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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3588.txt b/3588.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4fe330 --- /dev/null +++ b/3588.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2179 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 8, by Michel de Montaigne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 8 + +Author: Michel de Montaigne + +Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #3588] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 8 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 8. + +XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers. +XLIX. Of ancient customs. +L. Of Democritus and Heraclitus. +LI. Of the vanity of words. +LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients. +LIII. Of a saying of Caesar. +LIV. Of vain subtleties. +LV. Of smells. +LVI. Of prayers. +LVII. Of age. + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +OF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS + +I here have become a grammarian, I who never learned any language but by +rote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, or ablative. I +think I have read that the Romans had a sort of horses by them called +'funales' or 'dextrarios', which were either led horses, or horses laid +on at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion, and thence it is +that we call our horses of service 'destriers'; and our romances commonly +use the phrase of 'adestrer' for 'accompagner', to accompany. They also +called those that were trained in such sort, that running full speed, +side by side, without bridle or saddle, the Roman gentlemen, armed at all +pieces, would shift and throw themselves from one to the other, +'desultorios equos'. The Numidian men-at-arms had always a led horse in +one hand, besides that they rode upon, to change in the heat of battle: + + "Quibus, desultorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, inter + acerrimam saepe pugnam, in recentem equum, ex fesso, armatis + transultare mos erat: tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile + equorum genus." + + ["To whom it was a custom, leading along two horses, often in the + hottest fight, to leap armed from a tired horse to a fresh one; so + active were the men, and the horses so docile."--Livy, xxiii. 29.] + +There are many horses trained to help their riders so as to run upon any +one, that appears with a drawn sword, to fall both with mouth and heels +upon any that front or oppose them: but it often happens that they do +more harm to their friends than to their enemies; and, moreover, you +cannot loose them from their hold, to reduce them again into order, when +they are once engaged and grappled, by which means you remain at the +mercy of their quarrel. It happened very ill to Artybius, general of the +Persian army, fighting, man to man, with Onesilus, king of Salamis, to be +mounted upon a horse trained after this manner, it being the occasion of +his death, the squire of Onesilus cleaving the horse down with a scythe +betwixt the shoulders as it was reared up upon his master. And what the +Italians report, that in the battle of Fornova, the horse of Charles +VIII., with kicks and plunges, disengaged his master from the enemy that +pressed upon him, without which he had been slain, sounds like a very +great chance, if it be true. + + [In the narrative which Philip de Commines has given of this battle, + in which he himself was present (lib. viii. ch. 6), he tells us + of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was + mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most + beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was + personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de + chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. "The king," says + Commines, "had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore + he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great + way from him, arrived at the critical minute."] + +The Mamalukes make their boast that they have the most ready horses of +any cavalry in the world; that by nature and custom they were taught to +know and distinguish the enemy, and to fall foul upon them with mouth and +heels, according to a word or sign given; as also to gather up with their +teeth darts and lances scattered upon the field, and present them to +their riders, on the word of command. 'T is said, both of Caesar and +Pompey, that amongst their other excellent qualities they were both very +good horsemen, and particularly of Caesar, that in his youth, being +mounted on the bare back, without saddle or bridle, he could make the +horse run, stop, and turn, and perform all its airs, with his hands +behind him. As nature designed to make of this person, and of Alexander, +two miracles of military art, so one would say she had done her utmost to +arm them after an extraordinary manner for every one knows that +Alexander's horse, Bucephalus, had a head inclining to the shape of a +bull; that he would suffer himself to be mounted and governed by none but +his master, and that he was so honoured after his death as to have a city +erected to his name. Caesar had also one which had forefeet like those +of a man, his hoofs being divided in the form of fingers, which likewise +was not to be ridden, by any but Caesar himself, who, after his death, +dedicated his statue to the goddess Venus. + +I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback, for it is the +place where, whether well or sick, I find myself most at ease. Plato +recommends it for health, as also Pliny says it is good for the stomach +and the joints. Let us go further into this matter since here we are. + +We read in Xenophon a law forbidding any one who was master of a horse to +travel on foot. Trogus Pompeius and Justin say that the Parthians were +wont to perform all offices and ceremonies, not only in war but also all +affairs whether public or private, make bargains, confer, entertain, take +the air, and all on horseback; and that the greatest distinction betwixt +freemen and slaves amongst them was that the one rode on horseback and +the other went on foot, an institution of which King Cyrus was the +founder. + +There are several examples in the Roman history (and Suetonius more +particularly observes it of Caesar) of captains who, on pressing +occasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, both by that means to take +from them all hopes of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped in +this sort of fight. + + "Quo baud dubie superat Romanus," + + ["Wherein the Roman does questionless excel."--Livy, ix. 22.] + +says Livy. And so the first thing they did to prevent the mutinies and +insurrections of nations of late conquest was to take from them their +arms and horses, and therefore it is that we so often meet in Caesar: + + "Arma proferri, jumenta produci, obsides dari jubet." + + ["He commanded the arms to be produced, the horses brought out, + hostages to be given."--De Bello Gall., vii. II.] + +The Grand Signior to this day suffers not a Christian or a Jew to keep a +horse of his own throughout his empire. + +Our ancestors, and especially at the time they had war with the English, +in all their greatest engagements and pitched battles fought for the most +part on foot, that they might have nothing but their own force, courage, +and constancy to trust to in a quarrel of so great concern as life and +honour. You stake (whatever Chrysanthes in Xenophon says to the +contrary) your valour and your fortune upon that of your horse; his +wounds or death bring your person into the same danger; his fear or fury +shall make you reputed rash or cowardly; if he have an ill mouth or will +not answer to the spur, your honour must answer for it. And, therefore, +I do not think it strange that those battles were more firm and furious +than those that are fought on horseback: + + "Caedebant pariter, pariterque ruebant + Victores victique; neque his fuga nota, neque illis." + + ["They fought and fell pell-mell, victors and vanquished; nor was + flight thought of by either."--AEneid, x. 756.] + +Their battles were much better disputed. Nowadays there are nothing but +routs: + + "Primus clamor atque impetus rem decernit." + + ["The first shout and charge decides the business."--Livy, xxv. 41.] + +And the means we choose to make use of in so great a hazard should be as +much as possible at our own command: wherefore I should advise to choose +weapons of the shortest sort, and such of which we are able to give the +best account. A man may repose more confidence in a sword he holds in +his hand than in a bullet he discharges out of a pistol, wherein there +must be a concurrence of several circumstances to make it perform its +office, the powder, the stone, and the wheel: if any of which fail it +endangers your fortune. A man himself strikes much surer than the air +can direct his blow: + + "Et, quo ferre velint, permittere vulnera ventis + Ensis habet vires; et gens quaecumque virorum est, + Bella gerit gladiis." + + ["And so where they choose to carry [the arrows], the winds allow + the wounds; the sword has strength of arm: and whatever nation of + men there is, they wage war with swords."--Lucan, viii. 384.] + +But of that weapon I shall speak more fully when I come to compare the +arms of the ancients with those of modern use; only, by the way, the +astonishment of the ear abated, which every one grows familiar with in a +short time, I look upon it as a weapon of very little execution, and hope +we shall one day lay it aside. That missile weapon which the Italians +formerly made use of both with fire and by sling was much more terrible: +they called a certain kind of javelin, armed at the point with an iron +three feet long, that it might pierce through and through an armed man, +Phalarica, which they sometimes in the field darted by hand, sometimes +from several sorts of engines for the defence of beleaguered places; the +shaft being rolled round with flax, wax, rosin, oil, and other +combustible matter, took fire in its flight, and lighting upon the body +of a man or his target, took away all the use of arms and limbs. And +yet, coming to close fight, I should think they would also damage the +assailant, and that the camp being as it were planted with these flaming +truncheons, would produce a common inconvenience to the whole crowd: + + "Magnum stridens contorta Phalarica venit, + Fulminis acta modo." + + ["The Phalarica, launched like lightning, flies through + the air with a loud rushing sound."--AEneid, ix. 705.] + +They had, moreover, other devices which custom made them perfect in +(which seem incredible to us who have not seen them), by which they +supplied the effects of our powder and shot. They darted their spears +with so great force, as ofttimes to transfix two targets and two armed +men at once, and pin them together. Neither was the effect of their +slings less certain of execution or of shorter carriage: + + ["Culling round stones from the beach for their slings; and with + these practising over the waves, so as from a great distance to + throw within a very small circuit, they became able not only to + wound an enemy in the head, but hit any other part at pleasure." + --Livy, xxxviii. 29.] + +Their pieces of battery had not only the execution but the thunder of our +cannon also: + + "Ad ictus moenium cum terribili sonitu editos, + pavor et trepidatio cepit." + + ["At the battery of the walls, performed with a terrible noise, + the defenders began to fear and tremble."--Idem, ibid., 5.] + +The Gauls, our kinsmen in Asia, abominated these treacherous missile +arms, it being their use to fight, with greater bravery, hand to hand: + + ["They are not so much concerned about large gashes-the bigger and + deeper the wound, the more glorious do they esteem the combat but + when they find themselves tormented by some arrow-head or bullet + lodged within, but presenting little outward show of wound, + transported with shame and anger to perish by so imperceptible a + destroyer, they fall to the ground."---Livy, xxxviii. 21.] + +A pretty description of something very like an arquebuse-shot. The ten +thousand Greeks in their long and famous retreat met with a nation who +very much galled them with great and strong bows, carrying arrows so long +that, taking them up, one might return them back like a dart, and with +them pierce a buckler and an armed man through and through. The engines, +that Dionysius invented at Syracuse to shoot vast massy darts and stones +of a prodigious greatness with so great impetuosity and at so great a +distance, came very near to our modern inventions. + +But in this discourse of horses and horsemanship, we are not to forget +the pleasant posture of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity, +upon his mule, whom Monstrelet reports always to have ridden sideways +through the streets of Paris like a woman. He says also, elsewhere, that +the Gascons had terrible horses, that would wheel in their full speed, +which the French, Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon as a +miracle, "having never seen the like before," which are his very words. + +Caesar, speaking of the Suabians: "in the charges they make on +horseback," says he, "they often throw themselves off to fight on foot, +having taught their horses not to stir in the meantime from the place, +to which they presently run again upon occasion; and according to their +custom, nothing is so unmanly and so base as to use saddles or pads, and +they despise such as make use of those conveniences: insomuch that, being +but a very few in number, they fear not to attack a great many." That +which I have formerly wondered at, to see a horse made to perform all his +airs with a switch only and the reins upon his neck, was common with the +Massilians, who rid their horses without saddle or bridle: + + "Et gens, quae nudo residens Massylia dorso, + Ora levi flectit, fraenorum nescia, virga." + + ["The Massylians, mounted on the bare backs of their horses, + bridleless, guide them by a mere switch."--Lucan, iv. 682.] + + "Et Numidae infraeni cingunt." + + ["The Numidians guiding their horses without bridles." + --AEneid, iv. 41.] + + "Equi sine fraenis, deformis ipse cursus, + rigida cervice et extento capite currentium." + + ["The career of a horse without a bridle is ungraceful; the neck + extended stiff, and the nose thrust out."--Livy, xxxv. II.] + +King Alfonso,--[Alfonso XI., king of Leon and Castile, died 1350.]-- +he who first instituted the Order of the Band or Scarf in Spain, amongst +other rules of the order, gave them this, that they should never ride +mule or mulet, upon penalty of a mark of silver; this I had lately out of +Guevara's Letters. Whoever gave these the title of Golden Epistles had +another kind of opinion of them than I have. The Courtier says, that +till his time it was a disgrace to a gentleman to ride on one of these +creatures: but the Abyssinians, on the contrary, the nearer they are to +the person of Prester John, love to be mounted upon large mules, for the +greatest dignity and grandeur. + +Xenophon tells us, that the Assyrians were fain to keep their horses +fettered in the stable, they were so fierce and vicious; and that it +required so much time to loose and harness them, that to avoid any +disorder this tedious preparation might bring upon them in case of +surprise, they never sat down in their camp till it was first well +fortified with ditches and ramparts. His Cyrus, who was so great a +master in all manner of horse service, kept his horses to their due work, +and never suffered them to have anything to eat till first they had +earned it by the sweat of some kind of exercise. The Scythians when in +the field and in scarcity of provisions used to let their horses blood, +which they drank, and sustained themselves by that diet: + + "Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo." + + ["The Scythian comes, who feeds on horse-flesh" + --Martial, De Spectaculis Libey, Epigr. iii. 4.] + +Those of Crete, being besieged by Metellus, were in so great necessity +for drink that they were fain to quench their thirst with their horses +urine.--[Val. Max., vii. 6, ext. 1.] + +To shew how much cheaper the Turkish armies support themselves than our +European forces, 'tis said that besides the soldiers drink nothing but +water and eat nothing but rice and salt flesh pulverised (of which every +one may easily carry about with him a month's provision), they know how +to feed upon the blood of their horses as well as the Muscovite and +Tartar, and salt it for their use. + +These new-discovered people of the Indies [Mexico and Yucatan D.W.], +when the Spaniards first landed amongst them, had so great an opinion +both of the men and horses, that they looked upon the first as gods and +the other as animals ennobled above their nature; insomuch that after +they were subdued, coming to the men to sue for peace and pardon, and to +bring them gold and provisions, they failed not to offer of the same to +the horses, with the same kind of harangue to them they had made to the +others: interpreting their neighing for a language of truce and +friendship. + +In the other Indies, to ride upon an elephant was the first and royal +place of honour; the second to ride in a coach with four horses; the +third to ride upon a camel; and the last and least honour to be carried +or drawn by one horse only. Some one of our late writers tells us that +he has been in countries in those parts where they ride upon oxen with +pads, stirrups, and bridles, and very much at their ease. + +Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, in a battle with the Samnites, seeing +his horse, after three or four charges, had failed of breaking into the +enemy's battalion, took this course, to make them unbridle all their +horses and spur their hardest, so that having nothing to check their +career, they might through weapons and men open the way to his foot, who +by that means gave them a bloody defeat. The same command was given by +Quintus Fulvius Flaccus against the Celtiberians: + + ["You will do your business with greater advantage of your horses' + strength, if you send them unbridled upon the enemy, as it is + recorded the Roman horse to their great glory have often done; their + bits being taken off, they charged through and again back through + the enemy's ranks with great slaughter, breaking down all their + spears."--Idem, xl. 40.] + +The Duke of Muscovy was anciently obliged to pay this reverence to the +Tartars, that when they sent an embassy to him he went out to meet them +on foot, and presented them with a goblet of mares' milk (a beverage of +greatest esteem amongst them), and if, in drinking, a drop fell by chance +upon their horse's mane, he was bound to lick it off with his tongue. +The army that Bajazet had sent into Russia was overwhelmed with so +dreadful a tempest of snow, that to shelter and preserve themselves from +the cold, many killed and embowelled their horses, to creep into their +bellies and enjoy the benefit of that vital heat. Bajazet, after that +furious battle wherein he was overthrown by Tamerlane, was in a hopeful +way of securing his own person by the fleetness of an Arabian mare he had +under him, had he not been constrained to let her drink her fill at the +ford of a river in his way, which rendered her so heavy and indisposed, +that he was afterwards easily overtaken by those that pursued him. They +say, indeed, that to let a horse stale takes him off his mettle, but as +to drinking, I should rather have thought it would refresh him. + +Croesus, marching his army through certain waste lands near Sardis, met +with an infinite number of serpents, which the horses devoured with great +appetite, and which Herodotus says was a prodigy of ominous portent to +his affairs. + +We call a horse entire, that has his mane and ears so, and no other will +pass muster. The Lacedaemonians, having defeated the Athenians in +Sicily, returning triumphant from the victory into the city of Syracuse, +amongst other insolences, caused all the horses they had taken to be +shorn and led in triumph. Alexander fought with a nation called Dahas, +whose discipline it was to march two and two together armed on one horse, +to the war; and being in fight, one of them alighted, and so they fought +on horseback and on foot, one after another by turns. + +I do not think that for graceful riding any nation in the world excels +the French. A good horseman, according to our way of speaking, seems +rather to have respect to the courage of the man than address in riding. +Of all that ever I saw, the most knowing in that art, who had the best +seat and the best method in breaking horses, was Monsieur de Carnavalet, +who served our King Henry II. + +I have seen a man ride with both his feet upon the saddle, take off his +saddle, and at his return take it up again and replace it, riding all the +while full speed; having galloped over a cap, make at it very good shots +backwards with his bow; take up anything from the ground, setting one +foot on the ground and the other in the stirrup: with twenty other ape's +tricks, which he got his living by. + +There has been seen in my time at Constantinople two men upon one horse, +who, in the height of its speed, would throw themselves off and into the +saddle again by turn; and one who bridled and saddled his horse with +nothing but his teeth; an other who betwixt two horses, one foot upon one +saddle and the other upon another, carrying the other man upon his +shoulders, would ride full career, the other standing bolt upright upon +and making very good shots with his bow; several who would ride full +speed with their heels upward, and their heads upon the saddle betwixt +several scimitars, with the points upwards, fixed in the harness. When I +was a boy, the prince of Sulmona, riding an unbroken horse at Naples, +prone to all sorts of action, held reals--[A small coin of Spain, the +Two Sicilies, &c.]--under his knees and toes, as if they had been nailed +there, to shew the firmness of his seat. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS + +I should willingly pardon our people for admitting no other pattern or +rule of perfection than their own peculiar manners and customs; for 'tis +a common vice, not of the vulgar only, but almost of all men, to walk in +the beaten road their ancestors have trod before them. I am content, +when they see Fabricius or Laelius, that they look upon their countenance +and behaviour as barbarous, seeing they are neither clothed nor fashioned +according to our mode. But I find fault with their singular indiscretion +in suffering themselves to be so blinded and imposed upon by the +authority of the present usage as every month to alter their opinion, if +custom so require, and that they should so vary their judgment in their +own particular concern. When they wore the busk of their doublets up as +high as their breasts, they stiffly maintained that they were in their +proper place; some years after it was slipped down betwixt their thighs, +and then they could laugh at the former fashion as uneasy and +intolerable. The fashion now in use makes them absolutely condemn the +other two with so great resolution and so universal consent, that a man +would think there was a certain kind of madness crept in amongst them, +that infatuates their understandings to this strange degree. Now, seeing +that our change of fashions is so prompt and sudden, that the inventions +of all the tailors in the world cannot furnish out new whim-whams enow to +feed our vanity withal, there will often be a necessity that the despised +forms must again come in vogue, these immediately after fall into the +same contempt; and that the same judgment must, in the space of fifteen +or twenty years, take up half-a-dozen not only divers but contrary +opinions, with an incredible lightness and inconstancy; there is not any +of us so discreet, who suffers not himself to be gulled with this +contradiction, and both in external and internal sight to be insensibly +blinded. + +I wish to muster up here some old customs that I have in memory, some of +them the same with ours, the others different, to the end that, bearing +in mind this continual variation of human things, we may have our +judgment more clearly and firmly settled. + +The thing in use amongst us of fighting with rapier and cloak was in +practice amongst the Romans also: + + "Sinistras sagis involvunt, gladiosque distringunt," + + ["They wrapt their cloaks upon the left arm, and drew their + swords."--De Bello Civili, i. 75.] + +says Caesar; and he observes a vicious custom of our nation, that +continues yet amongst us, which is to stop passengers we meet upon the +road, to compel them to give an account who they are, and to take it for +an affront and just cause of quarrel if they refuse to do it. + +At the Baths, which the ancients made use of every day before they went +to dinner, and as frequently as we wash our hands, they at first only +bathed their arms and legs; but afterwards, and by a custom that has +continued for many ages in most nations of the world, they bathed stark +naked in mixed and perfumed water, looking upon it as a great simplicity +to bathe in mere water. The most delicate and affected perfumed +themselves all over three or four times a day. They often caused their +hair to be pinched off, as the women of France have some time since taken +up a custom to do their foreheads, + + "Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod brachia veilis," + + ["You pluck the hairs out of your breast, your arms, and thighs." + --Martial, ii. 62, i.] + +though they had ointments proper for that purpose: + + "Psilotro nitet, aut acids latet oblita creta." + + ["She shines with unguents, or with chalk dissolved in vinegar." + --Idem, vi. 93, 9.] + +They delighted to lie soft, and alleged it as a great testimony of +hardiness to lie upon a mattress. They ate lying upon beds, much after +the manner of the Turks in this age: + + "Inde thoro pater AEneas sic orsus ab alto." + + ["Thus Father AEneas, from his high bed of state, spoke." + --AEneid, ii. 2.] + +And 'tis said of the younger Cato, that after the battle of Pharsalia, +being entered into a melancholy disposition at the ill posture of the +public affairs, he took his repasts always sitting, assuming a strict and +austere course of life. It was also their custom to kiss the hands of +great persons; the more to honour and caress them. And meeting with +friends, they always kissed in salutation, as do the Venetians: + + "Gratatusque darem cum dulcibus oscula verbis." + + ["And kindest words I would mingle with kisses." + --Ovid, De Pont., iv. 9, 13] + +In petitioning or saluting any great man, they used to lay their hands +upon his knees. Pasicles the philosopher, brother of Crates, instead of +laying his hand upon the knee laid it upon the private parts, and being +roughly repulsed by him to whom he made that indecent compliment: +"What," said he, "is not that part your own as well as the other?" +--[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 89.]--They used to eat fruit, as we do, after +dinner. They wiped their fundaments (let the ladies, if they please, +mince it smaller) with a sponge, which is the reason that 'spongia' is a +smutty word in Latin; which sponge was fastened to the end of a stick, as +appears by the story of him who, as he was led along to be thrown to the +wild beasts in the sight of the people, asking leave to do his business, +and having no other way to despatch himself, forced the sponge and stick +down his throat and choked himself.--[Seneca, Ep., 70.] They used to +wipe, after coition, with perfumed wool: + + "At tibi nil faciam; sed Iota mentula lana." + +They had in the streets of Rome vessels and little tubs for passengers to +urine in: + + "Pusi saepe lacum propter se, ac dolia curta. + Somno devincti, credunt extollere vestem." + + ["The little boys in their sleep often think they are near the + public urinal, and raise their coats to make use of it." + --Lucretius, iv.] + +They had collation betwixt meals, and had in summer cellars of snow to +cool their wine; and some there were who made use of snow in winter, not +thinking their wine cool enough, even at that cold season of the year. +The men of quality had their cupbearers and carvers, and their buffoons +to make them sport. They had their meat served up in winter upon chafing +dishes, which were set upon the table, and had portable kitchens (of +which I myself have seen some) wherein all their service was carried +about with them: + + "Has vobis epulas habete, lauti + Nos offendimur ambulante caena." + + ["Do you, if you please, esteem these feasts: we do not like the + ambulatory suppers."--Martial, vii. 48, 4.] + +In summer they had a contrivance to bring fresh and clear rills through +their lower rooms, wherein were great store of living fish, which the +guests took out with their own hands to be dressed every man according to +his own liking. Fish has ever had this pre-eminence, and keeps it still, +that the grandees, as to them, all pretend to be cooks; and indeed the +taste is more delicate than that of flesh, at least to my fancy. But in +all sorts of magnificence, debauchery, and voluptuous inventions of +effeminacy and expense, we do, in truth, all we can to parallel them; +for our wills are as corrupt as theirs: but we want ability to equal +them. Our force is no more able to reach them in their vicious, than in +their virtuous, qualities, for both the one and the other proceeded from +a vigour of soul which was without comparison greater in them than in us; +and souls, by how much the weaker they are, by so much have they less +power to do either very well or very ill. + +The highest place of honour amongst them was the middle. The name going +before, or following after, either in writing or speaking, had no +signification of grandeur, as is evident by their writings; they will as +soon say Oppius and Caesar, as Caesar and Oppius; and me and thee, as +thee and me. This is the reason that made me formerly take notice in the +life of Flaminius, in our French Plutarch, of one passage, where it seems +as if the author, speaking of the jealousy of honour betwixt the +AEtolians and Romans, about the winning of a battle they had with their +joined forces obtained, made it of some importance, that in the Greek +songs they had put the AEtolians before the Romans: if there be no +amphibology in the words of the French translation. + +The ladies, in their baths, made no scruple of admitting men amongst +them, and moreover made use of their serving-men to rub and anoint them: + + "Inguina succinctus nigri tibi servus aluta + Stat, quoties calidis nuda foveris aquis." + + ["A slave--his middle girded with a black apron--stands before you, + when, naked, you take a hot bath."--Martial, vii. 35, i.] + +They all powdered themselves with a certain powder, to moderate their +sweats. + +The ancient Gauls, says Sidonius Apollinaris, wore their hair long before +and the hinder part of the head shaved, a fashion that begins to revive +in this vicious and effeminate age. + +The Romans used to pay the watermen their fare at their first stepping +into the boat, which we never do till after landing: + + "Dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur, + Tota abit hora." + + ["Whilst the fare's paying, and the mule is being harnessed, a whole + hour's time is past."--Horace, Sat. i. 5, 13.] + +The women used to lie on the side of the bed next the wall: and for that +reason they called Caesar, + + "Spondam regis Nicomedis," + + ["The bed of King Nicomedes."--Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 49.] + +They took breath in their drinking, and watered their wine + + "Quis puer ocius + Restinguet ardentis Falerni + Pocula praetereunte lympha?" + + ["What boy will quickly come and cool the heat of the Falernian + wine with clear water?"--Horace, Od., ii. z, 18.] + +And the roguish looks and gestures of our lackeys were also in use +amongst them: + + "O Jane, a tergo quern nulls ciconia pinsit, + Nec manus, auriculas imitari est mobilis albas, + Nec lingua, quantum sitiat canis Appula, tantum." + + ["O Janus, whom no crooked fingers, simulating a stork, peck at + behind your back, whom no quick hands deride behind you, by + imitating the motion of the white ears of the ass, against whom no + mocking tongue is thrust out, as the tongue of the thirsty Apulian + dog."--Persius, i. 58.] + +The Argian and Roman ladies mourned in white, as ours did formerly and +should do still, were I to govern in this point. But there are whole +books on this subject. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +OF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS + +The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar +in everything: which is the reason, that in these Essays I take hold of +all occasions where, though it happen to be a subject I do not very well +understand, I try, however, sounding it at a distance, and finding it too +deep for my stature, I keep me on the shore; and this knowledge that a +man can proceed no further, is one effect of its virtue, yes, one of +those of which it is most proud. One while in an idle and frivolous +subject, I try to find out matter whereof to compose a body, and then to +prop and support it; another while, I employ it in a noble subject, one +that has been tossed and tumbled by a thousand hands, wherein a man can +scarce possibly introduce anything of his own, the way being so beaten on +every side that he must of necessity walk in the steps of another: in +such a case, 'tis the work of the judgment to take the way that seems +best, and of a thousand paths, to determine that this or that is the +best. I leave the choice of my arguments to fortune, and take that she +first presents to me; they are all alike to me, I never design to go +through any of them; for I never see all of anything: neither do they who +so largely promise to show it others. Of a hundred members and faces +that everything has, I take one, onewhile to look it over only, another +while to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: I +give a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most part +tempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it. Did I +know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to +the bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here +one word and there another, patterns cut from several pieces and +scattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not +responsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without +varying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and +uncertainty, and to my own governing method, ignorance. + +All motion discovers us: the very same soul of Caesar, that made itself +so conspicuous in marshalling and commanding the battle of Pharsalia, was +also seen as solicitous and busy in the softer affairs of love and +leisure. A man makes a judgment of a horse, not only by seeing him when +he is showing off his paces, but by his very walk, nay, and by seeing him +stand in the stable. + +Amongst the functions of the soul, there are some of a lower and meaner +form; he who does not see her in those inferior offices as well as in +those of nobler note, never fully discovers her; and, peradventure, she +is best shown where she moves her simpler pace. The winds of passions +take most hold of her in her highest flights; and the rather by reason +that she wholly applies herself to, and exercises her whole virtue upon, +every particular subject, and never handles more than one thing at a +time, and that not according to it, but according to herself. Things in +respect to themselves have, peradventure, their weight, measures, and +conditions; but when we once take them into us, the soul forms them as +she pleases. Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato, indifferent +to Socrates. Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty, +and their contraries, all strip themselves at their entering into us, and +receive a new robe, and of another fashion, from the soul; and of what +colour, brown, bright, green, dark, and of what quality, sharp, sweet, +deep, or superficial, as best pleases each of them, for they are not +agreed upon any common standard of forms, rules, or proceedings; every +one is a queen in her own dominions. Let us, therefore, no more excuse +ourselves upon the external qualities of things; it belongs to us to give +ourselves an account of them. Our good or ill has no other dependence +but on ourselves. 