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
lesse then beauty Bring therefore to us the Originall of your Pietie and of your Divinitie at least shew some sorrow that you cannot doe it that I may see my affection is not scorned and that I am not without revenge Sir Your c. From Balzac 1. Decemb. 1634. Another to him LETTER XLI SIR if you hold your old wont you will tax me with ignorance and write mee a man of another world one delivered me but yesternight observations upon the processe of the Marshall of and I set my selfe to reading all the time my groome set himselfe to sleeping In very truth they gave me aâ—… excellent rellish I vow unto you I never read a stile more subtile nor that hid its Art more cunningly I entreat you to send me word who the Author is and to whom I am beholding for so pleasing a night It must needs be some man who understands two things equally well affaires and how to write one that partakes of the life of a schollar and of a Courtier like to that God of whom the Poets say he is of the one and other world Utroque facit commercia mundo From the knowledge of Bookes he drawes the vigour and force of his phrase and from the practise of the Court the colours and sweetning of his matter Hee speakes the language of the Closet and brings proofes of the Pallace but in such sort that neatenesse doth not weaken his Reasons and his force is so tempered that even Ladies may be judges of the processe Once againe I entreate you to send me the name of this sage Observer and besides to give me account what grace I stand in with Mounsieur de I was told in no very good grace neither I nor my writings neither If I made but little reckoning of him I should easily comfort my selfe for this disgrace but in truth it would grieve me much to be condemned by a judgement to which I should make a conscience not to subscribe and I rather beleeve there are many defects in my Writings then that in his taste there is any defect of Reason Assure him Sir if you please that I am at least capable of discipline and am â—…pt enough to follow any method he shall prescribe me for attaining a proportion of knowledge to content him Let him but tell me my faults and see how quickly I will mend them let him but say what it is in my stile that offends him and see how ready I shall be to give him satisfaction If my Hyperboles displease him I will blot them out of my Letters the next time they are Printed I will truely confesse all I have ever used and make a sollemne vow never to use more Yet it cannot be truely said that to use this Figure is a matter that deserves blame for not to speake of humane Authours wee should then blame the Sonne of God for saying It is easier for a Cammeil to goe through a needles eye then for a rich man to enter into the kingdome of heaven But I will not seeke to save my selfe by so supreme an authority In this I will respect our Saviour but not follow him I will beleeve that such examples are farre above all humane imitation and will not attempt it no more then to walke upon the water and to goe forty dayes without eating In good earnest I would doe any thing to give contentment to a man that gives contentment to M. the Cardinall and hath perswaded the King of Sweden If hee will play the tyrant with those that seeke his favour let him I refuse not hence forward the hardest conditions he can lay upon me and to gains his protection I renounce with all my heart my very liberty It is now foure and twentie houres since I laid my eyes together It is time therefore that I bidde you good morrow or good night take which of them you please and beleeve me alwayes Sir Your c. From Balzac 4. Decem. 1634. To Mounsieur the Master Advocate in the Parliament LETTER XLII SIR you know I have fed upon the fruits of Pomponne even beyond the rules of temperance and I have signified to you in each place where they grew that they are generally excellent yet I now specially declare my selfe in favour of the last you sent mee and finde them farre surpassing the Amber Peare or all other kindes which I cannot name It is true I affect specially the Tree it selfe that beares them and I account the meanest of the leaves no meaner than jewels yet their owne goodnesse is such that though they grew in the garden of or grew upon a stocke that Father had planted yet I should not for all that but highly esteeme them and take a pleasure in their taste In a word to leave speaking in Allegory and not to flounder my selfe in a Figure into which you have most maliciously cast me I say Sir that in all your Presents I see nothing but excellent and least you should thinke I meant to exempt my selfe from giving a particular account of my judgement by speaking in generall termes I let you know that in the first place the two lives spoken of at the end of the discourse please me infinitely and next to this that place which is written upon occasion of that France is too good a Mother to rejoyce in the losse of her children and that the victories gotten upon our selves are fit to weare mourning and be covered with blacke vailes All that cuold have beene said upon this Argument would never have beene comparable to this ingenious silence And as he hath dexterously shunned a passage so tender so he enters as bravely and as proudly upon a matter that will beare it when speaking of hee saith that having overcome the waves the winds that opposed his passage traversed the fires of so many canons of the enemies with a few poore Barkes hee made his way thorough a Forrest of great