formosum senem?"

 ["For what is that friendly love? why does no one love a deformed youth or a comely old man?"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes. , iv. 33. ]

Neither will that very picture that the Academy presents of it, as Iconceive, contradict me, when I say, that this first fury inspired by theson of Venus into the heart of the lover, upon sight of the flower andprime of a springing and blossoming youth, to which they allow all theinsolent and passionate efforts that an immoderate ardour can produce, was simply founded upon external beauty, the false image of corporalgeneration; for it could not ground this love upon the soul, the sight ofwhich as yet lay concealed, was but now springing, and not of maturity toblossom; that this fury, if it seized upon a low spirit, the means bywhich it preferred its suit were rich presents, favour in advancement todignities, and such trumpery, which they by no means approve; if on amore generous soul, the pursuit was suitably generous, by philosophicalinstructions, precepts to revere religion, to obey the laws, to die forthe good of one's country; by examples of valour, prudence, and justice, the lover studying to render himself acceptable by the grace and beautyof the soul, that of his body being long since faded and decayed, hopingby this mental society to establish a more firm and lasting contract. When this courtship came to effect in due season (for that which they donot require in the lover, namely, leisure and discretion in his pursuit, they strictly require in the person loved, forasmuch as he is to judge ofan internal beauty, of difficult knowledge and abstruse discovery), thenthere sprung in the person loved the desire of a spiritual conception;by the mediation of a spiritual beauty. This was the principal; thecorporeal, an accidental and secondary matter; quite the contrary as tothe lover. For this reason they prefer the person beloved, maintainingthat the gods in like manner preferred him too, and very much blame thepoet AEschylus for having, in the loves of Achilles and Patroclus, giventhe lover's part to Achilles, who was in the first and beardless flowerof his adolescence, and the handsomest of all the Greeks. After thisgeneral community, the sovereign, and most worthy part presiding andgoverning, and performing its proper offices, they say, that thence greatutility was derived, both by private and public concerns; that itconstituted the force and power of the countries where it prevailed, andthe chiefest security of liberty and justice. Of which the healthy lovesof Harmodius and Aristogiton are instances. And therefore it is thatthey called it sacred and divine, and conceive that nothing but theviolence of tyrants and the baseness of the common people are inimical toit. Finally, all that can be said in favour of the Academy is, that itwas a love which ended in friendship, which well enough agrees with theStoical definition of love:

 "Amorem conatum esse amicitiae faciendae ex pulchritudinis specie. "

 ["Love is a desire of contracting friendship arising from the beauty of the object. "--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes. , vi. 34. ]

I return to my own more just and true description:

 "Omnino amicitiae, corroboratis jam confirmatisque, et ingeniis, et aetatibus, judicandae sunt. "

 ["Those are only to be reputed friendships that are fortified and confirmed by judgement and the length of time. " --Cicero, De Amicit. , c. 20. ]

For the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships, are nothingbut acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally contracted, orupon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercoursebetwixt our souls. But in the friendship I speak of, they mix and workthemselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture, that there is nomore sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined. If a manshould importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could nootherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, becauseit was I. There is, beyond all that I am able to say, I know not whatinexplicable and fated power that brought on this union. We sought oneanother long before we met, and by the characters we heard of oneanother, which wrought upon our affections more than, in reason, merereports should do; I think 'twas by some secret appointment of heaven. We embraced in our names; and at our first meeting, which wasaccidentally at a great city entertainment, we found ourselves somutually taken with one another, so acquainted, and so endeared betwixtourselves, that from thenceforward nothing was so near to us as oneanother. He wrote an excellent Latin satire, since printed, wherein heexcuses the precipitation of our intelligence, so suddenly come toperfection, saying, that destined to have so short a continuance, asbegun so late (for we were both full-grown men, and he some years theolder), there was no time to lose, nor were we tied to conform to theexample of those slow and regular friendships, that require so manyprecautions of long preliminary conversation: This has no other idea thanthat of itself, and can only refer to itself: this is no one specialconsideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a thousand; 'tis I knownot what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having seized hiswhole will, brought it back with equal concurrence and appetite to plungeand lose itself in mine. I may truly say lose, reserving nothing toourselves that was either his or mine. --[All this relates to Estienne dela Boetie. ]

When Laelius, --[Cicero, De Amicit. , c. II. ]--in the presence of theRoman consuls, who after thay had sentenced Tiberius Gracchus, prosecutedall those who had had any familiarity with him also; came to ask CaiusBlosius, who was his chiefest friend, how much he would have done forhim, and that he made answer: "All things. "--"How! All things!" saidLaelius. "And what if he had commanded you to fire our temples?"--"Hewould never have commanded me that, " replied Blosius. --"But what if hehad?" said Laelius. --"I would have obeyed him, " said the other. If hewas so perfect a friend to Gracchus as the histories report him to havebeen, there was yet no necessity of offending the consuls by such a boldconfession, though he might still have retained the assurance he had ofGracchus' disposition. However, those who accuse this answer asseditious, do not well understand the mystery; nor presuppose, as it wastrue, that he had Gracchus' will in his sleeve, both by the power of afriend, and the perfect knowledge he had of the man: they were morefriends than citizens, more friends to one another than either enemies orfriends to their country, or than friends to ambition and innovation;having absolutely given up themselves to one another, either heldabsolutely the reins of the other's inclination; and suppose all thisguided by virtue, and all this by the conduct of reason, which alsowithout these it had not been possible to do, Blosius' answer was such asit ought to be. If any of their actions flew out of the handle, theywere neither (according to my measure of friendship) friends to oneanother, nor to themselves. As to the rest, this answer carries no worsesound, than mine would do to one that should ask me: "If your will shouldcommand you to kill your daughter, would you do it?" and that I shouldmake answer, that I would; for this expresses no consent to such an act, forasmuch as I do not in the least suspect my own will, and as littlethat of such a friend. 'Tis not in the power of all the eloquence in theworld, to dispossess me of the certainty I have of the intentions andresolutions of my friend; nay, no one action of his, what face soever itmight bear, could be presented to me, of which I could not presently, and at first sight, find out the moving cause. Our souls had drawn sounanimously together, they had considered each other with so ardent anaffection, and with the like affection laid open the very bottom of ourhearts to one another's view, that I not only knew his as well as my own;but should certainly in any concern of mine have trusted my interest muchmore willingly with him, than with myself. 

Let no one, therefore, rank other common friendships with such a one asthis. I have had as much experience of these as another, and of the mostperfect of their kind: but I do not advise that any should confound therules of the one and the other, for they would find themselves muchdeceived. In those other ordinary friendships, you are to walk withbridle in your hand, with prudence and circumspection, for in them theknot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip. "Lovehim, " said Chilo, --[Aulus Gellius, i. 3. ]--"so as if you were one day tohate him; and hate him so as you were one day to love him. " Thisprecept, though abominable in the sovereign and perfect friendship Ispeak of, is nevertheless very sound as to the practice of the ordinaryand customary ones, and to which the saying that Aristotle had sofrequent in his mouth, "O my friends, there is no friend, " may very fitlybe applied. In this noble commerce, good offices, presents, andbenefits, by which other friendships are supported and maintained, do notdeserve so much as to be mentioned; and the reason is the concurrence ofour wills; for, as the kindness I have for myself receives no increase, for anything I relieve myself withal in time of need (whatever the Stoicssay), and as I do not find myself obliged to myself for any service I domyself: so the union of such friends, being truly perfect, deprives themof all idea of such duties, and makes them loathe and banish from theirconversation these words of division and distinction, benefits, obligation, acknowledgment, entreaty, thanks, and the like. All things, wills, thoughts, opinions, goods, wives, children, honours, and lives, being in effect common betwixt them, and that absolute concurrence ofaffections being no other than one soul in two bodies (according to thatvery proper definition of Aristotle), they can neither lend nor giveanything to one another. This is the reason why the lawgivers, to honourmarriage with some resemblance of this divine alliance, interdict allgifts betwixt man and wife; inferring by that, that all should belong toeach of them, and that they have nothing to divide or to give to eachother. 

If, in the friendship of which I speak, one could give to the other, thereceiver of the benefit would be the man that obliged his friend; foreach of them contending and above all things studying how to be useful tothe other, he that administers the occasion is the liberal man, in givinghis friend the satisfaction of doing that towards him which above allthings he most desires. When the philosopher Diogenes wanted money, heused to say, that he redemanded it of his friends, not that he demandedit. And to let you see the practical working of this, I will hereproduce an ancient and singular example. Eudamidas, a Corinthian, hadtwo friends, Charixenus a Sicyonian and Areteus a Corinthian; this mancoming to die, being poor, and his two friends rich, he made his willafter this manner. "I bequeath to Areteus the maintenance of my mother, to support and provide for her in her old age; and to Charixenus Ibequeath the care of marrying my daughter, and to give her as good aportion as he is able; and in case one of these chance to die, I herebysubstitute the survivor in his place. " They who first saw this will madethemselves very merry at the contents: but the legatees, being madeacquainted with it, accepted it with very great content; and one of them, Charixenus, dying within five days after, and by that means the charge ofboth duties devolving solely on him, Areteus nurtured the old woman withvery great care and tenderness, and of five talents he had in estate, hegave two and a half in marriage with an only daughter he had of his own, and two and a half in marriage with the daughter of Eudamidas, and on oneand the same day solemnised both their nuptials. 

This example is very full, if one thing were not to be objected, namelythe multitude of friends for the perfect friendship I speak of isindivisible; each one gives himself so entirely to his friend, that hehas nothing left to distribute to others: on the contrary, is sorry thathe is not double, treble, or quadruple, and that he has not many soulsand many wills, to confer them all upon this one object. Commonfriendships will admit of division; one may love the beauty of thisperson, the good-humour of that, the liberality of a third, the paternalaffection of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and so of the rest:but this friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules andsways with an absolute sovereignty, cannot possibly admit of a rival. If two at the same time should call to you for succour, to which of themwould you run? Should they require of you contrary offices, how couldyou serve them both? Should one commit a thing to your silence that itwere of importance to the other to know, how would you disengageyourself? A unique and particular friendship dissolves all otherobligations whatsoever: the secret I have sworn not to reveal to anyother, I may without perjury communicate to him who is not another, butmyself. 'Tis miracle enough certainly, for a man to double himself, andthose that talk of tripling, talk they know not of what. Nothing isextreme, that has its like; and he who shall suppose, that of two, I loveone as much as the other, that they mutually love one another too, andlove me as much as I love them, multiplies into a confraternity the mostsingle of units, and whereof, moreover, one alone is the hardest thing inthe world to find. The rest of this story suits very well with what Iwas saying; for Eudamidas, as a bounty and favour, bequeaths to hisfriends a legacy of employing themselves in his necessity; he leaves themheirs to this liberality of his, which consists in giving them theopportunity of conferring a benefit upon him; and doubtless, the force offriendship is more eminently apparent in this act of his, than in that ofAreteus. In short, these are effects not to be imagined nor comprehendedby such as have not experience of them, and which make me infinitelyhonour and admire the answer of that young soldier to Cyrus, by whombeing asked how much he would take for a horse, with which he had won theprize of a race, and whether he would exchange him for a kingdom?--"No, truly, sir, " said he, "but I would give him with all my heart, to get thereby a true friend, could I find out any man worthy of thatalliance. "--[Xenophon, Cyropadia, viii. 3. ]--He did not say ill insaying, "could I find": for though one may almost everywhere meet withmen sufficiently qualified for a superficial acquaintance, yet in this, where a man is to deal from the very bottom of his heart, without anymanner of reservation, it will be requisite that all the wards andsprings be truly wrought and perfectly sure. 

In confederations that hold but by one end, we are only to provideagainst the imperfections that particularly concern that end. It can beof no importance to me of what religion my physician or my lawyer is;this consideration has nothing in common with the offices of friendshipwhich they owe me; and I am of the same indifference in the domesticacquaintance my servants must necessarily contract with me. I neverinquire, when I am to take a footman, if he be chaste, but if he bediligent; and am not solicitous if my muleteer be given to gaming, as ifhe be strong and able; or if my cook be a swearer, if he be a good cook. I do not take upon me to direct what other men should do in thegovernment of their families, there are plenty that meddle enough withthat, but only give an account of my method in my own:

 "Mihi sic usus est: tibi, ut opus est facto, face. "

 ["This has been my way; as for you, do as you find needful. --"Terence, Heaut. , i. I. , 28. ]

For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned andthe grave; in bed, beauty before goodness; in common discourse the ablestspeaker, whether or no there be sincerity in the case. And, as he thatwas found astride upon a hobby-horse, playing with his children, entreated the person who had surprised him in that posture to say nothingof it till himself came to be a father, --[Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus, c. 9. ]--supposing that the fondness that would then possess his ownsoul, would render him a fairer judge of such an action; so I, also, could wish to speak to such as have had experience of what I say: though, knowing how remote a thing such a friendship is from the common practice, and how rarely it is to be found, I despair of meeting with any suchjudge. For even these discourses left us by antiquity upon this subject, seem to me flat and poor, in comparison of the sense I have of it, and inthis particular, the effects surpass even the precepts of philosophy. 

 "Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico. "

 ["While I have sense left to me, there will never be anything more acceptable to me than an agreeable friend. " --Horace, Sat. , i. 5, 44. ]

The ancient Menander declared him to be happy that had had the goodfortune to meet with but the shadow of a friend: and doubtless he hadgood reason to say so, especially if he spoke by experience: for in goodearnest, if I compare all the rest of my life, though, thanks be to God, I have passed my time pleasantly enough, and at my ease, and the loss ofsuch a friend excepted, free from any grievous affliction, and in greattranquillity of mind, having been contented with my natural and originalcommodities, without being solicitous after others; if I should compareit all, I say, with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy the sweetsociety of this excellent man, 'tis nothing but smoke, an obscure andtedious night. From the day that I lost him:

 "Quern semper acerbum, Semper honoratum (sic, di, voluistis) habebo, "

 ["A day for me ever sad, for ever sacred, so have you willed ye gods. "--AEneid, v. 49. ]

I have only led a languishing life; and the very pleasures that presentthemselves to me, instead of administering anything of consolation, double my affliction for his loss. We were halves throughout, and tothat degree, that methinks, by outliving him, I defraud him of his part. 

 "Nec fas esse ulla me voluptate hic frui Decrevi, tantisper dum ille abest meus particeps. "

 ["I have determined that it will never be right for me to enjoy any pleasure, so long as he, with whom I shared all pleasures is away. " --Terence, Heaut. , i. I. 97. ]

I was so grown and accustomed to be always his double in all places andin all things, that methinks I am no more than half of myself:

 "Illam meae si partem anima tulit Maturior vis, quid moror altera? Nec carus aeque, nec superstes Integer? Ille dies utramque Duxit ruinam. "

 ["If that half of my soul were snatch away from me by an untimely stroke, why should the other stay? That which remains will not be equally dear, will not be whole: the same day will involve the destruction of both. "]

 or:

 ["If a superior force has taken that part of my soul, why do I, the remaining one, linger behind? What is left is not so dear, nor an entire thing: this day has wrought the destruction of both. " --Horace, Ode, ii. 17, 5. ]

There is no action or imagination of mine wherein I do not miss him; as Iknow that he would have missed me: for as he surpassed me by infinitedegrees in virtue and all other accomplishments, so he also did in theduties of friendship:

 "Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus Tam cari capitis?"