'Tis there that our offerings and our vows are due, +and not to fortune she has no power over our manners; on the contrary, +they draw and make her follow in their train, and cast her in their own +mould. Why should not I judge of Alexander at table, ranting and +drinking at the prodigious rate he sometimes used to do? + +Or, if he played at chess? what string of his soul was not touched by +this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it, because it is not play +enough, that it is too grave and serious a diversion, and I am ashamed to +lay out as much thought and study upon it as would serve to much better +uses. He did not more pump his brains about his glorious expedition into +the Indies, nor than another in unravelling a passage upon which depends +the safety of mankind. To what a degree does this ridiculous diversion +molest the soul, when all her faculties are summoned together upon this +trivial account! and how fair an opportunity she herein gives every one +to know and to make a right judgment of himself? I do not more +thoroughly sift myself in any other posture than this: what passion are +we exempted from in it? Anger, spite, malice, impatience, and a vehement +desire of getting the better in a concern wherein it were more excusable +to be ambitious of being overcome; for to be eminent, to excel above the +common rate in frivolous things, nowise befits a man of honour. What I +say in this example may be said in all others. Every particle, every +employment of man manifests him equally with any other. + +Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, +finding human condition ridiculous and vain, never appeared abroad but +with a jeering and laughing countenance; whereas Heraclitus commiserating +that same condition of ours, appeared always with a sorrowful look, and +tears in his eyes: + + "Alter + Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum + Protuleratque pedem; flebat contrarius alter." + + ["The one always, as often as he had stepped one pace from his + threshold, laughed, the other always wept."--Juvenal, Sat., x. 28.] + + [Or, as Voltaire: "Life is a comedy to those who think; + a tragedy to those who feel." D.W.] + +I am clearly for the first humour; not because it is more pleasant to +laugh than to weep, but because it expresses more contempt and +condemnation than the other, and I think we can never be despised +according to our full desert. Compassion and bewailing seem to imply +some esteem of and value for the thing bemoaned; whereas the things we +laugh at are by that expressed to be of no moment. I do not think that +we are so unhappy as we are vain, or have in us so much malice as folly; +we are not so full of mischief as inanity; nor so miserable as we are +vile and mean. And therefore Diogenes, who passed away his time in +rolling himself in his tub, and made nothing of the great Alexander, +esteeming us no better than flies or bladders puffed up with wind, was a +sharper and more penetrating, and, consequently in my opinion, a juster +judge than Timon, surnamed the Man-hater; for what a man hates he lays to +heart. This last was an enemy to all mankind, who passionately desired +our ruin, and avoided our conversation as dangerous, proceeding from +wicked and depraved natures: the other valued us so little that we could +neither trouble nor infect him by our example; and left us to herd one +with another, not out of fear, but from contempt of our society: +concluding us as incapable of doing good as evil. + +Of the same strain was Statilius' answer, when Brutus courted him into +the conspiracy against Caesar; he was satisfied that the enterprise was +just, but he did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern'; +according to the doctrine of Hegesias, who said, that a wise man ought to +do nothing but for himself, forasmuch as he only was worthy of it: and to +the saying of Theodorus, that it was not reasonable a wise man should +hazard himself for his country, and endanger wisdom for a company of +fools. Our condition is as ridiculous as risible. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +OF THE VANITY OF WORDS + +A rhetorician of times past said, that to make little things appear great +was his profession. This was a shoemaker, who can make a great shoe for +a little foot.--[A saying of Agesilaus.]--They would in Sparta have +sent such a fellow to be whipped for making profession of a tricky and +deceitful act; and I fancy that Archidamus, who was king of that country, +was a little surprised at the answer of Thucydides, when inquiring of +him, which was the better wrestler, Pericles, or he, he replied, that it +was hard to affirm; for when I have thrown him, said he, he always +persuades the spectators that he had no fall and carries away the prize. +--[Quintilian, ii. 15.]--The women who paint, pounce, and plaster up +their ruins, filling up their wrinkles and deformities, are less to +blame, because it is no great matter whether we see them in their natural +complexions; whereas these make it their business to deceive not our +sight only but our judgments, and to adulterate and corrupt the very +essence of things. The republics that have maintained themselves in a +regular and well-modelled government, such as those of Lacedaemon and +Crete, had orators in no very great esteem. Aristo wisely defined +rhetoric to be "a science to persuade the people;" Socrates and Plato +"an art to flatter and deceive." And those who deny it in the general +description, verify it throughout in their precepts. The Mohammedans +will not suffer their children to be instructed in it, as being useless, +and the Athenians, perceiving of how pernicious consequence the practice +of it was, it being in their city of universal esteem, ordered the +principal part, which is to move the affections, with their exordiums and +perorations, to be taken away. 'Tis an engine invented to manage and +govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble, and that never is made use of, +but like physic to the sick, in a discomposed state. In those where the +vulgar or the ignorant, or both together, have been all-powerful and able +to give the law, as in those of Athens, Rhodes, and Rome, and where the +public affairs have been in a continual tempest of commotion, to such +places have the orators always repaired. And in truth, we shall find few +persons in those republics who have pushed their fortunes to any great +degree of eminence without the assistance of eloquence. + +Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Lucullus, Lentulus, Metellus, thence took their +chiefest spring, to mount to that degree of authority at which they at +last arrived, making it of greater use to them than arms, contrary to the +opinion of better times; for, L. Volumnius speaking publicly in favour of +the election of Q. Fabius and Pub. Decius, to the consular dignity: +"These are men," said he, "born for war and great in execution; in the +combat of the tongue altogether wanting; spirits truly consular. The +subtle, eloquent, and learned are only good for the city, to make +praetors of, to administer justice."--[Livy, x. 22.] + +Eloquence most flourished at Rome when the public affairs were in the +worst condition and most disquieted with intestine commotions; as a free +and untilled soil bears the worst weeds. By which it should seem that a +monarchical government has less need of it than any other: for the +stupidity and facility natural to the common people, and that render them +subject to be turned and twined and, led by the ears by this charming +harmony of words, without weighing or considering the truth and reality +of things by the force of reason: this facility, I say, is not easily +found in a single person, and it is also more easy by good education and +advice to secure him from the impression of this poison. There was never +any famous orator known to come out of Persia or Macedon. + +I have entered into this discourse upon the occasion of an Italian I +lately received into my service, and who was clerk of the kitchen to the +late Cardinal Caraffa till his death. I put this fellow upon an account +of his office: when he fell to discourse of this palate-science, with +such a settled countenance and magisterial gravity, as if he had been +handling some profound point of divinity. He made a learned distinction +of the several sorts of appetites; of that a man has before he begins to +eat, and of those after the second and third service; the means simply to +satisfy the first, and then to raise and actuate the other two; the +ordering of the sauces, first in general, and then proceeded to the +qualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads +according to their seasons, those which ought to be served up hot, and +which cold; the manner of their garnishment and decoration to render them +acceptable to the eye. After which he entered upon the order of the +whole service, full of weighty and important considerations: + + "Nec minimo sane discrimine refert, + Quo gestu lepores, et quo gallina secetur;" + + ["Nor with less discrimination observes how we should carve a hare, + and how a hen." or, ("Nor with the least discrimination relates how + we should carve hares, and how cut up a hen.)" + --Juvenal, Sat., v. 123.] + +and all this set out with lofty and magnificent words, the very same we +make use of when we discourse of the government of an empire. Which +learned lecture of my man brought this of Terence into my memory: + + "Hoc salsum est, hoc adustum est, hoc lautum est, parum: + Illud recte: iterum sic memento: sedulo + Moneo, qux possum, pro mea sapientia. + Postremo, tanquam in speculum, in patinas, + Demea, Inspicere jubeo, et moneo, quid facto usus sit." + + ["This is too salt, that's burnt, that's not washed enough; that's + well; remember to do so another time. Thus do I ever advise them to + have things done properly, according to my capacity; and lastly, + Demea, I command my cooks to look into every dish as if it were a + mirror, and tell them what they should do." + --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 71.] + +And yet even the Greeks themselves very much admired and highly applauded +the order and disposition that Paulus AEmilius observed in the feast he +gave them at his return from Macedon. But I do not here speak of +effects, I speak of words only. + +I do not know whether it may have the same operation upon other men that +it has upon me, but when I hear our architects thunder out their bombast +words of pilasters, architraves, and cornices, of the Corinthian and +Doric orders, and suchlike jargon, my imagination is presently possessed +with the palace of Apollidon; when, after all, I find them but the paltry +pieces of my own kitchen door. + +To hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other +grammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic +form of speaking? And yet they are phrases that come near to the babble +of my chambermaid. + +And this other is a gullery of the same stamp, to call the offices of our +kingdom by the lofty titles of the Romans, though they have no similitude +of function, and still less of authority and power. And this also, which +I doubt will one day turn to the reproach of this age of ours, unworthily +and indifferently to confer upon any we think fit the most glorious +surnames with which antiquity honoured but one or two persons in several +ages. Plato carried away the surname of Divine, by so universal a +consent that never any one repined at it, or attempted to take it from +him; and yet the Italians, who pretend, and with good reason, to more +sprightly wits and sounder sense than the other nations of their time, +have lately bestowed the same title upon Aretin, in whose writings, save +tumid phrases set out with smart periods, ingenious indeed but +far-fetched and fantastic, and the eloquence, be it what it may, I see +nothing in him above the ordinary writers of his time, so far is he from +approaching the ancient divinity. And we make nothing of giving the +surname of great to princes who have nothing more than ordinary in them. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +OF THE PARSIMONY OF THE ANCIENTS + +Attilius Regulus, general of the Roman army in Africa, in the height of +all his glory and victories over the Carthaginians, wrote to the Republic +to acquaint them that a certain hind he had left in trust with his +estate, which was in all but seven acres of land, had run away with all +his instruments of husbandry, and entreating therefore, that they would +please to call him home that he might take order in his own affairs, lest +his wife and children should suffer by this disaster. Whereupon the +Senate appointed another to manage his business, caused his losses to be +made good, and ordered his family to be maintained at the public expense. + +The elder Cato, returning consul from Spain, sold his warhorse to save +the money it would have cost in bringing it back by sea into Italy; and +being Governor of Sardinia, he made all his visits on foot, without other +train than one officer of the Republic who carried his robe and a censer +for sacrifices, and for the most part carried his trunk himself. He +bragged that he had never worn a gown that cost above ten crowns, nor had +ever sent above tenpence to the market for one day's provision; and that +as to his country houses, he had not one that was rough-cast on the +outside. + +Scipio AEmilianus, after two triumphs and two consulships, went an +embassy with no more than seven servants in his train. 'Tis said that +Homer had never more than one, Plato three, and Zeno, founder of the sect +of Stoics, none at all. Tiberius Gracchus was allowed but fivepence +halfpenny a day when employed as public minister about the public +affairs, and being at that time the greatest man of Rome. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +OF A SAYING OF CAESAR + +If we would sometimes bestow a little consideration upon ourselves, and +employ the time we spend in prying into other men's actions, and +discovering things without us, in examining our own abilities we should +soon perceive of how infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is +composed. Is it not a singular testimony of imperfection that we cannot +establish our satisfaction in any one thing, and that even our own fancy +and desire should deprive us of the power to choose what is most proper +and useful for us? A very good proof of this is the great dispute that +has ever been amongst the philosophers, of finding out man's sovereign +good, that continues yet, and will eternally continue, without solution +or accord: + + "Dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur + Caetera; post aliud, quum contigit illud, avemus, + Et sitis aequa tenet." + + ["While that which we desire is wanting, it seems to surpass all the + rest; then, when we have got it, we want something else; 'tis ever + the same thirst"--Lucretius, iii. 1095.] + +Whatever it is that falls into our knowledge and possession, we find that +it satisfies not, and we still pant after things to come and unknown, +inasmuch as those present do not suffice for us; not that, in my +judgment, they have not in them wherewith to do it, but because we seize +them with an unruly and immoderate haste: + + "Nam quum vidit hic, ad victum qux flagitat usus, + Et per quae possent vitam consistere tutam, + Omnia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata; + Divitiis homines, et honore, et laude potentes + Aflluere, atque bona natorum excellere fama; + Nec minus esse domi cuiquam tamen anxia corda, + Atque animi ingratis vitam vexare querelis + Causam, quae infestis cogit saevire querelis, + Intellegit ibi; vitium vas efficere ipsum, + Omniaque, illius vitio, corrumpier intus, + Qux collata foris et commoda quomque venirent." + + ["For when he saw that almost all things necessarily required for + subsistence, and which may render life comfortable, are already + prepared to their hand, that men may abundantly attain wealth, + honour, praise, may rejoice in the reputation of their children, yet + that, notwithstanding, every one has none the less in his heart and + home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints, he saw + that the vessel itself was in fault, and that all good things which + were brought into it from without were spoilt by its own + imperfections."--Lucretius, vi. 9.] + +Our appetite is irresolute and fickle; it can neither keep nor enjoy +anything with a good grace: and man concluding it to be the fault of the +things he is possessed of, fills himself with and feeds upon the idea of +things he neither knows nor understands, to which he devotes his hopes +and his desires, paying them all reverence and honour, according to the +saying of Caesar: + + "Communi fit vitio naturae, ut invisis, latitantibus + atque incognitis rebus magis confidamas, + vehementiusque exterreamur." + + ["'Tis the common vice of nature, that we at once repose most + confidence, and receive the greatest apprehensions, from things + unseen, concealed, and unknown."--De Bello Civil, xi. 4.] + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +OF VAIN SUBTLETIES + +There are a sort of little knacks and frivolous subtleties from which men +sometimes expect to derive reputation and applause: as poets, who compose +whole poems with every line beginning with the same letter; we see the +shapes of eggs, globes, wings, and hatchets cut out by the ancient Greeks +by the measure of their verses, making them longer or shorter, to +represent such or such a figure. Of this nature was his employment who +made it his business to compute into how many several orders the letters +of the alphabet might be transposed, and found out that incredible number +mentioned in Plutarch. I am mightily pleased with the humour of him, + + ["Alexander, as may be seen in Quintil., Institut. Orat., lib. + ii., cap. 20, where he defines Maratarexvia to be a certain + unnecessary imitation of art, which really does neither good nor + harm, but is as unprofitable and ridiculous as was the labour of + that man who had so perfectly learned to cast small peas through the + eye of a needle at a good distance that he never missed one, and was + justly rewarded for it, as is said, by Alexander, who saw the + performance, with a bushel of peas."--Coste.] + +who having a man brought before him that had learned to throw a grain of +millet with such dexterity and assurance as never to miss the eye of a +needle; and being afterwards entreated to give something for the reward +of so rare a performance, he pleasantly, and in my opinion justly, +ordered a certain number of bushels of the same grain to be delivered to +him, that he might not want wherewith to exercise so famous an art. 'Tis +a strong evidence of a weak judgment when men approve of things for their +being rare and new, or for their difficulty, where worth and usefulness +are not conjoined to recommend them. + +I come just now from playing with my own family at who could find out the +most things that hold by their two extremities; as Sire, which is a title +given to the greatest person in the nation, the king, and also to the +vulgar, as merchants, but never to any degree of men between. The women +of great quality are called Dames, inferior gentlewomen, Demoiselles, and +the meanest sort of women, Dames, as the first. The cloth of state over +our tables is not permitted but in the palaces of princes and in taverns. +Democritus said, that gods and beasts had sharper sense than men, who are +of a middle form. The Romans wore the same habit at funerals and feasts. +It is most certain that an extreme fear and an extreme ardour of courage +equally trouble and relax the belly. The nickname of Trembling with +which they surnamed Sancho XII., king of Navarre, tells us that valour +will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear. Those who were +arming that king, or some other person, who upon the like occasion was +wont to be in the same disorder, tried to compose him by representing the +danger less he was going to engage himself in: "You understand me ill," +said he, "for could my flesh know the danger my courage will presently +carry it into, it would sink down to the ground." The faintness that +surprises us from frigidity or dislike in the exercises of Venus are also +occasioned by a too violent desire and an immoderate heat. Extreme +coldness and extreme heat boil and roast. Aristotle says, that sows of +lead will melt and run with cold and the rigour of winter just as with a +vehement heat. Desire and satiety fill all the gradations above and +below pleasure with pain. Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre +of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents. The +wise control and triumph over ill, the others know it not: these last +are, as a man may say, on this side of accidents, the others are beyond +them, who after having well weighed and considered their qualities, +measured and judged them what they are, by virtue of a vigorous soul leap +out of their reach; they disdain and trample them underfoot, having a +solid and well-fortified soul, against which the darts of fortune, coming +to strike, must of necessity rebound and blunt themselves, meeting with a +body upon which they can fix no impression; the ordinary and middle +condition of men are lodged betwixt these two extremities, consisting of +such as perceive evils, feel them, and are not able to support them. +Infancy and decrepitude meet in the imbecility of the brain; avarice and +profusion in the same thirst and desire of getting. + +A man may say with some colour of truth that there is an Abecedarian +ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes +after it: an ignorance that knowledge creates and begets, at the same +time that it despatches and destroys the first. Of mean understandings, +little inquisitive, and little instructed, are made good Christians, who +by reverence and obedience simply believe and are constant in their +belief. In the average understandings and the middle sort of capacities, +the error of opinion is begotten; they follow the appearance of the first +impression, and have some colour of reason on their side to impute our +walking on in the old beaten path to simplicity and stupidity, meaning us +who have not informed ourselves by study. The higher and nobler souls, +more solid and clear-sighted, make up another sort of true believers, who +by a long and religious investigation of truth, have obtained a clearer +and more penetrating light into the Scriptures, and have discovered the +mysterious and divine secret of our ecclesiastical polity; and yet we see +some, who by the middle step, have arrived at that supreme degree with +marvellous fruit and confirmation, as to the utmost limit of Christian +intelligence, and enjoy their victory with great spiritual consolation, +humble acknowledgment of the divine favour, reformation of manners, and +singular modesty. I do not intend with these to rank those others, who +to clear themselves from all suspicion of their former errors and to +satisfy us that they are sound and firm, render themselves extremely +indiscreet and unjust, in the carrying on our cause, and blemish it with +infinite reproaches of violence and oppression. The simple peasants are +good people, and so are the philosophers, or whatever the present age +calls them, men of strong and clear reason, and whose souls are enriched +with an ample instruction of profitable sciences. The mongrels who have +disdained the first form of the ignorance of letters, and have not been +able to attain to the other (sitting betwixt two stools, as I and a great +many more of us do), are dangerous, foolish, and importunate; these are +they that trouble the world. And therefore it is that I, for my own +part, retreat as much as I can towards the first and natural station, +whence I so vainly attempted to advance. + +Popular and purely natural poesy + + ["The term poesie populaire was employed, for the first time, in the + French language on this occasion. Montaigne created the expression, + and indicated its nature."--Ampere.] + +has in it certain artless graces, by which she may come into comparison +with the greatest beauty of poetry perfected by art: as we see in our +Gascon villanels and the songs that are brought us from nations that have +no knowledge of any manner of science, nor so much as the use of writing. +The middle sort of poesy betwixt these two is despised, of no value, +honour, or esteem. + +But seeing that the path once laid open to the fancy, I have found, as it +commonly falls out, that what we have taken for a difficult exercise and +a rare subject, prove to be nothing so, and that after the invention is +once warm, it finds out an infinite number of parallel examples. I shall +only add this one--that, were these Essays of mine considerable enough to +deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fall out that they +would not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be very +acceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would not +understand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover in +the middle region. + + + +CHAPTER LV + +OF SMELLS + +It has been reported of some, as of Alexander the Great, that their sweat +exhaled an odoriferous smell, occasioned by some rare and extraordinary +constitution, of which Plutarch and others have been inquisitive into the +cause. But the ordinary constitution of human bodies is quite otherwise, +and their best and chiefest excellency is to be exempt from smell. Nay, +the sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greater +perfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those of +healthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman: + + "Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil olet." + + ["She smells sweetest, who smells not at all." + --Plautus, Mostel, i. 3, 116.] + +And such as make use of fine exotic perfumes are with good reason to be +suspected of some natural imperfection which they endeavour by these +odours to conceal. To smell, though well, is to stink: + + "Rides nos, Coracine, nil olentes + Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere." + + ["You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we are not scented; I would, + rather than smell well, not smell at all."--Martial, vi. 55, 4.] + +And elsewhere: + + "Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet." + + ["Posthumus, he who ever smells well does not smell well." + --Idem, ii. 12, 14.] + +I am nevertheless a great lover of good smells, and as much abominate the +ill ones, which also I scent at a greater distance, I think, than other +men: + + "Namque sagacius unus odoror, + Polypus, an gravis hirsutis cubet hircus in aliis + Quam canis acer, ubi latest sus." + + ["My nose is quicker to scent a fetid sore or a rank armpit, than a + dog to smell out the hidden sow."--Horace, Epod., xii. 4.] + +Of smells, the simple and natural seem to me the most pleasing. Let the +ladies look to that, for 'tis chiefly their concern: amid the most +profound barbarism, the Scythian women, after bathing, were wont to +powder and crust their faces and all their bodies with a certain +odoriferous drug growing in their country, which being cleansed off, when +they came to have familiarity with men they were found perfumed and +sleek. 'Tis not to be believed how strangely all sorts of odours cleave +to me, and how apt my skin is to imbibe them. He that complains of +nature that she has not furnished mankind with a vehicle to convey smells +to the nose had no reason; for they will do it themselves, especially to +me; my very mustachios, which are full, perform that office; for if I +stroke them but with my gloves or handkerchief, the smell will not out a +whole day; they manifest where I have been, and the close, luscious, +devouring, viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age left +a sweetness upon my lips for several hours after. And yet I have ever +found myself little subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught, either +by conversing with the sick or bred by the contagion of the air, and have +escaped from those of my time, of which there have been several sorts in +our cities and armies. We read of Socrates, that though he never +departed from Athens during the frequent plagues that infested the city, +he only was never infected. + +Physicians might, I believe, extract greater utility from odours than +they do, for I have often observed that they cause an alteration in me +and work upon my spirits according to their several virtues; which makes +me approve of what is said, that the use of incense and perfumes in +churches, so ancient and so universally received in all nations and +religions, was intended to cheer us, and to rouse and purify the senses, +the better to fit us for contemplation. + +I could have been glad, the better to judge of it, to have tasted the +culinary art of those cooks who had so rare a way of seasoning exotic +odours with the relish of meats; as it was particularly observed in the +service of the king of Tunis, who in our days--[Muley-Hassam, in 1543.] +--landed at Naples to have an interview with Charles the Emperor. His +dishes were larded with odoriferous drugs, to that degree of expense that +the cookery of one peacock and two pheasants amounted to a hundred ducats +to dress them after their fashion; and when the carver came to cut them +up, not only the dining-room, but all the apartments of his palace and +the adjoining streets were filled with an aromatic vapour which did not +presently vanish. + +My chiefest care in choosing my lodgings is always to avoid a thick and +stinking air; and those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, very much +lessen the kindness I have for them, the one by the offensive smell of +her marshes, and the other of her dirt. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +OF PRAYERS + +I propose formless and undetermined fancies, like those who publish +doubtful questions, to be after a disputed upon in the schools, not to +establish truth but to seek it; and I submit them to the judgments of +those whose office it is to regulate, not my writings and actions only, +but moreover my very thoughts. Let what I here set down meet with +correction or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me, +myself beforehand condemning as absurd and impious, if anything shall be +found, through ignorance or inadvertency, couched in this rhapsody, +contrary to the holy resolutions and prescriptions of the Catholic +Apostolic and Roman Church, into which I was born and in which I will +die. And yet, always submitting to the authority of their censure, which +has an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything, as in +treating upon this present subject. + +I know not if or no I am wrong, but since, by a particular favour of the +divine bounty, a certain form of prayer has been prescribed and dictated +to us, word by word, from the mouth of God Himself, I have ever been of +opinion that we ought to have it in more frequent use than we yet have; +and if I were worthy to advise, at the sitting down to and rising from +our tables, at our rising from and going to bed, and in every particular +action wherein prayer is used, I would that Christians always make use of +the Lord's Prayer, if not alone, yet at least always. The Church may +lengthen and diversify prayers, according to the necessity of our +instruction, for I know very well that it is always the same in substance +and the same thing: but yet such a privilege ought to be given to that +prayer, that the people should have it continually in their mouths; for +it is most certain that all necessary petitions are comprehended in it, +and that it is infinitely proper for all occasions. 'Tis the only prayer +I use in all places and conditions, and which I still repeat instead of +changing; whence it also happens that I have no other so entirely by +heart as that. + +It just now came into my mind, whence it is we should derive that error +of having recourse to God in all our designs and enterprises, to call Him +to our assistance in all sorts of affairs, and in all places where our +weakness stands in need of support, without considering whether the +occasion be just or otherwise; and to invoke His name and power, in what +state soever we are, or action we are engaged in, howsoever vicious. He +is indeed, our sole and unique protector, and can do all things for us: +but though He is pleased to honour us with this sweet paternal alliance, +He is, notwithstanding, as just as He is good and mighty; and more often +exercises His justice than His power, and favours us according to that, +and not according to our petitions. + +Plato in his Laws, makes three sorts of belief injurious to the gods; +"that there are none; that they concern not themselves about our affairs; +that they never refuse anything to our vows, offerings, and sacrifices." +The first of these errors (according to his opinion, never continued +rooted in any man from his infancy to his old age); the other two, he +confesses, men might be obstinate in. + +God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His +power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at +that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all +vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith +to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we +double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we +are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. +Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so +frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give +me some evidence of amendment and reformation: + + "Si, nocturnus adulter, + Tempora Santonico velas adoperta cucullo." + + ["If a night adulterer, thou coverest thy head with a Santonic + cowl."--Juvenal, Sat., viii. 144.--The Santones were the people + who inhabited Saintonge in France, from whom the Romans derived the + use of hoods or cowls covering the head and face.] + +And the practice of a man who mixes devotion with an execrable life seems +in some sort more to be condemned than that of a man conformable to his +own propension and dissolute throughout; and for that reason it is that +our Church denies admittance to and communion with men obstinate and +incorrigible in any notorious wickedness. We pray only by custom and for +fashion's sake; or rather, we read or pronounce our prayers aloud, which +is no better than an hypocritical show of devotion; and I am scandalised +to see a man cross himself thrice at the Benedicite, and as often at +Grace (and the more, because it is a sign I have in great veneration and +continual use, even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the other hours of +the day to acts of malice, avarice, and injustice. One hour to God, the +rest to the devil, as if by composition and compensation. 