{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3590/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3590","id":"gutenberg_3590","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3590","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","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 10.\n\nVII.      Of recompenses of honour.\nVIII.     Of the affection of fathers to their children.\nIX.       Of the arms of the Parthians.\nX.        Of books.\nXI.       Of cruelty.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nOF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR\n\nThey who write the life of Augustus Caesar,--[Suetonius, Life of\nAugustus, c.  25.]--observe this in his military discipline, that he was\nwonderfully liberal of gifts to men of merit, but that as to the true\nrecompenses of honour he was as sparing; yet he himself had been\ngratified by his uncle with all the military recompenses before he had\never been in the field.  It was a pretty invention, and received into\nmost governments of the world, to institute certain vain and in\nthemselves valueless distinctions to honour and recompense virtue, such\nas the crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle, the particular fashion of some\ngarment, the privilege to ride in a coach in the city, or at night with a\ntorch, some peculiar place assigned in public assemblies, the prerogative\nof certain additional names and titles, certain distinctions in the\nbearing of coats of arms, and the like, the use of which, according to\nthe several humours of nations, has been variously received, and yet\ncontinues.\n\nWe in France, as also several of our neighbours, have orders of\nknighthood that are instituted only for this end.  And 'tis, in earnest,\na very good and profitable custom to find out an acknowledgment for the\nworth of rare and excellent men, and to satisfy them with rewards that\nare not at all chargeable either to prince or people.  And that which has\nalways been found by ancient experience, and which we have heretofore\nobserved among ourselves, that men of quality have ever been more jealous\nof such recompenses than of those wherein there was gain and profit, is\nnot without very good ground and reason.  If with the reward, which ought\nto be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other commodities\nand add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an increase of\nestimation, would debase and abate it.  The Order of St. Michael, which\nhas been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater commodity than that\nit had no communication with any other commodity, which produced this\neffect, that formerly there was no office or title whatever to which the\ngentry pretended with so great desire and affection as they did to that;\nno quality that carried with it more respect and grandeur, valour and\nworth more willingly embracing and with greater ambition aspiring to a\nrecompense purely its own, and rather glorious than profitable.  For, in\ntruth, other gifts have not so great a dignity of usage, by reason they\nare laid out upon all sorts of occasions; with money a man pays the wages\nof a servant, the diligence of a courier, dancing, vaulting, speaking,\nand the meanest offices we receive; nay, and reward vice with it too, as\nflattery, treachery, and pimping; and therefore 'tis no wonder if virtue\nless desires and less willingly receives this common sort of payment,\nthan that which is proper and peculiar to her, throughout generous and\nnoble.  Augustus had reason to be more sparing of this than the other,\ninsomuch that honour is a privilege which derives its principal essence\nfrom rarity; and so virtue itself:\n\n          \"Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?\"\n\n     [\"To whom no one is ill who can be good?\"-Martial, xii. 82.]\n\nWe do not intend it for a commendation when we say that such a one is\ncareful in the education of his children, by reason it is a common act,\nhow just and well done soever; no more than we commend a great tree,\nwhere the whole forest is the same.  I do not think that any citizen of\nSparta glorified himself much upon his valour, it being the universal\nvirtue of the whole nation; and as little upon his fidelity and contempt\nof riches.  There is no recompense becomes virtue, how great soever, that\nis once passed into a custom; and I know not withal whether we can ever\ncall it great, being common.\n\nSeeing, then, that these remunerations of honour have no other value and\nestimation but only this, that few people enjoy them, 'tis but to be\nliberal of them to bring them down to nothing.  And though there should\nbe now more men found than in former times worthy of our order, the\nestimation of it nevertheless should not be abated, nor the honour made\ncheap; and it may easily happen that more may merit it; for there is no\nvirtue that so easily spreads as that of military valour.  There is\nanother virtue, true, perfect, and philosophical, of which I do not\nspeak, and only make use of the word in our common acceptation, much\ngreater than this and more full, which is a force and assurance of the\nsoul, equally despising all sorts of adverse accidents, equable, uniform,\nand constant, of which ours is no more than one little ray.  Use,\neducation, example, and custom can do all in all to the establishment of\nthat whereof I am speaking, and with great facility render it common, as\nby the experience of our civil wars is manifest enough; and whoever could\nat this time unite us all, Catholic and Huguenot, into one body, and set\nus upon some brave common enterprise, we should again make our ancient\nmilitary reputation flourish.  It is most certain that in times past the\nrecompense of this order had not only a regard to valour, but had a\nfurther prospect; it never was the reward of a valiant soldier but of a\ngreat captain; the science of obeying was not reputed worthy of so\nhonourable a guerdon.  There was therein a more universal military\nexpertness required, and that comprehended the most and the greatest\nqualities of a military man:\n\n          \"Neque enim eaedem militares et imperatorix artes sunt,\"\n\n     [\"For the arts of soldiery and generalship are not the same.\"\n     --Livy, xxv. 19.]\n\nas also, besides, a condition suitable to such a dignity.  But, I say,\nthough more men were worthy than formerly, yet ought it not to be more\nliberally distributed, and it were better to fall short in not giving it\nat all to whom it should be due, than for ever to lose, as we have lately\ndone, the fruit of so profitable an invention.  No man of spirit will\ndeign to advantage himself with what is in common with many; and such of\nthe present time as have least merited this recompense themselves make\nthe greater show of disdaining it, in order thereby to be ranked with\nthose to whom so much wrong has been done by the unworthy conferring and\ndebasing the distinction which was their particular right.\n\nNow, to expect that in obliterating and abolishing this, suddenly to\ncreate and bring into credit a like institution, is not a proper attempt\nfor so licentious and so sick a time as this wherein we now are; and it\nwill fall out that the last will from its birth incur the same\ninconveniences that have ruined the other.--[Montaigne refers to the\nOrder of the Saint-Esprit, instituted by Henry III.  in 1578.]--The\nrules for dispensing this new order had need to be extremely clipt and\nbound under great restrictions, to give it authority; and this tumultuous\nseason is incapable of such a curb: besides that, before this can be\nbrought into repute, 'tis necessary that the memory of the first, and of\nthe contempt into which it is fallen, be buried in oblivion.\n\nThis place might naturally enough admit of some discourse upon the\nconsideration of valour, and the difference of this virtue from others;\nbut, Plutarch having so often handled this subject, I should give myself\nan unnecessary trouble to repeat what he has said.  But this is worth\nconsidering: that our nation places valour, vaillance, in the highest\ndegree of virtue, as its very word evidences, being derived from valeur,\nand that, according to our use, when we say a man of high worth a good\nman, in our court style--'tis to say a valiant man, after the Roman way;\nfor the general appellation of virtue with them takes etymology from vis,\nforce.  The proper, sole, and essential profession of, the French\nnoblesse is that of arms: and 'tis likely that the first virtue that\ndiscovered itself amongst men and has given to some advantage over\nothers, was that by which the strongest and most valiant have mastered\nthe weaker, and acquired a particular authority and reputation, whence\ncame to it that dignified appellation; or else, that these nations, being\nvery warlike, gave the pre-eminence to that of the virtues which was most\nfamiliar to them; just as our passion and the feverish solicitude we have\nof the chastity of women occasions that to say, a good woman, a woman of\nworth, a woman of honour and virtue, signifies merely a chaste woman as\nif, to oblige them to that one duty, we were indifferent as to all the\nrest, and gave them the reins in all other faults whatever to compound\nfor that one of incontinence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nOF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN\n\nTo Madame D'Estissac.\n\nMADAM, if the strangeness and novelty of my subject, which are wont to\ngive value to things, do not save me, I shall never come off with honour\nfrom this foolish attempt: but 'tis so fantastic, and carries a face so\nunlike the common use, that this, peradventure, may make it pass.  'Tis a\nmelancholic humour, and consequently a humour very much an enemy to my\nnatural complexion, engendered by the pensiveness of the solitude into\nwhich for some years past I have retired myself, that first put into\nmy head this idle fancy of writing.  Wherein, finding myself totally\nunprovided and empty of other matter, I presented myself to myself for\nargument and subject.  'Tis the only book in the world of its kind, and\nof a wild and extravagant design.  There is nothing worth remark in this\naffair but that extravagancy: for in a subject so vain and frivolous, the\nbest workman in the world could not have given it a form fit to recommend\nit to any manner of esteem.\n\nNow, madam, having to draw my own picture to the life, I had omitted one\nimportant feature, had I not therein represented the honour I have ever\nhad for you and your merits; which I have purposely chosen to say in the\nbeginning of this chapter, by reason that amongst the many other\nexcellent qualities you are mistress of, that of the tender love you have\nmanifested to your children, is seated in one of the highest places.\nWhoever knows at what age Monsieur D'Estissac, your husband, left you a\nwidow, the great and honourable matches that have since been offered to\nyou, as many as to any lady of your condition in France, the constancy\nand steadiness wherewith, for so many years, you have sustained so many\nsharp difficulties, the burden and conduct of affairs, which have\npersecuted you in every corner of the kingdom, and are not yet weary of\ntormenting you, and the happy direction you have given to all these, by\nyour sole prudence or good fortune, will easily conclude with me that we\nhave not so vivid an example as yours of maternal affection in our times.\nI praise God, madam, that it has been so well employed; for the great\nhopes Monsieur D'Estissac, your son, gives of himself, render sufficient\nassurance that when he comes of age you will reap from him all the\nobedience and gratitude of a very good man.  But, forasmuch as by reason\nof his tender years, he has not been capable of taking notice of those\noffices of extremest value he has in so great number received from you,\nI will, if these papers shall one day happen to fall into his hands, when\nI shall neither have mouth nor speech left to deliver it to him, that he\nshall receive from me a true account of those things, which shall be more\neffectually manifested to him by their own effects, by which he will\nunderstand that there is not a gentleman in France who stands more\nindebted to a mother's care; and that he cannot, in the future, give a\nbetter nor more certain testimony of his own worth and virtue than by\nacknowledging you for that excellent mother you are.\n\nIf there be any law truly natural, that is to say, any instinct that is\nseen universally and perpetually imprinted in both beasts and men (which\nis not without controversy), I can say, that in my opinion, next to the\ncare every animal has of its own preservation, and to avoid that which\nmay hurt him, the affection that the begetter bears to his offspring\nholds the second place in this rank.  And seeing that nature appears to\nhave recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and progression\nof the successive pieces of this machine of hers, 'tis no wonder if, on\nthe contrary, that of children towards their parents is not so great.\nTo which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who\nconfers a benefit on any one, loves him better than he is beloved by him\nagain: that he to whom is owing, loves better than he who owes; and that\nevery artificer is fonder of his work, than, if that work had sense, it\nwould be of him; by reason that it is dear to us to be, and to be\nconsists in movement and action; therefore every one has in some sort a\nbeing in his work.  He who confers a benefit exercises a fine and honest\naction; he who receives it exercises the useful only.  Now the useful is\nmuch less lovable than the honest; the honest is stable and permanent,\nsupplying him who has done it with a continual gratification.  The useful\nloses itself, easily slides away, and the memory of it is neither so\nfresh nor so pleasing.  Those things are dearest to us that have cost us\nmost, and giving is more chargeable than receiving.\n\nSince it has pleased God to endue us with some capacity of reason, to the\nend we may not, like brutes, be servilely subject and enslaved to the\nlaws common to both, but that we should by judgment and a voluntary\nliberty apply ourselves to them, we ought, indeed, something to yield to\nthe simple authority of nature, but not suffer ourselves to be\ntyrannically hurried away and transported by her; reason alone should\nhave the conduct of our inclinations.  I, for my part, have a strange\ndisgust for those propensions that are started in us without the\nmediation and direction of the judgment, as, upon the subject I am\nspeaking of, I cannot entertain that passion of dandling and caressing\ninfants scarcely born, having as yet neither motion of soul nor shape of\nbody distinguishable, by which they can render themselves amiable, and\nhave not willingly suffered them to be nursed near me.  A true and\nregular affection ought to spring and increase with the knowledge they\ngive us of themselves, and then, if they are worthy of it, the natural\npropension walking hand in hand with reason, to cherish them with a truly\npaternal love; and so to judge, also, if they be otherwise, still\nrendering ourselves to reason, notwithstanding the inclination of nature.\n'Tis oft-times quite otherwise; and, most commonly, we find ourselves\nmore taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile\nsimplicities of our children, than we do, afterwards, with their most\ncomplete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys,\nand not as men; and some there are, who are very liberal in buying them\nballs to play withal, who are very close-handed for the least necessary\nexpense when they come to age.  Nay, it looks as if the jealousy of\nseeing them appear in and enjoy the world when we are about to leave it,\nrendered us more niggardly and stingy towards them; it vexes us that they\ntread upon our heels, as if to solicit us to go out; if this were to be\nfeared, since the order of things will have it so that they cannot, to\nspeak the truth, be nor live, but at the expense of our being and life,\nwe should never meddle with being fathers at all.\n\nFor my part, I think it cruelty and injustice not to receive them into\nthe share and society of our goods, and not to make them partakers in the\nintelligence of our domestic affairs when they are capable, and not to\nlessen and contract our own expenses to make the more room for theirs,\nseeing we beget them to that effect.  'Tis unjust that an old fellow,\nbroken and half dead, should alone, in a corner of the chimney, enjoy the\nmoney that would suffice for the maintenance and advancement of many\nchildren, and suffer them, in the meantime, to lose their' best years for\nwant of means to advance themselves in the public service and the\nknowledge of men.  A man by this course drives them to despair, and to\nseek out by any means, how unjust or dishonourable soever, to provide for\ntheir own support: as I have, in my time, seen several young men of good\nextraction so addicted to stealing, that no correction could cure them of\nit.  I know one of a very good family, to whom, at the request of a\nbrother of his, a very honest and brave gentleman, I once spoke on this\naccount, who made answer, and confessed to me roundly, that he had been\nput upon this paltry practice by the severity and avarice of his father;\nbut that he was now so accustomed to it he could not leave it off.  And,\nat that very time, he was trapped stealing a lady's rings, having come\ninto her chamber, as she was dressing with several others.  