ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 8. 

XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers. XLIX. Of ancient customs. L. Of Democritus and Heraclitus. LI. Of the vanity of words. LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients. LIII. Of a saying of Caesar. LIV. Of vain subtleties. LV. Of smells. LVI. Of prayers. LVII. Of age. 

CHAPTER XLVIII

OF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS

I here have become a grammarian, I who never learned any language but byrote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, or ablative. Ithink I have read that the Romans had a sort of horses by them called'funales' or 'dextrarios', which were either led horses, or horses laidon at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion, and thence it isthat we call our horses of service 'destriers'; and our romances commonlyuse the phrase of 'adestrer' for 'accompagner', to accompany. They alsocalled those that were trained in such sort, that running full speed, side by side, without bridle or saddle, the Roman gentlemen, armed at allpieces, would shift and throw themselves from one to the other, 'desultorios equos'. The Numidian men-at-arms had always a led horse inone hand, besides that they rode upon, to change in the heat of battle:

 "Quibus, desultorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, inter acerrimam saepe pugnam, in recentem equum, ex fesso, armatis transultare mos erat: tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile equorum genus. "

 ["To whom it was a custom, leading along two horses, often in the hottest fight, to leap armed from a tired horse to a fresh one; so active were the men, and the horses so docile. "--Livy, xxiii. 29. ]

There are many horses trained to help their riders so as to run upon anyone, that appears with a drawn sword, to fall both with mouth and heelsupon any that front or oppose them: but it often happens that they domore harm to their friends than to their enemies; and, moreover, youcannot loose them from their hold, to reduce them again into order, whenthey are once engaged and grappled, by which means you remain at themercy of their quarrel. It happened very ill to Artybius, general of thePersian army, fighting, man to man, with Onesilus, king of Salamis, to bemounted upon a horse trained after this manner, it being the occasion ofhis death, the squire of Onesilus cleaving the horse down with a scythebetwixt the shoulders as it was reared up upon his master. And what theItalians report, that in the battle of Fornova, the horse of CharlesVIII. , with kicks and plunges, disengaged his master from the enemy thatpressed upon him, without which he had been slain, sounds like a verygreat chance, if it be true. 

 [In the narrative which Philip de Commines has given of this battle, in which he himself was present (lib. Viii. Ch. 6), he tells us of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. "The king, " says Commines, "had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great way from him, arrived at the critical minute. "]

The Mamalukes make their boast that they have the most ready horses ofany cavalry in the world; that by nature and custom they were taught toknow and distinguish the enemy, and to fall foul upon them with mouth andheels, according to a word or sign given; as also to gather up with theirteeth darts and lances scattered upon the field, and present them totheir riders, on the word of command. 'T is said, both of Caesar andPompey, that amongst their other excellent qualities they were both verygood horsemen, and particularly of Caesar, that in his youth, beingmounted on the bare back, without saddle or bridle, he could make thehorse run, stop, and turn, and perform all its airs, with his handsbehind him. As nature designed to make of this person, and of Alexander, two miracles of military art, so one would say she had done her utmost toarm them after an extraordinary manner for every one knows thatAlexander's horse, Bucephalus, had a head inclining to the shape of abull; that he would suffer himself to be mounted and governed by none buthis master, and that he was so honoured after his death as to have a cityerected to his name. Caesar had also one which had forefeet like thoseof a man, his hoofs being divided in the form of fingers, which likewisewas not to be ridden, by any but Caesar himself, who, after his death, dedicated his statue to the goddess Venus. 

I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback, for it is theplace where, whether well or sick, I find myself most at ease. Platorecommends it for health, as also Pliny says it is good for the stomachand the joints. Let us go further into this matter since here we are. 

We read in Xenophon a law forbidding any one who was master of a horse totravel on foot. Trogus Pompeius and Justin say that the Parthians werewont to perform all offices and ceremonies, not only in war but also allaffairs whether public or private, make bargains, confer, entertain, takethe air, and all on horseback; and that the greatest distinction betwixtfreemen and slaves amongst them was that the one rode on horseback andthe other went on foot, an institution of which King Cyrus was thefounder. 

There are several examples in the Roman history (and Suetonius moreparticularly observes it of Caesar) of captains who, on pressingoccasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, both by that means to takefrom them all hopes of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped inthis sort of fight. 

 "Quo baud dubie superat Romanus, "

 ["Wherein the Roman does questionless excel. "--Livy, ix. 22. ]

says Livy. And so the first thing they did to prevent the mutinies andinsurrections of nations of late conquest was to take from them theirarms and horses, and therefore it is that we so often meet in Caesar:

 "Arma proferri, jumenta produci, obsides dari jubet. "

 ["He commanded the arms to be produced, the horses brought out, hostages to be given. "--De Bello Gall. , vii. II. ]

The Grand Signior to this day suffers not a Christian or a Jew to keep ahorse of his own throughout his empire. 

Our ancestors, and especially at the time they had war with the English, in all their greatest engagements and pitched battles fought for the mostpart on foot, that they might have nothing but their own force, courage, and constancy to trust to in a quarrel of so great concern as life andhonour. You stake (whatever Chrysanthes in Xenophon says to thecontrary) your valour and your fortune upon that of your horse; hiswounds or death bring your person into the same danger; his fear or furyshall make you reputed rash or cowardly; if he have an ill mouth or willnot answer to the spur, your honour must answer for it. And, therefore, I do not think it strange that those battles were more firm and furiousthan those that are fought on horseback:

 "Caedebant pariter, pariterque ruebant Victores victique; neque his fuga nota, neque illis. "

 ["They fought and fell pell-mell, victors and vanquished; nor was flight thought of by either. "--AEneid, x. 756. ]

Their battles were much better disputed. Nowadays there are nothing butrouts:

 "Primus clamor atque impetus rem decernit. "

 ["The first shout and charge decides the business. "--Livy, xxv. 41. ]

And the means we choose to make use of in so great a hazard should be asmuch as possible at our own command: wherefore I should advise to chooseweapons of the shortest sort, and such of which we are able to give thebest account. A man may repose more confidence in a sword he holds inhis hand than in a bullet he discharges out of a pistol, wherein theremust be a concurrence of several circumstances to make it perform itsoffice, the powder, the stone, and the wheel: if any of which fail itendangers your fortune. A man himself strikes much surer than the aircan direct his blow:

 "Et, quo ferre velint, permittere vulnera ventis Ensis habet vires; et gens quaecumque virorum est, Bella gerit gladiis. "

 ["And so where they choose to carry [the arrows], the winds allow the wounds; the sword has strength of arm: and whatever nation of men there is, they wage war with swords. "--Lucan, viii. 384. ]

But of that weapon I shall speak more fully when I come to compare thearms of the ancients with those of modern use; only, by the way, theastonishment of the ear abated, which every one grows familiar with in ashort time, I look upon it as a weapon of very little execution, and hopewe shall one day lay it aside. That missile weapon which the Italiansformerly made use of both with fire and by sling was much more terrible:they called a certain kind of javelin, armed at the point with an ironthree feet long, that it might pierce through and through an armed man, Phalarica, which they sometimes in the field darted by hand, sometimesfrom several sorts of engines for the defence of beleaguered places; theshaft being rolled round with flax, wax, rosin, oil, and othercombustible matter, took fire in its flight, and lighting upon the bodyof a man or his target, took away all the use of arms and limbs. Andyet, coming to close fight, I should think they would also damage theassailant, and that the camp being as it were planted with these flamingtruncheons, would produce a common inconvenience to the whole crowd:

 "Magnum stridens contorta Phalarica venit, Fulminis acta modo. "

 ["The Phalarica, launched like lightning, flies through the air with a loud rushing sound. "--AEneid, ix. 705. ]

They had, moreover, other devices which custom made them perfect in(which seem incredible to us who have not seen them), by which theysupplied the effects of our powder and shot. They darted their spearswith so great force, as ofttimes to transfix two targets and two armedmen at once, and pin them together. Neither was the effect of theirslings less certain of execution or of shorter carriage:

 ["Culling round stones from the beach for their slings; and with these practising over the waves, so as from a great distance to throw within a very small circuit, they became able not only to wound an enemy in the head, but hit any other part at pleasure. " --Livy, xxxviii. 29. ]

Their pieces of battery had not only the execution but the thunder of ourcannon also:

 "Ad ictus moenium cum terribili sonitu editos, pavor et trepidatio cepit. "

 ["At the battery of the walls, performed with a terrible noise, the defenders began to fear and tremble. "--Idem, ibid. , 5. ]

The Gauls, our kinsmen in Asia, abominated these treacherous missilearms, it being their use to fight, with greater bravery, hand to hand:

 ["They are not so much concerned about large gashes-the bigger and deeper the wound, the more glorious do they esteem the combat but when they find themselves tormented by some arrow-head or bullet lodged within, but presenting little outward show of wound, transported with shame and anger to perish by so imperceptible a destroyer, they fall to the ground. "---Livy, xxxviii. 21. ]

A pretty description of something very like an arquebuse-shot. The tenthousand Greeks in their long and famous retreat met with a nation whovery much galled them with great and strong bows, carrying arrows so longthat, taking them up, one might return them back like a dart, and withthem pierce a buckler and an armed man through and through. The engines, that Dionysius invented at Syracuse to shoot vast massy darts and stonesof a prodigious greatness with so great impetuosity and at so great adistance, came very near to our modern inventions. 