'Tis a wonder +to see actions so various in themselves succeed one another with such an +uniformity of method as not to interfere nor suffer any alteration, even +upon the very confines and passes from the one to the other. What a +prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself +whilst it harbours under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a +society, both the crime and the judge? + +A man whose whole meditation is continually working upon nothing but +impurity which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he say +when he comes to speak to Him? He draws back, but immediately falls into +a relapse. If the object of divine justice and the presence of his Maker +did, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever the +repentance might be, the very fear of offending the Infinite Majesty +would so often present itself to his imagination that he would soon see +himself master of those vices that are most natural and vehement in him. +But what shall we say of those who settle their whole course of life upon +the profit and emolument of sins, which they know to be mortal? How many +trades and vocations have we admitted and countenanced amongst us, whose +very essence is vicious? And he that, confessing himself to me, +voluntarily told me that he had all his lifetime professed and practised +a religion, in his opinion damnable and contrary to that he had in his +heart, only to preserve his credit and the honour of his employments, how +could his courage suffer so infamous a confession? What can men say to +the divine justice upon this subject? + +Their repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reparation, they +lose the colour of alleging it both to God and man. Are they so impudent +as to sue for remission without satisfaction and without penitence? +I look upon these as in the same condition with the first: but the +obstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety and +volubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kind +of miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agony +of mind. + +It seemed to me a fantastic imagination in those who, these late years +past, were wont to reproach every man they knew to be of any +extraordinary parts, and made profession of the Catholic religion, that +it was but outwardly; maintaining, moreover, to do him honour forsooth, +that whatever he might pretend to the contrary he could not but in his +heart be of their reformed opinion. An untoward disease, that a man +should be so riveted to his own belief as to fancy that others cannot +believe otherwise than as he does; and yet worse, that they should +entertain so vicious an opinion of such great parts as to think any man +so qualified, should prefer any present advantage of fortune to the +promises of eternal life and the menaces of eternal damnation. They may +believe me: could anything have tempted my youth, the ambition of the +danger and difficulties in the late commotions had not been the least +motives. + +It is not without very good reason, in my opinion, that the Church +interdicts the promiscuous, indiscreet, and irreverent use of the holy +and divine Psalms, with which the Holy Ghost inspired King David. We +ought not to mix God in our actions, but with the highest reverence and +caution; that poesy is too holy to be put to no other use than to +exercise the lungs and to delight our ears; it ought to come from the +conscience, and not from the tongue. It is not fit that a prentice in +his shop, amongst his vain and frivolous thoughts, should be permitted to +pass away his time and divert himself with such sacred things. Neither +is it decent to see the Holy Book of the holy mysteries of our belief +tumbled up and down a hall or a kitchen they were formerly mysteries, but +are now become sports and recreations. 'Tis a book too serious and too +venerable to be cursorily or slightly turned over: the reading of the +scripture ought to be a temperate and premeditated act, and to which men +should always add this devout preface, 'sursum corda', preparing even the +body to so humble and composed a gesture and countenance as shall +evidence a particular veneration and attention. Neither is it a book for +everyone to fist, but the study of select men set apart for that purpose, +and whom Almighty God has been pleased to call to that office and sacred +function: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. 'Tis, not a story to +tell, but a history to revere, fear, and adore. Are not they then +pleasant men who think they have rendered this fit for the people's +handling by translating it into the vulgar tongue? Does the +understanding of all therein contained only stick at words? Shall I +venture to say further, that by coming so near to understand a little, +they are much wider of the whole scope than before. A pure and simple +ignorance and wholly depending upon the exposition of qualified persons, +was far more learned and salutary than this vain and verbal knowledge, +which has only temerity and presumption. + +And I do further believe that the liberty every one has taken to disperse +the sacred writ into so many idioms carries with it a great deal more of +danger than utility. The Jews, Mohammedans, and almost all other +peoples, have reverentially espoused the language wherein their mysteries +were first conceived, and have expressly, and not without colour of +reason, forbidden the alteration of them into any other. Are we assured +that in Biscay and in Brittany there are enough competent judges of this +affair to establish this translation into their own language? The +universal Church has not a more difficult and solemn judgment to make. +In preaching and speaking the interpretation is vague, free, mutable, and +of a piece by itself; so 'tis not the same thing. + +One of our Greek historians age justly censures the he lived in, because +the secrets of the Christian religion were dispersed into the hands of +every mechanic, to expound and argue upon, according to his own fancy, +and that we ought to be much ashamed, we who by God's especial favour +enjoy the pure mysteries of piety, to suffer them to be profaned by the +ignorant rabble; considering that the Gentiles expressly forbad Socrates, +Plato, and the other sages to inquire into or so much as mention the +things committed to the priests of Delphi; and he says, moreover, that +the factions of princes upon theological subjects are armed not with zeal +but fury; that zeal springs from the divine wisdom and justice, and +governs itself with prudence and moderation, but degenerates into hatred +and envy, producing tares and nettles instead of corn and wine when +conducted by human passions. And it was truly said by another, who, +advising the Emperor Theodosius, told him that disputes did not so much +rock the schisms of the Church asleep, as it roused and animated +heresies; that, therefore, all contentions and dialectic disputations +were to be avoided, and men absolutely to acquiesce in the prescriptions +and formulas of faith established by the ancients. And the Emperor +Andronicus having overheard some great men at high words in his palace +with Lapodius about a point of ours of great importance, gave them so +severe a check as to threaten to cause them to be thrown into the river +if they did not desist. The very women and children nowadays take upon +them to lecture the oldest and most experienced men about the +ecclesiastical laws; whereas the first of those of Plato forbids them to +inquire so much as into the civil laws, which were to stand instead of +divine ordinances; and, allowing the old men to confer amongst themselves +or with the magistrate about those things, he adds, provided it be not in +the presence of young or profane persons. + +A bishop has left in writing that at the other end of the world there is +an isle, by the ancients called Dioscorides, abundantly fertile in all +sorts of trees and fruits, and of an exceedingly healthful air; the +inhabitants of which are Christians, having churches and altars, only +adorned with crosses without any other images, great observers of fasts +and feasts, exact payers of their tithes to the priests, and so chaste, +that none of them is permitted to have to do with more than one woman in +his life--[What Osorius says is that these people only had one wife at a +time.]--as to the rest, so content with their condition, that environed +with the sea they know nothing of navigation, and so simple that they +understand not one syllable of the religion they profess and wherein they +are so devout: a thing incredible to such as do not know that the Pagans, +who are so zealous idolaters, know nothing more of their gods than their +bare names and their statues. The ancient beginning of 'Menalippus', a +tragedy of Euripides, ran thus: + + "O Jupiter! for that name alone + Of what thou art to me is known." + +I have also known in my time some men's writings found fault with for +being purely human and philosophical, without any mixture of theology; +and yet, with some show of reason, it might, on the contrary, be said +that the divine doctrine, as queen and regent of the rest, better keeps +her state apart, that she ought to be sovereign throughout, not +subsidiary and suffragan, and that, peradventure, grammatical, +rhetorical, logical examples may elsewhere be more suitably chosen, as +also the material for the stage, games, and public entertainments, than +from so sacred a matter; that divine reasons are considered with greater +veneration and attention by themselves, and in their own proper style, +than when mixed with and adapted to human discourse; that it is a fault +much more often observed that the divines write too humanly, than that +the humanists write not theologically enough. Philosophy, says St. +Chrysostom, has long been banished the holy schools, as an handmaid +altogether useless and thought unworthy to look, so much as in passing +by the door, into the sanctuary of the holy treasures of the celestial +doctrine; that the human way of speaking is of a much lower form and +ought not to adopt for herself the dignity and majesty of divine +eloquence. Let who will 'verbis indisciplinatis' talk of fortune, +destiny, accident, good and evil hap, and other suchlike phrases, +according to his own humour; I for my part propose fancies merely human +and merely my own, and that simply as human fancies, and separately +considered, not as determined by any decree from heaven, incapable of +doubt or dispute; matter of opinion, not matter of faith; things which I +discourse of according to my own notions, not as I believe, according to +God; after a laical, not clerical, and yet always after a very religious +manner, as children prepare their exercises, not to instruct but to be +instructed. + +And might it not be said, that an edict enjoining all people but such as +are public professors of divinity, to be very reserved in writing of +religion, would carry with it a very good colour of utility and justice +--and to me, amongst the rest peradventure, to hold my prating? I have +been told that even those who are not of our Church nevertheless amongst +themselves expressly forbid the name of God to be used in common +discourse, nor so much even by way of interjection, exclamation, +assertion of a truth, or comparison; and I think them in the right: upon +what occasion soever we call upon God to accompany and assist us, it +ought always to be done with the greatest reverence and devotion. + +There is, as I remember, a passage in Xenophon where he tells us that we +ought so much the more seldom to call upon God, by how much it is hard to +compose our souls to such a degree of calmness, patience, and devotion as +it ought to be in at such a time; otherwise our prayers are not only vain +and fruitless, but vicious: "forgive us," we say, "our trespasses, as we +forgive them that trespass against us"; what do we mean by this petition +but that we present to God a soul free from all rancour and revenge? And +yet we make nothing of invoking God's assistance in our vices, and +inviting Him into our unjust designs: + + "Quae, nisi seductis, nequeas committere divis" + + ["Which you can only impart to the gods, when you have gained them + over."--Persius, ii. 4.] + +the covetous man prays for the conservation of his vain and superfluous +riches; the ambitious for victory and the good conduct of his fortune; +the thief calls Him to his assistance, to deliver him from the dangers +and difficulties that obstruct his wicked designs, or returns Him thanks +for the facility he has met with in cutting a man's throat; at the door +of the house men are going to storm or break into by force of a petard, +they fall to prayers for success, their intentions and hopes of cruelty, +avarice, and lust. + + "Hoc igitur, quo to Jovis aurem impellere tentas, + Dic agedum Staio: 'proh Jupiter! O bone, clamet, + Jupiter!' At sese non clamet Jupiter ipse." + + ["This therefore, with which you seek to draw the ear of Jupiter, + say to Staius. 'O Jupiter! O good Jupiter!' let him cry. Think + you Jupiter himself would not cry out upon it?"--Persius, ii. 21.] + +Marguerite, Queen of Navarre,--[In the Heptameron.]--tells of a young +prince, who, though she does not name him, is easily enough by his great +qualities to be known, who going upon an amorous assignation to lie with +an advocate's wife of Paris, his way thither being through a church, he +never passed that holy place going to or returning from his pious +exercise, but he always kneeled down to pray. Wherein he would employ +the divine favour, his soul being full of such virtuous meditations, +I leave others to judge, which, nevertheless, she instances for a +testimony of singular devotion. But this is not the only proof we have +that women are not very fit to treat of theological affairs. + +A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God +cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the +dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course +of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or +like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie. + + "Tacito mala vota susurro + Concipimus." + + ["We whisper our guilty prayers."---Lucan, v. 104.] + +There are few men who durst publish to the world the prayers they make to +Almighty God: + + "Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque susurros + Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto" + + ["'Tis not convenient for every one to bring the prayers he mutters + out of the temple, and to give his wishes to the public ear. + --"Persius, ii. 6.] + +and this is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always public +and heard by every one, to the end they might not prefer indecent or +unjust petitions as this man: + + "Clare quum dixit, Apollo! + Labra movet, metuens audiri: Pulcra Laverna, + Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri; + Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem." + + ["When he has clearly said Apollo! he moves his lips, fearful to be + heard; he murmurs: O fair Laverna, grant me the talent to deceive; + grant me to appear holy and just; shroud my sins with night, and + cast a cloud over my frauds."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 59.--(Laverna + was the goddess of thieves.)] + +The gods severely punished the wicked prayers of OEdipus in granting +them: he had prayed that his children might amongst themselves determine +the succession to his throne by arms, and was so miserable as to see +himself taken at his word. We are not to pray that all things may go as +we would have them, but as most concurrent with prudence. + +We seem, in truth, to make use of our prayers as of a kind of jargon, and +as those do who employ holy words about sorceries and magical operations; +and as if we reckoned the benefit we are to reap from them as depending +upon the contexture, sound, and jingle of words, or upon the grave +composing of the countenance. For having the soul contaminated with +concupiscence, not touched with repentance, or comforted by any late +reconciliation with God, we go to present Him such words as the memory +suggests to the tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the remission of +our sins. There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the +divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we +are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted +as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, +we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this +pardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least, +wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the +ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us +to offend her; neither the gods nor good men (says Plato) will accept the +present of a wicked man: + + "Immunis aram si terigit manus, + Non sumptuosa blandior hostia + Mollivit aversos Penates + Farre pio et saliente mica." + + ["If a pure hand has touched the altar, the pious offering of a + small cake and a few grains of salt will appease the offended gods + more effectually than costly sacrifices." + --Horace, Od., iii. 23, 17.] + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + +OF AGE + +I cannot allow of the way in which we settle for ourselves the duration +of our life. I see that the sages contract it very much in comparison of +the common opinion: "what," said the younger Cato to those who would stay +his hand from killing himself, "am I now of an age to be reproached that +I go out of the world too soon?" And yet he was but eight-and-forty +years old. He thought that to be a mature and advanced age, considering +how few arrive unto it. And such as, soothing their thoughts with I know +not what course of nature, promise to themselves some years beyond it, +could they be privileged from the infinite number of accidents to which +we are by a natural subjection exposed, they might have some reason so to +do. What am idle conceit is it to expect to die of a decay of strength, +which is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves no +shorter lease of life than that, considering it is a kind of death of all +others the most rare and very seldom seen? We call that only a natural +death; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck with +a fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be snatched away with a pleurisy or the +plague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to these +inconveniences. Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these fine +words; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural which is +general, common, and universal. + +To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular, and, +therefore, so much less natural than the others; 'tis the last and +extremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for. +It is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pass, and which the +law of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal, +a privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then. 'Tis a +lease she only signs by particular favour, and it may be to one only in +the space of two or three ages, and then with a pass to boot, to carry +him through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way +of this long career. And therefore my opinion is, that when once forty +years we should consider it as an age to which very few arrive. For +seeing that men do not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we are +pretty well advanced; and since we have exceeded the ordinary bounds, +which is the just measure of life, we ought not to expect to go much +further; having escaped so many precipices of death, whereinto we have +seen so many other men fall, we should acknowledge that so extraordinary +a fortune as that which has hitherto rescued us from those eminent +perils, and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of living, is not like +to continue long. + +'Tis a fault in our very laws to maintain this error: these say that a +man is not capable of managing his own estate till he be five-and-twenty +years old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his life so long. +Augustus cut off five years from the ancient Roman standard, and declared +that thirty years old was sufficient for a judge. Servius Tullius +superseded the knights of above seven-and-forty years of age from the +fatigues of war; Augustus dismissed them at forty-five; though methinks +it seems a little unreasonable that men should be sent to the fireside +till five-and-fifty or sixty years of age. I should be of opinion that +our vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for the +public good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employ +us early enough. This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at +nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to +determine a dispute about a gutter. + +For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are +ever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by +that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after +come to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have +of vigorous and fine, within that term or never, + + "Si l'espine rion picque quand nai, + A pene que picque jamai," + + ["If the thorn does not prick at its birth, + 'twill hardly ever prick at all."] + +as they say in Dauphin. + +Of all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sort +soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more were +performed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the +very lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those of +Hannibal and his great rival Scipio? The better half of their lives they +lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after, +'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of +themselves. As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that since +that age, both my understanding and my constitution have rather decayed +than improved, and retired rather than advanced. 'Tis possible, that +with those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experience +may increase with their years; but vivacity, promptitude, steadiness, and +other pieces of us, of much greater importance, and much more essentially +our own, languish and decay: + + "Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus aevi + Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus, + Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque, mensque." + + ["When once the body is shaken by the violence of time, + blood and vigour ebbing away, the judgment halts, + the tongue and the mind dote."--Lucretius, iii. 452.] + +Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind; and I have +seen enough who have got a weakness in their brains before either in +their legs or stomach; and by how much the more it is a disease of no +great pain to the sufferer, and of obscure symptoms, so much greater is +the danger. For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not that +they keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late. +For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural +rocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to +childhood, idleness, and apprenticeship. + + [Which Cotton thus renders: "Birth though noble, ought not to share + so large a vacancy, and so tedious a course of education." Florio + (1613) makes the passage read as-follows: "Methinks that, + considering the weakness of our life, and seeing the infinite number + of ordinary rocks and natural dangers it is subject unto, we should + not, so soon as we come into the world, allot so large a share + thereof unto unprofitable wantonness in youth, ill-breeding + idleness, and slow-learning prentisage."] + + + + + ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort + An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets + Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it + Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace + Change of fashions + Chess: this idle and childish game + Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato + Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen + Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders + Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them + Excel above the common rate in frivolous things + Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other + Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does + Gradations above and below pleasure + Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed + He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern + Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints + How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is + I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback + Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words + Little knacks and frivolous subtleties + Men approve of things for their being rare and new + Must of necessity walk in the steps of another + Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen + Not to instruct but to be instructed. + Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue + Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet + Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive + Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble + Sitting betwixt two stools + Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind + Stupidity and facility natural to the common people + The Bible: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. + The faintness that surprises in the exercises of Venus + Thucydides: which was the better wrestler + To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular + To make little things appear great was his profession + To smell, though well, is to stink + Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear + Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age + We can never be despised according to our full desert + When we have got it, we want something else + Women who paint, pounce, and plaster up their ruins + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 8 +by Michel de Montaigne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 8 *** + +***** This file should be named 3588.txt or 3588.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/8/3588/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.08.01*END** +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + + + + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 8. + +XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers. +XLIX. Of ancient customs. +L. Of Democritus and Heraclitus. +LI. Of the vanity of words. +LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients. +LIII. Of a saying of Caesar. +LIV. Of vain subtleties. +LV. Of smells. +LVI. Of prayers. +LVII. Of age. + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +OF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS + +I here have become a grammarian, I who never learned any language but by +rote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, or ablative. I +think I have read that the Romans had a sort of horses by them called +'funales' or 'dextrarios', which were either led horses, or horses laid +on at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion, and thence it is +that we call our horses of service 'destriers'; and our romances commonly +use the phrase of 'adestrer' for 'accompagner', to accompany. They also +called those that were trained in such sort, that running full speed, +side by side, without bridle or saddle, the Roman gentlemen, armed at all +pieces, would shift and throw themselves from one to the other, +'desultorios equos'. The Numidian men-at-arms had always a led horse in +one hand, besides that they rode upon, to change in the heat of battle: + + "Quibus, desultorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, inter + acerrimam saepe pugnam, in recentem equum, ex fesso, armatis + transultare mos erat: tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile + equorum genus." + + ["To whom it was a custom, leading along two horses, often in the + hottest fight, to leap armed from a tired horse to a fresh one; so + active were the men, and the horses so docile."--Livy, xxiii. 29.] + +There are many horses trained to help their riders so as to run upon any +one, that appears with a drawn sword, to fall both with mouth and heels +upon any that front or oppose them: but it often happens that they do +more harm to their friends than to their enemies; and, moreover, you +cannot loose them from their hold, to reduce them again into order, when +they are once engaged and grappled, by which means you remain at the +mercy of their quarrel. It happened very ill to Artybius, general of the +Persian army, fighting, man to man, with Onesilus, king of Salamis, to be +mounted upon a horse trained after this manner, it being the occasion of +his death, the squire of Onesilus cleaving the horse down with a scythe +betwixt the shoulders as it was reared up upon his master. And what the +Italians report, that in the battle of Fornova, the horse of Charles +VIII., with kicks and plunges, disengaged his master from the enemy that +pressed upon him, without which he had been slain, sounds like a very +great chance, if it be true. + + [In the narrative which Philip de Commines has given of this battle, + in which he himself was present (lib. viii. ch. 6), he tells us + of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was + mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most + beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was + personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de + chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. "The king," says + Commines, "had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore + he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great + way from him, arrived at the critical minute."] + +The Mamalukes make their boast that they have the most ready horses of +any cavalry in the world; that by nature and custom they were taught to +know and distinguish the enemy, and to fall foul upon them with mouth and +heels, according to a word or sign given; as also to gather up with their +teeth darts and lances scattered upon the field, and present them to +their riders, on the word of command. 'T is said, both of Caesar and +Pompey, that amongst their other excellent qualities they were both very +good horsemen, and particularly of Caesar, that in his youth, being +mounted on the bare back, without saddle or bridle, he could make the +horse run, stop, and turn, and perform all its airs, with his hands +behind him. As nature designed to make of this person, and of Alexander, +two miracles of military art, so one would say she had done her utmost to +arm them after an extraordinary manner for every one knows that +Alexander's horse, Bucephalus, had a head inclining to the shape of a +bull; that he would suffer himself to be mounted and governed by none but +his master, and that he was so honoured after his death as to have a city +erected to his name. Caesar had also one which had forefeet like those +of a man, his hoofs being divided in the form of fingers, which likewise +was not to be ridden, by any but Caesar himself, who, after his death, +dedicated his statue to the goddess Venus. + +I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback, for it is the +place where, whether well or sick, I find myself most at ease. Plato +recommends it for health, as also Pliny says it is good for the stomach +and the joints. Let us go further into this matter since here we are. + +We read in Xenophon a law forbidding any one who was master of a horse to +travel on foot. Trogus Pompeius and Justin say that the Parthians were +wont to perform all offices and ceremonies, not only in war but also all +affairs whether public or private, make bargains, confer, entertain, take +the air, and all on horseback; and that the greatest distinction betwixt +freemen and slaves amongst them was that the one rode on horseback and +the other went on foot, an institution of which King Cyrus was the +founder. + +There are several examples in the Roman history (and Suetonius more +particularly observes it of Caesar) of captains who, on pressing +occasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, both by that means to take +from them all hopes of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped in +this sort of fight. + + "Quo baud dubie superat Romanus," + + ["Wherein the Roman does questionless excel."--Livy, ix. 22.] + +says Livy. And so the first thing they did to prevent the mutinies and +insurrections of nations of late conquest was to take from them their +arms and horses, and therefore it is that we so often meet in Caesar: + + "Arma proferri, jumenta produci, obsides dari jubet." + + ["He commanded the arms to be produced, the horses brought out, + hostages to be given."--De Bello Gall., vii. II.] + +The Grand Signior to this day suffers not a Christian or a Jew to keep a +horse of his own throughout his empire. + +Our ancestors, and especially at the time they had war with the English, +in all their greatest engagements and pitched battles fought for the most +part on foot, that they might have nothing but their own force, courage, +and constancy to trust to in a quarrel of so great concern as life and +honour. You stake (whatever Chrysanthes in Xenophon says to the +contrary) your valour and your fortune upon that of your horse; his +wounds or death bring your person into the same danger; his fear or fury +shall make you reputed rash or cowardly; if he have an ill mouth or will +not answer to the spur, your honour must answer for it. And, therefore, +I do not think it strange that those battles were more firm and furious +than those that are fought on horseback: + + "Caedebant pariter, pariterque ruebant + Victores victique; neque his fuga nota, neque illis." + + ["They fought and fell pell-mell, victors and vanquished; nor was + flight thought of by either."--AEneid, x. 756.] + +Their battles were much better disputed. Nowadays there are nothing but +routs: + + "Primus clamor atque impetus rem decernit." + + ["The first shout and charge decides the business."--Livy, xxv. 41.] + +And the means we choose to make use of in so great a hazard should be as +much as possible at our own command: wherefore I should advise to choose +weapons of the shortest sort, and such of which we are able to give the +best account. A man may repose more confidence in a sword he holds in +his hand than in a bullet he discharges out of a pistol, wherein there +must be a concurrence of several circumstances to make it perform its +office, the powder, the stone, and the wheel: if any of which fail it +endangers your fortune. A man himself strikes much surer than the air +can direct his blow: + + "Et, quo ferre velint, permittere vulnera ventis + Ensis habet vires; et gens quaecumque virorum est, + Bella gerit gladiis." + + ["And so where they choose to carry [the arrows], the winds allow + the wounds; the sword has strength of arm: and whatever nation of + men there is, they wage war with swords."--Lucan, viii. 384.] + +But of that weapon I shall speak more fully when I come to compare the +arms of the ancients with those of modern use; only, by the way, the +astonishment of the ear abated, which every one grows familiar with in a +short time, I look upon it as a weapon of very little execution, and hope +we shall one day lay it aside. That missile weapon which the Italians +formerly made use of both with fire and by sling was much more terrible: +they called a certain kind of javelin, armed at the point with an iron +three feet long, that it might pierce through and through an armed man, +Phalarica, which they sometimes in the field darted by hand, sometimes +from several sorts of engines for the defence of beleaguered places; the +shaft being rolled round with flax, wax, rosin, oil, and other +combustible matter, took fire in its flight, and lighting upon the body +of a man or his target, took away all the use of arms and limbs. And +yet, coming to close fight, I should think they would also damage the +assailant, and that the camp being as it were planted with these flaming +truncheons, would produce a common inconvenience to the whole crowd: + + "Magnum stridens contorta Phalarica venit, + Fulminis acta modo." + + ["The Phalarica, launched like lightning, flies through + the air with a loud rushing sound."--AEneid, ix. 705.] + +They had, moreover, other devices which custom made them perfect in +(which seem incredible to us who have not seen them), by which they +supplied the effects of our powder and shot. They darted their spears +with so great force, as ofttimes to transfix two targets and two armed +men at once, and pin them together. Neither was the effect of their +slings less certain of execution or of shorter carriage: + + ["Culling round stones from the beach for their slings; and with + these practising over the waves, so as from a great distance to + throw within a very small circuit, they became able not only to + wound an enemy in the head, but hit any other part at pleasure." + --Livy, xxxviii. 29.] + +Their pieces of battery had not only the execution but the thunder of our +cannon also: + + "Ad ictus moenium cum terribili sonitu editos, + pavor et trepidatio cepit." + + ["At the battery of the walls, performed with a terrible noise, + the defenders began to fear and tremble."--Idem, ibid., 5.] + +The Gauls, our kinsmen in Asia, abominated these treacherous missile +arms, it being their use to fight, with greater bravery, hand to hand: + + ["They are not so much concerned about large gashes-the bigger and + deeper the wound, the more glorious do they esteem the combat but + when they find themselves tormented by some arrow-head or bullet + lodged within, but presenting little outward show of wound, + transported with shame and anger to perish by so imperceptible a + destroyer, they fall to the ground."---Livy, xxxviii. 