defending me whether it were a man or an Angell that was come to my succour These are honest injuries and generous supererogations This is to deceive in charitie and to his advantage that is deceived This is to bring againe that good time wherein Knights unknowne to become free-men that were oppressed without telling their names or so much as lifting up the Beavers of their Helmets You have done in a manner the like you have hidden your selfe under a borrowed shape thereby to take away from a good action all apparence of vaineglory and to let them that are interessed see that you are vertuous without looking for reward For my selfe I doe not thinke I am bound to follow the intention of this scrupulous vertue If you have a will to shun noise and the voice of the people yet you cannot refuse the acknowledgement of an honest man nor let me from paying what I owe you Because you are modest I must not therefore be ungrateful as I am not by my good will I assure you You possesse my heart as absolutely as you have justly purchased it I am yours by all the sorts of right not forgetting that of the warres I will even beleeve that my enemie hath gotten a full victory to the end I may more justly call you my Redeemer and that you may have the crowne that was due to him had saved a citizen Mounsieur Borstill whose wisedome and integritie you know will answer for the truth of my words and for my selfe I shall neede none to answer being ready to testifie by my actions that there is not in the world a man more than my selfe Sir Your c. From Balzac 22. Aprill 1633. To Mounsieur the Master Advocate in the Parliament LETTER XXXVIII SIR I have too great a care of your reputation to seeke to have you be found a liar It shall not lie upon mee that you be not a man of your word and that your friend is not contented and seeing it is expected to see this present day what I have written of his companie It is not fit to put off till to morrow the effect of your promise or that hee should languish in the expectation of so small a thing It is true my Booke is not here and my memory is not now so faithfull that I dare trust it to deliver that I gave it to keepe yet I conceive after I have stined it up in your name which is so deare unto me I shall finde enough to satisfie your desire and receive from it this good office I seeme therefore to remember I said that after so many yeares that the Christian Muses have beene in France hee is the onely man hath entertained them with honour and hath built a Pallace for this soveraigne science to which all other are subject and inferiour He hath drawne her out of an obscure and close mansion where like the poore Socrates she discoursed in prison of the supreme felicity to place her in a seate worthy of her and to set up a stately and sumptuous race for the exercise of her children From hence wee may apprehend the dignitie and merit of our Sorbone for which a man the fullest of businesse in all the world hath yet had so particular a care amidst the most violent agitation of his thoughts that the designe of the house hee crects for her hath found place in his breast amidst the Forts and Rampires of Rochell If our predecessors the Gaules next to their gods gave the second place of honour to their Druides who shewed them but a dimme and confused light of the state of our soules after this life what respect then what reverence can be too great for those venerable Fathers who teach us by a knowledge most infallible what the chiefe and supreme good is who discover to us in certainty the things that are above the heavens who make us true relation of that admirable commonwealth of happie citizens that live without bodies and are immateriall and who deliver to us the wounders of the intellectuall world more pertinently and more directly than wee relate to blinde men the ornaments of this visible world With them are had the springs of pure Dâ—…ctrine where with others but onely Brookes and Streames with them are had resolutions of all doubts remedies for all poysons with them Time wrongs not antiquitie nor doth old age either neede painting or feare tainting with them this sixteenth age of the world behold Christianity preserved and kept in its first lustre Seing the memory of the most part of the Romane Lords is perished together with their Baths their Aqueducts their Races their Amphitheaters whereof the very ruines are themselves ruined and lost I find that M. the Cardinall understands more than ever they did and goes a straighter way to eternity travelling in a place where his travell can never perish leaving the care of his name to a company that of necessitie shall be immortall and shall speake of his magnificence as long as there shall be speaking of Sinne and Grace of good and evill Angells of the paines and rewards of the life to come I assure my selfe I have not spoken too much and I thinke I could not have spoken lesse it is lawfull for us to set a price upon our owne and if an antient writer said that more worthy men came forth of Isocrates Schoole then out of the Trojan Horse why may not we say as much of Albertus Magnus and of Saint Thomas Me thinks I know not how to speake to our countrimen but of the Lycaeum and of the Academy and it is now five and twenty yeares that I have beaten my braines about the Gymnosophists the Brachmanes and the Rabbins but when all is done wee should remember that wee are Christians and that we have Philosophers that are nearer to us and ought to be dearer to us then all they I am glad occasion hath beene offered me to put my opinion hereof in writing and thereupon to let you know I make no mysterie of my writings and specially with you to whom I have opened my very heart and whose I am wholly without reservation Sir Most humbly c. At Paris 4. July 1633. LETTERS OF Mounsieur de BALZAC LIB II. To my Lord the Earle of Exeter LETTER I. SIR if you had wholly misliked my Booke I had wholly defaced it but seeing some parts of it seemed to you not unsound I have thought it sufficient to cut off the corrupt part that you might be drawne to endure the rest I now therefore send you an Edition of it reformed done expresly for you and which I have taken care to cleanse from the staines that in the two former were distastefull to you It is not my purpose to stand disputing in an Argument where I am willing to be confuted nor to defend that which is condemned by you where the question is to give you satisfaction by my rigour I presently grow insensible of
