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ESSAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 MONTAIGNE, 
 
 VOLUME III. 
 
a?aflantljne $rc£8 
 
 BAI.LANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 |ittp://www.archive.org/details/essaysofmontaign03mo 
 
MONTAIGNE'S HOUSE AT BORDEAUX 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 MONTAIGNE 
 
 Translated by CHARLES COTTON 
 
 / 
 
 T- c \ 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE, NOTES, 
 
 AND A TRANSLATION OF ALL THE LETTERS 
 
 KNOWN TO BE EXTANT 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 WILLIAM CAREW HA2LITT 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. III. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 REEVES AND TURNER 196 STRAND 
 
 1877 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK THE THIRD. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 
 
 PACE 
 
 I. Of profit and honesty 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 J ii. Of repentance 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 in. Of three commerces . 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 iv. Of diversion .... 
 
 
 
 57 
 
 v. Upon some verses of Virgil . 
 
 
 
 7i 
 
 vi. Of coaches .... 
 
 
 
 149 
 
 vn. Of the inconvenience of greatness 
 
 
 
 i74 
 
 viii. Of the art of conference 
 
 
 
 181 
 
 ix. Of vanity .... 
 
 
 
 212 
 
 x. Of managing the will 
 
 
 
 292 
 
 xi. Of cripples .... 
 
 
 
 322 
 
 xn. Of physiognomy 
 
 
 
 337 
 
 \/ xiii. Of experience 
 
 
 
 375 
 
 Index 
 
 
 
 45i 
 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 MONTAIGNE. 
 
 BOOK THE THIRD. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 OF PROFIT AND HONESTY. 
 
 No man is free from speaking foolish things ; but the worst 
 on't is, when a man studies to play the fool. 
 
 " Nse iste magno conatu magnas rragas clixerit." 1 
 
 This does not concern me ; mine slip from me with as 
 little care as they are of little value, and 'tis the better for 
 them. I would presently part with them for what they are 
 worth, and neither buy nor sell them, but as they weigh. I 
 speak on paper, as I do to the first person I meet ; and that 
 this is true, observe what follows. 
 
 To whom ought not treachery to be hateful when Tiberius 
 refused it in a tiling of so great importance to him ? He 
 had word sent him from Germany that if he thought fit, they 
 
 1 " Truly he, with a great effort, will say some mighty trifle." — Terence, 
 Ileaut., act iii. s. 4. 
 
 VOL. III. A 
 
2 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book ill. 
 
 would rid him of Arminius by poison : 1 this was' the 
 most potent enemy the Eomans had, who had defeated 
 them so ignominiously under Varus, and who alone pre- 
 vented their aggrandisement in those parts. He returned 
 answer, " that the people of Eome were wont to revenge 
 themselves of their enemies by open ways, and with their 
 swords in their hands, and not clandestinely and by fraud : " 
 wherein he quitted the profitable for the honest. You will 
 tell me that he was a braggadocio ; I believe so too : and 
 'tis no great miracle in men of his profession. But the 
 acknowledgment of virtue is not less valid in the mouth of 
 him who hates it, forasmuch as truth forces it from him, 
 and if he will not inwardly receive it, he at least puts it 
 on for a decoration. 
 
 Our outward and inward structure is full of imperfection ; 
 but there is nothing useless in nature, not even inutility 
 itself; nothing has insinuated itself into this universe that 
 has not therein some fit and proper place. Our being is 
 cemented with sickly qualities : ambition, jealousy, envy, 
 revenge, superstition, and despair have so natural a posses- 
 sion in us, that its image is discerned in beasts ; nay, and 
 cruelty, so unnatural a vice ; for even in the midst of com- 
 passion we feel within, I know not what tart-sweet titilla- 
 tion of ill-natured pleasure in seeing others suffer ; and the 
 children feel it : 
 
 " Suave mari magno, turbantibus eequora ventis, 
 E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem : " 2 
 
 of the seeds of which qualities, whoever should divest man, 
 would destroy the fundamental conditions of human life. 
 Likewise, in all governments there are necessary offices, 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annal., ii. 88. 
 
 2 " It is sweet, when the winds disturb the waters of the vast sea, to witness 
 from land the peril of other persons." — Lucretius, ii. I. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 3 
 
 not only abject, but vicious also. Vices there help to 
 make up the seam in our piecing, as poisons are useful for 
 the conservation of health. If they become excusable 
 because they are of use to us, and that the common neces- 
 sity covers their true qualities, we are to resign this part to 
 the strongest and boldest citizens, who sacrifice their honour 
 and conscience, as others of old sacrificed their lives, for 
 the good of their country : we, who are weaker, take upon 
 us parts both that are more easy and less hazardous. The 
 public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and 
 massacre ; let us leave this commission to men who are 
 more obedient and more supple. 
 
 In earnest, I have often been troubled to see judges, by 
 fraud and false hopes of favour or pardon, allure a criminal 
 to confess his fact, and therein to make use of cozenage and 
 impudence. It would become justice, and Plato himself, 
 who countenances this manner of proceeding, to furnish me 
 with other means more suitable to my own liking : this is 
 a malicious kind of justice ; and I look upon it as no less 
 wounded by itself than by others. I said not long since to 
 some company in discourse, that I should hardly be drawn 
 to betray my prince for a particular man, who should be 
 much ashamed to betray any particular man for my prince ; 
 and I do not only hate deceiving myself, but that any one 
 should deceive through me ; I will neither afford "matter 
 nor occasion to any such thing. 
 
 In the little I have had to mediate betwixt our princes 1 
 in the divisions and subdivisions by which we are at this 
 time torn to pieces, I have been very careful that they 
 should neither be deceived in me, nor deceive others by me. 
 People of that kind of trading are very reserved, and pre- 
 
 1 Between the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., and the Due de 
 Guise. — See De Thou, De Vita sua, iii. 9. 
 
4 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book iii. 
 
 tend to be the most moderate imaginable and nearest ' to 
 the opinions of those with whom they have to do ; I expose 
 myself in my stiff opinion, and after a method the most my 
 own ; a tender negotiator, a novice, who had rather fail in 
 the affair than be wanting to myself. And yet it has 
 been hitherto with so good luck (for fortune has doubtless 
 the best share in it), that few things have passed from hand 
 to hand with less suspicion or more favour and privacy. I 
 have a free and open way that easily insinuates itself and 
 obtains belief with those with whom I am to deal, at the first 
 meeting. Sincerity and pure truth, in what age soever, pass 
 for current; and besides, the liberty and freedom of a man 
 who treats without any interest of his own, is never hateful 
 or suspected, and he may very well make use of the answer 
 of Hyperides to the Athenians, who complained of his blunt 
 way of speaking : " My masters, do not consider whether 
 or no I am free, but whether I am so without a bribe, or 
 without any advantage to my own affairs." 1 My liberty of 
 speaking has also easily cleared me from all suspicion of 
 dissembling by its vehemency, leaving nothing unsaid, how 
 home and bitter soever (so that I could have said no worse 
 behind their backs), and in that it carried along with it a 
 manifest show of simplicity and indifference. I pretend to 
 no other fruit by acting than to act, and add to it no long 
 arguments or propositions ; every action plays its own game, 
 win if it can. 
 
 As to the rest, I am not swayed by any passion, either of 
 love or hatred, towards the great, nor has my will capti- 
 vated either by particular injury or obligation. I look upon 
 our kings with an affection simply loyal and respectful, 
 neither prompted nor restrained by any private interest, 
 and I love myself for it. Nor does the general and just 
 
 1 Plutarch, on the Difference between a Flatterer and a Friend, c. 21. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 5 
 
 cause attract me otherwise than with moderation, and with- 
 out heat. I am not subject to those penetrating and 
 close compacts and engagements. Anger and hatred are 
 beyond the duty of justice ; and are passions only useful to 
 those who do not keep themselves strictly to their duty by 
 simple reason : " Utatur motu animi, qui uti ratione non 
 potest." 1 All legitimate and equitable intentions are tem- 
 perate and equable of themselves ; if otherwise, they dege- 
 nerate into seditious and unlawful. This is it which makes 
 me walk everywhere with my head erect, my face and my 
 heart open. To confess the truth, and I am not afraid to 
 confess it, I should easily, in case of need, hold up one 
 candle to St. Michael and another to his dragon, like the old 
 woman ; I will follow the right side even to the fire, but 
 excluding the fire if I can. Let Montaigne be overwhelmed 
 in the public ruin, if need be ; but if there be no need, I 
 should think myself obliged to fortune to save me, and I 
 will make use of all the length of line my duty allows for 
 his preservation. Was it not Atticus, 2 who being of the 
 just but losing side, preserved himself by his moderation 
 in that universal shipwreck of the world, amongst so many 
 mutations and diversities ? For private man, as he was, it 
 is more easy ; and in such kind of work, I think a man may 
 justly not be ambitious to offer and insinuate himself. For a 
 man, indeed, to be wavering and irresolute, to keep his affection 
 unmoved and without inclination in the troubles of his country 
 and public divisions, I neither think it handsome nor honest : 
 "Ea non media, sed nulla via est,velut eventum exspectantium, 
 quo fortunae consilia sua applicent." 3 This may be allowed 
 in our neighbours' affairs, and thus Gelo the tyrant of 
 
 1 " He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason." — 
 Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 25. 
 
 2 Cornelius Nepos in vita, c. 6. 
 
 3 " That is not a middle way, but no way, to await events, by which they 
 refer their resolutions to fortune." — Livy, xxxii. 21. 
 
6 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book iii. 
 
 Syracuse l suspended his inclination in the war "betwixt the 
 Greeks and barbarians, keeping a resident ambassador with 
 presents at Delphos, to watch and see which way fortune 
 would incline, and then take fit occasion to fall in with 
 the victors. It would be a kind of treason to proceed after 
 this manner in our own domestic affairs, wherein a man 
 must of necessity be of the one side or the other ; though 
 for a man who has no office or express command to call 
 him out, to sit still, I hold it more excusable (and yet I do 
 not excuse myself upon these terms) than in foreign expe- 
 ditions, to which, however, according to our laws, no man is 
 pressed against his will. And yet even those who wholly 
 engage themselves in such a war, may behave themselves 
 with such temper and moderation, that the storm may fly 
 over their heads without doing them any harm. Had we 
 not reason to hope such an issue in the person of the late 
 Sieur de Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans ? 2 And I know 
 amongst those who behave themselves most bravely in the 
 present war, some whose manners are so gentle, obliging, 
 and just, that they will certainly stand firm, whatever event 
 Heaven is preparing for us. I am of opinion that it properly 
 belongs to kings only to quarrel with kings ; and I laugh 
 at those bully-rooks who, out of wantonness of courage, 
 present themselves to so disproportioned disputes : for a man 
 has never the more particular quarrel with a prince, by 
 marching openly and boldly against him for his own honour 
 and according to his duty ; if he does not love such a per- 
 son, he does better, he esteems him. And notably the cause 
 of the laws and of the ancient government of a kingdom, 
 has this always annexed to it, that even those, who for their 
 
 1 Herodotus, vii. 163. 
 
 2 An able negotiator, who, though protected by the Guises, and strongly 
 supporting them, was yet very far from persecuting the Reformists. He died 
 1577- 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 7 
 
 own private interest invade them, excuse, if they do not 
 honour, the defenders. 
 
 But we are not, as we nowadays do, to call peevishness 
 and inward discontent, that spring from private interest and 
 passion, duty : nor a treacherous and malicious conduct, 
 courage ; they call their propension to mischief and vio- 
 lence, zeal : 'tis not the cause, but their interest, that inflames 
 them ; they kindle and begin a war, not because it is just, 
 but because it is war. 
 
 A man may very well behave himself commodiously, and 
 loyally too, amongst those of the adverse party; carry your- 
 self, if not with the same equal affection (for that is capable 
 of different measure), at least with an affection moderate, well 
 tempered, and such as shall not so engage you to one party, 
 that it may demand all you are able to do for that side, 
 content yourself with a moderate proportion of their favour 
 and goodwill ; and to swim in troubled waters without fish- 
 ing in them. 
 
 The other way, of offering a man's self and the utmost 
 service he is able to do, both to one party and the other, 
 has still less of prudence in it than conscience. Does not 
 he to whom you betray another, to whom you were as wel- 
 come as to himself, know that you will at another time do 
 as much for him ? He holds you for a villain ; and in the 
 meantime hears what you will say, gathers intelligence 
 from you, and works his own ends out of your disloyalty ; 
 double-dealing men are useful for bringing in, but we must 
 have a care they carry out as little as is possible. 
 
 I say nothing to one party, that I may not, upon occa- 
 sion, say to the other, with a little alteration of accent ; 
 and report nothing but things either indifferent or known, 
 or what is of common consequence. I cannot permit my- 
 self, for any consideration, to tell them a lie. What is 
 intrusted to my secrecy, I religiously conceal ; but I take 
 
8 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book iii. 
 
 as few trusts of that nature upon me as I can. The secrets 
 of princes are a troublesome burthen to such as are not 
 interested in them. I very willingly bargain that they 
 trust me with little, but confidently rely upon what I tell 
 them. I have ever known more than I desired. One open 
 way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and 
 draws out discoveries, like wine and love. Phillipides, in 
 my opinion, answered King Lysimachus very discreetly, who, 
 asking him what of his estate he should bestow upon him ? 
 " What you will," said he, " provided it be none of your 
 secrets." x I see every one is displeased if the bottom of 
 the affair be concealed from him wherein he is employed, or 
 that there be any reservation in the thing ; for my part, I 
 am content to know no more of the business than what 
 they would have me employ myself in, nor desire that my 
 knowledge should exceed or restrict what I have to say. If 
 I must serve for an instrument of deceit, let it be at least, 
 with a safe conscience ; I will not be reputed a servant 
 either so affectionate, or so loyal, as to be fit to betray any- 
 one : he, who is unfaithful to himself, is excusably so to his 
 master. But they are princes who do not accept men by 
 halves, and despise limited and conditional services : I can- 
 not help it : I frankly tell them how far I can go ; for a 
 slave I should not be, but to reason, and I can hardly sub- 
 mit even to that. And they also are to blame to exact 
 from a freeman the same subjection and obligation to their 
 service that they do from him they have made and bought, 
 or whose fortune particularly and expressly depends upon 
 theirs. The laws have delivered me from a great anxiety ; 
 they have chosen a side for me, and given me a master ; all 
 other superiority and obligation ought to be relative to that, 
 and cut off from all other. Yet this is not to say,- that if 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Curiosity, c. 4. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. g 
 
 my affection should otherwise incline me, my hand should 
 presently obey it ; the will and desire are a law to them- 
 selves ; but actions must receive commission from the public 
 appointment. 
 
 All this proceeding of mine is a little dissonant from the 
 ordinary forms ; it would produce no great effects, nor be 
 of any long duration ; innocence itself could not, in this 
 age of ours, either negotiate without dissimulation, or traffic 
 without lying ; and, indeed, public employments are by no 
 means for my palate : what my profession requires, I per- 
 form after the most private manner that I can. Being 
 young, I was engaged up to the ears in business, and it 
 succeeded well ; but I disengaged myself in good time. I 
 have often since avoided meddling in it, rarely accepted, 
 and never asked it ; keeping my back still turned to ambi- 
 tion ; but, if not like rowers who so advance backward, yet 
 so, at the same time, that I am less obliged to my resolution 
 than to my good fortune, that I was not wholly embarked 
 in it. For there are ways less displeasing to my taste, and 
 more suitable to my ability, by which, if she had formerly 
 called me to the public service, and my own advancement 
 towards the world's opinion, I know I should, in spite of 
 all my own arguments to the contrary, have pursued 
 them. Such as commonly say, in opposition to what I 
 profess, that what I call freedom, simplicity, and plainness 
 in my manners, is art and subtlety, and rather prudence 
 than goodness, industry than nature, good sense than good 
 luck, do me more honour than disgrace : but, certainly, they 
 make my subtlety too subtle ; and whoever has followed me 
 close, and pryed narrowly into me, I will give him the 
 victory, if he does not confess that there is no rule in their 
 school that could match this natural motion, and maintain an 
 appearance of liberty and licence, so equal and inflexible, 
 through so many various and crooked paths, and that all 
 
io Of Profit and Honesty. [Boofciii. 
 
 their wit and endeavour could never have led them through! 
 The way of truth is one and simple ; that of particular 
 profit, and the commodity of affairs a man is intrusted with, 
 is double, unequal, and casual. I have often seen these 
 counterfeit and artificial liberties practised, but, for the most 
 part, without success ; they relish of ^Esop's ass who, in 
 emulation of the dog, obligingly clapped his two fore feet upon 
 his master's shoulders ; but as many caresses as the dog had 
 for such an expression of kindness, twice so many blows 
 with a cudgel had the poor ass for his compliment : " Id 
 maxime quemque decet, quod est cujusque suum maxime." ] 
 I will not deprive deceit of its due ; that were but 
 ill to understand the world : I know it has often been 
 of great use, and that it maintains and supplies most men's 
 employment. There are vices that are lawful, as there are 
 many actions, either good or excusable, that are not lawful 
 in themselves. 
 
 The justice which in itself is natural and universal, is 
 otherwise and more nobly ordered, than that other justice, 
 which is special, national, and constrained to the ends of 
 government : " Veri juris germanasque justitise solidam et 
 expressam effigiem nullam tenemus; umbra et imaginibus 
 utimur ; " 2 insomuch that the sage Dandamis, 3 hearing the 
 lives of Socrates, Pythagoras and Diogenes read, judged 
 them to be great men every way, excepting that they were 
 too much subjected to the reverence of the laws which, to 
 second and authorise, true virtue must abate very much of 
 its original vigour; many vicious actions are introduced, not 
 only by their permission, but by their advice : " Ex senatus 
 
 1 "That best becomes every man, that he is ■ best at." — Cicero, De 
 Offic, i. 31. 
 
 2 " We retain no solid and express effigies of true right and justice ; we have 
 only the shadow and images of it." — Idem, ibid., iii. 17. 
 
 3 An Indian sage who lived in the time of Alexander the Great. — Plutarch, 
 Life of Alexander, c. 20. Strabo (book xv.) calls him Mandanis. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. n 
 
 consultis plebisquescitis scelera exercentur." l I follow the 
 common phrase that distinguishes betwixt profitable and 
 honest things, so as to call some natural actions, that are 
 not only profitable but necessary, dishonest, and foul. 
 
 But let us proceed in our examples of treachery : two 
 pretenders to the kingdom of Thrace 2 were fallen into dis- 
 pute about their title ; the emperor hindered them from 
 proceeding to blows : but one of them, under colour of 
 bringing things to a friendly issue by an interview, hav- 
 ing invited his competitor to an entertainment in his own 
 house, imprisoned and killed him. Justice required that 
 the Eomans should have satisfaction for this offence ; but 
 there was a difficulty in obtaining it by ordinary ways ; 
 what, therefore, they could not do legitimately, without war 
 and without danger, they resolved to do by treachery ; and 
 what they could not honestly do, they did profitably. For 
 which end, one Pomponius Flaccus was found to be a fit 
 instrument. This man, by dissembled words and assurances, 
 having drawn the other into his toils, instead of the honour 
 and favour he had promised him, sent him bound hand and 
 foot to Rome. Here one traitor betrayed another, contrary 
 to common custom : for they are full of mistrust, and 'tis 
 hard to overreach them in their own art : witness the sad 
 experience we have lately had. 3 
 
 Let who will be Pomponius Flaccus, and there are enough 
 who would : for my part, both my word and my faith are, 
 like all the rest, parts of this common body : their best 
 effect is the public service ; this I take for presupposed. 
 But should one command me to take charge of the courts of 
 
 1 " Crimes are committed by the consent of the magistrates and the common 
 laws." — Seneca, Ep. 95. 
 
 2 Rhescuporis and Cotys. — Tacitus, Annal., ii. 65. 
 
 3 Montaigne here probably refers to the feigned reconciliation between 
 Catherine de Medici and Henry, Due de Guise, in 15SS. 
 
12 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book ui. 
 
 law and lawsuits, I should make answer, that I under- 
 stood it not ; or the place of a leader of pioneers, I would 
 say, that I was called to a more honourable employment ; 
 so likewise, he that would employ me to lie, betray, and 
 forswear myself, though not to assassinate or to poison, for 
 some notable service, I should say, " If I have robbed cr 
 stolen anything from any man, send me rather to the gal- 
 leys." For it is permissible in a man of honour to say, as 
 the Lacedasmonians did, 1 having been defeated by Antipater, 
 when just upon concluding an agreement : " You may im- 
 pose as heavy and ruinous taxes upon us as you please, but 
 to command us to do shameful and dishonest things, you 
 will lose your time, for it is to no purpose." Every one 
 ought to make the same vow to himself, that the kings 
 of Egypt made their judges solemnly swear, 2 that they 
 would not do anything contrary to their consciences, though 
 never so much commanded to it by themselves. In such 
 commissions, there is evident mark of ignominy and con- 
 demnation ; and he who gives it, at the same time ac- 
 cuses you, and gives it, if you understand it right, for a 
 burden and a punishment. As much as the public affairs 
 are bettered by your exploit, so much are your own the 
 worse, and the better you behave yourself in it, 'tis so much 
 the worse for yourself; and it will be no new thing, nor, 
 peradventure, without some colour of justice, if the same 
 person ruin you, who set you on work. 
 
 If treachery can be in any case excusable, it must be 
 only so when it is practised to chastise and betray treachery. 
 There are examples enough of treacheries, not only rejected, 
 but chastised and punished by those in favour of whom they 
 were undertaken. "Who is ignorant of Eabricius' sentence 
 against the physician of Pyrrhus ? 
 
 1 Plutarch, Difference between a Flatterer and a Friend, c. 21. 
 
 2 Idem, Apothegms of the Kings. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 13 
 
 But this we also find recorded, that some persons have 
 commanded a thing, who afterward have severely avenged 
 the execution of it upon him they had employed, rejecting 
 the reputation of so unbridled an authority, and disowning 
 so abandoned and base a servitude and obedience. Jaropelc, 
 Duke of Russia, 1 tampered with a gentleman of Hungary to 
 betray Boleslaus, king of Poland, either by killing him, or 
 by giving the Eussians opportunity to do him some notable 
 mischief. This worthy went ably to work : he was more 
 assiduous than before in the service of that king, so that he 
 obtained the honour to be of his council, and one of the 
 chiefest in his trust. With these advantages, and taking 
 an opportune occasion of his master's absence, he betrayed 
 Yislicza, a great and rich city, to the Eussians, which was 
 entirely sacked and burned, and not only all the inhabitants 
 of both sexes, young and old, put to the sword, but more- 
 over a great number of neighbouring gentry, whom he had 
 drawn thither to that end. Jaropelc, his revenge being 
 thus satisfied and his anger appeased, which was not, in- 
 deed, without pretence (for Boleslaus had highly offended 
 him, and after the same manner) and sated with the fruit of 
 this treachery, coming to consider the foulness of it, with a 
 sound judgment and clear from passion, looked upon what 
 had been done with so much horror and remorse, that he 
 caused the eyes to be bored out and the tongue and shame- 
 ful parts to be cut off of him who had performed it. 
 
 Antigonus 2 persuaded the Argyraspidian soldiers 3 to be- 
 tray Eumenes, their general, his adversary, into his hands ; 
 but after he had caused him, so delivered, to be slain, he 
 would himself be the commissioner of the divine justice for 
 
 1 Martin Cromer, De Rebus Polon., liv. v. p. 131, ed. 1555. 
 
 2 Plutarch, Life of Eumenes, c. 9. 
 
 3 The soldiers bearing silver shields. Cotton translates it " Agaraspides' 
 souldiers." 
 
14 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book hi. 
 
 the punishment of so detestable a crime, and committed 
 them into the hands of the governor of the province, with 
 express command, by whatever means, to destroy and bring 
 them all to an evil end, so that of that great number of 
 men, not. so much as one ever returned again into Mace- 
 donia: the better he had been served, the more wickedly 
 he judged it to be, and meriting greater punishment. 
 
 The slave who betrayed the place where his master P. 
 Sulpicius lay concealed, was, according to the promise of 
 Sylla's proscription, manumitted for his pains : but accord- 
 ing to the promise of the public justice, which was free 
 from any such engagement, he was thrown headlong from 
 the Tarpeian rock. 1 
 
 Our King Clovis, instead of the arms of gold he had 
 promised them, caused three of Canacre's 2 servants to be 
 hanged after they had betrayed their master to him, though 
 he had debauched them to it : he hanged them with the 
 purse of their reward about their necks : after having satis- 
 fied his second and special faith, he satisfied the general 
 and first. 
 
 Mohammed II. having resolved to rid himself of his 
 brother, out of jealousy of state, according to the practice of 
 the Ottoman family, he employed one of his officers in the 
 execution : who, pouring a quantity of water too fast into 
 him, choked him. This being done, to expiate the murder, 
 he delivered the murderer into the hands of the mother of 
 him he had so caused to be put to death, for they were only 
 brothers by the father's side ; she, in his presence, ripped up 
 the murderer's bosom, and with her own hands rifled his 
 breast for his heart, tore it out, and threw it to the dogs. 
 And even to the worst people it is the sweetest thing 
 
 1 Valerius Maximus, vi. 5, 7. 
 
 2 Or rather Cararie. See Gregory of Tours, ii. 41. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 15 
 
 imaginable, having once gained their end by a vicious 
 action, to foist, in all security, into it some show of virtue 
 and justice, as by way of compensation and conscientious 
 correction ; "to which may be added, that they look upon 
 the ministers of such horrid crimes as upon men who 
 reproach them with them, and think by their deaths to 
 erase the memory and testimony of such proceedings. 
 
 Or if, perhaps, you are rewarded, not to frustrate the 
 public necessity for that extreme and desperate remedy, he 
 who does it cannot for all that, if he be not such himself, 
 but look upon you as an accursed and execrable fellow, and 
 conclude you a greater traitor than he does, against whom 
 you are so : for he tries the malignity of your disposition by 
 your own hands, where he cannot possibly be deceived, you 
 having no object of preceding hatred to move you to such 
 an act ; but he employs you as they do condemned male- 
 factors in executions of justice, an office as necessary as dis- 
 honourable. Besides the baseness of such commissions, 
 there is, moreover, a prostitution of conscience. Seeing 
 that the daughter of Sejanus could not be put to death by 
 the law of Eome because she was a virgin, 1 she was, to 
 make it lawful, first ravished by the hangman and then 
 strangled : not only his hand but his soul is slave to the 
 public convenience. 
 
 When Amurath I., more grievously to punish his subjects 
 who had taken part in the parricide rebellion of his son, 
 ordained that their nearest kindred should assist in the exe- 
 cution, I find it very handsome in some of them to have 
 rather chosen to be unjustly thought guilty of the parricide 
 of another than to serve justice by a parricide of their own. 
 And where I have seen, at the taking of some little fort by 
 assault in my time, some rascals who, to save their own 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annal., V. 9. 
 
1 6 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book ilk 
 
 lives, would consent to hang their friends and companions, 
 I have looked upon them to be of worse condition than . 
 those who were hanged. 'Tis said 1 that Witold, Prince of 
 Lithuania, introduced into that nation the practice that the 
 criminal condemned to death should with his own hand exe- 
 cute the sentence, thinking it strange that a third person, 
 innocent of the fault, should be made guilty of homicide. 
 
 A prince, when by some urgent circumstance or some 
 impetuous and unforeseen accident that very much concerns 
 his state, compelled to forfeit his word and break his faith, 
 or otherwise forced from his ordinary duty, ought to attri- 
 bute this necessity to a lash of the divine rod : vice it is 
 not, for he has given up his own reason to a more universal 
 and more powerful reason ; but, certainly, 'tis a misfortune : 
 so that if any one should ask me what -remedy ? " None," 
 say I, "if he were really racked between these two extremes; 
 sed videat, ne quceratur latebra perjurio, 2 he must do it : but 
 if he did it without regret, if it did not grieve him to do it, 
 'tis a sign his conscience is in a scurvy condition." If there 
 be a person to be found of so tender a conscience as to 
 think no cure whatever worth so important a remedy, I shall 
 like him never the worse ; he could not more excusably or 
 more decently perish. We cannot do all we would, so that 
 we must often, as the last anchorage, commit the protection 
 of our vessels to the simple conduct of heaven. To what 
 more just necessity does he reserve himself ? What is less 
 possible for him to do than what he cannot do but at the 
 expense of his faith and honour, things that, perhaps, ought 
 to be dearer to him than his own safety, or even the safety 
 of his people. Though he should, with folded arms, only 
 call God to his assistance, has he not reason to hope that 
 
 1 Cromer, De Rebus Polon., lib. xvi. 
 
 2 Cicero, De Offic., iii. 29. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 17 
 
 the divine goodness 'will not refuse the favour of an extra- 
 ordinary arm to just and pure hands ? These are dangerous 
 examples, rare and sickly exceptions to our natural rules : 
 we must yield to them, but with great moderation and 
 circumspection : no private utility is of such importance 
 that we should upon that account strain our consciences to 
 such a degree : the public may be, when very manifest and 
 of very great concern. 
 
 Timoleon made a timely expiation for his strange exploit 
 by the tears he shed, calling to mind that it was with a 
 fraternal hand that he had slain the tyrant ; and it justly 
 pricked his conscience that he had been necessitated to pur- 
 chase the public utility at so great a price as the violation 
 of his private morality. Even the senate itself, by his means 
 delivered from slavery, durst not positively determine of so 
 high a fact, and divided into two so important and contrary 
 aspects ; but the Syracusans, 1 sending at the same time to 
 the Corinthians to solicit their protection, and to require of 
 them a captain fit to re-establish their city in its former 
 dignity and to clear Sicily of several little tyrants by 
 whom it was oppressed, they deputed Timoleon for that ser- 
 vice, with this cunning declaration ; " that according as he 
 should behave himself well or ill in his employment, their 
 sentence shoidd incline either to favour the deliverer of his 
 country, or to disfavour the murderer of his brother." This 
 fantastic conclusion carries along with it some excuse, by 
 reason of the danger of the example, and the importance of 
 so strange an action : and they did well to discharge their 
 own judgment of it, and to refer it to others who were not 
 so much concerned. But Timoleon's comportment in this 
 expedition soon made his cause more clear, so worthily and 
 virtuously he demeaned himself upon all occasions ; and 
 
 1 Plutarch (Life of Timoleon, c. 3), says twenty years after. 
 VOL. III. B 
 
1 8 Of Profit and Honesty. [Book iii. 
 
 the good fortune that accompanied him in the difficulties he 
 had to overcome in this noble employment, seemed to be 
 strewed in Ms way by the gods, favourably conspiring for 
 his justification. 
 
 The end of this matter is excusable, if any can be so ; 
 but the profit of the augmentation of the public revenue, 
 that served the Eoman senate for a pretence to the foul con- 
 clusion I am going to relate, is not sufficient to warrant any 
 such injustice. 
 
 Certain cities had redeemed themselves and their liberty 
 by money, by the order and consent of the senate, out of 
 the hands of L. Syria : the business coming again in ques- 
 tion, the senate condemned them to be taxable as they were 
 before, and that the money they had disbursed for their 
 redemption should be lost to them. 1 Civil war often pro- 
 duces such villainous examples ; that we punish private men 
 for confiding in us when we were public ministers : and the 
 self-same magistrate makes another man pay the penalty of 
 his change, that has nothing to do with it ; the pedagogue 
 whips his scholar for his docility ; and the guide beats the 
 blind man whom he leads by the hand ; a horrid image of 
 justice. 
 
 There are rules in philosophy that are both false and 
 weak. The example that is proposed to us for preferring 
 private utility before faith given, has not weight enough by 
 the circumstance they put to it ; robbers have seized you, 
 and after having made you swear to pay them a certain sum 
 of money, dismiss you. 'Tis not well done to say, that an 
 honest man can be quit of his oath without payment, being 
 out of their hands. 'Tis no such thing : what fear has once 
 made me willing to do, I am obliged to do it, when I am 
 no longer in fear ; and though that fear only prevailed with 
 
 1 Cicero, De Offic, iii. 22. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 19 
 
 my tongue without forcing my will, yet am I bound to keep 
 my word. For my part, when my tongue has sometimes 
 inconsiderately said something that I did not think, I have 
 made a conscience of disowning it : otherwise, by degrees, 
 we shall abolish all the right another derives from our pro- 
 mises and oaths. " Quasi vero forti viro vis possit adhi- 
 beri." 1 And 'tis only lawful, upon the account of private 
 interest, to excuse breach of promise, when we have pro- 
 mised something that is unlawful and wicked in itself; for 
 the right of virtue ought to take place of the right of any 
 obligation of ours. 
 
 I have formerly 2 placed Epammondas in the first rank of 
 excellent men, and do not repent it. How high did he 
 stretch the consideration of his own particular duty ? he 
 who never killed a man whom he had overcome ; who, 
 for the inestimable benefit of restoring the liberty of his 
 country, made conscience of killing a tyrant or his accom- 
 plices, without due form of justice : 3 and who concluded 
 him to be a wicked man, how good a citizen soever other- 
 wise, who amongst his enemies in battle spared not his 
 friend and his guest. This was a soul of a rich composition : 
 he married goodness and humanity, nay, even the tenderest 
 and most delicate hi the whole school of philosophy, to the 
 roughest and most violent human actions. Was it nature or 
 art that had intenerated that great courage of his, so full, so 
 obstinate against pain and death and poverty, to such an 
 extreme degree of sweetness and compassion ? Dreadful 
 in arms and blood, he overran and subdued a nation invin- 
 cible by all others but by him alone ; and yet, in the heat of 
 an encounter, could turn aside from his friend and guest. 4 
 
 1 " As though a man of true courage could be compelled." — Cicero, De 
 Offic., iii. 30. 2 Book ii. c. 36. 
 
 8 Plutarch, on the Demon of Socrates, c. 4 and 24. 
 4 Idem, ubi siip-a, c. 17. 
 
20 Of -Profit and Honesty. [Book iii. 
 
 Certainly he was fit to command in war, who could so rein 
 himself with the curb of good nature, in the height and 
 heat of his fury, a fury inflamed and foaming with blood 
 and slaughter. Tis a miracle to be able to mix any image 
 of justice with such violent actions : and it was only possible 
 for such a steadfastness of mind as that of Epaminondas, 
 therein to mix sweetness, and the facility of the - gentlest 
 manners and purest innocence. And whereas one 1 told 
 the Mamertines, that statutes were of no resistance against 
 armed men ; and another 2 told the tribune of the people, 
 that the time of justice and of war were distinct things ; and a 
 third said, 3 that the noise of arms deafened the voice of laws, 
 this man in all such rattle was not deaf to that of civility 
 and pure courtesy. Had he not borrowed from his enemies 4 
 the custom of sacrificing to the Muses when he went to war, 
 that they might, by their sweetness and gaiety, soften his 
 martial and rigorous fury ? Let us not fear, by the example 
 of so great a master, to believe that there is something un- 
 lawful, even against an enemy : and that the common con- 
 cern ought not to require all things of all men, against private 
 interest : " Manente memoria, etiam in dissidio publicorum 
 fcederum, privati juris : 5 
 
 " Et nulla potentia vires 
 Prsestandi, ne quid peccet amicus, habet ; " 6 
 
 and that all things are not lawful to an honest man, for the 
 service of his prince, the laws, or the general quarrel : " Non 
 enim patria prsestat omnibus officiis . . . et ipsi conducit 
 
 1 Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. 3. 2 Idem, Life of Caesar, c. I.I. 
 
 3 Idem, Life of Marius, c. 10. 4 The Lacedaemonians. 
 
 5 " The memory of private right still remains amid public dissensions." — - 
 Livy, xxv. 18. 
 
 6 " No power on earth can sanction treachery against a friend." — Ovid, De 
 Pont , i. 7, 37. 
 
Chap, i.] Of Profit and Honesty. 1 1 
 
 pios habere eives in parentes." 1 Tis an instruction proper for 
 the time wherein we live : we need not harden our courage 
 with these arms of steel ; 'tis enough that onr shoulders are 
 inured to them : "tis- enough to dip our pens in ink, without 
 dipping them in blood. If it be grandeur of courage, and 
 the effect of a rare and singular virtue, to contemn friend- 
 ship, private obligations, a man's word and relationship, for 
 the common good and obedience to the magistrate, 'tis 
 certainly sufficient to excuse us, that 'tis a grandeur that 
 could have no place in the grandeur of Epaminondas' 
 courage. 
 
 I abominate those mad exhortations of this other discom- 
 posed soul, 2 
 
 " Dum tela micant, non vos pietatis imago 
 Ulla, nee ad versa conspecti front e parentes 
 Commoveant ; vuitns gladio turbare verendes." : 
 
 Let us deprive wicked, bloody, and treacherous natures 
 of such a pretence of reason: let us set aside this guilty 
 and extravagant justice, and stick to more human imita- 
 tions. How great things can time and example do ! In 
 an encounter of the civil war against Cinna, one of Pompey's 
 soldiers having unawares killed his brother, who was of the 
 contrary party, he immediately for shame and sorrow killed 
 hims elf : * and some years after, in another civil war of the 
 same people, a soldier demanded a reward of his officer for 
 having killed his brother. 5 
 
 A man but ill proves the honour and beauty of an action 
 
 1 •"The duty to cne's c curt try dres u:t supersede ad ttuer dudes. — the 
 country itself requires that its otirens should act piously towards their pare- :s." 
 — Cicero, De OrSc, iii- 23. who, however, puts :de m utter tuterr: jatt rely. 
 
 s Julius Caesar. 
 
 3 "When swords are drawn, let no idea of love, nor the face even of a 
 father presented to you, move you : mutilate with your sword those veuer- 
 d-'.e features. " — Lucun.. vii: ::; 
 
 * Tacitus, Hist., iii. 51. 5 Idem, ibid. 
 
22 Of Repentance. [Book iii. 
 
 by its utility : and very erroneously concludes that every 
 one is obliged to it, and that it becomes every one to do 
 it, if it be of utility : 
 
 " Omnia non pariter reram sunt omnibus apta." 1 
 
 Let us take that which is most necessary and profitable 
 for human society ; it will be marriage ; and yet the council 
 of the saints find the contrary much better, excluding from 
 it the most venerable vocation of man : as we design those 
 horses for stallions, of which we have the least esteem. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF REPENTANCE. 
 
 Othees form man ; I only report him : and represent a 
 particular one, ill fashioned enough, and whom, if I had to 
 model him anew, I should certainly make something else 
 than what he is : but that's past recalling. Now, though 
 the features of my picture alter and change, 'tis not, how- 
 ever, unlike : the world eternally turns round ; all things 
 therein are incessantly moving, the earth, the rocks of 
 Caucasus, and the Pyramids of Egypt, both by the public 
 motion and their own. Even constancy itself is no other 
 but a slower and more languishing motion. I cannot fix 
 my object ; 'tis always tottering and reeling by a natural 
 giddiness : I take it as it is at the instant I consider it ; 
 I do not paint its being, I paint its passage ; not a passing 
 from one age to another, or, as the people say, from seven 
 to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute. 
 
 1 "All things are not equally fit for all men." — Propertius, iii. 9, 7. 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 23 
 
 I must accommodate my history to the hour : I may pre- 
 sently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention. 
 'Tis a counterpart of various and changeable accidents, and 
 of irresolute imaginations, and, as it falls out, sometimes con- 
 trary : whether it be that I am then another self, or that I 
 take subjects by other circumstances and considerations : 
 so it is, that I may peradventure contradict myself, but, as 
 Demades said, I never contradict the truth. Could my soul 
 once take footing, I would not essay but resolve : but it is 
 always learning and making trial. 
 
 I propose a life ordinary and without lustre : 'tis all one ; 
 all u moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common 
 and private life, as to one of richer composition : every man 
 carries the entire form of human condition. Authors com- 
 municate themselves to the people by some especial and 
 extrinsic mark ; I, the first of any, by my universal being ; 
 as Michael de Montaigne, not as a grammarian, a poet, or a 
 lawyer. If the world find fault that I speak too much of 
 myself, I find fault that they do not so much as think of 
 themselves. But is it reason, that being so particular in 
 my way of living, I should pretend to recommend myself to 
 the public knowledge ? And is it also reason that I should 
 produce to the world, where art and handling have so much 
 credit and authority, crude and simple effects of nature, and 
 of a weak nature to boot ? Is it not to build a wall with- 
 out stone or brick, or some such thing, to write books 
 without learning and without art ? The fancies of music 
 are carried on by art ; mine by chance. I have this, at 
 least, according to discipline, that never any man treated of 
 a subject he better understood and knew, than I what I have 
 undertaken, and that in this I am the most understanding 
 man alive : secondly, that never any man penetrated farther 
 into his matter, nor better and more distinctly sifted the 
 parts and sequences of it, nor ever more exactly and fully 
 
24 Of Repentance. [Book hi. 
 
 arrived at the end he proposed to himself. To perfect it, 
 I need bring nothing but fidelity to the work ; and that is 
 there, and the most pure and sincere that is anywhere to be 
 found. I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as 
 much as I dare ; and I dare a little the more, as I grow 
 older : for, methinks, custom allows to age more liberty of 
 prating, and more indiscretion of talking of a man's self. 
 That cannot fall out here, which I often see elsewhere, that 
 the work and the artificer contradict one another : " can a 
 man of such sober conversation have written -so foolish a 
 book? " Or "do so learned writings proceed from a man of so 
 weak conversation ?" He who talks at a very ordinary rate, 
 and writes rare matter, 'tis to say that his capacity is borrowed 
 and not his own. A learned man is not learned in all things : 
 but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to igno- 
 rance itself ; here my book and I go hand in hand together. 
 Elsewhere men may commend or censure the work, with- 
 out reference to the workman ; here they cannot : who 
 touches the one, touches the other. He who shall judge 
 of it without knowing him, will more wrong himself than 
 me ; he who does know him, gives me all the satisfaction I 
 desire. I shall be happy beyond my desert, if I can obtain 
 only thus much from the public approbation, as to make 
 men of understanding perceive that I was capable of pro- 
 fiting by knowledge, had I had it ; and that I deserved to 
 have been assisted by a better memory. 
 
 Be pleased here to excuse what I often repeat, that I very 
 rarely repent, and that my conscience is satisfied with itself, 
 not as the conscience of an angel, or that of a horse, but as 
 the conscience of a man ; always adding this clause, not one 
 of ceremony, but a true and real submission, that I speak 
 inquiring and doubting, purely and simply referring myself 
 to the common and accepted beliefs for the resolution. I 
 do not teach, I only relate. 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 25 
 
 There is no vice that is absolutely a vice which does not 
 offend, and that a sound judgment does not accuse ; for 
 there is in it so manifest a deformity and inconvenience, 
 that, peradventure, they are in the right who say that it is 
 chiefly begotten by stupidity and ignorance : so hard is it to 
 imagine that a man can know without abhorring it. Malice 
 sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons 
 itself. 1 Vice leaves repentance in the soul, like an ulcer in 
 the flesh, which is always scratching and lacerating itself: 
 for reason effaces all other grief and sorrows, but it begets 
 that of repentance, winch is so much the more grievous, by 
 reason it springs within, as the cold and heat of fevers are 
 more sharp than those that only strike upon the outward skin. 
 I hold for vices (but every one according to its proportion), 
 not only those which reason and nature condemn, but those 
 also which the opinion of men, though false and erroneous, 
 have made such, if authorised by law and custom. 
 
 There is likewise no virtue which does not rejoice a well- 
 descended nature ; there is a kind of, I know not what, 
 congratulation in well doing that gives us an inward satis- 
 faction, and a generous boldness that accompanies a good 
 conscience : a soul daringly vicious may, peradventure, arm 
 itself with security, but it cannot supply itself with this 
 complacency and satisfaction. 'Tis no little satisfaction to 
 feel a man's self preserved from the contagion of so depraved 
 an age, and to say to himself : " Whoever could penetrate 
 into my soul would not there find me guilty either of the 
 affliction or ruin of any one, or of revenge or envy, or any 
 offence against the public laws, or of innovation or disturbance, 
 or failure of my word ; and though the licence of the time per- 
 mits and teaches every one so to do, yet have I not plundered 
 any Frenchman's goods, or taken his money, and have lived 
 
 1 Seneca, Ep. Si. 
 
26 Of Repentance. [Book iii. 
 
 upon what is my own, in war as well as in peace ; neither 
 have I set any man to work without paying him his hire." 
 These testimonies of a good conscience please, and this 
 natural rejoicing is very beneficial to us, and the only re- 
 ward that we can never fail of. 
 
 To ground the recompense of virtuous actions upon the 
 approbation of others is too uncertain and unsafe -a founda- 
 tion, especially in so corrupt and ignorant an age as this, 
 wherein the good opinion of the vulgar is injurious : upon 
 whom do you rely to show you what is recommendable ? 
 God defend me from being an honest man, according to the 
 descriptions of honour I daily see every one make of him- 
 self. " Quae fuerant vitia, mores sunt." 1 Some of my 
 friends have at times schooled and scolded me with great 
 sincerity and plainness, either of their own voluntary 
 motion, or by me entreated to it as to an office, which to a 
 well-composed soul surpasses not only in utility, but in 
 kindness, all other offices of friendship : I have always 
 received them with the most open arms, both of courtesy 
 and acknowledgment ; but, to say the truth, I have often 
 found so much false measure, both in their reproaches and 
 praises, that I had not done much amiss, rather to have 
 done ill, than to have done well according to their notions. 
 We, who live private lives, not exposed to any other view 
 than our own, ought chiefly to have settled a pattern within 
 ourselves by which to try our actions ; and according to 
 that, sometimes to encourage and sometimes to correct our- 
 selves. I have my laws and my judicature to judge of 
 myself, and apply myself more to these than to any other 
 rules : I do, indeed, restrain my actions according to others ; 
 but extend them not by any other rule than my own. You 
 yourself only know if you are cowardly and cruel, loyal and 
 
 1 " What before were vices are now right manners." — Seneca, Ep. 39. 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 27 
 
 devout : others see you not, and only guess at you by un- 
 certain conjectures, and do not so much see your nature as 
 your art ; rely not therefore upon their opinions, but stick 
 to your own : " Tuo tibi judicio est utendum . . . Virtutis 
 et vitiorum grave ipsius conscientise pondus est : qua sub- 
 lata, jacent omnia." 1 
 
 But the saying that repentance immediately follows the 
 sin seems not to have respect to sin in its high estate, 
 which is lodged in us as in its own proper habitation. One 
 may disown and retract the vices that surprise us, and to 
 which we are hurried by passions ; but those which by a 
 long habit are rooted in a strong and vigorous will are not 
 subject to contradiction. Eepentance is no other but a 
 recanting of the will and an opposition to our fancies, which 
 lead us which way they please. It makes this person dis- 
 own his former virtue and contineney : 
 
 " Quse mens est liodie, cur eadem non puero fuit ? 
 Vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt gense 1 " 2 
 
 'Tis an exact life that maintains itself in due order in 
 private. Every one may juggle his part, and represent an 
 honest man upon the stage : but within, and in his own 
 bosom, where all may do as they list, where all is concealed, 
 to be regular — there's the point. The next degree is to be 
 so in his house, and in his ordinary actions, for which we 
 are accountable to none, and where there is no study nor 
 artifice. And therefore Bias, setting forth the excellent state 
 of a private family, says : " of which 3 the master is the 
 
 1 " Thou must employ thy own judgment upon thyself; great is the weight 
 of thy own conscience in the discovery of thy own virtues and vices : that being 
 taken away, all things are lost." — Cicero, De Nat. Dei, iii. 35 ; Tusc. Quaes., 
 J. 25. 
 
 2 "Why was I not of the same mind when I was a boy that I am now ? or 
 why do not the ruddy cheeks of my youth return to help me now." — 
 Horace, Od. iv. 10, 7. 
 
 3 Plutarch, Banquet of the Seven Sages. 
 
28 Of Repentance. [Book iii. 
 
 same within, by his own virtue and temper that, he is 
 abroad, for fear of the laws and report of men." And it 
 was a worthy saying of Julius Drusus, 1 to the masons who 
 offered him, for three thousand crowns, to put his house in 
 such a posture that his neighbours should no longer have the 
 same inspection into it as before ; " I will give you," said 
 he, " six thousand to make it so that everybody may see 
 into every room." 'Tis honourably recorded of Agesilaus, 2 
 that he used in his journeys always to take up his lodgings 
 in temples, to the end that the people and the gods them- 
 selves might pry into his most private actions. Such a one 
 has been a miracle to the world, in whom neither his wife 
 nor servant has ever seen anything so much as remarkable ; 
 few men have been admired by their own domestics ; no 
 one was ever a prophet, not merely in his own house, but 
 in his own country, says the experience of histories : 3 'tis 
 the same in things of nought, and in this low example the 
 image of a greater is to be seen. In my country of Gas- 
 cony, they look upon it as a drollery to see me in print ; 
 the further off I am read from my own home, the better I 
 am esteemed. I am fain to purchase printers in Guienne ; 
 elsewhere they purchase me. Upon this it is that they 
 lay their foundation who conceal themselves present and 
 living, to obtain a name when they are absent and dead. 
 I had rather have a great deal less in hand, and do not 
 expose myself to the world upon any other account than 
 my present share ; when I leave it I quit the rest. See 
 this functionary whom the people escort in state, with wonder 
 and applause, to his very door ; he puts off the pageant with 
 his robe, and falls so much the lower by how much he was 
 
 1 He is called so by Plutarch in his Instructions to those who Manage State 
 Affairs, but he was, in reality, Marcus Livius Drusus, the famous tribune, as 
 we find in Paterculus. " Plutarch, in vita, c. 5. 
 
 3 No znan is a hero to his valet-de-chambre, said Marshal Catinat. 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 29 
 
 higher exalted : in himself -within, all is tumult and de- 
 graded. And though all should be regular there, it will 
 require a vivid and well-chosen judgment to perceive it in 
 these low and private actions ; to which may be added, 
 that order is a dull, sombre virtue. To enter a breach, con- 
 duct an embassy, govern a people, are actions of renown : 
 to reprehend, laugh, sell, pay, love, hate, and gently and 
 justly converse with a man's own family, and with himself ; 
 not to relax, not to give a man's self the lie, is more rare 
 and hard, and less remarkable. By which means, retired 
 lives, whatever is said to the contrary, undergo duties of as 
 great or greater difficulty than the others do ; and private 
 men, says Aristotle, 1 serve virtue more painfully and highly, 
 than those in authority do : w T e prepare ourselves for eminent 
 occasions, more out of glory than conscience. The shortest 
 way to arrive at glory, would be to do that for conscience 
 which we do for glory : and the virtue of Alexander ap- 
 pears to me of much less vigour in his great theatre, than 
 that of Socrates in his mean and obscure employment. I 
 can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but 
 Alexander in that of Socrates, I cannot. Who shall ask the 
 one what he can do, he will answer, Subdue the world : 
 and who shall put the same question to the other, he will 
 say, " Carry on human life conformably with its natural 
 condition ; " 2 a much more general, weighty, and legitimate 
 science than the other. 
 
 The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, 
 but in walking orderly ; its grandeur does not exercise itself 
 in grandeur, but in mediocrity. As they who judge and try 
 us within, make no great account of the lustre of our public 
 
 1 Moral, ad Nicom., x. 7. 
 
 2 Montaigne added here, "To do for the world that for which he came into 
 the world," but he afterwards erased these words from the manuscript. — 
 Naisieon. 
 
30 Of Repentance. [Book in. 
 
 actions, and see they are only streaks and rays of clear 
 water springing from a slimy and muddy bottom : so, like- 
 wise, they who judge of ns by this gallant outward appear- 
 ance, in like manner conclude of our internal constitution ; 
 and cannot couple common faculties, and like their own, 
 with the other faculties that astonish them, and are so far 
 out of their sight. Therefore it is, that we give such 
 savage forms to demons : and who does not give Tamerlane 
 great eye-brows, wide nostrils, a dreadful visage, and a pro- 
 digious stature, according to the imagination he has con- 
 ceived by the report of his name ? Had any one formerly 
 brought me to Erasmus, I should hardly have believed but 
 that all was adage and apothegm he spoke to his man or his 
 hostess. We much more aptly imagine an artisan upon his 
 close-stool, or upon his wife, than a great president vene- 
 rable by his port and sufficiency : we fancy that they, from 
 their high tribunals, will not abase themselves so much as 
 to live. As vicious souls are often incited by some foreign 
 impulse to do well, so are virtuous souls to do ill ; they 
 are therefore to be judged by their settled state, when they 
 are at home, whenever that may be ; and, at all events, when 
 they are nearer repose, and in their native station. 
 
 Natural inclinations are much assisted and fortified by 
 education ; but they seldom alter and overcome their insti- 
 tution : a thousand natures of my time have escaped towards 
 virtue or vice, through a quite contrary discipline : 
 
 " Sic ubi desuetse silvis in carcere clausse 
 Mansuevere ferae, et vultus posuere minaces, 
 Atque hominem didicere pati, si torrida parvus 
 Venit in ora cruor, redeunt rabiesque fuxorque, 
 Admonitseque tument gustato sanguine fauces ; 
 Fervet, et a trepido vix abstinet ira magistro ; " J 
 
 1 " So savage beasts, when shut up in cages, and grown unaccustomed to 
 the woods, become tame, and lay aside their fierce looks, and submit to the 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 31 
 
 these original qualities are not to be rooted out ; they 
 may be covered and concealed. The Latin tongue is as it 
 were natural to me ; I understand it better than French ; 
 but I have not been used to speak it, nor hardly to write it 
 these forty years. Yet, upon extreme and sudden emotions 
 which I have fallen into twice or thrice in my life, and once, 
 seeing my father in perfect health fall upon me in a swoon, 
 I have always uttered my first outcries and ejaculations in 
 Latin; nature starting up, and forcibly expressing itself, in 
 spite of so long a discontinuation ; and this example is said 
 of many others. 
 
 They who in my time have attempted to correct the man- 
 ners of the world by new opinions, reform seeming vices, 
 but the essential vices they leave as they were, if, indeed, 
 they do not augment them ; and augmentation is, therein, to 
 be feared ; we defer all other well doing upon the account 
 of these external reformations, of less cost and greater show, 
 and thereby expiate good cheap, for the other natural, con- 
 substantial and intestine vices. Look a little into our expe- 
 rience : there is no man, if lie listen to himself, who does 
 not in himself discover a particular and governing form of 
 his own, that jostles his education, and wrestles with the 
 tempest of passions that are contrary to it. For my part, I 
 seldom find myself agitated with surprises ; I always find 
 myself in my place, as heavy and unwieldy bodies do ; if 
 I am not at home, I am always near at hand ; my dis- 
 sipations do not transport me very far, there is nothing 
 strange or extreme in the case ; and yet I have sound and 
 vigorous turns. 
 
 The true condemnation, and which touches the common 
 practice of men, is, that their very retirement itself is full 
 
 rule of man; if again they taste blood, their rage and fury return, their jaws 
 are erected by thirst of blood, and they scarcely forbear to assail their 
 trembling masters. " — Lucan, iv. 237. 
 
3 2 Of Repentance. [Book iii. 
 
 of filth and corruption ; the idea of their reformation com- 
 posed ; their repentance sick and faulty, very nearly as much 
 as their sin. Some, either from having been linked to 
 vice "by a natural propension, or long practice, cannot see 
 its deformity. Others (of which constitution I am) do 
 indeed feel the weight of vice, but they counter-balance it 
 with pleasure, or some other occasion; and suffer, and lend 
 themselves to it, for a certain price, but viciously and basely. 
 Yet there might, haply, be imagined so vast a disproportion 
 of measure, where with justice the pleasure might excuse 
 the sin, as we say of utility ; not only if accidental, and out 
 of sin, as in thefts, but in the very exercise of sin, as in the 
 enjoyment of women, where the temptation is violent, and 
 'tis said, sometimes not to be overcome. 
 
 Being the other day at Armaignac, on the estate of a kins- 
 man of mine, I there saw a country fellow who was by every 
 one nicknamed the thief. He thus related the story of his 
 life : that being born a beggar, and finding that he should not 
 be able, so as to be clear of indigence, to get his living by the 
 sweat of his brow, he resolved to turn thief, and by means of 
 his strength of body, had exercised this trade all the time of 
 his youth in great security; for he ever made his harvest 
 and vintage in other men's grounds, but a great way off, 
 and in so great quantities, that it was not to be imagined 
 one man could have carried away so much in one night upon 
 his shoulders ; and, moreover, was careful equally to divide 
 and distribute the mischief he did, that the loss was of less 
 importance to every particular man. He is now grown old, 
 and rich for a man of his condition, thanks to his trade, 
 which he openly confesses to every one. And to make his 
 peace with God, he says, that he is daily ready by good 
 offices to make satisfaction to the' successors of those he has 
 robbed, and if he do not finish (for to do it all at once he is not 
 able) he will then leave it in charge to his heirs to perform 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 33 
 
 the rest, proportionally to the wrong he himself only knows 
 he has done to each. By this description, true or false, this 
 man looks upon theft as a dishonest action, and hates it, but 
 less than poverty, and simply repents ; but to the extent he 
 has thus recompensed, he repents not. This is not that 
 habit which incorporates us into vice, and conforms even our 
 understanding itself to it ; nor is it that impetuous whirlwind 
 that by gusts troubles and blinds our souls, and for the time 
 precipitates us, judgment and all, into the power of vice. 
 
 I customarily do what I do thoroughly and make but one 
 step on't ; I have rarely any movement that hides itself and 
 steals away from my reason, and that does not proceed in 
 the matter by the consent of all my faculties, without divi- 
 sion or intestine sedition ; my judgment is to have all the 
 blame or all the praise ; and the blame it once has, it has 
 always ; for almost from my infancy it has ever been one : 
 the same inclination, the same turn, the same force : and as 
 to universal opinions, I fixed myself from my childhood in 
 the place where I resolved to stick. There are some sins 
 that are impetuous, prompt, and sudden; let us set them 
 aside ; but in these other sins so often repeated, deliberated, 
 and contrived, whether sms of complexion or sins of pro- 
 fession and vocation, I cannot conceive that they should have 
 so long been settled in the same resolution, unless the reason 
 and conscience of him who has them, be constant to have 
 them ; and the repentance he boasts to be inspired with 
 on a sudden, is very hard for me to imagine or form. I 
 follow not the opinion of the Pythagorean sect, " that men 
 take up a new soul when they repair to the images of the 
 gods to receive their oracles," unless he mean that it must 
 needs be extrinsic, new, and lent for the time ; our own 
 showing so little sign of purification and cleanness, fit for 
 such an office. 
 
 They act quite contrary to the stoical precepts, who do 
 VOL. in. G 
 
34 Of Repentance. [Book iii. 
 
 indeed, command us to correct the imperfections and vices we 
 know ourselves guilty of, but forbid us therefore to disturb the 
 repose of our souls : these make us believe that they have 
 great grief and remorse within : but of amendment, correc- 
 tion, or interruption, they make nothing appear. It cannot be 
 a cure if the malady be not wholly discharged ; if repentance 
 were laid upon the scale of the balance, it would weigh down 
 sin. I find no quality so easy to counterfeit as devotion, if 
 men do not conform their manners and life to the pro- 
 fession ; its essence is abstruse and occult ; the appearances 
 easy and ostentatious. 
 
 For my own part, I may desire in general to be other 
 than I am ; I may condemn and dislike my whole form, 
 and beg of Almighty God for an entire reformation, and 
 that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity : but I 
 ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than 
 the being dissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato. My 
 actions are regular, and conformable with what I am, and to 
 my condition ; I can do no better ; and repentance does not 
 properly touch things that are not in our power ; sorrow 
 does. I imagine an infinite number of natures more elevated 
 and regular than mine ; and yet I do not for all that im- 
 prove my faculties, no more than my arm or will grow 
 more strong and vigorous for conceiving those of another to be 
 so. If to conceive and wish a nobler way of acting than that 
 we have, should produce a repentance of our own, we must 
 then repent us of our most innocent actions, forasmuch as we 
 may well suppose that in a more excellent nature they would 
 have been carried on with greater dignity and perfection ; 
 and we would that ours were so. When I reflect upon the 
 deportments of my youth, with that of my old age, I find 
 that I have commonly behaved myself with equal order 
 in both, according to what I understand : this is all that my 
 resistance can do. I do not flatter myself; in the same 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 35 
 
 circumstances I should do the same things. It is not a 
 patch, but rather an universal tincture, with which I am 
 stained. I know no repentance, superficial, half-way, and 
 ceremonious ; it must sting me all over before I can call it 
 so, and must prick my bowels as deeply and universally as 
 God sees into me. 
 
 As to business, many excellent opportunities have escaped 
 me for want of good management ; and yet my deliberations 
 were sound- enough, according to the occurrences presented 
 to me : 'tis their way to choose always the easiest and 
 safest course. I find that, in my former resolves, I 
 have proceeded with discretion, according to my own rule, 
 and according to the state of the subject proposed, and 
 should do the same a thousand years hence in like occa- 
 sions ; I do not consider ivhat it is now, but what it was 
 then, when I deliberated on it : the force of all counsel 
 consists in the time ; occasions and things eternally shift 
 and change. I have in my life committed some important 
 errors, not for want of good understanding, but for want of 
 good luck. There are secret, and not to be foreseen, parts 
 in matters we have in hand, especially in the nature of 
 men ; mute conditions, that make no show, unknown some- 
 times even to the possessors themselves, that spring and 
 start up by incidental occasions ; if my prudence could 
 not penetrate into nor foresee them, I blame it not : 'tis 
 commissioned no further than its own limits ; if the event 
 be too hard for me, and take the side I have refused, 
 there is no remedy ; I do not blame myself, I accuse my 
 fortune, and not my work ; this cannot be called repent- 
 ance. 
 
 Phocion, having given the Athenians an advice that was 
 not followed, and the affair nevertheless succeeding contrary 
 to his opinion, some one said to him ; " Well, Phocion, art 
 thou content that matters go so well ? " "I am very 
 
36 Of Repentance. [Book iii. 
 
 well content," replied lie, " that this has happened so well, 
 but I do not repent that I counselled the other." x When 
 any of my friends address themselves to me for advice, I 
 give it candidly and clearly, without sticking, as almost all 
 other men do, at the hazard of the thing's falling out con- 
 trary to my opinion, and that I may be reproached for my 
 counsel ; I am very indifferent as to that, for the fault will 
 be theirs for having consulted me, and I could not refuse 
 them that office. 2 
 
 I, for my own part, can rarely blame anyone but myself 
 for my oversights and misfortunes, for indeed I seldom 
 solicit the advice of another, if not by honour of ceremony, 
 or excepting where I stand in need of information, special 
 science, or as to matter of fact. But in things wherein I 
 stand in need of nothing but judgment, other men's reasons 
 may serve to fortify my own, but have little power to dis- 
 suade me ; I hear them all with civility and patience : but, 
 to my recollection, I never made use of any but my own. 
 With me, they are but flies and atoms, that confound and 
 distract my will ; I lay no great stress upon my opinions ; 
 but I lay as little upon those of others, and fortune rewards 
 me accordingly : if I receive but little advice, I also give 
 but little. I am seldom consulted, and still more seldom 
 believed, and know no concern, either public or private, 
 that has been mended or bettered by my advice. Even 
 they whom fortune had in some sort tied to my direction, 
 have more willingly suffered themselves to be governed by 
 any other counsels than mine. And as a man who am as 
 jealous of my repose as of my authority, I am better pleased 
 that it should be so ; in leaving me there, they humour 
 
 1 Plutarch, Apothegm. 
 
 2 We may give advice to others, says Rochefoucauld, but we cannot supply 
 them with the wit to profit by it. 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 37 
 
 what I profess, which is to settle and wholly contain myself 
 within myself. I take a pleasure in being uninterested 
 in other men's affairs, and disengaged from being their 
 warranty, and responsible for what they do. 
 
 In all affairs that are past, be it how it will, I have very 
 little regret ; for this imagination puts me out of my pain, 
 that they were so to fall out : they are in the great revolu- 
 tion of the world, and in the chain of stoical causes : your 
 fancy cannot, by wish and imagination, move one tittle, but 
 that the great current of things will not reverse both the 
 past and the future. 
 
 As to the rest, I abominate that incidental repentance 
 which old age brings along with it. He, who said of old, 1 
 that he was obliged to his age for having weaned him from 
 pleasure, was of another opinion than I am; I can never 
 think myself beholden to impotency, for any good it can 
 do to me ; " Nee tarn a versa unquani videbitur ab opere 
 suo providentia, ut debilitas inter optima inventa sit." 2 
 Our appetites are rare in old age ; a profound satiety seizes 
 us after the act ; in this I see nothing of conscience ; cha- 
 grin and weakness imprint in us a drowsy and rheumatic 
 virtue. "We must not suffer ourselves to be so wholly 
 carried away by natural alterations, as to suffer our judg- 
 ments to be imposed upon by them. Youth and pleasure 
 have not formerly so far prevailed with me, that I did not 
 well enough discern the face of vice in pleasure ; neither 
 does the distaste that years have brought me, so far prevail 
 with me now, that I cannot discern pleasure in vice. Now 
 that I am no more in my flourishing age, I judge as well 
 of these things as if I were. 3 I, who narrowly and strictly 
 
 1 Sophocles. Cicero, De Senect., c. 14. 
 
 2 "Nor can Providence ever be seen so averse to her own work, that de- 
 bility should be ranked amongst the best things." — Quintilian, Instit. 
 Orat., V. 12. 
 
 3 " Old though I am, for ladies' love unfit, 
 
 The power of beauty I remember yet." — Chaucer. 
 
38 Of Repentance. [Bookiii. 
 
 examine it, find my reason the very same it was in my 
 most licentious age, except, perhaps, that 'tis weaker and 
 more decayed by being grown older ; and I find that the 
 pleasure it refuses me upon the account of my bodily health, 
 it would no more refuse now, in consideration of the health 
 of my soul, than at any time heretofore. I do not repute 
 it the more valiant for not being able to combat ; my 
 temptations are so broken and mortified, that they are not 
 worth its opposition; holding but out my hands, I repel 
 them. Should one present the old concupiscence before it, 
 I fear it would have less power to resist it than heretofore; 
 I do not discern that in itself it judges anything otherwise 
 now, than it formerly did, nor that it has acquired any 
 new light : wherefore, if there be convalescence, 'tis an 
 enchanted one. Miserable kind of remedy, to owe one's 
 health to one's disease ! "lis not that our misfortune should 
 perform this office, but the good fortune of our judgment. I 
 am not to be made to do anything by persecutions and 
 afflictions, but to curse them : that is for people who cannot 
 be roused but by a whip. My reason is much more free 
 in prosperity, and much more distracted, and put to't to 
 digest pains than pleasures : I see best in a clear sky ; 
 health admonishes me more cheerfully, and to better pur- 
 pose, than sickness. I did all that in me lay to reform 
 and regulate myself from pleasures, at a time when I had 
 health and vigour to enjoy them; I should be ashamed and 
 envious, that the misery and misfortune of my old age 
 should have credit over my good, healthful, sprightly, and 
 vigorous years ; and that men should estimate me, not by 
 what I have been, but by what I have ceased to be. 
 
 In my opinion, 'tis the happy living, and not (as Antis- 
 thenes 1 said) the happy dying, in which human felicity con- 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, vi. 5. 
 
Chap. 2.] Of Repentance. 39 
 
 sists. I have not made it my "business to make a monstrous 
 addition of a philosopher's tail to the head and "body of a 
 libertine ; nor would I have this wretched remainder give 
 the lie to the pleasant, sound, and long part of my life : I 
 would present myself uniformly throughout. Were I to live 
 my life over again, I should live it just as I have lived it ; 
 I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future ; and 
 if I am not much deceived, I am the same within that I am 
 without. 'Tis one main obligation I have to my fortune, 
 that the succession of my bodily estate has been carried on 
 according to the natural seasons ; I have seen the grass, the 
 blossom, and the fruit ; and now see the withering ; hap- 
 pily, however, because naturally. I bear the infirmities I 
 have the better, because they came not till I had reason to 
 expect them, and because also they make me with greater 
 pleasure remember that long felicity of my past life. My 
 wisdom may have been just the same in both ages ; 
 but it was more active, and of better grace whilst young 
 and sprightly, than now it is when broken, peevish, and 
 uneasy. I repudiate, then, these casual and painful re- 
 formations. God must touch our hearts ; our consciences 
 must amend of themselves, by the aid of our reason, and 
 not by the decay of our appetites ; pleasure is, in itself, 
 neither pale nor discoloured, to be discerned by dim and 
 decayed eyes. 
 
 We ought to love temperance for itself, and because God 
 has commanded that and chastity ; but that which we are 
 reduced to by catarrhs, and for which I am indebted to the 
 stone, is neither chastity nor temperance ; a man cannot 
 boast that he despises and resists pleasure, if he cannot see 
 it, if he knows not what it is, and cannot discern its graces, 
 its force, and most alluring beauties ; I know both the one 
 and the other, and may therefore the better say it. But, me- 
 thinks, our souls, in old age, are subject to more troublesome 
 
4-0 Of Repentance. [Book iii. 
 
 maladies and imperfections than in youth ; I said the same 
 when young and when I was reproached with the want of a 
 beard ; and I say so now that my grey hairs give me some 
 authority. We call the difficulty of our humours and the 
 disrelish of present things wisdom ; but, in truth, we do 
 not so much forsake vices as we change them, and, in my 
 opinion, for worse. Besides a foolish and feeble pride, an 
 impertinent prating, frowarcl and insociable humours, super- 
 stition, and a ridiculous desire of riches when we have 
 lost the use of them, I find there more envy, injustice, and 
 malice. Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it 
 does on the face ; and souls are never, or very rarely seen, 
 that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man 
 moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay. 
 In observing the wisdom of Socrates, and many circum- 
 stances of his condemnation, I should dare to believe, that 
 he in some sort himself purposely, by collusion, contributed 
 to it, seeing that, at the age of seventy years, he might fear 
 to suffer the lofty motions of his mind to be cramped, and 
 his wonted lustre obscured. 1 What strange metamorphoses 
 do I see age every day make in many of my acquaintance ! 
 Tis a potent malady, and that naturally and imperceptibly 
 steals into us ; a vast provision of study and great pre- 
 caution are required to evade the imperfections it loads us 
 with, or at least, to weaken their progress. I find that, 
 notwithstanding all my entrenchments, it gets foot by foot 
 upon me ; I make the best resistance I can, but I do not 
 know to what at last it will reduce me. But fall out what 
 will, I am content the world may know, when I am fallen, 
 from what I fell. 
 
 1 Xenophon, indeed, tells us expressly that this was the purpose of Soc- 
 rates in making so haughty a defence. 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces. 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THREE COMMERCES. 
 
 We must not rivet ourselves so fast to our humours and 
 complexions : our cliiefest sufficiency is to know how to 
 apply ourselves to divers employments. 'Tis to be, but not 
 to live, to keep a man's self tied and bound by necessity to 
 one only course ; those are the bravest souls that have in 
 them the most variety and pliancy. Of this here is an 
 honourable testimony of the elder Cato : " Huic versatile 
 ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit, ut natum ad id unum 
 diceres, quodcuriique ageret." 3 Had I liberty. to set myself 
 forth after my own mode, there is no so graceful fashion 
 to which I would be so fixed, as not to be able to disengage 
 myself from it ; life is an unequal, irregular, and multi- 
 form motion. 'Tis not to be a friend to one's self, much 
 less a master — 'tis to be a slave, incessantly to be led by 
 the nose by one's self, and to be so fixed in one's previous 
 inclinations, that one cannot turn aside, nor writhe one's neck 
 out of the collar. I say this now in this part of my life, 
 wherein I find I cannot easily disengage myself from the im- 
 portunity of my soul, which cannot ordinarily amuse itself 
 but in tilings of limited range, nor employ itself otherwise 
 than entirely and with all its force ; upon the lightest subject 
 offered it swells and stretches it to that degree as therein to 
 employ its utmost power ; wherefore, its idleness is to me 
 a very painful labour, and very prejudicial to my health. 
 Most men's minds recpiire foreign matter to exercise and 
 enliven them ; mine has rather need of it to sit still and 
 
 1 " His parts were so pliable to all uses, that a man would think he had 
 been born only for precisely that which he was at any time doing." — Livy, 
 xxxix. 49, 
 
42 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 repose itself, " Vitia otii negotio discutienda sunt," 1 for its 
 chiefest and hardest study is to study itself. Books are to 
 it a sort of employment that debauch it from its study. 
 Upon the first thoughts that possess it, it begins to bustle 
 and make trial of its vigour in all directions, exercises 
 its power of handling, now making trial of force, now 
 fortifying, moderating, and ranging itself by the "way of 
 grace and order. It has of its own wherewith to rouse its 
 faculties : nature has given to it, as to all others, matter 
 enough of its own to make advantage of, and subjects proper 
 enough where it may either invent or judge. 
 
 Meditation is a powerful and full study to such as can 
 effectually taste and employ themselves ; I had rather 
 fashion my soul than furnish it. There is no employment, 
 either more weak or more strong, than that of entertaining 
 a man's own thoughts, according as the soul is ; the greatest 
 men make it their whole business, " quibus vivere est cogi- 
 tare ; " 2 nature has therefore favoured it with this privilege, 
 that there is nothing we can do so long, nor any action to 
 which we more frequently and with greater facility addict 
 ourselves. 'Tis the business of the gods, says Aristotle, 3 and 
 from which both their beatitude and ours proceed. 
 
 The principal use of reading to me is, that by various 
 objects it rouses my reason, and employs my judgment, not 
 my memory. Few conversations detain me without force 
 and effort ; it is true that beauty and elegance of speech 
 take as much or more with me than the weight and depth 
 of the subject; and forasmuch as I am apt to be sleepy 
 in all other communication, and give but the rind of my 
 attention, it often falls out that in such poor and pitiful 
 discourses, mere chatter, I either make drowsy, unmeaning 
 
 1 "The vices of sloth are to be shaken off by business." — Seneca, Ep. 56. 
 
 2 "To whom to live is to think." — Cicero, Tusc. Quass., V. 28. 
 
 3 Moral, ad Nicom., X. 8. 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces. 43 
 
 answers, unbecoming a cliild, and ridiculous, or more foolishly 
 and rudely still, maintain an obstinate silence. I have a 
 pensive way that withdraws me into myself, and, with that, 
 a heavy and childish ignorance of many very ordinary things, 
 by which two qualities I have earned this, that men may 
 truly relate five or six as ridiculous tales of me as of any 
 other man whatever. 
 
 But, to proceed in my subject, this difficult complexion 
 of mine renders me very nice in my conversation with men, 
 whom I must cull and pick out for my purpose ; and unfits 
 me for common society. We live and negotiate with the 
 people ; if their conversation be troublesome to us, if we 
 disdain to apply ourselves to mean and vulgar souls (and 
 the mean and vulgar are often as regular as those of the 
 finest thread, and all wisdom is folly that does not accom- 
 modate itself to the common ignorance), we must no more 
 intermeddle either with other men's affairs or our own ; for 
 business, both public and private, has to do with these 
 people. The least forced and most natural motions of the 
 soul are the most beautiful ; the best employments, those 
 that are least strained. Good God ! how good an office 
 does wisdom to those whose desires it limits to their power ! 
 that is the most useful knowledge : " what a man can," 
 was ever the sentence Socrates was so much in love with. 
 A motto of great substance. 
 
 We must moderate and adapt our desires to the nearest 
 and easiest to be acquired things. Is it not a foolish 
 humour of mine to separate myself from a thousand to 
 whom my fortune has conjoined me, and without whom I 
 cannot live, and cleave to one or two who are out of my 
 intercourse ; or, rather a fantastic desire of a thing I cannot 
 obtain ? My gentle and easy manners, enemies of all sour- 
 ness and harshness, may easily enough have secured me 
 from envy and animosities ; to be beloved, I do not say, but 
 
44 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 never any man gave less occasion of being hated ; but the 
 coldness of my conversation has, reasonably enough, de- 
 prived me of the goodwill of many, who are to be excused 
 if they interpret it in another and worse sense. 
 
 I am very capable of contracting and maintaining rare 
 and exquisite friendships ; for, by reason that I so greedily 
 seize upon such acquaintance as fit my liking, I throw 
 myself with such violence upon them that I hardly fail to 
 stick, and to make an impression where I hit ; as I have 
 often made happy proof. In ordinary friendships I am 
 somewhat cold and shy, for my motion is not natural, if 
 not with full sail; besides which, my fortune having in my 
 youth given me a relish for one sole and perfect friendship 
 has, in truth, created in me a kind of distaste to others, 
 and too much imprinted in my fancy that it is a beast of 
 company, as the ancient said, but not of the herd. 1 And 
 also I have a natural difficulty of communicating myself by 
 halves, with the modifications and the servile and jealous 
 prudence required in the conversation of numerous and 
 imperfect friendships : and we are principally enjoined to 
 these in this age of ours, when we cannot talk of the world 
 but either with danger or falsehood. 
 
 Yet do I very well discern, that he who has the con- 
 veniences (I mean the essential conveniences) of life for his 
 end, as I have, ought to fly these difficulties and delicacy of 
 humour, as much as the plague. I should commend a soul of 
 several stages, that knows both how to stretch and to slacken 
 itself ; that finds itself at ease in all conditions whither fortune 
 leads it ; that can discourse with a neighbour, of his build- 
 ing, his hunting, his quarrels ; that can chat with a carpenter 
 or a gardener with pleasure. I envy those who can render 
 themselves familiar with the meanest of their followers, and 
 
 1 Plutarch, On the Plurality of Friends, c. 2. 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces. 45 
 
 talk with them in their own way; and dislike the advice of 
 Plato, 1 that men should always speak in a magisterial tone 
 to their servants, whether men or women, without being 
 sometimes facetious and familiar ; for besides the reasons I 
 have given, 'tis inhuman and unjust, to set so great a value 
 upon this pitiful prerogative of fortune ; and the polities, 
 wherein less disparity is permitted betwixt masters and ser- 
 vants, seem to me the most equitable. Others study how 
 to raise and elevate their minds ; I, how to humble mine, 
 and to bring it low ; 'tis only vicious in extension. 
 
 " Narras et genus iEaci, 
 Et pugnata sacro bella sub Ilio ; 
 
 Quo Chium pretio caelum 
 Mercemur, quis aquam temperet ignibus, 
 
 Quo praebente domum, et quota, 
 Pelignis careani frigoribus, taces." 2 
 
 Thus, as the Lacedaemonian valour stood in need of 
 
 moderation, and of the sweet and harmonious sound of 
 
 flutes to soften it in battle, lest they should precipitate 
 
 themselves into temerity and fury, whereas all other nations 
 
 commonly make use of harsh and shrill sounds, and of loud 
 
 and imperious cries, to incite and heat the soldier's courage 
 
 to the last degree : so, methinks, contrary to the usual 
 
 method, in the practice of our minds, we have for the most 
 
 part more need of lead than of wings ; of temperance and 
 
 composedness than of ardour and agitation. But, above all 
 
 things, 'tis in my opinion egregiously to play the fool, to put 
 
 on the grave airs of a man of lofty mind amongst those who 
 
 are nothing of the sort : ever to speak in print, " favellar in 
 
 punta di forchetta." 3 You must let yourself down to those 
 
 1 Laws, vi. 
 
 2 " You tell us long stories about the race of ^iacus, and the battles fought 
 at sacred Ilium ; but what to give for a cask of Chian wine, who shall pre- 
 pare the warm bath, and in whose house, and when we shall brave the Pelig- 
 nian cold, you do not tell us." — Horace, Od. iii. 19, 3. 
 
 3 " To talk with the point of a fork." 
 
46 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 with whom you converse ; and sometimes affect ignorance : 
 lay aside power and subtilty in common conversation ; to 
 preserve decorum and order 'tis enough — nay, crawl on the 
 earth, if they so desire it. 
 
 The learned often stumble at this stone ; they will always 
 be parading their pedantic science, and strew their books 
 everywhere ; they have, in these days, so filled the "cabinets 
 and ears of the ladies with them, that if they have lost the 
 substance, they at least retain the words ; so as in all dis- 
 course upon all sorts of subjects, how mean and common 
 soever, they speak and write after a new and learned way ; 
 
 " Hoc sermoue pavent, hoc iram, gaudia, curas, 
 Hoc cuncta effundunt animi secreta ; quid ultra ? 
 Concumbunt docte ; " x 
 
 and quote Plato and Aquinas, in things the first man they meet 
 could determine as well ; the learning that cannot penetrate 
 their souls, hangs still upon the tongue. 2 If people of quality 
 will be persuaded by me, they shall content themselves with 
 setting out their proper and natural treasures ; they conceal 
 and cover their beauties under others that are none of theirs : 
 'tis a great folly to put out their own light and shine by a 
 borrowed lustre : they are interred and buried under art, " de 
 capsula totae." 3 It is because they do not sufficiently know 
 themselves, or do themselves justice : the world has nothing 
 fairer than they ; 'tis for them to honour the arts, and to 
 paint painting. What need have they of anything, but to 
 live beloved and honoured ? They have, and know, but too 
 much for this : they need do no more but rouse and heat 
 a little the faculties they have of their own. When I see 
 
 1 "In this same learned language do they express their fears, their anger, 
 their joys, their cares ; in this pour out all their secrets ; what more ? they 
 lie with their lovers learnedly." — Juvenal, vi. 189. 
 
 2 It may be seen from this passage that " Les Precieuses " are of older date 
 than those of the Hotel de Rambouillet. — Louandre. 
 
 3 ' : Painted and perfumed from head to foot." — Seneca, Ep. 115. 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces. 47 
 
 them tampering with rhetoric, law, logic, and other drugs, 
 so improper and unnecessary for their business, I begin to 
 suspect that the men who inspire them with such fancies, do 
 it that they may govern them upon that account ; for what 
 other excuse can I contrive ? It is enough that they can, 
 without our instruction, compose the graces of their eyes 
 to gaiety, severity, sweetness, and season a denial with 
 asperity, suspense, or favour : they need not another to 
 interpret what we speak for their service ; with this know- 
 ledge, they command with a switch, and rule both the 
 tutors and the schools. But if, nevertheless, it angers them 
 to give place to us in anything whatever, and will, out of 
 curiosity, have their share in books, poetry is a diversion 
 proper for them ; 'tis a wanton, subtle, dissembling and 
 prating art, all pleasure and all show, like themselves. 
 They may also extract several commodities from history. In 
 philosophy, out of the moral part of it, they may select such 
 instructions as will teach them to judge of our humours and 
 conditions, to defend themselves from our treacheries, to 
 regulate the ardour of their own desires, to manage their 
 liberty, to lengthen the pleasures of life, and gently to bear 
 the inconstancy of a lover, the rudeness of a husband, and 
 the importunity of years, wrinkles, and the like. This is 
 the utmost of what I would allow them in the sciences. 
 
 There are some particular natures that are private and 
 retired : my natural way is proper for communication, and 
 apt to lay me open ; I am all without and in sight, born for 
 society and friendship. The solitude that I love myself 
 and recommend to others, is chiefly no other than to with- 
 draw my thoughts and affections into myself; to restrain 
 and check, not my steps, but my own cares and desires, 
 resigning all foreign solicitude, and mortally avoiding servi- 
 tude and obligation, and not so much the crowd of men, as 
 the crowd of business. Local solitude, to say the truth, 
 
48 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 rather gives me more room, and sets me more at large ; 
 I more readily throw myself upon affairs of state and the 
 world, when I am alone ; at the Louvre, and in the bustle 
 of the court, I fold myself within my own skin ; the crowd 
 thrusts me upon myself; and I never entertain myself so 
 wantonly, with so much licence, or so especially, as in places 
 of respect and ceremonious prudence : our follies do not 
 make me laugh, but our wisdom does. I am naturally no 
 enemy to a court life ; I have therein passed a good part of 
 my own, and am of a humour cheerfully to frequent great 
 company, provided it be by intervals and at my own 
 time : but this softness of judgment whereof I speak, 
 ties me perforce to solitude. Even at home, amidst a 
 numerous family, and in a house sufficiently frequented, I 
 see people enough, but rarely such with whom I delight to 
 converse ; and I there reserve both for myself and others an 
 unusual liberty : there is in my house no such thing as 
 ceremony, ushering, or waiting upon people down to the 
 coach, and such other troublesome ceremonies as our courtesy 
 enjoins (0 servile and importunate custom !) Every one 
 there governs himself according to his own method ; let who 
 will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up 
 in my closet, without any offence to my guests. 
 
 The men, whose society and familiarity I covet, are those 
 they call sincere and able men ; and the image of these 
 makes me disrelish the rest. It is, if rightly taken, the 
 rarest of our forms, and a form that we chiefly owe to 
 nature. The end of this commerce is simply privacy, fre- 
 quentation and conference, the exercise of souls, without 
 other fruit. In our discourse, all subjects are alike to me ; 
 let there be neither weight, nor depth, 'tis all one : there is 
 yet grace and pertinency ; all there is tinted with a mature 
 and constant judgment, and mixed with goodness, freedom, 
 gaiety, and friendship. 'Tis not only in talking of the affairs 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces, 49 
 
 of kings and state, that our wits discover their force and 
 beauty, but every whit as much in private conferences. I 
 understand my men even by their silence and smiles ; and 
 better discover them, perhaps, at table, than in the council. 
 Hippomachus said l very well, " that he could know the good 
 wrestlers by only seeing them walk in the street." If learn- 
 ing please to step into our talk, it shall not be rejected, not 
 magisterial, imperious, and importunate, as it commonly is, 
 but suffragan and docile itself; we there only seek to pass 
 away our time ; when we have a mind to be instructed and 
 preached to, we will go seek this in its throne ; please let it 
 humble itself to us for the nonce ; for, useful and profitable 
 as it is, I imagine that, at need, we may manage well enough 
 without it, and do our business without its assistance. A 
 well-descended soul, and practised in the conversation of 
 men, will of herself render herself sufficiently agreeable ; art 
 is nothing but the counterpart and register of what such 
 souls produce. 
 
 The conversation also of beautiful and well-bred women 
 is for me a sweet commerce : " nam nos quoqiie oculos 
 eruditos habemus." 2 If the soul has not therein so much 
 to enjoy, as in the first, the bodily senses, which partici- 
 pate more of this, bring it to a proportion near to, though, 
 in my opinion, not equal to the other. But 'tis a commerce 
 wherein a man must stand a little upon his guard, especially 
 those of a warm temperament, such as mine. 1 3 there 
 scalded myself in my youth, and suffered all the torments 
 that poets say are to befall those who precipitate themselves 
 into love without order and judgment : it is true, that the 
 whipping has made me wiser since : 
 
 : Plutarch, Life of Dion. , c. I. 
 
 2 " For we also have eyes that are versed in the matter." — Cicero, Paradox, 
 V. 2. 
 
 3 " The burnt child dreads the fire," here interpolates Cotton. 
 VOL, III. D 
 
50 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 " Quicumque Argolica de classe Capharea fugit, 
 Semper ab Euboicis vela retorquet aquis." x 
 
 Tis folly to fix all a man's thoughts upon it, and to engage 
 in it with a furious and indiscreet affection ; but, on the 
 other hand, to engage there without love and without inclina- 
 tion, like comedians, to play a common part, without putting 
 anything to it of his own but words, is indeed to- provide 
 for his safety, but, withal, after as cowardly a manner as he 
 who should abandon his honour, profit, or pleasure, for fear 
 of ordinary danger ; for it is certain that from such a prac- 
 tice, they who set it on foot can expect no fruit that can 
 please or satisfy a noble soul. A man must have, in good 
 earnest, desired that which he, in good earnest, expects to have 
 a pleasure in enjoying ; I say, though fortune should unjustly 
 favour their dissimulation ; which often falls out, because 
 there is none of the sex, let her be as ugly as the devil, who 
 does not think herself well worthy to be beloved, and who does 
 not prefer herself before other women, either for her youth, 
 the colour of her hair, or her graceful motion (for there are. 
 no more women universally and throughout ugly, than there 
 are women universally and throughout beautiful, 2 and such 
 of the Brahmm virgins as have no other beauty to recommend 
 them, the people being assembled by the common crier to that 
 effect, come out into the market-place to expose their matri- 
 monial parts to public view, to try if these at least are not of 
 temptation sufficient to get them husbands); consequently, 
 there is not one who does not easily suffer herself to be over- 
 come by the first vow that is made to serve her. ISTow from 
 this common and ordinary treachery of the men of the present 
 day, that must fall out which we already experimentally see, 
 either that they rally together, and separate themselves by 
 
 1 " Whoever of the Grecian fleet has escaped the Capharean rocks, ever 
 takes care to steer from those of the Eubcean sea." — Ovid, Trist, i. I, 83. 
 3 Which Cotton translates : for generally there are no more foul than fair. 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces. 5 1 
 
 themselves to evade us, or else form their discipline by 
 the example we give them, play their parts of the farce as 
 we do ours, and give themselves up to the sport, without 
 passion, care, or love : " Neque affectui suo, aut alieno, ob- 
 noxise : " 1 believing, according to the persuasion of Lysias in 
 Plato, 2 that they may with more utility and convenience 
 surrender themselves up to us the less we love them ; where 
 it will fall out, as in comedies, that the people will have as 
 much pleasure or more than the comedians. For my part, 
 I no more acknowledge a Venus without a Cupid, than a 
 mother without issue : they are things that mutually lend 
 and owe their essence to one another. Thus this cheat 
 recoils upon him who is guilty of it ; it does not cost 
 him much, indeed, but he also gets little or nothing by it. 
 They who have made Yenus a goddess have taken notice 
 that her principal beauty was incorporeal and spiritual : but 
 the Venus whom these people hunt after is not so much as 
 human, nor indeed brutal ; the very beasts will not accept it 
 so gross and so earthly ; we see that imagination and desire 
 often heat and incite them before the body does ; we see in 
 both the one sex and the other, they have in the herd 
 choice and particular election in their affections, and that 
 they have amongst themselves a long commerce of good 
 will. Even those to whom old age denies the practice of 
 their desire, still tremble, neigh, and twitter for love ; we 
 see them, before the act, full of hope and ardour, and when 
 the body has played its game, yet please themselves with 
 the sweet remembrance of the past delight ; some that 
 swell with pride after they have performed, and others who, 
 tired and sated, still by vociferation express a triumph- 
 ing joy. He who has nothing to do but only to discharge 
 
 1 " Incapable of attachment, insensible to that of others." — Tacitus, Annal., 
 xiii. 45. 
 
 2 In Phsed. 
 
5 2 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 his body of a natural necessity, need not trouble others with 
 so curious preparations : it is not meat for a gross, coarse 
 appetite. 
 
 As one who does not desire that men should think me 
 better than I am, I will here say this as to the errors of my 
 youth. Not only from the danger of impairing my health 
 (and yet I could not be so careful but that I had two light 
 mischances), but moreover upon the account of contempt, I 
 have seldom given myself up to common and mercenary 
 embraces : I would heighten the pleasure by the difficulty, 
 by desire, and a certain kind of glory : and was of Tibe- 
 rius's mind, who 1 in his amours was as much taken with 
 modesty and birth as any other quality ; and of the cour- 
 tesan Flora's humour, 2 who never prostituted herself to less 
 than a dictator, a consul, or a censor, and took pleasure in 
 the dignity of her lovers. Doubtless pearls and gold tissue, 
 titles and train, add something to it. 
 
 As to the rest, I had a great esteem for wit, provided the 
 person was not exceptionable ; for, to confess the truth, if the 
 one or the other of these two attractions must of necessity 
 be wanting, I should rather have quitted that of the under- 
 standing, that has its use in better things ; but in the sub- 
 ject of love, a subject principally relating to the senses of 
 seeing and touching, something may be done without the 
 graces of the mind: without the graces of the body, nothing. 
 Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly 
 their own, that ours, though naturally requiring another sort 
 of feature, is never in its lustre but when youthful and beard- 
 less, a sort of confused image of theirs. Tis said, that such as 
 serve the Grand Signior upon the account of beauty, who are 
 an infinite number, are, at the latest, dismissed at two and 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annal., vi. I. 
 
 2 Bayle, art. Flora ; Brantome, Des Femmes Galantes. 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces. 53 
 
 twenty years of age. Keason, prudence, and the offices of 
 friendship are better found amongst men, and therefore it 
 is, that they govern the affairs of the world. 
 
 These two commerces are fortuitous, and depending upon 
 others ; the one is troublesome by its rarity, the other 
 withers with age, so that they could never have been suffi- 
 cient for the business of my life. That of books, which is 
 the third, is much more certain, and much more our own. 
 It yields all other advantages to the two first ; but has the 
 constancy and facility of its service for its own share. It 
 goes side by side with me in my whole course, and every- 
 where is assisting me : it comforts me in my old age and 
 solitude ; it eases me of a troublesome weight of idleness, 
 and delivers me at all hours from company that I dislike : 
 it blunts the point of griefs, if they are not extreme, and 
 have not got an entire possession of my soul. To divert 
 myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis but to run to my 
 books ; they presently fix me to them and drive the other 
 out of my thoughts ; and do not mutiny at seeing that I 
 have only recourse to them for want of other more real, 
 natural, and lively commodities ; they always receive me 
 with the same kindness. He may well go a foot, they say, 
 who leads his horse in his hand ; and our James, king of 
 Naples and Sicily, who, handsome, young and healthful, 
 caused himself to be carried about on a barrow, extended 
 upon a pitiful mattress in a poor robe of grey cloth, and a 
 cap of the same, but attended withal by a royal train of 
 litters, led horses of all sorts, gentlemen and officers, did yet 
 herein represent a tender and unsteady authority : " The 
 sick man is not to be pitied, who has his cure in his sleeve." 
 In the experience and practice of this maxim, which is a 
 very true one, consists all the benefit I reap from books ; 
 and yet I make as little use of them, almost, as those who 
 know them not : I enjoy them as a miser does his money, 
 
54 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 in knowing that I may enjoy them when I please : my 
 mind is satisfied with this right of possession. I never 
 travel without hooks, either in peace or war ; and yet some- 
 times I pass over several days, and sometimes months, 
 without looking on them : I will read by-and-by, say I to 
 myself, or to-morrow, or when I please ; and in the interim, 
 time steals away without any inconvenience. For it is not 
 to be imagined to what degree I please myself and rest con- 
 tent in this consideration, that I have them by me to divert 
 myself with them when I am so disposed, and to call to 
 mind what a refreshment they are to my life. Tis the best 
 viaticum I have yet found out for this human journey, and 
 I very much pity those men of understanding who are un- 
 provided of it. I the rather accept of any other sort of diver- 
 sion, how light soever, because this can never fail me. 
 
 When at home, I a little more frequent my library, 
 whence I overlook at once all the concerns of my family. 
 'Tis situated at the entrance into my house, and I thence 
 see under me my garden, court, and base-court, and almost 
 all parts of the building. There I turn over now one 
 book, and then another, on various subjects without method 
 or design. One while I meditate, another I record and 
 dictate, as I walk to and fro, such whimsies as these I 
 present to you here. 'Tis in the third storey of a tower, of 
 which the ground room is my chapel, the second storey a 
 chamber with a withdrawing-room and closet, where I often 
 lie, to be more retired; and above is a great wardrobe. This 
 formerly was the most useless part of the house. I there 
 pass away both most of the days of my life and most of 
 the hours of those days. In the night I am never there. 
 There is by the side of it a cabinet handsome enough, with 
 a fireplace very commodiously contrived, and plenty of 
 light : and were I not more afraid of the trouble than the 
 expense — the trouble that frights me from all business, I 
 
Chap. 3.] Of Three Commerces. 55 
 
 could very easily adjoin on either side, and on the same 
 floor, a gallery of an hundred paces long, and twelve broad, 
 having found walls already raised for some other design, to 
 the requisite height. Every place of retirement requires a 
 walk : my thoughts sleep if I sit still ; my fancy does not 
 go "by itself, as when my legs move it : and all those who 
 study without a book are in the same condition. The figure 
 of my study is round, and there is no more open wall than 
 what is taken up by my table and my chair, so that the 
 remaining parts of the circle present me a view of all my 
 books at once, ranged upon five rows of shelves round about 
 me. It has three noble and free prospects, and is sixteen 
 paces in diameter. I am not so continually there in winter ; 
 for my house is built upon an eminence, as its name 
 imports, and no part of it is so much exposed to the wind 
 and weather as this, which pleases me the better, as being 
 of more difficult access and a little remote, as well upon the 
 account of exercise, as also being there more retired from the 
 crowd. Tis there that I am in my kingdom, and there I 
 endeavour to make myself an absolute monarch, and to 
 sequester this one corner from all society, conjugal, filial, 
 and civil; elsewhere I have but verbal authority only, 
 and of a confused essence. That man, in my opinion, is 
 very miserable, who has not at home where to be by him- 
 self, where to entertain himself alone, or to conceal himself 
 from others. Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, 
 by keeping them always in show, like the statue of a 
 public square : " Magna servitus est magna fortuna." 1 They 
 cannot so much as be private in the water-closet. 2 I have 
 thought nothing so severe in the austerity of life that our 
 monks affect, as what I have observed in some of their 
 
 1 " A great fortune is a great slavery." — Seneca, De Consol. ad Polyb., 
 c. 26. 
 
 ' 2 "Us n'ont pas seulement leur retraict pour retraicte." 
 
56 Of Three Commerces. [Book iii. 
 
 communities ; namely, by rule to have a perpetual society 
 of place, and numerous persons present in every action 
 whatever; and think it much more supportable to be 
 always alone, than never to be so. 
 
 If any one shall tell me that it is to undervalue the 
 muses, to make use of them only for sport and to pass 
 away the time, I shall tell him, that he does not know, so 
 well as I, the value of the sport, the pleasure, and the 
 pastime ; I can hardly forbear to add that ail other end is 
 ridiculous. I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence 
 be it spoken, I only live for myself; there all my designs 
 terminate. I studied, when young, for ostentation ; since, 
 to make myself a little wiser ; and now for my diversion, 
 but never for any profit. A vain and prodigal humour I 
 had after this sort of furniture, not only for the supplying 
 my own need, but, moreover, for ornament and outward 
 show, I have since quite cured myself of. 
 
 Books have many charming qualities to such as know 
 how to choose them ; but every good has its ill ; 'tis a 
 pleasure that is not pure and clean, no more than others : 
 it has its inconveniences, and great ones too. The soul 
 indeed is exercised therein ; but the body, the care of 
 which I must withal never neglect, remains in the mean- 
 time without action, and grows heavy and sombre. I know 
 no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to be avoided 
 in this my declining age. 
 
 These have been my three favourite and particular occu- 
 pations ; I speak not of those I owe to the world by civil 
 obligation. 
 
Chap. 4.] Of Diversion. 57 
 
 CHAP TEE IV. 
 
 OF DIVERSION. 
 
 I was once employed to console a lady truly afflicted ; most 
 of their mournings are put on and for outward ceremony, 
 
 " Uberibus semper lacrymis, semperque paratis, 
 
 In statione sua, atque expectantibus illam, 
 Quo jubeat manare modo." 1 
 
 A man goes the wrong way to work when he opposes 
 this passion ; for opposition does but irritate and make 
 them more obstinate in sorrow ; the evil is exasperated 
 by being contended with. We see, in common discourse, 
 that what I have indifferently let fall from me, if any one 
 takes it up to controvert it, I justify it with the best argu- 
 ments I have ; and much more a thing wherein I had a real 
 interest. And, besides, in so doing, you enter roughly upon 
 your operation ; whereas the first addresses of a physician 
 to his patient should be gracious, gay, and pleasing ; never 
 did any ill-looking, morose physician do anything to pur- 
 pose. On the contrary, then, a man should, at the first 
 approaches, favour their grief, and express some approbation 
 of their sorrow. By this intelligence you obtain credit to 
 proceed further, and by a facile and insensible gradation fall 
 into discourses more solid and proper for their cure. I, 
 whose aim it was principally to gull the company who had 
 their eyes fixed upon me, took it into my head only to pal- 
 liate the disease. And, indeed, I have found by experience 
 
 1 "A woman has ever a fountain of tears ready to gush up whenever she 
 requires to make use of them." — Juvenal, vi. 272. 
 
58' Of Diversion. [Book iii. 
 
 that I have an unlucky hand in persuading. My arguments 
 are either too sharp and dry, or pressed too roughly, or not 
 home enough. After I had some time applied myself to 
 her grief, I did not attempt to cure her by strong and lively 
 reasons, either because I had them not at hand, or because 
 I thought to do my business better another way ; neither 
 did I make choice of any of those methods of consolation 
 which philosophy prescribes : that what we complain of is 
 no evil, according to Cleanthes ; l that it is a light evil, 
 according to the Peripatetics ; that to bemoan one's self is 
 an action neither commendable nor just, according to Chry- 
 sippus ; nor this of Epicurus, more suitable to my way, of 
 shifting the thoughts from afflicting things to those that are 
 pleasing ; nor making a bundle of all these together, to 
 make use of upon occasion, according to Cicero ; but, gently 
 bending my discourse, and by little and little digressing, 
 sometimes to subjects nearer, and sometimes more remote 
 from the purpose, according as she was more intent on what 
 I said, I imperceptibly led her from that sorrowful thought, 
 and kept her calm and in good humour whilst I continued 
 there. I herein made use of diversion. They who succeeded 
 me in the same service, did not for all that find any amend- 
 ment in her, for I had not gone to the root. 
 
 I, peradventure, may elsewhere have glanced upon some 
 sort of public diversions ; and the practice of military 
 ones, which Pericles 2 made use of in the Peloponesian war, 
 and a thousand others in other places, to withdraw the 
 adverse forces from their own countries, is too frequent in 
 history. It was an ingenious evasion 3 whereby the Sieur 
 d'Himbercourt saved both himself and others in the city of 
 Liege, into which the Duke of Burgundy, who kept it be- 
 
 1 Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iii. 31. 
 
 2 Plutarch in vita. 
 
 3 The story is told in Comines' Memoirs, bk. ii. c. 3. 
 
Chap. 4.] Of Diversion. 59 
 
 sieged, had made him enter to execute the articles of their 
 promised surrender : the people being assembled by night 
 to consider of it, began to mutiny against the agreement, 
 and several of them resolved to fall upon the commis- 
 sioners, whom they had in their power ; he, feeling the 
 gusts of this first popular storm, who were coming to rush 
 into his lodgings, suddenly sent out to them two of the 
 inhabitants of the city (of whom he had some with him) with 
 new and milder terms to be proposed in their council, which 
 he had then and there contrived for his need. These two 
 diverted the first tempest, carrying back the enraged rabble 
 to the town-hall to hear and consider of what they had to 
 say. The deliberation was short; a second storm arose as 
 violent as the other, whereupon he despatched four new 
 mediators of the same quality to meet them, protesting that 
 he had now better conditions to present them with, and 
 such as would give them absolute satisfaction, by which 
 means the tumult was once more appeased, and the people 
 again turned back to the conclave. In fine, by this dispen- 
 sation of amusements, one after another, diverting their fury 
 and dissipating it in frivolous consultations, he laid it at 
 last asleep till the day appeared, which was his principal 
 end. 
 
 This other story that follows is also of the same category: 
 Atalanta, a virgin of excelling beauty and of wonderful dis- 
 position of body, to disengage herself from the crowd of a 
 thousand suitors who sought her in marriage, made this 
 proposition, that she would accept of him for her husband 
 who should equal her in running, upon condition that they 
 who failed should lose their lives. There were enough who 
 thought the prize very well worth the hazard, and who 
 suffered the cruel penalty of the contract. Hippomenes, 
 about to make trial after the rest, made his address to the 
 goddess of love, imploring her assistance ; and she, granting 
 
60 Of Diversion. [Book iii. 
 
 his request, gave him three golden apples, and instructed him 
 how to use them. The race beginning, as Hippomenes per- 
 ceived his mistress to press hard up to him, he, as it were 
 by chance, let fall one of these apples ; the maid, taken 
 with the beauty of it, failed not to step out of her way to 
 pick it up : 
 
 " Obstupuit virgo, nitidique cupidine pomi 
 Declinat cursus, aururnque volubile tollit." 1 
 
 He did the same, when he saw his time, by the second and 
 the third, till by so diverting her, and making her lose so 
 much ground, he won the race. When physicians cannot 
 stop a catarrh, they divert and turn it into some other less 
 dangerous part. And I find also that this is the most ordinary 
 practice for the diseases of the mind : " Abducendus etiam 
 nonnunquam animus est ad alia studia, sollicitudines, curas, 
 negotia ; loci denique mutatione, tanquam segroti non con- 
 valescentes, ssepe curandus est." 2 'Tis to little effect directly 
 to jostle a man's infirmities ; we neither make him sustain 
 nor repel the attack ; we only make him decline and evade it. 
 This other lesson is too high and too difficult : 'tis for 
 men of the first form of knowledge purely to insist upon 
 the thing, to consider and judge it ; it appertains to one 
 sole Socrates, to meet death with an ordinary countenance, 
 to grow acquainted with it, and to sport with it ; he seeks 
 no consolation out of the thing itself; dying appears to 
 him a natural and indifferent accident ; 'tis there that he 
 fixes his sight and resolution, without looking elsewhere. 
 The disciples of Hegesias, 3 who starved themselves to death, 
 
 1 " The virgin, dazzled at beholding the glittering apple, and eager to pos- 
 sess it, stopped her career, and seized the rolling gold." — Ovid, Metam., x. 666. 
 
 2 " The mind is sometimes to be diverted to other studies, thoughts, cares, 
 and business : and lastly, by change of place, as sick persons who do not re- 
 cover are ordered change of air." — Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 35. 
 
 3 Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 34. 
 
Chap. 4.] Of Diversion. 61 
 
 animated thereunto by his fine lectures, and in such num- 
 bers that King Ptolemy ordered he should be forbidden to 
 entertain his followers with such homicidal doctrines, did 
 not consider death in itself, neither did they judge of it ; it 
 was not there they fixed their thoughts ; they ran towards 
 and aimed at a new being. 
 
 The poor wretches whom we see brought upon the scaffold, 
 full of ardent devotion, and therein, as much as in them 
 lies, employing all their senses, their ears in hearing the 
 instructions given them, their eyes and hands lifted up 
 towards heaven, their voices in loud prayers, with a vehe- 
 ment and continual emotion, do doubtless things very com- 
 mendable and proper for such a necessity : we ought to 
 commend them for their devotion, but not properly for their 
 constancy; they shun the encounter, they divert their thoughts 
 from the consideration of death, as children are amused with 
 some toy or other, when the surgeon is going to give them a 
 prick with his lancet. I have seen s.ome, who, casting their 
 eyes upon the dreadful instruments of death round about, 
 have fainted, and furiously turned their thoughts another 
 way ; such as are to pass a formidable precipice, are advised 
 either to shut their eyes or to look another way. 
 
 Subrius Flavius, being by Nero's command to be put to 
 death, and by the hand of Niger, both of them great captains, 
 when they led him to the place appointed for his execution, 
 seeing the grave that Niger had caused to be hollowed to 
 put him into, ill-made : " Neither is this," said he, turning to 
 the soldiers who guarded him, " according to military dis- 
 cipline." And to Niger, who exhorted him to keep his 
 head firm ; " do but thou strike as firmly," said he. 1 And 
 he very well foresaw what would follow, when he said so ; 
 for Niger's arm so trembled, that he had several blows at 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annal., xv. 67. 
 
62 Of Diversion. [Book iii. 
 
 his head "before he could cut it off. This man seems to 
 have had his thoughts rightly fixed upon the subject. 
 
 He who dies in a battle, "with his sword in his hand, does 
 not then think of death, he feels or considers it not ; the 
 ardour of the fight diverts his thought another way. A 
 worthy man of my acquaintance, falling, as he was fighting 
 a duel, and feeling himself nailed to the earth by nine or 
 ten thrusts of his enemy, every one present called to him to 
 think of his conscience ; but he has since told me, that 
 though he very well heard what they said, it nothing moved 
 him, and that he never thought of anything but how to 
 disengage and revenge himself. He afterwards killed his 
 man in that very duel. He who brought to L. Silanus the 
 sentence of death, did him a very great kindness, in that 
 having received his answer, that he was well prepared to 
 die, but not by base hands, he ran upon him with his sol- 
 diers to force him, and as he, unarmed as he was, obstinately 
 defended himself with his fists and feet, he made him lose 
 his life in the contest, by that means dissipating and divert- 
 ing in a sudden and furious rage the painful apprehension 
 of the lingering death to which he was designed. 
 
 We always think of something else ; either the hope of a 
 better life comforts and supports us, or the hope of our 
 children's worth, or the future glory of our name, or the 
 leaving behind the evils of this life, or the vengeance that 
 threatens those who are the causes of our death, administers 
 consolation to us : 
 
 " Spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt, 
 Supplicia hausurum scopulis, et nomine Dido 
 Ssepe vocaturum. . . . 
 Audiam ; et hsec manes veniet niihi fama sub imos.'' 1 
 
 1 " If the gods have any power, I hope that, split on a rock, thou shalt on 
 Dido call ; I shall know thy fate, by report, conveyed me to the shades below." 
 — iEneid, iv. 382, 387. 
 
Chap. 4.] . Of Diversion. 63 
 
 Xenoplion was sacrificing with a crown upon his head, 
 when one came to bring him news of the death of his son 
 Gryllus, slain in the battle of Mantinea : at the first sur- 
 prise of the news, he threw his crown to the ground ; but 
 understanding by the sequel of the narrative, the manner 
 of a most brave and valiant death, he took it up and re- 
 placed it upon his head. 1 Epicurus himself, at his death, 
 consoles himself upon the utility and eternity of his writ- 
 ings : 2 " Omnes clari et nobilitati labores hunt tolerabiles ; " 3 
 and the same wound, the same fatigue, is not, says Xeno- 
 phen, 4 so intolerable to a general of an army as to a 
 common soldier. Epaminondas died much more cheerful, 
 having been informed that the victory remained to him : 5 
 " Heec sunt solatia, hsec fomenta summorum dolorum ; " 6 
 and such like circumstances amuse, divert, and turn our 
 thoughts from the consideration of the thing in itself. 
 Even the arguments of philosophy are always edging and 
 glancing on the matter, so as scarce to rub its crust ; the 
 greatest man of the first philosophical school, and superin- 
 tendent over all the rest, the great Zeno forms this syllo- 
 gism against death : " No evil is honourable ; but death is 
 honourable : therefore death is no evil ; " 7 against drunken- 
 ness this : " JSTo one commits his secrets to a drunkard ; but 
 every one commits his secrets to a wise man : therefore a 
 wise man is no drunkard." 8 Is this to hit the white ? I 
 love to see that these great and leading souls cannot rid 
 
 1 Valerius Maximus, iv. 10, Ext. 2. 
 
 2 In his letter to Hermachus, or Idomeneus ; Cicero, De Finib., ii. 20 ; 
 Diogenes Laertius, x. 22. 
 
 3 "All labours that are illustrious and renowned, are supportable." — 
 Cicero, Tusc. Qua;s., ii. 26. 
 
 4 Idem, ibid. 5 Cornelius Nepos, in vita, c. 9. 
 
 6 " These are lenitives, and fomentations to the greatest pains."- — Cicero, 
 Tusc. Qures., ii. 23. 
 
 7 Seneca, Ep. 82. 8 Idem, Ep. 83. 
 
64 Of Diversion. [Book hi. 
 
 themselves of our company : perfect men as they are, they 
 are yet simply men. 
 
 Eevenge is a sweet passion, of great and natural im- 
 pression ; I discern it well enough, though I have no 
 manner of experience of it. From this not long ago to 
 divert a young prince, I did not tell him that he must, 
 to him who had struck him upon the one cheek, turn the 
 other, upon account of charity ; nor go about to represent 
 to him the tragical events that poetry attributes to this 
 passion; I did not touch upon that string; but I busied 
 myself to make him relish the beauty of a contrary image : 
 and, by representing to him what honour, esteem, and good 
 will he would acquire by clemency and good nature, 
 diverted him to ambition. Thus a man is to deal in such 
 cases. 
 