He put me in\nmind of a story I had heard of another gentleman, so perfect and\naccomplished in this fine trade in his youth, that, after he came to his\nestate and resolved to give it over, he could not hold his hands,\nnevertheless, if he passed by a shop where he saw anything he liked, from\ncatching it up, though it put him to the shame of sending afterwards to\npay for it.  And I have myself seen several so habituated to this quality\nthat even amongst their comrades they could not forbear filching, though\nwith intent to restore what they had taken.  I am a Gascon, and yet there\nis no vice I so little understand as that; I hate it something more by\ndisposition than I condemn it by reason; I do not so much as desire\nanything of another man's.  This province of ours is, in plain truth, a\nlittle more decried than the other parts of the kingdom; and yet we have\nseveral times seen, in our times, men of good families of other\nprovinces, in the hands of justice, convicted of abominable thefts.  I\nfear this vice is, in some sort, to be attributed to the fore-mentioned\nvice of the fathers.\n\nAnd if a man should tell me, as a lord of very good understanding once\ndid, that \"he hoarded up wealth, not to extract any other fruit and use\nfrom his parsimony, but to make himself honoured and sought after by his\nrelations; and that age having deprived him of all other power, it was\nthe only remaining remedy to maintain his authority in his family, and to\nkeep him from being neglected and despised by all around,\" in truth, not\nonly old age, but all other imbecility, according to Aristotle, is the\npromoter of avarice; that is something, but it is physic for a disease\nthat a man should prevent the birth of.  A father is very miserable who\nhas no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of\nhis assistance, if that can be called affection; he must render himself\nworthy to be respected by his virtue and wisdom, and beloved by his\nkindness and the sweetness of his manners; even the very ashes of a rich\nmatter have their value; and we are wont to have the bones and relics of\nworthy men in regard and reverence.  No old age can be so decrepid in a\nman who has passed his life in honour, but it must be venerable,\nespecially to his children, whose soul he must have trained up to their\nduty by reason, not by necessity and the need they have of him, nor by\nharshness and compulsion:\n\n         \"Et errat longe mea quidem sententia\n          Qui imperium credat esse gravius, aut stabilius,\n          Vi quod fit, quam illud, quod amicitia adjungitur.\"\n\n     [\"He wanders far from the truth, in my opinion, who thinks that\n     government more absolute and durable which is acquired by force than\n     that which is attached to friendship.\"--Terence, Adelph., i. I, 40.]\n\nI condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul that is designed\nfor honour and liberty.  There is I know not what of servile in rigour\nand constraint; and I am of opinion that what is not to be done by\nreason, prudence, and address, is never to be affected by force.  I\nmyself was brought up after that manner; and they tell me that in all my\nfirst age I never felt the rod but twice, and then very slightly.  I\npractised the same method with my children, who all of them died at\nnurse, except Leonora, my only daughter, and who arrived to the age of\nfive years and upward without other correction for her childish faults\n(her mother's indulgence easily concurring) than words only, and those\nvery gentle; in which kind of proceeding, though my end and expectation\nshould be both frustrated, there are other causes enough to lay the fault\non without blaming my discipline, which I know to be natural and just,\nand I should, in this, have yet been more religious towards the males, as\nless born to subjection and more free; and I should have made it my\nbusiness to fill their hearts with ingenuousness and freedom.  I have\nnever observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more\ncowardly, or more wilfully obstinate.\n\nDo we desire to be beloved of our children?  Will we remove from them all\noccasion of wishing our death though no occasion of so horrid a wish can\neither be just or excusable?\n\n                    \"Nullum scelus rationem habet.\"\n\n               [\"No wickedness has reason.\"--Livy, xxviii. 28]\n\nLet us reasonably accommodate their lives with what is in our power.  In\norder to this, we should not marry so young that our age shall in a\nmanner be confounded with theirs; for this inconvenience plunges us into\nmany very great difficulties, and especially the gentry of the nation,\nwho are of a condition wherein they have little to do, and who live upon\ntheir rents only: for elsewhere, with people who live by their labour,\nthe plurality and company of children is an increase to the common stock;\nthey are so many new tools and instruments wherewith to grow rich.\n\nI married at three-and-thirty years of age, and concur in the opinion of\nthirty-five, which is said to be that of Aristotle.   Plato will have\nnobody marry before thirty; but he has reason to laugh at those who\nundertook the work of marriage after five-and-fifty, and condemns their\noffspring as unworthy of aliment and life.  Thales gave the truest\nlimits, who, young and being importuned by his mother to marry, answered,\n\"That it was too soon,\" and, being grown into years and urged again,\n\"That it was too late.\"  A man must deny opportunity to every inopportune\naction.  The ancient Gauls' looked upon it as a very horrid thing for a\nman to have society with a woman before he was twenty years of age, and\nstrictly recommended to the men who designed themselves for war the\nkeeping their virginity till well grown in years, forasmuch as courage is\nabated and diverted by intercourse with women:\n\n              \"Ma, or congiunto a giovinetta sposa,\n               E lieto omai de' figli, era invilito\n               Negli affetti di padre et di marito.\"\n\n     [\"Now, married to a young wife and happy in children, he was\n     demoralised by his love as father and husband.\"\n     --Tasso, Gierus., x. 39.]\n\nMuley Hassam, king of Tunis, he whom the Emperor Charles V. restored to\nhis kingdom, reproached the memory of his father Mahomet with the\nfrequentation of women, styling him loose, effeminate, and a getter of\nchildren.--[Of whom he had thirty-four.]--The Greek history observes of\nIccus the Tarentine, of Chryso, Astyllus, Diopompos, and others, that to\nkeep their bodies in order for the Olympic games and such like exercises,\nthey denied themselves during that preparation all commerce with Venus.\nIn a certain country of the Spanish Indies men were not permitted to\nmarry till after forty age, and yet the girls were allowed at ten.\n'Tis not time for a gentleman of thirty years old to give place to his\nson who is twenty; he is himself in a condition to serve both in the\nexpeditions of war and in the court of his prince; has need of all his\nappurtenances; and yet, doubtless, he ought to surrender a share, but not\nso great an one as to forget himself for others; and for such an one the\nanswer that fathers have ordinarily in their mouths, \"I will not put off\nmy clothes, before I go to bed,\" serves well.\n\nBut a father worn out with age and infirmities, and deprived by weakness\nand want of health of the common society of men, wrongs himself and his\nto amass a great heap of treasure.  He has lived long enough, if he be\nwise, to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed, not to his very\nshirt, I confess, but to that and a good, warm dressing-gown; the\nremaining pomps, of which he has no further use, he ought voluntarily to\nsurrender to those, to whom by the order of nature they belong.  'Tis\nreason he should refer the use of those things to them, seeing that\nnature has reduced him to such a state that he cannot enjoy them himself;\notherwise there is doubtless malice and envy in the case.  The greatest\nact of the Emperor Charles V. was that when, in imitation of some of the\nancients of his own quality, confessing it but reason to strip ourselves\nwhen our clothes encumber and grow too heavy for us, and to lie down when\nour legs begin to fail us, he resigned his possessions, grandeur, and\npower to his son, when he found himself failing in vigour, and steadiness\nfor the conduct of his affairs suitable with the glory he had therein\nacquired:\n\n          \"Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne\n          Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat.\"\n\n     [\"Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest, failing in the lists,\n     the spectators laugh.\"--Horace, Epist., i., I, 8.]\n\nThis fault of not perceiving betimes and of not being sensible of the\nfeebleness and extreme alteration that age naturally brings both upon\nbody and mind, which, in my opinion, is equal, if indeed the soul has not\nmore than half, has lost the reputation of most of the great men in the\nworld.  I have known in my time, and been intimately acquainted with\npersons of great authority, whom one might easily discern marvellously\nlapsed from the sufficiency I knew they were once endued with, by the\nreputation they had acquired in their former years, whom I could\nheartily, for their own sakes, have wished at home at their ease,\ndischarged of their public or military employments, which were now grown\ntoo heavy for their shoulders.  I have formerly been very familiar in a\ngentleman's house, a widower and very old, though healthy and cheerful\nenough: this gentleman had several daughters to marry and a son already\nof ripe age, which brought upon him many visitors, and a great expense,\nneither of which well pleased him, not only out of consideration of\nfrugality, but yet more for having, by reason of his age, entered into a\ncourse of life far differing from ours.  I told him one day a little\nboldly, as I used to do, that he would do better to give us younger folk\nroom, and to leave his principal house (for he had but that well placed\nand furnished) to his son, and himself retire to an estate he had hard\nby, where nobody would trouble his repose, seeing he could not otherwise\navoid being importuned by us, the condition of his children considered.\nHe took my advice afterwards, and found an advantage in so doing.\n\nI do not mean that a man should so instal them as not to reserve to\nhimself a liberty to retract; I, who am now arrived to the age wherein\nsuch things are fit to be done, would resign to them the enjoyment of my\nhouse and goods, but with a power of revocation if they should give me\ncause to alter my mind; I would leave to them the use, that being no\nlonger convenient for me; and, of the general authority and power over\nall, would reserve as much as--I thought good to myself; having always\nheld that it must needs be a great satisfaction to an aged father himself\nto put his children into the way of governing his affairs, and to have\npower during his own life to control their behaviour, supplying them with\ninstruction and advice from his own experience, and himself to transfer\nthe ancient honour and order of his house into the hands of those who are\nto succeed him, and by that means to satisfy himself as to the hopes he\nmay conceive of their future conduct.  And in order to this I would not\navoid their company; I would observe them near at hand, and partake,\naccording to the condition of my age, of their feasts and jollities.\nIf I did not live absolutely amongst them, which I could not do without\nannoying them and their friends, by reason of the morosity of my age and\nthe restlessness of my infirmities, and without violating also the rules\nand order of living I should then have set down to myself, I would, at\nleast, live near them in some retired part of my house, not the best in\nshow, but the most commodious.  Nor as I saw some years ago, a dean of\nSt. Hilary of Poitiers given up to such a solitude, that at the time I\ncame into his chamber it had been two and twenty years that he had not\nstepped one foot out of it, and yet had all his motions free and easy,\nand was in good health, saving a cold that fell upon his lungs; he would,\nhardly once in a week, suffer any one to come in to see him; he always\nkept himself shut up in his chamber alone, except that a servant brought\nhim, once a day, something to eat, and did then but just come in and go\nout again.  His employment was to walk up and down, and read some book,\nfor he was a bit of a scholar; but, as to the rest, obstinately bent to\ndie in this retirement, as he soon after did.  I would endeavour by\npleasant conversation to create in my children a warm and unfeigned\nfriendship and good-will towards me, which in well-descended natures is\nnot hard to do; for if they be furious brutes, of which this age of ours\nproduces thousands, we are then to hate and avoid them as such.\n\nI am angry at the custom of forbidding children to call their father by\nthe name of father, and to enjoin them another, as more full of respect\nand reverence, as if nature had not sufficiently provided for our\nauthority.  We call Almighty God Father, and disdain to have our children\ncall us so; I have reformed this error in my family.--[As did Henry IV.\nof France]--And 'tis also folly and injustice to deprive children, when\ngrown up, of familiarity with their father, and to carry a scornful and\naustere countenance toward them, thinking by that to keep them in awe and\nobedience; for it is a very idle farce that, instead of producing the\neffect designed, renders fathers distasteful, and, which is worse,\nridiculous to their own children.  They have youth and vigour in\npossession, and consequently the breath and favour of the world; and\ntherefore receive these fierce and tyrannical looks--mere scarecrows--\nof a man without blood, either in his heart or veins, with mockery and\ncontempt.  Though I could make myself feared, I had yet much rather make\nmyself beloved: there are so many sorts of defects in old age, so much\nimbecility, and it is so liable to contempt, that the best acquisition a\nman can make is the kindness and affection of his own family; command and\nfear are no longer his weapons.  Such an one I have known who, having\nbeen very imperious in his youth, when he came to be old, though he might\nhave lived at his full ease, would ever strike, rant, swear, and curse:\nthe most violent householder in France: fretting himself with unnecessary\nsuspicion and vigilance.  And all this rumble and clutter but to make his\nfamily cheat him the more; of his barn, his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his\nvery purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps\nhis keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes.  Whilst he hugs\nhimself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to\nrack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of\nprofusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and\nfruitless parsimony.  Every one is a sentinel against him, and if, by\naccident, any wretched fellow that serves him is of another humour, and\nwill not join with the rest, he is presently rendered suspected to him,\na bait that old age very easily bites at of itself.  How often has this\ngentleman boasted to me in how great awe he kept his family, and how\nexact an obedience and reverence they paid him!  How clearly he saw into\nhis own affairs!\n\n                    \"Ille solos nescit omnia.\"\n\n          [\"He alone is ignorant of all that is passing.\"\n          --Terence, Adelph., iv.  2, 9.]\n\nI do not know any one that can muster more parts, both natural and\nacquired, proper to maintain dominion, than he; yet he is fallen from it\nlike a child.  For this reason it is that I have picked out him, amongst\nseveral others that I know of the same humour, for the greatest example.\nIt were matter for a question in the schools, whether he is better thus\nor otherwise.  In his presence, all submit to and bow to him, and give so\nmuch way to his vanity that nobody ever resists him; he has his fill of\nassents, of seeming fear, submission, and respect.  Does he turn away a\nservant? he packs up his bundle, and is gone; but 'tis no further than\njust out of his sight: the steps of old age are so slow, the senses so\ntroubled, that he will live and do his old office in the same house a\nyear together without being perceived.\n\nAnd after a fit interval of time, letters are pretended to come from a\ngreat way off; very humble, suppliant; and full of promises of amendment,\nby virtue of which he is again received into favour.  Does Monsieur make\nany bargain, or prepare any despatch that does not please? 'tis\nsuppressed, and causes afterwards forged to excuse the want of execution\nin the one or answer in the other.  No letters being first brought to\nhim, he never sees any but those that shall seem fit for his knowledge.\nIf by accident they fall first into his own hand, being used to trust\nsomebody to read them to him; he reads extempore what he thinks fit, and\noften makes such a one ask him pardon who abuses and rails at him in his\nletter.  In short, he sees nothing, but by an image prepared and designed\nbeforehand and the most satisfactory they can invent, not to rouse and\nawaken his ill humour and choler.  I have seen, under various aspects,\nenough of these modes of domestic government, long-enduring, constant, to\nthe like effect.\n\nWomen  are evermore addicted to cross their husbands: they lay hold with\nboth hands on all occasions to contradict and oppose them; the first\nexcuse serves for a plenary justification.  I have seen one who robbed\nher husband wholesale, that, as she told her confessor, she might\ndistribute the more liberal alms.  Let who will trust to that religious\ndispensation.  