But in this discourse of horses and horsemanship, we are not to forgetthe pleasant posture of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity, upon his mule, whom Monstrelet reports always to have ridden sidewaysthrough the streets of Paris like a woman. He says also, elsewhere, thatthe Gascons had terrible horses, that would wheel in their full speed, which the French, Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon as amiracle, "having never seen the like before, " which are his very words. 

Caesar, speaking of the Suabians: "in the charges they make onhorseback, " says he, "they often throw themselves off to fight on foot, having taught their horses not to stir in the meantime from the place, to which they presently run again upon occasion; and according to theircustom, nothing is so unmanly and so base as to use saddles or pads, andthey despise such as make use of those conveniences: insomuch that, beingbut a very few in number, they fear not to attack a great many. " Thatwhich I have formerly wondered at, to see a horse made to perform all hisairs with a switch only and the reins upon his neck, was common with theMassilians, who rid their horses without saddle or bridle:

 "Et gens, quae nudo residens Massylia dorso, Ora levi flectit, fraenorum nescia, virga. "

 ["The Massylians, mounted on the bare backs of their horses, bridleless, guide them by a mere switch. "--Lucan, iv. 682. ]

 "Et Numidae infraeni cingunt. "

 ["The Numidians guiding their horses without bridles. " --AEneid, iv. 41. ]

 "Equi sine fraenis, deformis ipse cursus, rigida cervice et extento capite currentium. "

 ["The career of a horse without a bridle is ungraceful; the neck extended stiff, and the nose thrust out. "--Livy, xxxv. II. ]

King Alfonso, --[Alfonso XI. , king of Leon and Castile, died 1350. ]--he who first instituted the Order of the Band or Scarf in Spain, amongstother rules of the order, gave them this, that they should never ridemule or mulet, upon penalty of a mark of silver; this I had lately out ofGuevara's Letters. Whoever gave these the title of Golden Epistles hadanother kind of opinion of them than I have. The Courtier says, thattill his time it was a disgrace to a gentleman to ride on one of thesecreatures: but the Abyssinians, on the contrary, the nearer they are tothe person of Prester John, love to be mounted upon large mules, for thegreatest dignity and grandeur. 

Xenophon tells us, that the Assyrians were fain to keep their horsesfettered in the stable, they were so fierce and vicious; and that itrequired so much time to loose and harness them, that to avoid anydisorder this tedious preparation might bring upon them in case ofsurprise, they never sat down in their camp till it was first wellfortified with ditches and ramparts. His Cyrus, who was so great amaster in all manner of horse service, kept his horses to their due work, and never suffered them to have anything to eat till first they hadearned it by the sweat of some kind of exercise. The Scythians when inthe field and in scarcity of provisions used to let their horses blood, which they drank, and sustained themselves by that diet:

 "Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo. "

 ["The Scythian comes, who feeds on horse-flesh" --Martial, De Spectaculis Libey, Epigr. Iii. 4. ]

Those of Crete, being besieged by Metellus, were in so great necessityfor drink that they were fain to quench their thirst with their horsesurine. --[Val. Max. , vii. 6, ext. 1. ]

To shew how much cheaper the Turkish armies support themselves than ourEuropean forces, 'tis said that besides the soldiers drink nothing butwater and eat nothing but rice and salt flesh pulverised (of which everyone may easily carry about with him a month's provision), they know howto feed upon the blood of their horses as well as the Muscovite andTartar, and salt it for their use. 

These new-discovered people of the Indies [Mexico and Yucatan D. W. ], when the Spaniards first landed amongst them, had so great an opinionboth of the men and horses, that they looked upon the first as gods andthe other as animals ennobled above their nature; insomuch that afterthey were subdued, coming to the men to sue for peace and pardon, and tobring them gold and provisions, they failed not to offer of the same tothe horses, with the same kind of harangue to them they had made to theothers: interpreting their neighing for a language of truce andfriendship. 

In the other Indies, to ride upon an elephant was the first and royalplace of honour; the second to ride in a coach with four horses; thethird to ride upon a camel; and the last and least honour to be carriedor drawn by one horse only. Some one of our late writers tells us thathe has been in countries in those parts where they ride upon oxen withpads, stirrups, and bridles, and very much at their ease. 

Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, in a battle with the Samnites, seeinghis horse, after three or four charges, had failed of breaking into theenemy's battalion, took this course, to make them unbridle all theirhorses and spur their hardest, so that having nothing to check theircareer, they might through weapons and men open the way to his foot, whoby that means gave them a bloody defeat. The same command was given byQuintus Fulvius Flaccus against the Celtiberians:

 ["You will do your business with greater advantage of your horses' strength, if you send them unbridled upon the enemy, as it is recorded the Roman horse to their great glory have often done; their bits being taken off, they charged through and again back through the enemy's ranks with great slaughter, breaking down all their spears. "--Idem, xl. 40. ]

The Duke of Muscovy was anciently obliged to pay this reverence to theTartars, that when they sent an embassy to him he went out to meet themon foot, and presented them with a goblet of mares' milk (a beverage ofgreatest esteem amongst them), and if, in drinking, a drop fell by chanceupon their horse's mane, he was bound to lick it off with his tongue. The army that Bajazet had sent into Russia was overwhelmed with sodreadful a tempest of snow, that to shelter and preserve themselves fromthe cold, many killed and embowelled their horses, to creep into theirbellies and enjoy the benefit of that vital heat. Bajazet, after thatfurious battle wherein he was overthrown by Tamerlane, was in a hopefulway of securing his own person by the fleetness of an Arabian mare he hadunder him, had he not been constrained to let her drink her fill at theford of a river in his way, which rendered her so heavy and indisposed, that he was afterwards easily overtaken by those that pursued him. Theysay, indeed, that to let a horse stale takes him off his mettle, but asto drinking, I should rather have thought it would refresh him. 

Croesus, marching his army through certain waste lands near Sardis, metwith an infinite number of serpents, which the horses devoured with greatappetite, and which Herodotus says was a prodigy of ominous portent tohis affairs. 

We call a horse entire, that has his mane and ears so, and no other willpass muster. The Lacedaemonians, having defeated the Athenians inSicily, returning triumphant from the victory into the city of Syracuse, amongst other insolences, caused all the horses they had taken to beshorn and led in triumph. Alexander fought with a nation called Dahas, whose discipline it was to march two and two together armed on one horse, to the war; and being in fight, one of them alighted, and so they foughton horseback and on foot, one after another by turns. 

I do not think that for graceful riding any nation in the world excelsthe French. A good horseman, according to our way of speaking, seemsrather to have respect to the courage of the man than address in riding. Of all that ever I saw, the most knowing in that art, who had the bestseat and the best method in breaking horses, was Monsieur de Carnavalet, who served our King Henry II. 

I have seen a man ride with both his feet upon the saddle, take off hissaddle, and at his return take it up again and replace it, riding all thewhile full speed; having galloped over a cap, make at it very good shotsbackwards with his bow; take up anything from the ground, setting onefoot on the ground and the other in the stirrup: with twenty other ape'stricks, which he got his living by. 

There has been seen in my time at Constantinople two men upon one horse, who, in the height of its speed, would throw themselves off and into thesaddle again by turn; and one who bridled and saddled his horse withnothing but his teeth; an other who betwixt two horses, one foot upon onesaddle and the other upon another, carrying the other man upon hisshoulders, would ride full career, the other standing bolt upright uponand making very good shots with his bow; several who would ride fullspeed with their heels upward, and their heads upon the saddle betwixtseveral scimitars, with the points upwards, fixed in the harness. When Iwas a boy, the prince of Sulmona, riding an unbroken horse at Naples, prone to all sorts of action, held reals--[A small coin of Spain, theTwo Sicilies, &c. ]--under his knees and toes, as if they had been nailedthere, to shew the firmness of his seat. 

CHAPTER XLIX

OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS

I should willingly pardon our people for admitting no other pattern orrule of perfection than their own peculiar manners and customs; for 'tisa common vice, not of the vulgar only, but almost of all men, to walk inthe beaten road their ancestors have trod before them. I am content, when they see Fabricius or Laelius, that they look upon their countenanceand behaviour as barbarous, seeing they are neither clothed nor fashionedaccording to our mode. But I find fault with their singular indiscretionin suffering themselves to be so blinded and imposed upon by theauthority of the present usage as every month to alter their opinion, ifcustom so require, and that they should so vary their judgment in theirown particular concern. When they wore the busk of their doublets up ashigh as their breasts, they stiffly maintained that they were in theirproper place; some years after it was slipped down betwixt their thighs, and then they could laugh at the former fashion as uneasy andintolerable. The fashion now in use makes them absolutely condemn theother two with so great resolution and so universal consent, that a manwould think there was a certain kind of madness crept in amongst them, that infatuates their understandings to this strange degree. Now, seeingthat our change of fashions is so prompt and sudden, that the inventionsof all the tailors in the world cannot furnish out new whim-whams enow tofeed our vanity withal, there will often be a necessity that the despisedforms must again come in vogue, these immediately after fall into thesame contempt; and that the same judgment must, in the space of fifteenor twenty years, take up half-a-dozen not only divers but contraryopinions, with an incredible lightness and inconstancy; there is not anyof us so discreet, who suffers not himself to be gulled with thiscontradiction, and both in external and internal sight to be insensiblyblinded. 