 If your passion of love be too violent, disperse it, say 
 they, and they say true ; for I have often tried it with 
 advantage : break it into several desires, of which let one be 
 regent, if you will, over the rest ; but, lest it should tyran- 
 nise and domineer over you, weaken and protract, by divid- 
 ing and diverting it ; 
 
 " Cum morosa vago singultiet inguine vena." 1 
 " Conjicito humoreni collectum in corpora qTiaeque." 2 
 
 and look to't in time, lest it prove too troublesome to deal 
 with, when it has once seized you. 
 
 " Si non prima novis conturbes vulnera plagis, 
 Volgivagaque vagus venere ante recentia cures." 3 
 
 I was once wounded with a vehement displeasure, and 
 
 1 "When you are tormented with fierce desire, satisfy it with the first per- 
 son that presents herself."— Persius, Sat. vi. 73. 
 a Lucretius, vi. 1062, to the like effect. 
 3 " Unless you cure old wounds by new." — Lucretius, iv. 1067. 
 
Chap. 4.] Of Diversion. 65 
 
 withal, more just than vehement ; I might perad venture 
 have lost myself in it, if I had merely trusted to my own 
 strength. Having need of a powerful diversion to disengage 
 me, by art and study I became amorous, wherein I was 
 assisted by my youth : love relieved and rescued me" from 
 the evil wherein friendship had engaged me. "lis in every- 
 thing else the same ; a violent imagination hath seized me : 
 I find it a nearer way to change, than to subdue it : I 
 depute, if not one contrary, yet another at least, in its 
 place. Variation ever relieves, dissolves, and dissipates. 
 
 If I am not able to contend with it. I escape from it ; 
 and in avoiding it, slip out of the way, and make my 
 doubles: shifting place, business, and company, I secure 
 myself in the crowd of other thoughts and fancies, where 
 it loses my trace, and I escape. 
 
 After the same manner does nature proceed, by the 
 benefit of inconstancy ; for time, which she has given us for 
 the sovereign physician of our passions, chiefly works by 
 this, that supplying our imaginations with other and new 
 affairs, it loosens and dissolves the first apprehension, how 
 strong soever. A wise man little less sees his friend dying 
 at the end of five and twenty years, than on the first year ; 
 and according to Epicurus, no less at all ; for he did not 
 attribute any alleviation of afflictions, either to their fore- 
 sight, or their antiquity; but so many other thoughts 
 traverse this, that it languishes and tires at last. 
 
 Alcibiades, 1 to divert the inclination of common rumours, 
 cut off the ears and tail of his beautiful dog, and turned 
 him out into the public place, to the end that, giving the 
 people this occasion to prate, they might let his other 
 actions alone. I have also seen, for this same end of 
 diverting the opinions and conjectures of the people and 
 
 1 Plutarch, in vita, c. 4. 
 VOL. III. E 
 
66 Of Diversion. [Book iii. 
 
 to stop their mouths, some "women conceal their real affec- 
 tions by those that were only counterfeit ; hut I have also 
 seen some of them, who in counterfeiting have suffered 
 themselves to be caught indeed, and who have quitted the 
 true and original affection for the feigned : and so have 
 learned that they who find their affections well placed are 
 fools to consent to this disguise : the public and favourable 
 reception being only reserved for this pretended lover, 
 one may conclude him a fellow of very little address and 
 less wit, if he does not in the end put himself into your 
 place, and you into his ; this is precisely to cut out and 
 make up a shoe for another to draw on. 
 
 A little thing will turn and divert us, because a little 
 thing holds us. We do not much consider subjects in gross 
 and singly; they are little and superficial circumstances or 
 images that touch us, and the outward useless rinds that 
 peel off from the subjects themselves. 
 
 " Folliculos ut nunc teretes Eestate cicadee 
 Linquunt." x 
 
 Even Plutarch himself laments his daughter for the little 
 apish tricks of her infancy. 2 The remembrance of a fare- 
 well, of the particular grace of an action, of a last recom- 
 mendation, afflicts us. The sight of Caesar's robe troubled 
 all Eome, which was more than his death had done. Even 
 the sound of names ringing in our ears, as " my poor master," 
 " my faithful friend," " alas, my dear father," or, " my sweet 
 daughter," afflict us. When these repetitions annoy me, 
 and that I examine it a little nearer, I find 'tis no other but 
 a grammatical and word complaint ; I am only wounded 
 with the word and tone, as the exclamations of preachers 
 very often work more upon their auditory than their reasons, 
 
 1 " Such as the husks we find grasshoppers leave behind them in summer." 
 — Lucretius, V. 801. 
 
 2 Consolation to his Wife on the Death of their Daughter, c. I. 
 
Chap. 4.] Of Diversion. 67 
 
 and as the pitiful eyes of a beast killed for our service; 
 without my weighing or penetrating meanwhile into the 
 true and solid essence of my subject : 
 
 " His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit ; " x 
 
 These are the foundations of our mourning. 
 
 The obstinacy of my stone to all remedies, especially those 
 in my bladder, has sometimes thrown me into so long sup- 
 pressions of urine for three or four days together, and so near 
 death, that it had been folly to have hoped to evade it, and 
 it was much rather to have been desired, considering the 
 miseries I endure in those cruel fits. Oh, that good emperor, 2 
 who caused criminals to be tied that they might die for want 
 of urination, was a great master in the hangman's science ! 
 rinding myself in this condition, I considered by how many 
 light causes and objects imagination nourished in me the 
 regret of life ; of what atoms the weight and difficulty of 
 this dislodging was composed in my soul; to how many 
 idle and frivolous thoughts we give way in so great an 
 affair; a dog, a horse, a book, a glass, and what not, were 
 considered in my loss ; to others their ambitious hopes, 
 their money, their knowledge, not less foolish considerations 
 in my opinion than mine. I look upon death carelessly 
 when I look upon it universally, as the end of life. I insult 
 over it in gross, but in detail it domineers over me : the 
 tears of a footman, the disposing of my clothes, the touch 
 of a friendly hand, a common consolation, discourages and 
 softens me. So do the complaints in tragedies agitate 
 our souls with grief; and the regrets of Dido and Ariadne, 
 impassionate even those who believe them not in Virgil and 
 Catullus. 'Tis a symptom of an obstinate and obdurate 
 
 1 " With these incitements grief provokes itself." — Lucretius, ii. 42. 
 
 2 Tiberius. Suetonius, in vita, c. 62. 
 
68 Of Diversion* [Bookiii. 
 
 nature, to be sensible of no emotion, as 'tis reported for a 
 miracle, of Polemon ; but then he did not so much as alter 
 his countenance at the biting of a mad dog that tore away 
 the calf of his leg ; 1 and no wisdom proceeds so far as to 
 conceive so vivid and entire a cause of sorrow, by judgment 
 that it does not suffer increase by its presence, when the eyes 
 and ears have their share ; parts that are not to be moved 
 but by vain accidents. 
 
 Is it reason that even the arts themselves should make 
 an advantage of our natural stupidity and weakness ? An 
 orator, says rhetoric in the farce of his pleading, shall be 
 moved with the sound of his own voice and feigned emo- 
 tions, and suffer himself to be imposed upon by the passion 
 he represents ; he will imprint in himself a true and real 
 grief, by means of the part he plays, to transmit, it to the 
 judges, who are yet less concerned than he : as they do who 
 are hired at funerals to assist in the ceremony of sorrow, 
 who sell their tears and mourning by weight and measure ; 
 for although they act in a borrowed form, nevertheless, by 
 habituating and settling their countenances to the occasion, 
 'tis most certain they often are really affected with an actual 
 sorrow. I was one, amongst several others of his friends, 
 who conveyed the body of Monsieur de Gramont 2 to Soissons 
 from the siege of La Fere, where he was slain ; I observed 
 that in all places we passed through we filled the people we 
 met with lamentations and tears by the mere solemn pomp 
 of our convoy, for the name of the defunct was not there so 
 much as known. Quintilian reports 3 to have seen come- 
 dians so deeply engaged in a mourning part, that they could 
 not give over weeping when they came home, and who, 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, in vita, c. 17. 
 
 2 Philibert, Comte de Gramont et de Guiche, husband of La Belle Cori- 
 sande. He was killed in 1580. 
 
 3 Instit. Orat., vi. 2, sub fin. 
 
Chap. 4.] Of Diversion. 69 
 
 having taken upon them to stir up passion in another, have 
 themselves espoused it to that degree as to find themselves 
 infected with it, not only to tears, but, moreover, with pale- 
 ness, and the comportment of men really overwhelmed with 
 grief. 
 
 In a country near our mountains the women play Priest 
 Martin, that is to say, both priest and clerk, for as they aug- 
 ment the regret of the deceased husband by the remembrance 
 of the good and agreeable qualities he was master of, they 
 also at the same time make a register of and publish his 
 imperfections ; as if of themselves to enter into some com- 
 position, and divert themselves from compassion to disdain • 
 and yet with much better grace than we, who, when we lose 
 an acquaintance, strive to give him new and false praises, 
 and to make him quite another thing when we have lost sight 
 of him than he appeared to us when we did see him ; as if 
 regret were an instructive thing, or as if tears, by washing 
 our understandings, cleared them. For my part, I hence- 
 forth renounce all favourable testimonies men would give of 
 me, not because I shall be worthy of them, but because I 
 shall be dead. 
 
 Whoever shall ask a man, " What interest have you in 
 this siege ? " " The interest of example," he will say, " and 
 of the common obedience to my prince : I pretend to no 
 profit by it ; and for glory, I know how small a part can 
 reflect upon such a private man as I : I have here neither 
 passion nor quarrel." And yet you shall see him the next 
 day quite another man, chafing and red with fury, ranged 
 in battle for the assault ; 'tis the glittering of so much steel, 
 the fire and noise of our cannon and drums, that have in- 
 fused this new rancour and fury into his veins. A frivolous 
 cause, you will say. How a cause ? There needs none 
 to agitate the mind ; a mere whimsy without body and 
 without subject will rule and agitate it ; let me think of 
 
jo Of Diversion. [Book iii, 
 
 building castles in Spain, my imagination suggests to me 
 conveniences and pleasures with which my soul is really 
 tickled and pleased. How often do we torment our mind 
 with anger or sorrow by such shadows, and engage 'our- 
 selves in fantastic passions that impair both soul and body ? 
 "What astonished, fleering, confused grimaces does this, raving 
 put our faces into ! what sallies and agitations both of 
 members and voices does it inspire us with ? Does it not 
 seem that this individual man has false visions amid the 
 crowd of others with whom he has to do, or that he is pos- 
 sessed with some internal demon that persecutes him ? In- 
 quire of yourself, where is the object of this mutation ? is 
 there anything but us, in nature, which inanity sustains, over 
 which it has power ? Cambyses, from having dreamt that 
 his brother should be one day king of Persia, put him to 
 death : a beloved brother, and one in whom he had always 
 confided. 1 Aristodemus, king of the Messenians, killed 
 himself out of a fancy of ill omen, from I know not what 
 howling of his dogs ; 2 and King Midas did as much upon 
 the account of some foolish dream he had dreamed. 3 'Tis 
 to prize life at its just value, to abandon it for a dream. 
 And yet hear the soul triumph over the miseries and weak- 
 ness of the body, and that it is exposed to all attacks and 
 alterations ; truly, it has reason so to speak ! 
 
 " prima infelix fmgenti terra Prometheo ! 
 Ille parum cauti pectoris egit opus. 
 
 Corpora disponens, mentern nori vidit in arte ; 
 Eecta anirni prinram debuit esse via." 4 
 
 1 Herodotus, iii. 30. 
 
 2 Plutarch, On Superstition, c. 9. 3 Idem, ibid. 
 
 4 O wretched clay, first formed by Prometheus. In his attempt, what 
 little wisdom did he show. In framing bodies, he did not apply his art 
 to form the mind, which should have been his first care." — Propertius, iii. 
 S> 7- 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 7 1 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 UPON SOME VERSES OF VIRGIL. 
 
 By how much profitable thoughts are more full and solid, 
 by so much are they also more cumbersome and heavy : 
 vice, death, poverty, diseases, are grave and grievous subjects. 
 A man should have his soul instructed in the means to sus- 
 tain and to contend with evils, and in the rules of living and 
 believing well : and often rouse it up, and exercise it in this 
 noble study ; but in an ordinary soul it must be by inter- 
 vals and with moderation ; it will otherwise grow besotted 
 if continually intent upon it. I found it necessary, when I 
 was young, to put myself in mind and solicit myself to 
 keep me to my duty ; gaiety and health do not, they say, 
 so well agree with those grave and serious meditations : I 
 am at present in another state : the conditions of age 
 but too much put me in mind, urge me to wisdom, and 
 preach to me. From the excess of sprightliness I am fallen 
 into that of severity, which is much more troublesome ; and 
 for that reason I now and then suffer myself purposely a 
 little to run into disorder, and occupy my mind in wanton 
 and youthful thoughts, wherewith it diverts itself. I am 
 of late but too reserved, too heavy, and too ripe ; years 
 every day read to me lectures of coldness and temperance. 
 This body of mine avoids disorder, and dreads it ; 'tis now 
 my body's turn to guide my mind towards reformation ; it 
 governs, in turn, and more rudely and imperiously than the 
 other ; it lets me not an hour alone, sleeping or waking, but 
 is always preaching to me death, patience, and repentance. 
 I now defend myself from temperance, as I have formerly 
 done from pleasure; it draws me too much back, and even 
 
7 2 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. . 
 
 to stupidity. Now I will be master of myself, to all intents 
 and purposes ; wisdom lias its excesses, and lias no less need 
 of moderation than folly. Therefore, lest I should wither, 
 dry up, and overcharge myself with prudence, in the inter- 
 vals and truces my infirmities allow me, 
 
 " Mens intenta suis ne siet usque malis." x 
 
 I gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy 
 and cloudy sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, 
 I regard without fear, but not without meditation and 
 study, and amuse myself in the remembrance of my better 
 years : 
 
 " Aninius quo perdidit, optat, 
 Atque in prseterita se totus imagine versat." 2 
 
 Let childhood look forward, and age, backward ; is not this 
 the signification of Janus' double face ? Let years haul me 
 along if they will, but it shall be backward ; as long as 
 my eyes can discern the pleasant season expired, I shall now 
 and then turn them that way ; though it escape from my 
 blood and veins, I shall not, however, root the image of it 
 out of my memory : 
 
 " Hoc est 
 Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui." 3 
 
 Plato ordains 4 that old men should be present at the 
 exercises, dances, and sports of young people, that they may 
 rejoice in others for the activity and beauty of body which 
 is no more in themselves, and call to mind the grace and 
 comeliness of that flourishing age : and wills that in these 
 recreations the honour of the prize should be given to that 
 
 1 " That my mind may not eternally be intent upon my ills."— Ovid, Trist. 
 iv. I, 4. The text has neforet. 
 
 2 "The mind wishes to have what it has lost, and throws itself wholly into 
 memories of the past." — Petronius, c. 128. 
 
 3 "'Tis to live twice to enjoy one's former life again." — Martial, x. 23, 7. 
 
 4 Laws, ii. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. j$ 
 
 young man who lias most diverted the company. I was 
 formerly wont to mark cloudy and gloomy clays as extra- 
 ordinary; these are now my ordinary days ; the extraordinary 
 are the clear and bright; I am ready to leap out of my skin 
 for joy, as for an unwonted favour, when nothing happens 
 me. Let me tickle myself, I cannot force a poor smile from 
 this wretched body of mine ; I am only merry in conceit 
 and in dreaming, by artifice to divert the melancholy of age ; 
 but, in faith, it requires another remedy than a dream. A 
 weak contest of art against nature. 'Tis great folly to 
 lengthen and anticipate human incommodities, as every one 
 does ; I had rather be a less while old than be old before I 
 am really so. 1 I seize on even the least occasions of plea- 
 sure I can meet. I know very well, by hearsay, several 
 sorts of prudent pleasures, effectually so, and glorious to 
 boot : but opinion has not power enough over me to give 
 me an appetite to them. I covet not so much to have them 
 magnanimous, magnificent, and pompous, as I do to have 
 them sweet, facile, and ready : " A natura discedimus ; 
 populo nos damns, nullius rei bono auctori." 2 My philo- 
 sophy is in action, in natural and present practice, very 
 little in fancy : what if I have a mind to play at cob-nut 
 or to whip a top ! 
 
 "Nob. ponebat enim rumores ante salutem." 3 
 
 Pleasure is a quality of very little ambition; it thinks itself 
 rich enough of itself without any addition of repute ; and is 
 best pleased where most retired. A young man should be 
 whipped who pretends to a taste in wine and sauces ; there 
 
 1 Cicero, De Senectute, c. 19. 
 
 2 " We depart from nature and give ourselves to the people, who under- 
 stand nothing." — Seneca, Ep. 99. 
 
 3 " He did not sacrifice his health to idle rumours." — Ennius, apud Cicero, 
 De Ofhc., i. 24. 
 
74 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 was nothing which, at that age, I less valued or knew : now 
 I begin to learn ; I am very much ashamed on't ; but what 
 should I do ? I am more ashamed and vexed at the occa- 
 sions that put me upon't. 'lis for us to dote and trifle 
 away the time, and for young men to stand upon their 
 reputation and nice punctilios ; they are going towards the 
 world and the world's opinion ; we are retiring from it : 
 " Sibi arma, sibi equos, sibi hastas, sibi clavam, sibi pilam, 
 sibi natationes, et cursus habeant : nobis senibus, ex lusionibus 
 multis, talos relinquant et tesseras ; " 1 the laws themselves 
 send us home. 2 I can do no less in favour of this wretched 
 condition into which my age has thrown me, than furnish 
 it with toys to play withal, as they do children ; and, in 
 truth, we become such. Both wisdom and folly will have 
 enough to do to support and relieve me by alternate services 
 in this calamity of age ; 
 
 " Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem." 3 
 
 I accordingly avoid the lightest punctures ; and those that 
 formerly would not have rippled the skin, now pierce me 
 through and through : my habit of body is now so naturally 
 declining to ill : " In fragili corpore, odiosa omnis offensio 
 est ; " 4 
 
 " Mensque pati durum sustinet segra nihil." 5 
 
 I have ever been very susceptibly tender as to offences ; I 
 am much more tender now, and open throughout : 
 
 1 "Let them reserve to themselves arms, horses, spears, clubs, tennis, 
 swimming, and races ; and of all the sports leave to us old men cards and 
 dice." — Cicero, De Senec, c. 16. 
 
 2 Idem, ibid., c. II. 
 
 3 " Short follies mingle with wisdom." — Horace, Od. iv. 12, 27. 
 
 4 " To a decrepit body every shock is insupportable." — Cicero, De Senec, 
 c. 18. 
 
 5 "And a sick mind can endure nothing that is hard." — Ovid, De Ponto., 
 i. 5, 18. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 75 
 
 " Et niiuime vires frangere quassa valent." 1 
 
 My judgment restrains me from kicking against and mur- 
 muring at the inconveniences that nature orders me to 
 endure, but it does not take away my feeling them : I, 
 who have no other thing in my aim hut to live and 
 be merry, would run from one end of the world to the 
 other to seek out one good year of pleasant and jocund 
 tranquillity. A melancholic and dull tranquillity may be 
 enough for me, but it benumbs and stupifies me ; I am not 
 contented with it. If there be any person, any knot of 
 good company in country or city, in France, or elsewhere, 
 resident, or in motion, who can like my humour, and whose 
 humours I can like, let them but whistle and I will run and 
 furnish them with essays in flesh and bone. 
 
 Seeing it is the privilege of the mind to rescue itself from 
 old age, I advise mine to it with all the power I have ; let 
 it meanwhile continue green, and flourish if it can, like 
 mistletoe upon a dead tree. But I fear 'tis a traitor ; it has 
 contracted so strict a fraternity with the body that it leaves 
 me at every turn, to follow that in its need. I wheedle and 
 deal with it apart in vain ; I try to much purpose to wean 
 it from tliis correspondence, to much effect quote to it Seneca 
 and Catullus, and represent to it beautiful ladies and royal 
 masques ; if its companion have the stone, it seems to have 
 it too; even the faculties that are most peculiarly and pro- 
 perly its own cannot then perform their functions, but mani- 
 festly appear stupified and asleep ; there is no sprightliness 
 in its productions, if there be not at the same time an equal 
 proportion in the body too. 
 
 Our masters are to blame, that in searching out the causes 
 of the extraordinary emotions of the soul, besides attributing 
 
 1 "And little force suffices to break what was cracked before." — Ovid, De 
 Tris., iii. n, 22. 
 
76 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 it to a . divine ecstasy, love, martial fierceness, poesy, wine, 
 they have not also attributed a part to health : a boiling, 
 vigorous, full, and lazy health, such as formerly the verdure 
 of youth and security, by fits, supplied me withal ; that fire 
 of sprightliness and gaiety darts into the mind flashes that 
 are lively and bright beyond our natural light, and of all 
 enthusiasms the most jovial, if not the most extravagant. 
 
 It is, then, no wonder if a contrary state stupify and clog 
 my spirit, and produce a contrary effect : 
 
 " Ad nullum consurgit opus, cum corpore languet;" x 
 
 and yet would have me obliged to it for giving, as it wants 
 to make out, much less consent to this stupidity, than is 
 the ordinary case with men of my age. Let us, at least, 
 whilst we have truce, drive away incommodities and diffi- 
 culties from our commerce ; 
 
 " Dum licet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus : " 2 
 
 " Tetrica sunt amcenanda jocularibus." 3 I love a gay and 
 civil wisdom, and fly from all sourness and austerity of 
 manners, all grumness of visage being suspected by me, 
 
 " Tristemque vultus tetrici arrogantiam : " * 
 " Et habet tristis quoque turba cinaedos." 5 
 
 I am very much of Plato's opinion, who says that facile or 
 harsh humours are great indications of the good or ill dis- 
 position of the mind. Socrates had a constant countenance, 
 but serene and smiling ; not sourly constant, like the elder 
 
 1 " When the mind is languishing the body is good for nothing." — Pseudo 
 Gallus, i. 125. . 
 
 2 " Whilst we can, let us banish old age from the brow." — Herod., Ep. 
 xiii. 7- 
 
 3 " Sour things are to be sweetened with those that are pleasant." — Sidonius 
 Apollin., Ep. i. 9. 
 
 4 " The arrogant sadness of a crabbed face." — Auctor Incert. 
 
 5 " An austere countenance sometimes covers a debauched mind." — Idem. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 77 
 
 Crassus, whom no one ever saw laugh. 1 Virtue is a pleasant 
 and gay quality. 
 
 I know very well that few will quarrel with the licence 
 of my writings, who have not more to quarrel with in the 
 licence of their own thoughts : I conform myself well enough 
 to their inclinations, hut I offend their eyes. 'Tis a fine 
 humour to strain the writings of Plato, to wrest his pre- 
 tended intercourses with Phsedo, Dion, Stella, 2 and Archea- 
 nassa. " ISTon pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire." 3 I 
 hate a froward and dismal spirit, that slips over all the 
 pleasures of life and seizes and feeds upon misfortunes ; like 
 flies, that cannot stick to a smooth and polished body, but fix 
 and repose themselves upon craggy and rough places ; and' 
 like cupping-glasses, that only suck and attract bad blood. 
 
 As to the rest, I have enjoined myself to dare to say all 
 that I dare to do ; even thoughts that are not to be pub- 
 lished, displease me ; the worst of my actions and qualities 
 do not appear to me so evil, as I find it evil and base not 
 to dare to own them. Every one is wary and discreet in 
 confession, but men ought to be so in action ; the boldness 
 of doing ill is in some sort compensated and restrained by 
 the boldness of confessing it. Whoever will oblige himself 
 to tell all, should oblige himself to do nothing that he must 
 be forced to conceal. I wish that this excessive licence of 
 mine may draw men to freedom, above these timorous and 
 mincing virtues, sprung from our imperfections ; and that 
 at the expense of my immoderation, I may reduce them to 
 reason. A man must see and study his vice to correct it ; 
 they who conceal it from others, commonly conceal it from 
 themselves ; and do not think it close enough, if they them- 
 selves see it : they withdraw and disguise it from their 
 
 1 Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii. 19. 
 
 2 Montaigne gives the Latin form of the Greek name Aster. 
 
 3 "Let us not be ashamed to speak, what we are not ashamed to think." 
 
yS Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 own consciences : " Quare vitia sua nemo confitetur ? Quia 
 etiam nunc in illis est; soninium narrare, vigilantis est." 1 
 The diseases of the body explain themselves by their in- 
 crease ; we find that to be the gout, which we called a 
 rheum or a strain ; the diseases of the soul, the greater they 
 are, keep themselves the most obscure ; . the most sick are 
 the least sensible ; therefore it is, that with an unrelent- 
 ing hand, they must often, in full day, be taken to task, 
 opened, and torn from the hollow of the heart. As in doing 
 well, so in doing ill, the mere confession is sometimes satis- 
 faction. Is there any deformity in doing amiss, that can 
 excuse us from confessing ourselves ? It is so great a pain 
 to me to dissemble, that I evade the trust of another's 
 secrets, wanting the courage to disavow my knowledge. I 
 can keep silent ; but deny I cannot without the greatest 
 trouble and violence to myself imaginable : to be very 
 secret, a man must be so by nature, not by obligation. Tis 
 little worth, in the service of a prince, to be secret, if a man 
 be not a liar to boot. If he who asked Thales the Milesian, 
 whether he ought solemnly to deny that he had committed 
 adultery, had applied himself to me, I should have told 
 him, that he ought not to do it ; for I look upon lying as 
 a worse fault than the other. Thales advised him quite 
 contrary, 2 bidding him swear, to shield the greater fault by 
 the less : nevertheless, this counsel was not so much an 
 election, as a multiplication, of vice. Upon which, let us 
 say this by-the-bye, that we deal well with a man of con- 
 science, when we propose to him some difficulty in counter- 
 poise of the vice ; but when we shut him up betwixt two 
 
 i " Why does no man confess his vices ? because he is yet in them ; 'tis for 
 a waking man to tell his dream." — Seneca, Ep. 53. 
 
 2 Montaigne's memory here plays him one of its "scurvy tricks," for the 
 question being put to Thales, his answer was : ' ' But is not perjury worse 
 than adultery ? " — Diogenes Laertius, in vita, i. 36. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 79 
 
 vices, lie is put to a hard choice : as Origen was, either to 
 idolatrise, or to suffer himself to he carnally abused by a 
 great Ethiopian slave they brought to him. He submitted 
 to the first condition, and wrongly, people say. And yet 
 those women of our times are not much out, according to 
 their error, who protest they had rather burden their con- 
 sciences with ten men than one mass. 
 
 If it be indiscretion so to publish one's errors, yet there 
 is no great danger that it pass into example and custom; 
 for Aristo said, 1 that the winds men most fear, are those 
 that lay them open. We must tuck up this ridiculous 
 rag that hides our manners : they send their consciences to 
 the stews, and keep a starched countenance : even traitors 
 and assassins espouse the laws of ceremony, and there fix 
 their duty. So that neither can injustice complain of in- 
 civility, nor malice of indiscretion. 'Tis pity but a bad 
 man should be a fool to boot, and that outward decency 
 should palliate his vice : this rough-cast only appertains to 
 a good and sound wall, that deserves to be preserved and 
 whited. 
 
 In favour of the Huguenots, who condemn our auricular 
 and private confession, I confess myself in public, religiously 
 and purely: St. Augustin, Origen, and Hippocrates, have 
 published the errors of their opinions ; I, moreover, of my 
 manners. I am greedy of making myself known, 2 and I 
 care not to how many, provided it be truly ; or to say 
 better, I hunger for nothing, but I mortally hate to be mis- 
 taken by those who come to learn my name. He who does 
 all things for honour and glory, what can he think to gain 
 by showing himself to the world in a vizor, and by conceal- 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Curiosity, c. 3. 
 
 2 In the edition of Bordeaux, Montaigne adds these words: "A pleasant 
 fancy ; many things that I would not say to a particular individual, I say to 
 the people ; and, as to my most secret thoughts, send my most intimate friends 
 to my book." 
 
80 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii: 
 
 ing his true being from the people ? Praise a humpback 
 for his stature, he has reason to take it for an affront : 
 if you are a coward, and men commend you for your 
 valour, is it of you they speak ? They take you for 
 another. I should like him as well, who glorifies himself 
 in the compliments and congees that are made him as if 
 he were master of the company, when he is one of the 
 least of the train. Archelaus, king of Macedon, walking 
 along the street, somebody threw water on his head, which 
 they who were with him said he ought to punish : " Aye 
 but," said he, " whoever it was, he did not throw the water 
 upon me, but upon him whom he took me to be." 1 Socrates 
 being told that people spoke ill of him, " Not at all," said 
 he, " there is nothing in me of what they say." 2 For my 
 part, if any one should recommend me as a good pilot, 
 as being very modest, or very chaste I should owe him no 
 thanks ; and so, whoever should call me traitor, robber, or 
 drunkard, I should be as little concerned. They who do 
 not rightly know themselves, may feed themselves with 
 false approbations ; not I, who see myself, and who examine 
 myself even to my very bowels, and who very well know 
 what is my due. I am content to be less commended, pro- 
 vided I am better known. I may be reputed a wise man 
 in such a sort of wisdom as I take to be folly. I am vexed 
 that my Essays only serve the ladies for a common mov- 
 able, a book to lay in the parlour window ; this chapter shall 
 prefer me to the closet. I love to traffic with them a little 
 in private ; public conversation is without favour and with- 
 out savour. In farewells, we oftener than not heat our 
 affections towards the things we take leave of ; I take my 
 last leave of the pleasures of this world; these are our last 
 embraces. 
 
 1 Plutarch, Apothegms of the Kings. 2 Diogenes Laertius, in vita, ii. 34. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 8 1 
 
 But to come to my subject : what lias rendered the act 
 of generation, an act so natural, so necessary, and so just, a 
 thing not to be spoken of without blushing, and to be ex- 
 cluded from all serious and regular discourse ? We boldly 
 pronounce kill, rob, betray, 1 but the other we dare only to 
 mutter betwixt the teeth. Is it to say, the less we expend 
 in words, .we may pay so much the more in thinking ? 
 For it is certain that the words least in use, most seldom 
 written, and best kept in, are the best and most generally 
 known : no age, no manners, are ignorant of them, no more 
 than the word bread : they imprint themselves hi every 
 one, without being expressed, without voice, and without 
 figure ; and the sex that most practises it, is bound to say 
 least of it. 'lis an act that we have placed in the franchise 
 of silence, from which to take it is a crime, even to accuse 
 and judge it ; neither dare we reprehend it but by periphrasis 
 and picture. A great favour to a criminal to be so execrable 
 that justice thinks it unjust to touch and see him ; free, and 
 safe by the benefit of the severity of his condemnation. Is it 
 not here as in matter of books, that sell better and become 
 more public for being suppressed ? For my part, I will take 
 Aristotle at his word, who says, 2 that " Bashfulness is an 
 ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age." These 
 verses are preached hi the ancient school, a school that I 
 much more adhere to than the modern : its virtues appear 
 to me to be greater, and the vices less : 
 
 " Ceux qui par trop fuyant Venus estrivent, 
 Faillent autant que ceulx qui trop la suyvent." 3 
 " Tu, dea, tu rerum naturam sola guberiias, 
 Nee sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras 
 Exoritur, neque fit lsetum, nee amabile quicquam." 4 
 
 1 Cicero, Ep. fam., ix. 22. 2 Moral, ad Nicom., iv 9. 
 
 3 " They err as much who too much forbear Venus, as they who are too 
 frequent in her rites." — A translation by Amyot from Plutarch, A philosopher 
 should converse with princes. 
 
 4 "Thou, goddess, alone governest nature : without thee nothing comes into 
 light; nothing is pleasant, nothing joyful." — Lucretius, i. 22. 
 
 VOL. III. I 
 
82 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Bookiii. 
 
 I know not who could set Pallas and the Muses at vari- 
 ance with Venus, and make them cold towards Love ; but I 
 see no deities so well met, or that are more indebted to one 
 another. Who will deprive the Muses of amorous imagina- 
 tions, will rob them of the best entertainment they have, and 
 of the noblest matter of their work : and who will make 
 Love lose the communication and service of poesy, will dis- 
 arm him of his best weapons : by this means, they charge 
 the god of familiarity and good will, and the protecting 
 goddesses of humanity and justice, with the vice of ingrati- 
 tude and unthankfulness. I have not been so long cashiered 
 from the state and service of this god, that my memory is 
 not still perfect in his force and value ; 
 
 " Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae ; " l 
 
 There are yet some remains of heat and emotion after the 
 fever : 
 
 " Nee niihi deficiat calor liic, liiemantibus annis ! " 2 
 
 Withered and drooping as I atn, I feel yet some remains of 
 that past ardour : 
 
 " Qual l'alto Egeo, per che Aquilone o Noto 
 Cessi, che tutto prima il volse et scosse, 
 Noil 'a accheta ei pero ; nia'l suono e'l moto 
 Ritien del 1' onde anco agitate e grosse : " 3 
 
 but from what I understand of it, the force and power of this 
 god are more lively and animated in the picture of poesy 
 than in their own essence, 
 
 " Et versus digitos liabet : " * 
 
 " Some footsteps there are still of my old flame." — yEneid, iv. 23. 
 
 "I would not be deserted by the heat of youth in my winter age." 
 3 " As /Egean seas, when storms be calmed again, 
 
 That rolled their tumbling waves with troublous blasts, 
 
 Do yet of tempests passed, some show retain, 
 
 And here and there their swelling billows cast." — Fairfax. 
 
 "Verse has fingers." — Adapted from Juvenal, IV. 196. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 83 
 
 it has, I know not what kind of air, more amorous than 
 love itself. Venus is not so beautiful, naked, alive, and 
 panting, as she is here in Virgil : 
 
 " Dixerat ; et niveis liinc atque liinc diva lacertis 
 Cunctantem amplexu molli fovet. Ille repente 
 Accepit solitam flammam ; notusque medullas 
 Intravit calor, et labefacta per ossa cucurrit : 
 Non secus atque olim tonitru cum rupta corusco 
 Ignea rima micaus percurrit lumine ninibos. 
 
 Ea verba loquutus, 
 Optatos dedit amplexus ; placidumque petivit 
 Conjugis infusus gremio per membra soporem." 1 
 
 All that I find fault with in considering it is, that he has 
 represented her a little too passionate for a married Venus ; 
 in this discreet kind of coupling, the appetite is not usually 
 so wanton, but more grave and dull. Love hates that 
 people should hold of any but itself, and goes but faintly to 
 work in familiarities derived from any other title, as mar- 
 riage is : alliance, dowry, therein sway by reason, as much 
 or more than grace and beauty. Men do t not marry for 
 themselves, let them say what they will; they marry as 
 much or more for their posterity and family; the custom 
 and interest of marriage concern our race much more than 
 us ; and therefore it is, that I like to have a match carried 
 on by a third hand rather than a man's own, and by another 
 man's liking than that of the party himself ; and how much 
 is all this opposite to the conventions of love ? And also 
 it is a kind of incest to employ in this venerable and sacred 
 
 1 " The goddess spoke, and throwing round him her snowy arms in soft em- 
 braces caresses him hesitating. Suddenly, he caught the wonted flame, and 
 the well-known warmth pierced his marrow, and ran thrilling through his 
 shaken bones : just as when at times, with thunder, a stream of fire in lightning 
 flashes shoots across the skies. Having spoken these words, he gave her the 
 wished embrace, and in the bosom of his spouse dissolved away." — iEneid, 
 viii. 387 and 392. 
 
84 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 alliance, the heat and extravagance of amorous licence, as I 
 think I have said elsewhere. 1 A man, says Aristotle, must 
 approach his wife with prudence and temperance, lest in 
 dealing too lasciviously with her, the extreme pleasure make 
 her exceed the bounds of reason. What he says upon the 
 account of conscience, the physicians say upon the account 
 of health : " that a pleasure excessively lascivious, volup- 
 tuous, and frequent, makes the seed too hot, and hinders 
 conception : " 'tis said, elsewhere, that to a languishing con- 
 gression, as this naturally is, to supply it with a due and 
 fruitful heat, a man must do it but seldom, and by notable 
 intermissions, 
 
 " Quo rapiat sitiens Venerem, interiusque recondat." 2 
 
 I see no marriages where the conjugal intelligence sooner 
 fails, than those that we contract upon the account of 
 beauty and amorous desires ; there should be more solid 
 and constant foundation, and they should proceed with greater 
 circumspection; this furious ardour is worth nothing. 
 
 They who think they honour marriage by joining love to 
 it, do, methinks, like those who, to favour virtue, hold that 
 nobility is nothing else but virtue. They are indeed things 
 that have some relation to one another, but there is a great 
 deal of difference ; we should not so mix their names and 
 titles ; 'tis a wrong to them both, so to confound them. 
 Nobility is a brave quality, and with good reason intro- 
 duced; but forasmuch as 'tis a quality depending upon 
 others, and may happen in a vicious person, in him- 
 self nothing, 'tis in estimate infinitely below virtue: 3 
 'tis a virtue, if it be one, that is artificial and appa- 
 rent, depending upon time and fortune ; various in form, 
 
 1 Book i. c. 29. 
 
 2 " That they may seize the gifts of Venus, and enclose them in their 
 bosom." — Virg., Georg., iii. 137. 
 
 a " If nobility be virtue, it loses its quality in all things wherein not vir- 
 tuous : and if it be not virtue, 'tis a small matter." — La Bruyere. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 85 
 
 according to the country ; living and mortal ; without birth, 
 as the river Nile ; genealogical and common ; of succession 
 and similitude ; drawn by consequence, and a very weak 
 one. Knowledge, strength, goodness, beauty, riches, and all 
 other qualities, fall into communication and commerce, but 
 this is consummated in itself, and of no use to the service 
 of others. There was proposed to one of our kings the 
 choice of two concurrents for the same command, of whom 
 one was a gentleman, the other not ; he ordered, that without 
 respect to quality, they should chose him who had the most 
 merit; but where the worth of the competitors should ap- 
 pear to be entirely equal, they should have respect to birth : 
 this was justly to give it its rank. A young man unknown, 
 coming to Antigonus to make suit for his father's command, 
 a valiant man, lately dead : " Friend," said he, 1 " hi such 
 preferments as these, I have not so much regard to the 
 nobility of my soldiers as to their prowess." And, indeed, 
 it ought not to go as it did with the officers of the kings of 
 Sparta, trumpeters, fiddlers, cooks, the children of whom 
 always succeeded to their places, how ignorant soever, and 
 were preferred before the most experienced in the trade. 
 They of Calicut make of nobles a sort of persons above 
 human : they are interdicted marriage and all but warlike 
 employments : they may have of concubines their fill, and 
 the women as many lovers, without being jealous of one 
 another; but 'tis a capital and irremissible crime to couple 
 with a person of meaner condition than themselves ; and 
 they think themselves polluted, if they have but touched 
 one in walking along ; and supposing their nobility to be 
 marvellously interested and injured in it, kill such as only ap- 
 proach a little too near them : insomuch that the ignoble are 
 obliged to cry out as they walk, like the gondoliers of Venice, 
 
 1 Plutarch, on False Modesty, c. 10. 
 
86 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 at the turnings of streets for fear of jostling; and the 
 nobles command them to step aside to what part they please : 
 "by which means these avoid what they repute a perpetual 
 ignominy, and those certain death. No time, no favour of 
 the prince, no office, or virtue, or riches, can ever prevail to 
 make a plebeian become noble : to which this custom con- 
 tributes, that marriages are interdicted betwixt "different 
 trades ; the daughter of a shoemaker is not permitted to 
 marry a carpenter ; and the parents are obliged to train up 
 their children precisely in their own callings, and not put 
 them to any other trade ; by which means the distinction 
 and continuance of their position is maintained. 
 
 A good marriage, if there be any such, rejects the com- 
 pany and conditions of love, and tries to represent those of 
 friendship. Tis a sweet society of life, full of constancy, 
 trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services 
 and mutual obligations ; which any woman who has a right 
 
 taste — 
 
 " Optato quam junxit lumine tseda " x — 
 
 would be loath to serve her husband in quality of a mistress. 
 If she be lodged in his affection as a wife, she is more hon- 
 ourably and securely placed. When he purports to be in 
 love with another, and works all he can to obtain his desire, 
 let any one but ask him, on which he had rather a disgrace 
 should fall, his wife or his mistress, which of their misfor- 
 tunes would most afflict him, and to which of them he wishes 
 the most grandeur, the answer to these questions is out of 
 dispute in a sound marriage. 
 
 And that so few are observed to be happy, is a token of 
 its price and value. If well formed and rightly taken, 'tis 
 the best of all human societies ; we cannot live without it, and 
 yet we do nothing but decry it. It happens, as with cages, 
 
 1 "^United to a desired object." — Catullus, Ixiv. 79. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 8j 
 
 the "birds without despair to get in, and those within despair 
 of getting out. Socrates, being asked, 1 whether it was more 
 commodious to take a wife, or not ; " Let a man take which 
 course he will," said he, " he will be sure to repent." Tis a 
 contract to which the common saying, " Homo homini, aut 
 cleus, aut lupus," 2 may very fitly be applied ; there must be 
 a concurrence of many qualities in the construction. It is 
 found nowadays more convenient for simple and plebeian 
 souls, where delights, curiosity, and idleness do not so much 
 disturb it ; but extravagant humours, such as mine, that 
 hate all sorts of obligation and restraint, are not so proper 
 for it ; 
 
 " Et mihi dulce magis resoluto vivere collo." 3 
 
 Might I have had my own will, I would not have married 
 Wisdom herself, if she would have had me. But 'tis to 
 much purpose to evade it ; the common custom and usance 
 of life will have it so. The most of my actions are guided by 
 example, not by choice, and yet I did not go to it of my own 
 voluntary motion ; I was led and drawn to it by extrinsic 
 occasions ; for not only tilings that are incommodious in 
 themselves, but also things however ugly, vicious, and to be 
 avoided, may be rendered acceptable by some condition or 
 accident ; so unsteady and vain is all human resolution ! 
 and I was persuaded to it, when worse prepared, and less 
 tractable than I am at present, that I have tried what it 
 is : and as great a libertine as I am taken to be, I have 
 in truth more strictly observed the laws of marriage, than I 
 either promised or expected. Tis in vain to kick, when a 
 man has once put on his fetters : a man must prudently 
 manage his liberty ; but having once submitted to obliga- 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, in vita, ii. 33. 
 
 2 " Man to man is either a god or a wolf." — Era?mi. Adag. 
 
 3 " I like better to live unfettered." — Pseudo Gallus, i. 61. 
 
SS Up 07i some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 tion, lie . must confine himself within the laws of common 
 duty, at least} do what he can towards it. They who engage 
 in this contract, with a design to carry themselves in it with 
 hatred and contempt, do an unjust and inconvenient thing ; 
 and the fine rule that I hear pass from hand to hand amongst 
 the women, as a sacred oracle, 
 
 " Sers ton mary comme ton maistre, 
 Et t'en garde comme d'un traistre," l 
 
 which is to say, comport thyself towards him with a dis- 
 sembled, inimical, and distrustful reverence (a cry of war 
 and defiance), is equally injurious and hard. I am too mild 
 for such rugged designs : to say the truth, I am not arrived 
 to that perfection of ability and refinement of wit, to con- 
 found reason with injustice, and to laugh at all rule and 
 order that does not please my palate ; because I hate super- 
 stition, I do not presently run into the contrary extreme of 
 irreligion. If a man does not always perform his duty, he 
 ought at least to love and acknowledge it ; 'tis treachery to 
 marry without espousing. 
 
 Let us proceed. 
 
 Our poet represents a marriage happy in good intelligence, 
 
 wherein nevertheless there is not much loyalty. Does he 
 
 mean, that it is not impossible but a woman may give the 
 
 reins to her own passion, and yield to the importunities of 
 
 love, and yet reserve some duty toward marriage, and that 
 
 it may be hurt, without being totally broken ? A serving 
 
 man may cheat his master, whom nevertheless he does not 
 
 hate. Beauty, opportunity, and destiny (for destiny has also 
 
 a hand in't), 
 
 " Fatum est in partibus illis 
 Qnas sinus abscondit ; nam, si tibi sidera cessent, 
 Nil faciet longi mensura incognita nervi;" 2 
 
 1 " Serve thy husband as thy master, but guard thyself against him as from 
 a traitor. 
 
 a " There is a fatality about the hidden parts : let nature have endowed you 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 89 
 
 have attached her to a stranger ; though not so wholly 
 peradventure, but that she may have some remains of kind- 
 ness for her husband. They are two designs, that have 
 several paths leading to them, without being confounded 
 with one another ; a woman may yield to a man she would 
 by no means have married, not only for the condition of 
 his fortune, but for those also of his person. Few men 
 have made a wife of a mistress, who have not repented 
 it. And even in the other world, what an unhappy life 
 does Jupiter lead with his, whom he had first enjoyed as a 
 mistress ? l 'Tis, as the proverb runs, to befoul a basket and 
 then put it upon one's head. I have in my time, in a 
 good family, seen love shamefully and dishonestly cured by 
 marriage : the considerations are widely different. We love 
 at once, without any tie, two things contrary in themselves. 
 
 Socrates was wont to say, 2 that the city of Athens pleased 
 as ladies do whom men court for love ; every one loved to 
 come thither to take a turn, and pass away his time ; but 
 no one liked it so well as to espouse it, that is, to inhabit 
 there, and to make it his constant residence. 1 have been 
 vexed to see husbands hate their wives only because they 
 themselves do them wrong ; we should not, at all events, 
 methinks, love them the less for our own faults ; they should 
 at least upon the account of repentance and compassion, 
 be dearer to us. 
 
 They are different ends, he says, and yet in some sort 
 compatible ; marriage has utility, justice, honour, and 
 constancy for its share ; a fiat, but more universal plea- 
 sure : love founds itself wholly upon pleasure, and, indeed, 
 has it more full, lively and sharp ; a pleasure inflamed 
 by difficulty ; there must be in it sting and smart ; 'tis no 
 
 however liberally, 'tis of no use, if your good star fails you in the nick of 
 time." — Juvenal, ix. 32. 
 
 1 Iliad, xiv. 295. 2 iEliam, Var. Hist., xii. 52. 
 
90 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book ill. 
 
 longer love, if without darts and fire. The bounty of ladies 
 
 is too profuse in marriage, and dulls the point of affection 
 
 and desire : to evade which inconvenience, do "but observe 
 
 what pains Lycurgus and Plato take in their laws. 
 
 Women are not to blame at all, when they refuse the 
 
 rules of life that are introduced into the world, forasmuch 
 
 as the men made them without their consent. There is 
 
 naturally contention and brawling betwixt them and us ; 
 
 and the strictest friendship we have with them, is yet mixed 
 
 with tumult and tempest. In the opinion of our author, 
 
 we deal inconsiderately with them in this : after we have 
 
 discovered, that they are, without comparison, more able and 
 
 ardent in the practice of love than we, and that the old priest 
 
 testified as much, who had been one while a man, and then 
 
 a woman, 
 
 " Venus huic erat utraque nota : " l 
 
 and moreover, that we have learned from their own mouths 
 
 the proof that, in several ages, was made by an Emperor and 
 
 Empress of Borne, 2 both famous for ability in that affair ! 
 
 for he in one night deflowered ten Sarmatian virgins who 
 
 were his captives : but 3 she had five-and-twenty bouts in 
 
 one night, changing her man according to her need and 
 
 liking, 
 
 " Adhuc ardens rigidse tentigine vulvae : 
 Et lassata viris, nonduni satiata, recessit : " 4 
 
 and that upon the dispute which happened in Catalonia, 
 wherein a wife complaining of her husband's too frequent 
 addresses to her, not so much, as I conceive, that she was 
 incommodated by it (for I believe no miracles out of religion) 
 as under this pretence, to curtail and curb in this, which is 
 the fundamental act of marriage, the authority of husbands 
 
 1 " To whom either Venus was known." — Tiresias. Ovid., Metam., hi. 323. 
 
 2 Proculus. 
 
 3 Messalina, wife of the Emperor Claudius. 
 
 4 " Ardent still, she retired, fatigued, but not satisfied." — Juvenal, vi. 128. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 9 1 
 
 over their wives, and to show that their frowardness and 
 malignity go beyond the nuptial bed, and spurn under foot 
 even the graces and sweets of Venus ; the husband, a man 
 truly brutish and unnatural, replied, that even on fasting 
 days he could not subsist with less than ten courses : where- 
 upon came out that notable sentence of the Queen of 
 Arragon, by which, after mature deliberation of her council, 
 this good queen, to give a rule and example to all succeeding 
 ages of the moderation required in a just marriage, set down 
 six times a day as a legitimate and necessary stint ; surren- 
 dering and quitting a great deal of the needs and desires 
 of her sex, that she might, she said, establish an easy, and 
 consequently, a permanent and immutable rule. Hereupon 
 the doctors cry out ; what must the female appetite and con- 
 cupiscence be, when their reason, then reformation and virtue, 
 are taxed at such a rate ? considering the divers judgments 
 of our appetites ; for Solon, master of the law school, taxes 
 us but at three a month, 1 that men may not fail in point of 
 conjugal frequentation : after having, I say, believed and 
 preached all this, 2 we go and enjoin them continency for 
 their particular share, and upon the extremest penalties. 
 
 There is no passion so hard to contend with as this, which 
 we would have them only resist, not simply as an ordinary 
 vice, but as an execrable abomination, worse than irreligion 
 and parricide ; whilst we, at the same time, go to't without 
 offence or reproach. Even those amongst us, who have tried 
 the experiment, have sufficiently confessed what difficulty, or 
 rather impossibility, they have found by material remedies to 
 subdue, weaken, and cool the body. We, on the contrary, 
 would have them at once sound, vigorous, plump, high-fed, and 
 chaste ; that is to say, both hot and cold ; for the marriage, 
 which we tell them is to keep them from burning, is but small 
 
 1 Plutarch on Love. 2 The greater ardour of women. 
 
92 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Bookiii. 
 
 refreshment to them, as we order the matter. If they take 
 one whose vigorous age is yet boiling, he will be proud to 
 make it known elsewhere ; 
 
 " Sit tandem pudor ; aut eamus in jus ; 
 Multis mentula millibus redempta, 
 Non est haec tua, Basse ; vendidisti ; " x 
 
 Polemon the philosopher was justly by his wife brought 
 before the judge for sowing in a barren field the seed that 
 was due to one that was fruitful : if, on the other hand, they 
 take a decayed fellow, they are in a worse condition in mar- 
 riage than either maids or widows. We think them well 
 provided for, because they have a man to lie with, as the 
 Romans concluded Clodia Lseta, a vestal nun, violated, 
 because Caligula had approached her, though it was declared 
 he did no more but approach her : but, on the contrary, we 
 by that increase their necessity, forasmuch as the touch and 
 company of any man whatever rouses their desires, that 
 in solitude would be more quiet. And to the end, 'tis likely, 
 that they might render their chastity more meritorious by 
 this circumstance and consideration, Boleslaus and Kinge, 
 his wife, king and queen of Poland, vowed it by mutual 
 consent, being in bed together, on their very wedding day, 
 and kept their vow in spite of all matrimonial conveniences. 
 We train them up from their infancy to the traffic of 
 love ; their grace, dressing, knowledge, language, and whole 
 instruction tend that way : their governesses imprint nothing 
 in them but the idea of love, if for nothing else but by con- 
 tinually representing it to them, to give them a distaste for 
 it. My daughter, the only child I have, is now of an age 
 that forward young women are allowed to be married at ; 
 she is of a slow, thin, and tender complexion, and has 
 
 1 " If you don't mend your ways, Battus, we shall go to law: your vigour, 
 bought by your wife with many thousands, is no longer yours : 'tis sold 
 to her." — Martial, xii. 90. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 93 
 
 accordingly been brought up by her mother after a retired 
 and particular manner, so that she but now begins to be 
 weaned from her childish simplicity. She was one day 
 reading before me in a French book, where she happened to 
 meet the word fouteau, the name of a tree very well known ;* 
 the woman to whose conduct she is committed stopped her 
 short a little roughly, and made her skip over that dangerous 
 step. I let her alone, not to trouble their rules, for I never 
 concern myself in that sort of government ; feminine polity 
 has a mysterious procedure ; we must leave it to them ; but 
 if I am not mistaken, the commerce of twenty lacquies could 
 not, in six months' time, have so imprinted in her fancy the 
 meaning, usage, and all the consequence of the sound of 
 these wicked syllables, as this good old woman did by re- 
 primand and interdiction. 
 
 u Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos 
 Matura virgo, et frangitur artubus 
 
 Jam nunc, et incestos amores 
 De tenero meditatur ungui." 2 
 
 Let them but give themselves the reign a little, let them 
 but enter into liberty of discourse, we are but children to 
 them in this science. Hear them but describe our pursuits 
 and conversation, they will very well make you understand 
 that we bring them nothing they have not known before, 
 and digested without our help. Is it, perhaps, as Plato 
 says, that they have formerly been debauched young fellows ? 
 I happened one day to be in a place where I could hear 
 some of then talk without suspicion ; I am sorry I cannot 
 repeat it. By'rlady, said I, we had need go study the 
 phrases of Amadis, and the tales of Boccaccio and Aretin, 
 
 1 The beech-tree ; the name resembles in sound an obscene French word. 
 
 2 "The maid ripe for marriage delights to learn Ionic dances, and to imi- 
 tate those lascivious movements. Nay, already from her infancy she meditates 
 criminal amours." — Horace, iii. 6, 21, the text has fingitu?; 
 
94 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 to be able to discourse with thern : we employ our time to 
 much purpose indeed. There is neither word, example, nor 
 step they are not more perfect hi than our books ; 'tis a dis- 
 cipline that springs with their blood, 
 
 " Et mentem ipsa Venus dedit," 1 
 
 which these good instructors, nature, youth, and health are 
 continually inspiring them with ; they need not learn, they 
 breed it : 
 
 " Nee tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo, 
 Compar, vel si quid dicitur improbius, 
 Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro, 
 Quantum prascipue multivola est mulier." 2 
 
 So that if the natural violence of their desire were not a 
 little restrained by fear and honour, which were wisely con- 
 trived for them, we should be all shamed. All the motions 
 in the world resolve into and tend to this conjunction ; 'tis 
 a matter infused throughout : 'tis a centre to which all things 
 are directed. We yet see the edicts of the old and wise 
 Eome, made for the service of love ; and the precepts of 
 Socrates for the instruction of courtezans : 
 
 " Necnon libelli Stoici, inter sericos 
 Jacere pulvillos amant : " 3 
 
 Zeno, amongst his laws, also regulated the motions to be 
 observed in getting a maidenhead. What was the philoso- 
 pher Strato's book Of Carnal Conjunction ? 4 And what 
 did Theophrastus treat of in those he intituled, the one The 
 Lover, and the other Of Love ? 5 Of what Aristippus in his 
 
 1 " Venus herself made them what they are." — Virg., Geor., iii. 267. 
 
 2 " No milk-white dove, or if there be a thing more lascivious, takes so 
 much delight in kissing as woman, wishful for every man she sees." — Catullus, 
 lxvi. 125. 
 
 3 "There are writings of the Stoics which we find lying upon silken 
 cushions." — Horace, Epod., viii. 15. 
 
 4 Diogenes Laertius, V. 59. e Idem, V. 43. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 95 
 
 Of Former Delights ? What do the so long and lively de- 
 scriptions in Plato of the loves of his time pretend to ? 
 and the book called The Lover, of Demetrius Phalereus ? l 
 and Clinias, or the Eavished Lover, of Heraclides ; 2 and that 
 of Antisthenes, Of Getting Children, or, Of Weddings, 3 and the 
 other, Of the Master or the Lover ? And that of Aristo : Of 
 Amorous Exercises ? 4 What those of Cleanthes : one, Of Love, 
 the other, Of the Art of Loving ? 5 The amorous dialogues of 
 Sphsereus ? 6 and the fable of Jupiter and Juno, of Chry- 
 sippus, impudent beyond all toleration ? 7 And his fifty 
 so lascivious epistles ? I will let alone the writings of the 
 philosophers of the Epicurean sect, protectress of voluptu- 
 ousness. Eifty deities were, in time past, assigned to this 
 office ; and there have been nations 8 where, to assuage the 
 lust of those who came to their devotion, they kept men and 
 women in their temples for the worshippers to lie with ; 
 and it was an act of ceremony to do this before they went 
 to prayers : " Mmirum propter continentiam incontinentia 
 necessaria est ; incendium ignibus extinguitur." 9 
 
 In the greatest part of the world, that member of our 
 body was deified ; in the same province, some flayed off the 
 skin to offer and consecrate a piece ; others offered and con- 
 secrated their seed. In another, the young men publicly cut 
 through betwixt the skin and the flesh of that part in several 
 places, and thrust pieces of wood into the openings as long 
 and thick as they would receive, and of these pieces of 
 wood afterwards made a fire as an offering to their gods ; 
 and were reputed neither vigorous nor chaste, if by the 
 force of that cruel pain, they seemed to be at all dis- 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, V. 8l. ~ Idem, ibid., 87. 
 
 3 Idem, vi. 15. 4 Idem, vii. 163. 
 
 5 Idem, vii. 175. 6 Idem, ibid., 17S. 7 Idem, ibid., 1S7. 
 
 8 Babylon, Cyprus, Heliopolis in Phoenicia. 
 
 9 " Doubtless incontinency is necessary for continency's sake; a conflagra- 
 tion is extinguished by fire." 
 
96 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 mayed. Elsewhere the most sacred magistrate was reve- 
 renced and acknowledged by that member : and in several 
 ceremonies the effigy of it was carried in pomp to the honour 
 of various divinities. The Egyptian ladies, in their Bac- 
 chanalia, each carried one finely-carved of wood about their 
 necks, as large and heavy as she could so carry it ; besides 
 which, the statue of their god presented one, which in 
 greatness surpassed all the rest of his body. 1 The married 
 women, near the place where I live, make of their ker- 
 chiefs the figure of one upon their foreheads, to glorify 
 themselves in the enjoyment they have of it ; and coming 
 to be widows, they throw it behind, and cover it with their 
 headcloths. The most modest matrons of Eome thought it 
 an honour to offer flowers and garlands to the god Priapus ; 
 and they made the virgins, at the time of their espousals, 
 sit upon his shameful parts. And I know not whether I 
 have not in my time seen some air of like devotion. What 
 was the meaning of that ridiculous thing our forefathers 
 wore on the forepart of their breeches, and that is still worn 
 by the Swiss ? 2 To what end do we make a show of our 
 implements in figure under our gaskins, and often, which is 
 worse, above their natural size, by falsehood and imposture ? 
 I have half a mind to believe that this sort of vestment 
 was invented in the better and more conscientious ages, that 
 the world might not be deceived, and that every one should 
 give a public account of his proportions : the simple nations 
 wear them yet, and near about the real size. In those days, 
 the tailor took measure of it, as the shoemaker does now of 
 a man's foot. That good man, who, when I was young, 
 gelded so many noble and ancient statues in his great city, 
 that they might not corrupt the sight of the ladies, accord- 
 
 1 Herodotus, ii. 48, says " nearly as large as the body itself." 
 
 2 " Cod-pieces worn." — Cotton. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 97 
 
 ing to the advice of this other ancient worthy, "Flagitii 
 principinm est, nudare inter cives corpora," x should have 
 called to mind, that, as in the mysteries of the Bona Dea 
 all masculine appearance was excluded, that he did nothing, 
 if he did not geld horses and asses, in short, all nature : 
 
 " Orune acleo genus in terris, honiinuinque, ferarumque, 
 Et genus sequoreuru, pecudes, pictseque volucres, 
 In furias ignemque ruunt." " 
 
 The gods, says Plato, 3 have given us one disobedient and 
 unruly member that, like a furious animal, attempts, by the 
 violence of its appetite, to subject all things to it ; and so 
 they have given to women one like a greedy and ravenous 
 animal, which, if it be refused food in season, grows wild, 
 impatient of delay, and infusing its rage into their bodies, 
 stops the passages, and hinders respiration, causing a thou- 
 sand ills, till, having imbibed the fruit of the common thirst, 
 it has plentifully bedewed the bottom of their matrix. Now 
 my legislator 4 should also have considered, that, peradven- 
 ture, it were a chaster and more fruitful usage to let them 
 know the fact as it is betimes, than permit them to 
 guess according to the liberty and heat of their own fancy ; 
 instead of the real parts they substitute, through hope and 
 desire, others that are three times more extravagant ; and 
 a certain friend of mine lost himself by producing his in 
 place and time when the opportunity was not present to put 
 them to their more serious use. What mischief do not those 
 pictures of prodigious dimension do that the boys make 
 upon the staircases and galleries of the royal houses ? they 
 
 1 " 'Tis the beginning of wickedness to show their nudities in public." — 
 Ennius, ap. Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 33. 
 
 ' 2 "So that all living things, men and animals, wild or tame, and fish and 
 gaudy fowl, rush to this flame of love." — Virgil, Georg., iii. 244. 
 
 3 In the Timseus, towards the end. 
 
 4 The Pope who, as Montaigne has told us, took it into his head to geld the 
 statues. 
 
 VOL. IIL G 
 
98 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 give the ladies a cruel contempt of our natural furniture. 
 And what do we know "but that Plato, after other well- 
 instituted republics, ordered that the men and women, old 
 and young, should expose themselves naked to the view of 
 one another, in his gymnastic exercises, upon that very ac- 
 count ? The Indian women who see the men stark naked, 
 have at least cooled the sense of seeing. And let the women 
 of the kingdom of Pegu say what they will, who below the 
 waist have nothing to cover them but a cloth slit before, 
 and so strait, that what decency and modesty soever they 
 pretend by it, at every step all is to be seen, that it is an 
 invention to allure the men to them, and to divert them 
 from boys, to whom that nation is generally inclined ; yet, 
 peradventure, they lose more by it than they get, and one 
 may venture to say, that an entire appetite is more sharp 
 than one already half-glutted by the eyes. Livia was wont 
 to say, that to a virtuous woman a naked man was but a 
 statue. 1 The Lacedsemonian women, more virgins when 
 wives than our daughters are, saw every day the young men 
 of their city stripped naked in their exercises, themselves 
 little heeding to cover their thighs in walking, believing 
 themselves, says Plato, sufficiently covered by their virtue 
 without any other robe. But those of whom St. Augustin 2 
 speaks, have given nudity a wonderful power of temptation, 
 who have made it a doubt, whether women at the day of 
 judgment shall rise again in their own sex, and not rather 
 in ours, for fear of tempting us again in that holy state. 
 In brief, we allure and flesh them by all sorts of ways : we 
 incessantly heat and stir up their imagination, and then we 
 find fault. Let us confess the truth ; there is scarce one of 
 us who does not more apprehend the shame that accrues to 
 him by the vices of his wife than by his own, and that is 
 
 1 Dion, Life of Tiberius. 2 De Civit. Dei, xxii. 1 7. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 99 
 
 not more solicitous (a wonderful charity) of the conscience 
 of his virtuous wife than of his own ; who had not rather 
 commit theft and sacrilege, and that his wife was a mur- 
 deress and a heretic, than that she should not be more 
 chaste than her husband : an unjust estimate of vice^. 
 Both we and they are capable of a thousand corruptions 
 more prejudicial and unnatural than lust : but we weigh 
 vices, not according to nature, but according to our interest ; 
 by which means they take so many unequal forms. 
 
 The austerity of our decrees renders the application of 
 women to this vice more violent and vicious than its own 
 condition needs, and engages it in consequences worse than 
 their cause : they will readily offer to go to the law courts 
 to seek for gain, and to the wars to get reputation, rather 
 than, in the midst of ease and delights, to have to keep so 
 difficult a guard. Do not they very well see that there is 
 neither merchant nor soldier who will not leave his business 
 to run after this sport, or the porter or cobbler, toiled and 
 tired out as they are with labour and hunger ? 
 
 "Num. tu, quje tenuit dives Aclisemenes, 
 Aut pinguis Phrygise Mygdonias opes, 
 Permutare velis crine Licymnise, 
 
 Plenas aut Arabum clomos, 
 Dum fragrantia detorquet ad oscula 
 Cervicem, aut facili ssevitia negat, 
 Quae poscente magis gaudeat eripi, 
 
 Interdum rapere occupet I" 1 
 
 I do not know whether the exploits of Alexander and Caesar 
 really surpass the resolution of a beautiful young woman, 
 
 1 "Would you not exchange all the wealth Achtemenes once had, all the 
 riches of the king of fertile Phrygia, all the treasures of the Arabians, for 
 one ringlet of Licymnias's hair, when she turns her head to you for fragrant 
 kisses, or with easily assuaged anger denies them, which she would rather by 
 far you took by force, and sometimes herself snatches one ? " — Horace, Od. ii. 
 
 12, 21. 
 
ico Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 bred up after our fashion, in the light and commerce of the 
 world, assailed by so many contrary examples, and yet 
 keeping herself entire in the midst of a thousand continual 
 and powerful solicitations. There is no doing more difficult 
 than that not doing, nor more active : I hold it more easy 
 to carry a suit of armour all the days of one's life than a 
 maidenhead ; and the vow of virginity of all others is 
 the most noble, as being the hardest to keep : " Diaboli 
 virtus in lumbis est," says St. Jerome. 1 We have, doubtless, 
 resigned to the ladies the most difficult and most vigorous 
 of all human endeavours, and let us resign to them the 
 glory too. This ought to encourage them to be obstinate in 
 it ; 'tis a brave thing for them to defy us, and to spurn 
 under foot that vain pre-eminence of valour and virtue that 
 we pretend to have over them : they will find, if they do 
 but observe it, that they will not only be much more 
 esteemed for it, but also much more beloved. A gallant 
 man does not give over Iris pursuit for being refused, pro- 
 vided it be a refusal of chastity, and not of choice ; we 
 may swear, threaten, and complain to much purpose ; we 
 therein do but lie, for we love them all the better : there 
 is no allurement like modesty, if it be not rude and crabbed. 
 'Tis stupidity and meanness to be obstinate against hatred 
 and disdain ; but against a virtuous and constant resolu- 
 tion, mixed with good-will, 'tis the exercise of a noble 
 and generous soul. They may acknowledge our service to 
 a certain degree, and give us civilly to understand that 
 they disdain us not ; for the law that enjoins them to 
 abominate us because we adore them, and to hate us because 
 we love them, is certainly very cruel, if but for the difficulty 
 of it. Why should they not give ear to our offers and 
 
 1 St. Jerome contra Jovinian. ii. 72, Ed. 1537- Montaigne thus translates 
 the passage on the margin of a copy of his essays : " Car la vertu du diable est 
 aux roipnons." 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 101 
 
 requests, so long as they are kept ■within the bounds 
 of modesty ? wherefore should w r e fancy them to have 
 other thoughts within, and to he worse than they seem ? 
 A queen of our time ingeniously said, " that to refuse these 
 courtesies is a testimony of weakness in women and a self- 
 accusation of facility, and that a lady could not boast of 
 her chastity who was never tempted." The limits of honour 
 are not cut so short; they may give themselves a little 
 rein, and relax a little without being faulty : there lies 
 on the frontier some space free, indifferent and neuter. 
 He that has beaten and pursued her into her fort is a strange 
 fellow if he be not satisfied with his fortune : the price of 
 the conquest is considered by the difficulty. Would you 
 know what impression your service and merit have made 
 in her heart ? Judge of it by her behaviour. Some may 
 grant more, who do not grant so much. The obligation 
 of a benefit wholly relates to the good will of those who 
 confer it : the other coincident circumstances are dumb, 
 dead, and casual ; it costs her dearer to grant you that 
 little, than it would do her companion to grant all. If in 
 anything rarity give estimation, it ought especially in this : 
 do not consider how little it is that is given, but how few 
 have it to give ; the value of money alters according 
 to the coinage and stamp of the place. Whatever the spite 
 and indiscretion of some may make them say in the 
 excess of their discontent, virtue and truth will in time 
 recover all the advantage. I have known some wdiose repu- 
 tation has for a great while suffered under slander, who have 
 afterwards been restored to the world's universal approbation 
 by their mere constancy without care or artifice ; every 
 one repents, and gives himself the lie for what he has be- 
 lieved and said ; and from girls a little suspected they 
 have been afterward advanced to the first rank amongst the 
 ladies of honour. Somebody told Plato that all the world 
 
102 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 spoke ill of him. " Let them talk," said he, " " I will live 
 so as to make them change their note." Besides the fear 
 of God, and the value of so rare a glory, which ought to 
 make them look to themselves, the corruption of the age 
 we live in compels them to it ; and if I were they, there is 
 nothing I would not rather do than intrust my reputation 
 in so dangerous hands. In my time the pleasure of telling 
 (a pleasure little inferior to that of doing) was not permitted 
 hut to those who had some faithful and only friend ; hut 
 now the ordinary discourse and common table-talk is nothing 
 but boasts of favours received and the secret liberality of 
 ladies. In earnest, 'tis too abject, too much meanness of 
 spirit, in men to suffer such ungrateful, indiscreet, and 
 giddy -headed people so to persecute, forage, and rifle those 
 tender and charming favours. 
 
 This our immoderate and illegitimate exasperation against 
 this vice springs from the most vain and turbulent disease 
 that afflicts human minds, which is jealousy ; 
 
 " Quia vetat apposito lumen de lumine sumi ? 
 Dent licet assidue, nil tamen inde perit ; " 1 
 
 she, and envy, her sister, seem to me to be the most foolish 
 of the whole troop. As to the last, I can say little about 
 it ; 'tis a passion that, though said to be so mighty and 
 powerful, had never to do with me. As to the other, I 
 know it by sight, and that's all. Beasts feel it ; the shep- 
 herd Gratis, having fallen in love with a she-goat, the he- 
 goat, out of jealousy, came to butt liim as he lay asleep, and 
 beat out his brains. 2 We have raised this fever to a greater 
 excess by the examples of some barbarous nations ; the best 
 
 1 "Who says that one light should not be lighted from another light? Let 
 them give ever so much, as much ever remains to lose." — Ovid, De Art 
 Amandi., iii. 93. The measure of the last line is not good, but the words are 
 taken from the epigram in the Catalecta entitled Priapus. 
 
 2 iElian, On Animals, xii. 42. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 103 
 
 disciplined have been touched with it, and 'tis reason, but 
 not transported : 
 
 " Ense marital! nemo confossus adulter 
 
 Purpureo Stygias sanguine tinxit aquas : " 1 
 
 Lucullus, Ctesar, Pompey, Antony, Cato, and other brave 
 men were cuckolds, and knew it, without making any bustle 
 about it ; there was in those days but one coxcomb, Lepi- 
 dus, 2 that died for grief that his wife had used him so. 
 
 " All ! turn te miserum malique fati, 
 Quern attractis pedibus, patente porta, 
 Percurrent raphanique mugilesque : " 3 
 
 and the god of our poet, when he surprised one of his com- 
 panions with his wife, satisfied himself by putting them to 
 shame only, 
 
 , " Atque aliquis de dis non tristibus optat 
 Sic fieri turpis : " 4 
 
 and nevertheless took anger at the lukewarm embraces she 
 gave him, complaining that upon that account she was 
 grown jealous of his affection : 
 
 " Quid causas petis ex alto 1 fiducia cessit 
 Quo tibi, diva, mei 1 " 5 
 
 nay, she entreats arms for a bastard of her's, 
 
 1 " Never did adulterer slain by a husband stain with purple blood the 
 Stygian waters." 
 
 - " The father of the Truimvir." — Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. 5. 
 
 3 "Wretched man ■ when, taken in the fact, thou wilt be dragged out of 
 doors by the heels, and suffer the punishment of thy adultery." — Catullus, xv. 17. 
 
 4 " One of the merry gods said he should himself like to be so disgraced." 
 —Ovid, Metam., iv. 187. 
 
 5 " Why make question thus? Where, goddess, is your confidence in me ? " 
 — Virgil, iEneid, viii. 395. 
 
 6 " A mother for her son asks armour." — Idem, ibid., 383. 
 
1 04 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 which are freely granted ; and Vulcan speaks honourably of 
 
 iEneas, 
 
 " Arraa acri facienda viro," 1 
 
 with, in truth, a more than human humanity. And I am 
 willing to leave this excess of kindness to the gods : 
 
 " Nee divis homines componier aecpium est." 2 
 
 As to the confusion of children, "besides that the gravest 
 legislators ordain and affect it in their republics, it touches 
 not the women, where this passion is, I know not how, 
 much better seated : 
 
 " Ssepe etiam Juno, maxima ccelicolam, 
 
 Conjugis in culpa flagravit quotidiana." 3 
 
 When jealousy seizes these poor souls, weak and incapable 
 of resistance, 'tis pity to see how miserably it torments and 
 tyrannises over them ; it insinuates itself into them under 
 the title of friendship, but after it has once possessed them^ 
 the same causes that served for a foundation of good will 
 serve them for a foundation of mortal hatred. Tis, of all 
 the diseases of the mind, that which the most things serve 
 for aliment, and the fewest for remedy : the virtue, health, 
 merit, reputation of the husband are incendiaries of their fury 
 and ill-will : 
 
 " Nulla? sunt inimicitise, nisi amoris, acerbse." 4 
 
 This fever defaces and corrupts all they have of beautiful 
 and good besides ; and there is no action of a jealous 
 woman, let her be how chaste and how good a housewife so- 
 ever, that does not relish of anger and wrangling : 'tis a 
 
 1 " Armour must be made for a valiant hero." — /Eneid, viii. 441. 
 
 2 "Nor is it fit to compare men with gods." — Catullus, lxviii. 141. 
 
 3 " Often was Juno, the greatest of the goddesses, enraged by her husband's 
 daily infidelities." — Idem, ibid., 141. 
 
 4 " No hate is implacable except the hatred of love." — Propertius, ii. 8, 3. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 105 
 
 furious agitation, that rebounds them to an extremity quite 
 contrary to its cause. This was very manifest in one Oc- 
 tavius at Eome, who, having lain with Pontia Posthumia, 
 found his love so much augmented by fruition, that he 
 solicited with all importunity to marry her, which seeing he 
 could not persuade her to, this excessive affection precipi- 
 tated him to the effects of the most cruel and mortal hatred, 
 for he killed her. 1 In like manner, the ordinary symptoms 
 of this other amorous disease are intestine hatreds, private 
 conspiracies, and cabals, 
 
 " Notumqtie furens quid fsemina possit," 2 
 
 and a rage which so much the more frets itself, as it is 
 compelled to excuse itself by a pretence of good will. 
 
 Now, the duty of chastity is of a vast extent ; is it their 
 will that we would have them restrain ? That is a very supple 
 and active thing ; a thing very nimble, to be stayed. How ? 
 if dreams sometimes engage them so far that they cannot 
 deny them : it is not in them, nor, peradventure, in chastity 
 itself, seeing that is a female, to defend itself from lust and 
 desire. If we are only to trust to their will, what a case 
 are we hi, then ? Do but imagine what crowding there 
 would be amongst men in pursuance of the privilege to run 
 full speed, without tongue or eyes, into every woman's arms 
 who would accept them. The Scythian women put out the 
 eyes of all their slaves and prisoners of war, that they might 
 have their pleasure of them, and they never the wiser. 3 Oh, 
 the furious advantage of opportunity ! Should any one ask 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annal., xiii. 44. 
 
 2 " Every one knows what an angry woman is capable of doing." — ^Eneid, 
 V. 21. 
 
 3 Herodotus, iv. 2, says that the Scythians put out the eyes of their slaves, 
 engaged in drawing milk from the mares, which was their sustenance ; 
 not a very obvious reason. Montaigne's version of the matter is more compre- 
 hensible. 
 
106 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 me, what was the first thing to be considered in love 
 matters, I should answer, that it was how to take a fitting 
 time ; and so the second ; and so the third — 'tis a point that 
 can do everything. I have sometimes wanted fortune, hut 
 I have also sometimes been wanting to myself in matters of 
 attempt. There is greater temerity required in this age of 
 ours, which our young men excuse, under the name of 
 heat; but should women examine it more strictly, they would 
 find that it rather proceeds from contempt. I was always 
 superstitiously afraid of giving offence, and have ever had a 
 great respect for her I loved : besides, he who in this traffic 
 takes away the reverence, defaces at the same time the 
 lustre. I would in this affair have a man a little play the 
 child, the timorous, and the servant. If not altogether in 
 this, I have in other things some air of the foolish bashful- 
 ness whereof Plutarch makes mention ; and the course of my 
 life has been divers ways hurt and blemished with it ; a 
 quality very ill suiting my universal form : and, indeed, 
 what are we but sedition and discrepancy ? I am as much 
 out of countenance to be denied as I am to deny ; and it so 
 much troubles me to be troublesome to others, that on 
 occasions where duty compels me to try the good will of any 
 one in a thing that is doubtful and that will be chargeable 
 to him, I do it very faintly, and very much against my 
 will : but if it be for my own particular (whatever Homer 
 truly says, 1 that modesty is a foolish virtue in an indigent 
 person), I commonly commit it to a third person to blush 
 for me, and deny those who employ me with the same diffi- 
 culty : so that it has sometimes befallen me to have had a 
 mind to deny when I had not the power to do it. 
 
 'Tis folly, then, to attempt to bridle in women a desire 
 that is so powerful in them, and so natural to them. And 
 
 1 Odyssey, xvii. 347. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 107 
 
 when I hear tliem brag of having so maidenly and so tem- 
 perate a will, I laugh at them : they retire too far back. If 
 it be an old toothless trot, or a young dry consumptive 
 thing, though it be not altogether to be believed, at least 
 they may say it with more similitude of truth. But they 
 who still move and breathe, talk at that ridiculous rate to 
 their own prejudice, by reason that inconsiderate excuses 
 are a kind of self-accusation ; like a gentleman, a neigh- 
 bour of mine, suspected to be insufficient, 
 
 " Languidior tenera cui pendens sicula beta, 
 
 Nunquani se mediam sustulit ad tunicam," x 
 
 who three or four days after he was married, to justify him- 
 self, went about boldly swearing that he had ridden twenty 
 stages the night before : an oath that was afterwards made 
 use of to convict him of his ignorance in that affair, and to 
 divorce him from his wife. Besides, it signifies nothing, for 
 there is neither continency nor virtue where there are no 
 opposing desires. It is true, they may say, but we will not 
 yield ; saints themselves speak after that manner. I mean 
 those who boast in good gravity of then: coldness and in- 
 sensibility, and who expect to be believed with a serious 
 countenance ; for when 'tis spoken with an affected look, 
 when their eyes give the lie to their tongue, and when they 
 talk in the cant of their profession, which always goes 
 against the hair, 'tis good sport. I am a great servant of 
 liberty and plainness ; but there is no remedy;, if it be not 
 wholly simple or childish, 'tis silly, and unbecoming ladies 
 in this commerce, and presently runs into impudence. 
 Their disguises and figures only serve to cosen fools ; lying 
 is there in its seat of honour ; 'tis a by-way, that by a back- 
 door leads us to truth. If we cannot curb then 1 imagina- 
 
 1 Catullus, lxvii. 21. The sense is in the context. 
 
io8- Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 tion, what would we have from them. Effects ? There are 
 enough of them that evade all foreign communication, by 
 which chastity may be corrupted ; 
 
 " Illud seepe facit, quod sine teste facit ; " x 
 
 and those which we fear the least, are, peradventure, most 
 
 to be feared ; their sins that make the least noise are the 
 
 worst : 
 
 " Offendor niteclia simpliciore minus." 2 
 
 There are ways by which they may lose their virginity with- 
 out prostitution, and, which is more, without their know- 
 ledge : " Obsterix, virginis cujusdam integritatem manu velut 
 explorans, sive malevolentia, sive inscitia, sive casu, dum 
 inspicit, perdidit." 3 Such a one, by seeking her maidenhead, 
 has lost it ; another by playing with it, has destroyed it. We 
 cannot precisely circumscribe the actions, we interdict them ; 
 they must guess at our meaning under general and doubtful 
 terms ; the very idea we invent for their chastity is ridicu- 
 lous : for, amongst the greatest examples arrived at my 
 knowledge, Fatua, the wife of Faunus, is one : who never, after 
 her marriage, suffered herself to be seen by any man what- 
 ever ; 4 and the wife of Hiero, 5 who never perceived her hus- 
 band's stinking breath, imagining that it was common to all 
 men. They must become insensible and invisible to 
 satisfy us. 
 
 Now let us confess that the knot of this judgment of 
 duty principally lies in the will ; there have been hus- 
 
 1 " He often does that which he does without a witness." — Martial, vii. 
 62, 6. 
 
 2 " I am much more offended than with a professed strumpet." — Idem, vi. 
 7, 6. 
 
 3 " By malevolence, or unskilfulness, or accident, midwives, seeking with 
 the hand to test a girl's virginity, have sometimes destroyed it." — St. Augus- 
 tine, De Civit. Dei, i. 18. 
 
 4 Varro, ap. Lactantius, i. 22. 
 
 5 Plutarch, Apothegms of the Ancient Kings, article Hiero. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 109 
 
 bands who have suffered euckoldom, not only without re- 
 proach or taking offence at their wives, but with singular 
 obligation to them and great commendation of their virtue. 
 Such a woman has been, who prized her honour above her 
 life, and yet has prostituted it to the furious lust of a mortal 
 enemy, to save her husband's life, and who, in so doing, did 
 that for him she would not have done for herself ! This is 
 not the place wherein we are to multiply these examples ; 
 they are too high and rich to be set off with so poor a foil 
 as I can give them here ; let us reserve them for a nobler 
 place ; but for examples of ordinary lustre, do we not every 
 day see women amongst us who surrender themselves for 
 their husbands' sole benefit, and by their express order and 
 mediation ? and, of old, Phaulius the Argian who offered 
 his to King Philip out of ambition ; 1 as Galba 2 did it out of 
 civility, who having entertained Maecenas at supper, and 
 observing that his wife and he began to cast sheep's eyes at 
 one another and to complot love by signs, let himself sink 
 down upon his cushion, like one in a profound sleep, to give 
 opportunity to their desires : which he handsomely confessed, 
 for, at the same time, a servant making bold to lay hands on 
 the plate that stood upon the table, he frankly cried, " What, 
 you rogue ? do you not see that I only sleep for Maecenas ? " 
 Such a woman there may be, whose manners may be lewd 
 enough, and yet whose will may be more reformed than 
 another, who outwardly carries herself after a more regular 
 manner. As we see some, who complain of having vowed 
 chastity before they knew what they did ; and I have also 
 known others really complain of having been given up to 
 debauchery before they were of the years of discretion. 
 The vice of the parents, or the impulse of nature, which is a 
 rough counsellor, may be the cause. 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Love, c. 16. 2 Idem, ibid. 
 
no Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 In the East Indies, 1 though chastity is of singular reputa- 
 tion, yet custom permitted a married woman to prostitute 
 herself to any one who presented her with an elephant, and 
 that with glory to have been valued at so high a rate. 
 Phsedo the philosopher, a man of birth, after the taking of 
 his country Elis, made it his trade to prostitute the beauty 
 of his youth, so long as it lasted, to any one that would, for 
 money, thereby to gain his living; 2 and Solon was the first 
 in Greece, 'tis said, who by his laws gave liberty to women, 
 at the expense of their chastity, to provide for the necessities 
 of life ; a custom that Herodotus says had been received in 
 many governments before his time. And besides, what 
 fruit is there of this painful solicitude ? 3 For what justice 
 soever there is in this passion, we are yet to consider whether 
 it turns to account or no : does any one think to curb 
 them, with all his industry ? 
 
 " Pone seram ; cohibe : seel quis enstodiet ipsos 
 Custodes 1 cauta est, et ab illis incipit uxor." 4 
 
 What commodity will not serve their turn, in so knowing an 
 age? 
 
 Curiosity is vicious throughout ; but 'tis pernicious here. 
 'Tis folly to examine into a disease for which there is no 
 physic that does not inflame and make it worse ; of which 
 the shame grows still greater, and more public by jealousy, 
 and of which the revenge more wounds our children than it 
 heals us. You wither and die in the search of so obscure 
 a proof. How miserably have they of my time arrived at 
 that knowledge, who have been so unhappy as to have found 
 
 1 Arrian, Hist. Indie., c. 17. 
 
 2 Diogenes Laertius, ii. 105 ; but he tells us that Phsedo being a slave, was 
 violated by his master. 
 
 3 i.e., jealousy. 
 
 4 " Put on a lock ; shut them up under a guard ; but who shall guard the 
 guard? she knows what she is about, and will begin with them." — Juvenal, vi. 
 346. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 1 1 1 
 
 it out ? If tlie informer does not at the same time apply a 
 remedy and bring relief, 'tis an injurious information, and 
 that "better deserves a stab than the lie. We no less laugh 
 at him who takes pains to prevent it, than at him who is 
 a cuckold, and knows it not. The character of cuckold is 
 indelible : who once has it carries it to his grave ; the punish- 
 ment proclaims it more than the fault. It is to much pur- 
 pose to drag out of obscurity and doubt our private mis- 
 fortunes, tlience to expose them on tragic scaffolds ; and 
 misfortunes that only hurt us by being known ; for we say 
 a good wife, or a happy marriage, not that they are really so, 
 but because no one says to the contrary. Men should be 
 so discreet as to evade this tormenting and unprofitable 
 knowledge : and the Eomans had a custom, when returning 
 from any expedition, to send home before to acquaint their 
 wives with their coming, that they might not surprise them ; 1 
 and to this purpose it is, that a certain nation has intro- 
 duced a custom, that the priest shall on the wedding-day 
 unlock the bride's cabinet, to free the husband from the 
 doubt and curiosity of examining in the first assault, whether 
 she comes a virgin to his bed, or that she has been at the 
 trade before. 
 
 But the world will be talking. I know a hundred honest 
 men cuckolds, that are handsomely, and not discreditably met; 
 a worthy man is pitied, but not disesteemed for it. Order it 
 so that your virtue may conquer your misfortune ; that good 
 men may curse the occasion, and that he who wrongs you 
 may tremble but to think on't. And, moreover, who escapes 
 being talked of at the same rate, from the least even to the 
 
 greatest ? 
 
 " Tot qui legionibus imperitavit, 
 Et melior quam tu multis fait, iniprobe, rebus." 3 
 
 1 Plutarch, Questions on Roman Affairs, c. 9. 
 
 2 " Many who have commanded legions, many a man much better far than 
 you, you rascal." — Lucretius, iii. 1039, 1041. 
 
H2 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 You hear how many honest men are reproached with this in 
 your presence ; you may believe that you are no more spared 
 behind your back. Nay, the very ladies will be laughing 
 too ; and what are they so apt to laugh at in this virtuous 
 age of ours, as at a peaceable and well-composed marriage ? 
 There is not one amongst you but has made somebody 
 cuckold : and nature runs much in parallel, in compensa- 
 tion, and turn for turn. The frequency of this accident 
 ought long since to have made it more easy ; 'tis now past 
 into custom. 
 
 Miserable passion ! which has this also, that it is incom- 
 municable, 
 
 " Fors etiam nostris invidit questibus aures ; " 1 
 
 for to what friend dare you intrust your griefs, who, if he 
 does not laugh at them, will not make use of the occa- 
 sion to get a share of the quarry ? The sharps, as well as 
 the sweets of marriage, are kept secret by the wise ; and 
 amongst its other troublesome conditions this to a prat- 
 ing fellow, as I am, is one of the chief, that custom has 
 rendered it indecent and prejudicial to communicate to any 
 one all that a man knows and all that a man feels. 
 
 To give women the same counsel against jealousy, would 
 be so much time lost ; their very being is so made up of 
 suspicion, vanity, and curiosity, that to cure them by any 
 legitimate way is not to be hoped. They often recover of this 
 infirmity by a form of health much more to be feared than 
 the disease itself; for as there are enchantments that can- 
 not take away the evil, but by throwing it upon another, 
 they also willingly transfer this fever to their husbands, 
 when they shake it off themselves. And yet I know not, 
 
 1 "Spiteful fortune also refuses ear to our complaints." — Catullus, lxvii. 
 170. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 113 
 
 to speak truth, whether a man can suffer -worse from them 
 than their jealousy ; 'tis the most dangerous of all their 
 conditions, as the head is of all their members. Pittacus 
 used to say, 1 that every one had his trouble, and that his 
 was the jealous head of his wife ; but for which he should 
 think himself perfectly happy. A mighty inconvenience, 
 sure, which could poison the whole life of so just, so wise, 
 and so valiant a man ; what must we other little fellows do ? 
 The senate of Marseilles had reason to grant him his re- 
 quest who begged leave to kill himself that he might be 
 delivered from the clamour of his wife ; for 'tis a mischief 
 that is never removed but by removing the whole piece ; 
 and that has no remedy but flight or patience, though both 
 of them very hard. He was, methinks, an understanding 
 fellow who said, 'twas a happy marriage betwixt a blind wife 
 and a deaf husband. 
 
 Let us also consider whether the great and violent seve- 
 rity of obligation we enjoin them, does not produce two 
 effects contrary to our design : namely, whether it does not 
 render the pursuants more eager to attack, and the women 
 more easy to yield. For as to the first, by raising the 
 value of the place, we raise the value and the desire of the 
 conquest. Might it not be Venus herself, who so cunningly 
 enhanced the price of her merchandise, by making the laws 
 her bawds ; knowing how insipid a delight it would be that 
 was not heightened by fancy and hardness to achieve ? In 
 short, 'tis all swine's flesh, varied by sauces, as Flaminius' host 
 said. 2 Cupid is a roguish god, who makes it his sport to con- 
 tend with devotion and justice : 'tis his glory that his power 
 mates all powers, and that all other rules give place to his ; 
 
 " Materiam culpae prosequiturque suee." 3 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Contentment, c. II. 
 
 2 Livy, xxxv. 49. 
 
 3 " And seeks out matter for his crimes. 1 ' — Ovid. Trist, iv. 1, 34. 
 
 vol. in. H 
 
H4 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 As to the second point ; should we not be less cuckolds, 
 if we less feared to be so ? according to the humour of 
 women whom interdiction incites, and who are more eager, 
 being forbidden. 
 
 " Ubi velis, nolxmt ; ubi nolis, volunt ultro ; 1 - 
 Concessa pudet ire via." 2 
 
 "What better interpretation can we make of Messalina's be- 
 haviour ? She, at first, made her husband a cuckold in 
 private, as is the common use : but, bringing her business 
 about with too much ease, by reason of her husband's 
 stupidity, she soon scorned that way, and presently fell to 
 making open love, to own her lovers, and to favour and 
 entertain them in the sight of all : she would make him 
 know and see how she used him. This animal, not to be 
 roused with all this, and rendering her pleasures dull and 
 flat by his too stupid facility, by which die seemed to autho- 
 rise and make them lawful ; what does she ? Being the 
 wife of a living and healthful emperor, and at Eome, the 
 theatre of the world, in the face of the sun, and with solemn 
 ceremony, and to Silius, who had long before enjoyed her, 
 she publicly marries herself one day that her husband was 
 gone out of the city. 3 Does it not seem as if she was 
 going to become chaste by her husband's negligence ? or 
 that she sought another husband who might sharpen her 
 appetite by his jealousy, and who by watching should in- 
 cite her ? But the first difficulty she met with was also 
 the last : this beast suddenly roused : these sleepy, sluggish 
 sort of men are often the most dangerous ; I have found 
 by experience, that this extreme toleration, when it comes 
 to dissolve, produces the most severe revenge ; for taking 
 
 1 ' ( You will, they won't ; you will not, they insist ; they will not go in per- 
 mitted paths." — Terence, Eunuchus, act iv., sc. 8, v. 43. 
 
 8 Lucan, ii. 446. 3 Tacitus, AnnaL, xi. 26. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 115 
 
 fire on a sudden, anger and fury being combined in one, 
 discbarge tbeir utmost force at tbe first onset, 
 
 "Irarumque onines effuncl.it habenas : " 1 
 
 be put ber to deatb, and with ber a great number of tbose 
 ■with whom she had intelligence, and even one of them who 
 could not help it, and whom she had caused to be forced to 
 her bed with scourges. 2 
 
 "What Virgil says of Venus and Vulcan, Lucretius had 
 better expressed of a stolen enjoyment betwixt her and Mars : 
 
 " Belli fera moenera Mavors 
 Armipotens regit, ingrenrium qui ssepe tuuru se 
 Eejicit, seterno devinctus vulnere anioris : 
 
 Pascit araore avidos inliians in te, Dea, visus, 
 Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore : 
 Hunc tu, Diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto 
 Circunifusa super, suaveis ex ore loquelas 
 Funde." 3 
 
 When I consider this rejicit, pascit, inliians, molli, fovct, 
 medullas, labefacta, pendet, percurrit, and that noble circum- 
 fusa, mother of the gentle infusus ; I contemn those little 
 quibbles and verbal allusions that have been since in use. 
 Those worthy people stood in need of no subtilty to disguise 
 their meaning ; their language is downright, and full of natural 
 and continued vigour; they are all epigram; not only the 
 tail, but the head, body, and feet. There is nothing forced, 
 nothing languishing, but everything keeps the same pace : 
 " Contextus totus virilis est ; non sunt circa flosculos occu- 
 
 1 " He let loose his whole fury." — yEneid, xii. 499. 
 
 2 Tacitus, Annal., xi. 36. 
 
 3 " Mars, the god of wars, who controls the cruel tasks of war, often 
 reclines on thy bosom, and greedily drinks love at both his eyes, vanquished 
 by the eternal wound of love : and his breath, as he reclines, hangs on thy lips ; 
 bending thy head over him as he lies upon thy sacred person, pour forth 
 sweet and persuasive words." — Lucretius, i. 23. 
 
1 1 6 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 pati." x 'Tis not a soft eloquence, and without offence only ; 
 'tis nervous and solid, that does not so much please, as it 
 fills and ravishes the greatest minds. When I see these 
 brave forms of expression, so lively, so profound, I do not 
 say that 'tis Well said, but Well thought. 'Tis the sprightli- 
 ness of the imagination that swells and elevates the words : 
 " Pectus est quod disertum facit." 2 Our people call lan- 
 guage, judgment, and fine words, full conceptions. This 
 painting is not so much carried on by dexterity of hand, as 
 by having the object more vividly imprinted in the soul. 
 Gallus speaks simply, because he conceives simply: Horace 
 does not content himself with a superficial expression ; that 
 would betray him; he sees farther and more clearly into 
 things ; his mind breaks into and rummages all the maga- 
 zine of words and figures wherewith to express himself, and 
 he must have them more than ordinary, because his concep- 
 tion is so. Plutarch says, 3 that he sees the Latin tongue by 
 the things : 'tis here the same : the sense illuminates and 
 produces the words, no more words of air, but of flesh and 
 bone ; they signify more than they say. Moreover, those 
 who are not well skilled in a language, present some image 
 of this ; for in Italy, I said whatever I had a mind to in 
 common discourse, but in more serious talk, I durst not 
 have trusted myself with an idiom that I could not wind 
 and turn out of its ordinary pace ; I would have a power of 
 introducing something of my own. 
 
 The handling and utterance of fine wits is that which sets 
 off a language ; not so much by innovating it, as by putting it 
 to more vigorous and various services, and by straining, bend- 
 ing, and adapting it to them. They do not create words, 
 
 1 " The whole contexture is manly ; they don't occupy themselves with 
 little flowers of rhetoric." — Seneca, Ep. 33. 
 
 2 " The heart makes the eloquence." — Quintilian, x. 7. 
 * Life of Demosthenes, c. 1. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 117 
 
 but they enrich their own, and give them weight and signi- 
 fication by the uses they put them to, and teach them un- 
 wonted motions, but withal, ingeniously and discreetly. 
 And how little this talent is given to all, is manifest by the 
 many French scribblers of this age : they are bold and 
 proud enough not to follow the common road, but want of 
 invention and discretion ruins them ; there is nothing seen 
 in their writings but a wretched affectation of a strange new 
 style, with cold and absurd disguises, which, instead of 
 elevating, depress the matter : provided they can but trick 
 themselves out with new words, they care not what they 
 signify; and to bring in a new word by the head and 
 shoulders, they leave the old one, very often more sinewy 
 and significant than the other. 
 
 There is stuff enough in our language, but there is a de- 
 fect in cutting out : for there is nothing that might not be 
 made out of our terms of hunting and war, which is a 
 fruitful soil to borrow from ; and forms of speaking, like 
 herbs, improve and grow stronger by being transplanted. I 
 find it sufficiently abundant, but not sufficiently pliable 
 and vigorous : it commonly quails under a powerful con- 
 ception ; if you would maintain the dignity of your style, 
 you will often perceive it to flag and languish under you, 
 and there Latin steps in to its relief, as Greek does to 
 others. Of some of these words I have just picked out 
 we do not so easily discern the energy, by reason 
 that the frequent use of them has in some sort abased their 
 beauty, and rendered it common ; as in our ordinary lan- 
 guage there are many excellent phrases and metaphors 
 to be met with, of which the beauty is withered by age, 
 and the colour is sullied by too common handling; but 
 that nothing lessens the relish to an understanding man, 
 nor does it derogate from the glory of those ancient 
 
1 1 8 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book in. 
 
 authors who, 'tis likely, first brought those words into 
 that lustre. 1 
 
 The sciences treat of things too refinedly, after an artifi- 
 cial, very different from the common and natural, way. My 
 page makes love, and understands it ; but read to him Leo 
 Hebrceus 2 and Eicinus, where they speak of love, its thoughts 
 and actions, he understands it not. I do not find in Aris- 
 totle most of my ordinary motions ; they are there covered 
 and disguised in another robe for the use of the schools. 
 Well may they speed ! but were I of the trade, I would as 
 much naturalise art as they artify nature. Let us let 
 Bembo and Equicola alone. 
 
 When I write, I can very well spare both the company 
 and the remembrance of books, lest they should interrupt 
 my progress ; and also, in truth, the best authors too much 
 humble and discourage me : I am very much of the painter's 
 mind, who, having represented cocks most wretchedly ill, 
 charged all his boys not to suffer any natural cock to come 
 into his shop ; and had rather need, to give myself a little 
 lustre, of the invention of Antigenides the musician, who, 
 when he was to sing or play, took care beforehand that the 
 auditory should, either before or after, be glutted with some 
 other ill musicians. But I can hardly be without Plutarch ; 
 he is so universal, and so full, that upon all occasions, and 
 what extravagant subject soever you take in hand, he will 
 still be at your elbow, and hold out to you a liberal and 
 not to be exhausted hand of riches and embellishments. 
 It vexes me that he is so exposed to be the spoil of those 
 who are conversant with him: I can scarce cast an eye 
 upon him but I purloin either a leg or a wing. 
 
 1 Compare with this passage Henri Estienne's " Precellence du Langage 
 Francois," and his " Conformite du Langage Francois avec le Grec," of which 
 two works M. Leon Feugere has published an edition, with notes. 
 
 2 Leo the Jew, Ficinus, Cardinal Bembo, and Mario Equicola all wrote 
 Treatises on Love. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 119 
 
 And also for this design of mine 'tis convenient for me 
 to write at home, in a wild country, where I have nobody 
 to assist or relieve me ; where I hardly see a man who 
 understands the Latin of his Paternoster, and of French as 
 little, if not less. I might have made it better elsewhere, 
 but then the work would have been less my own ; and its 
 principal end and perfection is to be exactly mine. I 
 readily correct an accidental error, of which I am full, as 
 I run carelessly on ; but for my ordinary and constant im- 
 perfections, it were a kind of treason to put them out. 
 When another tells me, or that I say to myself, " Thou art 
 too thick of figures : this is a word of Gascon growth : that 
 is a dangerous phrase (I do not reject any of those 
 that are used in the common streets of France ; they who 
 would fight custom with grammar are fools) ; this is an 
 ignorant discourse : this is a paradoxical discourse ; that is 
 going too far : thou makest thyself too merry at times : 
 men will think thou sayest a thing in good earnest which 
 thou only speakest in jest." " Yes," say I, " but I correct 
 the faults of inadvertence, not those of custom. Do I not 
 talk at the same rate throughout ? Do I not represent 
 myself to the life ? 'Tis enough that I have done what I 
 designed ; all the world knows me in my book, and my 
 book in me." 
 
 Now I have an apish, imitating quality ; when I used to 
 write verses (and I never made any but Latin) they evi- 
 dently discovered the poet I had last read, and some of my 
 first essays have a little exotic taste : I speak something 
 another kind of language at Paris than I do at Montaigne. 
 Whoever I stedfastly look upon easily leaves some impres- 
 sion of his upon me ; whatever I consider I usurp, whether 
 a foolish countenance, a disagreeable look, or a ridiculous 
 way of speaking ; and vices most of all, because they seize 
 and stick to me, and will not leave hold without shaking. 
 
1 20 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book ill. 
 
 I swear more by imitation than by complexion : a murderous 
 imitation, like that of the apes so terrible both in stature 
 and strength, that Alexander met with in a certain country of 
 the Indies, and which he would have had much ado any other 
 way to have subdued ; but they afforded him the means by 
 that inclination of theirs to imitate whatever they saw 
 done ; for by that, the hunters were taught to put on 
 shoes in their sight, and to tie them fast with many knots, 
 and to muffle up their heads in caps all composed of running 
 nooses, and to seem to anoint their eyes with glue ; so did 
 those poor beasts employ their imitation to their own ruin : 
 they glued up their own eyes, haltered and bound them- 
 selves. The other faculty of playing the mimic, and in- 
 geniously acting the words and gestures of another, purposely 
 to make people merry and to raise their admiration, is no 
 more in me than in a stock. When I swear my own oath 
 'tis only, By God ! of all oaths the most direct. They say 
 that Socrates swore by the dog ; l Zeno had for his oath the 
 same interjection at this time in use amongst the Italians, 
 Cappari; 2 Pythagoras swore By water and air. 3 I am so 
 apt, without thinking of it, to receive these superficial im- 
 pressions, that if I have Majesty or Highness in my mouth 
 three days together, they come out instead of Excellency 
 and Lordship eight days after ; and what I say to-day in 
 sport and fooling I shall say the same to-morrow seriously. 
 Wherefore, in writing, I more unwillingly undertake beaten 
 arguments, lest I should handle them at another's expense. 
 Every subject is equally fertile to me : a fly will serve 
 the purpose, and 'tis well if this I have in hand has not 
 been undertaken at the recommendation of as flighty a will. 
 
 1 Lilian, De Animal., xvii. 251. 
 
 2 Diogenus Laertius, vii. 32. Cappari, or Capparis, is the caper-tree. 
 
 3 Idem, viii. 6. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 121 
 
 I may begin with that which pleases me best, for the sub- 
 jects are all linked to one another. 
 
 But my soul displeases me, in that it ordinarily produces 
 its deepest and most airy conceits and which please me best, 
 when I least expect or study for them, and which suddenly 
 vanish, having, at the instant, nothing to apply them to ; 
 on horseback, at table, and in bed : but most on horse- 
 back, where I am most given to think. My speaking is 
 a little nicely jealous of silence and attention : if I am 
 talking my best, whoever interrupts me, stops me. In 
 travelling, the necessity of the way will often put a stop 
 to discourse ; besides which I, for the most part, travel 
 without company fit for regular discourses, by which 
 means I have all the leisure I would to entertain my- 
 self. It falls out as it does in my dreams ; whilst dreaming 
 I recommend them to my memory (for I am apt to dream 
 that I dream), but, the next morning, I may represent to 
 myself of what complexion they were, whether gay, or sad, 
 or strange, but what they were, as to the rest, the more I 
 endeavour to retrieve them, the deeper I plunge them in 
 oblivion. So of thoughts that come accidentally into my 
 head, I have no more but a vain image remaining in my 
 memory ; only enough to make me torment myself in their 
 quest to no purpose. 
 
 Well, then, laying books aside, and more simply and mate- 
 rially speaking, I find, after all, that Love is nothing else but 
 the thirst of enjoying the object desired ; or Venus any 
 other thing than the pleasure of discharging one's vessels, 
 just as the pleasure nature gives in discharging other parts, 
 that either by immoderation or indiscretion become vicious. 
 According to Socrates, 1 love is the appetite of generation, 
 by the mediation of beauty. And when I consider the 
 
 1 In Plato's Banquet. 
 
122 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 ridiculous titillation of this pleasure, the absurd, crack- 
 brained, wild motions "with which it inspires Zeno and 
 Cratippus, the indiscreet rage, the countenance inflamed 
 with fury and cruelty in the sweetest effects of love, and 
 then that austere air, so grave, severe, extatic, in so wanton 
 an action ; that our delights and our excrements are promis- 
 cuously shuffled together; and that the supreme pleasure 
 brings along with it, as in pain, fainting and complaining ; 
 I then believe it to be true as Plato says, 1 that the gods 
 made man for their sport, 
 
 " Qusenam. ista jocandi 1 
 Ssevitia ! " 2 
 
 and that it was in mockery that nature has ordered the 
 most agitative of actions and the most common, to make us 
 equal and to put fools and wise men, beasts and us, on a 
 level. Even the most contemplative and prudent man, 
 when I imagine him in this posture, I hold him an impu- 
 dent fellow to pretend to be prudent and contemplative ; 
 they are the peacocks' feet, that abate his pride. 
 
 " Ridenteiii dicere verum. 
 Quid vetat 1 " 3 
 
 They who banish serious imaginations from their sports, 
 do, says one, like him who dares not adore the statue of a 
 saint, if not covered with a veil. "We eat and drink, in- 
 deed, as beasts do ; but these are not actions that obstruct 
 the functions of the soul, in these we maintain our advan- 
 tage over them ; this other action subjects all other thought, 
 and by its imperious authority makes an ass of all Plato's 
 divinity and philosophy ; and yet there is no complaint of it. 
 In everything else a man may keep some decorum, all other 
 
 1 Laws, i. 13, viii 10. 
 
 2 "With a sportive cruelty." — Claudian in Eutrop., i. 24. 
 
 3 "What prevents us from speaking truth in jest." — Horace, Sat. i. 1, 24. 
 
Chap. 5-] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 123 
 
 operations submit to the rules of decency ; this cannot so 
 much as in imagination appear other than vicious or ridicu- 
 lous : find out, if you can, therein any serious and discreet 
 procedure. Alexander said, 1 that he chiefly knew himself 
 to be mortal by this act, and sleeping ; sleep suffocates and 
 suppresses the faculties of the soul ; the familiarity with 
 women likewise dissipates and exhausts them : doubtless 
 'tis a mark, not only of our original corruption, but also 
 of our vanity and deformity. 
 
 On the one side, nature pushes us on to it, having fixed 
 the most noble, useful, and pleasant of all her functions to 
 this desire : and, on the other side, leaves us to accuse and 
 avoid it, as insolent and indecent, to blush at it, and to 
 recommend abstinence. Are we not brutes, to call that 
 work brutish which begets us ? People of so many differ- 
 ing religions have concurred in several proprieties, as sac- 
 rifices, lamps, burning incense, fasts, and offerings ; and 
 amongst others, in the condemning this act : all opinions 
 tend that way, besides the widespread custom of circumci- 
 sion, which may be regarded as a punishment. We have, 
 peradventure, reason to blame ourselves for being guilty 
 of so foolish a production as man, and to call the act, 
 and the parts that are employed in the act, shameful 
 (mine, truly, are now shameful and pitiful). The Essenians, 
 of whom Pliny speaks, 2 kept up their country for several 
 ages without either nurse or baby-clouts, by the arrival 
 of strangers who, following this pretty humour, came con- 
 tinually to them : a whole nation being resolute, rather to 
 hazard a total extermination, than to engage themselves in 
 female embraces, and rather to lose the succession of men, 
 than to beget one. 'Tis said, 3 that Zeno never had to do 
 
 1 Plutarch, How to Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, c. 23. 
 8 Nat. Hist., V. 17. 
 
 3 Diogenes Laertius, vii. 13. What is there said, however, is that Zeno 
 seldom had commerce with boys, lest he should be deemed a very misogynist. 
 
124 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 with, a woman but once in his life, and then out of civility, 
 that he might not seem too obstinately to disdain the sex. 
 Every one avoids seeing a man born, every one runs to see 
 him die ; to destroy him, a spacious field is sought out, 
 in the face of the sun ; but, to make him, we creep into as 
 dark and private a corner as we can : 'tis a man's duty to 
 withdraw himself bashfully from the light to create ; but 
 'tis glory and the fountain of many virtues to know how to 
 destroy what we have made : the one is injury, the other 
 favour : for Aristotle says that to do any one a kindness, in 
 a certain phrase of his country, is to kill him. The 
 Athenians, to couple the disgrace of these two actions, 
 . having to purge the Isle of Delos, and to justify themselves 
 to Apollo, interdicted at once all birth and burials in the 
 precincts thereof. 1 " ISTostri nosmet poenitet." 2 
 
 There are some nations that will not be seen to eat. I 
 know a lady, and of the best quality, who has the same 
 opinion, that chewing disfigures the face, and takes away 
 much from the ladies' grace and beauty ; and therefore un- 
 willingly appears at a public table with an appetite ; and 
 I know a man also, who cannot endure to see another eat, nor 
 himself to be seen eating ; and who is more shy of company 
 when putting in than when putting out. In the Turkish em- 
 pire, there are a great number of men who, to excel others, 
 never suffer themselves to be seen when they make their 
 repast : who never have any more than one a week ; who 
 cut and mangle their faces and limbs ; who never speak to 
 any one : fanatic people who think to honour their nature 
 by disnaturing themselves ; who value themselves upon their 
 contempt of themselves, and purport to grow better by being 
 worse. What monstrous animal is this, that is a horror to 
 
 1 Thucydides, iii. 104. 
 
 a " We are ashamed of ourselves." — Terence, Phormi. i. 3, 20. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 125 
 
 himself, to whom his delights are grievous, and who weds 
 himself to misfortune ? There are people who conceal their 
 
 life, 
 
 " Exilioque domos et dulcia limina mutant, " 1 
 
 and withdraw them from the sight of other men ; who avoid 
 health and cheerfulness, as dangerous and prejudicial quali- 
 ties. Not only many sects, but many peoples, curse their 
 birth, and bless their death ; and there is a place where the 
 sun is abominated, and darkness adored. "We are only in- 
 genious in using ourselves ill : 'tis the real quarry our intel- 
 lects fly at ; and intellect, when misapplied, is a dangerous 
 
 tool! 
 
 " miseri ! quorum gaudia crimen habent ! " 2 
 
 Alas, poor man ! thou hast enough inconvenience that are 
 inevitable, without increasing them by thine own invention ; 
 and art miserable enough by nature, without being so by 
 art ; thou hast real and essential deformities enough, with- 
 out forging those that are imaginary. Dost thou think 
 thou art too much at ease, unless half thy ease is uneasy ? 
 dost thou find that thou hast not performed all the ne- 
 cessary offices that nature has enjoined thee, and that 
 she is idle in thee, if thou dost not oblige thyself to other 
 and new offices ? Thou dost not stick to infringe her univer- 
 sal and undoubted laws ; but stickest to thy own special and 
 fantastic rules, and by how much more particular, uncertain, 
 and contradictory they are, by so much thou employest thy 
 whole endeavour in them : the laws of thy parish occupy 
 and bind thee : those of God and the world concern thee 
 not. Eun but a Little over the examples of this kind ; thy 
 life is full of them. 
 
 1 " And quit for exile their homes and pleasant abodes." — Virgil, Georg. 
 ii. 511. 
 
 2 " O wretched men, whose pleasures are a crime ! " — Pseudo-Gallus, L 
 180. 
 