21.] + +A pretty description of something very like an arquebuse-shot. The ten +thousand Greeks in their long and famous retreat met with a nation who +very much galled them with great and strong bows, carrying arrows so long +that, taking them up, one might return them back like a dart, and with +them pierce a buckler and an armed man through and through. The engines, +that Dionysius invented at Syracuse to shoot vast massy darts and stones +of a prodigious greatness with so great impetuosity and at so great a +distance, came very near to our modern inventions. + +But in this discourse of horses and horsemanship, we are not to forget +the pleasant posture of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity, +upon his mule, whom Monstrelet reports always to have ridden sideways +through the streets of Paris like a woman. He says also, elsewhere, that +the Gascons had terrible horses, that would wheel in their full speed, +which the French, Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon as a +miracle, "having never seen the like before," which are his very words. + +Caesar, speaking of the Suabians: " in the charges they make on +horseback," says he, "they often throw themselves off to fight on foot, +having taught their horses not to stir in the meantime from the place, +to which they presently run again upon occasion; and according to their +custom, nothing is so unmanly and so base as to use saddles or pads, and +they despise such as make use of those conveniences: insomuch that, being +but a very few in number, they fear not to attack a great many." That +which I have formerly wondered at, to see a horse made to perform all his +airs with a switch only and the reins upon his neck, was common with the +Massilians, who rid their horses without saddle or bridle: + + "Et gens, quae nudo residens Massylia dorso, + Ora levi flectit, fraenorum nescia, virga." + + ["The Massylians, mounted on the bare backs of their horses, + bridleless, guide them by a mere switch."--Lucan, iv. 682.] + + "Et Numidae infraeni cingunt." + + ["The Numidians guiding their horses without bridles." + --AEneid, iv. 41.] + + "Equi sine fraenis, deformis ipse cursus, + rigida cervice et extento capite currentium." + + ["The career of a horse without a bridle is ungraceful; the neck + extended stiff, and the nose thrust out."--Livy, xxxv. II.] + +King Alfonso, --[Alfonso XI., king of Leon and Castile, died 1350.]-- +he who first instituted the Order of the Band or Scarf in Spain, amongst +other rules of the order, gave them this, that they should never ride +mule or mulet, upon penalty of a mark of silver; this I had lately out of +Guevara's Letters. Whoever gave these the title of Golden Epistles had +another kind of opinion of them than I have. The Courtier says, that +till his time it was a disgrace to a gentleman to ride on one of these +creatures: but the Abyssinians, on the contrary, the nearer they are to +the person of Prester John, love to be mounted upon large mules, for the +greatest dignity and grandeur. + +Xenophon tells us, that the Assyrians were fain to keep their horses +fettered in the stable, they were so fierce and vicious; and that it +required so much time to loose and harness them, that to avoid any +disorder this tedious preparation might bring upon them in case of +surprise, they never sat down in their camp till it was first well +fortified with ditches and ramparts. His Cyrus, who was so great a +master in all manner of horse service, kept his horses to their due work, +and never suffered them to have anything to eat till first they had +earned it by the sweat of some kind of exercise. The Scythians when in +the field and in scarcity of provisions used to let their horses blood, +which they drank, and sustained themselves by that diet: + + "Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo." + + ["The Scythian comes, who feeds on horse-flesh" + --Martial, De Spectaculis Libey, Epigr. iii. 4.] + +Those of Crete, being besieged by Metellus, were in so great necessity +for drink that they were fain to quench their thirst with their horses +urine.--[Val. Max., vii. 6, ext. 1.] + +To shew how much cheaper the Turkish armies support themselves than our +European forces, 'tis said that besides the soldiers drink nothing but +water and eat nothing but rice and salt flesh pulverised (of which every +one may easily carry about with him a month's provision), they know how +to feed upon the blood of their horses as well as the Muscovite and +Tartar, and salt it for their use. + +These new-discovered people of the Indies [Mexico and Yucatan D.W.], +when the Spaniards first landed amongst them, had so great an opinion +both of the men and horses, that they looked upon the first as gods and +the other as animals ennobled above their nature; insomuch that after +they were subdued, coming to the men to sue for peace and pardon, and to +bring them gold and provisions, they failed not to offer of the same to +the horses, with the same kind of harangue to them they had made to the +others: interpreting their neighing for a language of truce and +friendship. + +In the other Indies, to ride upon an elephant was the first and royal +place of honour; the second to ride in a coach with four horses; the +third to ride upon a camel; and the last and least honour to be carried +or drawn by one horse only. Some one of our late writers tells us that +he has been in countries in those parts where they ride upon oxen with +pads, stirrups, and bridles, and very much at their ease. + +Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, in a battle with the Samnites, seeing +his horse, after three or four charges, had failed of breaking into the +enemy's battalion, took this course, to make them unbridle all their +horses and spur their hardest, so that having nothing to check their +career, they might through weapons and men open the way to his foot, who +by that means gave them a bloody defeat. The same command was given by +Quintus Fulvius Flaccus against the Celtiberians: + + ["You will do your business with greater advantage of your horses' + strength, if you send them unbridled upon the enemy, as it is + recorded the Roman horse to their great glory have often done; their + bits being taken off, they charged through and again back through + the enemy's ranks with great slaughter, breaking down all their + spears."--Idem, xl. 40.] + +The Duke of Muscovy was anciently obliged to pay this reverence to the +Tartars, that when they sent an embassy to him he went out to meet them +on foot, and presented them with a goblet of mares' milk (a beverage of +greatest esteem amongst them), and if, in drinking, a drop fell by chance +upon their horse's mane, he was bound to lick it off with his tongue. +The army that Bajazet had sent into Russia was overwhelmed with so +dreadful a tempest of snow, that to shelter and preserve themselves from +the cold, many killed and embowelled their horses, to creep into their +bellies and enjoy the benefit of that vital heat. Bajazet, after that +furious battle wherein he was overthrown by Tamerlane, was in a hopeful +way of securing his own person by the fleetness of an Arabian mare he had +under him, had he not been constrained to let her drink her fill at the +ford of a river in his way, which rendered her so heavy and indisposed, +that he was afterwards easily overtaken by those that pursued him. They +say, indeed, that to let a horse stale takes him off his mettle, but as +to drinking, I should rather have thought it would refresh him. + +Croesus, marching his army through certain waste lands near Sardis, met +with an infinite number of serpents, which the horses devoured with great +appetite, and which Herodotus says was a prodigy of ominous portent to +his affairs. + +We call a horse entire, that has his mane and ears so, and no other will +pass muster. The Lacedaemonians, having defeated the Athenians in +Sicily, returning triumphant from the victory into the city of Syracuse, +amongst other insolences, caused all the horses they had taken to be +shorn and led in triumph. Alexander fought with a nation called Dahas, +whose discipline it was to march two and two together armed on one horse, +to the war; and being in fight, one of them alighted, and so they fought +on horseback and on foot, one after another by turns. + +I do not think that for graceful riding any nation in the world excels +the French. A good horseman, according to our way of speaking, seems +rather to have respect to the courage of the man than address in riding. +Of all that ever I saw, the most knowing in that art, who had the best +seat and the best method in breaking horses, was Monsieur de Carnavalet, +who served our King Henry II. + +I have seen a man ride with both his feet upon the saddle, take off his +saddle, and at his return take it up again and replace it, riding all the +while full speed; having galloped over a cap, make at it very good shots +backwards with his bow; take up anything from the ground, setting one +foot on the ground and the other in the stirrup: with twenty other ape's +tricks, which he got his living by. + +There has been seen in my time at Constantinople two men upon one horse, +who, in the height of its speed, would throw themselves off and into the +saddle again by turn; and one who bridled and saddled his horse with +nothing but his teeth; an other who betwixt two horses, one foot upon one +saddle and the other upon another, carrying the other man upon his +shoulders, would ride full career, the other standing bolt upright upon +and making very good shots with his bow; several who would ride full +speed with their heels upward, and their heads upon the saddle betwixt +several scimitars, with the points upwards, fixed in the harness. When I +was a boy, the prince of Sulmona, riding an unbroken horse at Naples, +prone to all sorts of action, held reals --[A small coin of Spain, the +Two Sicilies, &c.]-- under his knees and toes, as if they had been nailed +there, to shew the firmness of his seat. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS + +I should willingly pardon our people for admitting no other pattern or +rule of perfection than their own peculiar manners and customs; for 'tis +a common vice, not of the vulgar only, but almost of all men, to walk in +the beaten road their ancestors have trod before them. I am content, +when they see Fabricius or Laelius, that they look upon their countenance +and behaviour as barbarous, seeing they are neither clothed nor fashioned +according to our mode. But I find fault with their singular indiscretion +in suffering themselves to be so blinded and imposed upon by the +authority of the present usage as every month to alter their opinion, if +custom so require, and that they should so vary their judgment in their +own particular concern. When they wore the busk of their doublets up as +high as their breasts, they stiffly maintained that they were in their +proper place; some years after it was slipped down betwixt their thighs, +and then they could laugh at the former fashion as uneasy and +intolerable. The fashion now in use makes them absolutely condemn the +other two with so great resolution and so universal consent, that a man +would think there was a certain kind of madness crept in amongst them, +that infatuates their understandings to this strange degree. Now, seeing +that our change of fashions is so prompt and sudden, that the inventions +of all the tailors in the world cannot furnish out new whim-whams enow to +feed our vanity withal, there will often be a necessity that the despised +forms must again come in vogue, these immediately after fall into the +same contempt; and that the same judgment must, in the space of fifteen +or twenty years, take up half-a-dozen not only divers but contrary +opinions, with an incredible lightness and inconstancy; there is not any +of us so discreet, who suffers not himself to be gulled with this +contradiction, and both in external and internal sight to be insensibly +blinded. + +I wish to muster up here some old customs that I have in memory, some of +them the same with ours, the others different, to the end that, bearing +in mind this continual variation of human things, we may have our +judgment more clearly and firmly settled. + +The thing in use amongst us of fighting with rapier and cloak was in +practice amongst the Romans also: + + "Sinistras sagis involvunt, gladiosque distringunt," + + ["They wrapt their cloaks upon the left arm, and drew their + swords."--De Bello Civili, i. 75.] + +says Caesar; and he observes a vicious custom of our nation, that +continues yet amongst us, which is to stop passengers we meet upon the +road, to compel them to give an account who they are, and to take it for +an affront and just cause of quarrel if they refuse to do it. + +At the Baths, which the ancients made use of every day before they went +to dinner, and as frequently as we wash our hands, they at first only +bathed their arms and legs; but afterwards, and by a custom that has +continued for many ages in most nations of the world, they bathed stark +naked in mixed and perfumed water, looking upon it as a great simplicity +to bathe in mere water. The most delicate and affected perfumed +themselves all over three or four times a day. They often caused their +hair to be pinched off, as the women of France have some time since taken +up a custom to do their foreheads, + + "Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod brachia veilis," + + ["You pluck the hairs out of your breast, your arms, and thighs." + --Martial, ii. 62, i.] + +though they had ointments proper for that purpose: + + "Psilotro nitet, aut acids latet oblita creta." + + ["She shines with unguents, or with chalk dissolved in vinegar." + --Idem, vi. 93, 9.] + +They delighted to lie soft, and alleged it as a great testimony of +hardiness to lie upon a mattress. They ate lying upon beds, much after +the manner of the Turks in this age: + + "Inde thoro pater AEneas sic orsus ab alto." + + ["Thus Father AEneas, from his high bed of state, spoke." + --AEneid, ii. 2.] + +And 'tis said of the younger Cato, that after the battle of Pharsalia, +being entered into a melancholy disposition at the ill posture of the +public affairs, he took his repasts always sitting, assuming a strict and +austere course of life. It was also their custom to kiss the hands of +great persons; the more to honour and caress them. And meeting with +friends, they always kissed in salutation, as do the Venetians: + + "Gratatusque darem cum dulcibus oscula verbis." + + ["And kindest words I would mingle with kisses." + --Ovid, De Pont., iv. 9, 13] + +In petitioning or saluting any great man, they used to lay their hands +upon his knees. Pasicles the philosopher, brother of Crates, instead of +laying his hand upon the knee laid it upon the private parts, and being +roughly repulsed by him to whom he made that indecent compliment: +"What," said he, "is not that part your own as well as the other?" -- +[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 89.]-- They used to eat fruit, as we do, after +dinner. They wiped their fundaments (let the ladies, if they please, +mince it smaller) with a sponge, which is the reason that 'spongia' is a +smutty word in Latin; which sponge was fastened to the end of a stick, as +appears by the story of him who, as he was led along to be thrown to the +wild beasts in the sight of the people, asking leave to do his business, +and having no other way to despatch himself, forced the sponge and stick +down his throat and choked himself.--[Seneca, Ep., 70.] They used to +wipe, after coition, with perfumed wool: + + "At tibi nil faciam; sed Iota mentula lana." + +They had in the streets of Rome vessels and little tubs for passengers to +urine in: + + "Pusi saepe lacum propter se, ac dolia curta." + Somno devincti, credunt extollere vestem." + + ["The little boys in their sleep often think they are near the + public urinal, and raise their coats to make use of it." + --Lucretius, iv.] + +They had collation betwixt meals, and had in summer cellars of snow to +cool their wine; and some there were who made use of snow in winter, not +thinking their wine cool enough, even at that cold season of the year. +The men of quality had their cupbearers and carvers, and their buffoons +to make them sport. They had their meat served up in winter upon chafing +dishes, which were set upon the table, and had portable kitchens (of +which I myself have seen some) wherein all their service was carried +about with them: + + "Has vobis epulas habete, lauti + Nos offendimur ambulante caena." + + ["Do you, if you please, esteem these feasts: we do not like the + ambulatory suppers."--Martial, vii. 48, 4.] + +In summer they had a contrivance to bring fresh and clear rills through +their lower rooms, wherein were great store of living fish, which the +guests took out with their own hands to be dressed every man according to +his own liking. Fish has ever had this pre-eminence, and keeps it still, +that the grandees, as to them, all pretend to be cooks; and indeed the +taste is more delicate than that of flesh, at least to my fancy. But in +all sorts of magnificence, debauchery, and voluptuous inventions of +effeminacy and expense, we do, in truth, all we can to parallel them; +for our wills are as corrupt as theirs: but we want ability to equal +them. Our force is no more able to reach them in their vicious, than in +their virtuous, qualities, for both the one and the other proceeded from +a vigour of soul which was without comparison greater in them than in us; +and souls, by how much the weaker they are, by so much have they less +power to do either very well or very ill. + +The highest place of honour amongst them was the middle. The name going +before, or following after, either in writing or speaking, had no +signification of grandeur, as is evident by their writings; they will as +soon say Oppius and Caesar, as Caesar and Oppius; and me and thee, as +thee and me. This is the reason that made me formerly take notice in the +life of Flaminius, in our French Plutarch, of one passage, where it seems +as if the author, speaking of the jealousy of honour betwixt the +AEtolians and Romans, about the winning of a battle they had with their +joined forces obtained, made it of some importance, that in the Greek +songs they had put the AEtolians before the Romans: if there be no +amphibology in the words of the French translation. + +The ladies, in their baths, made no scruple of admitting men amongst +them, and moreover made use of their serving-men to rub and anoint them: + + "Inguina succinctus nigri tibi servus aluta + Stat, quoties calidis nuda foveris aquis." + + ["A slave--his middle girded with a black apron--stands before you, + when, naked, you take a hot bath."--Martial, vii. 35, i.] + +They all powdered themselves with a certain powder, to moderate their +sweats. + +The ancient Gauls, says Sidonius Apollinaris, wore their hair long before +and the hinder part of the head shaved, a fashion that begins to revive +in this vicious and effeminate age. + +The Romans used to pay the watermen their fare at their first stepping +into the boat, which we never do till after landing: + + "Dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur, + Tota abit hora." + + ["Whilst the fare's paying, and the mule is being harnessed, a whole + hour's time is past."--Horace, Sat. i. 5, 13.] + +The women used to lie on the side of the bed next the wall: and for that +reason they called Caesar, + + "Spondam regis Nicomedis," + + ["The bed of King Nicomedes."--Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 49.] + +They took breath in their drinking, and watered their wine + + "Quis puer ocius + Restinguet ardentis Falerni + Pocula praetereunte lympha?" + + ["What boy will quickly come and cool the heat of the Falernian + wine with clear water?"--Horace, Od., ii. z, 18.] + +And the roguish looks and gestures of our lackeys were also in use +amongst them: + + O Jane, a tergo quern nulls ciconia pinsit, + Nec manus, auriculas imitari est mobilis albas, + Nec lingua, quantum sitiat canis Appula, tantum." + + ["O Janus, whom no crooked fingers, simulating a stork, peck at + behind your back, whom no quick hands deride behind you, by + imitating the motion of the white ears of the ass, against whom no + mocking tongue is thrust out, as the tongue of the thirsty Apulian + dog."--Persius, i. 58.] + +The Argian and Roman ladies mourned in white, as ours did formerly and +should do still, were I to govern in this point. But there are whole +books on this subject. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +OF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS + +The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar +in everything: which is the reason, that in these Essays I take hold of +all occasions where, though it happen to be a subject I do not very well +understand, I try, however, sounding it at a distance, and finding it too +deep for my stature, I keep me on the shore; and this knowledge that a +man can proceed no further, is one effect of its virtue, yes, one of +those of which it is most proud. One while in an idle and frivolous +subject, I try to find out matter whereof to compose a body, and then to +prop and support it; another while, I employ it in a noble subject, one +that has been tossed and tumbled by a thousand hands, wherein a man can +scarce possibly introduce anything of his own, the way being so beaten on +every side that he must of necessity walk in the steps of another: in +such a case, 'tis the work of the judgment to take the way that seems +best, and of a thousand paths, to determine that this or that is the +best. I leave the choice of my arguments to fortune, and take that she +first presents to me; they are all alike to me, I never design to go +through any of them; for I never see all of anything: neither do they who +so largely promise to show it others. Of a hundred members and faces +that everything has, I take one, onewhile to look it over only, another +while to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: I +give a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most part +tempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it. Did I +know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to +the bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here +one word and there another, patterns cut from several pieces and +scattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not +responsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without +varying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and +uncertainty, and to my own governing method, ignorance. + +All motion discovers us: the very same soul of Caesar, that made itself +so conspicuous in marshalling and commanding the battle of Pharsalia, was +also seen as solicitous and busy in the softer affairs of love and +leisure. A man makes a judgment of a horse, not only by seeing him when +he is showing off his paces, but by his very walk, nay, and by seeing him +stand in the stable. + +Amongst the functions of the soul, there are some of a lower and meaner +form; he who does not see her in those inferior offices as well as in +those of nobler note, never fully discovers her; and, peradventure, she +is best shown where she moves her simpler pace. The winds of passions +take most hold of her in her highest flights; and the rather by reason +that she wholly applies herself to, and exercises her whole virtue upon, +every particular subject, and never handles more than one thing at a +time, and that not according to it, but according to herself. Things in +respect to themselves have, peradventure, their weight, measures, and +conditions; but when we once take them into us, the soul forms them as +she pleases. Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato, indifferent +to Socrates. Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty, +and their contraries, all strip themselves at their entering into us, and +receive a new robe, and of another fashion, from the soul; and of what +colour, brown, bright, green, dark, and of what quality, sharp, sweet, +deep, or superficial, as best pleases each of them, for they are not +agreed upon any common standard of forms, rules, or proceedings; every +one is a queen in her own dominions. Let us, therefore, no more excuse +ourselves upon the external qualities of things; it belongs to us to give +ourselves an account of them. Our good or ill has no other dependence +but on ourselves. 'Tis there that our offerings and our vows are due, +and not to fortune she has no power over our manners; on the contrary, +they draw and make her follow in their train, and cast her in their own +mould. Why should not I judge of Alexander at table, ranting and +drinking at the prodigious rate he sometimes used to do? + +Or, if he played at chess? what string of his soul was not touched by +this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it, because it is not play +enough, that it is too grave and serious a diversion, and I am ashamed to +lay out as much thought and study upon it as would serve to much better +uses. He did not more pump his brains about his glorious expedition into +the Indies, nor than another in unravelling a passage upon which depends +the safety of mankind. To what a degree does this ridiculous diversion +molest the soul, when all her faculties are summoned together upon this +trivial account! and how fair an opportunity she herein gives every one +to know and to make a right judgment of himself? I do not more +thoroughly sift myself in any other posture than this: what passion are +we exempted from in it? Anger, spite, malice, impatience, and a vehement +desire of getting the better in a concern wherein it were more excusable +to be ambitious of being overcome; for to be eminent, to excel above the +common rate in frivolous things, nowise befits a man of honour. What I +say in this example may be said in all others. Every particle, every +employment of man manifests him equally with any other. + +Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, +finding human condition ridiculous and vain, never appeared abroad but +with a jeering and laughing countenance; whereas Heraclitus commiserating +that same condition of ours, appeared always with a sorrowful look, and +tears in his eyes: + + "Alter + Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum + Protuleratque pedem; flebat contrarius alter." + + ["The one always, as often as he had stepped one pace from his + threshold, laughed, the other always wept."--Juvenal, Sat., x. 28.] + + [Or, as Voltaire: "Life is a comedy to those who think; + a tragedy to those who feel." D.W.] + +I am clearly for the first humour; not because it is more pleasant to +laugh than to weep, but because it expresses more contempt and +condemnation than the other, and I think we can never be despised +according to our full desert. Compassion and bewailing seem to imply +some esteem of and value for the thing bemoaned; whereas the things we +laugh at are by that expressed to be of no moment. I do not think that +we are so unhappy as we are vain, or have in us so much malice as folly; +we are not so full of mischief as inanity; nor so miserable as we are +vile and mean. And therefore Diogenes, who passed away his time in +rolling himself in his tub, and made nothing of the great Alexander, +esteeming us no better than flies or bladders puffed up with wind, was a +sharper and more penetrating, and, consequently in my opinion, a juster +judge than Timon, surnamed the Man-hater; for what a man hates he lays to +heart. This last was an enemy to all mankind, who passionately desired +our ruin, and avoided our conversation as dangerous, proceeding from +wicked and depraved natures: the other valued us so little that we could +neither trouble nor infect him by our example; and left us to herd one +with another, not out of fear, but from contempt of our society: +concluding us as incapable of doing good as evil. + +Of the same strain was Statilius' answer, when Brutus courted him into +the conspiracy against Caesar; he was satisfied that the enterprise was +just, but he did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern'; +according to the doctrine of Hegesias, who said, that a wise man ought to +do nothing but for himself, forasmuch as he only was worthy of it: and to +the saying of Theodorus, that it was not reasonable a wise man should +hazard himself for his country, and endanger wisdom for a company of +fools. Our condition is as ridiculous as risible. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +OF THE VANITY OF WORDS + +A rhetorician of times past said, that to make little things appear great +was his profession. This was a shoemaker, who can make a great shoe for +a little foot. --[A saying of Agesilaus.]-- They would in Sparta have +sent such a fellow to be whipped for making profession of a tricky and +deceitful act; and I fancy that Archidamus, who was king of that country, +was a little surprised at the answer of Thucydides, when inquiring of +him, which was the better wrestler, Pericles, or he, he replied, that it +was hard to affirm; for when I have thrown him, said he, he always +persuades the spectators that he had no fall and carries away the prize. +--[Quintilian, ii. 15.-- The women who paint, pounce, and plaster up +their ruins, filling up their wrinkles and deformities, are less to +blame, because it is no great matter whether we see them in their natural +complexions; whereas these make it their business to deceive not our +sight only but our judgments, and to adulterate and corrupt the very +essence of things. The republics that have maintained themselves in a +regular and well-modelled government, such as those of Lacedaemon and +Crete, had orators in no very great esteem. Aristo wisely defined +rhetoric to be "a science to persuade the people;" Socrates and Plato" an +art to flatter and deceive." And those who deny it in the general +description, verify it throughout in their precepts. The Mohammedans +will not suffer their children to be instructed in it, as being useless, +and the Athenians, perceiving of how pernicious consequence the practice +of it was, it being in their city of universal esteem, ordered the +principal part, which is to move the affections, with their exordiums and +perorations, to be taken away. 'Tis an engine invented to manage and +govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble, and that never is made use of, +but like physic to the sick, in a discomposed state. In those where the +vulgar or the ignorant, or both together, have been all-powerful and able +to give the law, as in those of Athens, Rhodes, and Rome, and where the +public affairs have been in a continual tempest of commotion, to such +places have the orators always repaired. And in truth, we shall find few +persons in those republics who have pushed their fortunes to any great +degree of eminence without the assistance of eloquence. + +Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Lucullus, Lentulus, Metellus, thence took their +chiefest spring, to mount to that degree of authority at which they at +last arrived, making it of greater use to them than arms, contrary to the +opinion of better times; for, L. Volumnius speaking publicly in favour of +the election of (Q. Fabius and Pub. Decius, to the consular dignity: +"These are men," said he, "born for war and great in execution; in the +combat of the tongue altogether wanting; spirits truly consular. The +subtle, eloquent, and learned are only good for the city, to make +praetors of, to administer justice."--[Livy, x. 22.] + +Eloquence most flourished at Rome when the public affairs were in the +worst condition and most disquieted with intestine commotions; as a free +and untilled soil bears the worst weeds. By which it should seem that a +monarchical government has less need of it than any other: for the +stupidity and facility natural to the common people, and that render them +subject to be turned and twined and, led by the ears by this charming +harmony of words, without weighing or considering the truth and reality +of things by the force of reason: this facility, I say, is not easily +found in a single person, and it is also more easy by good education and +advice to secure him from the impression of this poison. There was never +any famous orator known to come out of Persia or Macedon. + +I have entered into this discourse upon the occasion of an Italian I +lately received into my service, and who was clerk of the kitchen to the +late Cardinal Caraffa till his death. I put this fellow upon an account +of his office: when he fell to discourse of this palate-science, with +such a settled countenance and magisterial gravity, as if he had been +handling some profound point of divinity. He made a learned distinction +of the several sorts of appetites; of that a man has before he begins to +eat, and of those after the second and third service; the means simply to +satisfy the first, and then to raise and actuate the other two; the +ordering of the sauces, first in general, and then proceeded to the +qualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads +according to their seasons, those which ought to be served up hot, and +which cold; the manner of their garnishment and decoration to render them +acceptable to the eye. After which he entered upon the order of the +whole service, full of weighty and important considerations: + + "Nec minimo sane discrimine refert, + Quo gestu lepores, et quo gallina secetur;" + + ["Nor with less discrimination observes how we should carve a hare, + and how a hen." or, ("Nor with the least discrimination relates how + we should carve hares, and how cut up a hen.)" + --Juvenal, Sat., v. 123.] + +and all this set out with lofty and magnificent words, the very same we +make use of when we discourse of the government of an empire. Which +learned lecture of my man brought this of Terence into my memory: + + "Hoc salsum est, hoc adustum est, hoc lautum est, parum: + Illud recte: iterum sic memento: sedulo + Moneo, qux possum, pro mea sapientia. + Postremo, tanquam in speculum, in patinas, + Demea, Inspicere jubeo, et moneo, quid facto usus sit." + + ["This is too salt, that's burnt, that's not washed enough; that's + well; remember to do so another time. Thus do I ever advise them to + have things done properly, according to my capacity; and lastly, + Demea, I command my cooks to look into every dish as if it were a + mirror, and tell them what they should do." + --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 71.] + +And yet even the Greeks themselves very much admired and highly applauded +the order and disposition that Paulus AEmilius observed in the feast he +gave them at his return from Macedon. But I do not here speak of +effects, I speak of words only. + +I do not know whether it may have the same operation upon other men that +it has upon me, but when I hear our architects thunder out their bombast +words of pilasters, architraves, and cornices, of the Corinthian and +Doric orders, and suchlike jargon, my imagination is presently possessed +with the palace of Apollidon; when, after all, I find them but the paltry +pieces of my own kitchen door. + +To hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other +grammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic +form of speaking? And yet they are phrases that come near to the babble +of my chambermaid. + +And this other is a gullery of the same stamp, to call the offices of our +kingdom by the lofty titles of the Romans, though they have no similitude +of function, and still less of authority and power. And this also, which +I doubt will one day turn to the reproach of this age of ours, unworthily +and indifferently to confer upon any we think fit the most glorious +surnames with which antiquity honoured but one or two persons in several +ages. Plato carried away the surname of Divine, by so universal a +consent that never any one repined at it, or attempted to take it from +him; and yet the Italians, who pretend, and with good reason, to more +sprightly wits and sounder sense than the other nations of their time, +have lately bestowed the same title upon Aretin, in whose writings, save +tumid phrases set out with smart periods, ingenious indeed but far- +fetched and fantastic, and the eloquence, be it what it may, I see +nothing in him above the ordinary writers of his time, so far is he from +approaching the ancient divinity. And we make nothing of giving the +surname of great to princes who have nothing more than ordinary in them. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +OF THE PARSIMONY OF THE ANCIENTS + +Attilius Regulus, general of the Roman army in Africa, in the height of +all his glory and victories over the Carthaginians, wrote to the Republic +to acquaint them that a certain hind he had left in trust with his +estate, which was in all but seven acres of land, had run away with all +his instruments of husbandry, and entreating therefore, that they would +please to call him home that he might take order in his own affairs, lest +his wife and children should suffer by this disaster. Whereupon the +Senate appointed another to manage his business, caused his losses to be +made good, and ordered his family to be maintained at the public expense. + +The elder Cato, returning consul from Spain, sold his warhorse to save +the money it would have cost in bringing it back by sea into Italy; and +being Governor of Sardinia, he made all his visits on foot, without other +train than one officer of the Republic who carried his robe and a censer +for sacrifices, and for the most part carried his trunk himself. He +bragged that he had never worn a gown that cost above ten crowns, nor had +ever sent above tenpence to the market for one day's provision; and that +as to his country houses, he had not one that was rough-cast on the +outside. + +Scipio AEmilianus, after two triumphs and two consulships, went an +embassy with no more than seven servants in his train. 'Tis said that +Homer had never more than one, Plato three, and Zeno, founder of the sect +of Stoics, none at all. Tiberius Gracchus was allowed but fivepence +halfpenny a day when employed as public minister about the public +affairs, and being at that time the greatest man of Rome. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +OF A SAYING OF CAESAR + +If we would sometimes bestow a little consideration upon ourselves, and +employ the time we spend in prying into other men's actions, and +discovering things without us, in examining our own abilities we should +soon perceive of how infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is +composed. Is it not a singular testimony of imperfection that we cannot +establish our satisfaction in any one thing, and that even our own fancy +and desire should deprive us of the power to choose what is most proper +and useful for us? A very good proof of this is the great dispute that +has ever been amongst the philosophers, of finding out man's sovereign +good, that continues yet, and will eternally continue, without solution +or accord: + + "Dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur + Caetera; post aliud, quum contigit illud, avemus, + Et sitis aequa tenet." + + ["While that which we desire is wanting, it seems to surpass all the + rest; then, when we have got it, we want something else; 'tis ever + the same thirst"--Lucretius, iii. 1095. + +Whatever it is that falls into our knowledge and possession, we find that +it satisfies not, and we still pant after things to come and unknown, +inasmuch as those present do not suffice for us; not that, in my +judgment, they have not in them wherewith to do it, but because we seize +them with an unruly and immoderate haste: + + "Nam quum vidit hic, ad victum qux flagitat usus, + Et per quae possent vitam consistere tutam, + Omnia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata; + Divitiis homines, et honore, et laude potentes + Aflluere, atque bona natorum excellere fama; + Nec minus esse domi cuiquam tamen anxia corda, + Atque animi ingratis vitam vexare querelis + Causam, quae infestis cogit saevire querelis, + Intellegit ibi; vitium vas efficere ipsum, + Omniaque, illius vitio, corrumpier intus, + Qux collata foris et commoda quomque venirent." + + ["For when he saw that almost all things necessarily required for + subsistence, and which may render life comfortable, are already + prepared to their hand, that men may abundantly attain wealth, + honour, praise, may rejoice in the reputation of their children, yet + that, notwithstanding, every one has none the less in his heart and + home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints, he saw + that the vessel itself was in fault, and that all good things which + were brought into it from without were spoilt by its own + imperfections."--Lucretius, vi. 9.] + +Our appetite is irresolute and fickle; it can neither keep nor enjoy +anything with a good grace: and man concluding it to be the fault of the +things he is possessed of, fills himself with and feeds upon the idea of +things he neither knows nor understands, to which he devotes his hopes +and his desires, paying them all reverence and honour, according to the +saying of Caesar: + + "Communi fit vitio naturae, ut invisis, latitantibus + atque incognitis rebus magis confidamas, + vehementiusque exterreamur." + + ["'Tis the common vice of nature, that we at once repose most + confidence, and receive the greatest apprehensions, from things + unseen, concealed, and unknown."--De Bello Civil, xi. 4.] + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +OF VAIN SUBTLETIES + +There are a sort of little knacks and frivolous subtleties from which men +sometimes expect to derive reputation and applause: as poets, who compose +whole poems with every line beginning with the same letter; we see the +shapes of eggs, globes, wings, and hatchets cut out by the ancient Greeks +by the measure of their verses, making them longer or shorter, to +represent such or such a figure. Of this nature was his employment who +made it his business to compute into how many several orders the letters +of the alphabet might be transposed, and found out that incredible number +mentioned in Plutarch. I am mightily pleased with the humour of him, + + ["Alexander, as may be seen in Quintil., Institut. Orat., lib. + ii., cap. 20, where he defines Maratarexvia 'to be a certain + unnecessary imitation of art, which really does neither good nor + harm, but is as unprofitable and ridiculous as was the labour of + that man who had so perfectly learned to cast small peas through the + eye of a needle at a good distance that he never missed one, and was + justly rewarded for it, as is said, by Alexander, who saw the + performance, with a bushel of peas."--Coste. + +who having a man brought before him that had learned to throw a grain of +millet with such dexterity and assurance as never to miss the eye of a +needle; and being afterwards entreated to give something for the reward +of so rare a performance, he pleasantly, and in my opinion justly, +ordered a certain number of bushels of the same grain to be delivered to +him, that he might not want wherewith to exercise so famous an art. 'Tis +a strong evidence of a weak judgment when men approve of things for their +being rare and new, or for their difficulty, where worth and usefulness +are not conjoined to recommend them. + +I come just now from playing with my own family at who could find out the +most things that hold by their two extremities; as Sire, which is a title +given to the greatest person in the nation, the king, and also to the +vulgar, as merchants, but never to any degree of men between. The women +of great quality are called Dames, inferior gentlewomen, Demoiselles, and +the meanest sort of women, Dames, as the first. The cloth of state over +our tables is not permitted but in the palaces of princes and in taverns. +Democritus said, that gods and beasts had sharper sense than men, who are +of a middle form. The Romans wore the same habit at funerals and feasts. +It is most certain that an extreme fear and an extreme ardour of courage +equally trouble and relax the belly. The nickname of Trembling with +which they surnamed Sancho XII., king of Navarre, tells us that valour +will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear. Those who were +arming that king, or some other person, who upon the like occasion was +wont to be in the same disorder, tried to compose him by representing the +danger less he was going to engage himself in: "You understand me ill," +said he, "for could my flesh know the danger my courage will presently +carry it into, it would sink down to the ground." The faintness that +surprises us from frigidity or dislike in the exercises of Venus are also +occasioned by a too violent desire and an immoderate heat. Extreme +coldness and extreme heat boil and roast. Aristotle says, that sows of +lead will melt and run with cold and the rigour of winter just as with a +vehement heat. Desire and satiety fill all the gradations above and +below pleasure with pain. Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre +of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents. The +wise control and triumph over ill, the others know it not: these last +are, as a man may say, on this side of accidents, the others are beyond +them, who after having well weighed and considered their qualities, +measured and judged them what they are, by virtue of a vigorous soul leap +out of their reach; they disdain and trample them underfoot, having a +solid and well-fortified soul, against which the darts of fortune, coming +to strike, must of necessity rebound and blunt themselves, meeting with a +body upon which they can fix no impression; the ordinary and middle +condition of men are lodged betwixt these two extremities, consisting of +such as perceive evils, feel them, and are not able to support them. +Infancy and decrepitude meet in the imbecility of the brain; avarice and +profusion in the same thirst and desire of getting. + +A man may say with some colour of truth that there is an Abecedarian +ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes +after it: an ignorance that knowledge creates and begets, at the same +time that it despatches and destroys the first. Of mean understandings, +little inquisitive, and little instructed, are made good Christians, who +by reverence and obedience simply believe and are constant in their +belief. In the average understandings and the middle sort of capacities, +the error of opinion is begotten; they follow the appearance of the first +impression, and have some colour of reason on their side to impute our +walking on in the old beaten path to simplicity and stupidity, meaning us +who have not informed ourselves by study. The higher and nobler souls, +more solid and clear-sighted, make up another sort of true believers, who +by a long and religious investigation of truth, have obtained a clearer +and more penetrating light into the Scriptures, and have discovered the +mysterious and divine secret of our ecclesiastical polity; and yet we see +some, who by the middle step, have arrived at that supreme degree with +marvellous fruit and confirmation, as to the utmost limit of Christian +intelligence, and enjoy their victory with great spiritual consolation, +humble acknowledgment of the divine favour, reformation of manners, and +singular modesty. I do not intend with these to rank those others, who +to clear themselves from all suspicion of their former errors and to +satisfy us that they are sound and firm, render themselves extremely +indiscreet and unjust, in the carrying on our cause, and blemish it with +infinite reproaches of violence and oppression. The simple peasants are +good people, and so are the philosophers, or whatever the present age +calls them, men of strong and clear reason, and whose souls are enriched +with an ample instruction of profitable sciences. The mongrels who have +disdained the first form of the ignorance of letters, and have not been +able to attain to the other (sitting betwixt two stools, as I and a great +many more of us do), are dangerous, foolish, and importunate; these are +they that trouble the world. And therefore it is that I, for my own +part, retreat as much as I can towards the first and natural station, +whence I so vainly attempted to advance. + +Popular and purely natural poesy + + ["The term poesie populaire was employed, for the first time, in the + French language on this occasion. Montaigne created the expression, + and indicated its nature."--Ampere.] + +has in it certain artless graces, by which she may come into comparison +with the greatest beauty of poetry perfected by art: as we see in our +Gascon villanels and the songs that are brought us from nations that have +no knowledge of any manner of science, nor so much as the use of writing. +The middle sort of poesy betwixt these two is despised, of no value, +honour, or esteem. + +But seeing that the path once laid open to the fancy, I have found, as it +commonly falls out, that what we have taken for a difficult exercise and +a rare subject, prove to be nothing so, and that after the invention is +once warm, it finds out an infinite number of parallel examples. I shall +only add this one--that, were these Essays of mine considerable enough to +deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fall out that they +would not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be very +acceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would not +understand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover in +the middle region. + + + +CHAPTER LV + +OF SMELLS + +It has been reported of some, as of Alexander the Great, that their sweat +exhaled an odoriferous smell, occasioned by some rare and extraordinary +constitution, of which Plutarch and others have been inquisitive into the +cause. But the ordinary constitution of human bodies is quite otherwise, +and their best and chiefest excellency is to be exempt from smell. Nay, +the sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greater +perfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those of +healthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman: + + "Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil olet." + + ["She smells sweetest, who smells not at all. + --Plautus, Mostel, i. 3, 116.] + +And such as make use of fine exotic perfumes are with good reason to be +suspected of some natural imperfection which they endeavour by these +odours to conceal. To smell, though well, is to stink: + + "Rides nos, Coracine, nil olentes + Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere." + + ["You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we are not scented; I would, + rather than smell well, not smell at all."--Martial, vi. 55, 4.] + +And elsewhere: + + "Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet." + + ["Posthumus, he who ever smells well does not smell well." + --Idem, ii. 12, 14.] + +I am nevertheless a great lover of good smells, and as much abominate the +ill ones, which also I scent at a greater distance, I think, than other +men: + + "Namque sagacius unus odoror, + Polypus, an gravis hirsutis cubet hircus in aliis + Quam canis acer, ubi latest sus." + + ["My nose is quicker to scent a fetid sore or a rank armpit, than a + dog to smell out the hidden sow."--Horace, Epod., xii. 4.] + +Of smells, the simple and natural seem to me the most pleasing. Let the +ladies look to that, for 'tis chiefly their concern: amid the most +profound barbarism, the Scythian women, after bathing, were wont to +powder and crust their faces and all their bodies with a certain +odoriferous drug growing in their country, which being cleansed off, when +they came to have familiarity with men they were found perfumed and +sleek. 'Tis not to be believed how strangely all sorts of odours cleave +to me, and how apt my skin is to imbibe them. He that complains of +nature that she has not furnished mankind with a vehicle to convey smells +to the nose had no reason; for they will do it themselves, especially to +me; my very mustachios, which are full, perform that office; for if I +stroke them but with my gloves or handkerchief, the smell will not out a +whole day; they manifest where I have been, and the close, luscious, +devouring, viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age left +a sweetness upon my lips for several hours after. And yet I have ever +found myself little subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught, either +by conversing with the sick or bred by the contagion of the air, and have +escaped from those of my time, of which there have been several sorts in +our cities and armies. We read of Socrates, that though he never +departed from Athens during the frequent plagues that infested the city, +he only was never infected. + +Physicians might, I believe, extract greater utility from odours than +they do, for I have often observed that they cause an alteration in me +and work upon my spirits according to their several virtues; which makes +me approve of what is said, that the use of incense and perfumes in +churches, so ancient and so universally received in all nations and +religions, was intended to cheer us, and to rouse and purify the senses, +the better to fit us for contemplation. + +I could have been glad, the better to judge of it, to have tasted the +culinary art of those cooks who had so rare a way of seasoning exotic +odours with the relish of meats; as it was particularly observed in the +service of the king of Tunis, who in our days --[Muley-Hassam, in 1543.] +--landed at Naples to have an interview with Charles the Emperor. His +dishes were larded with odoriferous drugs, to that degree of expense that +the cookery of one peacock and two pheasants amounted to a hundred ducats +to dress them after their fashion; and when the carver came to cut them +up, not only the dining-room, but all the apartments of his palace and +the adjoining streets were filled with an aromatic vapour which did not +presently vanish. + +My chiefest care in choosing my lodgings is always to avoid a thick and +stinking air; and those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, very much +lessen the kindness I have for them, the one by the offensive smell of +her marshes, and the other of her dirt. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +OF PRAYERS + +I propose formless and undetermined fancies, like those who publish +doubtful questions, to be after a disputed upon in the schools, not to +establish truth but to seek it; and I submit them to the judgments of +those whose office it is to regulate, not my writings and actions only, +but moreover my very thoughts. Let what I here set down meet with +correction or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me, +myself beforehand condemning as absurd and impious, if anything shall be +found, through ignorance or inadvertency, couched in this rhapsody, +contrary to the holy resolutions and prescriptions of the Catholic +Apostolic and Roman Church, into which I was born and in which I will +die. And yet, always submitting to the authority of their censure, which +has an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything, as in +treating upon this present subject. + +I know not if or no I am wrong, but since, by a particular favour of the +divine bounty, a certain form of prayer has been prescribed and dictated +to us, word by word, from the mouth of God Himself, I have ever been of +opinion that we ought to have it in more frequent use than we yet have; +and if I were worthy to advise, at the sitting down to and rising from +our tables, at our rising from and going to bed, and in every particular +action wherein prayer is used, I would that Christians always make use of +the Lord's Prayer, if not alone, yet at least always. The Church may +lengthen and diversify prayers, according to the necessity of our +instruction, for I know very well that it is always the same in substance +and the same thing: but yet such a privilege ought to be given to that +prayer, that the people should have it continually in their mouths; for +it is most certain that all necessary petitions are comprehended in it, +and that it is infinitely proper for all occasions. 'Tis the only prayer +I use in all places and conditions, and which I still repeat instead of +changing; whence it also happens that I have no other so entirely by +heart as that. + +It just now came into my mind, whence it is we should derive that error +of having recourse to God in all our designs and enterprises, to call Him +to our assistance in all sorts of affairs, and in all places where our +weakness stands in need of support, without considering whether the +occasion be just or otherwise; and to invoke His name and power, in what +state soever we are, or action we are engaged in, howsoever vicious. He +is indeed, our sole and unique protector, and can do all things for us: +but though He is pleased to honour us with this sweet paternal alliance, +He is, notwithstanding, as just as He is good and mighty; and more often +exercises His justice than His power, and favours us according to that, +and not according to our petitions. + +Plato in his Laws, makes three sorts of belief injurious to the gods; " +that there are none; that they concern not themselves about our affairs; +that they never refuse anything to our vows, offerings, and sacrifices." +The first of these errors (according to his opinion, never continued +rooted in any man from his infancy to his old age; the other two, he +confesses, men might be obstinate in. + +God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His +power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at +that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all +vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith +to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we +double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we +are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. +Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so +frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give +me some evidence of amendment and reformation: + + "Si, nocturnus adulter, + Tempora Santonico velas adoperta cucullo." + + ["If a night adulterer, thou coverest thy head with a Santonic + cowl."--Juvenal, Sat., viii. 144.-- The Santones were the people + who inhabited Saintonge in France, from whom the Romans derived the + use of hoods or cowls covering the head and face.] + +And the practice of a man who mixes devotion with an execrable life seems +in some sort more to be condemned than that of a man conformable to his +own propension and dissolute throughout; and for that reason it is that +our Church denies admittance to and communion with men obstinate and +incorrigible in any notorious wickedness. We pray only by custom and for +fashion's sake; or rather, we read or pronounce our prayers aloud, which +is no better than an hypocritical show of devotion; and I am scandalised +to see a man cross himself thrice at the Benedicite, and as often at +Grace (and the more, because it is a sign I have in great veneration and +continual use, even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the other hours of +the day to acts of malice, avarice, and injustice. One hour to God, the +rest to the devil, as if by composition and compensation. 'Tis a wonder +to see actions so various in themselves succeed one another with such an +uniformity of method as not to interfere nor suffer any alteration, even +upon the very confines and passes from the one to the other. What a +prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself +whilst it harbours under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a +society, both the crime and the judge? + +A man whose whole meditation is continually working upon nothing but +impurity which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he say +when he comes to speak to Him? He draws back, but immediately falls into +a relapse. If the object of divine justice and the presence of his Maker +did, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever the +repentance might be, the very fear of offending the Infinite Majesty +would so often present itself to his imagination that he would soon see +himself master of those vices that are most natural and vehement in him. +But what shall we say of those who settle their whole course of life upon +the profit and emolument of sins, which they know to be mortal? How many +trades and vocations have we admitted and countenanced amongst us, whose +very essence is vicious? And he that, confessing himself to me, +voluntarily told me that he had all his lifetime professed and practised +a religion, in his opinion damnable and contrary to that he had in his +heart, only to preserve his credit and the honour of his employments, how +could his courage suffer so infamous a confession? What can men say to +the divine justice upon this subject? + +Their repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reparation, they +lose the colour of alleging it both to God and man. Are they so impudent +as to sue for remission without satisfaction and without penitence? +I look upon these as in the same condition with the first: but the +obstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety and +volubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kind +of miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agony +of mind. + +It seemed to me a fantastic imagination in those who, these late years +past, were wont to reproach every man they knew to be of any +extraordinary parts, and made profession of the Catholic religion, that +it was but outwardly; maintaining, moreover, to do him honour forsooth, +that whatever he might pretend to the contrary he could not but in his +heart be of their reformed opinion. An untoward disease, that a man +should be so riveted to his own belief as to fancy that others cannot +believe otherwise than as he does; and yet worse, that they should +entertain so vicious an opinion of such great parts as to think any man +so qualified, should prefer any present advantage of fortune to the +promises of eternal life and the menaces of eternal damnation. They may +believe me: could anything have tempted my youth, the ambition of the +danger and difficulties in the late commotions had not been the least +motives. + +It is not without very good reason, in my opinion, that the Church +interdicts the promiscuous, indiscreet, and irreverent use of the holy +and divine Psalms, with which the Holy Ghost inspired King David. We +ought not to mix God in our actions, but with the highest reverence and +caution; that poesy is too holy to be put to no other use than to +exercise the lungs and to delight our ears; it ought to come from the +conscience, and not from the tongue. It is not fit that a prentice in +his shop, amongst his vain and frivolous thoughts, should be permitted to +pass away his time and divert himself with such sacred things. Neither +is it decent to see the Holy Book of the holy mysteries of our belief +tumbled up and down a hall or a kitchen they were formerly mysteries, but +are now become sports and recreations. 'Tis a book too serious and too +venerable to be cursorily or slightly turned over: the reading of the +scripture ought to be a temperate and premeditated act, and to which men +should always add this devout preface, 'sursum corda', preparing even the +body to so humble and composed a gesture and countenance as shall +evidence a particular veneration and attention. Neither is it a book for +everyone to fist, but the study of select men set apart for that purpose, +and whom Almighty God has been pleased to call to that office and sacred +function: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. 'Tis, not a story to +tell, but a history to revere, fear, and adore. Are not they then +pleasant men who think they have rendered this fit for the people's +handling by translating it into the vulgar tongue? Does the +understanding of all therein contained only stick at words? Shall I +venture to say further, that by coming so near to understand a little, +they are much wider of the whole scope than before. A pure and simple +ignorance and wholly depending upon the exposition of qualified persons, +was far more learned and salutary than this vain and verbal knowledge, +which has only temerity and presumption. + +And I do further believe that the liberty every one has taken to disperse +the sacred writ into so many idioms carries with it a great deal more of +danger than utility. The Jews, Mohammedans, and almost all other +peoples, have reverentially espoused the language wherein their mysteries +were first conceived, and have expressly, and not without colour of +reason, forbidden the alteration of them into any other. Are we assured +that in Biscay and in Brittany there are enough competent judges of this +affair to establish this translation into their own language? The +universal Church has not a more difficult and solemn judgment to make. +In preaching and speaking the interpretation is vague, free, mutable, and +of a piece by itself; so 'tis not the same thing. + +One of our Greek historians age justly censures the he lived in, because +the secrets of the Christian religion were dispersed into the hands of +every mechanic, to expound and argue upon, according to his own fancy, +and that we ought to be much ashamed, we who by God's especial favour +enjoy the pure mysteries of piety, to suffer them to be profaned by the +ignorant rabble; considering that the Gentiles expressly forbad Socrates, +Plato, and the other sages to inquire into or so much as mention the +things committed to the priests of Delphi; and he says, moreover, that +the factions of princes upon theological subjects are armed not with zeal +but fury; that zeal springs from the divine wisdom and justice, and +governs itself with prudence and moderation, but degenerates into hatred +and envy, producing tares and nettles instead of corn and wine when +conducted by human passions. And it was truly said by another, who, +advising the Emperor Theodosius, told him that disputes did not so much +rock the schisms of the Church asleep, as it roused and animated +heresies; that, therefore, all contentions and dialectic disputations +were to be avoided, and men absolutely to acquiesce in the prescriptions +and formulas of faith established by the ancients. And the Emperor +Andronicus having overheard some great men at high words in his palace +with Lapodius about a point of ours of great importance, gave them so +severe a check as to threaten to cause them to be thrown into the river +if they did not desist. The very women and children nowadays take upon +them to lecture the oldest and most experienced men about the +ecclesiastical laws; whereas the first of those of Plato forbids them to +inquire so much as into the civil laws, which were to stand instead of +divine ordinances; and, allowing the old men to confer amongst themselves +or with the magistrate about those things, he adds, provided it be not in +the presence of young or profane persons. + +A bishop has left in writing that at the other end of the world there is +an isle, by the ancients called Dioscorides, abundantly fertile in all +sorts of trees and fruits, and of an exceedingly healthful air; the +inhabitants of which are Christians, having churches and altars, only +adorned with crosses without any other images, great observers of fasts +and feasts, exact payers of their tithes to the priests, and so chaste, +that none of them is permitted to have to do with more than one woman in +his life --[What Osorius says is that these people only had one wife at a +time. ]-- as to the rest, so content with their condition, that environed +with the sea they know nothing of navigation, and so simple that they +understand not one syllable of the religion they profess and wherein they +are so devout: a thing incredible to such as do not know that the Pagans, +who are so zealous idolaters, know nothing more of their gods than their +bare names and their statues. The ancient beginning of 'Menalippus', a +tragedy of Euripides, ran thus: + + "O Jupiter! for that name alone + Of what thou art to me is known." + +I have also known in my time some men's writings found fault with for +being purely human and philosophical, without any mixture of theology; +and yet, with some show of reason, it might, on the contrary, be said +that the divine doctrine, as queen and regent of the rest, better keeps +her state apart, that she ought to be sovereign throughout, not +subsidiary and suffragan, and that, peradventure, grammatical, +rhetorical, logical examples may elsewhere be more suitably chosen, as +also the material for the stage, games, and public entertainments, than +from so sacred a matter; that divine reasons are considered with greater +veneration and attention by themselves, and in their own proper style, +than when mixed with and adapted to human discourse; that it is a fault +much more often observed that the divines write too humanly, than that +the humanists write not theologically enough. Philosophy, says St. +Chrysostom, has long been banished the holy schools, as an handmaid +altogether useless and thought unworthy to look, so much as in passing +by the door, into the sanctuary of the holy treasures of the celestial +doctrine; that the human way of speaking is of a much lower form and +ought not to adopt for herself the dignity and majesty of divine +eloquence. Let who will 'verbis indisciplinatis' talk of fortune, +destiny, accident, good and evil hap, and other suchlike phrases, +according to his own humour; I for my part propose fancies merely human +and merely my own, and that simply as human fancies, and separately +considered, not as determined by any decree from heaven, incapable of +doubt or dispute; matter of opinion, not matter of faith; things which I +discourse of according to my own notions, not as I believe, according to +God; after a laical, not clerical, and yet always after a very religious +manner, as children prepare their exercises, not to instruct but to be +instructed. + +And might it not be said, that an edict enjoining all people but such as +are public professors of divinity, to be very reserved in writing of +religion, would carry with it a very good colour of utility and justice-- +and to me, amongst the rest peradventure, to hold my prating? I have +been told that even those who are not of our Church nevertheless amongst +themselves expressly forbid the name of God to be used in common +discourse, nor so much even by way of interjection, exclamation, +assertion of a truth, or comparison; and I think them in the right: upon +what occasion soever we call upon God to accompany and assist us, it +ought always to be done with the greatest reverence and devotion. + +There is, as I remember, a passage in Xenophon where he tells us that we +ought so much the more seldom to call upon God, by how much it is hard to +compose our souls to such a degree of calmness, patience, and devotion as +it ought to be in at such a time; otherwise our prayers are not only vain +and fruitless, but vicious: "forgive us," we say, "our trespasses, as we +forgive them that trespass against us"; what do we mean by this petition +but that we present to God a soul free from all rancour and revenge? And +yet we make nothing of invoking God's assistance in our vices, and +inviting Him into our unjust designs: + + "Quae, nisi seductis, nequeas committere divis" + + ["Which you can only impart to the gods, when you have gained them + over."--Persius, ii. 4.] + +the covetous man prays for the conservation of his vain and superfluous +riches; the ambitious for victory and the good conduct of his fortune; +the thief calls Him to his assistance, to deliver him from the dangers +and difficulties that obstruct his wicked designs, or returns Him thanks +for the facility he has met with in cutting a man's throat; at the door +of the house men are going to storm or break into by force of a petard, +they fall to prayers for success, their intentions and hopes of cruelty, +avarice, and lust. + + "Hoc igitur, quo to Jovis aurem impellere tentas, + Dic agedum Staio: 'proh Jupiter! O bone, clamet, + Jupiter!' At sese non clamet Jupiter ipse." + + ["This therefore, with which you seek to draw the ear of Jupiter, + say to Staius. 'O Jupiter! O good Jupiter!' let him cry. Think + you Jupiter himself would not cry out upon it?"--Persius, ii. 21.] + +Marguerite, Queen of Navarre,--[In the Heptameron.]-- tells of a young +prince, who, though she does not name him, is easily enough by his great +qualities to be known, who going upon an amorous assignation to lie with +an advocate's wife of Paris, his way thither being through a church, he +never passed that holy place going to or returning from his pious +exercise, but he always kneeled down to pray. Wherein he would employ +the divine favour, his soul being full of such virtuous meditations, +I leave others to judge, which, nevertheless, she instances for a +testimony of singular devotion. But this is not the only proof we have +that women are not very fit to treat of theological affairs. + +A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God +cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the +dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course +of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or +like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie. + + "Tacito mala vota susurro + Concipimus." + + ["We whisper our guilty prayers."