{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3588/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3588","id":"gutenberg_3588","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3588","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Warfare","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","French essays -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE\n\nTranslated by Charles Cotton\n\nEdited by William Carew Hazilitt\n\n1877\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOLUME 8.\n\nXLVIII.   Of war-horses, or destriers.\nXLIX.     Of ancient customs.\nL.        Of Democritus and Heraclitus.\nLI.       Of the vanity of words.\nLII.      Of the parsimony of the Ancients.\nLIII.     Of a saying of Caesar.\nLIV.      Of vain subtleties.\nLV.       Of smells.\nLVI.      Of prayers.\nLVII.     Of age.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\n\nOF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS\n\nI here have become a grammarian, I who never learned any language but by\nrote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, or ablative.  I\nthink I have read that the Romans had a sort of horses by them called\n'funales' or 'dextrarios', which were either led horses, or horses laid\non at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion, and thence it is\nthat we call our horses of service 'destriers'; and our romances commonly\nuse the phrase of 'adestrer' for 'accompagner', to accompany.  They also\ncalled those that were trained in such sort, that running full speed,\nside by side, without bridle or saddle, the Roman gentlemen, armed at all\npieces, would shift and throw themselves from one to the other,\n'desultorios equos'.  The Numidian men-at-arms had always a led horse in\none hand, besides that they rode upon, to change in the heat of battle:\n\n    \"Quibus, desultorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, inter\n     acerrimam saepe pugnam, in recentem equum, ex fesso, armatis\n     transultare mos erat: tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile\n     equorum genus.\"\n\n     [\"To whom it was a custom, leading along two horses, often in the\n     hottest fight, to leap armed from a tired horse to a fresh one; so\n     active were the men, and the horses so docile.\"--Livy, xxiii. 29.]\n\nThere are many horses trained to help their riders so as to run upon any\none, that appears with a drawn sword, to fall both with mouth and heels\nupon any that front or oppose them: but it often happens that they do\nmore harm to their friends than to their enemies; and, moreover, you\ncannot loose them from their hold, to reduce them again into order, when\nthey are once engaged and grappled, by which means you remain at the\nmercy of their quarrel.  It happened very ill to Artybius, general of the\nPersian army, fighting, man to man, with Onesilus, king of Salamis, to be\nmounted upon a horse trained after this manner, it being the occasion of\nhis death, the squire of Onesilus cleaving the horse down with a scythe\nbetwixt the shoulders as it was reared up upon his master.  And what the\nItalians report, that in the battle of Fornova, the horse of Charles\nVIII., with kicks and plunges, disengaged his master from the enemy that\npressed upon him, without which he had been slain, sounds like a very\ngreat chance, if it be true.\n\n     [In the narrative which Philip de Commines has given of this battle,\n     in which he himself was present (lib. viii.  ch. 6), he tells us\n     of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was\n     mounted.  The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most\n     beautiful horse he had ever seen.  During the battle the king was\n     personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de\n     chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed.  \"The king,\" says\n     Commines, \"had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore\n     he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great\n     way from him, arrived at the critical minute.\"]\n\nThe Mamalukes make their boast that they have the most ready horses of\nany cavalry in the world; that by nature and custom they were taught to\nknow and distinguish the enemy, and to fall foul upon them with mouth and\nheels, according to a word or sign given; as also to gather up with their\nteeth darts and lances scattered upon the field, and present them to\ntheir riders, on the word of command.  'T is said, both of Caesar and\nPompey, that amongst their other excellent qualities they were both very\ngood horsemen, and particularly of Caesar, that in his youth, being\nmounted on the bare back, without saddle or bridle, he could make the\nhorse run, stop, and turn, and perform all its airs, with his hands\nbehind him.  As nature designed to make of this person, and of Alexander,\ntwo miracles of military art, so one would say she had done her utmost to\narm them after an extraordinary manner for every one knows that\nAlexander's horse, Bucephalus, had a head inclining to the shape of a\nbull; that he would suffer himself to be mounted and governed by none but\nhis master, and that he was so honoured after his death as to have a city\nerected to his name.  Caesar had also one which had forefeet like those\nof a man, his hoofs being divided in the form of fingers, which likewise\nwas not to be ridden, by any but Caesar himself, who, after his death,\ndedicated his statue to the goddess Venus.\n\nI do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback, for it is the\nplace where, whether well or sick, I find myself most at ease.  Plato\nrecommends it for health, as also Pliny says it is good for the stomach\nand the joints.  Let us go further into this matter since here we are.\n\nWe read in Xenophon a law forbidding any one who was master of a horse to\ntravel on foot.  Trogus Pompeius and Justin say that the Parthians were\nwont to perform all offices and ceremonies, not only in war but also all\naffairs whether public or private, make bargains, confer, entertain, take\nthe air, and all on horseback; and that the greatest distinction betwixt\nfreemen and slaves amongst them was that the one rode on horseback and\nthe other went on foot, an institution of which King Cyrus was the\nfounder.\n\nThere are several examples in the Roman history (and Suetonius more\nparticularly observes it of Caesar) of captains who, on pressing\noccasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, both by that means to take\nfrom them all hopes of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped in\nthis sort of fight.\n\n               \"Quo baud dubie superat Romanus,\"\n\n     [\"Wherein the Roman does questionless excel.\"--Livy, ix. 22.]\n\nsays Livy.  And so the first thing they did to prevent the mutinies and\ninsurrections of nations of late conquest was to take from them their\narms and horses, and therefore it is that we so often meet in Caesar:\n\n          \"Arma proferri, jumenta produci, obsides dari jubet.\"\n\n     [\"He commanded the arms to be produced, the horses brought out,\n     hostages to be given.\"--De Bello Gall., vii. II.]\n\nThe Grand Signior to this day suffers not a Christian or a Jew to keep a\nhorse of his own throughout his empire.\n\nOur ancestors, and especially at the time they had war with the English,\nin all their greatest engagements and pitched battles fought for the most\npart on foot, that they might have nothing but their own force, courage,\nand constancy to trust to in a quarrel of so great concern as life and\nhonour.  You stake (whatever Chrysanthes in Xenophon says to the\ncontrary) your valour and your fortune upon that of your horse; his\nwounds or death bring your person into the same danger; his fear or fury\nshall make you reputed rash or cowardly; if he have an ill mouth or will\nnot answer to the spur, your honour must answer for it.  And, therefore,\nI do not think it strange that those battles were more firm and furious\nthan those that are fought on horseback:\n\n               \"Caedebant pariter, pariterque ruebant\n          Victores victique; neque his fuga nota, neque illis.\"\n\n     [\"They fought and fell pell-mell, victors and vanquished; nor was\n     flight thought of by either.\"--AEneid, x. 756.]\n\nTheir battles were much better disputed.  Nowadays there are nothing but\nrouts:\n\n          \"Primus clamor atque impetus rem decernit.\"\n\n     [\"The first shout and charge decides the business.\"--Livy, xxv. 41.]\n\nAnd the means we choose to make use of in so great a hazard should be as\nmuch as possible at our own command: wherefore I should advise to choose\nweapons of the shortest sort, and such of which we are able to give the\nbest account.  A man may repose more confidence in a sword he holds in\nhis hand than in a bullet he discharges out of a pistol, wherein there\nmust be a concurrence of several circumstances to make it perform its\noffice, the powder, the stone, and the wheel: if any of which fail it\nendangers your fortune.  A man himself strikes much surer than the air\ncan direct his blow:\n\n          \"Et, quo ferre velint, permittere vulnera ventis\n          Ensis habet vires; et gens quaecumque virorum est,\n          Bella gerit gladiis.\"\n\n     [\"And so where they choose to carry [the arrows], the winds allow\n     the wounds; the sword has strength of arm: and whatever nation of\n     men there is, they wage war with swords.\"--Lucan, viii. 384.]\n\nBut of that weapon I shall speak more fully when I come to compare the\narms of the ancients with those of modern use; only, by the way, the\nastonishment of the ear abated, which every one grows familiar with in a\nshort time, I look upon it as a weapon of very little execution, and hope\nwe shall one day lay it aside.  That missile weapon which the Italians\nformerly made use of both with fire and by sling was much more terrible:\nthey called a certain kind of javelin, armed at the point with an iron\nthree feet long, that it might pierce through and through an armed man,\nPhalarica, which they sometimes in the field darted by hand, sometimes\nfrom several sorts of engines for the defence of beleaguered places; the\nshaft being rolled round with flax, wax, rosin, oil, and other\ncombustible matter, took fire in its flight, and lighting upon the body\nof a man or his target, took away all the use of arms and limbs.  And\nyet, coming to close fight, I should think they would also damage the\nassailant, and that the camp being as it were planted with these flaming\ntruncheons, would produce a common inconvenience to the whole crowd:\n\n          \"Magnum stridens contorta Phalarica venit,\n          Fulminis acta modo.\"\n\n     [\"The Phalarica, launched like lightning, flies through\n     the air with a loud rushing sound.\"--AEneid, ix. 705.]\n\nThey had, moreover, other devices which custom made them perfect in\n(which seem incredible to us who have not seen them), by which they\nsupplied the effects of our powder and shot.  They darted their spears\nwith so great force, as ofttimes to transfix two targets and two armed\nmen at once, and pin them together.  Neither was the effect of their\nslings less certain of execution or of shorter carriage:\n\n     [\"Culling round stones from the beach for their slings; and with\n     these practising over the waves, so as from a great distance to\n     throw within a very small circuit, they became able not only to\n     wound an enemy in the head, but hit any other part at pleasure.\"\n     --Livy, xxxviii. 29.]\n\nTheir pieces of battery had not only the execution but the thunder of our\ncannon also:\n\n          \"Ad ictus moenium cum terribili sonitu editos,\n          pavor et trepidatio cepit.\"\n\n     [\"At the battery of the walls, performed with a terrible noise,\n     the defenders began to fear and tremble.\"--Idem, ibid., 5.]\n\nThe Gauls, our kinsmen in Asia, abominated these treacherous missile\narms, it being their use to fight, with greater bravery, hand to hand:\n\n     [\"They are not so much concerned about large gashes-the bigger and\n     deeper the wound, the more glorious do they esteem the combat but\n     when they find themselves tormented by some arrow-head or bullet\n     lodged within, but presenting little outward show of wound,\n     transported with shame and anger to perish by so imperceptible a\n     destroyer, they fall to the ground.\"---Livy, xxxviii.  21.]\n\nA pretty description of something very like an arquebuse-shot.  