is false to say The Gothes and Vandalts could justly bragge they left nothing of any worth behinde them I finde still the full Majestie of the language in your writings and your stile hath in it not onely the Ayre and Garbe of that good time but the very Courage and the Vertue You draw your Opinions from the same Well and I see no cause that any man can have to contradict them It is certaine that to gaine beleefe one must keepe himselfe within the bounds of likelihood and present to posterity examples which it may follow and not Prodigies with which it may be frighted Words that are disproportionable to the matter seeme to savour of that Mountibankes straine who would have it beleeved he could make a statue of a Mountaine and would perswade us that a man were a mile long There are some mens workes not much lesse extravagant than this Mountibanks designe and most men seeme to write with as little seriousnesse and with as little care to be beleeved And though men make a conscience in dealing with particular persons yet when they come to deale with the Publike they seeme to thinke themselves dispensed with and that they owe more respect to one neighbour than to whole Nations and to all Ages to come You know notwithstanding that this is no new vice and not to make a troublesome enumeration of the antient adoters of Favour Is not that base delight of Velleim come even to us and was he not a Bondslave that desired one should know he was in love with his Chaine I could curse the ill fortune of good letters that hath bereft us of the booke which Brutus writ of vertue wherein wee might have seene the infamous profession he makes of unmanlinesse to have more care of the orders of a corrupted Court than of upholding the maine structure of the Latine Philosophie If it had beene his fortune to have outlived Sejanus I doubt not but hee would have taken from him all the praises hee had given him to make a present of them to his successour Macron and if the gappes and breaches of his booke were filled up one should see he had not forgotten so much as a Groome in all Tiberius house of whom he had not written Encomiums Wee live in a Government much more just and therefore much more commendable the raigne of our King is not barren of great examples It is impossible the cariage of M. the Cardinall should bee more dextrous more sage more active than it is yet who knowes not that hee hath found worke enough to doe for many Ages and battailes enow to fight for many Worthies That hee hath met with difficulties worthy of the transcendent forces of himselfe farre exceeding the forces of any other it is necessary that Time it selfe should joyne in labour with excellent Master-workemen to produce the perfection of excellent workes The recovery of a wasted body is not the worke of onely one potion or once opening a veine the reviving a decayed estate requires a reiteration of endeavours and a constancy of labours The salving of desperate cases goes not so swift a pace as Poets descriptions or Figures of Orators Wee must therefore keepe the extension of our subject within certaine bounds and not say that the victory is perfected as long as it leaves us the evills of warre and that there remaines any Monster to bee vanquished seeing even poverty is it selfe one of the greatest Monsters and in comparison whereof those which Hercules subdued were but tame and gentle With time our Redeemer will finish his worke and he that hath given us security will give us also no doubt abundance But seeing the order of the world and the necessity of affaires affoords us not yet to tast this happines it shall bee a joy unto mee to see at least the Image of it in your History to returne and re-enter by your meanes into these three so rich and flourishing yeares after which the peace hath shewed it selfe but by fits and the Sunne it selfe hath beene more reserved of his beames and not ripened our fruits but on one side You shall binde mee infinitely unto you to grant me a sight of this rare Peece and to allow me a key of that Temple which you keepe shut to all the world besides I assure my selfe I shall see nothing there but that which is Stately and Magnificent specially I doubt not but the Pallace it selfe is admirable and that your words doe Parallell the subject when you come to speake of the last Designes of our deceased King and of the undoubted revolution he had brought upon the state of the world if he had lived And though in this there be more of divination then of knowledge and that to speake of such things be to expound Riddles yet in such cases it is not denyed to be Speculative and I do not beleeye that Lyvie recounting the death of Caesar did lightly passe over the Voyage he intended against the Parthians and that he stayed not a little to consider the new face he would have put upon the Common-wealth if death had not prevented him If all my affaires lay here yet I would make a journey to Paris expressely for this and to reade a discourse made after the fashion of this Epitaph which pleased me exceedingly He had a Designe to winne Rhodes and overcome Italy I should have much a doe to hold in my Passion till then but now I stand waiting for your Tertullian that I may learne of him that patience which he teacheth that I faint not in waiting till it Printed and in state to be seene and till he come abroad under your Corrections like to those glorious bodies which being clensed from all impurity of matter doe glister and shine on every side This is an Authour with whom your Preface would have made me friends if I had otherwise beene fallen out and that the hardnesse of his phrase and the vices of his age had given me any distaste from reading him But it is long since that I have held him in account and as sad and thorny as he is hath not beene unpleasing to me Me thinkes I finde in his writings that darke light or light some darkenesse which an ancient Poet speakes off and I looke upon the obscurity of his writing as I should looke upon a peece of Ivory that were well wrought and polished This hath beene ever my opinion of him As the beauties of Africa doe not therefore leave to be Amiable because they are not like to ours and as Sophonis be would have carryed the prize from many Italian faces so the wits of the same Country doe not leave to please though their eloquence be a forreiner and for my part I preferre this man before many that take upon them to be imitators of Cicero Let it be granted to delicate Eares that his stile is of Iron but then let it be granted also that of this Iron many excellent Armours
Bicipiti somniasse Parnasso for one is as much as the other as you know well This man in truth is no ordinary father his conceptions and productions are without intermission he fills our studies with his bookes he amends reformes embellishes the bookes of others hee smells a Barbarisme or an incongruitie seaven miles off hee hath counted by tale all the improprieties that are in hee is admirable in the knowledge and use of all particles and I am sure he loves me not so little to hide any secret or mysterie of all his knowledge from me I intreat you to kisse his hands for me and to beleeve that I am most truly Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Aug. 1630. Another to him LETTER XLVIII SIR three dayes since I imparted my melancholy and my unquietnes unto you and how much I was mooved at the crueltie of I have since received your Letter of the ninth of this present which doth not indeede take all my paine from me because it declares not what is done against me but yet asswageth it a little because it declares that nothing is done against mee that is deadly However I must put on a resolution for all events and comfort my selfe with Philosophie and with you you that are my true and faithfull friend and that stand betweene mee and all the stones my enemies throw at mee Your affection is no small helpe to me in these troublesome encounters and the tendernesse you shew to have of me bindes me in a very sensible obligation to you Concerning