shippes And a little after where hee saith that God who bestowes his favours upon Nations by measure seeing that the admirable valour of ours would easily conquer the whole world if it had Prudence equall to its courage seemes therefore to have given us as a counterpoise to the greatnesse of our spirits a kinde of impetuositie and impatience which to our Armies have oftentimes beene fatall and cause of ruine But that now the case is altered in this point for now the French are no longer French then they are valiant now these Lyons are growne reasonable and now to the strength and courage of the North they joyne the prudence and staiednesse of the South c. Also where hee saith that the carriage at Cazal is a thing incomprehensible and for which we must be faine to looke out some new name for it cannot be called a Seige seeing the place was surrendred before ever it was battered nor it cannot be called a Battell seeing no man strooke a stroake nor it cannot be called
but indeed an ill husbanding of your spirit and a wastfull profusion of those singular graces of which though it be not fit you should deprive them that honour you yet it is fit you should give them out by tale and distribute them by measure It is much better to have lesse generall designes and to propose to ones selfe a more limited reputation than to abandon ones spirit to every on◅ that will be talking and to expose it to the curiositie of the people who leave alwayes a certaine taynt of impuritie upon all things they looke upon by such vitious sufferance we find dirt and mire carried into Ladies Closets if there come a busie fellow into the Countrey presently honest women are besieged there is thronging to tell them tales in their eares and all the world thinkes they have right to torment them and thus saving the reverence of their good report though they be chast yet they be publike and though they can spie the feast sullying upon their ruffes yet they willingly suffer a manifest soyling of their noblest part You have done Madam a great act to have kept your selse free from the tyrannnie of custome and to have so strongly fortified your selfe against uncivill assay lants that whilst the Louver is surprized your house remaines impregnable I cannot but magnifie the excellent order with which you dispose the houres of your life and I take a pleasure to thinke upon this Sanctuary of yours by the onely reverence of vertue made inviolable in which you use to retyre your selfe either to enjoy more quietly your repose or otherwise to exercise your selfe in the most pleasing action of the world which is the consideration of your selfe If after this your happie solitnde you come sometimes and cast your eyes upon the Book I send you you shall therein Madam doe me no great favour the things you shall have thought will wrong those you shall reade and so it shall not be a grace but an affront I shall receive I therefore humbly entreat you there may be some reasonable intermission between two actions so much differing Goe not streight from your selfe to me but let the rellish of your owne meditation be a little passed over before you goe to take recreation in my worke To value it to you as a piece of great price or otherwise to vilifie it as a thing of no value might justly be thought in me an equall vanity They who praise themselves desire consent and seeke after others approbation they who blame themselves seeke after opposition and desire they may be contradicted This latter humilitie is no better than the others pride But to the end I may not seeme to goe to the same place by a third way and desire to be praysed at least with that indifferency I ascribe to you I entreat you Madam that you will not speake the least word either of the merit of my labour or in default of merit of the fashion of language I have used in speaking to you I meane not to put this Letter upon the score to speake plainly I entreat you to make me no answer to it so farre I am off from expecting thankes for it It is not Madam a Present I make you it is an homage I owe you and I pretend not to oblige you at all but onely to acquit my selfe of the first act of veneration which I conceive I owe you as I am a reasonable creature and desiring all my life to be Madam Your c. At Balzac 4. May 1634. To Monsieur Balthazar Councellour of the King and Treasurer Generall of Navarre LETTER XIX SIR I never deliberate upon your opinion nor ever examine any mans merit when you have once told me what to beleeve But yet if I should allow my selfe the libertie to do otherwise I could but still say that I find Monsieur de well worthy the account you hold him in and my selfe well satisfied of him upon his first acquaintanee By further conversation I doubt not but I should yet discover in him more excellent things but it is no easie matter ever to bring us together againe For he is a Carthusian in his Garrison and I an Hermite in the Desart so as that which in our two lives makes us most like is that which makes us most unlikely ever to meet yet I sometimes heare Newes of him and I can assure you he is but too vigilant in looking to his Charge hee hath stood so many Rounds and Sentinells that it is impossible he should be without rhumes at least till Midsomer These are to speake truly workes of supererogation for I see no enemy this Province need to feare unlesse perhaps the Persian or Tartarian the very Name of the King is generally fortification enough over all his Kingdome and as things now stand Vaugirad is a place impregnable that