---Lucan, v. 104.] + +There are few men who durst publish to the world the prayers they make to +Almighty God: + + "Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque susurros + Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto" + + ["'Tis not convenient for every one to bring the prayers he mutters + out of the temple, and to give his wishes to the public ear. + --"Persius, ii. 6.] + + [See: "Letters To the Earth" by Mark Twain in the story of Abner + Schofield, Coal Dealer, Buffalo, N.Y.: for a discussion of the + contradictions between 'public' and 'private' prayers. D.W.] + +and this is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always public +and heard by every one, to the end they might not prefer indecent or +unjust petitions as this man: + + "Clare quum dixit, Apollo! + Labra movet, metuens audiri: Pulcra Laverna, + Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri; + Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem." + + ["When he has clearly said Apollo! he moves his lips, fearful to be + heard; he murmurs: O fair Laverna, grant me the talent to deceive; + grant me to appear holy and just; shroud my sins with night, and + cast a cloud over my frauds."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 59.-- (Laverna + was the goddess of thieves.) + +The gods severely punished the wicked prayers of OEdipus in granting +them: he had prayed that his children might amongst themselves determine +the succession to his throne by arms, and was so miserable as to see +himself taken at his word. We are not to pray that all things may go as +we would have them, but as most concurrent with prudence. + +We seem, in truth, to make use of our prayers as of a kind of jargon, and +as those do who employ holy words about sorceries and magical operations; +and as if we reckoned the benefit we are to reap from them as depending +upon the contexture, sound, and jingle of words, or upon the grave +composing of the countenance. For having the soul contaminated with +concupiscence, not touched with repentance, or comforted by any late +reconciliation with God, we go to present Him such words as the memory +suggests to the tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the remission of +our sins. There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the +divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we +are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted +as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, +we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this +pardon with all gratitude arid submission, and for that instant at least, +wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the +ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us +to offend her; neither the gods nor good men (says Plato) will accept the +present of a wicked man: + + "Immunis aram si terigit manus, + Non sumptuosa blandior hostia + Mollivit aversos Penates + Farre pio et saliente mica." + + ["If a pure hand has touched the altar, the pious offering of a + small cake and a few grains of salt will appease the offended gods + more effectually than costly sacrifices." + --Horace, Od., iii. 23, 17.] + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + +OF AGE + +I cannot allow of the way in which we settle for ourselves the duration +of our life. I see that the sages contract it very much in comparison of +the common opinion: "what," said the younger Cato to those who would stay +his hand from killing himself, "am I now of an age to be reproached that +I go out of the world too soon?" And yet he was but eight-and-forty +years old. He thought that to be a mature and advanced age, considering +how few arrive unto it. And such as, soothing their thoughts with I know +not what course of nature, promise to themselves some years beyond it, +could they be privileged from the infinite number of accidents to which +we are by a natural subjection exposed, they might have some reason so to +do. What am idle conceit is it to expect to die of a decay of strength, +which is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves no +shorter lease of life than that, considering it is a kind of death of all +others the most rare and very seldom seen? We call that only a natural +death; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck with +a fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be snatched away with a pleurisy or the +plague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to these +inconveniences. Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these fine +words; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural which is +general, common, and universal. + +To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular, and, +therefore, so much less natural than the others; 'tis the last and +extremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for. +It is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pass, and which the +law of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal, +a privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then. 'Tis a +lease she only signs by particular favour, and it may be to one only in +the space of two or three ages, and then with a pass to boot, to carry +him through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way +of this long career. And therefore my opinion is, that when once forty +years we should consider it as an age to which very few arrive. For +seeing that men do not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we are +pretty well advanced; and since we have exceeded the ordinary bounds, +which is the just measure of life, we ought not to expect to go much +further; having escaped so many precipices of death, whereinto we have +seen so many other men fall, we should acknowledge that so extraordinary +a fortune as that which has hitherto rescued us from those eminent +perils, and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of living, is not like +to continue long. + +'Tis a fault in our very laws to maintain this error: these say that a +man is not capable of managing his own estate till he be five-and-twenty +years old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his life so long. +Augustus cut off five years from the ancient Roman standard, and declared +that thirty years old was sufficient for a judge. Servius Tullius +superseded the knights of above seven-and-forty years of age from the +fatigues of war; Augustus dismissed them at forty-five; though methinks +it seems a little unreasonable that men should be sent to the fireside +till five-and-fifty or sixty years of age. I should be of opinion that +our vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for the +public good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employ +us early enough. This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at +nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to +determine a dispute about a gutter. + +For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are +ever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by +that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after +come to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have +of vigorous and fine, within that term or never, + + "Si l'espine rion picque quand nai, + A pene que picque jamai," + + ["If the thorn does not prick at its birth, + 'twill hardly ever prick at all." + +as they say in Dauphin. + +Of all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sort +soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more were +performed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the +very lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those of +Hannibal and his great rival Scipio? The better half of their lives they +lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after, +'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of +themselves. As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that since +that age, both my understanding and my constitution have rather decayed +than improved, and retired rather than advanced. 'Tis possible, that +with those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experience +may increase with their years; but vivacity, promptitude, steadiness, and +other pieces of us, of much greater importance, and much more essentially +our own, languish and decay: + + "Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus aevi + Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus, + Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque, mensque." + + ["When once the body is shaken by the violence of time, + blood and vigour ebbing away, the judgment halts, + the tongue and the mind dote."--Lucretius, iii. 452.] + +Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind; and I have +seen enough who have got a weakness in their brains before either in +their legs or stomach; and by how much the more it is a disease of no +great pain to the sufferer, and of obscure symptoms, so much greater is +the danger. For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not that +they keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late. +For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural +rocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to +childhood, idleness, and apprenticeship. + + [Which Cotton thus renders: "Birth though noble, ought not to share + so large a vacancy, and so tedious a course of education." Florio + (1613) makes the passage read as-follows: "Methinks that, + considering the weakness of our life, and seeing the infinite number + of ordinary rocks and natural dangers it is subject unto, we should + not, so soon as we come into the world, allot so large a share + thereof unto unprofitable wantonness in youth, ill-breeding + idleness, and slow-learning prentisage." + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort +An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets +Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it +Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace +Change of fashions +Chess: this idle and childish game +Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato +Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen +Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders +Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them +Excel above the common rate in frivolous things +Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other +Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does +Gradations above and below pleasure +Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed +He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern +Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints +How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is +I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback +Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words +Little knacks and frivolous subtleties +Men approve of things for their being rare and new +Must of necessity walk in the steps of another +Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen +Not to instruct but to be instructed. +Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue +Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet +Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive +Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble +Sitting betwixt two stools +Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind +Stupidity and facility natural to the common people +The Bible: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. +The faintness that surprises in the exercises of Venus +Thucydides: which was the better wrestler +To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular +To make little things appear great was his profession +To smell, though well, is to stink +Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear +Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age +We can never be despised according to our full desert +When we have got it, we want something else +Women who paint, pounce, and plaster up their ruins + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V8 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn08v10.zip b/old/mn08v10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2051d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn08v10.zip diff --git a/old/mn08v11.txt b/old/mn08v11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c8060e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn08v11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2181 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V8 +#8 in our series by Michel de Montaigne, Translator: Cotton +Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, 1877 + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 8. + +XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers. +XLIX. Of ancient customs. +L. Of Democritus and Heraclitus. +LI. Of the vanity of words. +LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients. +LIII. Of a saying of Caesar. +LIV. Of vain subtleties. +LV. Of smells. +LVI. Of prayers. +LVII. Of age. + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +OF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS + +I here have become a grammarian, I who never learned any language but by +rote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, or ablative. I +think I have read that the Romans had a sort of horses by them called +'funales' or 'dextrarios', which were either led horses, or horses laid +on at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion, and thence it is +that we call our horses of service 'destriers'; and our romances commonly +use the phrase of 'adestrer' for 'accompagner', to accompany. They also +called those that were trained in such sort, that running full speed, +side by side, without bridle or saddle, the Roman gentlemen, armed at all +pieces, would shift and throw themselves from one to the other, +'desultorios equos'. The Numidian men-at-arms had always a led horse in +one hand, besides that they rode upon, to change in the heat of battle: + + "Quibus, desultorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, inter + acerrimam saepe pugnam, in recentem equum, ex fesso, armatis + transultare mos erat: tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile + equorum genus." + + ["To whom it was a custom, leading along two horses, often in the + hottest fight, to leap armed from a tired horse to a fresh one; so + active were the men, and the horses so docile."--Livy, xxiii. 29.] + +There are many horses trained to help their riders so as to run upon any +one, that appears with a drawn sword, to fall both with mouth and heels +upon any that front or oppose them: but it often happens that they do +more harm to their friends than to their enemies; and, moreover, you +cannot loose them from their hold, to reduce them again into order, when +they are once engaged and grappled, by which means you remain at the +mercy of their quarrel. It happened very ill to Artybius, general of the +Persian army, fighting, man to man, with Onesilus, king of Salamis, to be +mounted upon a horse trained after this manner, it being the occasion of +his death, the squire of Onesilus cleaving the horse down with a scythe +betwixt the shoulders as it was reared up upon his master. And what the +Italians report, that in the battle of Fornova, the horse of Charles +VIII., with kicks and plunges, disengaged his master from the enemy that +pressed upon him, without which he had been slain, sounds like a very +great chance, if it be true. + + [In the narrative which Philip de Commines has given of this battle, + in which he himself was present (lib. viii. ch. 6), he tells us + of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was + mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most + beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was + personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de + chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. "The king," says + Commines, "had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore + he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great + way from him, arrived at the critical minute."] + +The Mamalukes make their boast that they have the most ready horses of +any cavalry in the world; that by nature and custom they were taught to +know and distinguish the enemy, and to fall foul upon them with mouth and +heels, according to a word or sign given; as also to gather up with their +teeth darts and lances scattered upon the field, and present them to +their riders, on the word of command. 'T is said, both of Caesar and +Pompey, that amongst their other excellent qualities they were both very +good horsemen, and particularly of Caesar, that in his youth, being +mounted on the bare back, without saddle or bridle, he could make the +horse run, stop, and turn, and perform all its airs, with his hands +behind him. As nature designed to make of this person, and of Alexander, +two miracles of military art, so one would say she had done her utmost to +arm them after an extraordinary manner for every one knows that +Alexander's horse, Bucephalus, had a head inclining to the shape of a +bull; that he would suffer himself to be mounted and governed by none but +his master, and that he was so honoured after his death as to have a city +erected to his name. Caesar had also one which had forefeet like those +of a man, his hoofs being divided in the form of fingers, which likewise +was not to be ridden, by any but Caesar himself, who, after his death, +dedicated his statue to the goddess Venus. + +I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback, for it is the +place where, whether well or sick, I find myself most at ease. Plato +recommends it for health, as also Pliny says it is good for the stomach +and the joints. Let us go further into this matter since here we are. + +We read in Xenophon a law forbidding any one who was master of a horse to +travel on foot. Trogus Pompeius and Justin say that the Parthians were +wont to perform all offices and ceremonies, not only in war but also all +affairs whether public or private, make bargains, confer, entertain, take +the air, and all on horseback; and that the greatest distinction betwixt +freemen and slaves amongst them was that the one rode on horseback and +the other went on foot, an institution of which King Cyrus was the +founder. + +There are several examples in the Roman history (and Suetonius more +particularly observes it of Caesar) of captains who, on pressing +occasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, both by that means to take +from them all hopes of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped in +this sort of fight. + + "Quo baud dubie superat Romanus," + + ["Wherein the Roman does questionless excel."--Livy, ix. 22.] + +says Livy. And so the first thing they did to prevent the mutinies and +insurrections of nations of late conquest was to take from them their +arms and horses, and therefore it is that we so often meet in Caesar: + + "Arma proferri, jumenta produci, obsides dari jubet." + + ["He commanded the arms to be produced, the horses brought out, + hostages to be given."--De Bello Gall., vii. II.] + +The Grand Signior to this day suffers not a Christian or a Jew to keep a +horse of his own throughout his empire. + +Our ancestors, and especially at the time they had war with the English, +in all their greatest engagements and pitched battles fought for the most +part on foot, that they might have nothing but their own force, courage, +and constancy to trust to in a quarrel of so great concern as life and +honour. You stake (whatever Chrysanthes in Xenophon says to the +contrary) your valour and your fortune upon that of your horse; his +wounds or death bring your person into the same danger; his fear or fury +shall make you reputed rash or cowardly; if he have an ill mouth or will +not answer to the spur, your honour must answer for it. And, therefore, +I do not think it strange that those battles were more firm and furious +than those that are fought on horseback: + + "Caedebant pariter, pariterque ruebant + Victores victique; neque his fuga nota, neque illis." + + ["They fought and fell pell-mell, victors and vanquished; nor was + flight thought of by either."--AEneid, x. 756.] + +Their battles were much better disputed. Nowadays there are nothing but +routs: + + "Primus clamor atque impetus rem decernit." + + ["The first shout and charge decides the business."--Livy, xxv. 41.] + +And the means we choose to make use of in so great a hazard should be as +much as possible at our own command: wherefore I should advise to choose +weapons of the shortest sort, and such of which we are able to give the +best account. A man may repose more confidence in a sword he holds in +his hand than in a bullet he discharges out of a pistol, wherein there +must be a concurrence of several circumstances to make it perform its +office, the powder, the stone, and the wheel: if any of which fail it +endangers your fortune. A man himself strikes much surer than the air +can direct his blow: + + "Et, quo ferre velint, permittere vulnera ventis + Ensis habet vires; et gens quaecumque virorum est, + Bella gerit gladiis." + + ["And so where they choose to carry [the arrows], the winds allow + the wounds; the sword has strength of arm: and whatever nation of + men there is, they wage war with swords."--Lucan, viii. 384.] + +But of that weapon I shall speak more fully when I come to compare the +arms of the ancients with those of modern use; only, by the way, the +astonishment of the ear abated, which every one grows familiar with in a +short time, I look upon it as a weapon of very little execution, and hope +we shall one day lay it aside. That missile weapon which the Italians +formerly made use of both with fire and by sling was much more terrible: +they called a certain kind of javelin, armed at the point with an iron +three feet long, that it might pierce through and through an armed man, +Phalarica, which they sometimes in the field darted by hand, sometimes +from several sorts of engines for the defence of beleaguered places; the +shaft being rolled round with flax, wax, rosin, oil, and other +combustible matter, took fire in its flight, and lighting upon the body +of a man or his target, took away all the use of arms and limbs. And +yet, coming to close fight, I should think they would also damage the +assailant, and that the camp being as it were planted with these flaming +truncheons, would produce a common inconvenience to the whole crowd: + + "Magnum stridens contorta Phalarica venit, + Fulminis acta modo." + + ["The Phalarica, launched like lightning, flies through + the air with a loud rushing sound."--AEneid, ix. 705.] + +They had, moreover, other devices which custom made them perfect in +(which seem incredible to us who have not seen them), by which they +supplied the effects of our powder and shot. They darted their spears +with so great force, as ofttimes to transfix two targets and two armed +men at once, and pin them together. Neither was the effect of their +slings less certain of execution or of shorter carriage: + + ["Culling round stones from the beach for their slings; and with + these practising over the waves, so as from a great distance to + throw within a very small circuit, they became able not only to + wound an enemy in the head, but hit any other part at pleasure." + --Livy, xxxviii. 29.] + +Their pieces of battery had not only the execution but the thunder of our +cannon also: + + "Ad ictus moenium cum terribili sonitu editos, + pavor et trepidatio cepit." + + ["At the battery of the walls, performed with a terrible noise, + the defenders began to fear and tremble."--Idem, ibid., 5.] + +The Gauls, our kinsmen in Asia, abominated these treacherous missile +arms, it being their use to fight, with greater bravery, hand to hand: + + ["They are not so much concerned about large gashes-the bigger and + deeper the wound, the more glorious do they esteem the combat but + when they find themselves tormented by some arrow-head or bullet + lodged within, but presenting little outward show of wound, + transported with shame and anger to perish by so imperceptible a + destroyer, they fall to the ground."---Livy, xxxviii. 21.] + +A pretty description of something very like an arquebuse-shot. The ten +thousand Greeks in their long and famous retreat met with a nation who +very much galled them with great and strong bows, carrying arrows so long +that, taking them up, one might return them back like a dart, and with +them pierce a buckler and an armed man through and through. The engines, +that Dionysius invented at Syracuse to shoot vast massy darts and stones +of a prodigious greatness with so great impetuosity and at so great a +distance, came very near to our modern inventions. + +But in this discourse of horses and horsemanship, we are not to forget +the pleasant posture of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity, +upon his mule, whom Monstrelet reports always to have ridden sideways +through the streets of Paris like a woman. He says also, elsewhere, that +the Gascons had terrible horses, that would wheel in their full speed, +which the French, Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon as a +miracle, "having never seen the like before," which are his very words. + +Caesar, speaking of the Suabians: "in the charges they make on +horseback," says he, "they often throw themselves off to fight on foot, +having taught their horses not to stir in the meantime from the place, +to which they presently run again upon occasion; and according to their +custom, nothing is so unmanly and so base as to use saddles or pads, and +they despise such as make use of those conveniences: insomuch that, being +but a very few in number, they fear not to attack a great many." That +which I have formerly wondered at, to see a horse made to perform all his +airs with a switch only and the reins upon his neck, was common with the +Massilians, who rid their horses without saddle or bridle: + + "Et gens, quae nudo residens Massylia dorso, + Ora levi flectit, fraenorum nescia, virga." + + ["The Massylians, mounted on the bare backs of their horses, + bridleless, guide them by a mere switch."--Lucan, iv. 682.] + + "Et Numidae infraeni cingunt." + + ["The Numidians guiding their horses without bridles." + --AEneid, iv. 41.] + + "Equi sine fraenis, deformis ipse cursus, + rigida cervice et extento capite currentium." + + ["The career of a horse without a bridle is ungraceful; the neck + extended stiff, and the nose thrust out."--Livy, xxxv. II.] + +King Alfonso,--[Alfonso XI., king of Leon and Castile, died 1350.]-- +he who first instituted the Order of the Band or Scarf in Spain, amongst +other rules of the order, gave them this, that they should never ride +mule or mulet, upon penalty of a mark of silver; this I had lately out of +Guevara's Letters. Whoever gave these the title of Golden Epistles had +another kind of opinion of them than I have. The Courtier says, that +till his time it was a disgrace to a gentleman to ride on one of these +creatures: but the Abyssinians, on the contrary, the nearer they are to +the person of Prester John, love to be mounted upon large mules, for the +greatest dignity and grandeur. + +Xenophon tells us, that the Assyrians were fain to keep their horses +fettered in the stable, they were so fierce and vicious; and that it +required so much time to loose and harness them, that to avoid any +disorder this tedious preparation might bring upon them in case of +surprise, they never sat down in their camp till it was first well +fortified with ditches and ramparts. His Cyrus, who was so great a +master in all manner of horse service, kept his horses to their due work, +and never suffered them to have anything to eat till first they had +earned it by the sweat of some kind of exercise. The Scythians when in +the field and in scarcity of provisions used to let their horses blood, +which they drank, and sustained themselves by that diet: + + "Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo." + + ["The Scythian comes, who feeds on horse-flesh" + --Martial, De Spectaculis Libey, Epigr. iii. 4.] + +Those of Crete, being besieged by Metellus, were in so great necessity +for drink that they were fain to quench their thirst with their horses +urine.--[Val. Max., vii. 6, ext. 1.] + +To shew how much cheaper the Turkish armies support themselves than our +European forces, 'tis said that besides the soldiers drink nothing but +water and eat nothing but rice and salt flesh pulverised (of which every +one may easily carry about with him a month's provision), they know how +to feed upon the blood of their horses as well as the Muscovite and +Tartar, and salt it for their use. + +These new-discovered people of the Indies [Mexico and Yucatan D.W.], +when the Spaniards first landed amongst them, had so great an opinion +both of the men and horses, that they looked upon the first as gods and +the other as animals ennobled above their nature; insomuch that after +they were subdued, coming to the men to sue for peace and pardon, and to +bring them gold and provisions, they failed not to offer of the same to +the horses, with the same kind of harangue to them they had made to the +others: interpreting their neighing for a language of truce and +friendship. + +In the other Indies, to ride upon an elephant was the first and royal +place of honour; the second to ride in a coach with four horses; the +third to ride upon a camel; and the last and least honour to be carried +or drawn by one horse only. Some one of our late writers tells us that +he has been in countries in those parts where they ride upon oxen with +pads, stirrups, and bridles, and very much at their ease. + +Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, in a battle with the Samnites, seeing +his horse, after three or four charges, had failed of breaking into the +enemy's battalion, took this course, to make them unbridle all their +horses and spur their hardest, so that having nothing to check their +career, they might through weapons and men open the way to his foot, who +by that means gave them a bloody defeat. The same command was given by +Quintus Fulvius Flaccus against the Celtiberians: + + ["You will do your business with greater advantage of your horses' + strength, if you send them unbridled upon the enemy, as it is + recorded the Roman horse to their great glory have often done; their + bits being taken off, they charged through and again back through + the enemy's ranks with great slaughter, breaking down all their + spears."--Idem, xl. 40.] + +The Duke of Muscovy was anciently obliged to pay this reverence to the +Tartars, that when they sent an embassy to him he went out to meet them +on foot, and presented them with a goblet of mares' milk (a beverage of +greatest esteem amongst them), and if, in drinking, a drop fell by chance +upon their horse's mane, he was bound to lick it off with his tongue. +The army that Bajazet had sent into Russia was overwhelmed with so +dreadful a tempest of snow, that to shelter and preserve themselves from +the cold, many killed and embowelled their horses, to creep into their +bellies and enjoy the benefit of that vital heat. Bajazet, after that +furious battle wherein he was overthrown by Tamerlane, was in a hopeful +way of securing his own person by the fleetness of an Arabian mare he had +under him, had he not been constrained to let her drink her fill at the +ford of a river in his way, which rendered her so heavy and indisposed, +that he was afterwards easily overtaken by those that pursued him. They +say, indeed, that to let a horse stale takes him off his mettle, but as +to drinking, I should rather have thought it would refresh him. + +Croesus, marching his army through certain waste lands near Sardis, met +with an infinite number of serpents, which the horses devoured with great +appetite, and which Herodotus says was a prodigy of ominous portent to +his affairs. + +We call a horse entire, that has his mane and ears so, and no other will +pass muster. The Lacedaemonians, having defeated the Athenians in +Sicily, returning triumphant from the victory into the city of Syracuse, +amongst other insolences, caused all the horses they had taken to be +shorn and led in triumph. Alexander fought with a nation called Dahas, +whose discipline it was to march two and two together armed on one horse, +to the war; and being in fight, one of them alighted, and so they fought +on horseback and on foot, one after another by turns. + +I do not think that for graceful riding any nation in the world excels +the French. A good horseman, according to our way of speaking, seems +rather to have respect to the courage of the man than address in riding. +Of all that ever I saw, the most knowing in that art, who had the best +seat and the best method in breaking horses, was Monsieur de Carnavalet, +who served our King Henry II. + +I have seen a man ride with both his feet upon the saddle, take off his +saddle, and at his return take it up again and replace it, riding all the +while full speed; having galloped over a cap, make at it very good shots +backwards with his bow; take up anything from the ground, setting one +foot on the ground and the other in the stirrup: with twenty other ape's +tricks, which he got his living by. + +There has been seen in my time at Constantinople two men upon one horse, +who, in the height of its speed, would throw themselves off and into the +saddle again by turn; and one who bridled and saddled his horse with +nothing but his teeth; an other who betwixt two horses, one foot upon one +saddle and the other upon another, carrying the other man upon his +shoulders, would ride full career, the other standing bolt upright upon +and making very good shots with his bow; several who would ride full +speed with their heels upward, and their heads upon the saddle betwixt +several scimitars, with the points upwards, fixed in the harness. When I +was a boy, the prince of Sulmona, riding an unbroken horse at Naples, +prone to all sorts of action, held reals--[A small coin of Spain, the +Two Sicilies, &c.]--under his knees and toes, as if they had been nailed +there, to shew the firmness of his seat. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS + +I should willingly pardon our people for admitting no other pattern or +rule of perfection than their own peculiar manners and customs; for 'tis +a common vice, not of the vulgar only, but almost of all men, to walk in +the beaten road their ancestors have trod before them. I am content, +when they see Fabricius or Laelius, that they look upon their countenance +and behaviour as barbarous, seeing they are neither clothed nor fashioned +according to our mode. But I find fault with their singular indiscretion +in suffering themselves to be so blinded and imposed upon by the +authority of the present usage as every month to alter their opinion, if +custom so require, and that they should so vary their judgment in their +own particular concern. When they wore the busk of their doublets up as +high as their breasts, they stiffly maintained that they were in their +proper place; some years after it was slipped down betwixt their thighs, +and then they could laugh at the former fashion as uneasy and +intolerable. The fashion now in use makes them absolutely condemn the +other two with so great resolution and so universal consent, that a man +would think there was a certain kind of madness crept in amongst them, +that infatuates their understandings to this strange degree. Now, seeing +that our change of fashions is so prompt and sudden, that the inventions +of all the tailors in the world cannot furnish out new whim-whams enow to +feed our vanity withal, there will often be a necessity that the despised +forms must again come in vogue, these immediately after fall into the +same contempt; and that the same judgment must, in the space of fifteen +or twenty years, take up half-a-dozen not only divers but contrary +opinions, with an incredible lightness and inconstancy; there is not any +of us so discreet, who suffers not himself to be gulled with this +contradiction, and both in external and internal sight to be insensibly +blinded. + +I wish to muster up here some old customs that I have in memory, some of +them the same with ours, the others different, to the end that, bearing +in mind this continual variation of human things, we may have our +judgment more clearly and firmly settled. + +The thing in use amongst us of fighting with rapier and cloak was in +practice amongst the Romans also: + + "Sinistras sagis involvunt, gladiosque distringunt," + + ["They wrapt their cloaks upon the left arm, and drew their + swords."