No management of affairs seems to them of sufficient\ndignity, if proceeding from the husband's assent; they must usurp it\neither by insolence or cunning, and always injuriously, or else it has\nnot the grace and authority they desire.  When, as in the case I am\nspeaking of, 'tis against a poor old man and for the children, then they\nmake use of this title to serve their passion with glory; and, as for a\ncommon service, easily cabal, and combine against his government and\ndominion.  If they be males grown up in full and flourishing health, they\npresently corrupt, either by force or favour, steward, receivers, and all\nthe rout.  Such as have neither wife nor son do not so easily fall into\nthis misfortune; but withal more cruelly and unworthily.  Cato the elder\nin his time said: So many servants, so many enemies; consider, then,\nwhether according to the vast difference between the purity of the age he\nlived in and the corruption of this of ours, he does not seem to shew us\nthat wife, son, and servant, are so many enemies to us?  'Tis well for\nold age that it is always accompanied by want of observation, ignorance,\nand a proneness to being deceived. For should we see how we are used and\nwould not acquiesce, what would become of us?  especially in such an age\nas this, where the very judges who are to determine our controversies are\nusually partisans to the young, and interested in the cause. In case the\ndiscovery of this cheating escape me, I cannot at least fail to discern\nthat I am very fit to be cheated.  And can a man ever enough exalt the\nvalue of a friend, in comparison with these civil ties?  The very image\nof it which I see in beasts, so pure and uncorrupted, how religiously do\nI respect it!  If others deceive me, yet do I not, at least, deceive\nmyself in thinking I am able to defend myself from them, or in cudgelling\nmy brains to make myself so.  I protect myself from such treasons in my\nown bosom, not by an unquiet and tumultuous curiosity, but rather by\ndiversion and resolution.  When I hear talk of any one's condition, I\nnever trouble myself to think of him; I presently turn my eyes upon\nmyself to see in what condition I am; whatever concerns another relates\nto me; the accident that has befallen him gives me caution, and rouses me\nto turn my defence that way.  We every day and every hour say things of\nanother that we might properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our\nobservation to our own concerns, as well as extend it to others.  And\nseveral authors have in this manner prejudiced their own cause by running\nheadlong upon those they attack, and darting those shafts against their\nenemies, that are more properly, and with greater advantage, to be turned\nupon themselves.\n\nThe late Mareschal de Montluc having lost his son, who died in the island\nof Madeira, in truth a very worthy gentleman and of great expectation,\ndid to me, amongst his other regrets, very much insist upon what a sorrow\nand heart-breaking it was that he had never made himself familiar with\nhim; and by that humour of paternal gravity and grimace to have lost the\nopportunity of having an insight into and of well knowing, his son, as\nalso of letting him know the extreme affection he had for him, and the\nworthy opinion he had of his virtue.  \"That poor boy,\" said he, \"never\nsaw in me other than a stern and disdainful countenance, and is gone in a\nbelief that I neither knew how to love him nor esteem him according to\nhis desert.  For whom did I reserve the discovery of that singular\naffection I had for him in my soul?  Was it not he himself, who ought to\nhave had all the pleasure of it, and all the obligation?  I constrained\nand racked myself to put on, and maintain this vain disguise, and have by\nthat means deprived myself of the pleasure of his conversation, and, I\ndoubt, in some measure, his affection, which could not but be very cold\nto me, having never other from me than austerity, nor felt other than a\ntyrannical manner of proceeding.\"\n\n     [Madame de Sevigne tells us that she never read this passage without\n     tears in her eyes.  \"My God!\" she exclaims, \"how full is this book\n     of good sense!\"  Ed.]\n\nI find this complaint to be rational and rightly apprehended: for, as I\nmyself know by too certain experience, there is no so sweet consolation\nin the loss of friends as the conscience of having had no reserve or\nsecret for them, and to have had with them a perfect and entire\ncommunication.  Oh my friend,--[La Boetie.] am I the better for being\nsensible of this; or am I the worse?  I am, doubtless, much the better.\nI am consoled and honoured, in the sorrow for his death.  Is it not a\npious and a pleasing office of my life to be always upon my friend's\nobsequies?  Can there be any joy equal to this privation?\n\nI open myself to my family, as much as I can, and very willingly let them\nknow the state of my opinion and good will towards them, as I do to\neverybody else: I make haste to bring out and present myself to them; for\nI will not have them mistaken in me, in anything.  Amongst other\nparticular customs of our ancient Gauls, this, as Caesar reports,--[De\nBello Gall., vi.  r8.]--was one, that the sons never presented\nthemselves before their fathers, nor durst ever appear in their company\nin public, till they began to bear arms; as if they would intimate by\nthis, that it was also time for their fathers to receive them into their\nfamiliarity and acquaintance.\n\nI have observed yet another sort of indiscretion in fathers of my time,\nthat, not contented with having deprived their children, during their own\nlong lives, of the share they naturally ought to have had in their\nfortunes, they afterwards leave to their wives the same authority over\ntheir estates, and liberty to dispose of them according to their own\nfancy.  And I have known a certain lord, one of the principal officers of\nthe crown, who, having in reversion above fifty thousand crowns yearly\nrevenue, died necessitous and overwhelmed with debt at above fifty years\nof age; his mother in her extremest decrepitude being yet in possession\nof all his property by the will of his father, who had, for his part,\nlived till near fourscore years old.  This appears to me by no means\nreasonable.  And therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man,\nwhose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife who encumbers his estate\nwith a very great fortune; there is no sort of foreign debt that brings\nmore ruin to families than this: my predecessors have ever been aware of\nthat danger and provided against it, and so have I.  But those who\ndissuade us from rich wives, for fear they should be less tractable and\nkind, are out in their advice to make a man lose a real commodity for so\nfrivolous a conjecture.  It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass\nover one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are\nmost wrong.  Injustice allures them, as the honour of their virtuous\nactions does the good; and the more riches they bring with them, they are\nso much the more good-natured, as women, who are handsome, are all the\nmore inclined and proud to be chaste.\n\n'Tis reasonable to leave the administration of affairs to the mothers,\ntill the children are old enough, according to law, to manage them; but\nthe father has brought them, up very ill, if he cannot hope that, when\nthey come to maturity, they will have more wisdom and ability in the\nmanagement of affairs than his wife, considering the ordinary weakness of\nthe sex.  It were, notwithstanding, to say the truth, more against nature\nto make the mothers depend upon the discretion of their children; they\nought to be plentifully provided for, to maintain themselves according to\ntheir quality and age, by reason that necessity and indigence are much\nmore unbecoming and insupportable to them than to men; the son should\nrather be cut short than the mother.\n\nIn general, the most judicious distribution of our goods, when we come to\ndie, is, in my opinion, to let them be distributed according to the\ncustom of the country; the laws have considered the matter better than we\nknow how to do, and 'tis wiser to let them fail in their appointment,\nthan rashly to run the hazard of miscarrying in ours.  Nor are the goods\nproperly ours, since, by civil prescription and without us, they are all\ndestined to certain successors.  And although we have some liberty beyond\nthat, yet I think we ought not, without great and manifest cause, to take\naway that from one which his fortune has allotted him, and to which the\npublic equity gives him title; and that it is against reason to abuse\nthis liberty, in making it serve our own frivolous and private fancies.\nMy destiny has been kind to me in not presenting me with occasions to\ntempt me and divert my affection from the common and legitimate\ninstitution.  I see many with whom 'tis time lost to employ a long\nexercise of good offices: a word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit;\nhe is happy who is in a position to oil their goodwill at this last\npassage.  The last action carries it, not the best and most frequent\noffices, but the most recent and present do the work.  These are people\nthat play with their wills as with apples or rods, to gratify or chastise\nevery action of those who pretend to an interest in their care.  'Tis a\nthing of too great weight and consequence to be so tumbled and tossed and\naltered every moment, and wherein the wise determine once for all, having\nabove all things regard to reason and the public observance.  We lay\nthese masculine substitutions too much to heart, proposing a ridiculous\neternity to our names.  We are, moreover, too superstitious in vain\nconjectures as to the future, that we derive from the words and actions\nof children.  Peradventure they might have done me an injustice, in\ndispossessing me of my right, for having been the most dull and heavy,\nthe most slow and unwilling at my book, not of all my brothers only, but\nof all the boys in the whole province: whether about learning my lesson,\nor about any bodily exercise.  'Tis a folly to make an election out of\nthe ordinary course upon the credit of these divinations wherein we are\nso often deceived.  If the ordinary rule of descent were to be violated,\nand the destinies corrected in the choice they have made of our heirs,\none might more plausibly do it upon the account of some remarkable and\nenormous personal deformity, a permanent and incorrigible defect, and in\nthe opinion of us French, who are great admirers of beauty, an important\nprejudice.\n\nThe pleasant dialogue betwixt Plato's legislator and his citizens will be\nan ornament to this place, \"What,\" said they, feeling themselves about to\ndie, \"may we not dispose of our own to whom we please?  God!  what\ncruelty that it shall not be lawful for us, according as we have been\nserved and attended in our sickness, in our old age, in our affairs, to\ngive more or less to those whom we have found most diligent about us, at\nour own fancy and discretion!\"  To which the legislator answers thus:\n\n\"My friends, who are now, without question, very soon to die, it is hard\nfor you in the condition you are, either to know yourselves, or what is\nyours, according to the delphic inscription.  I, who make the laws, am of\nopinion, that you neither are yourselves your own, nor is that yours of\nwhich you are possessed.  Both your goods and you belong to your\nfamilies, as well those past as those to come; but, further, both your\nfamily and goods much more appertain to the public.  Wherefore, lest any\nflatterer in your old age or in your sickness, or any passion of your\nown, should unseasonably prevail with you to make an unjust will, I shall\ntake care to prevent that inconvenience; but, having respect both to the\nuniversal interests of the city and that of your particular family, I\nshall establish laws, and make it by good reasons appear, that private\nconvenience ought to give place to the common benefit.  Go then\ncheerfully where human necessity calls you.  It is for me, who regard no\nmore the one thing than the other, and who, as much as in me lies, am\nprovident of the public interest, to have a care as to what you leave\nbehind you.\"\n\nTo return to my subject: it appears to me that women are very rarely\nborn, to whom the prerogative over men, the maternal and natural\nexcepted, is in any sort due, unless it be for the punishment of such,\nas in some amorous fever have voluntarily submitted themselves to them:\nbut that in no way concerns the old ones, of whom we are now speaking.\nThis consideration it is which has made us so willingly to enact and give\nforce to that law, which was never yet seen by any one, by which women\nare excluded the succession to our crown: and there is hardly a\ngovernment in the world where it is not pleaded, as it is here, by the\nprobability of reason that authorises it, though fortune has given it\nmore credit in some places than in others.  'Tis dangerous to leave the\ndisposal of our succession to their judgment, according to the choice\nthey shall make of children, which is often fantastic and unjust; for the\nirregular appetites and depraved tastes they have during the time of\ntheir being with child, they have at all other times in the mind.  We\ncommonly see them fond of the most weak, ricketty, and deformed children;\nor of those, if they have such, as are still hanging at the breast.  For,\nnot having sufficient force of reason to choose and embrace that which is\nmost worthy, they the more willingly suffer themselves to be carried\naway, where the impressions of nature are most alone; like animals that\nknow their young no longer than they give them suck.  As to the rest, it\nis easy by experience to be discerned that this natural affection to\nwhich we give so great authority has but very weak roots.  For a very\nlittle profit, we every day tear their own children out of the mothers'\narms, and make them take ours in their room: we make them abandon their\nown to some pitiful nurse, to whom we disdain to commit ours, or to some\nshe-goat, forbidding them, not only to give them suck, what danger soever\nthey run thereby, but, moreover, to take any manner of care of them, that\nthey may wholly be occupied with the care of and attendance upon ours;\nand we see in most of them an adulterate affection, more vehement than\nthe natural, begotten by custom toward the foster children, and a greater\nsolicitude for the preservation of those they have taken charge of, than\nof their own.  And that which I was saying of goats was upon this\naccount; that it is ordinary all about where I live, to see the\ncountrywomen, when they want milk of their own for their children, to\ncall goats to their assistance; and I have at this hour two men-servants\nthat never sucked women's milk more than eight days after they were born.\nThese goats are immediately taught to come to suckle the little children,\nknow their voices when they cry, and come running to them.  If any other\nthan this foster-child be presented to them, they refuse to let it suck;\nand the child in like manner will refuse to suck another goat.  I saw one\nthe other day from whom they had taken away the goat that used to nourish\nit, by reason the father had only borrowed it of a neighbour; the child\nwould not touch any other they could bring, and died, doubtless of\nhunger.  Beasts as easily alter and corrupt their natural affection as\nwe: I believe that in what Herodotus relates of a certain district of\nLybia, there are many mistakes; he says that the women are there in\ncommon; but that the child, so soon as it can go, finds him out in the\ncrowd for his father, to whom he is first led by his natural inclination.\n\nNow, to consider this simple reason for loving our children, that we have\nbegot them, therefore calling them our second selves, it appears,\nmethinks, that there is another kind of production proceeding from us,\nthat is of no less recommendation: for that which we engender by the\nsoul, the issue of our understanding, courage, and abilities, springs\nfrom nobler parts than those of the body, and that are much more our own:\nwe are both father and mother in this generation.  These cost us a great\ndeal more and bring us more honour, if they have anything of good in\nthem.  For the value of our other children is much more theirs than ours;\nthe share we have in them is very little; but of these all the beauty,\nall the grace and value, are ours; and also they more vividly represent\nus than the others.  Plato adds, that these are immortal children that\nimmortalise and deify their fathers, as Lycurgus, Solon, Minos.  Now,\nhistories being full of examples of the common affection of fathers to\ntheir children, it seems not altogether improper to introduce some few of\nthis other kind.  Heliodorus, that good bishop of Trikka, rather chose to\nlose the dignity, profit, and devotion of so venerable a prelacy, than to\nlose his daughter; a daughter that continues to this day very graceful\nand comely; but, peradventure, a little too curiously and wantonly\ntricked, and too amorous for an ecclesiastical and sacerdotal daughter.\nThere was one Labienus at Rome, a man of great worth and authority, and\namongst other qualities excellent in all sorts of literature, who was, as\nI take it, the son of that great Labienus, the chief of Caesar's captains\nin the wars of Gaul; and who, afterwards, siding with Pompey the great,\nso valiantly maintained his cause, till he was by Caesar defeated in\nSpain.  