{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3593/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3593","id":"gutenberg_3593","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3593","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\n\nCONTENTS OF VOLUME 13.\n\nXXXII.    Defence of Seneca and Plutarch.\nXXXIII.   The story of Spurina.\nXXXIV.    Means to carry on a war according to Julius Caesar.\nXXXV.     Of three good women.\nXXXVI.    Of the most excellent men.\nXXXVII.   Of the resemblance of children to their fathers.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\n\nDEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARCH\n\nThe familiarity I have with these two authors, and the assistance they\nhave lent to my age and to my book, wholly compiled of what I have\nborrowed from them, oblige me to stand up for their honour.\n\nAs to Seneca, amongst a million of little pamphlets that those of the\nso-called reformed religion disperse abroad for the defence of their cause\n(and which sometimes proceed from so good a hand, that 'tis pity his pen\nis not employed in a better subject), I have formerly seen one, that to\nmake up the parallel he would fain find out betwixt the government of our\nlate poor King Charles IX. and that of Nero, compares the late Cardinal\nof Lorraine with Seneca; their fortunes, in having both of them been the\nprime ministers in the government of their princes, and in their manners,\nconditions, and deportments to have been very near alike.  Wherein, in my\nopinion, he does the said cardinal a very great honour; for though I am\none of those who have a very high esteem for his wit, eloquence, and zeal\nto religion and the service of his king, and his good fortune to have\nlived in an age wherein it was so novel, so rare, and also so necessary\nfor the public good to have an ecclesiastical person of such high birth\nand dignity, and so sufficient and capable of his place; yet, to confess\nthe truth, I do not think his capacity by many degrees near to the other,\nnor his virtue either so clean, entire, or steady as that of Seneca.\n\nNow the book whereof I speak, to bring about its design, gives a very\ninjurious description of Seneca, having borrowed its approaches from Dion\nthe historian, whose testimony I do not at all believe for besides that\nhe is inconsistent, that after having called Seneca one while very wise,\nand again a mortal enemy to Nero's vices, makes him elsewhere avaricious,\nan usurer, ambitious, effeminate, voluptuous, and a false pretender to\nphilosophy, his virtue appears so vivid and vigorous in his writings, and\nhis vindication is so clear from any of these imputations, as of his\nriches and extraordinarily expensive way of living, that I cannot believe\nany testimony to the contrary.  And besides, it is much more reasonable\nto believe the Roman historians in such things than Greeks and\nforeigners.  Now Tacitus and the rest speak very honourably both of his\nlife and death; and represent him to us a very excellent and virtuous\nperson in all things; and I will allege no other reproach against Dion's\nreport but this, which I cannot avoid, namely, that he has so weak a\njudgment in the Roman affairs, that he dares to maintain Julius Caesar's\ncause against Pompey [And so does this editor.  D.W.], and that of Antony\nagainst Cicero.\n\nLet us now come to Plutarch: Jean Bodin is a good author of our times,\nand a writer of much greater judgment than the rout of scribblers of his\nage, and who deserves to be read and considered.  I find him, though, a\nlittle bold in this passage of his Method of history, where he accuses\nPlutarch not only of ignorance (wherein I would have let him alone: for\nthat is beyond my criticism), but that he \"often writes things\nincredible, and absolutely fabulous \": these are his own words.  If he\nhad simply said, that he had delivered things otherwise than they really\nare, it had been no great reproach; for what we have not seen, we are\nforced to receive from other hands, and take upon trust, and I see that\nhe purposely sometimes variously relates the same story; as the judgment\nof the three best captains that ever were, given by Hannibal; 'tis one\nway in the Life of Flammius, and another in that of Pyrrhus.  But to\ncharge him with having taken incredible and impossible things for current\npay, is to accuse the most judicious author in the world of want of\njudgment.  And this is his example; \"as,\" says he, \"when he relates that\na Lacedaemonian boy suffered his bowels to be torn out by a fox-cub he\nhad stolen, and kept it still concealed under his coat till he fell down\ndead, rather than he would discover his theft.\"  I find, in the first\nplace, this example ill chosen, forasmuch as it is very hard to limit the\npower of the faculties of--the soul, whereas we have better authority to\nlimit and know the force of the bodily limbs; and therefore, if I had\nbeen he, I should rather have chosen an example of this second sort; and\nthere are some of these less credible: and amongst others, that which he\nrefates of Pyrrhus, that \"all wounded as he was, he struck one of his\nenemies, who was armed from head to foot, so great a blow with his sword,\nthat he clave him down from his crown to his seat, so that the body was\ndivided into two parts.\"  In this example I find no great miracle, nor do\nI admit the excuse with which he defends Plutarch, in having added these\nwords, \"as 'tis said,\" to suspend our belief; for unless it be in things\nreceived by authority, and the reverence to antiquity or religion, he\nwould never have himself admitted, or enjoined us to believe things\nincredible in themselves; and that these words, \"as 'tis said,\" are not\nput in this place to that effect, is easy to be seen, because he\nelsewhere relates to us, upon this subject, of the patience of the\nLacedaemonian children, examples happening in his time, more unlikely to\nprevail upon our faith; as what Cicero has also testified before him, as\nhaving, as he says, been upon the spot: that even to their times there\nwere children found who, in the trial of patience they were put to before\nthe altar of Diana, suffered themselves to be there whipped till the\nblood ran down all over their bodies, not only without crying out, but\nwithout so much as a groan, and some till they there voluntarily lost\ntheir lives: and that which Plutarch also, amongst a hundred other\nwitnesses, relates, that at a sacrifice, a burning coal having fallen\ninto the sleeve of a Lacedaemonian boy, as he was censing, he suffered\nhis whole arm to be burned, till the smell of the broiling flesh was\nperceived by those present.  There was nothing, according to their\ncustom, wherein their reputation was more concerned, nor for which they\nwere to undergo more blame and disgrace, than in being taken in theft.\nI am so fully satisfied of the greatness of those people, that this story\ndoes not only not appear to me, as to Bodin, incredible; but I do not\nfind it so much as rare and strange.  The Spartan history is full of a\nthousand more cruel and rare examples; and is; indeed, all miracle in\nthis respect.\n\nMarcellinus, concerning theft, reports that in his time there was no sort\nof torments which could compel the Egyptians, when taken in this act,\nthough a people very much addicted to it, so much as to tell their name.\n\nA Spanish peasant, being put to the rack as to the accomplices of the\nmurder of the Praetor Lucius Piso, cried out in the height of the\ntorment, \"that his friends should not leave him, but look on in all\nassurance, and that no pain had the power to force from him one word of\nconfession,\" which was all they could get the first day.  The next day,\nas they were leading him a second time to another trial, strongly\ndisengaging himself from the hands of his guards, he furiously ran his\nhead against a wall, and beat out his brains.\n\nEpicharis, having tired and glutted the cruelty of Nero's satellites, and\nundergone their fire, their beating, their racks, a whole day together,\nwithout one syllable of confession of her conspiracy; being the next day\nbrought again to the rack, with her limbs almost torn to pieces, conveyed\nthe lace of her robe with a running noose over one of the arms of her\nchair, and suddenly slipping her head into it, with the weight of her own\nbody hanged herself.  Having the courage to die in that manner, is it not\nto be presumed that she purposely lent her life to the trial of her\nfortitude the day before, to mock the tyrant, and encourage others to the\nlike attempt?\n\nAnd whoever will inquire of our troopers the experiences they have had in\nour civil wars, will find effects of patience and obstinate resolution in\nthis miserable age of ours, and amongst this rabble even more effeminate\nthan the Egyptians, worthy to be compared with those we have just related\nof the Spartan virtue.\n\nI know there have been simple peasants amongst us who have endured the\nsoles of their feet to be broiled upon a gridiron, their finger-ends to\nbe crushed with the cock of a pistol, and their bloody eyes squeezed out\nof their heads by force of a cord twisted about their brows, before they\nwould so much as consent to a ransom.  I have seen one left stark naked\nfor dead in a ditch, his neck black and swollen, with a halter yet about\nit with which they had dragged him all night at a horse's tail, his body\nwounded in a hundred places, with stabs of daggers that had been given\nhim, not to kill him, but to put him to pain and to affright him, who had\nendured all this, and even to being speechless and insensible, resolved,\nas he himself told me, rather to die a thousand deaths (as indeed, as to\nmatter of suffering, he had borne one) before he would promise anything;\nand yet he was one of the richest husbandmen of all the country.  How\nmany have been seen patiently to suffer themselves to be burnt and\nroasted for opinions taken upon trust from others, and by them not at all\nunderstood?  I have known a hundred and a hundred women (for Gascony has\na certain prerogative for obstinacy) whom you might sooner have made eat\nfire than forsake an opinion they had conceived in anger.  They are all\nthe more exasperated by blows and constraint.  And he that made the story\nof the woman who, in defiance of all correction, threats, and\nbastinadoes, ceased not to call her husband lousy knave, and who being\nplunged over head and ears in water, yet lifted her hands above her head\nand made a sign of cracking lice, feigned a tale of which, in truth, we\nevery day see a manifest image in the obstinacy of women.  And obstinacy\nis the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.\n\nWe are not to judge what is possible and what is not, according to what\nis credible and incredible to our apprehension, as I have said elsewhere\nand it is a great fault, and yet one that most men are guilty of, which,\nnevertheless, I do not mention with any reflection upon Bodin, to make a\ndifficulty of believing that in another which they could not or would not\ndo themselves.  Every one thinks that the sovereign stamp of human nature\nis imprinted in him, and that from it all others must take their rule;\nand that all proceedings which are not like his are feigned and false.\nIs anything of another's actions or faculties proposed to him? the first\nthing he calls to the consultation of his judgment is his own example;\nand as matters go with him, so they must of necessity do with all the\nworld besides dangerous and intolerable folly!  For my part, I consider\nsome men as infinitely beyond me, especially amongst the ancients, and\nyet, though I clearly discern my inability to come near them by a\nthousand paces, I do not forbear to keep them in sight, and to judge of\nwhat so elevates them, of which I perceive some seeds in myself, as I\nalso do of the extreme meanness of some other minds, which I neither am\nastonished at nor yet misbelieve.  I  very well perceive the turns those\ngreat souls take to raise  themselves to such a pitch, and admire their\ngrandeur; and those flights that I think the bravest I could be glad to\nimitate; where, though I want wing, yet my judgment readily goes along\nwith them.  The other example he introduces of \"things incredible and\nwholly fabulous,\" delivered by Plutarch, is, that \"Agesilaus was fined by\nthe Ephori for having wholly engrossed the hearts and affections of his\ncitizens to himself alone.\"  And herein I do not see what sign of falsity\nis to be found: clearly Plutarch speaks of things that must needs be\nbetter known to him than to us; and it was no new thing in Greece to see\nmen punished and exiled for this very thing, for being too acceptable to\nthe people; witness the Ostracism and Petalism.--[Ostracism at Athens\nwas banishment for ten years; petalism at Syracuse was banishment for\nfive years.]\n\nThere is yet in this place another accusation laid against Plutarch which\nI cannot well digest, where Bodin says that he has sincerely paralleled\nRomans with Romans, and Greeks amongst themselves, but not Romans with\nGreeks; witness, says he, Demosthenes and Cicero, Cato and Aristides,\nSylla and Lysander, Marcellus and Pelopidas, Pompey and Agesilaus,\nholding that he has favoured the Greeks in giving them so unequal\ncompanions.  This is really to attack what in Plutarch is most excellent\nand most to be commended; for in his parallels (which is the most\nadmirable part of all his works, and with which, in my opinion, he is\nhimself the most pleased) the fidelity and sincerity of his judgments\nequal their depth and weight; he is a philosopher who teaches us virtue.\nLet us see whether we cannot defend him from this reproach of falsity and\nprevarication.  All that I can imagine could give occasion to this\ncensure is the great and shining lustre of the Roman names which we have\nin our minds; it does not seem likely to us that Demosthenes could rival\nthe glory of a consul, proconsul, and proctor of that great Republic; but\nif a man consider the truth of the thing, and the men in themselves,\nwhich is Plutarch's chiefest aim, and will rather balance their manners,\ntheir natures, and parts, than their fortunes, I think, contrary to\nBodin, that Cicero and the elder Cato come far short of the men with whom\nthey are compared.  I should sooner, for his purpose, have chosen the\nexample of the younger Cato compared with Phocion, for in this couple\nthere would have been a more likely disparity, to the Roman's advantage.\nAs to Marcellus, Sylla, and Pompey, I very well discern that their\nexploits of war are greater and more full of pomp and glory than those of\nthe Greeks, whom Plutarch compares with them; but the bravest and most\nvirtuous actions any more in war than elsewhere, are not always the most\nrenowned.  I often see the names of captains obscured by the splendour of\nother names of less desert; witness Labienus, Ventidius, Telesinus, and\nseveral others.  And to take it by that, were I to complain on the behalf\nof the Greeks, could I not say, that Camillus was much less comparable to\nThemistocles, the Gracchi to Agis and Cleomenes, and Numa to Lycurgus?\nBut 'tis folly to judge, at one view, of things that have so many\naspects.  When Plutarch compares them, he does not, for all that, make\nthem equal; who could more learnedly and sincerely have marked their\ndistinctions?  Does he parallel the victories, feats of arms, the force\nof the armies conducted by Pompey, and his triumphs, with those of\nAgesilaus?  \"I do not believe,\" says he, \"that Xenophon himself, if he\nwere now living, though he were allowed to write whatever pleased him to\nthe advantage of Agesilaus, would dare to bring them into comparison.\"\nDoes he speak of paralleling Lysander to Sylla.  \"There is,\" says he,\n\"no comparison, either in the number of victories or in the hazard of\nbattles, for Lysander only gained two naval battles.\"  This is not to\nderogate from the Romans; for having only simply named them with the\nGreeks, he can have done them no injury, what disparity soever there may\nbe betwixt them and Plutarch does not entirely oppose them to one\nanother; there is no preference in general; he only compares the pieces\nand circumstances one after another, and gives of every one a particular\nand separate judgment.  Wherefore, if any one could convict him of\npartiality, he ought to pick out some one of those particular judgments,\nor say, in general, that he was mistaken in comparing such a Greek to\nsuch a Roman, when there were others more fit and better resembling to\nparallel him to.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nTHE STORY OF SPURINA\n\nPhilosophy thinks she has not ill employed her talent when she has given\nthe sovereignty of the soul and the authority of restraining our\nappetites to reason.  Amongst which, they who judge that there is none\nmore violent than those which spring from love, have this opinion also,\nthat they seize both body and soul, and possess the whole man, so that\neven health itself depends upon them, and medicine is sometimes\nconstrained to pimp for them; but one might, on the contrary, also say,\nthat the mixture of the body brings an abatement and weakening; for such\ndesires are subject to satiety, and capable of material remedies.\n\nMany, being determined to rid their soul from the continual alarms of\nthis appetite, have made use of incision and amputation of the rebelling\nmembers; others have subdued their force and ardour by the frequent\napplication of cold things, as snow and vinegar.  The sackcloths of our\nancestors were for this purpose, which is cloth woven of horse hair, of\nwhich some of them made shirts, and others girdles, to torture and\ncorrect their reins.  A prince, not long ago, told me that in his youth\nupon a solemn festival in the court of King Francis I., where everybody\nwas finely dressed, he would needs put on his father's hair shirt, which\nwas still kept in the house; but how great soever his devotion was, he\nhad not patience to wear it till night, and was sick a long time after;\nadding withal, that he did not think there could be any youthful heat so\nfierce that the use of this recipe would not mortify, and yet perhaps he\nnever essayed the most violent; for experience shows us, that such\nemotions are often seen under rude and slovenly clothes, and that a hair\nshirt does not always render those chaste who wear it.\n\nXenocrates proceeded with greater rigour in this affair; for his\ndisciples, to make trial of his continency, having slipt Lais, that\nbeautiful and famous courtesan, into his bed, quite naked, excepting the\narms of her beauty and her wanton allurements, her philters, finding\nthat, in despite of his reason and philosophical rules, his unruly flesh\nbegan to mutiny, he caused those members of his to be burned that he\nfound consenting to this rebellion.  Whereas the passions which wholly\nreside in the soul, as ambition, avarice, and the rest, find the reason\nmuch more to do, because it cannot there be helped but by its own means;\nneither are those appetites capable of satiety, but grow sharper and\nincrease by fruition.\n\nThe sole example of Julius Caesar may suffice to demonstrate to us the\ndisparity of these appetites; for never was man more addicted to amorous\ndelights than he: of which one testimony is the peculiar care he had of\nhis person, to such a degree, as to make use of the most lascivious means\nto that end then in use, as to have all the hairs of his body twitched\noff, and to wipe all over with perfumes with the extremest nicety.\nAnd he was a beautiful person in himself, of a fair complexion, tall,\nand sprightly, full faced, with quick hazel eyes, if we may believe\nSuetonius; for the statues of him that we see at Rome do not in all\npoints answer this description.  Besides his wives, whom he four times\nchanged, without reckoning the amours of his boyhood with Nicomedes, king\nof Bithynia, he had the maidenhead of the renowned Cleopatra, queen of\nEgypt; witness the little Caesario whom he had by her.  He also made love\nto.  Eunoe, queen of Mauritania, and at Rome, to Posthumia, the wife of\nServius Sulpitius; to Lollia, the wife of Gabinius to Tertulla, the wife\nof Crassus, and even to Mutia, wife to the great Pompey: which was the\nreason, the Roman historians say, that she was repudiated by her husband,\nwhich Plutarch confesses to be more than he knew; and the Curios, both\nfather and son, afterwards reproached Pompey, when he married Caesar's\ndaughter, that he had made himself son-in-law to a man who had made him\ncuckold, and one whom he himself was wont to call AEgisthus.  Besides all\nthese, he entertained Servilia, Cato's sister and mother to Marcus\nBrutus, whence, every one believes, proceeded the great affection he had\nto Brutus, by reason that he was born at a time when it was likely he\nmight be his son.  So that I have reason, methinks, to take him for a man\nextremely given to this debauch, and of very amorous constitution.  But\nthe other passion of ambition, with which he was infinitely smitten,\narising in him to contend with the former, it was boon compelled to give\nway.