126 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 "Whilst the verses of these two poets 1 treat so reservedly 
 and discreetly of wantonness as they do, methinks they dis- 
 cover it much more openly. Ladies cover their necks with 
 network, priests cover several sacred things, and painters 
 shadow their pictures to give them greater lustre : and 'tis 
 said that the sun and wind strike more violently by reflec- 
 tion than in a direct line. The Egyptian wisely answered 
 him who asked him what he had under his cloak ; " it is 
 hid under my cloak," said he, " that thou mayest not know 
 what it is : " 2 but there are certain other things that people 
 hide only to show them. Hear this fellow who speaks plainer, 
 
 " Et nudum, pressi corpus ad usque nieuni : " 3 
 
 methinks, I am ennuched with the expression. Let Martial 
 turn up Venus' coats as high as he may, he cannot show her 
 so naked : he, who says all that is to be said, gluts and dis- 
 gusts us. He who is afraid to express himself, draws us on 
 to guess at more than is meant ; there is treachery in this 
 sort of modesty, and specially when they half open, as these 
 do, 4 so fair a path to imagination. Both the action and de- 
 scription should relish of theft. 
 
 The more respectful, more timorous, more coy, and secret 
 love of the Spaniards and Italians pleases me. I know not 
 who of old wished his throat as long as that of a crane, 
 that he might the longer taste what he swallowed : 5 it had 
 been better wished as to this quick and precipitous pleasure, 
 especially in such natures as mine that have the fault of being 
 too prompt. To stay its flight and delay it with preambles : 
 all things — a glance, a bow, a word, a sign, stand for favour 
 and recompense betwixt them. Were it not an excellent 
 piece of thrift in him who could dine on the steam of the 
 
 1 Virgil and Lucretius. 2 Plutarch, On Curiosity, c. 3. 
 
 3 " And pressed her naked body to mine." — Ovid, Amor., i. 5, 24. 
 
 4 Virgil and Lucretius. 5 Athenaeus, i. 6. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 127 
 
 roast ? 'Tis a passion that mixes with very little solid 
 essence, far more vanity and feverish raving ; and we should 
 serve and pay it accordingly. Let us teach the ladies 
 to set a Letter value and esteem upon themselves, to amuse 
 and fool us : "we give the last charge at the first onset ; the 
 French impetuosity will still show itself; by spinning out 
 their favours, and exposing them in small parcels, even 
 miserable old age itself will find some little share of reward, 
 according to its worth and merit. He who has no fruition 
 hut in fruition, who wins nothing unless he sweeps the 
 stakes, who takes no pleasure in the chase but in the 
 quarry, ought not to introduce himself in our school : the 
 more steps and degrees there are, so much higher and more 
 honourable is the uppermost seat : we should take a plea- 
 sure in being conducted to it, as in magnificent palaces, by 
 various porticos and passages, long and pleasant galleries, and 
 many windings. This disposition of things would turn to 
 our advantage ; we should there longer stay and longer 
 love ; without hope and without desire we proceed not 
 worth a pin. Our conquest and entire possession is what 
 they ought infinitely to dread : when they wholly surrender 
 themselves up to the mercy of our fidelity and constancy 
 they run a mighty hazard ; they are virtues very rare and 
 hard to be found ; the ladies are no sooner ours, than we are 
 no more theirs ; 
 
 " Postquam cupiclso mentis satiata libido est, 
 Verba nihil metuere, nihil perjuria curant ; " 1 
 
 And Thrasonides, 2 a young man of Greece, was so in love 
 with his passion that, having gained a mistress's consent, he 
 refused to enjoy her, that he might not by fruition quench 
 
 1 " When our desires are once satisfied, we care little for oaths and pro- 
 mises." — Catullus, lxiv. 147. 
 
 2 Diogenes Laertius, vii. 130. 
 
128 Upon some Verses of .Virgil. [Book iS. 
 
 and stupify the unquiet ardour of which he was so proud, 
 and with which he so fed himself. Dearness is a good sauce 
 to meat : do but observe how much the manner of salutation, 
 particular to our nation, has, by its facilities, made kisses, 
 which Socrates 1 says are so powerful and dangerous for the 
 stealing of hearts, of no esteem. It is a nauseous custom 
 and injurious for the ladies, that they must be obliged to 
 lend their lips to every fellow who has three footmen at 
 Ms heels, however disgusting he may be in himself, 
 
 " Cujus livida naribus caninis 
 Dependet glacies, rigetqne barba . . . 
 Centum occurrere malo culilingis : " 2 
 
 and we ourselves do not get much by it ; for as the world 
 is divided, for three beautiful women we must kiss three- 
 score ugly ones ; and to a tender stomach, like those of my 
 age, an ill kiss overpays a good one. 
 
 In Italy they passionately court even their common 
 women who sell themselves for money, and justify the 
 doing so by saying, " that there are degrees of fruition, and 
 that by such service they would procure for themselves 
 that which is most entire; the women sell nothing but 
 their bodies ; the will is too free and too much its own to 
 be exposed to sale." So that these say, 'tis the will they 
 undertake ; and they have reason. "lis indeed the will that we 
 are to serve and gain by wooing. I abhor to imagine mine, 
 a body without affection : and this madness is, methinks, 
 cousin-german to that of the boy, who would needs pollute 
 the beautiful statue of Venus, made by Praxiteles ; 3 or that 
 of the furious Egyptian, who violated the dead carcase of a 
 woman he was embalming : 4 which was the occasion of the 
 law then made in Egypt, that the corpses of beautiful 
 
 1 Xenophon, Mem. on Socrates, i. 3, II. " Martial, vii. 94. 
 
 3 Valerius Maximus, vii. 1, II. 4 Herodotus, ii. 85 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 129 
 
 young women, of those of good quality, should be kept three 
 days before they should be delivered to those whose office 
 it was to take care for the interment. 1 Periander did more 
 wonderfully, who extended his conjugal affection (more regu- 
 lar and legitimate) to the enjoyment of his wife Melissa 
 after she was dead. 2 Does it not seem a lunatic humour in 
 the Moon, seeing she could no otherwise enjoy her darling 
 Endymion, to lay him for several months asleep, and to 
 please herself with the fruition of a boy, who stirred not 
 but in his sleep ? I likewise say that we love a body 
 without a soul or sentiment, when we love a body without 
 its consent and concurring desire. All enjoyments are not 
 alike : there are some that are etic and languishing : a 
 thousand other causes besides good will may procure us this 
 favour from the ladies ; this is not a sufficient testimony of 
 affection : treachery may lurk there, as well as elsewhere : 
 they sometimes go to't by halves, 
 
 " Tanquam thura merumcjue parent . . . 
 Absentem, marinoreamve putes : " 3 
 
 I know some who had rather lend that than their coach, 
 and who only impart themselves that way. You are to 
 examine whether your company pleases them upon any 
 other account, or, as some strong-chined groom, for that 
 only; in what degree of favour and esteem you are with 
 them, 
 
 " Tibi si datur rmi ; 
 Quo lapide ilia diem candidiore notef 4 
 
 What if they eat your bread with the sauce of a more 
 pleasing imagination ? 
 
 1 Herodotus, ii. 89. 2 Diogenes Laertius, i. 96. 
 
 3 "As if they t were performing some sacrifice ; you would think them 
 absent, or marble." — Martial, xi. 103, 12 ; and 59, 8. 
 
 4 " Whether she gives herself to thee only, and marks thy day out with the 
 whiter stone." — Catullus, lxviii. 147. 
 
 VOL. III. I 
 
1 30 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iil. 
 
 " Te tenet, absentes alios suspirat amores." x 
 
 What ? have we not seen one in these days of ours who 
 made use of this act for the purpose of a most horrid 
 revenge, by that means to kill and poison, as he did, a 
 worthy lady ? 
 
 Such as know Italy will not think it strange if, for this 
 subject, I seek not elsewhere for examples ; for that nation 
 may be called the regent of the world in this. They have 
 more generally handsome and fewer ugly women than we : 
 but for rare and excellent beauties we have as many as 
 they. I think the same of their intellects : of those of 
 the common sort, they have evidently far more : brutish- 
 ness is immeasurably rarer there ; but in individual charac- 
 ters, of the highest form, we are nothing indebted to them. 
 If I should carry on the comparison, I might say, as 
 touching valour, that, on the contrary, it is, to what it is 
 with them, common and natural with us ; but sometimes 
 we see them possessed of it to such a degree as surpasses 
 the greatest examples we can produce. The marriages of 
 that country are defective in this ; their custom com- 
 monly imposes so rude and so slavish a law upon the 
 women, that the most distant acquaintance with a stranger 
 is as capital an offence as the most intimate ; so that all 
 approaches being rendered necessarily substantial, and seeing 
 that all comes to one account, they have no hard choice to 
 make ; and when they have broken down the fence, we 
 may safely presume they get on fire. " Luxuria ipsis vin- 
 culis, sicut fera bestia, irritata, deinde emissa." 2 They must 
 give them a little more rein ; 
 
 1 " She has you in her arms, but her thoughts are with another lover." — 
 Tibullus, i. 6, 35. 
 
 2 " Lust, like a wild beast, being more excited by being bound, breaks 
 from his chains with greater wildness." — Livy, xxxiv. 4. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 131 
 
 " Vidi ego nuper equum, contra sua frena tenacem, 
 Ore reluctanti fulminis ire modo : " l 
 
 the desire of company is allayed by giving it a little liberty. 
 We are pretty much, in the same case : they are extreme in 
 constraint, we in licence. 'Tis a good custom we have in 
 Trance, that our sons are received into the best families, 
 there to be entertained and bred up pages, as in a school 
 of nobility'; and 'tis looked upon as a discourtesy and an 
 affront to refuse this to a gentleman. I have taken notice 
 (for so many families, so many differing forms) that the ladies, 
 who have been strictest with ther maids, have had no better 
 luck than those who allowed them a greater liberty. There 
 should be moderation in these things ; one must leave a great 
 deal of their conduct to their own discretion ; for, when all 
 comes to all, no discipline can curb them throughout. But 
 it is true withal that she who comes off with flying colours 
 from a school of liberty, brings with her whereon to repose 
 more confidence than she who comes away sound from a 
 severe and strict school. 
 
 Our fathers dressed up their daughters' looks in bashful- 
 ness and fear (their courage and desires being the same) ; 
 we ours in confidence and assurance ; we understand 
 nothing of the matter ; we must leave it to the Sarmatian 
 women, who may not lie with a man till with their own 
 hands they have first killed another in battle. 2 For me, 
 who have no other title left me to these things but by 
 the ears, 'tis sufficient if, according to the privilege of 
 my age, they retain me for one of their counsel. I advise 
 them then, and us men too, to abstinence ; but if the age 
 we live in will not endure it, at least modesty and discre- 
 tion. For, as in the story of Aristippus 3 who, speaking to 
 
 1 "I saw, the other day, a horse struggling against his k bit, rush like a 
 thunderbolt" — Ovid, Amor., iii. 4, 13. 
 
 2 Herodotus, iv. I, 1 7. 3 Diogenes Laertius, ii. 69. 
 
132 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book lii. 
 
 some young men who blushed to see him go into a scandal- 
 ous house, said : " the vice is in not coming out, not in 
 going in," let her who has no care of her conscience, have 
 yet some regard to her reputation ; and though she be rotten 
 within, let her carry a fair outside at least, 
 
 I commend a gradation and delay in bestowing their 
 favours : Plato declares that, in all sorts of love, facility and 
 promptness are forbidden to the defendant. 'Tis a sign of 
 eagerness, which they ought to disguise with all the art 
 they have, so rashly, wholly, and hand-over-head to sur- 
 render themselves. In carrying themselves orderly and 
 measuredly in the granting their last favours, they much 
 more allure our desires and hide their own. Let them still 
 fly before us, even those who have most mind to be over- 
 taken : they better conquer us by flying, as the Scythians 
 did. To say the truth, according to the law that nature has 
 imposed upon them, it is not properly for them either to 
 will or desire ; their part is to suffer, obey, and consent : 
 and for this it is that nature has given them a perpetual 
 capacity, which in us is but at times and uncertain ; they 
 are always fit for the encounter, that they may be always 
 ready when we are so, " Pati natse." 1 And whereas she 
 has ordered that our appetites shall be manifest by a pro- 
 minent demonstration, she would have theirs to be hidden 
 and concealed within, and has furnished them with parts 
 improper for ostentation, and simply defensive. Such pro- 
 ceedings as this that follows must be left to the Amazonian 
 licence : Alexander marching his army through Hyrcania, 
 Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons, came with three hundred 
 light horse of her own sex, well mounted and armed, having 
 left the remainder of a very great army that followed her, 
 behind the neighbouring mountains, to give him a visit; 
 
 1 " Born to suffer. " — Seneca, Ep. 95. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 133 
 
 where she publicly and in plain terms told him that the 
 fame of his valour and victories had brought her thither to 
 see him, and to make him an offer of her forces to assist 
 him in the pursuit of his enterprises : and that, finding 
 him so handsome, young, and vigorous, she, who was also 
 perfect in all those qualities, advised that they might lie 
 together, to the end that from the most valiant woman of 
 the world, and the bravest man then living, there might 
 spring some great and wonderful issue for the time to come. 
 Alexander returned her thanks for all the rest, but to give 
 leisure for the accomplishment of her last demand, he de- 
 tained her thirteen days in that place, which were spent in 
 royal feasting and jollity, for the welcome of so courageous 
 a princess. 1 
 
 We are, almost throughout, unjust judges of their actions, 
 as they are of ours ; I confess the truth when it makes 
 against me, as well as when 'tis on my side. 'Tis an 
 abominable intemperance that pushes them on so often to 
 change, and that will not let them limit their affection to 
 any one person whatever ; as is evident in that goddess, to 
 whom are attributed so many changes and so many lovers. 
 But 'tis true withal, that 'tis contrary to the nature of love, 
 if it be not violent ; and contrary to the nature of violence, 
 if it be constant. And they who wonder, exclaim, and 
 keep such a clutter to find out the causes of this frailty 
 of theirs, as unnatural and not to be believed, how comes 
 it to pass they do not discern how often they are themselves 
 guilty of the same, without any astonishment or miracle at 
 all ? It would, peradventure, be more strange to see the 
 passion fixed ; 'tis not a simply corporeal passion ; if there 
 be no end to avarice and ambition, there is doubtless no 
 more in desire ; it still lives after satiety ; and 'tis impos- 
 
 1 Diodorus Siculus, xvii. 16 ; Quintus Curtius, vi. 5. 
 
134 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book hi. 
 
 sible to prescribe either constant satisfaction, or end ; it ever 
 goes beyond its possession. And by that means inconstancy, 
 peradventure, is in some sort more pardonable in them than 
 in ns : they may plead, as "well as we, the inclination to 
 variety and novelty common to us both ; and _ secondly, 
 without us, that they buy a pig in a poke : Joan, queen of 
 Naples, caused her first husband Andreasso to be hanged at 
 the bars of her window in a halter of gold and silk, woven 
 with her own hand, because in matrimonial performances 
 she neither found his parts nor abilities answer the expecta- 
 tion she had conceived from his stature, beauty, youth, and 
 activity, by which she had been caught and deceived. They 
 may say, there is more pains required in doing than in suf- 
 fering ; and so they are on their part always at least pro- 
 vided for necessity, whereas on our part it may fall out 
 otherwise. For this reason it was that Plato x wisely made 
 a law, that before marriage, to determine of the fitness of 
 persons, the judges should see the young men who pretended 
 to it stripped stark naked, and the women but to the girdle 
 only. When they come to try us, they do not, perhaps, find 
 us worthy of their choice : 
 
 " Experta latus, madidoque simillima loro 
 Inguina, nee lassa stare eoacta ruanu, 
 Deserit irnbelles thalamos." 2 
 
 'Tis not enough that a man's will be good ; weakness and 
 insufficiency lawfully break a marriage, 
 
 " Et quserendurn aliunde foret nervosius illud, 
 Quod posset zonam solvere virgineam:" 3 
 
 1 Laws, xi. 
 
 2 " After using every endeavour to arouse him to action, she quits the 
 barren couch." — Martial, vii. 58. 
 
 3 " And seeks a more vigorous lover to undo her virgin zone." — Catullus, 
 lxvii. 27. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 135 
 
 why not ? and according to her own standard, an amorous 
 intelligence, more licentious and active, 
 
 " Si blando nequeat superesse labori." 1 
 
 But is it not great impudence to offer our imperfections 
 and imbecilities, where we desire to please and leave a 
 good opinion and esteem of ourselves ? For the little that 
 I am able to do now, 
 
 " Ad unuin 
 Mollis opus." 2 
 
 I would not trouble a woman, that I am to reverence and 
 fear. 
 
 " Fuge suspicari, 
 Cujus undenum trepidavit cetas 
 Claudare lustrum." 3 
 
 Nature should satisfy herself in having rendered this age 
 miserable, without rendering it ridiculous too. I hate to see 
 it, for one poor inch of pitiful vigour which comes upon it 
 but thrice a week, to strut and set out itself with as much 
 eagerness as if it could do mighty feats ; a true name of 
 flax ; and laugh to see it so boil and bubble and then in 
 a moment so congealed and extinguished. This appetite 
 ought to appertain only to the flower of beautiful youth : 
 trust not to its seconding that indefatigable, full, constant, 
 magnanimous ardour you think in you, for it will certainly 
 leave you in the lurch at your greatest need ; but rather 
 transfer it to some tender, bashful, and ignorant boy, who 
 yet trembles at the rod, and blushes ; 
 
 1 "If his strength be unequal to the pleasant task." — Virgil, Georg., iii. 
 127. 
 
 2 "Fit but for once." — Horace, Epod. xii. 15. 
 
 3 " Fear not him whose eleventh lustrum is closed." Horace, Od. ii. 4, 12, 
 limits it to the eighth. 
 
136 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 " Indian sanguineo veltiti violaverit ostro 
 Si quis ebur, vel mista rubent nbi lilia raulta 
 . Alba rosa." 1 
 
 Who can stay till the morning without dying for shame to 
 behold the disdain of the fair eyes of her who knows so 
 well his fumbling impertinence, 
 
 " Et taciti fecere tamen convicia vultus," 2 
 
 has never had the satisfaction and the glory of having 
 cudgelled them till they were weary, with the vigor- 
 ous performance of one heroic night. When I have ob- 
 served any one to be vexed with me, I have not presently 
 accused her levity, but have been in doubt, if I had not 
 reason rather to complain of nature ; she has doubtless used 
 me very uncivilly and unkindly, 
 
 " Si non longa satis, si non bene mentula crassa : 
 Nimiruni sapiunt, videntque parvam 
 Matronse quoque mentulam. illibenter : " 3 
 
 and done me a most enormous injury. Every member I 
 have, as much one as another, is equally my own, and no 
 other more properly makes me a man than this. 
 
 I universally owe my entire picture to the public. The 
 wisdom of my instruction consists in liberty, in truth, 
 in essence : disdaining to introduce those little, feigned, 
 common, and provincial rules into the . catalogue of its real 
 duties ; all natural, general, and constant, of which civility 
 and ceremony are daughters indeed, but illegitimate. We 
 
 1 "As Indian ivory streaked with crimson, or white lilies mixed with the 
 damask rose." — iEneid, xii. 67. 
 
 2 "Though she nothing say, her looks betray her anger." — Ovid, Amor., 
 i. 7, 21. 
 
 3 The first of these verses is the commencement of an epigram of the Vete- 
 rum Poetarum Catalecta, and the two others are from an epigram in the same 
 collection (Ad Matrones). They describe, untranslateably, Montaigne's charge 
 against nature, indicated in the previous passage. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 137 
 
 are sure to have the vices of appearance, when we shall 
 have had those of essence : when we have done with 
 these, we rim full drive upon the others, if we find it must 
 he so ; for there is danger that we shall fancy new offices, 
 to excuse our negligence towards the natural ones, and to 
 confound them : and to manifest this, is it not seen that 
 in places where faults are crimes, crimes are but faults ; 
 that in nations where the laws of decency are most rare 
 and most remiss, the primitive laws of common reason are 
 better observed : the innumerable multitude of so many 
 duties stifling and dissipating our care. The application of 
 ourselves to light and trivial things diverts us from those 
 that are necessary and just. Oh, how these superficial men 
 take an easy and plausible way in comparison of ours ! 
 These are shadows wherewith we palliate and pay one 
 another; but we do not pay, but inflame the reckoning 
 towards that great Judge, who tucks up our rags and tatters 
 above our shameful parts, and stickles not to view us all 
 over, even to our inmost and most secret ordures : it were 
 a useful decency of our maidenly modesty, could it keep 
 him from this discovery. In fine, whoever could reclaim 
 man from so scrupulous a verbal superstition, would do the 
 world no great disservice. Our life is divided betwixt 
 folly and prudence : whoever will write of it but what is 
 reverend and canonical, will leave above the one-half be- 
 hind. I do not excuse myself to myself ; and if I did, it 
 should rather be for my excuses that I would excuse my- 
 self, than for any other fault : I excuse myself of certain 
 humours, which I think more strong in number than those 
 that are on my side. In consideration of which, I will 
 further say this (for I desire to please every one, though it 
 will be hard to do, " esse unum hominem accommodatum 
 ad tantam morum ac sermonum et voluntatum varieta- 
 
o 
 
 8 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 tern," *) that they ought not to condemn me for what I make 
 authorities, . received and approved by so many ages, to 
 utter : and that there is no reason that for want of rhyme, 
 they should refuse me the liberty they allow even to 
 churchmen of our nation and time, and these amoncrst the 
 most notable, of which here are two of their brisk verses, 
 
 "Eimula, dispeream, ni monogramma tua est." 2 
 '" Un vit d'arny la contente et Men. traicte: " 3 
 
 besides how many others. I love modesty, and 'tis not out 
 of judgment that I have chosen this scandalous way of 
 speaking ; 'tis nature that has chosen it for me. I commend 
 it not, no more than other forms that are contrary to com- 
 mon use : but I excuse it, and by circumstances both gene- 
 ral and particular, alleviate its accusation. 
 
 But to proceed. Whence, too, can proceed that usurpa- 
 tion of sovereign authority you take upon you over the 
 women, who favour you at their own expense, 
 
 " Si furtiva dedit nigra nmrmscula nocte," i 
 
 so that you presently assume the interest, coldness, and 
 authority of a husband ? Tis a free contract : why clo 
 you not then keep to it, as you would have them do ? 
 there is no prescription upon voluntary things. 'Tis 
 against the form, but it is true withalj that I in my time 
 have conducted this bargain as much as the nature of it 
 would permit, as conscientiously and with as much colour 
 of justice, as any other contract ; and that I never pretended 
 other affection than what I really had, and have truly ac- 
 
 1 ' ' For a man to conform to such a variety of manners, discourses, and 
 wills." — Q. Cicero, De Pet. Consul, c. 14. 
 8 Beza, Juvenilia. 
 
 3 St. Gelais, CEuvres Poetiques, p. 99, ed. of Lyons, 1574. 
 
 4 " If, in the silence of night, she has permitted stolen pleasures." — Catul- 
 lus, Ixviii. 145. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 139 
 
 quainted tliem "with its birth, vigour, and declination, its fits 
 and intermissions : a man does not always hold on at the 
 same rate. I have been so sparing of my promises, that I 
 think I have been better than my word. They have found 
 me faithful even to service of their inconstancy, a confessed 
 and sometimes multiplied inconstancy. I never broke with 
 them, whilst I had any hold at all, and what occasion so- 
 ever they have given me, never broke with them to hatred 
 or contempt ; for such privacies, though obtained upon 
 never so scandalous terms, do yet oblige to some good will. 
 I have sometimes, upon their tricks and evasions, discovered 
 a little indiscreet anger and impatience ; for I am naturally 
 subject to rash emotions, which, though light and short, 
 often spoil my market. At any time they have consulted 
 my judgment, I never stuck to give them sharp and 
 paternal counsels, and to pinch them to the quick. If I 
 have left them any cause to complain of me, 'tis rather to 
 have found in me, in comparison of the modern use, a love 
 foolishly conscientious, than anything else. I have kept 
 my word in things wherein I might easily have been dis- 
 pensed ; they sometimes surrendered themselves with repu- 
 tation, and upon articles that they were willing enough 
 should be broken by the conqueror. I have, more than 
 once, made pleasure in its greatest effort strike to the inte- 
 rest of their honour; and where reason importuned me, 
 have armed them against myself; so that they ordered 
 themselves more decorously and securely by my rules, when 
 they frankly referred themselves to them, than they would 
 have done by their own. I have ever, as much as I could, 
 wholly taken upon myself alone the hazard of our assig- 
 nations, to acquit them ; and have always contrived our 
 meetings after the hardest and most unusual manner, as less 
 suspected, and, moreover, in my opinion, more accessible. 
 They are chiefly more open, where they think they are most 
 
140 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 securely shut ; things least feared are least interdicted and 
 observed ; one may more boldly dare what nobody thinks 
 you dare, which by its difficulty becomes easy. Never had 
 any man his approaches more impertinently generative; 1 
 this way of loving is more according to discipline : but how 
 ridiculous it is to our people, and how ineffectual, who 
 better knows than I ? yet I shall not repent me of it ; I 
 have nothing there more to lose ; 
 
 " Me tabula sacer 
 Votiva paries, indicat uvida 
 
 Suspendisse potenti 
 Vestimenta maris deo : " 2 
 
 'tis now time to speak out. But as I might, peradven- 
 ture, say to another, " Thou talkest idly, my friend ; the 
 love of thy time has little commerce with faith and integ- 
 rity;" 
 
 " Hcec si tu postules 
 Ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas, 
 Quam si des operarn, ut cum ratione insauias : " 3 
 
 on the contrary, also, if it were for me to begin again, cer- 
 tainly it should be by the same method and the same pro- 
 gress, how fruitless soever it might be to me; folly and 
 insufficiency are commendable in an incommendable action : 
 the farther I go from their humour in this, I approach so 
 much nearer to my own. As to the rest, in this traffic, I 
 did not suffer myself to be totally carried away ; I pleased 
 myself in it, but did not forget myself: I retained the 
 little sense and discretion that nature has given me, entire 
 
 1 la the original manuscript, Montaigne had here added : " the desire to 
 generate should be purely legitimate," but he struck this out (Naigeon). 
 
 2 ' ' The holy wall, by my votive table, shows that I have hanged up my 
 wet clothes in honour of the powerful god of the sea." — Horace, Od. i. 5, 13. 
 
 3 " If you seek to make these things certain by reason, you would act as 
 wisely as he who should seek to be mad in his full senses." — Terence, Eun., 
 act i. sc. 1, v. 1 6, 
 
Chap. 5-] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 141 
 
 for their service and my own : a little emotion, but no 
 dotage. My conscience, also, was engaged in it, even to 
 debauch and licentiousness ; but, as to ingratitude, treachery, 
 malice, and cruelty, never. I would not purchase the plea- 
 sure of this vice at any price, but content myself with its 
 proper and simple cost : " Nullum intra se vitium est." x 
 I almost equally hate a stupid and slothful laziness, as I do 
 a toilsome and painful employment ; this pinches, the other 
 lays me asleep. I like wounds as well as bruises, and cuts 
 as well as dry blows. I found in this commerce, when I 
 was the most able for it, a just moderation betwixt these 
 extremes. Love is a sprightly, lively, and gay agitation ; I 
 was neither troubled nor afflicted with it, but heated, and, 
 moreover, disordered ; a man must stop there ; it hurts no- 
 body but fools. A young man ashed the philosopher Pane- 
 tius, if it was becoming a wise man to be in love ? " Let 
 the wise man look to that," answered he, 2 " but let not thou 
 and I, who are not so, engage ourselves in so stirring and 
 violent an affair, that enslaves us to others, and renders us 
 contemptible to ourselves." He said true, that we are not 
 to intrust a thing so precipitous in itself, to a soul that has 
 not wherewithal to withstand its assaults and disprove prac- 
 tically the saying of Agesilaus, 3 that prudence and love can- 
 not live together. 'Tis a vain employment, 'tis true, unbecom- 
 ing, shameful, and illegitimate ; but carried on after this 
 manner, I look upon it as wholesome, and proper to enliven 
 a drowsy soul, and to rouse up a heavy body ; and, as an 
 experienced physician, I would prescribe it to a man of my 
 form and condition, as soon as any other recipe whatever, 
 to rouse and keep him in vigour till well advanced in years, 
 
 1 " Nothing is a vice in itself." — Seneca, Ep. 95. 
 
 2 Idem, Ep. 117. 3 Plutarch, in vita, c. 4. 
 
142 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book Hi. 
 
 and to defer the approaches of age. Whilst we are but in 
 the suburbs, and that the pulse yet beats, 
 
 " Dum nova canities, dura prima et recta senectus, 
 Dum superest Lachesi cpiod torqueat, et pedibus me 
 Porto meis, nullo destram subeunte bacillo," x 
 
 we have need to be solicited and tickled by some such 
 nipping incitation as this. Do but observe what youth, 
 vigour, and gaiety it inspired Anacreon withal : and Socrates, 
 who was then older than I, speaking of an amorous object : 
 " Leaning," said he, 2 " my shoulder to her shoulder, and my 
 head to hers, as we were reading together in a book, I felt, 
 without dissembling, a sudden sting in my shoulder like 
 the biting of a flea, which I still felt above five days after, 
 and a continual itching crept into my heart." So that 
 merely the accidental touch, and of a shoulder, heated and 
 altered a soul cooled and enerved by age, and the strictest 
 liver of all mankind. And, pray, why not ? Socrates was 
 a man, and would neither be, nor seem, any other thing. 
 Philosophy does not contend against natural pleasures, pro- 
 vided they be moderate : and only preaches moderation, not 
 a total abstinence ; the power of its resistance is employed 
 against those that are adulterate and strange. Philosophy 
 says that the appetites of the body ought not to be aug- 
 mented by the mind, and ingeniously warns us not to stir 
 up hunger by saturity; not to stuff, instead of merely filling, 
 the belly ; to avoid all enjoyments that may bring us to 
 want ; and all meats and drinks that bring thirst and 
 hunger : as, in the service of love, she prescribes us to take 
 such an object as may simply satisfy the body's need, 
 
 1 "Whilst the hair is as yet but grey, whilst age is still straight-shouldered, 
 whilst there still remains something for Lachesis to spin, whilst I walk on my 
 own legs, and need no staff to lean upon." — Juvenal, iii. 26. 
 
 2 Xenophon, Banquet, iv. 27. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 143 
 
 and does not stir the soul, which ought only barely to fol- 
 low and assist the body, without mixing in the affair. But 
 have I not reason to hold, that these precepts, which, in- 
 deed, in my opinion, are somewhat over strict, only concern 
 a body in its best plight ; and that in a body broken with 
 age, as in a weak stomach, 'tis excusable to warm and sup- 
 port it by art, and by the mediation of the fancy, to restore 
 the appetite and cheerfulness it has lost of itself. 
 
 May we not say that there is nothing in us, during this 
 earthly prison, that is purely either corporeal or spiritual ; 
 and that we injuriously break up a man alive ; and that it 
 seems but reasonable that we shoidd carry ourselves as 
 favourably, at least, towards the use of pleasure as we do 
 towards that of pain ? Pain was (for example) vehement 
 even to perfection in the souls of the saints by penitence : 
 the body had there naturally a share by the right of union, 
 and yet might have but little part in the cause ; and yet 
 are they not contented that it should barely follow and 
 assist the afflicted soul ; they have afflicted itself with griev- 
 ous and special torments, to the end that by emulation of 
 one another the soul and body might plunge man into 
 misery by so much more salutiferous as it is more severe. 
 In like manner, is it not injustice, in bodily pleasures, to 
 subdue and keep under the soul, and say that it must 
 therein be dragged along as to some enforced and servile 
 obligation and necessity ? 'Tis rather her part to hatch and 
 cherish them, there to present herself, and to invite them, 
 the authority of ruling belonging to her ; as it is also her 
 part, in my opinion, in pleasures that are proper to her, to 
 inspire and infuse into the body all the sentiment it is 
 capable of, and to study how to make them sweet and 
 useful to it. For it is good reason, as they say, that the 
 body should not pursue its appetites to the prejudice of the 
 
144 Upon some Verses of VirgiL [Book ill. 
 
 mind ; but why is it not also reason that the mind should 
 not pursue hers to the prejudice of the body ? 
 
 I have no other passion to keep me in breath. What 
 avarice, ambition, quarrels, law suits do for others who, like 
 me, have no particular vocation, love would much more 
 commodiously do ; it would restore to me vigilance, sobriety, 
 grace, and the care of my person ; it would reassure my 
 countenance, so that the grimaces of old age, those de- 
 formed and dismal looks, might not come to disgrace it ; 
 would again put me upon sound and wise studies, by which 
 I might render myself more loved and esteemed, clearing 
 my mind of the despair of itself and of its use, and redin- 
 tegrating it to itself; would divert me from a thousand 
 troublesome thoughts, a thousand melancholic humours that 
 idleness and the ill posture of our health loads us withal at 
 such an age ; would warm again, in dreams at least, the 
 blood that nature is abandoning ; would hold up the chin, 
 and a little stretch out the nerves, the vigour and gaiety of 
 life of that poor man who is going full drive towards his 
 ruin. But I very well understand that it is a commodity 
 hard to recover : by weakness and long experience our taste 
 is become more delicate and nice ; we ask most when we 
 bring least, and are harder to choose when we least deserve 
 to be accepted; and knowing ourselves for what we are, we 
 are less confident and more distrustful ; nothing can assure 
 us of being beloved, considering our condition and theirs. 
 I am out of countenance to see myself in company with 
 those young wanton creatures, 
 
 " Cujus in indomito constantior inguine nervus, 
 Quam nova collibus arbor inhseret." x 
 
 To what end should we go insinuate our misery amid their 
 gay and sprightly humour ? 
 
 1 " Ever ready for love." — Horace, Epod., xii. 19. 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 145 
 
 " Possint lit juvenes visere fervidi, 
 Multo non sine risu, 
 Dilapsani in cineres facem." x 
 
 They have strength and reason on their side ; let us give 
 way ; we have nothing to do there : and these blossoms of 
 springing beauty suffer not themselves to be handled by 
 such benumbed hands nor dealt with by mere material 
 means, for, as the old philosopher 2 answered one who 
 jeered him because he could not gain the favour of a 
 young girl he made love to, " Friend, the hook will not 
 stick in such soft cheese." It is a commerce that requires 
 relation and correspondence : the other pleasures we receive 
 may be acknowledged by recompenses of another nature, 
 but this is not to be paid but with the same kind of coin. 
 In earnest, in this sport, the pleasure I give more tickles 
 my imagination than that they give me ; now, he has nothing 
 of generosity in him who can receive pleasure where he con- 
 fers none — it must needs be a mean soul that will owe all, 
 and can be content to maintain relations with persons 
 to whom he is a continual charge ; there is no beauty, 
 grace, nor privacy so exquisite that a gentleman ought to 
 desire at this rate. If they can only be kind to us out of 
 pity, I had much rather die than live upon charity. I 
 would have right to ask, in the style wherein I heard them 
 beg in Italy : " Fate ben per voi," 3 or after the manner that 
 Cyrus exhorted his soldiers, " Who loves himself let him 
 follow me." " Consort yourself," some one will say to me, 
 " with women of your own condition, whom like fortune 
 will render more easy to your desire." ridiculous and 
 insipid composition ! 
 
 1 " That fervid youth may behold, not without laughter, a burning torch 
 worn to ashes." — Horace, Od. iv. 13, 21. 
 
 2 Bion. 3 " Do good for yourself. " 
 VOL. III. K 
 
146 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii.~ 
 
 " Nolo 
 Barbara vellere mortuo leoni." x 
 
 Xenophon 2 lays it for an objection and an accusation against 
 Menon, that he never made love to any hut old women. 
 For my part, I take more pleasure in hut seeing the just 
 and sweet mixture of two young beauties, or only in medi- 
 tating on it in my fancy, than myself in acting second in a 
 piteous and imperfect conjunction; 3 I leave that fantastic 
 appetite to the Emperor Galba, 4 who was only for old cur- 
 ried flesh : and to this poor wretch, 
 
 " 0, ego Di faciant talem te cernere possim, 
 Caraque mutatis oscula ferre comis, 
 Amplectique meis corpus non pingue lacertis ! " 5 
 
 Amongst chief deformities I reckon forced and artificial 
 beauties : Hemon, 6 a young fellow of Chios, thinking by 
 fine dressing to acquire the beauty that nature had denied 
 him, came to the philosopher Arcesilaus and asked him if it 
 was possible for a wise man to be in love — " Yes," replied 
 he, " provided it be not with a farded and adulterated 
 beauty like thine." Ugliness of a confessed antiquity is 
 to me less old and less ugly than another that is polished 
 and plastered up. Shall I speak it, without the danger 
 of having my throat cut ? love, in my opinion, is not 
 properly and naturally in its season, but in the age next 
 to childhood ; 
 
 1 "I would not pluck the beard from a dead lion." — Martial, x. 90, 9. 
 
 2 Anabasis, ii. 6, 15. 
 
 3 Which Cotton renders, "Than to be myself an actor in the second with a 
 deformed creature." 
 
 4 Suetonius, in vita, c. 21. 
 
 5 Ovid, who (Ex. Ponto, i. 4, 49) thus writes to his wife : " Oh, would to 
 heaven that such I might see thee, and kiss thy dear locks changed into grey, 
 and embrace thy withered body." 
 
 6 Diogenes Laertius, iv. 34. The question was whether a wise man could 
 love him. Cotton has " Emonez, a young courtezan of Chios." 
 
Chap. 5.] Upon some Verses of Virgil. 147 
 
 " Quern si pnellarum insereres clioro, 
 
 Mille sagaces falleret hospites, 
 Discrimen obscurum, solutis 
 
 Crinibus anibiguoque vultu : " 1 
 
 nor beauty neither ; for whereas Homer extends it so far as 
 to the budding of the beard, Plato himself has remarked this 
 as rare ; and the reason why the Sophist Bion so pleasantly 
 called the first appearing hairs of adolescence Aristogitons 
 and Harmodiuses 2 is sufficiently known. I find it in virility 
 already in some sort a little out of date, though not so much 
 as in old age ; 
 
 " Importtmus enini transvolat aridas 
 Quercus : " 3 
 
 and Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, like a woman, very far 
 extends the advantage of women, ordaining that it is time, 
 at thirty years old, to convert the title of fair into that of 
 good. The shorter authority we give to love over our lives, 
 'tis so much the better for us. Do but observe his port ; 'tis 
 a beardless boy. Who knows not how, in his school, 
 they proceed contrary to all order ; study, exercise, and 
 usage are there ways for insufficiency : there novices rule ; 
 " Amor ordinem nescit." 4 Doubtless his conduct is much 
 more graceful when mixed with inadvertency and trouble ; 
 miscarriages and ill successes give him point and grace ; 
 provided it be sharp and eager, 'tis no great matter whether 
 it be prudent or no : do but observe how he goes reeling, 
 tripping, and playing : you put him in the stocks when 
 you guide him by art and wisdom ; and he is restrained of 
 
 1 "Who, in a company of girls, with his dishevelled hair and ambiguous 
 face would deceive the subtlest there, so difficult is it to say whether he is girl 
 or boy." — Horace, Od. ii. 5, 21. 
 
 2 Plutarch, On Love, c. 34. 
 
 3 "It flies from withered oaks." — Horace, Od. iv. 13, 9. 
 
 4 " Love knows no rule." — St. Jerome, Letter to Chromatius. 
 
148 Upon some Verses of Virgil. [Book iii. 
 
 his divine liberty when put into those hairy and callous 
 clutches. 
 
 As to the rest, I often hear the women set out this intel- 
 ligence as entirely spiritual, and disdain to put the interest 
 the senses there have into consideration ; everything there 
 serves ; but I can say that I have often seen that we have 
 excused the weakness of their understandings in favour 
 of their outward beauty, but have never yet seen that in 
 favour of mind, how mature and full soever, any of them 
 would hold out a hand to a body that was never so little 
 in decadence. Why does not some one of them take it 
 into her head to make that noble Socratical bargain between 
 body and soul, purchasing a philosophical and spiritual 
 intelligence and generation at the price of her thighs, which 
 is the highest price she can get for them? Plato ordains in 
 his Laws that he who has performed any signal and advan- 
 tageous exploit in war may not be refused during the whole 
 expedition, his age or ugliness notwithstanding, a kiss or 
 any other amorous favour from any woman whatever. What 
 he thinks to be so just in recommendation of military valour, 
 why may it not be the same in recommendation of any 
 other good quality ? and why does not some woman take 
 a fancy to possess over her companions the glory of this 
 chaste love ? I may well say chaste, 
 
 " Nam si quando ad praalia ventuin est 
 Ut quondam in stipulis magnus sine viribus ignis 
 Incassnm furit : " 1 
 
 the vices that are stifled in the thought are not the worst. 
 
 To conclude this notable commentary, which has escaped 
 from me in a torrent of babble, a torrent sometimes im- 
 petuous and hurtful, 
 
 1 " For when they engage in love's battle, his sterile ardour lights up but as 
 the flame of a straw." — Virgil, Georg., iii. 98. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 149 
 
 " Ut missum sponsi furtivo munere malum 
 
 Procurrit casto virginis e gremio, 
 Quod miserse oblitae molli sub veste locatum, 
 
 Dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur, 
 Atque illud prouo proeceps agitur decursu : 
 
 Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor." 1 
 
 I say that males and females are cast in the same mould, 
 and that, education and usage excepted, the difference is not 
 great. Plato indifferently invites both the one and the 
 other to the society of all studies, exercises, and vocations, 
 both military and civil, in his Commonwealth; and the 
 philosopher Antisthenes rejected all distinction betwixt 
 their virtue and ours. 2 It is much more easy to accuse one 
 sex than to excuse the other ; 'tis according to the saying, 
 " The Pot and the Kettle." 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 OF COACHES. 
 
 It is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they 
 write of causes, not only make use of those they think 
 to be the true causes, but also of those they believe not to be 
 so, provided they have in them some beauty and invention : 
 they speak true and usefully enough, if it be ingeniously. 
 We cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and 
 therefore clutter a great many together, to see if it may not 
 accidentally be amongst them, 
 
 1 " As when an apple, sent by a lover secretly to his mistress, falls from the 
 chaste virgin's bosom, where she had quite forgotten it ; when, starting at 
 her mother's coming in, it is shaken out and rolls over the floor, before her 
 eyes, a conscious blush covers her face." — Catullus, lxv. 19. 
 
 2 Diogenes Laertius, vi. 12. 
 
150 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 " Nanique imam dicere causam 
 Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tameii sit." x 
 
 Will you ask me, whence comes the custom of Messing those 
 who sneeze ? we break wind three several ways ; that which 
 sallies from below is too filthy ; that which breaks out from 
 the mouth carries with it some reproach of having eaten too 
 much; the third eruption is sneezing, which because it 
 proceeds from the head, and is without offence, we give it 
 this civil reception : do not laugh at this distinction ; for 
 they say 'tis Aristotle's. 2 • 
 
 I think I have read in Plutarch 3 (who of all the authors I 
 ever conversed with, is he who has best mixed art with nature, 
 and judgment with knowledge), his giving as a reason for 
 the rising of the stomach in those who are at sea, that it is 
 occasioned by fear ; having first found out some reason by 
 which he proves that fear may produce such an effect. I, who 
 am very subject to it, know well that this cause concerns 
 not me ; and know it, not by argument, but by necessary 
 experience. Without instancing what has been told me, 
 that the same thing often happens in beasts, especially 
 hogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger ; and what 
 an acquaintance of mine told me of himself that, though 
 very subject to it, the disposition to vomit has three or 
 four times gone off him, being very afraid in a violent 
 storm, as it happened to that ancient, " Pejus vexabar, 
 quam ut periculum mihi succurreret ; " 4 I was never afraid 
 upon the water, nor, indeed, in any other peril (and I have 
 had enough before my eyes that would, have sufficed, if 
 death be one), so as to be astounded and to lose my judg- 
 ment. Fear springs sometimes as much from want of judg- 
 
 1 Lucretius, vi. 704. The sense is in the preceding passage. 
 
 3 Problem, s. 331 ; Qusest. 9. 3 On Natural Causes, c. 11. 
 
 4 "I was too frightened to be ill." — Seneca, Ep. 53. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 1 5 1 
 
 ment as from want of courage. All the dangers I have 
 been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, 
 sound, and entire sight ; and, indeed, a man must have 
 courage to fear. It formerly served me better than other 
 help, so to order and regulate my retreat, that it was, if 
 not without fear, nevertheless without affright and astonish- 
 ment ; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupified. 
 Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, 
 not only steady and temperate, but moreover lofty. Let us 
 make a relation of that which Alcibiades reports of Socrates, 
 his fellow in arms : " I found him," says he, 1 " after the rout 
 of our army, him and Lachez, last among those who fled, 
 and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I was 
 mounted upon a good horse, and he on foot, as he had 
 fought. I took notice, in the first place, how much judg- 
 ment and resolution he showed, in comparison of Lachez, 
 and then the bravery of his march, nothing different from 
 his ordinary gait ; his sight firm and regular, considering 
 and judging what passed about him, looking one while upon 
 those, and then upon others, friends and enemies, after such 
 a manner as encouraged those, and signified to the others 
 that he would sell his life dear to any one who should attempt 
 to take it from him, and so they came off; for people are 
 not willing to attack such kind of men, but pursue those 
 they see are in a fright." This is the testimony of this great 
 captain, which teaches us, what we every day see, that 
 nothing so much throws us into dangers as an inconsiderate 
 eagerness of getting ourselves clear of them : " Quo timoris 
 minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est." 2 Our people are to 
 blame who say that such a one is afraid of death, when they 
 would express that he thinks of it and foresees it : foresight 
 
 1 Plato, Banquet. 
 
 2 "When there is least fear there is for the most part least danger." — 
 Livy, xxii. 5. 
 
152 Of Coaches. [Book in. 
 
 is equally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or 
 ill. To consider and judge of danger, is, in some sort, the 
 reverse to being astounded. I do not find myself strong 
 enough to sustain the force and impetuosity of this passion 
 of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever : if I 
 was once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never 
 rise again very sound. Whoever should once make my soul 
 lose her footing, would never set her upright again : she 
 retastes and researches herself too profoundly, and too much 
 to the quick, and therefore would never let the wound she 
 had received heal and cicatrise. It has been well for me 
 that no sickness has yet discomposed her : at every 
 charge made upon me, I preserve my utmost opposition 
 and defence ; by which means the first that should rout 
 me would keep me from ever rallying again. I have no 
 after-game to play : on which side soever the inundation 
 breaks my banks, I lie open, and am drowned without 
 remedy. Epicurus says* that a wise man can never become 
 a fool ; I have an opinion reverse to this sentence, which is, 
 that he who has once been a very fool, will never after be very 
 wise. God grants me cold according to my cloth, and pas- 
 sions proportionable to the means I have to withstand them : 
 nature having laid me open on the one side, has covered me 
 on the other ; having disarmed me of strength, she has 
 armed me with insensibility and an apprehension that is 
 regular, or, if you will, dull. 
 
 I cannot now long endure (and when I was young could 
 much less) either coach, litter or boat, and hate all other 
 riding but on horseback, both in town and country. But 
 I can bear a litter worse than a coach ; and, by the same 
 reason, a rough agitation upon the water, whence fear is 
 produced, better than the motions of a calm. At the little 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, x. 117. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 153 
 
 jerks of oars, stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I 
 know not how, both my head and my stomach disordered : 
 neither can I endure to sit upon a tottering chair. When 
 the sail or the current carries us equally, or that we are 
 towed, the equal agitation does not disturb me at all : 'tis 
 an interrupted motion that offends me, and, most of all when 
 most slow : I cannot otherwise express it. The physicians 
 have ordered me to squeeze and gird myself about the 
 bottom of the belly with a napkin to remedy this evil ; 
 which however I have not tried, being accustomed to wrestle 
 with my own defects, and overcome them by myself. 
 
 Would my memory serve me, I should not think my time 
 ill spent in setting down here the infinite variety that 
 history presents us of the use of coaches in the service of 
 war : various, according to the nations, and according to the 
 age ; in my opinion, of great necessity and effect ; so that it 
 is a wonder that we have lost all knowledge of them. I 
 will only say this, that very lately, in our fathers' time, the 
 Hungarians made very advantageous use of them against 
 the Turks ; having in every one of them a targetter and a 
 musketeer, and a number of harquebuses piled ready and 
 loaded, and all covered with a pavesade l like a galliot. 
 They formed the front of their battle with three thousand 
 such coaches, and after the cannon had played, made them 
 all pour in their shot upon the enemy, who had to 
 swallow that volley before they tasted of the rest, which 
 was no little advance ; and that done, these chariots 
 charged into their squadrons to break them and open a way 
 for the rest : besides the use they might make of them to 
 flank the soldiers in a place of danger when marching to the 
 field, or to cover a post, and fortify it in haste. In my time, 
 a gentleman on one of our frontiers, unwieldy of body, and 
 
 1 " A defence of shields ranged by one another." — Cotton. 
 
154 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 finding no horse able to carry his weight, having a quarrel, 
 rode through the country in a chariot of this fashion, and 
 found great convenience in it. But let us leave these 
 chariots of war. 
 
 As if their effeminacy 1 had not been sufficiently .known 
 by better proofs, the last kings of our first race travelled in 
 a chariot drawn by four oxen. Marc Antony was the first 
 at Eome who caused himself to be drawn in a coach by 
 lions, and a singing wench with him. 2 
 
 Heliogabalus did since as much, calling himself Cybele, 
 the mother of the gods ; and also drawn by tigers, taking 
 upon him the person of the god Bacchus ; he also sometimes 
 harnessed two stags to his coach, another time four dogs, 
 and another, four naked wenches, causing himself to be 
 drawn by them in pomp, stark naked too. The Emperor 
 Firmus caused his chariot to be drawn by ostriches of a 
 prodigious size, so that it seemed rather to fly than roll. 
 
 The strangeness of these inventions puts this other fancy 
 in my head : that it is a kind of pusillanimity in monarchs, 
 and a testimony that they do not sufficiently understand 
 themselves what they are, when they study to make them- 
 selves honoured and to appear great by excessive expense : 
 it were indeed excusable in a foreign country, but amongst 
 their own subjects, where they are in sovereign command, 
 and may do what they please, it derogates from their dignity 
 the most supreme degree of honour to which they can arrive : 
 just as, methinks, it is superfluous in a private gentle- 
 man to go finely dressed at home ; his house, his attendants, 
 and his kitchen, sufficiently answer for him. The advice 
 that Isocrates 3 gives his king, seems to be grounded upon 
 reason ; that he should be splendid in plate and furniture ; 
 
 1 Which Cotton translates : "as if the insignificancy of coaches." 
 
 2 Cytheris, the actress. — Plutarch's Life of Antony, c. 3. 
 
 3 Discourse to Nicocles. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 155 
 
 forasmuch as it is an expense of duration that devolves on 
 his successors ; and that he should avoid all magnificences 
 that "will in a short time be forgotten. I loved to go fine 
 when I was a younger brother, for want of other ornament ; 
 and it became me well : there are some upon whom their 
 rich clothes weep. We have strange stories of the frugality 
 of our kings about their own persons and in their gifts : 
 kings who were great in reputation, valour, and fortune. 
 Demosthenes vehemently opposes the law of his city that 
 assigned the public money for the pomp of their public 
 plays and festivals : he would that their greatness should be 
 seen in numbers of ships well equipped, and good armies well 
 provided for ; and there is good reason to condemn Theo- 
 phrastus 1 who, in his Book on Eiches, establishes a contrary 
 opinion, and maintains that sort of expense to be the true 
 fruit of abundance. They are delights, says Aristotle, 2 that 
 only please the baser sort of the people, and that vanish from 
 the memory so soon as the people are sated with them, and 
 for which no serious and judicious man can have any esteem. 
 This money would, in my opinion, be much more royally, 
 as more profitably, justly, and durably, laid out in ports, 
 havens, walls, and fortifications ; in sumptuous buildings, 
 churches, hospitals, colleges, the reforming of streets and 
 highways ; wherein Pope Gregory XIII. will leave a 
 laudable memory to future times : and wherein our Queen 
 Catherine would to long posterity manifest her natural 
 liberality and munificence, did her means supply her 
 affection. Fortune has done me a great despite, in inter- 
 rupting the noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great 
 city, and depriving me of the hope of seeing it finished 
 before I die. 
 
 Moreover, it seems to the subjects, who are spectators of 
 
 1 Cicero, De Offic, II, 1 6. 2 Idem, ibid. 
 
156 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 these triumphs, that their own riches are exposed before 
 them, and that they are entertained at their own expense : 
 for the people are apt to presume of kings, as we do of our 
 servants, that they are to take care to provide us all things 
 necessary in abundance, but not touch it themselves : and 
 therefore the Emperor Galba, being pleased with a musician 
 who played to him at supper, called for his money box, and 
 gave him a handful of crowns that he took out of it, with 
 these words : This is not the public money, but my own. 
 Yet it so falls out, that the people, for the most part, have 
 reason on their side, and that the princes feed their eyes 
 with what they have need of to fill their bellies. 
 
 Liberality itself is not in its true lustre in a sovereign 
 hand : private men have therein the most right ; for, to take 
 it exactly, a king has nothing properly his own ; he owes 
 himself to others : authority is not given in favour of the 
 magistrate, but of the people ; a superior is never made 
 so for his own profit, but for the profit of the inferior, and 
 a physician for the sick person, and not for himself: all 
 magistracy, as well as all art, has its end out of itself: 
 " Nulla ars in se versatur : " 1 wherefore the tutors of 
 young princes, who make it their business to imprint in 
 them this virtue of liberality, and preach to them to deny 
 nothing and to think nothing so well spent as what they 
 give (a doctrine that I have known in great credit in my 
 time), either have more particular regard to their own profit 
 than to that of their master, or ill understand to whom they 
 speak. It is too easy a thing to inculcate liberality on him 
 who has as much as he will to practise it with at the expense 
 of others ; and, the estimate not being proportioned to the 
 measure of the gift but to the measure of the means of him 
 who gives it, it comes to nothing in so mighty hands ; 
 
 1 " No art is ever closed within itself." — Cicero, De Finib., V. 6. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 157 
 
 they find themselves prodigal, before they can be reputed 
 liberal. And it is but a little recommendation, in com- 
 parison with other royal virtues : and the only one, as the 
 tyrant Dionysius said, 1 that suits well with tyranny itself. 
 I should rather teach him this verse of the ancient labourer, 
 
 " T?} %et/>2 5e? owelpeiv, dXXa /«) 6Xw ru> fiAa/cu) : " 2 
 
 he must scatter it abroad, and not lay it on a heap in one 
 place : and that, seeing he is to give, or, to say better, to pay 
 and restore to so many people according as they have 
 deserved, he ought to be a loyal and discreet disposer. If 
 the liberality of a prince be without measure or discretion, 
 I had rather he were covetous. 
 
 Eoyal virtue seems most to consist in justice ; and of all 
 the parts of justice that best denotes a king which accom- 
 panies liberality, for this they have particularly reserved to be 
 performed by themselves, whereas all other sorts of justice 
 they remit to the administration of others. An immo- 
 derate bounty is a very weak means to acquire for them 
 good will ; it checks more people than it allures : " Quo in 
 plures usus sis, minus in multos uti possis. . . . Quid autem 
 est stultius, quam, quod libenter facias, curare ut id diutius 
 facere non possis ; " 3 and if it be conferred without due 
 respect of merit, it puts him out of countenance who receives 
 it, and is received ungraciously. Tyrants have been sacri- 
 ficed to the hatred of the people by the hands of those very 
 men they have unjustly advanced ; such kind of men 4 
 
 1 Plutarch, Apothegms. 
 
 2 " That whoever will have a good crop must sow with his hand, and not 
 pour out of the sack." — Idem, Whether the Ancients were more excellent in 
 Arms than in Learning. 
 
 3 " By how much more you use it to many, by so much less will you be in 
 a capacity to use it to many more. And what greater folly can there be than 
 to order it so that what you would willingly do, you cannot do long." — Cicero, 
 De Offic, ii. 15. 
 
 4 " Buffoons, panders, fiddlers and such rag-a-mufnns," (Sic, ed. of 1588. 
 
158 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 thinking to assure to themselves the possession of benefits 
 unduly received, if they manifest to have him in hatred and 
 disdain of whom they hold them, and in this associate 
 themselves to the common judgment and opinion. 
 
 The subjects of a prince excessive in gifts grow exces- 
 sive in asking, and regulate their demands, not by reason, 
 but by example. We have, seriously, very often reason to 
 blush at our own impudence : we are over-paid, according 
 to justice, when the recompense equals our service, for do 
 we owe nothing of natural obligation to our princes ? If he 
 bear our charges, he does too much; 'tis enough that he 
 contribute to them : the overplus is called benefit, which 
 cannot be exacted : for the very name Liberality sounds of 
 Liberty. 
 
 There is no end on't, as we use it ; we never reckon 
 what we have received ; we are only for the future liberality ; 
 wherefore, the more a prince exhausts himself in giving, the 
 poorer he grows in friends. How should he satisfy immo- 
 derate desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled ? 
 He who has his thoughts upon taking, never thinks of what 
 he has taken ; covetousness has nothing so properly and so 
 much its own as ingratitude. 
 
 The example of Cyrus will not do amiss in this place, to 
 serve the kings of these times for a touchstone to know 
 whether their gifts are well or ill bestowed, and to see how 
 much better that emperor conferred them than they do, by 
 which means they are reduced to borrow of unknown sub- 
 jects, and rather of them whom they have wronged, than of 
 them on whom they have conferred their benefits, and so re- 
 ceive aids, wherein there is nothing of gratuitous but the name. 
 Crcesus reproached him with his bounty, and cast up to how 
 much his treasure would amount if he had been a little 
 closer-handed. He had a mind to justify his liberality, and 
 therefore sent despatches into all parts to the grandees of 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 159 
 
 his dominions whom he had particularly advanced, entreat- 
 ing every one of them to supply him with as much money 
 as they could, for a pressing occasion, and to send him 
 particulars of what each could advance. When all these 
 answers were brought to him, every one of his friends, 
 not thinking it enough barely to offer him so much as he 
 had received from his bounty, and adding to it a great deal 
 of his own, it appeared that the sum amounted to a great 
 deal more than Crcesus' reckoning. Whereupon Cyrus : " I 
 am not," said he, " less in love with riches than other 
 princes, but rather a better husband ; you see with how small 
 a venture I have acquired the inestimable treasure of so 
 many friends, and how much more faithful treasurers they 
 are to me than mercenary men without obligation or affec- 
 tion would be ; and my money better laid up than in chests, 
 bringing upon me the hatred, envy, and contempt of other 
 princes." 1 
 
 The emperors excused the superfluity of their plays and 
 public spectacles by reason that their authority in some sort 
 (at least in outward appearance) depended upon the will 
 of the people of Eome, who, time out of mind, had been 
 accustomed to be entertained and caressed with such 
 shows and excesses. But they were private citizens, who 
 had nourished this custom to gratify their fellow-citizens 
 and companions (and chiefly out of their own purses) by 
 such profusion and magnificence : it had quite another 
 taste when the masters came to imitate it : " Pecu- 
 niarum translatio a justis dominis ad alienos non debet 
 liberalis videri." 2 Philip, seeing that his son went about by 
 presents to gain the affection of the Macedonians, repri- 
 manded him in a letter after this manner : " What ! hast 
 
 1 Xenophon, Cyropsedia, viii. 9. 
 
 2 "The transferring of money from the right owners to strangers ought 
 not to have the title of liberality."— Cicero, De Offic, i. 14. 
 
1 60 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 thou a mind that thy subjects shall look upon thee as their 
 cash-keeper and not as their king ? Wilt thou tamper 
 with them to win their affections ? Do it, then, by the 
 benefits of thy virtue, and not by those of thy chest." l 
 
 And yet it was, doubtless, a fine thing to bring and plant 
 within the amphitheatre a great number of vast trees, with 
 all their branches in their full verdure, representing a great 
 shady forest, disposed in excellent order ; and, the first day, 
 to throw into it a thousand ostriches and a thousand stags, 
 a thousand boars, and a thousand fallow-deer, to be killed 
 and disposed of by the people : the next day, to cause a 
 hundred great lions, a hundred leopards, and three hundred 
 bears to be killed in his presence ; and for the third day, to 
 make three hundred pair of gladiators fight it out to the 
 last, as the Emperor Probus did. 2 It was also very fine to 
 see those vast amphitheatres, all faced with marble without, 
 curiously wrought with figures and statues, and the inside 
 sparkling with rare decorations and enrichments, 
 
 " Baltheus en gemmis, en illita porticus auro : " 3 
 
 all the sides of this vast space filled and environed, from 
 the bottom to the top, with three or fourscore rows of seats, 
 all of marble also, and covered with cushions, 
 
 " Exeat, inquit, 
 Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri, 
 Cujus res legi non sufficit." i 
 
 1 Cicero, De Offic, ii. 15. 
 
 2 Vopiscus, in vita, c. 19. 
 
 3 "A belt glittering with jewels, and a portico overlaid with gold." — Cal- 
 purnius, Eclog. vii. Vitruvius says that a Baltheus was a belt round the 
 bottom of a column. 
 
 4 " Go out, for shame, he cries, and quit the equestrian cushions, all ye whose 
 fortunes do not, by law, entitle you to be there." — Juvenal, iii. 153. The 
 Equites were required to possess a fortune of 400 sestertia (,£3229), and they 
 sat on the first fourteen rows behind the orchestra. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 1 6 1 
 
 where a hundred thousand men might sit at their ease: 
 and the place below, where the games were played, to 
 make it, by art, first open and cleave in chasms, representing 
 caves that vomited out the beasts designed for the spec- 
 tacle ; and then, secondly, to be overflowed by a deep sea, 
 full of sea monsters, and laden with ships of war, to repre- 
 sent a naval battle : and, thirdly, to make it dry and even 
 again for the combat of the gladiators ; and, for the fourth 
 scene, to have it strown with vermillion grain and storax, 1 
 instead of sand, there to make a solemn feast for all that 
 infinite number of people : the last act of one only day. 
 
 " Quoties nos descendentis arenae 
 Vidimus in partes, ruptaque voragine terra? 
 Eruersisse feras, et eisdem ssepe latebris 
 Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro ! . . . 
 Nee solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra 
 Contigit ; aequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis 
 Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine digmun, 
 Sed deforme pecus." 2 
 
 Sometimes they made a high mountain advance itself, 
 covered with fruit-trees and other leafy trees, sending down 
 rivulets of water from the top, as from the mouth of a foun- 
 tain : otherwhiles, a great ship was seen to come rolling in, 
 which opened and divided of itself, and after having dis- 
 gorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, 
 closed again, and vanished without help. At other times, 
 from the floor of this place, they made spouts of perfumed 
 water dart their streams upward, and so high as to sprinkle 
 
 1 A resinous gum. 
 
 2 " How often have we seen one part of the theatre sink in, and from a 
 chasm in the earth wild beasts vomited, and then presently give birth to a 
 grove of gilded trees, that put forth blossoms of enamelled flowers. Nor yet 
 of sylvan marvels alone had we sight : I saw sea-calves fight with bears, and 
 a deformed sort of monsters, which, by their shape, we might call sea-horses." 
 — Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 64. 
 
 VOL. III. L 
 
1 62 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 all that infinite multitude. To defend themselves from the 
 injuries of the weather, they had that vast place one while 
 covered over with purple curtains of needlework, and by- 
 and-by with silk of one or another colour, which they drew 
 off or on in a moment, as they had a mind : 
 
 " Quamvis non mo'dico caleant spectacula sole, 
 Vela reducuntur, cum venit Hermogenes." l 
 
 The network also that was set before the people to defend 
 
 them from the violence of these turned - out beasts, was 
 
 woven of gold : 
 
 " Auro quoque torta refulgent 
 Eetia."2 
 
 If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these, it 
 is where the novelty and invention create more wonder than 
 the expense ; even in these vanities, we discover how fer- 
 tile those ages were in other kind of wits than these of ours. 
 It is with this sort of fertility, as with all other products 
 of nature : not that she there and then employed her 
 utmost force : we do not go ; we rather run up and down, 
 and whirl this way and that ; we turn back the way we 
 came. I am afraid our knowledge is weak in all senses ; 
 we neither see far forward nor far backward : our under- 
 standing comprehends little, and lives but a little while ; 
 'tis short both in extent of time and extent of matter : 
 
 "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
 Multi, sed omnes illacrymabiles 
 
 Urgentur, ignotique longa 
 Nocte." 3 
 
 1 " The curtains, though the sun should scorch the spectators, are drawn 
 in when Hermogenes appears," — Martial, xii. 29, 15. This Hermogenes was 
 a noted thief. 
 
 2 " The woven nets were refulgent with gold." — Calpurnius, ubi supra. 
 
 3 "Many brave 'men lived before Agamemnon, but all are buried in 
 oblivion unmourned." — Horace, Od. iv. 9, 25. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 163 
 
 " Et supera belluni Thebanum, et funera Trojse, 
 Multi alias alii quoque res cecinere poetge :" x 
 
 And the narrative of Solon, 2 of what he had got out of the 
 Egyptian priests, touching the long life of their state, and 
 their manner of learning and preserving foreign histories, is 
 not, methinks, a testimony to be slighted upon this con- 
 sideration. " Si interminatam in omnes partes magni- 
 tudhiem regionum videremus, et temporum, in quam se 
 injiciens animus et intendens, ita late longeque peregrinatur, 
 ut nullam oram ultimi videat, in qua possit insistere : in 
 haec immensitate . . . infmita vis innumerahilium appareret 
 formarum." 3 Though all that has arrived, by report, of our 
 knowledge of times past should be true, and known by some 
 one person, it would be less than nothing in comparison of 
 what is unknown. And of this same image of the world, 
 which glides away whilst we live upon it, how wretched and 
 limited is the knowledge of the most curious ; not only of 
 particular events, which fortune often renders exemplary and 
 of great concern, but of the state of great governments and 
 nations, a hundred more escape us than ever come to our 
 
 1 "And before the Theban war, and the destruction of Troy, other 
 poets have' sung other events." — Lucretius V. 327. Montaigne here diverts 
 himself in giving Lucretius' words a construction directly contrary to what 
 they bear in the poem. Lucretius puts the question, Why if the earth had 
 existed from all eternity, there had not been poets, before the Theban war, to 
 sing men's exploits (Coste). 
 
 2 See the Timaeus. 
 
 3 "Could we see on all parts the unlimited magnitude of regions and 
 extent of times, upon which the mind being intent, could wander so far 
 and wide, that no limit is to be seen, in which it can bound its eye, we 
 should, in that infinite immensity, discover an innumerable variety of forms." 
 Here also Montaigne puts a sense quite different from what the words bear in 
 the original ; but the application he makes of them is so happy that one would 
 declare they were actually put together only to express his own sentiments. 
 "Et temporum" is an addition by Montaigne ; and instead of " infmita vis 
 innumerabilium appareret formarum," it is in Cicero, " infinita vis innumera- 
 bilium volitat atomorum." These two last show that Cicero treats of quite a 
 different matter than Montaigne (Coste). 
 
164 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 knowledge. We make a mighty business of the invention 
 of artillery and printing, which other men at the other end 
 of the world, in China, had a thousand years ago. Did we but 
 see as much of the world as we do not see, we should perceive, 
 we may well believe, a perpetual multiplication and vicissi- 
 tude of forms. There is nothing single and rare in respect of 
 nature, but in respect of our knowledge, which is a wretched 
 foundation whereon to ground our rules, and that represents 
 to us a very false image of things. As we nowadays 
 vainly conclude the declension and decrepitude of the world, 
 by the arguments we extract from our own weakness and 
 decay ; 
 
 " Jam que adeo est affecta setas effoet aque tellus ;" 1 
 
 so did he 2 vainly conclude as to its birth and youth, by the 
 vigour he observed in the wits of his time, abounding in 
 novelties and the invention of divers arts : 
 
 " Veruni, ut opinor, habet novitatem gumma, recensque , 
 Natura est ruundi, neque pridem exordia coepit : 
 Quare etiam qusedam nunc artes expoliuntur, 
 Nunc etiam augescunt ; nunc addita navigiis sunt 
 Multa." 3 
 
 Our world has lately discovered another (and who will 
 assure us that it is the last of its brothers, since the 
 Dsemons, the Sybils, and we ourselves have been ignorant of 
 this till now ? ) as large, well peopled, and fruitful, as this 
 whereon we live ; and yet so raw and childish, that we are 
 still teaching it its A B C : 'tis not above fifty years since 
 it knew neither letters, weights, measures, vestments, corn, 
 nor vines ; it was then quite naked in the mother's lap, and 
 only lived upon what she gave it. If we rightly conclude 
 
 1 " Our age is feeble, and the earth less fertile." — Lucretius, ii. 1151. 
 
 2 Lucretius. 
 
 3 "But as I am of opinion, the whole of the world is of recent origin ; 
 whence it is that some arts are still being refined, and some just on the increase ; 
 many improvements are being made in shipping matters." — Idem. V. 331. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 165 
 
 of our end, and this poet of the youthfulness of that age of 
 his, that other world will only enter into the light when 
 this of ours shall make its exit ; the universe will fall into 
 paralysis ; one member will be useless, the other in vigour. 
 I am very much afraid that we have greatly precipitated its 
 declension and ruin by our contagion; and that we have 
 sold it our opinions and our arts at a very dear rate. It 
 was an infant world, and yet we have not whipped and sub- 
 jected it to our discipline, by the advantage of our natural 
 worth and force, neither have we won it by our justice and 
 goodness, nor subdued it by our magnanimity. Most of 
 their answers, and the negotiations we have had with them, 
 witness that they were nothing behind us in pertinency and 
 clearness of natural understanding. The astonishing magni- 
 ficence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, amongst many 
 other things, the garden of the king, where all the trees, 
 fruits, and plants, according to the order and stature they 
 have in a garden, were excellently formed in gold ; as, in his 
 cabinet, were all the animals bred upon his territory and in 
 its seas ; and the beauty of their manufactures, in jewels, 
 feathers, cotton, and painting, gave ample proof that they 
 were as little inferior to us in industry. But as to what 
 concerns devotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liber- 
 ality, loyalty, and plain dealing, it was of use to us that we 
 had not so much as they; for they have lost, sold, and be- 
 trayed themselves by this advantage over us. 
 
 As to boldness and courage, stability, constancy against 
 pain, hunger, and death, I should not fear to oppose the 
 examples I find amongst them, to the most famous examples 
 of elder times, that we find in our records on this side of 
 the world. For, as to those who subdued them, take but 
 away the tricks and artifices they practised to gull them, 
 and the just astonishment it was to those nations, to see so 
 sudden and unexpected an arrival of men with beards, differ- 
 
1 66 - Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 ing in language, religion, shape, and countenance, from so 
 remote a part of the world, and where they had never heard 
 there was any habitation, mounted upon great unknown 
 monsters, against those who had not only never seen a 
 horse, but had never seen any other beast trained up to 
 carry a man or any other loading ; shelled in a hard and 
 shining skin, with a cutting and glittering weapon in his 
 hand, against them, who, out of wonder at the brightness of 
 a looking-glass or a knife, would truck great treasures of 
 gold and pearl; and who had neither knowledge, nor matter 
 with which, at leisure, they could penetrate our steel : to 
 which may be added the lightning and thunder of our 
 cannon and harquebuses, enough to frighten Caesar himself, 
 if surprised, with so little experience, against people naked, 
 except where the invention of a little quilted cotton was in 
 use, without other arms, at the most, than bows, stones, 
 staves, and bucklers of wood ; people surprised under colour 
 of friendship and good faith, by the curiosity of seeing 
 strange and unknown things ; take but away, I say, this 
 disparity from the conquerors, and you take away all the 
 occasion of so many victories. When I look upon that in- 
 vincible ardour wherewith so many thousands of men, 
 women, and children, so often presented and threw them- 
 selves into inevitable dangers for the defence of their gods 
 and liberties ; that generous obstinacy to suffer all extremi- 
 ties and difficulties, and death itself, rather than submit to 
 the dominion of those by whom they had been so shamefully 
 abused ; and some of them choosing to die of hunger and 
 fasting, being prisoners, rather than to accept of nourish- 
 ment from the hands of their so basely victorious enemies : 
 I see, that whoever would have attacked them upon equal 
 terms of arms, experience, and number, would have had a 
 hard, and, peradventure, a harder game to play, than in any 
 other war we have seen. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 167 
 
 Why did not so noble a conquest fall under Alexander, 
 or the ancient Greeks and Boinans ; and so great a revolu- 
 tion and mutation of so many empires and nations, fall into 
 hands that would have gently levelled, rooted up, and made 
 plain and smooth whatever was rough and savage amongst 
 them, and that would have cherished and propagated the 
 good seeds that nature had there produced ; mixing not only 
 with the culture of land and the ornament of cities, the arts 
 of this part of the world, in what was necessary, but also 
 the Greek and Soman virtues, with those that were original 
 of the country ? What a reparation had it been to them, 
 and what a general good to the whole world, had our first 
 examples and deportments in those parts allured those 
 people to the admiration and imitation of virtue, and had 
 begotten betwixt them and us a fraternal society and intel- 
 ligence ? How easy had it been to have made advantage of 
 souls so innocent, and so eager to learn, having, for the 
 most part, naturally so good inclinations before ? Whereas, 
 on the contrary, we have taken advantage of their ignorance 
 and inexperience, with greater ease to incline them to 
 treachery, luxury, avarice, and towards all sorts of inhuma- 
 nity and cruelty, by the pattern and example of our man- 
 ners. Who ever enhanced the price of merchandise at 
 such a rate ? So many cities levelled with the ground, so 
 many nations exterminated, so many millions of people fal- 
 len by the edge of the sword, and the richest and most 
 beautiful part of the world turned upside down, for the 
 traffic of pearl and pepper ? Mechanic victories ! Never 
 did ambition, never did public animosities engage men 
 against one another in such miserable hostilities, in such 
 miserable calamities. 
 
 Certain Spaniards, coasting the sea in quest of their 
 mines, landed in a fruitful and pleasant and very well 
 peopled country, and there made to the inhabitants their 
 
1 68 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 accustomed professions : " tliat they were peaceable men, who 
 were come from a very remote country, and sent on the 
 behalf of the King of Castile, the greatest prince of the 
 habitable world, to whom the Pope, God's vicegerent upon 
 earth, had given the principality of all the Indies ; " that if 
 they would become tributaries to him, they should be very 
 gently and courteously used ; " at the same time requiring 
 of them victuals for their nourishment, and gold whereof to 
 make some pretended medicine ; setting forth, moreover, the 
 belief in one only God, and the truth of our religion, which they 
 advised them to embrace, whereunto they also added some 
 threats. To which they received this answer : " That as to 
 their being peaceable, they did not seem to be such, if they 
 were so. As to their king, since he was fain to beg, . he 
 must be necessitous and poor; and he who had made him 
 this gift, must be a man who loved dissension, to give 
 that to another which was none of his own, to bring it into 
 dispute -against the ancient possessors. As to victuals, they 
 would supply them ; that of gold they had little ; it being 
 a thing they had in very small esteem, as of no use to 
 the service of life, whereas their only care was to pass it 
 over happily and pleasantly : but that what they could find 
 excepting what was employed in the service of their gods, 
 they might freely take. As to one only God, the proposi- 
 tion had pleased them well; but that they would not change 
 their religion, both because they had so long and happily 
 lived in it, and that they were not wont to take advice of 
 any but their friends, and those they knew : as to their 
 menaces, it was a sign of want of judgment, to threaten 
 those whose nature and power were to them unknown ; 
 that, therefore, they were to make haste to quit their coast, 
 for they were not used to take the civilities and professions 
 of armed men and strangers in good part ; otherwise they 
 should do by them as they had done by those others," show- 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 169 
 
 ing them the heads of several executed men round the 
 walls of their city. A fair example of the babble of these 
 children. But so it is, that the Spaniards did not, either in 
 this or in several other places, where they did not find the 
 merchandise they sought, make any stay or attempt, what- 
 ever other conveniences were there to be had; witness my 
 Cannibals. 1 
 
 Of the two most puissant monarchs of that world, and, 
 peradventure, of this, kings of so many kings, and the 
 last they turned out, he of Peru, having been taken in a 
 battle, and put to so excessive a ransom as exceeds all be- 
 lief, and it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his 
 conversation, given manifest signs of a frank, liberal, and 
 constant spirit, and of a clear and settled understanding, 
 the conquerors had a mind, after having exacted one 
 million three hundred and twenty-five thousand and five 
 hundred weight of gold, besides silver, and other things 
 which amounted to no less (so that their horses were shod 
 with massy gold), still to see, at the price of what disloyalty 
 and injustice whatever, what the remainder of the treasures 
 of this king might be, and to possess themselves of that 
 also. To this end a false accusation was preferred against 
 him, and false witnesses brought to prove that he went 
 about to raise an insurrection in his provinces, to procure 
 his own liberty ; whereupon, by the virtuous sentence of 
 those very men who had by this treachery conspired his 
 ruin, he was condemned to be publicly hanged, after having 
 made him buy off the torment of being burnt alive, by the 
 baptism they gave him immediately before execution ; a 
 horrid and unheard-of barbarity which, nevertheless, he 
 underwent without giving way either in word or look, with 
 a truly grave and royal behaviour. After which, to calm 
 and appease the people, aroused and astounded at so strange 
 
 1 The title of Chapter xxx. of Book i. 
 
1 70 Of Coaches. [Book iii. 
 
 a thing, they counterfeited great sorrow for his death, and 
 appointed most sumptuous funerals. 
 
 The other, king of Mexico, 1 having for a long time defended 
 his beleagured city, and having in this siege manifested the 
 utmost of what suffering and perseverance can do, if ever 
 prince and people did, and his misfortune having delivered 
 him alive into his enemies' hands, upon articles of being 
 treated like a king, neither did he in his captivity discover 
 anything unworthy of that title. His enemies, after their 
 victory, not finding so much gold as they expected, when 
 they had searched and rifled with their utmost diligence, 
 they went about to procure discoveries by the most cruel 
 torments they could invent upon the prisoners they had 
 taken : but having profited nothing by these, their courage 
 being greater than their torments, they arrived at last to 
 such a degree of fury, as, contrary to their faith and the 
 law of nations, to condemn the king himself, and one of the 
 principal noblemen of his court to the rack, in the presence 
 of one another. This lord, finding himself overcome with 
 pain, being environed with burning coals, pitifully turned 
 his dying eyes towards his master, as it were to ask him 
 pardon that he was able to endure no more ; whereupon the 
 king darting at him a fierce and severe look, as reproaching 
 his cowardice and pusillanimity, with a harsh and constant 
 voice said to him thus only : " And what dost thou think I 
 suffer ? am I in a bath ? am I more at ease than thou ? " 
 "Whereupon the other immediately quailed under the tor- 
 ment and died upon the spot. The king, half roasted, was 
 carried thence ; not so much out of pity (for what compas- 
 sion ever touched so barbarous souls, who, upon the doubt- 
 ful information of some vessel of gold to be made a prey of, 
 caused not only a man, but a king, so great in fortune and 
 
 1 Guatimosin. 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 1 7 1 
 
 desert, to be broiled before their eyes), but because his con- 
 stancy rendered their cruelty still more shameful. They after- 
 wards hanged him, for having nobly attempted to deliver him- 
 self by arms from so long a captivity and subjection, and 
 he died with a courage becoming so magnanimous a prince. 
 
 Another time, they burnt in the same fire, four hundred 
 and sixty men alive at once, the four hundred of the com- 
 mon people, the sixty, the principal lords of a province, mere 
 prisoners of war. We have these narratives from themselves : 
 for they not only own it, but boast of it and publish it. 
 Could it be for a testimony of their justice, or their zeal 
 to religion ? Doubtless these are ways too differing and 
 contrary to so holy an end. Had they proposed to them- 
 selves to extend our faith, they would have considered that 
 it does not amplify in the possession of territories, but in 
 the gaining of men ; and would have more than satisfied 
 themselves with the slaughters occasioned by the necessity 
 of war, without indifferently mixing a massacre, as upon 
 wild beasts, as universal as fire and sword could make it ; 
 having only, by intention, saved so many as they meant to 
 make miserable slaves of, for the work and service of their 
 mines ; so that many of the captains were put to death 
 upon the place of conquest, by order of the kings of Castile, 
 justly offended with the horror of their deportment, and 
 almost all of them hated and disesteemed. God meritori- 
 ously permitted that all this great plunder should be swal- 
 lowed up by the sea in transportation, or in the civil wars 
 wherewith they devoured one another ; and most of the men 
 themselves were buried in a foreign land, without any 
 fruit of their victory. 
 
 That the revenue from these countries, though in the 
 hands of so parsimonious and so prudent a prince, 1 so little 
 
 1 Philip 11. 
 
172 Of Coaches. [Bookiii. 
 
 answers trie expectation given of it to Ms predecessors, and 
 to that original abundance of riches which was found at 
 the first landing in those new discovered countries (for 
 though a great deal be fetched thence, yet we see 'tis 
 nothing in comparison of that which might be expected) is, 
 that the use of coin was there utterly unknown, and that 
 consequently their gold was found all hoarded together, 
 being of no other use but for ornament and show, as a fur- 
 niture reserved from father to son by many puissant kings, 
 who were ever draining their mines to make this vast heap 
 of vessels and statues for the decoration of their palaces 
 and temples ; whereas our gold is always in motion^ and 
 traffic ; we cut it into a thousand small pieces, and cast 
 it into a thousand forms, and scatter and disperse it in a 
 thousand ways. But suppose our kings should thus hoard 
 up all the gold they could get in several ages, and let it lie 
 idle by them. 
 
 Those of the kingdom of Mexico were in some sort more 
 civilised, and more advanced in arts, than the other nations 
 about them. Therefore did they judge, as we do, that the 
 was near its period, and looked upon the desolation we world 
 brought amongst them as a certain sign of it. They be- 
 lieved that the existence of the world was divided into five 
 ages, and in the life of five successive suns, of which four 
 had already ended their time, and that this which gave 
 them Light was the fifth. The first perished, with all other 
 creatures, by an universal inundation of water ; the second 
 by the heavens falling upon us and suffocating every liv- 
 ing thing : to which age they assigned the giants, and 
 showed bones to the Spaniards, according to the proportion 
 of which the stature of men amounted to twenty feet ; 
 the third by fire, which burned and consumed all ; the 
 fourth by an emotion of the air and wind, which came with 
 such violence as to beat down even many mountains, 
 
Chap. 6.] Of Coaches. 173 
 
 wherein the men died not, but were turned into baboons 
 (what impressions will not the weakness of human belief 
 admit ?) * After the death of this fourth sun, the world was 
 twenty-five years in perpetual darkness : in the fifteenth 
 of which a man and a woman were created, who restored the 
 human race : ten years after, upon a certain day, the sun 
 appeared newly created, and since the account of their 
 years takes beginning from that day : the third day after its 
 creation the ancient gods died, and the new ones were since 
 born daily. After what manner they think this last sun 
 shall perish my author knows not ; but their number of 
 this fourth change agrees with the great conjunction of 
 stars which eight hundred and odd years ago, as astrologers 
 suppose, produced great alterations and novelties in the 
 world. 
 
 As to pomp and magnificence, upon the account of which 
 I engaged in this discourse, neither Greece, Eome, nor 
 Egypt, whether for utility, difficulty, or state, can compare 
 any of their works with the highway to be seen in Peru, 
 made by the kings of the country, from the city of Quito 
 to that of Cusco (three hundred leagues), straight, even, five 
 and twenty paces wide, paved, and provided on both sides 
 with high and beautiful walls ; and close by them, and all 
 along on the inside, two perennial streams, bordered with a 
 beautiful sort of a tree which they call Molly. In this 
 work, where they met with rocks and mountains, they cut 
 them through, and made them even, and filled up pits and 
 valleys with lime and stone to make them level. At the 
 end of every day's journey are beautiful palaces, furnished 
 with provisions, vestments, and arms, as well for travellers 
 as for the armies that are to pass that way. In the estimate 
 
 1 The weakness has taken another turn with some of our modern sages, who 
 have turned baboons into men. 
 
174 Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. [Bookiii. 
 
 of this work I have reckoned the difficulty which is espe- 
 cially considerable in that place ; they did not build with 
 any stones less than ten feet square, and had no other con- 
 veniency of carriage but by drawing their load themselves 
 by force of arm, and knew not so much as the art of scaf- 
 folding, nor any other way of standing to their work, but by 
 throwing up earth against the building as it rose higher, 
 taking it away again when they had done. 
 
 Let us here return to our coaches. Instead of these, 
 and of all other sorts of carriages, they caused themselves 
 to be carried upon men's shoulders. This last king of 
 Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus carried betwixt 
 two upon staves of gold, and set in a chair of gold in the 
 middle of his army. As many of these sedan-men as were 
 killed to make him fall (for they would take him alive), so 
 many others (and they contended for it) took the place of 
 those who were slain, so that they could never beat him 
 down, what slaughter soever they made of these people, till 
 a light-horseman, seizing upon him, brought him down. 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS. 
 
 Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by 
 railing at it ; and yet it is not absolutely railing against 
 anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all 
 things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted 
 soever. Greatness has, in general, this manifest advantage, 
 that it can lower itself when it pleases, and has, very near, 
 the choice of both the one and the other condition ; 
 for a man does not fall from all heights ; there are several 
 
Chap. 7.] Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. 175 
 
 from which one may descend without falling down. It 
 does, indeed, appear to me that we value it at too high a 
 rate, and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we 
 have either seen, or heard, have contemned it, or displaced 
 themselves of their own accord : its essence is not so evi- 
 dently commodious that a man may not, without a miracle, 
 refuse it. . I find it a very hard thing to undergo misfor- 
 tunes, but to he content with a moderate measure of fortune, 
 and to avoid greatness I think a very easy matter. 'Tis, 
 methinks, a virtue to which I, who am no conjuror, could 
 without any great endeavour arrive. What, then, is to be 
 expected from them that would yet put into consideration 
 the glory attending this refusal, wherein there may lurk 
 worse ambition than even in the desire itself, and fruition 
 of greatness ? Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself 
 better, according to itself, than when it proceeds by obscure 
 and unfrequented ways. 
 
 I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as 
 I can towards desire. I have as much to wish for as 
 another, and allow my wishes as much liberty and indiscre- 
 tion ; but, yet it never befel me to wish for either empire or 
 royalty, or the eminency of those high and commanding 
 fortunes : I do not aim that way ; I love myself too well. 
 When I think to grow greater 'tis but very moderately, and 
 by a compelled and timorous advancement, such as is proper 
 for me in resolution, in prudence, in health, in beauty, and 
 even in riches too ; but this supreme reputation, this mighty 
 authority, oppress my imagination ; and, quite contrary to 
 that other, 1 I should, peradventure, rather choose to be the 
 second or third in Perigord, than the first at Paris : at 
 least, without lying, rather the third at Paris than the first. 
 I would neither dispute, a miserable unknown, with a noble- 
 
 1 Julius Caesar. 
 
1 76 Of the Inconvenience of d'eatness. [Book iii. 
 
 man's porter, nor make crowds open in adoration as I pass. 
 I am trained up to a moderate condition, as well by my 
 choice as fortune ; and have made it appear, in the whole 
 conduct of my life and enterprises, that I have rather 
 avoided than otherwise the climbing above the degree of 
 fortune wherein God has placed me by my birth : all natural 
 constitution is equally just and easy. My soul is so sneak- 
 ing that I measure not good fortune by the height, but by 
 the facility. 
 
 But if my heart be not great enough, 'tis open enough to 
 make amends, at any one's request, freely to lay open its 
 weakness. Should any one put me upon comparing the 
 life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, handsome, learned, 
 healthful, understanding, and abounding in all sorts of con- 
 veniences and pleasures, leading a quiet life, and all his 
 own, his mind well prepared against death, superstition, 
 pain, and other incumbrances of human necessity, dying, at 
 last, in battle, with his sword in his hand, for the defence 
 of his country, on the one part ; and on the other part, the 
 life of M. Eegulus, so great and high as is known to every 
 one, and his end admirable ; the one without name and 
 without dignity, the other exemplary, and glorious to wonder. 
 I should doubtless say as Cicero did, could I speak as well 
 as he. 1 But if I was to compare them with my own, 2 I 
 should then also say that the first is as much according to 
 my capacity, and from desire, which I conform to my capa- 
 city, as the second is far beyond it ; that I could not approach 
 the last but with veneration, the other I could readily attain 
 by use. 
 
 But let us return to our temporal greatness, from which 
 we are digressed. I disrelish all dominion, whether active 
 
 1 Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 20, gives the preference to Regulus, and proclaims 
 him the happier man. 
 
 2 " Touch it in my own phrase," says Cotton. 
 
Chap. 7.] Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. 177 
 
 or passive. Otanes, 1 one of the seven who had right to 
 pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did, as I should willingly 
 have done, which was, that he gave up to his concurrents 
 his right of being promoted to it, either by election or by 
 lot, provided that he and his might live in the empire out 
 of all authority and subjection, those of the ancient laws 
 excepted, and might enjoy all liberty that was not pre- 
 judicial to these, being as impatient of commanding as of 
 being commanded. 
 
 The most painful and difficult employment in the world, 
 in my opinion, is worthily to discharge the office of a king. 
 I excuse more of their mistakes than men commonly do, in 
 consideration of the intolerable weight of their function, 
 which astounds me. 'Tis hard to keep measure in so im- 
 measurable a power ; yet so it is, that it is, even to those 
 who are not of the best nature, a singular incitement to 
 virtue, to be seated in a place where you cannot do the 
 least good that shall not be put upon record ; and where 
 the least benefit redounds to so many men, and where your 
 talent of administration, like that of preachers, principally 
 addresses itself to the people, no very exact judge, easy to 
 deceive, and easily content. There are few things wherein 
 we can give a sincere judgment, by reason that there are 
 few wherein we have not, in some sort, a private interest. 
 Superiority and inferiority, dominion and subjection, are 
 bound to a natural envy and contest, and must of necessity 
 perpetually intrench upon one another. I believe neither 
 the one nor the other touching the rights of the other 
 party ; let reason therefore, which is inflexible and without 
 passion, determine when we can avail ourselves of it. 'Tis 
 not above a month ago that I read over two Scotch authors 
 contending upon this subject, of whom he who stands for 
 
 1 Herodotus, iii. 83. 
 VOL. III. M 
 
178 Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. [Book iii. 
 
 the people makes kings to be in a worse condition than a 
 carter ; and he who writes for monarchy places them some 
 degrees above God Almighty in power and sovereignty. 
 
 Now, the inconveniency of greatness that I have made 
 choice of to consider in this place, upon some occasion that 
 has lately put it into my head, is this : there is not, per- 
 adventure, anything more pleasant in the commerce of men 
 than the trials that we make against one another, out of 
 emulation of honour and worth, whether in the exercises of 
 the body or in those of the mind, wherein sovereign great- 
 ness can have no true part. And, in earnest, I have often 
 thought that by force of respect itself men use princes dis- 
 dainfully and injuriously in that particular ; for the thing I 
 was infinitely offended at in my childhood, that they who 
 exercised with me forbore to do their best because they 
 found me unworthy of their utmost endeavour, is what we 
 see happen to them daily, every one finding himself un- 
 worthy to contend with them. If we discover that they 
 have the least desire to get the better of us, there is no one 
 who will not make it his business to give it them, and who 
 will not rather betray his own glory than offend theirs ; and 
 will, therein, employ so much force only as is necessary to 
 save their honour. What share have they, then, in the 
 engagement, where every one is on their side ? Methinks I 
 see those Paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to 
 jousts and battle with enchanted arms and bodies. Brisson, 1 
 running against Alexander, purposely missed his blow, and 
 made a fault in his career ; Alexander chid him for it, but 
 he ought to have had him whipped. Upon this considera- 
 tion Carneades said, 2 that " the sons of princes learned 
 nothing right but to ride ; by reason that, in all their other 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Satisfaction or Tranquillity of the Mind. But in his essay, 
 How a Man may Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, he calls him Chriso. 
 
 2 Plutarch, How a Man, &c. , ubi supra. 
 
Chap. 7-] Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. 179 
 
 exercises, every one bends and yields to them ; but a horse, 
 that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier, throws the son of 
 a king with no more ceremony than he would throw that of 
 a porter." 
 
 Homer was fain to consent that Yenus, so sweet and 
 delicate a goddess as she was, should be wounded at the 
 battle of Troy, thereby to ascribe courage and boldness to 
 her ; qualities that cannot possibly be in those who are 
 exempt from danger. The gods are made to be angry, 
 to fear, to run away, to be jealous, to grieve, to be trans- 
 ported with passions, to honour them with the virtues that, 
 amongst us, are built upon these imperfections. Who does 
 not participate in the hazard and difficulty, can claim no 
 interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents 
 of hazardous actions. 'Tis pity a man should be so potent 
 that all things must give way to him ; fortune therein sets 
 you too remote from society, and places you in too great a 
 solitude. This easiness and mean facility of making all 
 things bow under you, is an enemy to all sorts of plea- 
 sure : 'tis to slide, not to go ; 'tis to sleep, and not to live. 
 Conceive man accompanied with omnipotence : you over- 
 whelm him ; he must beg disturbance and opposition as an 
 alms : his being and his good are in indigence. 1 
 
 Their good qualities are dead and lost; for they can 
 only be perceived by comparison, and we put them out of 
 this : they have little knowledge of true praise, having their 
 ears deafened with so continual and uniform an approbation. 
 Have they to do with the stupidest of all their subjects ? 
 they have no means to take any advantage of him ; if he 
 but say : " 'Tis because he is my king," he thinks he has 
 said enough to express, that he, therefore, suffered himself 
 
 1 In the Bordeaux copy, Montaigne here adds, "Evil to man is, in its 
 turn, good ; and good, evil. Neither is pain always to be shunned, nor 
 pleasure always to be pursued." 
 
1 80 Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. [Book iii. 
 
 to "be overcome. This quality stifles and consumes the 
 other true and essential qualities : they are sunk in the 
 royalty ; and leave them nothing to recommend themselves 
 with, but actions that directly concern and serve the func- 
 tion of their place ; 'tis so much to he a king, that this alone 
 remains to them. The outer glare that environs him con- 
 ceals and shrouds him from us ; our sight is there repelled 
 and dissipated, being filled and stopped by this prevailing 
 light. The senate awarded the prize of eloquence to 
 Tiberius ; he refused it, esteeming that though it had been 
 just, he could derive no advantage from a judgment so 
 partial, and that was so little free to judge. 
 
 As we give them all advantages of honour, so do we 
 sooth and authorise all their vices and defects, not only by 
 approbation, but by imitation also. Every one of Alex- 
 ander's followers carried his head on one side, as he did ; 1 
 and the flatterers of Dionysius ran against one another in 
 his presence, and stumbled at and overturned whatever was 
 under foot, to show they were as purblind as he. 2 Hernia 
 itself has also served to recommend a man to favour ; I 
 have seen deafness affected ; and because the master hated 
 his wife, Plutarch 3 has seen his courtiers repudiate theirs, 
 whom they loved : and, which is yet more, uncleanliness and 
 all manner of dissolution have so been in fashion ; as also 
 disloyalty, blasphemy, cruelty, heresy, superstition, irreligion, 
 effeminacy, and worse, if worse there be ; and by an ex- 
 ample yet more dangerous than that of Mithridates' 4 
 flatterers who, as their master pretended to the honour 
 of a good physician, came to him to have incisions 
 and cauteries made in their limbs ; for these others suf- 
 
 1 Plutarch on the Difference, &c, ubi supra. 
 
 2 Idem, ibid., who, however, only gives one instance, and in this he tells 
 us that the man visited his wife privately. 
 
 3 Ubi supra. 4 Idem, ibid. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 1 8 1 
 
 fered the soul, a more delicate and noble part, to be 
 cauterised. 
 
 But to end where I began : the Emperor Adrian, disputing 
 with the philosopher Favorinus about the interpretation of 
 some word, Favorinus soon yielded him the victory ; for 
 which his friends rebuking him ; " You talk simply," said 
 he, " would you not have him wiser than I, who commands 
 thirty legions ? " x Augustus wrote verses against Asinius 
 Pollio, and " I," said Pollio, " say nothing, for it is not pru- 
 dence to write in contest with him who has power to pro- 
 scribe : " 2 and he had reason ; for Dionysius, because he 
 could not equal Philoxenus in poesy and Plato in discourse, 
 condemned the one to the quarries, and sent the other to 
 be sold for a slave into the island of iEgina. 3 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE ART OF CONFERENCE. 
 
 ' Tis a custom of our justice to condemn some for a warning 
 to others. To condemn them for having done amiss, 
 were folly, as Plato says, 4 for what is done can never be 
 undone ; but 'tis to the end they may offend no more, and 
 that others may avoid the example of their offence : we do 
 not correct the man we hang ; we correct others by him 
 I do the same ; my errors are sometimes natural, incor- 
 rigible, and irremediable : 5 but the good which virtuous 
 men do to the public, in making themselves imitated, I, 
 peradventure, may do in making my manners avoided ; 
 
 1 Spartian, Life of Adrian, c. 15. 2 Macrobus, Saturn, ii. 4. 
 
 3 Plutarch, On Satisfaction of Mind, c. 10. Diogenes Laertius, however, 
 in his Life of Plato, iii. 181, says that Plato's offence was the speaking too 
 freely to the tyrant. 
 
 4 Laws, x. 
 
 5 In one of his copies, Montaigne struck out the word " irremediable." 
 
 a 
 
 
 
1 8 2 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 " Nonne vides, Albi ut male vivat filius 1 utque 
 Barrus inops 1 magnum dccumentum, ne patriam rem 
 Perdere quis velit ; " x 
 
 publishing and accusing my own imperfections, some one will 
 learn to be afraid of them. The parts that I most esteem 
 in myself, derive more honour from decrying, than for com- 
 mending myself : which is the reason why I so often fall 
 into, and so much insist upon that strain. But, when all is 
 summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss ; 
 a man's accusations of himself are always believed ; his 
 praises never. There may, peradventure, be some of my 
 own complexion who better instruct myself by contrariety 
 than by similitude, and by avoiding than by imitation. The 
 elder Cato had an eye to this sort of discipline, when he 
 said, " that the wise may learn more of fools, than fools can 
 of the wise ; " and Pausanias tells us of an ancient player 
 upon the harp, who was wont to make his scholars go to 
 hear one who played very ill, who lived over against him, 
 that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. 
 The horror of cruelty more inclines me to clemency, than 
 any example of clemency could possibly do. A good rider 
 does not so much mend my seat, as an awkward attor- 
 ney or a Venetian on horseback ; and a clownish way of 
 speaking more reforms mine than the most correct. The 
 ridiculous and simple look of another always warns and 
 advises me ; that, which pricks, rouses and incites much 
 better than that which tickles. The time is now proper 
 for us to reform backward ; more by dissenting than by 
 ^ J agreeing ; by differing more than by consent. Profiting 
 little by good examples, I make use of those that are ill, 
 which are everywhere to be found : I endeavour to render 
 
 1 " Observe the wretched condition of wealthy Albius's son, and the poverty 
 of Barrus : a good lesson for young heirs not to fool away their patrimony.'' — 
 Horace, Sat. i. 4, 109. 
 
Ch ap. 8. ] Of the Art of Conference. 183 
 
 myself as agreeable as I see others offensive ; as constant 
 as I see others fickle ; as affable, as I see others rough ; as 
 good as I see others evil : but I propose to myself im- 
 practicable measures. 
 
 The most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in 
 my opinion, is conversation ; I find the use of it more sweet 
 than of any other action of life ; and for that reason it is 
 that, if I were now compelled to choose, I should sooner, I 
 think, consent to lose my sight, than my hearing and speech. 
 The Athenians, and also the Eomans, kept this exercise in 
 great honour in their academies ; the Italians retain some 
 traces of it to this day, to their great advantage, as is 
 manifest by the comparison of our understandings with 
 theirs. The study of books is a languishing and feeble 
 motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and 
 exercises at once. If I converse with an understanding 
 man, and a rough disputant, he presses hard upon me, and 
 pricks me on both sides ; his imaginations raise up mine to 
 more than ordinary pitch ; jealousy, glory, and contention, 
 stimulate and raise me up to something above myself; and 
 concurrence is a quality totally offensive in discourse. 
 But, as our minds fortify themselves by the communica- 
 tion of vigorous and regular understandings, 'tis not to be 
 expressed how much they lose and degenerate by the con- 
 tinual commerce and frequentation we have with such as 
 are mean and weak ; there is no contagion that spreads like 
 that ; I know sufficiently by experience what 'tis worth a 
 yard. I bve to discourse and dispute, but it is with but 
 few men, and for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and 
 entertainment to great persons, and to make of a man's wit 
 and words competitive parade, is, in my opinion, very un- 
 becoming a man of honour. 
 
 Folly is 1 scurvy quality ; but not to be able to endure 
 it, to fret aid vex at it, as I do, is another sort of disease 
 
184 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 little less troublesome than folly itself; and is the thing 
 that I will now accuse in myself. I enter into conference, 
 and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch as 
 opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, 
 and wherein to take any deep root ; no propositions astonish 
 me, no belief offends me, though never so contrary to my 
 own ; there is no so frivolous and extravagant fancy that 
 does not seem to me suitable to the production of human 
 wit. We, who deprive our judgment of the right of deter- 
 mining, look indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and 
 if we incline not our judgment to them, yet we easily 
 give them the hearing. Where one scale is totally empty, 
 I let the other waver under old wives' dreams ; and I 
 think myself excusable, if I prefer the odd number ; Thurs- 
 day rather than Friday ; if I had rather be the twelfth or 
 fourteenth, than the thirteenth at table ; if I had rather, on 
 a journey, see a hare run by me than cross my way, and 
 rather give my man my left foot than my right, when he 
 comes to put on my stockings. All such whimsies as are in 
 use amongst us, deserve at least a hearing : for my part, 
 they only with me import inanity, but they import that. 
 Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are something more 
 than nothing in nature ; and he who will not suffar him- 
 self to proceed so far, falls, peradventure, into the vice of 
 obstinacy, to avoid that of superstition. 
 1 The contradictions of judgments, then, neitler offend 
 Vnor alter, they only rouse and exercise, me. We evade 
 correction, whereas we ought to offer and present; ourselves 
 to it, especially when it appears in the form of conference, 
 and not of authority. At every opposition, we <io not con- 
 sider whether or no it be just, but, right or wrong, how to 
 disengage ourselves : instead of extending tfy arms, we 
 thrust out our claws. I could suffer myself \o be rudely 
 handled by my friend, so much as to tell me /'that I am a 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 
 
 fool, and talk I know not of what. I love stout expressions 
 amongst gentlemen, and to have them speak as they think ; 
 we must fortify and harden our hearing against this ten- 
 derness of the ceremonious sound of words. I love a strong 
 and manly familiarity and conversation : a friendship that 
 pleases itself in the sharpness and vigour of its communica- 
 tion, like love in biting and scratching : it is not vigorous 
 and generous enough, if it be not quarrelsome, if it be civi- 
 lised and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock : 
 " Neque enim disputari, sine reprehensione, potest." x When 
 any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my 
 anger : I advance towards him who controverts, who in- 
 structs me ; the cause of truth ough£ to be the common 
 cause both of the one and the other/ "What will the angry 
 man answer ? Passion has already confounded his judg- 
 ment ; agitation has usurped the place of reason. It were 
 not amiss that the decision of our disputes should pass by 
 wager : that there might be a material mark of our losses, 
 to the end we might the better remember them ; and that 
 my man might tell me : " Your ignorance and obstinacy 
 cost you last year, at several times, a hundred crowns." I 
 hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it, and 
 cheerfully surrender myself, and open my conquered arms 
 as far off as I can discover it ; and, provided it be not too 
 imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and accom- 
 modate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of 
 civility than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the 
 liberty of admonition by my facility of submitting to it, 
 and this even at my own expense. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is hard to bring the men of my time to 
 it : they have not the courage to correct, because they have 
 
 1 " Neither can a man dispute, but he must contradict." — Cicero, De 
 Finib., i. 8. 
 
 ^ 
 
 / 
 
1 86 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 not the courage to suffer themselves to be corrected ; and 
 speak always with dissimulation in the presence of one 
 another. I take so great a pleasure in being judged and 
 known, that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the 
 two forms I am so : my imagination so often contradicts and 
 condemns itself, that 'tis all one to me if another do it, 
 especially considering that I give his reprehension no 
 greater authority than I choose ; but I break with him, who 
 carries himself so high, as I know of one who repents 
 his advice, if not believed, and takes it for an affront if 
 it be not immediately followed. That Socrates always re- 
 ceived smilingly the contradictions offered to his argu- 
 ments, a man may say arose from his strength of reason ; 
 and that, the advantage being certain to fall on his 
 side, he accepted them as matter of new victory. But 
 we see, on the contrary, that nothing in argument renders 
 our sentiment so delicate, as the opinion of pre-eminence, 
 and disdain of the adversary ; and that, in reason, 'tis rather 
 for the weaker to take in good part the oppositions that 
 correct him and set him right. In earnest, I rather choose 
 the company of those who ruffle me than of those who 
 fear me ; 'tis a dull and hurtful pleasure to have to do with 
 people who admire us and approve of all we say. Antis- 
 thenes commanded his children 1 never to take it kindly 
 or for a favour, when any man commended them. I find 
 I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, 
 when, in the very ardour of dispute, I make myself submit 
 to my adversary's force of reason, than I am pleased with 
 the victory I obtain over him through his weakness. In 
 fine, I receive and admit of all manner of attacks that are 
 direct, how weak soever ; but I am too impatient of those 
 that are made out of form. I care not what the subject is, 
 
 1 Plutarch, On False Shame, c. 12. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 187 
 
 the opinions are to me all one, and I am almost indifferent 
 whether I get the better or the worse. I can peaceably 
 argue a whole day together, if the argument be carried on 
 with method ; I do not so much require force and subtlety 
 as order ; I mean the order which we every day observe in 
 the wranglings of shepherds and shop-boys, but never 
 amongst us : if they start from their subject, 'tis out of 
 incivility, and so 'tis with us ; but their tumult and impa- 
 tience never put them out of their theme ; their argument 
 still continues its course ; if they interrupt, and do not 
 stay for one another, they at least understand one another. 
 Any one answers too well for me, if he answers what I say : 
 when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the 
 thing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indis- 
 cretion ; falling into a wilful, malicious, and imperious way 
 of disputation, of which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis 
 impossible to deal fairly with a fool : my judgment is not 
 only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a master, but 
 my conscience also. 
 
 Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as 
 well as other verbal crimes : what vice x do they not raise 
 and heap up, being always governed and commanded by 
 passion ? We first quarrel with their reasons, and theTr\ 
 with the men. We only learn to dispute that we may \ 
 contradict ; and so, every one contradicting and being con- \ 
 tradicted, it falls out that the fruit of disputation is to lose^y 
 and annihilate truth. Therefore it is that Plato in his 
 Republic 2 prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred people. 
 To what end do you go about to inquire of him, who knows 
 nothing to the purpose ? A man does no injury to the sub- 
 . ject, when he leaves it to seek how he may treat it ; I do not 
 
 1 This paragraph is almost literally copied into the "Art de Penser," or 
 "Logique du Port Royal," iii. 21, 7. 
 ± 2 Look vii., sub. fin. 
 
1 88 Of the Art of Conference. [Bookiii. 
 
 mean by an artificial and scholastic way, but by a natural 
 one, with a sound understanding. What will it be in the 
 end ? One flies to the east, the other to the west ; they 
 lose the principal, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents : 
 after an hour of tempest, they know not what they seek : one 
 is low, the other high, and a third wide. One catches at a 
 word and a simile ; another is no longer sensible of what is 
 said in opposition to him, and thinks only of going on at 
 his own rate, not of answering you : another, finding him- 
 self too weak to make good his rest, fears all, refuses all, 
 at the very beginning, confounds the subject; or, in the 
 very height of the dispute, stops short and is silent, by a 
 peevish ignorance affecting a proud contempt or a foolishly 
 modest avoidance of further debate : provided this man 
 strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open; the 
 other counts his words, and weighs them for reasons ; another 
 only brawls, and uses the advantage of his lungs. Here's 
 one who learnedly concludes against himself, and another 
 who deafens you with prefaces and senseless digressions : 
 another falls into downright railing, and seeks a quarrel 
 after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit 
 that presses too hard upon him : and a last man sees 
 nothing into the reason of the thing, but draws a line of cir- 
 cumvallation about you of dialectic clauses, and the formulas 
 of his art. 
 
 Now, who would not enter into distrust of sciences, and 
 doubt whether he can reap from them any solid fruit for 
 the service of life, considering the use we put them to ? 
 " Nihil sanantibus litteris." 1 Who has got understanding 
 by his logic ? Where are all her fair promises ? " Nee ad 
 melius vivendum, nee ad commodius disserendum." 2 Is 
 
 1 " Letters which cure nothing." — Seneca, Ep. 59. 
 
 2 " It neither makes a man live better nor talk better." — Cicero, De Fin., 
 i. 19. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 189 
 
 there more noise or confusion in the scolding of fishwives 
 than in the public disputes of men of this profession ? I 
 had rather my son should learn in a tap-house to speak, than 
 in the schools to prate. Take a master of arts, and confer 
 ■with him : why does he not make us sensible of this artifi- 
 cial excellence ? and why does he not captivate women and 
 ignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness 
 of his reasons and the beauty of his order ? why does he 
 not sway and persuade us to what he will ? why does 
 a man, who has so much advantage in matter and treatment, 
 mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations ? Strip 
 him of his gown, his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter 
 our ears with Aristotle, pure and simple, 1 you will take him 
 for one of us, or worse. Whilst they torment us with this 
 complication and confusion of words, it fares with them, 
 methinks, as with jugglers ; their dexterity imposes upon 
 our senses, but does not at all work upon our belief: this 
 legerdemain excepted, they perform nothing that is not ver) 
 ordinary and mean : for being the more learned, they are 
 none the less fools. 2 I love and honour knowledge as much 
 as they that have it, and in its true use 'tis the most noble 
 and the greatest acquisition of men ; but in such as I 
 speak of (and the number of them is infinite), who build 
 their fundamental sufficiency and value upon it, who appeal 
 from their understanding to their memory, "sub aliena umbra 
 latentes," 3 and who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, 
 if I dare to say so, worse than stupidity itself. In my 
 country, and in my time, learning improves fortunes enough, 
 but not minds ; if it meet with those that are dull and 
 
 1 Tout pur et tout crud. "Aristotle, who is wholly pure and wholly be- 
 lieved." — Cotton. 
 
 2 So Hobbes said that if he had learned as much as the college pedants he 
 should be as great a blockhead as they. 
 
 3 " Cowering under foreign shelter." — Seneca, Ep. 33. 
 