This Labienus, of whom I am now speaking, had several enemies,\nenvious of his good qualities, and, tis likely, the courtiers and minions\nof the emperors of his time who were very angry at his freedom and the\npaternal humour which he yet retained against tyranny, with which it is\nto be supposed he had tinctured his books and writings.  His adversaries\nprosecuted several pieces he had published before the magistrates at\nRome, and prevailed so far against him, as to have them condemned to the\nfire.  It was in him that this new example of punishment was begun, which\nwas afterwards continued against others at Rome, to punish even writing\nand studies with death.  There would not be means and matter enough of\ncruelty, did we not mix with them things that nature has exempted from\nall sense and suffering, as reputation and the products of the mind, and\ndid we not communicate corporal punishments to the teachings and\nmonuments of the Muses.  Now, Labienus could not suffer this loss, nor\nsurvive these his so dear issue, and therefore caused himself to be\nconveyed and shut up alive in the monument of his ancestors, where he\nmade shift to kill and bury himself at once.  'Tis hard to shew a more\nvehement paternal affection than this.  Cassius Severus, a man of great\neloquence and his very intimate friend, seeing his books burned, cried\nout that by the same sentence they should as well condemn him to the fire\ntoo, seeing that he carried in his memory all that they contained.  The\nlike accident befel Cremutius Cordus, who being accused of having in his\nbooks commended Brutus and Cassius, that dirty, servile, and corrupt\nSenate, worthy a worse master than Tiberius, condemned his writings to\nthe flame.  He was willing to bear them company, and killed himself with\nfasting.  The good Lucan, being condemned by that rascal Nero, at the\nlast gasp of his life, when the greater part of his blood was already\nspent through the veins of his arms, which he had caused his physician to\nopen to make him die, and when the cold had seized upon all his\nextremities, and began to approach his vital parts, the last thing he had\nin his memory was some of the verses of his Battle of Phaysalia, which he\nrecited, dying with them in his mouth.  What was this, but taking a\ntender and paternal leave of his children, in imitation of the\nvaledictions and embraces, wherewith we part from ours, when we come to\ndie, and an effect of that natural inclination, that suggests to our\nremembrance in this extremity those things which were dearest to us\nduring the time of our life?\n\nCan we believe that Epicurus who, as he says himself, dying of the\nintolerable pain of the stone, had all his consolation in the beauty of\nthe doctrine he left behind him, could have received the same\nsatisfaction from many children, though never so well-conditioned and\nbrought up, had he had them, as he did from the production of so many\nrich writings?  Or that, had it been in his choice to have left behind\nhim a deformed and untoward child or a foolish and ridiculous book, he,\nor any other man of his understanding, would not rather have chosen to\nhave run the first misfortune than the other?  It had been, for example,\nperadventure, an impiety in St. Augustin, if, on the one hand, it had\nbeen proposed to him to bury his writings, from which religion has\nreceived so great fruit, or on the other to bury his children, had he had\nthem, had he not rather chosen to bury his children.  And I know not\nwhether I had not much rather have begot a very beautiful one, through\nsociety with the Muses, than by lying with my wife.  To this, such as it\nis, what I give it I give absolutely and irrevocably, as men do to their\nbodily children.  That little I have done for it, is no more at my own\ndisposal; it may know many things that are gone from me, and from me hold\nthat which I have not retained; and which, as well as a stranger, I\nshould borrow thence, should I stand in need.  If I am wiser than my\nbook, it is richer than I.  There are few men addicted to poetry, who\nwould not be much prouder to be the father to the AEneid than to the\nhandsomest youth of Rome; and who would not much better bear the loss of\nthe one than of the other.  For according to Aristotle, the poet, of all\nartificers, is the fondest of his work.  'Tis hard to believe that\nEpaminondas, who boasted that in lieu of all posterity he left two\ndaughters behind him that would one day do their father honour (meaning\nthe two victories he obtained over the Lacedaemonians), would willingly\nhave consented to exchange these for the most beautiful creatures of all\nGreece; or that Alexander or Caesar ever wished to be deprived of the\ngrandeur of their glorious exploits in war, for the convenience of\nchildren and heirs, how perfect and accomplished soever.  Nay, I make a\ngreat question, whether Phidias or any other excellent sculptor would be\nso solicitous of the preservation and continuance of his natural\nchildren, as he would be of a rare statue, which with long labour and\nstudy he had perfected according to art.  And to those furious and\nirregular passions that have sometimes inflamed fathers towards their own\ndaughters, and mothers towards their own sons, the like is also found in\nthis other sort of parentage: witness what is related of Pygmalion who,\nhaving made the statue of a woman of singular beauty, fell so\npassionately in love with this work of his, that the gods in favour of\nhis passion inspired it with life.\n\n              \"Tentatum mollescit ebur, positoque rigore,\n               Subsidit digitis.\"\n\n     [\"The ivory grows soft under his touch and yields to his fingers.\"\n     --Ovid, Metam., x. 283.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nOF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS\n\n'Tis an ill custom and unmanly that the gentlemen of our time have got,\nnot to put on arms but just upon the point of the most extreme necessity,\nand to lay them by again, so soon as ever there is any show of the danger\nbeing over; hence many disorders arise; for every one bustling and\nrunning to his arms just when he should go to charge, has his cuirass to\nbuckle on when his companions are already put to rout.  Our ancestors\nwere wont to give their head-piece, lance and gauntlets to be carried,\nbut never put off the other pieces so long as there was any work to be\ndone.  Our troops are now cumbered and rendered unsightly with the\nclutter of baggage and servants who cannot be from their masters, by\nreason they carry their arms.  Titus Livius speaking of our nation:\n\n     \"Intolerantissima laboris corpora vix arma humeris gerebant.\"\n\n     [\"Bodies most impatient of labour could scarce endure to wear\n     their arms on their shoulders.\"--Livy, x. 28.]\n\nMany nations do yet, and did anciently, go to war without defensive arms,\nor with such, at least, as were of very little proof:\n\n          \"Tegmina queis capitum, raptus de subere cortex.\"\n\n     [\"To whom the coverings of the heads were the bark of the\n     cork-tree.\"--AEneid, vii. 742.]\n\nAlexander, the most adventurous captain that ever was, very seldom wore\narmour, and such amongst us as slight it, do not by that much harm to the\nmain concern; for if we see some killed for want of it, there are few\nless whom the lumber of arms helps to destroy, either by being\noverburthened, crushed, and cramped with their weight, by a rude shock,\nor otherwise.  For, in plain truth, to observe the weight and thickness\nof the armour we have now in use, it seems as if we only sought to defend\nourselves, and are rather loaded than secured by it.  We have enough to\ndo to support its weight, being so manacled and immured, as if we were\nonly to contend with our own arms, and as if we had not the same\nobligation to defend them, that they have to defend us.  Tacitus gives a\npleasant description of the men-at-arms among our ancient Gauls, who were\nso armed as only to be able to stand, without power to harm or to be\nharmed, or to rise again if once struck down.  Lucullus, seeing certain\nsoldiers of the Medes, who formed the van of Tigranes' army, heavily\narmed and very uneasy, as if in prisons of iron, thence conceived hopes\nwith great ease to defeat them, and by them began his charge and victory.\nAnd now that our musketeers are in credit, I believe some invention will\nbe found out to immure us for our safety, and to draw us to the war in\ncastles, such as those the ancients loaded their elephants withal.\n\nThis humour is far differing from that of the younger Scipio, who sharply\nreprehended his soldiers for having planted caltrops under water, in a\nditch by which those of the town he held besieged might sally out upon\nhim; saying, that those who assaulted should think of attacking, and not\nto fear; suspecting, with good reason, that this stop they had put to the\nenemies, would make themselves less vigilant upon their guard.  He said\nalso to a young man, who showed him a fine buckler he had, that he was\nvery proud of, \"It is a very fine buckler indeed, but a Roman soldier\nought to repose greater confidence in his right hand than in his left.\"\n\nNow 'tis nothing but the not being used to wear it that makes the weight\nof our armour so intolerable:\n\n         \"L'usbergo in dosso haveano, et l'elmo in testa,\n          Due di questi guerrier, de' quali io canto;\n          Ne notte o di, d' appoi ch' entraro in questa\n          Stanza, gl'haveano mai messi da canto;\n          Che facile a portar come la vesta\n          Era lor, perche in uso l'havean tanto:\"\n\n     [\"Two of the warriors, of whom I sing, had on their backs their\n     cuirass and on their heads their casque, and never had night or day\n     once laid them by, whilst here they were; those arms, by long\n     practice, were grown as light to bear as a garment\"\n     --Ariosto, Cant., MI. 30.]\n\nthe Emperor Caracalla was wont to march on foot, completely armed, at the\nhead of his army.  The Roman infantry always carried not only a morion, a\nsword, and a shield (for as to arms, says Cicero, they were so accustomed\nto have them always on, that they were no more trouble to them than their\nown limbs):\n\n               \"Arma enim membra militis esse dicunt.\"\n\nbut, moreover, fifteen days' provision, together with a certain number of\nstakes, wherewith to fortify their camp, sixty pounds in weight.  And\nMarius' soldiers, laden at the same rate, were inured to march in order\nof battle five leagues in five hours, and sometimes, upon any urgent\noccasion, six.\n\nTheir military discipline was much ruder than ours, and accordingly\nproduced much greater effects.  The younger Scipio, reforming his army in\nSpain, ordered his soldiers to eat standing, and nothing that was drest.\nThe jeer that was given a Lacedaemonian soldier is marvellously pat to\nthis purpose, who, in an expedition of war, was reproached for having\nbeen seen under the roof of a house: they were so inured to hardship\nthat, let the weather be what it would, it was a shame to be seen under\nany other cover than the roof of heaven.  We should not march our people\nvery far at that rate.\n\nAs to what remains, Marcellinus,  a man bred up in the Roman wars,\ncuriously observes the manner of the Parthians arming themselves, and the\nrather, for being so different from that of the Romans.  \"They had,\" says\nhe, \"armour so woven as to have all the scales fall over one another like\nso many little feathers; which did nothing hinder the motion of the body,\nand yet were of such resistance, that our darts hitting upon them, would\nrebound\" (these were the coats of mail our forefathers were so constantly\nwont to use).  And in another place: \"they had,\" says he, \"strong and\nable horses, covered with thick tanned hides of leather, and were\nthemselves armed 'cap-a-pie' with great plates of iron, so artificially\nordered, that in all parts of the limbs, which required bending, they\nlent themselves to the motion.  One would have said, that they had been\nmen of iron; having armour for the head so neatly fitted, and so\nnaturally representing the form of a face, that they were nowhere\nvulnerable, save at two little round holes, that gave them a little\nlight, corresponding with their eyes, and certain small chinks about\ntheir nostrils, through which they, with great difficulty, breathed,\"\n\n              \"Flexilis inductis animatur lamina membris,\n               Horribilis visu; credas simulacra moveri\n               Ferrea, cognatoque viros spirare metallo.\n               Par vestitus equis: ferrata fronte minantur,\n               Ferratosque movent, securi vulneris, armos.\"\n\n     [\"Plates of steel are placed over the body, so flexible that,\n     dreadful to be seen, you would think these not living men, but\n     moving images.  The horses are similarly armed, and, secured from\n     wounds, move their iron shoulders.\"--Claud, In Ruf., ii. 358.]\n\n'Tis a description drawing very near resembling the equipage of the\nmen-at-arms in France, with their barded horses.  Plutarch says, that\nDemetrius caused two complete suits of armour to be made for himself and\nfor Alcimus, a captain of the greatest note and authority about him, of\nsix score pounds weight each, whereas the ordinary suits weighed but half\nas much.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nOF BOOKS\n\nI make no doubt but that I often happen to speak of things that are much\nbetter and more truly handled by those who are masters of the trade.  You\nhave here purely an essay of my natural parts, and not of those acquired:\nand whoever shall catch me tripping in ignorance, will not in any sort\nget the better of me; for I should be very unwilling to become\nresponsible to another for my writings, who am not so to myself, nor\nsatisfied with them.  Whoever goes in quest of knowledge, let him fish\nfor it where it is to be found; there is nothing I so little profess.\nThese are fancies of my own, by which I do not pretend to discover things\nbut to lay open myself; they may, peradventure, one day be known to me,\nor have formerly been, according as fortune has been able to bring me in\nplace where they have been explained; but I have utterly forgotten it;\nand if I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retention; so that I\ncan promise no certainty, more than to make known to what point the\nknowledge I now have has risen.  Therefore, let none lay stress upon the\nmatter I write, but upon my method in writing it.  Let them observe, in\nwhat I borrow, if I have known how to choose what is proper to raise or\nhelp the invention, which is always my own.  For I make others say for\nme, not before but after me, what, either for want of language or want of\nsense, I cannot myself so well express.  I do not number my borrowings,\nI weigh them; and had I designed to raise their value by number, I had\nmade them twice as many; they are all, or within a very few, so famed and\nancient authors, that they seem, methinks, themselves sufficiently to\ntell who they are, without giving me the trouble.  In reasons,\ncomparisons, and arguments, if I transplant any into my own soil, and\nconfound them amongst my own, I purposely conceal the author, to awe the\ntemerity of those precipitate censors who fall upon all sorts of\nwritings, particularly the late ones, of men yet living; and in the\nvulgar tongue which puts every one into a capacity of criticising and\nwhich seem to convict the conception and design as vulgar also.  I will\nhave them give Plutarch a fillip on my nose, and rail against Seneca when\nthey think they rail at me.  I must shelter my own weakness under these\ngreat reputations.  I shall love any one that can unplume me, that is,\nby clearness of understanding and judgment, and by the sole distinction\nof the force and beauty of the discourse.  For I who, for want of memory,\nam at every turn at a loss to, pick them out of their national livery, am\nyet wise enough to know, by the measure of my own abilities, that my soil\nis incapable of producing any of those rich flowers that I there find\ngrowing; and that all the fruits of my own growth are not worth any one\nof them.  For this, indeed, I hold myself responsible; if I get in my own\nway; if there be any vanity and defect in my writings which I do not of\nmyself perceive nor can discern, when pointed out to me by another; for\nmany faults escape our eye, but the infirmity of judgment consists in not\nbeing able to discern them, when by another laid open to us.  Knowledge\nand truth may be in us without judgment, and judgment also without them;\nbut the confession of ignorance is one of the finest and surest\ntestimonies of judgment that I know.  I have no other officer to put my\nwritings in rank and file, but only fortune.  As things come into my\nhead, I heap them one upon another; sometimes they advance in whole\nbodies, sometimes in single file.  I would that every one should see my\nnatural and ordinary pace, irregular as it is; I suffer myself to jog on\nat my own rate.  Neither are these subjects which a man is not permitted\nto be ignorant in, or casually and at a venture, to discourse of.  I\ncould wish to have a more perfect knowledge of things, but I will not buy\nit so dear as it costs.  My design is to pass over easily, and not\nlaboriously, the remainder of my life; there is nothing that I will\ncudgel my brains about; no, not even knowledge, of what value soever.\n\nI seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself by an honest\ndiversion; or, if I study, 'tis for no other science than what treats of\nthe knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and how to live\nwell.\n\n               \"Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus.\"\n\n               [\"My horse must work according to my step.\"\n               --Propertius, iv.]