if Demetrius came againe into the world he would loose his reputatiō before the meanest village of Beausse but this is one of your politician subtleties to make Angoulesme passe for a Frontier Towne and to give it estimation that it may be envied Doubt not but I shall give you little thankes for this seeing by this meanes you are cleane gone from us and I must be faine to make a journey of purpose into Lauguedoc if I ever meane to enjoy the contentment of embracing you and of assuring you that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. March 1633. To Monsieur de Serizay LETTER XX. SIR if you were but resident at Paris I should hope sometimes to heare of your Newes but now that you are bewitched there it will be an ungratefull worke for you to reade ◅ine They are alwayes such as must be pittied In my way there are as many stones to dash against as in yours there are flowers and life it selfe is an evill that I suffer as it is a good that you enjoy you left me blind and may now find me lame my causes of complaining never cease they doe but change place and the favours I receive are so husbanded that I cannot recover an eye but by the losse of a legge I was yesterday in a great musing upon this when suddenly a great light shined in my Chamber and dazeled mine eyes even as I lay in my bed And not to hold you long in suspence the Name of the Angell I meane was Madam d' Estissac who thus appeared unto me and willing to make the world see how much shee hath profited in Religion runnes after all occasions to put her Christian vertues in practise This somewhat abates the vanity I should otherwise have taken in her visite for I see it is rather charitie than courtesie and I am so much beholding to my infirmitie for it that shee made a doubt whether I were sicke enough to merit it as much as to say a Paralitick should have had this courtesie from her sooner than I. They must be great miseries that attract her great favours pittie
you were your selfe the richer for it but now the losse is common to us both we both lament a common friend and your selfe have rather the greater share in this sad societie in as much as herein you have advantage over me for having performed to him the last duties Hee saw your teares fall amongst his blood you filled your eyes and your spirit with all circumstances of his death and I doubt not but it hindred you from being perfectly sensible of the victory at Mastrich and to shew a joyfull countenance in the most joyfull day of all your Princes life For my selfe I am not as yet capable of consolation yet have layd upon my wound all the plasters Philosophie could minister Mee thinkes my griefe is to mee in place of my friend I possesse it with a kind of sweetnesse and am so tender of it that I should thinke it a second losse if I had it not to passe my time withall yet I must intreate it a little forbearance that I may have time to make you an account of your liberalitie and that you may know what is become of the presents you sent me I received them Sir after your Letter and that by another kind of adventure I have imparted them to the worthiest persons of our Province I am at this time adorning my Closet with them and make more reckoning of them then of all the riches your Havens can shew or then all the pretious rarities the Sea brings to you from the farthest parts of the earth There is as much difference betweene your friends stile and that of other Panegyrists as betweene the stoutnesse of a Souldier and the coynesse of a Courtesan This manly eloquence full of mettall and courage seemes rather to fight then to discourse and rather to aide the King of Sweden then to praise him The ordering of his Tragedie is according to the rules and intention of Aristotle precise decencie most religiously observed The verses lofty and worthy of a Theater of Ivory Every part pleased me but that of the Chorus'es even ravished me and because I sigh alwayes after Italy that Chorus of the Romane Souldiers put me in passion I finde my selfe touched with it at the very quicke and in all company where I come I cannot forbeare crying out as if I were in rapture with divine fury O laeta otia Formiae Lucrini O tepids lacus Baiarum O medii dies O sola Elysiis aemula vallibus Lassi temperies Maris Campani via littoris lia Baccho ac Cereri vetus c I have onely one litâ—…le seruple to propose unto you I know not well why Tysiphone is brought in with Mariamne speaking of Styx Cocytus and Acheron and I cannot conceive how it is possiâ—…le a naturall body should be formed of two as differing peeces as are in my opinion the Iewish religion and the Heathenish My doubt growes from my ignorance and not from presumption I aske as desirous to learne and not to picke a quarrell specially with a man who in such Criticismes is a King and whom I acknowledge for the true and lawfull successor of the great Scaliger I have read his two Tracts upon the Satyre of Horace which are indeede two Master-peeces and I doe not thinke I ever saw together so much antiquitie renued so much reason displaied so much subtiltie fortified with so much force Hee stands not dreaming upon a word of no difficultie erecting as it were Trophees of like passages after the fashion of our Note-makers now adayes who heape up places upon places and bring nothing in their writings but the cruditie and indigestion of their reading He handles Grammar like a Philosopher and makes Bookes to be subject to Reason and the authority which time hath given them to the Principles which truth