I 9° Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 heavy, it overcliarges and suffocates them, leaving them a 
 crude and undigested mass ; if airy and fine, it purifies, 
 clarifies, and subtilises them, even to exinanition. 'Tis a 
 thing of almost indifferent quality ; a very useful accession 
 to a well-born soul, but hurtful and pernicious to others ; or 
 rather a thing of very precious use, that will not suffer itself 
 to be purchased at an under rate ; in the hand of some 'tis 
 a s ceptre, in that of others a fool's bauble. 
 / But let us proceed. What greater victory can you ex- 
 I pect than to make your enemy see and know that he is not 
 I able to encounter you ? When you get the better of your 
 I argument, 'tis truth that wins ; when you get the advantage 
 of form and method, 'tis then you who win. I am of opinion 
 that in Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour 
 of the disputants than in favour of the dispute, and more 
 to instruct Euthydemus and Protagoras in the knowledge of 
 their impertinence, than in the impertinence of their art. 
 He takes hold of the first subject like one who has a more 
 profitable end than to explain it — namely, to clear the 
 understandings that he takes upon him to instruct and 
 exercise. To hunt after truth is properly our business, and 
 we are inexcusable if we carry on the chase impertinently 
 and ill ; to fail of seizing it is another thing, for we are 
 born to inquire after truth : it belongs to a greater power 
 to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the 
 bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite 
 height in the divine knowledge. 1 The world is but a school 
 of inquisition : it is not who shall enter the ring, but who 
 shall run the best courses. He may as well play the fool 
 who speaks true, as he who speaks false, for we are upon 
 the manner, not the matter, of speaking. 'Tis my humour 
 as much to regard the form as the substance, and the advo- 
 
 1 Lactantius, Divin. Institut., iii. 28. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 191 
 
 cate as much, as the cause, as Alcibiades ordered we should : 
 and every day pass away my time in reading authors without 
 any consideration of their learning ; their manner is what I 
 look after, not their subject. And just so do I hunt after | 
 the conversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach \ 
 me, but that I may know him, and that knowing him, if I I 
 think him worthy of imitation, I may imitate him. Every I 
 man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, 
 and fully, is a talent that few men have. The falsity that 
 proceeds from ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery 
 of it. I have broken off several treaties that would have 
 been of advantage to me, by reason of the impertinent con- 
 testations of those with whom I treated. I am not moved 
 once in a year at the faults of those over whom I have 
 authority, but upon the account of the ridiculous obstinacy 
 of their allegations, denials, excuses, we are every day going 
 together by the ears ; they neither understand what is 
 said, nor why, and answer accordingly ; 'tis enough to drive 
 a man mad. I never feel any hurt upon my head but 
 when 'tis knocked against another, and more easily forgive 
 the vices of my servants than their boldness, importunity, 
 and folly ; let them do less, provided they understand 
 what they do : you live in hope to warm their affection 
 to your service, but there is nothing to be had or to be 
 expected from a stock. 
 
 But what, if I take things otherwise than they are ? 
 Perhaps I do ; and therefore it is that I accuse my own 
 impatience, and hold, in the first place, that it is equally 
 vicious both in him that is in the right, and in him that is in 
 the wrong; for 'tis always a tyrannic sourness not to endure 
 a form contrary to one's own : and, besides, there cannot, in 
 truth, be a greater, more constant, nor more irregular folly 
 than to be moved and angry at the follies of the world, for 
 it principally makes us quarrel with ourselves ; and the old 
 
192 Of the Art of Conference. [Bookiii. 
 
 philosopher 1 never wanted occasion for his tears whilst he 
 considered himself. Miso, one of the seven sages, of a 
 Timonian and Democritic humour, being asked, 2 " what he 
 laughed at, being alone ? " " That I do laugh alone," an- 
 swered he. How many ridiculous things, in my own opinion, 
 do I say and answer every day that comes over my head ? 
 and then how many more, according to the opinion of 
 others ? If I bite my own lips, what ought others to do ? 
 In fine, we must live amongst the living, and let the river 
 run under the bridge, without our care, or, at least, without 
 our disturbance. In truth, why do we meet a man with a 
 hunch-back, or any other deformity, without being moved, 
 and cannot endure the encounter of a deformed mind with- 
 out being angry ? this vicious sourness sticks more to the 
 judge than to the crime. Let us always have this saying 
 of Plato in our mouths : " Do not I think things unsound, 
 because I am not sound in myself ? Am I not myself in 
 fault? may not my observations reflect upon myself?" — a 
 wise and divine saying, that lashes the most universal and 
 common error of mankind. Not only the reproaches that 
 we throw in the face of one another, but our reasons also, 
 our arguments and controversies, are reboundable upon us, 
 and we wound ourselves with our own weapons : of which 
 antiquity has left me enough grave examples. It was in- 
 geniously and home-said by him, who was the inventor of 
 this sentence : 
 
 " Stercus cinque suum bene olet." 3 
 
 We see nothing behind us ; we mock ourselves an hundred 
 times a day, when we deride our neighbours ; and we detest in 
 others the defects which are more manifest in us, and which 
 
 1 Heraclitus, Juvenal, x. 32. 2 Diogenes Laertius, i. 108. 
 
 3 "Every man thinks his own excrements smell well." — Erasmus, Adag. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of 'the Art of Conference. 193 
 
 we admire with, marvellous inadvertency and impudence. 
 It was hut yesterday that I heard a man of understanding 
 and of good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the 
 folly of another, who did nothing but torment everybody 
 with the catalogue of his genealogy and alliances, above half 
 of them false (for they are most apt to fall into such ridicu- 
 lous discourses, whose qualities are most dubious and least 
 sure), and yet, would he have looked into himself, he would 
 have discerned himself to be no less intemperate and weari- 
 some in extolling his wife's pedigree. importunate 
 presumption, with which the wife sees herself armed by the 
 hands of her own husband ! Did he understand Latin we 
 should say to him : 
 
 " Agesis, lisec non insanit satis sua sponte : instiga." 1 
 
 I do not say that no man should accuse another, who is not 
 clean himself, — for then no one would ever accuse, — clean 
 from the same sort of spot ; but I mean that our judgment, 
 falling upon another who is then in question, should not, 
 at the same time, spare ourselves, but sentence us with an 
 inward and severe authority, 'lis an office of charity, that 
 he who cannot reclaim himself from a vice, should, never- 
 theless, endeavour to remove it from another, in whom, 
 peradventure, it may not have so deep and so malignant 
 a root ; neither do I think it an answer to the purpose to 
 tell him who reproves me for my fault that he himself is 
 guilty of the same. What of that ? The reproof is, not- 
 withstanding, true and of very good use. Had we a good 
 nose, our own ordure would stink worse to us, forasmuch as 
 it is our own : and Socrates is of opinion that whoever 
 should find himself, his son, and a stranger guilty of any 
 violence and wrong, ought to begin with himself, present 
 
 1 "Come! of herself she is not mad enough : urge her on." — Terence, And., 
 iv. 2, 9. 
 
 VOL. III. N 
 
194 Of the Art of Conference. [Bookiii. 
 
 himself first to the sentence of justice, and implore, to purge 
 himself, the assistance of the hand of the executioner ; in 
 the next place, he should proceed to his son, and lastly, to 
 the stranger. If this precept seem too severe, he ought at 
 least to present himself the first, to the punishment of his 
 own conscience. 
 
 The senses are our first and proper judges, which perceive 
 not things but by external accidents ; and 'tis no wonder, if 
 in all the parts of the service of our society, there is so per- 
 petual and universal a mixture of ceremonies and superficial 
 appearances ; insomuch that the best and most effectual 
 part of our polities therein consist. 'Tis still man with 
 whom we have to do, of whom the condition is wonderfully 
 corporal. Let those who, of these late years, would erect 
 for us such a contemplative and immaterial an exercise of 
 religion, not wonder if there be some who think it had 
 vanished and melted through their fingers, had it not more 
 upheld itself amongst us as a mark, title, and instrument of 
 division and faction, than by itself. As in conference, the 
 gravity, robe, and fortune of him who speaks, ofttimes gives 
 reputation to vain arguments and idle words, it is not to 
 be presumed but that a man, so attended and feared, has 
 not in him more than ordinary sufficiency ; and that he to 
 whom the king has given so many offices and commissions 
 and charges, he so supercilious and proud, has not a great 
 deal more in him, than another who salutes him at so great 
 a distance, and who has no employment at all. Not only the 
 words, but the grimaces also of these people, are considered 
 and put into the account ; every one making it his busi- 
 ness to give them some fine and solid interpretation. If 
 they stoop to the common conference, and that you offer 
 anything but approbation and reverence, they then knock 
 you down with the authority of their experience : they have 
 heard, they have seen, they have done so and so : you are 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 195 
 
 crushed with examples. I should tell them, that the fruit 
 of a surgeon's experience, is not the history of his practice, 
 and his remembering that he has cured four people of 
 the plague and three of the gout, unless he knows how 
 thence to extract something whereon to form his judgment, 
 and to make us sensible that he is thence become more 
 skilful in his- art. As in a concert of instruments, we do 
 not hear a lute, a harpsichord, or a flute alone, but one 
 entire harmony, the result of all together. If travel and 
 offices have improved them, 'tis a product of their under- 
 standing to make it appear. 'Tis not enough to reckon 
 experiences, they must weigh and sort them, digest and distil 
 them, to extract the reasons and conclusions they carry 
 along with them. There were never so many historians : 
 it is, indeed, good and of use to read them, for they furnish 
 us everywhere with excellent and laudable instructions from 
 the magazine of their memory, which, doubtless, is of great 
 concern to the help of life ; but 'tis not that we seek for 
 now : we examine whether these relators and collectors of 
 things are commendable themselves. 
 
 I hate all sorts of tyranny, whether verbal or effectual : 
 I am very ready to oppose myself against those vain cir- 
 cumstances that delude our judgments by the senses ; and 
 keeping my eye close upon those extraordinary grandees, I 
 find that at best they are but men, as others are : 
 
 " Karus enim firme sensus communis in ilia 
 Fortuna." l 
 
 Peradventure, we esteem and look upon them for less than 
 they are, by reason they undertake more, and more expose 
 themselves ; they do not answer to the charge they have 
 undertaken. There must be more vigour and strength in 
 the bearer than in the burden ; he who has not lifted as 
 
 1 "In those high fortunes common sense is rare." — Juvenal, viii. 73. 
 
196 Of the Art of Conference. [Bookiii. 
 
 much as lie can, leaves you to guess that he has still a 
 strength beyond that, and that he has not been tried to the 
 utmost of what he is able to do ; he who sinks under his 
 load, makes a discovery of his best, and the weakness of his 
 shoulders. This is the reason that we see so many silly 
 souls amongst the learned, and more than those of the 
 better sort : they would have made good husbandmen, good 
 merchants, and good artisans : their natural vigour was cut 
 out to that proportion. Knowledge is a thing of great 
 weight, the} 7 " faint under it : their understanding has neither 
 vigour nor dexterity enough to set forth and distribute, to 
 employ or make use of this rich and powerful matter ; it 
 has no prevailing virtue but in a strong nature ; and such 
 natures are very rare — and the weak ones, says Socrates, 1 
 corrupt the dignity of philosophy in the handling ; it ap- 
 pears useless and vicious, when lodged in an ill-contrived 
 mind. They spoil and make fools of themselves. 
 
 " Humani qualis simulator simius oris, 
 Quem puer arridens pretioso stamine serum 
 Velavit, nudasque nates ac terga reliquit, 
 Ludibrium mensis." 2 
 
 Xeither is it enough for those who govern and command 
 us, and have all the world in their hands, to have a com- 
 mon understanding, and to be able to do the same that we 
 can ; they are very much below us, if they be not infinitely 
 above us : as they promise more, so they are to perform 
 more. 
 
 And yet silence is to them, not only a countenance of 
 respect and gravity, but very often of good advantage too : 
 for Megabysus, going to see Apelles in his painting room, 
 
 1 Plato, Republic, vi. I 
 
 2 "Just like an ape, simulator of the human face, whom a wanton boy has 
 dizened up in rich silks above, but left the lower parts bare, for the amusement 
 of the guests." — Claudian, in Eutrop., i. 303. 
 
Chap. 8. ] Of the Art of Conference. 197 
 
 stood a great while without speaking a word, and at last 
 began to talk of his paintings, for which he received this 
 rude reproof : " Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to 
 "be some extraordinary person, by reason of thy chains and 
 rich habit ; but now that we have heard thee speak, there 
 is not the meanest boy in my shop that does not despise 
 thee." 1 Those princely ornaments, that mighty state, did 
 not permit him to be ignorant with a common ignorance, 
 and to speak impertinently of painting; he ought to have 
 kept this external and presumptive knowledge by silence. 
 To how many puppies of my time has a sullen and silent 
 fashion procured the opinion of prudence and capacity ! 
 
 Dignities and offices are of necessity conferred more by 
 fortune than upon the account of merit ; and we are often 
 to blame, to condemn kings when these are misplaced : on 
 the contrary, 'tis a wonder they should have so good luck, 
 where there is so little skill; 
 
 " Principis est virtus maxima, nosse suos ; " 2 
 
 for nature has not given them a sight that can extend to 
 so many people, to discern which excels the rest, nor to 
 penetrate into our bosoms, where the knowledge of our wills 
 and best value lies : they must choose us by conjecture 
 and by groping ; by the family, wealth, learning, and the 
 voice of the people, which are all very feeble arguments. 
 Whoever could find out a way by which they might judge 
 by justice, and choose men by reason, would, in this one 
 thing, establish a perfect form of government. 
 
 " Ay, but he brought that great affair to a very good 
 pass." That is, indeed, to say something, but not to say 
 enough : for this sentence is justly received, " That we are 
 
 1 Plutarch, On the Means of Distinguishing a Flatterer from a Friend, c. 14. 
 
 2 '"Tis the chief virtue of a prince to know the people about him." — 
 Martial, viii. 15. 
 
198 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 not to judge of counsels by events." l The Carthaginians 
 punished the ill counsels of their captains, though the issue 
 was successful ; 2 and the people of Eome often denied a 
 triumph for great and very advantageous victories because 
 the conduct of their general was not answerable to liis good 
 fortune. We ordinarily see, in the actions of the world, 
 that Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and who 
 takes a pride in abating our presumption, seeing she could 
 not make fools wise, she has made them fortunate in emula- 
 tion of virtue; and most favours those operations the web of 
 which is most purely her own ; whence it is that we daily 
 see the simplest amongst us bring to pass great business, 
 both public and private ; and, as Seiramnes, the Persian, 
 answered 3 those who wondered that his affairs succeeded so 
 ill, considering that his deliberations were so wise, " that 
 he was sole master of his designs, but that success was 
 wholly in the power of fortune ; " these may answer the 
 same, but with a contrary turn. Most worldly affairs are 
 performed by themselves. 
 
 " Fata viam invenkint ; " 4 
 
 the event often justifies a very foolish conduct ; our inter- 
 position is little more than as it were a running on by rote, and 
 more commonly a consideration of custom and example, than 
 of reason. Being formerly astonished at the greatness of 
 some affair, I have been made acquainted with their motives 
 and address by those who had performed it, and have found 
 nothing in it but very ordinary counsels ; and the most 
 common and usual are indeed, perhaps, the most sure and con- 
 venient for practice, if not for show. What if the plainest 
 reasons are the best seated ? the meanest, lowest, and most 
 
 1 Ovid, Heroid., ii. 85. 2 Lrvy, xxxviii. 48. 
 
 3 Plutarch, Apothegms of the Ancient Kings, &c. 
 
 4 "The destinies find the way." — ^Eneid, iii. 395. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 199 
 
 beaten more adapted to affairs ? To maintain the authority 
 of the counsels of kings, it needs not that profane persons 
 should participate of them, or see further into them than 
 the outmost barrier ; he who will husband its reputation 
 must be reverenced upon credit and taken altogether. My 
 consultation somewhat rouoh-hews the matter, and considers 
 it lightly by the first face it presents : the stress and main 
 of the business I have referred to heaven ; 
 
 " Perniitte divis caetera." l 
 
 Good and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two sovereign 
 powers ; 'tis folly to think that human prudence can play 
 the part of Fortune ; and vain is his attempt who presumes 
 to comprehend both causes and consequences, and by the 
 hand to conduct the progress of his design ; and most espe- 
 cially vain in the deliberations of war. There was never 
 greater circumspection and military prudence than some- 
 times is seen amongst us : can it be that men are afraid to 
 lose themselves by the way, that they reserve themselves 
 to the end of the game ? I moreover affirm that our wisdom 
 itself and consultation, for the most part commit them- 
 selves to the conduct of chance ; my will and my reason are 
 sometimes moved by one breath, and sometimes by another ; 
 and many of these movements there are that govern them- 
 selves without me : my reason has uncertain and casual 
 agitations and impulsions : 
 
 " Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus 
 Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat 
 Concipiunt." % 
 
 Let a man but observe who are of greatest authority in cities, 
 and who best do their own business ; we shall find that 
 
 1 " Leave the rest to the gods." — Horace, Od. i. 9, 9. 
 
 2 " Their thoughts vary, and the motions of their minds are as inconstant 
 as the clouds before the wind." — Virgil, Georg., i. 42. 
 
200 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 they are commonly men of the least parts : women, children 
 and madmen have had the fortune to govern great king- 
 doms equally well with the wisest princes, and Thucydides 
 says, 1 that the stupid more ordinarily do it than those of 
 better understandings ; we attribute the effects of their good 
 fortune to their prudence ; 
 
 " Ut quisque Fortuna utitur, 
 Ita prsecellet ; atque exiucle sapere ilium omnes dicimus ; " 2 
 
 wherefore I say unreservedly, events are a very poor testi- 
 mony of our worth and parts. 
 
 Now, I was upon this point, that there needs no more 
 but to see a man promoted to dignity; though we knew him 
 but three days before a man of little regard, yet an image 
 of grandeur of sufficiency insensibly steals into our opinion, 
 and we persuade ourselves that, being augmented in re- 
 putation and train, he is also increased in merit ; we 
 judge of him, not according to his worth, but as we do by 
 counters, according to the prerogative of his place. If it 
 happen so that he fall again, and be mixed with the 
 common crowd, every one inquires with amazement into 
 the cause of his having been raised so high. " Is this he," 
 say they, " was he no wiser when he was in place ? 3 Do 
 princes satisfy themselves with so little ? Truly, we were 
 in good hands." This is a thing that I have often seen in 
 my time. Nay, even the very disguise of grandeur repre- 
 sented in our comedies in some sort moves and gulls us. 
 That which I myself adore in kings is the crowd of their 
 adorers ; all reverence and submission are due to them, 
 except that of the understanding : my reason is not obliged 
 
 1 iii. 37. Harangue of Cleon. 
 
 2 " He makes his way who knows how to use Fortune, and so succeeding 
 all men call him wise." — Plautus, Pseudol., ii. 3, 13. 
 
 3 Ny scavoir il autre chose quand il y estort. Which Cotton renders, 
 " Could he make no better provision for himself when he was in place." 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 201 
 
 to bow and "bend ; my knees are. Melanthius being asked 
 what lie thought of the tragedy of Dionysius ? "I could 
 not see it," said he, " it was so clouded with language ; " l 
 so most of those who judge of the discourses of great men 
 ought to say, " I did not understand his words, they were 
 so clouded with gravity, grandeur, and majesty." Antis- 
 thenes 2 one day entreated the Athenians to give order 
 that asses might be employed in tilling the ground as well 
 as the horses were ; to which it was answered that those 
 animals were not destined for such a service : " That's all 
 one," replied he, " you have only to order it : for the most 
 ignorant and incapable men you employ in your commands 
 of war incontinently become worthy enough, because you 
 employ them ; " to which the custom of so many people 
 who canonise the kings they have chosen out of their own 
 body, and are not content only to honour, but must adore 
 them, comes very near. The people of Mexico, after the 
 ceremonies of their king's coronation are over, dare no 
 more look him in the face ; but, as if they had deified 
 him by his royalty, amongst the oaths they make him take 
 to maintain their religion, their laws and liberties, to 
 be valiant, just, and mild, he moreover swears to make 
 the sun run his course in his wonted light, to drain the 
 clouds at fit seasons, to make rivers run their course, and 
 to cause the earth to bear all things necessary for his 
 people. 
 
 I differ from this common fashion, and am more apt to 
 suspect the capacity when I see it accompanied with that 
 grandeur of fortune and public applause ; we are to consider 
 of what advantage it is to speak when a man pleases, to 
 choose his subject, to interrupt or change it, with a magis- 
 terial authority ; to protect himself from the oppositions of 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Hearing, c. 7. 2 Diogenes Laertius, vi. 8. 
 
202 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 others by a nod, a smile, or silence, in the presence of an 
 assembly that trembles with reverence and respect. A 
 man of a prodigious fortune coming to give his judgment 
 upon some slight dispute that was foolishly set on foot at 
 his table, began in these words : " It can be no other but a 
 liar or a fool that will say otherwise than so and so." Pur- 
 sue this philosophical point with a dagger in your hand. 
 
 There is another observation I have made, from which I 
 draw great advantage ; which is, that in conferences and dis- 
 putes, every word that seems to be good, is not immediately 
 to be accepted. Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency : 
 a man may very well say a good thing, give a good answer, 
 cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either 
 the one or the other. That a man may not understand all 
 he borrows, may perhaps be verified in myself. A man 
 must not always presently yield, what truth or beauty soever 
 may seem to be in the opposite argument ; either he must 
 stoutly meet it, or retire, under colour of not understanding it, 
 to try, on all parts, how it is lodged in the author. It may 
 happen that we entangle ourselves, and help to strengthen 
 the point itself. I have sometimes, in the necessity and 
 heat of the combat, made answers that have gone through 
 and through, beyond my expectation or hope : I only gave 
 them in number, they were received in weight. As, when 
 I contend with a vigorous man, I please myself with antici- 
 pating his conclusions, I ease him of the trouble of explain- 
 ing himself, I strive to forestall his imagination whilst it is 
 yet springing and imperfect ; the order and pertinency of 
 his understanding warn and threaten me afar off: I deal 
 quite contrary with the others ; I must understand, and pre- 
 suppose nothing but by them. If they determine in general 
 words, " this is good, that is naught," and that they happen 
 to be in the right, see if it be not fortune that hits it off 
 for them : let them a little, circumscribe and limit their 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 203 
 
 judgment ; why, or how, it is so. These universal judg- 
 ments that I see so common, signify nothing ; these are 
 men who salute a whole people in a crowd together ; they, 
 who have a real acquaintance, take notice of and salute 
 them individually and by name. But 'tis a hazardous 
 attempt; and from which I have, more than every day, 
 seen it fall out, that weak understandings, having a mind to 
 appear ingenious, in taking notice, as they read a book, of 
 what is best and most to be admired, fix their admiration 
 upon something so very ill chosen, that instead of making 
 us discern the excellence of the author, they make us see 
 their own ignorance. This exclamation is safe enough; 
 " This is fine," after having heard a whole page of Virgil ; 
 and by that the cunning sort of fools save themselves ; but 
 to undertake to follow him line by line, and, with an ex- 
 pert and tried judgment, to observe where a good author 
 excels himself, weighing the words, phrases, inventions, and 
 various excellencies, one after another ; take heed of that ; 
 " Videndum est, non modo quid quisque loquatur, sed etiam 
 quid quisque sentiat, atque etiam qua de causa quisque sen- 
 tiat." 1 I every day hear fools say things that are not fool- 
 ish : they say a good thing ; let us examine how far they 
 understand it, whence they have it, and what they mean 
 by it. "We help them to make use of this fine expression, 
 of this fine sentence, which is none of theirs ; they only 
 have it in keeping ; they have bolted it out at a venture ; 
 we place it for them in credit and esteem. You take 
 them by the hand : to what purpose ? they do not think 
 themselves obliged to you for it, and become more fools 
 still ; don't help them ; let them alone ; they will handle 
 the matter like people who are afraid of burning their 
 
 1 " A man is not only to examine what every one says, but also what every 
 one thinks, and for what reason every one thinks." — Cicero, Offic., i. 41. 
 
204 Of the Art of Conference. [Bookiii. 
 
 fingers ; they dare change neither its seat nor light, nor 
 break into it ; shake it never so little, it slips through their 
 fingers ; they give it up, be it never so strong or fair : they 
 are fine weapons, but ill hafted. How many times have I 
 seen the experience of this ? Now, if you come to explain 
 anything to them, and to confirm them, they catch at it, and 
 presently rob you of the advantage of your interpretation ; 
 " It was what I was about to say ; it was just my idea ; if I 
 did not express it so, it was for want of language." Mere 
 buzz ! Malice itself must be employed to correct this 
 arrogant ignorance. Hegesias' dogma, 1 " that we are neither 
 to hate nor accuse, but instruct," has reason elsewhere ; but 
 here 'tis injustice and inhumanity to relieve and set him 
 right who stands in no need on't, and is the worse for't. I 
 love to let them step deeper into the mire ; and so deep, 
 that, if it be possible, they may at last discern their error. 
 
 Eolly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admoni- 
 tion ; and what Cyrus answered to him, who importuned 
 him to harangue his army, upon the point of battle, " that 
 men do not become valiant and warlike upon a sudden, by 
 a fine oration, no more than a man becomes a good musician 
 by hearing a fine song," 2 may properly be said of such an 
 admonition as this. These are apprenticeships that are to be 
 served beforehand, by a long and continued education. We 
 owe this care and this assiduity of correction and instruc- 
 tion to our own people ; but to go preach to the first passer 
 by, and to become tutor to the ignorance and folly of the 
 first we meet, is a thing that I abhor. I rarely do it, even 
 in private conversation, and rather give up the whole 
 thing than proceed to these initiatory and school instruc- 
 tions ; my humour is unfit either to speak or write for 
 beginners ; but for things that are said in common discourse, 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, ii. 95. 2 Xenophon, Cyropaedia, iii. 23. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 205 
 
 or amongst other things, I never oppose them either by 
 ■word or sign, how false or absurd soever. 
 
 As to the rest, nothing vexes me so much in folly, as 
 that it is more satisfied with itself than any reason can 
 reasonably be. "lis unfortunate that prudence forbids us 
 to satisfy and trust ourselves, and always dismisses us 
 timorous and discontented ; whereas obstinacy and temerity 
 fill those who are possessed with them with joy and assur- 
 ance. 'Tis for the most ignorant to look at other men over 
 the shoulder, always returning from the combat full of joy 
 and triumph. And moreover, for the most part, this arrog- 
 ance of speech and gaiety of countenance gives them the 
 better of it in the opinion of the audience, which is commonly 
 weak and incapable of well judging and discerning the real 
 advantage. Obstinacy of opinion and heat in argument 
 are the surest proofs of folly ; is there anything so assured, 
 resolute, disdainful, contemplative, serious, and grave as the 
 ass ? 
 
 May we not include under the title of conference and com- 
 munication the quick and sharp repartees which mirth and 
 familiarity introduce amongst friends, pleasantly and wit- 
 tily jesting and rallying with one another ? 'Tis an exercise 
 for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, and 
 which, if it be not so tense and serious as the other I spoke 
 of but now, is, as Lycurgus thought, no less smart and 
 ingenious, nor of less utility. 1 For my part, I contribute to 
 it more liberty than wit, and have therein more of luck than 
 invention ; but I am perfect in suffering, for I endure a 
 retaliation that is not only tart, but indiscreet to boot, with- 
 out being moved at all ; and whoever attacks me, if I have 
 not a brisk answer immediately ready, I do not study to 
 pursue the point with a tedious and impertinent contest, 
 
 1 Plutarch, in vita, c. II. 
 
206 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 bordering upon obstinacy, bnt let it pass, and banging down 
 cbeerfully my ears, defer my revenge to anotber and better 
 time: tbere is no mercbant tbat always gains. Most men 
 ebange tbeir countenance and tbeir voice where tbeir wits 
 fail, and by an unseasonable anger, instead of revenging 
 tbemselves, accuse at once tbeir own folly and impatience. 
 In this jollity, we sometimes pinch the secret strings of our 
 imperfections which, at another and graver time, we cannot 
 touch without offence, and so profitably give one another 
 a hint of our defects. 
 
 There are other sports of hand, 1 rude and indiscreet, after 
 the French manner, that I mortally hate ; my skin is very 
 tender and sensible : I have in my time seen two princes of 
 the blood buried upon that very account. 'Tis unhandsome 
 to fight in play. 
 
 As to the rest, when I have a mind to judge of any one, 
 I ask him how far he is contented with himself; to what 
 degree his speaking or his work pleases him. I will none 
 of these fine excuses, " I did it only in sport : 
 
 ' Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud.' 2 
 
 I was not an hour about it : I have never looked at it 
 since." "Well, then, say I, lay these aside, and give me a 
 perfect one, such as you would be measured by. And then, 
 what do you think is the best thing in your work ? is it 
 this part or that ? is it grace or the matter, the invention, 
 the judgment, or the learning ? For I find that men are, 
 commonly, as wide of the mark in judging of their own 
 works, as of those of others ; not only by reason of the 
 kindness they have for them, but for want of capacity to 
 know and distinguish them: the work, by its own force 
 and fortune, may second the workman, and sometimes 
 
 1 Jeux de main, i.e., practical jokes, rough play. 
 
 2 " This work came from the anvil unfinished." — Ovid, Trist., i. 6, 29. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 207 
 
 outstrip him, beyond his invention and knowledge. Tor 
 my part, I judge of the value of other men's works more 
 obscurely than of my own ; and place the Essays, now high, 
 now low, with great doubt and inconstancy. There are 
 several books that are useful upon the account of their sub- 
 jects, from which the author derives no praise ; and good 
 books, as well as good works, that shame the workman. I 
 may write the manner of our feasts, and the fashion of our 
 clothes, and may write them ill; I may publish the edicts 
 of my time, and the letters of princes that pass from hand 
 to hand; I may make an abridgment of a good book (and 
 every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment) 
 which book shall come to be lost; and so on: posterity 
 will derive a singular utility from such compositions : but 
 what honour shall I have unless by great good fortune ? 
 Most part of the famous books are of this condition. 
 
 When I read Philip de Comines, doubtless a very good 
 author, several years ago, I there took notice of this for no 
 vulgar saying, " That a man must have a care not to do his 
 master so great service, that at last he will not know how 
 to give him his just reward ; " but I ought to commend the 
 invention, not him, because I met with it in Tacitus, not 
 long since : " Beneflcia eo usque lseta sunt, dum videntur 
 exsolvi posse ; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium red- 
 ditur ; " * and Seneca vigorously says, " Nam qui putat esse 
 turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat : " 2 Q. Cicero 
 says more faintly, " Qui se non putat satisfacere, amicus 
 esse nullo modo potest." 3 The subject, according to what 
 
 1 "Benefits are so far acceptable as they are in a capacity of being recom- 
 pensed ; but once exceeding that, hatred is returned instead of thanks." — 
 Tacitus, Annal., iv. 18. 
 
 2 "For he who thinks it a shame not to requite would not have the man 
 live to whom he owes return." — Seneca, Ep. 8l. 
 
 3 " Who thinks himself behindhand in obligation can by no means be a 
 friend." — Q. Cicero, De Petitione Consul, c. 9. 
 
2o8 Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 it is, may; make a man looked upon as learned and of good 
 memory ; but to judge in him the parts that are most his 
 own and the most worthy, the vigour and beauty of his 
 soul, one must first know what is bis own and what is not ; 
 and in that whicb is not his own, how much we are obliged 
 to him for the choice, disposition, ornament, and language 
 he has there presented us with. What if he has borrowed 
 the matter and spoiled the form, as it often falls out ? "We, 
 who are little read in books, are in this straight, that when 
 we meet with a high fancy in some new poet, or some 
 strong argument in a preacher, we dare not, nevertheless, 
 commend it till we have first informed ourselves, through 
 some learned man, if it be the writer's own, or borrowed 
 from some other ; until that I always stand upon my guard. 
 I have lately been reading the history of Tacitus quite 
 through, without interrupting it with anything else (which 
 but seldom happens with, me, it being twenty years since I 
 have stuck to any one book an hour together), and I did it 
 at the instance of a gentleman for whom France has a great 
 esteem, as well for his own particular worth, as upon the 
 account of a constant form of capacity and virtue which 
 runs through a great many brothers of them. I do not 
 know any author in a public narrative who mixes so 
 much consideration of manners and particular inclinations : 
 and I am of a quite contrary opinion to him, holding that, 
 having especially to follow the lives of the emperors of his 
 time, so various and extreme in all sorts of forms, so 
 many notable actions as their cruelty especially produced 
 in their subjects, he had a stronger and more attractive 
 matter to treat of than if he had had to describe battles and 
 universal commotions ; so that I often find him sterile, run- 
 ning over those brave deaths as if he feared to trouble us 
 with their multitude and length. This form of history is by 
 much the most useful ; public movements depend most upon 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 209 
 
 the conduct of fortune, private ones upon our own, Tis 
 rather a judgment than a deduction 1 of history; there are in 
 it more precepts than stories : it is not a book to read, 'tis a 
 book to study and learn ; 'tis full of sententious opinions, 
 right or wrong ; 'tis a nursery of ethic and politic discourses, 
 for the use and ornament of those who have any place in 
 the government of the world. He always argues by strong 
 and solid reasons, after a pointed and subtle manner, accord- 
 ing to the affected style of that age, which was so in love 
 with an inflated manner, that where point and subtlety were 
 wanting in things it supplied these with lofty and swelling 
 words. 'Tis not much unlike the style of Seneca : I look 
 upon Tacitus as more sinewy, and Seneca as more sharp. 
 His pen seems most proper for a troubled and sick state, 
 as ours at present is ; you would often say that he paints 
 and pinches us. 
 
 They who doubt his good faith sufficiently accuse them- 
 selves of being his enemy upon some other account. His 
 opinions are sound, and lean to the right side in the Eoman 
 affairs. And yet I am angry at him forjudging more severely 
 of Pompey than consists with the opinion of those worthy 
 men who lived in the same time, and had dealings with him ; 
 and to have reputed him on a par with Marius and Sylla, 
 excepting that he was more close. 2 ■ Other writers have not 
 acquitted his intention in the government of affairs from 
 ambition and revenge ; and even his friends were afraid 
 that victory would have transported him beyond the bounds 
 of reason, but not to so immeasurable a degree as theirs ; 3 
 nothing in his life threatened such express cruelty and 
 tyranny. Neither ought we to set suspicion against evidence ; 
 and therefore I do not believe Plutarch in this matter. That 
 his narrations were genuine and straightforward may, perhaps, 
 
 1 " Narration."— Ed. of 1588. 2 Hist., ii. 38. 3 Marius and Sylla. 
 VOL. III. 
 
2 io Of the Art of Conference. [Book iii. 
 
 be argued from this very thing, that they do not always 
 apply to the conclusions of his judgments, which he follows 
 according to the bias he has taken, very often beyond the 
 matter he presents us withal, which he has not deigned to 
 alter in the least degree. He needs no excuse for having 
 approved the religion of his time, according as the laws en- 
 joined, and to have been ignorant of the true ; this was his 
 misfortune, not his fault. 
 
 I have principally considered his judgment, and am not 
 very well satisfied therewith throughout ; as these words in 
 the letter that Tiberius, old and sick, sent to the senate. 1 
 " What shall I write to you, sirs, or how should I write to 
 you, or what should I not write to you at this time ? May 
 the gods and the goddesses lay a worse punishment upon 
 me than I am every day tormented with, if I know ! " I do 
 not see why he should so positively apply them to a sharp 
 remorse that tormented the conscience of Tiberius ; at least, 
 when I was in the same condition, I perceived no such 
 thing. 
 
 And this also seemed to me a little mean in him that, 
 having to say that he had borne an honourable office in Eome, 
 he excuses himself that he does not say it out of ostenta- 
 tion ; 2 this seems, I say, mean for such a soul as his ; for 
 not to speak roundly of a man's self implies some want 
 of courage ; a man of solid and lofty judgment, who judges 
 soundly and surely, makes use of his own example upon all 
 occasions, as well as those of others ; and gives evidence as 
 freely of himself as of a third person. We are to pass by 
 these common rules of civility, in favour of truth and liberty. 
 I dare not only speak of myself, but to speak only of myself : 
 when I write of anything, else I miss my way and wander 
 from my subject. I am not so indiscreetly enamoured 
 
 1 Annal., vi. 6. z Ibid., xi. n. 
 
Chap. 8.] Of the Art of Conference. 211 
 
 of myself, so wholly mixed up with, and bound to myself, 
 that I cannot distinguish and consider myself apart, as I do 
 a neighbour or a tree : 'tis equally a fault not to discern 
 how far a man's worth extends, and to say more than a 
 man discovers in himself. We owe more love to God than 
 to ourselves, and know Him less ; and yet speak of Him as 
 much as we will. 
 
 If the writings of Tacitus indicate anything true of his 
 qualities, he was a great personage, upright and bold, not of 
 a superstitious but of a philosophical and generous virtue. 
 One may think him a little too bold in his relations ; as 
 where he tells us, that a soldier carrying a burden of wood, 
 his hands were so frozen and so stuck to the load that they 
 there remained closed and dead, being severed from his 
 arms. 1 I always in such things bow to the authority of 
 so great witnesses. 
 
 What also he says, that Vespasian, by the favour of the 
 god Serapis, cured a blind woman at Alexandria by anoint- 
 ing her eyes with his spittle, and I know not what other 
 miracle, 2 he says by the example and duty of all good his- 
 torians. They record all events of importance ; and amongst 
 public incidents are the popular rumours and opinions. 'Tis 
 their part to relate common beliefs, not to regulate them : 
 that part concerns divines and philosophers, directors of 
 consciences ; and therefore it was that this companion of 
 his, and a great man like himself, very wisely said : " Equi- 
 dem plura transcribo, quam credo : nam nee affirmare sus- 
 tineo, de quibus dubito, nee subducere quse accepi ; " 3 and 
 this other : " Hsec neque affirmare, neque refellere operce 
 
 1 Annal., xiii. 35. 2 Hist., iv. 81. 
 
 3 "Truly, I set down more things than I believe, for I can neither affirm 
 things whereof I doubt, nor suppress what I have heard." — Quintus Curtius, 
 ix. 1. 
 
212 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 pretium est ; famse rerum standum est." l And 'writing in 
 an age wherein the belief of prodigies began to decline, he 
 says he would not, nevertheless, forbear to insert in his 
 Annals, and to give a relation of things received by so many 
 worthy men, and with so great reverence of antiquity ; 'tis 
 very well said. Let them deliver to us history, more as 
 they receive it than as they believe it. I, who am monarch 
 of the matter whereof I treat, and who am accountable to 
 none, do not, nevertheless, always believe myself; I often 
 hazard sallies of my own wit, wherein I very much suspect 
 myself, and certain verbal quibbles, at which I shake my 
 ears ; but I let them go at a venture. I see that others 
 get reputation by such things : 'tis not for me alone to 
 judge. I present myself standing and lying, before and 
 behind, my right side and my left, and in all my natural 
 postures. "Wits, though equal in force, are not always 
 equal in taste and application. 
 
 This is wdiat my memory presents to me in gross, and 
 with uncertainty enough; all judgments in gross, are weak 
 and imperfect. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 OF VANITY. 
 
 There is, peradventure, no more manifest vanity than to 
 write of it so vainly. That which divinity has so divinely 
 expressed to us 2 ought to be carefully and continually 
 meditated by understanding men. Who does not see that 
 I have taken a road, in which, incessantly and without 
 
 1 " Tis neither worth the while to affirm or to refute these things ; we must 
 stand to report." — Livy, i. Praef., and viii. 6. 
 
 2 " Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." — Eccles. i. 2. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 2 1 3 
 
 labour, I shall proceed so long as there shall be ink and 
 paper in the world ? I can give no account of my life by 
 my actions ; fortune has placed them too low : I must do it 
 by my fancies. And yet I have seen a gentleman who only 
 communicated his life by the workings of his belly : you 
 might see in his house a show of a row of basins of seven 
 or eight days' excrements ; that was all his study, all his 
 discourse ; all other talk stunk in his nostrils. Here, 
 but not so nauseous, are the excrements of an old mind, 
 sometimes thick, sometimes thin, and always indigested. 
 And when shall I have done representing the continual 
 agitation and mutation of my thoughts, as they come into 
 my head, seeing that Diomedes wrote six thousand books 
 upon the sole subject of grammar ? 1 What, then, ought 
 prating to produce, since prattling and the first beginning 
 to speak, stuffed the world with such a horrible number of 
 volumes ? So many words about words only. Pytha- 
 goras, why didst not thou allay this tempest ? They accused 
 one Galba of old for living idly ; he made answer, " That 
 every one ought to give account of Iris actions, but not of 
 his leisure. 2 He was mistaken, for justice has also cognis- 
 ance and correction over holiday-makers. 8 
 
 But there should be some restraint of law against foolish 
 and impertinent scribblers, as well as against vagabonds and 
 idle persons ; which if there were, both I and a hundred 
 others would be banished the kingdom. I do not speak 
 this in jest : scribbling seems to be a sign of a disordered 
 and licentious age : When did we write so much as since 
 
 1 Here Montaigne's memory again plays him a scurvy trick. It was not 
 Diomedes, but Didymus, the grammarian, who, as Seneca (Ep. 88) tells us, 
 wrote four thousand books on questions of vain literature, which was the 
 principal study of the ancient grammarian (Coste). 
 
 2 This was the Emperor Galba. — Suetonius, in vita, c. 9. 
 
 3 " Ceulx qui chomcnt" which Cotton renders, " Will have an account 
 even of those that glean, which is one of the laziest employments." 
 
214 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 our civil wars ? when the Bornans so much, as when their 
 commonwealth was upon the point of ruin ? Besides 
 that, the refining of wits does not make people wiser in a 
 government : this idle employment springs from this, that 
 every one applies himself negligently to the duty of his 
 vocation, and is easily debauched from it. The corruption of 
 the age is made up by the particular contribution of every 
 individual man ; some contribute treachery, others injus- 
 tice, irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their 
 power; the weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idle- 
 ness ; of these I am one. It seems as if it were the season 
 for vain things, when the hurtful oppress us ; in a time 
 when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies nothing 
 is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my comfort, that I shall 
 be one of the last who shall be called in question; and 
 whilst the greater offenders are being brought to account, 
 I shall have leisure to amend : for it would, methinks, be 
 against reason to punish little inconveniences, whilst we are 
 infested with the greater. As the physician Philotimus said 
 to one who presented him his finger to dress, and who he 
 perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an 
 ulcer in his lungs : " Friend, it is not now time to concern 
 yourself about your fingers' ends." l 
 
 And yet I saw, some years ago, a person, whose name 
 and memory I have in very great esteem, in the very height 
 of our great disorders, when there was neither law nor jus- 
 tice, nor magistrate who performed his office, no more than 
 there is now, publish I know not what pitiful reformations 
 about cloths, cookery, and law chicanery. Those are amuse- 
 ments wherewith to feed a people that are ill-used, to show 
 that they are not totally forgotten. Those others do the 
 same, who insist upon prohibiting particular ways of speak- 
 
 1 Plutarch, How we mayDistinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, c. 31. 
 
Chap. "9.] Of Vanity. 215 
 
 ing, dances, and games, to a people totally abandoned to all 
 sorts of execrable vices. Tis no time to bathe and cleanse 
 one's self when one is seized by a violent fever ; 'tis for the 
 Spartans alone to fall to combing and curling themselves, 
 when they are just upon the point of running headlong into 
 some extreme danger of their life. 
 
 For my part, I have yet a worse custom, that if my shoe 
 go awry, I let my shirt and my cloak do so too ; I scorn to 
 mend myself by halves. When I am in a bad plight, I 
 fasten upon the mischief ; I abandon myself through despair ; 
 I let myself go towards the precipice, and, as the saying is, 
 " throw the helve after the hatchet ;" I am obstinate in grow- 
 ing worse, and think myself no longer worth my own care ; 
 I am either well or ill throughout. 'Tis a favour to me, 
 that the desolation of this kingdom falls out in the desola- 
 tion of my age : I better suffer that my ill be multiplied, 
 than if my well had been disturbed. 1 The words I utter 
 in mishap are words of anger : my courage sets up its 
 bristles, instead of letting them down ; and, contrary to 
 others, I am more devout in good than in evil fortune, 
 according to the precept of Xenophon, 2 if not according 
 to his reason ; and am more ready to turn up my eyes 
 to heaven to return thanks, than to crave. I am more 
 solicitous to improve my health, when I am well, than to 
 restore it when I am sick ; prosperities are the same dis- 
 cipline and instruction to me that adversities and rods are 
 to others. As if good fortune were a thing inconsistent with 
 good conscience, men never grow good but in evil-fortune. 
 Good-fortune is to me a singular spur to modesty and 
 moderation : an entreaty wins, a threat checks me ; favour 
 makes me bend, fear stiffens me. 
 
 1 That, being ill, I should grow worse, than that, being well, I should 
 grow ill. 
 
 2 Cyropsedia, i. 6, 3. 
 
2 1 6 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 Amongst human conditions this is common enough : to 
 be better pleased with foreign things than with our own, and 
 to love innovation and change : 
 
 " Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu, 
 Quod permutatis liora recurrit equ.is : " x 
 
 I have my share. Those who follow the other extreme, of 
 being quite satisfied and pleased with and in themselves, of 
 valuing what they have above all the rest, and of concluding 
 no beauty can be greater than what they see, if they are not 
 wiser than we, are really more happy ; I do not envy their 
 wisdom, but their good fortune. 
 
 This greedy humour of new and unknown things helps to 
 nourish in me the desire of travel ; but a great many more 
 circumstances contribute to it ; I am very willing to quit 
 the government of my house. There is, I confess, a kind of 
 convenience in commanding, though it were but in a barn, 
 and in being obeyed by one's people ; but 'tis too uniform 
 and languid a pleasure, and is, moreover, of necessity mixed 
 with a thousand vexatious thoughts : one while the poverty 
 and the oppression of your tenants : another, quarrels amongst 
 neighbours : another, the trespasses they make upon you, 
 afflict you ; 
 
 " Ant verberataa grandine vineae, 
 
 Fimdusque niendax, arbore nunc aquas 
 Culpante, nunc torrentia agros 
 Sidera, nunc tyemes iniquas : " 2 
 
 and that God scarce in six months sends a season wherein 
 your bailiff can do his business as he should ; but that if it 
 serves the vines, it spoils the meadows ; 
 
 1 " The light of day itself shines more pleasantly upon us because it changes 
 its horses every hour." Spoke of a water hour-glass, adds Cotton. 
 
 2 " Or hail-smit vines, or trees damaged by the rains, or years of dearth, 
 or summer's heat burning up the petals, or the destructive force of winter." — 
 Horatius, Od. iii. I, 29. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 2 1 7 
 
 " Ant nimiis torret fervoribns aetlierius sol, 
 Aut subiti perimunt imbres, gelidaeque pruinse, 
 Flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant ; " 1 
 
 to which may be added, the new and neat made shoe of the 
 
 man of old, that hurts your foot ; 2 and that a stranger does 
 
 not understand how much it costs you, and what you 
 
 contribute, to maintain that show of order that is seen in 
 
 your family, and that, peradventure, you buy too dear. 
 
 I came late to the government of a house : they whom 
 
 nature sent into the world before me long eased me of that 
 
 trouble ; so that I had already taken another bent more 
 
 suitable to my humour. Yet, for so much as I have seen, 'tis 
 
 an employment more troublesome than hard ; whoever is 
 
 capable of anything else, will easily do this. Had I a mind 
 
 to be rich, that way would seem too long ; I had served my 
 
 kings, a more profitable traffic than any other. Since I 
 
 pretend to nothing but the reputation of having got nothing 
 
 or dissipated nothing, conformably to the rest of my life, 
 
 improper either to do good or ill of any moment, and that I 
 
 only desire to pass on, I can do it, thanks be to God, without 
 
 any great endeavour. At the worst, evermore prevent 
 
 poverty by lessening your expense ; 'tis that which I make 
 
 my great concern, and doubt not but to do it before I shall 
 
 be compelled. As to the rest, I have sufficiently settled my 
 
 thoughts to live upon less than I have, and live contentedly : 
 
 " Non sestimatione census, verum victu atque cultu, termi- 
 
 nantur pecuniae modus." 3 ' My real need does not so wholly 
 
 1 " Either the scorching sun burns up your fields, or sudden rains or frosts 
 destroy your harvests, or a violent wind carries away all before it." — 
 Lucretius, V. 216. 
 
 2 Leclerc maliciously suggests that this is a sly hit at Montaigne's wife, the 
 man of old being the person mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Paulus yEmilius, 
 c. 3, who, when his friends reproached him for repudiating his wife, whose 
 various merits they extolled, pointed to his shoe, and said, "That looks a 
 nice well-made shoe to you, but I alone know where it pinches. " 
 
 3 "'Lis not by the value of possessions, but by our daily needs that our 
 riches are truly estimated." — Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3. 
 
2l8 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 take up all I have, that Fortune has not whereon to fasten 
 her teeth without biting to the quick. My presence, heedless 
 and ignorant as it is, does me great service in my domestic 
 affairs ; I employ myself in them, but it goes against the 
 hair, finding that I have this in my house, that though I 
 burn my candle at one end by myself, the other is not 
 spared. 
 
 Journeys do me no harm but only by their expense, which 
 is great, and more than I am well able to bear, being always 
 wont to travel with not only a necessary, but a handsome 
 equipage ; I must make them so much shorter and fewer ; 
 I spend therein but the froth, and what I have reserved for 
 such uses, delaying and deferring my motion till that be 
 ready. I will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil 
 the pleasure of being retired at home ; on the contrary, I 
 intend they shall nourish and favour one another. Fortune 
 has assisted me in this, that since my principal profession in 
 this life was to live at ease, and rather idly than busily, she 
 has deprived me of the necessity of growing rich to provide 
 for the multitude of my heirs. If there be not enough for 
 one, of that whereof I had so plentifully enough, at his peril 
 be it ; his imprudence will not deserve that I should wish 
 him any more. And every one, according to the example of 
 Phocion, provides sufficiently for his children who so provides 
 for them as to leave them as much as was left him. I 
 should by no means like Crates' way. He left his money in 
 the hands of a banker with this condition — " That if his 
 children were fools, he should then give it to them ; if wise, 
 he should then distribute it to the most foolish of the 
 people ;" * as if fools, for being less capable of living without 
 riches, were more capable of using them. 
 
 At all events, the damage occasioned by my absence 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, vi. 88. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 219 
 
 seems not to deserve, so long as I am able to support it, 
 that I should waive the occasions of diverting myself by 
 that troublesome assistance. 
 
 There is always something that goes amiss. The affairs, 
 one while of one house, and then of another, tear you to 
 pieces ; you pry into everything too near ; your perspicacity 
 hurts you here, as well as in other things. I steal away 
 from occasions of vexing myself, and turn from the know- 
 ledge of things that go amiss ; and yet I cannot so order it, 
 but that every hour I jostle against something or other that 
 displeases me ; and the tricks that they most conceal from 
 me, are those that I the soonest come to know; some there 
 are that, not to make matters worse, a man must himself 
 help to conceal. Yain vexations ; vain sometimes, but always 
 vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the 
 most piercing : and as little letters most the the eyes, so do 
 little affairs most disturb us. The rout of little ills more 
 offend than one, how great soever. By how much domestic 
 thorns are numerous and slight, by so much they prick deeper 
 and without warning, easily surprising us when least we sus- 
 pect them. 1 I am no philosopher ; evils oppress me accord- 
 ing to their weight, and they weigh as much according to the 
 form as the matter, and very often more. If I have therein 
 more perspicacity than the vulgar, I have also more 
 patience ; in short, they weigh with me, if they do not hurt 
 me. Life is a tender thing, and easily molested. Since my 
 age has made me grow more pensive and morose, " Nemo 
 enim resistit sibi, cum cceperit impelli," 2 for the most trivial 
 
 1 In the edition of 1588, Montaigne here adds: "Now Homer shows us 
 clearly enough how surprise gives the advantage ; who represents Ulysses weep- 
 ing at the death of his dog, and not weeping at the tears of his mother ; the 
 first accident, trivial as it was, got the better of him, coming upon him 
 quite unexpectedly ; he sustained the second, though more potent, because he 
 was prepared for it. 'Tis light occasions that humble our lives." 
 
 2 "No man resists himself, after he once begins to yield." — Seneca, Ep. 13. 
 
2 20 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 cause imaginable, I irritate that humour, which afterwards 
 nourishes and exasperates itself of its own motion ; attract- 
 ing and heaping up matter upon matter whereon to feed : 
 
 " Stillicidi casus lapidem. cavat : " x 
 
 these continual tricklings consume and ulcerate me. Ordi- 
 nary inconveniences are never light ; they are continual and 
 inseparable, especially when they spring from the members 
 of a family, continual and inseparable. 2 When I consider 
 my affairs at distance and in gross, I find, because perhaps 
 my memory is none of the best, that they have gone on 
 hitherto improving beyond my reason or expectation ; my 
 revenue seems greater than it is ; its prosperity betrays me : 
 but when I pry more narrowly into the business, and see 
 how all things go, 
 
 " Turn vero in curas animum diducimus omnes ; " 3 
 
 I have a thousand things to desire and to fear. To give 
 them quite over, is very easy for me to do : but to look 
 after them without trouble, is very hard. 'Tis a miserable 
 thing to be in a place where everything you see employs and 
 concerns you ; and I fancy that I more cheerfully enjoy the 
 pleasures of another man's house, and with greater and a 
 purer relish, than those of my own. Diogenes answered 
 according to my humour him who asked him what sort of 
 wine he liked the best : " That of another," said he. 4 
 
 My father took a delight in building at Montaigne, where 
 he was born ; and in all the government of domestic affairs 
 I love to follow his example and rules, and I shall engage 
 those who are to succeed me, as much as in me lies, to do 
 
 1 "An ever-falling drop hollows out a stone." — Lucretius, i. 314. 
 
 2 Membresdu mesnage, which Cotton renders, " spring from the concerns of 
 good husbandry." 
 
 3 "Then my breast is oppressed with all sorts of cares." — ^neid, V. 720. 
 
 4 Diogenes Laertius, vi. 54. 
 
Chap. 9-] Of Vanity. 221 
 
 the same. Could I do better for him, I would ; aud am 
 proud that his will is still performing and acting by me. 
 God forbid, that in my hands I should ever suffer any image 
 of life, that I am able to render to so good a father, to fail. 
 And wherever I have taken in hand to strengthen some 
 old foundations of walls, and to repair some ruinous build- 
 ings, in earnest I have done it more out of respect to his 
 design, than my own satisfaction ; and am angry at myself, 
 that I have not proceeded further to finish the beginnings 
 he left in his house, and so much the more, because I am 
 very likely to be the last possessor of my race, and to give 
 the last hand to it. For, as to my own particular applica- 
 tion, neither the pleasure of building, which they say is so 
 bewitching, nor hunting, nor gardens, nor the other pleasures 
 of a retired life, can much amuse me. And 'tis what I am 
 angry at myself for, as I am for all other opinions that are 
 incommodious to me ; which I would not so much care to 
 have vigorous and learned, as I woidd have them easy and 
 convenient for life ; they are true and sound enough, if they 
 are useful and pleasing. Such as hear me declare my ignor- 
 ance in husbandry, whisper in my ear that it is disdain, and 
 that I neglect to know its instruments, its seasons, its 
 order, how they dress my vines, how they graft, and to 
 know the names and forms of herbs and fruits, and the pre- 
 paring the meat on which I live^ the names and prices of 
 the stuffs I wear, because, say they, I have set my heart 
 upon some higher knowledge ; they kill me in saying so. 
 This were folly, 1 and rather stupidity than glory ; I had 
 rather be a good horseman than a good logician : 
 
 " Qu.in tu aliquid saltern potius, quorum indiget usus, 
 Viminibus mollique paras detexere junco." 2 
 
 1 "It is not disdain, it is folly." — Ed. of 1588. 
 
 - " Why rather not find useful employments, and make osier and reed 
 basket." — Virgil, Eclog., ii 71. 
 
2 22 ■ Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 We occupy our thoughts about the general, and about 
 universal causes and conducts, which will very well carry 
 on themselves without our care ; and leave our own busi- 
 ness at random, and Michael much more our concern than 
 man. Now I am, indeed, for the most part at home ; but 
 1 would be there better pleased than anywhere else : 
 
 w Sit meae sedes utinam senectse, 
 Sit modus lasso maris, et viarum, 
 Militiseque." 1 
 
 I know not whether or no I shall bring it about. I 
 could wish that, instead of some other member of his suc- 
 cession, my father had resigned to me the passionate affection 
 he had in his old age to his household affairs ; he was happy 
 in that he could accommodate his desires to his fortune, and 
 satisfy himself with what he had ; political philosophy may 
 to much purpose condemn the meanness and sterility of my 
 employment, if I can once come to relish it, as he did. I 
 am of opinion that the most honourable calling is to serve 
 the public, and to be useful to many : " Fructus enim 
 ingenii et virtutis, omnisque prsestantise, turn maximus 
 capitur, quum in proximum quenique confertur : " 2 for my- 
 self, I disclaim it ; partly out of conscience (for where I 
 see the weight that lies upon such employments, I perceive 
 also the little means I have to supply it ; and Plato, a 
 master in all political government himself, nevertheless, 
 took care to abstain from it), and partly out of cowardice. 
 I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle ; 
 only to live an excusable life, and such as may neither be 
 a burden to myself nor to any other. 
 
 Never did any man more fully and feebly suffer himself 
 
 1 "Let my old age have a fixed seat, my repose from seas, journeys, war- 
 fare." — Horace, Od. ii. 6, 6. 
 
 2 " We then most enjoy wit, virtue, and all sorts of merit, when they are 
 shared with those nearest to us." — Cicero, de Amicit., c. 19. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 223 
 
 to be governed "by a third person than I should do, had I 
 any one to whom to intrust myself. One of my wishes at 
 this time should be, to have a son-in-law that knew hand- 
 somely how to cherish my old age, and to rock it asleep ; 
 into whose hands I might deposit, in full sovereignty, the 
 management and use of all my goods, that he might dispose 
 of them as I do, and get by them what I get, provided that 
 he on his part were truly acknowledging, and a friend. 
 But we live in a world where loyalty of one's own children 
 is unknown. 
 
 He who has the charge of my purse in my travels, has it 
 purely and without control ; he could cheat me thoroughly 
 if he came to reckoning ; and, if he is not a devil, I oblige 
 him to deal faithfully with me by so entire a trust. " Multi 
 fallere docuerunt, dum timent f alii ; et aliis jus peccandi, 
 suspicando, fecerunt." 1 The most common security I take 
 of my people is ignorance ; I never presume any to be 
 vicious till I have first found them so ; and repose the most 
 confidence in the younger- sort, that I think are least spoiled 
 by ill example. I had rather be told at two months' end 
 that I have spent four hundred crowns, than to have my 
 ears battered every night with three, five, seven : and I have 
 been, in this way, as little robbed as another. It is true, 
 I am willing enough not to see it ; I, in some sort, pur- 
 posely, harbour a kind of perplexed, uncertain knowledge 
 of my money : up to a certain point, I am content to 
 doubt. One must leave a little room for the infidelity or 
 indiscretion of a servant ; if you have left enough, in gross, 
 to do your business, let the overplus of Fortune's liberality 
 run a little more freely at her mercy ; 'tis the gleaner's 
 portion. After all, I do not so much value the fidelity of 
 
 1 "Many have taught others to deceive by fearing to be deceived, and, by 
 suspecting them, have given them a title to do ill." — Seneca, Epist. 3. 
 
224 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 my people, as I contemn their injury. What a mean and 
 ridiculous thing it is for a man to study his money, to 
 delight in handling and telling it over and over again ! 
 'Tis by this avarice makes its approaches. 
 
 In eighteen years that I have had my estate in my own 
 hands, I could never prevail with myself either to read over 
 my deeds, or examine my principal affairs, which ought, 
 of necessity, to pass under my knowledge and inspection. 
 'Tis not a philosophical disdain of worldly and transitory 
 things ; my taste is not purified to that degree, and I value 
 them at as great a rate, at least, as they are worth ; hut 'tis, 
 in truth, an inexcusable and childish laziness and negligence. 
 What would I not rather do than read a contract ? or than, 
 as a slave to my own business, tumble over a company of 
 old musty writings ? or, which is worse, those of another 
 man, as so many do nowadays, to get money ? I grudge 
 nothing but care and trouble, and endeavour nothing so 
 much as to be careless and at ease. I had been much fitter, 
 I believe, could it have been without obligation and servi- 
 tude, to have lived upon another man's fortune than my 
 own : and, indeed, I do not know, when I examine it nearer, 
 whether, according to my humour, what I have to suffer 
 from my affairs and servants, has not in it something more 
 abject, troublesome, and tormenting than there would be in 
 serving a man better born than myself, who would govern 
 me with a gentle rein, and a little at my own ease : " Ser- 
 vitus obedientia est fracti animi et abjecti, arbitrio carentis 
 suo." * Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty 
 of poverty, only to rid himself of the inconveniences and 
 cares of his house. This is what I would not do ; I hate 
 poverty equally with pain ; but I could be content to change 
 
 1 " Servitude is the obedience of a subdued and abject mind, wanting its 
 own free will." — Cicero, Paradox, V. I. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 225 
 
 the kind of life I live for another that was humbler and had 
 fewer affairs. 
 
 When absent from home, I strip myself of all these 
 thoughts, and should be less concerned for the ruin of a 
 tower, than I am, when present, at the fall of a tile. My mind 
 is easily composed at distance, but suffers as much as that of 
 the meanest peasant when I am at home ; the reins of my 
 bridle being wrongly put on, or a strap napping against my 
 leg, will keep me out of humour a day together. I raise 
 my courage well enough against inconveniences ; lift up my 
 eyes I cannot. 
 
 " Sensus, o superi, sensus." * 
 
 I am at home responsible for whatever goes amiss. Few 
 masters (I speak of those of medium condition, such as 
 mine), and if there be any such, they are more happy, can 
 rely so much upon another, but that the greatest part of the 
 burden will he upon their own shoulders. This takes much 
 from my grace in entertaining visitors, so that I have, per- 
 adventure, detained some rather out of expectation of a good 
 dinner, than by my own behaviour ; and lose much of the 
 pleasure I ought to reap at my own house from the visita- 
 tion and assembling of my friends. The most ridiculous 
 carriage of a gentleman in his own house, is to see him 
 bustling about the business of the place, whispering one 
 servant, and looking an angry look at another : it ought in- 
 sensibly to slide along, and to represent an ordinary current ; 
 and I think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of 
 their entertainment, whether by way of bragging or excuse. 
 I love order and cleanliness — 
 
 " Et cantharus et lanx 
 Ostendunt mihi me " 2 — 
 
 1 "The senses, O ye gods, the senses." 
 
 2 "The dishes and the glasses showing me my own reflection." — Horace, 
 Ep. i. S, 23. 
 
 VOL. III. P 
 
226 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 more than abundance ; and at home have an exact regard to 
 necessity, little to outward show. If a footman falls to 
 cuffs at another man's house, or stumble and throw a dish 
 before him as he is carrying it up, you only laugh and 
 make a jest on't ; you sleep whilst the master of the house 
 is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow's 
 entertainment. I speak according as I do myself; quite 
 appreciating, nevertheless, good husbandry in general, and 
 how pleasant quiet and prosperous household management, 
 carried regularly on, is to some natures ; and not wishing 
 to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to the thing, 
 nor to give Plato the lie, who looks upon it as the most 
 pleasant employment to every one to do his particular 
 affairs without wrong to another. 1 
 
 When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself, and 
 the laying out my money ; which is disposed of by one 
 single precept ; too many things are required to the raking 
 it together ; in that I understand nothing : in spending, I 
 understand a little, and how to give some show to my 
 expense, which is indeed its principal use : but I rely too 
 ambitiously upon it, which renders it unequal and difform, 
 and, moreover, immoderate, in both the one and the other 
 aspect : if it make a show, if it serve the turn, I indis- 
 creetly let it run ; and as indiscreetly tie up my purse- 
 strings, if it does not shine and does not please me. What- 
 ever it be, whether art or nature, that imprints in us the 
 condition of living by reference to others, it does us much 
 more harm than good ; we deprive ourselves of our own uti- 
 lities, to accommodate appearances to the common opinion : 
 we care not so much what our being is, as to us and in 
 reality, as what it is to the public observation. Even the 
 goods of the mind, and wisdom itself, seems fruitless to us, 
 
 1 Letter ix. to Architas. 
 
Chap. 9-] Of Vanity. 227 
 
 if only enjoyed by ourselves, and if it produce not itself to 
 the view and approbation of others. There is a sort of 
 men whose gold runs in streams underground imperceptibly ; 
 others expose it all in plates and branches ; so that to the 
 one a liard 1 is worth a crown, and to the others the inverse : 
 the world esteeming its use and value, accouding to the 
 show. All over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice : 
 even the very disposing of it, with a too systematic and 
 artificial liberality, is not worth a painful superintendence 
 and solicitude : he, that will order his expense to just so 
 much, makes it too pinched and narrow. The keeping or 
 spending are, of themselves, indifferent things, and receive 
 no colour of good or ill, but according to the application of 
 the will. 
 
 The other cause that tempts me out to these journeys is, 
 inaptitude for the present manners in our state. I could 
 easily console myself for this corruption in regard to the 
 public interest ; 
 
 " Pejoraque saecula ferri 
 Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa 
 Noinen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo ; " 2 
 
 but not to my own. I am, in particular, too much oppressed 
 by them : for, in my neighbourhood, we are, of late, by the 
 long licence of our civil wars, grown old in so riotous a form 
 of state, 
 
 " Quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas," 3 
 
 that in earnest, 'tis a wonder how it can subsist. 
 
 " Armati terrain exercent, semperque recentes 
 Convectare juvat prsedas, et vivere rapto." 4 
 
 1 A piece of copper money worth three farthings (Cotton). 
 
 2 "An age, worse than the iron times, for whose crimes there is no name, 
 and which have no similitude in any of Nature's metals." — Juvenal, xiii. 28. 
 
 3 " Where wrong is right, and right wrong." — Virgil, Georg., i. 504. 
 
 4 Men plough, girt with arms j ever delighting in fresh robberies, and living 
 upon spoil." — iEneid, vii. 748. 
 
228 Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 In fine, I see by our example, that the society of men is 
 maintained and held together, at what price soever ; in what 
 condition soever they are placed, they still close and stick 
 together, both moving and in heaps ; as ill united bodies, 
 that, shuffled together without order, find of themselves a 
 means to unite and settle, often better than they could have 
 been disposed by art. King Philip mustered up a rabble 
 of the most wicked and incorrigible rascals he could pick 
 out, and put them all together into a city he had caused to 
 be built for that purpose, which bore their name : 1 I believe 
 that they, even from vices themselves, erected a govern- 
 ment amongst them, and a commodious and just society. 
 I see, not one action, or three, or a hundred, but manners, 
 in common and received use, so ferocious, especially in in- 
 humanity and treachery, which are to me the worst of all 
 vices, that I have not the heart to think of them without 
 horror ; and almost as much admire as I detest them : the 
 exercise of these signal villainies carries with it as great 
 signs of vigour and force of soul, as of error and disorder. 
 Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this 
 accidental connection afterwards forms itself into laws : for 
 there have been such, as savage as any human opinion could 
 conceive, who, nevertheless, have maintained their body 
 with as much health and length of life as any Plato or 
 Aristotle could invent. And certainly, all these descrip- 
 tions of polities, feigned by art, are found to be ridiculous 
 and unfit to be put in practice. 
 
 These great and tedious debates about the best form of 
 society, and the most commodious rules to bind us, are 
 debates only proper for the exercise of our wits ; as in the 
 arts there are several subjects, which have their being in 
 agitation and controversy, and have no life but there. Such 
 
 1 Uov7]poir6\i$, the city of rogues (Pliny, Nat. Hist., iv. n). 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 229 
 
 an idea of government might be of some value in a new 
 world ; but we take a world already made, and formed to 
 certain customs ; we do not beget it, as Pyrrha or Cadmus 
 did. By what means soever we may have the privilege to 
 redress and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from 
 its wonted bent, but we shall break all. Solon being asked, 
 whether he had established the best laws he could for the 
 Athenians ; " Yes," said he, " of those they would have re- 
 ceived." Varro excuses himself after the same manner : 
 " that if he were to begin to write of religion, he would say 
 what he believed ; but seeing it was already received, he 
 would write rather according to use than nature." 
 
 Not according to opinion, but in truth and reality, the 
 best and most excellent government for every nation is that 
 under which it is maintained : its form and essential conve- 
 nience depend upon custom. We are apt to be displeased 
 at the present condition ; but I, nevertheless, maintain 
 that to desire command in a few 1 in a republic, or another 
 sort of government in monarchy than that already estab- 
 lished, is both vice and folly. 
 
 " Aynie l'estat, tel que tu le veois estre : 
 S'il est royal ayme la royaute ; 
 S'il est de peu, on bien communaute, 
 Ayme l'aussi ; car Dieu t'y a facit naistre." 2 
 
 So wrote the good Monsieur de Pibrac, 3 whom we have 
 lately lost, a man of so excellent a wit, such sound opinions, 
 and such gentle manners. This loss, and that at the same 
 time we have had of Monsieur de Foix, 4 are of so great 
 importance to the crown, that I do not know whether there 
 
 1 i.e., an oligarchy. 
 
 2 " Love the government, such as you find it. If it be royal, love royalty ; 
 if a republic, love it ; for God himself created thee therein." 
 
 3 Gui du Faur, seigneur de Pibrac, author of Quatrains, &c, died 1584. 
 * Privy councillor and ambassador to Venice. 
 
2 30 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 is another couple in France worthy to supply the places of 
 these two Gascons, in sincerity and wisdom in the king's 
 council. They were both variously great men, and certainly, 
 according to the age, rare and great, each of them in his 
 kind : hut what destiny was it that placed them in these 
 times, men so remote from and so disproportioned to our 
 corruption and intestine tumults ? 
 
 Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation : 
 change only gives form to injustice and tyranny. When any 
 piece is loosened, it may be proper to stay it ; one may take 
 care that the alteration and corruption natural to all things 
 do not carry us too far from our beginnings and principles : 
 but to undertake to found so great a mass anew, and to 
 change the foundations of so vast a building, is for them 
 to do, who to make clean, efface ; who reform particular 
 defects by an universal confusion, and cure diseases by 
 death : " ISTon tarn commutandarum quam evertendarum 
 rerum cupidi." 1 The world is unapt to be cured ; and so 
 impatient of anything that presses it, that it thinks of 
 nothing but disengaging itself at what price soever. "We 
 see by a thousand examples, that it ordinarily cures itself 
 to its cost. The discharge of a present evil is no cure, if 
 there be not a general amendment of condition. The sur- 
 geon's end is not only to cut away the dead flesh ; that is 
 but the progress of his cure ; he has a care, over and above, 
 to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh, and 
 to restore the member to its due state. Whoever only pro- 
 poses to himself to remove that which offends him, falls 
 short : for good does not necessarily succeed evil \ another 
 evil may succeed, and a worse, as it happened to Caesar's 
 murderers, who brought the republic to such a pass, that 
 
 1 " Not so desirous of changing, as of overthrowing things." — Cicero, De 
 Offic, ii. I. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 231 
 
 they had reason to repent the meddling with the matter. 
 The same has since happened to several others, even down to 
 onr own times : the French, my contemporaries, know it well 
 enough. All great mutations shake and disorder a state. 
 
 Whoever would look direct at a cure, and well con- 
 sider of it before he began, would be very willing to with- 
 draw his hands from meddling in it. Pacuvius Calavius 
 corrected the vice of this proceeding by a notable example. 
 His fellow-citizens were in mutiny against their magistrates ; 
 he being a man of great authority in the city of Capua, found 
 means one day to shut up the Senators in the palace ; and 
 calling the people together in the market-place, there told them 
 that the day was now come wherein at full liberty they might 
 revenge themselves on the tyrants by whom they had been 
 so long oppressed, and whom he had now, all alone and 
 unarmed, at his mercy. He then advised that they should 
 call these out, one by one, by lot, and should individually 
 determine as to each, causing whatever should be decreed 
 to be immediately executed ; with this proviso, that they 
 should, at the same time, depute some honest man in the 
 place of him who was condemned, to the end there might 
 be no vacancy in the Senate. They had no sooner heard the 
 name of one senator but a great cry of universal dislike was 
 raised up against him. " I see," says Pacuvius, " that he 
 must out ; he is a wicked fellow ; let us look out a good one 
 in his room." Immediately there was a profound silence, 
 every one being at a stand whom to choose. But one, more 
 impudent than the rest, having named his man, there arose 
 yet a greater consent of voices against him, an hundred 
 imperfections being laid to his charge, and as many just 
 reasons why he should not stand. These contradictory 
 humours growing hot, it fared worse with the second senator 
 and the third, there being as much disagreement in the 
 election of the new, as consent in the putting out of the old. 
 
232 Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 In the end, growing weary of this bustle to no purpose, 
 they began, some one way and some another, to steal out of 
 the assembly : every one carrying back this resolution in his 
 mind, that the oldest and best known evil was ever more sup- 
 portable than one that was new and untried. 1 
 
 Seeing how miserably we are agitated (for what have we 
 not done) ! 
 
 " Eheu ! cicatricuni et sceleris pudet, 
 Fratrumque : quid nos dura refugimus 
 iEtas ? quid intactum nefasti 
 Liquimus '? Unde manus inventus 
 Metu Deorum continuit 1 quibus 
 Pepercit aris. 2 
 
 I do not presently conclude, 
 
 " Ipsa si velit Salus, 
 Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam ; " 3 
 
 we are not, peradventure, at the last gasp. The conservation 
 of states is a thing that, in all likelihood, surpasses our 
 understanding ; a civil government is, as Plato says, 4 a 
 mighty and puissant thing, and hard to be dissolved; it 
 often continues against mortal and intestine diseases, against 
 the injury of unjust laws, against tyranny, the corruption 
 and ignorance of magistrates, the licence and sedition of the 
 people. In all our fortunes, we compare ourselves to what is 
 above us, and still look towards those who are better : but 
 let us measure ourselves with what is below us : there is 
 no condition so miserable wherein a man may not find a 
 
 1 Livy, xxiii. 3. 
 
 2 " Fie on our crimes and our fratricides : What crime does this bad age 
 shrink from ? What wickedness is left undone ? What youth is restrained 
 from evil by the fear of the gods? What altar is spared." — Horace, 
 Od. i. 33, 35. 
 
 3 "If the goddess Salus herself wished to save this family, she could not 
 do it." — Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43. 
 
 4 Republic, viii. 2. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 233 
 
 thousand examples that 'will administer consolation. "lis our 
 vice that we more unwillingly look upon what is above, than 
 willingly upon what is below ; and Solon was used to say, 1 
 that " whoever would make a heap of all the ills together, 
 there is no one who would not rather choose to bear away 
 the ills he has than to come to an equal division with all 
 other men from that heap, and take his share." Our 
 government is, indeed, very sick, but there have been others 
 more sick, without dying. The gods play at tennis with us 
 and bandy us every way : 
 
 " Enimvero Dii nos homines quasi pilas habent." 2 
 
 The stars have fatally destined the state of Eome for an 
 example of what they could do in this kind : in it are 
 comprised all the forms and adventures that concern a 
 state : all that order or disorder, good or evil fortune, can do. 
 Who, then, can despair of his condition, seeing the shocks 
 and commotions wherewith Eome was tumbled and tossed, 
 and yet withstood them all ? If the extent of dominion be 
 the health of a state (which I by no means think it is, and 
 Isocrates pleases me when he instructs Mcocles not to envy 
 princes who have large dominions, but those who know how 
 to preserve those which have fallen into their hands), that of 
 Eome was never so sound, as when it was most sick. The 
 worst of her forms was the most fortunate ; one can hardly 
 discern any image of government under the first emperors ; 
 it was the most horrible and tumultuous confusion that can 
 be imagined ; it endured it, notwithstanding, and therein con- 
 tinued, preserving not a monarchy limited within its own 
 bounds, but so many nations so differing, so remote, so ill- 
 affected, so confusedly commanded, and so unjustly conquered : 
 
 1 Valerius Maximus, vii. 2. Ext. 2. 
 
 2 Plautus. Prologue to the Captive, translated by Montaigne in the pre- 
 ceding passage. 
 
234 Of Va,7lity. [Book iii. 
 
 " Nee gentibus ullis 
 Commodat in populum, terrae pelagique potentem, 
 Invidiam fortuna suam." x 
 
 Everything that totters does not fall. The contexture of so 
 great a body holds by more nails than one ; it holds even 
 by its antiquity, like old buildings, from which the founda- 
 tions are worn away by time, without rough-cast or mortar, 
 which yet live and support themselves by their own weight, 
 
 " Nee jam validis radicibus hserens, 
 Pondere tuta suo est." 2 
 
 Moreover, it is not rightly to go to work, to examine only 
 the flank and the foss, to judge of the security of a place ; 
 we must observe which way approaches can be made to it, 
 and in what condition the assailant is : few vessels sink 
 with their own weight, and without some exterior violence. 
 Now, let us everyway cast our eyes ; everything about us 
 totters; in all the great states, both of Christendom and 
 elsewhere, that are known to us, if you will but look, you 
 will there see evident menace of alteration and ruin : 
 
 " Et sua sunt illis incommoda ; parque per omnes 
 Tempestas." 3 
 
 Astrologers may very well, as they do, warn us of great 
 revolutions and imminent mutations : their prophecies are 
 present and palpable, they need not go to heaven to foretell 
 this. There is not only consolation to be extracted from 
 this universal combination of ills and menaces, but, more- 
 over, some hopes of the continuation of our state, forasmuch 
 as, naturally, nothing falls where all falls : universal sick- 
 ness is particular health : conformity is antagonistic to 
 
 1 "Fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against the 
 people, masters of the seas and of the earth." — Lucan, i. 32. 
 
 2 Lucan, i. 38. The translation is expressed in the preceding sentence. 
 
 3 "They all share in the mischief; the tempest rages everywhere." — 
 JEneid, ii. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 235 
 
 dissolution. For my part, I despair not, and fancy that I 
 discover ways to save us : 
 
 " Deus lisec fortasse benigna 
 Keducet in sedem vice." 1 
 
 Who knows but that God will have it happen, as in human 
 bodies that purge and restore themselves to a better state 
 by long and grievous maladies, which render them more 
 entire and perfect health than that they took from them ? 
 That which weighs the most with me is, that in reckoning 
 the symptoms of our ill, I see as many natural ones, and 
 that heaven sends us, and properly its own, as of those that 
 our disorder and human imprudence contribute to it. The 
 very stars seem to declare that we have already continued 
 long enough, and beyond the ordinary term. This also 
 afflicts me, that the mischief which nearest threatens us, 
 is not an alteration in the entire and solid mass, but its 
 dissipation and divulsion, which is the most extreme of our 
 fears. 
 
 I, moreover, fear, in these fantasies of mine, the treachery 
 of my memory, lest, by inadvertence, it should make me 
 write the same thing twice. I hate to examine myself, and 
 never review, but very unwillingly, what has once escaped 
 my pen. I here set down nothing new. These are common 
 thoughts, and having, peradventure, conceived them an hun- 
 dred times, I am afraid I have set them down somewhere 
 else already. Eepetition is everywhere troublesome, though 
 it were in Homer ; but 'tis ruinous in things that have only 
 a superficial and transitory show. I do not love over insist- 
 ing, even in the most profitable things, as in Seneca ; and 
 the usage of his stoical school displeases me, to repeat, upon 
 every subject, at full length and width the principles and 
 
 1 " God will, perchance, by a favourable turn, restore us to our former 
 position." — Horace, Epod. xiii. 7. 
 
236 Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 presuppositions that serve in general, and always to real- 
 ledge anew common and universal reasons. 
 My memory grows cruelly worse every day ; 
 
 " Pocula Lethseos ut si ducentia somnos, 
 Arente fauce traxerim ; " 1 
 
 I must be fain for the time to come (for hitherto, thanks be 
 to God, nothing has happened much amiss), whereas others 
 seek time and opportunity to think of what they have to 
 say, to avoid all preparation, for fear of tying myself to 
 some obligation upon which I must insist. To be tied 
 and bound to a thing puts me quite out, and to depend 
 upon so weak an instrument as my memory. I never read 
 this following story that I am not offended at it with a 
 personal and natural resentment : Lyncestes, accused of con- 
 spiracy against Alexander, 2 the day that he was brought out 
 before the army, according to the custom, to be heard as to 
 what he could say for himself, had learned a studied speech, 
 of which, haggling and stammering, he pronounced some 
 words. Whilst growing more and more perplexed, whilst 
 struggling with his memory, and trying to recollect what he 
 had to say, the soldiers nearest to him charged their pikes 
 against him and killed him, looking upon him as convict ; 
 his confusion and silence served them for a confession ; for 
 having had so much leisure to prepare himself in prison, 
 they concluded that it was not his memory that failed him, 
 but that his conscience tied up his tongue and stopped his 
 mouth. And, truly, well said ; the place, the assembly, 
 the expectation, astound a man, even when he has but the 
 ambition to speak well ; what can a man do when 'tis an 
 harangue upon which his life depends ? 
 
 1 "As if in great thirst I had drunk Lethe's oblivious flood." — Horace, 
 Epod. xiv. 3. 
 
 2 Quintus Curtius, vii. 1. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 237 
 
 For my part, the very "being tied to what I am to say is 
 enough to loose me from it. When I wholly commit and 
 refer myself to my memory, I lay so much stress upon it 
 that it sinks under me : it grows dismayed with the burden. 
 So much as I trust to it, so much do I put myself out of my 
 own power, even to the finding it difficult to keep my own 
 countenance ; and have been sometimes very much put to 
 it to conceal the slavery wherein I was engaged; whereas 
 my design is to manifest, in speaking, a perfect calmness 
 both of face and accent, and casual and unpremeditated 
 motions, as rising from present occasions, choosing rather to 
 say nothing to purpose than to show that I came prepared 
 to speak well, a thing especially unbecoming a man of my 
 profession, and of too great obligation on him who cannot 
 retain much. The preparation begets a great deal more 
 expectation than it will satisfy. A man often strips himself 
 to his doublet, to leap no further than he would have done 
 in his gown : " Nihil est his, qui placere volunt, tarn adver- 
 sarium, quam expectatio." 1 It is recorded of the orator 
 Curio, 2 that when he proposed the division of his oration 
 into three or four parts, or three or four arguments or 
 reasons, it often happened either that he forgot some one, or 
 added one or two more. I have always avoided falling into 
 this inconvenience, having ever hated these promises and 
 prescriptions, not only out of distrust of my memory, but 
 also because this method relishes too much of the artist : 
 " Simpliciora militares decent." 3 'Tis enough that I have 
 promised to myself never again to take upon me to speak 
 in a place of respect, for as to speaking, when a man reads 
 his speech, besides that it is very absurd, it is a mighty dis- 
 
 1 " Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to 
 please, as expectation." — Cicero, Acad., ii. 4. 
 
 2 Idem, Brutus, c. 60. 
 
 3 " Simplicity becomes warriors." — Quintilian, Instit. Orat, xi. I. 
 
238 Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 advantage to those who naturally could give it a grace by 
 action ; and to rely upon the mercy of my present inven- 
 tion, I would much less do it ; 'tis heavy and perplexed, and 
 such as would never furnish me in sudden and important 
 necessities. 
 
 Permit, reader, this essay its course also, and this further 
 sitting to finish the rest of my picture : I add, but I correct 
 not. First, because I conceive that a man having once 
 parted with his labours to the world, he has no further right 
 to them ; let him do better if he can, in some new under- 
 taking, but not adulterate what he has already sold. Of 
 such dealers nothing should be bought till after they are 
 dead. Let them well consider what they do before they 
 produce it to the light : who hastens them ? My book 
 is always the same, saving that upon every new edition 
 (that the buyer may not go away quite empty) I take the 
 liberty to add (as 'tis but an ill-jointed mosaic) some few 
 bits over and above ; they are but over-weight, that do not 
 disfigure the primitive form of the essays, but, by a little 
 ambitious subtlety, give a kind of particular value to every 
 one of those that follow. Thence, however, will easily 
 happen some transposition of chronology, my stories taking 
 place according to their patness, and not always according 
 to their age. 
 
 Secondly, because as to what concerns myself, I fear to 
 lose by change : my understanding does not always go for- 
 ward, it goes backward too. I do not much less suspect 
 my fancies for being the second or the third, than for being 
 the first, or present, or past ; we often correct ourselves as 
 foolishly as we do others. I am grown older by a great 
 many years since my first publications, which were in the 
 year 1580: but I very much doubt whether I am grown 
 an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, are two several 
 persons ; but whether better, I cannot determine. It were 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 239 
 
 a fine thing to be old, if we only travelled towards im- 
 provement ; but 'tis a drunken, stumbling, reeling, infirm 
 motion : like that of reeds, which the air casually waves to 
 and fro at pleasure. Antiochus had in his youth strongly 
 written in favour of the Academy ; in his old age, he wrote 
 as much against it ; would not, which of these two soever I 
 should follow, be still Antiochus ? After having established 
 the uncertainty, to go about to establish the certainty of 
 human opinions, was it not to establish doubt, and not cer- 
 tainty, and to promise, that had he had yet another age to 
 live, he would be always upon terms of altering his judg- 
 ment, not so much for the better, as for something else ? 
 
 The public favour has given me a little more confidence 
 than I expected ; but what I most fear, is, lest I should 
 glut the world with my writings ; I had rather, of the two, 
 nettle my reader, than tire him, as a learned man of my 
 time has done. Praise is always pleasing, let it come from 
 whom, or upon what account it will ; yet ought a man to 
 understand why he is commended, that he may know how 
 to keep up the same reputation still : imperfections them- 
 selves may get commendation. The vulgar and common 
 estimation is seldom happy in hitting ; and I am much 
 mistaken, if, amongst the writings of my time, the worst are 
 not those which have most gained the popular applause. 
 For my part, I return my thanks to those good-natured 
 men, who are pleased to take my weak endeavours in good 
 part ; the faults of the workmanship are nowhere so appa- 
 rent, as in a matter which of itself has no recommendation. 
 Blame not me, reader, for those that slip in here, by the 
 fancy or inadvertency of others ; every hand, every artisan, 
 contribute their own materials ; I neither concern myself 
 with orthography (and only care to have it after the old 
 way) nor pointing, being very inexpert both in the one and 
 the other. Where they wholly break the sense, I am very 
 
240 . Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 little concerned, for they at least discharge me ; but where 
 they substitute a false one, as they so often do, and wrest 
 me to their conception, they ruin me. When the sentence, 
 nevertheless, is not strong enough for my proportion, a civil 
 person ought to reject it as spurious, and none of mine. 
 Whoever shall know how lazy I am, and how indulgent to 
 my own humour, will easily believe that I had rather write 
 as many more essays, than be tied to revise these over again 
 for so childish a correction. 
 
 I said elsewhere, that being planted in the very centre of 
 this new religion, I am not only deprived of any great fami- 
 liarity with men of other kind of manners than my own, 
 and of other opinions, by which they hold together, as by a 
 tie that supersedes all other obligations ; but, moreover, I 
 do not live without danger, amongst men to whom all 
 things are equally lawful, and of whom the most part can- 
 not offend the laws more than they have already done ; 
 from which the extremest degree of licence proceeds. All 
 the particular circumstances respecting me being summed 
 up together, I do not find one man of my country, who pays 
 so dear for the defence of our laws both in loss and damages 
 (as the lawyers say) 1 as myself; and some there are who 
 vapour and brag of their zeal and constancy, that if things 
 were justly weighed, do much less than I. My house, as 
 one that has ever been open and free to all comers, and 
 civil to all (for I could jiever persuade myself to make it a 
 garrison of war, war being a thing that I prefer to see as 
 remote as may be), has sufficiently merited popular kindness, 
 and so that it would be a hard matter justly to insult over 
 me upon my own dunghill; and I look upon it as a won- 
 derful and exemplary thing, that it yet continues a virgin 
 from blood and plunder during so long a storm, and so 
 
 1 "Lucro cessante, emergente damno." — Johanneam. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 241 
 
 many neighbouring revolutions and tumults. For to confess 
 the truth, it had been possible enough for a man of my 
 complexion to have shaken hands with any one constant 
 and continued form whatever ; but the contrary invasions 
 and incursions, alternations and vicissitudes of fortune round 
 about me, have hitherto more exasperated then calmed and 
 mollified the temper of the country, and involved me, over 
 and over again, with invincible difficulties and dangers. 
 
 I escape, 'tis true, but am troubled that it is more by 
 chance, and something of my own prudence, than by jus- 
 tice ; and am not satisfied to be out of the protection of the 
 laws, and under any other safeguard than theirs. As matters 
 stand, I live, above one half, by the favour of others ; which 
 is an untoward obligation. I do not like to owe my safety 
 either to the generosity or affection of great persons, who 
 allow me my legality and my liberty, or to the obliging 
 manners of my predecessors, or my own : for what if I were 
 another kind of man ? If my deportment, and the frank- 
 ness of my conversation, or relationship, oblige my neigh- 
 bours, 'tis cruel that they should acquit themselves of that 
 obligation in only permitting me to live, and that they may 
 say : " We allow him the free liberty of having divine service 
 read in his own private chapel, when it is interdicted in all 
 churches round about, and allow him the use of his goods 
 and his life, as one who protects our wives and cattle in 
 time of need." For my house has for many descents 
 shared in the reputation of Lycurgus the Athenian, who 
 was the general depositary and guardian of the purses of his 
 fellow-citizens. 1 Now I am clearly of opinion that a man 
 should live by right and by authority, and not either by 
 recompense or favour. How many gallant men have rather 
 chosen to lose their lives than to be debtors for them ? I 
 
 1 Plutarch, Lives of the Ten Orators, Lycurgus, c. I. 
 VOL. III. Q 
 
242 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 hate to subject myself to any sort of obligation, but above 
 all, to that which binds me by the duty of honour. I 
 think nothing so dear as what has been given me, and this 
 because my will lies at pawn under the title of gratitude, 
 and more willingly accept of services that are to be sold ; 
 I feel that for the last I give nothing but money, but for the 
 other I give myself. 
 
 The knot that binds me by the laws of courtesy binds 
 me more than that of civil constraint ; I am much more at 
 ease when bound by a scrivener, than by myself. Is it not 
 reason that my conscience should be much more engaged 
 when men simply rely upon it ? In a bond, my faith owes 
 nothing, because it has nothing lent it ; let them trust to 
 the security they have taken without me. I had much 
 rather break the wall of a prison, and the laws themselves, 
 than my own word. I am nice, even to superstition, in 
 keeping my promises, and, therefore, upon all occasions, 
 have a care to make them uncertain and conditional. To 
 those of no great moment, I add the jealousy of my own 
 rule, to make them weight ; it wracks and oppresses me 
 with its own interest. Even in actions wholly my own 
 and free, if I once say a thing, I conceive that I have 
 bound myself, and that delivering it to the knowledge of 
 another, I have positively enjoined it my own performance. 
 Methinks I promise it, if I but say it : and therefore am 
 not apt to say much of that kind. The sentence that I pass 
 upon myself is more severe than that of a judge, who only 
 considers the common obligation; but my conscience looks 
 upon it with a more severe and penetrating eye. I lag in 
 those duties to which I should be compelled if I did not 
 go : " Hoc ipsum ita justum est, quod recte fit, si est volun- 
 tarium." 1 If the action has not some splendour of liberty, 
 it has neither grace nor honour : 
 
 1 "Even that which is well done, is only just when 'tis voluntary," — 
 Cicero, De Offic, i. 9. 
 
Chap. 9.]] Of Vanity. 243 
 
 (l Quod me jus cogit, vix voluntate impetrent: " l 
 
 ■where necessity draws me, I love to let my will take its 
 own course : " Quia quicquid imperio cogitur, exigenti 
 magis, quam prsestanti, acceptum refertur." 2 I know some 
 who follow this rule, even to injustice ; who will sooner 
 give than restore, sooner lend than pay, and will do them 
 the least good to whom they are most obliged. I don't go 
 so far as that, but I'm not far off. 
 
 I so much love to disengage and disobligate myself, that 
 I have sometimes looked upon ingratitudes, affronts, and 
 indignities which I have received from those to whom either 
 by nature or accident I was bound in some duty of friend- 
 ship, as an advantage to me ; taking this occasion of their 
 ill usage, for an acquittance and discharge of so much of 
 my debt. And though I still continue to pay them all the 
 external offices of public reason, I, notwithstanding, find 
 a great saving in doing that upon the account of justice 
 which I did upon the score of affection, and am a little 
 eased of the attention and solicitude of my inward will : 
 " Est prudentis sustinere, ut currum, sic impetum benevo- 
 lentia ; " 3 'tis, in me, too urging and pressing where I take ; 
 at least, for a man who loves not to be strained at all. And 
 this husbanding my friendship serves me for a sort of con- 
 solation in the imperfections of those in whom I am con- 
 cerned. I am very sorry they are not such as I could wish 
 they were, but then I also am spared somewhat of my appli- 
 cation and engagement towards them. I approve of a man 
 who is the less fond of his child for having a scald head, or for 
 
 1 " That which the laws compel, I do with little will." — Terence, Adelph., 
 jii. 3, 44. The text has : " Quod vos jus cogit, vix voluntate impetret." 
 
 2 "For whatever is compelled by power, is more imputed to him that 
 exacts than to him that performs." — Valerius Maximus, ii. 2, 6. 
 
 s " 'Tis the part of a wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the impetus of 
 friendship, as upon that of his horse." — Cicero, De Amicit, c. 17. 
 
244 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 being crooked ; and not only when lie is ill-conditioned, but, 
 also, when he is of unhappy disposition, and imperfect in 
 his limbs (God himself has abated so much from his value 
 and natural estimation), provided he carry himself in this 
 coldness of affection with moderation and exact justice : 
 proximity, with me, lessens not defects, but rather aggra- 
 vates them. 
 
 After all, according to what I understand in the science 
 of benefit and acknowledgment, which is a subtle science, and 
 of great use, I know no person whatever more free and less 
 indebted than I am at this hour. What I do owe, is simply 
 to common and natural obligations ; as to anything else, 
 no man is more absolutely clear : 
 
 " Nee sunt niihi nota potentum 
 Munera." 2 
 
 Princes give me a great deal, if they take nothing from me ; 
 and do me good enough, if they do me no harm; that's all 
 I ask from them. 0, how am I obliged to Almighty God, 
 that he was pleased I should immediately receive from his 
 bounty all I have, and specially reserved all my obligation 
 to himself ! How earnestly do I beg of his holy compassion, 
 that I may never owe essential thanks to any one ! happy 
 liberty wherein I have thus far lived ! May it continue with 
 me to the last. I endeavour to have no express need of any 
 one : " In me omnis spes est mihi." 3 Tis what every one 
 may do in himself, but more easily they whom God has 
 placed in a condition exempt from natural and urgent neces- 
 sities. It is a wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon 
 others ; we ourselves, in whom is ever the most just and safest 
 dependence, are not sufficiently sure. I have nothing mine 
 
 1 Or, as the edition of 1588 has it, "to foreign obligations and benefits." 
 
 2 "The gifts of great men are unknown to me." — iEneid, xii. 529. 
 
 3 "All my hope is in myself." — Terence, Adelph., iii. 5. 9. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 245 
 
 but myself, and yet the possession is, in part, defective and 
 borrowed. I fortify myself botli in courage, which is the 
 strongest assistant, and also in fortune, therein wherewith 
 to satisfy myself, though everything else should forsake me. 
 Eleus Hippias not only furnished himself with knowledge, 
 that he might, at need, cheerfully retire from all other com- 
 pany to enjoy the Muses ; nor only with the knowledge of 
 philosophy, to teach his soul to be contented with itself, and 
 bravely to subsist without outward conveniences, when fate 
 would have it so ; he was, moreover, so careful as to learn to 
 cook, to shave himself, to make his own clothes, Ins own shoes 
 and drawers, to provide for all his necessities in himself, and 
 to wean himself from the assistance of others. 1 A man more 
 freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed conveniences, when it 
 is not an enjoyment forced and constrained by need ; and 
 when he has, in his own will and fortune, the means to live 
 without them. I know myself very well ; but 'tis hard for 
 me to imagine any so pure liberality of any one towards me, 
 any so frank and free hospitality, that would not appear to 
 me discreditable, tyrannical, and tainted with reproach, if 
 necessity had reduced me to it. As giving is an ambitious 
 and authoritative quality, so is accepting a quality of sub- 
 mission; witness the insulting and quarrelsome refusal that 
 Bajazet made of the presents that Tamerlane sent him ; and 
 those that were offered on the part of the Emperor Solyman 
 to the emperor of Calicut, so angered him, that he not only 
 rudely rejected them, saying, that neither he nor any of his 
 predecessors had ever been wont to take, and that it was 
 their office to give ; but, moreover, caused the ambassadors 
 sent with the gifts to be put into a dungeon. When 
 Thetis, says Aristotle, 2 flatters Jupiter ; when the Lacedse- 
 
 1 Cicero, De Orat., iii. 32. 2 Moral, ad Nicom., iv. 3. 
 
246 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 monians .flatter the Athenians, they do not put them in 
 mind of the good they have done them, which is always 
 odious, hut of the henefits they have received from them. 
 Such as I see so frequently employ every one in their 
 ^affairs, and thrust themselves into so much obligation, would 
 never do it, did they but relish as I do the sweetness of a 
 pure liberty, and did they but weigh, as wise men should, 
 the burden of obligation : 'tis, sometimes, peradventure, fully 
 paid, but 'tis never dissolved. 'Tis a miserable slavery 
 to a man who loves to be at full liberty in all respects. 
 Such as know me, both above and below me in station, 
 are able to say whether they have ever known a man less 
 importuning, soliciting, entreating, and pressing upon others 
 than I. If I am so, and a degree beyond all modern example, 
 'tis no great wonder, so many parts of my manners contri- 
 buting to it : a little natural pride, an impatience of being 
 refused, the moderation of my desires and designs, my in- 
 capacity for business, and my most beloved qualities, idle- 
 ness and freedom ; by all these together I have conceived a 
 mortal hatred to being obliged to any other, or by any 
 other than myself. I leave no stone unturned to do with- 
 out it, rather than employ the bounty of another in any light 
 or important occasion or necessity whatever. My friends 
 strangely trouble me, when they ask me to ask a third 
 person ; and I think it costs me little less to disengage him 
 who is indebted to me, by making use of him, than to engage 
 myself to him who owes me nothing. These conditions 
 being removed, and provided they require of me nothing of any 
 great trouble or care (for I have declared mortal war against 
 all care), I am very ready to do every one the best service 
 I can. 1 But I have yet more avoided receiving than sought 
 
 1 The edition of 1588 here adds: " I have been very willing to seek occa- 
 sion to do people a good turn, and to attach them to me ; and methinks there 
 is no more agreeable employment for our means." 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 247 
 
 occasions of giving, and moreover, according to Aristotle, it 
 is more easy. 1 My fortune lias allowed me but little to do 
 others good withal, and the little it can afford, is put into a 
 pretty close hand. Had I been born a great person, I should 
 have been ambitious to have made myself beloved, not to 
 make myself feared or admired : shall I more plainly ex- 
 press it ? I should more have endeavoured to please than 
 to profit others. Cyrus very wisely, and by the mouth of a 
 great captain, and still greater philosopher, prefers his bounty 
 and benefits much before his valour and warlike conquests ; 2 
 and the elder Scipio, wherever he would raise himself in 
 esteem, sets a higher value upon his affability and humanity, 
 than on his prowess and victories, and has always this glorious 
 saying in his mouth : " That he has given his enemies as 
 much occasion to love him as his friends." I will then say, 
 that if a man must, of necessity, owe something, it ought to 
 be by a more legitimate title than that whereof I am speak- 
 ing, to which the necessity of this miserable war compels 
 me ; and not in so great a debt as that of my total preser- 
 vation both of life and fortune : it overwhelms me. 
 
 I have a thousand times gone to bed in my own house 
 with an apprehension that I should be betrayed and mur- 
 dered that very night ; compounding with fortune, that it 
 might be without terror and with quick despatch ; and, after 
 my Paternoster, have cried out, 
 
 " Impius hsec tarn culta novalia miles habebit ! " 3 
 
 What remedy ? 'tis the place of my birth, and that of most 
 of my ancestors ; they have here fixed their affection and 
 name. We inure ourselves to whatever we are accustomed to ; 
 and in so miserable a condition as ours is, custom is a great 
 
 1 Moral, ad Nicom., ix. 7. 2 Xenophon, Cyrop., viii. 4, 4. 
 
 3 "Shall impious soldiers have these new ploughed grounds." — Virgil, 
 Eel. i. 71. 
 
248 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 "bounty of nature, which benumbs our senses to the suffer- 
 ance of many evils. A civil war has this with it worse 
 than other wars have, to make us stand sentinels in our 
 own houses : 
 
 " Quam miserum, porta vitam muroque tueri, 
 Vixque suae tuturn viribis esse domus ! " x 
 
 'Tis a grievous extremity for a man to be jostled even in his 
 own house and domestic repose. The country where I live 
 is always the first in arms, and the last that lays them 
 down, and where there is never an absolute peace : 
 
 " Turn quoque, cum pax est, trepidant for uridine belli. 
 Quoties pacem fortuna lacessit ; 
 Hac iter est bellis . . . Melius, Fortuna, dedisses 
 Orbe sub Eoo sedem, gelidaque sub Arcto, 
 Errantesque domos." 2 
 
 I sometimes extract the means to fortify myself against 
 these considerations, from indifference and indolence, which, 
 in some sort, bring us on to resolution. It often befals me 
 to imagine and expect mortal dangers with a kind of delight : 
 I stupidly plunge myself, headlong, into death, without con- 
 sidering or taking a view of it, as into a deep and obscure 
 abyss which swallows me up at one leap, and involves me 
 in an instant in a profound sleep, without any sense of pain. 
 And in these short and violent deaths, the consequence that 
 I foresee administers more consolation to me than the effect 
 does fear. They say, that as life is not better for being 
 long, so death is better for being not long. I do not so 
 much evade being dead, as I enter into confidence with 
 
 1 " 'Tis miserable to protect one's life by doors and walls, and to be scarcely 
 safe in one's own house." — Ovid, Trist., iv. I. 69. 
 
 2 "Even when there's peace, there is here still the fear of war : when Fortune 
 troubles peace, this is ever the way by which war passes. — Idem, ib., iii. 10, 67. 
 
 " We might have lived happier in the remote East, or in the icy North, or 
 among the wandering tribes." — Lucan, i. 255. 
 
Chap. 9.] I Of Vanity. 249 
 
 dying. I wrap and shroud myself in the storm that is 
 to blind and carry me away with the fury of a sudden and 
 insensible attack. Moreover, if it should fall out, that, as 
 some gardeners say, roses and violets spring more odorifer- 
 ous near garlic and onions, by reason that the last suck 
 and imbibe all the ill odour of the earth ; so, if these de- 
 praved natures should also attract all the malignity of my 
 air and climate, and render it so much better and purer 
 by their vicinity, I should not lose all. That cannot be : 
 but there may be something in this, that goodness is more 
 beautiful and attractive when it is rare ; and that contrariety 
 and diversity fortify and consolidate well-doing within itself, 
 and inflame it by the jealousy of opposition and by glory. 
 Thieves and robbers, of their special favour, have no par- 
 ticular spite at me ; ruo more have I to them : I should have 
 my hands too full. Like consciences are lodged under 
 several sorts of robes ; like cruelty, disloyalty, rapine ; 
 and so much the worse, and more falsely when the more 
 secure and concealed under colour of the laws. I less hate an 
 open professed injury than one that is treacherous ; an enemy 
 in arms, than an enemy in a gown. Our fever has seized upon 
 a body that is not much the worse for it; there was fire 
 before and now 'tis broken out into a flame ; the noise is 
 greater, not the evil. I ordinarily answer such as ask me the 
 reason of my travels, " That I know very well what I fly 
 from, but not what I seek." If they tell me that there may 
 be as little health amongst foreigners, and that their manners 
 are- no better than ours : I first reply, that it is hard to be 
 believed, 
 
 " Tarn rmiltse scelerum facies ! " x 
 secondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition 
 
 1 "So many forms of crime have we." — Virgil, Georg., i. 506. 
 
250 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 for one that is uncertain ; and that the ills of others ought 
 not to afflict us so much as our own. 
 
 I will not here omit that I never mutiny so much against 
 France, that I am not perfectly friends with Paris ; that 
 city has ever had my heart from my infancy, and it has 
 fallen out, as of excellent things, that the more beautiful 
 cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this still 
 wins upon my affection. I love her for herself, and more in 
 her own native being, than in all the pomp of foreign and 
 acquired embellishments. I love her tenderly, even to her 
 warts and blemishes. I am French only by this great 
 city, great in people, great in the felicity of her situation ; 
 but, above all, great and incomparable in variety and diver- 
 sity of commodities : the glory of France, and one of the 
 most noble ornaments of the world. May God keep our 
 divisions far remote from her. 1 Entire and united, I 
 think her sufficiently defended from all other violences. 
 I give her caution that, of all sorts of people, those will be 
 the worst that shall set her in discord ; I have no fear 
 for her, but of herself ; and, certainly, I have as much fear 
 for her as for any other part of the kingdom. Whilst she 
 shall continue, I shall never want a retreat, where I may 
 stand at bay, sufficient to make me amends for parting with 
 any other retreat. 
 
 Not because Socrates has said so, but because it is, in 
 truth, my own humour, and, peradventure, not without some 
 excess, I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace 
 a Polander as a Frenchman, preferring the universal and 
 common tie to all national ties whatever. I am not much 
 taken with the sweetness of a native air : acquaintance 
 wholly new and wholly my own, appear to me full as 
 
 1 " Dieu en chasse loing nos divisions," which Cotton renders, " Of his good- 
 ness compose our differences, and deliver us from this civil war. 
 
Chap. 9-] Of Vanity. 251 
 
 good as the other common and fortuitous ones with our 
 neighbours : friendships that are purely of our own acquir- 
 ing ordinarily carry it above those to which the communica- 
 tion of climate or of blood oblige us. Nature has placed us 
 in the world free and unbound ; we imprison ourselves in 
 certain straights, like the kings of Persia, who obliged 
 themselves to drink no other water but that of the river 
 Choaspes, 1 foolishly quitted claim to their right in all other 
 streams, and, so far as concerned themselves, dried up all 
 the other rivers of the world. What Socrates did towards 
 his end, to look upon a sentence of banishment as worse 
 than a sentence of death against him, I shall, I think, 
 never be either so decrepid or so strictly habituated to my 
 own country to be of that opinion. These celestial lives 
 have images enough that I embrace more by esteem than 
 affection ; and they have some also so elevated and extra- 
 ordinary that I cannot embrace them so much as by esteem, 
 forasmuch as I cannot conceive them. That fancy was 
 singular in a man who thought the whole world his city ; 
 it is true that he disdained travel, and had hardly ever set 
 his foot out of the Attic territories. What say you to his 
 complaint of the money his friends offered to save his life, 
 and that he refused to come out of prison by the mediation of 
 others, in order not to disobey the laws in a time when they 
 were otherwise so corrupt ? These examples are of the first 
 kind for me ; of the second, there are others that I could 
 find out in the same person : many of these rare examples 
 surpass the force of my action, but some of them, moreover, 
 surpass the force of my judgment. 
 
 Besides these reasons, travel is in my opinion a very pro- 
 fitable exercise ; the soul is there continually employed in 
 observing new and unknown things, and I do not know, as 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Exile, c. 5 ; ^Elian, Var. Hist., xii. 40. 
 
252 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 I have often said, a better school wherein to model life than 
 by incessantly exposing to it the diversity of so many other 
 lives, fancies, and usances, and by making it relish so per- 
 petual a variety of forms of human nature. The body is, 
 therein, neither idle nor overwrought ; and that moderate 
 agitation puts it in breath. I can keep on horseback, tor- 
 mented with the stone as I am, without alighting or being 
 weary, eight or ten hours together, 
 
 " Vires ultra sortemque senectse : " l 
 
 No season is enemy to me but the parching heat of a 
 scorching sun ; for the umbrellas made use of in Italy, ever 
 since the time of the ancient Eomans, more burden a man's 
 arm than they relieve his head. I would fain know how it 
 was that the Persians, so long ago, and in the infancy of 
 luxury, made ventilators where they wanted them, and 
 planted shades, as Xenophon reports they did. I love 
 rain, and to dabble in the dirt, as well as ducks do. The 
 change of air and climate never touches me ; every sky is 
 alike ; I am only troubled with inward alterations which I 
 breed within myself, and those are not so frequent in travel. 
 I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road, I 
 hold out as well as the best. I take as much pains in little 
 as in great attempts, and am as solicitous to equip myself 
 for a short journey, if but to visit a neighbour, as for the 
 longest voyage. I have learned to travel after the Spanish 
 fashion, and to make but one stage of a great many miles ; 
 and in excessive heats I always travel by night, from sunset 
 to sunrise. The other method of baiting by the way, in 
 haste and hurry to gobble up a dinner, is, especially in short 
 days, very inconvenient. My horses perform" the better ; 
 never any horse tired under me that was able to hold out the 
 
 1 "Beyond the strength and ordinary lot of age." — y£neid, vi. 114. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 253 
 
 first day's journey. I water them at every brook I meet, 
 and have only a care they have so much way to go before I 
 come to my inn, as will digest the water in their bellies. 
 My unwillingness to rise in a morning gives my servants 
 leisure to dine at their ease before they set out; for 
 my own part, I never eat too late ; my appetite comes to 
 me in eating, and not else ; I am never hungry but at 
 table. 
 
 Some of my friends blame me for continuing this travel- 
 ling humour, being married and old. But they are out 
 in't ; 'tis the best time to leave a man's house, when he has 
 put it into a way of continuing without him, and settled 
 such order as corresponds with its former government. Tis 
 much greater imprudence to abandon it to a less faithful 
 housekeeper, and who will be less solicitous to look after 
 your affairs. 
 
 The most useful and honourable knowledge and employ- 
 ment for the mother of a family is the science of good 
 housewifery. I see some that are covetous indeed, but 
 very few that are good managers. 'Tis the supreme quality 
 of a woman, which a man ought to seek before any other, as 
 the only dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses. Let 
 men say what they will according to the experience I have 
 learned, I require in married women the economical virtue 
 above all other virtues ; I put my wife to't, as a concern of 
 her own, leaving her, by my absence, the whole government 
 of my affairs. I see, and am vexed to see, in several 
 families I know, Monsieur about dinner time come home 
 all jaded and ruffled about his affairs, when Madame is still 
 pouncing and tricking up herself, forsooth, in her closet : 
 this is for queens to do, and that's a question, too : 'tis 
 ridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should 
 be maintained with our sweat and labour. No man, so 
 far as in me lies, shall have a clearer, a more quiet and 
 
254 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 free fruition of his estate than I. If the husband bring 
 matter, nature herself will that the wife find the form. 
 
 As to the duties of conjugal friendship, that some think 
 to be impaired by these absences, I am quite of another 
 opinion. It is, on the contrary, an intelligence that easily 
 cools by a too frequent and assiduous companionship. Every 
 strange woman appears charming, and we all find by expe- 
 rience that being continually together is not so pleasing, as 
 to part for a time and meet again. These interruptions 
 fill me with fresh affection towards my family, and render 
 my house more pleasant to me. Change warms my appetite 
 to the one and then to the other. I know that the arms 
 of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of 
 the world to the other, and especially this, where there is a 
 continual communication of offices that rouse the obligation 
 and remembrance. The Stoics say, that there is so great 
 connection and relation amongst the sages, that he who 
 dines in Prance nourishes his companion in Egypt ; and 
 that whoever does but hold out his finger, in what part of 
 the world soever, all the sages upon the habitable earth feel 
 themselves assisted by it. Fruition and possession princi- 
 pally appertain to the imagination ; it more fervently and 
 constantly embraces what it is in quest of, than what we 
 hold in our arms. Let a man but consider and cast up his 
 daily thoughts, and he will find, that he is most absent 
 from his friend, when in his company ; his presence re- 
 laxes your attention, and gives your thoughts liberty to 
 absent themselves at every turn, and upon every occasion. 
 When I am away at Eome, I keep and govern my house, 
 and the conveniences I there left ; see my walls rise, my trees 
 shoot, and my revenue increase or decrease, very near as 
 well as when I am there : 
 
 " Ante oculos errat domus, errat forma locorarn." x 
 
 1 "My house and the forms of places are ever present to my eye." — Ovicl, 
 Trist., iii. 4, 57. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 255 
 
 If we enjoy nothing but what we touch, we may say fare- 
 well to the money in our chests, and to our sons when they 
 are gone a hunting. We will have them nearer to us : is 
 the garden, or half a day's journey from home, far ? What 
 is ten leagues : far or near ? If near, what is eleven, twelve, 
 or thirteen, and so by degrees. In earnest, if there be a 
 woman who can tell her husband what step ends the near 
 and what step begins the remote, I would advise her to stop 
 
 between ; 
 
 " Excludat jnrgia finis. . . . 
 Utor permisso ; caudaeque pilos ut equinse 
 Paulatirn vello, et demo unum, denio etiam unurn, 
 Dum cadat elusus ratione mentis acervi : " 1 
 
 and let them boldly call philosophy to their assistance ; in 
 whose teeth it may be cast, that seeing it neither discerns 
 the one nor the other end of the joint, betwixt the too much 
 and the little, the long and the short, the light and the 
 heavy, the near and the remote ; that seeing it discovers 
 neither the beginning nor the end, it must needs judge very 
 uncertainly of the middle : " Eerum natura nullam nobis 
 dedit cognitionem finium." 2 Are they not still wives and 
 friends to the dead, who are not at the end of this, but 
 in the other world ? We embrace not only the absent, but 
 those who have been, and those who are not yet. We do 
 not promise in marriage to be continually twisted and 
 linked together, like some little animals that we see, 
 or, like the bewitched folks of Karenty, 3 tied together 
 like dogs ; and a wife ought not to be so greedily enam- 
 
 1 " Let the boundary end all disputes. . . I use the permission, and, as 
 the man in the fable, pluck out the hairs of the horse's tail gradually : now 
 one, then another, so I take away this, and then that, and thus outwit my op- 
 ponent." — Horace, Ep. ii. I, 38, 45. 
 