\n\nI do not bite my nails about the difficulties I meet with in my reading;\nafter a charge or two, I give them over.  Should I insist upon them, I\nshould both lose myself and time; for I have an impatient understanding,\nthat must be satisfied at first: what I do not discern at once is by\npersistence rendered more obscure. I do nothing without gaiety;\ncontinuation and a too obstinate endeavour, darkens, stupefies, and tires\nmy judgment.  My sight is confounded and dissipated with poring; I must\nwithdraw it, and refer my discovery to new attempts; just as, to judge\nrightly of the lustre of scarlet, we are taught to pass the eye lightly\nover it, and again to run it over at several sudden and reiterated\nglances.  If one book do not please me, I take another; and I never\nmeddle with any, but at such times as I am weary of doing nothing.\nI care not much for new ones, because the old seem fuller and stronger;\nneither do I converse much with Greek authors, because my judgment cannot\ndo its work with imperfect intelligence of the material.\n\nAmongst books that are simply pleasant, of the moderns, Boccaccio's\nDecameron, Rabelais, and the Basia of Johannes Secundus (if those may be\nranged under the title) are worth reading for amusement.  As to the\nAmadis, and such kind of stuff, they had not the credit of arresting even\nmy childhood.  And I will, moreover, say, whether boldly or rashly, that\nthis old, heavy soul of mine is now no longer tickled with Ariosto, no,\nnor with the worthy Ovid; his facility and inventions, with which I was\nformerly so ravished, are now of no more relish, and I can hardly have\nthe patience to read them.  I speak my opinion freely of all things, even\nof those that, perhaps, exceed my capacity, and that I do not conceive to\nbe, in any wise, under my jurisdiction.  And, accordingly, the judgment I\ndeliver, is to show the measure of my own sight, and not of the things I\nmake so bold to criticise.  When I find myself disgusted with Plato's\n'Axiochus', as with a work, with due respect to such an author be it\nspoken, without force, my judgment does not believe itself: it is not so\narrogant as to oppose the authority of so many other famous judgments of\nantiquity, which it considers as its tutors and masters, and with whom it\nis rather content to err; in such a case, it condemns itself either to\nstop at the outward bark, not being able to penetrate to the heart, or to\nconsider it by sortie false light.  It is content with only securing\nitself from trouble and disorder; as to its own weakness, it frankly\nacknowledges and confesses it.  It thinks it gives a just interpretation\nto the appearances by its conceptions presented to it; but they are weak\nand imperfect.  Most of the fables of AEsop have diverse senses and\nmeanings, of which the mythologists chose some one that quadrates well to\nthe fable; but, for the most part, 'tis but the first face that presents\nitself and is superficial only; there yet remain others more vivid,\nessential, and profound, into which they have not been able to penetrate;\nand just so 'tis with me.\n\nBut, to pursue the business of this essay, I have always thought that, in\npoesy, Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Horace by many degrees excel the\nrest; and signally, Virgil in his Georgics, which I look upon as the most\naccomplished piece in poetry; and in comparison of which a man may easily\ndiscern that there are some places in his AEneids, to which the author\nwould have given a little more of the file, had he had leisure: and the\nfifth book of his AEneids seems to me the most perfect.  I also love\nLucan, and willingly read him, not so much for his style, as for his own\nworth, and the truth and solidity of his opinions and judgments.  As for\ngood Terence, the refined elegance and grace of the Latin tongue, I find\nhim admirable in his vivid representation of our manners and the\nmovements of the soul; our actions throw me at every turn upon him; and\nI cannot read him so often that I do not still discover some new grace\nand beauty.  Such as lived near Virgil's time complained that some should\ncompare Lucretius to him.  I am of opinion that the comparison is, in\ntruth, very unequal: a belief that, nevertheless, I have much ado to\nassure myself in, when I come upon some excellent passage in Lucretius.\nBut if they were so angry at this comparison, what would they say to the\nbrutish and barbarous stupidity of those who, nowadays, compare him with\nAriosto?  Would not Ariosto himself say?\n\n               \"O seclum insipiens et inficetum!\"\n\n          [\"O stupid and tasteless age.\"--Catullus, xliii. 8.]\n\nI think the ancients had more reason to be angry with those who compared\nPlautus with Terence, though much nearer the mark, than Lucretius with\nVirgil.  It makes much for the estimation and preference of Terence, that\nthe father of Roman eloquence has him so often, and alone of his class,\nin his mouth; and the opinion that the best judge of Roman poets\n--[Horace, De Art.  Poetica, 279.]--has passed upon his companion.  I\nhave often observed that those of our times, who take upon them to write\ncomedies (in imitation of the Italians, who are happy enough in that way\nof writing), take three or four plots of those of Plautus or Terence to\nmake one of their own, and , crowd five or six of Boccaccio's novels into\none single comedy.  That which makes them so load themselves with matter\nis the diffidence they have of being able to support themselves with\ntheir own strength.  They must find out something to lean to; and not\nhaving of their own stuff wherewith to entertain us, they bring in the\nstory to supply the defect of language.  It is quite otherwise with my\nauthor; the elegance and perfection of his way of speaking makes us lose\nthe appetite of his plot; his refined grace and elegance of diction\neverywhere occupy us: he is so pleasant throughout,\n\n               \"Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni,\"\n\n               [\"Liquid, and likest the pure river.\"\n               --Horace, Ep., ii. s, 120.]\n\nand so possesses the soul with his graces that we forget those of his\nfable.  This same consideration carries me further:  I observe that the\nbest of the ancient poets have avoided affectation and the hunting after,\nnot only fantastic Spanish and Petrarchic elevations, but even the softer\nand more gentle touches, which are the ornament of all succeeding poesy.\nAnd yet there is no good judgment that will condemn this in the ancients,\nand that does not incomparably more admire the equal polish, and that\nperpetual sweetness and flourishing beauty of Catullus's epigrams, than\nall the stings with which Martial arms the tails of his.  This is by the\nsame reason that I gave before, and as Martial says of himself:\n\n               \"Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit,\n               in cujus locum materia successerat:\"\n\n     [\"He had the less for his wit to do that the subject itself\n     supplied what was necessary.\"--Martial, praef.  ad lib. viii.]\n\nThe first, without being moved, or without getting angry, make themselves\nsufficiently felt; they have matter enough of laughter throughout, they\nneed not tickle themselves; the others have need of foreign assistance;\nas they have the less wit they must have the more body; they mount on\nhorseback, because they are not able to stand on their own legs.  As in\nour balls, those mean fellows who teach to dance, not being able to\nrepresent the presence and dignity of our noblesse, are fain to put\nthemselves forward with dangerous jumping, and other strange motions and\ntumblers tricks; and the ladies are less put to it in dance; where there\nare various coupees, changes, and quick motions of body, than in some\nother of a more sedate kind, where they are only to move a natural pace,\nand to represent their ordinary grace and presence.  And so I have seen\ngood drolls, when in their own everyday clothes, and with the same face\nthey always wear, give us all the pleasure of their art, when their\napprentices, not yet arrived at such a pitch of perfection, are fain to\nmeal their faces, put themselves into ridiculous disguises, and make a\nhundred grotesque faces to give us whereat to laugh.  This conception of\nmine is nowhere more demonstrable than in comparing the AEneid with\nOrlando Furioso; of which we see the first, by dint of wing, flying in a\nbrave and lofty place, and always following his point: the latter,\nfluttering and hopping from tale to tale, as from branch to branch, not\ndaring to trust his wings but in very short flights, and perching at\nevery turn, lest his breath and strength should fail.\n\n                    \"Excursusque breves tentat.\"\n\n               [\"And he attempts short excursions.\"\n               --Virgil, Georgics, iv.  194.]\n\nThese, then, as to this sort of subjects, are the authors that best\nplease me.\n\nAs to what concerns my other reading, that mixes a little more profit\nwith the pleasure, and whence I learn how to marshal my opinions and\nconditions, the books that serve me to this purpose are Plutarch, since\nhe has been translated into French, and Seneca.  Both of these have this\nnotable convenience suited to my humour, that the knowledge I there seek\nis discoursed in loose pieces, that do not require from me any trouble of\nreading long, of which I am incapable.  Such are the minor works of the\nfirst and the epistles of the latter, which are the best and most\nprofiting of all their writings.  'Tis no great attempt to take one of\nthem in hand, and I give over at pleasure; for they have no sequence or\ndependence upon one another.  These authors, for the most part, concur in\nuseful and true opinions; and there is this parallel betwixt them, that\nfortune brought them into the world about the same century: they were\nboth tutors to two Roman emperors: both sought out from foreign\ncountries: both rich and both great men.  Their instruction is the cream\nof philosophy, and delivered after a plain and pertinent manner.\nPlutarch is more uniform and constant; Seneca more various and waving:\nthe last toiled and bent his whole strength to fortify virtue against\nweakness, fear, and vicious appetites; the other seems more to slight\ntheir power, and to disdain to alter his pace and to stand upon his\nguard.  Plutarch's opinions are Platonic, gentle, and accommodated to\ncivil society; those of the other are Stoical and Epicurean, more remote\nfrom the common use, but, in my opinion, more individually commodious and\nmore firm.  Seneca seems to lean a little to the tyranny of the emperors\nof his time, and only seems; for I take it for certain that he speaks\nagainst his judgment when he condemns the action of the generous\nmurderers of Caesar.  Plutarch is frank throughout: Seneca abounds with\nbrisk touches and sallies; Plutarch with things that warm and move you\nmore; this contents and pays you better: he guides us, the other pushes\nus on.\n\nAs to Cicero, his works that are most useful to my design are they that\ntreat of manners and rules of our life.  But boldly to confess the truth\n(for since one has passed the barriers of impudence, there is no bridle),\nhis way of writing appears to me negligent and uninviting: for his\nprefaces, definitions, divisions, and etymologies take up the greatest\npart of his work: whatever there is of life and marrow is smothered and\nlost in the long preparation.  When I have spent an hour in reading him,\nwhich is a great deal for me, and try to recollect what I have thence\nextracted of juice and substance, for the most part I find nothing but\nwind; for he is not yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose,\nand to the reasons that properly help to form the knot I seek.  For me,\nwho only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent, these\nlogical and Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.  I would\nhave a man begin with the main proposition.  I know well enough what\ndeath and pleasure are; let no man give himself the trouble to anatomise\nthem to me.  I look for good and solid reasons, at the first dash, to\ninstruct me how to stand their shock, for which purpose neither\ngrammatical subtleties nor the quaint contexture of words and\nargumentations are of any use at all.  I am for discourses that give the\nfirst charge into the heart of the redoubt; his languish about the\nsubject; they are proper for the schools, for the bar, and for the\npulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may awake, a quarter of an hour\nafter, time enough to find again the thread of the discourse.  It is\nnecessary to speak after this manner to judges, whom a man has a design\nto gain over, right or wrong, to children and common people, to whom a\nman must say all, and see what will come of it.  I would not have an\nauthor make it his business to render me attentive: or that he should cry\nout fifty times Oyez!  as the heralds do.  The Romans, in their religious\nexercises, began with 'Hoc age' as we in ours do with 'Sursum corda';\nthese are so many words lost to me: I come already fully prepared from my\nchamber.  I need no allurement, no invitation, no sauce; I eat the meat\nraw, so that, instead of whetting my appetite by these preparatives, they\ntire and pall it.  Will the licence of the time excuse my sacrilegious\nboldness if I censure the dialogism of Plato himself as also dull and\nheavy, too much stifling the matter, and lament so much time lost by a\nman, who had so many better things to say, in so many long and needless\npreliminary interlocutions?  My ignorance will better excuse me in that\nI understand not Greek so well as to discern the beauty of his language.\nI generally choose books that use sciences, not such as only lead to\nthem.  The two first, and Pliny, and their like, have nothing of this Hoc\nage; they will have to do with men already instructed; or if they have,\n'tis a substantial Hoc age; and that has a body by itself.  I also\ndelight in reading the Epistles to Atticus, not only because they contain\na great deal of the history and affairs of his time, but much more\nbecause I therein discover much of his own private humours; for I have a\nsingular curiosity, as I have said elsewhere, to pry into the souls and\nthe natural and true opinions of the authors, with whom I converse.  A\nman may indeed judge of their parts, but not of their manners nor of\nthemselves, by the writings they exhibit upon the theatre of the world.\nI have a thousand times lamented the loss of the treatise Brutus wrote\nupon Virtue, for it is well to learn the theory from those who best know\nthe practice.\n\nBut seeing the matter preached and the preacher are different things,\nI would as willingly see Brutus in Plutarch, as in a book of his own.\nI would rather choose to be certainly informed of the conference he had\nin his tent with some particular friends of his the night before a\nbattle, than of the harangue he made the next day to his army; and of\nwhat he did in his closet and his chamber, than what he did in the public\nsquare and in the senate.  As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that,\nlearning excepted, he had no great natural excellence.  He was a good\ncitizen, of an affable nature, as all fat, heavy men, such as he was,\nusually are; but given to ease, and had, in truth, a mighty share of\nvanity and ambition.  Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking\nhis poetry fit to be published; 'tis no great imperfection to make ill\nverses, but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy\nhis verses were of the glory of his name.  For what concerns his\neloquence, that is totally out of all comparison, and I believe it will\nnever be equalled.  The younger Cicero, who resembled his father in\nnothing but in name, whilst commanding in Asia, had several strangers one\nday at his table, and, amongst the rest, Cestius seated at the lower end,\nas men often intrude to the open tables of the great.  Cicero asked one\nof his people who that man was, who presently told him his name; but he,\nas one who had his thoughts taken up with something else, and who had\nforgotten the answer made him, asking three or four times, over and over\nagain; the same question, the fellow, to deliver himself from so many\nanswers and to make him know him by some particular circumstance; \"'tis\nthat Cestius,\" said he, \"of whom it was told you, that he makes no great\naccount of your father's eloquence in comparison of his own.\"  At which\nCicero, being suddenly nettled, commanded poor Cestius presently to be\nseized, and caused him to be very well whipped in his own presence; a\nvery discourteous entertainer!  Yet even amongst those, who, all things\nconsidered, have reputed his, eloquence incomparable, there have been\nsome, who have not stuck to observe some faults in it: as that great\nBrutus his friend, for example, who said 'twas a broken and feeble\neloquence, 'fyactam et elumbem'.  The orators also, nearest to the age\nwherein he lived, reprehended in him the care he had of a certain long\ncadence in his periods, and particularly took notice of these words,\n'esse videatur', which he there so often makes use of.  For my part, I\nmore approve of a shorter style, and that comes more roundly off.  He\ndoes, though, sometimes shuffle his parts more briskly together, but 'tis\nvery seldom.  I have myself taken notice of this one passage:\n\n              \"Ego vero me minus diu senem mallem,\n               quam esse senem, antequam essem.\"\n\n     [\"I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age.\n     --\"Cicero, De Senect., c. 10.]