The ten\nthousand Greeks in their long and famous retreat met with a nation who\nvery much galled them with great and strong bows, carrying arrows so long\nthat, taking them up, one might return them back like a dart, and with\nthem pierce a buckler and an armed man through and through.  The engines,\nthat Dionysius invented at Syracuse to shoot vast massy darts and stones\nof a prodigious greatness with so great impetuosity and at so great a\ndistance, came very near to our modern inventions.\n\nBut in this discourse of horses and horsemanship, we are not to forget\nthe pleasant posture of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity,\nupon his mule, whom Monstrelet reports always to have ridden sideways\nthrough the streets of Paris like a woman.  He says also, elsewhere, that\nthe Gascons had terrible horses, that would wheel in their full speed,\nwhich the French, Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon as a\nmiracle, \"having never seen the like before,\" which are his very words.\n\nCaesar, speaking of the Suabians: \"in the charges they make on\nhorseback,\" says he, \"they often throw themselves off to fight on foot,\nhaving taught their horses not to stir in the meantime from the place,\nto which they presently run again upon occasion; and according to their\ncustom, nothing is so unmanly and so base as to use saddles or pads, and\nthey despise such as make use of those conveniences: insomuch that, being\nbut a very few in number, they fear not to attack a great many.\"  That\nwhich I have formerly wondered at, to see a horse made to perform all his\nairs with a switch only and the reins upon his neck, was common with the\nMassilians, who rid their horses without saddle or bridle:\n\n          \"Et gens, quae nudo residens Massylia dorso,\n          Ora levi flectit, fraenorum nescia, virga.\"\n\n     [\"The Massylians, mounted on the bare backs of their horses,\n     bridleless, guide them by a mere switch.\"--Lucan, iv.  682.]\n\n               \"Et Numidae infraeni cingunt.\"\n\n     [\"The Numidians guiding their horses without bridles.\"\n     --AEneid, iv.  41.]\n\n          \"Equi sine fraenis, deformis ipse cursus,\n          rigida cervice et extento capite currentium.\"\n\n     [\"The career of a horse without a bridle is ungraceful; the neck\n     extended stiff, and the nose thrust out.\"--Livy, xxxv. II.]\n\nKing Alfonso,--[Alfonso XI., king of Leon and Castile, died 1350.]--\nhe who first instituted the Order of the Band or Scarf in Spain, amongst\nother rules of the order, gave them this, that they should never ride\nmule or mulet, upon penalty of a mark of silver; this I had lately out of\nGuevara's Letters.  Whoever gave these the title of Golden Epistles had\nanother kind of opinion of them than I have.  The Courtier says, that\ntill his time it was a disgrace to a gentleman to ride on one of these\ncreatures: but the Abyssinians, on the contrary, the nearer they are to\nthe person of Prester John, love to be mounted upon large mules, for the\ngreatest dignity and grandeur.\n\nXenophon tells us, that the Assyrians were fain to keep their horses\nfettered in the stable, they were so fierce and vicious; and that it\nrequired so much time to loose and harness them, that to avoid any\ndisorder this tedious preparation might bring upon them in case of\nsurprise, they never sat down in their camp till it was first well\nfortified with ditches and ramparts.  His Cyrus, who was so great a\nmaster in all manner of horse service, kept his horses to their due work,\nand never suffered them to have anything to eat till first they had\nearned it by the sweat of some kind of exercise.  The Scythians when in\nthe field and in scarcity of provisions used to let their horses blood,\nwhich they drank, and sustained themselves by that diet:\n\n               \"Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo.\"\n\n          [\"The Scythian comes, who feeds on horse-flesh\"\n          --Martial, De Spectaculis Libey, Epigr. iii. 4.]\n\nThose of Crete, being besieged by Metellus, were in so great necessity\nfor drink that they were fain to quench their thirst with their horses\nurine.--[Val.  Max., vii. 6, ext. 1.]\n\nTo shew how much cheaper the Turkish armies support themselves than our\nEuropean forces, 'tis said that besides the soldiers drink nothing but\nwater and eat nothing but rice and salt flesh pulverised (of which every\none may easily carry about with him a month's provision), they know how\nto feed upon the blood of their horses as well as the Muscovite and\nTartar, and salt it for their use.\n\nThese new-discovered people of the Indies [Mexico and Yucatan  D.W.],\nwhen the Spaniards first landed amongst them, had so great an opinion\nboth of the men and horses, that they looked upon the first as gods and\nthe other as animals ennobled above their nature; insomuch that after\nthey were subdued, coming to the men to sue for peace and pardon, and to\nbring them gold and provisions, they failed not to offer of the same to\nthe horses, with the same kind of harangue to them they had made to the\nothers: interpreting their neighing for a language of truce and\nfriendship.\n\nIn the other Indies, to ride upon an elephant was the first and royal\nplace of honour; the second to ride in a coach with four horses; the\nthird to ride upon a camel; and the last and least honour to be carried\nor drawn by one horse only.  Some one of our late writers tells us that\nhe has been in countries in those parts where they ride upon oxen with\npads, stirrups, and bridles, and very much at their ease.\n\nQuintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, in a battle with the Samnites, seeing\nhis horse, after three or four charges, had failed of breaking into the\nenemy's battalion, took this course, to make them unbridle all their\nhorses and spur their hardest, so that having nothing to check their\ncareer, they might through weapons and men open the way to his foot, who\nby that means gave them a bloody defeat.  The same command was given by\nQuintus Fulvius Flaccus against the Celtiberians:\n\n     [\"You will do your business with greater advantage of your horses'\n     strength, if you send them unbridled upon the enemy, as it is\n     recorded the Roman horse to their great glory have often done; their\n     bits being taken off, they charged through and again back through\n     the enemy's ranks with great slaughter, breaking down all their\n     spears.\"--Idem, xl. 40.]\n\nThe Duke of Muscovy was anciently obliged to pay this reverence to the\nTartars, that when they sent an embassy to him he went out to meet them\non foot, and presented them with a goblet of mares' milk (a beverage of\ngreatest esteem amongst them), and if, in drinking, a drop fell by chance\nupon their horse's mane, he was bound to lick it off with his tongue.\nThe army that Bajazet had sent into Russia was overwhelmed with so\ndreadful a tempest of snow, that to shelter and preserve themselves from\nthe cold, many killed and embowelled their horses, to creep into their\nbellies and enjoy the benefit of that vital heat.  Bajazet, after that\nfurious battle wherein he was overthrown by Tamerlane,  was in a hopeful\nway of securing his own person by the fleetness of an Arabian mare he had\nunder him, had he not been constrained to let her drink her fill at the\nford of a river in his way, which rendered her so heavy and indisposed,\nthat he was afterwards easily overtaken by those that pursued him.  They\nsay, indeed, that to let a horse stale takes him off his mettle, but as\nto drinking, I should rather have thought it would refresh him.\n\nCroesus, marching his army through certain waste lands near Sardis, met\nwith an infinite number of serpents, which the horses devoured with great\nappetite, and which Herodotus says was a prodigy of ominous portent to\nhis affairs.\n\nWe call a horse entire, that has his mane and ears so, and no other will\npass muster.  The Lacedaemonians, having defeated the Athenians in\nSicily, returning triumphant from the victory into the city of Syracuse,\namongst other insolences, caused all the horses they had taken to be\nshorn and led in triumph.  Alexander fought with a nation called Dahas,\nwhose discipline it was to march two and two together armed on one horse,\nto the war; and being in fight, one of them alighted, and so they fought\non horseback and on foot, one after another by turns.\n\nI do not think that for graceful riding any nation in the world excels\nthe French.  A good horseman, according to our way of speaking, seems\nrather to have respect to the courage of the man than address in riding.\nOf all that ever I saw, the most knowing in that art, who had the best\nseat and the best method in breaking horses, was Monsieur de Carnavalet,\nwho served our King Henry II.\n\nI have seen a man ride with both his feet upon the saddle, take off his\nsaddle, and at his return take it up again and replace it, riding all the\nwhile full speed; having galloped over a cap, make at it very good shots\nbackwards with his bow; take up anything from the ground, setting one\nfoot on the ground and the other in the stirrup: with twenty other ape's\ntricks, which he got his living by.\n\nThere has been seen in my time at Constantinople two men upon one horse,\nwho, in the height of its speed, would throw themselves off and into the\nsaddle again by turn; and one who bridled and saddled his horse with\nnothing but his teeth; an other who betwixt two horses, one foot upon one\nsaddle and the other upon another, carrying the other man upon his\nshoulders, would ride full career, the other standing bolt upright upon\nand making very good shots with his bow; several who would ride full\nspeed with their heels upward, and their heads upon the saddle betwixt\nseveral scimitars, with the points upwards, fixed in the harness.  When I\nwas a boy, the prince of Sulmona, riding an unbroken horse at Naples,\nprone to all sorts of action, held reals--[A small coin of Spain, the\nTwo Sicilies, &c.]--under his knees and toes, as if they had been nailed\nthere, to shew the firmness of his seat.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\nOF ANCIENT CUSTOMS\n\nI should willingly pardon our people for admitting no other pattern or\nrule of perfection than their own peculiar manners and customs; for 'tis\na common vice, not of the vulgar only, but almost of all men, to walk in\nthe beaten road their ancestors have trod before them.  I am content,\nwhen they see Fabricius or Laelius, that they look upon their countenance\nand behaviour as barbarous, seeing they are neither clothed nor fashioned\naccording to our mode.  But I find fault with their singular indiscretion\nin suffering themselves to be so blinded and imposed upon by the\nauthority of the present usage as every month to alter their opinion, if\ncustom so require, and that they should so vary their judgment in their\nown particular concern.  When they wore the busk of their doublets up as\nhigh as their breasts, they stiffly maintained that they were in their\nproper place; some years after it was slipped down betwixt their thighs,\nand then they could laugh at the former fashion as uneasy and\nintolerable.  The fashion now in use makes them absolutely condemn the\nother two with so great resolution and so universal consent, that a man\nwould think there was a certain kind of madness crept in amongst them,\nthat infatuates their understandings to this strange degree.  Now, seeing\nthat our change of fashions is so prompt and sudden, that the inventions\nof all the tailors in the world cannot furnish out new whim-whams enow to\nfeed our vanity withal, there will often be a necessity that the despised\nforms must again come in vogue, these immediately after fall into the\nsame contempt; and that the same judgment must, in the space of fifteen\nor twenty years, take up half-a-dozen not only divers but contrary\nopinions, with an incredible lightness and inconstancy; there is not any\nof us so discreet, who suffers not himself to be gulled with this\ncontradiction, and both in external and internal sight to be insensibly\nblinded.\n\nI wish to muster up here some old customs that I have in memory, some of\nthem the same with ours, the others different, to the end that, bearing\nin mind this continual variation of human things, we may have our\njudgment more clearly and firmly settled.\n\nThe thing in use amongst us of fighting with rapier and cloak was in\npractice amongst the Romans also:\n\n          \"Sinistras sagis involvunt, gladiosque distringunt,\"\n\n     [\"They wrapt their cloaks upon the left arm, and drew their\n     swords.