 2 "Nature has given to us no knowledge of the end of things." — Cicero, 
 Acad., ii. 29. 
 
 3 Karantia, a town in the isle of Rugen. See Saxo Grammaticus, Hist, of 
 Denmark, book xiv. 
 
256 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 oured of her husband's foreparts, that she cannot endure to 
 see hirn turn his back, if occasion be. But may not this 
 saying of that excellent painter of women's humours be here 
 introduced, to show the reason of their complaints ? 
 
 " Uxor, si cesses, aut te amare cogitat, 
 Aut tete amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi ; 
 Et tibi bene esse soli, cum sibi sit male ; " x 
 
 or may it not be, that of itself opposition and contradiction 
 entertain and nourish them ; and that they sufficiently accom- 
 modate themselves, provided they incommodate you ? 
 
 In true friendship, wherein I am perfect, I more give 
 myself to my friend, than I endeavour to attract him to me. 
 I am not only better pleased in doing him service, than if 
 he conferred a benefit upon me, but, moreover, had rather 
 he should do himself good than me, and he most obliges me 
 when he does so ; and if absence be either more pleasant or 
 convenient for him, 'tis also more acceptable to me than his 
 presence ; neither is it properly absence, when we can write 
 to one another. I have sometimes made good use of our 
 separation from one another : we better filled, and further 
 extended the possession of life in being parted. He 2 lived, 
 enjoyed, and saw for me, and I for him, as fully as if he 
 had himself been there ; one part of us remained idle, and 
 we were too much blended in one another when we were 
 together ; the distance of place rendered the conjunction of 
 our wills more rich. This insatiable desire of personal pre- 
 sence, a little implies weakness in the fruition of souls. 
 
 As to what concerns age, which is alleged against me, 'tis 
 quite contrary ; 'tis for youth to subject itself to common 
 opinions, and to curb itself to please others ; it has where- 
 
 1 ' ' Your wife, if you stay abroad, thinks that you love, or are beloved ; or 
 that you are drinking or amusing yourself somehow or other ; that all the 
 pleasure is yours, and hers all the care." — Terence, Adelph., act i., sc. I, v. 7. 
 
 2 La Boetie. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 257 
 
 withal to please both the people and itself ; we have but too 
 much ado to please ourselves alone. As natural conveniences 
 fail, let us supply them with those that are artificial. 'Tis 
 injustice to excuse youth for pursuing its pleasures, and to 
 forbid old men to seek them. When young, I concealed 
 my wanton passions with prudence ; now I am old, I chase 
 away melancholy by debauch. 1 And thus do the Platonic 
 laws forbid men to travel till forty or fifty years old, 2 so 
 that travel might be more useful and instructive in so 
 mature an age. I should sooner subscribe to the second 
 article of the same Laws, which forbids it after threescore. 
 
 " But, at your age, you will never return from so long a 
 journey." What care I for that ? I neither undertake it to 
 return, nor to finish it : my business is only to keep my- 
 self in motion, whilst motion pleases me ; I only walk for 
 the walk's sake. They, who run after a benefice or a hare, 
 run not ; they only run who run at base, and to exercise 
 their running. My design is divisible throughout : it is 
 not grounded upon any great hopes : every day concludes 
 my expectation : and the journey of my life is carried on 
 after the same manner. And yet I have seen places enough 
 a great way off, where I could have wished to have stayed. 
 And why not, if Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, 
 Antipater, so many sages of the sourest sect, readily aban- 
 doned their country, without occasion of complaint, and 
 only for the enjoyment of another air. 3 In earnest, that 
 which most displeases me in all my travels is, that I can- 
 not resolve to settle my abode where I should best like, but 
 
 1 This debauch (desbauche) evidently means the diversion of travel, which is 
 the subject of so large a portion of this essay ; not debauch in its ordinary 
 sense. 
 
 2 Plato, Laws, Book XII. 
 
 3 All these sages quitted their native countries in order to live at Athens. 
 —Plutarch, Gn Exile, c. 12. 
 
 VOL. III. B 
 
258 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 that I must always propose to myself to return, to accom- 
 modate myself to the common humour. 
 
 If I feared to die in any other place than that of my 
 birth ; if I thought I should die more uneasily, remote from 
 my own family, I should hardly go out of France ; I should 
 not, without fear, step out of my parish; I feel death 
 always twitching me by the throat, or by the back. But I 
 am of another temper ; 'tis in all places alike to me. Yet, 
 might I have my choice, I think I should rather choose to 
 die on horseback than in a bed ; out of my own house, and 
 far from my own people. There is more heartbreaking than 
 consolation in taking leave of one's friends ; I am willing to 
 omit that civility, for that, of all the offices of friendship, is 
 the only one that is unpleasant ; and I could, with all my 
 heart, dispense with that great and eternal farewell. If 
 there be any convenience in so many standers by, it brings 
 an hundred inconveniences along with it. I have seen 
 many dying miserably, surrounded with all this train : 'tis 
 a crowd that chokes them. 'Tis against duty, and is a testi- 
 mony of little kindness and little care, to permit you to die 
 in repose ; one torments your eyes, another your ears, another 
 your tongue ; you have neither sense nor member that is 
 not worried by them. Your heart is wounded with com- 
 passion to hear the mourning of friends ; and, perhaps, with 
 anger, to hear the counterfeit condolings of pretenders. Who 
 ever has been delicate and sensitive, when well, is much 
 more so when ill. In such a necessity, a gentle hand is re- 
 quired, accommodated to his sentiment, to scratch him just 
 in the place where he itches otherwise scratch him not 
 at all. If we stand in need of a wise woman 1 to bring 
 us into the world, we have much more need of a still wiser 
 man to help us out of it. Such a one, and a friend to boot, 
 
 1 Sage-femme, the French term for a midwife. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 259 
 
 a man ought to purchase at any cost for such an occasion. 
 I am not yet arrived to that pitch of disdainful vigour, that 
 is fortified in itself, that nothing can assist, or disturb ; I 
 am of a lower form ; I endeavour to hide myself, and to 
 escape from this passage, not by fear, but by art. I do not 
 intend in this act of dying to make proof and show of my 
 constancy. For whom should I do it ? all the right and 
 interest I have in reputation will then cease. I content 
 myself with a death involved within itself, quiet, solitary, 
 and all my own, suitable to my retired and private life ; 
 quite contrary to the Eoman superstition, where a man was 
 looked upon as unhappy who died without speaking, and 
 who had not his nearest relations to close his eyes. I have 
 enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console 
 others ; thoughts enough in my head, not to need that cir- 
 cumstances should possess me with new ; and matter enough 
 to occupy me without borrowing. This affair is out of the 
 part of society ; 'tis the act of one single person. Let us 
 live and be merry amongst our friends ; let us go repine 
 and die amongst strangers ; a man may find those, for 
 his money, who will shift his pillow and rub his feet, and 
 will trouble him no more than he would have them ; who 
 will present to him an indifferent countenance, and suffer 
 him to govern himself, and to complain according to his 
 own method. 
 
 I wean myself daily by my reason from this childish and 
 inhuman humour, of desiring by our sufferings to move the 
 compassion and mourning of our friends : we stretch our 
 own incommodities beyond their just extent when we ex- 
 tract tears from others ; and the constancy which we com- 
 mend in every one in supporting his adverse fortune, we 
 accuse and reproach in our friends when the evil is our 
 own ; we are not satisfied that they should be sensible of 
 our condition only, unless they be, moreover, afflicted. A 
 
260 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother 
 grief. He who makes himself lamented without reason, is a 
 man not to be lamented when there shall be real cause : to be 
 always complaining, is the way never to be lamented ; by 
 making himself always in so pitiful a taking, he is never 
 commiserated by any. He who makes himself out dead 
 when he is alive, is subject to be thought living, when he 
 is dying. I have seen some who have taken it ill when 
 they have been told that they looked well, and that their 
 pulse was good ; restrain their smiles, because they betrayed 
 a recovery, and be angry at their health because it was not 
 to be lamented : and, which is a great deal more, these were 
 not women. I describe my infirmities, such as they really 
 are, at most, and avoid all expressions of evil prognostic and 
 composed exclamations. If not mirth, at least a temperate 
 countenance in the standers by, is proper in the presence 
 of a wise sick man : he does not quarrel with health, for, 
 seeing himself in a contrary condition ; he is pleased to 
 contemplate it sound and entire in others, and at least to 
 enjoy it for company : he does not, for feeling himself melt 
 away, abandon all living thoughts, nor avoid ordinary dis- 
 course. I would study sickness whilst I am well ; when it 
 has seized me, it will make its impression real enough, with- 
 out the help of my imagination. We prepare ourselves, 
 beforehand, for the journeys we undertake, and resolve upon 
 them ; we leave the appointment of the hour when to take 
 horse to the company, and, in their favour defer it. 
 
 I find this unexpected advantage in the publication of 
 my manners, that it in some sort serves me for a rule. I 
 have, at times, some consideration of not betraying the 
 history of my life : this public declaration obliges me to keep 
 my way, and not to give the lie to the image I have drawn 
 of my qualities, commonly less deformed and contradic- 
 tory than consists with the malignity and infirmity of the 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 261 
 
 judgments of this age. The uniformity and simplicity of 
 my manners produce a face of easy interpretation ; but 
 because the fashion is a little new and not in use, it 
 gives too great opportunity to slander. Yet so it is, that 
 whoever would fairly assail me, I think I so sufficiently 
 assist his purpose in my known and avowed imperfections, 
 that he may that way satisfy his ill-nature, without fighting 
 with the wind. If I myself, to anticipate accusation and 
 discovery, confess enough to frustrate his malice, as he con- 
 ceives, 'tis but reason that he make use of his right of 
 amplification, and to wire-draw my vices as far as he can ; 
 attack has its rights beyond justice ; and let him make the 
 roots of those errors I have laid open to him, shoot up into 
 trees : let him make his use, not only of those I am really 
 affected with, but also of those that only threaten me ; in- 
 jurious vices, both in quality and number ; let him cudgel 
 me that way. I should willingly follow the example of the 
 philosopher Bion : Antigonus being about to reproach him 
 with the meanness of his birth, he presently cut him short 
 with this declaration : " I am," said he, 1 " the son of a slave, 
 a butcher, and branded, and of a strumpet my father 
 married in the lowest of his fortune ; both of them were 
 whipped for offences they had committed. An orator bought 
 me, when a child, and finding me a pretty and hopeful boy, 
 bred me up, and when he died left me all his estate, which 
 I have transported into this city of Athens, and here settled 
 myself to the study of philosophy. Let the historians never 
 trouble themselves with inquiring about me : I will tell 
 them about it." A free and generous confession enervates 
 reproach, and disarms slander. So it is, that, one thing 
 with another, I fancy men as often commend as undervalue, 
 me beyond reason ; as, methinks also, from my childhood, 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, iv. 46. 
 
262 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 in rank and degree of honour, they have given me a place 
 rather above than below my right. I should find myself 
 more at ease in a country where these degrees were either 
 regulated or not regarded. Amongst men, when an alter- 
 cation about the precedence either of walking or sitting 
 exceeds three replies, 'tis reputed uncivil. I never stick at 
 giving or taking place out of rule, to avoid the trouble of 
 such ceremony ; and never any man had a mind to go before 
 me, but I permitted him to do it. 
 
 Besides this profit I make of writing of myself, I have 
 also hoped for this other advantage, that if it should fall 
 out that my humour should please or jump with those of 
 some honest man before I die, he would then desire and 
 seek to be acquainted with me. I have given him a great 
 deal of made-way; for all that he could have, in many years, 
 acquired by close familiarity, he has seen in three days in 
 this memorial, and more surely and exactly. A pleasant 
 fancy : many things that I would not confess to any one in 
 particular, I deliver to the public, and send my best friends 
 to a bookseller's shop, there to inform themselves concerning 
 my most secret thoughts ; 
 
 " Excutienda damns prsecordia." 1 
 
 Did I, by good direction, know where to seek any one 
 proper for my conversation, I should certainly go a great 
 way to find him out : for the sweetness of suitable and 
 agreeable company cannot, in my opinion, be bought too 
 dear. Oh ! what a thing is a true friend ! how true is 
 that old saying, that the use of a friend is more pleasing 
 and necessary than the elements of water and fire ! 
 
 To return to my subject : there is, then, no great harm 
 in dying privately, and far from home ; we conceive our- 
 selves obliged to retire for natural actions less unseemly, 
 
 1 " We give our hearts to be examined." — Persius, V. 22. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 263 
 
 and less terrible than this. But, moreover, such as are 
 reduced to spin out a long languishing life, ought not, per- 
 haps, to wish to trouble a great family with their continual 
 miseries ; therefore the Indians, in a certain province, 
 thought it just to knock a man on the head when reduced 
 to such a necessity; and in another of their provinces, they 
 all forsook him to shift for himself as well as he could. To 
 whom do they not, at last, become tedious and insupport- 
 able ? the ordinary offices of life do not go that length. 
 You teach your best friends to be cruel perforce ; harden- 
 ing wife and children by long use neither to regard nor 
 to lament your sufferings. The groans of the stone are 
 grown so familiar to my people, that nobody takes any 
 notice of them. And though we should extract some pleasure 
 from their conversation (which does not always happen, by 
 reason of the disparity of conditions, which easily begets 
 contempt or envy toward any one whatever), is it not 
 too much to make abuse of this half a lifetime ? The 
 more I should see them constrain themselves out of affec- 
 tion to be serviceable to me, the more I should be sorry 
 for their pains. We have liberty to lean, but not to 
 lay our whole weight upon others, so as to prop our- 
 selves by their ruin; like him who caused little children's 
 throats to be cut to make use of their blood for the cure of 
 a disease he had, or that other, who was continually supplied 
 with tender young girls to keep his old limbs warm in the 
 night, and to mix the sweetness of their breath with his, 
 sour and stinking. 1 Decrepitude is a solitary quality. I 
 am sociable even to excess, yet I think it reasonable that 
 I should now withdraw my troubles from the sight of the 
 world, and keep them to myself. Let me shrink and draw 
 
 1 In the edition of 1588 Montaigne here adds: " I should readily advise 
 Venice as a retreat in this decrepitude of life." 
 
264 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 up myself in my own shell, like a tortoise, and learn to 
 see men without hanging upon them. I should endanger 
 them in so slippery a passage : 'tis time to turn my back to 
 company. 
 
 " But, in these travels, you will be taken ill in some 
 wretched place, where nothing can be had to relieve you." I 
 always carry most things necessary about me ; and besides, 
 we cannot evade Fortune if she once resolves to attack us. 
 I need nothing extraordinary when I am sick. I will not be 
 beholden to my bolus to do that for me which nature cannot. 
 At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast 
 me down, whilst still entire, and but little disordered in 
 health, I reconcile myself to Almighty God by the last 
 Christian offices, and find myself by so doing less oppressed 
 and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much the better 
 of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or 
 counsellor than of a physician. What I have not settled of 
 my affairs when I was in health, let no one expect I should 
 do it when I am sick. What I will do for the service of 
 death is always done ; I durst not so much as one clay 
 defer it ; and if nothing be done, 'tis as much as to say 
 either that doubt hindered my choice (and sometimes 'tis 
 well chosen not to choose), or that I was positively resolved 
 not to do anything at all. 
 
 I write my book for few men and for few years. Had 
 it been matter of duration, I should have put it into firmer 
 language. According to the continual variation that ours 
 has been subject to, up to this day, who can expect that its 
 present form should be in use fifty years hence ? It slips 
 every day through our fingers, and since I was born, it is 
 altered above one-half. We say that it is now perfect ; and 
 every age says the same of its own. I shall hardly trust 
 to that, so long as it varies and changes as it does. 'Tis for 
 good and useful writings to rivet it to them, and its reputation 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 265 
 
 will go according to the fortune of our state. For which 
 reason I am not afraid to insert in it several private articles, 
 which will spend their use amongst the men that are now 
 living, and that concern the particular knowledge of some 
 who will see further into them than every common reader. 
 I will not, after all, as I often hear dead men spoken of, 
 that men should say of me : " He judged, he lived so and 
 so ; he would have done this or that ; could he have spoken 
 when he was dying, he would have said so or so, and have 
 given this thing or t'other ; I knew him better than any." 
 JSTow, as much as decency permits, I here discover my 
 inclinations and affections ; but I do it more willingly and 
 freely by word of mouth to any one who desires to be 
 informed. So it is that in these memoirs, if any one ob- 
 serve, he will find that I have either told or designed to 
 tell all; what I cannot express, I point out with my 
 finger ; 
 
 " Verum airimo satis hsec vestigia parva sagaci 
 Sunt, per quse possis cognoscere csetera tute." 1 
 
 I leave nothing to be desired, or to be guessed at, concern- 
 ing me. If people must be talking of me, I would have it 
 to be justly and truly ; I would come again, with all my 
 heart, from the other world to give any one the lie who 
 should report me other than I was, though he did it to 
 honour me. I perceive that people represent, even living 
 men, quite another thing than what they really are ; and 
 had I not stoutly defended a friend, whom I have lost, 2 they 
 would have torn him into a thousand contrary pieces. 
 
 To conclude the account of my poor humours, I confess 
 that in my travels I seldom reach my inn but that it 
 comes into my mind to consider whether I could there 
 
 1 " By these footsteps a sagacious mind may easily find all other matters." — 
 Lucretius, i. 403. 
 
 2 De la Boetie. 
 
266 Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 be sick, and dying, at my ease. I desire to be lodged 
 in some private part of the house, remote from all noise, 
 ill scents, and smoke. I endeavour to flatter death by 
 these frivolous circumstances ; or, to say better, to dis- 
 charge myself from all other incumbrances, that I may 
 have nothing to do, nor be troubled -with anything but that, 
 which will lie heavy enough upon me without any other 
 load. I would have my death share in the ease and con- 
 veniences of my life ; 'tis a great part of it, and of great 
 importance, and I hope it will not in the future contradict 
 the past. Death has some forms that are more easy than 
 others, and receives divers qualities, according to every one's 
 fancy. Amongst the natural deaths, that which proceeds 
 from weakness and stupor I think the most favourable ; 
 amongst those that are violent, I can worse endure to think 
 of a precipice than of the fall of a house that will crush me 
 in a moment, and of a wound with a sword than of a harque- 
 bus shot ; I should rather have chosen to poison myself with 
 Socrates, than stab myself with Cato. And, though it be 
 all one, yet my imagination makes as great a difference as 
 betwixt death and life, betwixt throwing myself into a 
 burning furnace and plunging into the channel of a river : 
 so idly does our fear more concern itself in the means 
 than the effect. It is but an instant, 'tis true, but withal 
 an instant of such weight, that I would willingly give a 
 great many days of my life to pass it over after my own 
 fashion. Since every one's imagination renders it more or 
 less terrible, and since every one has some choice amongst 
 the several forms of dying, let us try a little further to find 
 some one that is wholly clear from all offence. Might not 
 one render it even voluptuous, as they did who died with 
 Antony and Cleopatra I 1 I set aside the brave and exem- 
 
 1 Montaigne refers to the society of Synapothanoumenes, " bands of those who 
 would die together, " formed by Antony and Cleopatra after the battle of Actium, 
 and who engaged to die with them. — Plutarch, Life of Antony, c. 15. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 267 
 
 plary efforts produced by philosophy and religion ; but, 
 amongst men of little mark, there have been found some, 
 such as Petronius and Tigellinus at Eome, 1 condemned to 
 despatch themselves, who have, as it were, rocked death 
 asleep with the delicacy of their preparations ; they have 
 made it slip and steal away- in the height of their accus- 
 tomed diversions, amongst girls and good fellows ; not a 
 word of consolation, no mention of making a will, no ambi- 
 tious affectation of constancy, no talk of their future con- 
 dition ; amongst sports, feastings, wit, and mirth, common 
 and indifferent discourses, music, and amorous verses. Were 
 it not possible for us to imitate this resolution, after a more 
 decent manner? Since there are deaths that are good for 
 fools, deaths good for the wise, let us find out such as are fit 
 for those who are betwixt both. My imagination suggests to 
 me one that is easy, and, since we must die, to be desired. 
 The Eoman tyrants thought they did, in a manner, give 
 a criminal life, when they gave him the choice of his death. 
 But was not Theophrastus, that so delicate, so modest, and 
 so wise a philosopher, compelled by reason when he durst 
 say this verse, translated by Cicero, 
 
 " Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia 1 " 2 
 
 Fortune assists the facility of the bargain of my life, having 
 placed it in such a condition that for the future it can be 
 neither advantage nor hindrance to those who are concerned 
 in me ; 'tis a condition that I would have accepted at any 
 time of my life ; but in this occasion of trussing up my 
 baggage, . I am particularly pleased that in dying I shall 
 neither do them good nor harm. She has so ordered it, by 
 a cunning compensation, that they who may pretend to any 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annal., xvi. 19; Hist., i. 72. 
 
 2 "Fortune, not wisdom, sways human life." — Cicero, Tusc. Quffis., V. 31. 
 
268 . Of Vanity. [Book ill. 
 
 considerable advantage by my deatli will, at the same time, 
 sustain a material inconvenience. Deatli sometimes is more 
 grievous to us, in that it is grievous to others, and interests 
 us in their interest as much as in our own, and sometimes 
 more. 
 
 In this conveniency of lodging that I desire, I mix 
 nothing of pomp and amplitude — I hate it rather ; but a 
 certain plain neatness, which is oftenest found in places 
 where there is less of art, and that Nature has adorned with 
 some grace that is all her own. " Non ampliter, sed mun- 
 diter convivium." 1 " Plus salis quain sumptus." 2 And 
 besides, 'tis for those whose affairs compel them to travel in 
 the depth of winter through the Grisons country, to be sur- 
 prised upon the way with great inconveniences. I, who for 
 the most part travel for my pleasure, do not order my affairs 
 so ill. If the way be foul on my right hand, I turn on my 
 left ; if I find myself unfit to ride, I stay where I am ; and, 
 so doing, in earnest I see nothing that is not as pleasant 
 and commodious as my own house. 'Tis true, that I always 
 find superfluity superfluous, and observe a kind of trouble 
 even in abundance itself. Have I left anything behind me 
 unseen, I go back to see it ; 'tis still on my way ; I trace 
 no certain line, either straight or crooked. 3 Do I not find 
 in the place to which I go what was reported to me — as it 
 often falls out that the judgments of others do not jump 
 with mine, and that I have found their reports for the most 
 part false — I never complain of losing my labour : I have, 
 at least, informed myself that what was told me was not 
 true. 
 
 I have a constitution of body as free, and a palate as 
 indifferent, as any man living : the diversity of manners 
 
 1 " To eat not largely, but cleanly." — Nepos, Life of Atticus, c. 13. 
 
 2 "Rather enough than costly." — Nonius, xi. 19. 
 
 3 Rousseau has translated this passage in his Eraile, Book V. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 269 
 
 of several nations only affects me in the pleasure of 
 variety : every usage has its reason. Let the plate and 
 dishes he pewter, wood, or earth ; my meat be "boiled or 
 roasted ; let them give me butter or oil, of nuts or olives, 
 hot or cold, 'tis all one to me ; and so indifferent, that grow- 
 ing old, I accuse this generous faculty, and would wish that 
 delicacy and choice should correct the indiscretion of my 
 appetite, and sometimes help my stomach. When I have 
 been abroad out of France, and that people, out of courtesy, 
 have asked me if I would be served after the French 
 manner, I laughed at the question, and always frequented 
 tables the most filled with foreigners. I am ashamed to see 
 my countrymen besotted with this foolish humour of quar- 
 relling with forms contrary to their own ; they seem to be 
 out of their element, when out of their own village : where- 
 ever they go, they keep to their own fashions, and abominate 
 those of strangers. Do they meet with a compatriot in 
 Hungary ? the happy chance ! They are thenceforward 
 inseparable ; they cling together, and their whole discourse 
 is to condemn the barbarous manners they see about them. 
 And why barbarous, but because they are not French ? And 
 those have made the best use of their travels, who have 
 observed most to speak against. Most of them go, for no 
 other end but to come back again ; they proceed in their 
 travel with vast gravity and circumspection, with a silent 
 and incommunicable prudence, preserving themselves from 
 the contagion of an unknown air. What I am saying of 
 them puts me in mind of something like it I have at times 
 observed in some of our young courtiers ; they will not mix 
 with any but men of their own sort, and look upon us as 
 men of another world, with disdain or pity. Put them upon 
 any discourse but the intrigues of the court, and they are 
 utterly at a loss ; as very owls and novices to us as we 
 are to them. "lis truly said, that a well-bred man is a 
 
2 JO Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 compound man. I, on the contrary, travel very much 
 sated with our own fashions ; I do not look for Gascons in 
 Sicily ; I have left enough of them at home ; I rather seek 
 for Greeks and Persians ; they are the men I endeavour to 
 be acquainted with, and the men I study; 'tis there that I 
 bestow and employ myself. And which is more, I fancy 
 that I have met but with few customs that are not as good 
 as our own ; I have not, I confess, travelled very far ; scarce 
 out of the sight of the vanes of my own house. 
 
 As to the rest, most of the accidental company a man 
 falls into upon the road, beget him more trouble than plea- 
 sure ; I waive them as much as I civilly can, especially 
 now that age seems in some sort to privilege and sequester 
 me from the common forms. You suffer for others, or 
 others suffer for you ; both of them inconveniences of im- 
 portance enough, but the latter appears to me the greater. 
 'Tis a rare fortune, but of inestimable solace, to have a 
 worthy man, one of a sound judgment, and of manners con- 
 formable to your own, who takes a delight to bear you 
 company. I have been at an infinite loss for such upon my 
 travels. But such a companion should be chosen and 
 acquired from your first setting out. There can be no 
 pleasure to me without communication : there is not so 
 much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it 
 does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have 
 no one to communicate it to. " Si cum hac exceptione de- 
 tur sapientia, ut illam inclusam teneam, nee enuntiem, 
 rejiciam." 1 This other has strained it one note higher : 
 " Si contigerit ea vita sapienti ut omnium rerum affiuenti- 
 bus copiis, quamvis omnia, quae cognitione digna sunt, summo 
 otio secum ipse consideret et contempletur, tamen, si soli- 
 
 1 " If wisdom were conferred with this condition, that I must keep it to my- 
 self, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it." — Seneca, Ep. 6. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 2 7 1 
 
 tudo tanta sit, ut honiineni videre non possit, excedat e 
 vita." x Arcliitas pleases me when he says, " that it would 
 be unpleasant even in heaven itself, to wander in those 
 great and divine celestial bodies without a companion." 2 But 
 yet 'tis much better to be alone, than in foolish and trouble- 
 some company. Aristippus loved to live as a stranger in 
 all places : 
 
 " Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam. 
 Auspiciis," 3 
 
 I should choose to pass away the greatest part of my life on 
 horseback, 
 
 " Visere gestiens, 
 Qua parte debacchentur ignes, 
 Qua nebulae, pluviique rores." i 
 
 " Have you not more easy diversions at home ? What do 
 you there want ? Is not your house situated in a sweet 
 and healthful air, sufficiently furnished, and more than 
 sufficiently large ? Has not the royal majesty been more 
 than once there entertained with all its train ? Are there 
 not more below your family in good ease than there are 
 above it in eminence ? Is there any local, extraordinary, 
 indigestible thought that afflicts you ? " 
 
 " Quae te nunc coquat, et vexet sub pectore fixa." 6 
 
 1 " If such a condition of life should happen to a wise man, that in the 
 greatest plenty of all conveniences he might, at the most undisturbed leisure, 
 consider and contemplate all things worth the knowing, yet if his solitude be 
 such that he must not see a man, he had much better die." — Cicero, De 
 Offic, i. 43. 
 
 2 Cicero, De Amicit., c. 23. 
 
 3 "If the fates would let me live in my own way." — ^Eneid, iv. 340. 
 
 4 "Visit the regions where the sun burns, where are the thick rain-clouds 
 and the frosts." — Horace, Od. iii. 3, 54. 
 
 5 "That in your breast troubles and wears you." — Cicero, De Senect., c. 1. 
 Ex Ennio. 
 
272. Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 " "Where do you think to .live without disturbance ? " " Nun- 
 quam simpliciter Fortuna indulget." 1 You see, then, it 
 is only you that trouble yourself ; you will everywhere 
 follow yourself, and everywhere complain ; for there is no 
 satisfaction here below, but either for brutish or for "divine 
 souls. He who, on so just an occasion, has no contentment, 
 where will he think to find it ? How many thousands of 
 men terminate their wishes in such a condition as yours ? 
 Do but reform yourself; for that is wholly in your own power! 
 whereas you have no other right but patience towards fortune ; 
 " Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam ratio composuit." 2 
 
 I see the reason of this advice, and see it perfectly well ; 
 but he might sooner have done, and more pertinently, in 
 bidding me in one word, be wise ; that resolution is beyond 
 wisdom ; 'tis her precise work and product. Thus the 
 physician keeps preaching to a poor languishing patient to 
 " be cheerful ; " but he would advise him a little more dis- 
 cretely in bidding him " be well." For my part, I am but 
 a man of the common sort. Tis a wholesome precept, 
 certain, and easy to be understood, " Be content with what 
 you have," that is to say, with reason : and yet to follow 
 this advice is no more in the power of the wise men of the 
 world than in me. 'Tis a common saying, but of a terrible 
 extent : what does it not comprehend ? All things fall under 
 discretion and qualification. I know very well that, to take 
 it by the letter, this pleasure of travelling is a testimony of 
 uneasiness and irresolution, and, in sooth, these two are our 
 governing and predominating qualities. Yes, I confess, I see 
 nothing, not so much as in a dream, in a wish, whereon I 
 could set up my rest : variety only, and the possession of 
 diversity, can satisfy me ; that is, if anything can. In 
 
 1 "Fortune's favours are never unmixed." — Quintus Curtius, iv. 14. 
 
 2 " There is no tranquillity but that which reason confers." — Senec, 
 Ep. 56. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 273 
 
 travelling, it pleases me that I may stay where I like, without 
 inconvenience, and that I have a place wherein commodiously 
 to divert myself. I love a private life, because 'tis my own 
 choice that I love it, not by any dissenting from or dislike 
 of public life, which, peradventure, is as much according to 
 my complexion. I serve my prince more cheerfully, because 
 it is by the free election of my own judgment and reason, 
 without any particular obligation ; and that I am not reduced 
 and constrained so to do for being rejected or disliked by the 
 other party ; and so of all the rest. I hate the morsels that 
 necessity carves me ; any commodity upon which I had only 
 to depend would have me by the throat : 
 
 " Alter remus aquas, alter milii radat arenas ; " x 
 
 one cord will never hold me fast enough. You will say, 
 
 there is vanity in this way of living. But where is there 
 
 not ? All these fine precepts are vanity, and all wisdom is 
 
 vanity : " Dominus novit cogitationes sapientum, quoniam 
 
 vanae sunt." 2 These exquisite subtleties are only fit for 
 
 sermons ; they are discourses that will send us all saddled 
 
 into the other world. Life is a material and corporal 
 
 motion, an action imperfect and irregular of its own proper 
 
 essence ; I make it my business to serve it according to 
 
 itself. 
 
 " Quisque suos patimur manes." 3 
 
 " Sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam universam nihil 
 contendamus ; ea tamen conservata, propriam sequamur." 4 
 To what end are these elevated points of philosophy, upon 
 
 1 " Let me have one oar in the water, and with the other rake the shore." — 
 Propertius, iii. 3, 23. 
 
 2 " The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." — 
 Ps. xciii. 11 ; 1 Cor. iii. 20. 
 
 3 " We each of us suffer our own particular demon." — ./Eneid, vi. 743. 
 
 4 " We must so order it as by no means to contend against universal nature ; 
 but yet, that rule being observed, to follow our own." — Cicero, De Offic, i. 31. 
 
 VOL. III. S 
 
2 74 ' Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 which no human being can rely ? and those rules that exceed 
 both our use and force ? 
 
 I see often that we have theories of life set before us 
 which neither the proposer, nor those who hear him, have any 
 hope nor, which is more, any inclination to follow. Of the 
 same sheet of paper whereon the judge has but just written 
 a sentence against an adulterer, he steals a piece whereon to 
 write a love-letter to his companion's wife. She whom you 
 have but just now illicitly embraced, will presently, even in 
 your own hearing, more loudly inveigh against the same 
 fault in her companion, than a Portia would do ; 1 and men 
 there are who will condemn others to death for crimes, that 
 they themselves do not repute so much as faults. I have, in 
 my youth, seen a man of good rank 2 with one hand present 
 to the people verses that excelled both in wit and debauchery, 
 and with the other, at the same time, the most ripe and 
 pugnacious theological reformation that the world has been 
 treated withal these many years. And so men proceed ; we 
 let the laws and precepts follow their way ; ourselves keep 
 another course, not only from debauchery of manners, but 
 ofttimes by judgment and contrary opinion. Do but hear a 
 philosophical lecture ; the invention, eloquence, pertinency 
 immediately strike upon your mind, and move you ; there is 
 nothing that touches or stings your conscience ; 'tis not to 
 this they address themselves. Is not this true ? It made 
 Aristo say, that neither a bath nor a lecture did aught, unless 
 it scoured and made men clean ? 3 One may stop at the out- 
 ward skin ; but it is after the marrow is picked out : as, after 
 we have quaffed off the wine out of a fine cup, we examine 
 the designs and workmanship. In all the courts of ancient 
 philosophy, this is to be found, that the same teacher 
 
 1 The chaste daughter of Cato of Utica. 
 
 2 No doubt Theodore Beza. 
 
 3 Plutarch on Hearing, c. 3. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 275 
 
 publishes rules of temperance, and at the same time lessons 
 in love and wantonness : Xenophon, in the very bosom of 
 Clinias, wrote agaiust the Aristippic virtue. "lis not that 
 there is any miraculous conversion in it that makes them 
 thus wavering ; 'tis that Solon represents himself, sometimes 
 hi his own person, and sometimes in that of a legislator ; 
 one while he speaks for the crowd, and another for himself; 
 taking the free and natural rules for his own share, feeling 
 assured of a firm and entire health : 
 
 " Curentur dubii medicis majoribus eegri." x 
 
 Antisthenes 2 allows a sage to love, and to do whatever he 
 thinks convenient, without regard to the laws ; forasmuch as 
 he is better advised than they, and has a greater knowledge 
 of virtue. His disciple Diogenes said, 3 that " men to pertur- 
 bations were to oppose reason ; to fortune, courage ; to the 
 laws, nature." For tender stomachs, constrained and artificial 
 recipes must be prescribed : good and strong stomachs serve 
 themselves simply with the prescriptions of their own natural 
 appetite ; after this manner do our physicians proceed, who 
 eat melons and drink iced wines, whilst they confine their 
 patients to syrups and sops. " I know not," said the 
 courtezan Lais, " what they may talk of books, wisdom, and 
 philosophy ; but these men knock as often at my door as any 
 others." At the same rate that our licence carries us beyond 
 what is lawful and allowed, men have, often beyond uni- 
 versal reason, stretched the precepts and rules of our life : 
 
 " Nemo satis credit tantum delinquere, quantum 
 Permittas." 4 
 
 It were to be wished that there was more proportion 
 
 1 " Desperate maladies require the best doctors." — Juvenal, xiii. 124. 
 
 2 Diogenes Laertius, vi. II. 3 Idem, ibid, 38. 
 
 4 "No one thinks he has done ill to the full extent of what he may." — 
 Juvenal, xiv. 233. 
 
276 Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 betwixt .the command and the obedience ; and the mark 
 seems to be unjust to which one cannot attain. There is 
 no so good man, who so squares all his thoughts and actions 
 to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging 
 ten times in his life ; and he may well be such a one, as it 
 were great injustice and great harm to punish and ruin : 
 
 " Ole, quid ad te 
 De cute quid faciat ille, vel ilia sua 1 " x 
 
 and such a one there may be, who has no way offended the 
 laws, who, nevertheless, would not deserve the character of a 
 virtuous man, and whom philosophy would justly condemn 
 to be whipped ; so unequal and perplexed is this relation. 
 We are so far from being good men, according to the laws 
 of God, that we cannot be so according to our own : human 
 wisdom never yet arrived at the duties it had itself pre- 
 scribed ; and could it arrive there, it would still prescribe to 
 itself others beyond, to which it would ever aspire and pre- 
 tend ; so great an enemy to consistency is our human con- 
 dition. Man enjoins himself to be necessarily in fault : he 
 is not very discreet to cut out his own duty, by the measure 
 of another being than his own. To whom does he prescribe 
 that which he does not expect any one should perform ? 
 is he unjust in not doing what it is impossible for him to 
 do ? The laws which condemn us not to be able, condemn 
 us for not being able. 
 
 At the worst, this difform liberty of presenting ourselves 
 two several ways, the actions after one manner, and the 
 reasoning after another, may be allowed to those who only 
 speak of things ; but it cannot be allowed to those who 
 speak of themselves, as I do : I must march my pen as I 
 
 1 " Olus, what is it to thee what he or she does with their skin." — Martial, 
 vii. 9, 1. 
 
Chap. 9-] Of Vanity. 277 
 
 do my feet. The common life ought to have relation to 
 the other lives : the virtue of Cato was vigorous beyond the 
 reason of the age he lived in ; and for a man who made it 
 his business to govern others, a man dedicated to the public 
 service, it might be called a justice, if not unjust, at least 
 vain, and out of season. Even my own manners, which 
 differ not above an inch from those current amongst us, 
 render me, nevertheless, a little rough and unsociable at my 
 age. I know not whether it be without reason that I am 
 disgusted with the world I frequent ; but I know very well 
 that it would be without reason, should I complain of its 
 being disgusted with me, seeing I am so with it. The 
 virtue that is assigned to the affairs of the world, is a 
 virtue of many wavings, corners, and elbows, to join and 
 adapt itself to human frailty, mixed and artificial, not 
 straight, clear, constant, nor purely innocent. Our annals 
 to this very clay reproach one of our khigs for suffering him- 
 self too simply to be carried away by the conscientious 
 persuasions of his confessor : affairs of state have bolder 
 precepts ; 
 
 '• Exeat aula 
 Qui vult esse pius." x 
 
 I formerly tried to employ in the service of public affairs, 
 opinions and rules of living, as rough, new, unpolished or 
 unpolluted, as they were either born with me, or brought 
 away from my education, and wherewith I serve my own 
 turn, if not so commodiously, at least securely, in my own 
 particular concerns : a scholastic and novice virtue ; but I 
 have found them unapt and dangerous. He who goes into 
 a crowd, must now go one way, and then another, keep his 
 elbows close, retire, or advance, and quit the straight way, 
 
 1 " Let him who will be pious retire from the court." — Lucan, viii. 493. 
 
278 Of Vanity. [Book ii!. 
 
 according to what he encounters ; and must live not so 
 much according to his own method, as to that of others ; 
 not according to what he proposes to himself, but according 
 to what is proposed to him, according to the time, according 
 to the men, according to the occasions. Plato says, 1 that 
 whoever escapes from the world's handling with clean 
 breeches, escapes by miracle : and says withal, that when he 
 appoints his philosopher the head of a government, he does 
 not mean a corrupt one like that of Athens, and much less 
 such a one as this of ours, wherein wisdom itself would 
 be to seek. A good herb, transplanted into a soil contrary 
 to its own nature, much sooner conforms itself to the soil, 
 than it reforms the soil to it. I find, that if I had wholly 
 to apply myself to such employments, it would require a 
 great deal of change and new modelling in me, before I 
 could be any way fit for it. And though I could so far 
 prevail upon myself (and why might I not with time and 
 diligence work such a feat), I would not do it. The little 
 trial I have had of public employment has been so much 
 disgust to me ; I feel at times temptations toward ambition 
 rising in my soul ; but I obstinately oppose them : " 
 
 " At tu, Catulle, obstinatus obdura." 2 
 
 I am seldom called to it, and as seldom offer myself un- 
 called ; liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant 
 in me, are qualities diametrically contrary to that trade. 
 "We cannot well distinguish the faculties of men : they have 
 divisions and limits hard and delicate to choose : to conclude 
 from the discreet conduct of a private life, a capacity for the 
 management of public affairs, is to conclude ill ; a man may 
 govern himself well, who cannot govern others so ; and com- 
 
 1 Republic, vi. 
 
 3 "But thou, Catullus, be thou firm to the last." — Catullus, viii. 19. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 2 79 
 
 pose Essays, who could not work effects : men there may be 
 who can order a siege well, who would ill marshal a battle ; 
 who can speak well in private, who would ill harangue a 
 people or a prince ; nay, 'tis peradventure rather a testi- 
 mony in him, who can do the one, that he cannot do the 
 other, than otherwise. I find that elevated souls are not 
 much more proper for mean things, than mean souls are for 
 high ones. Could it be imagined that Socrates should have 
 administered occasion of laughter, at the expense of his own 
 reputation, to the Athenians, for having never been able to 
 sum up the votes of his tribe, to deliver it to the council ? 
 Truly, the veneration I have for the perfections of this 
 great man deserves that his fortune should furnish, for the 
 excuse of my principal imperfections, so magnificent an 
 example. Our sufficiency is cut out into small parcels ; 
 mine has no latitude, and is also very contemptible in num- 
 ber. Saturninus, 1 to those who had conferred upon him 
 the command hi chief, " Companions," said he, " you have 
 lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general." 
 
 Whoever boasts, in so sick a time as this, to employ a 
 true and sincere virtue in the world's service, either knows 
 not what it is, opinions growing corrupt with manners (and, 
 in truth, to hear them describe it, to hear the most of them 
 glorify themselves in their deportments, and lay down 
 their rules ; instead of painting virtue, they paint pure vice 
 and injustice, and so represent it false in the education of 
 princes) ; or if he does know it, boasts unjustly and let him 
 say what he will, does a thousand things of which his own 
 conscience must necessarily accuse him. I should willingly 
 take Seneca's word of the experience he made upon the 
 like occasion, provided he would deal sincerely with me. 
 
 1 One of the thirty tyrants in the time of the Emperor Gallienus. — Trebel- 
 lius Pollio, Trig.-Tyr., c. 23. 
 
280 Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 The most honourable mark of goodness in such a necessity, 
 is freely to confess both one's own faults and those of others ; 
 with the power of its virtue to stay one's inclination to- 
 wards evil ; unwillingly to follow this propension ; to hope 
 better, to desire better. I perceive that in these divisions 
 wherein we are involved in France, every one labours to 
 defend his cause ; but, even the very best of them with 
 dissimulation and disguise : he, who would write roundly 
 of the true state of the quarrel, would write rashly and 
 wrongly. The most just party is at best but a member 
 of a decayed and worm-eaten body; but of such a body, 
 the member that is least affected, calls itself sound, and 
 with good reason, forasmuch as our qualities have no title 
 but in comparison ; civil innocence is measured according 
 to times and places. Imagine this in Xenophon, related as 
 a fine commendation of Agesilaus : that, being entreated by 
 a neighbouring prince with whom he had formerly had war, 
 to permit him to pass through his country, he granted his 
 request, giving him free passage through Peloponnesus ; and 
 not only did not imprison or poison him, being at his 
 mercy, but courteously received him according to the obli- 
 gation of his promise, without doing him the least injury or 
 offence. To such ideas as theirs this were an act of no 
 especial note ; elsewhere, and in another age, the frankness 
 and magnanimity of such an action would be thought won- 
 derful ; our crack-rope capets 1 would have laughed at it, 
 so little does the Spartan innocence resemble that of France. 
 We are not without virtuous men, but 'tis according to our 
 notions of virtue. Whoever has his manners established in 
 regularity above the standard of the age he lives in, let him 
 either wrest or blunt his rules, or, which I would rather 
 
 1 Capets, so called from their short capes, were the students of Montaigne 
 College at Paris, and were held in great contempt. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity, 28 1 
 
 advise liim to, let him retire, and not meddle with us at all. 
 what will he get by it ? 
 
 " Egregiuru sanctumque virum si cerno, bimembri 
 Hoc nionstruni puero, et miranti jam sub aratro 
 Piscibus mventis, et fcetse comparo raulse." 1 
 
 One may. regret better times, but cannot fly from the pre- 
 sent ; we may wish for other magistrates, but we must, 
 notwithstanding, obey those we have ; and, peradventure, 
 'tis more laudable to obey the bad than the good. So long 
 as the image of the ancient and received laws of this 
 monarchy shall shine in any corner of the kingdom, there 
 will I be. If they unfortunately happen to thwart and 
 contradict one another, so as to produce two parts, of doubt- 
 ful and difficult choice, I will willingly choose to withdraw 
 and escape the tempest ; in the meantime nature or the 
 hazards of war may lend me a helping hand. Betwixt 
 Caesar and Pompey, I should frankly have declared myself ; 
 but, as amongst the three robbers who came after, 2 a man 
 must have been necessitated either to hide himself, or have 
 gone along with the current of the time ; which I think one 
 may fairly do when reason no longer guides. 
 
 " Quo diversus abis I" 3 
 
 This medley is a little from my subject ; I go out of my 
 way ; but 'tis rather by licence than oversight ; my fancies 
 follow one another, but sometimes at a great distance, and 
 look towards one another, but 'tis with an oblique glance. 
 I have read a dialogue of Plato, 4 of the like motley and fan- 
 tastic composition, the beginning about love, and all the 
 
 1 "If I should happen to see an exemplary and good man, I should be 
 astonished at the prodigy, and liken it to a two-headed boy, or a fish turned 
 up by the plough, or a teeming mule." — Juvenal, xiii. 64. 
 
 2 Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus. 
 
 3 " Whither dost thou run wandering." — ^Eneid, V. 166. 
 
 4 The Phsedrus. 
 
282 Of Vanity. [Book i 
 
 111. 
 
 rest to the end about rhetoric ; they stick not at these varia- 
 tions, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves be 
 carried away at the pleasure of the wind, or at least to seem 
 as if they were. The titles of my chapters do not always 
 comprehend the whole matter ; they often denote it by some 
 mark only, as these others, Andria, the Eunuchus ; x or these, 
 Sylla, Cicero, Torcpiatus. I love a poetic progress, by leaps 
 and skips ; 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble, demoniac. 2 
 There are pieces in Plutarch where he forgets his theme ; 
 where the proposition of his argument is only found by 
 incidence, stuffed and half stifled in foreign matter. Do 
 but observe his footings in the Deemon of Socrates. Lord ! 
 how beautiful are these frolicsome sallies, those variations 
 and digressions, and then, most of all, when they seem 
 most fortuitous, and introduced for want of heed. 'Tis the 
 indiligent reader who loses my subject, and not I ; there 
 will always be found some words or other in a corner, that 
 is to the purpose, though it lie very close. I ramble indis- 
 creetly and tumultuously ; my style and my wit wander at 
 the same rate. He must fool it a little who would not be 
 deemed wholly a fool, say both the precepts, and, still more, 
 the examples of our masters. A thousand poets flag and 
 languish after a prosaic manner ; but the best old prose (and 
 I strew it here up and down indifferently for verse) shines 
 throughout with the lustre, vigour and boldness of poetry, 
 and not without some air of its fury. And certainly prose 
 ought to have the pre-eminence in speaking. The poet, 
 says Plato, 3 seated upon the muses' tripod, pours out with 
 fury whatever comes into his mouth, like the pipe of a 
 fountain, without considering and weighing it ; and things 
 escape him of various colours, of contrary substance, and 
 with an irregular torrent. Plato himself is throughout 
 
 1 Of Terence. 2 i.e., Supernatural. 3 Laws, iv. 
 
Chap. 9. ] Of Vanity. 28 
 
 o 
 
 poetical; and the old theology, as the learned tell us, is 
 all poetry ; and the first philosophy is the original lan- 
 guage of the gods. I would have my matter distinguish 
 itself; it sufficiently shows where it changes, where it con- 
 cludes, where it begins, and where it rejoins, without inter- 
 lacing it with words of connection introduced for the relief 
 of weak or negligent ears, and without explaining myself. 
 Who is he that had not rather not he read at all, than after 
 a drowsy or cursory manner ? " Nihil est tarn utile, quod 
 in transitu prosit." 1 If to take a book in hand were to 
 take it in head ; 2 to look upon it were to consider it ; and 
 to run it slightly over were to make it a man's own, I were 
 then to blame to make myself out so ignorant as I say I 
 am. Seeing I cannot fix the attention of my reader by the 
 weight of what I write, manco male, I am much mistaken 
 if I should chance to do it by my intricacies. " Nay, but he 
 will afterwards repent that he ever perplexed himself about 
 it." 'Tis very true, but he will yet be there perplexed. 
 And, besides, there are some humours in which intelligence 
 produces disdain ; who will think better of me for not 
 understanding what I say, and will conclude the depth of 
 my sense by its obscurity ; which, to speak in good sooth, 
 I mortally hate, and would avoid it if I could. Aristotle 
 boasts somewhere in his writings 3 that he affected it : a 
 vicious affectation. The frequent breaks into chapters that 
 I made my method in the beginning of my book, having 
 since seemed to me to dissolve the attention before it was 
 raised, as making it disdain to settle itself to so little, 
 I, upon that account, have made them longer, such as 
 require proposition and assigned leisure. In such an em- 
 
 1 " Nothing can be so profitable, as to be so when negligently read." — 
 Seneca, Ep. 2. 
 
 2 " Si prendre des livres, estoit les apprendre;" which Cotton renders: 
 " If to take a book in hand were to read it." 
 
 3 Aulus Gellius, xx. 5. 
 
284 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 ployment, to whom you will not give an hour you give 
 nothing ; and you do nothing for him for whom you only 
 do it whilst you are doing something else. To which may 
 be added that I have, peradventure, some particular obli- 
 gation to speak only by halves, to speak confusedly and 
 discordantly. I am therefore angry at this trouble-feast 
 reason, and its extravagant projects that worry one's life, 
 and its opinions, so fine and subtle, though they be all 
 true ; I think too dear bought and too inconvenient. On 
 the contrary, I make it my business to bring vanity itself 
 in repute, and folly too, if it produce me any pleasure ; 
 and let myself follow my own natural inclinations, without 
 carrying too strict a hand upon them. 
 
 I have seen elsewhere palaces in ruins, and statues both 
 of gods and men : these are men still. Tis all true ; and 
 yet, for all that, I cannot so often revisit the tomb of 
 that so great and so puissant city, 1 that I do not admire 
 and reverence it. The care of the dead is recommended to 
 us ; now, I have been bred up from my infancy with these 
 dead ; I had knowledge of the affairs of Eome, long before 
 I had any of those of my own house ; I knew the Capitol 
 and its plan, before I knew the Louvre ; and the Tiber, 
 before I knew the Seine. The qualities and fortunes of 
 Lucnllus, Metellus, and Scipio, have ever run more in my 
 head than those of any of my own country ; they are all 
 dead ; so is my father as absolutely dead as they, and is 
 removed as far from me and life in eighteen years, as they 
 are in sixteen hundred ; whose memory, nevertheless, friend- 
 ship and society, I do not cease to hug and embrace with 
 a perfect and lively union. Nay, of my own inclination, 
 I pay more service to the dead ; they can no longer 
 help themselves, and therefore, methinks, the more require 
 
 1 Rome. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 285 
 
 my asssistance : 'tis there that gratitude appears in its full 
 lustre. Benefits are not so generously placed, where there 
 is retrogradation and reflection. Arcesilaus, 1 going to visit 
 Ctesibius who was sick, and finding him in a very poor con- 
 dition, privately conveyed some money under his pillow; 
 and, by concealing it from him, acquitted him, moreover, 
 from the acknowledgment due to such a benefit. Such as 
 have merited from me friendship and gratitude, have never 
 lost these by being no more ; I have better and more care- 
 fully paid them, when gone and ignorant of what I did ; I 
 speak most affectionately of my friends, when they can no 
 longer know it. I have had a hundred quarrels in defend- 
 ing Pompey, and for the cause of Brutus : this acquaint- 
 ance yet continues betwixt us ; we have no other hold even 
 on present things but by fancy. Finding myself of no use to 
 this age, I throw myself back upon that other ; and am so 
 enamoured of it, that the free, just, and flourishing state of 
 that ancient Borne (for I neither love it in its birth nor its 
 old age) interests me to a degree of passion; and therefore 
 I cannot so often revisit the places of their streets and 
 houses, and those ruins profound as the Antipodes, that it 
 does not always put me into the clumps. Is it by nature, 
 or through error of fancy, that the sight of places which we 
 know have been frequented and inhabited by persons whose 
 memories are recommended in story, in some sort works 
 more upon us than to hear a recital of their acts or to read 
 their writings ? " Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis. . . . 
 Et id quidem in hac urbe infinitum ; quacumque, enim in- 
 gredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium ponimus." 2 It 
 pleases me to consider their face, port, and vestments : I 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, iv. 17. 
 
 2 " So great a power of admonition is in places ; and truly in this city so 
 infinite, that which way soever we go we tread upon some history." — Cicero, 
 De Fin., V. 1, 2. 
 
286 . Of Vanity. [Bookiii. 
 
 ruminate those great names betwixt my teeth, and make them 
 ring in my ears : " Ego illos veneror, et tantis nominibus 
 semper assurgo." * Of things that are in some part great and 
 admirable, I admire even the common parts : I could wish 
 to see them talk, walk, and sup. It were ingratitude to 
 contemn the relics and images of so many worthy and 
 valiant men as I have seen live and die, and who, by their 
 example, give us so many good instructions, knew we how 
 to follow them. 
 
 And, moreover, this very Eome that we now see, deserves 
 to be beloved ; so long, and by so many titles, confederate 
 to our crown ; the only common and universal city : the 
 sovereign magistrate that commands there, is equally ac- 
 knowledged elsewhere : 'tis the metropolitan city of all the 
 Christian nations : the Spaniard and Frenchman is there at 
 home ; to be a prince of that state, there needs no more but 
 to be of Christendom wheresoever. There is no place upon 
 earth, that heaven has embraced with such an influence and 
 constancy of favour ; her very ruins are grand and glorious : 
 
 " Laudandis pretiosior minis ; " 2 
 
 she yet in her very tomb retains the marks and images of 
 empire: "Ut palam sit, uno in loco gaudentis opus esse 
 naturae." 3 Some would blame and be angry at themselves 
 to perceive themselves tickled with so vain a pleasure : 
 our humours are never too vain that are pleasant : let them 
 be what they may, if they constantly content a man of 
 common understanding, I could not have the heart to blame 
 him. 
 
 1 "I reverence them, and rise up in honour of so great names." — Seneca, 
 Ep. 64. 
 
 2 " More precious from her glorious ruins." — Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm., 
 xxiii. ; Narbo, v. 62. 
 
 a ' ' That it may be manifest that nature is in this one place enamoured of 
 her own work." — Pliny, Nat. Hist., iii. 5. 
 
Cbap. 9.] Of Vanity. 287 
 
 I am very much obliged to Fortune, in that, to this very 
 hour, she has offered me no outrage beyond what I was 
 well able to bear. Is it not her custom to let those live in 
 quiet by whom she is not importuned ? 
 
 " Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit, 
 A diis plura feret : nil cupientium 
 Kudus castra peto. . . . 
 
 Multa petentibus 
 Desunt multa." x 
 
 If she continue her favour, she will dismiss me very well 
 
 satisfied : 
 
 " Nihil supra 
 Deos lacesso." 2 
 
 But beware a shock : there are a thousand who perish in 
 
 the port. I easily comfort myself for what shall here 
 
 happen when I shall be gone ; present things trouble me 
 
 enough : 
 
 " Fortunse csetera mando." 3 
 
 Besides, I have not that strong obligation that they say ties 
 men to the future, by the issue that succeeds to their name 
 and honour ; and, peradventure, ought less to covet them, if 
 they are to be so much desired. I am but too much tied 
 to the world, and to this life, of myself : I am content to 
 be in Fortune's power by circumstances properly necessary 
 to my being, without otherwise enlarging her jurisdiction 
 over me ; and have never thought, that to be without children 
 was a defect that ought to render life less complete or less 
 contented : a sterile vocation has its conveniences too. Chil- 
 dren are of the number of things that are not so much to be 
 desired, especially now, that it would be so hard to make 
 
 1 " The more a man denies himself, the more the gods give him. Poor as 
 I am, I seek the company of those who ask nothing ; they who desire much, 
 will be deficient in much." — Horace, Od. iii. 1 6, 21, 42. 
 
 2 " I ask the gods for no more." — Horace, Od. ii. 18, II. 
 
 3 "I leave the rest to fortune." — Ovid, Metam., ii. 140. 
 
288 Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 them good : " Bona jam nee nasci licet, ita coirupta sunt 
 semina ; " 1 and yet they are justly to be lamented by such 
 as lose them when they have them. 
 
 He who left me my house in charge, foretold that I was 
 like to ruin it, considering my humour so little inclined to 
 look after household affairs. But he was mistaken ; for I 
 am in the same condition now as when I first entered into 
 it, or rather somewhat better ; and yet without office, or 
 any place of profit. 
 
 As to the rest, if Fortune has never done me any violent 
 or extraordinary injury, neither has she done me any parti- 
 cular favour ; whatever we derive from her bounty, was 
 there above a hundred years before my time : I have, as to 
 my own particular, no essential and solid good that I stand 
 indebted for to her liberality. She has, indeed, done me 
 some airy favours, honorary and titular favours, without sub- 
 stance, and those, in truth, she has not granted, but offered 
 me, who, God knows, am all material, and who take no- 
 thing but what is real and indeed massive too, for current 
 pay : and who, if I durst confess so much, should not think 
 avarice much less excusable than ambition ; nor pain less to 
 be avoided than shame ; nor health less to be coveted than 
 learning, or riches than nobility. 
 
 Amongst those empty favours of hers, there is none that 
 so much pleases vain humour natural to my country, as an 
 authentic bull of a Eoman burgess-ship, that was granted me 
 when I was last there, glorious in seals and gilded letters ; 
 and granted with all gracious liberality. And because 'tis 
 couched in a mixt style, more or less favourable, and that 
 I could have been glad to have seen a copy of it before it 
 had passed the seal, I will, to satisfy such as are sick of 
 
 1 " Nothing good can be borne now, the seed is so corrupt." — Tertullian, 
 De Pudicita. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 289 
 
 the same curiosity I am, transcribe it here in its exact 
 form. 
 
 " Quod Horatius Maximus, Martius Cecius, Alexander Mutus, 
 almse urbis Conservatores, de illustrissimo viro Michaele 
 Montano, equite Sancti Michaelis, et a cubiculo regis 
 Christianissimi, Eomana civitate donando, ad Senatum 
 retulerunt ; S. P. Q. E. de ea re ita fieri censuit. 
 
 " Cum, veteri more et instituto, cupide illi semper studios- 
 eque suscepti sint, qui virtute ac nobilitate prsestantes, 
 magno reipublicse nostras usui atque ornamento fuissent, vel 
 esse aliquando possent : nos, majorum nostrorum exemplo 
 atque auctoritate permoti, prseclaram banc consuetudinem 
 nobis imitandam ac servandam fore censemus. Quamobrem 
 cum illustrissimus Michael Montanus, eques Sancti Michaelis, 
 et a cubiculo regis Christianissimi, Eomani nominis studio- 
 sissimus, et familise laude atque splendore, et propriis virtu- 
 tum meritis dignissimus sit, qui summo Senatus Populique 
 Eomani judicio ac studio in Eomanam civitatem adsciscatur; 
 placere Senatui P. Q. E. illustrissimum Michaelem Montanum, 
 rebus omnibus ornatissimum, atque huic inclyto Populo 
 carissimum, ipsum posterosque in Eomanam civitatem ad- 
 scribi, ornarique omnibus et preemiis et honoribus, quibus 
 illi fruuntur, qui cives patriciique Eomani nati, aut jure 
 Optimo facti sunt. In quo censere Senatum P. Q. E. se non 
 tarn illi jus civitatis largiri, quam debitum tribuere, neque 
 magis beneficium dare, quam ab ipso accipere, qui, hoc 
 civitatis munere accipiendo, singulari civitatem ipsani orna- 
 mento atque honore affecerit. Quam S. C. auctoritatem 
 iidem Conservatores per senatus P. Q. E. scribas in acta 
 referri, atque in Capitolii curia servari, privilegiumque hu- 
 jusmodi fieri, solitoque urbis sigillo communiri curarunt. 
 VOL. m. T 
 
290 - Of Vanity. [Book iii. 
 
 Anno ab urbe condita CXC.CCC.XXXI. ; post Christum 
 natum M.D.LXXXI. 3 idus Martii. 
 
 Horatius Fuscus, 
 
 Sacri S. P. Q. E. scriba. 
 
 Vincent. Maetholus, 
 
 Sacri S. P. Q. E. scriba." x 
 
 Being, before, bnrgess of no city at all, I am glad to be 
 created one of the most noble that ever was or ever shall 
 be. If other men would consider themselves at the rate I 
 
 1 " On the Report made to the Senate by Orazio Massimi, Marzo Cecio, 
 Alessandro Muti, conservators of the city of Rome, concerning the 
 right of Roman citizenship to be granted to the most illustrious 
 Michael de Montaigne, knight of the Order of St. Michael, and gen- 
 tleman of the chamber in ordinary to the most Christian King, the 
 Senate and people of Rome have decreed : 
 " Considering that by ancient usage, those have ever been adopted amongst 
 us with ardour and eagerness, who, distinguished in virtue and nobility, have 
 served and honoured our republic, or might do so in the future ; we, full of 
 respect for the example and authority of our ancestors, consider that we 
 should imitate and follow this laudable custom. Wherefore, the most illus- 
 trious Michael de Montaigne, knight of the Order of St. Michael, and gentle- 
 man of the chamber in ordinary to the most Christian King, most zealous for 
 the Roman name, being by the rank and distinction of his family, and by his 
 personal qualities, highly worthy to be admitted to the rights of Roman citizen- 
 ship by the supreme judgment and suffrage of the senate and people of Rome : 
 it has pleased the senate and people of Rome, that the most illustrious Michael 
 de Montaigne, adorned with every species of merit, and very dear to this noble 
 people, should be inscribed as a Roman citizen, both in regard to himself and 
 to his posterity, and admitted to enjoy all the honours and advantages reserved 
 for those who were born citizens and patricians of Rome, or who have become 
 such by right of their good title thereunto. And herein the senate and people 
 of Rome consider that they are less conferring a gift, than paying a debt, and 
 that it is less a service they render than a service they receive from him, who, 
 in accepting this citizenship, honours and gives lustre to the city itself. The 
 Conservators have caused this Senatus-Consultus to be transcribed by the 
 Secretaries of the Roman senate and people, to be deposited among the 
 archives of the Capitol, and have drawn up this Act, sealed with the common 
 s;al of the city. A.u.c. 2331, a.c. 1581, 3d March. 
 
 Orazio Fosco, 
 Secretary of the Sacred Senate and of the Roman People. 
 
 VlNCENTE MARTOLI, 
 
 Secretary of the Sacred Senate and of the Roman People. 
 
Chap. 9.] Of Vanity. 291 
 
 do, tliey would, as I do, discover themselves to be full of 
 inanity and foppery ; to rid myself of it, I cannot, without 
 making myself away. We are all steeped in it, as well 
 one as another; but they who are not aware on't, have 
 somewhat the better bargain ; and yet, I know not, whether 
 they have or no. 
 
 This opinion and common usage to observe others more 
 than ourselves, has very much relieved us that way : 'tis a 
 very displeasing object : we can there see nothing but 
 misery and vanity : nature, that we may not be dejected 
 with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely thrust the 
 action of seeing outward. We go forward with the current ; 
 but to turn back towards ourselves is a painful motion ; so 
 is the sea moved and troubled when the waves rush against 
 one another. Observe, says every one, the motions of the 
 heavens, of public affairs ; observe the quarrel of such a 
 person, take notice of such a one's pulse, of such another's 
 last will and testament ; in sum, be always looking high or 
 low, on one side, before, or behind you. It was a paradoxical 
 command anciently given us by the god of Delphos : " Look 
 into yourself ; discover yourself ; keep close to yourself ; 
 call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume them- 
 selves into yourself ; you run out, you spill yourself ; carry 
 a more steady hand : men betray you, men spill you, men 
 steal you from yourself. Dost thou not see that this world 
 we live in keeps all its sight confined within, and its eyes 
 open to contemplate itself ? 'Tis always vanity for thee, 
 both within and without; but 'tis less vanity when less 
 extended. Excepting thee, man, said that god, everything 
 studies itself first, and has bounds to its labours and desires, 
 according to its need. There is nothing so empty and 
 necessitous as thou, who embracest the universe ; thou art 
 the explorator without knowledge ; the magistrate without 
 jurisdiction : and, after all, the fool of the farce. 
 
292 - Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 OF MANAGING THE WILL. 
 
 Few things, in comparison of what commonly affect other 
 men, move, or to say better, possess me : for 'tis but reason 
 they should concern a man, provided they do not possess 
 him. I am very solicitous, both by study and argument, to 
 enlarge this privilege of insensibility, which is in me natur- 
 ally raised to a pretty degree, so that consequently I espouse 
 and am very much moved with very few things. I have 
 a clear sight enough, but I fix it upon very few objects ; I 
 have a sense delicate and tender enough ; but an appre- 
 hension and application hard and negligent. I am very 
 unwilling to engage myself; as much as in me lies, I 
 employ myself wholly on myself, and even in that sub- 
 ject should rather choose to curb and restrain my affection 
 from plunging itself over head and ears into it, it being a 
 subject that I possess at the mercy of others, and over which 
 fortune has more right than I ; so that even as to health, 
 which I so much value, 'tis all the more necessary for me 
 not so passionately to covet and heed it, than to find diseases 
 so insupportable. A man ought to moderate himself betwixt 
 the hatred of pain and the love of pleasure ; and Plato l 
 sets down a middle path of life betwixt the two. But 
 against such affections as wholly carry me away from myself, 
 and fix me elsewhere, against those, I say, I oppose myself 
 with my utmost power. 'Tis my opinion that a man should 
 lend himself to others, and only give himself to himself. 
 Were my will easy to lend itself out, and to be swayed, I 
 
 1 Laws, vii. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 293 
 
 should not stick there ; I am too tender, both by nature and 
 
 use : 
 
 " Fugax rerum, securaque in otia natus." x 
 
 Hot and obstinate disputes wherein my adversary would at 
 last have the better, the issue that would render my heat 
 and obstinacy disgraceful, would peradventure vex me to 
 the last degree. Should I set myself to it at the rate that 
 others do, my soul would never have the force to bear the 
 emotion and alarms of those who grasp at so much ; it 
 would immediately be disordered by this inward agitation. 
 If, sometimes, I have been put upon the management of 
 other men's affairs, I have promised to take them in hand, 
 but not into my lungs and liver ; to take them upon me, 
 not to incorporate them ; to take pains, yes : to be impas- 
 sioned about it, by no means ; I have a care of them, but I 
 will not sit upon them. I have enough to do to order and 
 govern the domestic throng of those that I have in my own 
 veins and bowels, without introducing a crowd of other men's 
 affairs ; and am sufficiently concerned about my own proper 
 and natural business, without meddling with the concerns of 
 others. Such as know how much they owe to themselves, 
 and how many offices they are bound to of their own, find 
 that nature has cut them out work enough of their own to 
 keep them from being idle. " Thou hast business enough at 
 home, look to that." 
 
 Men let themselves out to hire ; their faculties are not 
 for themselves, but for those to whom they have enslaved 
 themselves ; 'tis their tenants occupy them, not themselves. 
 This common humour pleases not me. We must be thrifty 
 of the liberty of our souls, and never let it out but upon 
 just occasions, which are very few, if we judge aright. Do 
 but observe such as have accustomed themselves to be at 
 
 1 " Born and bred up in negligence and ease." — Ovid, De Trist, iii. 2, 9. 
 
294 ■ Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 every one's call : they do it indifferently upon all, as well 
 little as great, occasions ; in that which nothing concerns 
 them, as much as in what imports them most. They thrust 
 themselves in indifferently wherever there is work to do and 
 obligation ; and are without life when not in tumultuous ' 
 bustle : " In negotiis sunt, negotii causa." 1 It is not so 
 much that they will go, as it is that they cannot stand still : 
 like a rolling stone that cannot stop till it can go no further. 
 Occupation, with a certain sort of men, is a mark of under- 
 standing and dignity : their souls seek repose in agitation, 
 as children do by being rocked in a cradle ; they may 
 pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends, as 
 they are troublesome to themselves. No one distributes his 
 money to others, but every one distributes his time and his 
 life : there is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of these 
 two things, of which to be thrifty would be both commend- 
 able and useful. I am of a quite contrary humour ; I look 
 to myself, and commonly covet with no great ardour what I 
 do desire ; and desire little ; and I employ and busy myself 
 at the same rate, rarely and temperately. Whatever they 
 take in hand, they do it with their utmost will and vehe- 
 mence. There are so many dangerous steps, that, for the 
 more safety, we must a little lightly and superficially glide 
 over the world, and not rush through it. Pleasure itself is 
 painful in profundity : 
 
 " Incetlis per ignes, 
 Suppositos cineri cloloso." 2 
 
 The Parliament of Bordeaux chose me mayor of their 
 city, at a time when I was at a distance from Prance, 3 and 
 still more remote from any such thought. I entreated to 
 
 1 " They only seek business for business' sake." — Seneca, Ep. 22. 
 3 "You tread on fire, hidden under deceitful ashes." — Horace, Od. ii. 1, 7. 
 3 At the baths Delia Villa, near Lucca, September 1581, see Montaigne's 
 Travels, ii. 44S. 
 
Chap. 10.] Of Managing the Will. 295 
 
 be excused, but I was told by my friends that I had com- 
 mitted an error in so doing, and the greater, because the 
 king had, moreover, interposed his command in that affair. 
 'Tis an office that ought to be looked upon so much more 
 honourable, as it has no other salary nor advantage than the 
 bare honour of its execution. It continues two years, but 
 may be extended by a second election, which very rarely 
 happens ; it was to me, and had never been so but twice 
 before : some years ago to Monsieur de Lanssac, and lately 
 to Monsieur de Biron, Marshal of France, in whose place I 
 succeeded ; and I left mine to Monsieur de Matignon, Mar- 
 shal of France also : proud of so noble a fraternity — 
 
 " Uterque bonus pacis belliqtie minister." x 
 
 Fortune would have a hand in my promotion, by this par- 
 ticular circumstance which she put in of her own, not 
 altogether vain ; for Alexander disdained the ambassadors of 
 Corinth, who came to offer him a burgess-ship of their city ; 
 but when they proceeded to lay before him that Bacchus 
 and Hercules were also in the register, he graciously accepted 
 the offer. 
 
 At my arrival, I faithfully and conscientiously represented 
 myself to them for such as I find myself to be — a man . 
 without memory, without vigilance, without experience, 
 and without vigour ; but withal, without hatred, without 
 ambition, without avarice, and without violence ; that they 
 might be informed of my qualities, and know what they were 
 to expect from my service. And the knowledge they had 
 had of my father, and the honour they had for his memory, 
 having been the only motives to confer tins favour upon me, 
 I plainly told them that I should be very sorry anything 
 should make so great an impression upon me, as their 
 
 1 " Both able ministers in peace, and good in war." — yEneid, xi. 658. 
 
296 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 affairs and the concerns of their city had made upon hint, 
 whilst he held the government to which they had preferred 
 me. I remembered, when a boy, to have seen him in his old 
 age cruelly tormented with these public affairs, neglecting 
 the soft repose of his own house, to which the declension of 
 his age had reduced him for several years before, the 
 management of his own affairs, and his health ; and certainly 
 despising his own life, which was in great danger of being 
 lost, by being engaged in long and painful journeys on their 
 behalf. Such was he ; and this humour of his proceeded 
 from a marvellous good nature ; never was there a more 
 charitable and popular soul. Yet this proceeding which I 
 commend in others, I do not love to follow myself, and am 
 not without excuse. 
 
 He had learned that a man must forget himself for his 
 neighbour, and that the particular was of no manner of con- 
 sideration in comparison with the general. Most of the rules 
 and precepts of the world run this way ; to drive us out of 
 ourselves into the street for the benefit of public society ; 
 they thought to do a great feat to divert and remove us from 
 ourselves, assuming we were but too much fixed there, and 
 by a too natural inclination ; and have said all they could to 
 that purpose : for 'tis no new thing for the sages to preach 
 things as they serve, not as they are. Truth has its obstruc- 
 tions, inconveniences, and incompatibilities with us ; we 
 must often deceive, that we may not deceive ourselves ; 
 and shut our eyes and our understandings, to redress and 
 amend them : " Imperiti enim judicant, et qui frequenter in 
 hoc ipsum fallendi sunt, ne errent." x "When they order us 
 to love three, four, or fifty degrees of things above ourselves, 
 they do like archers, who, to hit the white, take their aim a 
 
 1 "For the ignorant judge, and therefore are oft to be deceived lest they 
 should err." — Quintil., Inst. Orat, xi. 17. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 297 
 
 great deal higher than the butt ; to make a crooked stick 
 straight, we bend it the contrary way. 
 
 I believe that in the Temple of Pallas, as we see in all 
 other religions, there were apparent mysteries to be exposed 
 to the people ; and others, more secret and high, that were 
 only to be shown to such as were professed ; 'tis likely that 
 in these the true point of friendship that every one owes to 
 himself is to be found ; not a false friendship, that makes 
 us embrace glory, knowledge, riches, and the like, with a 
 principal and immoderate affection, as members of our 
 being ; nor an indiscreet and effeminate friendship, wherein it 
 happens, as with ivy, that it decays and ruins the walls it 
 embraces ; but a sound and regular friendship, equally useful 
 and pleasant. He who knows the duties of this friendship 
 and practises them, is truly of the cabinet council of the 
 Muses, and has attained to the height of human wisdom and 
 of our happiness ; such an one, exactly knowing what he 
 owes to himself, will on his part find that he ought to apply 
 to himself the use of the world and of other men ; and to do 
 this, to contribute to public society the duties and offices 
 appertaining to him. He who does not in some sort live for 
 others, does not live much for himself : " Qui sibi amicus est, 
 scito hunc amicum omnibus esse." x The principal charge 
 we have, is, to every one his own conduct ; and 'tis for this 
 only that we here are. As he who should forget to live a 
 virtuous and holy life, and should think he acquitted himself 
 of his duty in instructing and training others up to it, would 
 be a fool ; even so he who abandons his own particular 
 healthful and pleasant living, to serve others therewith, takes, 
 in my opinion, a wrong and unnatural course. 
 
 I would not that men should refuse, in the employments 
 they take upon them, their attention, pains, eloquence, sweat, 
 and blood if need be : 
 
 1 " He who is his own friend is a friend to everybody else." — Seneca, Ep. 6. 
 
298 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 " Non ipse pro caris amicis 
 Aut patria, timidus perire : " x 
 
 but 'tis only borrowed, and accidentally ; his mind being 
 always in repose and in health ; not without action, but 
 without vexation, without passion. To be simply acting 
 costs him so little, that he acts even sleeping ; but it must 
 be set on going with discretion ; for the body receives the 
 offices imposed upon it, just according to what they are ; the 
 mind often extends and makes them heavier at its own 
 expense, giving them what measure it pleases. Men per- 
 form like things with several sorts of endeavour, and diffe- 
 rent contention of will ; the one does well enough without 
 the other : for how many people hazard themselves every 
 day in war without any concern which way it goes ; and 
 thrust themselves into the dangers of battles, the loss of 
 which will not break their next nights' sleep ? and such a 
 man may be at home, out of the danger which he durst not 
 have looked upon, who is more passionately concerned for 
 the issue of this war, and whose soul is more anxious about 
 events, than the soldier who therein stakes his blood and 
 his life. I could have engaged myself in public employ- 
 ments without quitting my own matters a nail's breadth, and 
 have given myself to others, without abandoning myself. 
 This sharpness and violence of desires more hinder than they 
 advance the execution of what we undertake ; fill us with 
 impatience against slow or contrary events, and with heat 
 and suspicion against those with whom we have to do. 
 "We never carry on that thing well by which we are prepos- 
 sessed and led : 
 
 " Male cuncta ministrat 
 Impetus." 2 
 
 1 "Not afraid to die for beloved friends, and for his country." — Horace, 
 Od. iv. 9, 51. 
 
 2 "Passionate heat carries on things ill." — Statius, Thebaid, x. 704. 
 
Chap. 10.] Of Managing the Will. 299 
 
 He who therein employs only his judgment and address 
 proceeds more cheerfully : he counterfeits, he gives "way, he 
 defers quite at his ease, according to the necessities of occa- 
 sions ; he fails in his attempt without trouble and affliction, 
 ready and entire for a new enterprise ; he always marches 
 with the bridle in his hand. In him who is drunk with this 
 violent and tyrannic intention, we discover, of necessity, 
 much imprudence and injustice ; the impetuosity of his 
 desire carries him away ; these are rash motions, and, if for- 
 tune do not very much assist, of very little fruit. Philosophy 
 directs that, in the revenge of injuries received, we should 
 strip ourselves of choler; not that the chastisement should 
 be less, but, on the contrary, that the revenge may be the 
 better and more heavily laid on, which, it conceives, will be 
 by this impetuosity hindered. For anger not only disturbs, 
 but, of itself, also wearies the arms of those who chastise ; 
 this fire benumbs and wastes their force; as in precipita- 
 tion, " festinatio tarda est," 1 — " haste trips up its own heels," 
 fetters, and stops itself ; " Ipsa se velocitas implicat." 2 For 
 example, according to what I commonly see, avarice has no 
 greater impediment than itself; the more bent and vigor- 
 ous it is, the less it rakes together, and commonly sooner 
 grows rich when disguised in a visor of liberality. 
 
 A very honest gentleman, and a particular friend of mine, 
 had like to have cracked his brains by a too passionate 
 attention and affection to the affairs of a certain prince, his 
 master ; which master 3 has thus set himself out to me ; 
 " that he foresees the weight of accidents as well as another, 
 but that in those for which there is no remedy, he presently 
 resolves upon suffering; in others, having taken all the 
 necessary precautions which by the vivacity of his under- 
 standing he can presently do, he quietly awaits what may 
 
 1 Quintus Curtius, ix. 9, 12. 2 Seneca, Ep. 44. 
 
 3 Probably the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. 
 
300 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 follow." And, in truth, I have accordingly seen him main- 
 tain a great indifferency and liberty of actions, and serenity 
 of countenance, in very great and difficult affairs : I find 
 him much greater, and of greater capacity in adverse than 
 in prosperous fortune : his defeats are to him more glorious 
 than his victories, and his mourning than his triumph. 
 
 Do but consider, that even in vain and frivolous actions, 
 as at chess, tennis, and the like, this eager and ardent 
 engaging with an impetuous desire, immediately throws the 
 mind and members into indiscretion and disorder : a man 
 astounds and hinders himself; he who carries himself more 
 moderately both towards gain and loss, has always his wits 
 about him ; the less peevish and passionate he is at play, he 
 plays much more advantageously and surely. 
 
 As to the rest, we hinder the mind's seizure and hold, in 
 giving it so many things to seize upon : some things we 
 should only offer to it ; tie it to others, and with others 
 incorporate it. It can feel and discern all things, but ought 
 to feed upon nothing but itself; and should be instructed 
 in what properly concerns itself, and that is properly of its 
 own having and substance. The laws of nature teach us 
 what justly we need. After the sages have told us that no 
 one is indigent according to nature, and that every one is so 
 according to opinion, 1 they very subtly distinguish betwixt 
 the desires that proceed from her, and those that proceed 
 from the disorder of our own fancy : those of which we can 
 see the end are hers ; those that fly before us, and of which 
 we can see no end, are our own : the poverty of goods is 
 easily cured ; the poverty of the soul is irreparable : 
 
 " Nam si, quod satis est homini, id satis esse potesset 
 Hoc sat erat : nunc, quum hoc non est, qui credimus porro 
 Divitias ullas animum mi explere potesse ? " 2 
 
 1 Seneca, Ep. 1 6. 
 
 2 " For if what is for man enough, could be enough, it were enough j but 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 301 
 
 Socrates, seeing a great quantity of riches, jewels, and furni- 
 ture carried in pomp through the city : " How many things," 
 said he, " do I not desire." 1 Metrodorus lived on twelve 
 ounces a-day ; Epicurus upon less : Metrocles slept in win- 
 ter abroad amongst sheep ; in summer in the cloisters of 
 churches ; " Sumcit ad id natura, quod poscit." 2 Cleanthes 
 lived by the labour of his own hands, and boasted that 
 Cleanthes, if he would, could yet maintain another 
 Cleanthes. 
 
 If that which nature exactly and originally requires of us 
 for the conservation of our being, be too little (as in truth 
 what it is, and how good cheap life may be maintained, 
 cannot be better expressed than by this consideration, that 
 it is so little that by its littleness it escapes the gripe and 
 shock of fortune), let us allow ourselves a little more ; let us 
 call every one of our habits and conditions, nature ; let us 
 rate and treat ourselves by this measure ; let us stretch our 
 appurtenances and accounts so far ; for so far, I fancy, we have 
 some excuse. Custom is a second nature, and no less powerful. 
 What is wanting to my custom, I reckon is wanting to me ; 
 and I should be almost as well content that they took away 
 my life, as cut me short in the way wherein I have so long 
 lived. I am no longer in condition for any great change, nor 
 to put myself into a new and unwonted course, not even to 
 augmentation. Tis past the time for me to become other than 
 what I am ; and as I should complain of any great good hap 
 that should now befall me, that it came not in time to be 
 enjoyed : 
 
 " Quo mini fortunas, si non conceditur uti ? " 3 
 
 since it is not so, how can I believe that any wealth can give my mind con- 
 tent." — Lucilius, apud Nonium Marcellinum, V. sec. 98. 
 
 1 Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., V. 32. 
 
 2 " Nature suffices for what it requires."- — Seneca, Ep. 90. 
 
 3 " What is the good of fortune to me if I can't use it." — Horace, Ep. i. 
 5, 12. 
 
302 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 so should I complain of any inward acquisition. It were 
 almost "better never, than so late, to become an honest man, 
 and well fit to live, when one has no longer to live. I, 
 who am about to make my exit out of the world, would easily 
 resign to any new comer, who should desire it, all the 
 prudence I am now acquiring in the world's commerce ; after 
 meat, mustard. I have no need of goods, of which I can 
 make no use ; of what use is knowledge to him who has 
 lost his head ? Tis an injury and unkindness in fortune to 
 tender us presents that will only inspire us with a just 
 despite that we had them not in then due season. Guide 
 me no more ; I can no longer go. Of so many parts as 
 make up a sufficiency, patience is the most sufficient. Give 
 the capacity of an excellent treble to a chorister who has 
 rotten lungs, and eloquence to a hermit exiled into the deserts 
 of Arabia. There needs no art to help a fall ; the end finds 
 itself of itself at the conclusion of every affair. My world 
 is at an end, my form expired ; I am totally of the past, and 
 am bound to authorise it, and to conform my outgoing to it. 
 I will here declare, by way of example, that the Pope's late 
 ten days' diminution 1 has taken me so aback that I cannot 
 well reconcile myself to it ; I belong to the years wherein we 
 kept another kind of account. So ancient and so long a 
 custom challenges my adherence to it, so that I am con- 
 strained to be somewhat heretical on that point : incapable 
 of any, though corrective, innovation. My imagination, in 
 spite of my teeth, always pushes me ten days forward or 
 backward, and is ever murmuring in my ears : " This rule 
 concerns those who are to begin to be." If health itself, 
 sweet as it is, returns to me by fits, 'tis rather to give me 
 cause of regret than possession of it; I have no place left 
 
 1 Gregory XIII., in 1582, reformed the Calendar, and, in consequence, in 
 France they all at once passed from the 9th to the 20th December. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 303 
 
 to keep it in. Time leaves me ; without which nothing can 
 be possessed. Oh, what little account should I make of 
 those great elective dignities that I see in such esteem in 
 the world, that are never conferred but upon men who are 
 taking leave of it; wherein they do not so much regard 
 how well the man will discharge his trust, as how short his 
 administration will be : from the very entry they look at the 
 exit. In short, I am about finishing this man, and not 
 rebuilding another. By long use, this form is in me turned 
 into substance, and fortune into nature. 
 
 I say, therefore, that every one of us feeble creatures 
 is excusable in thinking that to be his own which is com- 
 prised under this measure ; but withal, beyond these 
 limits, 'tis nothing but confusion ; 'tis the largest extent 
 we can grant to our own claims. The more we am- 
 plify our need and our possession, so much the more 
 do we expose ourselves to the blows and adversities of 
 Fortune. 1 The career of our desires ought to be circum- 
 scribed and restrained to a short limit of near and contigu- 
 ous commodities ; and their course ought, moreover, to be 
 performed not in a right line, that ends elsewhere, but in a 
 circle, of which the two points, by a short wheel, meet and 
 terminate in ourselves. Actions that are carried on without 
 this reflection — a near and essential reflection, I mean — 
 such as those of ambitious and avaricious men, and so many 
 more as run point blank, and whose career always carries 
 them before themselves, such actions, I say, are erroneous 
 and sickly. 
 
 Most of our business is farce : " Mundus universus exercet 
 histrioniam." 2 We must play our part properly, but withal 
 
 1 " L'homme tient par ses voeux a. mille choses : plus il augmentes ses 
 attachements, plus il multiplie ses peines." — Rousseau, Emile, liv. v. 
 
 2 Petronius Arbiter, iii. 8. 
 
304 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii, 
 
 as the part of a borrowed personage ; we must not make real 
 essence of a mask and outward appearance ; nor of a strange 
 person, our own ; we cannot distinguish the skin from the 
 shirt : 'tis enough to meal the face, without mealing the 
 breast. I see some who transform and transubstantiate 
 themselves into as many new shapes and new beings as 
 they undertake new employments ; and who strut and fume 
 even to the heart and liver, and carry their state along with 
 them even to the close-stool : I cannot make them distin- 
 guish the salutations made to themselves from those made 
 to their commission, their train, or their mule : " Tantum se 
 fortunse permittunt, etiam ut naturam dediscant." 2 They 
 swell and puff up their souls, and their natural way of 
 speaking, according to the height of their magisterial place. 
 The mayor of Bordeaux and Montaigne have ever been 
 two by very manifest separation. Because one is an advo- 
 cate or a financier, he must not ignore the knavery there 
 is in such callings ; an honest man is not accountable for 
 the vice or absurdity of his employment, and ought not on that 
 account refuse to take the calling upon him : 'tis the usage of 
 his country, and there is money to be got by it ; a man must 
 live by the world, and make his best of it, such as it is. 
 But the judgment of an emperor ought to be above his 
 empire, and see and consider it as a foreign accident ; 
 and he ought to know how to enjoy himself apart from it, 
 and to communicate himself as James and Peter, to him- 
 self, at all events. 
 
 I cannot engage myself so deep and so entire ; when my 
 will gives me to anything, 'tis not with so violent an obli- 
 gation that my judgment is infected with it. In the present 
 broils of this kingdom, my own interest has not made me 
 blind to the laudable qualities of our adversaries, nor to 
 
 1 " They so much give themselves up to Fortune, as even to forget their 
 nature." — Quintus Curtius, iii. 2. 
 
Chap. 10.] Of Managing the Will. 305 
 
 those that are reproachable in those of men of our party. 
 Others adore all of their own side ; for my part, I do not so 
 much as excuse most things in those of mine : a good work 
 has never the worse grace with me for being made against 
 me. The knot of the controversy excepted, I have always 
 kept myself in equanimity and pure indifference : " ISTeque 
 extra necessitates belli, prsecipuum odium gero ; " x for 
 which I am pleased with myself; and the more, because I 
 see others commonly fail in the contrary direction. Such 
 as extend their anger and hatred beyond the dispute in 
 question, as most men do, show that they spring from some 
 other occasion and private cause ; like one who, being cured 
 of an ulcer, has yet a fever remaining, by which it appears 
 that the ulcer had another more concealed beginning. The 
 reason is that they are not concerned in the common cause, 
 because it is wounding to the state and general interest ; 
 but are only nettled by reason of their particular concern. 
 This is why they are so especially animated, and to a degree 
 so far beyond justice and public reason : " ISTon tam omnia 
 universi, quam ea, quae ad quemque pertinent, singuli car- 
 pebant." 2 I would have the advantage on our side, but if 
 it be not, I shall not run mad. I am heartily for the 
 right party ; but I do not want to be taken notice of as an 
 especial enemy to others, and beyond the general quarrel. 
 I am a mortal enemy to this vicious form of censure : " He 
 is of the League, because he admires the Duke of Guise ; 
 he is astonished at the King of Navarre's energy, and there- 
 fore he is a Huguenot ; he finds such and such faults in the 
 king's conduct, he is therefore seditious in his heart ; " and I 
 would not grant to the magistrate himself that he did well 
 
 1 " And have no express hatred beyond the necessity of war." 
 
 2 " Every one was not so much angry against things in general, as against 
 those that particularly concerned himself." — Livy, xxxiv. 36. 
 
 VOL. III. U 
 
o 
 
 06 Of Managing the Will. [Book 
 
 in condemning a book, because it had placed a heretic 1 
 amongst the best poets of the time. Shall we not dare to 
 say of a thief, that he has a handsome leg ? If a woman 
 be a strumpet, must it needs follow that she has a stinking 
 breath ? Did they in the wisest ages revoke the proud 
 title of Capitolinus they had before conferred on Marcus 
 Manlius, as conservator of religion and the public liberty, 
 and stifle the memory of his liberality, his feats of arms, 
 and military recompenses granted to his valour, because 
 he afterwards aspired to the sovereignty, to the prejudice 
 of the laws of his country ? If we take a hatred against 
 an advocate, he will not be allowed, the next day, to be 
 eloquent. I have elsewhere spoken of the zeal that pushed 
 on worthy men to the like faults. For my part, I can 
 say, " Such a one does this thing ill, and another thing 
 virtuously and well." So in the prognostics, or sinister events 
 of affairs, they would have every one in his party blind or a 
 blockhead, and that our persuasion and judgment should 
 subserve not truth, but to the project of our desires. I 
 should rather incline towards the other extreme ; so much I 
 fear being suborned by my desire ; to which may be added 
 that I am a little tenderly distrustful of things that I wish. 
 I have, in my time, seen wonders in the indiscreet and 
 prodigious facility of people in suffering their hopes and 
 belief to be led and governed, which way has best pleased 
 and served their leaders, despite a hundred mistakes one 
 upon another, despite mere dreams and phantasms. I no 
 more wonder at those who have been blinded and seduced 
 by the fooleries of Apollonius and Mahomet. Their sense 
 and understanding are absolutely taken away by their 
 passion; their discretion has no more any other choice than 
 that which smiles upon them, and encourages their cause. 
 
 1 Theodore de Beza. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 307 
 
 I had principally observed this in the beginning of our 
 intestine distempers ; that other, which has sprung up since, 
 in imitating, has surpassed it ; by which I am satisfied that 
 it is a quality inseparable from popular errors ; after the 
 first that rolls, opinions drive on one another like waves with 
 the wind : . a man is not a member of the body, if it be in 
 his power to forsake it, and if he do not roll the common 
 way. But, doubtless, they wrong the just side, when they 
 go about to assist it with fraud ; I have ever been against 
 that practice : 'tis only fit to work upon weak heads ; for 
 the sound, there are surer and more honest ways to keep up 
 their courage and to excuse adverse accidents. 
 
 Heaven never saw a greater animosity than that betwixt 
 Caesar and Pompey, nor ever shall ; and yet I observe, 
 methinks, in those brave souls, a great moderation towards 
 one another: it was a jealousy of honour and command, 
 which did not transport them to a furious and indiscreet 
 hatred, and was without malignity and detraction : in their 
 hottest exploits upon one another, I discover some remains 
 of respect and good- will ; and am therefore of opinion that, 
 had it been possible, each of them would rather have done 
 his business without the ruin of the other than with it. 
 Take notice how much otherwise matters went with Marius 
 and Sylla. 
 
 We must not precipitate ourselves so headlong after our 
 affections and interests. As, when I was young, I opposed 
 myself to the progress of love which I perceived to advance 
 too fast upon me, and had a care lest it should at last 
 become so pleasing as to force, captivate, and wholly reduce 
 me to its mercy : so I do the same upon all other occasions 
 where my will is running on with too warm an appetite. 
 I lean opposite to the side it inclines to, as I find it going 
 to plunge and make itself drunk with its own wine ; I evade 
 nourishing its pleasure so far, that I cannot recover it with- 
 
308 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 out infinite loss. Souls that, through their own stupidity, 
 only discern things by halves, have this happiness that they 
 smart less with hurtful things : 'tis a spiritual leprosy that 
 has some show of health, and such a health as philosophy 
 does not altogether contemn ; but yet we have no reason to 
 call it wisdom, as we often do. And after this manner 
 some one anciently mocked Diogenes, who, in the depth of 
 winter and stark naked, went hugging an image of snow for 
 a trial of his endurance : the other seeing him in this posi- 
 tion, " Art thou now very cold ? " said he. " Not at all," 
 replied Diogenes. " Why, then," said the other, " what 
 difficult and exemplary thing dost thou think thou doest in 
 embracing that snow V' 1 To take a true measure of con- 
 stancy, one must necessarily know what the suffering is. 
 
 But souls that are to meet with adverse events and the 
 injuries of fortune, in their depth and sharpness, that are to 
 weigh and taste them according to their natural weight and 
 bitterness, let such show their skill in avoiding the causes 
 and diverting the blow. What did King Cotys do ? 2 He 
 paid liberally for the rich and beautiful vessel that had been 
 presented to him, but, seeing it was exceedingly brittle, he 
 immediately broke it, betimes to prevent so easy a matter 
 of displeasure against his servants. In like manner, I have 
 willingly avoided all confusion in my affairs, and never 
 coveted to have my estate contiguous to those of my rela- 
 tions, and such with whom I coveted a strict friendship ; for 
 thence matter of unkindness and falling out often proceeds. 
 I formerly loved the hazardous games of cards and dice ; but 
 have long since left them off, only for this reason that, with 
 whatever good air I carried my losses, I could not help 
 feeling vexed within. A man of honour, who ought to 
 
 1 Plutarch, Notable Sayings of the Lacedaemonians ; Diogenes Laertius, 
 
 25- 
 
 2 Plutarch, Notable Sayings of the Ancient Kings : Cotys. 
 
 vi. 25. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 309 
 
 be touchily sensible of the lie or of an insult, and who is not 
 to take a scurvy excuse for satisfaction, should avoid occa- 
 sions of dispute. I shun melancholy, crabbed men, as I 
 would the plague ; and in matters I cannot talk of* with- 
 out emotion and concern, I never meddle, if not compelled 
 by my duty : " Melius non incipient, quam desinent." * The 
 surest way, therefore, is to prepare one's self beforehand for 
 occasions. 
 
 I know very well that some wise men have taken another 
 way, and have not feared to grapple and engage to the 
 utmost upon several subjects : these are confident of their 
 own strength, under which they protect themselves in all ill 
 successes, making their patience wrestle and contend with 
 disaster : 
 
 " Velut rapes, vastum quae prodit in aequor, 
 Obvia ventorum funis, expostaque ponto, 
 Vim cunctaru atque minas perfert ccelique marisque ; 
 Ipsa immota mauens." 2 
 
 Let us not attempt these examples ; we shall never come 
 up to them. They set themselves resolutely, and without 
 agitation, to behold the ruin of their country, which pos- 
 sessed and commanded all their will : this is too much, and 
 too hard a task for our commoner souls. Cato gave up the 
 noblest life that ever was, upon this account ; we meaner 
 spirits must fly from the storm as far as we can ; we must 
 provide for sentiment, and not for patience, and evade the 
 blows we cannot meet. Zeno, seeing Chremonides, a young- 
 man whom he loved, draw near to sit down by him, suddenly 
 started up ; and Cleanthes demanding of him the reason why 
 
 1 "A man had better never to have begun, than to have to desist." — 
 Seneca, Ep. 72. 
 
 2 "As a rock standing amongst the vast billows, exposed to the furious 
 winds and the raging flood, remains unmoved, and defies ail the force of seas 
 and skies." — Virgil, y£neid, x. 693. 
 
3 1 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 lie did so, " I hear," said he, " that physicians especially 
 order repose, and forbid emotion in all tumours." * Socrates 
 does not say : " Do not surrender to the charms of beauty ; 
 stand your ground, and do your utmost to oppose it." " Fly 
 it," says he ; " shun the fight and encounter of it, as of a 
 powerful poison that darts and wounds at a distance." 2 
 And his good disciple, 3 feigning or reciting, but, in my 
 opinion, rather reciting than feigning the rare perfections of 
 the great Cyrus, makes him distrustful of his own strength 
 to resist the charms of the divine beauty of that illustrious 
 Panthea, his captive, and committing the visiting and keeping 
 her to another, who could not have so much liberty as 
 himself. And the Holy Ghost in like manner : " Ne nos 
 inducas in tentationem." 4 We do not pray that our reason 
 may not be combated and overcome by concupiscence, but 
 that it should not be so much as tried by it ; that we should 
 not be brought into a state wherein we are so much as to 
 suffer the approaches, solicitations, and temptations of sin : 
 and we beg of Almighty God to keep our consciences quiet, 
 fully and perfectly delivered from all commerce of evil. 
 
 Such as say that they have reason for their revenging 
 passion, or any other sort of troublesome agitation of mind, 
 often say true, as things now are, but not as they were : 
 they speak to us when the causes of their error are by 
 themselves nourished and advanced ; but look backward — 
 recall these causes to their beginning — and there you will 
 put them to a nonplus. Will they have their faults less, for 
 being of longer continuance; and that of an unjust begin- 
 ning, the sequel can be just? Whoever shall desire the 
 good of his country, as I do, without fretting or pining him- 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, vii. 17. 
 
 2 Xenophon, Mem. of Socrates, i. 3, 13. 
 
 3 Idem, Cyropcedia, i. 3, 3. 
 
 4 "Lead us not into temptation." — St. Matthew vi. 13. 
 
Chap, i o.] Of Managing the Will. 311 
 
 self, will be troubled, but will not swoon to see it threaten- 
 ing either its own ruin, or a no less ruinous continuance ; 
 poor vessel, that the waves, the winds, and the pilot toss 
 and steer to so contrary designs ! 
 
 " In tarn diversa, magister, 
 Ventus, et unda, trakunt." 1 
 
 He who does not gape after the favour of princes, as after a 
 thing he cannot live without, does not much concern him- 
 self at the coldness of their reception and countenance, nor 
 at the inconstancy of their wills. He who does not brood 
 over his children or his honours, with a slavish propension, 
 ceases not to live commodiously enough after their loss. 
 He who does good principally for his own satisfaction, will 
 not be much troubled to see men judge of his actions con- 
 trary to his merit. A quarter of an ounce of patience will 
 provide sufficiently against such inconveniences. I find ease 
 in this receipt, redeeming myself in the beginning as good 
 cheap as I can ; and find that by this means I have escaped 
 much trouble and many difficulties. With very little ado 
 I stop the first sally of my emotions, and leave the subject 
 that begins to be troublesome, before it transports me. He 
 who stops not the start, will never be able to stop the 
 career ; he, who cannot keep them out, will never get them 
 out when they are once got in ; and he who cannot crush 
 them at the beginning, will never do it after ; nor ever keep 
 himself from falling, if he cannot recover himself when he 
 first begins to totter : " Etenim ipsse se impellunt, ubi semel 
 a ratione discessum est ; ipsaque sibi imbecillitas indulget, 
 in altumque provehitur imprudens, nee reperit locum con- 
 sistendi." 2 I am betimes sensible of the little breezes that 
 
 1 Buchanan. The translation is in the previous passage. 
 
 2 "For they throw themselves headlong when once they lose their reason ; 
 and frailty so far indulges itself, that it is unawares carried out into the deep, 
 and can find no port wherein to come to an anchor." — Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., 
 iv. iS. 
 
3 1 2 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 begin to sing and whistle in the shrouds, the fore-runners of 
 
 the storm : 
 
 " Ceu flamina prima 
 Cum deprensa fremunt sylvis, et cseca volutant 
 Murmura, venturos nautis prodentia ventos." x 
 
 How often have I done myself a manifest injustice, to 
 avoid the hazard of having yet a worse done me by the 
 judges, after an age of vexations, dirty and vile practices, 
 more enemies to my nature than fire or the rack ? " Convenit 
 a litibus, quantum licet, et nescio an paulo plus etiam quam 
 licet, abhorrentem esse : est enim non modo liberale, paulu- 
 lum nonnunquam de suo jure decedere, sed interdum etiam 
 fructuosum." 2 Were we wise, we ought to rejoice and boast, 
 as I one day heard a young gentleman of a good family 
 very innocently do, that his mother had lost her cause, as if 
 it had been a cough, a fever, or something very troublesome 
 to keep. Even the favours that fortune might have given 
 me through relationship or acquaintance with those who 
 have sovereign authority in those affairs, I have very con- 
 scientiously and very carefully avoided employing them to 
 the prejudice of others, and of advancing my pretentions 
 above their true right. In fine, I have so much prevailed 
 by my endeavours (and happily I may say it), that I am to 
 this clay a virgin from all suits in law ; though I have had 
 very fair offers made me, and with very just title, would I 
 have hearkened to them ; and a virgin from quarrels too. 
 I have almost passed over a long life without any offence of 
 moment, either active or passive, or without ever hearing a 
 worse word than my own name : a rare favour of heaven. 
 
 1 "As when the rising winds, checked by woods, send out dull murmurs, 
 portending a storm to the mariner." — yEneid, x. 97. 
 
 2 " A man should be an enemy to all lawsuits as much as he may, and I know 
 not whether not something more ; for 'tis not only liberal, but sometimes also 
 advantageous, too, a little to recede from one's right." — Cicero, De Offic., 
 ii. 18. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 
 
 o 1 d 
 
 Our greatest agitations have ridiculous springs and causes : 
 what ruin did our last Duke of Burgundy run into about a 
 cartload of sheepskins ! 1 And was not the graving of a 
 seal the first and principal cause of the greatest commotion 
 that this machine of the world ever underwent ? 2 for Pom- 
 pey and Csesar were but the offsets and continuation of the 
 two others: and I have in my time seen the wisest heads 
 in this kingdom assembled with great ceremony, and at the 
 public expense, about treaties and agreements, of which the 
 true decision, in the meantime, absolutely depended upon the 
 ladies' cabinet council, and the inclination of some foolish 
 woman. 
 
 The poets very well understood this, when they put all 
 Greece and Asia to fire and sword about an apple. Inquire 
 why that man hazards his life and honour upon the fortune 
 of his rapier and dagger ; let him acquaint you with the 
 occasion of the quarrel ; he cannot do it without blushing : 
 'tis so idle and frivolous. 
 
 A little thing will engage you in it ; but being once 
 embarked, all the cords draw ; great provisions are then 
 required, more hard and more important. How much easier 
 is it not to enter in, than it is to get out ? ISTow we should 
 proceed contrary to the reed, which, at its first springing, 
 produces a long and straight shoot, but afterwards, as if tired 
 and out of breath, it runs into thick and frequent joints and 
 knots, as so many pauses which demonstrate that it has no 
 more its first vigour and firmness ; 'twere better to begin 
 gently and coldly, and to keep one's breath and vigorous efforts 
 for the height and stress of the business. We guide affairs 
 in their beginnings, and have them in our own power ; but 
 
 1 Mem. de Comines, lib. v. c. I. 
 
 2 i.e., The civil war between Marius and Sylla ; see Plutarch's Life of 
 Marius, c. 3. 
 
314 . Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 afterwards, when they are once at work, 'tis they that guide 
 and govern us, and we are to follow them. 
 
 Yet do I not mean to say that this counsel has discharged 
 me of all difficulty, and that I have not often had enough 
 to do to curb and restrain my passions ; they are not always 
 to be governed according to the measure of occasions, and 
 often have their entries very sharp and violent. But still 
 good fruit and profit may thence be reaped ; except for 
 those who in well-doing are not satisfied with any benefit, if 
 reputation be wanting ; for, in truth, such an effect is not 
 valued but by every one to himself; you are better con- 
 tented, but not more esteemed, seeing you reformed yourself 
 before you got into the whirl of the dance, or that the pro- 
 vocative matter was in sight. Yet not in this only, but in 
 all other duties of life also, the way of those who aim at 
 honour is very different from that they proceed by, who 
 propose to themselves order and reason. I find some, who 
 rashly and furiously rush into the lists, and cool in the 
 course. As Plutarch says, that those who, through false 
 shame, are soft and facile to grant whatever is desired 
 of them, are afterwards as facile to break their word and 
 to recant ; so he who enters lightly into a quarrel is 
 apt to go as lightly out of it. The same difficulty that 
 keeps me from entering into it, would, when once hot and 
 engaged in quarrel, incite me to maintain it with great 
 obstinacy and resolution. 'Tis the tyranny of custom ; when 
 a man is once engaged, he must go through with it, or die. 
 " Undertake coldly," said Bias, " but pursue with ardour." l 
 For want of prudence, men fall into want of courage, which 
 is still more intolerable. 
 
 Most accommodations of the quarrels of these days of 
 ours are shameful and false ; we only seek to save appear- 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, i. 87. 
 
Chap. 10.] Of Managing the Will. 315 
 
 ances, and in the meantime betray and disavow our true 
 intentions ; we salve over the fact. We know very well 
 how we said the thing, and in what sense we spoke it, and 
 the company know it, and our friends whom we have wished 
 to make sensible of our advantage, understand it well 
 enough too : 'tis at the expense of our frankness and of the 
 honour of our courage, that we disown our thoughts, and 
 seek refuge in falsities, to make matters up. We give our- 
 selves the lie, to excuse the lie we have given to another. 
 You are not to consider if your word or action may admit of 
 another interpretation ; 'tis your own true and sincere inter- 
 pretation, your real meaning in what you said or did, 
 that you are thenceforward to maintain, whatever it cost 
 you. Men speak to your virtue and conscience, which are 
 not things to be put under a mask ; let us leave these piti- 
 ful ways and expedients to the jugglers of the law. The 
 excuses and reparations that I see every day made and 
 given to repair indiscretion, seem to me more scandalous 
 than the indiscretion itself. It were better to affront your 
 adversary a second time, than to offend yourself by giving 
 him so unmanly a satisfaction. You have braved him in 
 your heat and anger, and you would flatter and appease him 
 in your cooler and better sense ; and by that means lay 
 yourself lower and at his feet, whom before you pretended to 
 overtop. I do not find anything a gentleman can say so 
 vicious in him, as unsaying what he has said is infamous, 
 when to unsay it is authoritatively extracted from him ; 
 forasmuch as obstinacy is more excusable in a man of 
 honour than pusillanimity. Passions are as easy for me to 
 evade, as they are hard for me to moderate : " Exscin- 
 duntur facilius animo, quam temperantur." l He, who cannot 
 attain the noble Stoical impassibility, let him secure 
 
 1 "They are more easily to be eradicated than governed." 
 
3 1 6 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 himself in the bosom of this popular stolidity of mine ; 
 what they performed by virtue, I inure myself to do by 
 temperament. The middle region harbours storms and tem- 
 pests ; the two extremes, of philosophers and peasants, concur 
 in tranquillity and happiness : 
 
 " Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
 Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatuni 
 Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Aclieroutis avari ! 
 Fortunatus et ille, Deos qui novit agrestes, 
 Panaque, Sylvauumque senem, Nymplaasque sorores ! " x 
 
 The births of all things are weak and tender ; and therefore 
 we should have our eyes intent on beginnings ; for as 
 when, in its infancy, the danger is not perceived, so when it is 
 grown up, the remedy is as little to be found. I had every 
 day encountered a million of crosses, harder to digest in the 
 progress of ambition, than it lias been hard for me to curb 
 the natural propension that inclined me to it : 
 
 " Jure perhorrui 
 Late conspicuum tollere verticem." 2 
 
 All public actions are subject to various and uncertain inter- 
 pretations ; for too many heads judge of them. Some say 
 of this civic employment of mine 3 (and I am willing to say 
 a word or two about it, not that it is worth so much, but to 
 give an account of my manners in such things), that I have 
 behaved myself in it as a man not sufficiently easy to be 
 moved, and with a languishing affection ; and they have 
 some colour for what they say. I endeavoured to keep my 
 mind and my thoughts in repose, " Cum semper natura, turn 
 
 1 " Happy is he who has discovered the causes of things, and tramples under 
 foot all fear, all concern, as to inexorable fate, or as to the roaring of greedy 
 Acheron : he is blest who knows the country gods, Pan, old Sylvanus, and 
 the sister nymphs." — Virgil, Georg., ii. 490. 
 
 2 " I ever justly feared to raise my head too high." — Horace, Od. iii. 16, 18. 
 
 3 The Bordeaux mayoralty. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 317 
 
 etiani estate jam quietus ; " l aud if they sometimes lash out 
 upon some rude and sensible impression, 'tis in truth with- 
 out my advice. Yet from this natural heaviness of mine, 
 men ought not to conclude a total inability in me (for want 
 of care and want of sense are two very different things), 
 and much less any unkindness or ingratitude towards that 
 corporation, who employed the utmost means they had in 
 then power to oblige me, both before they knew me and 
 after ; and they did much more for me in choosing me anew, 
 than in conferring that honour upon me at first. I wish 
 them all imaginable good ; and assuredly had occasion been, 
 there is nothing I would have spared for their service ; I 
 did for them, as I would have done for myself. 'Tis a good, 
 warlike, and generous people, but capable of obedience and 
 discipline, and of whom the best use may be made, if well 
 guided. They say also that my administration passed over 
 without leaving any mark or trace. Good ! They more- 
 over accuse my cessation in a time when everybody almost 
 was convicted of doing too much. I am impatient to be 
 doing where my will spurs me on ; but this itself is an 
 enemy to perseverance. Let him who will make use of me 
 according to my own way, employ me in affairs where 
 vigour and liberty are required, where a direct, short, and, 
 moreover, a hazardous conduct are necessary; I may do some- 
 thing ; but if it must be long, subtle, laborious, artificial and 
 intricate, he had better call in somebody else. All import- 
 ant offices are not necessarily difficult : I came prepared to do 
 somewhat rougher work, had there been great occasion ; for 
 it is in my power to do something more than I do, or than 
 I love to do. I did not, to my knowledge, omit anything 
 that my duty really required. I easily forgot those offices 
 
 1 "As being always quiet by nature, so also now by age." — Cicero, De 
 I'etit. Consul., c. 2. 
 