hath established he hath discovered that Idea of art which the best workemen never yet came neere and hath added that last perfection which shewes spots and impuritie in the most elaborate writings I have a great designe Sir to goe make my selfe an Artist under his discipline and to be at once both your Courtier and his Schollar I have thought upon this Voyage a yeare since but I would faine your warres would make passage for mee the way I would goe and that there were nothing Spanish betweene Paris and the Hage The sanctitie of Oratours and Poets is not reverenced over all the world they beare no awe amonst Barbarians these publike enemies would not spare Apollo himself nor the Muses and my person would find as little respect at their hands as my Booke did which in full councell they caused to be burnt by the hands of the Marquesse of Aytona yet I think you may say you never heard speake of a more illustrious Executioner nor of one that doth more honour to his trade and that the Counts of Egmont and Horne were not handled in their punishment with such pompe and state I dare not laugh Sir at this extravagant crueltie The Truce I had taken is expired and I cannot possibly stretch the leave which my griefe gave me any further I therefore leave you to returne to her and end with swearing Per illos manes numina doloris nostri that there is nothing in the world more deare unto mee than your friendship and that I am with all my soule Sir Your c. At Balzac 2. of February 1633. To Mounsieur de la Nauue Counsellor of the King in his first Court of Enquests LETTER XIX SIR my deare Cosin I never doubted of your affection towards me but I thought it proceeded of pittie rather then of merit and that having nothing considerable in me but my ill fortune your good nature was thereby onely excited to doe me this charitie but now I see you propose to your selfe a more noble Object and thinke to finde a better reason for your loving me yet I know not whether it be so just as the former and whether you may as lawfully respect a vulgar person as you may protect an unfortunate If I had had any such seedes of goodnesse in me as you speake of my ill fortune would have stifled all their vertue Nothing can bud forth in an aire perpetually tempestuous It is not enough for the labouring man that he take paines in his husbandry and that his soyle be good but there must be a sweetnesse of the season also to favour his trauell which I have hitherto proved so contrary that I wounder how I have the heart to be alwayes planting for tempests to spoile I finde more good for me in idlenesse than in labour and more gaine by doing nothing than by doing well When I am idle I am at least at quiet and envy rests as well as I but as soone as once I offer but to stirre there is presently an alarum raised in the Latine Province and opposition is made before I have conceived any thing to be opposed Other mens good deedes are rewarded mine onely if
gives sanctuary of pardon to Delinquents I have heard speake of the sweet nature and signing of the Dove but never of her cruelty nor of her roaring and to give her clawes and teach her to love blood would be no lesse then to make her a Monster this would bee Sir to make love it selfe turne wilde and metamorphise it into hate This would bee to imitate the antient Pagans who attributed to their gods all the passions and infirmities of men no man I hope shall be able to lay such prophanation to our charge wee will be no corrupters of the most excellent puritie no handlers of holy things with polluted hands no stretchers of our defects to the highest point of perfection They which doe so in what part of the world soever they be are Anathemaes in your Bookes accursed in your Sermons condemned by the rules of your doctrine and by the examples of your life These false Saints doe not serve Christ but serve themselves of Christ they sollicite their owne affaires in his name and recommend it as his cause when it is their owne suite Periwasion that they doe well makes them more hardy in doing ill they call their choller zeale and when they kill they thinke they sacrifice Thankes be to God no part in the whole body of our Clergie is so unsound it is returned to its oyle and to its balme in whose place the civill warres had substituted deadly Aconite and bitter Wormewood The League is dead and Spaine heartsicke our Oracles are no longer inspired by forreigne Deities the spirit of love and charity animates all our Congregations and no doubt he that ought to be the mouth of the assembly will consider that Bishops are Ministers of mercy and not of justice and that to them our Lord said I leave peace with you but said not I leave vengeance with you the wisedome of M. the Cardinall will strip off all the thorny prickles of passions and sweeten all the bitternesse of figures before they arrive to come neare the King This divine spirit is farre surmounting all orations all deliberations and all humane affaires and in this he will easily finde a temper both to preserve the honour of the Church and yet not oppresse the humilitie of him that submits both to give full satisfaction to the first order and yet not withdraw regard from the merit of the second both to make us see heads bowed and knees bended before the Altars and yet no houses demolished nor governments destroyed whereof the Altars should receive no benefit I am in hope you will doe me the favour to informe me of the occurrents of the whole history whereof I doubt not but you are your selfe one of the