\"--De Bello Civili, i. 75.]\n\nsays Caesar; and he observes a vicious custom of our nation, that\ncontinues yet amongst us, which is to stop passengers we meet upon the\nroad, to compel them to give an account who they are, and to take it for\nan affront and just cause of quarrel if they refuse to do it.\n\nAt the Baths, which the ancients made use of every day before they went\nto dinner, and as frequently as we wash our hands, they at first only\nbathed their arms and legs; but afterwards, and by a custom that has\ncontinued for many ages in most nations of the world, they bathed stark\nnaked in mixed and perfumed water, looking upon it as a great simplicity\nto bathe in mere water.  The most delicate and affected perfumed\nthemselves all over three or four times a day.  They often caused their\nhair to be pinched off, as the women of France have some time since taken\nup a custom to do their foreheads,\n\n          \"Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod brachia veilis,\"\n\n     [\"You pluck the hairs out of your breast, your arms, and thighs.\"\n     --Martial, ii.  62, i.]\n\nthough they had ointments proper for that purpose:\n\n          \"Psilotro nitet, aut acids latet oblita creta.\"\n\n     [\"She shines with unguents, or with chalk dissolved in vinegar.\"\n     --Idem, vi.  93, 9.]\n\nThey delighted to lie soft, and alleged it as a great testimony of\nhardiness to lie upon a mattress.  They ate lying upon beds, much after\nthe manner of the Turks in this age:\n\n          \"Inde thoro pater AEneas sic orsus ab alto.\"\n\n     [\"Thus Father AEneas, from his high bed of state, spoke.\"\n     --AEneid, ii. 2.]\n\nAnd 'tis said of the younger Cato, that after the battle of Pharsalia,\nbeing entered into a melancholy disposition at the ill posture of the\npublic affairs, he took his repasts always sitting, assuming a strict and\naustere course of life.  It was also their custom to kiss the hands of\ngreat persons; the more to honour and caress them.  And meeting with\nfriends, they always kissed in salutation, as do the Venetians:\n\n          \"Gratatusque darem cum dulcibus oscula verbis.\"\n\n          [\"And kindest words I would mingle with kisses.\"\n          --Ovid, De Pont., iv. 9, 13]\n\nIn petitioning or saluting any great man, they used to lay their hands\nupon his knees.  Pasicles the philosopher, brother of Crates, instead of\nlaying his hand upon the knee laid it upon the private parts, and being\nroughly repulsed by him to whom he made that indecent compliment:\n\"What,\" said he, \"is not that part your own as well as the other?\"\n--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 89.]--They used to eat fruit, as we do, after\ndinner.  They wiped their fundaments (let the ladies, if they please,\nmince it smaller) with a sponge, which is the reason that 'spongia' is a\nsmutty word in Latin; which sponge was fastened to the end of a stick, as\nappears by the story of him who, as he was led along to be thrown to the\nwild beasts in the sight of the people, asking leave to do his business,\nand having no other way to despatch himself, forced the sponge and stick\ndown his throat and choked himself.--[Seneca, Ep., 70.] They used to\nwipe, after coition, with perfumed wool:\n\n          \"At tibi nil faciam; sed Iota mentula lana.\"\n\nThey had in the streets of Rome vessels and little tubs for passengers to\nurine in:\n\n          \"Pusi saepe lacum propter se, ac dolia curta.\n          Somno devincti, credunt extollere vestem.\"\n\n     [\"The little boys in their sleep often think they are near the\n     public urinal, and raise their coats to make use of it.\"\n     --Lucretius, iv.]\n\nThey had collation betwixt meals, and had in summer cellars of snow to\ncool their wine; and some there were who made use of snow in winter, not\nthinking their wine cool enough, even at that cold season of the year.\nThe men of quality had their cupbearers and carvers, and their buffoons\nto make them sport.  They had their meat served up in winter upon chafing\ndishes, which were set upon the table, and had portable kitchens (of\nwhich I myself have seen some) wherein all their service was carried\nabout with them:\n\n               \"Has vobis epulas habete, lauti\n               Nos offendimur ambulante caena.\"\n\n     [\"Do you, if you please, esteem these feasts: we do not like the\n     ambulatory suppers.\"--Martial, vii. 48, 4.]\n\nIn summer they had a contrivance to bring fresh and clear rills through\ntheir lower rooms, wherein were great store of living fish, which the\nguests took out with their own hands to be dressed every man according to\nhis own liking.  Fish has ever had this pre-eminence, and keeps it still,\nthat the grandees, as to them, all pretend to be cooks; and indeed the\ntaste is more delicate than that of flesh, at least to my fancy.  But in\nall sorts of magnificence, debauchery, and voluptuous inventions of\neffeminacy and expense, we do, in truth, all we can to parallel them;\nfor our wills are as corrupt as theirs: but we want ability to equal\nthem.  Our force is no more able to reach them in their vicious, than in\ntheir virtuous, qualities, for both the one and the other proceeded from\na vigour of soul which was without comparison greater in them than in us;\nand souls, by how much the weaker they are, by so much have they less\npower to do either very well or very ill.\n\nThe highest place of honour amongst them was the middle.  The name going\nbefore, or following after, either in writing or speaking, had no\nsignification of grandeur, as is evident by their writings; they will as\nsoon say Oppius and Caesar, as Caesar and Oppius; and me and thee, as\nthee and me.  This is the reason that made me formerly take notice in the\nlife of Flaminius, in our French Plutarch, of one passage, where it seems\nas if the author, speaking of the jealousy of honour betwixt the\nAEtolians and Romans, about the winning of a battle they had with their\njoined forces obtained, made it of some importance, that in the Greek\nsongs they had put the AEtolians before the Romans: if there be no\namphibology in the words of the French translation.\n\nThe ladies, in their baths, made no scruple of admitting men amongst\nthem, and moreover made use of their serving-men to rub and anoint them:\n\n          \"Inguina succinctus nigri tibi servus aluta\n          Stat, quoties calidis nuda foveris aquis.\"\n\n     [\"A slave--his middle girded with a black apron--stands before you,\n     when, naked, you take a hot bath.\"--Martial, vii. 35, i.]\n\nThey all powdered themselves with a certain powder, to moderate their\nsweats.\n\nThe ancient Gauls, says Sidonius Apollinaris, wore their hair long before\nand the hinder part of the head shaved, a fashion that begins to revive\nin this vicious and effeminate age.\n\nThe Romans used to pay the watermen their fare at their first stepping\ninto the boat, which we never do till after landing:\n\n               \"Dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur,\n               Tota abit hora.\"\n\n     [\"Whilst the fare's paying, and the mule is being harnessed, a whole\n     hour's time is past.\"--Horace, Sat. i. 5, 13.]\n\nThe women used to lie on the side of the bed next the wall: and for that\nreason they called Caesar,\n\n                    \"Spondam regis Nicomedis,\"\n\n     [\"The bed of King Nicomedes.\"--Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 49.]\n\nThey took breath in their drinking, and watered their wine\n\n                   \"Quis puer ocius\n                    Restinguet ardentis Falerni\n                    Pocula praetereunte lympha?\"\n\n     [\"What boy will quickly come and cool the heat of the Falernian\n     wine with clear water?\"--Horace, Od., ii. z, 18.]\n\nAnd the roguish looks and gestures of our lackeys were also in use\namongst them:\n\n          \"O Jane, a tergo quern nulls ciconia pinsit,\n          Nec manus, auriculas imitari est mobilis albas,\n          Nec lingua, quantum sitiat canis Appula, tantum.\"\n\n     [\"O Janus, whom no crooked fingers, simulating a stork, peck at\n     behind your back, whom no quick hands deride behind you, by\n     imitating the motion of the white ears of the ass, against whom no\n     mocking tongue is thrust out, as the tongue of the thirsty Apulian\n     dog.\"--Persius, i. 58.]\n\nThe Argian and Roman ladies mourned in white, as ours did formerly and\nshould do still, were I to govern in this point.  But there are whole\nbooks on this subject.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\n\nOF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS\n\nThe judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar\nin everything: which is the reason, that in these Essays I take hold of\nall occasions where, though it happen to be a subject I do not very well\nunderstand, I try, however, sounding it at a distance, and finding it too\ndeep for my stature, I keep me on the shore; and this knowledge that a\nman can proceed no further, is one effect of its virtue, yes, one of\nthose of which it is most proud.  One while in an idle and frivolous\nsubject, I try to find out matter whereof to compose a body, and then to\nprop and support it; another while, I employ it in a noble subject, one\nthat has been tossed and tumbled by a thousand hands, wherein a man can\nscarce possibly introduce anything of his own, the way being so beaten on\nevery side that he must of necessity walk in the steps of another: in\nsuch a case, 'tis the work of the judgment to take the way that seems\nbest, and of a thousand paths, to determine that this or that is the\nbest.  I leave the choice of my arguments to fortune, and take that she\nfirst presents to me; they are all alike to me, I never design to go\nthrough any of them; for I never see all of anything: neither do they who\nso largely promise to show it others.  Of a hundred members and faces\nthat everything has, I take one, onewhile to look it over only, another\nwhile to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: I\ngive a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most part\ntempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it.  Did I\nknow myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to\nthe bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here\none word and there another, patterns cut from several pieces and\nscattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not\nresponsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without\nvarying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and\nuncertainty, and to my own governing method, ignorance.\n\nAll motion discovers us: the very same soul of Caesar, that made itself\nso conspicuous in marshalling and commanding the battle of Pharsalia, was\nalso seen as solicitous and busy in the softer affairs of love and\nleisure.  A man makes a judgment of a horse, not only by seeing him when\nhe is showing off his paces, but by his very walk, nay, and by seeing him\nstand in the stable.\n\nAmongst the functions of the soul, there are some of a lower and meaner\nform; he who does not see her in those inferior offices as well as in\nthose of nobler note, never fully discovers her; and, peradventure, she\nis best shown where she moves her simpler pace.  The winds of passions\ntake most hold of her in her highest flights; and the rather by reason\nthat she wholly applies herself to, and exercises her whole virtue upon,\nevery particular subject, and never handles more than one thing at a\ntime, and that not according to it, but according to herself.  Things in\nrespect to themselves have, peradventure, their weight, measures, and\nconditions; but when we once take them into us, the soul forms them as\nshe pleases.  Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato, indifferent\nto Socrates.  Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty,\nand their contraries, all strip themselves at their entering into us, and\nreceive a new robe, and of another fashion, from the soul; and of what\ncolour, brown, bright, green, dark, and of what quality, sharp, sweet,\ndeep, or superficial, as best pleases each of them, for they are not\nagreed upon any common standard of forms, rules, or proceedings; every\none is a queen in her own dominions.  Let us, therefore, no more excuse\nourselves upon the external qualities of things; it belongs to us to give\nourselves an account of them.  Our good or ill has no other dependence\nbut on ourselves.  'Tis there that our offerings and our vows are due,\nand not to fortune she has no power over our manners; on the contrary,\nthey draw and make her follow in their train, and cast her in their own\nmould.  