 ["What shame can there, or measure, in lamenting so dear a friend?" --Horace, Ode, i. 24, I. ]

 "O misero frater adempte mihi! Omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, Quae tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor. Tu mea, tu moriens fregisti commoda, frater; Tecum una tota est nostra sepulta anima Cujus ego interitu tota de menthe fugavi Haec studia, atque omnes delicias animi. Alloquar? audiero nunquam tua verba loquentem? Nunquam ego te, vita frater amabilior Aspiciam posthac; at certe semper amabo;"

 ["O brother, taken from me miserable! with thee, all our joys have vanished, those joys which, in thy life, thy dear love nourished. Dying, thou, my brother, hast destroyed all my happiness. My whole soul is buried with thee. Through whose death I have banished from my mind these studies, and all the delights of the mind. Shall I address thee? I shall never hear thy voice. Never shall I behold thee hereafter. O brother, dearer to me than life. Nought remains, but assuredly I shall ever love thee. "--Catullus, lxviii. 20; lxv. ]

But let us hear a boy of sixteen speak:

 --[In Cotton's translation the work referred to is "those Memoirs upon the famous edict of January, " of which mention has already been made in the present edition. The edition of 1580, however, and the Variorum edition of 1872-1900, indicate no particular work; but the edition of 1580 has it "this boy of eighteen years" (which was the age at which La Boetie wrote his "Servitude Volontaire"), speaks of "a boy of sixteen" as occurring only in the common editions, and it would seem tolerably clear that this more important work was, in fact, the production to which Montaigne refers, and that the proper reading of the text should be "sixteen years. " What "this boy spoke" is not given by Montaigne, for the reason stated in the next following paragraph. ]

"Because I have found that that work has been since brought out, and witha mischievous design, by those who aim at disturbing and changing thecondition of our government, without troubling themselves to thinkwhether they are likely to improve it: and because they have mixed up hiswork with some of their own performance, I have refrained from insertingit here. But that the memory of the author may not be injured, norsuffer with such as could not come near-hand to be acquainted with hisprinciples, I here give them to understand, that it was written by him inhis boyhood, and that by way of exercise only, as a common theme that hasbeen hackneyed by a thousand writers. I make no question but that hehimself believed what he wrote, being so conscientious that he would notso much as lie in jest: and I moreover know, that could it have been inhis own choice, he had rather have been born at Venice, than at Sarlac;and with reason. But he had another maxim sovereignty imprinted in hissoul, very religiously to obey and submit to the laws under which he wasborn. There never was a better citizen, more affectionate to hiscountry; nor a greater enemy to all the commotions and innovations of histime: so that he would much rather have employed his talent to theextinguishing of those civil flames, than have added any fuel to them;he had a mind fashioned to the model of better ages. Now, in exchange ofthis serious piece, I will present you with another of a more gay andfrolic air, from the same hand, and written at the same age. "

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

NINE AND TWENTY SONNETS OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOITIE

TO MADAME DE GRAMMONT, COMTESSE DE GUISSEN. 

 [They scarce contain anything but amorous complaints, expressed in a very rough style, discovering the follies and outrages of a restless passion, overgorged, as it were, with jealousies, fears and suspicions. --Coste. ]

 [These.... Contained in the edition of 1588 nine-and-twenty sonnets of La Boetie, accompanied by a dedicatory epistle to Madame de Grammont. The former, which are referred to at the end of Chap. XXVIL, do not really belong to the book, and are of very slight interest at this time; the epistle is transferred to the Correspondence. The sonnets, with the letter, were presumably sent some time after Letters V. Et seq. Montaigne seems to have had several copies written out to forward to friends or acquaintances. ]

CHAPTER XXIX. 

OF MODERATION

As if we had an infectious touch, we, by our manner of handling, corruptthings that in themselves are laudable and good: we may grasp virtue sothat it becomes vicious, if we embrace it too stringently and with tooviolent a desire. Those who say, there is never any excess in virtue, forasmuch as it is not virtue when it once becomes excess, only play uponwords:

 "Insani sapiens nomen ferat, aequus iniqui, Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam. "

 ["Let the wise man bear the name of a madman, the just one of an unjust, if he seek wisdom more than is sufficient. " --Horace, Ep. , i. 6, 15. ]

 ["The wise man is no longer wise, the just man no longer just, if he seek to carry his love for wisdom or virtue beyond that which is necessary. "]

This is a subtle consideration of philosophy. A man may both be too muchin love with virtue, and be excessive in a just action. Holy Writ agreeswith this, Be not wiser than you should, but be soberly wise. --[St. Paul, Epistle to the Romans, xii. 3. ]--I have known a great man, --["It is likely that Montaigne meant Henry III. , king of France. The Cardinal d'Ossat, writing to Louise, the queen-dowager, told her, in his frank manner, that he had lived as much or more like a monk than a monarch (Letter XXIII. ) And Pope Sextus V. , speaking of that prince one day to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, protector of the affairs of France, said to him pleasantly, 'There is nothing that your king hath not done, and does not do so still, to be a monk, nor anything that I have not done, not to be a monk. '"--Coste. ]

prejudice the opinion men had of his devotion, by pretending to be devoutbeyond all examples of others of his condition. I love temperate andmoderate natures. An immoderate zeal, even to that which is good, eventhough it does not offend, astonishes me, and puts me to study what nameto give it. Neither the mother of Pausanias, --["Montaigne would here give us to understand, upon the authority of Diodorus Siculus, that Pausanias' mother gave the first hint of the punishment that was to be inflicted on her son. 'Pausanias, ' says this historian, 'perceiving that the ephori, and some other Lacedoemonians, aimed at apprehending him, got the start of them, and went and took sanctuary m Minerva's temple: and the Lacedaemonians, being doubtful whether they ought to take him from thence in violation of the franchise there, it is said that his own mother came herself to the temple but spoke nothing nor did anything more than lay a piece of brick, which she brought with her, on the threshold of the temple, which, when she had done, she returned home. The Lacedaemonians, taking the hint from the mother, caused the gate of the temple to be walled up, and by this means starved Pausanias, so that he died with hunger, &c. (lib. Xi. Cap. 10. , of Amyot's translation). The name of Pausanias' mother was Alcithea, as we are informed by Thucydides' scholiast, who only says that it was reported, that when they set about walling up the gates of the chapel in which Pausanias had taken refuge, his mother Alcithea laid the first stone. "--Coste. ]

who was the first instructor of her son's process, and threw the firststone towards his death, nor Posthumius the dictator, who put his son todeath, whom the ardour of youth had successfully pushed upon the enemy alittle more advanced than the rest of his squadron, do appear to me somuch just as strange; and I should neither advise nor like to follow sosavage a virtue, and that costs so dear. 

 --["Opinions differ as to the truth of this fact. Livy thinks he has good authority for rejecting it because it does not appear in history that Posthumious was branded with it, as Titus Manlius was, about 100 years after his time; for Manlius, having put his son to death for the like cause, obtained the odious name of Imperiosus, and since that time Manliana imperia has been used as a term to signify orders that are too severe; Manliana Imperia, says Livy, were not only horrible for the time present, but of a bad example to posterity. And this historian makes no doubt but such commands would have been actually styled Posthumiana Imperia, if Posthumius had been the first who set so barbarous an example (Livy, lib. Iv. Cap. 29, and lib. Viii. Cap. 7). But, however, Montaigne has Valer. Maximus on his side, who says expressly, that Posthumius caused his son to be put to death, and Diodorus of Sicily (lib. Xii. Cap. 19). "--Coste. ]

The archer that shoots over, misses as much as he that falls short, and'tis equally troublesome to my sight, to look up at a great light, andto look down into a dark abyss. Callicles in Plato says, that theextremity of philosophy is hurtful, and advises not to dive into itbeyond the limits of profit; that, taken moderately, it is pleasant anduseful; but that in the end it renders a man brutish and vicious, acontemner of religion and the common laws, an enemy to civilconversation, and all human pleasures, incapable of all publicadministration, unfit either to assist others or to relieve himself, anda fit object for all sorts of injuries and affronts. He says true; forin its excess, it enslaves our natural freedom, and by an impertinentsubtlety, leads us out of the fair and beaten way that nature has tracedfor us. 

The love we bear to our wives is very lawful, and yet theology thinks fitto curb and restrain it. As I remember, I have read in one place of St. Thomas Aquinas, --[Secunda Secundx, Quaest. 154, art. 9. ]--where hecondemns marriages within any of the forbidden degrees, for this reason, amongst others, that there is some danger, lest the friendship a manbears to such a woman, should be immoderate; for if the conjugalaffection be full and perfect betwixt them, as it ought to be, and thatit be over and above surcharged with that of kindred too, there is nodoubt, but such an addition will carry the husband beyond the bounds ofreason. 

Those sciences that regulate the manners of men, divinity and philosophy, will have their say in everything; there is no action so private andsecret that can escape their inspection and jurisdiction. They are besttaught who are best able to control and curb their own liberty; womenexpose their nudities as much as you will upon the account of pleasure, though in the necessities of physic they are altogether as shy. I will, therefore, in their behalf:

 --[Coste translates this: "on the part of philosophy and theology, " observing that but few wives would think themselves obliged to Montaigne for any such lesson to their husbands. ]--

teach the husbands, that is, such as are too vehement in the exercise ofthe matrimonial duty--if such there still be--this lesson, that the verypleasures they enjoy in the society of their wives are reproachable ifimmoderate, and that a licentious and riotous abuse of them is a fault asreprovable here as in illicit connections. Those immodest and debauchedtricks and postures, that the first ardour suggests to us in this affair, are not only indecently but detrimentally practised upon our wives. Letthem at least learn impudence from another hand; they are ever readyenough for our business, and I for my part always went the plain way towork. 

Marriage is a solemn and religious tie, and therefore the pleasure weextract from it should be a sober and serious delight, and mixed with acertain kind of gravity; it should be a sort of discreet andconscientious pleasure. And seeing that the chief end of it isgeneration, some make a question, whether when men are out of hopes aswhen they are superannuated or already with child, it be lawful toembrace our wives. 'Tis homicide, according to Plato. --[Laws, 8. ]--Certain nations (the Mohammedan, amongst others) abominate all conjunctionwith women with child, others also, with those who are in their courses. Zenobia would never admit her husband for more than one encounter, afterwhich she left him to his own swing for the whole time of her conception, and not till after that would again receive him:--[Trebellius Pollio, Triginta Tyran. , c. 30. ]--a brave and generous example of conjugalcontinence. It was doubtless from some lascivious poet, --[The lasciviouspoet is Homer; see his Iliad, xiv. 294. ]--and one that himself was ingreat distress for a little of this sport, that Plato borrowed thisstory; that Jupiter was one day so hot upon his wife, that not having somuch patience as till she could get to the couch, he threw her upon thefloor, where the vehemence of pleasure made him forget the great andimportant resolutions he had but newly taken with the rest of the gods inhis celestial council, and to brag that he had had as good a bout, aswhen he got her maidenhead, unknown to their parents. 

The kings of Persia were wont to invite their wives to the beginning oftheir festivals; but when the wine began to work in good earnest, andthat they were to give the reins to pleasure, they sent them back totheir private apartments, that they might not participate in theirimmoderate lust, sending for other women in their stead, with whom theywere not obliged to so great a decorum of respect. --[Plutarch, Preceptsof Marriage, c. 14. ]--All pleasures and all sorts of gratificationsare not properly and fitly conferred upon all sorts of persons. Epaminondas had committed to prison a young man for certain debauches;for whom Pelopidas mediated, that at his request he might be set atliberty, which Epaminondas denied to him, but granted it at the firstword to a wench of his, that made the same intercession; saying, that itwas a gratification fit for such a one as she, but not for a captain. Sophocles being joint praetor with Pericles, seeing accidentally a fineboy pass by: "O what a charming boy is that!" said he. "That might bevery well, " answered Pericles, "for any other than a praetor, who oughtnot only to have his hands, but his eyes, too, chaste. "--[Cicero, DeOffic. , i. 40. ] AElius Verus, the emperor, answered his wife, whoreproached him with his love to other women, that he did it upon aconscientious account, forasmuch as marriage was a name of honour anddignity, not of wanton and lascivious desire; and our ecclesiasticalhistory preserves the memory of that woman in great veneration, whoparted from her husband because she would not comply with his indecentand inordinate desires. In fine, there is no pleasure so just andlawful, where intemperance and excess are not to be condemned. 

But, to speak the truth, is not man a most miserable creature the while?It is scarce, by his natural condition, in his power to taste onepleasure pure and entire; and yet must he be contriving doctrines andprecepts to curtail that little he has; he is not yet wretched enough, unless by art and study he augment his own misery:

 "Fortunae miseras auximus arte vias. "

 ["We artificially augment the wretchedness of fortune. " --Properitius, lib. Iii. 7, 44. ]

Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent, when she exercises it inrescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that arenaturally our due, as she employs it favourably and well in artificiallydisguising and tricking out the ills of life, to alleviate the sense ofthem. Had I ruled the roast, I should have taken another and morenatural course, which, to say the truth, is both commodious and holy, andshould, peradventure, have been able to have limited it too;notwithstanding that both our spiritual and corporal physicians, as bycompact betwixt themselves, can find no other way to cure, nor otherremedy for the infirmities of the body and the soul, than by misery andpain. To this end, watchings, fastings, hair-shirts, remote and solitarybanishments, perpetual imprisonments, whips and other afflictions, havebeen introduced amongst men: but so, that they should carry a sting withthem, and be real afflictions indeed; and not fall out as it once did toone Gallio, who having been sent an exile into the isle of Lesbos, newswas not long after brought to Rome, that he there lived as merry as theday was long; and that what had been enjoined him for a penance, turnedto his pleasure and satisfaction: whereupon the Senate thought fit torecall him home to his wife and family, and confine him to his own house, to accommodate their punishment to his feeling and apprehension. For tohim whom fasting would make more healthful and more sprightly, and to himto whose palate fish were more acceptable than flesh, the prescription ofthese would have no curative effect; no more than in the other sort ofphysic, where drugs have no effect upon him who swallows them withappetite and pleasure: the bitterness of the potion and the abhorrence ofthe patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. The naturethat would eat rhubarb like buttered turnips, would frustrate the use andvirtue of it; it must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach, that must purge and cure it; and here the common rule, that things arecured by their contraries, fails; for in this one ill is cured byanother. 