\n\nAnd here calling to mind Mohammed, who won Constantinople, and finally\nexterminated the Grecian name, I do not know where these two were so\nevenly balanced; equally an indefatigable lecher and soldier: but where\nthey both meet in his life and jostle one another, the quarrelling\npassion always gets the better of the amorous one, and this though it was\nout of its natural season never regained an absolute sovereignty over the\nother till he had arrived at an extreme old age and unable to undergo the\nfatigues of war.\n\nWhat is related for a contrary example of Ladislaus, king of Naples, is\nvery remarkable; that being a great captain, valiant and ambitious, he\nproposed to himself for the principal end of his ambition, the execution\nof his pleasure and the enjoyment of some rare and excellent beauty.  His\ndeath sealed up all the rest: for having by a close and tedious siege\nreduced the city of Florence to so great distress that the inhabitants\nwere compelled to capitulate about surrender, he was content to let them\nalone, provided they would deliver up to him a beautiful maid he had\nheard of in their city; they were forced to yield to it, and by a private\ninjury to avert the public ruin.  She was the daughter of a famous\nphysician of his time, who, finding himself involved in so foul a\nnecessity, resolved upon a high attempt.  As every one was lending a hand\nto trick up his daughter and to adorn her with ornaments and jewels to\nrender her more agreeable to this new lover, he also gave her a\nhandkerchief most richly wrought, and of an exquisite perfume, an\nimplement they never go without in those parts, which she was to make use\nof at their first approaches.  This handkerchief, poisoned with his\ngreatest art, coming to be rubbed between the chafed flesh and open\npores, both of the one and the other, so suddenly infused the poison,\nthat immediately converting their warm into a cold sweat they presently\ndied in one another's arms.\n\nBut I return to Caesar.  His pleasures never made him steal one minute of\nan hour, nor go one step aside from occasions that might any way conduce\nto his advancement.  This passion was so sovereign in him over all the\nrest, and with so absolute authority possessed his soul, that it guided\nhim at pleasure.  In truth, this troubles me, when, as to everything\nelse, I consider the greatness of this man, and the wonderful parts\nwherewith he was endued; learned to that degree in all sorts of knowledge\nthat there is hardly any one science of which he has not written; so\ngreat an orator that many have preferred his eloquence to that of Cicero,\nand he, I conceive, did not think himself inferior to him in that\nparticular, for his two anti-Catos were written to counterbalance the\nelocution that Cicero had expended in his Cato.  As to the rest, was ever\nsoul so vigilant, so active, and so patient of labour as his? and,\ndoubtless, it was embellished with many rare seeds of virtue, lively,\nnatural, and not put on; he was singularly sober; so far from being\ndelicate in his diet, that Oppius relates, how that having one day at\ntable set before him medicated instead of common oil in some sauce, he\nate heartily of it, that he might not put his entertainer out of\ncountenance.  Another time he caused his baker to be whipped for serving\nhim with a finer than ordinary sort of bread.  Cato himself was wont to\nsay of him, that he was the first sober man who ever made it his business\nto ruin his country.  And as to the same Cato's calling, him one day\ndrunkard, it fell out thus being both of them in the Senate, at a time\nwhen Catiline's conspiracy was in question of which was Caesar was\nsuspected, one came and brought him a letter sealed up.  Cato believing\nthat it was something the conspirators gave him notice of, required him\nto deliver into his hand, which Caesar  was constrained to do to avoid\nfurther suspicion.  It was by chance a love-letter that Servilia, Cato's\nsister, had written to him, which Cato having read, he threw it back to\nhim saying, \"There, drunkard.\"  This, I say, was rather a word of disdain\nand anger than an express reproach of this vice, as we often rate those\nwho anger us with the first injurious words that come into our mouths,\nthough nothing due to those we are offended at; to which may be added\nthat the vice with which Cato upbraided him is wonderfully near akin to\nthat wherein he had surprised Caesar; for Bacchus and Venus, according to\nthe proverb, very willingly agree; but to me Venus is much more sprightly\naccompanied by sobriety.  The examples of his sweetness and clemency to\nthose by whom he had been offended are infinite; I mean, besides those he\ngave during the time of the civil wars, which, as plainly enough appears\nby his writings, he practised to cajole his enemies, and to make them\nless afraid of his future dominion and victory.  But I must also say,\nthat if these examples are not sufficient proofs of his natural\nsweetness, they, at least, manifest a marvellous confidence and grandeur\nof courage in this person.  He has often been known to dismiss whole\narmies, after having overcome them, to his enemies, without ransom, or\ndeigning so much as to bind them by oath, if not to favour him, at least\nno more to bear arms against him; he has three or four times taken some\nof Pompey's captains prisoners, and as often set them at liberty.  Pompey\ndeclared all those to be enemies who did not follow him to the war; he\nproclaimed all those to be his friends who sat still and did not actually\ntake arms against him.  To such captains of his as ran away from him to\ngo over to the other side, he sent, moreover, their arms, horses, and\nequipage: the cities he had taken by force he left at full liberty to\nfollow which side they pleased, imposing no other garrison upon them but\nthe memory of his gentleness and clemency.  He gave strict and express\ncharge, the day of his great battle of Pharsalia, that, without the\nutmost necessity, no one should lay a hand upon the citizens of Rome.\nThese, in my opinion, were very hazardous proceedings, and 'tis no wonder\nif those in our civil war, who, like him, fight against the ancient\nestate of their country, do not follow his example; they are\nextraordinary means, and that only appertain to Caesar's fortune, and to\nhis admirable foresight in the conduct of affairs.  When I consider the\nincomparable grandeur of his soul, I excuse victory that it could not\ndisengage itself from him, even in so unjust and so wicked a cause.\n\nTo return to his clemency: we have many striking examples in the time of\nhis government, when, all things being reduced to his power, he had no\nmore written against him which he had as sharply answered: yet he did not\nsoon after forbear to use his interest to make him consul.  Caius Calvus,\nwho had composed several injurious epigrams against him, having employed\nmany of his friends to mediate a reconciliation with him, Caesar\nvoluntarily persuaded himself to write first to him.  And our good\nCatullus, who had so rudely ruffled him under the name of Mamurra, coming\nto offer his excuses to him, he made the same day sit at his table.\nHaving intelligence of some who spoke ill of him, he did no more, but\nonly by a public oration declare that he had notice of it.  He still less\nfeared his enemies than he hated them; some conspiracies and cabals that\nwere made against his life being discovered to him, he satisfied himself\nin publishing by proclamation that they were known to him, without\nfurther prosecuting the conspirators.\n\nAs to the respect he had for his friends: Caius Oppius, being with him\nupon a journey, and finding himself ill, he left him the only lodging he\nhad for himself, and lay all night upon a hard ground in the open air.\nAs to what concerns his justice, he put a beloved servant of his to death\nfor lying with a noble Roman's wife, though there was no complaint made.\nNever had man more moderation in his victory, nor more resolution in his\nadverse fortune.\n\nBut all these good inclinations were stifled and spoiled by his furious\nambition, by which he suffered himself to be so transported and misled\nthat one may easily maintain that this passion was the rudder of all his\nactions; of a liberal man, it made him a public thief to supply this\nbounty and profusion, and made him utter this vile and unjust saying,\n\"That if the most wicked and profligate persons in the world had been\nfaithful in serving him towards his advancement, he would cherish and\nprefer them to the utmost of his power, as much as the best of men.\"\nIt intoxicated him with so excessive a vanity, as to dare to boast in the\npresence of his fellow-citizens, that he had made the great commonwealth\nof Rome a name without form and without body; and to say that his answers\nfor the future should stand for laws; and also to receive the body of the\nSenate coming to him, sitting; to suffer himself to be adored, and to\nhave divine honours paid to him in his own presence.  To conclude, this\nsole vice, in my opinion, spoiled in him the most rich and beautiful\nnature that ever was, and has rendered his name abominable to all good\nmen, in that he would erect his glory upon the ruins of his country and\nthe subversion of the greatest and most flourishing republic the world\nshall ever see.\n\nThere might, on the contrary, many examples be produced of great men whom\npleasures have made to neglect the conduct of their affairs, as Mark\nAntony and others; but where love and ambition should be in equal\nbalance, and come to jostle with equal forces, I make no doubt but the\nlast would win the prize.\n\nTo return to my subject: 'tis much to bridle our appetites by the\nargument of reason, or, by violence, to contain our members within their\nduty; but to lash ourselves for our neighbour's interest, and not only to\ndivest ourselves of the charming passion that tickles us, of the pleasure\nwe feel in being agreeable to others, and courted and beloved of every\none, but also to conceive a hatred against the graces that produce that\neffect, and to condemn our beauty because it inflames others; of this, I\nconfess, I have met with few examples.  But this is one.  Spurina, a\nyoung man of Tuscany:\n\n         \"Qualis gemma micat, fulvum quae dividit aurum,\n          Aut collo decus, aut cupiti: vel quale per artem\n          Inclusum buxo aut Oricia terebintho\n          Lucet ebur,\"\n\n     [\"As a gem shines enchased in yellow gold, or an ornament on the\n     neck or head, or as ivory has lustre, set by art in boxwood or\n     Orician ebony.\"--AEneid, x. 134.]\n\nbeing endowed with a singular beauty, and so excessive, that the chastest\neyes could not chastely behold its rays; not contenting himself with\nleaving so much flame and fever as he everywhere kindled without relief,\nentered into a furious spite against himself and those great endowments\nnature had so liberally conferred upon him, as if a man were responsible\nto himself for the faults of others, and purposely slashed and\ndisfigured, with many wounds and scars, the perfect symmetry and\nproportion that nature had so curiously imprinted in his face.  To give\nmy free opinion, I more admire than honour such actions: such excesses\nare enemies to my rules.  The design was conscientious and good, but\ncertainly a little defective in prudence.  What if his deformity served\nafterwards to make others guilty of the sin of hatred or contempt; or of\nenvy at the glory of so rare a recommendation; or of calumny,\ninterpreting this humour a mad ambition!  Is there any form from which\nvice cannot, if it will, extract occasion to exercise itself, one way or\nanother?  It had been more just, and also more noble, to have made of\nthese gifts of God a subject of exemplary regularity and virtue.\n\nThey who retire themselves from the common offices, from that infinite\nnumber of troublesome rules that fetter a man of exact honesty in civil\nlife, are in my opinion very discreet, what peculiar sharpness of\nconstraint soever they impose upon themselves in so doing.  'Tis in some\nsort a kind of dying to avoid the pain of living well.  They may have\nanother reward; but the reward of difficulty I fancy they can never have;\nnor, in uneasiness, that there can be anything more or better done than\nthe keeping oneself upright amid the waves of the world, truly and\nexactly performing all parts of our duty.  'Tis, peradventure, more easy\nto keep clear of the sex than to maintain one's self aright in all points\nin the society of a wife; and a man may with less trouble adapt himself\nto entire abstinence than to the due dispensation of abundance.  Use,\ncarried on according to reason, has in it more of difficulty than\nabstinence; moderation is a virtue that gives more work than suffering;\nthe well living of Scipio has a thousand fashions, that of Diogenes but\none; this as much excels the ordinary lives in innocence as the most\naccomplished excel them in utility and force.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nOBSERVATION ON THE MEANS TO CARRY ON A WAR ACCORDING TO JULIUS CAESAR\n\n'Tis related of many great leaders that they have had certain books in\nparticular esteem, as Alexander the Great, Homer; Scipio Africanus,\nXenophon; Marcus Brutus, Polybius; Charles V., Philip'de Comines; and\n'tis said that, in our times, Machiavelli is elsewhere still in repute;\nbut the late Marshal Strozzi, who had taken Caesar for his man, doubtless\nmade the best choice, seeing that it indeed ought to be the breviary of\nevery soldier, as being the true and sovereign pattern of the military\nart.  And, moreover, God knows with that grace and beauty he has\nembellished that rich matter, with so pure, delicate, and perfect\nexpression, that, in my opinion, there are no writings in the world\ncomparable to his, as to that business.\n\nI will set down some rare and particular passages of his wars that remain\nin my memory.\n\nHis army, being in some consternation upon the rumour that was spread of\nthe great forces that king Juba was leading against him, instead of\nabating the apprehension which his soldiers had conceived at the news and\nof lessening to them the forces of the enemy, having called them all\ntogether to encourage and reassure them, he took a quite contrary way to\nwhat we are used to do, for he told them that they need no more trouble\nthemselves with inquiring after the enemy's forces, for that he was\ncertainly informed thereof, and then told them of a number much\nsurpassing both the truth and the report that was current in his army;\nfollowing the advice of Cyrus in Xenophon, forasmuch as the deception is\nnot of so great importance to find an enemy weaker than we expected, than\nto find him really very strong, after having been made to believe that he\nwas weak.\n\nIt was always his use to accustom his soldiers simply to obey, without\ntaking upon them to control, or so much as to speak of their captain's\ndesigns, which he never communicated to them but upon the point of\nexecution; and he took a delight, if they discovered anything of what he\nintended, immediately to change his orders to deceive them; and to that\npurpose, would often, when he had assigned his quarters in a place, pass\nforward and lengthen his day's march, especially if it was foul and rainy\nweather.\n\nThe Swiss, in the beginning of his wars in Gaul, having sent to him to\ndemand a free passage over the Roman territories, though resolved to\nhinder them by force, he nevertheless spoke kindly to the messengers, and\ntook some respite to return an answer, to make use of that time for the\ncalling his army together.  These silly people did not know how good a\nhusband he was of his time: for he often repeats that it is the best part\nof a captain to know how to make use of occasions, and his diligence in\nhis exploits is, in truth, unheard of and incredible.\n\nIf he was not very conscientious in taking advantage of an enemy under\ncolour of a treaty of agreement, he was as little so in this, that he\nrequired no other virtue in a soldier but valour only, and seldom\npunished any other faults but mutiny and disobedience.  He would often\nafter his victories turn them loose to all sorts of licence, dispensing\nthem for some time from the rules of military discipline, saying withal\nthat he had soldiers so well trained up that, powdered and perfumed, they\nwould run furiously to the fight.  In truth, he loved to have them richly\narmed, and made them wear engraved, gilded, and damasked armour, to the\nend that the care of saving it might engage them to a more obstinate\ndefence.  Speaking to them, he called them by the name of\nfellow-soldiers, which we yet use; which his successor, Augustus,\nreformed, supposing he had only done it upon necessity, and to cajole\nthose who merely followed him as volunteers:\n\n                         \"Rheni mihi Caesar in undis\n          Dux erat; hic socius; facinus quos inquinat, aequat:\"\n\n     [\"In the waters of the Rhine Caesar was my general; here at Rome he\n     is my fellow.  Crime levels those whom it polluted.\"\n     --Lucan, v. 289.]\n\nbut that this carriage was too mean and low for the dignity of an emperor\nand general of an army, and therefore brought up the custom of calling\nthem soldiers only.\n\nWith this courtesy Caesar mixed great severity to keep them in awe; the\nninth legion having mutinied near Placentia, he ignominiously cashiered\nthem, though Pompey was then yet on foot, and received them not again to\ngrace till after many supplications; he quieted them more by authority\nand boldness than by gentle ways.\n\nIn that place where he speaks of his, passage over the Rhine to Germany,\nhe says that, thinking it unworthy of the honour of the Roman people to\nwaft over his army in vessels, he built a bridge that they might pass\nover dry-foot.  There it was that he built that wonderful bridge of which\nhe gives so particular a description; for he nowhere so willingly dwells\nupon his actions as in representing to us the subtlety of his inventions\nin such kind of handiwork.\n\nI have also observed this, that he set a great value upon his\nexhortations to the soldiers before the fight; for where he would show\nthat he was either surprised or reduced to a necessity of fighting, he\nalways brings in this, that he had not so much as leisure to harangue his\narmy.  Before that great battle with those of Tournay, \"Caesar,\" says he,\n\"having given order for everything else, presently ran where fortune\ncarried him to encourage his people, and meeting with the tenth legion,\nhad no more time to say anything to them but this, that they should\nremember their wonted valour; not to be astonished, but bravely sustain\nthe enemy's encounter; and seeing the enemy had already approached within\na dart's cast, he gave the signal for battle; and going suddenly thence\nelsewhere, to encourage others, he found that they were already engaged.\"\nHere is what he tells us in that place.  His tongue, indeed, did him\nnotable service upon several occasions, and his military eloquence was,\nin his own time, so highly reputed, that many of his army wrote down his\nharangues as he spoke them, by which means there were volumes of them\ncollected that existed a long time after him.  He had so particular a\ngrace in speaking, that his intimates, and Augustus amongst others,\nhearing those orations read, could distinguish even to the phrases and\nwords that were not his.\n\nThe first time that he went out of Rome with any public command, he\narrived in eight days at the river Rhone, having with him in his coach a\nsecretary or two before him who were continually writing, and him who\ncarried his sword behind him.  And certainly, though a man did nothing\nbut go on, he could hardly attain that promptitude with which, having\nbeen everywhere victorious in Gaul, he left it, and, following Pompey to\nBrundusium, in eighteen days' time he subdued all Italy; returned from\nBrundusium to Rome; from Rome went into the very heart of Spain, where he\nsurmounted extreme difficulties in the war against Afranius and Petreius,\nand in the long siege of Marseilles; thence he returned into Macedonia,\nbeat the Roman army at Pharsalia, passed thence in pursuit of Pompey into\nEgypt, which he also subdued; from Egypt he went into Syria and the\nterritories of Pontus, where he fought Pharnaces; thence into Africa,\nwhere he defeated Scipio and Juba; again returned through Italy, where he\ndefeated Pompey's sons:\n\n               \"Ocyor et coeli fiammis, et tigride foeta.\"\n\n          [\"Swifter than lightning, or the cub-bearing tigress.\"\n          --Lucan, v. 405]\n\n              \"Ac veluti montis saxum de, vertice praeceps\n               Cum ruit avulsum vento, seu turbidus imber\n               Proluit, aut annis solvit sublapsa vetustas,\n               Fertur in abruptum magno mons improbus actu,\n               Exultatque solo, silvas, armenta, virosque,\n               Involvens secum.\"\n\n     [\"And as a stone torn from the mountain's top by the wind or rain\n     torrents, or loosened by age, falls massive with mighty force,\n     bounds here and there, in its course sweeps from the earth with it\n     woods, herds, and men.\"--AEneid, xii. 684.]\n\nSpeaking of the siege of Avaricum, he says, that it, was his custom to be\nnight and day with the pioneers.