Why should not I judge of Alexander at table, ranting and\ndrinking at the prodigious rate he sometimes used to do?\n\nOr, if he played at chess?  what string of his soul was not touched by\nthis idle and childish game?  I hate and avoid it, because it is not play\nenough, that it is too grave and serious a diversion, and I am ashamed to\nlay out as much thought and study upon it as would serve to much better\nuses.  He did not more pump his brains about his glorious expedition into\nthe Indies, nor than another in unravelling a passage upon which depends\nthe safety of mankind.  To what a degree does this ridiculous diversion\nmolest the soul, when all her faculties are summoned together upon this\ntrivial account! and how fair an opportunity she herein gives every one\nto know and to make a right judgment of himself?  I do not more\nthoroughly sift myself in any other posture than this: what passion are\nwe exempted from in it?  Anger, spite, malice, impatience, and a vehement\ndesire of getting the better in a concern wherein it were more excusable\nto be ambitious of being overcome; for to be eminent, to excel above the\ncommon rate in frivolous things, nowise befits a man of honour.  What I\nsay in this example may be said in all others.  Every particle, every\nemployment of man manifests him equally with any other.\n\nDemocritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first,\nfinding human condition ridiculous and vain, never appeared abroad but\nwith a jeering and laughing countenance; whereas Heraclitus commiserating\nthat same condition of ours, appeared always with a sorrowful look, and\ntears in his eyes:\n\n               \"Alter\n               Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum\n               Protuleratque pedem; flebat contrarius alter.\"\n\n     [\"The one always, as often as he had stepped one pace from his\n     threshold, laughed, the other always wept.\"--Juvenal, Sat., x. 28.]\n\n          [Or, as Voltaire: \"Life is a comedy to those who think;\n          a tragedy to those who feel.\"  D.W.]\n\nI am clearly for the first humour; not because it is more pleasant to\nlaugh than to weep, but because it expresses more contempt and\ncondemnation than the other, and I think we can never be despised\naccording to our full desert.  Compassion and bewailing seem to imply\nsome esteem of and value for the thing bemoaned; whereas the things we\nlaugh at are by that expressed to be of no moment.  I do not think that\nwe are so unhappy as we are vain, or have in us so much malice as folly;\nwe are not so full of mischief as inanity; nor so miserable as we are\nvile and mean.  And therefore Diogenes, who passed away his time in\nrolling himself in his tub, and made nothing of the great Alexander,\nesteeming us no better than flies or bladders puffed up with wind, was a\nsharper and more penetrating, and, consequently in my opinion, a juster\njudge than Timon, surnamed the Man-hater; for what a man hates he lays to\nheart.  This last was an enemy to all mankind, who passionately desired\nour ruin, and avoided our conversation as dangerous, proceeding from\nwicked and depraved natures: the other valued us so little that we could\nneither trouble nor infect him by our example; and left us to herd one\nwith another, not out of fear, but from contempt of our society:\nconcluding us as incapable of doing good as evil.\n\nOf the same strain was Statilius' answer, when Brutus courted him into\nthe conspiracy against Caesar; he was satisfied that the enterprise was\njust, but he did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern';\naccording to the doctrine of Hegesias, who said, that a wise man ought to\ndo nothing but for himself, forasmuch as he only was worthy of it: and to\nthe saying of Theodorus, that it was not reasonable a wise man should\nhazard himself for his country, and endanger wisdom for a company of\nfools.  Our condition is as ridiculous as risible.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LI\n\nOF THE VANITY OF WORDS\n\nA rhetorician of times past said, that to make little things appear great\nwas his profession.  This was a shoemaker, who can make a great shoe for\na little foot.--[A saying of Agesilaus.]--They would in Sparta have\nsent such a fellow to be whipped for making profession of a tricky and\ndeceitful act; and I fancy that Archidamus, who was king of that country,\nwas a little surprised at the answer of Thucydides, when inquiring of\nhim, which was the better wrestler, Pericles, or he, he replied, that it\nwas hard to affirm; for when I have thrown him, said he, he always\npersuades the spectators that he had no fall and carries away the prize.\n--[Quintilian, ii.  15.]--The women who paint, pounce, and plaster up\ntheir ruins, filling up their wrinkles and deformities, are less to\nblame, because it is no great matter whether we see them in their natural\ncomplexions; whereas these make it their business to deceive not our\nsight only but our judgments, and to adulterate and corrupt the very\nessence of things.  The republics that have maintained themselves in a\nregular and well-modelled government, such as those of Lacedaemon and\nCrete, had orators in no very great esteem.  Aristo wisely defined\nrhetoric to be \"a science to persuade the people;\" Socrates and Plato\n\"an art to flatter and deceive.\"  And those who deny it in the general\ndescription, verify it throughout in their precepts.  The Mohammedans\nwill not suffer their children to be instructed in it, as being useless,\nand the Athenians, perceiving of how pernicious consequence the practice\nof it was, it being in their city of universal esteem, ordered the\nprincipal part, which is to move the affections, with their exordiums and\nperorations, to be taken away.  'Tis an engine invented to manage and\ngovern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble, and that never is made use of,\nbut like physic to the sick, in a discomposed state.  In those where the\nvulgar or the ignorant, or both together, have been all-powerful and able\nto give the law, as in those of Athens, Rhodes, and Rome, and where the\npublic affairs have been in a continual tempest of commotion, to such\nplaces have the orators always repaired.  And in truth, we shall find few\npersons in those republics who have pushed their fortunes to any great\ndegree of eminence without the assistance of eloquence.\n\nPompey, Caesar, Crassus, Lucullus, Lentulus, Metellus, thence took their\nchiefest spring, to mount to that degree of authority at which they at\nlast arrived, making it of greater use to them than arms, contrary to the\nopinion of better times; for, L. Volumnius speaking publicly in favour of\nthe election of Q. Fabius and Pub. Decius, to the consular dignity:\n\"These are men,\" said he, \"born for war and great in execution; in the\ncombat of the tongue altogether wanting; spirits truly consular.  The\nsubtle, eloquent, and learned are only good for the city, to make\npraetors of, to administer justice.\"--[Livy, x. 22.]\n\nEloquence most flourished at Rome when the public affairs were in the\nworst condition and most disquieted with intestine commotions; as a free\nand untilled soil bears the worst weeds.  By which it should seem that a\nmonarchical government has less need of it than any other: for the\nstupidity and facility natural to the common people, and that render them\nsubject to be turned and twined and, led by the ears by this charming\nharmony of words, without weighing or considering the truth and reality\nof things by the force of reason: this facility, I say, is not easily\nfound in a single person, and it is also more easy by good education and\nadvice to secure him from the impression of this poison.  There was never\nany famous orator known to come out of Persia or Macedon.\n\nI have entered into this discourse upon the occasion of an Italian I\nlately received into my service, and who was clerk of the kitchen to the\nlate Cardinal Caraffa till his death.  I put this fellow upon an account\nof his office: when he fell to discourse of this palate-science, with\nsuch a settled countenance and magisterial gravity, as if he had been\nhandling some profound point of divinity.  He made a learned distinction\nof the several sorts of appetites; of that a man has before he begins to\neat, and of those after the second and third service; the means simply to\nsatisfy the first, and then to raise and actuate the other two; the\nordering of the sauces, first in general, and then proceeded to the\nqualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads\naccording to their seasons, those which ought to be served up hot, and\nwhich cold; the manner of their garnishment and decoration to render them\nacceptable to the eye.  After which he entered upon the order of the\nwhole service, full of weighty and important considerations:\n\n               \"Nec minimo sane discrimine refert,\n               Quo gestu lepores, et quo gallina secetur;\"\n\n     [\"Nor with less discrimination observes how we should carve a hare,\n     and how a hen.\" or, (\"Nor with the least discrimination relates how\n     we should carve hares, and how cut up a hen.)\"\n     --Juvenal, Sat., v. 123.]\n\nand all this set out with lofty and magnificent words, the very same we\nmake use of when we discourse of the government of an empire.  Which\nlearned lecture of my man brought this of Terence into my memory:\n\n         \"Hoc salsum est, hoc adustum est, hoc lautum est, parum:\n          Illud recte: iterum sic memento: sedulo\n          Moneo, qux possum, pro mea sapientia.\n          Postremo, tanquam in speculum, in patinas,\n          Demea, Inspicere jubeo, et moneo, quid facto usus sit.\"\n\n     [\"This is too salt, that's burnt, that's not washed enough; that's\n     well; remember to do so another time.  Thus do I ever advise them to\n     have things done properly, according to my capacity; and lastly,\n     Demea, I command my cooks to look into every dish as if it were a\n     mirror, and tell them what they should do.\"\n     --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 71.]\n\nAnd yet even the Greeks themselves very much admired and highly applauded\nthe order and disposition that Paulus AEmilius observed in the feast he\ngave them at his return from Macedon.  But I do not here speak of\neffects, I speak of words only.\n\nI do not know whether it may have the same operation upon other men that\nit has upon me, but when I hear our architects thunder out their bombast\nwords of pilasters, architraves, and cornices, of the Corinthian and\nDoric orders, and suchlike jargon, my imagination is presently possessed\nwith the palace of Apollidon; when, after all, I find them but the paltry\npieces of my own kitchen door.\n\nTo hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other\ngrammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic\nform of speaking?  And yet they are phrases that come near to the babble\nof my chambermaid.\n\nAnd this other is a gullery of the same stamp, to call the offices of our\nkingdom by the lofty titles of the Romans, though they have no similitude\nof function, and still less of authority and power.  And this also, which\nI doubt will one day turn to the reproach of this age of ours, unworthily\nand indifferently to confer upon any we think fit the most glorious\nsurnames with which antiquity honoured but one or two persons in several\nages.  Plato carried away the surname of Divine, by so universal a\nconsent that never any one repined at it, or attempted to take it from\nhim; and yet the Italians, who pretend, and with good reason, to more\nsprightly wits and sounder sense than the other nations of their time,\nhave lately bestowed the same title upon Aretin, in whose writings, save\ntumid phrases set out with smart periods, ingenious indeed but\nfar-fetched and fantastic, and the eloquence, be it what it may, I see\nnothing in him above the ordinary writers of his time, so far is he from\napproaching the ancient divinity.  And we make nothing of giving the\nsurname of great to princes who have nothing more than ordinary in them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LII\n\nOF THE PARSIMONY OF THE ANCIENTS\n\nAttilius Regulus, general of the Roman army in Africa, in the height of\nall his glory and victories over the Carthaginians, wrote to the Republic\nto acquaint them that a certain hind he had left in trust with his\nestate, which was in all but seven acres of land, had run away with all\nhis instruments of husbandry, and entreating therefore, that they would\nplease to call him home that he might take order in his own affairs, lest\nhis wife and children should suffer by this disaster.  