3 1 8 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 that ambition mixes with, duty and palliates with its title ; 
 these are they that, for the most part, fill the eyes and ears, 
 and give men the most satisfaction ; not the thing hut the 
 appearance contents them; if they hear no noise, they 
 think men sleep. My humour is no friend to tumult; I 
 could appease a commotion without commotion, and chastise 
 a disorder without being myself disorderly ; if I stand in 
 need of anger and inflammation, I borrow it, and put it 
 on. My manners are languid, rather faint than sharp. I do 
 not condemn a magistrate who sleeps, provided the people 
 under his charge sleep as well as he : the laws in that case 
 sleep too. For my part, I commend a gliding, staid, and 
 silent life : " ISTeque submissam et abjectam, neque se effe- 
 rentem ; " l my fortune will have it so. I am descended 
 from a family that has lived without lustre or tumult, and, 
 time out of mind, particularly ambitious of a character for 
 probity. 
 
 Our people nowadays are so bred up to bustle and 
 ostentation, that good nature, moderation, equability, con- 
 stancy, and such like quiet and obscure qualities, are no 
 more thought on or regarded. Eough bodies make them- 
 selves felt ; the smooth are imperceptibly handled : sickness 
 is felt, health little or not at all ; no more than the oils that 
 foment us, in comparison of the pains for which we are 
 fomented. "lis acting for one's particular reputation and 
 profit, not for the public good, to refer that to be done in the 
 public squares which one may do in the council chamber ; 
 and to noonday what might have been done the night 
 before ; and to be jealous to do that himself which his 
 colleague can do as well as he ; so were some surgeons of 
 Greece wont to perform their operations upon scaffolds in 
 the sight of the people, to draw more practice and profit. 
 
 1 " Not subject, nor abject, but not obtrusive." — Cicero, De Oific, i. 34. 
 
Chap, io.] Of Managing the Will. 319 
 
 They think that good rules cannot be understood, but by the 
 sound of trumpet. Ambition is not a vice of little people, 
 nor of such modest means as ours. One said to Alexander : 
 " Your father will leave you a great dominion, easy and 
 pacific ; " this youth was emulous of his father's victories, 
 and of the justice of his government ; he would not have 
 enjoyed the empire of the world in ease and peace. 
 Alcibiades, in Plato, had rather die young, beautiful, rich, 
 noble, and learned, and all this in full excellence, than 
 to stop short of such condition ; this disease is, perad- 
 venture, excusable in so strong and so full a soul. 
 "When wretched and dwarfish souls gull and deceive them- 
 selves, and think to spread their fame for having given 
 right judgment in an affair, or maintained the discipline of 
 the guard of a gate of their city, the more they think to 
 exalt their heads the more they show their tails. This 
 little well-doing has neither body nor life ; it vanishes in 
 the first mouth, and goes no farther than from one street to 
 another. Talk of it by all means to your son or your ser- 
 vant, like that old fellow who, having no other auditor of 
 his praises, nor approver of his valour, boasted to his cham- 
 bermaid, crying, " Perrette, what a brave, clever man hast 
 thou for thy master ! " At the worst, talk of it to yourself, 
 like a councillor of my acquaintance, who, having disgorged 
 a whole cartful of law jargon with great heat and as great 
 folly, coming out of the council chamber to make water, was 
 heard very complacently to mutter betwixt his teeth : " "Hon 
 nobis, domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam." 1 
 He who get it of nobody else, let him pay himself out of his 
 own purse. 
 
 Fame is not prostituted at so cheap a rate : rare and 
 
 1 " Not unto us, O Lord, not to us : but unto Thy name be the glory. "- 
 Psalm cxiii. I. 
 
2,20 Of Managing the Will. [Book iii. 
 
 exemplary actions, to which it is due, would not endure the 
 company of this prodigious crowd of petty daily perform- 
 ances. Marble may exalt your titles, as much as you 
 please, for having repaired a rod of wall or cleansed a 
 public sewer ; but not men of sense. Eenown does not 
 follow all good deeds, if novelty and difficulty be not con- 
 joined ; nay, so much as mere esteem, according to the 
 Stoics, is not due to every action that proceeds from virtue ; 
 nor will they allow him bare thanks, who, out of temper- 
 ance, abstains from an old blear-eyed hag. Those who have 
 known the admirable qualities of Scipio Africanus, deny 
 him the glory that Pansetius attributes to him, of being 
 abstinent from gifts, as a glory not so much his as that of 
 the age he lived in. 1 We have pleasures suitable to our 
 lot ; let us not usurp those of grandeur : our own are 
 more natural, and by so much more solid and sure, as they 
 are lower. If not for that of conscience, yet at least 
 for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition ; let us disdain 
 that thirst of honour and renown, so low and mendicant, 
 that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people (" Quse est 
 ista laus quse possit e macello peti ? " 2 ) by abject means, 
 and at what cheap rate soever : 'tis dishonour to be so 
 honoured. Let us learn to be no more greedy, than we are 
 capable, of glory. To be puffed up with every action that 
 is innocent or of use, is only for those with whom such 
 things are extraordinary and rare : they will value it as it 
 costs them. The more a good effect makes a noise, 
 the more do I abate of its goodness as I suspect that 
 it was more performed for the noise, than upon account 
 of the goodness : exposed upon the stall, 'tis half 
 sold. Those actions have much more grace and lustre, 
 
 1 Cicero, De Offic, ii. 22. 
 
 2 " What praise is that which is to be got in the market-place ?" — Idem, 
 De Fin., ii. 15. 
 
Chap, io.] On Managing the Will. 321 
 
 that slip from the hand of him that does them, negligently 
 and without noise, and that some honest man thereafter finds 
 out and raises from the shade, to produce it to the light 
 upon its own account. " Mihi quidem laudabiliora videntur 
 omnia, quae sine venditatione, et sine populo teste fiunt," 1 
 says the most ostentatious man that ever lived. 
 
 I had but to conserve and to continue, which are silent 
 and insensible effects : innovation is of great lustre ; but 'tis 
 interdicted in this age, when we are pressed upon and have 
 nothing to defend ourselves from but novelties. To forbear 
 doing is often as generous as to do; but 'tis less in the light, 
 and the little good that I have in me is of this kind. In 
 fine, occasions in this employment of mine have been con- 
 federate with my humour, and I heartily thank them for it. 
 Is there any who desires to be sick, that he may see his 
 physician at work ? and would not that physician deserve 
 to be whipped, who should wish the plague amongst us, that 
 he might put his art in practice? I have never been of 
 that wicked humour, and common enough, to desire that 
 troubles and disorders in this city should elevate and honour 
 my government ; I have ever heartily contributed all I 
 could to their tranquillity and ease. He who will not thank 
 me for the order, the sweet and silent calm that has ac- 
 companied my administration, cannot, however, deprive me 
 of the share that belongs to me, by title of my good for- 
 tune. And I am of such a composition, that I would as 
 willingly be lucky as wise, and had rather owe my suc- 
 cesses purely to the favour of Almighty God, than to any 
 operation of my own. I had sufficiently published to 
 the world my unfitness for such public offices; but I have 
 something in me yet worse than incapacity itself; which 
 
 1 " All things truly seem more laudable to me that are performed without 
 ostentation, and without the testimony of the people." — Cicero, Tusc. Quks., 
 ii. 26. 
 
 VOL. III. X 
 
322 Of Cripples. [Book iii. 
 
 is, that I am not much displeased at it, and that I do not 
 much go about to cure it, considering the course of life 
 that I have proposed to myself. Neither have I satisfied 
 myself in this employment ; but I have very near arrived at 
 what I expected from my own performance, and have much 
 surpassed what I promised them with whom I had to do : 
 for I am apt to promise something less than what I am able 
 to do and than what I hope to make good. I assure myself 
 that I have left no offence or hatred behind me ; to leave 
 regret or desire for me amongst them, I at least know 
 very well that I never much aimed at it : 
 
 " Mene lime confidere monstro ! 
 Mene salis placidi vultum, fluctusque quietos 
 Ignorare I" 1 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 OF CRIPPLES. 
 
 "lis now two or three years ago that they made the year 
 ten days shorter in France. 2 How many changes may 
 we expect should follow this reformation ! it was really 
 moving heaven and earth at once. Yet nothing for all 
 that stirs from its place : my neighbours still find their 
 seasons of sowing and reaping, the opportunities of doing 
 their business, the hurtful and propitious days, just at the 
 same time where they had, time out of mind, assigned them ; 
 there was no more error perceived in our old use, than 
 there is amendment found in the alteration ; so great an 
 uncertainty there is throughout ; so gross, obscure, and 
 
 1 "Should I place confidence in this monster? Should I be ignorant of 
 the dangers of that seeming placid sea, those now quiet waves?" — Virgil, 
 yEneid, V. 849. 
 
 2 See note as to this in the preceding chapter. 
 
Chap, ii.] Of Cripples. 323 
 
 obtuse is our perception. Tis said tliat this regulation 
 might have been carried on with less inconvenience, by 
 subtracting for some years, according to the example of 
 Augustus, the Bissextile, which is in some sort a day of 
 impediment and trouble, till we had exactly satisfied this 
 debt, the which itself is not done by this correction, and 
 we yet remain some days in arrear : and yet, by this 
 means, such order might be taken for the future, arranging 
 that after the revolution of such or such a number of years, 
 the supernumerary day might be always thrown out, so 
 that we could not, henceforward, err above four-and-twenty 
 hours in our computation. We have no other account of 
 time but years ; the world has for many ages made use of 
 that only ; and yet it is a measure that to this day we are 
 not agreed upon, and one that we still doubt what form 
 other nations have variously given to it, and what was the 
 true use of it. What does this saying of some mean, that 
 the heavens in growing old bow themselves down nearer 
 towards us, and put us into an uncertainty even of hours 
 and days ? and that which Plutarch says 1 of the months, 
 that astrology had not in his time determined as to the 
 motion of the moon ; what a fine condition are we in to 
 keep records of things past ! 
 
 I was just now ruminating, as I often do, what a free 
 and roving thing human reason is. I ordinarily see that 
 men, in things propounded to them, more willingly study to 
 find out reasons, than to ascertain truth : they slip over 
 presuppositions, but are curious in examination of conse- 
 quences ; they leave the things, and fly to the causes. 
 Pleasant praters ! The knowledge of causes only con- 
 cerns him Avho has the conduct of things; not us, who 
 are merely to undergo them, and who have perfectly 
 
 1 Roman Questions, c. 24. 
 
324 Of Cripples. [Book iii. 
 
 full and accomplished use of them, according to our 
 need, without penetrating into the original and essence ; 
 wine is none the more pleasant to him who knows 
 its first faculties. On the contrary, both the body and 
 the soul interrupt and weaken the right they have of the 
 use of the world and of themselves, by mixing with it the 
 opinion of learning ; effects concern us, but the means not 
 at all. To determine and to distribute appertain to supe- 
 riority and command; as it does to subjection to accept. 
 Let me reprehend our custom. They commonly begin thus : 
 " How is such a thing done ? " Whereas they should say, 
 " Is such a thing done ? " Our reason is able to create a 
 hundred other worlds, and to find out the beginnings and 
 contexture ; it needs neither matter nor foundation : let it 
 but run on, it builds as well in the air as on the earth, and 
 with inanity as well as with matter; 
 
 " Dare ponclus idonea fumo." x 
 I find that almost throughout we should say, " there is no 
 such thing," and should myself often make use of this 
 answer, but I dare not : for they cry that it is an evasion 
 produced from ignorance and weakness of understanding ; 
 and I am fain, for the most part, to juggle for company, 
 and prate of frivolous subjects and tales that I believe 
 never a word of; besides that, in truth, 'tis a little rude 
 and quarrelsome flatly to deny a stated fact; and few 
 people but will affirm, especially in things hard to be 
 believed, that they have seen them, or at least will name 
 witnesses whose authority will stop our mouths from con- 
 tradiction. In this way, we know the foundations and 
 means of things that never were; and the world scuffles 
 about a thousand questions, of which both the Pro and the 
 Con are false. " Ita fmitima sunt falsa veris, ut in prseci- 
 
 1 " Able to give weight to smoke." — Persius, V. 20. 
 
Chap, ii.] Of Cripples. 325 
 
 pitem locum non debeat se sapiens coinmittere." 1 Truth 
 and lies are faced alike ; their port, taste, and proceedings 
 are the same, and we look upon them "with the same eye. 
 I find that we are not only remiss in defending ourselves 
 from deceit, but that we seek and offer ourselves to be 
 gulled ; we love to entangle ourselves in vanity, as a thing 
 conformable to our being. 
 
 I have seen the birth of many miracles of my time ; 
 which, although they were abortive, yet have we not failed 
 to foresee what they would have come to, had they lived 
 their full age. 'lis but finding the end of the clew, 
 and a man may wind off as much as he will ; and there 
 is a greater distance betwixt nothing and the least thing 
 in the world, than there is betwixt this and the greatest. 
 Now the first that are imbued with this beginning of 
 novelty, when they set out with their tale, find, by the 
 oppositions they meet with, where the difficulty of per- 
 suasion lies, and so caulk up that place with some false 
 piece ; 2 besides that, " Insita hominibus libidine alendi de 
 industria rumores," 3 we naturally make a conscience of 
 restoring what has been lent us, without some usury and 
 accession of our own. The particular error first makes the 
 public error, and afterwards, in turn, the public error makes 
 the particular one; 4 and thus all this vast fabric goes forming 
 and piling itself up from hand to hand, so that the remotest 
 witness knows more about it than those who were nearest, 
 and the last informed is better persuaded than the first. 
 
 1 " False things are so like the true, that a wise man should not trust him- 
 self upon the precipice." — Cicero, Acad., ii. 21. 
 
 2 Voltaire says of this passage, "'He who would learn to doubt, should read 
 this whole chapter of Montaigne, the least methodical of all philosophers, but 
 the wisest and the most amiable." — Melanges Historiques, xvii. 694, ed. of 
 Lefevre. 
 
 3 "Men having a natural desire to nourish reports." — Livy, xxviii. 24. 
 
 4 Seneca, Ep. 81. 
 
326 Of Cripples. [Book iii. 
 
 'Tis a natural progress : for whoever believes anything, 
 thinks it a work of charity to persuade another into the 
 same opinion; which the better to do, he will make no 
 difficulty of adding as much of his own invention, as he 
 conceives necessary to his tale to encounter the resistance 
 or want of conception he meets with in others. I myself, 
 who make a great conscience of lying, and am not very soli- 
 citous of giving credit and authority to what I say, yet 
 find that in the arguments I have in hand, being heated 
 with the opposition of another, or by the proper warmth of 
 my own narration, I swell and puff up my subject by voice, 
 motion, vigour and force of words, and moreover, by exten- 
 sion and amplification, not without some prejudice to the 
 naked truth ; but I do it conditionally withal, that to the 
 first who brings me to myself, and who asks me the plain 
 and bare truth, I presently surrender my passion, and deliver 
 the matter to him without exaggeration, without emphasis, 
 or any painting of my own. A quick and earnest way of 
 speaking, as mine is, is apt to run into hyperbole. There 
 is nothing to which men commonly are more inclined, than 
 to make way for their own opinions ; where the ordinary 
 means fail us, we add command, force, fire, and sword. 'Tis 
 a misfortune to be at such a pass, that the best test of truth 
 is the multitude of believers, in a crowd, where the number 
 of fools so much exceeds the wise. " Quasi vero quidquam 
 sit tarn valde, quam nil sapere, vulgare." 1 " Sanitatis patro- 
 cinium est, insanientium turba," 2 'Tis hard to resolve a 
 man's judgment against the common opinions : the first per- 
 suasion, taken from the very subject itself, possesses the 
 simple, and from them diffuses itself to the wise, under the 
 authority of the number and antiquity of the witnesses. For 
 
 1 "As if anything were so common as ignorance." — Cicero, De Divin., ii. 
 8 " The multitude of fools is a protection to the wise." — St. Augustine, De 
 Civit. Dei, vi. 10. 
 
Chap, ii.] Of Cripples. 327 
 
 my part, what I should not believe from one, I should not 
 believe from a hundred and one : and I do not judge opinions 
 by years. 
 
 'Tis not long since one of our princes, in whom the gout 
 had spoiled an excellent nature and sprightly disposition, 
 suffered himself to be so far persuaded with the report made 
 to him of the marvellous operations of a certain priest, who 
 by words and gestures cured all sorts of diseases, as to go 
 a long journey to seek him out, and by the force of his 
 mere imagination, for some hours so persuaded and laid his 
 legs asleep, as to obtain that service from them they had 
 a long time forgotten. Had fortune heaped up five or six 
 suchlike incidents, it had been enough to have brought this 
 miracle into nature. There was afterwards discovered so 
 much simplicity and so little art in the architect of these 
 operations, that he was thought too contemptible to be 
 punished ; as would be thought of most such things, were 
 they well examined. " Miramur ex intervallo fallentia." x 
 So does our sight often represent to us strange images at a 
 distance, that vanish on approaching near : " Nuncjuam ad 
 liquidum fama perducitur." 2 
 
 'Tis wonderful from how many idle beginnings and frivol- 
 ous causes such famous impressions commonly proceed. 
 This it is that obstructs information ; for whilst we seek 
 out causes and solid and weighty ends, worthy of so great a 
 name, we lose the true ones ; they escape our sight by their 
 littleness. And, in truth, a very prudent, diligent, and 
 subtle incpiisition is required in such searches, indifferent, 
 and not prepossessed. To this very hour, all these miracles 
 and strange events have concealed themselves from me : I 
 have never seen greater monster or miracle in the world 
 
 1 "We admire at distance things that deceive." — Seneca, Ep. Il8, 2. 
 
 2 "Report is never fully substantiated." — Quintus Curtius, ix. 2. 
 
328 Of Cripples. [Book iii. 
 
 than myself : one grows familiar with all strange things by 
 time and custom, but the more I frequent and the better I 
 know myself, the more does my own deformity astonish me, 
 the less I understand myself. 
 
 The principal right of advancing and producing such 
 accidents, is reserved to fortune. Eiding the other day 
 through a village, about two leagues from my house, I 
 found the place yet hot with the rumour of a miracle that 
 had lately failed of success there; wherewith first the neigh- 
 bourhood had been several months amused ; then the neigh- 
 bouring provinces began to take it up, and to run thither 
 in great companies of all sorts of people. A young fellow 
 of the place had one night in sport counterfeited the voice 
 of a spirit in his own house, without any other design at 
 present, but only for sport ; but this having succeeded with 
 him better than he expected, to illustrate his farce with 
 more actors he associated with him a stupid silly country 
 girl, and at last there were three of them, of the same age 
 and understanding who from domestic lectures proceeded 
 to public preachings, hiding themselves under the altar of 
 the church, never speaking but by night, and forbidding any 
 light to be brought. From words which tended to the con- 
 version of the world, and threats of the day of judgment 
 (for these are subjects under the authority and reverence 
 of which imposture most securely lurks), they proceeded to 
 visions and gestures so simple and ridiculous, that nothing 
 could hardly be so gross in the sports of little children. Yet 
 had fortune never so little favoured the design, who knows 
 to what height this juggling might have at last arrived ? 
 These poor devils are at present in prison, and are like shortly 
 to pay for the common folly; and I know not whether some 
 judge will not also make them smart for his. We see 
 clearly into this, which is discovered; but in many things of 
 the like nature, that exceed our knowledge, I am of opinion 
 
Chap, ii.] Of Cripples. 329 
 
 that we ought to suspend our judgment, whether as to 
 rejection or as to reception. 
 
 Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak 
 more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begotten, by our 
 being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that 
 we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute : 
 we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. The style 
 at Eome was, that even that which a witness deposed to 
 having seen with his own eyes, and what a judge deter- 
 mined with his most certain knowledge, was couched in 
 this form of speaking : " it seems to me." They make me 
 hate things that are likely, when they would impose them 
 upon me as infallible. I love these words which mollify 
 and moderate the temerity of our propositions : " peradven- 
 ture ; in some sort ; some ; 'tis said ; I think," and the 
 like : and had I been set to train up children I had put 
 this way of answering into their mouths, inquiring and not 
 resolving ; " What does this mean ? I understand it not ; 
 it may be : is it true ? " so that they should rather have 
 retained the form of pupils, at threescore years old, than to 
 go out doctors, as they do, at ten. Whoever will be cured 
 of ignorance, must confess it. 
 
 Iris is the daughter of Thaumas ; * admiration is the 
 foundation of all philosophy ; inquisition, the progress ; 
 ignorance, the end. But there is a sort of ignorance, strong 
 and generous, that yields nothing in honour and courage to 
 knowledge ; an ignorance, which to conceive requires no 
 less knowledge than to conceive knowledge itself. I read 
 in my younger years a trial that Coras, 2 a counsellor 
 
 1 That is, of admiration (Qav/xa, Oclv/jlclvtos). She (Iris, the rainbow) is beau- 
 tiful, and for that reason, because she has a face to be admired {admirabilem), 
 she is said to have been the daughter of Thaumas." — Cicero, De Nat. Deor., 
 iii. 20. 
 
 2 A celebrated Calvinist lawyer, born at Toulouse 1513, and assassinated 
 there 4th Oct. 1572. 
 
3 30 - Of Cripples. [Book iii. 
 
 of Toulouse, printed, of a strange incident, of two men who 
 presented themselves the one for the other. I remember 
 (and I hardly remember anything else) that he seemed to 
 have rendered the imposture of him whom he judged to be 
 guilty, so wonderful and so far exceeding both our know- 
 ledge and his own, who was the judge, that I thought it a 
 very bold sentence that condemned him to be hanged. Let 
 us have some form of decree that says, " The court under- 
 stands nothing of the matter ; " more freely and ingenuously 
 than the Areopagites did, who, finding themselves perplexed 
 with a cause they could not unravel, ordered the parties to 
 appear again after a hundred years. 
 
 The witches of my neighbourhood run the hazard of their 
 lives, upon the report of every new author who seeks 
 to give body to their dreams. To accommodate the exam- 
 ples that Holy writ gives us of such things, most certain 
 and irrefragable examples, and to tie them to our modern 
 events, seeing that we neither see the causes nor the means, 
 will require another sort of wit than ours. It, peradven- 
 ture, only appertains to that sole all-potent testimony to 
 tell us. " This is, and that is, and not that other." God 
 ought to be believed, and certainly with very good reason ; 
 but not one amongst us, for all that, who is astonished at his 
 own narration (and he must of necessity be astonished, if he 
 be not out of his wits), whether he employ it about other 
 men's affairs, or against himself. 
 
 I am plain and heavy, and stick to the solid and the 
 probable, avoiding those ancient reproaches, " Majorem fidem 
 homines adhibent iis, quae non intelligunt. — Cupidine humani 
 ingenii, libentius obscura creduntur." 1 I see very well that 
 men get angry, and that I am forbidden to doubt, upon pain 
 
 1 "Men are most apt to believe what they least understand : and through 
 the lust of human wit, obscure things are more easily credited." The second 
 sentence is from Tacitus, Hist., i. 22. 
 
Chap, ii.] Of Cripples. 331 
 
 of execrable injuries ; a new way of persuading ! Thank 
 God, I am not to be cuffed into belief. Let them be angry 
 with those who accuse their opinion of falsity ; I only accuse 
 it of difficulty and boldness, and condemn the opposite 
 affirmation equally, if not so imperiously, with them. He 
 who will establish his proposition by authority and huffing, 
 discovers his reason to be very weak. For a verbal and 
 scholastic altercation, let them have as much appearance 
 as their contradictors ; " Videantur sane, non affirmentur 
 modo ; " 1 but in the real consequence they draw from it, 
 these have much the advantage. To kill men, 2 a clear and 
 shining light is required ; and our life is too real and 
 essential, to warrant these supernatural and fantastic acci- 
 dents. 
 
 As to drugs and jjoisons, I throw them out of my count, 
 as being the worst sorts of homicides : yet even in this, 'tis 
 said, that men are not always to rely upon the personal 
 confessions of these people ; for they have sometimes been 
 known to accuse themselves of the murder of persons who 
 have afterwards been found living and well. In these other 
 extravagant accusations, I should be apt to say, that it is 
 sufficient a man, what recommendation soever he may have, 
 be believed as to human things ; but of what is beyond his 
 conception, and of supernatural effect, he ought then only to 
 be believed, when authorised by a supernatural approbation. 
 The privilege it has pleased Almighty God to give to some 
 of our witnesses, ought not to be lightly communicated and 
 made cheap. I have my ears battered with a thousand 
 such flim-flams as these : " Three persons saw him such a day 
 
 1 " Let them state the probabilities, but not affirm." — Cicero, Acad. ii. 27. 
 
 2 Coste has "to convince men," but the text has titer, "to kill," and so 
 Cotton gives it. The introduction of the proposition at this place is not of 
 obvious congruity. Eut it may be read as deprecating the putting to death 
 such people as Montaigne is here writing about. 
 
332 Of Cripples. [Bookiii. 
 
 in the east ; three, the next day in the west ; at such an 
 hour, in such a place, and in such habit ; " in earnest, 
 I should not believe myself. How much more natural and 
 likely do I find it that two men should lie, than that one 
 man in twelve hours' time should fly with the wind from 
 east to west ? How much more natural that our under- 
 standing should be carried from its place by the volubility 
 of our disordered minds, than that one of us should be 
 carried by a strange spirit upon a broom-staff, flesh and 
 bones as we are, up the shaft of a chimney ? Let not us 
 seek illusions from without and unknown, we who are per- 
 petually agitated with illusions domestic and our own. Me- 
 thinks one is pardonable in disbelieving a miracle, at least, 
 at all events where one can elude its verification as such, by 
 means not miraculous; and I am of St. Augustine's opinion, 
 that " 'tis better to lean towards doubt than assurance, in 
 things hard to prove and dangerous to believe." 
 
 'Tis now some years ago, that I travelled through the 
 territories of a sovereign prince, who, in my favour, and to 
 abate my incredulity, did me the honour to let me see, in 
 his own presence, and in a private place, ten or twelve 
 prisoners of this kind, and amongst others, an old hag, a 
 real witch in foulness and deformity, who long had been 
 famous in that profession. I saw both proofs and free con- 
 fessions, and I know not what insensible mark upon the 
 miserable creature : I examined and talked with her and 
 the rest as much and as long as I would, and gave the 
 best and soundest attention I could, and I am not a man 
 to suffer my judgment to be made captive by prepossession. 
 In the end, and in all conscience, I should rather have pre- 
 scribed them hellebore than hemlock : " Captisque res ma- 
 gis mentibus, quam consceleratis, similis visa.;" 1 justice has 
 
 1 "The thing was rather to be attributed to madness, than malice."' — Livy, 
 viii. 1 8. 
 
Chap, ii.] Of Cripples. 333 
 
 its corrections proper for such maladies. As to the opposi- 
 tions and arguments that worthy men have made to me, 
 both there, and often in other places, I have met with none 
 that have convinced me, and that have not admitted a more 
 likely solution than their conclusions. It is true, indeed, 
 that the proofs and reasons that are founded upon ex- 
 perience and fact, I do not go about to untie, neither have 
 they any end ; I often cut them, as Alexander did the 
 Gordian knot. After all, 'tis setting a man's conjectures 
 at a very high price, upon them to cause a man to be 
 roasted alive. 
 
 We are told by several examples, as Prsestantius of his 
 father, that being more profoundly asleep than men usually 
 are, he fancied himself to be a mare, and that he served 
 the soldiers for a sumpter ; and what he fancied himself to 
 be, he really proved. 1 If sorcerers dream so materially ; 
 if dreams can sometimes so incorporate themselves with 
 effects, still I cannot believe that therefore our will should 
 be accountable to justice ; which I say as one who am 
 neither judge nor privy councillor, and who think myself by 
 many degrees unworthy so to be, but a man of the common 
 sort, born and vowed to the obedience of the public reason, 
 both in its words and acts. He who should record my idle 
 talk as being to the prejudice of the pettiest law, opinion, 
 or custom of his parish, would do himself a great deal of 
 wrong, and me much more; for, in what I say, I warrant no 
 other certainty, but that 'tis what I had then in my thought, 
 a tumultuous and wavering thought. All I say is by way 
 of discourse, and nothing by way of advice : " ISTec me pudet, 
 ut istos, fateri nescire, quod nesciam ; " x I should not 
 speak so boldly, if it were my due to be believed ; and so I 
 
 1 St. Augustine, De Civit. Dei, xviii. 18. 
 
 ! "Neither am I ashamed, as they are, to confess my ignorance of what I 
 do not know." — Cicero, Tusc. Quses., i. 25. 
 
334 Of Cripples. [Book iii. 
 
 told a great man, who complained of the tartness and con- 
 tentiousness of my exhortations. Perceiving yon to be ready 
 and prepared on one part, I propose to you the other, with 
 all the dilligence and care I can, to clear your judgment, 
 not to compel it. God has your hearts in his hands, and 
 will furnish you with the means of choice. I am not so 
 presumptuous even as to desire that my opinions should 
 bias you in a thing of so great importance : my fortune has 
 not trained them up to so potent and elevated conclusions. 
 Truly, I have not only a great many humours, but also a 
 great many opinions, that I would endeavour to make my 
 son dislike, if I had one. What, if the truest are not 
 always the most commodious to man, being of so wild a 
 composition. 
 
 Whether it be to the purpose or not, 'tis no great matter : 
 'tis a common proverb in Italy, that he knows not Venus 
 in her perfect sweetness, who has never lain with a lame 
 mistress. Fortune, or some particular incident, long ago 
 put this saying into the mouths of the people ; and the 
 same is said of men as well as of women ; for the queen of 
 the Amazons answered the Scythian who courted her to 
 love, " Lame men perform best." * In this feminine republic,- 
 to evade the dominion of the males, they lamed them in 
 their infancy — arms, legs, and other members that gave 
 them advantage over them, and only made use of them in 
 that wherein we, in these parts of the world, make use of 
 them. I should have been apt to think, that the shuffling 
 pace of the lame mistress added some new pleasure to the 
 work, and some extraordinary titillation to those who were 
 at the sport ; but I have lately learnt that ancient philoso- 
 phy has itself determined it, 2 which says that the legs and 
 
 1 Apiara %w\os oupei. 
 
 2 Aristotle, Problema, sect, io, prob. 26. 
 
Chap, ii.] Of Cripples. 
 
 oo. 
 
 thighs of lame women, not receiving, by reason of their im- 
 perfection, their clue aliment, it falls out that the genital 
 parts above are fuller and better supplied and much more 
 vigorous ; or else, that this defect, hindering exercise, they 
 who are troubled with it less dissipate their strength, and 
 come more entire to the sports of Venus ; which, also, is the 
 reason why the Greeks decried the women weavers as being 
 more hot than other women by reason of their sedentary 
 trade, which they carry on without any great exercise of 
 the body. What is it we may not reason of, at this rate ? 
 I might also say of these, that the joggling about whilst so 
 sitting at work, rouses and provokes their desire, as the 
 swinging and jolting of coaches does that of our ladies. 
 
 Do not these examples serve to make good what I said 
 at first : that our reasons often anticipate the effect, and 
 have so infinite an extent of jurisdiction, that they judge and 
 exercise themselves even on inanity itself and non-existency ? 
 Besides the flexibility of our invention to forge reasons of 
 all sorts of dreams, our imagination is equally facile to 
 receive impressions of falsity by very frivolous appearances ; 
 for, by the sole authority of the ancient and common use of 
 this proverb, I have formerly made myself believe that I 
 have had more pleasure in a woman, by reason she was not 
 straight, and accordingly reckoned that deformity amongst 
 her graces. 
 
 Torquato Tasso, in the comparison he makes betwixt 
 France and Italy, 1 says he has observed that our legs are 
 generally smaller than those of the Italian gentlemen, and 
 attributes the cause of it to our being continually on horse- 
 back ; which is the very same cause from which Suetonius 
 draws a quite opposite conclusion, for he says, 2 on the con- 
 
 1 Paragone dell' Italia alia Francia, p. II, ed. 1585. 
 
 2 Life of Caligula, s. 3. 
 
336 Of Cripples. [Book iii. 
 
 trary, that Germanicus had made his legs bigger by the con- 
 tinuation of the same exercise. Nothing is so supple and 
 erratic as our understanding ; it is like the shoe of Thera- 
 menes, fit for all feet. It is double and diverse, and the 
 matters are double and diverse too. " Give me a drachm of 
 silver," said a Cynic philosopher to Antigonus. " That is 
 not a present befitting a king," replied he. " Give me then 
 a talent," said the other. " That is not a present befitting 
 a Cynic." x 
 
 " Seu plures calor ille vias efc cseca relaxat 
 Spiramenta, novas veniat qua succus in herbas : 
 Seu durat magis, et venas astringit hiantes ; 
 Ne tenues pluvia3, rapidive potentia solis 
 Acrior, aut Boreae penetrabile frigus adurat." 2 
 
 " Ogni medaglia ha il suo riverso." 3 This is the reason 
 why Clitomachus said of old that Carneades had outdone 
 the labours of Hercules, in having eradicated consent from 
 men, that is to say, opinion and the temerity of judging. 
 This so vigorous fancy of Carneades sprung, in my opinion, 
 anciently from the impudence of those who made profession 
 of knowledge, and their immeasurable self-conceit. ^Esop 
 was set to sale with two other slaves ; the buyer asked the 
 first of these what he could do ; he, to enhance his own 
 value, promised mountains and marvels, saying he could do 
 this and that, and I know not what ; the second said as 
 much of himself, or more : when it came to TEsop's turn, 
 and that he was also asked what he could do ; " Nothing," 
 said he, " for these two have taken up all before me ; they 
 
 1 Seneca, De Benefices, ii. 17. 
 
 2 "Whether the heat opens more passages and secret pores through which the 
 sap may be derived into the new born herbs ; or whether it rather hardens 
 and binds the gaping veins that the small showers and keen influence of the 
 violent sun, or penetrating cold of Boreas may not hurt them." — Virg. Georg., 
 i. 89. 
 
 3 " Every medal has its reverse." — Italian Proverb. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 337 
 
 can do everything." So lias it happened in the school of 
 philosophy : the pride of those who attributed the capacity 
 of all things to the human mind, created in others, out of 
 despite and emulation, this opinion, that it is capable of 
 nothing : the one maintain the same extreme in ignorance 
 that the others do in knowledge ; to make it undeniably 
 manifest that man is immoderate throughout, and can never 
 stop but of necessity and the want of ability to proceed 
 further. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
 Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and 
 trust ; and 'tis not amiss ; we could not choose worse than 
 by ourselves, in so weak an age. That image of Socrates' 
 discourses, which his friends have transmitted to us, we 
 approve upon no other account than a reverence to 
 public sanction : 'tis not according to our own know- 
 ledge ; they are not after our way ; if anything of the kind 
 should spring up now, few men would value them. "We 
 discern no graces that are not pointed and puffed out and 
 inflated by art ; such as glide on in their own purity and 
 simplicity easily escape so gross a sight as ours ; they have 
 a delicate and concealed beauty, such as requires a clear and 
 purified sight to discover its secret light. Is not simpli- 
 city, as we take it, cousin-german to folly, and a quality of 
 reproach ? Socrates makes his soul move a natural and 
 common motion : a peasant said this ; a woman said that ; 
 he has never anybody in his mouth but carters, joiners, 
 cobblers, and masons ; his are inductions and similitudes 
 drawn from the most common and known actions of men ; 
 VOL. IIT. Y 
 
 \ 
 
338 • Of Physiognomy. [Book Hi. 
 
 every one understands him. "We should never have recog- 
 nised the nobility and splendour of his admirable concep- 
 tions under so mean a form ; we, who think all things low 
 and flat, that are not elevated by learned doctrine, and who 
 discern no riches but in pomp and show. This world of 
 ours is only formed for ostentation : men are only puffed up 
 with wind, and are bandied too and fro like tennis-balls. 
 He proposed to himself no vain and idle fancies ; his design 
 was to furnish us with precepts and things that more really 
 and fitly serve to the use of life ; 
 
 " Servare modnm, finemque tenere, 
 Naturamque sequi." 1 
 
 He was also always one and the same, 2 and raised himself, 
 not by starts but by complexion, to the highest pitch of 
 vigour ; or, to say better, mounted not at all, but rather 
 brought down, reduced and subjected all asperities and 
 difficulties to his original and natural condition ; for, in 
 Cato 'tis most manifest, that 'tis a procedure extended far 
 beyond the common ways of men : in the brave exploits of 
 his life, and in his death, we find him always mounted upon 
 the great horse ; whereas the other ever creeps upon the 
 ground, and with a gentle and ordinary pace, treats of the 
 most useful matters, and bears himself, both at his death 
 and in the rudest difficulties that could present themselves, 
 in the ordinary way of human life. 
 
 It has fallen out well, that the man most worthy to be 
 known and to be presented to the world for example, should 
 be he of whom we have the most certain knowledge ; he 
 has been pried into by the most clear-sighted men that ever 
 were ; the testimonies we have of him are admirable both 
 in fidelity and fulness. 'Tis a great thing that he was able 
 
 1 "To keep a just mean, to observe just limits, and to follow Nature." — 
 Lucan, ii. 381. 
 
 2 Cicero, De Offic, i. 26. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 339 
 
 so to order the pure imaginations of a child, that, without 
 altering or wresting them, he thereby produced the most 
 beautiful effects of our soul : he presents it neither elevated 
 nor rich ; he only represents it sound, but assuredly with 
 a brisk and full health. By these common and natural 
 springs, by these ordinary and popular fancies, without being 
 moved or put out, he set up not only the most regular, but 
 the most high and vigorous beliefs, actions, and manners 
 that ever were. 'Tis he who brought again from heaven, 
 where she lost her time, human wisdom, to restore her to 
 man, with whom her most just and greatest business lies. 
 See him plead before his judges ; observe by what reasons 
 he rouses his courage to the hazards of war ; with what 
 arguments he fortifies his patience against calumny, tyranny, 
 death, and the perverseness of his wife : you will find 
 nothing in all this borrowed from arts and sciences : the 
 simplest may there discover their own means and strength ; 
 'tis not possible more to retire or to creep more low. He 
 has done human nature a great kindness, in showing it how 
 much it can do of itself. 
 
 We are all of us richer than we think we are ; but we 
 are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to 
 make use of what is another's than of our own. Man can 
 in nothing fix himself to his actual necessity: of pleasure, 
 wealth, and power, he grasps at more than he can hold ; 
 his greediness is incapable of moderation. And I find that 
 in curiosity of knowing he is the same ; he cuts himself out 
 more work than he can do, and more than he needs to do : 
 extending the utility of knowledge, to the full of its mat- 
 ter : " Ut omnium rerum, sic litterarum quocpie, intempe- 
 rantia laboramus " * And Tacitus 2 had reason to commend 
 
 1 " We carry intemperance into the study of literature, as well as into 
 everything else. 1 ' — Seneca, Ep. 106. 
 
 2 Life of Agricola, c. 4. 
 
34-0 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 the mother of Agricola, for having restrained her son in his 
 too violent appetite of learning. 
 
 Tis a good, if duly considered, which has in it, as the 
 other goods of men have, a great deal of vanity and weak- 
 ness, proper and natural to itself, and that costs very 
 dear. Its acquisition is far more hazardous than that of all 
 other meat or drink ; for, as to other things, what we have 
 bought we carry home in some vessel, and there have full 
 leisure to examine our purchase, how much we shall eat 
 or drink of it, and when : but sciences we can, at the very 
 first, stow into no other vessel than the soul ; we swallow 
 them in buying, and return from the market, either already 
 infected or amended : there are some that only burden and 
 overcharge the stomach, instead of nourishing ; and, more- 
 over, some, that under colour of curing, poison us. I have 
 been pleased, in places where I have been, to see men in 
 devotion vow ignorance as well as chastity, poverty, and 
 penitence : 'tis also a gelding of our unruly appetites, to 
 blunt this cupidity that spurs us on to the study of books, 
 and to deprive the soul of this voluptuous complacency 
 that tickles us with the opinion of knowledge : and 'tis 
 plenarily to accomplish the vow of poverty, to add unto it 
 that of the mind. We need little doctrine to live at our 
 ease ; and Socrates teaches us, that this is in us, and the 
 way how to find it, and the manner how to use it. All 
 our sufficiency which exceeds the natural is well-nigh 
 superfluous and vain : 'tis much if it does not rather burden 
 and cumber us than do us good: " Paucis opus est Uteris 
 ad mentem bonam : " 1 'tis a feverish excess of the mind ; 
 a tempestuous and unquiet instrument. Do but recollect 
 yourself, and you will find in yourself natural arguments 
 
 1 "Very little learning is needed to form a sound mind." — Seneca, Ep. 
 1 06. 
 
Cliap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 341 
 
 against death, true, and the fittest to serve you in time of 
 necessity : 'tis they that make a peasant, and whole nations, 
 die with as much firmness as a philosopher. Should I 
 have died less cheerfully before I had read Cicero's Tuscu- 
 lans ? I believe not ; and when I find myself at the best, 
 I perceive that my tongue is enriched indeed, but my 
 courage little or nothing elevated by them ; that is just as 
 nature framed it at first, and defends itself against the con- 
 flict, only after a natural and ordinary way. Books have 
 not so much served me for instruction as exercise. What 
 if knowledge, trying to arm us with new defences against 
 natural inconveniences, has more imprinted in our fancies 
 their weight and greatness, than her reasons and subtleties 
 to secure us from them ? They are subtleties, indeed, with 
 which she often alarms us to little purpose. Do but ob- 
 serve, how many slight and frivolous, and, if nearly exa- 
 mined, incorporeal arguments, the closest and wisest authors 
 scatter about one good one : they are but verbal quirks and 
 fallacies to amuse and gull us : but forasmuch as it may be 
 with some profit, I will sift them no further ; many of 
 that sort are here and there dispersed up and down this 
 book, either borrowed or by imitation. Therefore one 
 ought to take a little heed not to call that force which 
 is only a pretty knack of writing, and that solid which is 
 only sharp, or that good which is only fine : " Quse magis 
 gustata quani potata, delectant : " * everything that pleases, 
 does not nourish : " Ubi non ingenii, sed animi negotium 
 agitur." 2 
 
 To see the trouble that Seneca gives himself to fortify 
 himself against death ; to see him so sweat and pant to 
 
 1 " Which more delight in the tasting, than in being drunk off." — Cicero, 
 Tusc. Quees., V. 5. 
 
 - " Where the question is not about the wit, but about the soul." — Seneca, 
 Ep. 75- 
 
342 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 harden and encourage himself, and bustle so long upon this 
 perch, would have lessened his reputation with me, had he 
 not very bravely held himself at the last. His so ardent 
 and frequent agitations discover that he was in himself 
 impetuous and passionate (" Magnus animus remissius 
 loquitur, et securius . . . non est alius ingenio, alius animo 
 color " *) ; he must be convinced at his own expense ; and 
 he in some sort discovers that he was hard pressed by his 
 enemy. Plutarch's way, by how much it is more disdainful 
 and farther stretched, is, in my opinion, so much more 
 manly and persuasive : and I am apt to believe that his 
 soul had more assured and more regular motions. The one 
 more sharp, pricks and makes us start, and more touches 
 the soul ; the other more constantly solid, forms, establishes, 
 and supports us, and more touches the understanding. That 
 ravishes the judgment, this wins it. I have likewise seen 
 other writings, yet more reverenced than these, that in the 
 representation of the conflict they maintain against the 
 temptations of the flesh, paint them so sharp, so powerful 
 and invincible, that we ourselves, who are of the common 
 herd, are as much to wonder at the strangeness and un- 
 known force of their temptation, as at the resisting it. 
 
 To what end do we so arm ourselves with this harness of 
 science ? Let us look down upon the poor people that we 
 see scattered upon the face of the earth, prone and intent 
 upon their business, that neither know Aristotle nor Cato, 
 example nor precept ; from these nature every day extracts 
 effects of constancy and patience, more pure and manly than 
 those we so inquisitively study in the schools : how many 
 do I ordinarily see who slight poverty ? how many who 
 desire to die, or who die without alarm or regret ? He who 
 
 1 "A great courage speaks more calmly and more securely. The mind 
 and the soul wear the same livery." — Seneca, Ep. 114, 115. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 343 
 
 is now digging in my garden, has this morning buried his 
 father or his son. The very* names by which they call 
 diseases, sweeten and mollify the sharpness of them : the 
 phthisic is with them no more than a cough, dysentery but a 
 looseness, the pleurisy but a stitch ; and, as they gently name 
 them, so they patiently endure them ; they are very great 
 and grievous indeed, when they hinder then ordinary 
 labour ; they never keep their beds but to die. " Simplex 
 ilia et aperta virtus in obscuram et solertem scientiam versa 
 est." 1 
 
 I was writing this about a time when a great load of our 
 intestine troubles for several months lay with all its weight 
 upon me ; I had the enemy at my door on one side, and 
 the free-booters, worse enemies than they, on the other, 
 " Nbn armis, sed vitiis, certatur ; " 2 and underwent all sorts 
 of military injuries at once : 
 
 " Hostis adest dextra leevaque a parte timendus. 
 Vicinoque malo terret utrumcpie latus." 3 
 
 A monstrous war ! Other wars are bent against strangers, 
 this against itself, destroying itself with its own poison. It 
 is of so malignant and ruinous a nature, that it ruins itself 
 with the rest : and with its own rage mangles and tears it- 
 self to pieces. We more often see it dissolve of itself, than 
 through scarcity of any necessary thing, or by force of the 
 enemy. All discipline evades it : it comes to compose 
 sedition, and is itself full of it ; would chastise disobedience, 
 and itself is the example ; and, employed for the defence of 
 the laws, rebels against its own. "What a condition are we 
 in ! Our physic makes us sick ! 
 
 1 "That plain and simple virtue is converted into an obscure and subtle 
 knowledge." — Seneca, Ep. 95. 1 
 
 2 " The fight is not with arms, but with vices." — Idem. 
 
 3 "Right and left a formidable enemy presses on me, and threatens me on 
 both sides with present danger." — Ovid, De Ponto, i. 3, 57. 
 
344 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 " Nostre mal s'empoisonne 
 Du secours qu'on luy donne." 
 
 " Exuperat magis, segrescitque medendo." * 
 
 "Omnia fanda, nefanda, malo permista furore, 
 Justificam nobis mentem avertere deorum." 2 
 
 In the beginning of these popular maladies, one may dis- 
 tinguish the sound from the sick ; but when they come to 
 continue, as ours have done, the whole body is then infected 
 from head to foot ; no part is free from corruption, for there 
 is no air that men so greedily draw in, that diffuses itself so 
 soon and that penetrates so deep, as that of licence. Our 
 armies only subsist and are kept together by the cement of 
 foreigners ; for of Frenchmen there is now no constant and 
 regular army to be made. What a shame it is ! there is 
 no longer any discipline but what we see in the borrowed 
 soldiers. As to ourselves, our conduct is at discretion, and 
 that not of the chief, but every one at his own. The Gene- 
 ral has a harder game to play within, than he has without ; 
 he it is who has to follow, to court the soldiers, to give way 
 to them ; he alone has to obey : all the rest is dissolution 
 and free licence. It pleases me to observe how much pusil- 
 lanimity and cowardice there is in ambition ; by how abject 
 and servile ways it must arrive at its end; but it dis- 
 pleases me to see good and generous natures, and that are 
 capable of justice, every day corrupted in the management 
 and command of this confusion. Long toleration begets 
 habit ; habit, consent and imitation. We had ill-formed 
 souls enough, without spoiling those that were generous and 
 good ; so that if we hold on, there will scarcely remain any 
 
 1 " Our disease is poisoned with its very remedies." — .<*Eneill, xii. 46. The 
 French verses are a translation by Mademoiselle de Gourney. 
 
 2 " Right and wrong, all shuffled together in this wicked fury, have deprived 
 us of the gods' protection." — Catullus, De Nuptiis Pelei et Thetidos, V. 405. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 345 
 
 with whom to intrust the health of this State of ours, in 
 case fortune chance to restore it : 
 
 "Hunc saltern everso juvenem succurrere seclo, 
 Ne probibete." 1 
 
 What is "become of the old precept, " That soldiers ought 
 more to fear their chief than the enemy ? " 2 and of that 
 wonderful example, that an orchard being enclosed within 
 the precincts of a camp of the Eoman army, was seen at their 
 dislodgment the next day in the same condition, not an 
 apple, though ripe and delicious, being pulled off, but all 
 left to the possessor ? I could wish that our youth, instead 
 of the time they spend in less fruitful travels, and less 
 honourable employments, would bestow one half of that 
 time in being an eye-witness of naval exploits, under some 
 good captain of Ehodes, and the other half in observing the 
 discipline of the Turkish armies ; for they have many differ- 
 ences and advantages over ours : one of these is, that our 
 soldiers become more licentious in expeditions, theirs more 
 temperate and circumspect ; for the thefts and insolencies 
 committed upon the common people, which are only pun- 
 ished with a cudgel in peace, are capital in war ; for an 
 egg taken by a Turkish soldier without paying for it, fifty 
 blows with a stick is the fixed rate ; for anything else, of 
 what sort or how trivial soever, not necessary to nourish- 
 ment, they are presently impaled or beheaded without 
 mercy, I am astonished, in the history of Selim, the most 
 cruel conqueror that ever was, to see that when he sub- 
 dued Egypt, the beautiful gardens about Damascus being all 
 open, and in a conquered land, and his army encamped 
 upon the very place, should be left untouched by the hands 
 
 1 " Forbid not, at least, that this young man repair this ruined age."— Virgil, 
 Georg., i. 500. Montaigne probably refers to Henry, king of Navarre, 
 afterwards Henry IV. 
 
 2 Valerius Maximus, ext. 2. 
 
346 - Of Physiognomy. [Bookiii. 
 
 of the soldiers, by reason they had not received the signal of 
 pillage. 
 
 But is there any disease in a government, that it is 
 worth while to physic with such a mortal drug ? x ISTo, said 
 Favonius, not even the tyrannical usurpation of a Common- 
 wealth. Plato, likewise, will not consent that a man should 
 violate the peace of his country in order to cure it, and by no 
 means approves of a reformation that disturbs and hazards 
 all, and that is to be purchased at the price of the citizens' 
 blood and ruin ; determining it to be the duty of a good 
 patriot in such a case to let it alone, and only to pray to 
 God for his extraordinary assistance : and he seems to be 
 angry with his great friend Dion, for having proceeded some- 
 what after another manner. I was a Platonist in this point, 
 before I knew there had ever been such a man as Plato in 
 the world. And if this person ought absolutely to be re- 
 jected from our society (he who by the sincerity of his 
 conscience, merited from the divine favour to penetrate so 
 far into the Christian light, through the universal darkness 
 wherein the world was involved in his time), I do not think 
 it becomes us to suffer ourselves to be instructed by a 
 heathen, how great an impiety it is not to expect from God 
 any relief simply his own and without our co-operation. I 
 often doubt, whether amongst so many men as meddle in 
 such affairs, there is not to be found some one of so weak 
 understanding as to have been really persuaded that he 
 went towards reformation by the worst of deformations ; 
 and advanced towards salvation by the most express causes 
 that we have of most assured damnation ; that by over- 
 throwing government, the magistracy, and the laws, in 
 whose protection God has placed him, by dismembering 
 his good mother, and giving her limbs to be mangled by 
 
 1 i.e., as civil war. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 347 
 
 her old enemies, filling fraternal hearts with parricidal 
 
 hatreds, calling devils and furies to his aid, he can assist 
 
 the most holy sweetness and justice of the divine law. 
 
 Ambition, avarice, cruelty, and revenge, have not sufficient 
 
 natural impetuosity of then? own ; let us bait them with 
 
 the glorious titles of justice and devotion. There cannot 
 
 a worse state of things be imagined, than where wickedness 
 
 comes to be legitimate, and assumes with the magistrates' 
 
 permission, the cloak of virtue : " Nihil in speciem fallacius, 
 
 quam prava religio, ubi deorum numen prsetenditur sceleri- 
 
 bus." l The extremest sort of injustice, according to Plato, 2 
 
 is where that which is unjust, should be reputed for just. 
 
 The common people then suffered very much, and not 
 
 present damage only, 
 
 " Undique totis 
 Usque adeo turbatur agris," 3 
 
 but future too ; the living were to suffer, and so were they 
 who were yet unborn ; they stript them, and consequently 
 myself, even of hope, taking from them all they had laid up 
 in store to live on for many years : 
 
 " Quse nequetmt sectim ferre aut abducere, perdunt ; 
 Et cremat insontes turba scelesta casas . . . 
 Muris nulla fides, squalent populatibus agri." 4 
 
 Besides this shock, I suffered others : I underwent the in- 
 conveniences that moderation brings along with it in such 
 a disease : I was robbed on all hands ; to the Ghibelin I 
 was a Guelph, and to the Guelph a Ghibelin; one of my 
 
 1 "Nothing has a more deceiving face than false religion, where devotion 
 is pretended by wicked men." — Livy, xxxix. 16. 
 
 2 Republic, ii. 4. 
 
 3 " Such great disorders overtake our fields on every side." — Virgil, Eclog., 
 i. 11. 
 
 4 " What they cannot bear away, they spoil ; and the wretches burn harm- 
 less houses ; walls cannot secure their masters, and the fields are wasted and 
 spoiled. — Ovid, Trist., iii. 10, 35 ; Claudianus, in Eutrop., i. 244. 
 
348 ' • Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 poets expresses this very well, but I know not where it is. 1 
 The situation of my house, and my friendliness with my 
 neighbours, presented me with one face ; my life and my 
 actions with another. They did not lay formal accusations 
 to my charge, for they had no foundation for so doing ; I 
 never hide my head from the laws, and whoever would 
 have questioned me, would have done himself a greater 
 prejudice than me ; they were only mute suspicions that 
 were whispered about, which never want appearence in so 
 confused a mixture, no more than envious or idle heads. 
 I commonly myself lend a hand to injurious presumptions 
 that fortune scatters abroad against me, by a way I have 
 ever had of evading to justify, excuse, or explain myself ; 
 conceiving, that it were to compromise my conscience to 
 plead in its behalf : " Perspicuitas enim argumentations 
 elevatur;" 2 and, as if every one saw as clearly into me 
 as I do myself, instead of retiring from an accusation, I 
 step up to meet it, and rather give it some kind of colour 
 by an ironical and scoffing confession, if I do not sit totally 
 mute, as of a thing not worth my answer. But such as 
 look upon this kind of behaviour of mine as too haughty a 
 confidence, have as little kindness for me as they who in- 
 terpret it the weakness of an indefensible cause ; namely, 
 the great folks, towards whom want of submission is the 
 great fault, harsh towards all justice that knows and feels 
 itself, and is not submissive, humble, and suppliant ; I have 
 often knocked my head against this pillar. So it is, that at 
 what then befel me, an ambitious man would have hanged 
 himself, and a covetous man would have done the same. I 
 have no manner of care of getting : 
 
 1 "So Tories called me Whig, and Whigs a Tory." — Pope, after Horace. 
 
 2 "The clearness of a cause is clouded by argumentation." — Cicero, De 
 Nat. Deor., iii. 4. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 349 
 
 " Si mihi, quod nunc est, etiam minus ; et mihi vivam 
 Quod superest asvi, si quid superesse volent dii : " x 
 
 but the losses that befal me by the injury of others, whether 
 by theft or violence, go almost as near my heart, as they 
 would do to that of the most avaricious man. The offence 
 troubles me, without comparison, more than the loss. A 
 thousand several sorts of mischiefs fell upon me in the 
 neck of one another; I could more cheerfully have borne 
 them all at once. 
 
 I was already considering to whom, amongst my friends, 
 I might commit a helpless and decrepit age ; and having 
 turned my eyes quite round, I found myself bare. To let 
 one's self fall plum down, and from so great a height, it 
 ought to be in the arms of a solid, vigorous, and fortunate 
 friendship : these are very rare, if there be any. At last, 
 I saw that it was safest for me to trust to myself in my 
 necessity ; and if it should so fall out, that I should be but 
 upon cold terms in Fortune's favour, I should so much the 
 more pressingly recommend me to my own, and attach 
 myself and look to myself all the more closely. Men on 
 all occasions throw themselves upon foreign assistance to 
 spare their own, which is alone certain and sufficient, to 
 him who knows how therewith to arm himself. Every one 
 runs elsewhere, and to the future, forasmuch as no one is 
 arrived at himself. And I was satisfied thai; they were 
 profitable inconveniences ; forasmuch as, first, ill scholars are 
 to be admonished with the rod, when reason will not do, as 
 a crooked piece of wood is by fire and straining reduced to 
 straightness. I have a great while preached to myself to 
 stick close to my own concerns, and separate myself from 
 the affairs of others ; yet I am still turning my eyes aside. 
 
 1 " May I keep what I have, or even less ; and live for myself what of life 
 remains, if the gods grant me remaining years." — Horace, Ep. i. 18, 107. 
 
350 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 A bow, a kind word or look from a great person tempts 
 me; of which God knows how little scarcity there is in 
 these days, and how little they signify. I, moreover, with- 
 out wrinkling my forehead, hearken to the persuasions 
 offered me, to draw me into the open market-place, and 
 so gently refuse, as if I were half willing to he overcome. 
 Now for so indocile a spirit blows are required ; this 
 vessel which thus chops and cleaves, and is ready to fall one 
 piece from another, must have the hoops forced down with 
 good sound strokes of a mallet. Secondly, that tins acci- 
 dent served me for exercise to prepare me for worse, if I, 
 who both by the benefit of fortune, and by the condition of 
 my manners, hoped to be among the last, should happen to 
 be one of the first assailed by this storm ; instructing my- 
 self betimes to constrain my life, and fit it for a new state. 
 The true liberty is to be able to do what a man will with 
 himself : " Potentissimus est, qui se habet in potestate." x 
 In an ordinary and quiet time, a man prepares himself for 
 moderate and common accidents ; but in the confusion 
 wherein we have been for these thirty years, every French- 
 man, whether in particular or in general, sees himself every 
 hour upon the point of the total ruin and overthrow of his 
 fortune : by so much the more ought he to have his courage 
 supplied with the strongest and most vigorous provisions. 
 Let us thank fortune, that has not made us live in an effe- 
 minate, idle, and languishing age ; some who could never 
 have been so by other means, will be made famous by their 
 misfortunes. As I seldom read in histories the confusions of 
 other states without regret that I was not present, the better 
 to consider them, so does my curiosity make me in some 
 sort please myself in seeing with my own eyes this notable 
 
 "He is most potent, who is master of himself." — Seneca, Ep. 94. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 351 
 
 spectacle of our public death, its form and symptoms ; and 
 since I cannot hinder it, I am content to have been destined 
 to be present therein, and thereby to instruct myself. So 
 do 'we eagerly covet to see, though but in shadow and the 
 fables of theatres, the pomp of tragic representations of 
 human fortune ;" 'tis not without compassion at what we 
 hear, but we please ourselves in rousing our displeasure, by 
 the rarity of these pitiable events. Nothing tickles that 
 does not pinch. And good historians skip over, as stagnant 
 w r ater and dead sea, calm narrations, to occupy themselves 
 with wars and seditions, which they know are most accep- 
 table to the readers. 
 
 I question whether I can decently confess with how 
 small a sacrifice of its repose and tranquillity, I have passed 
 over above the one half of my life amid the ruin of my 
 country. I make my patience somewhat too cheap, in 
 accidents that do not absolutely assail myself ; and do 
 not so much regard what they take from me, as what 
 remains safe, both within and without. There is comfort 
 in evading, one while this, another while that, of the evils 
 that are levelled, at ourselves too, at last, but at present 
 hurt others only about us ; as also, that in matters of pub- 
 lic interest, the more universally my affection is dispersed, 
 the weaker it is : to which may be added, that it is half 
 true : " Tantum ex publicis malis sentimus, quantum ad 
 privatas res pertinet j" 1 and that the health from which w T e 
 fell was so ill, that itself relieves the regret we should have 
 for it. It was health, but only in comparison with the 
 sickness that has succeeded it : we are not fallen from any 
 great height ; the corruption and brigandage which are in 
 dignity and office, seem to me the most insupportable : we 
 
 1 " We are only so far sensible of public evils, as they respect our private 
 affairs." — Livy, xxx. 44. 
 
352 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 are less injuriously rifled in a wood, than in a place of 
 security. It was an universal juncture of particular mem- 
 bers, eacli rotten in emulation of the others : and most of 
 them with inveterate ulcers, that neither admitted nor 
 required any cure. This convulsion, therefore, really 
 more animated than pressed me, by the assistance of my 
 conscience, which was not only at peace within itself, but 
 elevated, and I did not find any reason to complain of my- 
 self. Also, as God never sends evils, any more than goods, 
 absolutely pure to men, my health continued at that time 
 more than usually good ; and, as I can do nothing without 
 it, there are few things that I cannot do with it. It afforded 
 me means to rouse up all my faculties, and to lay my hand 
 before the wound that would else, peradventure, have gone 
 farther; and I experienced, in my patience, that I had 
 some stand against fortune ; and that it must be a great 
 shock could throw me out of the saddle. I do not say this 
 to provoke her to give me a more vigorous charge : I am 
 her humble servant, and submit to her pleasure : let her be 
 content, in God's name. Do you ask if I am sensible of 
 her assaults ? Yes, certainly. But, as those who are 
 possessed and oppressed with sorrow, sometimes suffer 
 themselves, nevertheless, by intervals to taste a little plea- 
 sure, and are sometimes surprised with a smile, so have I 
 so much power over myself, as to make my ordinary con- 
 dition quiet and free from disturbing thoughts ■ yet I suffer 
 myself, withal, by fits to be surprised with the stings of 
 those unpleasing imaginations that assault me, whilst I am 
 arming myself to drive them away, or at least to wrestle 
 with them. 
 
 But behold another aggravation of the evil which befel me 
 in the tail of the rest ! both without doors and within I was 
 assailed with a most violent plague, violent in comparison of 
 all others : for as sound bodies are subject to more grievous 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 353 
 
 maladies, forasmuch as they are not to he forced but by such, 
 so my very healthful air, where no contagion, however near, 
 in the memory of man, ever took footing, coming to be cor- 
 rupted, produced most strange effects : 
 
 " Mista senum et juvenum densantur fimera; nullum 
 Saeva caput Proserpina fugit ; " 1 
 
 I had to suffer this pleasant condition, that the sight of my 
 house was frightful to me ; whatever I had there was with- 
 out guard, and left to the mercy of any one who wished to 
 take it. I myself, who am so hospitable, was in very great 
 distress for a retreat for my family ; a distracted family, 
 frightful both to its friends and itself, and filling every place 
 with horror where it attempted to settle, having to shift its 
 abode so soon as anyone's finger began but to ache ; all 
 diseases are then concluded to be the plague, and people do 
 not stay to examine whether they are so or no. And the 
 mischief on't is, that, according to the rules of art, in every 
 danger that a man comes near, he must undergo a quarantine 
 in fear of the evil, your imagination all the while tormenting 
 you at pleasure, and turning even your health itself into a 
 fever. Yet all this would have much less affected me, had 
 I not withal been compelled to be sensible of the sufferings 
 of others, and miserably to serve six months together for a 
 guide to this caravan ; for I carry my own antidotes within 
 myself, which are resolution and patience. Apprehension, 
 which is particularly feared in this disease, does not much 
 trouble me ; and, if being alone, I should have been taken, it 
 had been a less cheerless and more remote departure ; 'tis 
 a kind of death that I do not think of the worst sort ; 'tis 
 commonly short, stupid, without pain, and consoled by the 
 public condition ; without ceremony, without mourning, with- 
 
 1 "O'd and young were buried in mixed heaps. No one escaped cruel 
 Proserpine." — Horace, i. 28, 19. 
 
 VOL. III. Z 
 
354 • Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 out a crowd. But as to the people about us, the hundredth 
 part of them could not be saved : 
 
 " Videas desertaque regna 
 Pastorum, et longe saltus lateque vacantes." x 
 
 In this place my largest revenue is pure manual labour: 
 what an hundred men ploughed for me, lay a long time 
 fallow. 
 
 But then, what example of resolution did we not see in 
 the simplicity of all this people ? Generally, every one 
 renounced all care of life ; the grapes, the principal wealth 
 of the country, remained untouched upon the vines ; every 
 man indifferently prepared for and expected death, either 
 to-night or to-morrow, with a countenance and voice so far 
 from fear, as if they had come to terms with this necessity, 
 and that it was an universal and inevitable sentence. 'Tis 
 always such ; but how slender hold has the resolution of 
 dying ? The distance and difference of a few hours, the sole 
 consideration of company, renders its apprehension various 
 to us. Observe these people : by reason that they die in 
 the same month, children, young people, and old, they are no 
 longer astonished at it : they no longer lament. I saw some 
 who were afraid of staying behind, as in a dreadful solitude ; 
 and I did not commonly observe any other solicitude amongst 
 them, than that of sepulture ; they were troubled to see the 
 dead bodies scattered about the fields, at the mercy of the 
 wild beasts, that presently flocked thither. How differing 
 are the fancies of men ! the Neorites, a nation subjected by 
 Alexander, threw the bodies of their dead into the deepest and 
 less frequented part of their woods, on purpose to have them 
 there eaten; the only sepulture reputed happy amongst them. 2 
 
 1 "You would have seen the fields a desert, and everywhere forsaken 
 groves." — Virgil, Georg., iii. 476. 
 
 2 Diodorus Siculus, xvii. 105. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 355 
 
 Some, who were yet in health, dug their own graves ; others 
 laid themselves down in them whilst alive ; and a labourer of 
 mine, in dying, with his hands and feet pulled the earth upon 
 him. Was not this to nestle and settle himself to sleep at 
 greater ease ? A bravery in some sort like that of the Eoman 
 soldiers, who, after the battle of Cannse, were found with 
 their heads thrust into holes in the earth, which they had 
 made, and in suffocating themselves, with their own hands 
 pulled the earth about their ears. 1 In short, a whole province 
 was, by the common usage, at once brought to a course, 
 nothing inferior in undauntedness to the most studied and 
 premeditated resolution. 
 
 Most of the instructions of science to encourage us 
 herein have in them more of show than of force, and more 
 of ornament than of effect. "We have abandoned Nature, 
 and will teach her what to do ; teach her who so happily and 
 so securely conducted us ; and in the meantime, from the 
 footsteps of her instruction, and that little which, by the 
 benefit of ignorance, remains of her image imprinted in 
 the life of this rustic rout of unpolished men, science 
 is constrained every day to borrow patterns for her dis- 
 ciples of constancy, tranquillity and innocence. It is pretty 
 to see, that these persons, full of so much fine know- 
 ledge, have to imitate this foolish simplicity, and this in the 
 primary actions of virtue ; and that our wisdom must learn 
 even from beasts, the most profitable instructions in the 
 greatest and most necessary concerns of our life ; as, how 
 we are to live and die, manage our property, love and bring 
 up our children, maintain justice : a singular testimony of 
 human infirmity ; and that this reason we so handle at our 
 pleasure, finding evermore some diversity and novelty, leaves 
 in us no apparent trace of nature. Men have done with 
 
 1 Livy, xxii. 51. 
 
356 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 nature as perfumers with oils ; they have sophisticated her 
 with so many argumentations and far-fetched discourses, that 
 she is become variable and particular to each, and has lost her 
 proper, constant, and universal face ; so that we must seek 
 testimony from beasts, not subject to favour, corruption, or 
 diversity of opinions. It is, indeed, true that even these 
 themselves do not always go exactly in the path of nature, 
 but wherein they swerve, it is so little that you may always 
 see the track ; as horses that are led, make many bounds 
 and curvets, but 'tis always at the length of the halter, and 
 they still follow him that leads them ; and as a young hawk 
 takes its flight, but still under the restraint of its tether. 
 " Exsilia, tormenta, bella, morbos, naufragia meditare, . . . ut 
 nullo sis malo tiro." x What good will this curiosity do us, 
 to anticipate all the inconveniences of human nature, and to 
 prepare ourselves with so much trouble against things which, 
 peradventure, will never befal us ? " Parem passis tristi- 
 tiam facit, pati posse ; " 2 not only the blow, but the wind 
 of the blow strikes us : or, like phrenetic people— for cer- 
 tainly it is a phrensy — to go immediately and whip your- 
 self, because it may so fall out that Fortune may one day 
 make you undergo it ; and to put on your furred gown at 
 Midsummer, because you will stand in need of it at 
 Christmas ! Throw yourselves, say they, into the experience 
 of all the evils, the most extreme evils that can possibly 
 befal you, and so be assured of them. On the contrary, the 
 most easy and most natural way, would be to banish even 
 the thoughts of them; they will not come soon enough; 
 their true being will not continue with us long enough ; 
 our mind must lengthen and extend them ; we must incor- 
 
 1 "Meditate upon banishments, tortures, wars, diseases, and shipwrecks, 
 that thou mayest not be a novice in any disaster." — Seneca, Ep. 91, 107. 
 
 2 "It troubles men as much that they may possibly suffer, as if they really 
 did suffer." — Idem, ibid., 74. 
 
Cliap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 357 
 
 porate them in us beforehand, and there entertain them, as if 
 they would not otherwise sufficiently press upon our senses. 
 " We shall find them heavy enough when they come," says 
 one of our masters, of none of the tender sects, but of the most 
 severe; "in the meantime, favour thyself; believe what pleases 
 thee best : . what good will it do thee to anticipate thy ill 
 fortune, to lose the present for fear of the future ; and to 
 make thyself miserable now, because thou art to be so in 
 time ? " These are his words. Science, indeed, does us one 
 good office, in instructing us exactly as to the dimensions of 
 evils, 
 
 " Curis acuens mortalia corda ! " 1 
 
 'Twere pity that any part of their greatness should escape 
 our sense and knowledge. 
 
 'Tis certain that, for the most part, the preparation for 
 death has administered more torment than the thing itself. 
 It was of old truly said, and by a very judicious author, 
 " Minus afficit sensus fatigatio, quam cogitatio." 2 The 
 sentiment of present death sometimes, of itself, animates us 
 with a prompt resolution not to avoid a thing that is utterly 
 inevitable : many gladiators have been seen in the olden 
 time, who, after having fought timorously and ill, have 
 courageously entertained death, offering their throats to the 
 enemies' sword and bidding them despatch. The sight of 
 future death requires a courage that is slow, and conse- 
 quently hard to be got. If you know not how to die, never 
 trouble yourself; nature will, at the time, fully and suffi- 
 ciently instruct you : she will exactly do that business for 
 you ; take you no care — 
 
 " Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horam 
 Quseritis, et qua sit mors aditura via. . . . 
 
 1 " Sharpening mortals by care." — Virgil, Georg., i. 123. 
 
 2 " Suffering itself less afflicts the senses than the apprehension of suffering." 
 — Quintilian, Inst. Orat. , i. 12. 
 
358 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 " Poena minor, certam subito perferre ruinam ; 
 Quod timeas, gravius sustinuisse diu." x 
 
 We trouble life by the care of death, and death by the care 
 of life : the one torments, the other frights us. It is not 
 against death that we prepare, that is too momentary a 
 thing ; a quarter of an hour's suffering, without consequence, 
 and without damage, does not deserve especial precepts : to 
 say the truth, we prepare ourselves against the preparations 
 of death. Philosophy ordains that we should always have 
 death before our eyes, to see and consider it before the 
 time, and then gives us rules and precautions to provide 
 that this foresight and thought do us no harm : just so do 
 physicians, who throw us into diseases, to the end they 
 may have whereon to employ their drugs and their art. 
 If we have not known how to live, 'tis injustice to teach 
 us how to die, and make the end difform from all the rest? 
 if we have known how to live firmly and quietly, we shall 
 know how to die so too. They may boast as much as 
 they please, "Tota philosophorum vita, commentatio mortis 
 est ; " 2 but I fancy that, though it be the end, it is not 
 the aim of life ; Tis its end, its extremity, but not never- 
 theless its object ; it ought itself to be its own aim and 
 design ; its true study is to order, govern, and suffer 
 itself. In the number of several other offices, that the 
 general and principal chapter of Knowing how to live com- 
 prehends, is this article of Knowing how to die ; and, did not 
 our fears give it weight, one of the lightest too. 
 
 To judge of them by utility and by the naked truth, the 
 lessons of simplicity are not much inferior to those which 
 
 1 "Mortals, in vain you seek to know the hour of death, and how it will 
 come upon you." — Propertius, ii. 27, 1. " 'Tis less painful to undergo sudden 
 destruction : 'tis hard to bear that which you long fear." — Incert. Auct. 
 
 s " That the whole life of a philosopher is the meditation of his death." — 
 Cicero, Tusc. Qasus., i. 30. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy, 359 
 
 learning teaches us : nay, quite the contrary. Men differ 
 in sentiment and force ; we must lead them to their own 
 good according to their capacities and by various ways : 
 
 " Quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes." 1 
 
 I never saw any peasant among my neighbours cogitate 
 with what countenance and assurance he should pass over 
 his last hour ; nature teaches him not to think of death till 
 he is dying ; and then he does it with a better grace than 
 Aristotle, upon whom death presses with a double weight, 
 both of itself and of so long a premeditation ; and, there- 
 fore, it was the opinion of Csesar, that the least premeditated 
 death was the easiest and the most happy. " Plus dolet 
 quam necesse est, qui ante dolet, quam necesse est." 2 The 
 sharpness of this imagination springs from our curiosity : 
 'tis thus we ever impede ourselves, desiring to anticipate and 
 regulate natural prescripts. It is only for the doctors 
 to dine worse for it, when in the best health, and to frown 
 at the image of death ; the common sort stand in need of 
 no remedy or consolation, but just in the shock, and when the 
 blow comes ; and consider on't no more than just what they 
 endure. Is it not then, as we say, that the stolidity and 
 want of apprehension in the vulgar give them that patience 
 in present evils, and that profound carelessness of future 
 sinister accidents ? That their souls, in being more gross 
 and dull, are less penetrable and not so easily moved ? If 
 it be so, let us henceforth, in God's name, teach nothing but 
 ignorance : 'tis the utmost fruit the sciences promise us, 
 to which this stolidity so gently leads its disciples. 
 
 We have no want of good masters, interpreters of natural 
 
 1 "Wherever the tempest drives me, there I abide as a guest." — Horace, 
 Ep. i. 1, 15. 
 
 2 " He grieves more than is necessary, who grieves before it is necessary." 
 — Seneca, Ep. 98. 
 
360 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 simplicity. Socrates shall be one ; for, as I remember, lie 
 speaks something to this purpose to the judges who sat. 
 upon his life and death. 1 " I am afraid, my masters, that if 
 I entreat you not to put me to death, I shall confirm the 
 charge of my accusers, which is, that I pretend to be wiser 
 than others, as having some more secret knowledge of things 
 that are above and below us. I have neither frequented 
 nor known death, nor have ever seen any person that has 
 tried its qualities, from whom to inform myself. Such as 
 fear it, presuppose they know it; as for my part, I neither 
 know what it is, nor what they do in the other world. 
 Death is, peradventure, an indifferent thing ; peradventure, 
 a thing to be desired. 'Tis nevertheless to be believed, if 
 it be a transmigration from one place to another, that it is 
 a bettering of one's condition to go and live with so many 
 great persons deceased, and to be exempt from having any 
 more to do with unjust and corrupt judges : if it be an 
 annihilation of our being, 'tis yet a bettering of one's con- 
 dition to enter into a long and peaceable night ; we find 
 nothing more sweet in life than quiet repose and a pro- 
 found sleep, without dreams. The things that I know to be 
 evil, as to injure one's neighbour, and to disobey one's 
 superior, whether it be God or man, I carefully avoid : such 
 as I do not know whether they be good or evil, I cannot 
 fear them. If I am to die and leave you alive, the gods 
 alone only know whether it will go better with you or with 
 me. Wherefore, as to what concerns me, you may do as 
 you shall think fit. But according to my method of advis- 
 ing just and profitable things, I say that you will do your 
 consciences more right, to set me at liberty, unless you see 
 further into my cause than I do ; and, judging according to 
 
 1 That which follows is taken from the Apology of Socrates in Plato, chap. 
 17, &c 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 361 
 
 my past actions, both public and private, according to my 
 . intentions, and according to the profit that so many of our 
 citizens, both young and old, daily extract from my conver- 
 sation, and the fruit that you all reap from me, you cannot 
 more duly acquit yourselves towards my merit, than in order- 
 ing that, my poverty considered, I should be maintained at 
 the Prytaneum, at the public expense, a thing that I have 
 often known you, with less reason, grant to others. Do not 
 impute it to obstinacy or disdain, that I do not, according 
 to the custom, supplicate and go about to move you to com- 
 miseration. I have both friends and kindred, not being, as 
 Homer says, 1 begotten of wood or of a stone, no more than 
 others, who might well present themselves before you witli 
 tears and mourning, and I have three desolate children with 
 whom to move you to compassion ; but I should do a shame 
 to our city at the age I am, and in the reputation of wisdom 
 which is now charged against me, to appear in such an abject 
 form. What would men say of the other Athenians ? I have 
 always admonished those who have frequented my lectures, 
 not to redeem their lives by an unbecoming action ; and in 
 the wars of my country, at Amphipolis, Potidea, Delia, 
 and other expeditions where I have been, I have effectually 
 manifested how far I was from securing my safety by my 
 shame. I should, moreover, compromise your duty, and 
 should invite you to unbecoming things ; for 'tis not for my 
 prayers to persuade you, but for the pure and solid reasons 
 of justice. You have sworn to the gods to keep yourselves 
 upright ; and it would seem as if I suspected you, or would 
 recriminate upon you that I do not believe that you are 
 so ; and I should testify against myself, not to believe 
 them as I ought, mistrusting their conduct, and not purely 
 committing my affair into their hands. I wholly rely upon 
 
 1 Odyssey, xix. 163. 
 
362 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 them ; and hold myself assured they will do in this what 
 shall be most fit both for you and for me : good men, whether 
 living or dead, have no reason to fear the gods." 
 
 Is not this an innocent child's pleading of an inimaginable 
 loftiness, true, frank, and just, unexampled ; and in what 
 a necessity employed ? Truly, he had very good reason 
 to prefer it before that which the great orator Lysias had 
 penned for him : admirably couched, indeed, in the judi- 
 ciary style, but unworthy of so noble a criminal. Had a 
 suppliant voice been heard out of the mouth of Socrates, 
 that lofty virtue had struck sail in the height of its glory ; 
 and ought his rich and powerful nature to have committed 
 her defence to art, and, in her highest proof, have renounced 
 truth and simplicity, the ornaments of his speaking, to 
 adorn and deck herself with the embellishments of figures, 
 and the flourishes of a premeditated speech ? He did very 
 wisely, and like himself, not to corrupt the tenor of an 
 incorrupt life, 1 and so sacred an image of the human form, 
 to spin out his decrepitude another year, and to betray the 
 immortal memory of that glorious end. He owed his life 
 not to himself, but to the example of the world ; had it 
 not been a public damage, that he should have concluded it 
 after a lazy and obscure manner ? Assuredly, that careless 
 and indifferent consideration of his death deserved that pos- 
 terity should consider it so much the more, as indeed they 
 did ; and there is nothing so just in justice than that which 
 fortune ordained for his recommendation ; for the Athenians 
 abominated all those who had been causers of his death to 
 such a degree, that they avoided them as excommunicated 
 persons, and looked upon everything as polluted that had 
 been touched by them ; no one would wash with them in 
 the public baths, none would salute or own acquaintance 
 
 1 Seneca, Ep. 31. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 363 
 
 with them : so that, at last, unable longer to support this 
 public hatred, they hanged themselves. 
 
 If any one shall think that, amongst so many other 
 examples that I had to choose out of in the sayings of 
 Socrates for my present purpose, I have made an ill choice 
 of this, and shall judge this discourse of his elevated above 
 common conceptions, I must tell them that I have purposely 
 selected it ; for I am of another opinion, and hold it to be a 
 discourse, in rank and simplicity, much below and behind 
 common conceptions. He represents, in an inartificial 
 boldness and infantine security, the pure and first impression 
 and ignorance of nature ; for it is to be believed that we 
 have naturally a fear of pain, but not of death, by reason of 
 itself; 'tis a part of our being, and no less essential than 
 living. To what end should nature have begotten in us a 
 hatred to it and a horror of it, considering that it is of so 
 great utility to her in maintaining the succession and vicis- 
 situde of her works ? and that in this universal republic, it 
 conduces more to birth and augmentation, than to loss or ruin ? 
 
 '•' Sic rerum summa novatur." x 
 11 Mille animas una necata dedit.' 5 2 
 
 " The failing of one life is the passage to a thousand other 
 lives." Nature has imprinted in beasts the care of themselves 
 and of their conservation ; they proceed so far as to be 
 timorous of being worse, of hitting or hurting themselves, of 
 our haltering and beating them, accidents subject to their 
 sense and experience ; but that we should kill them, they 
 cannot fear, nor have they the faculty to imagine and con- 
 clude such a thing as death ; it is said, indeed, that we 
 see them not only cheerfully undergo it, horses for the most 
 part neighing and swans singing when they die, but, more- 
 
 1 Lucretius, ii. 74. s Ovid, Fasti, i. 380. 
 
364 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 over, seek it at need, of which elephants have given many 
 examples. 
 
 But besides, is not the way of arguing which Socrates 
 here makes use of, equally admirable both in simplicity and 
 vehemence ? Truly, it is much more easy to speak like 
 Aristotle, and to live like Ceesar, than to speak and live as 
 Socrates did ; there lies the extreme degree of perfection 
 and difficulty; art cannot reach it. Now, our faculties are 
 not so trained up ; we do not try, we do not know them ; 
 we invest ourselves with those of others, and let our own lie 
 idle ; as some one may say of me, that I have here only 
 made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing 
 of my own but the thread that ties them. 
 
 In earnest, I have so far yielded to the public opinion, 
 that those borrowed ornaments accompany me, but I would 
 not have them totally cover and hide me ; that is quite con- 
 trary to my design, who desire to' make a show of nothing 
 but what is my own, and what is my own by nature ; and 
 had I taken my own advice, I had at all hazards spoken 
 purely alone. I more and more load myself every day, 1 
 beyond my purpose and first method, upon the account of 
 idleness and the humour of the age. If it misbecome me, 
 as I believe it does, 'tis no matter ; it may be of use to some 
 others. Such there are who quote Plato and Homer, who 
 never saw either of them ; and I also have taken things 
 out of places far enough distant from their source. With- 
 out pains and without learning, having a thousand volumes 
 about me in the place where I write, I can presently 
 borrow, if I please, from a dozen such scrap-gatherers, 
 
 1 In fact, the first edition of the Essays (Bordeaux, 1580), has very few 
 quotations. These became more numerous in the edition of 1588 j but the 
 multitude of classical texts which at times encumber Montaigne's text, only 
 dates from the posthumous edition of 1595 : he had made these collections in 
 the four last years of his life, as an amusement of his ' idleness,' — Leclerc. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 365 
 
 people about whom I do not much trouble myself, "wherewith 
 to trick up this treatise of Physiognomy; there needs no 
 more but a preliminary epistle of the German cut to stuff 
 me with illustrations. And so 'tis we go a begging for a 
 ticklish glory, cheating the sottish world. These lumber pies 
 of common places, wherewith so many furnish their studies, 
 are of little use but to common subjects, and serve but to 
 show us, and not to direct us : a ridiculous fruit of learning 
 that Socrates so pleasantly discusses against Euthyclemus. 
 I have seen books made of things that were never either 
 studied or understood ; the author committing to several of 
 his learned friends the examination of this and t'other 
 matter to compile it, contenting himself, for his share, with 
 having projected the design, and by his industry to have tied 
 together this faggot of unknown provisions ; the ink and 
 paper, at least, are his. This is to buy or borrow a book, 
 and not to make one ; 'tis to show men not that he can 
 make a book, but that, whereof they may be in doubt, he 
 cannot make one. A president, in my hearing, boasted that 
 he had cluttered together two hundred and odd common 
 places in one of his judgments ; in telling which, he de- 
 prived himself of the glory he had got by it : in my 
 opinion, a pusillanimous and absurd vanity for such a sub- 
 ject and such a person. I do quite contrary ; and amongst 
 so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, dis- 
 guising and altering it for some new service ; at the hazard 
 of having it said that 'tis for want of understanding its 
 natural use ; I give it some particular address of my own 
 hand, to the end it may not be so absolutely foreign, These 
 set their thefts in show, and value themselves upon them, 
 and so have more credit with the laws than I ; we natur- 
 alists 1 think that there is a great and incomparable prefer- 
 ence in the honour of invention over that of quotation. 
 
 1 Lovers of the natural and true. 
 
366 Of Physiognomy. [Book 
 
 in. 
 
 If I would have spoken by learning, I had spoken sooner ; 
 I had written in a time nearer to my studies, when I had 
 more wit and better memory; and should sooner have 
 trusted to the vigour of that age than of this, would I have 
 professed writing. And what if this gracious favour x which 
 Fortune has lately offered me upon the account of this 
 work, had befallen me in that time of my life, instead of 
 this, wherein 'tis equally desirable to possess, soon to be 
 lost ! Two of my acquaintance, great men in this faculty, 
 have, in my opinion, lost half, in refusing to publish at 
 forty years old, that they might stay till threescore. Matu- 
 rity has its defects as well as green years, and worse ; and 
 old age is as unfit for this kind of business as for any other. 
 He who commits his decrepitude to the press, plays the 
 fool if he think to squeeze anything out thence, that does 
 not relish of dreaming, dotage and drivelling ; the mind 
 grows costive and thick in growing old. I deliver my 
 io-norance in pomp and state, and my learning meagrely 
 and poorly ; this accidentally and accessorily, that principally 
 and expressly ; and write specifically of nothing, but nothing, 
 nor of any science but of that inscience. I have chosen 
 a time when my life, which I am to give an account of, lies 
 wholly before me ; what remains has more to do with 
 death; and of my death itself, should I find it a prating 
 death, as others do, I would willingly give an account at 
 my departure. 
 
 Socrates was a perfect exemplar in all great qualities, and 
 I am vexed that he had so deformed a face and body as is 
 said, and so unsuitable to the beauty of his soul, himself 
 bein» so amorous and such an admirer of beauty : Nature 
 did him wrong. There is nothing more probable than the 
 conformity and relation of the body to the soul : " Ipsi animi 
 
 His acquaintance with Mademoiselle de Gournay. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 367 
 
 magni refert, quali in corpore locati sint : multi enim e cor- 
 pore existunt, quad acuant mentem : multa, qua3 obtundant ; " 1 
 this refers to an unnatural ugliness and deformity of limbs ; 
 but we call ugliness also an unseemliness at first sight, 
 which is principally lodged in the face, and disgusts us on 
 very slight grounds, by the complexion, a spot, a rugged 
 countenance, for some reasons often wholly inexplicable, in 
 members nevertheless of good symmetry and perfect. The 
 deformity, that clothed a very beautiful soul in La Boetie, 2 
 was of this predicament : that superficial ugliness, which 
 nevertheless is always the most imperious, is of least pre- 
 judice to the state of the mind, and of little certainty in the 
 opinion of men. The other, which by a more proper name, 
 is called deformity, more substantial, strikes deeper in. Not 
 every shoe of smooth shining leather, but every shoe well 
 made, shows the shape of the foot within. As Socrates 
 said of his, it betrayed equal ugliness in his soul, had he 
 not corrected it by education ; 3 but in saying so, I believe 
 he did but scoff, as his custom was ; never so excellent a 
 soul made itself. 
 
 I cannot often enough repeat how great an esteem T have 
 for beauty, that potent and advantageous quality : he called 
 it " a short tyranny," and Plato, " the privilege of nature." 
 We have nothing that excels it in reputation ; it has the 
 first place in the commerce of men ; it presents itself in the 
 front ; seduces and prepossesses our judgments with great 
 authority and wonderful impression. Phryne had lost her 
 cause in the hands of an excellent advocate, if, opening her 
 robe, she had not corrupted her judges by the lustre of her 
 
 1 " It is of great consequence in what bodies souls are placed, for many 
 things spring from the body that sharpen the mind, and many that olunt and 
 dull it." — Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 33. 
 
 2 Which Cotton translates "of Booetia." 
 
 3 Cicero, Tusc. Quses., iv. 37 ; De Facto, c. 5. 
 

 
 68 . Of Physiognomy. [Book 
 
 beauty. 1 And I find that Cyrus, Alexander, and Csesar, 
 the three masters of the world, never neglected beauty in 
 their greatest affairs ; no more did the first Scipio. The same 
 word in Greek signifies both fair and good ; 2 and the 
 Holy Word often says good, when it means fair : I should 
 willingly maintain the priority in good things, according to 
 the song that Plato 3 calls an idle thing, taken out of 
 some ancient poet : " health, beauty, riches." Aristotle 
 says that the right of command appertains to the beautiful ; 
 and that, when there is a person whose beauty comes near 
 the images of the gods, veneration is equally due to him. 4 
 To him who asked why people oftener and longer frequent 
 the company of handsome persons : " That question," said 
 he, " is only to be asked by the blind." 5 Most of the 
 philosophers, and the greatest, paid for their schooling, and 
 acquired wisdom by the favour and mediation of their 
 beauty. Not only in the men that serve me, but also in 
 the beasts, I consider it within two fingers' breadth of 
 goodness. 
 
 And yet I fancy that those features and moulds of face, 
 and those lineaments, by which men guess at our internal 
 complexions and our fortunes to come, is a thing that does 
 not very directly and simply lie under the chapter of beauty 
 and deformity, no more than every good odour and serenity 
 of air promises health, nor all fog and stink, infection in a 
 time of pestilence. Such as accuse ladies of contradicting 
 their beauty by their manners, do not always hit right ; 
 for, in a face which is none of the best, there may dwell 
 some air of probity and trust : as on the contrary, I have 
 
 1 Sextus Empiricus adversus Mathematicos, x. i, and Quintilian, Inst. 
 Orat., ii. 15 ; but Athenseus attributes the honour of her victory to Hyperides, 
 the celebrated orator, who was her counsel. 
 
 2 KaXos KayaBos. 3 In the Gorgias. 
 
 4 Politics, i. 3. 5 Diogenes Laertius, V. 20. 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 369 
 
 read, betwixt two beautiful eyes, menaces of a dangerous 
 and malignant nature. There are favourable physiognomies, 
 so that in a crowd of victorious enemies, you shall presently 
 choose, amongst men you never saw before, one rather than 
 another, to whom to surrender, and with whom to intrust 
 your life ; and yet not properly upon the consideration of 
 beauty. 
 
 A person's look is but a feeble warranty ; and yet it is 
 something considerable too ; and if I had to lash them, I 
 would most severely scourge the wicked ones who belie and 
 betray the promises that nature has planted in their fore- 
 heads ; I should with greater severity punish malice under a 
 mild and gentle aspect. It seems as if there were some lucky 
 and some unlucky faces ; and I believe there is some art in 
 distinguishing affable from merely simple faces, severe from 
 rugged, malicious from pensive, scornful from melancholic, 
 and such other bordering qualities. There are beauties 
 which are not only haughty, but sour, and others that are 
 not only gentle but more than that, insipid ; to prognosti- 
 cate from them future events, is a matter that I shall leave 
 undecided. 
 
 I have, as I have said elsewhere, as to my own concern, 
 simply and implicitly embraced this ancient rule, " That we 
 cannot fail in following Nature," and that the sovereign pre- 
 cept is to " conform ourselves to her." I have not, as Socrates 
 did, corrected my natural composition by the force of reason, 
 and have not in the least disturbed my inclination by art ; 
 I have let myself go as I came : I contend not ; my two 
 principal parts live, of their own accord, in peace and good 
 intelligence, but my nurse's milk, thank God, was tolerably 
 wholesome and good. Shall I say this by the way ? that I 
 see, in greater esteem than 'tis worth, and in use solely 
 among ourselves, a certain image of scholastic probity, a 
 slave to precepts, and fettered with hope and fear. I would 
 
 vol. in. 2 A 
 
370 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 have it such as that laws and religions should not make, 
 "but perfect and authorise it ; that finds it has wherewithal 
 to support itself without help, born and rooted in us from 
 the seed of universal reason, imprinted in every man by 
 nature. That reason which straightens Socrates from his 
 vicious bend, renders him obedient to the gods and men of 
 authority in his city ; courageous in death, not because his 
 soul is immortal, but because he is mortal. 'Tis a doctrine 
 ruinous to all government, and much more hurtful than 
 ingenious and subtle, which persuades the people that a 
 religious belief is alone sufficient, and without conduct, to 
 satisfy the divine justice. Use demonstrates to us a vast 
 distinction betwixt devotion and conscience. 
 
 I have a favourable aspect, both in form and in interpre- 
 tation ; 
 
 " Quid dixi, habere me 1 imo habui, Chreme." l 
 " Heu ! tantum attriti corporis ossa vides ; " 2 
 
 and that makes a quite contrary show to that of Socrates. 
 It has often befallen me, that upon the mere credit of my 
 presence and air, persons who had no manner of knowledge 
 of me, have put a very great confidence in me, whether in 
 their own affairs or mine ; and I have in foreign parts thence 
 obtained singular and rare favours. But the two following 
 examples are, peradventure, worth particular relation : a 
 certain person planned to surprise my house and me in it ; 
 his scheme was to come to my gates alone, and to be impor- 
 tunate to be let in. I knew him by name, and had fair 
 reason to repose confidence in him, as being my neighbour 
 and something related to me. I caused the gates to be 
 opened to him, as I do to every one. There I found him, 
 with every appearance of alarm, his horse panting, and all 
 
 1 "Have, did I say ? no, Chremes, I had." — Terence, Heaut., act i. sc. I, 
 v. 42. 
 
 a " Alas, of a worn body thou but seest the bones." 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 371 
 
 in a foam. He presently popped in my ears this flim-flam : 
 " That, about half a league off, he had met with a certain enemy 
 of his, whom I also knew, and had heard of their quarrel ; 
 that his enemy had given him a very brisk chase, and that 
 having been surprised in disorder, and his party being too 
 weak, he had fled to my gates for refuge ; and that he was in 
 great trouble for his followers, whom (he said) he concluded 
 to be all either dead or taken." I innocently did my best 
 to comfort, assure, and refresh him. Shortly after came 
 four or five of his soldiers, who presented themselves in the 
 same countenance and affright, to get in too ; and after them 
 more, and still more, very well mounted and armed, to the 
 number of five and twenty or thirty, pretending that they 
 had the enemy at their heels. This mystery began a little 
 to awaken my suspicion ; I was not ignorant what an age I 
 lived in, how much my house might be envied, and I had 
 several examples of others of my acquaintance to whom a 
 mishap of this sort had happened. But, thinking there was 
 nothing to be got by having begun to do a courtesy, unless 
 I went through with it, and that I could not disengage 
 myself from them without spoiling all, I let myself go the 
 most natural and simple way, as I always do, and invited 
 them all to come in. And in truth I am naturally very 
 little inclined to suspicion and distrust ; I willingly incline 
 towards excuse and the gentlest interpretation ; I take men 
 according to the common order, and do not more believe in 
 those perverse and unnatural inclinations, unless convinced by 
 manifest evidence, than I do in monsters and miracles ; and 
 I am, moreover, a man who willingly commit myself to For- 
 tune, and throw myself headlong into her arms ; and I have 
 hitherto found more reason to applaud than to blame myself 
 for so doing, having ever found her more discreet about, 
 and a greater friend to my affairs, than I am myself. There 
 are some actions in my life whereof the conduct may justly 
 
372 ' Of Physiognomy. [Bookiii. 
 
 be called difficult, or, if you please, prudent ; of these, sup- 
 posing the third part to have been my own, doubtless the 
 other two-thirds were absolutely hers. We make, methinks, 
 a mistake, in that we do not enough trust heaven with our 
 affairs, and pretend to more from our own conduct than 
 appertains to us ; and therefore it is that our designs so 
 often miscarry. Heaven is jealous of the extent that we 
 attribute to the right of human prudence above its own, and 
 cuts it all the shorter by how much the more we amplify it. 
 The last comers remained on horseback in my courtyard, whilst 
 their leader, who was with me in the parlour, would not 
 have his horse put up in the stable, saying he should imme- 
 diately retire, so soon as he had news of his men. He saw 
 himself master of his enterprise, and nothing now remained 
 but its execution. He has since several times said (for he 
 was not ashamed to tell the story himself) that my coun- 
 tenance and frankness had snatched the treachery out of his 
 hands. He again mounted his horse ; his followers, who 
 had their eyes intent upon him, to see when he would 
 give the signal, being very much astonished to find him 
 come away and leave his prey behind him. 
 
 Another time, relying upon some truce, just published in 
 the army, I took a journey through a very ticklish country. 
 I had not ridden far, but I was discovered, and two or three 
 parties of horse, from various places, were sent out to seize 
 me; one of them overtook me on the third day, and I was 
 attacked by fifteen or twenty gentlemen in vizors, followed 
 at a distance by a band of foot soldiers. I was taken, with- 
 drawn into the thick of a neighbouring forest, dismounted, 
 robbed, my trunks rifled, my money-box taken, and my 
 horses and equipage divided amongst new masters. We 
 had, in this copse, a very long contest about my ransom, 
 which they set so high, that it was manifest I was not 
 known to them. They were, moreover, in a very great 
 
Chap. 12.] Of Physiognomy. 373 
 
 debate about my life ; and, in truth, there were various cir- 
 cumstances that clearly showed the danger I was in. 
 
 " Tunc animis opus, iEnea, tunc pectore firmo." x 
 
 I still insisted upon the truce, too willing they should have 
 the gain of what they had already taken from me, which 
 was not to be despised, without promise of any other ran- 
 som. After two or three hours that we had been in this 
 place, and that they had mounted me upon a pitiful jade 
 that was not likely to run from them, and committed me to 
 the guard of fifteen or twenty harcpiebuseers, and dispersed 
 my servants to others, having given order that they should 
 carry us away prisoners several ways, and I being already 
 got some two or three musket-shots from the place, 
 
 " Jam prece Pollucis, jam Castoris, implorata," 2 
 
 behold a sudden and unexpected alteration ; I saw the chief 
 return to me with gentler language, making search amongst 
 the troopers for my scattered property, and causing as much 
 as could be recovered, to be restored to me, even to my 
 money-box ; but the best present they made me was my 
 liberty, for the rest did not much concern me at that time. 
 The true cause of so sudden a change, and of this recon- 
 sideration, without any apparent impulse, and of so miracu- 
 lous a repentance, in such a time, in a planned and deliberate 
 enterprise, and become just by usage (for, at the first dash, 
 I plainly confessed to them of what party I was, and 
 whither I was going), truly, I do not yet rightly understand. 
 The most prominent amongst them, who pulled off his vizor 
 and told me his name, repeatedly told me at the time, 
 over and over again, that I owed my deliverance to my 
 
 1 " Then, .(Eneas, there was needed an undaunted courage." — ^Eneid, 
 vi. 261. 
 
 2 " Having prayed for the aid of Castor and Pollux.'' — Catullus, lxvi. 65. 
 
374 Of Physiognomy. [Book iii. 
 
 countenance, and the liberty and boldness of my speech, 
 that rendered me unworthy 'of such a misadventure, and 
 should secure me from its repetition. 'Tis possible that the 
 Divine goodness willed to make use of this vain instrument 
 for my preservation ; and it, moreover, defended me the 
 next day from other and worse ambushes, of which these 
 my assailants had given me warning. The last of these two 
 gentlemen is yet living, himself to tell the story ; the first 
 was killed not long ago. 
 
 If my face did not answer for me, if men did not read in 
 my eyes and in my voice the innocence of my intention, I 
 had not lived so long without quarrels and without giving 
 offence, seeing the indiscreet liberty I take to say, right or 
 wrong, whatever comes into my head, and to judge so rashly 
 of things. This way may, with reason, appear uncivil, and 
 ill adapted to our way of conversation; but I have never 
 met with any who judged it outrageous or malicious, or 
 that took offence at my liberty, if he had it from my own 
 mouth ; words repeated have another kind of sound and 
 sense. IsTor do I hate any person ; and I am so slow to 
 offend, that I cannot do it, even upon the account of reason 
 itself; and when occasion has required me to sentence 
 criminals, I have rather chosen to fail in point of justice 
 than to do it : " Ut magis peccari nolim, quam satis animi 
 ad vindicanda peccata habeam." l 
 
 Aristotle, 'tis said, was reproached for having been too 
 merciful to a wicked man : " I was, indeed," said he, " mer- 
 ciful to the man, but not to his wickedness." 2 Ordinary 
 judgments exasperate themselves to punishment by the 
 horror of the fact : but it cools mine ; the horror of the 
 first murder makes me fear a second ; and the deformity 
 
 1 "So that I had rather men should not commit faults, than that I should 
 have the heart to condemn them." — Livy, xxxix. 21. 
 
 2 Diogenes Laertius, V. 17. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 375 
 
 of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation of it. 
 That may be applied to me, who am but a Knave of Clubs, 
 which was said of Charillus, king of Sparta : " He cannot 
 be good, seeing he is not evil to the wicked." 1 Or thus — 
 for Plutarch delivers it both these ways, as he does a thou- 
 sand other things, variously and contradictorily — " He must 
 needs be good, because he is so even to the wicked." 2 Even 
 as in lawful actions, I dislike to employ myself, when for 
 such as are displeased at it ; so, to say the truth, in unlaw- 
 ful things, I do not make conscious enough of employing 
 myself, when for such as are willing. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 There is no desire more natural than that of knowledge. 
 We try all ways that can lead us to it; where reason is 
 wanting, we therein employ experience, 
 
 " Per varies usus artem experientia fecit, 
 Exemplo monstrante viam," 3 
 
 which is a means much more weak and cheap ; but truth 
 is so great a thing, that we ought not to disdain any 
 mediation that will guide us to it. Reason has so many 
 forms, that we know not to which to take ; exjDerience has no 
 fewer ; the consequence we would draw from the comparison 
 
 1 Plutarch, On Envy and Hatred. 
 
 2 "I cannot imagine in which of Plutarch's essays Montaigne found this 
 version." — Coste. 
 
 3 " By various proofs, experience has made art : example showing the way." 
 — Manilus, i 59. 
 
376 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 of events is unsure, by reason they are always unlike. 
 There is no quality so universal in this image of things, as 
 diversity and variety. Both the Greeks and the Latins, 
 and we, for the most express example of similitude, employ 
 that of eggs : and yet there have been men, particularly 
 one at Delphos, who could distinguish marks of difference 
 amongst eggs so well, that he never mistook one for another ; 
 and, having many hens, could tell which had laid it. Dis- 
 similitude intrudes itself of itself in our works ; no art can 
 arrive at perfect similitude : neither Perrozet, nor any other 
 cardmaker, can so carefully polish and blanch the backs of 
 his cards, that some gamesters will not distinguish them by 
 seeing them only shuffled by another. Eesemblance does 
 not so much make one, as difference makes another. Nature 
 has obliged herself to make nothing other, that was not 
 unlike. 
 
 And yet I am not much pleased with his opinion, who 
 thought by the multitude of laws to curb the authority of 
 judges, in cutting out for them their several parcels ; he 
 was not aware that there is as much liberty and latitude in 
 the interpretation of laws, as in their form ; and they but 
 fool themselves, who think to lessen and stop our disputes 
 by recalling us to the express words of the Bible : foras- 
 much as our mind does not find the field less spacious 
 wherein to controvert the sense of another, than to deliver 
 his own ; and as if there were less animosity and tartness 
 in commentary than in invention. We see how much he was 
 mistaken; for we have more laws in France than all the 
 rest of the world put together, and more than would be 
 necessary for the government of all the worlds of Epi- 
 curus : " Ut olim fiagitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus : " l 
 
 1 "So that as formerly we were oppressed with wickedness, we are now 
 oppressed with laws." — Tacitus, Annal., iii. 25. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 377 
 
 and yet we have left so much to the opinions and de- 
 cisions of our judges, that there never was so full a 
 liberty or so full a licence. What have our legislators 
 gained by culling out a hundred thousand particular cases, 
 and by applying to these a hundred thousand laws ? This 
 number holds no manner of proportion with the infinite 
 diversity of human actions ; the multiplication of our in- 
 ventions will never arrive at the variety of examples ■; add 
 to these a hundred times as many more, it will still not 
 happen, that of events to come, there shall one be found 
 that, in this vast number of millions of events so chosen 
 and recorded, shall so tally with any other one, and be 
 so exactly coupled and matched with it, that there will not 
 remain some circumstance and diversity which will re- 
 quire a diverse judgment. There is little relation betwixt 
 our actions, which are in perpetual mutation, and fixed and 
 immutable laws ; the most to be desired, are those that 
 are the most rare, the most simple and general : and I am 
 even of opinion, that we had better have none at all, than 
 to have them in so prodigious a number as we have. 
 
 Mature always gives them better and happier than those 
 we make ourselves ; witness the picture of the Golden Age 
 of the Poets, and the state wherein we see nations live, who 
 have no other : some there are, who for their only judge, take 
 the first passer-by that travels along their mountains, 1 to 
 determine their cause : and others who, on their market day, 
 choose out some one amongst them upon the spot to decide 
 their controversies. What danger would there be, that the 
 wisest amongst us should so determine ours, according to 
 occurrences, and at sight, without obligation of example and 
 consequence ? For every foot, its own shoe. King Fer- 
 
 1 Coste is of opinion that Montaigne here refers more especially to the little 
 republic of San Marino. 
 
378 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 dinand, sending colonies to the Indies, wisely provided that 
 they should not carry along with them any students of the 
 long-robe, for fear lest suits should get footing in that new 
 world, as being a science in its own nature, the mother of 
 altercation and division ; judging with Plato, 1 " that lawyers 
 and physicians are the pests of a country." 
 
 Whence does it come to pass that our common language, 
 so easy for all other uses, becomes obscure, and unintel- 
 ligible in wills and contracts ? and that he who so clearly 
 expresses himself, in whatever else he speaks or writes, 
 cannot find in these, any way of declaring himself that does 
 not fall into doubt and contradiction ? if it be not that the 
 princes of that art, applying themselves with a peculiar atten- 
 tion to cull out portentous words and to contrive artificial 
 sentences, have so weighed every syllable, and so thoroughly 
 sifted every sort of quirking connection, that they are now 
 confounded and intangled in the infinity of figures and 
 minute divisions, and can no more fall within any rule 
 or prescription, nor any certain intelligence : " Confusum 
 est, quidquid usque in pulverem sectum est." 2 As you see 
 children trying to bring a mass of quicksilver to a certain 
 number of parts ; the more they press and work it, and 
 endeavour to reduce it to their own will, the more they 
 irritate the liberty of this generous metal ; it evades their 
 endeavour, and sprinkles itself into so many separate bodies 
 as frustrate all reckoning ; so is it here ; for in subdividing 
 these subtilties, we teach men to increase their doubts ; they 
 put us into a way of extending and diversifying difficulties, 
 and lengthen and disperse them. In sowing and retailing 
 questions, they make the world fructify and increase in 
 uncertainties and disputes, as the earth is made fertile by 
 
 1 Republic, iii. 
 
 2 " Whatever is beaten into powder is confused." — Seneca, Ep. 89. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 379 
 
 being crumbled and dug deep : " Dinicultatem facit doc- 
 trina." 1 We doubted of Ulpian, and are now still more 
 perplexed with Bartolus and Baldus. We should efface 
 the trace of this innumerable diversity of opinions ; not 
 adorn ourselves with it, and fill posterity with crotchets. I 
 know not what to say to it ; but experience makes it mani- 
 fest, that so many interpretations dissipate truth, and break 
 it. Aristotle wrote to be understood ; if he could not do 
 this, much less will another that is not so good at it ; and a 
 third than he, who expressed his own thoughts. We open 
 the matter, and spill it in pouring out : of one subject we 
 make a thousand, and in multiplying and subdividing them, 
 fall again into the infinity of atoms of Epicurus. Never 
 did two men make the same judgment of the same thing ; 
 and 'tis impossible to find two opinions exactly alike, not 
 only in several men, but in the same man, at diverse hours. 
 I often find matter of doubt in things of which the commen- 
 tary has disdained to take notice ; T am most apt to 
 stumble in an even country, like some horses that I have 
 known, that make most trips in the smoothest way. 
 
 Who will not say that glosses augment doubts and ignor- 
 ance, since there's no one book to be found, either human or 
 divine, which the world busies itself about, whereof the 
 difficulties are cleared by interpretation. The hundredth 
 commentator passes it on to the next, still more knotty 
 and perplexed than he found it. When were we ever 
 agreed amongst ourselves : " this book has enough ; there is 
 now no more to be said about it ? " This is most apparent 
 in the law ; we give the authority of law to infinite doctors, 
 infinite decrees, and as many interpretations ; yet do we 
 find any end of the need of interpreting ? is there, for all 
 that, any progress or advancement towards peace, or do we 
 
 1 "Doctrine begets difficulty." — Quintilian, Instit. Orat., x. 3. 
 
380 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 stand in need of any fewer advocates and judges, than when 
 this great mass of law was yet in its first infancy ? On 
 the contrary, we darken and bury intelligence ; we can no 
 longer discover it, but at the mercy of so many fences and 
 barriers. Men do not know the natural disease of the 
 mind; it does nothing but ferret and inquire, and is eter- 
 nally wheeling, juggling, and perplexing itself like 'silk- 
 worms, and then suffocates itself in its work ; " Mus in 
 pice." ] It thinks it discovers at a great distance, I know 
 not what glimpse of light and imaginary truth ; but whilst 
 running to it, so many difficulties, hindrances, and new 
 inquisitions cross it, that it loses its way, and is made drunk 
 with the motion: not much unlike iEsop's dogs, that seeing 
 something like a dead body floating in the sea, and not 
 being able to approach it, set to work to drink the water and 
 lay the passage dry, and so choked themselves. To which, 
 what one Crates 2 said of the writings of Heraclitus, falls 
 pat enough, " that they required a reader who could swim 
 well," so that the depth and weight of his doctrine might 
 not overwhelm and stifle him. 'Tis nothing but particular 
 weakness that makes us content with what others or our- 
 selves have found out in this chase after knowledge : one 
 of better understanding will not rest so content ; there is 
 always room for one to follow, nay, even for ourselves ; and 
 another road ; there is no end of our inquisitions ; our end 
 is in the other world. 'Tis a sign either that the mind has 
 grown short-sighted when it is satisfied, or that it has got 
 weary. No generous mind can stop in itself; it will still 
 tend further, and beyond its power ; it has sallies beyond 
 its effects ; if it do not advance and press forward, and retire, 
 and rush and wheel about, 'tis but half alive ; its pursuits 
 
 1 "A mouse in a pitch barrel." 
 
 2 "Not Crates, but Socrates." — Diogenes Laertius, ii. 12, 22. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience, 381 
 
 are without "bound or method ; its aliment is admiration, 
 the chase, ambiguity, which Apollo sufficiently declared in 
 always speaking to us in a double, obscure, and oblique 
 sense ; not feeding, but amusing and puzzling us. Tis an 
 irregular and perpetual motion, without model and with- 
 out aim ; its inventions heat, pursue, and interproduce one 
 another : 
 
 " Ainsi veoid on, en un ruisseau coulant, 
 Sans fin Tune eau, apres l'aultre roulant ; 
 Et tout de reng, d'un eternel conduict, 
 L'une suyt l'aultre, et l'une l'aultre fuyt. 
 Par cette-cy, celle-la est poulsee, 
 Et cette-cy par l'aultre est devancee : 
 Tousiours l'eau va dans l'eau ; et tousiours est-ce 
 Mesme ruisseau, et tousiours eau diverse." x 
 
 There is more ado to interpret interpretations, than to 
 interpret things ; and more books upon books, than upon 
 any other subject ; we do nothing but comment upon 
 one another. Every place swarms with commentaries ; of 
 authors there is great scarcity. Is it not the principal and 
 most reputed knowledge of our later ages to understand the 
 learned ? Is it not the common and final end of all 
 studies ? Our opinions are grafted upon one another ; the 
 first serves as a stock to the second, the second to the third, 
 and so forth ; thus step by step we climb the ladder : 
 whence it comes to pass that he who is mounted highest, has 
 often more honour than merit, for he is got up but an inch 
 upon the shoulders of the last but one. 
 