\n\nThe historians are my right ball, for they are pleasant and easy, and\nwhere man, in general, the knowledge of whom I hunt after, appears more\nvividly and entire than anywhere else:\n\n     [The easiest of my amusements, the right ball at tennis being that\n     which coming to the player from the right hand, is much easier\n     played with.--Coste.]\n\nthe variety and truth of his internal qualities, in gross and piecemeal,\nthe diversity of means by which he is united and knit, and the accidents\nthat threaten him.  Now those that write lives, by reason they insist\nmore upon counsels than events, more upon what sallies from within, than\nupon what happens without, are the most proper for my reading; and,\ntherefore, above all others, Plutarch is the man for me.  I am very sorry\nwe have not a dozen Laertii,--[Diogenes Laertius, who wrote the Lives of\nthe Philosophers]--or that he was not further extended; for I am equally\ncurious to know the lives and fortunes of these great instructors of the\nworld, as to know the diversities of their doctrines and opinions.  In\nthis kind of study of histories, a man must tumble over, without\ndistinction, all sorts of authors, old and new, French or foreign, there\nto know the things of which they variously treat.  But Caesar, in my\nopinion, particularly deserves to be studied, not for the knowledge of\nthe history only, but for himself, so great an excellence and perfection\nhe has above all the rest, though Sallust be one of the number.  In\nearnest, I read this author with more reverence and respect than is\nusually allowed to human writings; one while considering him in his\nperson, by his actions and miraculous greatness, and another in the\npurity and inimitable polish of his language, wherein he not only excels\nall other historians, as Cicero confesses,  but, peradventure, even\nCicero himself; speaking of his enemies with so much sincerity in his\njudgment, that, the false colours with which he strives to palliate his\nevil cause, and the ordure of his pestilent ambition excepted, I think\nthere is no fault to be objected against him, saving this, that he speaks\ntoo sparingly of himself, seeing so many great things could not have been\nperformed under his conduct, but that his own personal acts must\nnecessarily have had a greater share in them than he attributes to them.\n\nI love historians, whether of the simple sort, or of the higher order.\nThe simple, who have nothing of their own to mix with it, and who only\nmake it their business to collect all that comes to their knowledge, and\nfaithfully to record all things, without choice or discrimination, leave\nto us the entire judgment of discerning the truth.  Such, for example,\namongst others, is honest Froissart, who has proceeded in his undertaking\nwith so frank a plainness that, having committed an error, he is not\nashamed to confess and correct it in the place where the finger has been\nlaid, and who represents to us even the variety of rumours that were then\nspread abroad, and the different reports that were made to him; 'tis the\nnaked and inform matter of history, and of which every one may make his\nprofit, according to his understanding.  The more excellent sort of\nhistorians have judgment to pick out what is most worthy to be known;\nand, of two reports, to examine which is the most likely to be true: from\nthe condition of princes and their humours, they conclude their counsels,\nand attribute to them words proper for the occasion; such have title to\nassume the authority of regulating our belief to what they themselves\nbelieve; but certainly, this privilege belongs to very few.  For the\nmiddle sort of historians, of which the most part are, they spoil all;\nthey will chew our meat for us; they take upon them to judge of, and\nconsequently, to incline the history to their own fancy; for if the\njudgment lean to one side, a man cannot avoid wresting and writhing his\nnarrative to that bias; they undertake to select things worthy to be\nknown, and yet often conceal from us such a word, such a private action,\nas would much better instruct us; omit, as incredible, such things as\nthey do not understand, and peradventure some, because they cannot\nexpress good French or Latin.  Let them display their eloquence and\nintelligence, and judge according to their own fancy: but let them,\nwithal, leave us something to judge of after them, and neither alter nor\ndisguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice, anything of the\nsubstance of the matter, but deliver it to us pure and entire in all its\ndimensions.\n\nFor the most part, and especially in these latter ages, persons are\nculled out for this work from amongst the common people, upon the sole\nconsideration of well-speaking, as if we were to learn grammar from them;\nand the men so chosen have fair reason, being hired for no other end and\npretending to nothing but babble, not to be very solicitous of any part\nbut that, and so, with a fine jingle of words, prepare us a pretty\ncontexture of reports they pick up in the streets.  The only good\nhistories are those that have been written themselves who held command in\nthe affairs whereof they write, or who participated in the conduct of\nthem, or, at least, who have had the conduct of others of the same\nnature.  Such are almost all the Greek and Roman histories: for, several\neye-witnesses having written of the same subject, in the time when\ngrandeur and learning commonly met in the same person, if there happen to\nbe an error, it must of necessity be a very slight one, and upon a very\ndoubtful incident.  What can a man expect from a physician who writes of\nwar, or from a mere scholar, treating of the designs of princes?  If we\ncould take notice how scrupulous the Romans were in this, there would\nneed but this example: Asinius Pollio found in the histories of Caesar\nhimself something misreported, a mistake occasioned; either by reason he\ncould not have his eye in all parts of his army at once and had given\ncredit to some individual persons who had not delivered him a very true\naccount; or else, for not having had too perfect notice given him by his\nlieutenants of what they had done in his absence.--[Suetonius, Life of\nCaesar, c. 56.]--By which we may see, whether the inquisition after\ntruth be not very delicate, when a man cannot believe the report of a\nbattle from the knowledge of him who there commanded, nor from the\nsoldiers who were engaged in it, unless, after the method of a judicial\ninquiry, the witnesses be confronted and objections considered upon the\nproof of the least detail of every incident.  In good earnest the\nknowledge we have of our own affairs, is much more obscure: but that has\nbeen sufficiently handled by Bodin, and according to my own sentiment\n--[In the work by jean Bodin, entitled \"Methodus ad facilem historiarum\ncognitionem.\"  1566.]--A little to aid the weakness of my memory (so\nextreme that it has happened to me more than once, to take books again\ninto my hand as new and unseen, that I had carefully read over a few\nyears before, and scribbled with my notes) I have adopted a custom of\nlate, to note at the end of every book (that is, of those I never intend\nto read again) the time when I made an end on't, and the judgment I had\nmade of it, to the end that this might, at least, represent to me the\ncharacter and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it;\nand I will here transcribe some of those annotations.\n\nI wrote this, some ten years ago, in my Guicciardini (of what language\nsoever my books speak to me in, I always speak to them in my own): \"He is\na diligent historiographer, from whom, in my opinion, a man may learn the\ntruth of the affairs of his time, as exactly as from any other; in the\nmost of which he was himself also a personal actor, and in honourable\ncommand.  There is no appearance that he disguised anything, either upon\nthe account of hatred, favour, or vanity; of which the free censures he\npasses upon the great ones, and particularly those by whom he was\nadvanced and employed in commands of great trust and honour, as Pope\nClement VII., give ample testimony.  As to that part which he thinks\nhimself the best at, namely, his digressions and discourses, he has\nindeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too\nfond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full,\nample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little\nof scholastic prattle.  I have also observed this in him, that of so many\nsouls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he\njudges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience,\nas if all these were utterly extinct in the world: and of all the\nactions, how brave soever in outward show they appear in themselves, he\nalways refers the cause and motive to some vicious occasion or some\nprospect of profit.  It is impossible to imagine but that, amongst such\nan infinite number of actions as he makes mention of, there must be some\none produced by the way of honest reason.  No corruption could so\nuniversally have infected men that some one would not escape the\ncontagion which makes me suspect that his own taste was vicious, whence\nit might happen that he judged other men by himself.\"\n\nIn my Philip de Commines there is this written: \"You will here find the\nlanguage sweet and delightful, of a natural simplicity, the narration\npure, with the good faith of the author conspicuous therein; free from\nvanity, when speaking of himself, and from affection or envy, when\nspeaking of others: his discourses and exhortations rather accompanied\nwith zeal and truth, than with any exquisite sufficiency; and,\nthroughout, authority and gravity, which bespeak him a man of good\nextraction, and brought up in great affairs.\"\n\nUpon the Memoirs of Monsieur du Bellay I find this: \"'Tis always pleasant\nto read things written by those that have experienced how they ought to\nbe carried on; but withal, it cannot be denied but there is a manifest\ndecadence in these two lords--[Martin du Bellay and Guillaume de Langey,\nbrothers, who jointly wrote the Memoirs.]--from the freedom and liberty\nof writing that shine in the elder historians, such as the Sire de\nJoinville, the familiar companion of St. Louis; Eginhard, chancellor to\nCharlemagne; and of later date, Philip de Commines.  What we have here is\nrather an apology for King Francis, against the Emperor Charles V., than\nhistory.  I will not believe that they have falsified anything, as to\nmatter of fact; but they make a common practice of twisting the judgment\nof events, very often contrary to reason, to our advantage, and of\nomitting whatsoever is ticklish to be handled in the life of their\nmaster; witness the proceedings of Messieurs de Montmorency and de Biron,\nwhich are here omitted: nay, so much as the very name of Madame\nd'Estampes is not here to be found.  Secret actions an historian may\nconceal; but to pass over in silence what all the world knows and things\nthat have drawn after them public and such high consequences, is an\ninexcusable defect.  In fine, whoever has a mind to have a perfect\nknowledge of King Francis and the events of his reign, let him seek it\nelsewhere, if my advice may prevail.  The only profit a man can reap from\nthese Memoirs is in the special narrative of battles and other exploits\nof war wherein these gentlemen were personally engaged; in some words and\nprivate actions of the princes of their time, and in the treaties and\nnegotiations carried on by the Seigneur de Langey, where there are\neverywhere things worthy to be known, and discourses above the vulgar\nstrain.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nOF CRUELTY\n\nI fancy virtue to be something else, and something more noble, than good\nnature, and the mere propension to goodness, that we are born into the\nworld withal.  Well-disposed and well-descended souls pursue, indeed, the\nsame methods, and represent in their actions the same face that virtue\nitself does: but the word virtue imports, I know not what, more great and\nactive than merely for a man to suffer himself, by a happy disposition,\nto be gently and quietly drawn to the rule of reason.  He who, by a\nnatural sweetness and facility, should despise injuries received, would\ndoubtless do a very fine and laudable thing; but he who, provoked and\nnettled to the quick by an offence, should fortify himself with the arms\nof reason against the furious appetite of revenge, and after a great\nconflict, master his own passion, would certainly do a great deal more.\nThe first would do well; the latter virtuously: one action might be\ncalled goodness, and the other virtue; for methinks, the very name of\nvirtue presupposes difficulty and contention, and cannot be exercised\nwithout an opponent.  'Tis for this reason, perhaps, that we call God\ngood, mighty, liberal and just; but we do not call Him virtuous, being\nthat all His operations are natural and without endeavour.--[Rousseau,\nin his Emile, book v., adopts this passage almost in the same words.]--\nIt has been the opinion of many philosophers, not only Stoics, but\nEpicureans--and this addition--\n\n     [\"Montaigne stops here to make his excuse for thus naming the\n     Epicureans with the Stoics, in conformity to the general opinion\n     that the Epicureans were not so rigid in their morals as the Stoics,\n     which is not true in the main, as he demonstrates at one view.  This\n     involved Montaigne in a tedious parenthesis, during which it is\n     proper that the reader be attentive, that he may not entirely lose\n     the thread of the argument.  In some later editions of this author,\n     it has been attempted to remedy this inconvenience, but without\n     observing that Montaigne's argument is rendered more feeble and\n     obscure by such vain repetitions: it is a licence that ought not to\n     be taken, because he who publishes the work of another, ought to\n     give it as the other composed ft.  But, in Mr Cotton's translation,\n     he was so puzzled with this enormous parenthesis that he has quite\n     left it out\"--Coste.]\n\nI borrow from the vulgar opinion, which is false, notwithstanding the\nwitty conceit of Arcesilaus in answer to one, who, being reproached that\nmany scholars went from his school to the Epicurean, but never any from\nthence to his school, said in answer, \"I believe it indeed; numbers of\ncapons being made out of cocks, but never any cocks out of capons.\"\n--[Diogenes Laertius, Life of Archesilaus, lib.  iv., 43.]--For, in truth,\nthe Epicurean sect is not at all inferior to the Stoic in steadiness, and\nthe rigour of opinions and precepts.  And a certain Stoic, showing more\nhonesty than those disputants, who, in order to quarrel with Epicurus,\nand to throw the game into their hands, make him say what he never\nthought, putting a wrong construction upon his words, clothing his\nsentences, by the strict rules of grammar, with another meaning, and a\ndifferent opinion from that which they knew he entertained in his mind\nand in his morals, the Stoic, I say, declared that he abandoned the\nEpicurean sect, upon this among other considerations, that he thought\ntheir road too lofty and inaccessible;\n\n     [\"And those are called lovers of pleasure, being in effect\n     lovers of honour and justice, who cultivate and observe all\n     the virtues.\"--Cicero, Ep.  Fam., xv. i, 19.]\n\nThese philosophers say that it is not enough to have the soul seated in\na good place, of a good temper, and well disposed to virtue; it is not\nenough to have our resolutions and our reasoning fixed above all the\npower of fortune, but that we are, moreover, to seek occasions wherein to\nput them to the proof: they would seek pain, necessity, and contempt to\ncontend with them and to keep the soul in breath:\n\n               \"Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita.\"\n\n               [\"Virtue is much strengthened by combats.\"\n               or:  \"Virtue attacked adds to its own force.\"\n               --Seneca, Ep., 13.]\n\n'Tis one of the reasons why Epaminondas, who was yet of a third sect,\n--[The Pythagorean.]--refused the riches fortune presented to him by\nvery lawful means; because, said he, I am to contend with poverty, in\nwhich extreme he maintained himself to the last.  Socrates put himself,\nmethinks, upon a ruder trial, keeping for his exercise a confounded\nscolding wife, which was fighting at sharps.  Metellus having, of all the\nRoman senators, alone attempted, by the power of virtue, to withstand the\nviolence of Saturninus, tribune of the people at Rome, who would, by all\nmeans, cause an unjust law to pass in favour of the commons, and, by so\ndoing, having incurred the capital penalties that Saturninus had\nestablished against the dissentient, entertained those who, in this\nextremity, led him to execution with words to this effect: That it was a\nthing too easy and too base to do ill; and that to do well where there\nwas no danger was a common thing; but that to do well where there was\ndanger was the proper office of a man of virtue.  These words of Metellus\nvery clearly represent to us what I would make out, viz., that virtue\nrefuses facility for a companion; and that the easy, smooth, and\ndescending way by which the regular steps of a sweet disposition of\nnature are conducted is not that of a true virtue; she requires a rough\nand stormy passage; she will have either exotic difficulties to wrestle\nwith, like that of Metellus, by means whereof fortune delights to\ninterrupt the speed of her career, or internal difficulties, that the\ninordinate appetites and imperfections of our condition introduce to\ndisturb her.