This belief a little resembles that other so ancient one, of thinking togratify the gods and nature by massacre and murder: an opinionuniversally once received in all religions. And still, in these latertimes wherein our fathers lived, Amurath at the taking of the Isthmus, immolated six hundred young Greeks to his father's soul, in the nature ofa propitiatory sacrifice for his sins. And in those new countriesdiscovered in this age of ours, which are pure and virgin yet, incomparison of ours, this practice is in some measure everywhere received:all their idols reek with human blood, not without various examples ofhorrid cruelty: some they burn alive, and take, half broiled, off thecoals to tear out their hearts and entrails; some, even women, they flayalive, and with their bloody skins clothe and disguise others. Neitherare we without great examples of constancy and resolution in this affairthe poor souls that are to be sacrificed, old men, women, and children, themselves going about some days before to beg alms for the offering oftheir sacrifice, presenting themselves to the slaughter, singing anddancing with the spectators. 

The ambassadors of the king of Mexico, setting out to Fernando Cortez thepower and greatness of their master, after having told him, that he hadthirty vassals, of whom each was able to raise an hundred thousandfighting men, and that he kept his court in the fairest and bestfortified city under the sun, added at last, that he was obliged yearlyto offer to the gods fifty thousand men. And it is affirmed, that hemaintained a continual war, with some potent neighbouring nations, notonly to keep the young men in exercise, but principally to havewherewithal to furnish his sacrifices with his prisoners of war. At acertain town in another place, for the welcome of the said Cortez, theysacrificed fifty men at once. I will tell you this one tale more, and Ihave done; some of these people being beaten by him, sent to acknowledgehim, and to treat with him of a peace, whose messengers carried him threesorts of gifts, which they presented in these terms: "Behold, lord, hereare five slaves: if thou art a furious god that feedeth upon flesh andblood, eat these, and we will bring thee more; if thou art an affablegod, behold here incense and feathers; but if thou art a man, take thesefowls and these fruits that we have brought thee. "

CHAPTER XXX

OF CANNIBALS

When King Pyrrhus invaded Italy, having viewed and considered the orderof the army the Romans sent out to meet him; "I know not, " said he, "what kind of barbarians" (for so the Greeks called all other nations)"these may be; but the disposition of this army that I see has nothing ofbarbarism in it. "--[Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, c. 8. ]--As much said theGreeks of that which Flaminius brought into their country; and Philip, beholding from an eminence the order and distribution of the Roman campformed in his kingdom by Publius Sulpicius Galba, spake to the sameeffect. By which it appears how cautious men ought to be of takingthings upon trust from vulgar opinion, and that we are to judge by theeye of reason, and not from common report. 

I long had a man in my house that lived ten or twelve years in the NewWorld, discovered in these latter days, and in that part of it whereVillegaignon landed, --[At Brazil, in 1557. ]--which he called AntarcticFrance. This discovery of so vast a country seems to be of very greatconsideration. I cannot be sure, that hereafter there may not beanother, so many wiser men than we having been deceived in this. I amafraid our eyes are bigger than our bellies, and that we have morecuriosity than capacity; for we grasp at all, but catch nothing but wind. 

Plato brings in Solon, --[In Timaeus. ]--telling a story that he hadheard from the priests of Sais in Egypt, that of old, and before theDeluge, there was a great island called Atlantis, situate directly at themouth of the straits of Gibraltar, which contained more countries thanboth Africa and Asia put together; and that the kings of that country, who not only possessed that Isle, but extended their dominion so far intothe continent that they had a country of Africa as far as Egypt, andextending in Europe to Tuscany, attempted to encroach even upon Asia, andto subjugate all the nations that border upon the Mediterranean Sea, asfar as the Black Sea; and to that effect overran all Spain, the Gauls, and Italy, so far as to penetrate into Greece, where the Atheniansstopped them: but that some time after, both the Athenians, and they andtheir island, were swallowed by the Flood. 

It is very likely that this extreme irruption and inundation of watermade wonderful changes and alterations in the habitations of the earth, as 'tis said that the sea then divided Sicily from Italy--

 "Haec loca, vi quondam et vasta convulsa ruina, Dissiluisse ferunt, quum protenus utraque tellus Una foret"

 ["These lands, they say, formerly with violence and vast desolation convulsed, burst asunder, where erewhile were. "--AEneid, iii. 414. ]

Cyprus from Syria, the isle of Negropont from the continent of Beeotia, and elsewhere united lands that were separate before, by filling up thechannel betwixt them with sand and mud:

 "Sterilisque diu palus, aptaque remis, Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratrum. "

 ["That which was once a sterile marsh, and bore vessels on its bosom, now feeds neighbouring cities, and admits the plough. " --Horace, De Arte Poetica, v. 65. ]

But there is no great appearance that this isle was this New World solately discovered: for that almost touched upon Spain, and it were anincredible effect of an inundation, to have tumbled back so prodigious amass, above twelve hundred leagues: besides that our modern navigatorshave already almost discovered it to be no island, but terra firma, andcontinent with the East Indies on the one side, and with the lands underthe two poles on the other side; or, if it be separate from them, it isby so narrow a strait and channel, that it none the more deserves thename of an island for that. 

It should seem, that in this great body, there are two sorts of motions, the one natural and the other febrific, as there are in ours. When Iconsider the impression that our river of Dordogne has made in my time onthe right bank of its descent, and that in twenty years it has gained somuch, and undermined the foundations of so many houses, I perceive it tobe an extraordinary agitation: for had it always followed this course, or were hereafter to do it, the aspect of the world would be totallychanged. But rivers alter their course, sometimes beating against theone side, and sometimes the other, and some times quietly keeping thechannel. I do not speak of sudden inundations, the causes of whicheverybody understands. In Medoc, by the seashore, the Sieur d'Arsac, mybrother, sees an estate he had there, buried under the sands which thesea vomits before it: where the tops of some houses are yet to be seen, and where his rents and domains are converted into pitiful barrenpasturage. The inhabitants of this place affirm, that of late years thesea has driven so vehemently upon them, that they have lost above fourleagues of land. These sands are her harbingers: and we now see greatheaps of moving sand, that march half a league before her, and occupy theland. 

The other testimony from antiquity, to which some would apply thisdiscovery of the New World, is in Aristotle; at least, if that littlebook of Unheard of Miracles be his--[one of the spurious publicationsbrought out under his name--D. W. ]. He there tells us, that certainCarthaginians, having crossed the Atlantic Sea without the Straits ofGibraltar, and sailed a very long time, discovered at last a great andfruitful island, all covered over with wood, and watered with severalbroad and deep rivers, far remote from all terra firma; and that they, and others after them, allured by the goodness and fertility of the soil, went thither with their wives and children, and began to plant a colony. But the senate of Carthage perceiving their people by little and littleto diminish, issued out an express prohibition, that none, upon pain ofdeath, should transport themselves thither; and also drove out these newinhabitants; fearing, 'tis said, lest' in process of time they should somultiply as to supplant themselves and ruin their state. But thisrelation of Aristotle no more agrees with our new-found lands than theother. 

This man that I had was a plain ignorant fellow, and therefore the morelikely to tell truth: for your better-bred sort of men are much morecurious in their observation, 'tis true, and discover a great deal more;but then they gloss upon it, and to give the greater weight to what theydeliver, and allure your belief, they cannot forbear a little to alterthe story; they never represent things to you simply as they are, butrather as they appeared to them, or as they would have them appear toyou, and to gain the reputation of men of judgment, and the better toinduce your faith, are willing to help out the business with somethingmore than is really true, of their own invention. Now in this case, weshould either have a man of irreproachable veracity, or so simple that hehas not wherewithal to contrive, and to give a colour of truth to falserelations, and who can have no ends in forging an untruth. Such a onewas mine; and besides, he has at divers times brought to me severalseamen and merchants who at the same time went the same voyage. I shalltherefore content myself with his information, without inquiring what thecosmographers say to the business. We should have topographers to traceout to us the particular places where they have been; but for having hadthis advantage over us, to have seen the Holy Land, they would have theprivilege, forsooth, to tell us stories of all the other parts of theworld beside. I would have every one write what he knows, and as much ashe knows, but no more; and that not in this only but in all othersubjects; for such a person may have some particular knowledge andexperience of the nature of such a river, or such a fountain, who, as toother things, knows no more than what everybody does, and yet to give acurrency to his little pittance of learning, will undertake to write thewhole body of physics: a vice from which great inconveniences derivetheir original. 

Now, to return to my subject, I find that there is nothing barbarous andsavage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, thatevery one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in usein his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth andreason than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the placewherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfectgovernment, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. They are savages at the same rate that we say fruits are wild, whichnature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas, intruth, we ought rather to call those wild whose natures we have changedby our artifice and diverted from the common order. In those, thegenuine, most useful, and natural virtues and properties are vigorous andsprightly, which we have helped to degenerate in these, by accommodatingthem to the pleasure of our own corrupted palate. And yet for all this, our taste confesses a flavour and delicacy excellent even to emulation ofthe best of ours, in several fruits wherein those countries aboundwithout art or culture. Neither is it reasonable that art should gainthe pre-eminence of our great and powerful mother nature. We have sosurcharged her with the additional ornaments and graces we have added tothe beauty and riches of her own works by our inventions, that we havealmost smothered her; yet in other places, where she shines in her ownpurity and proper lustre, she marvellously baffles and disgraces all ourvain and frivolous attempts:

 "Et veniunt hederae sponte sua melius; Surgit et in solis formosior arbutus antris; Et volucres nulls dulcius arte canunt. "

 ["The ivy grows best spontaneously, the arbutus best in shady caves; and the wild notes of birds are sweeter than art can teach. --"Propertius, i. 2, 10. ]

Our utmost endeavours cannot arrive at so much as to imitate the nest ofthe least of birds, its contexture, beauty, and convenience: not so muchas the web of a poor spider. 

All things, says Plato, --[Laws, 10. ]--are produced either by nature, byfortune, or by art; the greatest and most beautiful by the one or theother of the former, the least and the most imperfect by the last. 

These nations then seem to me to be so far barbarous, as having receivedbut very little form and fashion from art and human invention, andconsequently to be not much remote from their original simplicity. Thelaws of nature, however, govern them still, not as yet much vitiated withany mixture of ours: but 'tis in such purity, that I am sometimestroubled we were not sooner acquainted with these people, and that theywere not discovered in those better times, when there were men much moreable to judge of them than we are. I am sorry that Lycurgus and Platohad no knowledge of them; for to my apprehension, what we now see inthose nations, does not only surpass all the pictures with which thepoets have adorned the golden age, and all their inventions in feigning ahappy state of man, but, moreover, the fancy and even the wish and desireof philosophy itself; so native and so pure a simplicity, as we byexperience see to be in them, could never enter into their imagination, nor could they ever believe that human society could have been maintainedwith so little artifice and human patchwork. I should tell Plato that itis a nation wherein there is no manner of traffic, no knowledge ofletters, no science of numbers, no name of magistrate or politicalsuperiority; no use of service, riches or poverty, no contracts, nosuccessions, no dividends, no properties, no employments, but those ofleisure, no respect of kindred, but common, no clothing, no agriculture, no metal, no use of corn or wine; the very words that signify lying, treachery, dissimulation, avarice, envy, detraction, pardon, never heardof. 

 --[This is the famous passage which Shakespeare, through Florio's version, 1603, or ed. 1613, p. 102, has employed in the "Tempest, " ii. 1. ]

How much would he find his imaginary Republic short of his perfection?

 "Viri a diis recentes. "

 ["Men fresh from the gods. "--Seneca, Ep. , 90. ]

 "Hos natura modos primum dedit. "

 ["These were the manners first taught by nature. " --Virgil, Georgics, ii. 20. ]

As to the rest, they live in a country very pleasant and temperate, sothat, as my witnesses inform me, 'tis rare to hear of a sick person, andthey moreover assure me, that they never saw any of the natives, eitherparalytic, bleareyed, toothless, or crooked with age. The situation oftheir country is along the sea-shore, enclosed on the other side towardsthe land, with great and high mountains, having about a hundred leaguesin breadth between. They have great store of fish and flesh, that haveno resemblance to those of ours: which they eat without any othercookery, than plain boiling, roasting, and broiling. The first that rodea horse thither, though in several other voyages he had contracted anacquaintance and familiarity with them, put them into so terrible afright, with his centaur appearance, that they killed him with theirarrows before they could come to discover who he was. Their buildingsare very long, and of capacity to hold two or three hundred people, madeof the barks of tall trees, reared with one end upon the ground, andleaning to and supporting one another at the top, like some of our barns, of which the covering hangs down to the very ground, and serves for theside walls. They have wood so hard, that they cut with it, and make theirswords of it, and their grills of it to broil their meat. Their beds areof cotton, hung swinging from the roof, like our seamen's hammocks, everyman his own, for the wives lie apart from their husbands. They rise withthe sun, and so soon as they are up, eat for all day, for they have nomore meals but that; they do not then drink, as Suidas reports of someother people of the East that never drank at their meals; but drink veryoften all day after, and sometimes to a rousing pitch. Their drink ismade of a certain root, and is of the colour of our claret, and theynever drink it but lukewarm. It will not keep above two or three days;it has a somewhat sharp, brisk taste, is nothing heady, but verycomfortable to the stomach; laxative to strangers, but a very pleasantbeverage to such as are accustomed to it. They make use, instead ofbread, of a certain white compound, like coriander seeds; I have tastedof it; the taste is sweet and a little flat. The whole day is spent indancing. Their young men go a-hunting after wild beasts with bows andarrows; one part of their women are employed in preparing their drink thewhile, which is their chief employment. One of their old men, in themorning before they fall to eating, preaches to the whole family, walkingfrom the one end of the house to the other, and several times repeatingthe same sentence, till he has finished the round, for their houses areat least a hundred yards long. Valour towards their enemies and lovetowards their wives, are the two heads of his discourse, never failing inthe close, to put them in mind, that 'tis their wives who provide themtheir drink warm and well seasoned. The fashion of their beds, ropes, swords, and of the wooden bracelets they tie about their wrists, whenthey go to fight, and of the great canes, bored hollow at one end, by thesound of which they keep the cadence of their dances, are to be seen inseveral places, and amongst others, at my house. They shave all over, and much more neatly than we, without other razor than one of wood orstone. They believe in the immortality of the soul, and that those whohave merited well of the gods are lodged in that part of heaven where thesun rises, and the accursed in the west. 

They have I know not what kind of priests and prophets, who very rarelypresent themselves to the people, having their abode in the mountains. At their arrival, there is a great feast, and solemn assembly of manyvillages: each house, as I have described, makes a village, and they areabout a French league distant from one another. This prophet declaims tothem in public, exhorting them to virtue and their duty: but all theirethics are comprised in these two articles, resolution in war, andaffection to their wives. He also prophesies to them events to come, andthe issues they are to expect from their enterprises, and prompts them toor diverts them from war: but let him look to't; for if he fail in hisdivination, and anything happen otherwise than he has foretold, he is cutinto a thousand pieces, if he be caught, and condemned for a falseprophet: for that reason, if any of them has been mistaken, he is no moreheard of. 

Divination is a gift of God, and therefore to abuse it, ought to be apunishable imposture. Amongst the Scythians, where their diviners failedin the promised effect, they were laid, bound hand and foot, upon cartsloaded with firs and bavins, and drawn by oxen, on which they were burnedto death. --[Herodotus, iv. 69. ]--Such as only meddle with thingssubject to the conduct of human capacity, are excusable in doing the bestthey can: but those other fellows that come to delude us with assurancesof an extraordinary faculty, beyond our understanding, ought they not tobe punished, when they do not make good the effect of their promise, andfor the temerity of their imposture?