I wish to muster up here some old customs that I have in memory, some ofthem the same with ours, the others different, to the end that, bearingin mind this continual variation of human things, we may have ourjudgment more clearly and firmly settled. 

The thing in use amongst us of fighting with rapier and cloak was inpractice amongst the Romans also:

 "Sinistras sagis involvunt, gladiosque distringunt, "

 ["They wrapt their cloaks upon the left arm, and drew their swords. "--De Bello Civili, i. 75. ]

says Caesar; and he observes a vicious custom of our nation, thatcontinues yet amongst us, which is to stop passengers we meet upon theroad, to compel them to give an account who they are, and to take it foran affront and just cause of quarrel if they refuse to do it. 

At the Baths, which the ancients made use of every day before they wentto dinner, and as frequently as we wash our hands, they at first onlybathed their arms and legs; but afterwards, and by a custom that hascontinued for many ages in most nations of the world, they bathed starknaked in mixed and perfumed water, looking upon it as a great simplicityto bathe in mere water. The most delicate and affected perfumedthemselves all over three or four times a day. They often caused theirhair to be pinched off, as the women of France have some time since takenup a custom to do their foreheads, "Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod brachia veilis, "

 ["You pluck the hairs out of your breast, your arms, and thighs. " --Martial, ii. 62, i. ]

though they had ointments proper for that purpose:

 "Psilotro nitet, aut acids latet oblita creta. "

 ["She shines with unguents, or with chalk dissolved in vinegar. " --Idem, vi. 93, 9. ]

They delighted to lie soft, and alleged it as a great testimony ofhardiness to lie upon a mattress. They ate lying upon beds, much afterthe manner of the Turks in this age:

 "Inde thoro pater AEneas sic orsus ab alto. "

 ["Thus Father AEneas, from his high bed of state, spoke. " --AEneid, ii. 2. ]

And 'tis said of the younger Cato, that after the battle of Pharsalia, being entered into a melancholy disposition at the ill posture of thepublic affairs, he took his repasts always sitting, assuming a strict andaustere course of life. It was also their custom to kiss the hands ofgreat persons; the more to honour and caress them. And meeting withfriends, they always kissed in salutation, as do the Venetians:

 "Gratatusque darem cum dulcibus oscula verbis. "

 ["And kindest words I would mingle with kisses. " --Ovid, De Pont. , iv. 9, 13]

In petitioning or saluting any great man, they used to lay their handsupon his knees. Pasicles the philosopher, brother of Crates, instead oflaying his hand upon the knee laid it upon the private parts, and beingroughly repulsed by him to whom he made that indecent compliment:"What, " said he, "is not that part your own as well as the other?"--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 89. ]--They used to eat fruit, as we do, afterdinner. They wiped their fundaments (let the ladies, if they please, mince it smaller) with a sponge, which is the reason that 'spongia' is asmutty word in Latin; which sponge was fastened to the end of a stick, asappears by the story of him who, as he was led along to be thrown to thewild beasts in the sight of the people, asking leave to do his business, and having no other way to despatch himself, forced the sponge and stickdown his throat and choked himself. --[Seneca, Ep. , 70. ] They used towipe, after coition, with perfumed wool:

 "At tibi nil faciam; sed Iota mentula lana. "

They had in the streets of Rome vessels and little tubs for passengers tourine in:

 "Pusi saepe lacum propter se, ac dolia curta. Somno devincti, credunt extollere vestem. "

 ["The little boys in their sleep often think they are near the public urinal, and raise their coats to make use of it. " --Lucretius, iv. ]

They had collation betwixt meals, and had in summer cellars of snow tocool their wine; and some there were who made use of snow in winter, notthinking their wine cool enough, even at that cold season of the year. The men of quality had their cupbearers and carvers, and their buffoonsto make them sport. They had their meat served up in winter upon chafingdishes, which were set upon the table, and had portable kitchens (ofwhich I myself have seen some) wherein all their service was carriedabout with them:

 "Has vobis epulas habete, lauti Nos offendimur ambulante caena. "

 ["Do you, if you please, esteem these feasts: we do not like the ambulatory suppers. "--Martial, vii. 48, 4. ]

In summer they had a contrivance to bring fresh and clear rills throughtheir lower rooms, wherein were great store of living fish, which theguests took out with their own hands to be dressed every man according tohis own liking. Fish has ever had this pre-eminence, and keeps it still, that the grandees, as to them, all pretend to be cooks; and indeed thetaste is more delicate than that of flesh, at least to my fancy. But inall sorts of magnificence, debauchery, and voluptuous inventions ofeffeminacy and expense, we do, in truth, all we can to parallel them;for our wills are as corrupt as theirs: but we want ability to equalthem. Our force is no more able to reach them in their vicious, than intheir virtuous, qualities, for both the one and the other proceeded froma vigour of soul which was without comparison greater in them than in us;and souls, by how much the weaker they are, by so much have they lesspower to do either very well or very ill. 

The highest place of honour amongst them was the middle. The name goingbefore, or following after, either in writing or speaking, had nosignification of grandeur, as is evident by their writings; they will assoon say Oppius and Caesar, as Caesar and Oppius; and me and thee, asthee and me. This is the reason that made me formerly take notice in thelife of Flaminius, in our French Plutarch, of one passage, where it seemsas if the author, speaking of the jealousy of honour betwixt theAEtolians and Romans, about the winning of a battle they had with theirjoined forces obtained, made it of some importance, that in the Greeksongs they had put the AEtolians before the Romans: if there be noamphibology in the words of the French translation. 

The ladies, in their baths, made no scruple of admitting men amongstthem, and moreover made use of their serving-men to rub and anoint them:

 "Inguina succinctus nigri tibi servus aluta Stat, quoties calidis nuda foveris aquis. "

 ["A slave--his middle girded with a black apron--stands before you, when, naked, you take a hot bath. "--Martial, vii. 35, i. ]

They all powdered themselves with a certain powder, to moderate theirsweats. 

The ancient Gauls, says Sidonius Apollinaris, wore their hair long beforeand the hinder part of the head shaved, a fashion that begins to revivein this vicious and effeminate age. 

The Romans used to pay the watermen their fare at their first steppinginto the boat, which we never do till after landing:

 "Dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur, Tota abit hora. "

 ["Whilst the fare's paying, and the mule is being harnessed, a whole hour's time is past. "--Horace, Sat. I. 5, 13. ]

The women used to lie on the side of the bed next the wall: and for thatreason they called Caesar, "Spondam regis Nicomedis, "

 ["The bed of King Nicomedes. "--Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 49. ]

They took breath in their drinking, and watered their wine

 "Quis puer ocius Restinguet ardentis Falerni Pocula praetereunte lympha?"

 ["What boy will quickly come and cool the heat of the Falernian wine with clear water?"--Horace, Od. , ii. Z, 18. ]

And the roguish looks and gestures of our lackeys were also in useamongst them:

 "O Jane, a tergo quern nulls ciconia pinsit, Nec manus, auriculas imitari est mobilis albas, Nec lingua, quantum sitiat canis Appula, tantum. "

 ["O Janus, whom no crooked fingers, simulating a stork, peck at behind your back, whom no quick hands deride behind you, by imitating the motion of the white ears of the ass, against whom no mocking tongue is thrust out, as the tongue of the thirsty Apulian dog. "--Persius, i. 58. ]

The Argian and Roman ladies mourned in white, as ours did formerly andshould do still, were I to govern in this point. But there are wholebooks on this subject. 

CHAPTER L

OF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS

The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oarin everything: which is the reason, that in these Essays I take hold ofall occasions where, though it happen to be a subject I do not very wellunderstand, I try, however, sounding it at a distance, and finding it toodeep for my stature, I keep me on the shore; and this knowledge that aman can proceed no further, is one effect of its virtue, yes, one ofthose of which it is most proud. One while in an idle and frivoloussubject, I try to find out matter whereof to compose a body, and then toprop and support it; another while, I employ it in a noble subject, onethat has been tossed and tumbled by a thousand hands, wherein a man canscarce possibly introduce anything of his own, the way being so beaten onevery side that he must of necessity walk in the steps of another: insuch a case, 'tis the work of the judgment to take the way that seemsbest, and of a thousand paths, to determine that this or that is thebest. I leave the choice of my arguments to fortune, and take that shefirst presents to me; they are all alike to me, I never design to gothrough any of them; for I never see all of anything: neither do they whoso largely promise to show it others. Of a hundred members and facesthat everything has, I take one, onewhile to look it over only, anotherwhile to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: Igive a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most parttempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it. Did Iknow myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other tothe bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling hereone word and there another, patterns cut from several pieces andscattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am notresponsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, withoutvarying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt anduncertainty, and to my own governing method, ignorance. 