the ill will of it can doe me no great hurt and pardon me if I doe not thinke my honour is ingaged to make so bloody a warre upon him as you would have me The lesse shew is made of resenting petty injuries the betâ—…er and the more readily they are repelled if I should thinke upon answering him I should but mak a comment upon his gibrish for them that understand him not and thereby bring his folly into the more credit and request When time and place serves we will handle him as hee deserves and doubt not but his lightnesse shall light heavily upon him onely doe you collect some common places upon this matter and remember your selfe of all that hath passed betweene to the end the history may not be lost I have had speech with the man whose whole life is nothing but a continuall meditation of death I never found him so austere nor so great an enemy of bravery as now his devotion respects neither right of nations nor lawes of civillitie I have not beene able to get him to write to that person that loves him so dearely and complaines to you so often about it All the answer he returnes to his long Letters are but these three words of the Gospell Noli amplius peccare which in sweeter and more courtly termes is as much as to say Lites heures au lieu de lire ses poulets Defile tes coliers faits-en des chapelets c. I received the other day a most elegant and gentle Letter from one Mounsieur Ytterius a Lawyer of Antwerpe but I know not by what meanes it came to my hands nor by what direction to returne an answer Pray enquire after him and let our friends know that in spight of the Marquesse of Aytona I have adherents in Flanders and therefore hee neede not make his bragges for having burnt my booke at Bruxells Scilicet illo igne vocem omnium Gentium libertatem Europae conscientiam generis humani abolere arbitrabatur By the next Post I will write to Mounsieur Hottoman and will give Mounsieur de la Pigeonnerio thankes for the verses you had of him to send me Wee have read them here in good companie both of Males and Females and they all agree that the Fathers my adversaries are none of those Christian Ulysseses hee speakes of that have nailed their Passions to the crosse of Christ. I forgot to aske you of Mounsieur Seton and to desire you to call to him for the papers hee promised me I regard him as one of the great Doctours of our age and make use of the riches of his Spirit with so great privacie that hee seemes to be but as it were my Treasurer I know not how to make an end nor yet am willing to say more because I must reserve something for Monday next I therefore take my leave assuring you there is none more truly then I Sir Your c. At Balzac 7. Jan. 1631. To Mounsieur Girard Officiall of the Church of Angoulesme LETTER XLIX SIR I make use of you with the like libertie as I desire you would make use of me if therefore you have any spare 〈◊〉 you may allow it to the affaires of but so as you allow it to mine first and that you make a difference betweene friendship and courtesie I doubt not but you will give your best advice to the Gentleman that is recommended to you and will set forward the best you can the designe we have to make him one day an honest man I finde the Booke more neately and more correctly printed then I could have imagined and I would tell you that you are an able Grammarian but that I feare your Divinitie would be angry for giving you so small a Prayse and so much vilified by the Messieurs our Masters The two tracts you sent mee are as different of stile as they are of matter Any man that can but rellish the antient puritie will take the first of them for the worke of some Romane that lived in the times of the republicke but the other can bee but the writing of some Gaule or Spanyard that came to declaime at Rome in the raigne of the sixth or seaventh Emperour One meetes at the beginning with something that dazells and makes a faire shew of some great good to follow but at the bottome there is no such matter to bee seene nothing but swelling and obscuritie oftentimes false traines and every where bragges and bravadoes that are not tollerable It is a pleasure as I am told to heare this famous Authour talke of himselfe hee thinkes his Penne as much worth as the King of Swedens sword and no lesse fatall to states and Princes Hee saith it is he that bestowes glory or dishonour makes men famous or infamous as he pleaseth and thâ—…t he hath meanes enough to be revenged of the Emperour or of the Pope if the Emperour or the Pope should offer him any wrong Scaliger Lipsius and Casaubon were by his owne saying but his Forerunners and all the light of the former age but the Aurora of his and yet for all this he hath but a very little head and but very staring eyes and but a very sumbling speech and but a very silly discourse that you may know his judgement is not the predominant part of his soule But the world talkes otherwise of him that he is a lost man and one that hath forfeited his braines not
doe not thinke there are questions enow in the world to put unto him In one day I have heard him discourse with Gentlemen about hunting and husbandry with Iesuits about Divinitie and the Mathematicks with Doctors of lesse austere profession about Rhetoricke and Poetrie without ever borrowing a forreigne terme where the naturall were the fitter and without ever flying to authority where the case in question were to be decided by reason To answer a premeditated oration from point to point upon the suddaine and to send backe our oratours more perswaded by his eloquence then satisfied with their owne this I have seene him oftentimes doe and no man ever came to visit him whose heart hee did not winne with his words or at least left in it such an impression as is wont to bee the first elementing and foundation of love No libertie can be so sweete as so reasonable a subjection such a yoake is more to be valued then the Mayor of Rochels Halberds and when one is once assured of the sufficiencie of his guide it is afterwards but a pleasure to bee led In lesse then one weeke hee hath new made all spirits here hath fortified the weake hath cleared the scrupulous and hath given to all the world a good opinion of the present and a better hope of the time to come I vow unto you I never saw a man that had a more pleasing way of commanding nor better knew how to temper force and perswasion together I have indeede knowne some not unfit to command but it hath beene in a Gally not in a City such might serve for excellent followers but are never good to make Governours they understand not the Art of governing Freemen there are even some beasts of so generous a disposition that it would be rudenesse to carry a hard hand over them much more whom one might leade in his garter to curbe them besides a bridle with a Cavasson They thinke that power cannot subsist but by severity and that it growes weake and scorned vds it be not frightfull and injurious This method and manner of governing is not like to come from the schoole and discipline of M. the Cardinall from whom nothing is ever seene to come that relisheth not of the mildenesse of his countenance and receiveth not some impression from the clearenesse of his eyes All that have the honour to come neare about him are knowne by this