principall parties and I expect by your letters a true relation of all the newes that runnes about In the meane time Sir I trust you will not take it ill that I speake unto you of this great affaire as a man that sees it a farre off and whom you appoint sometimes to deliver his advise upon matters of which he hath but small understanding At your returne we will renue the Commerce we have discontinued and since you will have it so I will once againe play the Oratour and the Politician before you yet I feare me much you will scarce bee suffered to keepe your promise with me I see you are more borne to action then to rest and that our rurall pleasures are not worthy so much as to amuse so great a spirit as yours is I therefore wish you such as are worthy of you that is the solidest and the perfectest and such as glorious Atchievements and glorious actions leave behind them and I love not my selfe so much that I am not much more Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. January 1630. To Mounsieur Arnaut Abbot of St. Nicholas LETTER III. SIR the small service you desired of me is not worth considering but onely for the great thankes I have received for it I had altogether forgot it when I received your Letter which makes mee yet forget it more in making mâ—…â—…o remember it You have words that change things and in your Language aâ—… impuissant willingnesse iâ—…â—…n immortall obligation If you make so great account of good desires I merveile what price you set upon good deeds and if you thus bestow your compliments without necessitie I feare you will want them when you have neede you should goe more reserveldy to worke and retaine more providence for the future A man may be a good husband and yet not bee covetous and seeing limits and bounds are fit in all cases they cannot bee unfit in the case of courtesie Thinke not therefore Sir that herein you have done an act of acknowledgement you have gone farre beyond the bounds of this vertue If there be a vice opposite to ungratefulnes your too great officiousnesse hath made you fall into it and by the excesse you have avoided the defect The interests of M. the Cardinall Bentivoglio have no neede of recommending but amongst people that are not yet Civilized that which concernes his honour is no matter of indifferencie to them that know his vertue and they that know it not are no better then Barbarians If to doe him service I had not run whither you prayed me to goe and if I had not required an absolute suppression of that discourse whereof you required onely but a sweetning I had performed my duty but very weakely and had deserved blame in that for which you praise me Though his name were not resplendent in history nor his dignitie in the Church yet he should have Iâ—…stre enough in his very stile and writings and though he were not a grandchild of Kings and a Senatour of the whole earth yet I finde something in him more worth then all that I consider him without his Purple and devested of all externall ornaments regarding onely those that are naturall to him and which would make him most illustrious though hee had but a blacke cap on his head and most eminent though he were but a private man These are advantages hee hath over other men and which hee communicates to this age of the world goods that hee possesseth and I enjoy For I vow unto you that in this sad place whither my owne humour hath miss-led me and where there is no talke but of Suits and quarrells I should not know in the world how to passe my time if I had not brought his booke along with me This hath beene the companion of my voyage and is now the comforter of my Exile and after I am dulled with a deale of troublesome discourse and have my eares filled with idle chat I goe and purifie my selfe in his delicate relations and gather my spirits together which the noyse and clatter had before dispersed I never saw in so sober and chast a stile so much fulnesse and delight if nature herselfe would speake shee could never make choyse of more proper termes
of the Letters of Monsieur DE BALZAC Written by him in French and translated into English by Sr R. B. LONDON Printed by I. D. for Iohn Crooke Francis Eglesfield and Richard Serger and are to be sold at the Gray-hound in Pauls Church-yard 1638. To my Lord the Cardinall De la Valet LETTER I. SIR being not able to bring you this untoward Present my selfe I humbly entreat you to excuse mee that I send it Wherein I bind you not to a second perusall and to read that againe which perhaps you have read already with distast It is true Sir that something is altered in the Copie and well neere one halfe added to the originall but the spight is that base wares get no value by store and the water that comes from the same Spring can never be much differing but if in any of the passages I have not altogether come off ill and that I have had some tolerable conceits I acknowledge Sir that I have had it all from the good education I had with you and that it is the fruit of those Instructions which you have done me the honour to impart unto me For no man ever had conceits more pure more pregnant than your selfe no man ever saw things more cleerly than you doe you can tell precisely in what degree of good and evill any thing stands and to find out the truth there needs no more but to follow your opinion But to speake truly I feare this qualitie in you no lesse than I esteeme it you have too much knowledge in you for a Discourse that requires simplicitie in the Reader Neither am I so unadvised to expose