All motion discovers us: the very same soul of Caesar, that made itselfso conspicuous in marshalling and commanding the battle of Pharsalia, wasalso seen as solicitous and busy in the softer affairs of love andleisure. A man makes a judgment of a horse, not only by seeing him whenhe is showing off his paces, but by his very walk, nay, and by seeing himstand in the stable. 

Amongst the functions of the soul, there are some of a lower and meanerform; he who does not see her in those inferior offices as well as inthose of nobler note, never fully discovers her; and, peradventure, sheis best shown where she moves her simpler pace. The winds of passionstake most hold of her in her highest flights; and the rather by reasonthat she wholly applies herself to, and exercises her whole virtue upon, every particular subject, and never handles more than one thing at atime, and that not according to it, but according to herself. Things inrespect to themselves have, peradventure, their weight, measures, andconditions; but when we once take them into us, the soul forms them asshe pleases. Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato, indifferentto Socrates. Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty, and their contraries, all strip themselves at their entering into us, andreceive a new robe, and of another fashion, from the soul; and of whatcolour, brown, bright, green, dark, and of what quality, sharp, sweet, deep, or superficial, as best pleases each of them, for they are notagreed upon any common standard of forms, rules, or proceedings; everyone is a queen in her own dominions. Let us, therefore, no more excuseourselves upon the external qualities of things; it belongs to us to giveourselves an account of them. Our good or ill has no other dependencebut on ourselves. 'Tis there that our offerings and our vows are due, and not to fortune she has no power over our manners; on the contrary, they draw and make her follow in their train, and cast her in their ownmould. Why should not I judge of Alexander at table, ranting anddrinking at the prodigious rate he sometimes used to do?

Or, if he played at chess? what string of his soul was not touched bythis idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it, because it is not playenough, that it is too grave and serious a diversion, and I am ashamed tolay out as much thought and study upon it as would serve to much betteruses. He did not more pump his brains about his glorious expedition intothe Indies, nor than another in unravelling a passage upon which dependsthe safety of mankind. To what a degree does this ridiculous diversionmolest the soul, when all her faculties are summoned together upon thistrivial account! and how fair an opportunity she herein gives every oneto know and to make a right judgment of himself? I do not morethoroughly sift myself in any other posture than this: what passion arewe exempted from in it? Anger, spite, malice, impatience, and a vehementdesire of getting the better in a concern wherein it were more excusableto be ambitious of being overcome; for to be eminent, to excel above thecommon rate in frivolous things, nowise befits a man of honour. What Isay in this example may be said in all others. Every particle, everyemployment of man manifests him equally with any other. 

Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, finding human condition ridiculous and vain, never appeared abroad butwith a jeering and laughing countenance; whereas Heraclitus commiseratingthat same condition of ours, appeared always with a sorrowful look, andtears in his eyes:

 "Alter Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum Protuleratque pedem; flebat contrarius alter. "

 ["The one always, as often as he had stepped one pace from his threshold, laughed, the other always wept. "--Juvenal, Sat. , x. 28. ]

 [Or, as Voltaire: "Life is a comedy to those who think; a tragedy to those who feel. " D. W. ]

I am clearly for the first humour; not because it is more pleasant tolaugh than to weep, but because it expresses more contempt andcondemnation than the other, and I think we can never be despisedaccording to our full desert. Compassion and bewailing seem to implysome esteem of and value for the thing bemoaned; whereas the things welaugh at are by that expressed to be of no moment. I do not think thatwe are so unhappy as we are vain, or have in us so much malice as folly;we are not so full of mischief as inanity; nor so miserable as we arevile and mean. And therefore Diogenes, who passed away his time inrolling himself in his tub, and made nothing of the great Alexander, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders puffed up with wind, was asharper and more penetrating, and, consequently in my opinion, a justerjudge than Timon, surnamed the Man-hater; for what a man hates he lays toheart. This last was an enemy to all mankind, who passionately desiredour ruin, and avoided our conversation as dangerous, proceeding fromwicked and depraved natures: the other valued us so little that we couldneither trouble nor infect him by our example; and left us to herd onewith another, not out of fear, but from contempt of our society:concluding us as incapable of doing good as evil. 

Of the same strain was Statilius' answer, when Brutus courted him intothe conspiracy against Caesar; he was satisfied that the enterprise wasjust, but he did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern';according to the doctrine of Hegesias, who said, that a wise man ought todo nothing but for himself, forasmuch as he only was worthy of it: and tothe saying of Theodorus, that it was not reasonable a wise man shouldhazard himself for his country, and endanger wisdom for a company offools. Our condition is as ridiculous as risible. 

CHAPTER LI

OF THE VANITY OF WORDS

A rhetorician of times past said, that to make little things appear greatwas his profession. This was a shoemaker, who can make a great shoe fora little foot. --[A saying of Agesilaus. ]--They would in Sparta havesent such a fellow to be whipped for making profession of a tricky anddeceitful act; and I fancy that Archidamus, who was king of that country, was a little surprised at the answer of Thucydides, when inquiring ofhim, which was the better wrestler, Pericles, or he, he replied, that itwas hard to affirm; for when I have thrown him, said he, he alwayspersuades the spectators that he had no fall and carries away the prize. --[Quintilian, ii. 15. ]--The women who paint, pounce, and plaster uptheir ruins, filling up their wrinkles and deformities, are less toblame, because it is no great matter whether we see them in their naturalcomplexions; whereas these make it their business to deceive not oursight only but our judgments, and to adulterate and corrupt the veryessence of things. The republics that have maintained themselves in aregular and well-modelled government, such as those of Lacedaemon andCrete, had orators in no very great esteem. Aristo wisely definedrhetoric to be "a science to persuade the people;" Socrates and Plato"an art to flatter and deceive. " And those who deny it in the generaldescription, verify it throughout in their precepts. The Mohammedanswill not suffer their children to be instructed in it, as being useless, and the Athenians, perceiving of how pernicious consequence the practiceof it was, it being in their city of universal esteem, ordered theprincipal part, which is to move the affections, with their exordiums andperorations, to be taken away. 'Tis an engine invented to manage andgovern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble, and that never is made use of, but like physic to the sick, in a discomposed state. In those where thevulgar or the ignorant, or both together, have been all-powerful and ableto give the law, as in those of Athens, Rhodes, and Rome, and where thepublic affairs have been in a continual tempest of commotion, to suchplaces have the orators always repaired. And in truth, we shall find fewpersons in those republics who have pushed their fortunes to any greatdegree of eminence without the assistance of eloquence. 

Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Lucullus, Lentulus, Metellus, thence took theirchiefest spring, to mount to that degree of authority at which they atlast arrived, making it of greater use to them than arms, contrary to theopinion of better times; for, L. Volumnius speaking publicly in favour ofthe election of Q. Fabius and Pub. Decius, to the consular dignity:"These are men, " said he, "born for war and great in execution; in thecombat of the tongue altogether wanting; spirits truly consular. Thesubtle, eloquent, and learned are only good for the city, to makepraetors of, to administer justice. "--[Livy, x. 22. ]

Eloquence most flourished at Rome when the public affairs were in theworst condition and most disquieted with intestine commotions; as a freeand untilled soil bears the worst weeds. By which it should seem that amonarchical government has less need of it than any other: for thestupidity and facility natural to the common people, and that render themsubject to be turned and twined and, led by the ears by this charmingharmony of words, without weighing or considering the truth and realityof things by the force of reason: this facility, I say, is not easilyfound in a single person, and it is also more easy by good education andadvice to secure him from the impression of this poison. There was neverany famous orator known to come out of Persia or Macedon. 

I have entered into this discourse upon the occasion of an Italian Ilately received into my service, and who was clerk of the kitchen to thelate Cardinal Caraffa till his death. I put this fellow upon an accountof his office: when he fell to discourse of this palate-science, withsuch a settled countenance and magisterial gravity, as if he had beenhandling some profound point of divinity. He made a learned distinctionof the several sorts of appetites; of that a man has before he begins toeat, and of those after the second and third service; the means simply tosatisfy the first, and then to raise and actuate the other two; theordering of the sauces, first in general, and then proceeded to thequalities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of saladsaccording to their seasons, those which ought to be served up hot, andwhich cold; the manner of their garnishment and decoration to render themacceptable to the eye. After which he entered upon the order of thewhole service, full of weighty and important considerations:

 "Nec minimo sane discrimine refert, Quo gestu lepores, et quo gallina secetur;"

 ["Nor with less discrimination observes how we should carve a hare, and how a hen. " or, ("Nor with the least discrimination relates how we should carve hares, and how cut up a hen. )" --Juvenal, Sat. , v. 123. ]

and all this set out with lofty and magnificent words, the very same wemake use of when we discourse of the government of an empire. Whichlearned lecture of my man brought this of Terence into my memory:

 "Hoc salsum est, hoc adustum est, hoc lautum est, parum: Illud recte: iterum sic memento: sedulo Moneo, qux possum, pro mea sapientia. Postremo, tanquam in speculum, in patinas, Demea, Inspicere jubeo, et moneo, quid facto usus sit. "

 ["This is too salt, that's burnt, that's not washed enough; that's well; remember to do so another time. Thus do I ever advise them to have things done properly, according to my capacity; and lastly, Demea, I command my cooks to look into every dish as if it were a mirror, and tell them what they should do. " --Terence, Adelph. , iii. 3, 71. ]

And yet even the Greeks themselves very much admired and highly applaudedthe order and disposition that Paulus AEmilius observed in the feast hegave them at his return from Macedon. But I do not here speak ofeffects, I speak of words only. 