Character weare all the same livery though they bee of different deserving There is not so sullen an humorist that is not mollified by his presence nor so dull an understanding that he makes not pregnant with a word of his mouth this you know and I am not ignorant of hee makes powerfull use of weake instruments and his inspirations lift up spirits to such a highth as their owne nature could never carry them Hee needes in a man but a small seede of reason to draw from him exceeding effects of prudence and he instructs so effectually the grossest spirits that what they want in themselves they get by his instructions These are workes which none can doe but he materialls which none but he can put in frame yet I thinke I may say without offence that this is more of his choyse then of his nature To spirits that languished for want of roome to stirre themselves in hee hath given scope and imployment and where he hath found a vertue neglected to make it as bright as it was solid he hath not forborne to crowne it with his friendship There is not a mouth in all his Province that blesseth not his Election and every man beleeves to have received from him that power which he hath procured to him who will not use it but for our good Amongst the showtes of exultation which waite upon him in all places where he goes the joy of the people is not so fixed upon present objects but that it mounts to a higher cause and gives thankes to the first moover of the good influences which the lower heavens powre downe upon us And in effect if Caesar thought hee tooke a sufficient revenge of the Africans for their taking part with the enemy by placing Salust to be their Governour who did them more hurt by his private Family then a Conqueror would have done with all his Army by the contrary reason wee may gather that the true Father of his Country hath had a speciall care of us in advancing M. de Brassac to the government of this Province and meant herein to honour the memory of his abode there and to make happy that Land where perhaps he first conceived those great designes which hee hath since effected I should not have spoken so much in this point if I did not know that you mislike not in mee these kinds of excesse and if it were not the vice of Lovers now adayes to speake of the object of their love without all limits Besides I have beene willing to make you forget the beginning of my Letter by the length of the middle and by a more pleasing second discourse to take from you the ill taste I had given you by the first And so adue Mounsieur Choler never feare that I will provoke you againe it was my evill Angell that cast this temptation upon me to make me unhappy I might have beene wise by the example of whom you handled so hardly in presence of I shall be better advisde hereafter and will never be Sir But your c. From Balzack 16. of Aprill 1633. To Mounsieur de Soubran LETTER XIII SIr if you take mee for a man hungry of Newes you do not know me and if I have asked you for any it is because I had none to tell you and because I must have something to say I have done it against the streame of my resolution quite which is to quit the world both in body and minde but custome is a thing we often fall into by flying it and we sweare sometimes that we will not sweare I desire so little to learne that I know not that I would be glad to forget that I know and to be like those good Hermites who enquired how cities were made and what kind of thing a King or a Commonwealth was I am well assured that Paris will not be removed out of its place that Rochell will not be surprized againe by Guiton that petty Princes will not devest great Kings that favour will never want Panegyricks and Sonnets that the Court will never be without Sharkes and Cheaters that Vertue will ever be the most beautifull and the most unprofitable thing in the world And what can you write in the generall of affaires that hath not relation to one of these points And for my owne particular what can I heare but that either some Booke is written against me or that my Pension is like to be ill paid or that I shall not be made an Abbot unlesse I be my selfe the Founder of the Abby
I thinke my selfe sufficiently honest if I be but indifferently uncivill and because I am apt to doe courtesies voluntarily I expect also voluntarily to receive them of you Sir especially who judge not friendshippe by the looke and knowes that superstition is more ceremonious then true pietie The new favours I have received from your Muses are to mee as they ought to be exceeding sensible yet thinke not that this makes me forget your former benefits and that I carry not in minde that it is you that gave me the first taste of good and the principles of vertue you doe but build upon the foundation you laid your selfe and give estimation to your owne paines Having beene my guide in a countrie which I know not it is for your honour it should be beleeved I have made some progresse there that so it may apppeare your directions are good Thus your Poeme hath in it a hidden art which few understand and I am but the colour of your designe You enjoy your selfe all the glory you have done me all the glory you have imparted to mee stayes still with your selfe and you have found out a way how to praise your self without speaking of your self and how to be liberall without parting from any thing If you come this Sommer to Paris I will give you account of an infinite number of things that will not dislike you and in revenge thereof I require to heare from you some newes of our male content Cui mos in trivijs humili tentare Veneno Ardua impositos semper Cervice rebelli Ferre duces Coeloque lovem violare Tonante I know not whether you will be able to bring the state into his favour but this I know it is no small worke for perswasion to effect seeing hee is no lesse obstinate in his errours then you strong in your Reasons Whatsoever he say of the time and of the carriage of things the impunitie with which he triumphs is a visible marke of the moderate goverment of this Kingdome and in any country but this his Head long before this time had paid for his tongue But I heare he is of so vile an humour that he is angry for his very liberty and thinks it is done in scorne that hee hath not all this while been put in the Bastyle He valewes himselfe to be worthy of an informer and of Commissioners and thinkes hee hath merit enough to be punisht in state Let us beare a little with his malady he is otherwise not evill nor of evill qualities It is onely the temperature of his body that is faulty and if Mounsieur Cytois can purge away his choller hee shall procure to M. the Cardinall a faithfull servant I expect hereupon an Epigramme of your making and am with all my soule Sir Your c. From Balzac 4. March 1631. To Mounsieur Colombiers LETTER VI. SIR I finde by the Letter which Mounsieur de Mantin writ unto you that you have done mee good offices with him and that upon your word hee takes mee for more than I am worthy It is your part now to make that sure unto him which you have warranted and to disguise mee with so much Art that may make good your first deceit by a second For to think that I shall be able to answer his expectation and satisfie your promise I know he expects too