it to the severitie of your judgement I submit it rather to the protection of your goodnesse and hope you will not lay open those faults which none but your selfe can see Humbly entreating you to protect a spirit of your owne making and not so much to consider my manner of expressing as the affection with which I am Sir Your c. To the same as before LETTER II. SIR I am negligent for feare of being troublesome and least I should be importunately complementall I forbeare to shew my selfe officiously dutifull But my fault growing from discretion I hope you will not take it ill that I have a care not to trouble you and that you will pardon the intermission of my Letters which hath no other end but the solacing your eyes I seeke no colours of Art to paint out the affection I owe to your service This were to corrupt the naturall puritie Truth is simple and shamefast and when shee cannot shew her selfe by reall effects shee will scorne to doe it by verball expressions It is not in my tongue to expresse her otherwise than in such termes as are the engagements of a lye and when I shall have made you most sincere protestations of inviolable fidelitie there will come a coozening companion that will out-vie me and endeare himselfe beyond all my oathes I could wish there were some marke to distinguish protestations that are true from those that are feigned for if there were I should have great advantage over many Courtiers more officious and more hot in offering their service than I am and you should acknowledge that the eminency of your vertue not to speake of the eminency of your dignitie is of no man more religiously reverenced than of my selfe who am and ever will be Sir Your c. To Monsieur Godeau LETTER III. SIR Disguising will not serve your turne you are a remarkable man and whether it be that you call the dissembling of Art Negligence or that you cannot put off those ornaments which are naturall in you I let you know that the excellency of your style extends even to your familiar speech and that you are able to sweeten it without sawcing it A man may see that come springing flowing from you which in others is brought â—…farre off and that with engines you gather that which others pull off and though you write nothing loosly yet you write nothing with streyning yet I must tell you they are not the periods of your sentences nor the pawses that winne mee so much unto you I am too grosse for such slender and fine threads if you had nothing but rich conceits and choice words this were but the vertue of a Sophister and I should place you in the number of things that may please but not of things that one ought to love I make more reckoning of the honesty of a dumbe man than of the eloquence of a varlet I looke after the good of societie and the comfort of life not after the delight of Theaters and the amusement of company Let us make then a serious profession of our duties and let us give good examples to an evill age let us make the world see that the knowledge wee have of vertue is not meerly speculative and let us justifie our Bookes and our Studies that now are charged with the vices and imperfections of their Teachers Philosophy is not made to be playd withall but to be made use of and we must count it an Armour and not a painted Coate They are men of the worst making that now adayes make the worst doing sots take upon them to be subtle and wee have no more any tame Beasts amongst us they are all savage and wilde For my selfe who have seene wickednesse in its Triumph and who have sometime lived in the Countrey of subtlety craft I assure you I have brought nothing from thence but loathing and before ever I tasted it was cloyed I am exceeding glad to find you of the same dyet and doubt not of the Doctrine I Preach seeing I read the same in your owne Letter Beleeve it Sir there is none more wholesome none more worthy of our Creation Which I am resolved to maintaine even to Death and will no more leave it than the resolution I have made to be without ceasing Sir Your c. To Monsieur Godeau againe LETTER IIII. SIR I have knowne a good while that you are no longer a Druyde and that you lately made your entry into Paris I doubt not but with magnificence enough and not without bestowing some publike largesse I never knew you goe a forraging that you returned not home laden with bootie and your Voyages have alwayes enriched your followers I pretend my selfe to have a feeling of this and though farre remooved from the place where you act them yet I cannot learne that my absence makes me loose my part in the distribution of your good deedes Cease not Sir I entreat you to bind me unto you and to deserve well of my tongue Fill our Closets with the fruits of your braine and since you can doe it make us to gather more sheaves of Corne than the best workmen hitherto have left us eares My devotion stands waiting continually for your Christian workes and I entreat you they may be done in such a volume that we