They have continual war with the nations that live further within themainland, beyond their mountains, to which they go naked, and withoutother arms than their bows and wooden swords, fashioned at one end likethe head of our javelins. The obstinacy of their battles is wonderful, and they never end without great effusion of blood: for as to runningaway, they know not what it is. Every one for a trophy brings home thehead of an enemy he has killed, which he fixes over the door of hishouse. After having a long time treated their prisoners very well, andgiven them all the regales they can think of, he to whom the prisonerbelongs, invites a great assembly of his friends. They being come, heties a rope to one of the arms of the prisoner, of which, at a distance, out of his reach, he holds the one end himself, and gives to the friendhe loves best the other arm to hold after the same manner; which being. Done, they two, in the presence of all the assembly, despatch him withtheir swords. After that, they roast him, eat him amongst them, and sendsome chops to their absent friends. They do not do this, as some think, for nourishment, as the Scythians anciently did, but as a representationof an extreme revenge; as will appear by this: that having observed thePortuguese, who were in league with their enemies, to inflict anothersort of death upon any of them they took prisoners, which was to set themup to the girdle in the earth, to shoot at the remaining part till it wasstuck full of arrows, and then to hang them, they thought those people ofthe other world (as being men who had sown the knowledge of a great manyvices amongst their neighbours, and who were much greater masters in allsorts of mischief than they) did not exercise this sort of revengewithout a meaning, and that it must needs be more painful than theirs, they began to leave their old way, and to follow this. I am not sorrythat we should here take notice of the barbarous horror of so cruel anaction, but that, seeing so clearly into their faults, we should be soblind to our own. I conceive there is more barbarity in eating a manalive, than when he is dead; in tearing a body limb from limb by racksand torments, that is yet in perfect sense; in roasting it by degrees; incausing it to be bitten and worried by dogs and swine (as we have notonly read, but lately seen, not amongst inveterate and mortal enemies, but among neighbours and fellow-citizens, and, which is worse, undercolour of piety and religion), than to roast and eat him after he isdead. 

Chrysippus and Zeno, the two heads of the Stoic sect, were of opinionthat there was no hurt in making use of our dead carcasses, in what waysoever for our necessity, and in feeding upon them too;--[DiogenesLaertius, vii. 188. ]--as our own ancestors, who being besieged byCaesar in the city Alexia, resolved to sustain the famine of the siegewith the bodies of their old men, women, and other persons who wereincapable of bearing arms. 

 "Vascones, ut fama est, alimentis talibus usi Produxere animas. "

 ["'Tis said the Gascons with such meats appeased their hunger. " --Juvenal, Sat. , xv. 93. ]

And the physicians make no bones of employing it to all sorts of use, either to apply it outwardly; or to give it inwardly for the health ofthe patient. But there never was any opinion so irregular, as to excusetreachery, disloyalty, tyranny, and cruelty, which are our familiarvices. We may then call these people barbarous, in respect to the rulesof reason: but not in respect to ourselves, who in all sorts of barbarityexceed them. Their wars are throughout noble and generous, and carry asmuch excuse and fair pretence, as that human malady is capable of; havingwith them no other foundation than the sole jealousy of valour. Theirdisputes are not for the conquest of new lands, for these they alreadypossess are so fruitful by nature, as to supply them without labour orconcern, with all things necessary, in such abundance that they have noneed to enlarge their borders. And they are, moreover, happy in this, that they only covet so much as their natural necessities require: allbeyond that is superfluous to them: men of the same age call one anothergenerally brothers, those who are younger, children; and the old men arefathers to all. These leave to their heirs in common the full possessionof goods, without any manner of division, or other title than what naturebestows upon her creatures, in bringing them into the world. If theirneighbours pass over the mountains to assault them, and obtain a victory, all the victors gain by it is glory only, and the advantage of havingproved themselves the better in valour and virtue: for they never meddlewith the goods of the conquered, but presently return into their owncountry, where they have no want of anything necessary, nor of thisgreatest of all goods, to know happily how to enjoy their condition andto be content. And those in turn do the same; they demand of theirprisoners no other ransom, than acknowledgment that they are overcome:but there is not one found in an age, who will not rather choose to diethan make such a confession, or either by word or look recede from theentire grandeur of an invincible courage. There is not a man amongstthem who had not rather be killed and eaten, than so much as to open hismouth to entreat he may not. They use them with all liberality andfreedom, to the end their lives may be so much the dearer to them; butfrequently entertain them with menaces of their approaching death, of thetorments they are to suffer, of the preparations making in order to it, of the mangling their limbs, and of the feast that is to be made, wheretheir carcass is to be the only dish. All which they do, to no otherend, but only to extort some gentle or submissive word from them, or tofrighten them so as to make them run away, to obtain this advantage thatthey were terrified, and that their constancy was shaken; and indeed, ifrightly taken, it is in this point only that a true victory consists:

 "Victoria nulla est, Quam quae confessor animo quoque subjugat hostes. "

 ["No victory is complete, which the conquered do not admit to be so. --"Claudius, De Sexto Consulatu Honorii, v. 248. ]

The Hungarians, a very warlike people, never pretend further than toreduce the enemy to their discretion; for having forced this confessionfrom them, they let them go without injury or ransom, excepting, at themost, to make them engage their word never to bear arms against themagain. We have sufficient advantages over our enemies that are borrowedand not truly our own; it is the quality of a porter, and no effect ofvirtue, to have stronger arms and legs; it is a dead and corporealquality to set in array; 'tis a turn of fortune to make our enemystumble, or to dazzle him with the light of the sun; 'tis a trick ofscience and art, and that may happen in a mean base fellow, to be a goodfencer. The estimate and value of a man consist in the heart and in thewill: there his true honour lies. Valour is stability, not of legs andarms, but of the courage and the soul; it does not lie in the goodness ofour horse or our arms but in our own. He that falls obstinate in hiscourage--

 "Si succiderit, de genu pugnat"

 ["If his legs fail him, he fights on his knees. " --Seneca, De Providentia, c. 2. ]

--he who, for any danger of imminent death, abates nothing of hisassurance; who, dying, yet darts at his enemy a fierce and disdainfullook, is overcome not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered;the most valiant are sometimes the most unfortunate. There are defeatsmore triumphant than victories. Never could those four sister victories, the fairest the sun ever be held, of Salamis, Plataea, Mycale, andSicily, venture to oppose all their united glories, to the single gloryof the discomfiture of King Leonidas and his men, at the pass ofThermopylae. Who ever ran with a more glorious desire and greaterambition, to the winning, than Captain Iscolas to the certain loss of abattle?--[Diodorus Siculus, xv. 64. ]--Who could have found out a moresubtle invention to secure his safety, than he did to assure hisdestruction? He was set to defend a certain pass of Peloponnesus againstthe Arcadians, which, considering the nature of the place and theinequality of forces, finding it utterly impossible for him to do, andseeing that all who were presented to the enemy, must certainly be leftupon the place; and on the other side, reputing it unworthy of his ownvirtue and magnanimity and of the Lacedaemonian name to fail in any partof his duty, he chose a mean betwixt these two extremes after thismanner; the youngest and most active of his men, he preserved for theservice and defence of their country, and sent them back; and with therest, whose loss would be of less consideration, he resolved to make goodthe pass, and with the death of them, to make the enemy buy their entryas dear as possibly he could; as it fell out, for being presentlyenvironed on all sides by the Arcadians, after having made a greatslaughter of the enemy, he and his were all cut in pieces. Is there anytrophy dedicated to the conquerors which was not much more due to thesewho were overcome? The part that true conquering is to play, lies in theencounter, not in the coming off; and the honour of valour consists infighting, not in subduing. 

But to return to my story: these prisoners are so far from discoveringthe least weakness, for all the terrors that can be represented to them, that, on the contrary, during the two or three months they are kept, theyalways appear with a cheerful countenance; importune their masters tomake haste to bring them to the test, defy, rail at them, and reproachthem with cowardice, and the number of battles they have lost againstthose of their country. I have a song made by one of these prisoners, wherein he bids them "come all, and dine upon him, and welcome, for theyshall withal eat their own fathers and grandfathers, whose flesh hasserved to feed and nourish him. These muscles, " says he, "this flesh andthese veins, are your own: poor silly souls as you are, you little thinkthat the substance of your ancestors' limbs is here yet; notice what youeat, and you will find in it the taste of your own flesh:" in which songthere is to be observed an invention that nothing relishes of thebarbarian. Those that paint these people dying after this manner, represent the prisoner spitting in the faces of his executioners andmaking wry mouths at them. And 'tis most certain, that to the very lastgasp, they never cease to brave and defy them both in word and gesture. In plain truth, these men are very savage in comparison of us; ofnecessity, they must either be absolutely so or else we are savages; forthere is a vast difference betwixt their manners and ours. 

The men there have several wives, and so much the greater number, by howmuch they have the greater reputation for valour. And it is one veryremarkable feature in their marriages, that the same jealousy our wiveshave to hinder and divert us from the friendship and familiarity of otherwomen, those employ to promote their husbands' desires, and to procurethem many spouses; for being above all things solicitous of theirhusbands' honour, 'tis their chiefest care to seek out, and to bring inthe most companions they can, forasmuch as it is a testimony of thehusband's virtue. Most of our ladies will cry out, that 'tis monstrous;whereas in truth it is not so, but a truly matrimonial virtue, and of thehighest form. In the Bible, Sarah, with Leah and Rachel, the two wivesof Jacob, gave the most beautiful of their handmaids to their husbands;Livia preferred the passions of Augustus to her own interest;--[Suetonius, Life of Augustus, c. 71. ]--and the wife of King Deiotarus, Stratonice, did not only give up a fair young maid that served her to herhusband's embraces, but moreover carefully brought up the children he hadby her, and assisted them in the succession to their father's crown. 

And that it may not be supposed, that all this is done by a simple andservile obligation to their common practice, or by any authoritativeimpression of their ancient custom, without judgment or reasoning, andfrom having a soul so stupid that it cannot contrive what else to do, Imust here give you some touches of their sufficiency in point ofunderstanding. Besides what I repeated to you before, which was one oftheir songs of war, I have another, a love-song, that begins thus:

 "Stay, adder, stay, that by thy pattern my sister may draw the fashion and work of a rich ribbon, that I may present to my beloved, by which means thy beauty and the excellent order of thy scales shall for ever be preferred before all other serpents. "

Wherein the first couplet, "Stay, adder, " &c. , makes the burden of thesong. Now I have conversed enough with poetry to judge thus much thatnot only there is nothing barbarous in this invention, but, moreover, that it is perfectly Anacreontic. To which it may be added, that theirlanguage is soft, of a pleasing accent, and something bordering upon theGreek termination. 

Three of these people, not foreseeing how dear their knowledge of thecorruptions of this part of the world will one day cost their happinessand repose, and that the effect of this commerce will be their ruin, as Ipresuppose it is in a very fair way (miserable men to suffer themselvesto be deluded with desire of novelty and to have left the serenity oftheir own heaven to come so far to gaze at ours!), were at Rouen at thetime that the late King Charles IX. Was there. The king himself talkedto them a good while, and they were made to see our fashions, our pomp, and the form of a great city. After which, some one asked their opinion, and would know of them, what of all the things they had seen, they foundmost to be admired? To which they made answer, three things, of which Ihave forgotten the third, and am troubled at it, but two I yet remember. They said, that in the first place they thought it very strange that somany tall men, wearing beards, strong, and well armed, who were about theking ('tis like they meant the Swiss of the guard), should submit to obeya child, and that they did not rather choose out one amongst themselvesto command. Secondly (they have a way of speaking in their language tocall men the half of one another), that they had observed that there wereamongst us men full and crammed with all manner of commodities, whilst, in the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors, lean andhalf-starved with hunger and poverty; and they thought it strange thatthese necessitous halves were able to suffer so great an inequality andinjustice, and that they did not take the others by the throats, or setfire to their houses. 

I talked to one of them a great while together, but I had so ill aninterpreter, and one who was so perplexed by his own ignorance toapprehend my meaning, that I could get nothing out of him of any moment:Asking him what advantage he reaped from the superiority he had amongsthis own people (for he was a captain, and our mariners called him king), he told me, to march at the head of them to war. Demanding of himfurther how many men he had to follow him, he showed me a space ofground, to signify as many as could march in such a compass, which mightbe four or five thousand men; and putting the question to him whether orno his authority expired with the war, he told me this remained: thatwhen he went to visit the villages of his dependence, they planed himpaths through the thick of their woods, by which he might pass at hisease. All this does not sound very ill, and the last was not at allamiss, for they wear no breeches. 

CHAPTER XXXI

THAT A MAN IS SOBERLY TO JUDGE OF THE DIVINE ORDINANCES

The true field and subject of imposture are things unknown, forasmuch as, in the first place, their very strangeness lends them credit, andmoreover, by not being subjected to our ordinary reasons, they deprive usof the means to question and dispute them: For which reason, says Plato, --[In Critias. ]--it is much more easy to satisfy the hearers, whenspeaking of the nature of the gods than of the nature of men, because theignorance of the auditory affords a fair and large career and all mannerof liberty in the handling of abstruse things. Thence it comes to pass, that nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know; nor any peopleso confident, as those who entertain us with fables, such as youralchemists, judicial astrologers, fortune-tellers, and physicians, "Id genus omne. "

 ["All that sort of people. "--Horace, Sat. , i. 2, 2. ]

To which I would willingly, if I durst, join a pack of people that takeupon them to interpret and control the designs of God Himself, pretendingto find out the cause of every accident, and to pry into the secrets ofthe divine will, there to discover the incomprehensible motive, of Hisworks; and although the variety, and the continual discordance of events, throw them from corner to corner, and toss them from east to west, yet dothey still persist in their vain inquisition, and with the same pencil topaint black and white. 