--[Engineers.  D.W.]--In all enterprises\nof consequence he always reconnoitred in person, and never brought his\narmy into quarters till he had first viewed the place, and, if we may\nbelieve Suetonius, when he resolved to pass over into England, he was the\nfirst man that sounded the passage.\n\nHe was wont to say that he more valued a victory obtained by counsel than\nby force, and in the war against Petreius and Afranius, fortune\npresenting him with an occasion of manifest advantage, he declined it,\nsaying, that he hoped, with a little more time, but less hazard, to\noverthrow his enemies.  He there also played a notable part in commanding\nhis whole army to pass the river by swimming, without any manner of\nnecessity:\n\n                    \"Rapuitque ruens in praelia miles,\n          Quod fugiens timuisset, iter; mox uda receptis\n          Membra fovent armis, gelidosque a gurgite, cursu\n          Restituunt artus.\"\n\n     [\"The soldier rushing through a way to fight which he would have\n     been afraid to have taken in flight: then with their armour they\n     cover wet limbs, and by running restore warmth to their numbed\n     joints.\"--Lucan, iv.  151.]\n\nI find him a little more temperate and considerate in his enterprises\nthan Alexander, for this man seems to seek and run headlong upon dangers\nlike an impetuous torrent which attacks and rushes against everything it\nmeets, without choice or discretion;\n\n                    \"Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus;\n                    Qui regna Dauni perfluit Appuli,\n                    Dum saevit, horrendamque cultis\n                    Diluviem meditatur agris;\"\n\n     [\"So the biforked Aufidus, which flows through the realm of the\n     Apulian Daunus, when raging, threatens a fearful deluge to the\n     tilled ground.\"--Horat., Od., iv. 14, 25.]\n\nand, indeed, he was a general in the flower and first heat of his youth,\nwhereas Caesar took up the trade at a ripe and well advanced age; to\nwhich may be added that Alexander was of a more sanguine, hot, and\ncholeric constitution, which he also inflamed with wine, from which\nCaesar was very abstinent.\n\nBut where necessary occasion required, never did any man venture his\nperson more than he: so much so, that for my part, methinks I read in\nmany of his exploits a determinate resolution to throw himself away to\navoid the shame of being overcome.  In his great battle with those of\nTournay, he charged up to the head of the enemies without his shield,\njust as he was seeing the van of his own army beginning to give ground';\nwhich also several other times befell him.  Hearing that his people were\nbesieged, he passed through the enemy's army in disguise to go and\nencourage them with his presence.  Having crossed over to Dyrrachium with\nvery slender forces, and seeing the remainder of his army which he had\nleft to Antony's conduct slow in following him, he undertook alone to\nrepass the sea in a very great storms and privately stole away to fetch\nthe rest of his forces, the ports on the other side being seized by\nPompey, and the whole sea being in his possession.  And as to what he\nperformed by force of hand, there are many exploits that in hazard exceed\nall the rules of war; for with how small means did he undertake to subdue\nthe kingdom of Egypt, and afterwards to attack the forces of Scipio and\nJuba, ten times greater than his own?  These people had, I know not what,\nmore than human confidence in their fortune; and he was wont to say that\nmen must embark, and not deliberate, upon high enterprises.  After the\nbattle of Pharsalia, when he had sent his army away before him into Asia,\nand was passing in one single vessel the strait of the Hellespont, he met\nLucius Cassius at sea with ten tall men-of-war, when he had the courage\nnot only to stay his coming, but to sail up to him and summon him to\nyield, which he did.\n\nHaving undertaken that furious siege of Alexia, where there were\nfourscore thousand men in garrison, all Gaul being in arms to raise the\nsiege and having set an army on foot of a hundred and nine thousand\nhorse, and of two hundred and forty thousand foot, what a boldness and\nvehement confidence was it in him that he would not give over his\nattempt, but resolved upon two so great difficulties--which nevertheless\nhe overcame; and, after having won that great battle against those\nwithout, soon reduced those within to his mercy.  The same happened to\nLucullus at the siege of Tigranocerta against King Tigranes, but the\ncondition of the enemy was not the same, considering the effeminacy of\nthose with whom Lucullus had to deal.  I will here set down two rare and\nextraordinary events concerning this siege of Alexia; one, that the Gauls\nhaving drawn their powers together to encounter Caesar, after they had\nmade a general muster of all their forces, resolved in their council of\nwar to dismiss a good part of this great multitude, that they might not\nfall into confusion.  This example of fearing to be too many is new; but,\nto take it right, it stands to reason that the body of an army should be\nof a moderate greatness, and regulated to certain bounds, both out of\nrespect to the difficulty of providing for them, and the difficulty of\ngoverning and keeping them in order.  At least it is very easy to make it\nappear by example that armies monstrous in number have seldom done\nanything to purpose.  According to the saying of Cyrus in Xenophon,\n\"'Tis not the number of men, but the number of good men, that gives the\nadvantage\": the remainder serving rather to trouble than assist.  And\nBajazet principally grounded his resolution of giving Tamerlane battle,\ncontrary to the opinion of all his captains, upon this, that his enemies\nnumberless number of men gave him assured hopes of confusion.\nScanderbeg, a very good and expert judge in such matters, was wont to say\nthat ten or twelve thousand reliable fighting men were sufficient to a\ngood leader to secure his regulation in all sorts of military occasions.\nThe other thing I will here record, which seems to be contrary both to\nthe custom and rules of war, is, that Vercingetorix, who was made general\nof all the parts of the revolted Gaul, should go shut up himself in\nAlexia: for he who has the command of a whole country ought never to shut\nhimself up but in case of such last extremity that the only place he has\nleft is in concern, and that the only hope he has left is in the defence\nof that city; otherwise he ought to keep himself always at liberty, that\nhe may have the means to provide, in general, for all parts of his\ngovernment.\n\nTo return to Caesar.  He grew, in time, more slow and more considerate,\nas his friend Oppius witnesses: conceiving that he ought not lightly to\nhazard the glory of so many victories, which one blow of fortune might\ndeprive him of.  'Tis what the Italians say, when they would reproach the\nrashness and foolhardiness of young people, calling them Bisognosi\nd'onore, \"necessitous of honour,\" and that being in so great a want and\ndearth of reputation, they have reason to seek it at what price soever,\nwhich they ought not to do who have acquired enough already.  There may\nreasonably be some moderation, some satiety, in this thirst and appetite\nof glory, as well as in other things: and there are enough people who\npractise it.\n\nHe was far remote from the religious scruples of the ancient Romans, who\nwould never prevail in their wars but by dint of pure and simple valour;\nand yet he was more conscientious than we should be in these days, and\ndid not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory.  In the war\nagainst Ariovistus, whilst he was parleying with him, there happened some\ncommotion between the horsemen, which was occasioned by the fault of\nAriovistus' light horse, wherein, though Caesar saw he had a very great\nadvantage of the enemy, he would make no use on't, lest he should have\nbeen reproached with a treacherous proceeding.\n\nHe was always wont to wear rich garments, and of a shining colour in\nbattle, that he might be the more remarkable and better observed.\n\nHe always carried a stricter and tighter hand over his soldiers when near\nan enemy.  When the ancient Greeks would accuse any one of extreme\ninsufficiency, they would say, in common proverb, that he could neither\nread nor swim; he was of the same opinion, that swimming was of great use\nin war, and himself found it so; for when he had to use diligence, he\ncommonly swam over the rivers in his way; for he loved to march on foot,\nas also did Alexander the Great.  Being in Egypt forced, to save himself,\nto go into a little boat, and so many people leaping in with him that it\nwas in danger of sinking, he chose rather to commit himself to the sea,\nand swam to his fleet, which lay two hundred paces off, holding in his\nleft hand his tablets, and drawing his coatarmour in his teeth, that it\nmight not fall into the enemy's hand, and at this time he was of a pretty\nadvanced age.\n\nNever had any general so much credit with his soldiers: in the beginning\nof the civil wars, his centurions offered him to find every one a\nman-at-arms at his own charge, and the foot soldiers to serve him at\ntheir own expense; those who were most at their ease, moreover,\nundertaking to defray the more necessitous.  The late Admiral Chastillon\n\n     [Gaspard de Coligny, assassinated  in the St. Bartholomew\n     massacre, 24th August 1572.]\n\nshowed us the like example in our civil wars; for the French of his army\nprovided money out of their own purses to pay the foreigners that were\nwith him.  There are but rarely found examples of so ardent and so ready\nan affection amongst the soldiers of elder times, who kept themselves\nstrictly to their rules of war: passion has a more absolute command over\nus than reason; and yet it happened in the war against Hannibal, that by\nthe example of the people of Rome in the city, the soldiers and captains\nrefused their pay in the army, and in Marcellus' camp those were branded\nwith the name of Mercenaries who would receive any.  Having got the worst\nof it near Dyrrachium, his soldiers came and offered themselves to be\nchastised and punished, so that there was more need to comfort than\nreprove them.  One single cohort of his withstood four of Pompey's\nlegions above four hours together, till they were almost all killed with\narrows, so that there were a hundred and thirty thousand shafts found in\nthe trenches.  A soldier called Scaeva, who commanded at one of the\navenues, invincibly maintained his ground, having lost an eye, with one\nshoulder and one thigh shot through, and his shield hit in two hundred\nand thirty places. It happened that many of his soldiers being taken\nprisoners, rather chose to die than promise to join the contrary side.\nGranius Petronius was taken by Scipio in Africa: Scipio having put the\nrest to death, sent him word that he gave him his life, for he was a man\nof quality and quaestor, to whom Petronius sent answer back, that\nCaesar's soldiers were wont to give others their life, and not to receive\nit; and immediately with his own hand killed himself.\n\nOf their fidelity there are infinite examples amongst them, that which\nwas done by those who were besieged in Salona, a city that stood for\nCaesar against Pompey, is not, for the rarity of an accident that there\nhappened, to be forgotten.  Marcus Octavius kept them close besieged;\nthey within being reduced to the extremest necessity of all things, so\nthat to supply the want of men, most of them being either slain or\nwounded, they had manumitted all their slaves, and had been constrained\nto cut off all the women's hair to make ropes for their war engines,\nbesides a wonderful dearth of victuals, and yet continuing resolute never\nto yield.  After having drawn the siege to a great length, by which\nOctavius was grown more negligent and less attentive to his enterprise,\nthey made choice of one day about noon, and having first placed the women\nand children upon the walls to make a show, sallied upon the besiegers\nwith such fury, that having routed the first, second, and third body, and\nafterwards the fourth, and the rest, and beaten them all out of their\ntrenches, they pursued them even to their ships, and Octavius himself was\nfain to fly to Dyrrachium, where Pompey lay.  I do not at present\nremember that I have met with any other example where the besieged ever\ngave the besieger a total defeat and won the field, nor that a sortie\never achieved the result of a pure and entire victory.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nOF THREE GOOD WOMEN\n\nThey are not by the dozen, as every one knows, and especially in the\nduties of marriage, for that is a bargain full of so many nice\ncircumstances that 'tis hard a woman's will should long endure such a\nrestraint; men, though their condition be something better under that\ntie, have yet enough to do.  The true touch and test of a happy marriage\nhave respect to the time of the companionship, if it has been constantly\ngentle, loyal, and agreeable.  In our age, women commonly reserve the\npublication of their good offices, and their vehement affection towards\ntheir husbands, until they have lost them, or at least, till then defer\nthe testimonies of their good will; a too slow testimony and\nunseasonable. By it they rather manifest that they never loved them till\ndead: their life is nothing but trouble; their death full of love and\ncourtesy.  As fathers conceal their affection from their children, women,\nlikewise, conceal theirs from their husbands, to maintain a modest\nrespect.  This mystery is not for my palate; 'tis to much purpose that\nthey scratch themselves and tear their hair.  I whisper in a\nwaiting-woman's or secretary's ear: \"How were they, how did they live\ntogether?\" I always have that good saying m my head:\n\n               \"Jactantius moerent, quae minus dolent.\"\n\n     [\"They make the most ado who are least concerned.\" (Or:)\n     \"They mourn the more ostentatiously, the less they grieve.\"\n     --Tacitus, Annal., ii. 77, writing of Germanicus.]\n\nTheir whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead.  We\nshould willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead, provided\nthey will smile upon us whilst we are alive.  Is it not enough to make a\nman revive in pure spite, that she, who spat in my face whilst I was in\nbeing, shall come to kiss my feet when I am no more?  If there be any\nhonour in lamenting a husband, it only appertains to those who smiled\nupon them whilst they had them; let those who wept during their lives\nlaugh at their deaths, as well outwardly as within.  Therefore, never\nregard those blubbered eyes and that pitiful voice; consider her\ndeportment, her complexion, the plumpness of her cheeks under all those\nformal veils; 'tis there she talks plain French.  There are few who do\nnot mend upon't, and health is a quality that cannot lie.  That starched\nand ceremonious countenance looks not so much back as forward, and is\nrather intended to get a new husband than to lament the old.  When I was\na boy, a very beautiful and virtuous lady, who is yet living, the widow\nof a prince, wore somewhat more ornament in her dress than our laws of\nwidowhood allow, and being reproached with it, she made answer that it\nwas because she was resolved to have no more love affairs, and would\nnever marry again.\n\nI have here, not at all dissenting from our customs, made choice of three\nwomen, who have also expressed the utmost of their goodness and affection\nabout their husbands' deaths; yet are they examples of another kind than\nare now m use, and so austere that they will hardly be drawn into\nimitation.\n\nThe younger Pliny' had near a house of his in Italy a neighbour who was\nexceedingly tormented with certain ulcers in his private parts.  His wife\nseeing him so long to languish, entreated that he would give her leave to\nsee and at leisure to consider of the condition of his disease, and that\nshe would freely tell him what she thought.  This permission being\nobtained, and she having curiously examined the business, found it\nimpossible he could ever be cured, and that all he had to hope for or\nexpect was a great while to linger out a painful and miserable life, and\ntherefore, as the most sure and sovereign remedy, resolutely advised him\nto kill himself.  But finding him a little tender and backward in so rude\nan attempt: \"Do not think, my friend,\" said she, \"that the torments I see\nthee endure are not as sensible to me as to thyself, and that to deliver\nmyself from them, I will not myself make use of the same remedy I have\nprescribed to thee.  I will accompany thee in the cure as I have done in\nthe disease; fear nothing, but believe that we shall have pleasure in\nthis passage that is to free us from so many miseries, and we will go\nhappily together.\"  Which having said, and roused up her husband's\ncourage, she resolved that they should throw themselves headlong into the\nsea out of a window that overlooked it, and that she might maintain to\nthe last the loyal and vehement affection wherewith she had embraced him\nduring his life, she would also have him die in her arms; but lest they\nshould fail, and should quit their hold in the fall through fear, she\ntied herself fast to him by the waist, and so gave up her own life to\nprocure her husband's repose.  This was a woman of mean condition; and,\namongst that class of people, 'tis no very new thing to see some examples\nof rare virtue:\n\n                         \"Extrema per illos\n               Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit.\"\n\n          [\"Justice, when she left the earth, took her last\n          steps among them.\"--Virgil, Georg., ii.  473.]\n\nThe other two were noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarely\nlodged.\n\nArria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a consular person, was the mother of\nanother Arria, the wife of Thrasea Paetus, he whose virtue was so\nrenowned in the time of Nero, and by this son-in-law, the grandmother of\nFannia: for the resemblance of the names of these men and women, and\ntheir fortunes, have led to several mistakes.  This first Arria, her\nhusband Caecina Paetus, having been taken prisoner by some of the Emperor\nClaudius' people, after Scribonianus' defeat, whose party he had embraced\nin the war, begged of those who were to carry him prisoner to Rome, that\nthey would take her into their ship, where she would be of much less\ncharge and trouble to them than a great many persons they must otherwise\nhave to attend her husband, and that she alone would undertake to serve\nhim in his chamber, his kitchen, and all other offices.  They refused,\nwhereupon she put herself into a fisher-boat she hired on the spot, and\nin that manner followed him from Sclavonia.  When she had come to Rome,\nJunia, the widow of Scribonianus, having one day, from the resemblance of\ntheir fortune, accosted her in the Emperor's presence; she rudely\nrepulsed her with these words, \"I,\" said she, \"speak to thee, or give ear\nto any thing thou sayest! to thee in whose lap Scribonianus was slain,\nand thou art yet alive!\"  These words, with several other signs, gave her\nfriends to understand that she would undoubtedly despatch herself,\nimpatient of supporting her husband's misfortune.  And Thrasea, her\nson-in-law, beseeching her not to throw away herself, and saying to her,\n\"What! if I should run the same fortune that Caecina has done, would you\nthat your daughter, my wife, should do the same?\"--\"Would I?\"  replied\nshe, \"yes, yes, I would: if she had lived as long, and in as good\nunderstanding with thee as I have done, with my husband.\"  These answers\nmade them more careful of her, and to have a more watchful eye to her\nproceedings.  One day, having said to those who looked to her: \"Tis to\nmuch purpose that you take all this pains to prevent me; you may indeed\nmake me die an ill death, but to keep me from dying is not in your\npower\"; she in a sudden phrenzy started from a chair whereon she sat, and\nwith all her force dashed her head against the wall, by which blow being\nlaid flat in a swoon, and very much wounded, after they had again with\ngreat ado brought her to herself: \"I told you,\" said she, \"that if you\nrefused me some easy way of dying, I should find out another, how painful\nsoever.\"  The conclusion of so admirable a virtue was this: her husband\nPaetus, not having resolution enough of his own to despatch himself, as\nhe was by the emperor's cruelty enjoined, one day, amongst others, after\nhaving first employed all the reasons and exhortations which she thought\nmost prevalent to persuade him to it, she snatched the poignard he wore\nfrom his side, and holding it ready in her hand, for the conclusion of\nher admonitions; \"Do thus, Paetus,\" said she, and in the same instant\ngiving herself a mortal stab in the breast, and then drawing it out of\nthe wound, presented it to him, ending her life with this noble,\ngenerous, and immortal saying, \"Paete, non dolet\"--having time to\npronounce no more but those three never-to-be-forgotten words: \"Paetus,\nit is not painful.