I do not know whether it may have the same operation upon other men thatit has upon me, but when I hear our architects thunder out their bombastwords of pilasters, architraves, and cornices, of the Corinthian andDoric orders, and suchlike jargon, my imagination is presently possessedwith the palace of Apollidon; when, after all, I find them but the paltrypieces of my own kitchen door. 

To hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and othergrammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exoticform of speaking? And yet they are phrases that come near to the babbleof my chambermaid. 

And this other is a gullery of the same stamp, to call the offices of ourkingdom by the lofty titles of the Romans, though they have no similitudeof function, and still less of authority and power. And this also, whichI doubt will one day turn to the reproach of this age of ours, unworthilyand indifferently to confer upon any we think fit the most glorioussurnames with which antiquity honoured but one or two persons in severalages. Plato carried away the surname of Divine, by so universal aconsent that never any one repined at it, or attempted to take it fromhim; and yet the Italians, who pretend, and with good reason, to moresprightly wits and sounder sense than the other nations of their time, have lately bestowed the same title upon Aretin, in whose writings, savetumid phrases set out with smart periods, ingenious indeed butfar-fetched and fantastic, and the eloquence, be it what it may, I seenothing in him above the ordinary writers of his time, so far is he fromapproaching the ancient divinity. And we make nothing of giving thesurname of great to princes who have nothing more than ordinary in them. 

CHAPTER LII

OF THE PARSIMONY OF THE ANCIENTS

Attilius Regulus, general of the Roman army in Africa, in the height ofall his glory and victories over the Carthaginians, wrote to the Republicto acquaint them that a certain hind he had left in trust with hisestate, which was in all but seven acres of land, had run away with allhis instruments of husbandry, and entreating therefore, that they wouldplease to call him home that he might take order in his own affairs, lesthis wife and children should suffer by this disaster. Whereupon theSenate appointed another to manage his business, caused his losses to bemade good, and ordered his family to be maintained at the public expense. 

The elder Cato, returning consul from Spain, sold his warhorse to savethe money it would have cost in bringing it back by sea into Italy; andbeing Governor of Sardinia, he made all his visits on foot, without othertrain than one officer of the Republic who carried his robe and a censerfor sacrifices, and for the most part carried his trunk himself. Hebragged that he had never worn a gown that cost above ten crowns, nor hadever sent above tenpence to the market for one day's provision; and thatas to his country houses, he had not one that was rough-cast on theoutside. 

Scipio AEmilianus, after two triumphs and two consulships, went anembassy with no more than seven servants in his train. 'Tis said thatHomer had never more than one, Plato three, and Zeno, founder of the sectof Stoics, none at all. Tiberius Gracchus was allowed but fivepencehalfpenny a day when employed as public minister about the publicaffairs, and being at that time the greatest man of Rome. 

CHAPTER LIII

OF A SAYING OF CAESAR

If we would sometimes bestow a little consideration upon ourselves, andemploy the time we spend in prying into other men's actions, anddiscovering things without us, in examining our own abilities we shouldsoon perceive of how infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours iscomposed. Is it not a singular testimony of imperfection that we cannotestablish our satisfaction in any one thing, and that even our own fancyand desire should deprive us of the power to choose what is most properand useful for us? A very good proof of this is the great dispute thathas ever been amongst the philosophers, of finding out man's sovereigngood, that continues yet, and will eternally continue, without solutionor accord:

 "Dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur Caetera; post aliud, quum contigit illud, avemus, Et sitis aequa tenet. "

 ["While that which we desire is wanting, it seems to surpass all the rest; then, when we have got it, we want something else; 'tis ever the same thirst"--Lucretius, iii. 1095. ]

Whatever it is that falls into our knowledge and possession, we find thatit satisfies not, and we still pant after things to come and unknown, inasmuch as those present do not suffice for us; not that, in myjudgment, they have not in them wherewith to do it, but because we seizethem with an unruly and immoderate haste:

 "Nam quum vidit hic, ad victum qux flagitat usus, Et per quae possent vitam consistere tutam, Omnia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata; Divitiis homines, et honore, et laude potentes Aflluere, atque bona natorum excellere fama; Nec minus esse domi cuiquam tamen anxia corda, Atque animi ingratis vitam vexare querelis Causam, quae infestis cogit saevire querelis, Intellegit ibi; vitium vas efficere ipsum, Omniaque, illius vitio, corrumpier intus, Qux collata foris et commoda quomque venirent. "

 ["For when he saw that almost all things necessarily required for subsistence, and which may render life comfortable, are already prepared to their hand, that men may abundantly attain wealth, honour, praise, may rejoice in the reputation of their children, yet that, notwithstanding, every one has none the less in his heart and home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints, he saw that the vessel itself was in fault, and that all good things which were brought into it from without were spoilt by its own imperfections. "--Lucretius, vi. 9. ]

Our appetite is irresolute and fickle; it can neither keep nor enjoyanything with a good grace: and man concluding it to be the fault of thethings he is possessed of, fills himself with and feeds upon the idea ofthings he neither knows nor understands, to which he devotes his hopesand his desires, paying them all reverence and honour, according to thesaying of Caesar:

 "Communi fit vitio naturae, ut invisis, latitantibus atque incognitis rebus magis confidamas, vehementiusque exterreamur. "

 ["'Tis the common vice of nature, that we at once repose most confidence, and receive the greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed, and unknown. "--De Bello Civil, xi. 4. ]

CHAPTER LIV

OF VAIN SUBTLETIES

There are a sort of little knacks and frivolous subtleties from which mensometimes expect to derive reputation and applause: as poets, who composewhole poems with every line beginning with the same letter; we see theshapes of eggs, globes, wings, and hatchets cut out by the ancient Greeksby the measure of their verses, making them longer or shorter, torepresent such or such a figure. Of this nature was his employment whomade it his business to compute into how many several orders the lettersof the alphabet might be transposed, and found out that incredible numbermentioned in Plutarch. I am mightily pleased with the humour of him, ["Alexander, as may be seen in Quintil. , Institut. Orat. , lib. Ii. , cap. 20, where he defines Maratarexvia to be a certain unnecessary imitation of art, which really does neither good nor harm, but is as unprofitable and ridiculous as was the labour of that man who had so perfectly learned to cast small peas through the eye of a needle at a good distance that he never missed one, and was justly rewarded for it, as is said, by Alexander, who saw the performance, with a bushel of peas. "--Coste. ]

who having a man brought before him that had learned to throw a grain ofmillet with such dexterity and assurance as never to miss the eye of aneedle; and being afterwards entreated to give something for the rewardof so rare a performance, he pleasantly, and in my opinion justly, ordered a certain number of bushels of the same grain to be delivered tohim, that he might not want wherewith to exercise so famous an art. 'Tisa strong evidence of a weak judgment when men approve of things for theirbeing rare and new, or for their difficulty, where worth and usefulnessare not conjoined to recommend them. 

I come just now from playing with my own family at who could find out themost things that hold by their two extremities; as Sire, which is a titlegiven to the greatest person in the nation, the king, and also to thevulgar, as merchants, but never to any degree of men between. The womenof great quality are called Dames, inferior gentlewomen, Demoiselles, andthe meanest sort of women, Dames, as the first. The cloth of state overour tables is not permitted but in the palaces of princes and in taverns. Democritus said, that gods and beasts had sharper sense than men, who areof a middle form. The Romans wore the same habit at funerals and feasts. It is most certain that an extreme fear and an extreme ardour of courageequally trouble and relax the belly. The nickname of Trembling withwhich they surnamed Sancho XII. , king of Navarre, tells us that valourwill cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear. Those who werearming that king, or some other person, who upon the like occasion waswont to be in the same disorder, tried to compose him by representing thedanger less he was going to engage himself in: "You understand me ill, "said he, "for could my flesh know the danger my courage will presentlycarry it into, it would sink down to the ground. " The faintness thatsurprises us from frigidity or dislike in the exercises of Venus are alsooccasioned by a too violent desire and an immoderate heat. Extremecoldness and extreme heat boil and roast. Aristotle says, that sows oflead will melt and run with cold and the rigour of winter just as with avehement heat. Desire and satiety fill all the gradations above andbelow pleasure with pain. Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centreof sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents. Thewise control and triumph over ill, the others know it not: these lastare, as a man may say, on this side of accidents, the others are beyondthem, who after having well weighed and considered their qualities, measured and judged them what they are, by virtue of a vigorous soul leapout of their reach; they disdain and trample them underfoot, having asolid and well-fortified soul, against which the darts of fortune, comingto strike, must of necessity rebound and blunt themselves, meeting with abody upon which they can fix no impression; the ordinary and middlecondition of men are lodged betwixt these two extremities, consisting ofsuch as perceive evils, feel them, and are not able to support them. Infancy and decrepitude meet in the imbecility of the brain; avarice andprofusion in the same thirst and desire of getting. 