much and know you have promised too much that which hee speakes of me and of my writings seemes rather to come from the passion of a lover than from the integritie of a Judge and I ought to take it rather as a Present then as a Recompence I know besides that the placē from whence hee writes hath alwayes beenē the habitation of courtesie and that the sparke of the Court of Rome which hath rested there since it parted from thence hath left a light which gives an influence to the manners and spirits of the Country Yet distinction must be made betweene the civilities of Avignon which extend to all sorts of strangers the resentments of an able man which respect nothing but reason and a difference must be put betweene the honesty of a compliment and the Religion of a testimony Mounsieur Malherbe deceased who never gave any mans merit more than its due and but coldly praised the most praise-worthy things yet hath heretofore to me in so high a degree extolled this man of whom we speake that I could not but thinke it must needes be a very extraordinary Vertue that transported him so unwontedly and a very pressing verity that forced him to open himselfe so freely I have since beene confirmed in my judgement of him by divers persons of good qualitie and generally by the voyce of all our country But yet there is in this more cause for me to feare than hope Wise men doe but only taste an errour with which common people drinke themselves drunke They do not plunge themselves in false opinions they passe them lightly over and I am afraid you will ere long receive another letter in retractation of this he hath now written so much in my favour if the worst come to the worst and that there be no meanes for me to keepe all the good you have gotten me I yet may lawfully require to have a part left me which Mounsieur your brother in Law cannot honestly deny me I am unfit for the termes hee gives me I willingly returne them backe to himselfe Let him keepe his Admiring for Miracles or at least for the great stupendious workes of Nature I aspire not nor have any pretence to so high a degree of his account but I thinke I have right to his friendshippe and that both of you are my debters of some good will seeing I honour you both exceedingly and passionately am Sir Your c. From Balzac 20. Octob. 1632. To LETTER VII SIR I am not altogether prophane yet am but a simple Catechumene neither I adore your mysteries though I comprehend them not and dare not give my spirit that liberty which you give it Is it fit to be a judge of a Science of which it is yet but learning the Alphabet It scarce knowes visible Objects and runnes a hazard when it considers but the exteriour face of Nature as for that which is above it climbes not to it nor soares so high My curiositie is not so ventrous and concerning the condition of superiour things I wholly referre my selfe to the Sorbone Never thinke therefore that I will give my Censure of your Booke I have not yet discovered the bottome onely the barke I must tell you seemes very precious and I am ravished with the sound and harmony of things I understand not this kinde of Writing would have astonished Philosophers whom it could not have perswaded and if Saint Gregory Nazianzen had but shewed such a peece as this to Themistius he could not chuse but have beene moved with it and must needes have admired the probabilitie of Christianity
upon the Stoicks Wiseman who onely was free was rich was a King me thinkes I see you foretold long agoe and that Zeno was but the Figure of Mounsieur Descartes Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas Atque metus omnes inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus Either you are this happy man or heē is not to be found in the world and the conquest of truth for which you labour with so great force and industry seemes to mee a more noble businesse then all that is done with so great bruite and tumult in Germany and Italy I am not so vaine to pretend I should be a companion of your travell herein but I shall at least be a spectator and shall enrich my selfe with the rellicks of the prey and with the superfluitie of your abundance Thinke not that I make this proposition by chance I speake it in great earnest and if you stay never so little in the place where you are you shall finde mee a Hollander as well as your selfe and my Masters the States shall not have a better citizen nor one more passionate for libertie than I am Although I love extremely the aire of Italy and the soyle that beares Orenges yet your vertue is able to draw me to the bankes of the frozen sea and even to the uttermost border of the North. It is now three yeares that my imagination goes in quest after you and that I even die with longing to be united to you and never to part from you againe and to testifie unto you by a continuall subjection that I passionately am Sir Your c. At◅arisc ◅arisc 25. Aprill 1631. To Mounsieur de la Motte-Aigron LETTER XXX SIR I have heard of the happy accomplishment of your marriage and that it hath beene one of the great solemnities of Rochell I have celebrated it here in my particular with lesse pompe indeede and tumult but with as much joy and satisfaction of minde as they that sung the Hymenaeus Though perhaps you would not have it so yet your contentments are mine you have not any passion so proper to your selfe which is not common with me and play the cruell as long as you will I will have a share in that which is yours even then when you will not affoord to give it mee At the worst I will love you still as I have ever done as a creature supremely excellent though not supremely just As there are some vertues that are fierce and scornefull so there are some sciences which have attractives amidst their difficulties and which draw us on in thrusting us backe You are like these abstract knowledges Your merit sweetens all your rigours and how hard soever the persecution hath beene which I have suffered yet I vow unto you I could never finde in my heart to hate the Tyrant I have still so great a care of his reputation that I would not be thought innocent for feare he should be blamed to have done me wrong and I had rather be a Prevaricatour and treacherous to my selfe then to seeme I had cause of complaint against him We ought to condemne the memory of this disorder and to suppresse this unfortunate Olympiade Wee ought to perswade our imagination that the matter is not so indeede but that it is onely dreamt When you shall please to remember your word I shall see your Verses and your friends Sermons In the meane time Sir if you will not have it be a meere liberality I send you something to exercise commutative justice and beginne a trafficke whereof the Toll is not agreed upon to be taken of right Never was man so miserably busied as my selfe I am intricated with an infinite number of petty affaires which as you know are no lesse cumbersome than the great One thrust of a sword hurts not so much as a hundred prickes of a Pinne and the Arabians have a saying It is a better bargaine to be devoured of a Lyon than to be eaten up of Flyes If I had you I should have a Redeemer but your State-businesse is preferreable before my interests and it is better I should want you than come to have you with the curses