 1 Etienne de la Boetie ; thus translated by Cotton :— 
 " So in a running stream one wave we see 
 After another roll incessantly, 
 And as they glide, each does successively 
 Pursue the other, each the other fly : 
 By this that's evermore pushed on, and this 
 By that continually preceded is : 
 The water still does into water swill, 
 Still the same brook, but different water still." 
 
o 
 
 82 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 How often, and, peradventure, how foolishly, have I 
 extended my book, to make it speak of itself; foolishly, if 
 for no other reason but this, that it should remind me of 
 what I say of others who do the same : that the frequent 
 amorous glances they cast upon their work witness that 
 their hearts pant with self-love ; and that even the disdainful 
 severity wherewith they scourge them, are but the dandlings 
 and caressings of maternal love ; as Aristotle, whose valuing 
 and undervaluing himself often spring from the same air of 
 arrogance. 1 My own excuse is, that I ought in this to have 
 more liberty than others, forasmuch as I write specifically of 
 myself and of my writings, as I do of my other actions ; 
 that my theme turns upon itself; but I know not whether 
 others will accept this excuse. 
 
 I have observed in Germany, that Luther has left as 
 many divisions and disputes about the doubt of his opinions, 
 and more, than he himself raised upon the Holy Scriptures. 
 Our contest is verbal : I ask what nature is, what pleasure, 
 circle, and substitution are ? the question is about words, 
 and is answered accordingly. A stone is a body ; but if a 
 man should further urge : " And what is a body ? " — " Sub- 
 stance ; " " And what is substance ? " and so on, he would 
 drive the respondent to the end of his Calepin. 2 We ex- 
 change one word for another, and often for one less under- 
 stood. I better know what Man is, than I know what 
 Animal is, or Mortal, or Rational. To satisfy one doubt, 
 they pop me in the ear with three ; 'tis the Hydra's head. 
 Socrates asked Menon, " What virtue was." 3 " There is," 
 says Menon, " the virtue of a man and of a woman, of a 
 
 1 Moral, ad Nicom., iv. 13. 
 
 2 Calepin (Ambrogio da Calepio), a famous lexicographer of the fifteenth 
 century. His Polyglot Dictionary became so famous, that Calepin became a 
 common appellation for a lexicon. 
 
 3 Plato, In Menon. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 38 
 
 j 
 
 magistrate and of a private person, of an old man and of a 
 child." " Very fine," cried Socrates, " we were in quest of 
 one virtue, and thou hast brought us a whole swarm." We 
 put one question, and they return us a whole hive. As no 
 event, no face, entirely resembles another, so do they not 
 entirely differ : an ingenious mixture of nature. If our 
 faces were not alike, we could not distinguish man from 
 beast ; if they were not unlike, we could not distinguish one 
 man from another ; all things hold by some similitude ; 
 every example halts, and the relation which is drawn from 
 experience is always faulty and imperfect. Comparisons 
 are ever coupled at one end or other : so do the laws serve, 
 and are fitted to every one of our affairs, by some wrested, 
 biassed, and forced interpretation. 
 
 Since the ethic laws, that concern the particular duty 
 of every one in himself, are so hard to be framed, as we 
 see they are, 'tis no wonder if those which govern so many 
 particulars are much more so. Do but consider the form 
 of this justice that governs us; 'tis a true testimony of 
 human weakness, so full is it of error and contradiction. 
 What we find to be favour and severity in justice — and we 
 find so much of them both, that I know not whether the 
 medium is as often met with — are sickly and unjust mem- 
 bers of the very body and essence of justice. The country 
 people run to bring me news in great haste, that they have 
 just left in a forest of mine, a man with a hundred wounds 
 upon him, who was yet breathing, and begged of them water 
 for pity's sake, and help to carry him to some place of 
 relief; they tell me they durst not go near him, but have 
 run away, lest the officers of justice should catch them 
 there ; and as happens to those who are found near a mur- 
 dered person, they should be called in question about this 
 accident, to their utter ruin, having neither money nor 
 friends to defend their innocence. What could I have said 
 
384 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 to these people ? "lis certain that this office of humanity 
 would have brought them into trouble. 
 
 How many innocent people have we known that have 
 been punished, and this without the judge's fault ; and how 
 many that have not arrived at our knowledge ? This hap- 
 pened in my time : certain men were condemned to die for 
 a murder committed ; their sentence, if not pronounced, at 
 least determined and concluded on. The judges, just in the 
 nick, are informed by the officers of an inferior court hard 
 by, that they have some men in custody, who have directly 
 confessed the murder, and made an indubitable discovery of 
 all the particulars of the fact. Yet it was gravely deli- 
 berated whether or not they ought to suspend the execution 
 of the sentence already passed upon the first accused : they 
 considered the novelty of the example judicially, and the 
 consequence of reversing judgments ; that the sentence was 
 passed, and the judges deprived of repentance ; and in the 
 result, these poor devils were sacrified by the forms of 
 justice. Philip, or some other, 1 provided against a like 
 inconvenience, after this manner. He had condemned a man 
 in a great fine towards another by an absolute judgment. 
 The truth some time after being discovered, he found that 
 he had passed an unjust sentence. On one side, was the 
 reason of the cause ; on the other side, the reason of the 
 judicial forms : he in some sort satisfied both, leaving the 
 sentence in the state it was, and out of his own purse 
 recompensing the condemned party. But he had to do with 
 a repairable affair ; my men were irreparably hanged. How 
 many condemnations have I seen, more criminal than the 
 crimes themselves ? 
 
 All which makes me remember the ancient opinions, 2 
 
 1 It was Philip, king of Macedon. 
 
 2 Plutarch, Instructions for Statesmen, c. 21. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 385 
 
 " That 'tis of necessity a man must do wrong by retail, who 
 will do right in gross ; and injustice in little things, who 
 would come to do justice in great : that human justice is 
 formed after the model of physic, according to which, all 
 that is useful is also just and honest : and of what is held 
 by the Stoics, that Nature herself proceeds contrary to justice 
 in most of her works : and of what is received by the 
 Cyrenaics, that there is nothing just of itself, 1 but that 
 customs and laws make justice : and what the Theodorians 
 held, that theft, sacrilege, and all sorts of uncleanness, are 
 just in a sage, if he knows them to be profitable to him." 2 
 There is no remedy : I am in the same case that Alcibi- 
 ades was, 3 that I will never, if I can help it, put myself into 
 the hands of a man who may determine .as to my head ; 
 where my life and honour shall more depend upon the skill 
 and diligence of my attorney than on my own innocence. 
 I would venture myself with such justice as would take 
 notice of my good deeds, as well as my ill ; where I had as 
 much to hope as to fear : indemnity is not sufficient pay to 
 a man who does better than not to do amiss. Our justice 
 presents to us but one hand, and that the left hand, too ; let 
 him be who he may, he shall be sure to come off with loss. 
 In China, of which kingdom the government and arts, 
 without commerce with or knowledge of ours, surpass our 
 examples in several excellent features, and of which the 
 history teaches me how. much greater and more various the 
 world is than either the ancients or we have been able to 
 penetrate, the officers deputed by the prince to visit the 
 state of his provinces, as they punish those who behave 
 themselves ill in their charge, so do they liberally reward 
 those who have conducted themselves better than the 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, ii. 92. 2 Idem, i. 99. 
 
 3 Plutarch, in vita, c. 23. 
 VOL. III. 2 B 
 
o 
 
 36 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 common sort, and beyond the necessity of their duty ; these 
 there present themselves, not only to be approved but to get ; 
 not simply to be paid, but to have a present made to them. 
 
 No judge, thank God, has ever yet spoken to me in the 
 quality of a judge, upon any account whatever, whether my 
 own or that of another, whether criminal or civil ; nor no 
 prison has ever received me, not even as a visitor. Imagina- 
 tion renders the very outside of a jail displeasing to me : I 
 am so enamoured of liberty, that should I be interdicted the 
 remotest corner of the Indies, I should live a little less at 
 my ease ; and whilst I can find earth or air open in any other 
 part of the world, I shall never lurk in any place where I 
 must hide myself. Good God ! how ill should I endure the 
 condition wherein I see so many people, nailed to a corner 
 of the kingdom, deprived of the right to enter the princi- 
 pal cities and courts, and the liberty of the public roads, for 
 having quarrelled with our laws. If those under which I 
 live should but wag a finger at me by way of menace, I 
 would immediately go seek out others, let them be where 
 they would. All my little prudence in the civil wars wherein 
 we are now engaged, is employed that they may not hinder 
 my liberty of coming and going. 
 
 Now, the laws keep up their credit, not for being just, 
 but because they are laws ; 'tis the mystic foundation of 
 their authority; they have no other, and it well answers 
 their purpose. They are often made by fools, still oftener 
 by men who, out of hatred to equality, fail in equity: but 
 always by men, vain and irresolute authors. There is 
 nothing so much, nor so grossly, nor so ordinarily faulty, as 
 the laws. Whoever obeys them because they are just, does 
 not justly obey them as he ought. Our French laws, by 
 their irregularity and deformity, lend, in some sort, a helping 
 hand to the disorder and corruption that all manifest in 
 their dispensation and execution : the command is so per- 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 387 
 
 plexed and inconstant, that it in some sort excuses alike dis- 
 obedience, and defect in the interpretation, the administration 
 and the observation of it. What fruit, then, soever we may 
 extract from experience, that will little advantage our insti- 
 tution, which we draw from foreign examples, if we make 
 so little profit of that we have of our own, which is more 
 familiar to us, and, doubtless, sufficient to instruct us in that 
 whereof we have need. I study myself more than any 
 other subject ; 'tis my metaphysic, my physic. 
 
 " Qua Deus hanc mundi temperet arte domum ; 
 Qua venit exoriens, qua deficit, unde coactis 
 
 Cornibus in plenum menstrua luna redit : 
 Unde salo superant venti, quid flamiue captet 
 
 Eurus, et in nubes unde perennis aqua ; 
 Sit ventura dies, mundi quae subruat arces, 1 . . . 
 
 Quserite, quos agitat mundi labor." 2 
 
 In this university, I suffer myself to be ignorantly and 
 negligently led by the general law of the world : I shall 
 know it well enough when I feel it ; my learning cannot 
 make it alter its course ; it will not change itself for me ; 
 'tis folly to hope it, and a greater folly to concern one's 
 self about it, seeing it is necessarily alike, public and com- 
 mon. The goodness and capacity of the Governor ought 
 absolutely to discharge us of all care of the government : 
 philosophical inquisitions and contemplations serve for no 
 other use but to increase our curiosity. The philosophers, 
 with great reason, send us back to the rules of nature ; but 
 they have nothing to do with so sublime a knowledge ; they 
 
 1 " By what art God governs this home of the universe ; whence comes the 
 moon, whither she goes ; how it is that she fills her horn and comes to the 
 full every month ; whence winds are frequent on the main ; what the east wind 
 courts with its blasts ; and whence the clouds are perpetually supplied with, 
 water ; whether a day is to come which is to uproot the world." — Propeitius, 
 iii. 5, 26. 
 
 2 " Seek ye whom the cares of the world trouble."— Lucan, i. 417. 
 
388 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 falsify them, and present us her face painted with too high 
 and too adulterate a complexion, whence spring so many 
 different pictures of so uniform a subject. As she has 
 given us feet to walk with, so has she given us prudence to 
 guide us in life : not so ingenious, robust, and pompous a 
 prudence, as that of their invention ; but yet one that is 
 easy, quiet, and salutary, and that very well performs what 
 the other promises, in him who has the good luck to know 
 how to employ it sincerely and regularly, that is to say, 
 according to nature. The most simply to commit ones self 
 to nature, is to do it most wisely. Oh, what a soft, easy, 
 and wholesome pillow is ignorance and incuriosity, whereon 
 to repose a well-contrived head ! 
 
 I had rather understand myself well in myself, than in 
 Cicero. Of the experience I have of myself, I find enough 
 to make me wise, if I were but a good scholar : whoever 
 will call to mind the excess of his past anger, and to what 
 a degree that fever transported him, will see the deformity 
 of this passion better than in Aristotle, and conceive a more 
 just hatred against it ; whoever will remember the ills he 
 has undergone, those that have threatened him, and the 
 light occasions that have removed him from one state to 
 another, will by that prepare himself for future changes, and 
 the knowledge of his condition. The life of Caesar has no 
 greater example for us than our own : though popular 
 and of command, 'tis still a life subject to all human acci- 
 dents. Let us but listen to it ; we apply to ourselves all 
 whereof we have principal need ; whoever shall call to 
 memory how many and many times he has been mistaken 
 in his own judgment, is he not a great fool if he does not 
 ever after suspect it ? When I find myself convinced, by 
 the reason of another, of a false opinion, I do not so much 
 learn what he has said to me that is new, and the par- 
 ticular ignorance — that would be no great acquisition — as, 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 389 
 
 in general, I learn my own debility and the treachery of my 
 understanding, whence I extract the reformation of the 
 whole mass. In all my other errors, I do the same, and find 
 from this rule great utility to life ; I regard not the species 
 and individual, as a stone that I have stumbled at ; I 
 learn to suspect my steps throughout, and am careful to 
 place them right. To learn that a man has said or done 
 a foolish thing is nothing : a man must learn that he is 
 nothing but a fool, a much more ample and important 
 instruction. The false steps that my memory has so often 
 made, even then when it was most secure and confident of 
 itself, are not idly thrown away ; it may now swear to me 
 and assure me as much as it will, I shake my ears, and dare 
 not trust it ; the first opposition that is made to its testi- 
 mony, puts me into suspense, and I durst not rely upon it 
 in anything of moment, nor warrant it in another person's 
 concerns : and were it not that what I do for want of 
 memory, others do more often for want of good faith, I 
 should always, in matter of fact, rather choose to take the 
 truth from another's mouth, than from my own. If every one 
 would pry into the effects and circumstances of the passions 
 that sway him, as I have done into those which I am most 
 subject to, he would see them coming, and would a little 
 break their impetuosity and career; they do not always 
 seize us on a sudden ; there is threatening and degrees : 
 
 " Fluctus uti primo coepit cum albescere vento, 
 Paulatim sese tollit mare, et altius undas 
 Erigit, inde imo consurgit ad sethera fundo." l 
 
 Judgment holds in me a magisterial seat ; at least it carefully 
 endeavours to make it so : it leaves my appetites to take their 
 
 1 "As at the first breath of the winds, the sea begins to foam, and swells, 
 thence higher swells, and higher raises the waves, till at length they seem to 
 rise to the sky." — /Eneid, vii. 528. 
 
390 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 own course, hatred and friendship, nay, even that I bear to 
 myself, without change or corruption ; if it cannot reform 
 the other parts according to its own model, at least it suffers 
 not itself to be corrupted by them, but plays its game apart. 
 That advice to every one, " to know themselves," should 
 be of important effect, since the god of wisdom and light l 
 caused it to be written on the front of his temple, 2 as com- 
 prehending all he had to advise us. Plato says also, that 
 prudence is no other thing than the execution of this ordi- 
 nance ; and Socrates minutely verifies it in Xenophon. 
 The difficulties and obscurity are not discerned in any 
 science but by those who are got into it ; for a certain degree 
 of intelligence is required to be able to know that a man 
 knows not : and we must push against a door to know 
 whether it be bolted against us or no : whence this Platonic 
 subtlety springs, that " neither they who know are to inquire, 
 forasmuch as they know ; nor they who do not know, foras- 
 much as to inquire they must know what they inquire of." 
 So in this, " of knowing a man's self," that every man is 
 seen so resolved and satisfied with himself, that every man 
 thinks himself sufficiently intelligent, signifies that every 
 one knows nothing about the matter; as Socrates gives 
 Euthydemus to understand. 3 I, who profess nothing else, 
 therein find so infinite a depth and variety, that all the 
 fruit I have reaped from my learning serves only to make 
 me sensible how much I have to learn. To my weakness, 
 so often confessed, I owe the propension I have to modesty, 
 to the obedience of belief prescribed me, to a constant cold- 
 ness and moderation of opinions, and a hatred of that 
 troublesome and wrangling arrogance, wholly believing and 
 trusting in itself, the capital enemy of discipline and truth. 
 
 1 Apollo. 2 At Delphi. 
 
 3 Xenophon's Mem. of Socrates, iv. 2, 24. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 391 
 
 Do but hear them domineer ; the first fopperies they utter, 
 'tis in the style wherewith men establish religions and laws. 
 " Nihil est turpius, quam cognitioni et perceptioni, asser- 
 tionem approbationemque prsecurrere." x Aristarchus said, 
 that anciently there were scarce seven sages to be found in 
 the world ; and in his time scarce so many fools ; have not 
 Ave more reason than he to say so in this age of ours. 
 Affirmation and obstinacy are express signs of want of wit. 
 A fellow has stumbled and knocked his nose against the 
 ground a hundred times in a day, and yet he will be at his 
 Ergo's as resolute and sturdy as before ; so that one would 
 conclude he had had some new soul and vigour of under- 
 standing infused into him since, and that it happened to 
 him, as to that ancient son of the earth, who took fresh 
 courage and vigour by his fall : 
 
 " Cui cum tetigere parentem, 
 Jam defecta vigent renovato robore membra : " 2 
 
 does not this incorrigible coxcomb think that he assumes 
 a new understanding, by undertaking a new dispute ? Tis 
 by my own experience that I accuse human ignorance, ' 
 which is, in my opinion, the surest part of the world's school. 
 Such as will not conclude it in themselves, by so vain an 
 example as mine, or their own, let them believe it from 
 Socrates, the master of masters ; for the philosopher Antis- 
 thenes, 3 said to his disciples, " Let us go and hear Socrates : 
 I will be a pupil with you ; " and, maintaining this doctrine 
 of the Stoic sect, " that virtue was sufficient to make a life 
 completely happy, having no need of any other thing what- 
 ever:" except of the force of Socrates, added he. 
 
 1 "Nothing is worse than that assertion and decision should precede 
 knowledge and perception." — Cicero, Acad., i. 13. 
 
 J " Whose broken limbs, touching his mother earth, immediately new 
 force and vigour acquired. " — Lucan, iv. 599. 
 
 a Diogenes Laertius, vi. 2. 
 
392 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 The long attention that I employ in considering myself, 
 also fits me to judge tolerably of others ; and there are few 
 things whereof I speak better and with better excuse. I 
 happen very often more exactly to see and distinguish the 
 qualities of my friends than they do themselves; I have 
 astonished some with the pertinence of my description, and 
 have given them warning of themselves. By having from my 
 infancy been accustomed to contemplate my own life in those 
 of others, I have acquired a complexion studious in that 
 particular; and when I am once intent upon it, I let few 
 things about me, whether countenances, humours, or dis- 
 courses, that serve to that purpose, escape me. I study all, 
 both what I am to avoid, and what I am to follow. Also in 
 my friends, I discover by their productions their inward 
 inclinations ; not by arranging this infinite variety of sx> 
 diverse and unconnected actions into certain species and 
 chapters, and distinctly distributing my parcels and divisions 
 under known heads and classes ; 
 
 " Sed neque quam niultse species, et nomine quse sint, 
 Est numerus." x 
 
 The wise speak, and deliver their fancies more specifically, 
 and piece by piece ; I, who see no further into things than 
 as use informs me, present mine generally without rule and 
 experimentally: I pronounce my opinion by disjointed articles, 
 as a thing that cannot be spoken at once and in gross : rela- 
 tion and conformity are not to be found in such low and 
 common souls as ours. Wisdom is a solid and entire building, 
 of which every piece keeps its place and bears its mark ; 
 " Sola sapientia in se tota con versa est." 2 I leave it to artists, 
 
 1 " But not the number of their species and names ; they are too many." — 
 Virgil, Georg., ii. 103. 
 
 2 " Wisdom only is wholly within itself." — Cicero, De Fin., iii. 7. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 393 
 
 and I know not whether or no they will be able to bring it 
 about, in so perplexed, minute, and fortuitous a thing, to 
 marshal into distinct bodies this infinite diversity of faces, 
 to settle our inconstancy, and set it in order. I do not 
 only find it hard to piece our actions to one another, but I, 
 moreover, find it hard properly to design each by itself 
 by any principal quality, so ambiguous and variform they 
 are, with diverse lights. That which is remarked for rare in 
 Perseus, king of Macedon, " that his mind fixing itself to no 
 one condition, wandered in all sorts of living, and repre- 
 sented manners so wild and vagabond, that it was neither 
 known to himself or any other T what kind of man he was," 
 seems almost to fit all the world ; and, especially, I have 
 seen another of his make, to whom I think this conclusion 
 might more properly be applied ; no moderate settledness, 
 still running headlong from one extreme to another, upon 
 occasions not to be guessed at ; no line of path without 
 traverse and wonderful contrariety ; no one quality simple 
 and unmixed ; so that the best guess men can one day 
 make will be, that he affected and studied to make himself 
 known by being not to be known. A nwi had need have 
 sound ears to hear himself frankly criticised; and as there 
 are few who can endure to hear it without being nettled, 
 those who hazard the undertaking it to us manifest a sin- 
 gular effect of friendship ; for 'tis to love sincerely indeed, 
 to venture to wound and offend us, for our own good. I 
 think it harsh to judge a man whose ill qualities are more 
 than his good ones : Plato requires three things in him who 
 will examine the soul of another : knowledge, benevolence, 
 boldness. 1 
 
 I am sometimes asked, what I should have thought myself 
 fit for, had anyone designed to make use of me in my 
 younger years ; 
 
 1 Livy, xii. 20. s Plato, Gorgias. 
 
394 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 " Dum melior vires sanguis dabat, semula necdum. 
 Temporibus geminis canebat sparsa senectus : " 1 
 
 "for nothing," say I; and I am very' willing to profess 
 not knowing how to do anything, that I may so be excused 
 from enslaving myself to another. But I had told the 
 truths to that master of mine, and had regulated his 
 manners, if he had so pleased ; not in gross, by scholastic 
 lessons, which I understand not, and from which I see no 
 true reformation spring in those that do ; but by observing 
 them by leisure, at all opportunities, and simply and 
 naturally judging them as an eye-witness, distinctly one 
 by one ; giving him to understand upon what terms he 
 was in the common opinion, in opposition to his flat- 
 terers. There is none of us who would not be worse than 
 kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with that sort 
 of vermin ; and we see that Alexander, that great king and 
 philosopher, could not defend himself from them. I should 
 have had fidelity, judgment, and freedom enough for that pur- 
 pose. It would be a nameless office, otherwise it would 
 lose its grace and its effect; and 'tis a part that is not 
 indifferently fit for all men : for truth itself has not the 
 privilege to be spoken at all times and indiscriminately : 
 its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits. 
 It often falls out, as the world goes, that a man lets it slip 
 into the ear of a prince, not only to no purpose, but more- 
 over injuriously and unjustly; and no man shall make me 
 believe that a virtuous remonstrance may not be viciously 
 applied, and that the interest of the substance is not often 
 to give way to that of the form. 
 
 For such a purpose, I would have a man who is content 
 with his own fortune, 
 
 1 "Whilst better blood gave my limbs vigour, and before envious old age 
 had whitened my head." — ^Eneid, V. 415. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 395 
 
 " Quod sit, esse velit ; nikilque malit," x 
 
 and of moderate station ; forasmuch as, on the one hand, he 
 would not be afraid to touch his master's heart to the quick, 
 for fear by that means of losing his preferment ; and, on the 
 other hand, being of no high quality, he would have more 
 easy communication with all sorts of people. I would have 
 this office limited to only one person; for to allow the privilege 
 of this liberty and privacy to many, would beget an incon- 
 venient irreverence ; and of that one, I would above all things 
 require the fidelity of silence. 
 
 A king is not to be believed, when he brags of his con- 
 stancy in standing the shock of the enemy for his glory, 
 if, for his profit and amendment, he cannot stand the liberty 
 of a friend's advice, which has no other power but to pinch 
 his ear, the remainder of its effect being still in his own 
 hands. Now, there is no condition of men whatever who 
 stand in so great need of true and free advice and warning, 
 as they do : they sustain a public life, and have to satisfy 
 the opinion of so many spectators, that, as those about them 
 conceal from them whatever should divert them from their 
 own way, they insensibly find themselves involved in the 
 hatred and detestation of their people, often upon occasions 
 which they might have avoided without any prejudice even 
 of their pleasures themselves, had they been advised and set 
 right in time. Their favourites commonly have more regard 
 to themselves than to their master ; and indeed it answers 
 with them, forasmuch as, in truth, most offices of real friend- 
 ship, when applied to the sovereign, are under a rude and 
 dangerous hazard, 2 so that therein there is great need, not 
 only of very great affection and freedom, but of courage too. 
 
 1 "Who is pleased with what he is, and desires nothing further." — Martial, 
 11, 18. 
 
 2 Tacitus, Hist., I, 15. 
 
396 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 In fine, all this hodge-podge which I scribble here, is no- 
 thing but a register of the essays of my own life, which, for the 
 internal soundness, is exemplary enough, to take instruction 
 against the grain ; but as to bodily health, no man can fur- 
 nish out more profitable experience than I, who present it 
 pure, and no way corrupted and changed by art or opinion. 
 Experience is properly upon its own dung-hill in the subject 
 of physic, where reason wholly gives it place : Tiberius 
 said that whoever had lived twenty years ought to be 
 responsible to himself for all things that were hurtful or 
 wholesome to him, and know how to order himself without 
 physic ; l and he might have learned it of Socrates who, 
 advising his disciples to be solicitous of their health as a 
 chief study, added that it was hard if a man of sense, having 
 a care to his exercise and diet, did not better know than any 
 physician what was good or ill for him. And physic itself 
 professes always to have experience for the test of its opera- 
 tions : so Plato had reason to say that, to be a right phy- 
 sician, it would be necessary that he who would become 
 such, should first himself have passed through all the dis- 
 eases he pretends to cure, and through all the accidents 
 and circumstances whereof he is to judge. 'Tis but reason 
 they should get the pox, if they will know how to cure it ; 
 for my part, I should put myself into such hands ; the 
 others but guide us, -like him who paints seas and rocks and 
 ports sitting at table, and there makes the model of a ship 
 sailing in all security ; but put him to the work itself, he 
 knows not at which end to begin. They make such a de- 
 scription of our maladies, as a town-crier does of a lost horse 
 
 1 All that Suetonius says in his Life of Tiberius, is that this emperor, after 
 he was thirty years old, governed his health without the aid of physicians ; 
 and what Plutarch tells us, in his essay on the Rules and Precepts of Health, 
 is that Tiberius said that the man who, having attained sixty years, held out 
 his pulse to a physician was a fool. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 397 
 
 or dog — such a colour, such a height, such an ear — but bring 
 it to him, and he knows it not, for all that. If physic should 
 one day give me some good and visible relief, then, truly, I 
 will cry out in good earnest : 
 
 " Tandem efficaci do mamis scientiae." x 
 
 The arts that promise to keep our bodies and souls in health 
 promise a great deal ; but, withal, there are none that less 
 keep their promise. And, in our time, those who make 
 profession of these arts amongst us, less manifest the effects 
 than any other sort of men; one may say of them, at the 
 most, that they sell medicinal drugs ; but that they are 
 physicians, a man cannot say. 2 I have lived long enough to 
 be able to give an account of the custom that has carried 
 me so far ; for him who has a mind to try it, as his taster, I 
 have made the experiment. Here are some of the articles, 
 as my memory shall supply me with them ; I have no cus- 
 tom that has not varied according to circumstances ; but I 
 only record those that I have been best acquainted with, and 
 that hitherto have had the greatest possession of me. 
 
 My form of life is the same in sickness as in health ; the 
 same bed, the same hours, the same meat, and even the 
 same drink, serve me in both conditions alike ; I add 
 nothing to them but the moderation of more or less, accord- 
 ing to my strength and appetite. My health is, to main- 
 tain my wonted state without disturbance. I see that 
 sickness puts me off it on one side, and if I will be ruled 
 by the physicians, they will put me off on the other ; so 
 that by fortune and by art I am out of my way. I believe 
 nothing more certainly than this, that I cannot be hurt by 
 
 1 "Show me an efficacious science, and I will take it by the hand." — 
 Horace, xvii. I. 
 
 2 The edition of 15SS adds : "Judging by themselves, and those who are 
 ruled by them." 
 
39 8 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 the use of things to which I have been so long accustomed. 
 'Tis for custom to give a form to a man's life, such as it 
 pleases him ; she is all in all in that : 'tis the beverage of 
 Circe, that varies our nature as she best pleases. How 
 many nations, and but three steps from us, think the fear 
 of the night-dew, that so manifestly is hurtful to us, a 
 ridiculous fancy ; and our own watermen and peasants 
 laugh at it. You make a German sick if you lay him 
 upon a mattress, as you do an Italian if you lay him on 
 a feather-bed ; and a Frenchman, if without curtains or fire. 
 A Spanish stomach cannot hold out to eat as we can ; nor 
 ours to drink like the Swiss. A German made me very 
 merry at Augsburg, by finding fault with our hearths, by 
 the same arguments which we commonly make use of in 
 decrying their stoves : for, to say the truth, the smothered 
 heat, and then the smell of that heated matter of which the 
 fire is composed, very much offend such as are not used to 
 them ; not me ; and, indeed, the heat being always equal, 
 constant and universal, without flame, without smoke, and 
 without the wind that comes down our chimneys, they 
 may many ways sustain comparison with ours. Why do 
 we not imitate the Roman architecture ? for they say that 
 anciently fires were not made in the houses, but on the 
 outside, and at the foot of them, whence the heat was con- 
 veyed to the whole fabric by pipes contrived in the wall, 
 which were drawn twining about the rooms that were to 
 be warmed : which I have seen plainly described some- 
 where in Seneca. 1 This German hearing me commend the 
 conveniences and beauties of his city, which truly deserves 
 it, began to compassionate me that I had to leave it ; and 
 the first inconvenience he alleged to me was, the heaviness of 
 head that the chimneys elsewhere would bring upon me. 
 
 1 Seneca, Ep. 90. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 399 
 
 He had heard some one make this complaint, and fixed it 
 upon us, being by custom deprived of the means of per- 
 ceiving it at home. All heat that comes from the fire 
 weakens and dulls me ; and yet Evenus said, that fire was 
 the best condiment of life : I rather choose any other way 
 of making myself warm. 
 
 We are afraid to drink our wines, when toward the 
 bottom of the cask ; in Portugal those fumes are reputed 
 delicious, and it is the beverage of princes. In short, every 
 nation has many customs and usages that are not only un- 
 known to other nations, but savage and miraculous in their 
 sight. What should we do with those people who admit of 
 no evidence that is not in print, who believe not men if they 
 are not in a book, nor truth, if it be not of competent age ? 
 we dignify our fopperies, when we commit them to the 
 press : 'tis of a great deal more weight to say, " I have read 
 such a thing," than if you only say, " I have heard such a 
 thing." But I, who no more disbelieve a man's mouth 
 than his pen, and who know that men write as indiscreetly 
 as they speak, and who look upon this age as one that is 
 past, as soon quote a friend as Aulus Gellius or Macrobius ; 
 and what I have seen, as what they have written. And, as 
 'tis held of virtue, that it is not greater for having continued 
 longer, so do I hold of truth, that for being older it is none 
 the wiser. I often say, that it is mere folly that makes us 
 run after foreign and scholastic examples ; their fertility is 
 the same now that it was in the time of Homer and Plato. 
 But is it not that we seek more honour from the quotation, 
 than from the truth of the matter in hand ? As if it were 
 more to the purpose, to borrow our proofs from the shops of 
 Vascosan or Plantin, 1 than from what is to be seen in our 
 own village ; or else, indeed, that we have not the wit to 
 
 1 Eminent printers. 
 
4-00 ' Of Experience. [Bookiii. 
 
 cull out and make useful what we see before us, and to judge 
 of it clearly enough to draw it into example : for if we say 
 that we want authority to give faith to our testimony, we 
 speak from the purpose ; forasmuch as, in my opinion, of 
 the most ordinary, common, and known things, could we 
 but find out their light, the greatest miracles of nature 
 might be formed, and the most wonderful examples, 
 especially upon the subject of human actions. 
 
 Now, upon this subject, setting aside the examples I have 
 gathered from books, and what Aristotle says 1 of Andron 
 the Argian, that he travelled over the arid sands of Lybia 
 without drinking : a gentleman, who has very well behaved 
 himself in several employments, said, in a place where I was, 
 that he had ridden from Madrid to Lisbon, in the heat of 
 summer, without any drink at all. He is very healthful 
 and vigorous for his age, and has nothing extraordinary in 
 the use of his life, but this, to live sometimes two or three 
 months, nay, a whole year, as he has told me, without 
 drinking. He is sometimes thirsty, but he lets it pass over, 
 and he holds that it is an appetite which easily goes off of 
 itself; and he drinks more out of caprice than either for 
 need or pleasure. 
 
 Here is another example : 'tis not long ago that I found 
 one of the learnedest men in France, and a man of con- 
 siderable fortune, studying in a corner of a hall that they 
 had separated for him with tapestry, and about him a rabble 
 of his servants making all sorts of noise and confusion. He 
 told me, and Seneca almost says the same of himself, 2 he 
 made an advantage of this uproar: that, beaten with this 
 rattle, he so much the more collected and retired himself 
 into himself for contemplation, and that this tempest of 
 voices repercussed his thoughts within himself; when a 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, iv. 81. 2 Epist. 56. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 401 
 
 student at Padua, lie had his study so long situated amid 
 the rattle of coaches and the tumult of the square, that 
 he not only formed himself to the contempt, but even to 
 the use of noise, for the service of his studies. Socrates 
 answered Alcibiades, who was astonished how he could 
 endure the perpetual scolding of his wife, "Why," said he, 
 " as those ' do who are accustomed to the ordinary noise of 
 wheels drawing water." x I am quite otherwise ; I have a 
 tender head and easily discomposed; when 'tis bent upon 
 anything, the least buzzing of a fly tears it into pieces. 
 
 Seneca in his youth having, by the example of Sextius, 
 put on a positive resolution of eating nothing that had 
 had life, and for a whole year dispensed with animal food, 
 and, as he said, 2 with pleasure : only left off, that he might 
 not be suspected of taking up this rule from some new reli- 
 gion by which it was prescribed : he adopted, in like manner, 
 from the precepts of Attalus a custom not to lie upon any 
 sort of bedding that gave way under his weight, and, even 
 to his old age, made use of such as would not yield to any 
 pressure. What the usage of his time made him account 
 roughness, that of ours makes us look upon as effeminacy. 
 
 Do but observe the difference betwixt the way of living 
 of my labourers and my own ; the Scythians and Indians 
 have nothing more remote both from my capacity and my 
 manners. I have picked up boys from begging, to serve me : 
 who soon after have quitted both my kitchen and livery, 
 only that they might return to their former course of life ; 
 and I found one afterwards, picking mussels out of the 
 sewer for his dinner, whom I could neither by entreaties nor 
 threats reclaim from the sweetness he found in indigence. 
 Beggars have their magnificences and delights, as well as the 
 rich, and, 'tis said, their dignities and polities. These are 
 
 1 Diogenes Laertius, ii. 36. 2 Ep. 10S. 
 
 VOL. III. 2 C 
 
402 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 effects of custom ; she can mould us, not only into what form 
 she pleases (the sages say 1 we ought to apply ourselves to 
 the best, which she will soon make easy to us), but also to 
 change and variation, which is the most noble and most 
 useful instruction of all she teaches us. The best of my 
 bodily conditions is that I am flexible and not very ob- 
 stinate : I have inclinations more my own and ordinary, and 
 more agreeable than others ; but I am diverted from them 
 with very little ado, and easily slip into a contrary course. 
 A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awaken his 
 vigour and to keep it from growing faint and rusty ; and 
 there is no course of life so weak and sottish, as that which 
 is carried on by rule and discipline ; 
 
 ' : Ad primum lapidem vectari quum placet, liora 
 Sumitur ex libro ; si prurit frictus ocelli 
 Angulus, inspecta genesi, collyria quaerit ; " 2 
 
 he shall often throw himself even into excesses, if he will 
 take my advice ; otherwise the least debauch will destroy 
 him, and render him troublesome and disagreeable in com- 
 pany. The worst quality in a well-bred man is over 
 fastidiousness, and an obligation to a certain particular way ; 
 and it is particular, if not pliable and supple. It is a kind 
 of reproach, not to be able, or not to dare, to do what we see 
 those about us do ; let such as these stop at home. It is 
 in every man unbecoming, but in a soldier vicious and 
 intolerable : who, as Philopcemen said, ought to accustom 
 himself to every variety and inequality of life. 
 
 Though I have been brought up, as much as was possible, 
 to liberty and independence, yet so it is that, growing old, 
 and having by indifference more settled upon certain forms 
 
 1 Pythagoras, in Stobseus, Serm. 29. 
 
 4 " If he would be carried but a mile, he, for the proper hour, consults his 
 almanac ; if he but rub the corner of his eye, he chooses the salve by his horo- 
 scope." — Juvenal, vi. 576. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 403 
 
 (my age is now past instruction, and has henceforward nothing 
 to do but to keep itself up as well as it can), custom has 
 already, ere I was aware, so imprinted its character in me, 
 in certain things, that I look upon it as a kind of excess to 
 leave them off; and, without a force upon myself, cannot 
 sleep in the day-time, nor eat between meals, nor breakfast, 
 nor go to bed, without a great interval betwixt eating and 
 sleeping, as of three hours after supper ; nor get children 
 but before I sleep, or standing upon my feet ; nor endure my 
 own sweat ; nor quench my thirst either with pure water or 
 pure wine ; nor keep my head long bare, nor cut my hair 
 after dinner ; and I should be as uneasy without my gloves 
 as without my shirt, or without washing when I rise from 
 table or out of my bed ; and I could not lie without a canopy 
 and curtains, as if they were essential things. I could dine 
 without a tablecloth, but without a clean napkin, after the 
 German fashion, very incommodiously; I foul them more 
 than the Germans or Italians do, and make but little use 
 either of spoon or fork. I am sorry they did not keep up 
 the fashion, begun after the example of kings, to change our 
 napkins at every service, as they do our plates. We are 
 told of that laborious soldier Marius, that growing old, he 
 became nice in his drink, and never drank but out of a 
 particular cup of his own : x I, in like manner, have suf- 
 fered myself to fancy a certain form of glasses, and not 
 willingly to drink in common glasses, no more than from a 
 strange common hand : all metal offends me in comparison 
 of a clear and transparent matter : let my eyes taste too, 
 according to their capacity. I owe several other such 
 niceties to custom. Nature has also, on the other side, 
 helped me to some of hers ; as not to be able to endure more 
 than two full meals in one day, without overcharging my 
 stomach, nor a total abstinence from one of those meals 
 
 1 Plutarch, That we should restrain Anger, c. 13. 
 
404 Of Experience. [Book ill. 
 
 without filling myself with wind, drying up my mouth, and 
 dulling my appetite; the finding great inconvenience from over- 
 much evening air ; for of late years, in night marches, which 
 often happen to be all night long, after five or six hours my 
 stomach begins to be queasy, with a violent pain in my head, 
 so that I always vomit before the day can break. When 
 the others go to breakfast, I go to sleep ; and when I rise, I 
 am as brisk and gay as before. I had always been told that 
 the night dew never rises but in the beginning of the 
 night ; but for some years past, long and familiar intercourse 
 with a lord, possessed with the opinion that the night dew 
 is more sharp and dangerous about the declining of the 
 sun, an hour or two before it sets, which he carefully avoids, 
 and despises that of the night, he almost impressed upon 
 me, not so much his reasoning as his experiences. "What, 
 shall mere doubt and inquiry strike our imagination, so as 
 to change us ? Such as absolutely and on a sudden give way 
 to these propensions, draw total destruction upon themselves. 
 I am sorry for several gentlemen who, through the folly of 
 their physicians, have in their youth and health wholly 
 shut themselves up : it were better to endure a cough, 
 than, by disuse, for ever to lose the commerce of common 
 life in things of so great utility. Malignant science, to 
 interdict us the most pleasant hours of the day ! Let us 
 keep our possession to the last; for the most part, a man 
 hardens himself by being obstinate, and corrects his consti- 
 tution, as Csesar did the falling-sickness, by dint of contempt. 
 A man should addict himself to the best rules, but not en- 
 slave himself to them, except to such, if there be any such, 
 where obligation and servitude are of profit. 
 
 Both kings and philosophers go to stool, and ladies too ; 
 public lives are bound to ceremony ; mine, that is obscure 
 and private, enjoys all natural dispensation ; soldier and 
 Gascon are also qualities a little subject to indiscretion ; 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 405 
 
 wherefore I shall say of this act of relieving nature, that it 
 is desirable to refer it to certain prescribed and nocturnal 
 hours, and compel one's self to this by custom, as I have done ; 
 but not to subject one's self, as I have done in my declining 
 years, to a particular convenience of place and seat for that 
 purpose, and make it troublesome by long sitting : and yet, 
 in the fouler offices, is it not in some measure excusable to 
 require more care and cleanliness ? " Natura homo mundum 
 et elegans animal est." l Of all the actions of nature, I am 
 the most impatient of being interrupted in that. I have 
 seen many soldiers troubled with the unruliness of their 
 bellies ; whereas mine and I never fail of our punctual 
 assignation, which is at leaping out of bed, if some indis- 
 pensable business or sickness does not molest us. 
 
 I think then, as I said before, that sick men cannot better 
 place themselves anywhere in more safety, than in sitting 
 still in that course of life wherein they have been bred and 
 trained up ; change, be it what it will, distempers and puts 
 one out. Do you believe that chestnuts can hurt a Peri- 
 gourdin or a Lucchese, or milk and cheese the mountain 
 people ? We enjoin them not only a new, but a contrary, 
 method of life ; a change that the healthful cannot endure. 
 Prescribe water to a Breton of three score and ten ; shut a 
 seaman up in a stove ; forbid a Bascpue footman to walk : 
 you will deprive them of motion, and in the end of air and 
 
 light. 
 
 " An vivere tanti est 1 
 Cogimur a suetis animum suspendere rebus, 
 Atque, ut vivamus, vivere desinimus. . . . 
 IIos superesse reor, quibus et spirabilis aer 
 Et lux, qua regiraur, redditur ipsa gravis." 2 
 
 1 " Man is by nature a clean and delicate creature." — Seneca, Ep. 92. 
 
 2 "Is life worth so much? They make us deprive ourselves of things to 
 which we are accustomed ; and, that we may live, we must cease to live. . . . 
 I can't conceive that they still live, to whom light and air, by which they live, 
 are forbidden. — Pseudo-Gallus, Eclog. i. 155, 247. 
 
406 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 If they do no other good, they do this at least, that they 
 prepare patients betimes for death, by little and little under- 
 mining and cutting off the use of life. 
 
 Both well and sick, I have ever willingly suffered myself 
 to obey the appetites that pressed upon me. I give great 
 authority to my propensions and desires; I do not love to 
 cure one disease by another ; I hate remedies that are more 
 troublesome than the disease itself. To be subject to the 
 stone and subject to abstain from eating oysters, are two 
 evils instead of one ; the disease torments us on the one side, 
 and the remedy on the other. Since we are ever in danger 
 of mistaking, let us rather run the hazard of a mistake, after 
 we have had the pleasure. The world proceeds quite the 
 other way, and thinks nothing profitable that is not painful ; 
 it has great suspicion of facility. My appetite, in various 
 things, has of its own accord happily enough accommodated 
 itself to the health of my stomach. Eelish and pungency 
 in sauces were pleasant to me when young, but my stomach 
 disliking them since, my taste incontinently followed. Wine 
 is hurtful to sick people, and 'tis the first thing that my 
 mouth then finds distasteful, and with an invincible dislike. 
 Whatever I take against my liking, does me harm ; and no- 
 thing hurts me, that I eat with appetite and delight. I never 
 received harm by any action that was very pleasant to me ; 
 and accordingly have made all medicinal conclusions largely 
 give way to my pleasure ; and I have, when I was young, 
 
 " Quem circumcursans hue atque hue scape Cupido 
 Fulgebat crocina splendidus in tunica : " x 
 
 given myself the rein as licentiously and inconsiderately to 
 the desire that was predominant in me, as any other whomso- 
 
 1 "When Cupid, fluttering round me here and there, shone in his rich 
 purple mantle." — Catullus, Ixvi. 133. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 407 
 
 " Et militavi 11011 sine gloria : " l 
 
 ever; yet more in continuation and holding out, than in sally : 
 
 " Sex me vix memirti sustinuisse vices." 2 
 
 'Tis certainly a misfortune and a miracle at once, to confess 
 at what, a tender age I first came under the subjection 
 of love : it was, indeed, by chance ; for it was long before 
 the years of choice or knowledge ; I do not remember 
 myself so far back ; and my fortune may well be coupled 
 with that of Quartilla, who could not remember when she 
 was a maid : 
 
 " In tie tragus, celeresque pili, mirandaque matri 
 Barba nieee." 3 
 
 Physicians modify their rules according to the violent long- 
 ings that happen to sick persons, ordinarily with good suc- 
 cess ; this ' great desire cannot be imagined so strange and 
 vicious, but that nature must have a hand in it. And then 
 how easy a thing is it to satisfy the fancy ? In my opinion, 
 this part wholly carries it, at least, above all the rest. The 
 most grievous and ordinary evils are those that fancy loads 
 us with; this Spanish saying mightily pleases in several 
 senses ; " Defienda me Dios de my." 4 I am sorry when I 
 am sick, that I have not some longing that might give me 
 the pleasure of satisfying it ; all the rules of physic would 
 hardly be able to divert me from it. I do the same when 
 I am well ; I can see very little more to be hoped or 
 wished for. 'Twere pity a man should be so weak and lan- 
 guishing, as not to have even wishing left to him. 
 
 The art of physic is not so fixed, that we need be with- 
 
 1 " And fought not ingloriously." — Horace, Od. iii. 26, 2. 
 
 2 "I can scarcely remember six bouts in one night." — Ovid, Amor., iii. 
 7,26. 
 
 3 " My precocious beard astonished my mother." — Martial, xi. 22, 7. 
 
 4 " God defend me from myself." 
 
40 8 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 out authority for whatever we do ; it changes according to 
 climates and moons ; according to Fernel * and to Scaliger. 
 If your physician does not think it good for you to sleep, 
 to drink wine, or to eat such and such meats, never trouble 
 yourself; I will find you another that shall not be of his 
 opinion; the diversity of medical arguments and opinions 
 embraces all sorts of forms. I saw a miserable sick person 
 panting and burning for thirst, that he might be cured, who 
 was afterwards laughed at for his pains by another physi- 
 cian, who condemned that advice as prejudicial to him : had 
 he not tormented himself to good purpose ? There lately 
 died of the stone, a man of that profession, who had made 
 use of extreme abstinence to contend with his disease : his 
 fellow-physicians say, that on the contrary, this abstinence 
 had dried him up, and baked the gravel in his kidneys. 
 
 I have observed, that both in wounds and sicknesses, 
 speaking discomposes and hurts me, as much as any irregu- 
 larity I can commit. My voice pains and tires me, for 'tis 
 loud and forced ; so that when I have gone to whisper some 
 great persons about affairs of consequence, they have often 
 desired me to moderate my voice. 
 
 This story deserves a place here. Some one 2 in a certain 
 Greek school speaking loud as I do, the master of the cere- 
 monies sent to him to speak softly : " Tell him, then, he 
 must send me," replied the other, "the tone he would have 
 me speak in." To which the other replied, " That he should 
 take the tone from the ears of him to whom he spake." It 
 was well said, if to be understood : " Speak according to the 
 affair you are speaking about to your auditor," for if it 
 mean, " 'tis sufficient that he hear you ; or, govern yourself 
 by him," I do not find it to be reason. The tone and 
 
 1 Physicians to Henry II. 
 
 2 Carneades. Diogenes Laertius, iv. 6$. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 409 
 
 motion of my voice carries with it a great deal of the ex- 
 pression and signification of my meaning, and 'tis I who am 
 to govern it, to make myself understood : there is a voice to 
 instruct, a voice to flatter, and a voice to reprehend. I will 
 not only that my voice reach him, but, peradventure, that 
 it strike and pierce him. When I rattle my footman with 
 sharp and bitter language, it would be very pretty for him 
 to say, " Pray, master, speak lower, I hear you very well." 
 " Est qusedam vox ad auditum accomodata, non magnitudine, 
 sed proprietate." 1 Speaking is half his who speaks, and half 
 his who hears ; the latter ought to prepare himself to receive 
 it, according to its bias ; as with tennis players, he who 
 receives the ball, shifts and prepares, according as he sees 
 him move who strikes the stroke, and according to the 
 stroke itself. 
 
 Experience has, moreover, taught me this, that we ruin 
 ourselves by impatience. Evils have their life and limits, 
 their diseases and their recovery. 
 
 The constitution of maladies is formed by the pattern of 
 the constitution of animals ; they have then fortune and their 
 days limited from their birth ; he who attempts imperiously 
 to cut them short by force in the middle of their course, 
 lengthens and multiplies them, and incenses instead of 
 appeasing them. I am of Crantor's opinion, that " we are 
 neither obstinately and wilfully to oppose evils, nor truckle 
 under them for want of courage ; but that we are naturally 
 to give way to them, according to their condition and our 
 own." We ought to grant free passage to diseases ; I find 
 they stay less with me, who let them alone ; and I have lost 
 some, reputed the most tenacious and obstinate, by their own 
 decay, without help and without art, and contrary to its rules. 
 
 1 "There is a certain voice accommodated to the hearing, not by its loud- 
 ness, but by its propriety." — Quintillian, xi. 3. 
 
4io Of Experience. [Bookiii. 
 
 Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way ; she better 
 understands her own affairs than we. " But such an one 
 died ; " and so shall you : if not of that disease, of another. 
 And how many have not escaped dying, who have had three 
 physicians always at their tails ? Example is a vague and 
 universal mirror, and of various reflections. If it be a 
 delicious medicine, take it : 'tis always so much present good. 
 I will never stick at the name nor the colour, if it be 
 pleasant and grateful to the palate : pleasure is one of the 
 chiefest kinds of profit. I have suffered colds, gouty de- 
 fluxions, relaxations, palpitations of the heart, meagrims, 
 and other accidents, to grow old and die in time a natural 
 death ; I have so lost them when I was half fit to keep them : 
 they are sooner prevailed upon by courtesy than huffing. 
 We must patiently suffer the laws of our condition; we are 
 born to grow old, to grow weak, and to be sick, in despite of 
 all medicine. 'Tis the first lesson the Mexicans teach their 
 children ; so soon as ever they are born they thus salute 
 them : " Thou art come into the world, child, to endure : 
 endure, suffer, and say nothing." 'Tis injustice to lament 
 that which has befallen any one, which may befal every one : 
 " Indignare, si quid in te inique proprie constitutum est." x 
 
 See an old man who begs of God that he will maintain 
 his health vigorous and entire ; that is to say, that he restore 
 him to youth : 
 
 " Stulte, quid hfec frustra votis puerilibus optas 1 " 2 
 
 is it not folly ? his condition is not capable of it. The gout, 
 the stone, and indigestion are symptoms of long years ; as 
 heat, rains, and winds are of long journeys. Plato does not 
 
 1 "Then be angry, when there is anything unjustly decreed against thee 
 alone." — Seneca, Ep. 91. 
 
 2 "Why, you blockhead, pray such childish prayers, in vain." — Ovid, 
 Trist., iii. 8, 11. 
 
Chap. 1 3-] Of Experience. 411 
 
 believe that iEsculapius troubled himself to provide, by regi- 
 men, to prolong life in a weak and wasted body, useless to 
 his country and to his profession, or to beget healthful and 
 robust children ; and does not think this care suitable to the 
 Divine justice and prudence, which is to direct all things to 
 utility. . My good friend, your business is done ; nobody can 
 restore you ; they can, at the most, but patch you up, and 
 prop you a little, and by that means prolong your misery an 
 hour or two : 
 
 " Non secus instantem cupiens fulcire ruinam, 
 Diversis contra nititur obiicibus ; 
 Donee certa dies, omni compage soluta, 
 Ipsum. cum rebus subruat auxilium." l 
 
 We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade ; our life, 
 like the harmony of the world, is composed of contrary 
 things — of diverse tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and Hat, 
 sprightly and solemn : the musician who should only affect 
 some of these, what would he be able to do ? he must 
 know how to make use of them all, and to mix them ; and 
 so we should mingle the goods and evils which are consub- 
 stantial with our life ; our being cannot subsist without this 
 mixture, and the one part is no less necessary to it than the 
 other. To attempt to kick against natural necessity, is to 
 represent the folly of Ctesiphon, who undertook to kick with 
 his mule. 2 
 
 I consult little about the alterations I feel : for these 
 doctors take advantage ; when they haA r e you at their mercy, 
 they cudgel your ears with their prognostics ; and having 
 once surprised me, weakened with sickness, injuriously 
 handled me with their dogmas and magisterial fopperies — 
 
 1 Like one who, desiring to stay an impending ruin, places various props 
 against it, till, in a short time, the house, the props, and all, giving way, fall 
 together." — Pseudo-Gallus, i. 171. 
 
 2 Plutarch, How to restrain Anger, c. 8, 
 
412 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 one while menacing me with great pains, and another with 
 approaching death — by which threats I was indeed moved 
 and shaken, but not subdued nor jostled from my place ; and 
 though my judgment was neither altered nor distracted, yet 
 it was at least disturbed : 'tis always agitation and combat. 
 
 Now, I use my imagination as gently as I can, and would 
 discharge it, if I could, of all trouble and contest ; a man 
 must assist, flatter, and deceive it, if he can; my mind is 
 fit for that office ; it needs no appearances throughout : 
 could it persuade as it preaches, it would successfully relieve 
 me. Will you have an example ? It tells me : " that 'tis for 
 my good to have the stone : that the structure of my age 
 must naturally suffer some decay, and it is now time it 
 should begin to disjoin and to confess a breach ; 'tis a com- 
 mon necessity, and there is nothing in it either miraculous 
 or new ; I therein pay what is due to old age, and I cannot 
 expect a better bargain ; that society ought to comfort me, 
 being fallen into the most common infirmity of my age ; I 
 see everywhere men tormented with the same disease, and 
 am honoured by the fellowship, forasmuch as men of the 
 best quality are most frequently afflicted with it : 'tis a noble 
 and dignified disease : that of such as are struck with it, 
 few have it to a less degree of pain ; that these are put to 
 the trouble of a strict diet and the daily taking of nauseous 
 potions, whereas I owe my better state purely to my good 
 fortune ; for some ordinary broths of Eringo or burst-wort 
 that I have twice or thrice taken to oblige the ladies who, 
 with greater kindness than my pain was sharp, would needs 
 present me half of theirs, seemed to me equally easy to take 
 and fruitless in operation, the others have to pay a thousand 
 vows to iEsculapius, and as many crowns to their physicians, 
 for the voiding a little gravel, which I often do by the aid 
 of nature : even the decorum of my countenance is not dis- 
 turbed in company ; and I can hold my water ten hours, and 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 413 
 
 as long as any man that is in perfect health. The fear of 
 this disease," says mind, " formerly affrighted thee, when it 
 was unknown to thee ; the cries and despairing groans of 
 those who make it worse by their impatience, begot a horror 
 in thee. Tis an infirmity that punishes the members by 
 which thou hast most offended. Thou art a conscientious 
 fellow : " 
 
 " Que venit indigne poena, dolenda venit : " 1 
 
 " consider this chastisement : 'tis very easy in comparison of 
 others, and inflicted with a paternal tenderness : do but ob- 
 serve how late it comes ; it only seizes on and incommodes 
 that part of thy life, which is, one way and another, sterile 
 and lost ; having, as it were by composition, given time for 
 the licence and pleasures of thy youth. The fear and the 
 compassion that the people have of this disease serve thee 
 for matter of glory ; a quality, whereof if thou hast thy 
 judgment purified, and that thy reason has somewhat cured 
 it, thy friends, notwithstanding, discern some tincture in 
 thy complexion. '"Tis a pleasure to hear it said of oneself: 
 what strength of mind, what patience ! Thou art seen to 
 sweat with pain, to turn pale and red, to tremble, to vomit 
 blood, to suffer strange contractions and convulsions, at 
 times to let great tears drop from thine eyes, to urine thick, 
 black, and dreadful water, or to have it suppressed by some 
 sharp and craggy stone, that cruelly pricks and tears the 
 neck of the bladder, whilst all the while thou entertainest 
 the company with an ordinary countenance ; drolling by fits 
 with thy people ; making one in a continuous discourse, now 
 and then making excuse for thy pain, and representing thy 
 suffering less than it is. Dost thou call to mind the men 
 of past times, who so greedily sought diseases to keep their 
 
 1 "We are entitled to complain of a punishment that we have not de- 
 served." — Ovid, Ileroid., V. 8. 
 
4 1 4 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 virtue in breath and exercise ? Put the case that nature 
 sets thee on and impels thee to this glorious school, into 
 which thou wouldst never have entered of thy own free will. 
 If thou tellest me that it is a dangerous and mortal disease, 
 what others are not so ? for 'tis a physical cheat to ex- 
 cept any that they say do not go direct to death : what 
 matters if they go thither by accident, or if they easily 
 slide and slip into the path that leads us to it ? But thou 
 dost not die because thou art sick ; thou diest because thou 
 art living : death kills thee without the help of sickness : 
 and sickness has deferred death in some, who have lived 
 longer by reason that they thought themselves always 
 dying ; to which may be added, that as in wounds, so in 
 diseases, some are medicinal and wholesome. The stone is 
 often no less long-lived than you ; we see men with whom 
 it has continued from their infancy even to their extreme 
 old age ; and if they had not broken company, it would have 
 been with them longer still ; you more often kill it than 
 it kills you. And though it should present to you the 
 image of approaching death, were it not a good office to a 
 man of such an age, to put him in mind of his end ? And, 
 which is worse, thou hast no longer anything that should 
 make thee desire to be cured. Whether or no, common 
 necessity will soon call thee away. Bo but consider how 
 skilfully and gently she puts thee out of concern with 
 life, and weans thee from the world; not forcing thee with 
 a tyrannical subjection, like so many other infirmities which 
 thou seest old men afflicted withal, that hold them in con- 
 tinual torment, and keep them in perpetual and uninter- 
 mitted weakness and pains, but by warnings and instructions 
 at intervals, intermixing long pauses of repose, as it were to 
 give thee opportunity to meditate and ruminate upon thy 
 lesson, at thy own ease and leisure. To give thee means to 
 judge aright, and to assume the resolution of a man of cour- 
 
Cap. 1 3. J Of Experience. 415 
 
 age, it presents to thee the state of thy entire condition, both 
 in good and evil ; and one while a very cheerful and another 
 an insupportable life, in one and the same day. If thou em- 
 bracest not death, at least thou shakest hands with it once 
 a month ; whence thou hast more cause to hope that it 
 will one day surprise thee without menace ; and that being 
 so often conducted to the water side, but still thinking 
 thyself to be upon the accustomed terms, thou and thy 
 confidence will at one time or another be unexpectedly 
 wafted over. 1 A man cannot reasonably complain of diseases 
 that fairly divide the time with health." 
 
 I am obliged to Fortune for having so often assaulted me 
 with the same sort of weapons : she forms and fashions me 
 by use, hardens and habituates me, so that I can know within 
 a little for how much I shall be quit. For want of natural 
 memory, I make one of paper ; and as any new symptom 
 happens in my disease, I set it down, whence it falls out that, 
 having now almost passed through all sorts of examples, if 
 anything astounding threatens me, turning over these little 
 loose notes, as the Sybil's leaves, I never fail of finding 
 matter of consolation from some favourable prognostic in 
 my past experience. Custom also makes me hope better 
 for the time to come ; for, the conduct of this clearing out 
 having so long continued, 'tis to be believed that nature 
 will not alter her course, and that no other worse accident 
 will happen than what I already feel. And besides, the 
 condition of this disease is not unsuitable to my prompt 
 and sudden complexion : when it assaults me gently, I am 
 afraid, for 'tis then for a great while ; but it has, naturally, 
 brisk and vigorous excesses ; it claws me to purpose for a 
 day or two. My kidneys held out an age without altera- 
 tion ; and I have almost now lived another, since they changed 
 
 1 i.e., over the Styx. 
 
4i6 . Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 their state ; evils have their periods, as well as goods : per- 
 adventure, the infirmity draws towards an end. Age weakens 
 the heat of my stomach, and its digestion being less perfect 
 sends this crude matter to my kidneys ; why, at a certain 
 revolution, may not the heat of my kidneys be also abated, 
 so that they can no more petrify my phlegm, and nature 
 find out some other way of purgation. Years have evidently 
 helped me to' drain certain rheums ; and why not these 
 excrements which furnish matter for gravel ? But is there 
 anything delightful in comparison of this sudden change, 
 when from an excessive pain, I come, by the voiding of a 
 stone, to recover, as by a flash of lighting, the beautiful 
 light of health, so free and full, as it happens in our sud- 
 den and sharpest colics ? Is there anything in the pain 
 suffered, that one can counterpoise to the pleasure of so 
 sudden an amendment ? 0, how much does health seem 
 the more pleasant to me, after a sickness so near and so 
 contiguous, that I can distinguish them in the presence of 
 one another, in then greatest show ; when they appear in 
 emulation, as if to make head against and dispute it with 
 one another ! As the Stoics say that vices are profitably 
 introduced to give value to and to set off virtue, we can, 
 with better reason and less temerity of conjecture, say that 
 nature has given us pain for the honour and service of 
 pleasure and indolence. "When Socrates, after his fetters 
 were knocked off, felt the pleasure of that itching which the 
 weight of them had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to con- 
 sider the strict alliance betwixt pain and pleasure ; how they 
 are linked together by a necessary connection, so that by 
 turns they follow and mutually beget one another; and 
 cried out to the good fellow iEsop, that he ought out of 
 this consideration, to have taken matter for a. fine fable. 
 
 The worst that I see in other diseases is, that they are 
 not so grievous in their effect, as they are in their issue : 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 417 
 
 a man is a whole year in recovering, and all the while full 
 of weakness and fear. There is so much hazard, and so 
 many steps to arrive at safety, that there is no end on't : 
 before they have unmufned you of a kerchief, and then of 
 a cap, before they allow you to walk abroad and take the 
 air, to drink wine, to lie with your wife, or eat melons, 'tis 
 odds you relapse into some new distemper. The stone has 
 this privilege, that it carries itself clean off : whereas the other 
 maladies always leave behind them some impression and 
 alteration that render the body subject to a new disease, 
 and lend a hand to one another. Those are excusable that 
 content themselves with possessing us, without extending 
 farther, and introducing their followers ; but courteous and 
 kind are those whose passage brings us any profitable 
 issue. Since I have been troubled with the stone, I find 
 myself freed from all other accidents, much more, methinks, 
 than I was before, and have never had any fever since ; 
 I argue that the extreme and frecpient vomitings that I 
 am subject to, purge me : and, on the other hand, my dis- 
 tastes for this and that, and the strange fasts I am forced 
 to keep, digest my peccant humours, and nature, with those 
 stones, voids whatever there is in me superfluous and 
 hurtful. Let them never tell me that it is a medicine too 
 dear bought : for what avail so many stinking draughts, 
 so many caustics, incisions, sweats, setons, diets, and so 
 many other methods of cure, which often, by reason we are 
 not able to undergo their violence and importunity, bring 
 us to our graves ? So that when I have the stone, I look 
 upon it as physic ; when free from it, as an absolute 
 deliverance. 
 
 And here is another particular benefit of my disease ; 
 which is, that it almost plays its game by itself, and lets 
 me play mine, if I have only courage to do it ; for, in its 
 greatest fury, I have endured it ten hours together on horse- 
 
 VOL. III. 2 D 
 
41 8 Of Experience. [Bookiii. 
 
 back. Do- but endure only ; you need no other regimen : 
 play, run, dine, do this and t'other, if you can ; your de- 
 bauch will do you more good than harm ; say as much to 
 one that has the pox, the gout, or hernia. The other 
 diseases have more universal obligations ; rack our actions 
 after another kind of manner, disturb our whole order, and 
 to their consideration engage the whole state of life : this 
 only pinches the skin ; it leaves the understanding and the 
 will wholly at our own disposal, and the tongue, the hands, 
 and the feet; it rather awakens than stupefies you. The 
 soul is struck with the ardour of a fever, overwhelmed with 
 an epilepsy, and displaced by a sharp megrim, and, in short, 
 astounded by all the diseases that hurt the whole mass, 
 and the most noble parts ; this never meddles with the 
 soul; if anything goes amiss with her, 'tis her own fault, 
 she betrays, dismounts, and abandons herself. There are 
 none but fools who suffer themselves to be persuaded, that 
 this hard and massive body which is baked in our kidneys 
 is to be dissolved by drinks ; wherefore, when it is once 
 stirred, there is nothing to be done but to give it passage ; 
 and, for that matter, it will itself make one. 
 
 I moreover observe this particular convenience in it, that 
 it is a disease wherein we have little to guess at : we are 
 dispensed from the trouble into which other diseases throw 
 us by the uncertainty of their causes, conditions, and pro- 
 gress ; a trouble that is infinitely painful : we have no need 
 of consultations and doctoral interpretations ; the senses 
 well enough inform us both what it is and where it is. 
 
 By suchlike arguments, weak and strong, as Cicero with 
 the disease of his old age, I try to rock asleep and amuse 
 my imagination, and to dress its wounds. If I find them 
 worse to-morrow, I will provide new stratagems. That this 
 is true : I am come to that pass of late, that the least 
 motion forces pure blood out of my kidneys : what of that ? 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 4 1 9 
 
 I move about, nevertheless, as before, and ride after 
 my hounds with a juvenile and insolent ardour ; and hold 
 that I have very good satisfaction for an accident of that 
 importance, when it costs me no more but a dull heaviness 
 and uneasiness in that part ; 'tis some great stone that 
 wastes and consumes the substance of my kidneys and my 
 life, which I by little and little evacuate, not without some 
 natural pleasure, as an excrement henceforward superfluous 
 and troublesome. Now if I feel anything stirring, do not 
 fancy that I trouble myself to consult my pulse or my 
 urine, thereby to put myself upon some annoying prevention ; 
 I shall soon enough feel the pain, without making it more 
 and longer, by the disease of fear. He who fears he shall 
 suffer, already suffers what he fears. To which may be 
 added, that the doubts and ignorance of those who take 
 upon them to expound the designs of nature and her in- 
 ternal progressions, and the many false prognostics of their 
 art, ought to give us to understand that her ways are in- 
 scrutable and utterly unknown ; there is great uncertainty, 
 variety, and obscurity in what she either promises or 
 threatens. Old age excepted, which is an indubitable sign 
 of the approach of death, in all other accidents I see few 
 signs of the future, whereon we may ground our divination. 
 I only judge of myself by actual sensation, not by reasoning : 
 to what end, since I am resolved to bring nothing to it 
 but expectation and patience ? Will you know how much 
 I get by this ? observe those who do otherwise, and who 
 rely upon so many diverse persuasions and counsels ; how 
 often the imagination presses upon them, without any 
 bodily pain. I have many times amused myself, being 
 well and in safety, and quite free from these dangerous 
 attacks, in communicating them to the physicians as then 
 beginning to discover themselves in me; I underwent the 
 decree of their dreadful conclusions, being, all the while, 
 
420 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 quite at my ease, and so much the more obliged to the 
 favour of God, and better satisfied of the vanity of this art. 
 There is nothing that ought so much to be recommended 
 to youth as activity and vigilance : our life is nothing but 
 movement. I bestir myself with great difficulty, and am 
 slow in everything, whether in rising, going to bed, or eat- 
 ing : seven of the clock in the morning is early for me ; and 
 where I rule, I never dine before eleven, nor sup till after 
 six. I formerly attributed the cause of the fevers and 
 other diseases I fell into, to the heaviness that long sleep- 
 ing had brought upon me ; and have ever repented going 
 to sleep again in the morning. Plato is more angry 
 at excess of sleeping, than at excess of drinking. 1 I love 
 to lie hard and alone, even without my wife, as kings 
 do ; and well covered with clothes. They never warm my 
 bed, but since I have grown old, they give me at need 
 warm cloths to lay to my feet and stomach. They found 
 fault with the great Scipio, that he was a great sleeper; 2 
 not, in my opinion, for any other reason, than that men were 
 displeased, that he alone should have nothing in him to be 
 found fault with. If I am anything fastidious in my way 
 of living, 'tis rather in my lying than anything else ; but, 
 generally, I give way and accommodate myself, as well as 
 any one, to necessity. Sleeping has taken up a great part 
 of my life, and I yet continue, at the age I now am, to sleep 
 eight or nine hours together. I wean myself to my advan- 
 tage, from this propension to sloth, and am evidently the 
 better for so doing. I find the change a little hard indeed, 
 but in three days 'tis over ; and I see but few who live with 
 less sleep, when need requires, and who more constantly 
 exercise themselves, or to whom long journeys are less 
 
 1 Laws, vii. 13. 
 
 s Plutarch, That it is necessary a Prince should be Learned. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 421 
 
 troublesome. My body is capable of a firm, but not of a 
 violent or sudden agitation. I evade of late violent exer- 
 cises, and such as make me sweat, wherein my limbs grow 
 weary before they are hot. I can stand a whole day 
 together, and am never weary of walking : but from my 
 youth, I have ever preferred to ride upon paved roads ; 
 on foot, I get up to the breech in dirt ; and little fellows as 
 I am are subject in the streets to be elbowed and jostled, 
 for want of presence ; I have ever loved to repose myself, 
 whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher 
 than my seat. 
 
 There is no profession more pleasant than the military, 
 a profession both noble in its execution (for valour is the 
 stoutest, proudest, and most generous of all virtues), and 
 noble in its cause : there is no utility either more universal 
 or more just, than the protection of the peace and grandeur 
 of one's country. The company of so many noble, young, 
 and active men delights you : the ordinary sight of so many 
 tragic spectacles ; the freedom of the conversation, without 
 art ; a masculine and unceremonious way of living, please you ; 
 the variety of a thousand several actions ; the encouraging 
 harmony of martial music, that ravishes and inflames both 
 your ears and souls ; the honour of this occupation, nay, 
 even its hardships and difficulties, which Plato holds so 
 light that, in his Eepublic, he makes women and children 
 share in them, are delightful to you. You put yourselves 
 voluntarily upon particular exploits and hazards, according 
 as you judge of their lustre and importance ; and, a volun- 
 teer, find even life itself excusably employed, 
 
 " Pulclirumque mori succurrit in armis." 1 
 To fear common dangers that concern so great a multi- 
 
 1 "Tis fine to die sword in hand." — ^Eneid, ii. 317. 
 
422 Of Experience. [Book 
 
 m. 
 
 tude of men ; not to dare to do what so many sorts of souls, 
 what a whole people dare, is for a heart that is poor and 
 mean beyond all measure : company encourages even chil- 
 dren. If others excel you in knowledge, in gracefulness, in 
 strength, or fortune, you have third causes to blame for that ; 
 but to give place to them in stability of mind, you can 
 blame no one for that but yourself. Death is more abject, 
 more languishing and troublesome in bed than in battle ; 
 fevers and catarrhs as painful and mortal as a musket-shot. 
 Whoever has fortified himself valiantly to bear the acci- 
 dents of common life, need not raise his courage to be a 
 soldier. " Vivere, mi Lucili, militare est." x 
 
 I do not remember that I ever had the itch ; and yet 
 scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and 
 nearest at hand ; but the smart follows too near. I use 
 it most in my ears, which are often apt to itch. 
 
 I came into the world with all my senses entire, even to 
 perfection. My stomach is commodiously good, as also is my 
 head and my breath ; and, for the most part, uphold them- 
 selves so in the height of fevers. I have passed the age to 
 which some nations, not without reason, have prescribed so 
 just a term of life, that they would not suffer men to exceed 
 it ; and yet I have some intermissions, though short and in- 
 constant, so clean and sound as to be little inferior to the 
 health and pleasantness of my youth. I do not speak of 
 vigour and sprightliness ; 'tis not reason they should follow 
 me beyond their limits : 
 
 " Non hoc amplius est liminis, ant aquos. 
 Ccelestis, patiens latus." 2 
 
 My face and eyes presently discover my condition ; all 
 
 1 "To live, my Lucilius, is to make war." — Seneca, Ep. 96. 
 3 "I am no longer able to stand waiting at a door in the rain." — Horace, 
 Od. iii. 10, 9. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 423 
 
 my alterations begin there, and appear somewhat worse than 
 they really are ; my friends often pity me, before I feel the 
 cause in myself. My looking-glass does not frighten me ; for 
 even in my youth it has befallen me more than once to have 
 a scurvy complexion and of ill prognostic, without any great 
 consequence, so that the physicians, not finding any cause 
 within answerable to that outward alteration, attributed it to 
 the mind and to some secret passion that tormented me with- 
 in ; but they were deceived. If my body would govern itself 
 as well, according to my rule, as my mind does, we should 
 move a little more at our ease. My mind was then not only 
 free from trouble, but, moreover, full of joy and satisfaction, 
 as it commonly is, half by its complexion, half by its design : 
 
 " Nee vitiant artus regrse contagia mentis.'' L 
 
 I am of the opinion that this temperature of my soul has 
 often raised my body from its lapses ; this is often depressed ; 
 if the other be not brisk and gay, 'tis at least tranquil and at 
 rest. I had a quartan ague four or five months, that made 
 me look miserably ill ; my mind was always, if not calm, yet 
 pleasant. If the pain be without me, the weakness and 
 languor do not much afflict me ; I see various corporal 
 faintings, that beget a horror in me but to name, which yet 
 I should less fear than a thousand passions and agitations 
 of the mind that I see about me. I make up my mind no 
 more to run ; 'tis enough that I can crawl along ; nor do I 
 more complain of the natural decadence that I feel in myself, 
 
 u Quis tumitlum guttur miratur in Alpibus ? " 2 
 
 than I regret that my duration shall not be as long and 
 entire as that of an oak. 
 
 1 "The troubles of the body never affected my mind." — Ovid, Trist., iii. 
 ' l "No one is surprised to see a goitre in the Alps." — Juvenal, xiii. 162. 
 
424 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 I have no reason to complain of my imagination ; I have 
 had few thoughts in my life that have so much as broken 
 my sleep, except those of desire, which have awakened 
 without afflicting me. I dream but seldom, and then of 
 chimeras and fantastic things, commonly produced from 
 pleasant thoughts, and rather ridiculous than sad ; and I 
 believe it to be true that dreams are faithful interpreters 
 of our inclinations ; but there is art required to sort and 
 understand them : 
 
 " Res, quae in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, viclent, 
 Quseqne agunt vigilantes, agitantque, ea si cui in somno accidunt, 
 Minus nimirum est." x 
 
 Plato, moreover, says, 2 that 'tis the office of prudence to 
 draw instructions of divination of future things from dreams : 
 I don't know about this, but there are wonderful instances of 
 it that Socrates, Xenophon, and Aristotle, men of irreproach- 
 able authority, relate. Historians say 3 that the Atlantes 
 never dream ; who also never eat any animal food, which I 
 add, forasmuch as it is, peradventure, the reason why they 
 never dream, for Pythagoras ordered a certain preparation of 
 diet to beget appropriate dreams. 4 Mine are very gentle, with- 
 out any agitation of body or expression of voice. I have seen 
 several of my time wonderfully disturbed by them. Theon, 
 the philosopher, walked in his sleep, arid so did Pericles' 
 servant, and that upon the tiles and top of the house. 5 
 
 I hardly ever choose my dish at table, but take the next 
 at hand, and unwillingly change it for another. A confusion 
 
 1 '"Tis no wonder if what men practise, think, care for, see, and do when 
 waking, should also run in their heads and disturb them when they are asleep.' 
 — Attius, cited in Cicero, De Divin, i. 22. 
 
 2 In the Timseus. 
 
 3 Herodotus, iv. 184 ; Pomponius Mela, i. 8. 
 
 4 Cicero, De Divin, ii. 58. 
 
 s Diogenes Laertius, ix. 82. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 425 
 
 of meats and a clutter of dishes displease me as much as 
 any other confusion : I am easily satisfied with few dishes : 
 and am an enemy to the opinion of Favorinus, that in a 
 feast they should snatch from you the meat you like, and 
 set a plate of another sort before you ; and that 'tis a piti- 
 ful supper, if you do not sate your guests with the rumps 
 of various fowls, the beccafico only deserving to be all 
 eaten. I usually eat salt meats, and yet I love bread 
 that has no salt in it ; and my baker never sends up other 
 to my table, contrary to the custom of the country. In my 
 infancy, what they had most to correct in me was the refusal 
 of things that children commonly best love, as sugar, sweet- 
 meats, and march-panes. My tutor contended with this 
 aversion to delicate things, as a kind of over-nicety ; and 
 indeed 'tis nothing else but a difficulty of taste, in anything 
 it applies itself to. Whoever cures a child of an obstinate 
 liking for brown bread, bacon, or garlic, cures him also of 
 pampering his palate. There are some who affect temper- 
 ance and plainness, by wishing for beef and ham amongst 
 pheasant and partridge ; 'tis all very fine ; this is delicacy 
 upon delicacies ; 'tis the taste of effeminacy that disrelishes 
 ordinary and accustomed things ; " Per quse luxuria clivi- 
 tiarum tredio ludit." x Not to make good cheer with what 
 another is enjoying, and to be curious in what a man eats, 
 is the essence of this vice : 
 
 " Si modica coenare times olus omne patella." 2 
 
 There is, indeed, this difference, that 'tis better to oblige 
 one's appetite to things that are most easy to be had, but 
 'tis always vice to oblige one's self: I formerly said a kins- 
 
 1 " The caprices of luxury which would escape the tediousness of riches." — 
 Seneca, Ep. 18. 
 
 " " If you can't be content with herbs in a small dish for supper." — Horace, 
 Ep. i. 5, 2. 
 
426 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 man of mine was over-nice, who, by being in onr galleys, 
 had unlearned the use of beds and to undress when he went 
 to sleep. 
 
 If I had any sons, I should willingly wish them my for- 
 tune : the good father that God gave me, who has nothing 
 of me but the acknowledgment of his goodness, but truly 
 'tis a very hearty one, sent me from my cradle to be brought 
 up in a poor village of his, and there continued me all the 
 while I was at nurse, and still longer, bringing me up to the 
 meanest and most common way of living : " Magna pars 
 libertatis est bene moratus venter." x Never take upon 
 yourselves, and much less give up to your wives, the care 
 of their nourishment ; leave this to fortune, under popular 
 and natural laws ; leave it to custom to train them up to 
 frugality and hardship, that they may rather descend from 
 rigours than mount up to them. This humour of his yet 
 aimed at another end, to make me familiar with the 
 people and the condition of men who most need our 
 assistance ; considering that I should rather regard them 
 who extend their arms to me, than those who turn their 
 backs upon me ; and for this reason it was, that he provided 
 me godfathers of the meanest fortune, to oblige and attach 
 me to them. 
 
 Nor has his design succeeded altogether ill ; for, whether 
 upon the account of the more honour in such a conde- 
 scension, or out of a natural compassion that lias a very 
 great power over me, I have an inclination towards the 
 meaner sort of people. The faction which I should con- 
 demn in our civil wars, I should more sharply condemn, 
 flourishing and successful ; it would half reconcile me to 
 it, should I see it miserable and overwhelmed. How much 
 do I admire the generous humour of Chelonis, daughter and 
 
 1 " A well-governed stomach is a great part of liberty." — Seneca, Ep. 123. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 427 
 
 wife to kings of Sparta ! whilst her husband, Cleombrotus 
 in the commotion of her city, had the advantage over Leoni- 
 das, her father, she, like a good daughter, stuck close to her 
 father in all his misery and exile, in opposition to the 
 conqueror. But so soon as the chance of war turned, 
 she changed her will with the change of fortune, and 
 bravely turned to her husband's side, whom she accom- 
 panied throughout where his ruin carried him ; admitting, 
 as it appears to me, no other choice than to cleave to the side 
 that stood most in need of her, and where she could best 
 manifest her compassion. 1 I am naturally more apt to 
 follow the example of Flaminius, who rather gave his assist- 
 ance to those who had most need of him than, to those who 
 had power to do him good, than I do to that of Pyrrhus, 
 who was of an humour to truckle under the great, and to 
 domineer over the poor. 
 
 Long sittings at meat both trouble me and do me harm ; 
 for, be it for want of moderation, or that I was so accus- 
 tomed when a child, I eat all the while I sit. There- 
 fore it is that at my own house, though the meals there 
 are of the shortest, I usually sit down a little while after 
 the rest, after the manner of Augustus ; 2 but I do not 
 imitate him in rising also before the rest of the company ; 
 on the contrary, I love to sit still a long time after, and to 
 hear them talk, provided I am none of the talkers ; for I 
 tire and hurt myself with speaking upon a full stomach, as 
 much as I find it pleasant and very wholesome to argue 
 and to strain my voice before dinner. 
 
 The ancient Greeks and Eomans had more reason than 
 we in setting apart for eating, which is a principal action 
 of life, if they were not prevented by other extraordinary 
 
 1 Plutarch, Lives of Agis and Cleomenes, c. 5. 
 
 2 Suetonius, in vita, c. 74. 
 
428 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 business, many hours and the greatest part of the night ; 
 eating and drinking more deliberately than we do, who 
 perform all our actions post-haste ; and in extending this 
 natural pleasure to more leisure and better use, intermixing 
 with their meals pleasant and profitable conversation. 
 
 They whose concern it is to have a care of me, may very 
 easily hinder me from eating anything they think will do 
 me harm ; for in such matters I never covet nor miss any- 
 thing I do not see ; but withal, if it once comes in my sight, 
 'tis in vain to persuade me to forbear ; so that when I design 
 to fast, I must be kept apart from the supper-table, and 
 must have only so much given me, as is required for a 
 prescribed collation ; for if I sit down to table, I for- 
 get my resolution. When I order my cook to alter the 
 manner of dressing any dish, all my family know what it 
 means, that my stomach is out of order, and that I shall 
 not touch it. 
 
 I love to have all meats, that will endure it, very little 
 boiled or roasted, and prefer them very high and even, as 
 to several, quite gone. Nothing but hardness generally 
 offends me (of any other quality I am as patient and in- 
 different as any man I have known) ; so that, contrary 
 to the common humour, even in fish it often happens 
 that I find them both too fresh and too firm : not for 
 want of teeth, which I ever had good, even to excellence, 
 and which age does but now begin to threaten : I have 
 always been used every morning to rub them with a 
 napkin, and before and after dinner. God is favourable to 
 those whom he makes to die by degrees ; 'tis the only 
 benefit of old age ; the last death will be so much the less 
 painful ; it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a 
 one at most. I have one tooth lately fallen out without 
 drawing and without pain : it was the natural term of its 
 duration ; and that part of my being and several others', are 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 429 
 
 already dead, others half dead, of those that were most 
 active, and in highest esteem during my vigorous years ; 'tis 
 so I melt and steal away from myself. What a folly it 
 would be in my understanding, to apprehend the height of 
 this fall, already so much advanced, as if it were from the 
 very top ! I hope I shall not. I, in truth, receive a prin- 
 cipal consolation in meditating my death, that it will he 
 just and natural, and that henceforward I cannot herein 
 either require or hope from Destiny any other hut unlawful 
 favour. Men make themselves believe that we formerly 
 had, as greater stature, so, longer lives, but they deceive 
 themselves ; and Solon, who was of those elder times, limits 
 the duration of life to threescore and ten years. I, who 
 have so much and so universally adored that apiarov 
 fjuerpov 1 of ancient times ; and who have concluded the most 
 moderate measures to be the most perfect, shall I pretend 
 to an immeasurable and prodigious old age ? Whatever 
 happens contrary to the course of nature, may be trouble- 
 some ; but what comes according to her, should always be 
 pleasant : " Omnia, cpaae secundum naturam fiunt, sunt 
 habenda in bonis." 2 And so Plato likewise says, 3 that 
 the death which is occasioned by wounds and diseases is 
 violent ; but that which comes upon us, old age conducting 
 us to it, is of all others the most easy, and in some sort 
 delicious. " Yitam adolescentibus vis aufert, senibus matu- 
 ritas." 4 Death mixes and confounds itself throughout with 
 life ; decay anticipates its hour, and shoulders itself even 
 into the course of our advance. I have portraits of myself 
 taken at five and twenty, and five and thirty years of age ; I 
 
 1 " The mean is best." 
 
 2 " All things that are done according to nature, are to be accounted good." 
 — Cicero, De Senect., c. 19. 
 
 3 In Timaeus. 
 
 4 "Young men are taken away by force, old men by maturity. "—Cicero, 
 ubi sup. 
 
430 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 compare them with that lately drawn ; how variously is it no 
 longer me ; how much more is my present image unlike the 
 former, than unlike that I shall go out of the world with ? 
 It is too much to abuse nature, to make her trot so far that 
 she must be forced to leave us, and abandon our conduct, 
 our eyes, teeth, legs, and all the rest, to the mercy of a 
 foreign and begged assistance, and to resign us into the 
 hands of art, being weary of following us herself. 
 
 I am not very fond either of salads or fruits, except 
 melons. My father hated all sort of sauces ; I love them 
 all. Eating too much hurts me ; but, as to the quality of 
 what I eat, I do not yet certainly know that any sort of 
 meat disagrees with my stomach ; neither have I observed 
 that either full moon or decrease, spring or autumn, have 
 any influence upon me. "We have in us motions that are 
 inconstant and for which no reason can be given : for 
 example, I found radishes first grateful to my stomach, 
 since that nauseous, and now again grateful. In several 
 other things, I find my stomach and appetite vary after the 
 same manner ; I have changed again and again from white 
 wine to claret, from claret to white. 
 
 I am a great lover of fish, and consequently make my 
 fasts feasts, and feasts fasts : and I believe what some people 
 say, that it is more easy of digestion than flesh. As I 
 make a conscience of eating flesh upon fish-days, so does 
 my taste make a conscience of mixing fish and flesh ; the 
 difference betwixt them seems to me too remote. 
 
 From my youth, I have sometimes kept out of the 
 way at meals ; either to sharpen my appetite against the 
 next morning (for, as Epicurus fasted and made lean meals 
 to accustom his pleasure to make shift without abundance, 
 I, on the contrary, do it to prepare my pleasure to make 
 better and more cheerful use of abundance) ; or else I fasted 
 to preserve my vigour for the service of some action of body 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 431 
 
 or mind : for both the one and the other of these is cruelly 
 dulled in me by repletion ; and, above all things, I hate that 
 foolish coupling of so healthful and sprightly a goddess with 
 that little belching god, bloated with the fumes of his liquor ; * 
 — or to cure my sick stomach, or for want of fit company 
 for I say, as the same Epicurus did, that one is not so much 
 to regard what he eats, as with whom ; and I commend 
 Chilo, that he would not engage himself to be at Periander's 
 feast till he first was informed who were to be the other 
 guests ; no dish is so acceptable to me, nor no sauce so 
 appetizing, as that which is extracted from society. I 
 think it more wholesome to eat more leisurely and less, and 
 to eat oftener ; but I would have appetite and hunger at- 
 tended to ; I should take no pleasure to be fed with three 
 or four pitiful and stinted repasts a clay, after a medicinal 
 manner : who will assure me, that, if I have a good appetite 
 in the morning, I shall have the same at supper ? But, we 
 old fellows especially, let us take the first opportune time 
 of eating, and leave to almanac makers hopes and prognos- 
 tics. The utmost fruit of my health is pleasure ; let us 
 take hold of the present and known. I avoid the invariable 
 in these laws of fasting ; he who would have one form 
 serve him, let him avoid the continuing it ; we harden our- 
 selves in it ; our strength is there stupefied and laid asleep ; 
 six months after, you shall find your stomach so inured to 
 it, that all you have got is the loss of your liberty of doing 
 otherwise but to your prejudice. 
 
 I never keep my legs and thighs warmer in winter than 
 in summer ; one simple pair of silk stockings is all. I 
 have suffered myself, for the relief of my colds, to keep my 
 head warmer ; and my belly upon the account of my colic : 
 my diseases in a few days habituated themselves thereto, 
 
 1 i.e., Montaigne did not approve of coupling Bacchus with Venus. 
 
43 2 Of Experience. . [Book iii. 
 
 and disdained my ordinary provisions : we soon get from 
 a coif to a kerchief over it, from a simple cap to a quilted 
 hat ; the trimmings of the doublet must not mereby serve 
 for ornament : there must be added a hare's skin or a vul- 
 ture's skin, and a cap under the hat : follow this grada- 
 tion, and you will go a very fine way to work. I will do 
 nothing of the sort, and would willingly leave off what I 
 have begun. If you fall into any new inconvenience, all 
 this is labour lost ; you are accustomed to it ; seek out 
 some other. Thus do they destroy themselves, who submit 
 to be pestered with these enforced and superstitious rules ; 
 they must add something more, and something more after 
 that ; there is no end on't. 
 
 For what concerns our affairs and pleasures, it is much 
 more commodious, as the ancients did, to lose one's dinner, 
 and defer making good cheer till the hour of retirement and 
 repose, without breaking up a day; and so was I formerly 
 used to do. As to health, I since by experience find, on 
 the contrary, that it is better to dine, and that the digestion 
 is better while awake. I am not very used to be thirsty, 
 either well or sick ; my mouth is, indeed, apt to be dry, but 
 without thirst ; and commonly J. never drink but with 
 thirst that is created by eating, and far on in the meal ; I 
 drink pretty well for a man of my pitch : in summer, and 
 at a relishing meal, I do not only exceed the limits of 
 Augustus, 1 who drank but thrice, precisely ; but not to offend 
 Democritus' rule, who forbade that men should stop at four 
 times as an unlucky number, I proceed at need to the fifth 
 glass, about three half-pints; for the little glasses are my 
 favourites, and I like to drink them off, which other people 
 avoid as an unbecoming thing. I mix my wine sometimes 
 with half, sometimes with the third part water ; and when I 
 
 1 Suetonius, in vita, c. 77. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 433 
 
 am at home, by an ancient custom that my father's physician 
 prescribed both to him and himself, they mix that which is 
 designecL/or me in the buttery, two or three hours before 'tis 
 brought in. "lis said, that Cranaus, king of Athens, was the 
 inventor of this custom of dashing wine with water ; whether 
 useful or no, I have heard disputed. I think it more decent 
 and wholesome for children to drink no wine till after 
 sixteen or eighteen years of age. The most usual and com- 
 mon method of living is the most becoming : all parti- 
 cularity, in my opinion, is to be avoided ; and I should as 
 much hate a German who mixed water with his wine, as 
 I should a Frenchman who drank it pure. Public usage 
 gives the law in these things. 
 
 I fear a fog, and fly from smoke as from the plague : the 
 first repairs I fell upon in my own house, were the chimneys 
 and houses of office, the common and insupportable defects 
 of all old buildings ; and amongst the difficulties of war, I 
 reckon the choking dust they make us ride in a whole day 
 together. I have a free and easy respiration ; and my colds 
 for the most part go off without offence to the lungs, and 
 without a cough. 
 
 The heat of summer is more an enemy to me than the 
 cold of winter ; for, besides the incommodity of heat, less 
 remediable than cold, and besides the force of the sunbeams 
 that strike upon the head, all glittering light offends my 
 eyes, so that I could not now sit at dinner over against a 
 flaming fire. 
 
 To dull the whiteness of paper, in those times when I was 
 more wont to read, I laid a piece of glass upon my book, 
 and found my eyes much relieved by it. I am to this hour x 
 ignorant of the use of spectacles ; and I can see as far as ever 
 I did, or any other. 'Tis true, that in the evening I begin to 
 
 1 " To the a S e of fifty-four."— Ed. of 1588. 
 VOL. III. 2 E 
 
434 0/ Experience. [Book ill. 
 
 find a little disturbance and weakness in my sight, if I read ; 
 an exercise I have always found troublesome, especially by 
 night. Here is one step back, and a very manifest one ; I 
 shall retire another : from the second to the third, and so to 
 the fourth, so gently, that I shall be stark blind before I 
 shall be sensible of the age and decay of my sight : so arti- 
 ficially do the Fatal sisters untwist our lives. And so I 
 doubt whether my hearing begins to grow thick ; and you 
 will see I shall have half lost it, when I shall still lay the 
 fault on the voices of those who speak to me. A man 
 must screw up his soul to a high pitch, to make it sensible 
 how it ebbs away. 
 
 My walking is quick and firm ; and I know not which of 
 the two, my mind or my body, I have most to do to keep 
 in the same state. That preacher is very much my friend 
 who can oblige my attention a whole sermon through : in 
 places of ceremony, where every one's countenance is so 
 starched, where I have seen the ladies keep even their eyes 
 so fixed, I could never order it so, that some part or other 
 of me did not lash out ; so that though I was seated, I was 
 never settled. 1 As the philosopher Chrysippus' maid said of 
 her master, that he was only drunk in his legs, 2 for it was 
 his custom to be always kicking them about in what place 
 soever he sat ; and she said it, when the wine having made 
 all his companions drunk, he found no alteration, in himself 
 at all ; it may have been said of me from my infancy, that 
 I had either folly or quicksilver in my feet, so much stirring 
 and unsettledness there is in them, wherever they are 
 placed. 
 
 'Tis indecent, besides the hurt it does to one's health, and 
 even to the pleasure of eating, to eat so greedily as I do ; I 
 
 1 The edition of 15S8 here adds: "And as to gesticulation, I am never 
 without a switch in my band, walking or riding." 
 
 2 Diogenes Laertius, vii. 183. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 435 
 
 often bite my tongue, and sometimes my fingers, in my haste. 
 Diogenes, meeting a boy eating after that manner, gave his 
 tutor a box on the ear. 1 There were men at Eome that 
 taught people to chew, as well as to walk, with a good grace. 
 I lose thereby the leisure of speaking, which gives great 
 relish to the dinner-table, provided the discourse be suitable, 
 that is, pleasant and short. 
 
 There is jealousy and envy amongst our pleasures ; they 
 cross and hinder one another : Alcibiades, a man who 
 well understood how to make good cheer, banished even 
 music from the table, that it might not disturb the enter- 
 tainment of discourse, for the reason, as Plato 2 tells us, 
 " that it is the custom of ordinary people to call fiddlers and 
 singing men to feasts, for want of good discourse and pleasant 
 talk, with which men of understanding know how to 
 entertain one another." Varro 3 requires all this in enter- 
 tainments : " Persons of graceful presence and agreeable 
 conversation, who are neither silent nor babblers ; neatness 
 and delicacy, both of meat and place ; and fair weather." 
 The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a 
 slight pleasure ; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest 
 philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well. 
 My imagination has delivered three repasts to the custody 
 of my memory, which fortune rendered sovereignly sweet to 
 me, upon several occasions in my more flourishing age ; my 
 present state excludes me ; for every one, according to the 
 good temper of body and mind wherein he then finds him- 
 self, furnishes for his own share a particular grace and savour. 
 I, who but crawl upon the earth, hate this inhuman wisdom, 
 that will have us despise and hate all culture of the body ; I 
 look upon it as an equal injustice to loath natural pleasures 
 
 1 Plutarch, That virtue may be taught, c. 2. 2 In the Protagoras. 
 
 3 Aulus Gellius, xiii. II. 
 
436 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 as to be too much in love with them. Xerxes was a cox- 
 combical blockhead who, environed with all human delights, 
 proposed a reward to him who could find out others ; x but 
 lie is not much less so who cuts off any of those pleasures 
 that nature has provided for him. A man should neither 
 pursue nor avoid them, but receive them. I receive them, 
 I confess, a little too warmly and kindly, and easily 
 suffer myself to follow my natural propensions. We have 
 no need to exaggerate their inanity ; they themselves will 
 make us sufficiently sensible of it, thanks to our sick 
 wet-blanket mind, that puts us out of taste with them as 
 with itself; it treats both itself and all it receives, one 
 while better, and another worse, according to its insatiable, 
 vagabond, and versatile essence : 
 
 " Sincerum est nisi vas, quodcunque infundis, acescit." 2 
 
 I, who boast that I so curiously and particularly embrace the 
 conveniences of life, find them, when I most nearly consider 
 them, very little more than wind. But what ? We are all 
 wind throughout ; and, moreover, the wind itself, more dis- 
 creet than we, loves to bluster and shift from corner to 
 corner; and contents itself with its proper offices, without 
 desiring stability and solidity — qualities that nothing be- 
 long to it. 
 
 The pure pleasures, as well as the pure displeasures, of 
 the imagination, say some, are the greatest, as was expressed 
 by the balance of Critolaus. 3 'Tis no wonder ; it makes 
 them to its own liking, and cuts them out of the whole 
 cloth ; of this I every day see notable examples, and, per- 
 
 1 Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., V. 7. 
 
 2 "Unless the vessel be clean, it will sour whatever you put into it." — 
 Horace, Ep. i. 2, 54. 
 
 3 Cicero, Tusc. Quses., V. 27, who, however, applies this balance to a very 
 different purpose. — Coste. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 437 
 
 adventure, to "be desired. But I. who am of a mixed and 
 heavy condition, cannot snap so soon at this one simple 
 object, but that I negligently suffer myself to be carried 
 away with the present pleasures of the general human law, 
 intellectually sensible, and sensibly intellectual. The Cyrenaic 
 philosophers will have it that as corporal pains, so corporal 
 pleasures are more powerful, both as double and as more 
 just. There are some, as Aristotle says, 1 who out of a savage 
 hind of stupidity dislike them ; and I know others who out 
 of ambition do the same. "Why do they not, moreover, for- 
 swear breathing ? why do they not live of their own ? why not 
 refuse light, because it shines gratis, and costs them neither 
 pains nor hivention ? Let Mars, Pallas, or Mercury afford 
 them their light by which to see, instead of Venus, Ceres, 
 and Bacchus. 2 Will they not seek the quadrature of the 
 circle, even when on their wives ? I hate that we should 
 be enjoined to have our minds in the clouds, when our 
 bodies are at table ; I would not have the mind nailed 
 there, nor wallow there ; I would have it take place there 
 and sit, but not lie down. Aristippus maintained nothing 
 but the body, as if we had no soul ; Zeno stickled only for 
 the soul, as if we had no body ; both of them faultily. 
 Pythagoras, they say, followed a philosophy that was all 
 contemplation ; Socrates one that was all conduct and action ; 
 Plato found a mean betwixt the two ; but they only say this 
 for the sake of talking. The true point is found in Socrates ; 
 and Plato is much more Socratic than Pythagoric, and it 
 becomes him better. When I dance, I dance ; when I sleep, 
 I sleep. Nay, when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if 
 my thoughts are some part of the time taken up with foreign 
 occurrences, I some part of the time call them back again to 
 
 1 Moral, ad Nicom., ii. 7. 
 
 2 "These boastful humours may counterfeit some content, for what will not 
 fancy do? But as to wisdom, there is no touch of it." — Ed. of 1588. 
 
438 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 my walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of the solitude, 
 and to myself. 
 
 "Nature has with a motherly tenderness ohserved this, that 
 the actions she has enjoined us for our necessity should be 
 also pleasant to us ; and she invites us to them, not only by 
 reason, but also by appetite, and 'tis injustice to infringe 
 her laws. When I see both Csesar and Alexander in the 
 thickest of their greatest business, so fully enjoy human and 
 corporal pleasures, 1 I do not hold that they slackened their 
 souls, but wound them up higher, by vigour of courage, sub- 
 jecting these violent employment and laborious thoughts to 
 the ordinary usage of life : wise, had they believed the last 
 was their ordinary, the first their extraordinary, vocation. 
 "We are great fools. " He has passed over his life in idle- 
 ness," say we : " I have done nothing to-day." What 1 have 
 you not lived ? that is not only the fundamental, but the 
 most illustrious of all your occupations. " Had I been put 
 to the management of great affairs, I should have made it 
 seen what I could do." Have you known how to meditate 
 and manage your life, you have performed the greatest work 
 of all. Tor a man to show and set out himself, nature has 
 no need of fortune ; she equally manifests herself in all stages, 
 and behind a curtain as well as without one. Have you 
 known how to regulate your conduct, you have done a great 
 deal more than he who has composed books. Have you 
 known how to take repose, you have done more than he 
 who has taken cities and empires. 
 
 The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how 
 to live to purpose ; all other things, to reign, to lay up trea- 
 sure, to build, are, at most, but little appendices and props. 
 I delight to see a general of an army, at the foot of a 
 
 1 In the manuscript additions to the Bordeaux copy we find : " Enjoy so 
 fully pleasures so natural, and consequently so necessary and just." 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 439 
 
 breach lie is presently to assault, give himself up entire and 
 free at dinner, to talk and be merry with his friends ; to see 
 Brutus, when heaven and earth were conspired against him 
 and the Eoman liberty, stealing some hours of the night from 
 his rounds to read and abridge Polybius, in all security. 'Tis 
 for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not 
 from them to know how clearly to disengage themselves, not 
 to know how to lay them aside and take them up again : / 
 
 *' fortes, pejoraque passi 
 Mecum ssepe viri ! nunc vino pellite curas : 
 Cras ingens interabimus sequor." x 
 
 Whether it be in jest or earnest, that the theological and 
 Sorbonical wine, and their 'feasts, are turned into a proverb, 
 I find it reasonable they should dine so much more com- 
 modiously and pleasantly, as they have profitably and seriously 
 employed the morning in the exercise of their schools. The 
 conscience of having well spent the other hours, is the just 
 and savoury sauce of the dinner-table. The sages lived after 
 that manner ; and that inimitable emulation to virtue, which 
 astonishes us both in the one and the other Cato, that humour 
 of theirs, so severe as even to be importunate, gently submits 
 itself and yields to the laws of the human condition, of Venus 
 and Bacchus ; according to the precepts of their sect, that 
 require the perfect sage to be as expert and intelligent in 
 the use of natural pleasures as in all other duties of life : 
 " Cui cor sapiat, ei et sapiat palatus." 2 
 
 Belaxation and facility, methinks, wonderfully honour 
 and best become a strong and generous soul. Epaminondas 
 did not think that to take part, and that heartily, in songs 
 
 1 "Brave spirits, who have often suffered sorrow -with me, drink cares away; 
 to-morrow we will set sail on the great sea." — Horace, Od. i. 7, 30. 
 
 2 " He that has a learned soul has a learned palate too. ; '— Cicero, De Fin. 
 i. 3. 
 
44-0 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 and sports and dances with the young men of his city, were 
 things that in any way derogated from the honour of his 
 glorious victories and the perfect purity of manners that was 
 in him. And amongst so many admirable actions of Scipio, 
 the grandfather, a person worthy to be reputed of a heavenly 
 extraction, there is nothing that gives him a greater grace 
 than to see him carelessly and childishly trifling at gathering 
 and selecting shells, and playing at quoits x upon the sea- 
 shore with Lselius ; and, if it was foul weather, amusing and 
 pleasing himself in representing by writing in comedies the 
 meanest and most popular actions of men ; 2 or having his 
 head full of that wonderful enterprise of Hannibal and 
 Africa, visiting the schools in Sicily, and attending philo- 
 sophical lectures, improving himself, to the blind envy of 
 his enemies at Rome. Nor is there anything more remark- 
 able in Socrates than that, old as he was, he found time to 
 make himself taught dancing and playing upon instruments, 
 and thought it time well spent ; but this same man was seen 
 in an ecstasy, standing upon his feet a whole day and a 
 night together, in the presence of all the Grecian army, sur- 
 prised and ravished with some profound thought. He was 
 the first who, amongst so many valiant men of the army, ran 
 to the relief of Alcibiades, oppressed with the enemy ; shielded 
 him with his own body, and disengaged him from the crowd, 
 by absolute force of arms. It was he who in the Delian 
 battle, raised and saved Xenophon when fallen from his 
 horse ; and who, amongst all the people of Athens, enraged as 
 he was at so unworthy a spectacle, first presented himself to 
 
 1 The name of this game in the text is cornichon va devant, which is not 
 quoits, but, as the "Dictionnaire de Trevoux " describes it, a sort of game 
 wherein two persons contend which of them shall soonest pick up some object. 
 
 2 "A representer par escript, en comedies," &c. Louandre says these 
 comedies were the comedies of Terence, and adds that some of these details 
 apply to the second Scipio. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 441 
 
 rescue Theramenes, whom the thirty tyrants were hauling to 
 execution by their satellites, and desisted not from his bold 
 enterprise but at the remonstrance of Theramenes himself, 
 though he was only followed by two more in all. He was 
 seen, when courted by a beauty with whom he was in love, 
 to maintain at need a severe abstinence. He was seen ever 
 to go to the wars, and walk upon ice, with bare feet ; to 
 wear the same robe, winter and summer ; to surpass all his 
 companions in patience of bearing hardships, and to eat no 
 more at a feast than at his own private dinner. He was 
 seen, for seven and twenty years together, to endure hunger, 
 poverty, the indocility of his children, and the claws of his 
 wife, with the same countenance ; and, in the end, calumny, 
 tyranny, imprisonment, fetters, and poison. But was this 
 man obliged to drink full bumpers by any rule of civility ? 
 he was also the man of the whole army, with whom the 
 advantage in drinking remained. And he never refused to 
 play at cob-nut, nor to ride the hobby-horse with children, and 
 it became him well ; for all actions, says philosophy, equally 
 become and equally honour a wise man. We have enough 
 wherewithal to do it, and we ought never to be weary of 
 presenting the image of this great man in all the patterns 
 and forms of perfection. There are very few examples of 
 life, full and pure ; and we wrong our teaching every day, 
 to propose to ourselves those that are weak and imperfect, 
 scarce good for any one service, and rather pull us back ; 
 corrupters rather than correctors of manners. The people 
 deceive themselves ; a man goes much more easily indeed 
 by the ends, where the extremity serves for a bound, a stop, 
 and guide, than by the middle way, large and open ; and 
 according to art, more than according to nature : but withal 
 much less nobly and commendably. 
 
 Grandeur of soul consists not so much in mounting and 
 in pressing forward, as in knowing how to govern and 
 
442 Of Experience. [Bookiii. 
 
 circumscribe, itself; it takes everything for great, that is 
 enough, and demonstrates itself better in moderate than in 
 eminent things. There is nothing so fine and legitimate as 
 well and duly to play the man ; nor science so arduous as 
 well and naturally to know how to live this life ; and of all 
 the infirmities we have, 'tis the most savage to despise 
 our being. 
 
 "Whoever has a mind to send his soul abroad, when the 
 body is ill at ease, to preserve it from the contagion, let him, 
 by all means, do it if he can : but, otherwise, let him on the 
 contrary favour and assist it, and not refuse to participate of 
 its natural pleasures with a conjugal complacency, bringing 
 to it, if it be the wiser, moderation, lest by indiscretion they 
 should get confounded with displeasure. Intemperance is 
 the pest of pleasure ; and temperance is not its scourge, but 
 rather its seasoning. Eudoxus, who therein established the 
 sovereign good, and his companions, who set so high a 
 value upon it, tasted it in its most charming sweetness, 
 by the means of temperance, which in them was singular 
 and exemplary. 
 
 I enjoin my soul to look upon pain and pleasure with an 
 eye equally regular, " Eodem enim vitio est effusio animi 
 in lsetitia, quo in dolore contractio," 1 and equally firm; but 
 the one gaily and the other severely, and, so far as it is able, 
 to be as careful to extinguish the one, as to extend the 
 other. The judging rightly of good brings along with it the 
 judging soundly of evil : pain has something of the inevit- 
 able in its tender beginnings, and pleasure something of the 
 evitable in its excessive end. Plato 2 couples them together, 
 and w r ills that it should be equally the office of fqrtitude to 
 fight against pain, and against the immoderate and charming 
 
 1 " For 'tis by the same vice that we dilate ourselves in mirth and contract 
 ourselves in sorrow." — Cicero, Tusc. Qures., iv. 31. 
 - Laws, i. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 443 
 
 blandishments of pleasure : they are two fountains, from 
 which whoever draws, when and as much as he needs, 
 whether city, man, or beast, is very fortunate. The first is 
 to be taken medicinally and upon necessity, and more 
 scantily ; the other for thirst, but not to drunkenness. 
 Pain, pleasure, love, and hatred are the first things that 
 a child is sensible of: if, when reason comes, they apply it 
 to themselves, that is virtue. 
 
 I have a special nomenclature of my own ; I " pass away 
 time," when it is ill and uneasy, but when 'tis good I do not 
 pass it away : " I taste it over again and stick to it ; " one 
 must run over the ill, and settle upon the good. This 
 ordinary phrase of pastime, and passing away the time, 
 represents the usage of those wise sort of people who think 
 they cannot do better with their lives than to let them run 
 out and slide away, pass them over, and baulk them, 
 and, as much as they can, ignore them, and shun them 
 as a thing of troublesome and contemptible quality : but I 
 know it to be another kind of thing, and find it both valu- 
 able and commodious, even in its latest decay, wherein I 
 now enjoy it; and nature has delivered it into our hands in 
 such and so favourable circumstances, that we have only 
 ourselves to blame if it be troublesome to us, or slide un- 
 profitably away : " Stulti vita ingrata est, trepida est, tota 
 in futurum fertur." l Nevertheless, I compose myself to 
 lose mine without regret ; but withal as a thing that is 
 perishable by its condition, not that it troubles or annoys 
 me. Nor does it properly well become any not to be dis- 
 pleased when they die, excepting such as are pleased to 
 live. There is good husbandry in enjoying it : I enjoy it 
 double to what others do ; for the measure of its fruition 
 
 1 " The life of a fool is uneasy, timorous, and wholly bent upon the future." 
 -Seneca, Ep. 15. 
 
444 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 depends upon the more or less of our application to it. Now 
 especially that I perceive mine to be so short in time, I 
 will extend it in weight ; I will stop the promptitude of 
 its flight by the promptitude of my grasp ; and by the 
 vigour of using it compensate the speed of its running 
 away : by how much the possession of living is more short, 
 I must make it so much deeper and more full. 
 
 Others feel the pleasure of content and prosperity ; I feel 
 it too, as well as they, but not as it slides and passes 
 by ; one should study, taste, and ruminate upon it, to render 
 condign thanks to Him who grants it to us. They enjoy the 
 other pleasures as they do that of sleep, without knowing it. 
 To the end that even sleep itself should not so stupidly 
 escape from me, I have formerly caused myself to be dis- 
 turbed in my sleep, so that I might the better and more 
 sensibly relish and taste it. I ponder with myself of 
 content ; I do not skim over, but sound it ; and I bend my 
 reason, now grown perverse and peevish, to entertain it. 
 Do I find myself in any calm composedness ? is there any 
 pleasure that tickles me ? I do not suffer it to dally with 
 my senses only, I associate my soul to it too : not there to 
 engage itself, but therein to take delight ; not there to lose 
 itself, but to be present there ; and I employ it, on its 
 part, to view itself in this prosperous state, to weigh and 
 appreciate its happiness, and to amplify it. It reckons how 
 much it stands indebted to Almighty God that its conscience 
 and the intestine passions are in repose ; that it has the 
 body in its natural disposition, orderly and competently 
 enjoying the soft and soothing functions, by which He of 
 His grace is pleased to compensate the sufferings wherewith 
 His justice at His good pleasure chastises us. It reflects 
 how great a benefit it is to be so protected, that, which way 
 soever it turns its eye, the heavens are calm around it. No 
 desire, no fear or doubt, troubles the air ; no difficulty, pastj 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 445 
 
 present, or to conie, that its imagination may not pass over 
 without offence. This consideration takes great lustre from 
 the comparison of different conditions ; and therefore it is 
 that I present to my thought, in a thousand aspects, those 
 whom fortune or their own error torments and carries away ; 
 and those, who more like to me, so negligently and in- 
 curiously receive their good fortune. Those are men who 
 pass away their time, indeed; they pass over the present, 
 and that which they possess, to give themselves up to hope, 
 and for vain shadows and images which fancy puts into 
 their heads, 
 
 " Morte obita quales fama est volitare figuras, 
 Aut quse sopitos deludunt somnia sensus : " 1 
 
 which hasten and prolong their flight, according as they 
 are pursued. The fruit and end of their pursuit is to pur- 
 sue ; as Alexander said, that the end of his labour was to 
 labour : 
 
 " Nil actum credens, cum quid superesset agendum." 2 
 
 For my part then, I love life, and cultivate it, such as it 
 has pleased God to bestow it upon us. I do not desire it 
 should be without the necessity of eating and drinking ; 
 and I should think myself inexcusable to wish it had been 
 twice as long : " Sapiens divitiarum naturalium qusesitor 
 acerrimus : " 3 nor that we should support ourselves by 
 putting only a little of that drug into our mouths, by which 
 Epimenides took away his appetite, and kept himself alive ; 4 
 nor that we should stupidly beget children with our fingers 
 or heels, but, rather, with reverence be it spoken, that we 
 
 1 "Such as those forms which after death are said to flutter about; or 
 those dreams which delude the senses in sleep." — vEneid, x. 641. 
 