A man may say with some colour of truth that there is an Abecedarianignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comesafter it: an ignorance that knowledge creates and begets, at the sametime that it despatches and destroys the first. Of mean understandings, little inquisitive, and little instructed, are made good Christians, whoby reverence and obedience simply believe and are constant in theirbelief. In the average understandings and the middle sort of capacities, the error of opinion is begotten; they follow the appearance of the firstimpression, and have some colour of reason on their side to impute ourwalking on in the old beaten path to simplicity and stupidity, meaning uswho have not informed ourselves by study. The higher and nobler souls, more solid and clear-sighted, make up another sort of true believers, whoby a long and religious investigation of truth, have obtained a clearerand more penetrating light into the Scriptures, and have discovered themysterious and divine secret of our ecclesiastical polity; and yet we seesome, who by the middle step, have arrived at that supreme degree withmarvellous fruit and confirmation, as to the utmost limit of Christianintelligence, and enjoy their victory with great spiritual consolation, humble acknowledgment of the divine favour, reformation of manners, andsingular modesty. I do not intend with these to rank those others, whoto clear themselves from all suspicion of their former errors and tosatisfy us that they are sound and firm, render themselves extremelyindiscreet and unjust, in the carrying on our cause, and blemish it withinfinite reproaches of violence and oppression. The simple peasants aregood people, and so are the philosophers, or whatever the present agecalls them, men of strong and clear reason, and whose souls are enrichedwith an ample instruction of profitable sciences. The mongrels who havedisdained the first form of the ignorance of letters, and have not beenable to attain to the other (sitting betwixt two stools, as I and a greatmany more of us do), are dangerous, foolish, and importunate; these arethey that trouble the world. And therefore it is that I, for my ownpart, retreat as much as I can towards the first and natural station, whence I so vainly attempted to advance. 

Popular and purely natural poesy

 ["The term poesie populaire was employed, for the first time, in the French language on this occasion. Montaigne created the expression, and indicated its nature. "--Ampere. ]

has in it certain artless graces, by which she may come into comparisonwith the greatest beauty of poetry perfected by art: as we see in ourGascon villanels and the songs that are brought us from nations that haveno knowledge of any manner of science, nor so much as the use of writing. The middle sort of poesy betwixt these two is despised, of no value, honour, or esteem. 

But seeing that the path once laid open to the fancy, I have found, as itcommonly falls out, that what we have taken for a difficult exercise anda rare subject, prove to be nothing so, and that after the invention isonce warm, it finds out an infinite number of parallel examples. I shallonly add this one--that, were these Essays of mine considerable enough todeserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fall out that theywould not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be veryacceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would notunderstand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover inthe middle region. 

CHAPTER LV

OF SMELLS

It has been reported of some, as of Alexander the Great, that their sweatexhaled an odoriferous smell, occasioned by some rare and extraordinaryconstitution, of which Plutarch and others have been inquisitive into thecause. But the ordinary constitution of human bodies is quite otherwise, and their best and chiefest excellency is to be exempt from smell. Nay, the sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greaterperfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those ofhealthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman:

 "Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil olet. "

 ["She smells sweetest, who smells not at all. " --Plautus, Mostel, i. 3, 116. ]

And such as make use of fine exotic perfumes are with good reason to besuspected of some natural imperfection which they endeavour by theseodours to conceal. To smell, though well, is to stink:

 "Rides nos, Coracine, nil olentes Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere. "

 ["You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we are not scented; I would, rather than smell well, not smell at all. "--Martial, vi. 55, 4. ]

And elsewhere:

 "Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet. "

 ["Posthumus, he who ever smells well does not smell well. " --Idem, ii. 12, 14. ]

I am nevertheless a great lover of good smells, and as much abominate theill ones, which also I scent at a greater distance, I think, than othermen:

 "Namque sagacius unus odoror, Polypus, an gravis hirsutis cubet hircus in aliis Quam canis acer, ubi latest sus. "

 ["My nose is quicker to scent a fetid sore or a rank armpit, than a dog to smell out the hidden sow. "--Horace, Epod. , xii. 4. ]

Of smells, the simple and natural seem to me the most pleasing. Let theladies look to that, for 'tis chiefly their concern: amid the mostprofound barbarism, the Scythian women, after bathing, were wont topowder and crust their faces and all their bodies with a certainodoriferous drug growing in their country, which being cleansed off, whenthey came to have familiarity with men they were found perfumed andsleek. 'Tis not to be believed how strangely all sorts of odours cleaveto me, and how apt my skin is to imbibe them. He that complains ofnature that she has not furnished mankind with a vehicle to convey smellsto the nose had no reason; for they will do it themselves, especially tome; my very mustachios, which are full, perform that office; for if Istroke them but with my gloves or handkerchief, the smell will not out awhole day; they manifest where I have been, and the close, luscious, devouring, viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age lefta sweetness upon my lips for several hours after. And yet I have everfound myself little subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught, eitherby conversing with the sick or bred by the contagion of the air, and haveescaped from those of my time, of which there have been several sorts inour cities and armies. We read of Socrates, that though he neverdeparted from Athens during the frequent plagues that infested the city, he only was never infected. 

Physicians might, I believe, extract greater utility from odours thanthey do, for I have often observed that they cause an alteration in meand work upon my spirits according to their several virtues; which makesme approve of what is said, that the use of incense and perfumes inchurches, so ancient and so universally received in all nations andreligions, was intended to cheer us, and to rouse and purify the senses, the better to fit us for contemplation. 

I could have been glad, the better to judge of it, to have tasted theculinary art of those cooks who had so rare a way of seasoning exoticodours with the relish of meats; as it was particularly observed in theservice of the king of Tunis, who in our days--[Muley-Hassam, in 1543. ]--landed at Naples to have an interview with Charles the Emperor. Hisdishes were larded with odoriferous drugs, to that degree of expense thatthe cookery of one peacock and two pheasants amounted to a hundred ducatsto dress them after their fashion; and when the carver came to cut themup, not only the dining-room, but all the apartments of his palace andthe adjoining streets were filled with an aromatic vapour which did notpresently vanish. 

My chiefest care in choosing my lodgings is always to avoid a thick andstinking air; and those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, very muchlessen the kindness I have for them, the one by the offensive smell ofher marshes, and the other of her dirt. 

CHAPTER LVI

OF PRAYERS

I propose formless and undetermined fancies, like those who publishdoubtful questions, to be after a disputed upon in the schools, not toestablish truth but to seek it; and I submit them to the judgments ofthose whose office it is to regulate, not my writings and actions only, but moreover my very thoughts. Let what I here set down meet withcorrection or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me, myself beforehand condemning as absurd and impious, if anything shall befound, through ignorance or inadvertency, couched in this rhapsody, contrary to the holy resolutions and prescriptions of the CatholicApostolic and Roman Church, into which I was born and in which I willdie. And yet, always submitting to the authority of their censure, whichhas an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything, as intreating upon this present subject. 

I know not if or no I am wrong, but since, by a particular favour of thedivine bounty, a certain form of prayer has been prescribed and dictatedto us, word by word, from the mouth of God Himself, I have ever been ofopinion that we ought to have it in more frequent use than we yet have;and if I were worthy to advise, at the sitting down to and rising fromour tables, at our rising from and going to bed, and in every particularaction wherein prayer is used, I would that Christians always make use ofthe Lord's Prayer, if not alone, yet at least always. The Church maylengthen and diversify prayers, according to the necessity of ourinstruction, for I know very well that it is always the same in substanceand the same thing: but yet such a privilege ought to be given to thatprayer, that the people should have it continually in their mouths; forit is most certain that all necessary petitions are comprehended in it, and that it is infinitely proper for all occasions. 'Tis the only prayerI use in all places and conditions, and which I still repeat instead ofchanging; whence it also happens that I have no other so entirely byheart as that. 

It just now came into my mind, whence it is we should derive that errorof having recourse to God in all our designs and enterprises, to call Himto our assistance in all sorts of affairs, and in all places where ourweakness stands in need of support, without considering whether theoccasion be just or otherwise; and to invoke His name and power, in whatstate soever we are, or action we are engaged in, howsoever vicious. Heis indeed, our sole and unique protector, and can do all things for us:but though He is pleased to honour us with this sweet paternal alliance, He is, notwithstanding, as just as He is good and mighty; and more oftenexercises His justice than His power, and favours us according to that, and not according to our petitions. 

Plato in his Laws, makes three sorts of belief injurious to the gods;"that there are none; that they concern not themselves about our affairs;that they never refuse anything to our vows, offerings, and sacrifices. "The first of these errors (according to his opinion, never continuedrooted in any man from his infancy to his old age); the other two, heconfesses, men might be obstinate in. 