In a nation of the Indies, there is this commendable custom, that whenanything befalls them amiss in any encounter or battle, they publicly askpardon of the sun, who is their god, as having committed an unjustaction, always imputing their good or evil fortune to the divine justice, and to that submitting their own judgment and reason. 'Tis enough for aChristian to believe that all things come from God, to receive them withacknowledgment of His divine and inscrutable wisdom, and also thankfullyto accept and receive them, with what face soever they may presentthemselves. But I do not approve of what I see in use, that is, to seekto affirm and support our religion by the prosperity of our enterprises. Our belief has other foundation enough, without going about to authoriseit by events: for the people being accustomed to such plausible argumentsas these and so proper to their taste, it is to be feared, lest when theyfail of success they should also stagger in their faith: as in the warwherein we are now engaged upon the account of religion, those who hadthe better in the business of Rochelabeille, --[May 1569. ]--making greatbrags of that success as an infallible approbation of their cause, whenthey came afterwards to excuse their misfortunes of Moncontour andJarnac, by saying they were fatherly scourges and corrections that theyhad not a people wholly at their mercy, they make it manifestly enoughappear, what it is to take two sorts of grist out of the same sack, andwith the same mouth to blow hot and cold. It were better to possess thevulgar with the solid and real foundations of truth. 'Twas a fine navalbattle that was gained under the command of Don John of Austria a fewmonths since--[That of Lepanto, October 7, 1571. ]--against the Turks;but it has also pleased God at other times to let us see as greatvictories at our own expense. In fine, 'tis a hard matter to reducedivine things to our balance, without waste and losing a great deal ofthe weight. And who would take upon him to give a reason that Arius andhis Pope Leo, the principal heads of the Arian heresy, should die, atseveral times, of so like and strange deaths (for being withdrawn fromthe disputation by a griping in the bowels, they both of them suddenlygave up the ghost upon the stool), and would aggravate this divinevengeance by the circumstances of the place, might as well add the deathof Heliogabalus, who was also slain in a house of office. And, indeed, Irenaeus was involved in the same fortune. God, being pleased to showus, that the good have something else to hope for and the wickedsomething else to fear, than the fortunes or misfortunes of this world, manages and applies these according to His own occult will and pleasure, and deprives us of the means foolishly to make thereof our own profit. And those people abuse themselves who will pretend to dive into thesemysteries by the strength of human reason. They never give one hit thatthey do not receive two for it; of which St. Augustine makes out a greatproof upon his adversaries. 'Tis a conflict that is more decided bystrength of memory than by the force of reason. We are to contentourselves with the light it pleases the sun to communicate to us, byvirtue of his rays; and who will lift up his eyes to take in a greater, let him not think it strange, if for the reward of his presumption, hethere lose his sight. 

 "Quis hominum potest scire consilium Dei? Aut quis poterit cogitare quid velit Dominus?"

 ["Who of men can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of the Lord is. "--Book of Wisdom, ix. 13. ]

CHAPTER XXXII

THAT WE ARE TO AVOID PLEASURES, EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF LIFE

I had long ago observed most of the opinions of the ancients to concur inthis, that it is high time to die when there is more ill than good inliving, and that to preserve life to our own torment and inconvenience iscontrary to the very rules of nature, as these old laws instruct us. 

 ["Either tranquil life, or happy death. It is well to die when life is wearisome. It is better to die than to live miserable. " --Stobaeus, Serm. Xx. ]

But to push this contempt of death so far as to employ it to the removingour thoughts from the honours, riches, dignities, and other favours andgoods, as we call them, of fortune, as if reason were not sufficient topersuade us to avoid them, without adding this new injunction, I hadnever seen it either commanded or practised, till this passage of Senecafell into my hands; who advising Lucilius, a man of great power andauthority about the emperor, to alter his voluptuous and magnificent wayof living, and to retire himself from this worldly vanity and ambition, to some solitary, quiet, and philosophical life, and the other allegingsome difficulties: "I am of opinion, " says he, "either that thou leavethat life of thine, or life itself; I would, indeed, advise thee to thegentle way, and to untie, rather than to break, the knot thou hastindiscreetly knit, provided, that if it be not otherwise to be untied, thou resolutely break it. There is no man so great a coward, that hadnot rather once fall than to be always falling. " I should have foundthis counsel conformable enough to the Stoical roughness: but it appearsthe more strange, for being borrowed from Epicurus, who writes the samething upon the like occasion to Idomeneus. And I think I have observedsomething like it, but with Christian moderation, amongst our own people. 

St. Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers, that famous enemy of the Arian heresy, being in Syria, had intelligence thither sent him, that Abra, his onlydaughter, whom he left at home under the eye and tuition of her mother, was sought in marriage by the greatest noblemen of the country, as beinga virgin virtuously brought up, fair, rich, and in the flower of her age;whereupon he wrote to her (as appears upon record), that she shouldremove her affection from all the pleasures and advantages proposed toher; for that he had in his travels found out a much greater and moreworthy fortune for her, a husband of much greater power and magnificence, who would present her with robes and jewels of inestimable value; whereinhis design was to dispossess her of the appetite and use of worldlydelights, to join her wholly to God; but the nearest and most certain wayto this, being, as he conceived, the death of his daughter; he neverceased, by vows, prayers, and orisons, to beg of the Almighty, that Hewould please to call her out of this world, and to take her to Himself;as accordingly it came to pass; for soon after his return, she died, atwhich he expressed a singular joy. This seems to outdo the other, forasmuch as he applies himself to this means at the outset, which theyonly take subsidiarily; and, besides, it was towards his only daughter. But I will not omit the latter end of this story, though it be for mypurpose; St. Hilary's wife, having understood from him how the death oftheir daughter was brought about by his desire and design, and how muchhappier she was to be removed out of this world than to have stayed init, conceived so vivid an apprehension of the eternal and heavenlybeatitude, that she begged of her husband, with the extremestimportunity, to do as much for her; and God, at their joint request, shortly after calling her to Him, it was a death embraced with singularand mutual content. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

THAT FORTUNE IS OFTENTIMES OBSERVED TO ACT BY THE RULE OF REASON

The inconstancy and various motions of Fortune

 [The term Fortune, so often employed by Montaigne, and in passages where he might have used Providence, was censured by the doctors who examined his Essays when he was at Rome in 1581. See his Travels, i. 35 and 76. ]

may reasonably make us expect she should present us with all sorts offaces. Can there be a more express act of justice than this? The Duc deValentinois, --[Caesar Borgia. ]--having resolved to poison Adrian, Cardinal of Corneto, with whom Pope Alexander VI. , his father andhimself, were to sup in the Vatican, he sent before a bottle of poisonedwine, and withal, strict order to the butler to keep it very safe. The Pope being come before his son, and calling for drink, the butlersupposing this wine had not been so strictly recommended to his care, but only upon the account of its excellency, presented it forthwith tothe Pope, and the duke himself coming in presently after, and beingconfident they had not meddled with his bottle, took also his cup; sothat the father died immediately upon the spot--[Other historians assignthe Pope several days of misery prior to death. D. W. ]--, and the son, after having been long tormented with sickness, was reserved to anotherand a worse fortune. 

Sometimes she seems to play upon us, just in the nick of an affair;Monsieur d'Estrees, at that time ensign to Monsieur de Vendome, andMonsieur de Licques, lieutenant in the company of the Duc d'Ascot, beingboth pretenders to the Sieur de Fougueselles' sister, though of severalparties (as it oft falls out amongst frontier neighbours), the Sieur deLicques carried her; but on the same day he was married, and which wasworse, before he went to bed to his wife, the bridegroom having a mind tobreak a lance in honour of his new bride, went out to skirmish near St. Omer, where the Sieur d'Estrees proving the stronger, took him prisoner, and the more to illustrate his victory, the lady was fain--

 "Conjugis ante coacta novi dimittere collum, Quam veniens una atque altera rursus hyems Noctibus in longis avidum saturasset amorem, "

 ["Compelled to abstain from embracing her new spouse in her arms before two winters pass in succession, during their long nights had satiated her eager love. "--Catullus, lxviii. 81. ]

--to request him of courtesy, to deliver up his prisoner to her, as heaccordingly did, the gentlemen of France never denying anything toladies. 

Does she not seem to be an artist here? Constantine, son of Helena, founded the empire of Constantinople, and so many ages after, Constantine, the son of Helen, put an end to it. Sometimes she ispleased to emulate our miracles we are told, that King Clovis besiegingAngouleme, the walls fell down of themselves by divine favour and Bouchethas it from some author, that King Robert having sat down before a city, and being stolen away from the siege to go keep the feast of St. Aignanat Orleans, as he was in devotion at a certain part of the Mass, thewalls of the beleaguered city, without any manner of violence, fell downwith a sudden ruin. But she did quite contrary in our Milan wars; for, le Capitaine Rense laying siege for us to the city Arona, and havingcarried a mine under a great part of the wall, the mine being sprung, thewall was lifted from its base, but dropped down again nevertheless, wholeand entire, and so exactly upon its foundation, that the besiegedsuffered no inconvenience by that attempt. 

Sometimes she plays the physician. Jason of Pheres being given over bythe physicians, by reason of an imposthume in his breast, having a mindto rid himself of his pain, by death at least, threw himself in a battledesperately into the thickest of the enemy, where he was so fortunatelywounded quite through the body, that the imposthume broke, and he wasperfectly cured. Did she not also excel the painter Protogenes in hisart? who having finished the picture of a dog quite tired and out ofbreath, in all the other parts excellently well to his own liking, butnot being able to express, as he would, the slaver and foam that shouldcome out of its mouth, vexed and angry at his work, he took his sponge, which by cleaning his pencils had imbibed several sorts of colours, andthrew it in a rage against the picture, with an intent utterly to defaceit; when fortune guiding the sponge to hit just upon the mouth of thedog, it there performed what all his art was not able to do. Does shenot sometimes direct our counsels and correct them? Isabel, Queen ofEngland, having to sail from Zealand into her own kingdom, --[in 1326]--with an army, in favour of her son against her husband, had been lost, had she come into the port she intended, being there laid wait for by theenemy; but fortune, against her will, threw her into another haven, whereshe landed in safety. And that man of old who, throwing a stone at adog, hit and killed his mother-in-law, had he not reason to pronouncethis verse:

 ["Fortune has more judgement than we. "--Menander]

Icetes had contracted with two soldiers to kill Timoleon at Adrana inSicily. --[Plutarch, Life of Timoleon, c. 7. ]--They took their time to doit when he was assisting at a sacrifice, and thrusting into the crowd, as they were making signs to one another, that now was a fit time to dotheir business, in steps a third, who, with a sword takes one of themfull drive over the pate, lays him dead upon the place and runs away, which the others see, and concluding himself discovered and lost, runs tothe altar and begs for mercy, promising to discover the whole truth, which as he was doing, and laying open the full conspiracy, behold thethird man, who being apprehended, was, as a murderer, thrust and hauledby the people through the press, towards Timoleon, and the other mosteminent persons of the assembly, before whom being brought, he cries outfor pardon, pleading that he had justly slain his father's murderer;which he, also, proving upon the spot, by sufficient witnesses, whom hisgood fortune very opportunely supplied him withal, that his father wasreally killed in the city of Leontini, by that very man on whom he hadtaken his revenge, he was presently awarded ten Attic minae, for havinghad the good fortune, by designing to revenge the death of his father, to preserve the life of the common father of Sicily. Fortune, truly, inher conduct surpasses all the rules of human prudence. 

But to conclude: is there not a direct application of her favour, bounty, and piety manifestly discovered in this action? Ignatius the father andIgnatius the son being proscribed by the triumvirs of Rome, resolved uponthis generous act of mutual kindness, to fall by the hands of oneanother, and by that means to frustrate and defeat the cruelty of thetyrants; and accordingly with their swords drawn, ran full drive upon oneanother, where fortune so guided the points, that they made two equallymortal wounds, affording withal so much honour to so brave a friendship, as to leave them just strength enough to draw out their bloody swords, that they might have liberty to embrace one another in this dyingcondition, with so close and hearty an embrace, that the executioner cutoff both their heads at once, leaving the bodies still fast linkedtogether in this noble bond, and their wounds joined mouth to mouth, affectionately sucking in the last blood and remainder of the lives ofeach other. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

OF ONE DEFECT IN OUR GOVERNMENT

My late father, a man that had no other advantages than experience andhis own natural parts, was nevertheless of a very clear judgment, formerly told me that he once had thoughts of endeavouring to introducethis practice; that there might be in every city a certain place assignedto which such as stood in need of anything might repair, and have theirbusiness entered by an officer appointed for that purpose. As forexample: I want a chapman to buy my pearls; I want one that has pearls tosell; such a one wants company to go to Paris; such a one seeks a servantof such a quality; such a one a master; such a one such an artificer;some inquiring for one thing, some for another, every one according towhat he wants. And doubtless, these mutual advertisements would be of nocontemptible advantage to the public correspondence and intelligence: forthere are evermore conditions that hunt after one another, and for wantof knowing one another's occasions leave men in very great necessity. 

I have heard, to the great shame of the age we live in, that in our verysight two most excellent men for learning died so poor that they hadscarce bread to put in their mouths: Lilius Gregorius Giraldus in Italyand Sebastianus Castalio in Germany: and I believe there are a thousandmen would have invited them into their families, with very advantageousconditions, or have relieved them where they were, had they known theirwants. The world is not so generally corrupted, but that I know a manthat would heartily wish the estate his ancestors have left him might beemployed, so long as it shall please fortune to give him leave to enjoyit, to secure rare and remarkable persons of any kind, whom misfortunesometimes persecutes to the last degree, from the dangers of necessity;and at least place them in such a condition that they must be very hardto please, if they are not contented. 

My father in his domestic economy had this rule (which I know how tocommend, but by no means to imitate), namely, that besides the day-bookor memorial of household affairs, where the small accounts, payments, anddisbursements, which do not require a secretary's hand, were entered, andwhich a steward always had in custody, he ordered him whom he employed towrite for him, to keep a journal, and in it to set down all theremarkable occurrences, and daily memorials of the history of his house:very pleasant to look over, when time begins to wear things out ofmemory, and very useful sometimes to put us out of doubt when such athing was begun, when ended; what visitors came, and when they went; ourtravels, absences, marriages, and deaths; the reception of good or illnews; the change of principal servants, and the like. An ancient custom, which I think it would not be amiss for every one to revive in his ownhouse; and I find I did very foolishly in neglecting it. 