\"\n\n              \"Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto,\n               Quern de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis\n               Si qua fides, vulnus quod feci non dolet, inquit,\n               Sed quod to facies, id mihi, Paete, dolet.\"\n\n     [\"When the chaste Arria gave to Poetus the reeking sword she had\n     drawn from her breast, 'If you believe me,' she said, 'Paetus, the\n     wound I have made hurts not, but 'tis that which thou wilt make that\n     hurts me.'\"---Martial, i. 14.]\n\nThe action was much more noble in itself, and of a braver sense than the\npoet expressed it: for she was so far from being deterred by the thought\nof her husband's wound and death and her own, that she had been their\npromotress and adviser: but having performed this high and courageous\nenterprise for her husband's only convenience, she had even in the last\ngasp of her life no other concern but for him, and of dispossessing him\nof the fear of dying with her.  Paetus presently struck himself to the\nheart with the same weapon, ashamed, I suppose, to have stood in need of\nso dear and precious an example.\n\nPompeia Paulina, a young and very noble Roman lady, had married Seneca in\nhis extreme old age.  Nero, his fine pupil, sent his guards to him to\ndenounce the sentence of death, which was performed after this manner:\nWhen the Roman emperors of those times had condemned any man of quality,\nthey sent to him by their officers to choose what death he would, and to\nexecute it within such or such a time, which was limited, according to\nthe degree of their indignation, to a shorter or a longer respite, that\nthey might therein have better leisure to dispose their affairs, and\nsometimes depriving them of the means of doing it by the shortness of the\ntime; and if the condemned seemed unwilling to submit to the order, they\nhad people ready at hand to execute it either by cutting the veins of the\narms and legs, or by compelling them by force to swallow a draught of\npoison.  But persons of honour would not abide this necessity, but made\nuse of their own physicians and surgeons for this purpose.  Seneca, with\na calm and steady countenance, heard their charge, and presently called\nfor paper to write his will, which being by the captain refused, he\nturned himself towards his friends, saying to them, \"Since I cannot leave\nyou any other acknowledgment of the obligation I have to you, I leave you\nat least the best thing I have, namely, the image of my life and manners,\nwhich I entreat you to keep in memory of me, that by so doing you may\nacquire the glory of sincere and real friends.\"  And there withal, one\nwhile appeasing the sorrow he saw in them with gentle words, and\npresently raising his voice to reprove them: \"What,\" said he, \"are become\nof all our brave philosophical precepts? What are become of all the\nprovisions we have so many years laid up against the accidents of\nfortune? Is Nero's cruelty unknown to us?  What could we expect from him\nwho had murdered his mother and his brother, but that he should put his\ntutor to death who had brought him up?\"  After having spoken these words\nin general, he turned himself towards his wife, and embracing her fast in\nhis arms, as, her heart and strength failing her, she was ready to sink\ndown with grief, he begged of her, for his sake, to bear this accident\nwith a little more patience, telling her, that now the hour was come\nwherein he was to show, not by argument and discourse, but effect, the\nfruit he had acquired by his studies, and that he really embraced his\ndeath, not only without grief, but moreover with joy.  \"Wherefore, my\ndearest,\" said he, \"do not dishonour it with thy tears, that it may not\nseem as if thou lovest thyself more than my reputation.  Moderate thy\ngrief, and comfort thyself in the knowledge thou hast had of me and my\nactions, leading the remainder of thy life in the same virtuous manner\nthou hast hitherto done.\"  To which Paulina, having a little recovered\nher spirits, and warmed the magnanimity of her courage with a most\ngenerous affection, replied,--\"No, Seneca,\" said she, \"I am not a woman\nto suffer you to go alone in such a necessity: I will not have you think\nthat the virtuous examples of your life have not taught me how to die;\nand when can I ever better or more fittingly do it, or more to my own\ndesire, than with you? and therefore assure yourself I will go along with\nyou.\"  Then Seneca, taking this noble and generous resolution of his wife\nm good part, and also willing to free himself from the fear of leaving\nher exposed to the cruelty of his enemies after his death: \"I have,\nPaulina,\" said he, \"instructed thee in what would serve thee happily to\nlive; but thou more covetest, I see, the honour of dying: in truth,\nI will not grudge it thee; the constancy and resolution in our common end\nare the same, but the beauty and glory of thy part are much greater.\"\nWhich being said, the surgeons, at the same time, opened the veins of\nboth their arms, but as those of Seneca were more shrunk up, as well with\nage as abstinence, made his blood flow too slowly, he moreover commanded\nthem to open the veins of his thighs; and lest the torments he endured\nmight pierce his wife's heart, and also to free himself from the\naffliction of seeing her in so sad a condition, after having taken a very\naffectionate leave of her, he entreated she would suffer them to carry\nher into her chamber, which they accordingly did.  But all these\nincisions being not yet enough to make him die, he commanded Statius\nAnneus, his physician, to give him a draught of poison, which had not\nmuch better effect; for by reason of the weakness and coldness of his\nlimbs, it could not arrive at his heart.  Wherefore they were forced to\nsuperadd a very hot bath, and then, feeling his end approach, whilst he\nhad breath he continued excellent discourses upon the subject of his\npresent condition, which the secretaries wrote down so long as they could\nhear his voice, and his last words were long after in high honour and\nesteem amongst men, and it is a great loss to us that they have not come\ndown to our times.  Then, feeling the last pangs of death, with the\nbloody water of the bath he bathed his head, saying: \"This water I\ndedicate to Jupiter the deliverer.\"  Nero, being presently informed of\nall this, fearing lest the death of Paulina, who was one of the best-born\nladies of Rome, and against whom he had no particular unkindness, should\nturn to his reproach, sent orders in all haste to bind up her wounds,\nwhich her attendants did without her knowledge, she being already half\ndead, and without all manner of sense.  Thus, though she lived contrary\nto her own design, it was very honourably, and befitting her own virtue,\nher pale complexion ever after manifesting how much life had run from her\nveins.\n\nThese are my three very true stories, which I find as entertaining and as\ntragic as any of those we make out of our own heads wherewith to amuse\nthe common people; and I wonder that they who are addicted to such\nrelations, do not rather cull out ten thousand very fine stories, which\nare to be found in books, that would save them the trouble of invention,\nand be more useful and diverting; and he who would make a whole and\nconnected body of them would need to add nothing of his own, but the\nconnection only, as it were the solder of another metal; and might by\nthis means embody a great many true events of all sorts, disposing and\ndiversifying them according as the beauty of the work should require,\nafter the same manner, almost, as Ovid has made up his Metamorphoses of\nthe infinite number of various fables.\n\nIn the last couple, this is, moreover, worthy of consideration, that\nPaulina voluntarily offered to lose her life for the love of her husband,\nand that her husband had formerly also forborne to die for the love of\nher.  We may think there is no just counterpoise in this exchange; but,\naccording to his stoical humour, I fancy he thought he had done as much\nfor her, in prolonging his life upon her account, as if he had died for\nher.  In one of his letters to Lucilius, after he has given him to\nunderstand that, being seized with an ague in Rome, he presently took\ncoach to go to a house he had in the country, contrary to his wife's\nopinion, who would have him stay, and that he had told her that the ague\nhe was seized with was not a fever of the body but of the place, it\nfollows thus: \"She let me go,\" says he, \"giving me a strict charge of my\nhealth.  Now I, who know that her life is involved in mine, begin to make\nmuch of myself, that I may preserve her.  And I lose the privilege my age\nhas given me, of being more constant and resolute in many things, when I\ncall to mind that in this old fellow there is a young girl who is\ninterested in his health.  And since I cannot persuade her to love me\nmore courageously, she makes me more solicitously love myself: for we\nmust allow something to honest affections, and, sometimes, though\noccasions importune us to the contrary, we must call back life, even\nthough it be with torment: we must hold the soul fast in our teeth, since\nthe rule of living, amongst good men, is not so long as they please, but\nas long as they ought.  He that loves not his wife nor his friend so well\nas to prolong his life for them, but will obstinately die, is too\ndelicate and too effeminate: the soul must impose this upon itself, when\nthe utility of our friends so requires; we must sometimes lend ourselves\nto our friends, and when we would die for ourselves must break that\nresolution for them.  'Tis a testimony of grandeur of courage to return\nto life for the consideration of another, as many excellent persons have\ndone: and 'tis a mark of singular good nature to preserve old age (of\nwhich the greatest convenience is the indifference as to its duration,\nand a more stout and disdainful use of life), when a man perceives that\nthis office is pleasing, agreeable, and useful to some person by whom he\nis very much beloved.  And a man reaps by it a very pleasing reward; for\nwhat can be more delightful than to be so dear to his wife, as upon her\naccount he shall become dearer to himself?  Thus has my Paulina loaded me\nnot only with her fears, but my own; it has not been sufficient to\nconsider how resolutely I could die, but I have also considered how\nirresolutely she would bear my death.  I am enforced to live, and\nsometimes to live in magnanimity.\"  These are his own words, as excellent\nas they everywhere are.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nOF THE MOST EXCELLENT MEN\n\nIf I should be asked my choice among all the men who have come to my\nknowledge, I should make answer, that methinks I find three more\nexcellent than all the rest.\n\nOne of them Homer: not that Aristotle and Varro, for example, were not,\nperadventure, as learned as he; nor that possibly Virgil was not equal to\nhim in his own art, which I leave to be determined by such as know them\nboth.  I who, for my part, understand but one of them, can only say this,\naccording to my poor talent, that I do not believe the Muses themselves\ncould ever go beyond the Roman:\n\n              \"Tale facit carmen docta testudine, quale\n               Cynthius impositis temperat articulis:\"\n\n     [\"He plays on his learned lute a verse such as Cynthian Apollo\n     modulates with his imposed fingers.\"--Propertius, ii. 34, 79.]\n\nand yet in this judgment we are not to forget that it is chiefly from\nHomer that Virgil derives his excellence, that he is guide and teacher;\nand that one touch of the Iliad has supplied him with body and matter out\nof which to compose his great and divine AEneid.  I do not reckon upon\nthat, but mix several other circumstances that render to me this poet\nadmirable, even as it were above human condition.  And, in truth, I often\nwonder that he who has produced, and, by his authority, given reputation\nin the world to so many deities, was not deified himself.  Being blind\nand poor, living before the sciences were reduced into rule and certain\nobservation, he was so well acquainted with them, that all those who have\nsince taken upon them to establish governments, to carry on wars, and to\nwrite either of religion or philosophy, of what sect soever, or of the\narts, have made use of him as of a most perfect instructor in the\nknowledge of all things, and of his books as of a treasury of all sorts\nof learning:\n\n         \"Qui, quid sit pulcrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,\n          Planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit:\"\n\n     [\"Who tells us what is good, what evil, what useful, what not, more\n     clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor?\"\n     --Horace, Ep., i. 2, 3.]\n\nand as this other says,\n\n                   \"A quo, ceu fonte perenni,\n                    Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis\"\n\n     [\"From which, as from a perennial spring, the lips of the poets\n     are moistened by Pierian waters.\"--Ovid, Amoy., iii. 9, 25.]\n\nand the other,\n\n              \"Adde Heliconiadum comites, quorum unus Homerus\n               Sceptra potitus;\"\n\n     [\"Add the companions of the Muses, whose sceptre Homer has solely\n     obtained.\"--Lucretius, iii.  1050.]\n\nand the other:\n\n                         \"Cujusque ex ore profusos\n               Omnis posteritas latices in carmina duxit,\n               Amnemque in tenues ausa est deducere rivos.\n               Unius foecunda bonis.\"\n\n     [\"From whose mouth all posterity has drawn out copious streams of\n     verse, and has made bold to turn the mighty river into its little\n     rivulets, fertile in the property of one man.\"\n     --Manilius, Astyon., ii. 8.]\n\n'Tis contrary to the order of nature that he has made the most excellent\nproduction that can possibly be; for the ordinary birth of things is\nimperfect; they thrive and gather strength by growing, whereas he\nrendered the infancy of poesy and several other sciences mature, perfect,\nand accomplished at first.  And for this reason he may be called the\nfirst and the last of the poets, according to the fine testimony\nantiquity has left us of him, \"that as there was none before him whom he\ncould imitate, so there has been none since that could imitate him.\"\nHis words, according to Aristotle, are the only words that have motion\nand action, the only substantial words.  Alexander the Great, having\nfound a rich cabinet amongst Darius' spoils, gave order it should be\nreserved for him to keep his Homer in, saying: that he was the best and\nmost faithful counsellor he had in his military affairs.  For the same\nreason it was that Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, said that he was\nthe poet of the Lacedaemonians, for that he was an excellent master for\nthe discipline of war.  This singular and particular commendation is also\nleft of him in the judgment of Plutarch, that he is the only author in\nthe world that never glutted nor disgusted his readers, presenting\nhimself always another thing, and always flourishing in some new grace.\nThat wanton Alcibiades, having asked one, who pretended to learning, for\na book of Homer, gave him a box of the ear because he had none,  which he\nthought as scandalous as we should if we found one of our priests without\na Breviary.  Xenophanes complained one day to Hiero, the tyrant of\nSyracuse, that he was so poor he had not wherewithal to maintain two\nservants.  \"What!\" replied he, \"Homer, who was much poorer than thou\nart, keeps above ten thousand, though he is dead.\"  What did Panaetius\nleave unsaid when he called Plato the Homer of the philosophers?  Besides\nwhat glory can be compared to his?  Nothing is so frequent in men's\nmouths as his name and works, nothing so known and received as Troy,\nHelen, and the war about her, when perhaps there was never any such\nthing.  Our children are still called by names that he invented above\nthree thousand years ago; who does not know Hector and Achilles?  Not\nonly some particular families, but most nations also seek their origin in\nhis inventions.  Mohammed, the second of that name, emperor of the Turks,\nwriting to our Pope Pius II., \"I am astonished,\" says he, \"that the\nItalians should appear against me, considering that we have our common\ndescent from the Trojans, and that it concerns me as well as it does them\nto revenge the blood of Hector upon the Greeks, whom they countenance\nagainst me.\"  Is it not a noble farce wherein kings, republics, and\nemperors have so many ages played their parts, and to which the vast\nuniverse serves for a theatre?  Seven Grecian cities contended for his\nbirth, so much honour even his obscurity helped him to!\n\n     \"Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenm.\"\n\nThe other is Alexander the Great.  For whoever will consider the age at\nwhich he began his enterprises, the small means by which he effected so\nglorious a design, the authority he obtained in such mere youth with the\ngreatest and most experienced captains of the world, by whom he was\nfollowed, the extraordinary favour wherewith fortune embraced and\nfavoured so many hazardous, not to say rash, exploits,\n\n               \"Impellens quicquid sibi summa petenti\n               Obstaret, gaudensque viam fecisse ruins;\"\n\n     [\"Bearing down all who sought to withstand him, and pleased\n     to force his way by ruin.\"--Lucan, i. 149.]\n\nthat greatness, to have at the age of three-and-thirty years, passed\nvictorious through the whole habitable earth, and in half a life to have\nattained to the utmost of what human nature can do; so that you cannot\nimagine its just duration and the continuation of his increase in valour\nand fortune, up to a due maturity of age, but that you must withal\nimagine something more than man: to have made so many royal branches to\nspring from his soldiers, leaving the world, at his death, divided\namongst four successors, simple captains of his army, whose posterity so\nlong continued and maintained that vast possession; so many excellent\nvirtues as he was master of, justice, temperance, liberality, truth in\nhis word, love towards his own people, and humanity towards those he\novercame; for his manners, in general, seem in truth incapable of any\nmanner of reproach, although some particular and extraordinary actions of\nhis may fall under censure.  But it is impossible to carry on such great\nthings as he did within the strict rules of justice; such as he are to be\njudged in gross by the main end of their actions. The ruin of Thebes and\nPersepolis, the murder of Menander and of Ephistion's physician, the\nmassacre of so many Persian prisoners at one time, of a troop of Indian\nsoldiers not without prejudice to his word, and of the Cossians, so much\nas to the very children, are indeed sallies that are not well to be\nexcused.  For, as to Clytus, the fault was more than redeemed; and that\nvery action, as much as any other whatever, manifests the goodness of his\nnature, a nature most excellently formed to goodness; and it was\ningeniously said of him, that he had his virtues from Nature, his vices\nfrom Fortune.  As to his being a little given to bragging, a little too\nimpatient of hearing himself ill-spoken of, and as to those mangers,\narms, and bits he caused to be strewed in the Indies, all those little\nvanities, methinks, may very well be allowed to his youth, and the\nprodigious prosperity of his fortune.  And who will consider withal his\nso many military virtues, his diligence, foresight, patience, discipline,\nsubtlety, magnanimity, resolution, and good fortune, wherein (though we\nhad not had the authority of Hannibal to assure us) he was the first of\nmen, the admirable beauty and symmetry of his person, even to a miracle,\nhis majestic port and awful mien, in a face so young, ruddy, and radiant:\n\n              \"Qualis, ubi Oceani perfusus Lucifer unda,\n               Quem Venus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes,\n               Extulit os sacrum coelo, tenebrasque resolvit;\"\n\n     [\"As when, bathed in the waves of Ocean, Lucifer, whom Venus loves\n     beyond the other stars, has displayed his sacred countenance to the\n     heaven, and disperses the darkness\"--AEneid, iii. 589.]\n\nthe excellence of his knowledge and capacity; the duration and grandeur\nof his glory, pure, clean, without spot or envy, and that long after his\ndeath it was a religious belief that his very medals brought good fortune\nto all who carried them about them; and that more kings and princes have\nwritten his actions than other historians have written the actions of any\nother king or prince whatever; and that to this very day the Mohammedans,\nwho despise all other histories, admit of and honour his alone, by a\nspecial privilege: whoever, I say, will seriously consider these\nparticulars, will confess that, all these things put together, I had\nreason to prefer him before Caesar himself, who alone could make me\ndoubtful in my choice: and it cannot be denied that there was more of his\nown in his exploits, and more of fortune in those of Alexander.  