God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke Hispower in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, atthat moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from allvicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewithto chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, wedouble the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom weare to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be sofrequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not giveme some evidence of amendment and reformation:

 "Si, nocturnus adulter, Tempora Santonico velas adoperta cucullo. "

 ["If a night adulterer, thou coverest thy head with a Santonic cowl. "--Juvenal, Sat. , viii. 144. --The Santones were the people who inhabited Saintonge in France, from whom the Romans derived the use of hoods or cowls covering the head and face. ]

And the practice of a man who mixes devotion with an execrable life seemsin some sort more to be condemned than that of a man conformable to hisown propension and dissolute throughout; and for that reason it is thatour Church denies admittance to and communion with men obstinate andincorrigible in any notorious wickedness. We pray only by custom and forfashion's sake; or rather, we read or pronounce our prayers aloud, whichis no better than an hypocritical show of devotion; and I am scandalisedto see a man cross himself thrice at the Benedicite, and as often atGrace (and the more, because it is a sign I have in great veneration andcontinual use, even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the other hours ofthe day to acts of malice, avarice, and injustice. One hour to God, therest to the devil, as if by composition and compensation. 'Tis a wonderto see actions so various in themselves succeed one another with such anuniformity of method as not to interfere nor suffer any alteration, evenupon the very confines and passes from the one to the other. What aprodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itselfwhilst it harbours under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm asociety, both the crime and the judge?

A man whose whole meditation is continually working upon nothing butimpurity which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he saywhen he comes to speak to Him? He draws back, but immediately falls intoa relapse. If the object of divine justice and the presence of his Makerdid, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever therepentance might be, the very fear of offending the Infinite Majestywould so often present itself to his imagination that he would soon seehimself master of those vices that are most natural and vehement in him. But what shall we say of those who settle their whole course of life uponthe profit and emolument of sins, which they know to be mortal? How manytrades and vocations have we admitted and countenanced amongst us, whosevery essence is vicious? And he that, confessing himself to me, voluntarily told me that he had all his lifetime professed and practiseda religion, in his opinion damnable and contrary to that he had in hisheart, only to preserve his credit and the honour of his employments, howcould his courage suffer so infamous a confession? What can men say tothe divine justice upon this subject?

Their repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reparation, theylose the colour of alleging it both to God and man. Are they so impudentas to sue for remission without satisfaction and without penitence?I look upon these as in the same condition with the first: but theobstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety andvolubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kindof miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agonyof mind. 

It seemed to me a fantastic imagination in those who, these late yearspast, were wont to reproach every man they knew to be of anyextraordinary parts, and made profession of the Catholic religion, thatit was but outwardly; maintaining, moreover, to do him honour forsooth, that whatever he might pretend to the contrary he could not but in hisheart be of their reformed opinion. An untoward disease, that a manshould be so riveted to his own belief as to fancy that others cannotbelieve otherwise than as he does; and yet worse, that they shouldentertain so vicious an opinion of such great parts as to think any manso qualified, should prefer any present advantage of fortune to thepromises of eternal life and the menaces of eternal damnation. They maybelieve me: could anything have tempted my youth, the ambition of thedanger and difficulties in the late commotions had not been the leastmotives. 

It is not without very good reason, in my opinion, that the Churchinterdicts the promiscuous, indiscreet, and irreverent use of the holyand divine Psalms, with which the Holy Ghost inspired King David. Weought not to mix God in our actions, but with the highest reverence andcaution; that poesy is too holy to be put to no other use than toexercise the lungs and to delight our ears; it ought to come from theconscience, and not from the tongue. It is not fit that a prentice inhis shop, amongst his vain and frivolous thoughts, should be permitted topass away his time and divert himself with such sacred things. Neitheris it decent to see the Holy Book of the holy mysteries of our belieftumbled up and down a hall or a kitchen they were formerly mysteries, butare now become sports and recreations. 'Tis a book too serious and toovenerable to be cursorily or slightly turned over: the reading of thescripture ought to be a temperate and premeditated act, and to which menshould always add this devout preface, 'sursum corda', preparing even thebody to so humble and composed a gesture and countenance as shallevidence a particular veneration and attention. Neither is it a book foreveryone to fist, but the study of select men set apart for that purpose, and whom Almighty God has been pleased to call to that office and sacredfunction: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. 'Tis, not a story totell, but a history to revere, fear, and adore. Are not they thenpleasant men who think they have rendered this fit for the people'shandling by translating it into the vulgar tongue? Does theunderstanding of all therein contained only stick at words? Shall Iventure to say further, that by coming so near to understand a little, they are much wider of the whole scope than before. A pure and simpleignorance and wholly depending upon the exposition of qualified persons, was far more learned and salutary than this vain and verbal knowledge, which has only temerity and presumption. 

And I do further believe that the liberty every one has taken to dispersethe sacred writ into so many idioms carries with it a great deal more ofdanger than utility. The Jews, Mohammedans, and almost all otherpeoples, have reverentially espoused the language wherein their mysterieswere first conceived, and have expressly, and not without colour ofreason, forbidden the alteration of them into any other. Are we assuredthat in Biscay and in Brittany there are enough competent judges of thisaffair to establish this translation into their own language? Theuniversal Church has not a more difficult and solemn judgment to make. In preaching and speaking the interpretation is vague, free, mutable, andof a piece by itself; so 'tis not the same thing. 

One of our Greek historians age justly censures the he lived in, becausethe secrets of the Christian religion were dispersed into the hands ofevery mechanic, to expound and argue upon, according to his own fancy, and that we ought to be much ashamed, we who by God's especial favourenjoy the pure mysteries of piety, to suffer them to be profaned by theignorant rabble; considering that the Gentiles expressly forbad Socrates, Plato, and the other sages to inquire into or so much as mention thethings committed to the priests of Delphi; and he says, moreover, thatthe factions of princes upon theological subjects are armed not with zealbut fury; that zeal springs from the divine wisdom and justice, andgoverns itself with prudence and moderation, but degenerates into hatredand envy, producing tares and nettles instead of corn and wine whenconducted by human passions. And it was truly said by another, who, advising the Emperor Theodosius, told him that disputes did not so muchrock the schisms of the Church asleep, as it roused and animatedheresies; that, therefore, all contentions and dialectic disputationswere to be avoided, and men absolutely to acquiesce in the prescriptionsand formulas of faith established by the ancients. And the EmperorAndronicus having overheard some great men at high words in his palacewith Lapodius about a point of ours of great importance, gave them sosevere a check as to threaten to cause them to be thrown into the riverif they did not desist. The very women and children nowadays take uponthem to lecture the oldest and most experienced men about theecclesiastical laws; whereas the first of those of Plato forbids them toinquire so much as into the civil laws, which were to stand instead ofdivine ordinances; and, allowing the old men to confer amongst themselvesor with the magistrate about those things, he adds, provided it be not inthe presence of young or profane persons. 

A bishop has left in writing that at the other end of the world there isan isle, by the ancients called Dioscorides, abundantly fertile in allsorts of trees and fruits, and of an exceedingly healthful air; theinhabitants of which are Christians, having churches and altars, onlyadorned with crosses without any other images, great observers of fastsand feasts, exact payers of their tithes to the priests, and so chaste, that none of them is permitted to have to do with more than one woman inhis life--[What Osorius says is that these people only had one wife at atime. ]--as to the rest, so content with their condition, that environedwith the sea they know nothing of navigation, and so simple that theyunderstand not one syllable of the religion they profess and wherein theyare so devout: a thing incredible to such as do not know that the Pagans, who are so zealous idolaters, know nothing more of their gods than theirbare names and their statues. The ancient beginning of 'Menalippus', atragedy of Euripides, ran thus:

 "O Jupiter! for that name alone Of what thou art to me is known. "

I have also known in my time some men's writings found fault with forbeing purely human and philosophical, without any mixture of theology;and yet, with some show of reason, it might, on the contrary, be saidthat the divine doctrine, as queen and regent of the rest, better keepsher state apart, that she ought to be sovereign throughout, notsubsidiary and suffragan, and that, peradventure, grammatical, rhetorical, logical examples may elsewhere be more suitably chosen, asalso the material for the stage, games, and public entertainments, thanfrom so sacred a matter; that divine reasons are considered with greaterveneration and attention by themselves, and in their own proper style, than when mixed with and adapted to human discourse; that it is a faultmuch more often observed that the divines write too humanly, than thatthe humanists write not theologically enough. Philosophy, says St. Chrysostom, has long been banished the holy schools, as an handmaidaltogether useless and thought unworthy to look, so much as in passingby the door, into the sanctuary of the holy treasures of the celestialdoctrine; that the human way of speaking is of a much lower form andought not to adopt for herself the dignity and majesty of divineeloquence. Let who will 'verbis indisciplinatis' talk of fortune, destiny, accident, good and evil hap, and other suchlike phrases, according to his own humour; I for my part propose fancies merely humanand merely my own, and that simply as human fancies, and separatelyconsidered, not as determined by any decree from heaven, incapable ofdoubt or dispute; matter of opinion, not matter of faith; things which Idiscourse of according to my own notions, not as I believe, according toGod; after a laical, not clerical, and yet always after a very religiousmanner, as children prepare their exercises, not to instruct but to beinstructed. 