of the people I am and shall never be Sir But your c. At Balzack 29. Iuly 1634. To Mounsieur de Granier LETTER XXXI SIR thē day I parted from Paris I dreamt not of taking any journey but a newes which I received made me take horse within an houre after I received it This is that which hindred me from taking my leave and to use such compliments with you as in such cases are accustomed If I did not know you to be an enemy of the tyranny of Ceremonies and that you as well as my selfe cut off from friendshippe all vaine pompe and superfluities I should study for long excuses to justifie my journey but in so doing I should offer wrong to a wise man to thinke hee had opinions like the vulgar and that hee would either give or take so good a thing as liberty I enjoy it as I would wish within these three or foure dayes and I have received it at the banke of the river where I left it the last yeare I banish from my minde all thoughts of the streete Saint Iaques and dreame not either of my Prince or Commonwealth either of enemies Bookes or of my owne I dreame to say true continually of you and finde no Image in my memory so pleasing as that which presents mee the time of our being together I would willingly employ Atlante or Melisse to procure me a more solid contentment and to convey you and your library hither in a night I cannot forget this deare retreate of your repose for I know that without this you would finde even in Tyvolie a want in your felicity and that without your Bookes our fruits would be but sowre and our good cheere but of ill taste unto you These are imaginations Sir with which I flatter my selfe whilst I stand waiting to returne to Paris that I may there goe finde out a happinesse which cannot come hither to finde out me If in the meane time you please to fend me some newes whereof you know provincicall spirits are extremely greedy you shall give me meanes to make a whole country beholding to me and you neede deliver them but onely to who will ease you of the paines of writing them In these I require not the straines of your understanding nor the politique Animadversiana which come from this accurate and Collineant judgement to use the barbarous eloquence of our friend it shall be enough for me that I may know in generall some part of that which passeth and may have some Epitome of the History which you send weekely to Mounsieur D'Andylly I humbly entreate you to assure him that I honour him continually with passion and assure your selfe also that I am Sin Your c. At Balzac 10. Septem 1631. To Mounsieur de la Nauve Commander of a
which teacheth the fayrest hands of the world to bury the dead may well get of the fayrest eyes that ever were some gracious lookes to comfort the afflicted What ere it be I have found by experience that no sadnesse is so obstinate and clowdie but pleasing objects may dissolve pierce not any Philosopher so stony and insensible but may be softned and awaked by their lightest impression I verily thinke another of her visits would have set me on my legges and made me able to goe but shee thought me not worthy of a whole miracle and therefore I must content my selfe with this beginning of my cure I enforme you of these things as being one that reverenceth their cause and as one that loves me too well to make slight of the goods or evills I impart unto him This last word of my Letter shall serve if you please for a corrective to the former I revoke it as a blasphemie and will never beleeve that all the Magick in Paris is able to make you forget a man whom you have promised to love and who passionately is Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. July 1633. Another to him LETTER XXI SIR this is the first opportunitie I could get to write unto you and to comfort my selfe for your absence by this imperfect way which is the onely meanes left mee to enjoy you These are but shadowes and figures of that ture contentment I received by your presence bâ—… since I cannot be wholly happie I must take it in good part that I am not wholly miserable I will hasten all I can to finish the businesse I have begun thereby to put my selfe in state to see you and if my minde could goe as fast as my will I should my selfe be with you as soone as my Letter It is true there cannot be a more delicate and daintie place than this where I live banished and a friend of ours said that they who are in exile here are farre happier than Kings in Muscovia but being separated from a man so infinitely deere unto mee I doe not thinke I could live contented in the Fortunate Islands and I should be loath to accept of felicitie it selfe if it were offered me without your company Wherefore assure your selfe that as soone as I can rid my selfe of some importunate visits which I must necessarily both receive and give I will not loose one moment of the time that I have destinated to the accomplishment of and will travaile much more assiduously than otherwise I should doe seeing it is the end of my travaile that onely can give me the happinesse of your presence In the meane time I am bound first to tell you that I have seene here and then to give you thankes for the good cheare he hath made me He beleeves upon your word that I am one of much worth and gives me Encomiums which I could not expect from his judgement but that you have corrupted it by favouring me too much I earnestly entreat you to let mee heare from you upon all occasions and to send me by the Post the two books which I send for to Monsieur if you have not received them of him already but above all I desire you that we may lay aside all meditation and art in writing our Letters and that the negligence of our stile may be one of the marks of the friendship between us and so Sir I take my leave and am with all my soule Your c. At Balzac 2. Decemb. 1628. Another to him LETTER XXII SIR eyther you meane to mocke me or I understand not the termes of your Letter I come to you in my night gowne and my night cap upon my head and you accuse me for being too fine You take me for a cunning marchant who am the simplest creature in the world if another should use me thus I should not take it so patiently but what ere your designe be I count my selfe happie to be the subject of your joy and that I can make you merry though it be to my cost when I write to you I leave my selfe to the conduct of my penne and neither thinke of the dainties of our Court nor of the severitie of our Grammar that if there be any thing in my Letters of any worth it must needs be that you have falsified them 〈◊〉 so it is you that are the Mountebanke and will utter your counterfeits for true Diamonds You know well that Eloquence is not gotten so good cheape and that to terme my untoward language by the name of this qualitie is a superlative to the highest of my Hyperboles Yet it seemes you stand in no awe of Father as though you had a priviledge to speake without controll things altogether unlikely for this first time I am content to pardon you but if you offend so againe I will enforme against you and promise you an honourable place in the third part of Philarchus The man you wrot of hath no passions now but wise and stayed he hath given over play and women and all his delight now is in his Bookes and vertue Rejoyce I pray you at this happie conversion and if you be his friend so much and so much a Poet as to shew your selfe in publicke you may doe well to make a Hymne in prayse of Sicknesse as one hath heretofore done in prayse of Health for to speake truly it is his sicknesse that hath healed him and hath put into him the first meditations of his health I expect great Newes from you by the next Post and passionately am Sir Your c. At Bolzac 25. Decemb. 