They\nwere in many things equal, and peradventure Caesar had some greater\nqualities they were two fires, or two torrents, overrunning the world by\nseveral ways;\n\n              \"Ac velut immissi diversis partibus ignes\n               Arentem in silvam, et virgulta sonantia lauro\n               Aut ubi decursu rapido de montibus altis\n               Dant sonitum spumosi amnes, et in aequora currunt,\n               Quisque suum populatus iter:\"\n\n     [\"And as fires applied in several parts to a dry wood and crackling\n     shrubs of laurel, or as with impetuous fall from the steep\n     mountains, foaming torrents pour down to the ocean, each clearing a\n     destructive course.\"--AEneid, xii. 521.]\n\nbut though Caesar's ambition had been more moderate, it would still be so\nunhappy, having the ruin of his country and universal mischief to the\nworld for its abominable object, that, all things raked together and put\ninto the balance, I must needs incline to Alexander's side.\n\nThe third and in my opinion the most excellent, is Epaminondas.  Of glory\nhe has not near so much as the other two (which, for that matter, is but\na part of the substance of the thing): of valour and resolution, not of\nthat sort which is pushed on by ambition, but of that which wisdom and\nreason can plant in a regular soul, he had all that could be imagined.\nOf this virtue of his, he has, in my idea, given as ample proof as\nAlexander himself or Caesar: for although his warlike exploits were\nneither so frequent nor so full, they were yet, if duly considered in all\ntheir circumstances, as important, as bravely fought, and carried with\nthem as manifest testimony of valour and military conduct, as those of\nany whatever.  The Greeks have done him the honour, without\ncontradiction, to pronounce him the greatest man of their nation; and to\nbe the first of Greece, is easily to be the first of the world.  As to\nhis knowledge, we have this ancient judgment of him, \"That never any man\nknew so much, and spake so little as he\";--[Plutarch, On the Demon of\nSocrates, c. 23.]--for he was of the Pythagorean sect; but when he did\nspeak, never any man spake better; an excellent orator, and of powerful\npersuasion.  But as to his manners and conscience, he infinitely\nsurpassed all men who ever undertook the management of affairs; for in\nthis one thing, which ought chiefly to be considered, which alone truly\ndenotes us for what we are, and which alone I make counterbalance all the\nrest put together, he comes not short of any philosopher whatever, not\neven of Socrates himself.  Innocence, in this man, is a quality peculiar,\nsovereign, constant, uniform, incorruptible, compared with which, it\nappears in Alexander subject to something else subaltern, uncertain,\nvariable, effeminate, and fortuitous.\n\nAntiquity has judged that in thoroughly sifting all the other great\ncaptains, there is found in every one some peculiar quality that\nillustrates his name: in this man only there is a full and equal virtue\nthroughout, that leaves nothing to be wished for in him, whether in\nprivate or public employment, whether in peace or war; whether to live\ngloriously and grandly, and to die: I do not know any form or fortune of\nman that I so much honour and love.\n\n'Tis true that I look upon his obstinate poverty, as it is set out by his\nbest friends, as a little too scrupulous and nice; and this is the only\nfeature, though high in itself and well worthy of admiration, that I find\nso rugged as not to desire to imitate, to the degree it was in him.\n\nScipio AEmilianus alone, could one attribute to him as brave and\nmagnificent an end, and as profound and universal a knowledge, might be\nput into the other scale of the balance.  Oh, what an injury has time\ndone me to deprive me of the sight of two of the most noble lives which,\nby the common consent of all the world, one of the greatest of the\nGreeks, and the other of the Romans, were in all Plutarch.  What a\nmatter! what a workman!\n\nFor a man that was no saint, but, as we say, a gentleman, of civilian and\nordinary manners, and of a moderate ambition, the richest life that I\nknow, and full of the richest and most to be desired parts, all things\nconsidered, is, in my opinion, that of Alcibiades.\n\nBut as to what concerns Epaminondas, I will here, for the example of an\nexcessive goodness, add some of his opinions: he declared, that the\ngreatest satisfaction he ever had in his whole life, was the contentment\nhe gave his father and mother by his victory at Leuctra; wherein his\ndeference is great, preferring their pleasure before his own, so dust and\nso full of so glorious an action.  He did not think it lawful, even to\nrestore the liberty of his country, to kill a man without knowing a\ncause: which made him so cold in the enterprise of his companion\nPelopidas for the relief of Thebes.  He was also of opinion that men in\nbattle ought to avoid the encounter of a friend who was on the contrary\nside, and to spare him.  And his humanity, even towards his enemies\nthemselves, having rendered him suspected to the Boeotians, for that,\nafter he had miraculously forced the Lacedaemonians to open to him the\npass which they had undertaken to defend at the entrance into the Morea,\nnear Corinth, he contented himself with having charged through them,\nwithout pursuing them to the utmost, he had his commission of general\ntaken from him, very honourably upon such an account, and for the shame\nit was to them upon necessity afterwards to restore him to his command,\nand so to manifest how much upon him depended their safety and honour;\nvictory like a shadow attending him wherever he went; and indeed the\nprosperity of his country, as being from him derived, died with him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nOF THE RESEMBLANCE OF CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS\n\nThis faggoting up of so many divers pieces is so done that I never set\npen to paper but when I have too much idle time, and never anywhere but\nat home; so that it is compiled after divers interruptions and intervals,\noccasions keeping me sometimes many months elsewhere.  As to the rest,\nI never correct my first by any second conceptions; I, peradventure, may\nalter a word or so, but 'tis only to vary the phrase, and not to destroy\nmy former meaning.  I have a mind to represent the progress of my\nhumours, and that every one may see each piece as it came from the forge.\nI could wish I had begun sooner, and had taken more notice of the course\nof my mutations.  A servant of mine whom I employed to transcribe for me,\nthought he had got a prize by stealing several pieces from me, wherewith\nhe was best pleased; but it is my comfort that he will be no greater a\ngainer than I shall be a loser by the theft.  I am grown older by seven\nor eight years since I began; nor has it been without same new\nacquisition: I have, in that time, by the liberality of years, been\nacquainted with the stone: their commerce and long converse do not well\npass away without some such inconvenience.  I could have been glad that\nof other infirmities age has to present long-lived men withal, it had\nchosen some one that would have been more welcome to me, for it could not\npossibly have laid upon me a disease for which, even from my infancy, I\nhave had so great a horror; and it is, in truth, of all the accidents of\nold age, that of which I have ever been most afraid.  I have often\nthought with myself that I went on too far, and that in so long a voyage\nI should at last run myself into some disadvantage; I perceived, and have\noften enough declared, that it was time to depart, and that life should\nbe cut off in the sound and living part, according to the surgeon's rule\nin amputations; and that nature made him pay very strict usury who did\nnot in due time pay the principal.  And yet I was so far from being\nready, that in the eighteen months' time or thereabout that I have been\nin this uneasy condition, I have so inured myself to it as to be content\nto live on in it; and have found wherein to comfort myself, and to hope:\nso much are men enslaved to their miserable being, that there is no\ncondition so wretched they will not accept, provided they may live!  Hear\nMaecenas:\n\n                        \"Debilem facito manu,\n                         Debilem pede, coxa,\n                         Lubricos quate dentes;\n                         Vita dum superest, bene est.\"\n\n     [\"Cripple my hand, foot, hip; shake out my loose teeth: while\n     there's life, 'tis well.\"--Apud Seneca, Ep., 101.]\n\nAnd Tamerlane, with a foolish humanity, palliated the fantastic cruelty\nhe exercised upon lepers, when he put all he could hear of to death, to\ndeliver them, as he pretended, from the painful life they lived.  For\nthere was not one of them who would not rather have been thrice a leper\nthan be not.  And Antisthenes the Stoic, being very sick, and crying out,\n\"Who will deliver me from these evils?\" Diogenes, who had come to visit\nhim, \"This,\" said he, presenting him a knife, \"soon enough, if thou\nwilt.\"--\"I do not mean from my life,\" he replied, \"but from my\nsufferings.\"  The sufferings that only attack the mind, I am not so\nsensible of as most other men; and this partly out of judgment, for the\nworld looks upon several things as dreadful or to be avoided at the\nexpense of life, that are almost indifferent to me: partly, through a\ndull and insensible complexion I have in accidents which do not\npoint-blank hit me; and that insensibility I look upon as one of the best\nparts of my natural condition; but essential and corporeal pains I am\nvery sensible of.  And yet, having long since foreseen them, though with\na sight weak and delicate and softened with the long and happy health and\nquiet that God has been pleased to give me the greatest part of my time,\nI had in my imagination fancied them so insupportable, that, in truth, I\nwas more afraid than I have since found I had cause: by which I am still\nmore fortified in this belief, that most of the faculties of the soul, as\nwe employ them, more trouble the repose of life than they are any way\nuseful to it.\n\nI am in conflict with the worst, the most sudden, the most painful, the\nmost mortal, and the most irremediable of all diseases; I have already\nhad the trial of five or six very long and very painful fits; and yet I\neither flatter myself, or there is even in this state what is very well\nto be endured by a man who has his soul free from the fear of death, and\nof the menaces, conclusions, and consequences which physic is ever\nthundering in our ears; but the effect even of pain itself is not so\nsharp and intolerable as to put a man of understanding into rage and\ndespair.  I have at least this advantage by my stone, that what I could\nnot hitherto prevail upon myself to resolve upon, as to reconciling and\nacquainting myself with death, it will perfect; for the more it presses\nupon and importunes me, I shall be so much the less afraid to die.  I had\nalready gone so far as only to love life for life's sake, but my pain\nwill dissolve this intelligence; and God grant that in the end, should\nthe sharpness of it be once greater than I shall be able to bear, it does\nnot throw me into the other no less vicious extreme to desire and wish to\ndie!\n\n               \"Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes:\"\n\n          [\"Neither to wish, nor fear to die.\"  (Or:)\n          \"Thou shouldest neither fear nor desire the last day.\"\n          --Martial, x. 7.]\n\nthey are two passions to be feared; but the one has its remedy much\nnearer at hand than the other.\n\nAs to the rest, I have always found the precept that so rigorously\nenjoins a resolute countenance and disdainful and indifferent comportment\nin the toleration of infirmities to be ceremonial.  Why should\nphilosophy, which only has respect to life and effects, trouble itself\nabout these external appearances?  Let us leave that care to actors and\nmasters of rhetoric, who set so great a value upon our gestures.  Let her\nallow this vocal frailty to disease, if it be neither cordial nor\nstomachic, and permit the ordinary ways of expressing grief by sighs,\nsobs, palpitations, and turning pale, that nature has put out of our\npower; provided the courage be undaunted, and the tones not expressive\nof despair, let her be satisfied.  What matter the wringing of our hands,\nif we do not wring our thoughts?  She forms us for ourselves, not for\nothers; to be, not to seem; let her be satisfied with governing our\nunderstanding, which she has taken upon her the care of instructing;\nthat, in the fury of the colic, she maintain the soul in a condition to\nknow itself, and to follow its accustomed way, contending with, and\nenduring, not meanly truckling under pain; moved and heated, not subdued\nand conquered, in the contention; capable of discourse and other things,\nto a certain degree.  In such extreme accidents, 'tis cruelty to require\nso exact a composedness.  'Tis no great matter that we make a wry face,\nif the mind plays its part well: if the body find itself relieved by\ncomplaining let it complain: if agitation ease it, let it tumble and toss\nat pleasure; if it seem to find the disease evaporate (as some physicians\nhold that it helps women in delivery) in making loud outcries, or if this\ndo but divert its torments, let it roar as it will.  Let us not command\nthis voice to sally, but stop it not.  Epicurus, not only forgives his\nsage for crying out in torments, but advises him to it:\n\n          \"Pugiles etiam, quum feriunt, in jactandis caestibus\n          ingemiscunt, quia profundenda voce omne corpus intenditur,\n          venitque plaga vehementior.\"\n\n     [\"Boxers also, when they strike, groan in the act, because with the\n     strength of voice the whole body is carried, and the blow comes with\n     the greater vehemence.\"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 23.]\n\nWe have enough to do to deal with the disease, without troubling\nourselves with these superfluous rules.\n\nWhich I say in excuse of those whom we ordinarily see impatient in the\nassaults of this malady; for as to what concerns myself, I have passed it\nover hitherto with a little better countenance, and contented myself with\ngroaning without roaring out; not, nevertheless, that I put any great\nconstraint upon myself to maintain this exterior decorum, for I make\nlittle account of such an advantage: I allow herein as much as the pain\nrequires; but either my pains are not so excessive, or I have more than\nordinary patience.  I complain, I confess, and am a little impatient in a\nvery sharp fit, but I do not arrive to such a degree of despair as he who\nwith:\n\n               \"Ejulatu, questu, gemitu, fremitibus\n               Resonando, multum flebiles voces refert:\"\n\n     [\"Howling, roaring, groaning with a thousand noises, expressing his\n     torment in a dismal voice.\" (Or:) \"Wailing, complaining, groaning,\n     murmuring much avail lugubrious sounds.\"--Verses of Attius, in his\n     Phaloctetes, quoted by Cicero, De Finib., ii.  29; Tusc.  Quaes.,\n     ii. 14.]\n\nI try myself in the depth of my suffering, and have always found that I\nwas in a capacity to speak, think, and give a rational answer as well as\nat any other time, but not so firmly, being troubled and interrupted by\nthe pain.  When I am looked upon by my visitors to be in the greatest\ntorment, and that they therefore forbear to trouble me, I often essay my\nown strength, and myself set some discourse on foot, the most remote I\ncan contrive from my present condition.  I can do anything upon a sudden\nendeavour, but it must not continue long.  Oh, what pity 'tis I have not\nthe faculty of that dreamer in Cicero, who dreaming he was lying with a\nwench, found he had discharged his stone in the sheets.  My pains\nstrangely deaden my appetite that way.  In the intervals from this\nexcessive torment, when my ureters only languish without any great dolor,\nI presently feel myself in my wonted state, forasmuch as my soul takes no\nother alarm but what is sensible and corporal, which I certainly owe to\nthe care I have had of preparing myself by meditation against such\naccidents:\n\n                                   \"Laborum,\n               Nulla mihi nova nunc facies inopinave surgit;\n               Omnia praecepi, atque animo mecum ante peregi.\"\n\n     [\"No new shape of suffering can arise new or unexpected; I have\n     anticipated all, and acted them over beforehand in my mind.\"\n     --AEneid, vi. 103.]\n\nI am, however, a little roughly handled for an apprentice, and with a\nsudden and sharp alteration, being fallen in an instant from a very easy\nand happy condition of life into the most uneasy and painful that can be\nimagined.  For besides that it is a disease very much to be feared in\nitself, it begins with me after a more sharp and severe manner than it is\nused to do with other men.  My fits come so thick upon me that I am\nscarcely ever at ease; yet I have hitherto kept my mind so upright that,\nprovided I can still continue it, I find myself in a much better\ncondition of life than a thousand others, who have no fewer nor other\ndisease but what they create to themselves for want of meditation.\n\nThere is a certain sort of crafty humility that springs from presumption,\nas this, for example, that we confess our ignorance in many things, and\nare so courteous as to acknowledge that there are in the works of nature\nsome qualities and conditions that are imperceptible to us, and of which\nour understanding cannot discover the means and causes; by this so honest\nand conscientious declaration we hope to obtain that people shall also\nbelieve us as to those that we say we do understand.  We need not trouble\nourselves to seek out foreign miracles and difficulties; methinks,\namongst the things that we ordinarily see, there are such\nincomprehensible wonders as surpass all difficulties of miracles.  What a\nwonderful thing it is that the drop of seed from which we are produced\nshould carry in itself the impression not only of the bodily form, but\neven of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!  Where can that\ndrop of fluid matter contain that infinite number of forms? and how can\nthey carry on these resemblances with so precarious and irregular a\nprocess that the son shall be like his great-grandfather, the nephew like\nhis uncle?  In the family of Lepidus at Rome there were three, not\nsuccessively but by intervals, who were born with the same eye covered\nwith a cartilage.  At Thebes there was a race that carried from their\nmother's womb the form of the head of a lance, and he who was not born so\nwas looked upon as illegitimate.  And Aristotle says that in a certain\nnation, where the women were in common, they assigned the children to\ntheir fathers by their resemblance.\n\n'Tis to be believed that I derive this infirmity from my father, for he\ndied wonderfully tormented with a great stone in his bladder; he was\nnever sensible of his disease till the sixty-seventh year of his age; and\nbefore that had never felt any menace or symptoms of it, either in his\nreins, sides, or any other part, and had lived, till then, in a happy,\nvigorous state of health, little subject to infirmities, and he continued\nseven years after in this disease, dragging on a very painful end of\nlife.  I was born about five-and-twenty years before his disease seized\nhim, and in the time of his most flourishing and healthful state of body,\nhis third child in order of birth: where could his propension to this\nmalady lie lurking all that while?  And he being then so far from the\ninfirmity, how could that small part of his substance wherewith he made\nme, carry away so great an impression for its share?  and how so\nconcealed, that till five-and-forty years after, I did not begin to be\nsensible of it?  being the only one to this hour, amongst so many\nbrothers and sisters, and all by one mother, that was ever troubled with\nit.  He that can satisfy me in this point, I will believe him in as many\nother miracles as he pleases; always provided that, as their manner is,\nhe do not give me a doctrine much more intricate and fantastic than the\nthing itself for current pay.\n\nLet the physicians a little excuse the liberty I take, for by this same\ninfusion and fatal insinuation it is that I have received a hatred and\ncontempt of their doctrine; the antipathy I have against their art is\nhereditary.  My father lived three-score and fourteen years, my\ngrandfather sixty-nine, my great-grandfather almost fourscore years,\nwithout ever tasting any sort of physic; and, with them, whatever was not\nordinary diet, was instead of a drug.  Physic is grounded upon experience\nand examples: so is my opinion.  And is not this an express and very\nadvantageous experience.  I do not know that they can find me in all\ntheir records three that were born, bred, and died under the same roof,\nwho have lived so long by their conduct.  They must here of necessity\nconfess, that if reason be not, fortune at least is on my side, and with\nphysicians fortune goes a great deal further than reason.  Let them not\ntake me now at a disadvantage; let them not threaten me in the subdued\ncondition wherein I now am; that were treachery.  