 2 " Thinking nothing done, if anything is left to do." — Lucan, ii. 657. 
 
 3 "A wise man eagerly desires natural riches." — Seneca, Ep. 119. 
 
 4 Diogenes Laertius, i. 114. 
 
446 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 might voluptuously beget them with our fingers and heels ; 
 nor that the body should be without desire, and without 
 titillation. These are ungrateful and wicked complaints. I 
 accept kindly, and with gratitude, what nature has done for 
 me ; am well pleased with it, and proud of it. A man does 
 wrong to the great omnipotent Giver of all things, to refuse, 
 annul, or disfigure His gift ; all goodness Himself, He has 
 made everything good : " Omnia quee secundum naturam 
 sunt, sestimatione digna sunt." x 
 
 Of philosophical opinions, I preferably embrace those 
 that are most solid, that is to say, the most human, and 
 most our own : my discourse is, suitable to my manners, 
 low and humble : philosophy plays the child, to my thinking, 
 when it puts itself upon its Ergos, to preach to us that 'tis 
 a barbarous alliance to marry the divine with the earthly, 
 the reasonable with the unreasonable, the severe with the 
 indulgent, the honest with the dishonest ; that pleasure is 
 a brutish quality, unworthy to be tasted by a wise man ; 
 that the sole pleasure he extracts from the enjoyment 
 of a fair young wife, is a pleasure of his conscience to per- 
 forin an action according to order, as to put on his boots for 
 a profitable journey. /Oh, that its followers had no more 
 right, nor nerves, nor juice, in getting their wives' maiden- 
 heads, than in its lessons. 
 
 This is not what Socrates says, who is its master and 
 ours : he values, as he ought, bodily pleasure ; but he prefers 
 that of the mind, as having more force, constancy, facility, 
 variety, and dignity. This, according to him, goes by no 
 means alone — he is not so fantastic — but only it goes first ; 
 temperance, with him, is the moderatrix, not the adversary 
 of pleasure. Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet 
 
 1 " AH things that are according to nature are worthy of esteem." — Cicero, 
 De Fin., iii. 6. 
 
Chap. 13.] Of Experience. 447 
 
 and gentle, than prudent and just : " Intrandum est in 
 rerum naturam, et penitus, quid ea postulet, pervidendum." x 
 I hunt after her foot throughout ; we have confounded it 
 with artificial traces ; and that academic and peripatetic good, 
 which is " to live according to it," becomes, by this means, 
 hard to limit and explain ; and that of the Stoics, cousin- 
 german to it, which is " to consent to nature." Is it not an 
 error to esteem any actions less worthy, because they are 
 necessary ? And yet they will not beat it out of my head, 
 that it is not a very convenient marriage of pleasure with 
 necessity, with which, says an ancient, the gods always con- 
 spire. To what end do we dismember by divorce a build- 
 ing united by so close and brotherly a correspondence ? 
 Let us, on the contrary, confirm it by mutual offices ; let 
 the mind rouse and quicken the heaviness of the body, and 
 the body stay and fix the levity of the soul. " Qui, velut 
 summum bonum, lauclat animee naturam, et, tanquam malum, 
 naturam carnis accusat, profecto et animam carnaliter appetit, 
 et carnem carnaliter fugit ; quoniam id vanitate sentit 
 humana, non veritate divina." 2 In this present that God 
 has made us, there is nothing unworthy our care ; we stand 
 accountable, even to a hair ; and 'tis no slight commission to 
 man, to conduct man according to his condition ; 'tis express, 
 plain, and the principal injunction of all, and the Creator 
 has seriously and strictly enjoined it. Authority has alone 
 power to work upon common understandings, and is of more 
 weight in a foreign language ; therefore let us again charge 
 with it in this place : " Stultitise proprium quis non dixerit, 
 ignave et contumaciter facere, quae facienda sunt; et alio 
 
 1 "A man must search into the nature of things, and examine what she 
 requires." — Cicero, De Fin., V. 1 6. 
 
 a " He who commends the nature of the soul as the supreme good, and 
 condemns the nature of the flesh as evil, certainly, both carnally desires the 
 soul, and carnally flies the flesh, because he is so possessed, through human 
 vanity, and not by divine truth." — St. Augustin, De Civit. Dei, xiv. 5. 
 
448 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 corpus impellere, alio animum ; distrahique inter diversis- 
 siinos motus ? " 1 To make this apparent, ask any one, 
 some day, to tell you what whimsies and imaginations he 
 put into his pate, upon the account of which he diverted 
 his thoughts from a good meal, and regrets the time 
 he spends in eating : you will find there is nothing so 
 insipid in all the dishes at your table, as this wise medita- 
 tion of his (for the most part we had better sleep than wake 
 to the purpose we wake) ; and that his discourses and 
 notions are not worth the worst mess there. Though they 
 were the ecstasies of Archimedes himself, what then ? I 
 do not here speak of, nor mix with the rabble of us ordinary 
 men, and the vanity of the thoughts and desires that divert 
 us, those venerable souls, elevated by the ardour of devotion 
 and religion, to a constant and conscientious meditation of 
 divine things, who, by the energy of vivid and vehement 
 hope, prepossessing the use of the eternal nourishment, the 
 final aim and last step of Christian desires, the sole, con- 
 stant, and incorruptible pleasure, disdain to apply themselves 
 to our necessitous, fluid, and ambiguous conveniences, and 
 easily resign to the body the care and use of sensual and 
 temporal pasture : 'tis a privileged study. Between ourselves, 
 I have ever observed supercelestial opinions and subter- 
 ranean manners to be of singular accord. 
 
 .ZEsop, that great man, saw his master make water as he 
 walked : " What, then," said he, " must we dung as we run ?" 
 Let us manage our time as well as we can, there will yet 
 remain a great deal that will be idle and ill employed. 
 The mind has not other hours enough wherein to do its 
 business, without disassociating itself from the body, in that 
 
 1 "Who will not say, that it is the property of folly, slothfully and con- 
 tumaciously to perform what is to be done, and to bend the body one way 
 and the mind another, and to be distracted betwixt wholly different motions ? " 
 — Seneca, Ep. 74. 
 
Cbap. 13.] Of Experience. 449 
 
 little space it must have for its necessity. Tliey would put 
 themselves out of themselves, and escape from being men ; 
 'tis folly; instead of transforming themselves into angels, 
 they transform themselves into beasts ; instead of elevating, 
 they lay themselves lower. These transcendental humours 
 affright me, like high and inaccessible cliffs and precipices ; 
 and nothing is hard for me to digest in the life of Socrates 
 but his ecstacies and communication with demons ; nothing 
 so human in Plato as that for which they say he was called 
 divine ; and of our sciences, those seem to be the most 
 terrestrial and low that are highest mounted ; and I find 
 nothing so humble and mortal in the life of Alexander, as 
 his fancies about his immortalisation. Philotas pleasantly 
 quipped him in his answer : he congratulated him by letter 
 concerning the oracle of Jupiter Hammon, which had placed 
 him amongst the gods : " Upon thy account, I am glad of it, 
 but the men are to be pitied who are to live with a man, 
 and to obey him, who exceeds and is not contented with 
 the measure of a man." x " Diis te minorem quod geris, 
 imperas." 2 The pretty inscription wherewith the Athenians 
 honoured the entry of Pompey into their city, is conform- 
 able to my sense : " By so much thou art a god, as thou 
 confessest thee a man." 3 'Tis an absolute and, as it were, a 
 divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his 
 being. We seek other conditions, by reason we do not under- 
 stand the use of our own ; and go out of ourselves, because 
 we know not how there to reside. 'Tis to much purpose to 
 go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with 
 our legs ; and, when seated upon the most elevated throne in 
 the world, we are but seated upon our breech. 'The fairest 
 
 1 Quintus Curtius, vi. 9. 
 
 - " Because thou earnest thyself lower than the gods, thou rulest." — 
 Horace, Od. iii. 6, 5. 
 
 3 Plutarch, Life of Fompey, c. 7. 
 VOL. III. 2 F 
 
450 Of Experience. [Book iii. 
 
 lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate 
 themselves to the common and human model; without 
 miracle, without extravagance. Old age stands a little in 
 need of a more gentle treatment. Let us recommend it to 
 God, the protector of health and wisdom, but withal, let it 
 be gay and sociable : 
 
 " Frui paratis et valido mihi 
 
 Latoe, dones, et, precor, integra 
 
 Cum mente ; nee turpem senectam 
 
 Degere, nee Cithara carentem." x 
 
 1 " Grant it to me, Apollo, that I may enjoy what I have in good health ; 
 let me be sound in body and in mind ; let me live in honour when old, nor let 
 music be wanting." — Horace, Od. i. 31, 17. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABORIGINES of America, their char- 
 acteristics, i. 254. 
 
 Abuses, the source of, iii. 329. 
 
 Abyda, suicide of the inhabitants of, 
 ii. 39. 
 
 Abyssinians, their love for horses, 
 i. 390. 
 
 Accident to Montaigne, account of 
 an, ii. 54 ct scq. 
 
 Accomplishments, suitable, should be 
 sought, i. 310. 
 
 Accusation, instance of a false, ii. 50. 
 
 Achaians, their hatred of double- 
 dealing in war, i. 26. 
 
 Acting, on, i. 215. 
 
 Actions, intention is judge of our, 
 i. 32 ; should not be judged till 
 after death, i. 70 ; noble, are easily 
 obscured, i. 285; inconstancy of 
 our, ii. 1 ; men not to be judged by 
 their outward, ii. 10 ; of the soul, 
 the three, ii. 227. 
 
 Adventure with robbers, iii. 372. 
 
 Advice of friends, iii. 26, 36. 
 
 Advice, the great need to kings of 
 good, iii. 395. 
 
 jEmilius, Paulus, ii. 400. 
 
 ^Eneid and Orlando Furioso com- 
 pared, ii. 106. 
 
 JEsop's fables, ii. 103. 
 
 iEsop on physicians, ii. 587 ; anec- 
 dote of, iii. 336. 
 
 Affectation to be avoided, i. 208. 
 
 Affection of fathers to their children, 
 ii. 69; of parents to their children 
 
 is second only to self-preservation, 
 ii. 71 ; is natural, ii. 71 ; superior- 
 ity of to fear, ii. 81 ; of authors for 
 their books, ii. 92 ; of animals, ii. 
 182. 
 
 Affections, our, carry themselves be- 
 yond us, i. 12. 
 
 Age, on, i. 431 ; rare to die of old, 
 i. 432 ; Itoman laws relating to, i. 
 433 ; at which the greatest human 
 actions have been performed, i. 
 434 ; the advantages and disadvan- 
 tages of, iii. 39-40. 
 
 Agesilaus, anecdote of, iii. 28 ; say- 
 ing of, on love, iii. 141. 
 
 Agrigentines, careless mode of living 
 amongst the, ii. 4. 
 
 Aim, a fixed, is necessary to the soul, 
 
 i- 35- 
 Alcibiades, his wonderful constitu- 
 tion, i. 201. 
 Alcibiades, ii. 571 ; anecdote of 
 Alexander the Great and Betis, 
 governor of Gaza, i. 5; his noble 
 refusal to use treachery against 
 Darius, i. 32 ; his alteration in the 
 calendar, i. 136; confidence of, in 
 his physician, i. 144; a pattern of 
 hazardous actions, i. 144 ; and his 
 flatterers, i. 350; his horse Buce- 
 phalus, i. 385 ; valour of, ii. 8 ; his 
 murder of Clytus, ii. 8; and his 
 love for Homer, ii. 565 ; on, ii. 
 566 ; and Ca?sar compared, ii. 569 ; 
 and the apes, iii. 120 ; andBrisson, 
 
452 
 
 Index. 
 
 anecdote of, iii. 178; and Thales- 
 tris, iii. 132. 
 
 Alexander VI., Pope, his death, i. 
 272. 
 
 Alexia, the siege of, ii. 547. 
 
 Alfonso XL, king of Castile, im- 
 pious proclamation of, i. 24. 
 
 All things have their season, ii. 497. 
 
 Alva, Duke of, treachery of, i. 33. 
 
 Amadis of Gaul, ii. 102. 
 
 Ambassadors, Persian custom as to, 
 i. 66 ; the duty of, i. 64. 
 
 Ambition, i. 306 ; the effects of, i. 
 
 293- 
 
 Am erica, supposed notions of , amongst 
 the ancients, i. 250; what the dis- 
 coverers thought was its size, &c, 
 i. 251 ; characteristics of the abo- 
 rigines of, i. 254 , opinion of the 
 inhabitants of, on French cus- 
 toms, ii. 265 ; discovery of, iii. 164 ; 
 courage of the aborigines of, iii. 
 166. 
 
 Americans, their treatment of pri- 
 soners, i. 259 ; custom of, in war, 
 i. 260. 
 
 Amphitheatre, the Roman, iii. 160 ; 
 magnificence of the Roman, iii. 
 161. 
 
 Amurath, sacrifice of, at the taking 
 of the Isthmus, i. 247. 
 
 Amusements, on, iii. 72. 
 
 Aniyot, Jacques, the purity and sim- 
 plicity of his writings, ii. 42. 
 
 Anacharsis on the happiest state of 
 govennnent, i. 358. 
 
 Ancients, parsimony of the, i. 409. 
 
 Androclus and the lion, story of, ii. 
 190. 
 
 Anger, of, ii. 512 ; great power of, ii. 
 513 ; and hatred not to be fostered, 
 iii. 305. 
 
 Angouleme, miracle at the siege of, 
 by King Clovis, i. 273. 
 
 Animals sacred amongst the an- 
 cients, ii. 136; their power of com- 
 municating with each other, ii. 
 157 ; affection of, ii. 182. 
 
 Antigenides the musician, iii. 118. 
 Antigonus, his treatment of traitors, 
 
 iii. 13. 
 Antisthenes, anecdote of, ii. 145 ; on 
 
 the privileges of the sages, iii. 275. 
 Antony the first to use a coach in 
 
 Rome, iii. 154. 
 Ants, instinct of, ii. 178. 
 Anxiety of mind about the future 
 
 causes unhappiness, i. 12. 
 Apelles, anecdote of, iii. 196. 
 Apes, Alexander and the, iii. 1 20. 
 Apology for Raimond de Sebonde, ii. 
 
 137; 
 
 Apologies, on, iii. 315. 
 
 Arcesilaus, method of, with his 
 
 pupils, i. 175; his death from 
 
 drinking, ii. 19; the philosopher, 
 
 anecdote of, iii. 146. 
 Archelaus of Macedon, anecdote of, 
 
 iii. 80. 
 Archias, tyrant of Thebes, story of, 
 
 ii. 44. 
 Archimedes, his defence of Syracuse, 
 
 153- 
 
 Areopagus, custom of the, ii. 317 ; 
 the court of, iii. 330. 
 
 Argippians, customs of, ii. 388. 
 
 Argue, how to, iii. 187. 
 
 Argument, advantages of, iii, 183. 
 
 Arguments, we should not yield at 
 once to, iii. 202 ; on foolish, iii. 391. 
 
 Aristippus and Dionysius the tyrant, 
 ii. 126. 
 
 Aristotle, on a saying of Solon, i. 14 ; 
 his method of teaching, i. 195 ; 
 on meditation, iii. 42 ; saying of, 
 on bashfulness, iii. 81. 
 
 Armed, how soldiers should be, i. 376. 
 
 Arming of soldiers, Lycurgus and 
 Hannibal on, i. 377. 
 
 Armour, on the use of, ii. 95 ; not 
 worn by Alexander, ii. 95 ; exces- 
 sive weight of, ii. 96. 
 
 Arms, coats of, i. 371. 
 
 Arms of the Parthians, ii. 95; of the 
 Gauls, ii. 96 ; of the Roman sol- 
 diers, ii. 97. 
 
Index. 
 
 453 
 
 Arras, capture of, by Louis XL, i. 318. 
 Arria, the story of, ii. 556. 
 Artibms, a Persian general, death of, 
 
 i. 384- 
 Art of conference, of the, iii. 181. 
 Asia, customs of the peoples of, in 
 
 Avar, i. 377. 
 Assassins, the, ii. 509. 
 Assyrian horses very fierce, i. 390. 
 Atalanta, the story of, iii. 59. 
 Ataraxy, ii. 227. 
 Atheism, on, ii. 147. 
 Athenians, characteristics of, i. 165 ; 
 
 injustice of, after the battle of 
 
 Arginusse, i. 20 ; how they treated 
 
 the judges of Socrates, iii. 362. 
 Athens, Socrates on the city of, iii. 89. 
 Atticus, Pomponius, death of, ii. 378. 
 Augustine, St., on belief in miracles, 
 
 iii. 332. 
 .Augustus, clemency of, towards 
 
 Cinna, i. 138. 
 Authors, favourite, of Montaigne, i. 
 
 168 ; affection of, for their books, 
 
 ii. 92. 
 Avarice, the disadvantages of, i. 334; 
 
 its cause, i. 337 ; the causes of, 
 
 ii. 74 ; the meanness of, iii. 224. 
 
 B, Gascon changes in the sound of 
 the letter, ii. 218. 
 
 Babylonian custom with their sick, 
 ii. 604. 
 
 Bad company, punishment for keep- 
 ing, i. 294. 
 
 Bajazet, death of, i. 392. 
 
 Band or scarf, the order of the, insti- 
 tuted by Alphonso, king of Spain, 
 i. 390. 
 
 Bartolus and Baldns, ii. 342. 
 
 Bashf ulness, iii. 81. 
 
 Bath, customs of the ancients at the, 
 
 i- 395- 
 
 Bathing very common in Germany 
 and Italy, ii. 598. 
 
 Baths and springs, ii. 597 ; in Ger- 
 many, Italy, Switzerland, France, 
 &c, ii. 598. 
 
 Battles on foot more fierce and better 
 disputed than cavalry engage- 
 ments, i. 386. 
 
 Beasts subject to power of imagina- 
 tion, i. 108. 
 
 Beauty of body, on the definition of, 
 ii. 198 ; various opinions relative 
 to, amongst various nations, ii. 
 199 ; advantage of, ii. 418 ; and wit, 
 which to be preferred, iii. 52 ; the 
 power of, iii. 367. 
 
 Beauvais, bishop of, his conduct in 
 war, i. 345. 
 
 Bedouins, religious belief of, ii. 407 ; 
 belief of, in fate, ii. 506. 
 
 Bees, defence of a besieged city by, 
 ii. 188. 
 
 Beginnings of events should be care- 
 fully watched, iii. 316. 
 
 Behaviour of persons sentenced to 
 death, i. 317. 
 
 Belief in improbabilities, on, iii. 331. 
 
 Bellay, M. du, Montaigne's opinion 
 of his memoirs, ii. 116. 
 
 Benefits, on giving and receiving, iii. 
 244. 
 
 Besieged city, should its governor 
 parley, i. 25. 
 
 Bessus the Peonian, how he was 
 convicted of parricide, ii. 46. 
 
 Betis, governor of Gaza, obstinate 
 silence of, i. 5. 
 
 Bible, danger arising from so many 
 translations of, i. 424. 
 
 Bion, saying of, on grief, i. 23 ; death- 
 bed repentance of, ii. 147 ; and 
 Alexander, anecdote of, iii. 261. 
 
 Birds, instinct of, ii. 180. 
 
 Birth of Montaigne, i. 
 
 Boccacio's Decameron, ii. 102. 
 
 Bodily pleasures inferior to those of 
 the mind, iii. 446. 
 
 Bodin, Jean, on Plutarch, ii. 523. 
 
 Body, involuntary movements of our, 
 i. 105. 
 
 Books, on the choice of, i. 305 ; 
 condemned to be burnt, first in- 
 stance of, ii. 92 ; Montaigne's 
 
454 
 
 Index. 
 
 choice of, ii. 99, 101 ; the advan- 
 tages of, iii. 53 ; Montaigne's en- 
 joyment of, iii. 53 ; not to he 
 used in excess, iii. 56 ; the study 
 of, not so useful as conversation, 
 iii. 183 ; the composition of, iii. 
 365 ; the difficulties in, increased 
 hy comments, iii. 379. 
 
 Bordeaux, letters of Montaigne to 
 the jurats of, lxi, lxii ; Montaigne 
 elected mayor of, in his ahsence, 
 iii. 294 ; Montaigne on his conduct 
 of the mayoralty of, iii. 316, 
 
 Borromeo, Cardinal, his austere mode 
 of life, i. 333. 
 
 Borrowing of money, i. 334. 
 
 Brachman customs, iii. 50. 
 
 Brazil, people of, only die of old age, 
 ii. 211. 
 
 Breach of faith, when lawful, iii. 
 
 19- 
 Bretigny, the treaty of, ii. 474. 
 Brisson and Alexander, anecdote of, 
 
 iii. 178. 
 Brutes, insane fury of, i. 23. 
 Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander, 
 
 i- 385- 
 
 Building, Montaigne's reasons for, 
 iii. 221. 
 
 Bull of citizenship of Rome granted 
 to Montaigne, iii. 288. 
 
 Burning of hooks, Avhen first intro- 
 duced, ii. 92. 
 
 Business, Montaigne's aversion to, 
 iii. 224. 
 
 Cesar Boegia, death of, i. 272. 
 
 Cnesar, Julius, description of his 
 oratory, i. 208 ; an excellent horse- 
 man, i. 384 ; liherality of, ii. 64 ; 
 Montaigne's opinion of his writ- 
 ings, ii. in ; clemency of, ii. 130, 
 536, 537 ; on death, ii. 377 ; style 
 of, ii. 417 ; disposition of, ii. 532 ; 
 amhition of, ii. 538 ; courage of, 
 ii. 546 ; popularity of, amongst his 
 soldiers, ii. 550; and Alexander 
 compared, ii. 569 ; and Pompey, 
 
 the enmity "between, honourahle 
 and Avithout malignity, iii. 307. 
 Calendar, alteration in, hy Alexan- 
 der the Great, i. 136 ; reformation 
 of, hy Gregory XIII., iii. 302, 
 
 3 2 3- 
 Calepin the lexicographer, iii. 382. 
 Calicut, customs of, iii. 85. 
 Caligula, foolish revenge of, i. 24. 
 Cannse, punishment inflicted hy the 
 
 Romans for cowardice at, i. 60 ; 
 
 conduct of Roman soldiers after, 
 
 iii- 355- 
 Cannibals, i. 249. 
 Cannius, Julius, saying of, on death, 
 
 ii. 51. 
 Carneades, doctrine of, respecting 
 
 glory, ii. 393. 
 Carthage, panic at the capture of, 
 
 i. 70. 
 Carthaginians, cunning nature of, i. 
 
 25 ; discovery of new lands by, i. 
 
 252. 
 Caste, on, iii. 86. 
 Castelmandaris, fifty heretics burnt 
 
 at, i. 321. 
 Cato, parsimony of, i. 410 ; a hard 
 
 drinker, ii. 14 ; death of, ii. 381 ; 
 
 and Socrates compared, iii. 338 ; 
 
 the younger, a pattern of virtue 
 
 and constancy, i. 283 ; death of, ii. 
 
 121. 
 Catos, comparison of the two, ii. 497. 
 Catullus, Montaigne's opinion of, ii. 
 
 103. 
 Caunians, custom of, on sacred days, 
 
 ii. 271. 
 Cavalry engagements not so fierce as 
 
 battles on foot, i. 3S6. 
 Cea, custom of the isle of, ii. 23 ; sui- 
 cide of a woman of, ii. 41. 
 Celtiberians, disposition of, ii. 8. 
 Cemeteries in cities, why established 
 
 by Lycurgus, i. 86. 
 Ceremony at interviews of princes, 
 
 i. 36 ; the power of, ii. 408 ; Mon- 
 taigne's dislike of, iii. 48; the 
 
 effects of, iii. 68. 
 
Index. 
 
 455 
 
 Chaldeans, register kept by, ii. 329. 
 Chameleon, changes of colour in the, 
 
 ii. 179. 
 Chance, we live by, ii. 9 ; the danger 
 
 of games of, iii. 308. 
 Change of climate, effects of, ii. 332 ; 
 
 of scene, tile advantages of, iii. 
 
 „ 2 54- _ . 
 
 Changes in the English laws, ii. 337. 
 
 Characteristics of inhabitants of vari- 
 ous Greek cities, i. 165. 
 
 Charondas, his punishment for 
 cowardice, i. 60 ; ordinance of, to 
 prevent alteration in the laws, i. 
 129; his punishment for keeping 
 bad company, i. 294. 
 
 Chastel, Jacques du, Bishop of 
 Soissons, suicide of, ii. 40. 
 
 Chastity of Lacedaemonian women, 
 iii. 98 ; instances of extreme, iii. 
 10S. 
 
 Cheval entier, i. 393. 
 
 Child, of a monstrous, ii. 510. 
 
 Children, difficulty of choosing the 
 proper training for, i. 173; how 
 they should be educated, i. 180 ; 
 should be taught silence and mo- 
 desty, i. 181 ; disposal of, Plato's 
 precept as to, i. 194 ; injured by 
 long hours of teaching, i. 196 ; 
 affection of fathers to their, ii. 
 69 ; how they should be trained 
 and treated by their parents, ii. 74 ; 
 how they should be corrected, ii. 
 75 ; how they should address their 
 parents, ii. 80 ; resemblance of, to 
 their fathers, ii. 572. 
 
 China, the government of, iii. 3S5. 
 
 Christian religion useful ami just, i. 
 132 ; enjoins obedience to the laws, 
 i. 132 ; the secrets of, not to be in- 
 discriminately dispersed, i. 425 ; 
 the feelings which it should in- 
 spire, ii. 142. 
 
 Chronicles of the Chalda?ans, ii. 329 ; 
 Sais, ii. 329. 
 
 Cicero on the decay of oracles, i. 46 ; 
 and the younger Pliny compared, 
 
 i. 308 ; Montaigne's opinion of, ii. 
 107 ; his dislike for letters in his 
 old age, ii. 225 ; and Seneca com- 
 pared, ii. 515 ; the younger, anec- 
 dote of, ii. no. 
 
 Cimbrians, disposition of, ii. 8. 
 
 Cinna, clemency of Augustus to- 
 wards, i. 39. 
 
 Citizenship of Pome granted to Mon- 
 taigne, iii. 288. 
 
 Civil war in France, the, iii. 342 ; 
 Plato on, iii. 346. 
 
 Civility, every city and society has 
 its own forms of, i. 57; in excess 
 troublesome, i. 57. 
 
 Cleanthes the philosopher, death of, 
 
 ii- 379- 
 Clemency superior to revenge, i. 143 ; 
 
 of Cajsar, ii. 130. 
 Cleomenes, maxim on conduct of 
 
 war, i. 30 ; treachery of, at Argos, 
 
 i. 30. 
 Climate, effects of change of, ii. 332. 
 Clodomir, king of Aquitaine, his 
 
 death, i. 376. 
 Clothes, custom of wearing, i. 278 ; 
 
 not intended by nature, i. 279. 
 Clovis, his treatment of traitors, iii. 
 
 14. 
 Clytus murdered by Alexander, ii. 8. 
 Coaches, of, iii. 149 ; Montaigne's 
 
 dislike of, iii. 152 ; use of in war, 
 
 iii. 153; by whom first used in 
 
 Pome, iii. 154. 
 Coats of arms, i. 371. 
 Cogidunus, king of England, ii. 479. 
 Cold, intense, on march to Luxem- 
 burg, i. 281 ; during retreat of the 
 
 Ten Thousand, i. 282. 
 Colleges, the discipline of, too strict, 
 
 i. 199. 
 Comines, Philip de, Montaigne's 
 
 opinion of, ii. 115. 
 Commentaries, the excessive number 
 
 of, written, iii. 381. 
 Commentators often make books 
 
 more difficult, iii. 379. 
 Commerces, on three, iii. 41. 
 
45^ 
 
 Index. 
 
 Companions in travelling, on the 
 choice of, iii. 270. 
 
 Comparison of the two Catos, ii. 497. 
 
 Compulsion not to be used in the 
 education of children, i. 198. 
 
 Conceit, on, iii. 319. 
 
 Conference, of the art of, iii. 181. 
 
 Confession forced by the rack, ii. 49 ; 
 Montaigne's practice of, iii. 79 ; of 
 one's own faults most honourable, 
 iii. 280. 
 
 Conjugal love, i. 2. 
 
 Conrad III., emperor, anecdote of, 
 i. 2. 
 
 Conscience, the laws of, proceed from 
 custom, i. 124 ; on, ii. 45 ; power 
 of, ii. 46 ; advantage of a clear, 
 ii. 47 ; on liberty of, ii. 455. 
 
 Consolation, the true method of, iii, 
 
 57- 
 
 Constancy and revolution, the law 
 of, i. 52 ; not to be looked for in a 
 man, ii. 2 ; how truly ta estimate, 
 iii. 308 ; and patience, the best 
 examples of, to be found amongst 
 the unlearned, iii. 342. 
 
 Constantinople, empire of, founded 
 and ended by a Constantine, i. 273. 
 
 Constantius, emperor, haughty de- 
 meanour of, ii. 410. 
 
 Contentment, importance of, i. 301. 
 
 Contradictions in our actions, ii. 1. 
 
 Conversation, the uses of, i. 62 ; the 
 advantages of, i. 179 ; on, iii. 43 ; 
 of women, iii. 49 ; the most fruit- 
 ful exercise of the mind, iii. 183 ; 
 highly esteemed by the Romans 
 and Athenian^, iii. 183 ; of what 
 kind it should be, iii. 185. 
 
 Coronation customs in Mexico, iii. 
 201. 
 
 Correction of children, the proper 
 mode of, ii. 75 ; should be wel- 
 comed, iii. 184. 
 
 Cortez, Fernando, in Mexico, i. 248. 
 
 Cossitius, Lucius, turned from a man 
 into a woman, i. 99. 
 
 Cotys, anecdote of, iii. 308. 
 
 Countenance, the, betrays the 
 thoughts, i. 105. 
 
 Counterfeit being sick, not to, ii. 4S0. 
 
 Courage the same everywhere, i. 145 ; 
 instances of great, i. 145. 
 
 Courtesy and good manners, know- 
 ledge of, a necessary study, i. 57. 
 
 Cowardice, punishment of, i. 59 ; the 
 mother of cruelty, ii. 484. 
 
 Crassus, gloomy disposition of, iii. 77. 
 
 Gratis, death of, iii. 102. 
 
 Creation, the lessons taught by, ii. 
 148. 
 
 Creatures, strange, in various coun- 
 tries, ii. 259. 
 
 Crescy, battle of, i. 344. 
 
 Cretans, customs of, i. 124. 
 
 Crime brings its own punishment, ii. 
 46. 
 
 Cripples, powers of, i. 117; of, iii. 
 322. 
 
 Cruelty of Portuguese to prisoners, 
 i. 259; of, ii. 117; Montaigne's 
 hatred of, ii. 128 ; prevalence of, 
 ii. 132 ; men naturally inclined to, 
 ii. 133; cowardice the mother of, 
 ii. 484; of the Spaniards towards 
 the aborigines of Mexico and Peru, 
 iii. 169. 
 
 Cunning of the Laceda?.monians at 
 Plataea, i. 53 ; of a mule, ii. 184. 
 
 Curiosity, advantages of honest, i. 
 184; prompted by novelty, i. 218; 
 on, ii. 238, 412. 
 
 Custom, force of, i. 113; power of, 
 over our minds, i. 117; comes to 
 us by nature, i. 124 ; strange of the 
 Turks, i. 330 ; of the Isle of Cea, 
 ii. 23; is no virtue, ii. 66; of the 
 ancient Gauls in the treatment of 
 their children, ii. 85 ; of the Baby- 
 lonians with their sick, ii. 604 ; 
 of the Brachman virgins, iii. 50 ; 
 of the Scythian Avomen, iii. 105 ; a 
 second nature, iii. 301. 
 
 Customs, strange, of foreign nations, 
 i. 118; in dress, i. 128; of the 
 aborigines of America, i. 264 ; in 
 
Index. 
 
 457 
 
 wearing clothes, i. 278 ; at the 
 hath, i. 395 ; of salutation, i. 396 ; 
 at meals, i. 398 ; of mourning, i. 
 400 ; of the ancients to obtain the 
 favour of the gods, ii. 254 ; of the 
 Argippians, ii. 388 ; of foreign 
 countries appear strange, iii. 398. 
 
 Cuttle-fish, habit of, according to 
 Aristotle, ii. 169. 
 
 Cyrus, reverence of, to religion, i. 18 ; 
 foolish passion of, i. 24 ; a hard 
 drinker, ii. 14; his system of post- 
 horses, ii. 471. 
 
 Danger, nothing noble can be done 
 without, i. 144; arising from so 
 many translations of the Bible, i. 
 424. 
 
 Darius, his animosity against the 
 Athenians, i. 38. 
 
 Daughter, Montaigne's adopted, ii. 
 448 ; Montaigne's description of 
 his, iii. 92. 
 
 Death of La Boetie, Montaigne's 
 account of, xxxv. 
 
 Death is no counterfeiting or dis- 
 simulation, i. 72 ; day, our, should 
 be judge of all the foregoing years, 
 i. 73 ; contempt of, taught by vir- 
 tue, i. 76 ; euphemisms for, i. 78 ; 
 frequent examples of, cause us to 
 have it ever in our minds, i. 80 ; 
 uncertainty of, i. 81 ; contempt of, 
 the surest foundation of religion, i. 
 89 ; the soul can never be at rest 
 while in fear of, i. 89 ; to prepare 
 for, the perpetual work of life, i. 
 I 91 ; why less dreadful in war than 
 at home, i. 96 ; behaviour of per- 
 sons sentenced to, i. 317 ; the delay 
 of, worse than death itself, i. 323 ; 
 a cure for all diseases, ii. 24 ; to 
 be sought, not feared, ii. 24 ; the 
 Stoics on, ii. 25 ; desired from high 
 motives, ii. 39 ; opinions of the 
 Getse on, ii. 253 ; on judging of 
 another's, ii. 373 ; of the Constable 
 de Montmorency, ii. 448 ; how 
 
 most courageously to meet, ii. 470 ; 
 of Epaminondas, iii. 63 ; Plutarch 
 and Seneca on, iii. 342 ; when close 
 at hand not such a cause of fear 
 as when remote, iii. 357 ; the least 
 premeditated, the easiest, iii. 359. 
 
 Deaths caused by sudden emotion, i. 
 1 1 ; strange instances of, i. 79 ; 
 more, before than after thirty-five, 
 i. 79 ; book on, by Dicsearhus, i. 
 8 7 ._ 
 
 Deceit ought to be corrected in child- 
 hood, i. 116. 
 
 Defeats sometimes more triumphant 
 than victories, i. 262. 
 
 Defective memory of Montaigne, ii. 
 
 43 2 , 434- 
 
 Defence of a besieged city by bees, 
 ii. 1 88. 
 
 Defence of Seneca and Plutarch, ii. 
 522. 
 
 Definitions, on, iii. 382. 
 
 Delphi, answer of the oracle at, iii. 
 291. 
 
 Democritus and Heraclitus com- 
 pared, i. 403 ; and the figs, ii. 238. 
 
 Demosthenes on virtue, ii. 3 ; on the 
 expenditure of public money, iii. 
 
 155- 
 
 Dependence on others dangerous, 
 iii. 244. 
 
 Derivation of Guienne, i. 367. 
 
 Descent of Plato, ii. 269. 
 
 Desires are augmented by difficulties, 
 ii. 382, iii. 132; must be mode- 
 rated, iii. 43 ; ought to be limited 
 and moderated, iii. 303. 
 
 Despair, a general should not drive 
 the enemy to, i. 375. 
 
 D'Estissac, Madame, ii. 69. 
 
 Destriers, derivation of, i. 383. 
 
 Dexterity on horseback, instances of, 
 
 i- 394- 
 Diary, advantages of keeping a, i. 
 
 277. 
 Dice, the danger of, iii. 308. 
 Didymus, his six thousand books on 
 
 grammar, &c, iii. 213. 
 
453 
 
 Index. 
 
 Difficulties in books increased by 
 commentators, iii. 379 ; augment 
 our desires, ii. 382. 
 
 Dignities, on the conferring of, iii. 
 197. 
 
 Diogenes and Timon compared, i. 
 
 404- 
 
 Diomedon, an Athenian captain, 
 speech of, on his trial, i. 20. 
 
 Dionysius, the elder, cruelty of, i. 4 ; 
 death of, from joy, i. 1 1 ; and the 
 miser, i. 338 ; the play of, called 
 "The Hansom of Hector," ii. 414. 
 
 Dioscorides, an island, now called 
 Zocotora, i. 426. 
 
 Discipline, value of, i. 65 ; of the 
 Roman armies, iii. 345 ; of the 
 Turkish armies, iii. 345. 
 
 Discovery of America, i. 251, iii. 164. 
 
 Diseases and deaths caused by ima- 
 gination, i. 98 ; and their remedies, 
 iii. 406. 
 
 Disguise assumed by some generals 
 in battle, i. 378. 
 
 Dislikes, strange, of some persons, 
 i. 200. 
 
 Disposition of the Celtiberians, ii. 
 8 ; of the Cimbrians, ii. 8 ; of 
 women, ii. 82, 86. 
 
 Dissimulation, ii. 429. 
 
 Diversion, of, iii. 57. 
 
 Diversions of youth, Plato on the, 
 i. 199. 
 
 Divination, art of, originated 
 amongst the Tuscans, i. 49 ; 
 Pacuvius on, i. 49 ; attempt to 
 eradicate the art of, by Xeno- 
 phanes, i. 51. 
 
 Divine ordinances to be soberly 
 j udged, i. 267 ; authority claimed 
 by ancient legislators, ii. 406. 
 
 Diviners, Scythian treatment of false, 
 i. 258. 
 
 Divorces rare in Pome, ii. 387. 
 
 Dogs, instinct of, ii. 171, 174; train- 
 ing of, ii. 1 72. 
 
 Dogmatists, the sect of, ii. 232. 
 
 Double-dealing, the vice of, iii. 7. 
 
 Dreams, on, iii. 121 ; on the inter- 
 pretation of, iii. 424. 
 
 Dress, custom in, i. 128; fashion in, 
 a mark of folly and affectation, 
 i. 129. 
 
 Drinking, French and German habits 
 in, ii. 15 ; Greek customs in,ii. 18 ; 
 Plato on, ii. 18 ; deaths from, ii. 19. 
 
 Drugs, the choice of, by physicians, 
 
 ii. 588, 589- 
 
 Drunkenness, ii. 10 ; effects of, ii. 
 12 ; amongst the Germans, ii. 13 ; 
 not decried by the Ancients, ii. 14 ; 
 allowed by the Stoics, ii. 14; Sil- 
 A r ius, a physician of Paris, on, ii. 
 14. 
 
 Drusus, anecdote of, iii. 28. 
 
 Duel, account of a, i. 273. 
 
 Duelling, ii. 489. 
 
 Dupuy, letter of Montaigne to Mon- 
 sieur, lx. 
 
 Duras, letter to Madame de, ii. 606. 
 
 Duties of a king difficult to perform, 
 iii. 107. 
 
 Duty of ambassadors, i. 64 ; of a 
 wise man, i. 404. 
 
 Dying persons, regrets of, i. 85. 
 
 Dying, the sensation of, ii. 55 ; the 
 act of, not painful, ii. 56 ; on vari- 
 ous conditions of, iii. 258 ; Roman 
 superstition on, iii. 259. 
 
 EARLY marriages unadvisable, ii. 75. 
 
 Earth, the motion of the, by whom 
 first told, ii. 325. 
 
 Eating and drinking, Montaigne's 
 habits of, iii. 430. 
 
 Economy, the highest virtue in wo- 
 men, iii. 253. 
 
 Education of Montaigne, i. iii ; 
 faults of, i. 154; of children, i. 
 167 ; the sum of true, i. 1S8 ; La- 
 cedaemonian system of, i. 203 ; of 
 Montaigne, i. 210 ; of the ancient 
 Persians, i. 163 ; maxim of Soc- 
 rates on, i. 299 ; on, ii. 446 ; assists 
 and fortifies the natural inclina- 
 tions, iii. 30. 
 
Index. 
 
 459 
 
 Edward I., dying command of, to his 
 
 son, i. 1 6. 
 Edward the Black Prince at the 
 
 siege of Limousins, i. i. 
 Egmont, Count, beheaded, i. 33. 
 Egotism, on, ii. 63 ; the remedy for, 
 
 ii. 64. 
 Egyptian custom of reminding guests 
 
 of death, i. 82. 
 Egyptians, sacrificial customs of, ii. 
 
 132 ; power of, to endure torture, 
 
 "• 525. 
 
 Eloquence, when it flourished most 
 at Rome, i. 406 ; less needed in a 
 monarchical government, i. 406 ; of 
 an Italian cook, i. 407 ; the source 
 of, iii. 116. 
 
 Emulation, the pleasures of, iii. 177. 
 
 Enchantments, the credit of, due to 
 imagination, i. 100. 
 
 Endurance of pain, instances of, i. 
 323. 
 
 Enemies, should they be attacked in 
 their own country or waited for, i. 
 380. 
 
 English laws, changes in, ii. 337. 
 
 Enmity between Coesar and Pompey 
 honourable and without malignity, 
 iii. 307. 
 
 Epaminondas, his conduct on his 
 trial, i. 3 ; on mutability of for- 
 tune, i. 73 ; on, ii. 569, iii. 19 ; 
 death of, iii. 63. 
 
 Ephemeral creatures, i. 90. 
 
 Epicureans and Stoics compared, ii. 
 118. 
 
 Epicurus dispensed his sages from 
 all care of the future, i. 13 ; on the 
 laws, ii. 308 ; doctrines of, ii. 392 ; 
 letter of, to Hermachus, ibid. ; 
 will of, ii. 393 ; on his own writ- 
 ings, iii. 63. 
 
 Equality is the soul of equity, i. 93. 
 
 Errors of opinion arise in medium 
 understandings, i. 414 ; of physi- 
 cians, ii. 594 ; on the growth of, 
 iii. 3 2 5- 
 
 Essays, Montaigne's method in writ- 
 
 ing, i. 401 ; of Montaigne revised 
 by the Master of the Sacred Palace 
 at Pome, xxii. 
 
 Essenians, custom of the, iii. 123. 
 
 Eumenes besieged in Nova by Anti- 
 gonus, i. 28. 
 
 European nations compared, ii. 124. 
 
 Events, various, from the same coun- 
 sel, i. 136. 
 
 Excellent men, the most, ii. 563. 
 
 Excess in dress and living, how to 
 overcome, i. 359. 
 
 Excess of zeal to be avoided, iii. 292. 
 
 Execution of the daughter of Seja- 
 nus, iii. 15. 
 
 Executions, how carried out in Lith- 
 uania, iii. 16. 
 
 Exercise necessary to children, i. 1S0. 
 
 Experience, the uses of, iii. 195 ; on, 
 
 iii- 375- 
 
 Extempore speaking, i. 44 ; Mon- 
 taigne unable to speak, i. 45. 
 
 Eye, power of the, i. 109. 
 
 Ey quern, the surname of Montaigne's 
 ancestors, ii. 402. 
 
 Faith, necessity of a true, ii. 149 ; 
 
 when lawful to break, iii. 19 ; on 
 
 breaking, iii. 242. 
 False accusation, anecdote of a, ii. 
 
 Falsehood and truth, Pythagorean 
 definition of, i. 40. 
 
 Fame does not follow all good deeds, 
 iii. 320. 
 
 Familiarity breeds contempt, ii. 384. 
 
 Fashions readily changed, i. 394. 
 
 Fate, Bedouin belief in, ii. 506. 
 
 Father, the use of the name of, ii. 80. 
 
 Fathers, affection of, to their chil- 
 dren, ii. 69. 
 
 Fatum, ii. 506. 
 
 Faults, free confession of one's own, 
 most honourable, iii. 280. 
 
 Fear, on, i. 66 ; effects of, i. 67 ; a 
 passion which soonest upsets our 
 judgment, i. 67 ; instances of, i. 
 68 ; a cause of perpetual anguish, 
 
460 
 
 Index. 
 
 i. 69 ; more insupportable than 
 death, i. 70 ; called by the Greeks 
 " panic," i. 70. 
 Fear of illness worse than illness it- 
 self, ii. 53 ; of torture, effects of, ii. 
 
 ISO- 
 Features, variety in, iii. 369. 
 
 Feranlez, his generosity, i. 339. 
 
 Fidelity engendered by trust, i. 145. 
 
 Flatterers, subserviency of, iii. 180. 
 
 Florentines, custom of, in declaring 
 war, i. 27. 
 
 Foix, letter of Montaigne to Mon- 
 sieur de, lviii ; Monsieur de, iii. 
 229. 
 
 Folly, not to be cured by advice, iii. 
 204. ; obstinacy a proof of, iii. 205 ; 
 self-satisfied, iii. 205. 
 
 Foreign customs appear strange, iii. 
 398. 
 
 Fortune, the mutability of, i. 72 ; the 
 power of, i. 141 ; instances of 
 strange, i. 274 ; our use and not our 
 possession of, renders us happy, 
 i. 351 ; events in war depend on, 
 i. 382 ; the power of, in the world, 
 iii. 198. 
 
 Free life, the true means of, ii. 23. 
 
 Freedom, true, i. 356. 
 
 French gentlemen, remarkable cour- 
 age of three, i. 2 ; children, char- 
 acteristics of, i. 196 ; riders the 
 most graceful, i. 393 ; customs 
 of the ancient, i. 394 ; and Ger- 
 mans compared with other na- 
 tions, ii. 124 ; disposed to fighting, 
 ii. 490 ; French writers, on, iii. 117; 
 language, on the, iii. 117; and 
 Italians compared, iii. 130. 
 
 Friends, on the advice of, iii. 26, 36. 
 
 Friendship, i. 122 ; different kinds 
 of, i. 224 ; definition of, by Cicero, 
 i. 229 ; instances of, i. 229 ; per- 
 fect, is indivisible, i. 234 ; Mon- 
 taigne's disposition to contract, iii. 
 44. 
 
 Froissart, ii. 112. 
 
 Fulvia, suicide of, ii. 36. 
 
 Functions of the soul, the various, i. 
 
 402. 
 Funeral ceremonies, i. 19 ; customs 
 
 of Narsinga, i. 318 ; custom of the 
 
 Scythians, ii. 168. 
 Future, anxiety about, causes un- 
 
 happiness, i. 12. 
 Future life, Mohammed on, ii. 248. 
 
 Galba and Maecenas, anecdote of, 
 iii. 109. 
 
 Gascon horses, the fame of, i. 3S9 ; 
 changes in the sound of the letter 
 " b," ii. 218 ; obstinacy, ii. 527. 
 
 Gascony, troubled state of, iii. 247 ; 
 Avarlike spirit of the people of, iii. 
 248 ; plague in, iii. 352 ; condition 
 of, during the plague, iii. 354. 
 
 Gauls, customs of the ancient, i, 399 ; 
 habits of the ancient, with refer- 
 ence to marriages, ii. 76 ; custom 
 of the, in education of their chil- 
 dren, ii. 85. 
 
 Gelo of Syracuse, cunning of, iii. 5. 
 
 Generals, custom of some, to assume 
 disguise in battle, i. 378. 
 
 Germans, constant practice of bath- 
 ing amongst, ii. 598. 
 
 Geta?, their opinions on death and 
 immortality, ii. 253. 
 
 Gifts, on giving and receiving, iii. 
 
 245- 
 
 Gipsies, habits of, i. 328. 
 
 Giving the lie, on, ii. 449. 
 
 Gladiators, advantage of shows of, 
 ii. 476. 
 
 Glory and reputation, anxiety for, 
 the most common folly, i. 342. 
 
 Glory, on, ii. 390 ; teaching of Epi- 
 curus on, ii. 392 ; teaching of Car- 
 neades on, ii. 393. 
 
 Goat, the blood of a male, used for 
 the stone, ii. 601. 
 
 Goats, instinct of, ii. 90. 
 
 God, opinions of the ancient philoso- 
 phers on the nature of, ii. 244 ; the 
 nature of, according to the ancient 
 philosophers, ii. 244. 
 
Index. 
 
 461 
 
 God's justice and power inseparable, 
 
 i. 421. 
 Good and evil, i. 315. 
 Government, one defect in our, i. 276 ; 
 
 Anacharsis on the happiest state 
 
 of, i. 358 ; definition of a perfect, 
 
 iii. 197 ; the best for every nation, 
 
 iii. 229. 
 Grammarians, ancient, ridiculed by 
 
 Dionysius, i. 157. 
 Gramont, Monsieur de, funeral of, 
 
 iii. 68. 
 Grandeur, of the Roman, ii. 477. 
 Great events rise from little causes, 
 
 iii- 3!3- 
 Greatness, of the inconvenience of, 
 
 iii. 174; advantage of, iii. 174. 
 Greek, a term of reproach amongst 
 
 the Romans, i. 150. 
 Gregory XIII., reformation of the 
 
 calendar by, iii. 302, 323. 
 Guicciardini, Montaigne's opinion of, 
 
 ii. 114. 
 Guide-fish, ii. 193. 
 Guienne, letter of Montaigne to the 
 
 governor of, lxviii ; derivation of, 
 
 i. 367. 
 Guise, Duke of, treatment of a con- 
 spirator by, i. 137 ; murder of the 
 
 Duke of, ii. 509. 
 Gyges, the ring of, ii. 401 
 Gymnosophists, the, ii. 505. 
 
 Habit, the force of, iii. 400. 
 Halcyons or kingfishers, ii. 195. 
 Happiness, in what it consists, iii. 38. 
 Hares, some, in the Indies poisonous, 
 
 ii. 363- 
 
 Harmodius and Aristogiton, their 
 friendship, i. 229. 
 
 Hatreid and anger not to be fostered, 
 iii. 305. 
 
 Health, importance of, ii. 202, 582, 
 iii. 76; and sickness, their effects 
 on the spirits, &c, ii. 316. 
 
 Hegesias on the duty of a wise man, 
 i. 404 ; the philosopher, his lec- 
 tures on death, iii. 60. 
 
 Heliodorus, bishop of Nicea, ii. 91. 
 
 Heliogabalus, his preparations for 
 death, ii. 376. 
 
 Hemon of Chios, anecdote of, iii. 146. 
 
 Henry IV., letters of Montaigne to, 
 lxiv, lxvii. 
 
 Henry VII., treachery of, towards 
 Duke of Suffolk, i. 32. 
 
 Heptameron, the, ii. 129. 
 
 Heraclitus and Democritus com- 
 pared, i. 403. 
 
 Heretics, fifty, burnt at Castelman- 
 daris, i. 321. 
 
 Hilary, St., bishop of Poictiers, i. 
 271. 
 
 Hindrance of the mind to itself, ii. 
 381. 
 
 Hippomenes and Atalanta, the story 
 of, iii. 59. 
 
 Historians, various classes of, ii. 112 ; 
 the duty of, in relating incredible 
 events, iii. 211. 
 
 History, how to read, i. 63 ; less 
 hazardous to write of the past than 
 of the present, i. 1 1 1 ; advantages of 
 reading, i. 184; Montaigne's pre- 
 ference for, ii. no; how it should 
 be written, ii. 113; Romans and 
 Greeks the best writers of, and 
 why, ii. 113. 
 
 Home education, disadvantages of, 
 i. 179. 
 
 Homer, on, ii. 563. 
 
 Honesty and profit, of, iii. 1. 
 
 Honour, not to communicate a man's, 
 i. 342 ; the middle the seat of, i. 
 398 ; on recompenses of, ii. 64. 
 
 Honours and titles, Montaigne's dis- 
 regard of, iii. 280. 
 
 Horace, Montaigne's opinion of, ii. 
 103. 
 
 Horn, Count, beheaded, i. 33. 
 
 Horse, account of Ca3sar's, i. 3S5 ; 
 exercise recommended, i. 385. 
 
 Horses of war, or destriers, i. 383 ; 
 training of, by Mamelukes, i. 384 ; 
 fame of the Gascon, i. 389 ; love 
 of the Abyssinians for, i. 390; 
 
462 
 
 Index. 
 
 Assyrian, very fierce, i. 390; blood 
 of, drunk by Scythians, i. 391 ; 
 what the Indians thought of them 
 when first discovered, i. 391 ; eat- 
 ing serpents, i. 393. 
 Horsemen, the French the most 
 graceful, i. 393 ; dexterity of, i. 
 
 394- 
 
 Hospital, letter of Montaigne to 
 Monsieur de 1', li. 
 
 Housekeeping, on, iii. 217 ; the 
 troubles of, iii. 219. 
 
 Housewifery, the most honourable 
 and profitable knowledge for the 
 mother of a family, iii. 253. 
 
 Human happiness, in what it con- 
 sists, iii. 38. 
 
 Hungarians, their custom in war, i. 
 261 ; use of coaches in war by, iii. 
 
 153- 
 Husbandry a servile employment, 
 
 i. 302. 
 Hyposphagma, ii. 364. 
 
 Idanthyrses, king of Scythia, his 
 
 answer to Darius, i. 53. 
 Idleness, i. 34 ; of mind causes follies 
 
 and extravagances, i. 35 ; against, 
 
 ii. 465. 
 Ignatius, father and son, slain by 
 
 each other, i. 276. 
 Ill means employed to a good end, 
 
 ii- 473- 
 
 Imagination, the force of, i. 97 ; 
 effects of, i. 101 ; power of, over 
 beasts, i. 108 ; effects of, infectious, 
 i. 109 ; makes things greater than 
 they are, ii. 53. 
 
 Imitators more hurtful than inven- 
 tors, i. 131. 
 
 Immortality of the soul, Plato's argu- 
 ments on, ii. 146 ; by whom first 
 introduced, ii. 299. 
 
 Impetuosity, the dangers and disad- 
 vantages of, iii. 299 
 
 Inclinations/iwe are led by our, ii. 3. 
 
 Inconstancy of our actions, ii. 1 ; 
 the benefit of, iii. 65. 
 
 Inconveniences of greatness, iii. 174. 
 
 Indians, Avar custom of, i. 16 ; custom 
 of, with respect to an enemy over- 
 come by the king in person, i. 59 ; 
 custom of, after defeat, i. 268 ; 
 their opinion of horses, i. 391 ; 
 sacrifices of, ii. 454 ; of America, 
 courage of, iii. 166. 
 
 Inequality amongst us, i. 346. 
 
 Infirmity, faults of, to be distin- 
 guished from faults of malice, i. 60. 
 
 Injury caused by want of modera- 
 tion, ii. 455. 
 
 Injustices done in life cannot be 
 amended after death, i. 33. 
 
 Innovation and change, love of, 
 natural to man, iii. 216. 
 
 Innovations dangerous in states, iii. 
 230. 
 
 Instinct of animals, ii. 159, 166, 170 
 et seq. ; of birds, ii. 180. 
 
 Institution of orders of merit, ii. 64. 
 
 Intention is judge of our actions, i. 32. 
 
 Interests not to be followed too pre- 
 cipitately, iii. 307. 
 
 Interpretation of dreams, iii. 424. 
 
 Iphigenia, sacrifice of, i. 8. 
 
 Iscolas, his defence of a pass against 
 the Arcadians, i. 262. 
 
 Isocrates, advice of, to his king, iii. 
 
 154- 
 
 Isthmus, sacrifice of Amurath at the 
 taking of, i. 247. 
 
 Italian language, the, ii. 290 ; pro- 
 verb, iii. 334. 
 
 Italians great letter-writers, i. 314; 
 compared with other nations, ii. 
 124 ; and French compared, iii. 
 130 ; marriage laws of the, iii. 130. 
 
 James, king of Naples and Sicily, 
 iii- S3- 
 
 Jaropelc, Duke of Russia, his treat- 
 ment of a traitor, iii. 13. 
 
 Jealousy, the effects of, iii. 104 ; 
 natural to women, iii. 112. 
 
 Jews, cruel treatment of, by John, 
 king of Portugal, i. 319. 
 
Index. 
 
 46, 
 
 Joachim, a Calabrian abbot, his pro- 
 phetical book, i. 51. 
 Johannes Secundus, ii. 102. 
 Jokes, on practical, iii. 206. 
 Joy, deaths caused by sudden, i. II. 
 Jubellius, suicide of, ii. 37. 
 Judged, how a man should be, i. 347. 
 Judging of the death of another, on, 
 
 ii- 373- 
 Judgment soonest upset by fear, i. 
 67 ; uncertainty of our, i. 374 ; 
 should be used in everything, i. 
 
 4°3- 
 
 Juggernaut, the, ii. 40. 
 
 Julian the Apostate, his character, ii. 
 456, 457 ; death of, ii. 45S ; his 
 vision, ii. 459. 
 
 Justice and power of God insepar- 
 able, i. 421 ; the virtue of kings, 
 iii. 157. 
 
 Justus Lipsius, ii. 336. 
 
 IvAREXTY, marriages in the town of, 
 iii. 255. 
 
 Kindness, the pleasure derived from, 
 iii. 25. 
 
 Kings, the duties of, difficult to per- 
 form, iii. 177 ; the danger of oppos- 
 ing, iii. 181 ; their need of good 
 advisers, iii. 395 ; kissing, on, iii. 
 128. 
 
 Knighthood, orders of, ii. 65. 
 
 Knowledge, the true end of, i. 162; 
 the end of virtue, i. 192 ; the desire 
 for, how injurious, ii. 220 ; inse- 
 curity of our, iii. 164 ; the desire 
 of, natural, iii. 375. 
 
 Know thyself, iii. 390. 
 
 La Boetie, Montaigne's account of 
 the death of, xxxi ; Montaigne's 
 account of his character, &c, Iii. 
 
 Labour and pleasure, the union of, 
 ii. 462. 
 
 Lacedaemonian system of education, 
 i. 203 ; valour had to be moderated, 
 iii. 45 ; women, chastity of, iii. 
 98. 
 
 Lacedaemonians, ceremony of, at the 
 interment of their kings, i. 14 ; 
 cunning of, at Platsea, i. 53 ; the 
 greatest legislators and generals, 
 i. 165 ; natural high spirit of the, 
 ii. 23 ; custom of, on entering 
 battle, ii. 404; answer of, to Anti- 
 pater, iii. 12. 
 
 Ladislaus, death of, ii. 534. 
 
 Lselius and Scipio, friendship of, i. 
 
 344- 
 Lahontan, the life of the inhabitants 
 
 of, ii. 600. 
 Language, on the French, iii. 117; 
 
 obscure and unintelligible, in legal 
 
 documents, iii. 378. 
 Lansac, letter of Montaigne to 
 
 Monsieur de, xlviii. 
 Latin, how learnt by Montaigne, i. 
 
 210. 
 Laugh, the same things make us cry 
 
 and, i. 288. 
 Law in Egypt relative to physicians, 
 
 ii. 587 ; the, frequently punishes 
 
 the innocent for the guilty, iii. 
 
 384- 
 
 Laws should not be altered without 
 good reasons, i. 113; danger of 
 altering, easily, i. 129 ; an altera- 
 tion in, sometimes necessary, i. 
 135 ; suspended by Agesilaus for 
 twenty-four hours, i. 135; sump- 
 tuary, i. 359 ; Epicurus and Plato 
 on, ii. 308 ; changes in the English, 
 ii. 337 ; whence they derive their 
 authority, ii. 343 ; number of ex- 
 cessive, iii. 337. 
 
 Lawsuits, Montaigne free from, all 
 his life, iii. 312. 
 
 Learning expands the mind, i. 151 ; 
 uselessness of superficial, i. 156 ; 
 without understanding, useless, i. 
 161 ; a little is a dangerous weapon, 
 i. 161; much, not required in women, 
 i. 161 ; effects of, on the temper, 
 i. 166; effects of, on the Roman 
 nation, i. 166; the conduct of our 
 lives is the true mirror of our, 
 
464 
 
 Index. 
 
 i. 202 ; maybe overvalued, ii. 137 ; 
 the advantages and dangers of, iii. 
 
 340. 
 Legislators of ancient nations claimed 
 
 divine authority, ii. 406. 
 Leo, Emperor, his prophetical book, 
 
 i. Si-* 
 
 Lepidus, commands of, respecting 
 his funeral, i. 19. 
 
 Leprosy, strange cure of a, ii. 605. 
 
 Letter of Henry III. to Montaigne, 
 xxv. 
 
 Letter of Montaigne to Monsieur de 
 . Montaigne, xxxi, xlvii ; to Mon- 
 sieur de Lansac, xl viii ; to Monsieur 
 de Mesmes, xlix ; to Monsieur de 
 l'Hospital, li ; to Monsieur de Foix, 
 liv ; to his wife, lviii ; to Mon- 
 sieur Dupuy, lx ; to the jurats of 
 Bordeaux, lx, lxii ; to an un- 
 known correspondent, lxiii ; to 
 Mile. Paulmier, Ixiv ; to Henry 
 IV., Ixiv; to the governor of 
 Guienne, Ixviii. 
 
 Letter to Madame de Duras, ii. 606. 
 
 Letter-writers, the Italians great, i. 
 
 3H- 
 
 Letter-writing, Montaigne on his 
 own, i. 313. 
 
 Liars, on, i. 36 ; have need of a good 
 memory, i. 39. 
 
 Liberality of mind, Montaigne's, i. 
 2S3. 
 
 Liberality of Csesar, ii. 64. 
 
 Liberality, on, iii. 1 56 ; must be 
 joined with justice, iii. 157 ; ex- 
 cess of, injurious, iii. 158. 
 
 Liberty of conscience, on, ii. 455. 
 
 Liberty, what is true, iii. 350; Mon- 
 taigne's love of, iii. 386. 
 
 Libraries, how preserved by the 
 Goths, i. 166. 
 
 Library, Montaigne's, iii. 54. 
 
 Lie, on giving the, ii. 449. 
 
 Liege, how the city of, was saved 
 from the Duke of Burgundy, iii. 58. 
 
 Lies and untruth, difference between, 
 i. 38. 
 
 Life, how to judge of a man's, i.- 73 ; 
 main object of, pleasure, i. 74; all 
 expect a long, i. 78 ; the perpetual 
 work of, i. 91 ; what the usefulness 
 of, consists in, i. 94 ; the true ob- 
 ject of, iii. 438. 
 
 Lion and Androclus, story of the, ii. 
 190. 
 
 Literature and learning, opposition 
 to, in former times, ii. 219; none 
 at Sparta, ii. 219. 
 
 Literature, effects of love on, iii. 82. 
 
 Lithuanian custom of execution of 
 criminals, iii. 16. 
 
 Little causes give rise to great events, 
 
 iii- 3 J 3- 
 
 Lord's prayer, the, should be more 
 frequently used, i. 420. 
 
 Louis XL, confidence of, in his sub- 
 jects, i. 145. 
 
 Louis, Saint, his penance, i. 331. 
 
 Love towards women, i. 225 ; defini- 
 tion of, by the Stoics, i. 229 ; of 
 children is next to self-preserva- 
 tion, ii. 71 ; how to cure excessive, 
 iii. 64 ; effects of, on literature, iii. 
 82 ; the definition of, iii. 121. 
 
 Lucan, death of, ii. 93. 
 
 Lucretia, a French, ii. 4. 
 
 Lucretius, Montaigne's opinion of, 
 ii. 103. 
 
 Lycas, the philosopher, his madness, 
 ii. 216. 
 
 Lycurgus, his object in establishing 
 cemeteries in cities, i. 86 : means 
 adopted by, to prevent alteration 
 in his laws, i. 130; his civil regi- 
 men perfect, i. 163 ; on thieving, 
 ii. 340 ; law of, on married life, ii. 
 
 3 . 83 - *.. 
 
 Lying, on, iii. 78 ; on the habit of, 
 
 amongst the French, ii. 453. 
 
 MACEDON, no orators in, i. 406. 
 Magpie, Plutarch's anecdote of a, ii. 
 
 174. 
 Mahomet's opposition to learning, 
 
 ii. 219. 
 
Index. 
 
 4^5 
 
 Mamelukes, their training of horses, 
 i. 384. 
 
 Man, insignificance of, compared with 
 his maker, ii. 152. 
 
 Management of the will, on the, iii. 
 292. 
 
 Marcellinus, death of, ii. 380. 
 
 Marcius, Quintus, a Roman legate, 
 cunning of, i. 25. 
 
 Mare's milk greatly esteemed hy the 
 Tartars, i. 392. 
 
 Marguerite of Navarre, iii. 147. 
 
 Marie de Gournay le Jars, Mon- 
 taigne's adopted daughter, ii. 448. 
 
 Marius and Sylla, the bitter enmity 
 between, iii. 307. 
 
 Marriage of Montaigne, iii. 
 
 Marriage, i. 226 ; on the obligations 
 of, iii. 113; laws of the Italians, 
 iii. 130 ; laws of Plato, iii. 134. 
 
 Marriages, Plato on, i. 50 ; between 
 relations, i. 243 ; early, disadvan- 
 tages of, ii. 75 ; the proper age for, 
 ii. 76 ; customs of various nations 
 with respect to the age for, ii. 76 ; 
 of love, iii. 84. 
 
 Marseilles, old custom at, i. 130. 
 
 Martinella, a bell rung for a month 
 previous to declaration of war by 
 the Florentines, i. 27. 
 
 Masks invented by Poppea, ii. 385. 
 
 Massilian horses well trained, i. 
 
 389- 
 
 Maxim of war, a, i. 375. 
 
 Mayor of Bordeaux, Montaigne on 
 his conduct as, iii. 316. 
 
 Meals, customs at, i. 398 ; Mon- 
 taigne's habits at, iii. 430. 
 
 Meddling in the business of others 
 to be avoided, iii. 293. 
 
 Meditation, the power of, iii. 42 ; 
 Aristotle on, iii. 42. 
 
 Memory and understanding distinct, 
 i. 36 ; treacherous, of Montaigne, 
 i. 36 ; advantages of a bad, i. 37 ; 
 liars have need of a good, i. 39 ; 
 importance of, ii. 432 : Montaigne's 
 defective, ii. 432 ; Montaigne on 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
 his, iii. 236 ; dangers of a defec- 
 tive, iii. 236. 
 
 Men should be judged for themselves, 
 and not for their possessions, i. 347 ; 
 of the most excellent, ii. 563. 
 
 Menalippus, a tragedy of Euripides, 
 i. 427. 
 
 Mesmes, letter of Montaigne to Mon- 
 sieur de, xlix. 
 
 Messalina, conduct of, iii. 1 14. 
 
 Mexican custom of the king in wear- 
 ing clothes, i. 282. 
 
 Mexico, account given of the king to 
 Fernando Cortez, i. 248 ; magnifi- 
 cence of the cities of, iii. 165 ; cruel 
 treatment of the king of, by the 
 Spaniards, iii. 170; belief of the 
 aborigines of, respecting the crea- 
 tion and progress of the world, iii. 
 172 ; civilisation of the aborigines 
 of, iii. 172 ; custom in, at the coro- 
 nation of a king, iii. 201. 
 
 Midas, king of Phrygia, ii. 334. 
 
 Military men, the faith of, is very 
 uncertain, i. 29. 
 
 Military profession, the, proper to 
 the French nobility, ii. 68. 
 
 Military profession, the, iii. 421. 
 
 Milk, mare's, greatly esteemed by 
 the Tartars, i. 392. 
 
 Mind hindered by itself, ii. 381. 
 
 Minds long lain idle run into extra- 
 vagances and follies, i. 35 ; innu- 
 merable degrees of, i. 346. 
 
 Miracle at the siege of Angoul^me, 
 i. 273 ; at the siege of Arona, i. 
 274. 
 
 Miracles, reported, i. 220 ; reported 
 by Tacitus, iii. 211 ; on the origin 
 of, iii. 327. 
 
 Miraculous transmission of neAVS, i. 
 219. 
 
 Mithridates and his flatterers, iii. 
 180. 
 
 Moderation, i. 241 ; injuries caused 
 by want of, ii. 455. 
 
 Mohammed, cruelty of, ii. 496 ; dis- 
 position of, ii. 533. 
 
 2 G 
 
466 
 
 Index. 
 
 Mohammed II. , his murder of his 
 
 brother, iii. 14. 
 Mohammedans, objection of, to the 
 
 teaching of rhetoric, i. 405. 
 Monarchical government, eloquence 
 
 less needed in, i. 406. 
 Monarchy, the troubles of, i. 352. 
 Money matters, Montaigne on, i. 
 334 ; on borrowing, i. 334 ; on sav- 
 ing, i- 336 ; Montaigne's careless- 
 ness in, iii. 223. 
 Monstrous child, of a, ii. 510. 
 Montaigne, his birth, xi ; his family, 
 xi ; his education, xi ; his mar- 
 riage, xiii ; his early publications, 
 xv ; his tour in Italy and Swit- 
 zerland, xvi ; his visit to Rome, 
 xix ; revision of the Essays by 
 the Master of the Sacred Palace, 
 xxii ; elected a citizen of Rome, 
 xxiii ; elected Mayor of Bordeaux, 
 xxv ; letter of Henry III. to, 
 xxv ; his administration as 
 Mayor, xxvi ; editions of the Es- 
 says, xxvii ; becomes acquainted 
 with Mademoiselle de Gournay, 
 xxvii ; his political life, xxviii ; 
 death of, xxix ; opinions of 
 French authors on, xxx ; his 
 disposition free from any violent 
 passions, i. 11 ; his memory 
 treacherous, i. 36 ; not talkative, 
 i. 37 ; date of his birth, i. 78 ; his 
 fear of death, i. 81 ; his disposi- 
 tion, i. 83, 212; always prepared for 
 death, i. 84 ; most sensible of the 
 power of imagination, i. 97 ; his 
 description of his own style, i. 1 1 1 ; 
 his aversion to novelty, i. 1 30 ; his 
 reasons for abstaining from poli- 
 tics, i. 133 ; his objection to phy- 
 sic, i. 141 ; his favourite authors, 
 i. 168 ; his education, i. 210; how 
 he learnt Latin and Greek, i. 210 ; 
 his tutors, i. 211 ; his youth, i. 
 213 ; passed through college at 
 the age of thirteen, i. 213 ; his 
 powers of actin at the age of 
 
 twelve, i. 215; his liberality of 
 mind, i. 283 ; his choice of books, 
 i- 3°5 5 on his own Essays, i. 311 ; 
 on his own style of writing, i. 313 ; 
 on his own letters, i. 313 ; his three 
 habits in money matters, i. 334 ; 
 his method in writing Essays, i. 
 401 ; on drunkenness, ii. 15 ; his 
 father, description of, iL 16 ; his 
 objection to inquisitiveness, ii. 44 ; 
 his swooning on one occasion, ii. 
 54 ; on self-study, ii. 60 ; married 
 at the age of thirty-three, ii. 76 ; 
 his imperfect knowledge of Greek, 
 iL 102 ; his opinion of the classic 
 poets, ii. 103 ; his habit of making 
 notes in books, ii. 114 ; on his own 
 character, ii. 125 ; his tenderness 
 of disposition, ii. 128, 132 ; his an- 
 cestors surnamed Eyquem, ii. 402 ; 
 natural disposition of, ii. 422 ; his 
 adopted daughter, ii. 448 ; his an- 
 tipathy to physic, ii. 580 ; his hat- 
 red of lying, iii. 7 ; his capability 
 of contracting friendship, iii. 44; 
 naturally open and free, iii. 47 ; his 
 dislike of ceremony, iii. 48 ; his 
 enjoyment of books, iii. 53 ; his 
 description of his library, iii. 54 ; 
 his dislike of a gloomy disposition, 
 iii. 77 ; his practice of confession, 
 iii. 79 ; his desire of fame, iii. 79 ; 
 description of his daughter, iii. 92 ; 
 his dislike to coaches, iii. 152 ; his 
 love of travelling, iii. 216 ; his 
 father's love of building, iii. 220 ; 
 his dislike of public life, iii. 222 ; 
 his carelessness in money matters, 
 iii. 223 ; his aversion to business, 
 iii. 224 ; his hatred of poverty, 
 iii. 224 ; on his memory, iii. 236 ; 
 on the composition of his Essays, 
 iii. 238 ; the date of his first pub- 
 lications, iii. 238; his neglect of 
 orthography and punctuation in 
 his writings, iii. 238 ; his dislike of 
 being under obligations, iii. 243 ; 
 his love for Paris, iii. 250 ; his pre- 
 
Index. 
 
 467 
 
 f erence for giving to receiving bene- 
 fits, iii. 256 ; his carelessness rela- 
 tive to meals, iii. 269 ; his love of a 
 private life, iii. 273 ; his dislike of 
 compulsion in any matter, iii. 273 ; 
 on the titles and contents of his Es- 
 says, iii. 2S2 ; on the rambling na- 
 ture of his Essays, iii. 282 ; his dis- 
 like of obscurity in writings, iii. 
 283 ; his reason for increasing the 
 length of some of his later Essays, 
 iii. 283 ; his reflections over the 
 ruins of Rome, iii. 284 ; his quiet 
 life, iii. 287 ; granted the citizen- 
 ship of Rome, iii. 288 ; his dislike 
 to interfering in the business of 
 others, iii. 293 ; elected Mayor of 
 Bordeaux, iii. 294 ; re-elected, iii. 
 295 ; his account of his own dispo- 
 sition, iii. 295 ; on his conduct as 
 Mayor of Bordeaux, iii. 316 ; his 
 gi eat love of liberty, iii. 386; his 
 mole of life, iii. 397 ; his rules 
 as to meals, iii. 430. 
 
 Montmorency, Monsieur de, his treat- 
 ment of the defenders of Pavia, i. 
 58 ; death of, ii. 448. 
 
 Motion of the earth, by whom first 
 told, ii. 325. 
 
 Motions of the body express various 
 sentiments, ii. 158. 
 
 Motto of Socrates, a, iii. 43. 
 
 Mourning, customs of, i. 400. 
 
 Mule, cunning of a, ii. 184. 
 
 Muley Moloch, king of Fez, death 
 of, ii. 469, 470. 
 
 Mullets, cunning of, ii. 193. 
 
 Murder discovered by a dog, ii. 
 189. 
 
 Mussidhan (Mncidan), complaints of 
 treachery at taking of, i. 29. 
 
 Mutiny, how to act in time of, i. 147. 
 
 Names derived in France from 
 estates, i. 370 ; can be assumed by 
 any person, i. 373 ; number of per- 
 sonages of the same, in history, 
 i- 373. 
 
 Narsinga, funeral customs of, i. 318, 
 ii. 487.^ 
 
 Natural inclinations assisted by edu- 
 cation, iii. 30; the difficulty of 
 altering, iii. 30. 
 
 Natural disposition of Montaigne 
 open and free, iii. 47. 
 
 Nature, the lesson of, on life and 
 death, i. 95 ; the power of, i. 106 ; 
 inclines us to society, i. 224 ; of a 
 man may be seen in small as well 
 as great things, i. 402 ; the force 
 of, iii. 31 ; opposed to the laws, 
 iii. 275. 
 
 Necessity of exercise to the soul, ii. 
 
 5 °- 
 Negligence the opposite of curiosity, 
 
 ii. 43. 
 
 Neorites, burial customs of the, iii. 
 
 354- 
 Nero and his two soldiers, anecdote 
 
 of, i. 14. 
 News, miraculous transmission of, 
 
 i. 219. 
 Niobe, i. 8. 
 Noble actions are easily obscured, 
 
 i. 285. 
 Not to counterfeit being sick, ii. 480. 
 Notre Dame la Grande at Poitiers, 
 
 origin of the foundation of, i. 368. 
 Novelty prompts curiosity, i. 218; 
 
 Montaigne's aversion to, i. 130. 
 Numidian cavalry accustomed to 
 
 have a second horse in battle, i. 383. 
 
 Oaths, on, iii. 120. 
 
 Obligations of marriage, on the, iii. 
 
 "3- 
 
 Obscurity in writings to be avoided 
 iii. 283 ; of language in legal docu- 
 ments, iii. 378. 
 
 Observation on the means to carry on 
 a war according to Julius Csesar, 
 ii. 541. 
 
 Obstinacy, a quality of mean souls, 
 i. 183 ; justly punishable, i. 58 ; 
 a proof of folly, iii. 205 ; of the 
 Gascons, ii. 527. 
 
468 
 
 Index. 
 
 Occupation necessary to some, iii. 294. 
 
 Odours, effect of various, i. 418. 
 
 Offices, on the conferring of, iii. 197. 
 
 Old, the, should give place to the 
 young, ii. 77. 
 
 Old age, rare to die of, i. 432 ; in- 
 firmities of, ii. 83 ; the only cause 
 of death in Brazil, ii. 21 1. 
 
 Olivier, Chancellor, saying of, on the 
 French, ii. 427. 
 
 Opinions of the ancient philosophers 
 on the nature of God, ii. 244 ; on 
 future life, ii. 248. 
 
 Opposition increases our desires, iii. 
 132. 
 
 Oracles, Cicero on the decay of, i. 46 ; 
 when they hegan to lose credit, 
 i. 46. 
 
 Orange, assassination of the Prince 
 of, ii. 508. 
 
 Orators not esteemed in well-ordered 
 republics, i. 405 ; none in Persia 
 or Macedon, i. 406. 
 
 Oratory of Caesar described by Sue- 
 tonius, i. 208 ; different styles of, 
 i. 209. 
 
 Order of the Band or Scarf, rules of, 
 i. 390 ; of St. Michael, ii. 65 : of 
 the Saint-Esprit, ii. 68. 
 
 Orders of merit, institution of, ii. 64 ; 
 advantages of, ii. 65 ; of knight- 
 hood, ii. 65 ; of merit should not 
 be made common, ii. 66. 
 
 Ordinances, Divine, to be soberly 
 judged, i. 267. 
 
 Oriental princes, pride and arro- 
 gance of, i. 59. 
 
 Oriental custom of widows, ii. 504. 
 
 Origcn, his recantation of Christian- 
 ity, iii. 79. 
 
 Orlando Furioso and ^Eneid com- 
 pared, ii. 106. 
 
 Orosius, bishop of Selves, i. 426. 
 
 Ostracism and Pelatism, ii. 528. 
 
 Oxen, instinct of, ii. 172. 
 
 PACUVIUS Calavius, how he quieted 
 a disturbance at Capua, iii. 230. 
 
 Pain, contempt of, i. 322 ; the cause 
 of our impatience of, i. 324, 326 ; to 
 be lessened by patience, i. 324 ; we 
 must not give way to, i. 327 ; in- 
 stances of endurance of, i. 328 ; not 
 always to be avoided, ii. 214 ; and 
 pleasure, the connection between, 
 iii. 413, 416. 
 
 Panic at the capture of Carthage, i. 70. 
 
 Paracelsus on physic, ii. 326. 
 
 Parents should not be niggardly to 
 their children, ii. 73 ; how they 
 should treat their children, ii. 74 ; 
 how they should be addressed by 
 their children, ii. 80. 
 
 Paris, offensive smells in, i. 419 ; 
 Montaigne's love for, iii. 250. 
 
 Parley, ought the governor of a 
 besieged place himself to go out to, 
 i. 25 ; the hour of, is dangerous, i. 
 29 ; cities taken during a, i. 31. 
 
 Parsimony of the ancients, i. 409. 
 
 Parthians, their custom to do all 
 business on horseback, i. 385 ; of 
 the arms of the, ii. 95, 98. 
 
 Passions, effects of various, ii. 10. 
 
 Pastimes, on, iii. 443. 
 
 Patience, pain to be lessened by, i. 
 324 ; the advantages of, iii. 311. 
 
 Paulmier, letter of Montaigne to 
 Mademoiselle, lxiv. 
 
 Pedantic displays, iii. 46. 
 
 Pedantry, i. 1 50 ; how termed in 
 Perigordian patois, i. 158. 
 
 Pelagia and Sophronia, their deaths, 
 
 ii. 33- 
 
 Pelopidas, his conduct on his trial, 
 
 i- 3- 
 
 Penance, instances of, i. 331. 
 
 Perfumes, objection to, i, 417 ; Scy- 
 thian use of, i. 417 ; use of, by king 
 of Tunis in dishes, i. 419. 
 
 Periander, unnatural conduct of, iii. 
 129. 
 
 Pericles and Thucydides, i. 405. 
 
 Perseus of Macedon, his death, i. 364. 
 
 Persia, no orators in, i. 406. 
 
 Persians, education amongst, i. 163. 
 
Index. 
 
 469 
 
 Persian kings, custom of, with their 
 
 wives, i. 245. 
 Peru, cruel treatment of the king of, 
 
 by the Spaniards, iii. 169. 
 Petronius, death of, ii. 551. 
 Phalarica, a weapon of the Italians, 
 
 i. 387. 
 Pharsalia, Plutarch's account of, i. 
 
 379- 
 
 Philip of Macedon, his opinion of 
 the Romans, i. 249 ; city of rogues 
 founded by, iii. 228. 
 
 Philistus, death of, ii. 468. 
 
 Philopaemen, personal appearance of, 
 ii. 421. 
 
 Philosophers, bravery of, i. 55 ; ignor- 
 ance of the world amongst the an- 
 cient, i. 151 ; various sayings of, 
 ii. 21. 
 
 Philosophical discourses, advantages 
 of, i. 191. 
 
 Philosophise, to, what it is, ii. 23. 
 
 Philosophy, to study, is to learn to 
 die, i. 74; what is true, i. 178; 
 should be taught early, i. 194 ; the 
 design of, ii. 226; not opposed to 
 moderate pleasures, iii. 142 ; the 
 foundation, progress, and end of, 
 iii. 329. 
 
 Phocion, anecdote of, iii. 36. 
 
 Phryne, the trial of, iii. 367. 
 
 Physic, Montaigne's objection to, i. 
 141, ii. 580 ; Paracelsus on, ii. 326. 
 
 Physicians and their treatment of 
 patients, 107 ; tricks of, ii. 583 ; 
 instances of persons living long 
 without, ii. 584 ; iEsop on, ii. 587 ; 
 law in Egypt relative to, ii. 587 ; 
 their choice of drugs, ii. 588, 589 ; 
 eminent amongst the ancients, ii. 
 590 ; errors of, ii. 594 ; Tiberias on, 
 iii. 396 ; disagreements amongst, 
 iii. 408. 
 Physiognomy, of, iii. 337. 
 Pibrac, Monsieur de, iii. 229. 
 Pigeons used for carrying messages, 
 
 ii. 472. 
 Piso, the judgment of, iL 517. 
 
 Pity reported a vice amongst the 
 
 Stoics, i. 3. 
 Plague in Gascony, iii. 352 ; condi- 
 tion of Gascony during the, iii. 354. 
 Plataea, battle of, i. 284. 
 Plato, a precept of, i. 12 ; on mar- 
 riages, i. 50 ; saying of, on custom, 
 i. 115 ; on prophesying, ii. 22 ; on 
 making of wills, ii. 88 ; his origin 
 and descent, ii. 269 ; on laws. ii» 
 308 ; marriage law of, iii. 134 ; 
 laws of, on travelling, iii. 257 ; on 
 lawyers and physicians, iii. 378. 
 Plays and shows, necessity and use 
 
 of, at Rome, iii. 159. 
 Pleasure, two kinds of, i. 75 ; none 
 produced by riches of themselves, i. 
 340 ; not always to be pursued, ii. 
 214 ; and labour, the union of, ii. 
 462 ; felt in the troubles of others, 
 iii. 2 ; derived from well-doing, iii. 
 25 ; and pain, the connection be- 
 tween, iii. 413-416. 
 Pleasures to be avoided even at the 
 expense of life, i. 270 ; satiety of, 
 tires, i. 355 ; in moderation not 
 opposed to philosophy, iii. 142. 
 Pliny the younger and Cicero com- 
 pared, i. 308. 
 Plutarch, saying of, on pets, i. 22 ; 
 Montaigne's opinion of, ii. 106 ; 
 and Seneca compared, ii. 107 ; pre- 
 ference of, ii. in ; and Seneca, 
 defence of, ii. 522 ; and Tacitus 
 compared, iii. 209 ; on certain of 
 his writings, iii. 2S2 ; and Seneca 
 on death, iii. 342. 
 Poesie populaire, i. 415. 
 Poetry easier to write than to under- 
 stand, i. 286 ; power of, over Mon- 
 taigne, i. 287. 
 Poets, Montaigne's opinion of the 
 
 classic, ii. 103. 
 Poisonous sea-hares, ii. 363. 
 Politeness, Margaret of Navarre on, 
 
 i.56. 
 Politics, Montaigne's reasons for ab- 
 staining from, i. 133. 
 
47o 
 
 Index. 
 
 Polycrates of Samos and his ring, ii. 
 
 255. 
 Polypus, changes of colour in the, ii. 
 
 179. 
 Pompeia Paulina, the story of, ii. 
 
 558. 
 Pompey pardoned the city of the 
 
 Matnertines for the sake of Zeno, 
 
 L 5- 
 .Poneropolis, the city of rogues, 
 
 founded hy Philip, iii. 228. 
 Pont-Neuf, huilding of the, iii. 155. 
 Poppea, invention of masks by, ii. 
 
 385- 
 
 Portuguese, cruelty of, to prisoners, 
 i. 259. 
 
 Posting, on, ii. 471. 
 
 Poverty, Montaigne's dread of, iii. 
 224 ; of soul irreparable, iii. 300. 
 
 Power, we are not bound beyond 
 our, i. 33 ; and justice of God in- 
 separable, i. 421. 
 
 Practice makes perfect, ii. 50. 
 
 Praetor, treachery of a Roman, i. 29. 
 
 Prayer, the Lord's, should be more 
 frequently used, i. 420; true, can- 
 not enter into an impure soul, i. 
 429. 
 
 Prayers, on, i. 419 ; not to be lightly 
 used, i. 422 ; too much used for 
 fashion's sake, i. 422 ; Pythagorean 
 doctrine about, i. 430. 
 
 Presumption natural to man, ii. 156 ; 
 on, ii. 408 ; consists of two parts, 
 ii. 411. 
 
 Pride of Oriental princes, i. 59. 
 
 Priest Martin, what it is, iii. 69. 
 Princes, the actions of, are to be 
 judged after their decease, i. 13 ; 
 ceremony at interviews of, i. 56. 
 Private life, Montaigne's love of, iii. 
 
 273- 
 Probus, the Emperor, his great show 
 
 in the Roman amphitheatre, iii. 
 
 160. 
 Procrastination, consequences of, ii. 
 
 44. 
 Profession, the military, iii. 421 ; the 
 
 military, proper to the French 
 
 nobility, ii. 68. 
 Profit of one is damage to another, 
 
 i. 112 ; and honesty, of, iii. 1. 
 Prognostications, on, i. 46. 
 Promises, on keeping, iii. 242. 
 Property, loss of, not a real loss, i. 
 
 296 ; on the disposition of, by will, 
 
 ii. 87. 
 Prophecies, ambiguous wording of, 
 
 i. 51. 
 Prophesying, Plato on, ii. 22. 
 Prophetical book of Emperor Leo, i. 
 
 5 1 ; book of Joachim, a Calabrian 
 
 abbot, i. 51. 
 Protagoras, his rule of payment from 
 
 his pupils, i. 158. 
 Protogenes, the painter, singular 
 
 fortune to, i. 274, 
 Proverb, an Italian, iii. 334 ; a Span- 
 ish, iii. 407. 
 Providence often acts by the rule of 
 
 reason, i. 272. 
 Prudence, excessive, an enemy to all 
 
 noble and generous exploits, i. 145. 
 Psalms, the, not to be lightly used, 
 
 i. 424. 
 Psammenitus, king of Egypt, con- 
 duct of, when captured by Cam- 
 
 byses, i. 7. 
 Public affairs, the evils of being 
 
 engaged in, iii. 8 ; life, the most 
 
 honourable, iii. 222 ; life opposed 
 
 to innocence of morals, iii. 277. 
 Publications, date of Montaigne's 
 
 first, iii. 238. 
 Pulpit, a slow speaker best suited to 
 
 the, i. 43. 
 Punishment of cowardice, i. 59; 
 
 crime brings its own, ii. 46 ; the 
 
 object of, iii. 181. 
 Pure, that we taste, nothing, ii. 461. 
 Pyrrho, anecdote of, i. 322 ; his 
 
 manners and character, ii. 231. 
 Pyrrhonism, ii. 230. 
 Pyrrhus, his opinion of the Romans, 
 i. 240 ; and Cineas, anecdote of, i. 
 
 358. 
 
Index. 
 
 471 
 
 Pythagoras, his mode of teaching, i. 
 
 190 : on transmigration of souls, ii. 
 
 302. 
 Pythagorean doctrine about prayers, 
 
 i. 43°- 
 
 Qualifications of a tutor, i. 174 ; of 
 a king, i. 352. 
 
 Quito, road from, to Cusco, its magni- 
 ficence, iii. 173. 
 
 Quotations, Montaigne on his own, 
 i. 311 ; on, iii. 364. 
 
 RABELAIS, ii. I02. 
 
 Rage, instances of foolish, i. 24. 
 
 Raymond of Tripoli, Count, assassina- 
 tion of, ii. 509. 
 
 Reading, the uses of, iii. 42. 
 
 Reason, Providence often acts by the 
 rale of, i. 272; on human, ii. 284, 
 iii. 323. 
 
 Recompenses of honour, ii. 64. 
 
 Reformation of the calendar by 
 Gregory XIII., iii. 302, 323. 
 
 Reggio, city of, taken by Dionysius, 
 i. 4 ; Phyton, governor of, his 
 courage, i. 4. 
 
 Regillus, a Roman Praetor, treachery 
 of, at Phocsea, i. 29. 
 
 Regrets of dying persons, i. 85. 
 
 Regulus, anecdote of, i. 409 ; and 
 Balbus compared, iii. 176. 
 
 Relations, St. Thomas Aquinas on 
 marriages between, i. 243. 
 
 Religion, the surest foundation of, is 
 contempt of death, i. 89 ; secrets of 
 the Christian, not to be indiscri- 
 minately dispersed, i. 425 ; ancient 
 opinions on, ii. 241 ; of the Bed- 
 ouins, ii. 407 ; effects of the new, 
 in Gascony, iii. 240. 
 
 Remedies, on, iii. 406. 
 
 Remora, a kind of shell- fish, ii. 
 178. 
 
 Repartees, on, iii. 205. 
 
 Repentance, on, iii. 22 ; caused by 
 vice, iii. 25 ; definition of, iii. 27. 
 
 Repetition in writings, on, iii. 235. 
 
 Republics, orators not esteemed in, 
 
 i. 405. 
 Resemblance of children to their 
 
 fathers, ii. 572. 
 Revenge, ii. 486. 
 Revolutions, the evils of, i. 131. 
 Rhetoric, definitions of, i. 405 ; the 
 
 Mohammedans object to teaching 
 
 of, i. 405. 
 Riches of themselves produce no 
 
 pleasure, i. 340. 
 Riders, the French, the most graceful, 
 
 i- 303- 
 Ring of Gyges, ii. 401. 
 Roads in Mexico, magnificence of, 
 
 iii. 173. 
 Robbers, Montaigne's adventure with, 
 
 hi. 37 2 - 
 
 Robbery attempted on Montaigne, 
 iii. 370. 
 
 Rod, the use of the, ii. 75. 
 
 Rogues, city of, founded by Philip, 
 iii. 228. 
 
 Roman senators, generosity of, i. 25 ; 
 soldiers, endurance of, ii. 97 ; elo- 
 quence, when it flourished most, i. 
 406 ; grandeur, of the, ii. 477 ; 
 haughtiness, ii. 478 ; treatment of 
 traitors, iii. 14 ; women, unchastity 
 of, iii. 102 ; soldiers, discipline of, 
 iii. 345 ; conduct of, after the battle 
 of Cannse, iii. 355. 
 
 Romans, treachery of, at Casilinum, 
 i. 30 ; fondness of, for shows and 
 spectacles, iii. 159. 
 
 Rome, superiority of ancient to mo- 
 dern, ii. 205 ; an example of vari- 
 ous kinds of governments, iii. 233 ; 
 the influence of the ruins of, on 
 Montaigne, iii. 284 ; the praises of, 
 iii. 286 ; Montaigne granted the_ 
 citizenship of, iii. 288. 
 
 Rote, to learn by, is no knowledge, i. 
 178. 
 
 Rules of the Order of the Band or 
 Scarf, i. 390. 
 
 Sacrifices of the Indians, ii. 454. 
 
472 
 
 Index. 
 
 Sacrificial customs of the Egyptians, 
 
 ii. 132. 
 Said, story told by the priests of, to 
 
 Solon, i. 250. 
 Saint Esprit, order of the, ii. 68. 
 St. Michael, order of, ii. 65 . 
 Sais, chronicles of the city of, iii. 
 
 329- 
 
 Sallust, style of, ii. 417. 
 Salutation, customs of, i. 396. 
 Saluzzo, Erancis M. de, treachery of, 
 
 from superstition, i. 48. 
 Santones, the, i. 421. 
 Sarmatian women, custom of the, iii. 
 
 131- 
 Saving of money, i. 336. 
 Scsevola, his contempt for pain, i. 
 
 329- 
 
 Scanderberg, prince of Epirus, anec- 
 dote of, i. 2. 
 
 Scene, change of, not sufficient, i. 
 
 295- 
 Scholar, term of reproach amongst 
 
 the Romans, i. 150. 
 Scipio, death of, i. 73 ; courage of, 
 
 i. 145 ; high spirit of, ii. 47. 
 Scribblers, on, iii. 213. 
 Scythian practice in fighting, i. 53 ; 
 
 women, custom of, iii. 105. 
 Scythians, superstition amongst, i. 
 
 109; attachment of, to their ancient 
 
 customs, i. 125 ; their treatment of, 
 
 false prophets, i. 258 ; custom of, 
 
 to drink horses' blood, i. 391 ; 
 
 funeral customs of the, ii. 168. 
 Sea, encroachments of, in Erance, i. 
 
 251. 
 Sea-sickness, Plutarch on, iii. 150. 
 Season, all things have their, ii. 
 
 497- 
 Seat of honour, the middle, the, i. 398; 
 
 of the soul, on the, ii. 286. 
 Sebonde, Raimond de, his book, ii. 
 
 138. 
 Sechel, George, cruel death of, ii. 497. 
 Secrets of the Christian religion not 
 
 to be indiscriminately dispersed, i. 
 
 425 ; on keeping, iii. 8. 
 
 Sedentary occupation, the effects of, 
 
 iii- 335- 
 Sejanus, execution of his daughter, 
 
 iii. 15. 
 Self-dependence most important, i. 
 
 299, iii. 244. 
 Self-respect essential for solitude, i. 
 
 3°7- 
 
 Self-depreciation is foolish, ii. 63. 
 
 Self-love foolish and presumptuous, 
 ii. 63. 
 
 Senators, Roman, nobleness of, i. 25. 
 
 Seneca, Montaigne's opinion of, ii. 
 106 ; and Plutarch compared, ii. 
 107 ; and Plutarch, defence of, ii. 
 522 ; death of, ii. 560 ; and Taci- 
 tus compared, iii. 209 ; and Plu- 
 tarch on death, iii. 342. 
 
 Sense, ii. 443. 
 
 Sepulture, mode of, amongst the 
 Neorites, iii. 354. 
 
 Serpents eaten by horses, i. 393. 
 
 Shows and plays, necessity and use 
 of, iii. 159. 
 
 Shyness, instances of, iii. 124. 
 
 Sick, not to counterfeit being, ii. 480. 
 
 Sickness and health, their effects on 
 the spirits, &c, ii. 316. 
 
 Silence and modesty, necessity of, 
 amongst children, i. 181. 
 
 Silence, the advantages of, iii. 196. 
 
 Simonides, ii. 464. 
 
 Sleep, i. 362 ; want of, a cause of 
 death, i. 364 ; a resemblance of 
 death, ii. 52 ; Zeno on, ii. 298 ; 
 Montaigne's habits as to, iii. 420. 
 
 Smells, i. 416 ; offensive in Paris and 
 Venice, i. 419. 
 
 Sneezing, customs relative to, iii. 
 150. 
 
 Society, Ave are naturally inclined 
 to, i. 224 ; what kind of, desired 
 by Montaigne, iii. 48. 
 
 Socrates, disregard of, for funeral 
 ceremonies, i. 19 ; on bravery in 
 battle, i. 53 ; reply of, to his 
 judges, i. 90 ; method of, with his 
 pupils, i. 175; the character of, ii. 
 
Index. 
 
 473 
 
 1 20 ; his defence "before the Athen- 
 ians, iii. 40 ; a motto of, iii. 43 ; 
 appearance of, iii. 76 ; on mar- 
 riage, iii. 87 ; on the city of 
 Athens, iii. 89 ; courage of, iii. 
 151 ; and Cato compared, iii. 338 ; 
 the simplicity of his defence, iii. 
 339 ; his "Apology," iii. 360 ; con- 
 duct of the Athenians towards the 
 judges of, iii. 362 ; deformed in face 
 and body, iii. 366. 
 
 Soldiers, how they should he armed, 
 i. 376 ; Lycurgus and Hannibal on 
 the arming of, i. 377. 
 
 Solitude, i. 292 ; sought by the re- 
 ligious, i. 303 ; what dispositions 
 it suits, i. 300 ; in travelling, on, 
 iii. 270. 
 
 Solon, maxim of, that none can be 
 judged happy till after death, i. 
 15 ; on the mutability of fortune, 
 i. 71 ; conduct of, on the death of 
 his son, ii. 341 ; laws of, respecting 
 women, iii. no; on his laws for 
 Athens, iii. 229. 
 
 Somnambulism, iii. 424. 
 
 Sonnets of La Boetie, i. 240. 
 
 Sophocles, death of, from joy, i. n. 
 
 Sorrow, a quality always hurtful, 
 i. 7 ; forbidden by the Stoics, i. 7 ; 
 effects of sudden, i. 9. 
 
 Soul, the, discharges her passions 
 upon false objects where the true 
 are wanting, i. 22 ; inclined to de- 
 ceive itself, i. 23 ; can never be at 
 rest while in fear of death, i. 89 ; 
 needs a fixed aim, i. 35 ; what are 
 its scourges, i. 221 ; the various 
 functions of, i. 402 ; transports of, 
 ii. 22 ; the three actions of, ii. 227 ; 
 the ancient philosophers on the 
 nature of, ii. 284 ; on the seat of, 
 ii. 286 ; immortality of, by whom 
 first introduced, ii. 299; the virtue 
 of, iii. 29 ; the true grandeur of, 
 defined, iii. 442. 
 
 Souls, transmigration of, ii. 302. 
 
 Spaniards, treachery of, at Genoa, i. 
 
 31 ; warlike habits of the ancient, 
 i. 332 ; cruel conduct of, towards 
 the aborigines of Peru and Mexico, 
 iii. 169. 
 
 Spaniards and Italians, manners of, 
 iii. 126. 
 
 Sparta, absence of literature and 
 learning from, ii. 219. 
 
 Speaker, a slow, best suited to the 
 pulpit, i. 43. 
 
 Speech, quick and slow, i. 43 ; not 
 necessary, ii. 163. 
 
 Spurnia, the story of, ii. 531. 
 
 Stilpo, a philosopher, his death from 
 drinking, ii. 19. 
 
 Stoics and Epicureans compared, ii. 
 118. 
 
 Stone, the disease of the, iii. 67, 412. 
 
 Stories often repeated become weari- 
 some, i. 38. 
 
 Story of Spurnia, ii. 531 ; of Arria, 
 ii. 556 ; of Pompeia Paulina, ii. 
 558 ; of Atalanta and Hippomenes, 
 iii. 59. 
 
 Strength of a fortress, how to be 
 measured, i. 59. 
 
 Study of courtesy and good manners 
 necessary, i. 57 ; injury from ex- 
 cessive, i. 304. 
 
 Styles of Caesar and Sallust, ii. 417. 
 
 Suabians, custom of the, i. 389. 
 
 Subrius, Flavius, his death, iii. 61. 
 
 Subtleties, on vain, i. 412. 
 
 Suicide, the Stoics on, ii. 25 ; ob- 
 jections to, ii. 26 ; cowardice of, ii. 
 27 ; what occasions are sufficient 
 to justify, ii. 29 ; of Milesian 
 virgins, ii. 29 ; instances of, ii. 30, 
 34 ; failures in attempts at, ii. 377. 
 
 Sumptuary laws, i. 359. 
 
 Sun, opinions of the ancient philo- 
 sophers on the composition of the, 
 ii. 274. 
 
 Superstition amongst Scythians, i. 
 109 ; amongst the Romans on 
 dying, iii. 259. 
 
 Superstitions, i. 217. 
 
 Suspicion a great torment, i. 144. 
 
474 
 
 Index. 
 
 Swallows used for sending messages, 
 
 ii. 472. 
 Swiss, habits of mothers amongst, i. 
 
 328. 
 Swoon, sensations of a, ii. 54. 
 Syllanus, the death of, iii. 62. 
 Synapothanomenes, the Society of, 
 
 iii. 266. 
 Syracuse, defence of, by Archimedes, 
 
 i- 153. 
 
 Tacitus, cause of the rarity of his 
 works, ii. 456 ; the history of, iii. 
 208 ; his style, iii. 209 ; and Seneca 
 compared, iii. 209 ; his opinion of 
 Pompey, iii. 209 ; and Plutarch 
 compared, iii. 209 ; miracles re- 
 ported by, iii. 211. 
 
 Tamerlane, ii. 548. 
 
 Teaching, method of, amongst the 
 ancients, i. 164. 
 
 Temperance and chastity, the duty of 
 practising, iii. 39. 
 
 Temptation, we should pray to be de- 
 livered from, iii. 310. 
 
 Temptations should be stifled in their 
 birth, ii. 123. 
 
 Terence, the authorship of his come- 
 dies, i. 309 ; Montaigne's opinion 
 of, ii. 103. 
 
 Ternate, custom of people of, in 
 commencing and carrying on war, 
 i. 26. 
 
 Thales of Miletus, anecdote of, ii. 
 278 ; on lying, iii. 78. 
 
 Thalestris, queen of the Amazons 
 and Alexander, iii. 132. 
 
 Thasians, reply of Agesilaus, to, ii. 
 266. 
 
 Thebes, capture of, i. 6. 
 
 Theft, persons of good birth given to, 
 ii. 73 ; Lycurgus on, ii. 340. 
 
 Theodoras on the duty of a wise man, 
 i. 404. 
 
 Theoxena, the story of, ii. 494. 
 
 Thief, anecdote of a, iii. 32. 
 
 Thoughts betrayed by the counte- 
 nance, i. 105. 
 
 Thacians, custom of, in a thunder- 
 storm, i. 24 ; kings, custom of, in 
 
 religion, i. 349. 
 Thrasylaus cured of his madness, ii. 
 
 217. 
 Three good women, ii. 553 ; com- 
 merces, on, iii. 41. 
 Thucydides, his opinion of Pericles, 
 
 i. 405. 
 Thumbs, of, ii. 483. 
 Tiberius, letter of, to the Senate, 
 
 iii. 210; on physicians, iii. 396. 
 Time, we are all too prodigal of our, 
 
 iii. 294. 
 Timoleon sent by the Corinthians to 
 
 assist the Syracusans, iii. 1 7. 
 Timon and Diogenes compared, i. 404. 
 Titles and honours, Montaigne's 
 
 disregard for, iii. 288. 
 To-morrow is a new day, ii. 42. 
 Torture, effects of, fear of, ii. 130. 
 Tour of Montaigne in Italy and 
 
 Switzerland, xvi. 
 Training of children, difficulty of 
 
 choosing the proper, i. 173 ; of 
 
 horses by Mamelukes, i. 384 ; of 
 
 Massilian horses, i. 389. 
 Traitors, how punished for their 
 
 treachery, iii. 13, 14. 
 Translations of the Bible, danger 
 
 arising from so many, i. 424. 
 Transmigration of souls believed in 
 
 by the ancient Gauls, ii. 134 ; of 
 
 souls, Pythagoras on, ii. 302. 
 Transports of the soul, ii. 22. 
 Transuhstantiation, ii. 262. 
 Travel, the advantages and true end 
 
 of, ii. 179, iii. 251. 
 Travellers, habits of, iii. 269. 
 Travelling, Montaigne's love of, iii. 
 
 216 ; Montaigne's reasons for, iii. 
 
 226 ; Montaigne's system of, iii. 
 
 252 ; Platonic laws on, iii. 257 ; 
 
 companions, on the choice of, iii. 
 
 270. 
 Treachery, instances of, in war, i. 29 ; 
 
 of the Duke of Alva, i. 33 ; gives 
 
 rise to mistrust, iii. 1 1 ; when ex- 
 
Index. 
 
 475 
 
 disable, iii. 62 ; Montaigne's hatred 
 
 of, iii. 249. 
 Trifles serve to divert, iii. 66. 
 Troubles, small, the most wearing, 
 
 iii. 220 ; should not be anticipated, 
 
 iii. 356. 
 Trust engenders fidelity, i. 145. 
 Truth and falsehood, Pythagorean 
 
 definition of, i. 40 ; and error, a 
 
 folly to measure, by our own capa. 
 
 city, i. 216 ; the teaching of, ii. 
 
 152; importance of, ii. 429; the 
 
 simplicity of, iii. 10 ; the search 
 
 after, the object of our lives, iii. 
 
 190. 
 Turkish practice in fighting, i. 53 ; 
 
 soldiers, discipline of, iii. 345. 
 Turks, strange custom of, i. 330 ; 
 
 courage of some prisoners, ii. 308. 
 Turnebus, Adrian, the most learned 
 
 man, i. 159. 
 Tuscans originated the art of divina- 
 tion, i. 49. 
 Tutors, qualifications of, i. 174 ; of 
 
 Montaigne, i. 211. 
 Tyrant, Plato's definition of a, i. 354. 
 Tyrants always cowards, ii. 493 ; 
 
 cruel revenge of, ii. 495. 
 
 Uncertainty of our judgment, i. 
 
 374- 
 Understanding and memory distinct, 
 
 i. 36 ; essential to true learning, i. 
 
 160. 
 Untruth and lies, difference between, 
 
 i. 38. 
 Use makes perfect, ii. 50 ; of books, 
 
 iii- 53- 
 Usefulness of life, in what it con- 
 sists, i. 94. 
 
 'ain subtleties, on, i. 412. 
 " Valour has its bounds, i. 58 ; the 
 highest degree of virtue, ii. 68 ; of 
 the Lacedasmonians excessive, iii. 
 
 45- 
 Vanity, of, iii. 212 ; displayed in 
 funeral rites, i. 18; of words, i. 405. 
 
 Varus, anecdote of, iii. 2. 
 
 Vaux, Henri de, besieged by the 
 English in Commercy, i. 28. 
 
 Venice, offensive smells in, i. 419. 
 
 Ventriloquism, an instance of, iii. 
 328. 
 
 Verses of Virgil, on some, iii. 71. 
 
 Vespasian, dying words of, ii. 465 ; 
 miracle performed by, iii. 211. 
 
 Vibius Virius, suicide of, ii. 36. 
 
 Vice the cause of repentance, iii. 25 ; 
 how to correct, iii. 77. 
 
 Vices not all equal, ii. 11 ; on the 
 lawfulness of some, iii. 10. 
 
 Virgil, Montaigne's opinion of, ii. 
 103 ; on, ii. 563 ; on some verses 
 of, iii. 71. 
 
 Virtue, benefits of, i. 76 ; teaclies 
 contempt of death, i. 76 ; the end 
 of knowledge, i. 192 ; pushed to 
 extremes is injurious, i. 243 ; De- 
 mosthenes on, ii. 3 ; must be fol- 
 lowed for her own sake, ii. 8 ; ety- 
 mology of, ii. 68 ; defined, ii. 117 ; 
 of, ii. 500 ; of the soul, in what it 
 consists, iii. 29 ; the standard of, 
 has varied in different ages, iii. 
 280. 
 
 Vision of Julian the Apostate, ii. 459. 
 
 Visions and enchantments owe their 
 credit to imagination, i. 100. 
 
 Visitors, on the reception of, iii. 226. 
 
 Wagering at times useful, and 
 when, iii. 185. 
 
 Wallachia, posting in, ii. 472. 
 
 War has many privileges, i. 30 ; cus- 
 toms of aborigines of America, i. 
 260 ; customs of Hungarians, i. 
 261 ; song of the aborigines of 
 America, i. 265 ; a maxim of, i. 
 375 ; customs of the peoples of Asia 
 in, i. 377 ; events in, depend on for- 
 tune, i. 382 ; horses or destriers, 
 i. 383 ; use of coaches in, iii. 153 ; 
 in France, the civil, iii. 343. 
 
 Wealth and power desired in excess 
 by men, iii. 339. 
 
476 
 
 Index. 
 
 Weather, on, iii. 252. 
 
 Widows, custom of, in the East, ii. 
 
 504- 
 
 Wife, letter of Montaigne to his, 
 lviii ; the qualifications of a, i. 161. 
 
 Will, on managing the, iii. 292. 
 
 William, great number of that name 
 in Aquitaine, i. 367. 
 
 Wills, unwillingness of men to make 
 their, i. 78 ; on the making of, ii. 
 87 ; importance of, ii. 87 ; Plato 
 on making of, ii. 88. 
 
 Wine, on the use of, iii. 433. 
 
 Wisdom does not force our natural 
 dispositions, ii. 19. 
 
 Wit and beauty, on, which to be pre- 
 ferred, iii. 52. 
 
 Witch, description of a, iii. 332. 
 
 Witches, superstition regarding, i. 
 109. 
 
 Women, much learning not required 
 in, i. 161 ; love to, i. 225 ; natural 
 disposition of, ii. 82, 86 ; the dan- 
 ger of leaving sole control of pro- 
 perty to, by will, ii. 89 ; conversa- 
 tion of, iii. 49 ; laws of Solon 
 respecting, iii. no; naturally jeal- 
 ous, iii. 112. 
 
 Words, the vanity of, i. 405. 
 
 World, the, a great book, i. 187 ; 
 
 Mexican theories respecting the 
 
 creation, &c, of, iii. 172. 
 Writing and speaking, the proper 
 
 qualities of, i. 207. 
 
 XANTHIANS, suicides amongst, dur- 
 ing the siege by Brutus, i. 319. 
 
 Xenocrates and Lais, ii. 532. 
 
 Xenophanes, the Colophonian, tried 
 to eradicate the art of divination, 
 i. $1. 
 
 Xenophilus, long life of, i. 76. 
 
 Xenophon, his precepts on war not 
 to be followed, i. 30 ; conduct of, 
 on hearing of the death of his son, 
 iii. 63. 
 
 Xerxes, foolish passion of, i. 24 ; at 
 the crossing of the Hellespont, i. 
 291. 
 
 Zeal, excess of, to be avoided, iii. 
 
 292. 
 Zeno, on certain arguments of, iii. 
 
 63 ; chastity of, iii. 123. 
 Ziscar, John, dying command of, to 
 
 his soldiers, i. 16. 
 Zocotora, formerly called Dioscoridcs, 
 
 i. 426. 
 
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