1628. To Monsieur Ogier LETTER XXIII SIR I cannot but confesse that men in misery never found a more powerfull Protectour than your selfe and that you seeme borne to be a defender of oppressed innocency The Fathers of the Minimme Order are as much beholding to you as my selfe whose right you have so strongly maintained that if I did not know you well I should verily think the Saint you speake of had inspired you And as by his prayers he gaines a jurisdiction over the fruitfulnesse of Princesses so by the same prayers he hath contributed assistance to this excellent worke you send mee After this it is not to be sufferd you should make shew of distast and tell me of your sloathfulnesse When fire shall cease to be active I will then beleeve you can be sloathfull but will never thinke you hate Bookes untill shall give over his suits in Law or if I must needs give credit to your words I then assure my selfe this distast could never come unto you but by your too great fare nor this wearinesse but by your too great labour I am my selfe a witnesse of your assiduitie in studie and you know how early soever I rise in the morning I alwayes find you in the chamber next to the Meteors which high region I conceive you have chosen that you may be the neerer to take in the inspirations
Caesonia yet in the greatest heat of his fire he made love to her in these termes This fayre head shall be chopt off as soone as I but speake the word and told her sometimes that he had a greater minde to put her on the racke to make her tell him why he loved her so much The meaning Madam of all this is that the tamest of all Tygers is a cruell Beast and that it is a most dangerous thing to be wooâ—…d with talons I have seene the Booke you write to me of and finde it not unpleasing particularly where speaking of the makers of Pasquius and of saâ—… tyricall Poets he sayth that besides the golden age the age of silver of brasse and of iron so famous and so much talkt of in their Fables there is yet behinde to come an age of wood of which the ancient Poets never dreamt and in the miseries and calamities whereof they themselves shall have a greater part than any other If I goe abroad to morrow I hope to have the honour to see you In the meane time that I may observe good manners and not be wanting in formalities I will say I am Madam Your c. At Balzae 16. Aug. 1627. To LETTER XLV MY Lord besides the thankes I owe you for my Head I have a speciall charge from Madam de to thanke you from her and to give you a testimonie of your Coach-mans skill He is in truth a great man in his profession one might well trust him and slip from hence to Paris He glides by the brinke of Praecipices and passeth broken bridges with an admirable dexteritie say what you can of his manners otherwise Pardon mee my Lord if I maintaine that they be no vices and that you doe him great wrong to reproach him with them in your Letter Hee doth that by designe which you thinke hee doth by inclination and because he hath heard that a man once overthrew the Common-wealth when he was sober he thinkes that to drinke well is no ill qualitie to well governing Hee takes otherwise no care for going astray seeing he hath a God for his guide and a God that was returned from the Indies before Alexander was come into the world After so long a voyage one may well trust Father Denys with a short walke and hee that hath tamed Tygers may well be allowed to mannage horses Your Coach-man my Lord hath studied thus farre and if they who hold in their hands the reynes of the State to use the phrase of had beene as intelligent and dextrous as he they would have runne their race with a better fortune and our age should not have seene the fall of the Duke of nor of the Earle of it is written to me from the Court that These are the onely Newes I received by the last Post but I send you in their companie the Booke you desired which is as you know the booke of the wickednesse of the world and the ancient originall of all the moderne subtleties The first Christians endevoured to suppresse it and called it Mendacoorum Loquacissemum but men at this day make it their Oracle and their Gospell and seeke in it rather for Sejanus and Tygellinus to corrupt their innocency than for Corbulo or Thraseus to instruct them to vertue at our next meeting wee shall talke more hereof The great Personage I have praysed stands in doubt that his Encomium is at an end and presseth me to conclude that I am My Lord Your c. At Bolzac 4. June 1634. To LETTER XLVI SIR I am sorry to heare of the continuance of your maladie though I hope it be not so great as you make it These are fruits of this unseasonable time and I doubt not but your â—…leame which overflowes with the rivers will also with the fall of the rivers returne againe to its naturall bounds I have had my part in this inundation and it would be no small commoditie to me that things should stay in the state they now are in for by this meanes my house being made an Island I should be lesse troubled than now I am by people of the firme Land But seeing upon the abating of the waters depends the abating of your Rhume I am contented with all my heart they shall abate aâ—… above all things desiring your health yet withall I must tell you there is care to be used you must absteine from all moyst meates forbeare the good cheare of Paris and follow the advise of an ancient sage who counselled a man troubled with your disease to change the rayne into drowth You see how bold I am to send you my praescriptions I entreat you to follow them but not to imitate me for in this matter of Medicines I confesse my selfe a Pharisee I commend a Julippe to others but I drinke my selfe the Sweetest Wines But to speake of something else I cannot imagine why Monsieur de should keepe me languishing so long and having made mee stand waiting three moneths after his time appointed should now require a further prorogation and a longer delay For my part I verily beleeve he spake not in earnest when he made you this untoward answer and that it was rather for a tryall of your patience than for an exercise He hath the reputation of so honest and just a man that I can make no doubt of that he hath promised to Monsieur de and I am perswaded he accounts himselfe more streightly tyed by his word than by his bond Monsieur the beleeves that I have fingred my silver a yeare since and you know it is a summe provided to stoppe three or foure of my Persecutours mouthes who will never leave vexing you with their clamours day and night till they be satisfied It is therefore your part to use all meanes possible to content them at least if you love your libertie and take not a pleasure to be every morning saluted with extreame unpleasing good morrowes I expect hereupon to heare from you and am Sir Your c. At Balzac 17. Jan. 1630. To LETTER XLVII SIR you are too just to desire such duties from a sicke friend as you would exact from one that were in health The reasons I can give of my silence are much juster than I would they were and me thinkes three moneths continuing in a Feaver may well dispense with any obligation whatsoever of a civill life Yet seeing you will needs have me speake I cannot but obey you though I make use of a strangers hand to quarrell with you I cannot endure the dissimulation you shew in doubting of my affection and of the truth of my words I understand no jeasting on that side these are Games that I am uncapable to learne and in matter of friendship I am of that tendernesse that I am even wounded with that which is perhaps intended but for a tickling I perceive I have beene complained upon to you but I entreat you to beleeve it hath been upon very