--De Bello Civili, i. 75.] + +says Caesar; and he observes a vicious custom of our nation, that +continues yet amongst us, which is to stop passengers we meet upon the +road, to compel them to give an account who they are, and to take it for +an affront and just cause of quarrel if they refuse to do it. + +At the Baths, which the ancients made use of every day before they went +to dinner, and as frequently as we wash our hands, they at first only +bathed their arms and legs; but afterwards, and by a custom that has +continued for many ages in most nations of the world, they bathed stark +naked in mixed and perfumed water, looking upon it as a great simplicity +to bathe in mere water. The most delicate and affected perfumed +themselves all over three or four times a day. They often caused their +hair to be pinched off, as the women of France have some time since taken +up a custom to do their foreheads, + + "Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod brachia veilis," + + ["You pluck the hairs out of your breast, your arms, and thighs." + --Martial, ii. 62, i.] + +though they had ointments proper for that purpose: + + "Psilotro nitet, aut acids latet oblita creta." + + ["She shines with unguents, or with chalk dissolved in vinegar." + --Idem, vi. 93, 9.] + +They delighted to lie soft, and alleged it as a great testimony of +hardiness to lie upon a mattress. They ate lying upon beds, much after +the manner of the Turks in this age: + + "Inde thoro pater AEneas sic orsus ab alto." + + ["Thus Father AEneas, from his high bed of state, spoke." + --AEneid, ii. 2.] + +And 'tis said of the younger Cato, that after the battle of Pharsalia, +being entered into a melancholy disposition at the ill posture of the +public affairs, he took his repasts always sitting, assuming a strict and +austere course of life. It was also their custom to kiss the hands of +great persons; the more to honour and caress them. And meeting with +friends, they always kissed in salutation, as do the Venetians: + + "Gratatusque darem cum dulcibus oscula verbis." + + ["And kindest words I would mingle with kisses." + --Ovid, De Pont., iv. 9, 13] + +In petitioning or saluting any great man, they used to lay their hands +upon his knees. Pasicles the philosopher, brother of Crates, instead of +laying his hand upon the knee laid it upon the private parts, and being +roughly repulsed by him to whom he made that indecent compliment: +"What," said he, "is not that part your own as well as the other?"-- +[Diogenes Laertius, vi. 89.]--They used to eat fruit, as we do, after +dinner. They wiped their fundaments (let the ladies, if they please, +mince it smaller) with a sponge, which is the reason that 'spongia' is a +smutty word in Latin; which sponge was fastened to the end of a stick, as +appears by the story of him who, as he was led along to be thrown to the +wild beasts in the sight of the people, asking leave to do his business, +and having no other way to despatch himself, forced the sponge and stick +down his throat and choked himself.--[Seneca, Ep., 70.] They used to +wipe, after coition, with perfumed wool: + + "At tibi nil faciam; sed Iota mentula lana." + +They had in the streets of Rome vessels and little tubs for passengers to +urine in: + + "Pusi saepe lacum propter se, ac dolia curta. + Somno devincti, credunt extollere vestem." + + ["The little boys in their sleep often think they are near the + public urinal, and raise their coats to make use of it." + --Lucretius, iv.] + +They had collation betwixt meals, and had in summer cellars of snow to +cool their wine; and some there were who made use of snow in winter, not +thinking their wine cool enough, even at that cold season of the year. +The men of quality had their cupbearers and carvers, and their buffoons +to make them sport. They had their meat served up in winter upon chafing +dishes, which were set upon the table, and had portable kitchens (of +which I myself have seen some) wherein all their service was carried +about with them: + + "Has vobis epulas habete, lauti + Nos offendimur ambulante caena." + + ["Do you, if you please, esteem these feasts: we do not like the + ambulatory suppers."--Martial, vii. 48, 4.] + +In summer they had a contrivance to bring fresh and clear rills through +their lower rooms, wherein were great store of living fish, which the +guests took out with their own hands to be dressed every man according to +his own liking. Fish has ever had this pre-eminence, and keeps it still, +that the grandees, as to them, all pretend to be cooks; and indeed the +taste is more delicate than that of flesh, at least to my fancy. But in +all sorts of magnificence, debauchery, and voluptuous inventions of +effeminacy and expense, we do, in truth, all we can to parallel them; +for our wills are as corrupt as theirs: but we want ability to equal +them. Our force is no more able to reach them in their vicious, than in +their virtuous, qualities, for both the one and the other proceeded from +a vigour of soul which was without comparison greater in them than in us; +and souls, by how much the weaker they are, by so much have they less +power to do either very well or very ill. + +The highest place of honour amongst them was the middle. The name going +before, or following after, either in writing or speaking, had no +signification of grandeur, as is evident by their writings; they will as +soon say Oppius and Caesar, as Caesar and Oppius; and me and thee, as +thee and me. This is the reason that made me formerly take notice in the +life of Flaminius, in our French Plutarch, of one passage, where it seems +as if the author, speaking of the jealousy of honour betwixt the +AEtolians and Romans, about the winning of a battle they had with their +joined forces obtained, made it of some importance, that in the Greek +songs they had put the AEtolians before the Romans: if there be no +amphibology in the words of the French translation. + +The ladies, in their baths, made no scruple of admitting men amongst +them, and moreover made use of their serving-men to rub and anoint them: + + "Inguina succinctus nigri tibi servus aluta + Stat, quoties calidis nuda foveris aquis." + + ["A slave--his middle girded with a black apron--stands before you, + when, naked, you take a hot bath."--Martial, vii. 35, i.] + +They all powdered themselves with a certain powder, to moderate their +sweats. + +The ancient Gauls, says Sidonius Apollinaris, wore their hair long before +and the hinder part of the head shaved, a fashion that begins to revive +in this vicious and effeminate age. + +The Romans used to pay the watermen their fare at their first stepping +into the boat, which we never do till after landing: + + "Dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur, + Tota abit hora." + + ["Whilst the fare's paying, and the mule is being harnessed, a whole + hour's time is past."--Horace, Sat. i. 5, 13.] + +The women used to lie on the side of the bed next the wall: and for that +reason they called Caesar, + + "Spondam regis Nicomedis," + + ["The bed of King Nicomedes."--Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 49.] + +They took breath in their drinking, and watered their wine + + "Quis puer ocius + Restinguet ardentis Falerni + Pocula praetereunte lympha?" + + ["What boy will quickly come and cool the heat of the Falernian + wine with clear water?"--Horace, Od., ii. z, 18.] + +And the roguish looks and gestures of our lackeys were also in use +amongst them: + + "O Jane, a tergo quern nulls ciconia pinsit, + Nec manus, auriculas imitari est mobilis albas, + Nec lingua, quantum sitiat canis Appula, tantum." + + ["O Janus, whom no crooked fingers, simulating a stork, peck at + behind your back, whom no quick hands deride behind you, by + imitating the motion of the white ears of the ass, against whom no + mocking tongue is thrust out, as the tongue of the thirsty Apulian + dog."--Persius, i. 58.] + +The Argian and Roman ladies mourned in white, as ours did formerly and +should do still, were I to govern in this point. But there are whole +books on this subject. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +OF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS + +The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar +in everything: which is the reason, that in these Essays I take hold of +all occasions where, though it happen to be a subject I do not very well +understand, I try, however, sounding it at a distance, and finding it too +deep for my stature, I keep me on the shore; and this knowledge that a +man can proceed no further, is one effect of its virtue, yes, one of +those of which it is most proud. One while in an idle and frivolous +subject, I try to find out matter whereof to compose a body, and then to +prop and support it; another while, I employ it in a noble subject, one +that has been tossed and tumbled by a thousand hands, wherein a man can +scarce possibly introduce anything of his own, the way being so beaten on +every side that he must of necessity walk in the steps of another: in +such a case, 'tis the work of the judgment to take the way that seems +best, and of a thousand paths, to determine that this or that is the +best. I leave the choice of my arguments to fortune, and take that she +first presents to me; they are all alike to me, I never design to go +through any of them; for I never see all of anything: neither do they who +so largely promise to show it others. Of a hundred members and faces +that everything has, I take one, onewhile to look it over only, another +while to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: I +give a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most part +tempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it. Did I +know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to +the bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here +one word and there another, patterns cut from several pieces and +scattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not +responsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without +varying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and +uncertainty, and to my own governing method, ignorance. + +All motion discovers us: the very same soul of Caesar, that made itself +so conspicuous in marshalling and commanding the battle of Pharsalia, was +also seen as solicitous and busy in the softer affairs of love and +leisure. A man makes a judgment of a horse, not only by seeing him when +he is showing off his paces, but by his very walk, nay, and by seeing him +stand in the stable. + +Amongst the functions of the soul, there are some of a lower and meaner +form; he who does not see her in those inferior offices as well as in +those of nobler note, never fully discovers her; and, peradventure, she +is best shown where she moves her simpler pace. The winds of passions +take most hold of her in her highest flights; and the rather by reason +that she wholly applies herself to, and exercises her whole virtue upon, +every particular subject, and never handles more than one thing at a +time, and that not according to it, but according to herself. Things in +respect to themselves have, peradventure, their weight, measures, and +conditions; but when we once take them into us, the soul forms them as +she pleases. Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato, indifferent +to Socrates. Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty, +and their contraries, all strip themselves at their entering into us, and +receive a new robe, and of another fashion, from the soul; and of what +colour, brown, bright, green, dark, and of what quality, sharp, sweet, +deep, or superficial, as best pleases each of them, for they are not +agreed upon any common standard of forms, rules, or proceedings; every +one is a queen in her own dominions. Let us, therefore, no more excuse +ourselves upon the external qualities of things; it belongs to us to give +ourselves an account of them. Our good or ill has no other dependence +but on ourselves. 'Tis there that our offerings and our vows are due, +and not to fortune she has no power over our manners; on the contrary, +they draw and make her follow in their train, and cast her in their own +mould. Why should not I judge of Alexander at table, ranting and +drinking at the prodigious rate he sometimes used to do? + +Or, if he played at chess? what string of his soul was not touched by +this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it, because it is not play +enough, that it is too grave and serious a diversion, and I am ashamed to +lay out as much thought and study upon it as would serve to much better +uses. He did not more pump his brains about his glorious expedition into +the Indies, nor than another in unravelling a passage upon which depends +the safety of mankind. To what a degree does this ridiculous diversion +molest the soul, when all her faculties are summoned together upon this +trivial account! and how fair an opportunity she herein gives every one +to know and to make a right judgment of himself? I do not more +thoroughly sift myself in any other posture than this: what passion are +we exempted from in it? Anger, spite, malice, impatience, and a vehement +desire of getting the better in a concern wherein it were more excusable +to be ambitious of being overcome; for to be eminent, to excel above the +common rate in frivolous things, nowise befits a man of honour. What I +say in this example may be said in all others. Every particle, every +employment of man manifests him equally with any other. + +Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, +finding human condition ridiculous and vain, never appeared abroad but +with a jeering and laughing countenance; whereas Heraclitus commiserating +that same condition of ours, appeared always with a sorrowful look, and +tears in his eyes: + + "Alter + Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum + Protuleratque pedem; flebat contrarius alter." + + ["The one always, as often as he had stepped one pace from his + threshold, laughed, the other always wept."--Juvenal, Sat., x. 28.] + + [Or, as Voltaire: "Life is a comedy to those who think; + a tragedy to those who feel." D.W.] + +I am clearly for the first humour; not because it is more pleasant to +laugh than to weep, but because it expresses more contempt and +condemnation than the other, and I think we can never be despised +according to our full desert. Compassion and bewailing seem to imply +some esteem of and value for the thing bemoaned; whereas the things we +laugh at are by that expressed to be of no moment. I do not think that +we are so unhappy as we are vain, or have in us so much malice as folly; +we are not so full of mischief as inanity; nor so miserable as we are +vile and mean. And therefore Diogenes, who passed away his time in +rolling himself in his tub, and made nothing of the great Alexander, +esteeming us no better than flies or bladders puffed up with wind, was a +sharper and more penetrating, and, consequently in my opinion, a juster +judge than Timon, surnamed the Man-hater; for what a man hates he lays to +heart. This last was an enemy to all mankind, who passionately desired +our ruin, and avoided our conversation as dangerous, proceeding from +wicked and depraved natures: the other valued us so little that we could +neither trouble nor infect him by our example; and left us to herd one +with another, not out of fear, but from contempt of our society: +concluding us as incapable of doing good as evil. + +Of the same strain was Statilius' answer, when Brutus courted him into +the conspiracy against Caesar; he was satisfied that the enterprise was +just, but he did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern'; +according to the doctrine of Hegesias, who said, that a wise man ought to +do nothing but for himself, forasmuch as he only was worthy of it: and to +the saying of Theodorus, that it was not reasonable a wise man should +hazard himself for his country, and endanger wisdom for a company of +fools. Our condition is as ridiculous as risible. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +OF THE VANITY OF WORDS + +A rhetorician of times past said, that to make little things appear great +was his profession. This was a shoemaker, who can make a great shoe for +a little foot.--[A saying of Agesilaus.]--They would in Sparta have +sent such a fellow to be whipped for making profession of a tricky and +deceitful act; and I fancy that Archidamus, who was king of that country, +was a little surprised at the answer of Thucydides, when inquiring of +him, which was the better wrestler, Pericles, or he, he replied, that it +was hard to affirm; for when I have thrown him, said he, he always +persuades the spectators that he had no fall and carries away the prize. +--[Quintilian, ii. 15.]--The women who paint, pounce, and plaster up +their ruins, filling up their wrinkles and deformities, are less to +blame, because it is no great matter whether we see them in their natural +complexions; whereas these make it their business to deceive not our +sight only but our judgments, and to adulterate and corrupt the very +essence of things. The republics that have maintained themselves in a +regular and well-modelled government, such as those of Lacedaemon and +Crete, had orators in no very great esteem. Aristo wisely defined +rhetoric to be "a science to persuade the people;" Socrates and Plato +"an art to flatter and deceive." And those who deny it in the general +description, verify it throughout in their precepts. The Mohammedans +will not suffer their children to be instructed in it, as being useless, +and the Athenians, perceiving of how pernicious consequence the practice +of it was, it being in their city of universal esteem, ordered the +principal part, which is to move the affections, with their exordiums and +perorations, to be taken away. 'Tis an engine invented to manage and +govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble, and that never is made use of, +but like physic to the sick, in a discomposed state. In those where the +vulgar or the ignorant, or both together, have been all-powerful and able +to give the law, as in those of Athens, Rhodes, and Rome, and where the +public affairs have been in a continual tempest of commotion, to such +places have the orators always repaired. And in truth, we shall find few +persons in those republics who have pushed their fortunes to any great +degree of eminence without the assistance of eloquence. + +Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Lucullus, Lentulus, Metellus, thence took their +chiefest spring, to mount to that degree of authority at which they at +last arrived, making it of greater use to them than arms, contrary to the +opinion of better times; for, L. Volumnius speaking publicly in favour of +the election of Q. Fabius and Pub. Decius, to the consular dignity: +"These are men," said he, "born for war and great in execution; in the +combat of the tongue altogether wanting; spirits truly consular. The +subtle, eloquent, and learned are only good for the city, to make +praetors of, to administer justice."--[Livy, x. 22.] + +Eloquence most flourished at Rome when the public affairs were in the +worst condition and most disquieted with intestine commotions; as a free +and untilled soil bears the worst weeds. By which it should seem that a +monarchical government has less need of it than any other: for the +stupidity and facility natural to the common people, and that render them +subject to be turned and twined and, led by the ears by this charming +harmony of words, without weighing or considering the truth and reality +of things by the force of reason: this facility, I say, is not easily +found in a single person, and it is also more easy by good education and +advice to secure him from the impression of this poison. There was never +any famous orator known to come out of Persia or Macedon. + +I have entered into this discourse upon the occasion of an Italian I +lately received into my service, and who was clerk of the kitchen to the +late Cardinal Caraffa till his death. I put this fellow upon an account +of his office: when he fell to discourse of this palate-science, with +such a settled countenance and magisterial gravity, as if he had been +handling some profound point of divinity. He made a learned distinction +of the several sorts of appetites; of that a man has before he begins to +eat, and of those after the second and third service; the means simply to +satisfy the first, and then to raise and actuate the other two; the +ordering of the sauces, first in general, and then proceeded to the +qualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads +according to their seasons, those which ought to be served up hot, and +which cold; the manner of their garnishment and decoration to render them +acceptable to the eye. After which he entered upon the order of the +whole service, full of weighty and important considerations: + + "Nec minimo sane discrimine refert, + Quo gestu lepores, et quo gallina secetur;" + + ["Nor with less discrimination observes how we should carve a hare, + and how a hen." or, ("Nor with the least discrimination relates how + we should carve hares, and how cut up a hen.)" + --Juvenal, Sat., v. 123.] + +and all this set out with lofty and magnificent words, the very same we +make use of when we discourse of the government of an empire. Which +learned lecture of my man brought this of Terence into my memory: + + "Hoc salsum est, hoc adustum est, hoc lautum est, parum: + Illud recte: iterum sic memento: sedulo + Moneo, qux possum, pro mea sapientia. + Postremo, tanquam in speculum, in patinas, + Demea, Inspicere jubeo, et moneo, quid facto usus sit." + + ["This is too salt, that's burnt, that's not washed enough; that's + well; remember to do so another time. Thus do I ever advise them to + have things done properly, according to my capacity; and lastly, + Demea, I command my cooks to look into every dish as if it were a + mirror, and tell them what they should do." + --Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 71.] + +And yet even the Greeks themselves very much admired and highly applauded +the order and disposition that Paulus AEmilius observed in the feast he +gave them at his return from Macedon. But I do not here speak of +effects, I speak of words only. + +I do not know whether it may have the same operation upon other men that +it has upon me, but when I hear our architects thunder out their bombast +words of pilasters, architraves, and cornices, of the Corinthian and +Doric orders, and suchlike jargon, my imagination is presently possessed +with the palace of Apollidon; when, after all, I find them but the paltry +pieces of my own kitchen door. + +To hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other +grammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic +form of speaking? And yet they are phrases that come near to the babble +of my chambermaid. + +And this other is a gullery of the same stamp, to call the offices of our +kingdom by the lofty titles of the Romans, though they have no similitude +of function, and still less of authority and power. And this also, which +I doubt will one day turn to the reproach of this age of ours, unworthily +and indifferently to confer upon any we think fit the most glorious +surnames with which antiquity honoured but one or two persons in several +ages. Plato carried away the surname of Divine, by so universal a +consent that never any one repined at it, or attempted to take it from +him; and yet the Italians, who pretend, and with good reason, to more +sprightly wits and sounder sense than the other nations of their time, +have lately bestowed the same title upon Aretin, in whose writings, save +tumid phrases set out with smart periods, ingenious indeed but far- +fetched and fantastic, and the eloquence, be it what it may, I see +nothing in him above the ordinary writers of his time, so far is he from +approaching the ancient divinity. And we make nothing of giving the +surname of great to princes who have nothing more than ordinary in them. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +OF THE PARSIMONY OF THE ANCIENTS + +Attilius Regulus, general of the Roman army in Africa, in the height of +all his glory and victories over the Carthaginians, wrote to the Republic +to acquaint them that a certain hind he had left in trust with his +estate, which was in all but seven acres of land, had run away with all +his instruments of husbandry, and entreating therefore, that they would +please to call him home that he might take order in his own affairs, lest +his wife and children should suffer by this disaster. Whereupon the +Senate appointed another to manage his business, caused his losses to be +made good, and ordered his family to be maintained at the public expense. + +The elder Cato, returning consul from Spain, sold his warhorse to save +the money it would have cost in bringing it back by sea into Italy; and +being Governor of Sardinia, he made all his visits on foot, without other +train than one officer of the Republic who carried his robe and a censer +for sacrifices, and for the most part carried his trunk himself. He +bragged that he had never worn a gown that cost above ten crowns, nor had +ever sent above tenpence to the market for one day's provision; and that +as to his country houses, he had not one that was rough-cast on the +outside. + +Scipio AEmilianus, after two triumphs and two consulships, went an +embassy with no more than seven servants in his train. 'Tis said that +Homer had never more than one, Plato three, and Zeno, founder of the sect +of Stoics, none at all. Tiberius Gracchus was allowed but fivepence +halfpenny a day when employed as public minister about the public +affairs, and being at that time the greatest man of Rome. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +OF A SAYING OF CAESAR + +If we would sometimes bestow a little consideration upon ourselves, and +employ the time we spend in prying into other men's actions, and +discovering things without us, in examining our own abilities we should +soon perceive of how infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is +composed. Is it not a singular testimony of imperfection that we cannot +establish our satisfaction in any one thing, and that even our own fancy +and desire should deprive us of the power to choose what is most proper +and useful for us? A very good proof of this is the great dispute that +has ever been amongst the philosophers, of finding out man's sovereign +good, that continues yet, and will eternally continue, without solution +or accord: + + "Dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur + Caetera; post aliud, quum contigit illud, avemus, + Et sitis aequa tenet." + + ["While that which we desire is wanting, it seems to surpass all the + rest; then, when we have got it, we want something else; 'tis ever + the same thirst"--Lucretius, iii. 1095.] + +Whatever it is that falls into our knowledge and possession, we find that +it satisfies not, and we still pant after things to come and unknown, +inasmuch as those present do not suffice for us; not that, in my +judgment, they have not in them wherewith to do it, but because we seize +them with an unruly and immoderate haste: + + "Nam quum vidit hic, ad victum qux flagitat usus, + Et per quae possent vitam consistere tutam, + Omnia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata; + Divitiis homines, et honore, et laude potentes + Aflluere, atque bona natorum excellere fama; + Nec minus esse domi cuiquam tamen anxia corda, + Atque animi ingratis vitam vexare querelis + Causam, quae infestis cogit saevire querelis, + Intellegit ibi; vitium vas efficere ipsum, + Omniaque, illius vitio, corrumpier intus, + Qux collata foris et commoda quomque venirent." + + ["For when he saw that almost all things necessarily required for + subsistence, and which may render life comfortable, are already + prepared to their hand, that men may abundantly attain wealth, + honour, praise, may rejoice in the reputation of their children, yet + that, notwithstanding, every one has none the less in his heart and + home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints, he saw + that the vessel itself was in fault, and that all good things which + were brought into it from without were spoilt by its own + imperfections."--Lucretius, vi. 9.] + +Our appetite is irresolute and fickle; it can neither keep nor enjoy +anything with a good grace: and man concluding it to be the fault of the +things he is possessed of, fills himself with and feeds upon the idea of +things he neither knows nor understands, to which he devotes his hopes +and his desires, paying them all reverence and honour, according to the +saying of Caesar: + + "Communi fit vitio naturae, ut invisis, latitantibus + atque incognitis rebus magis confidamas, + vehementiusque exterreamur." + + ["'Tis the common vice of nature, that we at once repose most + confidence, and receive the greatest apprehensions, from things + unseen, concealed, and unknown."--De Bello Civil, xi. 4.] + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +OF VAIN SUBTLETIES + +There are a sort of little knacks and frivolous subtleties from which men +sometimes expect to derive reputation and applause: as poets, who compose +whole poems with every line beginning with the same letter; we see the +shapes of eggs, globes, wings, and hatchets cut out by the ancient Greeks +by the measure of their verses, making them longer or shorter, to +represent such or such a figure. Of this nature was his employment who +made it his business to compute into how many several orders the letters +of the alphabet might be transposed, and found out that incredible number +mentioned in Plutarch. I am mightily pleased with the humour of him, + + ["Alexander, as may be seen in Quintil., Institut. Orat., lib. + ii., cap. 20, where he defines Maratarexvia to be a certain + unnecessary imitation of art, which really does neither good nor + harm, but is as unprofitable and ridiculous as was the labour of + that man who had so perfectly learned to cast small peas through the + eye of a needle at a good distance that he never missed one, and was + justly rewarded for it, as is said, by Alexander, who saw the + performance, with a bushel of peas."--Coste.] + +who having a man brought before him that had learned to throw a grain of +millet with such dexterity and assurance as never to miss the eye of a +needle; and being afterwards entreated to give something for the reward +of so rare a performance, he pleasantly, and in my opinion justly, +ordered a certain number of bushels of the same grain to be delivered to +him, that he might not want wherewith to exercise so famous an art. 'Tis +a strong evidence of a weak judgment when men approve of things for their +being rare and new, or for their difficulty, where worth and usefulness +are not conjoined to recommend them. + +I come just now from playing with my own family at who could find out the +most things that hold by their two extremities; as Sire, which is a title +given to the greatest person in the nation, the king, and also to the +vulgar, as merchants, but never to any degree of men between. The women +of great quality are called Dames, inferior gentlewomen, Demoiselles, and +the meanest sort of women, Dames, as the first. The cloth of state over +our tables is not permitted but in the palaces of princes and in taverns. +Democritus said, that gods and beasts had sharper sense than men, who are +of a middle form. The Romans wore the same habit at funerals and feasts. +It is most certain that an extreme fear and an extreme ardour of courage +equally trouble and relax the belly. The nickname of Trembling with +which they surnamed Sancho XII., king of Navarre, tells us that valour +will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear. Those who were +arming that king, or some other person, who upon the like occasion was +wont to be in the same disorder, tried to compose him by representing the +danger less he was going to engage himself in: "You understand me ill," +said he, "for could my flesh know the danger my courage will presently +carry it into, it would sink down to the ground." The faintness that +surprises us from frigidity or dislike in the exercises of Venus are also +occasioned by a too violent desire and an immoderate heat. Extreme +coldness and extreme heat boil and roast. Aristotle says, that sows of +lead will melt and run with cold and the rigour of winter just as with a +vehement heat. Desire and satiety fill all the gradations above and +below pleasure with pain. Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre +of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents. The +wise control and triumph over ill, the others know it not: these last +are, as a man may say, on this side of accidents, the others are beyond +them, who after having well weighed and considered their qualities, +measured and judged them what they are, by virtue of a vigorous soul leap +out of their reach; they disdain and trample them underfoot, having a +solid and well-fortified soul, against which the darts of fortune, coming +to strike, must of necessity rebound and blunt themselves, meeting with a +body upon which they can fix no impression; the ordinary and middle +condition of men are lodged betwixt these two extremities, consisting of +such as perceive evils, feel them, and are not able to support them. +Infancy and decrepitude meet in the imbecility of the brain; avarice and +profusion in the same thirst and desire of getting. + +A man may say with some colour of truth that there is an Abecedarian +ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes +after it: an ignorance that knowledge creates and begets, at the same +time that it despatches and destroys the first. Of mean understandings, +little inquisitive, and little instructed, are made good Christians, who +by reverence and obedience simply believe and are constant in their +belief. In the average understandings and the middle sort of capacities, +the error of opinion is begotten; they follow the appearance of the first +impression, and have some colour of reason on their side to impute our +walking on in the old beaten path to simplicity and stupidity, meaning us +who have not informed ourselves by study. The higher and nobler souls, +more solid and clear-sighted, make up another sort of true believers, who +by a long and religious investigation of truth, have obtained a clearer +and more penetrating light into the Scriptures, and have discovered the +mysterious and divine secret of our ecclesiastical polity; and yet we see +some, who by the middle step, have arrived at that supreme degree with +marvellous fruit and confirmation, as to the utmost limit of Christian +intelligence, and enjoy their victory with great spiritual consolation, +humble acknowledgment of the divine favour, reformation of manners, and +singular modesty. I do not intend with these to rank those others, who +to clear themselves from all suspicion of their former errors and to +satisfy us that they are sound and firm, render themselves extremely +indiscreet and unjust, in the carrying on our cause, and blemish it with +infinite reproaches of violence and oppression. The simple peasants are +good people, and so are the philosophers, or whatever the present age +calls them, men of strong and clear reason, and whose souls are enriched +with an ample instruction of profitable sciences. The mongrels who have +disdained the first form of the ignorance of letters, and have not been +able to attain to the other (sitting betwixt two stools, as I and a great +many more of us do), are dangerous, foolish, and importunate; these are +they that trouble the world. And therefore it is that I, for my own +part, retreat as much as I can towards the first and natural station, +whence I so vainly attempted to advance. + +Popular and purely natural poesy + + ["The term poesie populaire was employed, for the first time, in the + French language on this occasion. Montaigne created the expression, + and indicated its nature."