\n\nI am come thus far at my ease; but here it comes into my head that the\nsoul of Socrates, the most perfect that ever came to my knowledge, should\nby this rule be of very little recommendation; for I cannot conceive in\nthat person any the least motion of a vicious inclination: I cannot\nimagine there could be any difficulty or constraint in the course of his\nvirtue: I know his reason to be so powerful and sovereign over him that\nshe would never have suffered a vicious appetite so much as to spring in\nhim.  To a virtue so elevated as his, I have nothing to oppose.  Methinks\nI see him march, with a victorious and triumphant pace, in pomp and at\nhis ease, without opposition or disturbance.  If virtue cannot shine\nbright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that\nshe cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from\nher that she derives her reputation and honour?  What then, also, would\nbecome of that brave and generous Epicurean pleasure, which makes account\nthat it nourishes virtue tenderly in her lap, and there makes it play and\nwanton, giving it for toys to play withal, shame, fevers, poverty, death,\nand torments?  If I presuppose that a perfect virtue manifests itself in\ncontending, in patient enduring of pain, and undergoing the uttermost\nextremity of the gout; without being moved in her seat; if I give her\ntroubles and difficulty for her necessary objects: what will become of a\nvirtue elevated to such a degree, as not only to despise pain, but,\nmoreover, to rejoice in it, and to be tickled with the throes of a sharp\ncolic, such as the Epicureans have established, and of which many of\nthem, by their actions, have given most manifest proofs?  As have several\nothers, who I find to have surpassed in effects even the very rules of\ntheir discipline.  Witness the younger Cato: When I see him die, and\ntearing out his own bowels, I am not satisfied simply to believe that he\nhad then his soul totally exempt from all trouble and horror: I cannot\nthink that he only maintained himself in the steadiness that the Stoical\nrules prescribed him; temperate, without emotion, and imperturbed.  There\nwas, methinks, something in the virtue of this man too sprightly and\nfresh to stop there; I believe that, without doubt, he felt a pleasure\nand delight in so noble an action, and was more pleased in it than in any\nother of his life:\n\n     \"Sic abiit a vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet.\"\n\n     [\"He quitted life rejoicing that a reason for dying had arisen.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 30.]\n\nI believe it so thoroughly that I question whether he would have been\ncontent to have been deprived of the occasion of so brave an exploit; and\nif the goodness that made him embrace the public concern more than his\nown, withheld me not, I should easily fall into an opinion that he\nthought himself obliged to fortune for having put his virtue upon so\nbrave a trial, and for having favoured that theif--[Caesar]--in treading\nunderfoot the ancient liberty of his country.  Methinks I read in this\naction I know not what exaltation in his soul, and an extraordinary and\nmanly emotion of pleasure, when he looked upon the generosity and height\nof his enterprise:\n\n                    \"Deliberate morte ferocior,\"\n\n          [\"The more courageous from the deliberation to die.\"\n          --Horace, Od., i. 37, 29.]\n\nnot stimulated with any hope of glory, as the popular and effeminate\njudgments of some have concluded (for that consideration was too mean and\nlow to possess so generous, so haughty, and so determined a heart as\nhis), but for the very beauty of the thing in itself, which he who had\nthe handling of the springs discerned more clearly and in its perfection\nthan we are able to do.  Philosophy has obliged me in determining that so\nbrave an action had been indecently placed in any other life than that of\nCato; and that it only appertained to his to end so; notwithstanding, and\naccording to reason, he commanded his son and the senators who\naccompanied him to take another course in their affairs:\n\n          \"Catoni, quum incredibilem natura tribuisset gravitatem,\n          eamque ipse perpetue constantia roboravisset, semperque\n          in proposito consilio permansisset, moriendum potius,\n          quam tyranni vultus aspiciendus, erat.\"\n\n     [\"Cato, whom nature had given incredible dignity, which he had\n     fortified by perpetual constancy, ever remaining of his\n     predetermined opinion, preferred to die rather than to look\n     on the countenance of a tyrant.\"--Cicero, De Ofc., i. 31.]\n\nEvery death ought to hold proportion with the life before it; we do not\nbecome others for dying.  I always interpret the death by the life\npreceding; and if any one tell me of a death strong and constant in\nappearance, annexed to a feeble life, I conclude it produced by some\nfeeble cause, and suitable to the life before.  The easiness then of his\ndeath and the facility of dying he had acquired by the vigour of his\nsoul; shall we say that it ought to abate anything of the lustre of his\nvirtue?  And who, that has his brain never so little tinctured with the\ntrue philosophy, can be content to imagine Socrates only free from fear\nand passion in the accident of his prison, fetters, and condemnation?\nand that will not discover in him not only firmness and constancy (which\nwas his ordinary condition), but, moreover, I know not what new\nsatisfaction, and a frolic cheerfulness in his last words and actions?\nIn the start he gave with the pleasure of scratching his leg when his\nirons were taken off, does he not discover an equal serenity and joy in\nhis soul for being freed from past inconveniences, and at the same time\nto enter into the knowledge of the things to come?  Cato shall pardon me,\nif he please; his death indeed is more tragical and more lingering; but\nyet this is, I know not how, methinks, finer.  Aristippus, to one that\nwas lamenting this death: \"The gods grant me such an one,\" said he.\nA man discerns in the soul of these two great men and their imitators\n(for I very much doubt whether there were ever their equals) so perfect a\nhabitude to virtue, that it was turned to a complexion.  It is no longer\na laborious virtue, nor the precepts of reason, to maintain which the\nsoul is so racked, but the very essence of their soul, its natural and\nordinary habit; they have rendered it such by a long practice of\nphilosophical precepts having lit upon a rich and fine nature; the\nvicious passions that spring in us can find no entrance into them; the\nforce and vigour of their soul stifle and extinguish irregular desires,\nso soon as they begin to move.\n\nNow, that it is not more noble, by a high and divine resolution, to\nhinder the birth of temptations, and to be so formed to virtue, that the\nvery seeds of vice are rooted out, than to hinder by main force their\nprogress; and, having suffered ourselves to be surprised with the first\nmotions of the passions, to arm ourselves and to stand firm to oppose\ntheir progress, and overcome them; and that this second effect is not\nalso much more generous than to be simply endowed with a facile and\naffable nature, of itself disaffected to debauchery and vice, I do not\nthink can be doubted; for this third and last sort of virtue seems to\nrender a man innocent, but not virtuous; free from doing ill, but not apt\nenough to do well: considering also, that this condition is so near\nneighbour to imperfection and cowardice, that I know not very well how to\nseparate the confines and distinguish them: the very names of goodness\nand innocence are, for this reason, in some sort grown into contempt.\nI very well know that several virtues, as chastity, sobriety, and\ntemperance, may come to a man through personal defects.  Constancy in\ndanger, if it must be so called, the contempt of death, and patience in\nmisfortunes, may ofttimes be found in men for want of well judging of\nsuch accidents, and not apprehending them for such as they are.  Want of\napprehension and stupidity sometimes counterfeit virtuous effects as I\nhave often seen it happen, that men have been commended for what really\nmerited blame.  An Italian lord once said this, in my presence, to the\ndisadvantage of his own nation: that the subtlety of the Italians, and\nthe vivacity of their conceptions were so great, and they foresaw the\ndangers and accidents that might befall them so far off, that it was not\nto be thought strange, if they were often, in war, observed to provide\nfor their safety, even before they had discovered the peril; that we\nFrench and the Spaniards, who were not so cunning, went on further, and\nthat we must be made to see and feel the danger before we would take the\nalarm; but that even then we could not stick to it.  But the Germans and\nSwiss, more gross and heavy, had not the sense to look about them, even\nwhen the blows were falling about their ears.  Peradventure, he only\ntalked so for mirth's sake; and yet it is most certain that in war raw\nsoldiers rush into dangers with more precipitancy than after they have\nbeen cudgelled*--(The original has eschauldex--scalded)\n\n         \"Haud ignarus .  .  .  .  quantum nova gloria in armis,\n          Et praedulce decus, primo certamine possit.\"\n\n     [\"Not ignorant how much power the fresh glory of arms and sweetest\n     honour possess in the first contest.\"--AEneid, xi. 154]\n\nFor this reason it is that, when we judge of a particular action, we are\nto consider the circumstances, and the whole man by whom it is performed,\nbefore we give it a name.\n\nTo instance in myself: I have sometimes known my friends call that\nprudence in me, which was merely fortune; and repute that courage and\npatience, which was judgment and opinion; and attribute to me one title\nfor another, sometimes to my advantage and sometimes otherwise.  As to\nthe rest, I am so far from being arrived at the first and most perfect\ndegree of excellence, where virtue is turned into habit, that even of the\nsecond I have made no great proofs.  I have not been very solicitous to\ncurb the desires by which I have been importuned.  My virtue is a virtue,\nor rather an innocence, casual and accidental.  If I had been born of a\nmore irregular complexion, I am afraid I should have made scurvy work;\nfor I never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions,\nif they were never so little vehement: I know not how to nourish quarrels\nand debates in my own bosom, and, consequently, owe myself no great\nthanks that I am free from several vices:\n\n              \"Si vitiis mediocribus et mea paucis\n               Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si\n               Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos:\"\n\n     [\"If my nature be disfigured only with slight and few vices, and is\n     otherwise just, it is as if you should blame moles on a fair body.\"\n     --Horatius, Sat., i. 6, 65.]\n\nI owe it rather to my fortune than my reason.  She has caused me to be\ndescended of a race famous for integrity and of a very good father; I\nknow not whether or no he has infused into me part of his humours, or\nwhether domestic examples and the good education of my infancy have\ninsensibly assisted in the work, or, if I was otherwise born so:\n\n                    \"Seu Libra, seu me Scorpius adspicit\n                    Formidolosus, pars violentior\n                    Natalis hors, seu tyrannus\n                    Hesperive Capricornus undae:\"\n\n     [\"Whether the Balance or dread Scorpio, more potent over my natal\n     hour, aspects me, or Capricorn, supreme over the Hesperian sea.\"\n     --Horace, Od., ii. 117.]\n\nbut so it is, that I have naturally a horror for most vices.  The answer\nof Antisthenes to him who asked him, which was the best apprenticeship\n\"to unlearn evil,\" seems to point at this.  I have them in horror, I say,\nwith a detestation so natural, and so much my own, that the same instinct\nand impression I brought of them with me from my nurse, I yet retain, and\nno temptation whatever has had the power to make me alter it.  Not so\nmuch as my own discourses, which in some things lashing out of the common\nroad might seem easily to license me to actions that my natural\ninclination makes me hate.  I will say a prodigious thing, but I will say\nit, however: I find myself in many things more under reputation by my\nmanners than by my opinion, and my concupiscence less debauched than my\nreason.  Aristippus instituted opinions so bold in favour of pleasure and\nriches as set all the philosophers against him: but as to his manners,\nDionysius the tyrant, having presented three beautiful women before him,\nto take his choice; he made answer, that he would choose them all, and\nthat Paris got himself into trouble for having preferred one before the\nother two: but, having taken them home to his house, he sent them back\nuntouched.  His servant finding himself overladen upon the way, with the\nmoney he carried after him, he ordered him to pour out and throw away\nthat which troubled him.  And Epicurus, whose doctrines were so\nirreligious and effeminate, was in his life very laborious and devout;\nhe wrote to a friend of his that he lived only upon biscuit and water,\nentreating him to send him a little cheese, to lie by him against he had\na mind to make a feast.  Must it be true, that to be a perfect good man,\nwe must be so by an occult, natural, and universal propriety, without\nlaw, reason, or example?  The debauches wherein I have been engaged, have\nnot been, I thank God, of the worst sort, and I have condemned them in\nmyself, for my judgment was never infected by them; on the contrary,\nI accuse them more severely in myself than in any other; but that is all,\nfor, as to the rest.  I oppose too little resistance and suffer myself to\nincline too much to the other side of the balance, excepting that I\nmoderate them, and prevent them from mixing with other vices, which for\nthe most part will cling together, if a man have not a care.  I have\ncontracted and curtailed mine, to make them as single and as simple as I\ncan:\n\n                              \"Nec ultra\n                    Errorem foveo.\"\n\n               [\"Nor do I cherish error further.\"\n               or: \"Nor carry wrong further.\"\n               --Juvenal, viii. 164.]\n\nFor as to the opinion of the Stoics, who say, \"That the wise man when he\nworks, works by all the virtues together, though one be most apparent,\naccording to the nature of the action\"; and herein the similitude of a\nhuman body might serve them somewhat, for the action of anger cannot\nwork, unless all the humours assist it, though choler predominate;\n--if they will thence draw a like consequence, that when the wicked man\ndoes wickedly, he does it by all the vices together, I do not believe it\nto be so, or else I understand them not, for I by effect find the\ncontrary.  These are sharp, unsubstantial subleties, with which\nphilosophy sometimes amuses itself.  I follow some vices, but I fly\nothers as much as a saint would do.  The Peripatetics also disown this\nindissoluble connection; and Aristotle is of opinion that a prudent and\njust man may be intemperate and inconsistent.  Socrates confessed to some\nwho had discovered a certain inclination to vice in his physiognomy, that\nit was, in truth, his natural propension, but that he had by discipline\ncorrected it.  And such as were familiar with the philosopher Stilpo\nsaid, that being born with addiction to wine and women, he had by study\nrendered himself very abstinent both from the one and the other.\n\nWhat I have in me of good, I have, quite contrary, by the chance of my\nbirth; and hold it not either by law, precept, or any other instruction;\nthe innocence that is in me is a simple one; little vigour and no art.\nAmongst other vices, I mortally hate cruelty, both by nature and\njudgment, as the very extreme of all vices: nay, with so much tenderness\nthat I cannot see a chicken's neck pulled off without trouble, and cannot\nwithout impatience endure the cry of a hare in my dog's teeth, though the\nchase be a violent pleasure.  Such as have sensuality to encounter,\nfreely make use of this argument, to shew that it is altogether \"vicious\nand unreasonable; that when it is at the height, it masters us to that\ndegree that a man's reason can have no access,\" and instance our own\nexperience in the act of love,\n\n                    \"Quum jam praesagit gaudia corpus,\n                    Atque in eo est Venus,\n                    ut muliebria conserat arva.\"\n\n     [None of the translators of the old editions used for this etext\n     have been willing to translate this passage from Lucretius, iv.\n     1099; they take a cop out by bashfully saying: \"The sense is in the\n     preceding passage of the text.\"  D.W.]\n\nwherein they conceive that the pleasure so transports us, that our reason\ncannot perform its office, whilst we are in such ecstasy and rapture.  I\nknow very well it may be otherwise, and that a man may sometimes, if he\nwill, gain this point over himself to sway his soul, even in the critical\nmoment, to think of something else; but then he must ply it to that bent.\nI know that a man may triumph over the utmost effort of this pleasure: I\nhave experienced it in myself, and have not found Venus so imperious a\ngoddess, as many, and much more virtuous men than I, declare.  I do not\nconsider it a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre does in one of the Tales\nof her Heptameron--[\"Vu gentil liure pour son estoffe.\"]--(which is a\nvery pretty book of its kind), nor for a thing of extreme difficulty, to\npass whole nights, where a man has all the convenience and liberty he can\ndesire, with a long-coveted mistress, and yet be true to the pledge first\ngiven to satisfy himself with kisses and suchlike endearments, without\npressing any further.  