it would presently have beene rejected and he still have continued einexorable But it must bee confessed there is no wilde beast but you can tame no matter so bad but you can make good as you heale maladies that are incurable so you prevaile in causes that are desperate and if you finde never so little life and common sence in a man you are able to restore him to perfect health make him become a reasonable man I desire not to have the matter in any better termes then you have set it I am glad I shall not need to invocate M. the Cardinall for my dispatch and that Mounsieur hath promised not to faile to pay me in September If he should pay it sooner I should bee faine to desire you this favour to keepe it for mee till that time Now I onely intreat you to draw from him a valuable assurance of it and for so many favour 's and courtesies done me I shall present you with something not altogether so bad as those I have already shewed you and seeing one cannot bee called valiant for having the better of a coward neither can I bee accused of vanitie for saying I have exceeded my selfe I am therefore bold to let my Letter tell you thus much that if my false Pearles and my counterfeit Diamonds have heretofore deceived you I doe not thinke that the shew I shall make you of my new wares will use you any better Yet my meaning is not to preoccupate your judgement who neither of my felfe not of my writings will have any other opinion then what you shall please to allow me Since the time I have wanted the honour of seeing you I have made a great progresse in the vertue of humilitie for I am now proud of nothing but of my friends affections Let mee therefore never want yours I entreate you as you may beleeve I will all my life most passionately be Sir Your c. At Balzac 8. Decem. 1629. To my Lord LETTER XXX MY Lord I hope you will not take it ill that I put you in minde of a man to whom you have heretofore made demonstration of your love and that after a long intermission of these petty duties which are then troublesome when they are frequent you will give mee leave to tell you that I have indeede omitted them but more by discretion than by negligence I know Sir you have no time to lose and to put you to the reading of unprofitable words what were it but to shew an ignorance how much the King imployes you and how much the State needes you It is therefore the respect I beare to your continuall imployments that hath caused my â—…lence and I should be very absurd if in the assiduitie of your cares I should present you with little pleasing amusements and should looke for an answer to some poore compliment when you have so many commandements of importance and so many orders of necessitie to deliver forth It is enough for me that you doe me the honour to cast your eyes upon the protestation I make you that in all the extent of your command there is not a soule more submisse nor more desirous to beare your yoake then mine is and that as much as any in the world I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 10. Aug. 1630. To Mounsieur Senne Theologall of the Church of Saints LETTER XXXI SIR you neede not wonder to see your name in the Booke I fond you Lovers you know leave markes of their passion and if they were able would fill the whole earth with their Cyphers and devises It is a custome as ancient as the world for with that beganne writing also 〈◊〉 and at first for want of paper men graved the names of those they loved upon the baâ—… of treeâ—… If any man wonder I should be in love with a Preacher why wonders hee not at that Romane of whom a Grecian said that he was not onely in love with Cato but was enchanted with him You have done as much to otherâ—… in this country and I have as many Rivalls as you have auditors Yet there is not the same Object of all our affections they runne after your words and hang at your mouth but I goe further and discover in your heart that which is better than your eloquence I could easily resist your Figures and your Arguments but your goodnesse and your freenesse take me captive presently I therefere give you the title of a perfect friend in your Encomium because I account this a more worthy qualitie than to be a perfect Oratour and because I make most reckoning of that vertue in a man which humane societie hath most neeede of For other matters Remember your selfe in what termes I speake of the businesse you write of and that onely to obey you I have beene contented to alter my opinion I was well assured the enterprise would never take effect but I thought it better to faile by consenting than by obstiâ—…acie and rather to take a repulse than not to take your counsell I have known along time that fortune meanes me no good and the experience I have of her hath cured me of the malady of hope and ambition Make mee not fall into a relapse of these troublesome diseases I beseech you but come and confirme my health you Sir that are a soveraigne Physition of soules and who are able to see in mine that I perfectly am Your c. At Balzac 10. Febr. 1635. To Mounsieur de Piles Cleremont LETTER XXXII SIR having heard of the favourable words you used of me at the Court I cannot any longer forbeare to give you thanks nor stay till our next meeting from telling you how highly I esteeme this favour I cannot but confesse I did not looke to finde so great a graciousnesse in the country of maliciousnesse and seeing that the greatest part eveu of honest men have so much love for themselves that they have but little or none left for strangers I thought with my selfe that the infection of the world had but lightly touched you and that either you had no passions in you at all or at least but very coole and moderate but I see nâ—…w that you have more generousnesse in you than is fit to have amongst men that are interessed and that you put in practise the Maximes of our Ancestours and the Rules of your Epictetus It is I that am for this exceedingly bound unto you seeing it is I that receive the benefit of it that am the Object of your vertue You may then beleeve I have not so unworthy a heart as not to feele a resentment answerable to so great an Obligation at least Sir I hope to shew you that the Picture mine enemies have made of me is not drawne after the life and that their colours disfigure me rather then represent me I have nothing in me Heroicall and great I confesse but I have something that is humane and indifferent If I