Whereupon the\nSenate appointed another to manage his business, caused his losses to be\nmade good, and ordered his family to be maintained at the public expense.\n\nThe elder Cato, returning consul from Spain, sold his warhorse to save\nthe money it would have cost in bringing it back by sea into Italy; and\nbeing Governor of Sardinia, he made all his visits on foot, without other\ntrain than one officer of the Republic who carried his robe and a censer\nfor sacrifices, and for the most part carried his trunk himself.  He\nbragged that he had never worn a gown that cost above ten crowns, nor had\never sent above tenpence to the market for one day's provision; and that\nas to his country houses, he had not one that was rough-cast on the\noutside.\n\nScipio AEmilianus, after two triumphs and two consulships, went an\nembassy with no more than seven servants in his train.  'Tis said that\nHomer had never more than one, Plato three, and Zeno, founder of the sect\nof Stoics, none at all.  Tiberius Gracchus was allowed but fivepence\nhalfpenny a day when employed as public minister about the public\naffairs, and being at that time the greatest man of Rome.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIII\n\nOF A SAYING OF CAESAR\n\nIf we would sometimes bestow a little consideration upon ourselves, and\nemploy the time we spend in prying into other men's actions, and\ndiscovering things without us, in examining our own abilities we should\nsoon perceive of how infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is\ncomposed.  Is it not a singular testimony of imperfection that we cannot\nestablish our satisfaction in any one thing, and that even our own fancy\nand desire should deprive us of the power to choose what is most proper\nand useful for us?  A very good proof of this is the great dispute that\nhas ever been amongst the philosophers, of finding out man's sovereign\ngood, that continues yet, and will eternally continue, without solution\nor accord:\n\n              \"Dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur\n               Caetera; post aliud, quum contigit illud, avemus,\n               Et sitis aequa tenet.\"\n\n     [\"While that which we desire is wanting, it seems to surpass all the\n     rest; then, when we have got it, we want something else; 'tis ever\n     the same thirst\"--Lucretius, iii. 1095.]\n\nWhatever it is that falls into our knowledge and possession, we find that\nit satisfies not, and we still pant after things to come and unknown,\ninasmuch as those present do not suffice for us; not that, in my\njudgment, they have not in them wherewith to do it, but because we seize\nthem with an unruly and immoderate haste:\n\n         \"Nam quum vidit hic, ad victum qux flagitat usus,\n          Et per quae possent vitam consistere tutam,\n          Omnia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata;\n          Divitiis homines, et honore, et laude potentes\n          Aflluere, atque bona natorum excellere fama;\n          Nec minus esse domi cuiquam tamen anxia corda,\n          Atque animi ingratis vitam vexare querelis\n          Causam, quae infestis cogit saevire querelis,\n          Intellegit ibi; vitium vas efficere ipsum,\n          Omniaque, illius vitio, corrumpier intus,\n          Qux collata foris et commoda quomque venirent.\"\n\n     [\"For when he saw that almost all things necessarily required for\n     subsistence, and which may render life comfortable, are already\n     prepared to their hand, that men may abundantly attain wealth,\n     honour, praise, may rejoice in the reputation of their children, yet\n     that, notwithstanding, every one has none the less in his heart and\n     home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints, he saw\n     that the vessel itself was in fault, and that all good things which\n     were brought into it from without were spoilt by its own\n     imperfections.\"--Lucretius, vi. 9.]\n\nOur appetite is irresolute and fickle; it can neither keep nor enjoy\nanything with a good grace: and man concluding it to be the fault of the\nthings he is possessed of, fills himself with and feeds upon the idea of\nthings he neither knows nor understands, to which he devotes his hopes\nand his desires, paying them all reverence and honour, according to the\nsaying of Caesar:\n\n          \"Communi fit vitio naturae, ut invisis, latitantibus\n          atque incognitis rebus magis confidamas,\n          vehementiusque exterreamur.\"\n\n     [\"'Tis the common vice of nature, that we at once repose most\n     confidence, and receive the greatest apprehensions, from things\n     unseen, concealed, and unknown.\"--De Bello Civil, xi. 4.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIV\n\nOF VAIN SUBTLETIES\n\nThere are a sort of little knacks and frivolous subtleties from which men\nsometimes expect to derive reputation and applause: as poets, who compose\nwhole poems with every line beginning with the same letter; we see the\nshapes of eggs, globes, wings, and hatchets cut out by the ancient Greeks\nby the measure of their verses, making them longer or shorter, to\nrepresent such or such a figure.  Of this nature was his employment who\nmade it his business to compute into how many several orders the letters\nof the alphabet might be transposed, and found out that incredible number\nmentioned in Plutarch.  I am mightily pleased with the humour of him,\n\n     [\"Alexander, as may be seen in Quintil., Institut.  Orat., lib.\n     ii., cap. 20, where he defines Maratarexvia to be a certain\n     unnecessary imitation of art, which really does neither good nor\n     harm, but is as unprofitable and ridiculous as was the labour of\n     that man who had so perfectly learned to cast small peas through the\n     eye of a needle at a good distance that he never missed one, and was\n     justly rewarded for it, as is said, by Alexander, who saw the\n     performance, with a bushel of peas.\"--Coste.]\n\nwho having a man brought before him that had learned to throw a grain of\nmillet with such dexterity and assurance as never to miss the eye of a\nneedle; and being afterwards entreated to give something for the reward\nof so rare a performance, he pleasantly, and in my opinion justly,\nordered a certain number of bushels of the same grain to be delivered to\nhim, that he might not want wherewith to exercise so famous an art.  'Tis\na strong evidence of a weak judgment when men approve of things for their\nbeing rare and new, or for their difficulty, where worth and usefulness\nare not conjoined to recommend them.\n\nI come just now from playing with my own family at who could find out the\nmost things that hold by their two extremities; as Sire, which is a title\ngiven to the greatest person in the nation, the king, and also to the\nvulgar, as merchants, but never to any degree of men between.  The women\nof great quality are called Dames, inferior gentlewomen, Demoiselles, and\nthe meanest sort of women, Dames, as the first.  The cloth of state over\nour tables is not permitted but in the palaces of princes and in taverns.\nDemocritus said, that gods and beasts had sharper sense than men, who are\nof a middle form.  The Romans wore the same habit at funerals and feasts.\nIt is most certain that an extreme fear and an extreme ardour of courage\nequally trouble and relax the belly.  The nickname of Trembling with\nwhich they surnamed Sancho XII., king of Navarre, tells us that valour\nwill cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear.  Those who were\narming that king, or some other person, who upon the like occasion was\nwont to be in the same disorder, tried to compose him by representing the\ndanger less he was going to engage himself in: \"You understand me ill,\"\nsaid he, \"for could my flesh know the danger my courage will presently\ncarry it into, it would sink down to the ground.\"  The faintness that\nsurprises us from frigidity or dislike in the exercises of Venus are also\noccasioned by a too violent desire and an immoderate heat.  Extreme\ncoldness and extreme heat boil and roast.  Aristotle says, that sows of\nlead will melt and run with cold and the rigour of winter just as with a\nvehement heat.  Desire and satiety fill all the gradations above and\nbelow pleasure with pain.  Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre\nof sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.  The\nwise control and triumph over ill, the others know it not: these last\nare, as a man may say, on this side of accidents, the others are beyond\nthem, who after having well weighed and considered their qualities,\nmeasured and judged them what they are, by virtue of a vigorous soul leap\nout of their reach; they disdain and trample them underfoot, having a\nsolid and well-fortified soul, against which the darts of fortune, coming\nto strike, must of necessity rebound and blunt themselves, meeting with a\nbody upon which they can fix no impression; the ordinary and middle\ncondition of men are lodged betwixt these two extremities, consisting of\nsuch as perceive evils, feel them, and are not able to support them.\nInfancy and decrepitude meet in the imbecility of the brain; avarice and\nprofusion in the same thirst and desire of getting.\n\nA man may say with some colour of truth that there is an Abecedarian\nignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes\nafter it: an ignorance that knowledge creates and begets, at the same\ntime that it despatches and destroys the first.  Of mean understandings,\nlittle inquisitive, and little instructed, are made good Christians, who\nby reverence and obedience simply believe and are constant in their\nbelief.  In the average understandings and the middle sort of capacities,\nthe error of opinion is begotten; they follow the appearance of the first\nimpression, and have some colour of reason on their side to impute our\nwalking on in the old beaten path to simplicity and stupidity, meaning us\nwho have not informed ourselves by study.  The higher and nobler souls,\nmore solid and clear-sighted, make up another sort of true believers, who\nby a long and religious investigation of truth, have obtained a clearer\nand more penetrating light into the Scriptures, and have discovered the\nmysterious and divine secret of our ecclesiastical polity; and yet we see\nsome, who by the middle step, have arrived at that supreme degree with\nmarvellous fruit and confirmation, as to the utmost limit of Christian\nintelligence, and enjoy their victory with great spiritual consolation,\nhumble acknowledgment of the divine favour, reformation of manners, and\nsingular modesty.  I do not intend with these to rank those others, who\nto clear themselves from all suspicion of their former errors and to\nsatisfy us that they are sound and firm, render themselves extremely\nindiscreet and unjust, in the carrying on our cause, and blemish it with\ninfinite reproaches of violence and oppression.  The simple peasants are\ngood people, and so are the philosophers, or whatever the present age\ncalls them, men of strong and clear reason, and whose souls are enriched\nwith an ample instruction of profitable sciences.  The mongrels who have\ndisdained the first form of the ignorance of letters, and have not been\nable to attain to the other (sitting betwixt two stools, as I and a great\nmany more of us do), are dangerous, foolish, and importunate; these are\nthey that trouble the world.  And therefore it is that I, for my own\npart, retreat as much as I can towards the first and natural station,\nwhence I so vainly attempted to advance.\n\nPopular and purely natural poesy\n\n     [\"The term poesie populaire was employed, for the first time, in the\n     French language on this occasion.  Montaigne created the expression,\n     and indicated its nature.\"--Ampere.]\n\nhas in it certain artless graces, by which she may come into comparison\nwith the greatest beauty of poetry perfected by art: as we see in our\nGascon villanels and the songs that are brought us from nations that have\nno knowledge of any manner of science, nor so much as the use of writing.\nThe middle sort of poesy betwixt these two is despised, of no value,\nhonour, or esteem.\n\nBut seeing that the path once laid open to the fancy, I have found, as it\ncommonly falls out, that what we have taken for a difficult exercise and\na rare subject, prove to be nothing so, and that after the invention is\nonce warm, it finds out an infinite number of parallel examples.  