And might it not be said, that an edict enjoining all people but such asare public professors of divinity, to be very reserved in writing ofreligion, would carry with it a very good colour of utility and justice--and to me, amongst the rest peradventure, to hold my prating? I havebeen told that even those who are not of our Church nevertheless amongstthemselves expressly forbid the name of God to be used in commondiscourse, nor so much even by way of interjection, exclamation, assertion of a truth, or comparison; and I think them in the right: uponwhat occasion soever we call upon God to accompany and assist us, itought always to be done with the greatest reverence and devotion. 

There is, as I remember, a passage in Xenophon where he tells us that weought so much the more seldom to call upon God, by how much it is hard tocompose our souls to such a degree of calmness, patience, and devotion asit ought to be in at such a time; otherwise our prayers are not only vainand fruitless, but vicious: "forgive us, " we say, "our trespasses, as weforgive them that trespass against us"; what do we mean by this petitionbut that we present to God a soul free from all rancour and revenge? Andyet we make nothing of invoking God's assistance in our vices, andinviting Him into our unjust designs:

 "Quae, nisi seductis, nequeas committere divis"

 ["Which you can only impart to the gods, when you have gained them over. "--Persius, ii. 4. ]

the covetous man prays for the conservation of his vain and superfluousriches; the ambitious for victory and the good conduct of his fortune;the thief calls Him to his assistance, to deliver him from the dangersand difficulties that obstruct his wicked designs, or returns Him thanksfor the facility he has met with in cutting a man's throat; at the doorof the house men are going to storm or break into by force of a petard, they fall to prayers for success, their intentions and hopes of cruelty, avarice, and lust. 

 "Hoc igitur, quo to Jovis aurem impellere tentas, Dic agedum Staio: 'proh Jupiter! O bone, clamet, Jupiter!' At sese non clamet Jupiter ipse. "

 ["This therefore, with which you seek to draw the ear of Jupiter, say to Staius. 'O Jupiter! O good Jupiter!' let him cry. Think you Jupiter himself would not cry out upon it?"--Persius, ii. 21. ]

Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, --[In the Heptameron. ]--tells of a youngprince, who, though she does not name him, is easily enough by his greatqualities to be known, who going upon an amorous assignation to lie withan advocate's wife of Paris, his way thither being through a church, henever passed that holy place going to or returning from his piousexercise, but he always kneeled down to pray. Wherein he would employthe divine favour, his soul being full of such virtuous meditations, I leave others to judge, which, nevertheless, she instances for atestimony of singular devotion. But this is not the only proof we havethat women are not very fit to treat of theological affairs. 

A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty Godcannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to thedominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a courseof vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, orlike those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie. 

 "Tacito mala vota susurro Concipimus. "

 ["We whisper our guilty prayers. "---Lucan, v. 104. ]

There are few men who durst publish to the world the prayers they make toAlmighty God:

 "Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque susurros Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto"

 ["'Tis not convenient for every one to bring the prayers he mutters out of the temple, and to give his wishes to the public ear. --"Persius, ii. 6. ]

and this is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always publicand heard by every one, to the end they might not prefer indecent orunjust petitions as this man:

 "Clare quum dixit, Apollo! Labra movet, metuens audiri: Pulcra Laverna, Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri; Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem. "

 ["When he has clearly said Apollo! he moves his lips, fearful to be heard; he murmurs: O fair Laverna, grant me the talent to deceive; grant me to appear holy and just; shroud my sins with night, and cast a cloud over my frauds. "--Horace, Ep. , i. 16, 59. --(Laverna was the goddess of thieves. )]

The gods severely punished the wicked prayers of OEdipus in grantingthem: he had prayed that his children might amongst themselves determinethe succession to his throne by arms, and was so miserable as to seehimself taken at his word. We are not to pray that all things may go aswe would have them, but as most concurrent with prudence. 

We seem, in truth, to make use of our prayers as of a kind of jargon, andas those do who employ holy words about sorceries and magical operations;and as if we reckoned the benefit we are to reap from them as dependingupon the contexture, sound, and jingle of words, or upon the gravecomposing of the countenance. For having the soul contaminated withconcupiscence, not touched with repentance, or comforted by any latereconciliation with God, we go to present Him such words as the memorysuggests to the tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the remission ofour sins. There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as thedivine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as weare; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and pollutedas we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive thispardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least, wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of theills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced usto offend her; neither the gods nor good men (says Plato) will accept thepresent of a wicked man:

 "Immunis aram si terigit manus, Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos Penates Farre pio et saliente mica. "

 ["If a pure hand has touched the altar, the pious offering of a small cake and a few grains of salt will appease the offended gods more effectually than costly sacrifices. " --Horace, Od. , iii. 23, 17. ]

CHAPTER LVII

OF AGE

I cannot allow of the way in which we settle for ourselves the durationof our life. I see that the sages contract it very much in comparison ofthe common opinion: "what, " said the younger Cato to those who would stayhis hand from killing himself, "am I now of an age to be reproached thatI go out of the world too soon?" And yet he was but eight-and-fortyyears old. He thought that to be a mature and advanced age, consideringhow few arrive unto it. And such as, soothing their thoughts with I knownot what course of nature, promise to themselves some years beyond it, could they be privileged from the infinite number of accidents to whichwe are by a natural subjection exposed, they might have some reason so todo. What am idle conceit is it to expect to die of a decay of strength, which is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves noshorter lease of life than that, considering it is a kind of death of allothers the most rare and very seldom seen? We call that only a naturaldeath; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck witha fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be snatched away with a pleurisy or theplague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to theseinconveniences. Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these finewords; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural which isgeneral, common, and universal. 

To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular, and, therefore, so much less natural than the others; 'tis the last andextremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for. It is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pass, and which thelaw of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal, a privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then. 'Tis alease she only signs by particular favour, and it may be to one only inthe space of two or three ages, and then with a pass to boot, to carryhim through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the wayof this long career. And therefore my opinion is, that when once fortyyears we should consider it as an age to which very few arrive. Forseeing that men do not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we arepretty well advanced; and since we have exceeded the ordinary bounds, which is the just measure of life, we ought not to expect to go muchfurther; having escaped so many precipices of death, whereinto we haveseen so many other men fall, we should acknowledge that so extraordinarya fortune as that which has hitherto rescued us from those eminentperils, and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of living, is not liketo continue long. 

'Tis a fault in our very laws to maintain this error: these say that aman is not capable of managing his own estate till he be five-and-twentyyears old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his life so long. Augustus cut off five years from the ancient Roman standard, and declaredthat thirty years old was sufficient for a judge. Servius Tulliussuperseded the knights of above seven-and-forty years of age from thefatigues of war; Augustus dismissed them at forty-five; though methinksit seems a little unreasonable that men should be sent to the firesidetill five-and-fifty or sixty years of age. I should be of opinion thatour vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for thepublic good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employus early enough. This emperor was arbiter of the whole world atnineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit todetermine a dispute about a gutter. 

For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they areever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not bythat time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never aftercome to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they haveof vigorous and fine, within that term or never, "Si l'espine rion picque quand nai, A pene que picque jamai, "

 ["If the thorn does not prick at its birth, 'twill hardly ever prick at all. "]

as they say in Dauphin. 

Of all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sortsoever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more wereperformed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in thevery lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those ofHannibal and his great rival Scipio? The better half of their lives theylived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after, 'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison ofthemselves. As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that sincethat age, both my understanding and my constitution have rather decayedthan improved, and retired rather than advanced. 'Tis possible, thatwith those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experiencemay increase with their years; but vivacity, promptitude, steadiness, andother pieces of us, of much greater importance, and much more essentiallyour own, languish and decay:

 "Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus aevi Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus, Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque, mensque. "

 ["When once the body is shaken by the violence of time, blood and vigour ebbing away, the judgment halts, the tongue and the mind dote. "--Lucretius, iii. 452. ]

Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind; and I haveseen enough who have got a weakness in their brains before either intheir legs or stomach; and by how much the more it is a disease of nogreat pain to the sufferer, and of obscure symptoms, so much greater isthe danger. For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not thatthey keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late. For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and naturalrocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it tochildhood, idleness, and apprenticeship. 

 [Which Cotton thus renders: "Birth though noble, ought not to share so large a vacancy, and so tedious a course of education. " Florio (1613) makes the passage read as-follows: "Methinks that, considering the weakness of our life, and seeing the infinite number of ordinary rocks and natural dangers it is subject unto, we should not, so soon as we come into the world, allot so large a share thereof unto unprofitable wantonness in youth, ill-breeding idleness, and slow-learning prentisage. "]

 ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

 Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace Change of fashions Chess: this idle and childish game Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them Excel above the common rate in frivolous things Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does Gradations above and below pleasure Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words Little knacks and frivolous subtleties Men approve of things for their being rare and new Must of necessity walk in the steps of another Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen Not to instruct but to be instructed. Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble Sitting betwixt two stools Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind Stupidity and facility natural to the common people The Bible: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. The faintness that surprises in the exercises of Venus Thucydides: which was the better wrestler To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular To make little things appear great was his profession To smell, though well, is to stink Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age We can never be despised according to our full desert When we have got it, we want something else Women who paint, pounce, and plaster up their ruins