CHAPTER XXXV

OF THE CUSTOM OF WEARING CLOTHES

Whatever I shall say upon this subject, I am of necessity to invade someof the bounds of custom, so careful has she been to shut up all theavenues. I was disputing with myself in this shivering season, whetherthe fashion of going naked in those nations lately discovered is imposedupon them by the hot temperature of the air, as we say of the Indians andMoors, or whether it be the original fashion of mankind. Men ofunderstanding, forasmuch as all things under the sun, as the Holy Writdeclares, are subject to the same laws, were wont in such considerationsas these, where we are to distinguish the natural laws from those whichhave been imposed by man's invention, to have recourse to the generalpolity of the world, where there can be nothing counterfeit. Now, allother creatures being sufficiently furnished with all things necessaryfor the support of their being--[Montaigne's expression is, "with needleand thread. "--W. C. H. ]--it is not to be imagined that we only are broughtinto the world in a defective and indigent condition, and in such a stateas cannot subsist without external aid. Therefore it is that I believe, that as plants, trees, and animals, and all things that have life, areseen to be by nature sufficiently clothed and covered, to defend themfrom the injuries of weather:

 "Proptereaque fere res omnes ant corio sunt, Aut seta, ant conchis, ant callo, ant cortice tectae, "

 ["And that for this reason nearly all things are clothed with skin, or hair, or shells, or bark, or some such thing. " --Lucretius, iv. 936. ]

so were we: but as those who by artificial light put out that of day, sowe by borrowed forms and fashions have destroyed our own. And 'tis plainenough to be seen, that 'tis custom only which renders that impossiblethat otherwise is nothing so; for of those nations who have no manner ofknowledge of clothing, some are situated under the same temperature thatwe are, and some in much colder climates. And besides, our most tenderparts are always exposed to the air, as the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears;and our country labourers, like our ancestors in former times, go withtheir breasts and bellies open. Had we been born with a necessity uponus of wearing petticoats and breeches, there is no doubt but nature wouldhave fortified those parts she intended should be exposed to the fury ofthe seasons with a thicker skin, as she has done the finger-ends and thesoles of the feet. And why should this seem hard to believe? I observemuch greater distance betwixt my habit and that of one of our countryboors, than betwixt his and that of a man who has no other covering buthis skin. How many men, especially in Turkey, go naked upon the accountof devotion? Some one asked a beggar, whom he saw in his shirt in thedepth of winter, as brisk and frolic as he who goes muffled up to theears in furs, how he was able to endure to go so? "Why, sir, " heanswered, "you go with your face bare: I am all face. " The Italians havea story of the Duke of Florence's fool, whom his master asking how, beingso thinly clad, he was able to support the cold, when he himself, warmlywrapped up as he was, was hardly able to do it? "Why, " replied the fool, "use my receipt to put on all your clothes you have at once, and you'llfeel no more cold than I. " King Massinissa, to an extreme old age, couldnever be prevailed upon to go with his head covered, how cold, stormy, orrainy soever the weather might be; which also is reported of the EmperorSeverus. Herodotus tells us, that in the battles fought betwixt theEgyptians and the Persians, it was observed both by himself and byothers, that of those who were left dead upon the field, the heads of theEgyptians were without comparison harder than those of the Persians, byreason that the last had gone with their heads always covered from theirinfancy, first with biggins, and then with turbans, and the others alwaysshaved and bare. King Agesilaus continued to a decrepit age to wearalways the same clothes in winter that he did in summer. Caesar, saysSuetonius, marched always at the head of his army, for the most part onfoot, with his head bare, whether it was rain or sunshine, and as much issaid of Hannibal:

 "Tum vertice nudo, Excipere insanos imbres, coelique ruinam. "

 ["Bareheaded he marched in snow, exposed to pouring rain and the utmost rigour of the weather. "--Silius Italicus, i. 250. ]

A Venetian who has long lived in Pegu, and has lately returned thence, writes that the men and women of that kingdom, though they cover alltheir other parts, go always barefoot and ride so too; and Plato veryearnestly advises for the health of the whole body, to give the head andthe feet no other clothing than what nature has bestowed. He whom thePoles have elected for their king, --[Stephen Bathory]--since ours camethence, who is, indeed, one of the greatest princes of this age, neverwears any gloves, and in winter or whatever weather can come, never wearsother cap abroad than that he wears at home. Whereas I cannot endure togo unbuttoned or untied; my neighbouring labourers would think themselvesin chains, if they were so braced. Varro is of opinion, that when it wasordained we should be bare in the presence of the gods and before themagistrate, it was so ordered rather upon the score of health, and toinure us to the injuries of weather, than upon the account of reverence;and since we are now talking of cold, and Frenchmen used to wear varietyof colours (not I myself, for I seldom wear other than black or white, inimitation of my father), let us add another story out of Le CapitaineMartin du Bellay, who affirms, that in the march to Luxembourg he saw sogreat frost, that the munition-wine was cut with hatchets and wedges, anddelivered out to the soldiers by weight, and that they carried it away inbaskets: and Ovid, "Nudaque consistunt, formam servantia testae, Vina; nec hausta meri, sed data frusta, bibunt. "

 ["The wine when out of the cask retains the form of the cask; and is given out not in cups, but in bits. " --Ovid, Trist. , iii. 10, 23. ]

At the mouth of Lake Maeotis the frosts are so very sharp, that in thevery same place where Mithridates' lieutenant had fought the enemydryfoot and given them a notable defeat, the summer following he obtainedover them a naval victory. The Romans fought at a very greatdisadvantage, in the engagement they had with the Carthaginians nearPiacenza, by reason that they went to the charge with their bloodcongealed and their limbs numbed with cold, whereas Hannibal had causedgreat fires to be dispersed quite through his camp to warm his soldiers, and oil to be distributed amongst them, to the end that anointingthemselves, they might render their nerves more supple and active, andfortify the pores against the violence of the air and freezing wind, which raged in that season. 

The retreat the Greeks made from Babylon into their own country is famousfor the difficulties and calamities they had to overcome; of which thiswas one, that being encountered in the mountains of Armenia with ahorrible storm of snow, they lost all knowledge of the country and of theways, and being driven up, were a day and a night without eating ordrinking; most of their cattle died, many of themselves were starved todeath, several struck blind with the force of the hail and the glare ofthe snow, many of them maimed in their fingers and toes, and many stiffand motionless with the extremity of the cold, who had yet theirunderstanding entire. 

Alexander saw a nation, where they bury their fruit-trees in winter toprotect them from being destroyed by the frost, and we also may see thesame. 

But, so far as clothes go, the King of Mexico changed four times a dayhis apparel, and never put it on again, employing that he left off in hiscontinual liberalities and rewards; and neither pot, dish, nor otherutensil of his kitchen or table was ever served twice. 

CHAPTER XXXVI

OF CATO THE YOUNGER

 ["I am not possessed with this common errour, to judge of others according to what I am my selfe. I am easie to beleeve things differing from my selfe. Though I be engaged to one forme, I do not tie the world unto it, as every man doth. And I beleeve and conceive a thousand manners of life, contrary to the common sorte. " --Florio, ed. 1613, p. 113. ]

I am not guilty of the common error of judging another by myself. Ieasily believe that in another's humour which is contrary to my own; andthough I find myself engaged to one certain form, I do not oblige othersto it, as many do; but believe and apprehend a thousand ways of living;and, contrary to most men, more easily admit of difference thanuniformity amongst us. I as frankly as any one would have me, dischargea man from my humours and principles, and consider him according to hisown particular model. Though I am not continent myself, I neverthelesssincerely approve the continence of the Feuillans and Capuchins, andhighly commend their way of living. I insinuate myself by imaginationinto their place, and love and honour them the more for being other thanI am. I very much desire that we may be judged every man by himself, andwould not be drawn into the consequence of common examples. My ownweakness nothing alters the esteem I ought to have for the force andvigour of those who deserve it:

 "Sunt qui nihil suadent, quam quod se imitari posse confidunt. "

 ["There are who persuade nothing but what they believe they can imitate themselves. "--Cicero, De Orator. , c. 7. ]

Crawling upon the slime of the earth, I do not for all that cease toobserve up in the clouds the inimitable height of some heroic souls. 'Tis a great deal for me to have my judgment regular and just, if theeffects cannot be so, and to maintain this sovereign part, at least, freefrom corruption; 'tis something to have my will right and good where mylegs fail me. This age wherein we live, in our part of the world atleast, is grown so stupid, that not only the exercise, but the veryimagination of virtue is defective, and seems to be no other but collegejargon:

 "Virtutem verba putant, ut Lucum ligna:"

 ["They think words virtue, as they think mere wood a sacred grove. " --Horace, Ep. , i. 6, 31. ]

 "Quam vereri deberent, etiam si percipere non possent. "

 ["Which they ought to reverence, though they cannot comprehend. " --Cicero, Tusc. Quas. , v. 2. ]

'Tis a gewgaw to hang in a cabinet or at the end of the tongue, as on thetip of the ear, for ornament only. There are no longer virtuous actionsextant; those actions that carry a show of virtue have yet nothing of itsessence; by reason that profit, glory, fear, custom, and other suchlikeforeign causes, put us on the way to produce them. Our justice also, valour, courtesy, may be called so too, in respect to others andaccording to the face they appear with to the public; but in the doer itcan by no means be virtue, because there is another end proposed, anothermoving cause. Now virtue owns nothing to be hers, but what is done byherself and for herself alone. 

In that great battle of Plataea, that the Greeks under the command ofPausanias gained against Mardonius and the Persians, the conquerors, according to their custom, coming to divide amongst them the glory of theexploit, attributed to the Spartan nation the pre-eminence of valour inthe engagement. The Spartans, great judges of virtue, when they came todetermine to what particular man of their nation the honour was due ofhaving the best behaved himself upon this occasion, found thatAristodemus had of all others hazarded his person with the greatestbravery; but did not, however, allow him any prize, by reason that hisvirtue had been incited by a desire to clear his reputation from thereproach of his miscarriage at the business of Thermopylae, and to diebravely to wipe off that former blemish. 

Our judgments are yet sick, and obey the humour of our depraved manners. I observe most of the wits of these times pretend to ingenuity, byendeavouring to blemish and darken the glory of the bravest and mostgenerous actions of former ages, putting one vile interpretation oranother upon them, and forging and supposing vain causes and motives forthe noble things they did: a mighty subtlety indeed! Give me thegreatest and most unblemished action that ever the day beheld, and I willcontrive a hundred plausible drifts and ends to obscure it. God knows, whoever will stretch them out to the full, what diversity of images ourinternal wills suffer under. They do not so maliciously play thecensurers, as they do it ignorantly and rudely in all their detractions. 

The same pains and licence that others take to blemish and bespatterthese illustrious names, I would willingly undergo to lend them ashoulder to raise them higher. These rare forms, that are culled out bythe consent of the wisest men of all ages, for the world's example, I should not stick to augment in honour, as far as my invention wouldpermit, in all the circumstances of favourable interpretation; and we maywell believe that the force of our invention is infinitely short of theirmerit. 'Tis the duty of good men to portray virtue as beautiful as theycan, and there would be nothing wrong should our passion a littletransport us in favour of so sacred a form. What these people do, on thecontrary, they either do out of malice, or by the vice of confining theirbelief to their own capacity; or, which I am more inclined to think, fornot having their sight strong, clear, and elevated enough to conceive thesplendour of virtue in her native purity: as Plutarch complains, that inhis time some attributed the cause of the younger Cato's death to hisfear of Caesar, at which he seems very angry, and with good reason; andby this a man may guess how much more he would have been offended withthose who have attributed it to ambition. Senseless people! He wouldrather have performed a noble, just, and generous action, and to have hadignominy for his reward, than for glory. That man was in truth a patternthat nature chose out to show to what height human virtue and constancycould arrive. 

But I am not capable of handling so rich an argument, and shall thereforeonly set five Latin poets together, contending in the praise of Cato;and, incidentally, for their own too. Now, a well-educated child willjudge the two first, in comparison of the others, a little flat andlanguid; the third more vigorous, but overthrown by the extravagance ofhis own force; he will then think that there will be room for one or twogradations of invention to come to the fourth, and, mounting to the pitchof that, he will lift up his hands in admiration; coming to the last, thefirst by some space' (but a space that he will swear is not to be filledup by any human wit), he will be astounded, he will not know where he is. 

And here is a wonder: we have far more poets than judges and interpretersof poetry; it is easier to write it than to understand it. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may wellenough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divinepoesy is above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty ofit with the most assured and most steady sight, sees no more than thequick reflection of a flash of lightning: it does not exercise, butravishes and overwhelms our judgment. The fury that possesses him who isable to penetrate into it wounds yet a third man by hearing him repeatit; like a loadstone that not only attracts the needle, but also infusesinto it the virtue to attract others. And it is more evidently manifestin our theatres, that the sacred inspiration of the Muses, having firststirred up the poet to anger, sorrow, hatred, and out of himself, towhatever they will, does moreover by the poet possess the actor, and bythe actor consecutively all the spectators. So much do our passions hangand depend upon one another. 

Poetry has ever had that power over me from a child to transpierce andtransport me; but this vivid sentiment that is natural to me has beenvariously handled by variety of forms, not so much higher or lower (forthey were ever the highest of every kind), as differing in colour. First, a gay and sprightly fluency; afterwards, a lofty and penetratingsubtlety; and lastly, a mature and constant vigour. Their names willbetter express them: Ovid, Lucan, Virgil. 

But our poets are beginning their career:

 "Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Caesare major, "

 ["Let Cato, whilst he live, be greater than Caesar. " --Martial, vi. 32]

says one. 

 "Et invictum, devicta morte, Catonem, "

 ["And Cato invincible, death being overcome. " --Manilius, Astron. , iv. 87. ]

says the second. And the third, speaking of the civil wars betwixtCaesar and Pompey, "Victrix causa diis placuit, set victa Catoni. "

 ["The victorious cause blessed the gods, the defeated one Cato. --"Lucan, i. 128. ]

And the fourth, upon the praises of Caesar:

 "Et cuncta terrarum subacta, Praeter atrocem animum Catonis. "

 ["And conquered all but the indomitable mind of Cato. " --Horace, Od. , ii. 1, 23. ]

And the master of the choir, after having set forth all the great namesof the greatest Romans, ends thus:

 "His dantem jura Catonem. "

 ["Cato giving laws to all the rest. "--AEneid, viii. 670. ]

CHAPTER XXXVII

THAT WE LAUGH AND CRY FOR THE SAME THING

When we read in history that Antigonus was very much displeased with hisson for presenting him the head of King Pyrrhus his enemy, but newlyslain fighting against him, and that seeing it, he wept; and that Rene, Duke of Lorraine, also lamented the death of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, whom he had himself defeated, and appeared in mourning at his funeral;and that in the battle of D'Auray (which Count Montfort obtained overCharles de Blois, his competitor for the duchy of Brittany), theconqueror meeting the dead body of his enemy, was very much afflicted athis death, we must not presently cry out:

 "E cosi avven, the l'animo ciascuna Sua passion sotto 'l contrario manto, Ricopre, con la vista or'chiara, or'bruna. "

 ["And thus it happens that the mind of each veils its passion under a different appearance, and beneath a smiling visage, gay beneath a sombre air. "--Petrarch. ]

When Pompey's head was presented to Caesar, the histories tell us that heturned away his face, as from a sad and unpleasing object. There hadbeen so long an intelligence and society betwixt them in the managementof the public affairs, so great a community of fortunes, so many mutualoffices, and so near an alliance, that this countenance of his ought notto suffer under any misinterpretation, or to be suspected for eitherfalse or counterfeit, as this other seems to believe:

 "Tutumque putavit Jam bonus esse socer; lacrymae non sponte cadentes, Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore laeto;"

 ["And now he thought it safe to play the kind father-in-law, shedding forced tears, and from a joyful breast discharging sighs and groans. "--Lucan, ix. 1037. ]

for though it be true that the greatest part of our actions are no otherthan visor and disguise, and that it may sometimes be true that

 "Haeredis fletus sub persona rises est, "

 ["The heir's tears behind the mask are smiles. " --Publius Syrus, apud Gellium, xvii. 14. ]

yet, in judging of these accidents, we are to consider how much our soulsare oftentimes agitated with divers passions. And as they say that inour bodies there is a congregation of divers humours, of which that isthe sovereign which, according to the complexion we are of, is commonlymost predominant in us: so, though the soul have in it divers motions togive it agitation, yet must there of necessity be one to overrule all therest, though not with so necessary and absolute a dominion but thatthrough the flexibility and inconstancy of the soul, those of lessauthority may upon occasion reassume their place and make a little sallyin turn. Thence it is, that we see not only children, who innocentlyobey and follow nature, often laugh and cry at the same thing, but notone of us can boast, what journey soever he may have in hand that he hasthe most set his heart upon, but when he comes to part with his familyand friends, he will find something that troubles him within; and thoughhe refrain his tears yet he puts foot in the stirrup with a sad andcloudy countenance. And what gentle flame soever may warm the heart ofmodest and wellborn virgins, yet are they fain to be forced from abouttheir mothers' necks to be put to bed to their husbands, whatever thisboon companion is pleased to say:

 "Estne novis nuptis odio Venus? anne parentum Frustrantur falsis gaudia lachrymulis, Ubertim thalami quasi intra limina fundunt? Non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, juverint. "

 ["Is Venus really so alarming to the new-made bride, or does she honestly oppose her parent's rejoicing the tears she so abundantly sheds on entering the nuptial chamber? No, by the Gods, these are no true tears. "--Catullus, lxvi. 15. ]

 ["Is Venus really so repugnant to newly-married maids? Do they meet the smiles of parents with feigned tears? They weep copiously within the very threshold of the nuptial chamber. No, so the gods help me, they do not truly grieve. "--Catullus, lxvi. 15. ]-- [A more literal translation. D. W. ]

Neither is it strange to lament a person dead whom a man would by nomeans should be alive. When I rattle my man, I do it with all the mettleI have, and load him with no feigned, but downright real curses; but theheat being over, if he should stand in need of me, I should be very readyto do him good: for I instantly turn the leaf. When I call him calf andcoxcomb, I do not pretend to entail those titles upon him for ever;neither do I think I give myself the lie in calling him an honest fellowpresently after. No one quality engrosses us purely and universally. Were it not the sign of a fool to talk to one's self, there would hardlybe a day or hour wherein I might not be heard to grumble and mutter tomyself and against myself, "Confound the fool!" and yet I do not thinkthat to be my definition. Who for seeing me one while cold and presentlyvery fond towards my wife, believes the one or the other to becounterfeited, is an ass. Nero, taking leave of his mother whom he wassending to be drowned, was nevertheless sensible of some emotion at thisfarewell, and was struck with horror and pity. 'Tis said, that the lightof the sun is not one continuous thing, but that he darts new rays sothick one upon another that we cannot perceive the intermission:

 "Largus enim liquidi fons luminis, aetherius sol, Irrigat assidue coelum candore recenti, Suppeditatque novo confestim lumine lumen. "

 ["So the wide fountain of liquid light, the ethereal sun, steadily fertilises the heavens with new heat, and supplies a continuous store of fresh light. "--Lucretius, v. 282. ]

Just so the soul variously and imperceptibly darts out her passions. 

Artabanus coming by surprise once upon his nephew Xerxes, chid him forthe sudden alteration of his countenance. He was considering theimmeasurable greatness of his forces passing over the Hellespont for theGrecian expedition: he was first seized with a palpitation of joy, to seeso many millions of men under his command, and this appeared in thegaiety of his looks: but his thoughts at the same instant suggesting tohim that of so many lives, within a century at most, there would not beone left, he presently knit his brows and grew sad, even to tears. 

We have resolutely pursued the revenge of an injury received, and beensensible of a singular contentment for the victory; but we shall weepnotwithstanding. 'Tis not for the victory, though, that we shall weep:there is nothing altered in that but the soul looks upon things withanother eye and represents them to itself with another kind of face; foreverything has many faces and several aspects. 

Relations, old acquaintances, and friendships, possess our imaginationsand make them tender for the time, according to their condition; but theturn is so quick, that 'tis gone in a moment:

 "Nil adeo fieri celeri ratione videtur, Quam si mens fieri proponit, et inchoat ipsa, Ocius ergo animus, quam res se perciet ulla, Ante oculos quorum in promptu natura videtur;"

 ["Nothing therefore seems to be done in so swift a manner than if the mind proposes it to be done, and itself begins. It is more active than anything which we see in nature. "--Lucretius, iii. 183. ]

and therefore, if we would make one continued thing of all thissuccession of passions, we deceive ourselves. When Timoleon laments themurder he had committed upon so mature and generous deliberation, he doesnot lament the liberty restored to his country, he does not lament thetyrant; but he laments his brother: one part of his duty is performed;let us give him leave to perform the other. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

OF SOLITUDE

Let us pretermit that long comparison betwixt the active and the solitarylife; and as for the fine sayings with which ambition and avaricepalliate their vices, that we are not born for ourselves but for thepublic, --[This is the eulogium passed by Lucan on Cato of Utica, ii. 383. ]--let us boldly appeal to those who are in public affairs; let themlay their hands upon their hearts, and then say whether, on the contrary, they do not rather aspire to titles and offices and that tumult of theworld to make their private advantage at the public expense. The corruptways by which in this our time they arrive at the height to which theirambitions aspire, manifestly enough declares that their ends cannot bevery good. Let us tell ambition that it is she herself who gives us ataste of solitude; for what does she so much avoid as society? What doesshe so much seek as elbowroom? A man many do well or ill everywhere; butif what Bias says be true, that the greatest part is the worse part, orwhat the Preacher says: there is not one good of a thousand:

 "Rari quippe boni: numero vix sunt totidem quot Thebarum portae, vel divitis ostia Nili, "

 ["Good men forsooth are scarce: there are hardly as many as there are gates of Thebes or mouths of the rich Nile. " --Juvenal, Sat. , xiii. 26. ]

the contagion is very dangerous in the crowd. A man must either imitatethe vicious or hate them both are dangerous things, either to resemblethem because they are many or to hate many because they are unresemblingto ourselves. Merchants who go to sea are in the right when they arecautious that those who embark with them in the same bottom be neitherdissolute blasphemers nor vicious other ways, looking upon such societyas unfortunate. And therefore it was that Bias pleasantly said to some, who being with him in a dangerous storm implored the assistance of thegods: "Peace, speak softly, " said he, "that they may not know you arehere in my company. "--[Diogenes Laertius]--And of more pressingexample, Albuquerque, viceroy in the Indies for Emmanuel, king ofPortugal, in an extreme peril of shipwreck, took a young boy upon hisshoulders, for this only end that, in the society of their common dangerhis innocence might serve to protect him, and to recommend him to thedivine favour, that they might get safe to shore. 'Tis not that a wiseman may not live everywhere content, and be alone in the very crowd of apalace; but if it be left to his own choice, the schoolman will tell youthat he should fly the very sight of the crowd: he will endure it if needbe; but if it be referred to him, he will choose to be alone. He cannotthink himself sufficiently rid of vice, if he must yet contend with it inother men. Charondas punished those as evil men who were convicted ofkeeping ill company. There is nothing so unsociable and sociable as man, the one by his vice, the other by his nature. And Antisthenes, in myopinion, did not give him a satisfactory answer, who reproached him withfrequenting ill company, by saying that the physicians lived well enoughamongst the sick, for if they contribute to the health of the sick, nodoubt but by the contagion, continual sight of, and familiarity withdiseases, they must of necessity impair their own. 

Now the end, I take it, is all one, to live at more leisure and at one'sease: but men do not always take the right way. They often think theyhave totally taken leave of all business, when they have only exchangedone employment for another: there is little less trouble in governing aprivate family than a whole kingdom. Wherever the mind is perplexed, itis in an entire disorder, and domestic employments are not lesstroublesome for being less important. Moreover, for having shaken offthe court and the exchange, we have not taken leave of the principalvexations of life:

 "Ratio et prudentia curas, Non locus effusi late maris arbiter, aufert;"

 ["Reason and prudence, not a place with a commanding view of the great ocean, banish care. "--Horace, Ep. , i. 2. ]

ambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, and inordinate desires, do notleave us because we forsake our native country:

 "Et Post equitem sedet atra cura;"

 ["Black care sits behind the horse man. " --Horace, Od. , iii. 1, 40]. 

they often follow us even to cloisters and philosophical schools; nordeserts, nor caves, hair-shirts, nor fasts, can disengage us from them:

 "Haeret lateri lethalis arundo. "

 ["The fatal shaft adheres to the side. "--AEneid, iv. 73. ]

One telling Socrates that such a one was nothing improved by his travels:"I very well believe it, " said he, "for he took himself along with him"

 "Quid terras alio calentes Sole mutamus? patriae quis exsul Se quoque fugit?"

 ["Why do we seek climates warmed by another sun? Who is the man that by fleeing from his country, can also flee from himself?" --Horace, Od. , ii. 16, 18. ]

If a man do not first discharge both himself and his mind of the burdenwith which he finds himself oppressed, motion will but make it press theharder and sit the heavier, as the lading of a ship is of lessencumbrance when fast and bestowed in a settled posture. You do a sickman more harm than good in removing him from place to place; you fix andestablish the disease by motion, as stakes sink deeper and more firmlyinto the earth by being moved up and down in the place where they aredesigned to stand. Therefore, it is not enough to get remote from thepublic; 'tis not enough to shift the soil only; a man must flee from thepopular conditions that have taken possession of his soul, he mustsequester and come again to himself:

 "Rupi jam vincula, dicas Nam luctata canis nodum arripit; attamen illi, Quum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catenae. "

 ["You say, perhaps, you have broken your chains: the dog who after long efforts has broken his chain, still in his flight drags a heavy portion of it after him. "--Persius, Sat. , v. 158. ]

We still carry our fetters along with us. 'Tis not an absolute liberty;we yet cast back a look upon what we have left behind us; the fancy isstill full of it:

 "Nisi purgatum est pectus, quae praelia nobis Atque pericula tunc ingratis insinuandum? Quantae connscindunt hominem cupedinis acres Sollicitum curae? quantique perinde timores? Quidve superbia, spurcitia, ac petulantia, quantas Efficiunt clades? quid luxus desidiesque?"

 ["But unless the mind is purified, what internal combats and dangers must we incur in spite of all our efforts! How many bitter anxieties, how many terrors, follow upon unregulated passion! What destruction befalls us from pride, lust, petulant anger! What evils arise from luxury and sloth!"--Lucretius, v. 4. ]

Our disease lies in the mind, which cannot escape from itself;

 "In culpa est animus, qui se non effugit unquam, " --Horace, Ep. , i. 14, 13. 

and therefore is to be called home and confined within itself: that isthe true solitude, and that may be enjoyed even in populous cities andthe courts of kings, though more commodiously apart. 

Now, since we will attempt to live alone, and to waive all manner ofconversation amongst them, let us so order it that our content may dependwholly upon ourselves; let us dissolve all obligations that ally us toothers; let us obtain this from ourselves, that we may live alone in goodearnest, and live at our ease too. 

Stilpo having escaped from the burning of his town, where he lost wife, children, and goods, Demetrius Poliorcetes seeing him, in so great a ruinof his country, appear with an undisturbed countenance, asked him if hehad received no loss? To which he made answer, No; and that, thank God, nothing was lost of his. --[Seneca, Ep. 7. ]--This also was the meaning ofthe philosopher Antisthenes, when he pleasantly said, that "men shouldfurnish themselves with such things as would float, and might with theowner escape the storm";--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 6. ] and certainly awise man never loses anything if he have himself. When the city of Nolawas ruined by the barbarians, Paulinus, who was bishop of that place, having there lost all he had, himself a prisoner, prayed after thismanner: "O Lord, defend me from being sensible of this loss; for Thouknowest they have yet touched nothing of that which is mine. "--[St. Augustin, De Civit. Dei, i. 10. ]--The riches that made him rich and thegoods that made him good, were still kept entire. This it is to makechoice of treasures that can secure themselves from plunder and violence, and to hide them in such a place into which no one can enter and that isnot to be betrayed by any but ourselves. Wives, children, and goods mustbe had, and especially health, by him that can get it; but we are not soto set our hearts upon them that our happiness must have its dependenceupon them; we must reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free, wherein to settle our true liberty, our principal solitude and retreat. And in this we must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves, and so privately that no exotic knowledge or communication be admittedthere; there to laugh and to talk, as if without wife, children, goods, train, or attendance, to the end that when it shall so fall out that wemust lose any or all of these, it may be no new thing to be without them. We have a mind pliable in itself, that will be company; that haswherewithal to attack and to defend, to receive and to give: let us notthen fear in this solitude to languish under an uncomfortable vacuity. 

 "In solis sis tibi turba locis. "

 ["In solitude, be company for thyself. "--Tibullus, vi. 13. 12. ]

Virtue is satisfied with herself, without discipline, without words, without effects. In our ordinary actions there is not one of a thousandthat concerns ourselves. He that thou seest scrambling up the ruins ofthat wall, furious and transported, against whom so many harquebuss-shotsare levelled; and that other all over scars, pale, and fainting withhunger, and yet resolved rather to die than to open the gates to him;dost thou think that these men are there upon their own account? No;peradventure in the behalf of one whom they never saw and who neverconcerns himself for their pains and danger, but lies wallowing the whilein sloth and pleasure: this other slavering, blear-eyed, slovenly fellow, that thou seest come out of his study after midnight, dost thou think hehas been tumbling over books to learn how to become a better man, wiser, and more content? No such matter; he will there end his days, but hewill teach posterity the measure of Plautus' verses and the trueorthography of a Latin word. Who is it that does not voluntarilyexchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation andglory, the most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes currentamongst us? Our own death does not sufficiently terrify and trouble us;let us, moreover, charge ourselves with those of our wives, children, andfamily: our own affairs do not afford us anxiety enough; let us undertakethose of our neighbours and friends, still more to break our brains andtorment us:

 "Vah! quemquamne hominem in animum instituere, aut Parare, quod sit carius, quam ipse est sibi?"

 ["Ah! can any man conceive in his mind or realise what is dearer than he is to himself?"--Terence, Adelph. , i. I, 13. ]

Solitude seems to me to wear the best favour in such as have alreadyemployed their most active and flourishing age in the world's service, after the example of Thales. We have lived enough for others; let us atleast live out the small remnant of life for ourselves; let us now callin our thoughts and intentions to ourselves, and to our own ease andrepose. 'Tis no light thing to make a sure retreat; it will be enoughfor us to do without mixing other enterprises. Since God gives usleisure to order our removal, let us make ready, truss our baggage, takeleave betimes of the company, and disentangle ourselves from thoseviolent importunities that engage us elsewhere and separate us fromourselves. 