I conceive that the example of the pleasure of the\nchase would be more proper; wherein though the pleasure be less, there is\nthe higher excitement of unexpected joy, giving no time for the reason,\ntaken by surprise, to prepare itself for the encounter, when after a long\nquest the beast starts up on a sudden in a place where, peradventure, we\nleast expected it; the shock and the ardour of the shouts and cries of\nthe hunters so strike us, that it would be hard for those who love this\nlesser chase, to turn their thoughts upon the instant another way; and\nthe poets make Diana triumph over the torch and shafts of Cupid:\n\n              \"Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet,\n               Haec inter obliviscitur?\"\n\n     [\"Who, amongst such delights would not remove out of his thoughts\n     the anxious cares of love.\"--Horace, Epod., ii. 37.]\n\nTo return to what I was saying before, I am tenderly compassionate of\nothers' afflictions, and should readily cry for company, if, upon any\noccasion whatever, I could cry at all.  Nothing tempts my tears but\ntears, and not only those that are real and true, but whatever they are,\nfeigned or painted.  I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them\nrather; but I very much lament the dying.  The savages do not so much\noffend me, in roasting and eating the bodies of the dead, as they do who\ntorment and persecute the living.  Nay, I cannot look so much as upon the\nordinary executions of justice, how reasonable soever, with a steady eye.\nSome one having to give testimony of Julius Caesar's clemency; \"he was,\"\nsays he, \"mild in his revenges.  Having compelled the pirates to yield by\nwhom he had before been taken prisoner and put to ransom; forasmuch as he\nhad threatened them with the cross, he indeed condemned them to it, but\nit was after they had been first strangled.  He punished his secretary\nPhilemon, who had attempted to poison him, with no greater severity than\nmere death.\"  Without naming that Latin author,--[Suetonius, Life of\nCasay, c. 74.]--who thus dares to allege as a testimony of mercy the\nkilling only of those by whom we have been offended; it is easy to guess\nthat he was struck with the horrid and inhuman examples of cruelty\npractised by the Roman tyrants.\n\nFor my part, even in justice itself, all that exceeds a simple death\nappears to me pure cruelty; especially in us who ought, having regard to\ntheir souls, to dismiss them in a good and calm condition; which cannot\nbe, when we have agitated them by insufferable torments.  Not long since,\na soldier who was a prisoner, perceiving from a tower where he was shut\nup, that the people began to assemble to the place of execution, and that\nthe carpenters were busy erecting a scaffold, he presently concluded\nthat the preparation was for him, and therefore entered into a resolution\nto kill himself, but could find no instrument to assist him in his design\nexcept an old rusty cart-nail that fortune presented to him; with this he\nfirst gave himself two great wounds about his throat, but finding these\nwould not do, he presently afterwards gave himself a third in the belly,\nwhere he left the nail sticking up to the head.  The first of his keepers\nwho came in found him in this condition: yet alive, but sunk down and\nexhausted by his wounds.  To make use of time, therefore, before he\nshould die, they made haste to read his sentence; which having done, and\nhe hearing that he was only condemned to be beheaded, he seemed to take\nnew courage, accepted wine which he had before refused, and thanked his\njudges for the unhoped-for mildness of their sentence; saying, that he\nhad taken a resolution to despatch himself for fear of a more severe and\ninsupportable death, having entertained an opinion, by the preparations\nhe had seen in the place, that they were resolved to torment him with\nsome horrible execution, and seemed to be delivered from death in having\nit changed from what he apprehended.\n\nI should advise that those examples of severity by which 'tis designed to\nretain the people in their duty, might be exercised upon the dead bodies\nof criminals; for to see them deprived of sepulture, to see them boiled\nand divided into quarters, would almost work as much upon the vulgar, as\nthe pain they make the living endure; though that in effect be little or\nnothing, as God himself says, \"Who kill the body, and after that have no\nmore that they can do;\"--[Luke, xii.  4.]--and the poets singularly\ndwell upon the horrors of this picture, as something worse than death:\n\n         \"Heu! reliquias semiustas regis, denudatis ossibus,\n          Per terram sanie delibutas foede divexarier.\"\n\n     [\"Alas! that the half-burnt remains of the king, exposing his bones,\n     should be foully dragged along the ground besmeared with gore.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 44.]\n\nI happened to come by one day accidentally at Rome, just as they were\nupon executing Catena, a notorious robber: he was strangled without any\nemotion of the spectators, but when they came to cut him in quarters, the\nhangman gave not a blow that the people did not follow with a doleful cry\nand exclamation, as if every one had lent his sense of feeling to the\nmiserable carcase.  Those inhuman excesses ought to be exercised upon the\nbark, and not upon the quick.  Artaxerxes, in almost a like case,\nmoderated the severity of the ancient laws of Persia, ordaining that the\nnobility who had committed a fault, instead of being whipped, as they\nwere used to be, should be stripped only and their clothes whipped for\nthem; and that whereas they were wont to tear off their hair, they should\nonly take off their high-crowned tiara.'--[Plutarch, Notable Sayings of\nthe Ancient King.]--The so devout Egyptians thought they sufficiently\nsatisfied the divine justice by sacrificing hogs in effigy and\nrepresentation; a bold invention to pay God so essential a substance in\npicture only and in show.\n\nI live in a time wherein we abound in incredible examples of this vice,\nthrough the licence of our civil wars; and we see nothing in ancient\nhistories more extreme than what we have proof of every day, but I\ncannot, any the more, get used to it.  I could hardly persuade myself,\nbefore I saw it with my eyes, that there could be found souls so cruel\nand fell, who, for the sole pleasure of murder, would commit it; would\nhack and lop off the limbs of others; sharpen their wits to invent\nunusual torments and new kinds of death, without hatred, without profit,\nand for no other end but only to enjoy the pleasant spectacle of the\ngestures and motions, the lamentable groans and cries of a man dying in\nanguish.  For this is the utmost point to which cruelty can arrive:\n\n              \"Ut homo hominem, non iratus, non timens,\n               tantum spectaturus, occidat.\"\n\n     [\"That a man should kill a man, not being angry, not in fear, only\n     for the sake of the spectacle.\"--Seneca, Ep., 90.]\n\nFor my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast\npursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received\nno offence at all; and that which frequently happens, that the stag we\nhunt, finding himself weak and out of breath, and seeing no other remedy,\nsurrenders himself to us who pursue him, imploring mercy by his tears:\n\n                        \"Questuque cruentus,\n                         Atque imploranti similis,\"\n\n          [\"Who, bleeding, by his tears seems to crave mercy.\"\n          --AEnead, vii. 501.]\n\nhas ever been to me a very unpleasing sight; and I hardly ever take a\nbeast alive that I do not presently turn out again.  Pythagoras bought\nthem of fishermen and fowlers to do the same:\n\n                    \"Primoque a caede ferarum,\n               Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum.\"\n\n\n     [\"I think 'twas slaughter of wild beasts that first stained the\n     steel of man with blood.\"--Ovid, Met., xv. 106.]\n\nThose natures that are sanguinary towards beasts discover a natural\nproneness to cruelty.  After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to\nspectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the\nslaughter of men, of gladiators.  Nature has herself, I fear, imprinted\nin man a kind of instinct to inhumanity; nobody takes pleasure in seeing\nbeasts play with and caress one another, but every one is delighted with\nseeing them dismember, and tear one another to pieces.  And that I may\nnot be laughed at for the sympathy I have with them, theology itself\nenjoins us some favour in their behalf; and considering that one and the\nsame master has lodged us together in this palace for his service, and\nthat they, as well as we, are of his family, it has reason to enjoin us\nsome affection and regard to them.  Pythagoras borrowed the\nmetempsychosis from the Egyptians; but it has since been received by\nseveral nations, and particularly by our Druids:\n\n          \"Morte carent animae; semperque, priore relicts\n          Sede, novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptae.\"\n\n     [\"Souls never die, but, having left their former seat, live\n     and are received into new homes.\"--Ovid, Met., xv. 158.]\n\nThe religion of our ancient Gauls maintained that souls, being eternal,\nnever ceased to remove and shift their places from one body to another;\nmixing moreover with this fancy some consideration of divine justice; for\naccording to the deportments of the soul, whilst it had been in\nAlexander, they said that God assigned it another body to inhabit, more\nor less painful, and proper for its condition:\n\n                              \"Muta ferarum\n               Cogit vincla pati; truculentos ingerit ursis,\n               Praedonesque lupis; fallaces vulpibus addit:\n               Atque ubi per varios annos, per mille figuras\n\n               Egit, Lethaeo purgatos flumine, tandem\n               Rursus ad humanae revocat primordia formae:\"\n\n     [\"He makes them wear the silent chains of brutes, the bloodthirsty\n     souls he encloses in bears, the thieves in wolves, the deceivers in\n     foxes; where, after successive years and a thousand forms, man had\n     spent his life, and after purgation in Lethe's flood, at last he\n     restores them to the primordial human shapes.\"\n     --Claudian, In Ruf., ii. 482.]\n\nIf it had been valiant, he lodged it in the body of a lion; if\nvoluptuous, in that of a hog; if timorous, in that of a hart or hare; if\nmalicious, in that of a fox, and so of the rest, till having purified it\nby this chastisement, it again entered into the body of some other man:\n\n               \"Ipse ego nam memini, Trojani, tempore belli\n               Panthoides Euphorbus eram.\"\n\n     [\"For I myself remember that, in the days of the Trojan war, I was\n     Euphorbus, son of Pantheus.\"--Ovid, Met., xv. 160; and see Diogenes\n     Laertius, Life of Pythagoras.]\n\nAs to the relationship betwixt us and beasts, I do not much admit of it;\nnor of that which several nations, and those among the most ancient and\nmost noble, have practised, who have not only received brutes into their\nsociety and companionship, but have given them a rank infinitely above\nthemselves, esteeming them one while familiars and favourites of the\ngods, and having them in more than human reverence and respect; others\nacknowledged no other god or divinity than they:\n\n          \"Bellux a barbaris propter beneficium consecratae.\"\n\n     [\"Beasts, out of opinion of some benefit received by them, were\n     consecrated by barbarians\"--Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 36.]\n\n\n                              \"Crocodilon adorat\n               Pars haec; illa pavet saturam serpentibus ibin:\n               Effigies sacri hic nitet aurea cercopitheci;\n                              Hic piscem flumints, illic\n               Oppida tota canem venerantur.\"\n\n     [\"This place adores the crocodile; another dreads the ibis, feeder\n     on serpents; here shines the golden image of the sacred ape; here\n     men venerate the fish of the river; there whole towns worship a\n     dog.\"--Juvenal, xv. 2.]\n\nAnd the very interpretation that Plutarch, gives to this error, which is\nvery well conceived, is advantageous to them: for he says that it was not\nthe cat or the ox, for example, that the Egyptians adored: but that they,\nin those beasts, adored some image of the divine faculties; in this,\npatience and utility: in that, vivacity, or, as with our neighbours the\nBurgundians and all the Germans, impatience to see themselves shut up; by\nwhich they represented liberty, which they loved and adored above all\nother godlike attributes, and so of the rest.  But when, amongst the more\nmoderate opinions, I meet with arguments that endeavour to demonstrate\nthe near resemblance betwixt us and animals, how large a share they have\nin our greatest privileges, and with how much probability they compare us\ntogether, truly I abate a great deal of our presumption, and willingly\nresign that imaginary sovereignty that is attributed to us over other\ncreatures.\n\nBut supposing all this were not true, there is nevertheless a certain\nrespect, a general duty of humanity, not only to beasts that have life\nand sense, but even to trees, and plants.  We owe justice to men, and\ngraciousness and benignity to other creatures that are capable of it;\nthere is a certain commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us.\nNor shall I be afraid to confess the tenderness of my nature so childish,\nthat I cannot well refuse to play with my dog, when he the most\nunseasonably importunes me to do so.  The Turks have alms and hospitals\nfor beasts.  The Romans had public care to the nourishment of geese, by\nwhose vigilance their Capitol had been preserved.  The Athenians made a\ndecree that the mules and moyls which had served at the building of the\ntemple called Hecatompedon should be free and suffered to pasture at\ntheir own choice, without hindrance.  The Agrigentines  had a common use\nsolemnly to inter the beasts they had a kindness for, as horses of some\nrare quality, dogs, and useful birds, and even those that had only been\nkept to divert their children; and the magnificence that was ordinary\nwith them in all other things, also particularly appeared in the\nsumptuosity and numbers of monuments erected to this end, and which\nremained in their beauty several ages after.  The Egyptians buried\nwolves, bears, crocodiles, dogs, and cats in sacred places, embalmed\ntheir bodies, and put on mourning at their death.  Cimon gave an\nhonourable sepulture to the mares with which he had three times gained\nthe prize of the course at the Olympic Games.  The ancient Xantippus\ncaused his dog to be interred on an eminence near the sea, which has ever\nsince retained the name, and Plutarch says, that he had a scruple about\nselling for a small profit to the slaughterer an ox that had been long in\nhis service.\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     A little cheese when a mind to make a feast\n     A word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit\n     Cato said: So many servants, so many enemies\n     Cherish themselves most where they are most wrong\n     Condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul\n     Cruelty is the very extreme of all vices\n     Disguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice\n     Epicurus\n     Flatterer in your old age or in your sickness\n     He felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an action\n     He judged other men by himself\n     I cannot well refuse to play with my dog\n     I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them rather\n     I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age\n     I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason\n     Incline the history to their own fancy\n     It (my books) may know many things that are gone from me\n     Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment\n     Learn the theory from those who best know the practice\n     Loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men\n     Motive to some vicious occasion or some prospect of profit\n     My books: from me hold that which I have not retained\n     My dog unseasonably importunes me to play\n     My innocence is a simple one; little vigour and no art.\n     Never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions\n     Nothing tempts my tears but tears\n     Omit, as incredible, such things as they do not understand\n     On all occasions to contradict and oppose\n     Only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent\n     Passion of dandling and caressing infants scarcely born\n     Perfection: but I will not buy it so dear as it costs\n     Plato will have nobody marry before thirty\n     Prudent and just man may be intemperate and inconsistent\n     Puerile simplicities of our children\n     Shelter my own weakness under these great reputations\n     Socrates kept a confounded scolding wife\n     The authors, with whom I converse\n     There is no recompense becomes virtue\n     To do well where there was danger was the proper office\n     To whom no one is ill who can be good?\n     Turks have alms and hospitals for beasts\n     Vices will cling together, if a man have not a care\n     Virtue is much strengthened by combats\n     Virtue refuses facility for a companion","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 10","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":24571}