I shall\nonly add this one--that, were these Essays of mine considerable enough to\ndeserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fall out that they\nwould not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be very\nacceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would not\nunderstand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover in\nthe middle region.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LV\n\nOF SMELLS\n\nIt has been reported of some, as of Alexander the Great, that their sweat\nexhaled an odoriferous smell, occasioned by some rare and extraordinary\nconstitution, of which Plutarch and others have been inquisitive into the\ncause.  But the ordinary constitution of human bodies is quite otherwise,\nand their best and chiefest excellency is to be exempt from smell.  Nay,\nthe sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greater\nperfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those of\nhealthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman:\n\n               \"Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil olet.\"\n\n          [\"She smells sweetest, who smells not at all.\"\n          --Plautus, Mostel, i. 3, 116.]\n\nAnd such as make use of fine exotic perfumes are with good reason to be\nsuspected of some natural imperfection which they endeavour by these\nodours to conceal.  To smell, though well, is to stink:\n\n              \"Rides nos, Coracine, nil olentes\n               Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere.\"\n\n     [\"You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we are not scented; I would,\n     rather than smell well, not smell at all.\"--Martial, vi. 55, 4.]\n\nAnd elsewhere:\n\n          \"Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet.\"\n\n     [\"Posthumus, he who ever smells well does not smell well.\"\n     --Idem, ii. 12, 14.]\n\nI am nevertheless a great lover of good smells, and as much abominate the\nill ones, which also I scent at a greater distance, I think, than other\nmen:\n\n              \"Namque sagacius unus odoror,\n               Polypus, an gravis hirsutis cubet hircus in aliis\n               Quam canis acer, ubi latest sus.\"\n\n     [\"My nose is quicker to scent a fetid sore or a rank armpit, than a\n     dog to smell out the hidden sow.\"--Horace, Epod., xii.  4.]\n\nOf smells, the simple and natural seem to me the most pleasing.  Let the\nladies look to that, for 'tis chiefly their concern: amid the most\nprofound barbarism, the Scythian women, after bathing, were wont to\npowder and crust their faces and all their bodies with a certain\nodoriferous drug growing in their country, which being cleansed off, when\nthey came to have familiarity with men they were found perfumed and\nsleek.  'Tis not to be believed how strangely all sorts of odours cleave\nto me, and how apt my skin is to imbibe them.  He that complains of\nnature that she has not furnished mankind with a vehicle to convey smells\nto the nose had no reason; for they will do it themselves, especially to\nme; my very mustachios, which are full, perform that office; for if I\nstroke them but with my gloves or handkerchief, the smell will not out a\nwhole day; they manifest where I have been, and the close, luscious,\ndevouring, viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age left\na sweetness upon my lips for several hours after.  And yet I have ever\nfound myself little subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught, either\nby conversing with the sick or bred by the contagion of the air, and have\nescaped from those of my time, of which there have been several sorts in\nour cities and armies.  We read of Socrates, that though he never\ndeparted from Athens during the frequent plagues that infested the city,\nhe only was never infected.\n\nPhysicians might, I believe, extract greater utility from odours than\nthey do, for I have often observed that they cause an alteration in me\nand work upon my spirits according to their several virtues; which makes\nme approve of what is said, that the use of incense and perfumes in\nchurches, so ancient and so universally received in all nations and\nreligions, was intended to cheer us, and to rouse and purify the senses,\nthe better to fit us for contemplation.\n\nI could have been glad, the better to judge of it, to have tasted the\nculinary art of those cooks who had so rare a way of seasoning exotic\nodours with the relish of meats; as it was particularly observed in the\nservice of the king of Tunis, who in our days--[Muley-Hassam, in 1543.]\n--landed at Naples to have an interview with Charles the Emperor.  His\ndishes were larded with odoriferous drugs, to that degree of expense that\nthe cookery of one peacock and two pheasants amounted to a hundred ducats\nto dress them after their fashion; and when the carver came to cut them\nup, not only the dining-room, but all the apartments of his palace and\nthe adjoining streets were filled with an aromatic vapour which did not\npresently vanish.\n\nMy chiefest care in choosing my lodgings is always to avoid a thick and\nstinking air; and those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, very much\nlessen the kindness I have for them, the one by the offensive smell of\nher marshes, and the other of her dirt.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVI\n\nOF PRAYERS\n\nI propose formless and undetermined fancies, like those who publish\ndoubtful questions, to be after a disputed upon in the schools, not to\nestablish truth but to seek it; and I submit them to the judgments of\nthose whose office it is to regulate, not my writings and actions only,\nbut moreover my very thoughts.  Let what I here set down meet with\ncorrection or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me,\nmyself beforehand condemning as absurd and impious, if anything shall be\nfound, through ignorance or inadvertency, couched in this rhapsody,\ncontrary to the holy resolutions and prescriptions of the Catholic\nApostolic and Roman Church, into which I was born and in which I will\ndie.  And yet, always submitting to the authority of their censure, which\nhas an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything, as in\ntreating upon this present subject.\n\nI know not if or no I am wrong, but since, by a particular favour of the\ndivine bounty, a certain form of prayer has been prescribed and dictated\nto us, word by word, from the mouth of God Himself, I have ever been of\nopinion that we ought to have it in more frequent use than we yet have;\nand if I were worthy to advise, at the sitting down to and rising from\nour tables, at our rising from and going to bed, and in every particular\naction wherein prayer is used, I would that Christians always make use of\nthe Lord's Prayer, if not alone, yet at least always.  The Church may\nlengthen and diversify prayers, according to the necessity of our\ninstruction, for I know very well that it is always the same in substance\nand the same thing: but yet such a privilege ought to be given to that\nprayer, that the people should have it continually in their mouths; for\nit is most certain that all necessary petitions are comprehended in it,\nand that it is infinitely proper for all occasions.  'Tis the only prayer\nI use in all places and conditions, and which I still repeat instead of\nchanging; whence it also happens that I have no other so entirely by\nheart as that.\n\nIt just now came into my mind, whence it is we should derive that error\nof having recourse to God in all our designs and enterprises, to call Him\nto our assistance in all sorts of affairs, and in all places where our\nweakness stands in need of support, without considering whether the\noccasion be just or otherwise; and to invoke His name and power, in what\nstate soever we are, or action we are engaged in, howsoever vicious.  He\nis indeed, our sole and unique protector, and can do all things for us:\nbut though He is pleased to honour us with this sweet paternal alliance,\nHe is, notwithstanding, as just as He is good and mighty; and more often\nexercises His justice than His power, and favours us according to that,\nand not according to our petitions.\n\nPlato in his Laws, makes three sorts of belief injurious to the gods;\n\"that there are none; that they concern not themselves about our affairs;\nthat they never refuse anything to our vows, offerings, and sacrifices.\"\nThe first of these errors (according to his opinion, never continued\nrooted in any man from his infancy to his old age); the other two, he\nconfesses, men might be obstinate in.\n\nGod's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His\npower in an unjust cause.  We are to have our souls pure and clean, at\nthat moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all\nvicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith\nto chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we\ndouble the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we\nare to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred.\nWhich makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so\nfrequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give\nme some evidence of amendment and reformation:\n\n              \"Si, nocturnus adulter,\n               Tempora Santonico velas adoperta cucullo.\"\n\n     [\"If a night adulterer, thou coverest thy head with a Santonic\n     cowl.\"--Juvenal, Sat., viii.  144.--The Santones were the people\n     who inhabited Saintonge in France, from whom the Romans derived the\n     use of hoods or cowls covering the head and face.]\n\nAnd the practice of a man who mixes devotion with an execrable life seems\nin some sort more to be condemned than that of a man conformable to his\nown propension and dissolute throughout; and for that reason it is that\nour Church denies admittance to and communion with men obstinate and\nincorrigible in any notorious wickedness.  We pray only by custom and for\nfashion's sake; or rather, we read or pronounce our prayers aloud, which\nis no better than an hypocritical show of devotion; and I am scandalised\nto see a man cross himself thrice at the Benedicite, and as often at\nGrace (and the more, because it is a sign I have in great veneration and\ncontinual use, even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the other hours of\nthe day to acts of malice, avarice, and injustice.  One hour to God, the\nrest to the devil, as if by composition and compensation.  'Tis a wonder\nto see actions so various in themselves succeed one another with such an\nuniformity of method as not to interfere nor suffer any alteration, even\nupon the very confines and passes from the one to the other.  What a\nprodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself\nwhilst it harbours under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a\nsociety, both the crime and the judge?\n\nA man whose whole meditation is continually working upon nothing but\nimpurity which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he say\nwhen he comes to speak to Him?  He draws back, but immediately falls into\na relapse.  If the object of divine justice and the presence of his Maker\ndid, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever the\nrepentance might be, the very fear of offending the Infinite Majesty\nwould so often present itself to his imagination that he would soon see\nhimself master of those vices that are most natural and vehement in him.\nBut what shall we say of those who settle their whole course of life upon\nthe profit and emolument of sins, which they know to be mortal?  How many\ntrades and vocations have we admitted and countenanced amongst us, whose\nvery essence is vicious?  And he that, confessing himself to me,\nvoluntarily told me that he had all his lifetime professed and practised\na religion, in his opinion damnable and contrary to that he had in his\nheart, only to preserve his credit and the honour of his employments, how\ncould his courage suffer so infamous a confession?  What can men say to\nthe divine justice upon this subject?\n\nTheir repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reparation, they\nlose the colour of alleging it both to God and man.  Are they so impudent\nas to sue for remission without satisfaction and without penitence?\nI look upon these as in the same condition with the first: but the\nobstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome.  