In truth, I have enough\nthe better of them by these domestic examples, that they should rest\nsatisfied.  Human things are not usually so constant; it has been two\nhundred years, save eighteen, that this trial has lasted, for the first\nof them was born in the year 1402: 'tis now, indeed, very good reason\nthat this experience should begin to fail us.  Let them not, therefore,\nreproach me with the infirmities under which I now suffer; is it not\nenough that I for my part have lived seven-and-forty years in good\nhealth? though it should be the end of my career; 'tis of the longer\nsort.\n\nMy ancestors had an aversion to physic by some occult and natural\ninstinct; for the very sight of drugs was loathsome to my father.  The\nSeigneur de Gaviac, my uncle by the father's side, a churchman, and a\nvaletudinary from his birth, and yet who made that crazy life hold out to\nsixty-seven years, being once fallen into a furious fever, it was ordered\nby the physicians he should be plainly told that if he would not make use\nof help (for so they call that which is very often an obstacle), he would\ninfallibly be a dead man.  That good man, though terrified with this\ndreadful sentence, yet replied, \"I am then a dead man.\"  But God soon\nafter made the prognostic false.  The last of the brothers--there were\nfour of them--and by many years the last, the Sieur de Bussaguet, was the\nonly one of the family who made use of medicine, by reason, I suppose, of\nthe concern he had with the other arts, for he was a councillor in the\ncourt of Parliament, and it succeeded so ill with him, that being in\noutward appearance of the strongest constitution, he yet died long before\nany of the rest, save the Sieur de Saint Michel.\n\n'Tis possible I may have derived this natural antipathy to physic from\nthem; but had there been no other consideration in the case, I would have\nendeavoured to have overcome it; for all these conditions that spring in\nus without reason, are vicious; 'tis a kind of disease that we should\nwrestle with.  It may be I had naturally this propension; but I have\nsupported and fortified it by arguments and reasons which have\nestablished in me the opinion I am of.  For I also hate the consideration\nof refusing physic for the nauseous taste.\n\nI should hardly be of that humour who hold health to be worth purchasing\nby all the most painful cauteries and incisions that can be applied.\nAnd, with Epicurus, I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided, if\ngreater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted, that will\nterminate in greater pleasures.  Health is a precious thing, and the only\none, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out, not only his time,\nsweat, labour, and goods, but also his life itself to obtain it;\nforasmuch as, without it, life is wearisome and injurious to us:\npleasure, wisdom, learning, and virtue, without it, wither away and\nvanish; and to the most laboured and solid discourses that philosophy\nwould imprint in us to the contrary, we need no more but oppose the image\nof Plato being struck with an epilepsy or apoplexy; and, in this\npresupposition, to defy him to call the rich faculties of his soul to his\nassistance.  All means that conduce to health can neither be too painful\nnor too dear to me.  But I have some other appearances that make me\nstrangely suspect all this merchandise.  I do not deny but that there may\nbe some art in it, that there are not amongst so many works of Nature,\nthings proper for the conservation of health: that is most certain: I\nvery well know there are some simples that moisten, and others that dry;\nI experimentally know that radishes are windy, and senna-leaves purging;\nand several other such experiences I have, as that mutton nourishes me,\nand wine warms me: and Solon said \"that eating was physic against the\nmalady hunger.\"  I do not disapprove the use we make of things the earth\nproduces, nor doubt, in the least, of the power and fertility of Nature,\nand of its application to our necessities: I very well see that pikes and\nswallows live by her laws; but I mistrust the inventions of our mind, our\nknowledge and art, to countenance which, we have abandoned Nature and her\nrules, and wherein we keep no bounds nor moderation.  As we call the\npiling up of the first laws that fall into our hands justice, and their\npractice and dispensation very often foolish and very unjust; and as\nthose who scoff at and accuse it, do not, nevertheless, blame that noble\nvirtue itself, but only condemn the abuse and profanation of that sacred\ntitle; so in physic I very much honour that glorious name, its\npropositions, its promises, so useful for the service of mankind; but the\nordinances it foists upon us, betwixt ourselves, I neither honour nor\nesteem.\n\nIn the first place, experience makes me dread it; for amongst all my\nacquaintance, I see no people so soon sick, and so long before they are\nwell, as those who take much physic; their very health is altered and\ncorrupted by their frequent prescriptions.  Physicians are not content to\ndeal only with the sick, but they will moreover corrupt health itself,\nfor fear men should at any time escape their authority.  Do they not,\nfrom a continual and perfect health, draw the argument of some great\nsickness to ensue?  I have been sick often enough, and have always found\nmy sicknesses easy enough to be supported (though I have made trial of\nalmost all sorts), and as short as those of any other, without their\nhelp, or without swallowing their ill-tasting doses.  The health I have\nis full and free, without other rule or discipline than my own custom and\npleasure.  Every place serves me well enough to stay in, for I need no\nother conveniences, when I am sick, than what I must have when I am well.\nI never disturb myself that I have no physician, no apothecary, nor any\nother assistance, which I see most other sick men more afflicted at than\nthey are with their disease.  What!  Do the doctors themselves show us\nmore felicity and duration in their own lives, that may manifest to us\nsome apparent effect of their skill?\n\nThere is not a nation in the world that has not been many ages without\nphysic; and these the first ages, that is to say, the best and most\nhappy; and the tenth part of the world knows nothing of it yet; many\nnations are ignorant of it to this day, where men live more healthful and\nlonger than we do here, and even amongst us the common people live well\nenough without it.  The Romans were six hundred years before they\nreceived it; and after having made trial of it, banished it from the city\nat the instance of Cato the Censor, who made it appear how easy it was to\nlive without it, having himself lived fourscore and five years, and kept\nhis wife alive to an extreme old age, not without physic, but without a\nphysician: for everything that we find to be healthful to life may be\ncalled physic.  He kept his family in health, as Plutarch says if I\nmistake not, with hare's milk; as Pliny reports,  that the Arcadians\ncured all manner of diseases with that of a cow; and Herodotus says, the\nLybians generally enjoy rare health, by a custom they have, after their\nchildren are arrived to four years of age, to burn and cauterise the\nveins of their head and temples, by which means they cut off all\ndefluxions of rheum for their whole lives.  And the country people of our\nprovince make use of nothing, in all sorts of distempers, but the\nstrongest wine they can get, mixed with a great deal of saffron and\nspice, and always with the same success.\n\nAnd to say the truth, of all this diversity and confusion of\nprescriptions, what other end and effect is there after all, but to purge\nthe belly?  which a thousand ordinary simples will do as well; and I do\nnot know whether such evacuations be so much to our advantage as they\npretend, and whether nature does not require a residence of her\nexcrements to a certain proportion, as wine does of its lees to keep it\nalive: you often see healthful men fall into vomitings and fluxes of the\nbelly by some extrinsic accident, and make a great evacuation of\nexcrements, without any preceding need, or any following benefit, but\nrather with hurt to their constitution.  'Tis from the great Plato, that\nI lately learned, that of three sorts of motions which are natural to us,\npurging is the worst, and that no man, unless he be a fool, ought to take\nanything to that purpose but in the extremest necessity.  Men disturb and\nirritate the disease by contrary oppositions; it must be the way of\nliving that must gently dissolve, and bring it to its end.  The violent\ngripings and contest betwixt the drug and the disease are ever to our\nloss, since the combat is fought within ourselves, and that the drug is\nan assistant not to be trusted, being in its own nature an enemy to our\nhealth, and by trouble having only access into our condition.  Let it\nalone a little; the general order of things that takes care of fleas and\nmoles, also takes care of men, if they will have the same patience that\nfleas and moles have, to leave it to itself.  'Tis to much purpose we cry\nout \"Bihore,\"--[A term used by the Languedoc waggoners to hasten their\nhorses]--'tis a way to make us hoarse, but not to hasten the matter.\n'Tis a proud and uncompassionate order: our fears, our despair displease\nand stop it from, instead of inviting it to, our relief; it owes its\ncourse to the disease, as well as to health; and will not suffer itself\nto be corrupted in favour of the one to the prejudice of the other's\nright, for it would then fall into disorder.  Let us, in God's name,\nfollow it; it leads those that follow, and those who will not follow, it\ndrags along, both their fury and physic together.  Order a purge for your\nbrain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach.\n\nOne asking a Lacedaemonian what had made him live so long, he made\nanswer, \"the ignorance of physic\"; and the Emperor Adrian continually\nexclaimed as he was dying, that the crowd of physicians had killed him.\nA bad wrestler turned physician: \"Courage,\" says Diogenes to him; \"thou\nhast done well, for now thou will throw those who have formerly thrown\nthee.\"  But they have this advantage, according to Nicocles, that the sun\ngives light to their success and the earth covers their failures.  And,\nbesides, they have a very advantageous way of making use of all sorts of\nevents: for what fortune, nature, or any other cause (of which the number\nis infinite), products of good and healthful in us, it is the privilege\nof physic to attribute to itself; all the happy successes that happen to\nthe patient, must be thence derived; the accidents that have cured me,\nand a thousand others, who do not employ physicians, physicians usurp to\nthemselves: and as to ill accidents, they either absolutely disown them,\nin laying the fault upon the patient, by such frivolous reasons as they\nare never at a loss for; as \"he lay with his arms out of bed,\" or \"he was\ndisturbed with the rattling of a coach:\"\n\n                        \"Rhedarum transitus arcto\n                         Vicorum inflexu:\"\n\n               [\"The passage of the wheels in the narrow\n               turning of the street\"--Juvenal, iii. 236.]\n\nor \"somebody had set open the casement,\" or \"he had lain upon his left\nside,\" or \"he had some disagreeable fancies in his head\": in sum, a word,\na dream, or a look, seems to them excuse sufficient wherewith to palliate\ntheir own errors: or, if they so please, they even make use of our\ngrowing worse, and do their business in this way which can never fail\nthem: which is by buzzing us in the ear, when the disease is more\ninflamed by their medicaments, that it had been much worse but for those\nremedies; he, whom from an ordinary cold they have thrown into a double\ntertian-ague, had but for them been in a continued fever.  They do not\nmuch care what mischief they do, since it turns to their own profit.\nIn earnest, they have reason to require a very favourable belief from\ntheir patients; and, indeed, it ought to be a very easy one, to swallow\nthings so hard to be believed.  Plato said very well, that physicians\nwere the only men who might lie at pleasure, since our health depends\nupon the vanity and falsity of their promises.\n\nAEsop, a most excellent author, and of whom few men discover all the\ngraces, pleasantly represents to us the tyrannical authority physicians\nusurp over poor creatures, weakened and subdued by sickness and fear,\nwhen he tells us, that a sick person, being asked by his physician what\noperation he found of the potion he had given him: \"I have sweated very\nmuch,\" says the sick man.  \"That's good,\" says the physician.  Another\ntime, having asked how he felt himself after his physic: \"I have been\nvery cold, and have had a great shivering upon me,\" said he.  \"That is\ngood,\" replied the physician.  After the third potion, he asked him again\nhow he did: \"Why, I find myself swollen and puffed up,\" said he, \"as if\nI had a dropsy.\"--\"That is very well,\" said the physician.  One of his\nservants coming presently after to inquire how he felt himself, \"Truly,\nfriend,\" said he, \"with being too well I am about to die.\"\n\nThere was a more just law in Egypt, by which the physician, for the three\nfirst days, was to take charge of his patient at the patient's own risk\nand cost; but, those three days being past, it was to be at his own.  For\nwhat reason is it that their patron, AEsculapius, should be struck with\nthunder for restoring Hippolitus from death to life:\n\n         \"Nam Pater omnipotens, aliquem indignatus ab umbris\n          Mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae,\n          Ipse repertorem medicinae talis, et artis\n          Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas;\"\n\n     [\"Then the Almighty Father, offended that any mortal should rise to\n     the light of life from the infernal shades, struck the son of\n     Phoebus with his forked lightning to the Stygian lake.\"\n     --AEneid, vii. 770.]\n\nand his followers be pardoned, who send so many souls from life to death?\nA physician, boasting to Nicocles that his art was of great authority:\n\"It is so, indeed,\" said Nicocles, \"that can with impunity kill so many\npeople.\"\n\nAs to what remains, had I been of their counsel, I would have rendered my\ndiscipline more sacred and mysterious; they begun well, but they have not\nended so.  It was a good beginning to make gods and demons the authors of\ntheir science, and to have used a peculiar way of speaking and writing,\nnotwithstanding that philosophy concludes it folly to persuade a man to\nhis own good by an unintelligible way:  \"Ut si quis medicus imperet, ut\nsumat:\"\n\n\n     \"Terrigenam, herbigradam, domiportam, sanguine cassam.\"\n\n     [\"Describing it by the epithets of an animal trailing with its slime\n     over the herbage, without blood or bones, and carrying its house\n     upon its back, meaning simply a snail.\"--Coste]\n\nIt was a good rule in their art, and that accompanies all other vain,\nfantastic, and supernatural arts, that the patient's belief should\nprepossess them with good hope and assurance of their effects and\noperation: a rule they hold to that degree, as to maintain that the most\ninexpert and ignorant physician is more proper for a patient who has\nconfidence in him, than the most learned and experienced whom he is not\nso acquainted with.  Nay, even the very choice of most of their drugs is\nin some sort mysterious and divine; the left foot of a tortoise, the\nurine of a lizard, the dung of an elephant, the liver of a mole, blood\ndrawn from under the right wing of a white pigeon; and for us who have\nthe stone (so scornfully they use us in our miseries) the excrement of\nrats beaten to powder, and such like trash and fooleries which rather\ncarry a face of magical enchantment than of any solid science.  I omit\nthe odd number of their pills, the destination of certain days and feasts\nof the year, the superstition of gathering their simples at certain\nhours, and that so austere and very wise countenance and carriage which\nPliny himself so much derides.  But they have, as I said, failed in that\nthey have not added to this fine beginning the making their meetings and\nconsultations more religious and secret, where no profane person should\nhave admission, no more than in the secret ceremonies of AEsculapius; for\nby the reason of this it falls out that their irresolution, the weakness\nof their arguments, divinations and foundations, the sharpness of their\ndisputes, full of hatred, jealousy, and self-consideration, coming to be\ndiscovered by every one, a man must be marvellously blind not to see that\nhe runs a very great hazard in their hands.  Who ever saw one physician\napprove of another's prescription, without taking something away, or\nadding something to it? by which they sufficiently betray their tricks,\nand make it manifest to us that they therein more consider their own\nreputation, and consequently their profit, than their patient's interest.\nHe was a much wiser man of their tribe, who of old gave it as a rule,\nthat only one physician should undertake a sick person; for if he do\nnothing to purpose, one single man's default can bring no great scandal\nupon the art of medicine; and, on the contrary, the glory will be great\nif he happen to have success; whereas, when there are many, they at every\nturn bring a disrepute upon their calling, forasmuch as they oftener do\nhurt than good.  They ought to be satisfied with the perpetual\ndisagreement which is found in the opinions of the principal masters and\nancient authors of this science, which is only known to men well read,\nwithout discovering to the vulgar the controversies and various judgments\nwhich they still nourish and continue amongst themselves.\n\nWill you have one example of the ancient controversy in physic?\nHerophilus lodges the original cause of all diseases in the humours;\nErasistratus, in the blood of the arteries; Asclepiades, in the invisible\natoms of the pores; Alcmaeon, in the exuberance or defect of our bodily\nstrength; Diocles, in the inequality of the elements of which the body is\ncomposed, and in the quality of the air we breathe; Strato, in the\nabundance, crudity, and corruption of the nourishment we take; and\nHippocrates lodges it in the spirits.  There is a certain friend of\ntheirs,--[Celsus, Preface to the First Book.]--whom they know better\nthan I, who declares upon this subject, \"that the most important science\nin practice amongst us, as that which is intrusted with our health and\nconservation, is, by ill luck, the most uncertain, the most perplexed,\nand agitated with the greatest mutations.\"  There is no great danger in\nour mistaking the height of the sun, or the fraction of some astronomical\nsupputation; but here, where our whole being is concerned, 'tis not\nwisdom to abandon ourselves to the mercy of the agitation of so many\ncontrary winds.\n\nBefore the Peloponnesian war there was no great talk of this science.\nHippocrates brought it into repute; whatever he established, Chrysippus\noverthrew; after that, Erasistratus, Aristotle's grandson, overthrew what\nChrysippus had written; after these, the Empirics started up, who took a\nquite contrary way to the ancients in the management of this art; when\nthe credit of these began a little to decay, Herophilus set another sort\nof practice on foot, which Asclepiades in turn stood up against, and\noverthrew; then, in their turn, the opinions first of Themiso, and then\nof Musa, and after that those of Vectius Valens, a physician famous\nthrough the intelligence he had with Messalina, came in vogue; the empire\nof physic in Nero's time was established in Thessalus, who abolished and\ncondemned all that had been held till his time; this man's doctrine was\nrefuted by Crinas of Marseilles, who first brought all medicinal\noperations under the Ephemerides and motions of the stars, and reduced\neating, sleeping, and drinking to hours that were most pleasing to\nMercury and the moon; his authority was soon after supplanted by\nCharinus, a physician of the same city of Marseilles, a man who not only\ncontroverted all the ancient methods of physic, but moreover the usage of\nhot baths, that had been generally and for so many ages in common use; he\nmade men bathe in cold water, even in winter, and plunged his sick\npatients in the natural waters of streams.  No Roman till Pliny's time\nhad ever vouchsafed to practise physic; that office was only performed\nby Greeks and foreigners, as 'tis now amongst us French, by those who\nsputter Latin; for, as a very great physician says, we do not easily\naccept the medicine we understand, no more than we do the drugs we\nourselves gather.  If the nations whence we fetch our guaiacum,\nsarsaparilla, and China wood, have physicians, how great a value must we\nimagine, by the same recommendation of strangeness, rarity, and dear\npurchase, do they set upon our cabbage and parsley?  for who would dare\nto contemn things so far fetched, and sought out at the hazard of so long\nand dangerous a voyage?