We must break the knot of our obligations, how strong soever, andhereafter love this or that, but espouse nothing but ourselves: that isto say, let the remainder be our own, but not so joined and so close asnot to be forced away without flaying us or tearing out part of ourwhole. The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he ishis own. 'Tis time to wean ourselves from society when we can no longeradd anything to it; he who is not in a condition to lend must forbidhimself to borrow. Our forces begin to fail us; let us call them in andconcentrate them in and for ourselves. He that can cast off withinhimself and resolve the offices of friendship and company, let him do it. In this decay of nature which renders him useless, burdensome, andimportunate to others, let him take care not to be useless, burdensome, and importunate to himself. Let him soothe and caress himself, and aboveall things be sure to govern himself with reverence to his reason andconscience to that degree as to be ashamed to make a false step in theirpresence:

 "Rarum est enim, ut satis se quisque vereatur. "

 ["For 'tis rarely seen that men have respect and reverence enough for themselves. "--Quintilian, x. 7. ]

Socrates says that boys are to cause themselves to be instructed, men toexercise themselves in well-doing, and old men to retire from all civiland military employments, living at their own discretion, without theobligation to any office. There are some complexions more proper forthese precepts of retirement than others. Such as are of a soft and dullapprehension, and of a tender will and affection, not readily to besubdued or employed, whereof I am one, both by natural condition and byreflection, will sooner incline to this advice than active and busysouls, which embrace: all, engage in all, are hot upon everything, whichoffer, present, and give themselves up to every occasion. We are to usethese accidental and extraneous commodities, so far as they are pleasantto us, but by no means to lay our principal foundation there; 'tis notrue one; neither nature nor reason allows it so to be. Why thereforeshould we, contrary to their laws, enslave our own contentment to thepower of another? To anticipate also the accidents of fortune, todeprive ourselves of the conveniences we have in our own power, asseveral have done upon the account of devotion, and some philosophers byreasoning; to be one's own servant, to lie hard, to put out our own eyes, to throw our wealth into the river, to go in search of grief; these, bythe misery of this life, aiming at bliss in another; those by layingthemselves low to avoid the danger of falling: all such are acts of anexcessive virtue. The stoutest and most resolute natures render eventheir seclusion glorious and exemplary:

 "Tuta et parvula laudo, Quum res deficiunt, satis inter vilia fortis Verum, ubi quid melius contingit et unctius, idem Hos sapere et solos aio bene vivere, quorum Conspicitur nitidis fundata pecunia villis. "

 ["When means are deficient, I laud a safe and humble condition, content with little: but when things grow better and more easy, I all the same say that you alone are wise and live well, whose invested money is visible in beautiful villas. " --Horace, Ep. , i. 15, 42. ]

A great deal less would serve my turn well enough. 'Tis enough for me, under fortune's favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace, and, being atmy ease, to represent to myself, as far as my imagination can stretch, the ill to come; as we do at jousts and tiltings, where we counterfeitwar in the greatest calm of peace. I do not think Arcesilaus thephilosopher the less temperate and virtuous for knowing that he made useof gold and silver vessels, when the condition of his fortune allowed himso to do; I have indeed a better opinion of him than if he had deniedhimself what he used with liberality and moderation. I see the utmostlimits of natural necessity: and considering a poor man begging at mydoor, ofttimes more jocund and more healthy than I myself am, I putmyself into his place, and attempt to dress my mind after his mode;and running, in like manner, over other examples, though I fancy death, poverty, contempt, and sickness treading on my heels, I easily resolvenot to be affrighted, forasmuch as a less than I takes them with so muchpatience; and am not willing to believe that a less understanding can domore than a greater, or that the effects of precept cannot arrive to asgreat a height as those of custom. And knowing of how uncertain durationthese accidental conveniences are, I never forget, in the height of allmy enjoyments, to make it my chiefest prayer to Almighty God, that Hewill please to render me content with myself and the condition wherein Iam. I see young men very gay and frolic, who nevertheless keep a mass ofpills in their trunk at home, to take when they've got a cold, which theyfear so much the less, because they think they have remedy at hand. Every one should do in like manner, and, moreover, if they findthemselves subject to some more violent disease, should furnishthemselves with such medicines as may numb and stupefy the part. 

The employment a man should choose for such a life ought neither to be alaborious nor an unpleasing one; otherwise 'tis to no purpose at all tobe retired. And this depends upon every one's liking and humour. Minehas no manner of complacency for husbandry, and such as love it ought toapply themselves to it with moderation:

 ["Endeavour to make circumstances subject to me, and not me subject to circumstances. " --Horace, Ep. , i. I, 19. ]

Husbandry is otherwise a very servile employment, as Sallust calls it;though some parts of it are more excusable than the rest, as the care ofgardens, which Xenophon attributes to Cyrus; and a mean may be found outbetwixt the sordid and low application, so full of perpetual solicitude, which is seen in men who make it their entire business and study, and thestupid and extreme negligence, letting all things go at random which wesee in others

 "Democriti pecus edit agellos Cultaque, dum peregre est animus sine corpore velox. "

 ["Democritus' cattle eat his corn and spoil his fields, whilst his soaring mind ranges abroad without the body. " --Horace, Ep. , i, 12, 12. ]

But let us hear what advice the younger Pliny gives his friend CaniniusRufus upon the subject of solitude: "I advise thee, in the full andplentiful retirement wherein thou art, to leave to thy hinds the care ofthy husbandry, and to addict thyself to the study of letters, to extractfrom thence something that may be entirely and absolutely thine own. " Bywhich he means reputation; like Cicero, who says that he would employ hissolitude and retirement from public affairs to acquire by his writings animmortal life. 

 "Usque adeone Scire tuum, nihil est, nisi to scire hoc, sciat alter?"

 ["Is all that thy learning nothing, unless another knows that thou knowest?"--Persius, Sat. , i. 23. ]

It appears to be reason, when a man talks of retiring from the world, that he should look quite out of [for] himself. These do it but byhalves: they design well enough for themselves when they shall be no morein it; but still they pretend to extract the fruits of that design fromthe world, when absent from it, by a ridiculous contradiction. 

The imagination of those who seek solitude upon the account of devotion, filling their hopes and courage with certainty of divine promises in theother life, is much more rationally founded. They propose to themselvesGod, an infinite object in goodness and power; the soul has therewherewithal, at full liberty, to satiate her desires: afflictions andsufferings turn to their advantage, being undergone for the acquisitionof eternal health and joy; death is to be wished and longed for, where itis the passage to so perfect a condition; the asperity of the rules theyimpose upon themselves is immediately softened by custom, and all theircarnal appetites baffled and subdued, by refusing to humour and feedthem, these being only supported by use and exercise. This sole end ofanother happily immortal life is that which really merits that we shouldabandon the pleasures and conveniences of this; and he who can really andconstantly inflame his soul with the ardour of this vivid faith and hope, erects for himself in solitude a more voluptuous and delicious life thanany other sort of existence. 

Neither the end, then, nor the means of this advice pleases me, for weoften fall out of the frying-pan into the fire. --[or: we always relapseill from fever into fever. ]--This book-employment is as painful as anyother, and as great an enemy to health, which ought to be the first thingconsidered; neither ought a man to be allured with the pleasure of it, which is the same that destroys the frugal, the avaricious, thevoluptuous, and the ambitious man. 

 ["This plodding occupation of bookes is as painfull as any other, and as great an enemie vnto health, which ought principally to be considered. And a man should not suffer him selfe to be inveagled by the pleasure he takes in them. "--Florio, edit. 1613, p. 122. ]

The sages give us caution enough to beware the treachery of our desires, and to distinguish true and entire pleasures from such as are mixed andcomplicated with greater pain. For the most of our pleasures, say they, wheedle and caress only to strangle us, like those thieves the Egyptianscalled Philistae; if the headache should come before drunkenness, weshould have a care of drinking too much; but pleasure, to deceive us, marches before and conceals her train. Books are pleasant, but if, bybeing over-studious, we impair our health and spoil our goodhumour, thebest pieces we have, let us give it over; I, for my part, am one of thosewho think, that no fruit derived from them can recompense so great aloss. As men who have long felt themselves weakened by indisposition, give themselves up at last to the mercy of medicine and submit to certainrules of living, which they are for the future never to transgress; so hewho retires, weary of and disgusted with the common way of living, oughtto model this new one he enters into by the rules of reason, and toinstitute and establish it by premeditation and reflection. He ought tohave taken leave of all sorts of labour, what advantage soever it maypromise, and generally to have shaken off all those passions whichdisturb the tranquillity of body and soul, and then choose the way thatbest suits with his own humour:

 "Unusquisque sua noverit ire via. "

In husbandry, study, hunting, and all other exercises, men are to proceedto the utmost limits of pleasure, but must take heed of engaging further, where trouble begins to mix with it. We are to reserve so muchemployment only as is necessary to keep us in breath and to defend usfrom the inconveniences that the other extreme of a dull and stupidlaziness brings along with it. There are sterile knotty sciences, chiefly hammered out for the crowd; let such be left to them who areengaged in the world's service. I for my part care for no other books, but either such as are pleasant and easy, to amuse me, or those thatcomfort and instruct me how to regulate my life and death:

 "Tacitum sylvas inter reptare salubres, Curantem, quidquid dignum sapienti bonoque est. "

 ["Silently meditating in the healthy groves, whatever is worthy of a wise and good man. "--Horace, Ep. , i. 4, 4. ]

Wiser men, having great force and vigour of soul, may propose tothemselves a rest wholly spiritual but for me, who have a very ordinarysoul, it is very necessary to support myself with bodily conveniences;and age having of late deprived me of those pleasures that were moreacceptable to me, I instruct and whet my appetite to those that remain, more suitable to this other reason. We ought to hold with all our force, both of hands and teeth, the use of the pleasures of life that our years, one after another, snatch away from us:

 "Carpamus dulcia; nostrum est, Quod vivis; cinis, et manes, et fabula fies. "

 ["Let us pluck life's sweets, 'tis for them we live: by and by we shall be ashes, a ghost, a mere subject of talk. " --Persius, Sat. , v. 151. ]

Now, as to the end that Pliny and Cicero propose to us of glory, 'tisinfinitely wide of my account. Ambition is of all others the mostcontrary humour to solitude; glory and repose are things that cannotpossibly inhabit in one and the same place. For so much as I understand, these have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd; their souland intention remain confined behind more than ever:

 "Tun', vetule, auriculis alienis colligis escas?"

 ["Dost thou, then, old man, collect food for others' ears?" --Persius, Sat. , i. 22. ]

they have only retired to take a better leap, and by a stronger motion togive a brisker charge into the crowd. Will you see how they shoot short?Let us put into the counterpoise the advice of two philosophers, of twovery different sects, writing, the one to Idomeneus, the other toLucilius, their friends, to retire into solitude from worldly honours andaffairs. "You have, " say they, "hitherto lived swimming and floating;come now and die in the harbour: you have given the first part of yourlife to the light, give what remains to the shade. It is impossible togive over business, if you do not also quit the fruit; thereforedisengage yourselves from all concern of name and glory; 'tis to befeared the lustre of your former actions will give you but too muchlight, and follow you into your most private retreat. Quit with otherpleasures that which proceeds from the approbation of another man: and asto your knowledge and parts, never concern yourselves; they will not losetheir effect if yourselves be the better for them. Remember him, whobeing asked why he took so much pains in an art that could come to theknowledge of but few persons? 'A few are enough for me, ' replied he;'I have enough with one; I have enough with never an one. '--[Seneca, Ep. , 7. ]--He said true; you and a companion are theatre enough to oneanother, or you to yourself. Let the people be to you one, and be youone to the whole people. 'Tis an unworthy ambition to think to deriveglory from a man's sloth and privacy: you are to do like the beasts ofchase, who efface the track at the entrance into their den. You are nomore to concern yourself how the world talks of you, but how you are totalk to yourself. Retire yourself into yourself, but first prepareyourself there to receive yourself: it were a folly to trust yourself inyour own hands, if you cannot govern yourself. A man may miscarry aloneas well as in company. Till you have rendered yourself one before whomyou dare not trip, and till you have a bashfulness and respect foryourself, "Obversentur species honestae animo;"

 ["Let honest things be ever present to the mind" --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes. , ii. 22. ]

present continually to your imagination Cato, Phocion, and Aristides, inwhose presence the fools themselves will hide their faults, and make themcontrollers of all your intentions; should these deviate from virtue, your respect to those will set you right; they will keep you in this wayto be contented with yourself; to borrow nothing of any other butyourself; to stay and fix your soul in certain and limited thoughts, wherein she may please herself, and having understood the true and realgoods, which men the more enjoy the more they understand, to restsatisfied, without desire of prolongation of life or name. " This is theprecept of the true and natural philosophy, not of a boasting and pratingphilosophy, such as that of the two former. 

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 A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them Abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances Acquire by his writings an immortal life Addict thyself to the study of letters Always the perfect religion And hate him so as you were one day to love him Archer that shoots over, misses as much as he that falls short Art that could come to the knowledge of but few persons Being over-studious, we impair our health and spoil our humour By the misery of this life, aiming at bliss in another Carnal appetites only supported by use and exercise Coming out of the same hole Common friendships will admit of division Dost thou, then, old man, collect food for others' ears? Either tranquil life, or happy death Enslave our own contentment to the power of another? Entertain us with fables: astrologers and physicians Everything has many faces and several aspects Extremity of philosophy is hurtful Friendships that the law and natural obligation impose upon us Gewgaw to hang in a cabinet or at the end of the tongue Gratify the gods and nature by massacre and murder He took himself along with him He will choose to be alone Headache should come before drunkenness High time to die when there is more ill than good in living Honour of valour consists in fighting, not in subduing How uncertain duration these accidental conveniences are I bequeath to Areteus the maintenance of my mother I for my part always went the plain way to work. I love temperate and moderate natures. Impostures: very strangeness lends them credit In solitude, be company for thyself. --Tibullus In the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors Interdict all gifts betwixt man and wife It is better to die than to live miserable Judge by the eye of reason, and not from common report Knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip Lascivious poet: Homer Laying themselves low to avoid the danger of falling Leave society when we can no longer add anything to it Little less trouble in governing a private family than a kingdom Love we bear to our wives is very lawful Man (must) know that he is his own Marriage Men should furnish themselves with such things as would float Methinks I am no more than half of myself Must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves Never represent things to you simply as they are No effect of virtue, to have stronger arms and legs Not in a condition to lend must forbid himself to borrow Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know O my friends, there is no friend: Aristotle Oftentimes agitated with divers passions Ordinary friendships, you are to walk with bridle in your hand Ought not only to have his hands, but his eyes, too, chaste Our judgments are yet sick Perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible Philosophy Phusicians cure by by misery and pain Prefer in bed, beauty before goodness Pretending to find out the cause of every accident Reputation: most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes Reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free Rest satisfied, without desire of prolongation of life or name Stilpo lost wife, children, and goods Stilpo: thank God, nothing was lost of his Take two sorts of grist out of the same sack Taking things upon trust from vulgar opinion Tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments The consequence of common examples There are defeats more triumphant than victories They can neither lend nor give anything to one another They have yet touched nothing of that which is mine They must be very hard to please, if they are not contented Things that engage us elsewhere and separate us from ourselves This decay of nature which renders him useless, burdensome This plodding occupation of bookes is as painfull as any other Those immodest and debauched tricks and postures Though I be engaged to one forme, I do not tie the world unto it Title of barbarism to everything that is not familiar To give a currency to his little pittance of learning To make their private advantage at the public expense Under fortune's favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace Vice of confining their belief to their own capacity We have lived enough for others We have more curiosity than capacity We still carry our fetters along with us When time begins to wear things out of memory Wherever the mind is perplexed, it is in an entire disorder Who can flee from himself Wise man never loses anything if he have himself Wise whose invested money is visible in beautiful villas Write what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more You and companion are theatre enough to one another