--Ampere.] + +has in it certain artless graces, by which she may come into comparison +with the greatest beauty of poetry perfected by art: as we see in our +Gascon villanels and the songs that are brought us from nations that have +no knowledge of any manner of science, nor so much as the use of writing. +The middle sort of poesy betwixt these two is despised, of no value, +honour, or esteem. + +But seeing that the path once laid open to the fancy, I have found, as it +commonly falls out, that what we have taken for a difficult exercise and +a rare subject, prove to be nothing so, and that after the invention is +once warm, it finds out an infinite number of parallel examples. I shall +only add this one--that, were these Essays of mine considerable enough to +deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fall out that they +would not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be very +acceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would not +understand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover in +the middle region. + + + +CHAPTER LV + +OF SMELLS + +It has been reported of some, as of Alexander the Great, that their sweat +exhaled an odoriferous smell, occasioned by some rare and extraordinary +constitution, of which Plutarch and others have been inquisitive into the +cause. But the ordinary constitution of human bodies is quite otherwise, +and their best and chiefest excellency is to be exempt from smell. Nay, +the sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greater +perfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those of +healthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman: + + "Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil olet." + + ["She smells sweetest, who smells not at all." + --Plautus, Mostel, i. 3, 116.] + +And such as make use of fine exotic perfumes are with good reason to be +suspected of some natural imperfection which they endeavour by these +odours to conceal. To smell, though well, is to stink: + + "Rides nos, Coracine, nil olentes + Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere." + + ["You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we are not scented; I would, + rather than smell well, not smell at all."--Martial, vi. 55, 4.] + +And elsewhere: + + "Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet." + + ["Posthumus, he who ever smells well does not smell well." + --Idem, ii. 12, 14.] + +I am nevertheless a great lover of good smells, and as much abominate the +ill ones, which also I scent at a greater distance, I think, than other +men: + + "Namque sagacius unus odoror, + Polypus, an gravis hirsutis cubet hircus in aliis + Quam canis acer, ubi latest sus." + + ["My nose is quicker to scent a fetid sore or a rank armpit, than a + dog to smell out the hidden sow."--Horace, Epod., xii. 4.] + +Of smells, the simple and natural seem to me the most pleasing. Let the +ladies look to that, for 'tis chiefly their concern: amid the most +profound barbarism, the Scythian women, after bathing, were wont to +powder and crust their faces and all their bodies with a certain +odoriferous drug growing in their country, which being cleansed off, when +they came to have familiarity with men they were found perfumed and +sleek. 'Tis not to be believed how strangely all sorts of odours cleave +to me, and how apt my skin is to imbibe them. He that complains of +nature that she has not furnished mankind with a vehicle to convey smells +to the nose had no reason; for they will do it themselves, especially to +me; my very mustachios, which are full, perform that office; for if I +stroke them but with my gloves or handkerchief, the smell will not out a +whole day; they manifest where I have been, and the close, luscious, +devouring, viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age left +a sweetness upon my lips for several hours after. And yet I have ever +found myself little subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught, either +by conversing with the sick or bred by the contagion of the air, and have +escaped from those of my time, of which there have been several sorts in +our cities and armies. We read of Socrates, that though he never +departed from Athens during the frequent plagues that infested the city, +he only was never infected. + +Physicians might, I believe, extract greater utility from odours than +they do, for I have often observed that they cause an alteration in me +and work upon my spirits according to their several virtues; which makes +me approve of what is said, that the use of incense and perfumes in +churches, so ancient and so universally received in all nations and +religions, was intended to cheer us, and to rouse and purify the senses, +the better to fit us for contemplation. + +I could have been glad, the better to judge of it, to have tasted the +culinary art of those cooks who had so rare a way of seasoning exotic +odours with the relish of meats; as it was particularly observed in the +service of the king of Tunis, who in our days--[Muley-Hassam, in 1543.] +--landed at Naples to have an interview with Charles the Emperor. His +dishes were larded with odoriferous drugs, to that degree of expense that +the cookery of one peacock and two pheasants amounted to a hundred ducats +to dress them after their fashion; and when the carver came to cut them +up, not only the dining-room, but all the apartments of his palace and +the adjoining streets were filled with an aromatic vapour which did not +presently vanish. + +My chiefest care in choosing my lodgings is always to avoid a thick and +stinking air; and those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, very much +lessen the kindness I have for them, the one by the offensive smell of +her marshes, and the other of her dirt. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +OF PRAYERS + +I propose formless and undetermined fancies, like those who publish +doubtful questions, to be after a disputed upon in the schools, not to +establish truth but to seek it; and I submit them to the judgments of +those whose office it is to regulate, not my writings and actions only, +but moreover my very thoughts. Let what I here set down meet with +correction or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me, +myself beforehand condemning as absurd and impious, if anything shall be +found, through ignorance or inadvertency, couched in this rhapsody, +contrary to the holy resolutions and prescriptions of the Catholic +Apostolic and Roman Church, into which I was born and in which I will +die. And yet, always submitting to the authority of their censure, which +has an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything, as in +treating upon this present subject. + +I know not if or no I am wrong, but since, by a particular favour of the +divine bounty, a certain form of prayer has been prescribed and dictated +to us, word by word, from the mouth of God Himself, I have ever been of +opinion that we ought to have it in more frequent use than we yet have; +and if I were worthy to advise, at the sitting down to and rising from +our tables, at our rising from and going to bed, and in every particular +action wherein prayer is used, I would that Christians always make use of +the Lord's Prayer, if not alone, yet at least always. The Church may +lengthen and diversify prayers, according to the necessity of our +instruction, for I know very well that it is always the same in substance +and the same thing: but yet such a privilege ought to be given to that +prayer, that the people should have it continually in their mouths; for +it is most certain that all necessary petitions are comprehended in it, +and that it is infinitely proper for all occasions. 'Tis the only prayer +I use in all places and conditions, and which I still repeat instead of +changing; whence it also happens that I have no other so entirely by +heart as that. + +It just now came into my mind, whence it is we should derive that error +of having recourse to God in all our designs and enterprises, to call Him +to our assistance in all sorts of affairs, and in all places where our +weakness stands in need of support, without considering whether the +occasion be just or otherwise; and to invoke His name and power, in what +state soever we are, or action we are engaged in, howsoever vicious. He +is indeed, our sole and unique protector, and can do all things for us: +but though He is pleased to honour us with this sweet paternal alliance, +He is, notwithstanding, as just as He is good and mighty; and more often +exercises His justice than His power, and favours us according to that, +and not according to our petitions. + +Plato in his Laws, makes three sorts of belief injurious to the gods; +"that there are none; that they concern not themselves about our affairs; +that they never refuse anything to our vows, offerings, and sacrifices." +The first of these errors (according to his opinion, never continued +rooted in any man from his infancy to his old age); the other two, he +confesses, men might be obstinate in. + +God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His +power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at +that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all +vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith +to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we +double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we +are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. +Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so +frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give +me some evidence of amendment and reformation: + + "Si, nocturnus adulter, + Tempora Santonico velas adoperta cucullo." + + ["If a night adulterer, thou coverest thy head with a Santonic + cowl."--Juvenal, Sat., viii. 144.--The Santones were the people + who inhabited Saintonge in France, from whom the Romans derived the + use of hoods or cowls covering the head and face.] + +And the practice of a man who mixes devotion with an execrable life seems +in some sort more to be condemned than that of a man conformable to his +own propension and dissolute throughout; and for that reason it is that +our Church denies admittance to and communion with men obstinate and +incorrigible in any notorious wickedness. We pray only by custom and for +fashion's sake; or rather, we read or pronounce our prayers aloud, which +is no better than an hypocritical show of devotion; and I am scandalised +to see a man cross himself thrice at the Benedicite, and as often at +Grace (and the more, because it is a sign I have in great veneration and +continual use, even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the other hours of +the day to acts of malice, avarice, and injustice. One hour to God, the +rest to the devil, as if by composition and compensation. 'Tis a wonder +to see actions so various in themselves succeed one another with such an +uniformity of method as not to interfere nor suffer any alteration, even +upon the very confines and passes from the one to the other. What a +prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself +whilst it harbours under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a +society, both the crime and the judge? + +A man whose whole meditation is continually working upon nothing but +impurity which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he say +when he comes to speak to Him? He draws back, but immediately falls into +a relapse. If the object of divine justice and the presence of his Maker +did, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever the +repentance might be, the very fear of offending the Infinite Majesty +would so often present itself to his imagination that he would soon see +himself master of those vices that are most natural and vehement in him. +But what shall we say of those who settle their whole course of life upon +the profit and emolument of sins, which they know to be mortal? How many +trades and vocations have we admitted and countenanced amongst us, whose +very essence is vicious? And he that, confessing himself to me, +voluntarily told me that he had all his lifetime professed and practised +a religion, in his opinion damnable and contrary to that he had in his +heart, only to preserve his credit and the honour of his employments, how +could his courage suffer so infamous a confession? What can men say to +the divine justice upon this subject? + +Their repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reparation, they +lose the colour of alleging it both to God and man. Are they so impudent +as to sue for remission without satisfaction and without penitence? +I look upon these as in the same condition with the first: but the +obstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety and +volubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kind +of miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agony +of mind. + +It seemed to me a fantastic imagination in those who, these late years +past, were wont to reproach every man they knew to be of any +extraordinary parts, and made profession of the Catholic religion, that +it was but outwardly; maintaining, moreover, to do him honour forsooth, +that whatever he might pretend to the contrary he could not but in his +heart be of their reformed opinion. An untoward disease, that a man +should be so riveted to his own belief as to fancy that others cannot +believe otherwise than as he does; and yet worse, that they should +entertain so vicious an opinion of such great parts as to think any man +so qualified, should prefer any present advantage of fortune to the +promises of eternal life and the menaces of eternal damnation. They may +believe me: could anything have tempted my youth, the ambition of the +danger and difficulties in the late commotions had not been the least +motives. + +It is not without very good reason, in my opinion, that the Church +interdicts the promiscuous, indiscreet, and irreverent use of the holy +and divine Psalms, with which the Holy Ghost inspired King David. We +ought not to mix God in our actions, but with the highest reverence and +caution; that poesy is too holy to be put to no other use than to +exercise the lungs and to delight our ears; it ought to come from the +conscience, and not from the tongue. It is not fit that a prentice in +his shop, amongst his vain and frivolous thoughts, should be permitted to +pass away his time and divert himself with such sacred things. Neither +is it decent to see the Holy Book of the holy mysteries of our belief +tumbled up and down a hall or a kitchen they were formerly mysteries, but +are now become sports and recreations. 'Tis a book too serious and too +venerable to be cursorily or slightly turned over: the reading of the +scripture ought to be a temperate and premeditated act, and to which men +should always add this devout preface, 'sursum corda', preparing even the +body to so humble and composed a gesture and countenance as shall +evidence a particular veneration and attention. Neither is it a book for +everyone to fist, but the study of select men set apart for that purpose, +and whom Almighty God has been pleased to call to that office and sacred +function: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. 'Tis, not a story to +tell, but a history to revere, fear, and adore. Are not they then +pleasant men who think they have rendered this fit for the people's +handling by translating it into the vulgar tongue? Does the +understanding of all therein contained only stick at words? Shall I +venture to say further, that by coming so near to understand a little, +they are much wider of the whole scope than before. A pure and simple +ignorance and wholly depending upon the exposition of qualified persons, +was far more learned and salutary than this vain and verbal knowledge, +which has only temerity and presumption. + +And I do further believe that the liberty every one has taken to disperse +the sacred writ into so many idioms carries with it a great deal more of +danger than utility. The Jews, Mohammedans, and almost all other +peoples, have reverentially espoused the language wherein their mysteries +were first conceived, and have expressly, and not without colour of +reason, forbidden the alteration of them into any other. Are we assured +that in Biscay and in Brittany there are enough competent judges of this +affair to establish this translation into their own language? The +universal Church has not a more difficult and solemn judgment to make. +In preaching and speaking the interpretation is vague, free, mutable, and +of a piece by itself; so 'tis not the same thing. + +One of our Greek historians age justly censures the he lived in, because +the secrets of the Christian religion were dispersed into the hands of +every mechanic, to expound and argue upon, according to his own fancy, +and that we ought to be much ashamed, we who by God's especial favour +enjoy the pure mysteries of piety, to suffer them to be profaned by the +ignorant rabble; considering that the Gentiles expressly forbad Socrates, +Plato, and the other sages to inquire into or so much as mention the +things committed to the priests of Delphi; and he says, moreover, that +the factions of princes upon theological subjects are armed not with zeal +but fury; that zeal springs from the divine wisdom and justice, and +governs itself with prudence and moderation, but degenerates into hatred +and envy, producing tares and nettles instead of corn and wine when +conducted by human passions. And it was truly said by another, who, +advising the Emperor Theodosius, told him that disputes did not so much +rock the schisms of the Church asleep, as it roused and animated +heresies; that, therefore, all contentions and dialectic disputations +were to be avoided, and men absolutely to acquiesce in the prescriptions +and formulas of faith established by the ancients. And the Emperor +Andronicus having overheard some great men at high words in his palace +with Lapodius about a point of ours of great importance, gave them so +severe a check as to threaten to cause them to be thrown into the river +if they did not desist. The very women and children nowadays take upon +them to lecture the oldest and most experienced men about the +ecclesiastical laws; whereas the first of those of Plato forbids them to +inquire so much as into the civil laws, which were to stand instead of +divine ordinances; and, allowing the old men to confer amongst themselves +or with the magistrate about those things, he adds, provided it be not in +the presence of young or profane persons. + +A bishop has left in writing that at the other end of the world there is +an isle, by the ancients called Dioscorides, abundantly fertile in all +sorts of trees and fruits, and of an exceedingly healthful air; the +inhabitants of which are Christians, having churches and altars, only +adorned with crosses without any other images, great observers of fasts +and feasts, exact payers of their tithes to the priests, and so chaste, +that none of them is permitted to have to do with more than one woman in +his life--[What Osorius says is that these people only had one wife at a +time. ]--as to the rest, so content with their condition, that environed +with the sea they know nothing of navigation, and so simple that they +understand not one syllable of the religion they profess and wherein they +are so devout: a thing incredible to such as do not know that the Pagans, +who are so zealous idolaters, know nothing more of their gods than their +bare names and their statues. The ancient beginning of 'Menalippus', a +tragedy of Euripides, ran thus: + + "O Jupiter! for that name alone + Of what thou art to me is known." + +I have also known in my time some men's writings found fault with for +being purely human and philosophical, without any mixture of theology; +and yet, with some show of reason, it might, on the contrary, be said +that the divine doctrine, as queen and regent of the rest, better keeps +her state apart, that she ought to be sovereign throughout, not +subsidiary and suffragan, and that, peradventure, grammatical, +rhetorical, logical examples may elsewhere be more suitably chosen, as +also the material for the stage, games, and public entertainments, than +from so sacred a matter; that divine reasons are considered with greater +veneration and attention by themselves, and in their own proper style, +than when mixed with and adapted to human discourse; that it is a fault +much more often observed that the divines write too humanly, than that +the humanists write not theologically enough. Philosophy, says St. +Chrysostom, has long been banished the holy schools, as an handmaid +altogether useless and thought unworthy to look, so much as in passing +by the door, into the sanctuary of the holy treasures of the celestial +doctrine; that the human way of speaking is of a much lower form and +ought not to adopt for herself the dignity and majesty of divine +eloquence. Let who will 'verbis indisciplinatis' talk of fortune, +destiny, accident, good and evil hap, and other suchlike phrases, +according to his own humour; I for my part propose fancies merely human +and merely my own, and that simply as human fancies, and separately +considered, not as determined by any decree from heaven, incapable of +doubt or dispute; matter of opinion, not matter of faith; things which I +discourse of according to my own notions, not as I believe, according to +God; after a laical, not clerical, and yet always after a very religious +manner, as children prepare their exercises, not to instruct but to be +instructed. + +And might it not be said, that an edict enjoining all people but such as +are public professors of divinity, to be very reserved in writing of +religion, would carry with it a very good colour of utility and justice-- +and to me, amongst the rest peradventure, to hold my prating? I have +been told that even those who are not of our Church nevertheless amongst +themselves expressly forbid the name of God to be used in common +discourse, nor so much even by way of interjection, exclamation, +assertion of a truth, or comparison; and I think them in the right: upon +what occasion soever we call upon God to accompany and assist us, it +ought always to be done with the greatest reverence and devotion. + +There is, as I remember, a passage in Xenophon where he tells us that we +ought so much the more seldom to call upon God, by how much it is hard to +compose our souls to such a degree of calmness, patience, and devotion as +it ought to be in at such a time; otherwise our prayers are not only vain +and fruitless, but vicious: "forgive us," we say, "our trespasses, as we +forgive them that trespass against us"; what do we mean by this petition +but that we present to God a soul free from all rancour and revenge? And +yet we make nothing of invoking God's assistance in our vices, and +inviting Him into our unjust designs: + + "Quae, nisi seductis, nequeas committere divis" + + ["Which you can only impart to the gods, when you have gained them + over."--Persius, ii. 4.] + +the covetous man prays for the conservation of his vain and superfluous +riches; the ambitious for victory and the good conduct of his fortune; +the thief calls Him to his assistance, to deliver him from the dangers +and difficulties that obstruct his wicked designs, or returns Him thanks +for the facility he has met with in cutting a man's throat; at the door +of the house men are going to storm or break into by force of a petard, +they fall to prayers for success, their intentions and hopes of cruelty, +avarice, and lust. + + "Hoc igitur, quo to Jovis aurem impellere tentas, + Dic agedum Staio: 'proh Jupiter! O bone, clamet, + Jupiter!' At sese non clamet Jupiter ipse." + + ["This therefore, with which you seek to draw the ear of Jupiter, + say to Staius. 'O Jupiter! O good Jupiter!' let him cry. Think + you Jupiter himself would not cry out upon it?"--Persius, ii. 21.] + +Marguerite, Queen of Navarre,--[In the Heptameron.]--tells of a young +prince, who, though she does not name him, is easily enough by his great +qualities to be known, who going upon an amorous assignation to lie with +an advocate's wife of Paris, his way thither being through a church, he +never passed that holy place going to or returning from his pious +exercise, but he always kneeled down to pray. Wherein he would employ +the divine favour, his soul being full of such virtuous meditations, +I leave others to judge, which, nevertheless, she instances for a +testimony of singular devotion. But this is not the only proof we have +that women are not very fit to treat of theological affairs. + +A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God +cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the +dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course +of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or +like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie. + + "Tacito mala vota susurro + Concipimus." + + ["We whisper our guilty prayers."---Lucan, v. 104.] + +There are few men who durst publish to the world the prayers they make to +Almighty God: + + "Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque susurros + Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto" + + ["'Tis not convenient for every one to bring the prayers he mutters + out of the temple, and to give his wishes to the public ear. + --"Persius, ii. 6.] + + [See: "Letters To the Earth" by Mark Twain in the story of Abner + Schofield, Coal Dealer, Buffalo, N.Y.: for a discussion of the + contradictions between 'public' and 'private' prayers. D.W.] + +and this is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always public +and heard by every one, to the end they might not prefer indecent or +unjust petitions as this man: + + "Clare quum dixit, Apollo! + Labra movet, metuens audiri: Pulcra Laverna, + Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri; + Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem." + + ["When he has clearly said Apollo! he moves his lips, fearful to be + heard; he murmurs: O fair Laverna, grant me the talent to deceive; + grant me to appear holy and just; shroud my sins with night, and + cast a cloud over my frauds."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 59.--(Laverna + was the goddess of thieves.)] + +The gods severely punished the wicked prayers of OEdipus in granting +them: he had prayed that his children might amongst themselves determine +the succession to his throne by arms, and was so miserable as to see +himself taken at his word. We are not to pray that all things may go as +we would have them, but as most concurrent with prudence. + +We seem, in truth, to make use of our prayers as of a kind of jargon, and +as those do who employ holy words about sorceries and magical operations; +and as if we reckoned the benefit we are to reap from them as depending +upon the contexture, sound, and jingle of words, or upon the grave +composing of the countenance. For having the soul contaminated with +concupiscence, not touched with repentance, or comforted by any late +reconciliation with God, we go to present Him such words as the memory +suggests to the tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the remission of +our sins. There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the +divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we +are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted +as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, +we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this +pardon with all gratitude arid submission, and for that instant at least, +wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the +ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us +to offend her; neither the gods nor good men (says Plato) will accept the +present of a wicked man: + + "Immunis aram si terigit manus, + Non sumptuosa blandior hostia + Mollivit aversos Penates + Farre pio et saliente mica." + + ["If a pure hand has touched the altar, the pious offering of a + small cake and a few grains of salt will appease the offended gods + more effectually than costly sacrifices." + --Horace, Od., iii. 23, 17.] + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + +OF AGE + +I cannot allow of the way in which we settle for ourselves the duration +of our life. I see that the sages contract it very much in comparison of +the common opinion: "what," said the younger Cato to those who would stay +his hand from killing himself, "am I now of an age to be reproached that +I go out of the world too soon?" And yet he was but eight-and-forty +years old. He thought that to be a mature and advanced age, considering +how few arrive unto it. And such as, soothing their thoughts with I know +not what course of nature, promise to themselves some years beyond it, +could they be privileged from the infinite number of accidents to which +we are by a natural subjection exposed, they might have some reason so to +do. What am idle conceit is it to expect to die of a decay of strength, +which is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves no +shorter lease of life than that, considering it is a kind of death of all +others the most rare and very seldom seen? We call that only a natural +death; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck with +a fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be snatched away with a pleurisy or the +plague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to these +inconveniences. Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these fine +words; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural which is +general, common, and universal. + +To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular, and, +therefore, so much less natural than the others; 'tis the last and +extremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for. +It is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pass, and which the +law of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal, +a privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then. 'Tis a +lease she only signs by particular favour, and it may be to one only in +the space of two or three ages, and then with a pass to boot, to carry +him through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way +of this long career. And therefore my opinion is, that when once forty +years we should consider it as an age to which very few arrive. For +seeing that men do not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we are +pretty well advanced; and since we have exceeded the ordinary bounds, +which is the just measure of life, we ought not to expect to go much +further; having escaped so many precipices of death, whereinto we have +seen so many other men fall, we should acknowledge that so extraordinary +a fortune as that which has hitherto rescued us from those eminent +perils, and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of living, is not like +to continue long. + +'Tis a fault in our very laws to maintain this error: these say that a +man is not capable of managing his own estate till he be five-and-twenty +years old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his life so long. +Augustus cut off five years from the ancient Roman standard, and declared +that thirty years old was sufficient for a judge. Servius Tullius +superseded the knights of above seven-and-forty years of age from the +fatigues of war; Augustus dismissed them at forty-five; though methinks +it seems a little unreasonable that men should be sent to the fireside +till five-and-fifty or sixty years of age. I should be of opinion that +our vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for the +public good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employ +us early enough. This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at +nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to +determine a dispute about a gutter. + +For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are +ever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by +that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after +come to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have +of vigorous and fine, within that term or never, + + "Si l'espine rion picque quand nai, + A pene que picque jamai," + + ["If the thorn does not prick at its birth, + 'twill hardly ever prick at all."] + +as they say in Dauphin. + +Of all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sort +soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more were +performed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the +very lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those of +Hannibal and his great rival Scipio? The better half of their lives they +lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after, +'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of +themselves. As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that since +that age, both my understanding and my constitution have rather decayed +than improved, and retired rather than advanced. 'Tis possible, that +with those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experience +may increase with their years; but vivacity, promptitude, steadiness, and +other pieces of us, of much greater importance, and much more essentially +our own, languish and decay: + + "Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus aevi + Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus, + Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque, mensque." + + ["When once the body is shaken by the violence of time, + blood and vigour ebbing away, the judgment halts, + the tongue and the mind dote."--Lucretius, iii. 452.] + +Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind; and I have +seen enough who have got a weakness in their brains before either in +their legs or stomach; and by how much the more it is a disease of no +great pain to the sufferer, and of obscure symptoms, so much greater is +the danger. For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not that +they keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late. +For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural +rocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to +childhood, idleness, and apprenticeship. + + [Which Cotton thus renders: "Birth though noble, ought not to share + so large a vacancy, and so tedious a course of education." Florio + (1613) makes the passage read as-follows: "Methinks that, + considering the weakness of our life, and seeing the infinite number + of ordinary rocks and natural dangers it is subject unto, we should + not, so soon as we come into the world, allot so large a share + thereof unto unprofitable wantonness in youth, ill-breeding + idleness, and slow-learning prentisage."] + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort +An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets +Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it +Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace +Change of fashions +Chess: this idle and childish game +Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato +Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen +Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders +Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them +Excel above the common rate in frivolous things +Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other +Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does +Gradations above and below pleasure +Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed +He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern +Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints +How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is +I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback +Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words +Little knacks and frivolous subtleties +Men approve of things for their being rare and new +Must of necessity walk in the steps of another +Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen +Not to instruct but to be instructed. +Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue +Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet +Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive +Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble +Sitting betwixt two stools +Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind +Stupidity and facility natural to the common people +The Bible: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. +The faintness that surprises in the exercises of Venus +Thucydides: which was the better wrestler +To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular +To make little things appear great was his profession +To smell, though well, is to stink +Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear +Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age +We can never be despised according to our full desert +When we have got it, we want something else +Women who paint, pounce, and plaster up their ruins + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V8 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn08v11.zip b/old/mn08v11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a8a8b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn08v11.zip |