This contrariety and\nvolubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kind\nof miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agony\nof mind.\n\nIt seemed to me a fantastic imagination in those who, these late years\npast, were wont to reproach every man they knew to be of any\nextraordinary parts, and made profession of the Catholic religion, that\nit was but outwardly; maintaining, moreover, to do him honour forsooth,\nthat whatever he might pretend to the contrary he could not but in his\nheart be of their reformed opinion.  An untoward disease, that a man\nshould be so riveted to his own belief as to fancy that others cannot\nbelieve otherwise than as he does; and yet worse, that they should\nentertain so vicious an opinion of such great parts as to think any man\nso qualified, should prefer any present advantage of fortune to the\npromises of eternal life and the menaces of eternal damnation.  They may\nbelieve me: could anything have tempted my youth, the ambition of the\ndanger and difficulties in the late commotions had not been the least\nmotives.\n\nIt is not without very good reason, in my opinion, that the Church\ninterdicts the promiscuous, indiscreet, and irreverent use of the holy\nand divine Psalms, with which the Holy Ghost inspired King David.  We\nought not to mix God in our actions, but with the highest reverence and\ncaution; that poesy is too holy to be put to no other use than to\nexercise the lungs and to delight our ears; it ought to come from the\nconscience, and not from the tongue.  It is not fit that a prentice in\nhis shop, amongst his vain and frivolous thoughts, should be permitted to\npass away his time and divert himself with such sacred things.  Neither\nis it decent to see the Holy Book of the holy mysteries of our belief\ntumbled up and down a hall or a kitchen they were formerly mysteries, but\nare now become sports and recreations.  'Tis a book too serious and too\nvenerable to be cursorily or slightly turned over: the reading of the\nscripture ought to be a temperate and premeditated act, and to which men\nshould always add this devout preface, 'sursum corda', preparing even the\nbody to so humble and composed a gesture and countenance as shall\nevidence a particular veneration and attention.  Neither is it a book for\neveryone to fist, but the study of select men set apart for that purpose,\nand whom Almighty God has been pleased to call to that office and sacred\nfunction: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it.  'Tis, not a story to\ntell, but a history to revere, fear, and adore.  Are not they then\npleasant men who think they have rendered this fit for the people's\nhandling by translating it into the vulgar tongue?  Does the\nunderstanding of all therein contained only stick at words?  Shall I\nventure to say further, that by coming so near to understand a little,\nthey are much wider of the whole scope than before.  A pure and simple\nignorance and wholly depending upon the exposition of qualified persons,\nwas far more learned and salutary than this vain and verbal knowledge,\nwhich has only temerity and presumption.\n\nAnd I do further believe that the liberty every one has taken to disperse\nthe sacred writ into so many idioms carries with it a great deal more of\ndanger than utility.  The Jews, Mohammedans, and almost all other\npeoples, have reverentially espoused the language wherein their mysteries\nwere first conceived, and have expressly, and not without colour of\nreason, forbidden the alteration of them into any other.  Are we assured\nthat in Biscay and in Brittany there are enough competent judges of this\naffair to establish this translation into their own language?  The\nuniversal Church has not a more difficult and solemn judgment to make.\nIn preaching and speaking the interpretation is vague, free, mutable, and\nof a piece by itself; so 'tis not the same thing.\n\nOne of our Greek historians age justly censures the he lived in, because\nthe secrets of the Christian religion were dispersed into the hands of\nevery mechanic, to expound and argue upon, according to his own fancy,\nand that we ought to be much ashamed, we who by God's especial favour\nenjoy the pure mysteries of piety, to suffer them to be profaned by the\nignorant rabble; considering that the Gentiles expressly forbad Socrates,\nPlato, and the other sages to inquire into or so much as mention the\nthings committed to the priests of Delphi; and he says, moreover, that\nthe factions of princes upon theological subjects are armed not with zeal\nbut fury; that zeal springs from the divine wisdom and justice, and\ngoverns itself with prudence and moderation, but degenerates into hatred\nand envy, producing tares and nettles instead of corn and wine when\nconducted by human passions.  And it was truly said by another, who,\nadvising the Emperor Theodosius, told him that disputes did not so much\nrock the schisms of the Church asleep, as it roused and animated\nheresies; that, therefore, all contentions and dialectic disputations\nwere to be avoided, and men absolutely to acquiesce in the prescriptions\nand formulas of faith established by the ancients.  And the Emperor\nAndronicus having overheard some great men at high words in his palace\nwith Lapodius about a point of ours of great importance, gave them so\nsevere a check as to threaten to cause them to be thrown into the river\nif they did not desist.  The very women and children nowadays take upon\nthem to lecture the oldest and most experienced men about the\necclesiastical laws; whereas the first of those of Plato forbids them to\ninquire so much as into the civil laws, which were to stand instead of\ndivine ordinances; and, allowing the old men to confer amongst themselves\nor with the magistrate about those things, he adds, provided it be not in\nthe presence of young or profane persons.\n\nA bishop has left in writing that at the other end of the world there is\nan isle, by the ancients called Dioscorides, abundantly fertile in all\nsorts of trees and fruits, and of an exceedingly healthful air; the\ninhabitants of which are Christians, having churches and altars, only\nadorned with crosses without any other images, great observers of fasts\nand feasts, exact payers of their tithes to the priests, and so chaste,\nthat none of them is permitted to have to do with more than one woman in\nhis life--[What Osorius says is that these people only had one wife at a\ntime.]--as to the rest, so content with their condition, that environed\nwith the sea they know nothing of navigation, and so simple that they\nunderstand not one syllable of the religion they profess and wherein they\nare so devout: a thing incredible to such as do not know that the Pagans,\nwho are so zealous idolaters, know nothing more of their gods than their\nbare names and their statues.  The ancient beginning of 'Menalippus', a\ntragedy of Euripides, ran thus:\n\n               \"O Jupiter!  for that name alone\n               Of what thou art to me is known.\"\n\nI have also known in my time some men's writings found fault with for\nbeing purely human and philosophical, without any mixture of theology;\nand yet, with some show of reason, it might, on the contrary, be said\nthat the divine doctrine, as queen and regent of the rest, better keeps\nher state apart, that she ought to be sovereign throughout, not\nsubsidiary and suffragan, and that, peradventure, grammatical,\nrhetorical, logical examples may elsewhere be more suitably chosen, as\nalso the material for the stage, games, and public entertainments, than\nfrom so sacred a matter; that divine reasons are considered with greater\nveneration and attention by themselves, and in their own proper style,\nthan when mixed with and adapted to human discourse; that it is a fault\nmuch more often observed that the divines write too humanly, than that\nthe humanists write not theologically enough.  Philosophy, says St.\nChrysostom, has long been banished the holy schools, as an handmaid\naltogether useless and thought unworthy to look, so much as in passing\nby the door, into the sanctuary of the holy treasures of the celestial\ndoctrine; that the human way of speaking is of a much lower form and\nought not to adopt for herself the dignity and majesty of divine\neloquence.  Let who will 'verbis indisciplinatis' talk of fortune,\ndestiny, accident, good and evil hap, and other suchlike phrases,\naccording to his own humour; I for my part propose fancies merely human\nand merely my own, and that simply as human fancies, and separately\nconsidered, not as determined by any decree from heaven, incapable of\ndoubt or dispute; matter of opinion, not matter of faith; things which I\ndiscourse of according to my own notions, not as I believe, according to\nGod; after a laical, not clerical, and yet always after a very religious\nmanner, as children prepare their exercises, not to instruct but to be\ninstructed.\n\nAnd might it not be said, that an edict enjoining all people but such as\nare public professors of divinity, to be very reserved in writing of\nreligion, would carry with it a very good colour of utility and justice\n--and to me, amongst the rest peradventure, to hold my prating?  I have\nbeen told that even those who are not of our Church nevertheless amongst\nthemselves expressly forbid the name of God to be used in common\ndiscourse, nor so much even by way of interjection, exclamation,\nassertion of a truth, or comparison; and I think them in the right: upon\nwhat occasion soever we call upon God to accompany and assist us, it\nought always to be done with the greatest reverence and devotion.\n\nThere is, as I remember, a passage in Xenophon where he tells us that we\nought so much the more seldom to call upon God, by how much it is hard to\ncompose our souls to such a degree of calmness, patience, and devotion as\nit ought to be in at such a time; otherwise our prayers are not only vain\nand fruitless, but vicious: \"forgive us,\" we say, \"our trespasses, as we\nforgive them that trespass against us\"; what do we mean by this petition\nbut that we present to God a soul free from all rancour and revenge?  And\nyet we make nothing of invoking God's assistance in our vices, and\ninviting Him into our unjust designs:\n\n          \"Quae, nisi seductis, nequeas committere divis\"\n\n     [\"Which you can only impart to the gods, when you have gained them\n     over.\"--Persius, ii. 4.]\n\nthe covetous man prays for the conservation of his vain and superfluous\nriches; the ambitious for victory and the good conduct of his fortune;\nthe thief calls Him to his assistance, to deliver him from the dangers\nand difficulties that obstruct his wicked designs, or returns Him thanks\nfor the facility he has met with in cutting a man's throat; at the door\nof the house men are going to storm or break into by force of a petard,\nthey fall to prayers for success, their intentions and hopes of cruelty,\navarice, and lust.\n\n         \"Hoc igitur, quo to Jovis aurem impellere tentas,\n          Dic agedum Staio: 'proh Jupiter!  O bone, clamet,\n          Jupiter!'  At sese non clamet Jupiter ipse.\"\n\n     [\"This therefore, with which you seek to draw the ear of Jupiter,\n     say to Staius.  'O Jupiter!  O good Jupiter!' let him cry.  Think\n     you Jupiter himself would not cry out upon it?\"--Persius, ii. 21.]\n\nMarguerite, Queen of Navarre,--[In the Heptameron.]--tells of a young\nprince, who, though she does not name him, is easily enough by his great\nqualities to be known, who going upon an amorous assignation to lie with\nan advocate's wife of Paris, his way thither being through a church, he\nnever passed that holy place going to or returning from his pious\nexercise, but he always kneeled down to pray.  Wherein he would employ\nthe divine favour, his soul being full of such virtuous meditations,\nI leave others to judge, which, nevertheless, she instances for a\ntestimony of singular devotion.  But this is not the only proof we have\nthat women are not very fit to treat of theological affairs.\n\nA true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God\ncannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the\ndominion of Satan.  He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course\nof vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or\nlike those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie.\n\n                         \"Tacito mala vota susurro\n                    Concipimus.\"\n\n          [\"We whisper our guilty prayers.\"---Lucan, v. 104.]