\n\nSince these ancient mutations in physic, there have been infinite others\ndown to our own times, and, for the most part, mutations entire and\nuniversal, as those, for example, produced by Paracelsus, Fioravanti, and\nArgentier; for they, as I am told, not only alter one recipe, but the\nwhole contexture and rules of the body of physic, accusing all others of\nignorance and imposition who have practised before them.  At this rate,\nin what a condition the poor patient must be, I leave you to judge.\n\nIf we were even assured that, when they make a mistake, that mistake of\ntheirs would do us no harm, though it did us no good, it were a\nreasonable bargain to venture the making ourselves better without any\ndanger of being made worse.  AEsop tells a story, that one who had bought\na Morisco slave, believing that his black complexion had arrived by\naccident and the ill usage of his former master, caused him to enter with\ngreat care into a course of baths and potions: it happened that the Moor\nwas nothing amended in his tawny complexion, but he wholly lost his\nformer health.  How often do we see physicians impute the death of their\npatients to one another?  I remember that some years ago there was an\nepidemical disease, very dangerous and for the most part mortal, that\nraged in the towns about us: the storm being over which had swept away an\ninfinite number of men, one of the most famous physicians of all the\ncountry, presently after published a book upon that subject, wherein,\nupon better thoughts, he confesses that the letting blood in that disease\nwas the principal cause of so many mishaps.  Moreover, their authors hold\nthat there is no physic that has not something hurtful in it.  And if\neven those of the best operation in some measure offend us, what must\nthose do that are totally misapplied?  For my own part, though there were\nnothing else in the case, I am of opinion, that to those who loathe the\ntaste of physic, it must needs be a dangerous and prejudicial endeavour\nto force it down at so incommodious a time, and with so much aversion,\nand believe that it marvellously distempers a sick person at a time when\nhe has so much need of repose.  And more over, if we but consider the\noccasions upon which they usually ground the cause of our diseases, they\nare so light and nice, that I thence conclude a very little error in the\ndispensation of their drugs may do a great deal of mischief.  Now, if the\nmistake of a physician be so dangerous, we are in but a scurvy condition;\nfor it is almost impossible but he must often fall into those mistakes:\nhe had need of too many parts, considerations, and circumstances, rightly\nto level his design: he must know the sick person's complexion, his\ntemperament, his humours, inclinations, actions, nay, his very thoughts\nand imaginations; he must be assured of the external circumstances, of\nthe nature of the place, the quality of the air and season, the situation\nof the planets, and their influences: he must know in the disease, the\ncauses, prognostics, affections, and critical days; in the drugs, the\nweight, the power of working, the country, figure, age, and dispensation,\nand he must know how rightly to proportion and mix them together, to\nbeget a just and perfect symmetry; wherein if there be the least error,\nif amongst so many springs there be but any one out of order, 'tis enough\nto destroy us.  God knows with how great difficulty most of these things\nare to be understood: for (for example) how shall the physician find out\nthe true sign of the disease, every disease being capable of an infinite\nnumber of indications?  How many doubts and controversies have they\namongst themselves upon the interpretation of urines? otherwise, whence\nshould the continual debates we see amongst them about the knowledge of\nthe disease proceed? how could we excuse the error they so oft fall into,\nof taking fox for marten?  In the diseases I have had, though there were\never so little difficulty in the case, I never found three of one\nopinion: which I instance, because I love to introduce examples wherein I\nam myself concerned.\n\nA gentleman at Paris was lately cut for the stone by order of the\nphysicians, in whose bladder, being accordingly so cut, there was found\nno more stone than in the palm of his hand; and in the same place a\nbishop, who was my particular friend, having been earnestly pressed by\nthe majority of the physicians whom he consulted, to suffer himself to be\ncut, to which also, upon their word, I used my interest to persuade him,\nwhen he was dead and opened, it appeared that he had no malady but in the\nkidneys.  They are least excusable for any error in this disease, by\nreason that it is in some sort palpable; and 'tis thence that I conclude\nsurgery to be much more certain, by reason that it sees and feels what it\ndoes, and so goes less upon conjecture; whereas the physicians have no\n'speculum matricis', by which to examine our brains, lungs, and liver.\n\nEven the very promises of physic are incredible in themselves; for,\nhaving to provide against divers and contrary accidents that often\nafflict us at one and the same time, and that have almost a necessary\nrelation, as the heat of the liver and the coldness of the stomach, they\nwill needs persuade us, that of their ingredients one will heat the\nstomach and the other will cool the liver: one has its commission to go\ndirectly to the kidneys, nay, even to the bladder, without scattering its\noperations by the way, and is to retain its power and virtue through all\nthose turns and meanders, even to the place to the service of which it is\ndesigned, by its own occult property this will dry-the brain; that will\nmoisten the lungs.  Of all this bundle of things having mixed up a\npotion, is it not a kind of madness to imagine or to hope that these\ndiffering virtues should separate themselves from one another in this\nmixture and confusion, to perform so many various errands?  I should very\nmuch fear that they would either lose or change their tickets, and\ndisturb one another's quarters.  And who can imagine but that, in this\nliquid confusion, these faculties must corrupt, confound, and spoil one\nanother?  And is not the danger still more when the making up of this\nmedicine is entrusted to the skill and fidelity of still another, to\nwhose mercy we again abandon our lives?\n\nAs we have doublet and breeches-makers, distinct trades, to clothe us,\nand are so much the better fitted, seeing that each of them meddles only\nwith his own business, and has less to trouble his head with than the\ntailor who undertakes all; and as in matter of diet, great persons, for\ntheir better convenience, and to the end they may be better served, have\ncooks for the different offices, this for soups and potages, that for\nroasting, instead of which if one cook should undertake the whole\nservice, he could not so well perform it; so also as to the cure of our\nmaladies.  The Egyptians had reason to reject this general trade of\nphysician, and to divide the profession: to each disease, to each part of\nthe body, its particular workman; for that part was more properly and\nwith less confusion cared for, seeing the person looked to nothing else.\nOurs are not aware that he who provides for all, provides for nothing;\nand that the entire government of this microcosm is more than they are\nable to undertake.  Whilst they were afraid of stopping a dysentery, lest\nthey should put the patient into a fever, they killed me a friend,\n--[Estienne de la Boetie.]--who was worth more than the whole of them.\nThey counterpoise their own divinations with the present evils; and\nbecause they will not cure the brain to the prejudice of the stomach,\nthey injure both with their dissentient and tumultuary drugs.\n\nAs to the variety and weakness of the rationale of this art, they are\nmore manifest in it than in any other art; aperitive medicines are proper\nfor a man subject to the stone, by reason that opening and dilating the\npassages they help forward the slimy matter whereof gravel and stone are\nengendered, and convey that downward which begins to harden and gather in\nthe reins; aperitive things are dangerous for a man subject to the stone,\nby reason that, opening and dilating the passages, they help forward the\nmatter proper to create the gravel toward the reins, which by their own\npropension being apt to seize it, 'tis not to be imagined but that a\ngreat deal of what has been conveyed thither must remain behind;\nmoreover, if the medicine happen to meet with anything too large to be\ncarried through all the narrow passages it must pass to be expelled, that\nobstruction, whatever it is, being stirred by these aperitive things and\nthrown into those narrow passages, coming to stop them, will occasion a\ncertain and most painful death.  They have the like uniformity in the\ncounsels they give us for the regimen of life: it is good to make water\noften; for we experimentally see that, in letting it lie long in the\nbladder, we give it time to settle the sediment, which will concrete into\na stone; it is good not to make water often, for the heavy excrements it\ncarries along with it will not be voided without violence, as we see by\nexperience that a torrent that runs with force washes the ground it rolls\nover much cleaner than the course of a slow and tardy stream; so, it is\ngood to have often to do with women, for that opens the passages and\nhelps to evacuate gravel; it is also very ill to have often to do with\nwomen, because it heats, tires, and weakens the reins.  It is good to\nbathe frequently in hot water, forasmuch as that relaxes and mollifies\nthe places where the gravel and stone lie; it is also ill by reason that\nthis application of external heat helps the reins to bake, harden, and\npetrify the matter so disposed.  For those who are taking baths it is\nmost healthful.  To eat little at night, to the end that the waters they\nare to drink the next morning may have a better operation upon an empty\nstomach; on the other hand, it is better to eat little at dinner, that it\nhinder not the operation of the waters, while it is not yet perfect, and\nnot to oppress the stomach so soon after the other labour, but leave the\noffice of digestion to the night, which will much better perform it than\nthe day, when the body and soul are in perpetual moving and action.  Thus\ndo they juggle and trifle in all their discourses at our expense; and\nthey could not give me one proposition against which I should not know\nhow to raise a contrary of equal force.  Let them, then, no longer\nexclaim against those who in this trouble of sickness suffer themselves\nto be gently guided by their own appetite and the advice of nature, and\ncommit themselves to the common fortune.\n\nI have seen in my travels almost all the famous baths of Christendom, and\nfor some years past have begun to make use of them myself: for I look\nupon bathing as generally wholesome, and believe that we suffer no little\ninconveniences in our health by having left off the custom that was\ngenerally observed, in former times, almost by all nations, and is yet in\nmany, of bathing every day; and I cannot imagine but that we are much the\nworse by, having our limbs crusted and our pores stopped with dirt.  And\nas to the drinking of them, fortune has in the first place rendered them\nnot at all unacceptable to my taste; and secondly, they are natural and\nsimple, which at least carry no danger with them, though they may do us\nno good, of which the infinite crowd of people of all sorts and\ncomplexions who repair thither I take to be a sufficient warranty; and\nalthough I have not there observed any extraordinary and miraculous\neffects, but that on the contrary, having more narrowly than ordinary\ninquired into it, I have found all the reports of such operations that\nhave been spread abroad in those places ill-grounded and false, and those\nthat believe them (as people are willing to be gulled in what they\ndesire) deceived in them, yet I have seldom known any who have been made\nworse by those waters, and a man cannot honestly deny but that they beget\na better appetite, help digestion, and do in some sort revive us, if we\ndo not go too late and in too weak a condition, which I would dissuade\nevery one from doing.  They have not the virtue to raise men from\ndesperate and inveterate diseases, but they may help some light\nindisposition, or prevent some threatening alteration.  He who does not\nbring along with him so much cheerfulness as to enjoy the pleasure of the\ncompany he will there meet, and of the walks and exercises to which the\namenity of those places invite us, will doubtless lose the best and\nsurest part of their effect.  For this reason I have hitherto chosen to\ngo to those of the most pleasant situation, where there was the best\nconveniency of lodging, provision, and company, as the baths of Bagneres\nin France, those of Plombieres on the frontiers of Germany and Lorraine,\nthose of Baden in Switzerland, those of Lucca in Tuscany, and especially\nthose of Della Villa, which I have the most and at various seasons\nfrequented.\n\nEvery nation has particular opinions touching their use, and particular\nrules and methods in using them; and all of them, according to what I\nhave seen, almost with like effect.  Drinking them is not at all received\nin Germany; the Germans bathe for all diseases, and will lie dabbling in\nthe water almost from sun to sun; in Italy, where they drink nine days,\nthey bathe at least thirty, and commonly drink the water mixed with some\nother drugs to make it work the better.  Here we are ordered to walk to\ndigest it; there we are kept in bed after taking it till it be wrought\noff, our stomachs and feet having continually hot cloths applied to them\nall the while; and as the Germans have a particular practice generally to\nuse cupping and scarification in the bath, so the Italians have their\n'doccie', which are certain little streams of this hot water brought\nthrough pipes, and with these bathe an hour in the morning, and as much\nin the afternoon, for a month together, either the head, stomach, or any\nother part where the evil lies.  There are infinite other varieties of\ncustoms in every country, or rather there is no manner of resemblance to\none another.  By this you may see that this little part of physic to\nwhich I have only submitted, though the least depending upon art of all\nothers, has yet a great share of the confusion and uncertainty everywhere\nelse manifest in the profession.\n\nThe poets put what they would say with greater emphasis and grace;\nwitness these two epigrams:\n\n              \"Alcon hesterno signum Jovis attigit: ille,\n               Quamvis marmoreus, vim patitur medici.\n               Ecce hodie, jussus transferri ex aeede vetusta,\n               Effertur, quamvis sit Deus atque lapis.\"\n\n     [\"Alcon yesterday touched Jove's statue; he, although marble,\n     suffers the force of the physician: to-day ordered to be transferred\n     from the old temple, where it stood, it is carried out, although it\n     be a god and a stone.\"--Ausonius, Ep., 74.]\n\n\nand the other:\n\n              \"Lotus nobiscum est, hilaris coenavit; et idem\n               Inventus mane est mortuus Andragoras.\n               Tam subitae mortis causam, Faustine, requiris?\n               In somnis medicum viderat Hermocratem:\"\n\n     [\"Andragoras bathed with us, supped gaily, and in the morning the\n     same was found dead.  Dost thou ask, Faustinus, the cause of this so\n     sudden death?  In his dreams he had seen the physician Hermocrates.\"\n     --Martial, vi. 53.]\n\nupon which I will relate two stories.\n\nThe Baron de Caupene in Chalosse and I have betwixt us the advowson of a\nbenefice of great extent, at the foot of our mountains, called Lahontan.\nIt is with the inhabitants of this angle, as 'tis said of those of the\nVal d'Angrougne; they lived a peculiar sort of life, their fashions,\nclothes, and manners distinct from other people; ruled and governed by\ncertain particular laws and usages, received from father to son, to which\nthey submitted, without other constraint than the reverence to custom.\nThis little state had continued from all antiquity in so happy a\ncondition, that no neighbouring judge was ever put to the trouble of\ninquiring into their doings; no advocate was ever retained to give them\ncounsel, no stranger ever called in to compose their differences; nor was\never any of them seen to go a-begging.  They avoided all alliances and\ntraffic with the outer world, that they might not corrupt the purity of\ntheir own government; till, as they say, one of them, in the memory of\nman, having a mind spurred on with a noble ambition, took it into his\nhead, to bring his name into credit and reputation, to make one of his\nsons something more than ordinary, and having put him to learn to write\nin a neighbouring town, made him at last a brave village notary.  This\nfellow, having acquired such dignity, began to disdain their ancient\ncustoms, and to buzz into the people's ears the pomp of the other parts\nof the nation; the first prank he played was to advise a friend of his,\nwhom somebody had offended by sawing off the horns of one of his goats,\nto make his complaint to the royal judges thereabout, and so he went on\nfrom one to another, till he had spoiled and confounded all.  In the tail\nof this corruption, they say, there happened another, and of worse\nconsequence, by means of a physician, who, falling in love with one of\ntheir daughters, had a mind to marry her and to live amongst them.  This\nman first of all began to teach them the names of fevers, colds, and\nimposthumes; the seat of the heart, liver, and intestines, a science till\nthen utterly unknown to them; and instead of garlic, with which they were\nwont to cure all manner of diseases, how painful or extreme soever, he\ntaught them, though it were but for a cough or any little cold, to take\nstrange mixtures, and began to make a trade not only of their health, but\nof their lives.  They swear till then they never perceived the evening\nair to be offensive to the head; that to drink when they were hot was\nhurtful, and that the winds of autumn were more unwholesome than those of\nspring; that, since this use of physic, they find themselves oppressed\nwith a legion of unaccustomed diseases, and that they perceive a general\ndecay in their ancient vigour, and their lives are cut shorter by the\nhalf.  This is the first of my stories.\n\nThe other is, that before I was afflicted with the stone, hearing that\nthe blood of a he-goat was with many in very great esteem, and looked\nupon as a celestial manna rained down upon these latter ages for the good\nand preservation of the lives of men, and having heard it spoken of by\nmen of understanding for an admirable drug, and of infallible operation;\nI, who have ever thought myself subject to all the accidents that can\nbefall other men, had a mind, in my perfect health, to furnish myself\nwith this miracle, and therefore gave order to have a goat fed at home\naccording to the recipe: for he must be taken in the hottest month of all\nsummer, and must only have aperitive herbs given him to eat, and white\nwine to drink.  I came home by chance the very day he was to be killed;\nand some one came and told me that the cook had found two or three great\nballs in his paunch, that rattled against one another amongst what he had\neaten.  I was curious to have all his entrails brought before me, where,\nhaving caused the skin that enclosed them to be cut, there tumbled out\nthree great lumps, as light as sponges, so that they appeared to be\nhollow, but as to the rest, hard and firm without, and spotted and mixed\nall over with various dead colours; one was perfectly round, and of the\nbigness of an ordinary ball; the other two something less, of an\nimperfect roundness, as seeming not to be arrived at their, full growth.\nI find, by inquiry of people accustomed to open these animals, that it is\na rare and unusual accident.  'Tis likely these are stones of the same\nnature with ours and if so, it must needs be a very vain hope in\nthose who have the stone, to extract their cure from the blood of a beast\nthat was himself about to die of the same disease.  For to say that the\nblood does not participate of this contagion, and does not thence alter\nits wonted virtue, it is rather to be believed that nothing is engendered\nin a body but by the conspiracy and communication of all the parts: the\nwhole mass works together, though one part contributes more to the work\nthan another, according to the diversity of operations; wherefore it is\nvery likely that there was some petrifying quality in all the parts of\nthis goat.  It was not so much for fear of the future, and for myself,\nthat I was curious in this experiment, but because it falls out in mine,\nas it does in many other families, that the women store up such little\ntrumperies for the service of the people, using the same recipe in fifty\nseveral diseases, and such a recipe as they will not take themselves, and\nyet triumph when they happen to be successful.