\n\nThere are few men who durst publish to the world the prayers they make to\nAlmighty God:\n\n         \"Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque susurros\n          Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto\"\n\n     [\"'Tis not convenient for every one to bring the prayers he mutters\n     out of the temple, and to give his wishes to the public ear.\n     --\"Persius, ii. 6.]\n\nand this is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always public\nand heard by every one, to the end they might not prefer indecent or\nunjust petitions as this man:\n\n              \"Clare quum dixit, Apollo!\n               Labra movet, metuens audiri: Pulcra Laverna,\n               Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri;\n               Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem.\"\n\n     [\"When he has clearly said Apollo!  he moves his lips, fearful to be\n     heard; he murmurs: O fair Laverna, grant me the talent to deceive;\n     grant me to appear holy and just; shroud my sins with night, and\n     cast a cloud over my frauds.\"--Horace, Ep., i.  16, 59.--(Laverna\n     was the goddess of thieves.)]\n\nThe gods severely punished the wicked prayers of OEdipus in granting\nthem: he had prayed that his children might amongst themselves determine\nthe succession to his throne by arms, and was so miserable as to see\nhimself taken at his word.  We are not to pray that all things may go as\nwe would have them, but as most concurrent with prudence.\n\nWe seem, in truth, to make use of our prayers as of a kind of jargon, and\nas those do who employ holy words about sorceries and magical operations;\nand as if we reckoned the benefit we are to reap from them as depending\nupon the contexture, sound, and jingle of words, or upon the grave\ncomposing of the countenance.  For having the soul contaminated with\nconcupiscence, not touched with repentance, or comforted by any late\nreconciliation with God, we go to present Him such words as the memory\nsuggests to the tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the remission of\nour sins.  There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the\ndivine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we\nare; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted\nas we at present are, and are for the future to be.  But then, in return,\nwe are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this\npardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least,\nwherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the\nills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us\nto offend her; neither the gods nor good men (says Plato) will accept the\npresent of a wicked man:\n\n                   \"Immunis aram si terigit manus,\n                    Non sumptuosa blandior hostia\n                    Mollivit aversos Penates\n                    Farre pio et saliente mica.\"\n\n     [\"If a pure hand has touched the altar, the pious offering of a\n     small cake and a few grains of salt will appease the offended gods\n     more effectually than costly sacrifices.\"\n     --Horace, Od., iii. 23, 17.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVII\n\nOF AGE\n\nI cannot allow of the way in which we settle for ourselves the duration\nof our life.  I see that the sages contract it very much in comparison of\nthe common opinion: \"what,\" said the younger Cato to those who would stay\nhis hand from killing himself, \"am I now of an age to be reproached that\nI go out of the world too soon?\"  And yet he was but eight-and-forty\nyears old.  He thought that to be a mature and advanced age, considering\nhow few arrive unto it.  And such as, soothing their thoughts with I know\nnot what course of nature, promise to themselves some years beyond it,\ncould they be privileged from the infinite number of accidents to which\nwe are by a natural subjection exposed, they might have some reason so to\ndo.  What am idle conceit is it to expect to die of a decay of strength,\nwhich is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves no\nshorter lease of life than that, considering it is a kind of death of all\nothers the most rare and very seldom seen?  We call that only a natural\ndeath; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck with\na fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be snatched away with a pleurisy or the\nplague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to these\ninconveniences.  Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these fine\nwords; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural which is\ngeneral, common, and universal.\n\nTo die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular, and,\ntherefore, so much less natural than the others; 'tis the last and\nextremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for.\nIt is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pass, and which the\nlaw of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal,\na privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then.  'Tis a\nlease she only signs by particular favour, and it may be to one only in\nthe space of two or three ages, and then with a pass to boot, to carry\nhim through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way\nof this long career.  And therefore my opinion is, that when once forty\nyears we should consider it as an age to which very few arrive.  For\nseeing that men do not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we are\npretty well advanced; and since we have exceeded the ordinary bounds,\nwhich is the just measure of life, we ought not to expect to go much\nfurther; having escaped so many precipices of death, whereinto we have\nseen so many other men fall, we should acknowledge that so extraordinary\na fortune as that which has hitherto rescued us from those eminent\nperils, and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of living, is not like\nto continue long.\n\n'Tis a fault in our very laws to maintain this error: these say that a\nman is not capable of managing his own estate till he be five-and-twenty\nyears old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his life so long.\nAugustus cut off five years from the ancient Roman standard, and declared\nthat thirty years old was sufficient for a judge.  Servius Tullius\nsuperseded the knights of above seven-and-forty years of age from the\nfatigues of war; Augustus dismissed them at forty-five; though methinks\nit seems a little unreasonable that men should be sent to the fireside\ntill five-and-fifty or sixty years of age.  I should be of opinion that\nour vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for the\npublic good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employ\nus early enough.  This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at\nnineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to\ndetermine a dispute about a gutter.\n\nFor my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are\never like to be, and as capable then as ever.  A soul that has not by\nthat time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after\ncome to proof.  The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have\nof vigorous and fine, within that term or never,\n\n                   \"Si l'espine rion picque quand nai,\n                    A pene que picque jamai,\"\n\n               [\"If the thorn does not prick at its birth,\n               'twill hardly ever prick at all.\"]\n\nas they say in Dauphin.\n\nOf all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sort\nsoever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more were\nperformed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the\nvery lives of the same men.  May I not confidently instance in those of\nHannibal and his great rival Scipio?  The better half of their lives they\nlived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after,\n'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of\nthemselves.  As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that since\nthat age, both my understanding and my constitution have rather decayed\nthan improved, and retired rather than advanced.  'Tis possible, that\nwith those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experience\nmay increase with their years; but vivacity, promptitude, steadiness, and\nother pieces of us, of much greater importance, and much more essentially\nour own, languish and decay:\n\n              \"Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus aevi\n               Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus,\n               Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque, mensque.\"\n\n          [\"When once the body is shaken by the violence of time,\n          blood and vigour ebbing away, the judgment halts,\n          the tongue and the mind dote.\"--Lucretius, iii. 452.]\n\nSometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind; and I have\nseen enough who have got a weakness in their brains before either in\ntheir legs or stomach; and by how much the more it is a disease of no\ngreat pain to the sufferer, and of obscure symptoms, so much greater is\nthe danger.  For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not that\nthey keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late.\nFor the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural\nrocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to\nchildhood, idleness, and apprenticeship.\n\n     [Which Cotton thus renders: \"Birth though noble, ought not to share\n     so large a vacancy, and so tedious a course of education.\"  Florio\n     (1613) makes the passage read as-follows: \"Methinks that,\n     considering the weakness of our life, and seeing the infinite number\n     of ordinary rocks and natural dangers it is subject unto, we should\n     not, so soon as we come into the world, allot so large a share\n     thereof unto unprofitable wantonness in youth, ill-breeding\n     idleness, and slow-learning prentisage.\"]\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort\n     An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets\n     Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it\n     Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace\n     Change of fashions\n     Chess: this idle and childish game\n     Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato\n     Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen\n     Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders\n     Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them\n     Excel above the common rate in frivolous things\n     Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other\n     Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does\n     Gradations above and below pleasure\n     Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed\n     He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern\n     Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints\n     How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is\n     I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback\n     Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words\n     Little knacks  and frivolous subtleties\n     Men approve of things for their being rare and new\n     Must of necessity walk in the steps of another\n     Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen\n     Not to instruct but to be instructed.\n     Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue\n     Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet\n     Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive\n     Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble\n     Sitting betwixt two stools\n     Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind\n     Stupidity and facility natural to the common people\n     The Bible: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it.\n     The faintness that surprises in the exercises of Venus\n     Thucydides: which was the better wrestler\n     To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular\n     To make little things appear great was his profession\n     To smell, though well, is to stink\n     Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear\n     Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age\n     We can never be despised according to our full desert\n     When we have got it, we want something else\n     Women who paint, pounce, and plaster up their ruins","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 08","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":16912}