\n\nAs to what remains, I honour physicians, not according to the precept\nfor their necessity (for to this passage may be opposed another of the\nprophet reproving King Asa for having recourse to a physician), but for\nthemselves, having known many very good men of that profession, and most\nworthy to be beloved.  I do not attack them; 'tis their art I inveigh\nagainst, and do not much blame them for making their advantage of our\nfolly, for most men do the same.  Many callings, both of greater and of\nless dignity than theirs, have no other foundation or support than public\nabuse.  When I am sick I send for them if they be near, only to have\ntheir company, and pay them as others do.  I give them leave to command\nme to keep myself warm, because I naturally love to do it, and to appoint\nleeks or lettuce for my broth; to order me white wine or claret; and so\nas to all other things, which are indifferent to my palate and custom.\nI know very well that I do nothing for them in so doing, because\nsharpness and strangeness are incidents of the very essence of physic.\nLycurgus ordered wine for the sick Spartans.  Why?  because they\nabominated the drinking it when they were well; as a gentleman, a\nneighbour of mine, takes it as an excellent medicine in his fever,\nbecause naturally he mortally hates the taste of it.  How many do we see\namongst them of my humour, who despise taking physic themselves, are men\nof a liberal diet, and live a quite contrary sort of life to what they\nprescribe others?  What is this but flatly to abuse our simplicity?  for\ntheir own lives and health are no less dear to them than ours are to us,\nand consequently they would accommodate their practice to their rules, if\nthey did not themselves know how false these are.\n\n'Tis the fear of death and of pain, impatience of disease, and a violent\nand indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us: 'tis pure\ncowardice that makes our belief so pliable and easy to be imposed upon:\nand yet most men do not so much believe as they acquiesce and permit; for\nI hear them find fault and complain as well as we; but they resolve at\nlast, \"What should I do then?\"  As if impatience were of itself a better\nremedy than patience.  Is there any one of those who have suffered\nthemselves to be persuaded into this miserable subjection, who does not\nequally surrender himself to all sorts of impostures?  who does not give\nup himself to the mercy of whoever has the impudence to promise him a\ncure?  The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square; the\nphysician was the people: every one who passed by being in humanity and\ncivility obliged to inquire of their condition, gave some advice\naccording to his own experience.  We do little better; there is not so\nsimple a woman, whose gossips and drenches we do not make use of: and\naccording to my humour, if I were to take physic, I would sooner choose\nto take theirs than any other, because at least, if they do no good, they\nwill do no harm.  What Homer and Plato said of the Egyptians, that they\nwere all physicians, may be said of all nations; there is not a man\namongst any of them who does not boast of some rare recipe, and who will\nnot venture it upon his neighbour, if he will let him.  I was the other\nday in a company where one, I know not who, of my fraternity brought us\nintelligence of a new sort of pills made up of a hundred and odd\ningredients: it made us very merry, and was a singular consolation, for\nwhat rock could withstand so great a battery?  And yet I hear from those\nwho have made trial of it, that the least atom of gravel deigned not to\nstir fort.\n\nI cannot take my hand from the paper before I have added a word\nconcerning the assurance they give us of the certainty of their drugs,\nfrom the experiments they have made.\n\nThe greatest part, I should say above two-thirds of the medicinal\nvirtues, consist in the quintessence or occult property of simples,\nof which we can have no other instruction than use and custom; for\nquintessence is no other than a quality of which we cannot by our reason\nfind out the cause.  In such proofs, those they pretend to have acquired\nby the inspiration of some daemon, I am content to receive (for I meddle\nnot with miracles); and also the proofs which are drawn from things that,\nupon some other account, often fall into use amongst us; as if in the\nwool, wherewith we are wont to clothe ourselves, there has accidentally\nsome occult desiccative property been found out of curing kibed heels, or\nas if in the radish we eat for food there has been found out some\naperitive operation.  Galen reports, that a man happened to be cured of a\nleprosy by drinking wine out of a vessel into which a viper had crept by\nchance.  In this example we find the means and a very likely guide and\nconduct to this experience, as we also do in those that physicians\npretend to have been directed to by the example of some beasts.  But in\nmost of their other experiments wherein they affirm they have been\nconducted by fortune, and to have had no other guide than chance, I find\nthe progress of this information incredible.  Suppose man looking round\nabout him upon the infinite number of things, plants, animals, metals;\nI do not know where he would begin his trial; and though his first fancy\nshould fix him upon an elk's horn, wherein there must be a very pliant\nand easy belief, he will yet find himself as perplexed in his second\noperation.  There are so many maladies and so many circumstances\npresented to him, that before he can attain the certainty of the point to\nwhich the perfection of his experience should arrive, human sense will be\nat the end of its lesson: and before he can, amongst this infinity of\nthings, find out what this horn is; amongst so many diseases, what is\nepilepsy; the many complexions in a melancholy person; the many seasons\nin winter; the many nations in the French; the many ages in age; the many\ncelestial mutations in the conjunction of Venus and Saturn; the many\nparts in man's body, nay, in a finger; and being, in all this, directed\nneither by argument, conjecture, example, nor divine inspirations, but\nmerely by the sole motion of fortune, it must be by a perfectly\nartificial, regular and methodical fortune.  And after the cure is\nperformed, how can he assure himself that it was not because the disease\nhad arrived at its period or an effect of chance?  or the operation of\nsomething else that he had eaten, drunk, or touched that day? or by\nvirtue of his grandmother's prayers?  And, moreover, had this experiment\nbeen perfect, how many times was it repeated, and this long bead-roll of\nhaps, and concurrences strung anew by chance to conclude a certain rule?\nAnd when the rule is concluded, by whom, I pray you?  Of so many\nmillions, there are but three men who take upon them to record their\nexperiments: must fortune needs just hit one of these?  What if another,\nand a hundred others, have made contrary experiments?  We might,\nperadventure, have some light in this, were all the judgments and\narguments of men known to us; but that three witnesses, three doctors,\nshould lord it over all mankind, is against reason: it were necessary\nthat human nature should have deputed and chosen them out, and that they\nwere declared our comptrollers by express procuration:\n\n\n\"TO MADAME DE DURAS.\n\n     --[Marguerite de Grammont, widow of Jean de Durfort, Seigneur de\n     Duras, who was killed near Leghorn, leaving no posterity.  Montaigne\n     seems to have been on terms of considerable intimacy with her, and\n     to have tendered her some very wholesome and frank advice in regard\n     to her relations with Henry IV.]--\n\n\"MADAME,--The last time you honoured me with a visit, you found me at work\nupon this chapter, and as these trifles may one day fall into your hands,\nI would also that they testify in how great honour the author will take\nany favour you shall please to show them.  You will there find the same\nair and mien you have observed in his conversation; and though I could\nhave borrowed some better or more favourable garb than my own, I would\nnot have done it: for I require nothing more of these writings, but to\npresent me to your memory such as I naturally am.  The same conditions\nand faculties you have been pleased to frequent and receive with much\nmore honour and courtesy than they deserve, I would put together (but\nwithout alteration or change) in one solid body, that may peradventure\ncontinue some years, or some days, after I am gone; where you may find\nthem again when you shall please to refresh your memory, without putting\nyou to any greater trouble; neither are they worth it.  I desire you\nshould continue the favour of your friendship to me, by the same\nqualities by which it was acquired.\n\n\"I am not at all ambitious that any one should love and esteem me more\ndead than living.  The humour of Tiberius is ridiculous, but yet common,\nwho was more solicitous to extend his renown to posterity than to render\nhimself acceptable to men of his own time.  If I were one of those to\nwhom the world could owe commendation, I would give out of it one-half to\nhave the other in hand; let their praises come quick and crowding about\nme, more thick than long, more full than durable; and let them cease, in\nGod's name, with my own knowledge of them, and when the sweet sound can\nno longer pierce my ears.  It were an idle humour to essay, now that I am\nabout to forsake the commerce of men, to offer myself to them by a new\nrecommendation.  I make no account of the goods I could not employ in the\nservice of my life.  Such as I am, I will be elsewhere than in paper: my\nart and industry have been ever directed to render myself good for\nsomething; my studies, to teach me to do, and not to write.  I have made\nit my whole business to frame my life: this has been my trade and my\nwork; I am less a writer of books than anything else.  I have coveted\nunderstanding for the service of my present and real conveniences, and\nnot to lay up a stock for my posterity.  He who has anything of value in\nhim, let him make it appear in his conduct, in his ordinary discourses,\nin his courtships, and his quarrels: in play, in bed, at table, in the\nmanagement of his affairs, in his economics.  Those whom I see make good\nbooks in ill breeches, should first have mended their breeches, if they\nwould have been ruled by me.  Ask a Spartan whether he had rather be a\ngood orator or a good soldier: and if I was asked the same question, I\nwould rather choose to be a good cook, had I not one already to serve me.\nMy God!  Madame, how should I hate such a recommendation of being a\nclever fellow at writing, and an ass and an inanity in everything else!\nYet I had rather be a fool both here and there than to have made so ill a\nchoice wherein to employ my talent.  And I am so far from expecting to\ngain any new reputation by these follies, that I shall think I come off\npretty well if I lose nothing by them of that little I had before.  For\nbesides that this dead and mute painting will take from my natural being,\nit has no resemblance to my better condition, but is much lapsed from my\nformer vigour and cheerfulness, growing faded and withered: I am towards\nthe bottom of the barrel, which begins to taste of the lees.\n\n\"As to the rest, Madame, I should not have dared to make so bold with the\nmysteries of physic, considering the esteem that you and so many others\nhave of it, had I not had encouragement from their own authors.  I think\nthere are of these among the old Latin writers but two, Pliny and Celsus\nif these ever fall into your hands, you will find that they speak much\nmore rudely of their art than I do; I but pinch it, they cut its throat.\nPliny, amongst other things, twits them with this, that when they are at\nthe end of their rope, they have a pretty device to save themselves, by\nrecommending their patients, whom they have teased and tormented with\ntheir drugs and diets to no purpose, some to vows and miracles, others to\nthe hot baths.  (Be not angry, Madame; he speaks not of those in our\nparts, which are under the protection of your house, and all Gramontins.)\nThey have a third way of saving their own credit, of ridding their hands\nof us and securing themselves from the reproaches we might cast in their\nteeth of our little amendment, when they have had us so long in their\nhands that they have not one more invention left wherewith to amuse us,\nwhich is to send us to the better air of some other country.  This,\nMadame, is enough; I hope you will give me leave to return to my\ndiscourse, from which I have so far digressed, the better to divert you.\"\n\nIt was, I think, Pericles, who being asked how he did: \"You may judge,\"\nsays he, \"by these,\" showing some little scrolls of parchment he had tied\nabout his neck and arms.  By which he would infer that he must needs be\nvery sick when he was reduced to a necessity of having recourse to such\nidle and vain fopperies, and of suffering himself to be so equipped.\nI dare not promise but that I may one day be so much a fool as to commit\nmy life and death to the mercy and government of physicians; I may fall\ninto such a frenzy; I dare not be responsible for my future constancy:\nbut then, if any one ask me how I do, I may also answer, as Pericles did,\n\"You may judge by this,\" shewing my hand clutching six drachms of opium.\nIt will be a very evident sign of a violent sickness: my judgment will be\nvery much out of order; if once fear and impatience get such an advantage\nover me, it may very well be concluded that there is a dreadful fever in\nmy mind.\n\nI have taken the pains to plead this cause, which I understand\nindifferently, a little to back and support the natural aversion to drugs\nand the practice of physic I have derived from my ancestors, to the end\nit may not be a mere stupid and inconsiderate aversion, but have a little\nmore form; and also, that they who shall see me so obstinate in my\nresolution against all exhortations and menaces that shall be given me,\nwhen my infirmity shall press hardest upon me, may not think 'tis mere\nobstinacy in me; or any one so ill-natured as to judge it to be any\nmotive of glory: for it would be a strange ambition to seek to gain\nhonour by an action my gardener or my groom can perform as well as I.\nCertainly, I have not a heart so tumorous and windy, that I should\nexchange so solid a pleasure as health for an airy and imaginary\npleasure: glory, even that of the Four Sons of Aymon, is too dear bought\nby a man of my humour, if it cost him three swinging fits of the stone.\nGive me health, in God's name!  Such as love physic, may also have good,\ngreat, and convincing considerations; I do not hate opinions contrary to\nmy own: I am so, far from being angry to see a discrepancy betwixt mine\nand other men's judgments, and from rendering myself unfit for the\nsociety of men, from being of another sense and party than mine, that on\nthe contrary (the most general way that nature has followed being\nvariety, and more in souls than bodies, forasmuch as they are of a more\nsupple substance, and more susceptible of forms) I find it much more rare\nto see our humours and designs jump and agree.  And there never were, in\nthe world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains:\ntheir most universal quality is diversity.\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     I am towards the bottom of the barrel\n     Accusing all others of ignorance and imposition\n     Affection towards their husbands, (not) until they have lost them\n     Anything of value in him, let him make it appear in his conduct\n     As if impatience were of itself a better remedy than patience\n     Assurance they give us of the certainty of their drugs\n     At least, if they do no good, they will do no harm\n     Attribute to itself; all the happy successes that happen\n     Best part of a captain to know how to make use of occasions\n     Burnt and roasted for opinions taken upon trust from others\n     Commit themselves to the common fortune\n     Crafty humility that springs from presumption\n     Did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory\n     Disease had arrived at its period or an effect of chance?\n     Dissentient and tumultuary drugs\n     Do not much blame them for making their advantage of our folly\n     Doctors: more felicity and duration in their own lives?\n     Doctrine much more intricate and fantastic than the thing itself\n     Drugs being in its own nature an enemy to our health\n     Even the very promises of physic are incredible in themselves\n     Fathers conceal their affection from their children\n     He who provides for all, provides for nothing\n     Health depends upon the vanity and falsity of their promises\n     Health is altered and corrupted by their frequent prescriptions\n     Health to be worth purchasing by all the most painful cauteries\n     Homer: The only words that have motion and action\n     I dare not promise but that I may one day be so much a fool\n     I see no people so soon sick as those who take physic\n     Indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us\n     Intended to get a new husband than to lament the old\n     Let it alone a little\n     Life should be cut off in the sound and living part\n     Live a quite contrary sort of life to what they prescribe others\n     Live, not so long as they please, but as long as they ought\n     Llaying the fault upon the patient, by such frivolous reasons\n     Long a voyage I should at last run myself into some disadvantage\n     Making their advantage of our folly, for most men do the same\n     Man may with less trouble adapt himself to entire abstinence\n     Man runs a very great hazard in their hands (of physicians)\n     Mark of singular good nature to preserve old age\n     Men must embark, and not deliberate, upon high enterprises\n     Mercenaries who would receive any (pay)\n     Moderation is a virtue that gives more work than suffering\n     More valued a victory obtained by counsel than by force\n     Most men do not so much believe as they acquiesce and permit\n     Never any man knew so much, and spake so little\n     No danger with them, though they may do us no good\n     No other foundation or support than public abuse\n     No physic that has not something hurtful in it\n     Noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarely lodged\n     Obstinacy is the sister of constancy\n     Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better\n     Ordinances it (Medicine) foists upon us\n     Passion has a more absolute command over us than reason\n     Pay very strict usury who did not in due time pay the principal\n     People are willing to be gulled in what they desire\n     Physician's \"help\", which is very often an obstacle\n     Physicians are not content to deal only with the sick\n     Physicians fear men should at any time escape their authority\n     Physicians were the only men who might lie at pleasure\n     Physicians: earth covers their failures\n     Plato said of the Egyptians, that they were all physicians\n     Pure cowardice that makes our belief so pliable\n     Recommendation of strangeness, rarity, and dear purchase\n     Send us to the better air of some other country\n     Should first have mended their breeches\n     Smile upon us whilst we are alive\n     So austere and very wise countenance and carriage (of physicians)\n     So much are men enslaved to their miserable being\n     Solon said that eating was physic against the malady hunger\n     Strangely suspect all this merchandise: medical care\n     Studies, to teach me to do, and not to write\n     Such a recipe as they will not take themselves\n     That he could neither read nor swim\n     The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square\n     They (good women) are not by the dozen, as every one knows\n     They have not one more invention left wherewith to amuse us\n     They juggle and trifle in all their discourses at our expense\n     They never loved them till dead\n     Tis in some sort a kind of dying to avoid the pain of living wel\n     Tis not the number of men, but the number of good men\n     Tis there she talks plain French\n     To be, not to seem\n     To keep me from dying is not in your power\n     Two opinions alike, no more than two hairs\n     Tyrannical authority physicians usurp over poor creatures\n     Venture it upon his neighbour, if he will let him\n     Venture the making ourselves better without any danger\n     We confess our ignorance in many things\n     We do not easily accept the medicine we understand\n     What are become of all our brave philosophical precepts?\n     What we have not seen, we are forced to receive from other hands\n     Whatever was not ordinary diet, was instead of a drug\n     Whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead\n     Who does not boast of some rare recipe\n     Who ever saw one physician approve of another's prescription\n     Willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead\n     With being too well I am about to die\n     Wont to give others their life, and not to receive it\n     You may indeed make me die an ill death","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 13","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":29704}