fulnesse of flesh which contributes something to your gravitie and addes nothing to your weight I would not wish you to seeke to abate it nor long to be like the city and tawnie skinnes of the first Christians For all Tertullians saying all Saints have not been leane and melancholick The last that wee have seene were of your colour and 〈◊〉 and you doe an honour to Divinitie to preach it with a bright visage representing in some sort the state of future glorie you speake of the people Monsieur de made me so rich a description of your health that I could not choose but begin my letter with this complement I have seene since Monsieur de who delivered me one from you and with-it our friends booke for which I thanke you with all my heart I have yet perused onely some Tracts which in truth seeme verie learned and are as intelligible as the obscuritie of the matter would well beare It is true the Title deceived me and seeing you will have me speake freely what I thinke I must tell you I thinke they are nothing lesse than Orations and that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beâ—… read upon a Ioyne stoole than pronounced at a Tribunall I had thought to have found in them the perswasive motives of Oratours in the highest straine of their stile and I finde nothing but the dry doctrine of Philosophers and of them neither nothing but the ordinarie language of their precepts that it makes me think of these new Companies of souldiers which are levied under the name of Horse but are put to serve on foote when they come to the Armie I say not it is necessarie to handle schoole 〈◊〉 with all the pompe and force of 〈◊〉 I onely say that such discourses ought not to bee called Panagâ—…rickes or 〈◊〉 that there is either craft or rashnesse in this proud insâ—…iption which promiseth more than a Philosopher can performe Cicero 〈◊〉 it of improprietie as you shall see at the end of this Letter and you cannot but confesse unto mee that our friend hath mistaken himselfe two wayes First to believe hee ought to play the Oratour in Divinitie and scondly to imagine that to make Orations with successe hee need but to draw forth some 〈◊〉 out of Plutarchs lives and to alledge the so famous Bucephalus that was broken by 〈◊〉 the great These are ornaments so vulgar and so stale that to use them at this day is rather a marke of Cloâ—…nishnesse than of neatnesse When fashions are left off in the Citie they are then taken up in the Countrey and there are none now but poore Gentlemen that will offer to weare the massiest silver lace when it is once fitterd or the richest Plush when it is once growne thred bare Both the one and the other have been in fashion but they are not so now They were heretofore novelties but are now but Rellickes The first comparison that was made of the burning of Dianaes Temple was excellent all other since have beene but idle And it is not enough that the spring from whence water is drawne be it selfe cleare but to draw that which is cleare it is necessarie also that Lawndresses and Passengers have not 〈◊〉 it I make no doubt Sir but that which you will shew mee shall bee very choyce and perfect You are I know of too dainty a taste to bee contented with every sawce I am very impatient till I see those rare productions and I should ere this have seene them but that your promises are as deceitfull as the Titles of your Booke which notwithstanding is otherwise full of 〈◊〉 discourse and profound knowledge It is now foure moneths that I have wayted for you and you have still continued to wrong me in continuing to breake your word yet as much wronged as I am I leave not to be Sir Your c. At Balzac 1. Octob. 1635. The Opinion of Cicero concerning the stile which Philosophers use intheir Writings LOquuntur Philosophi cum doctis quorum sedare animos malunt quam incitare Siquidem de rebus pacatis ac minime turbulentis docend cansa non capiendi loquuntur ut in eo ipso quod delectationem aliquam dicendo aucupentur plus nonnullis quam necesse sit facere videantur Mollis ergo est eorum or atio umbratilis neque nervos aculeos oratorios habet Nec sententijs est nec verbis instruct a popularibus nec junct a numer 〈◊〉 sed soluta liberius Nihil iratum habet nihil atrox nihil mirabile nihil astutum Casta verecunda incorrupta quodammodo virga Itaque sermo potius quam oratio dicitur Quanquam enim omnis locutio oratio est tamen unius orationis locâ—…tio hoc proprio signata nomine est To Mounsieur Granier LETTER XIII SIR my persecution should be sweete unto me if in suffering it I might have the happinesse to see you but your absence makes it insupportable and it were as good for mee to goe and be killed in the place where you are as to come hither and die with languishing Being here against my minde I finde nothing that pleaseth me and the objects which I beheld before as the riches of Nature I cannot now looke upon but with horrour and count them but as the moveables of a Prison I sigh continually after your Cabinet which hath so often served for a haven to my tossed spirit and from whence I have so often fetcht Armes and courage to defend me against Fortune I am not out of hope to see it once againe and to sit mee downe in that greene chaire where you know I have used to be inspired and foretell things to come as Sibil did from her Tryvet In the meane time I must let the unhappy coâ—…stellation passe away and must give place to the choler of heaven So long Sir as you vouchsafe to remember me and to hold me in the favour of Messieurs du Puy I shall not want a good portion of consolation These are persons that without wearing purple or bearing office are yet illustrious and in Authoritie at least in the reasonable world and amongst men that can rightly judge of things No imployment is so honourable as their Leisure no ambition so worthily at worke as their vertue takes it rest You shall doe mee a singular favour to let them know from me in how greet 〈◊〉 I hold them both and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gallery of Mounsâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better perswaded than I am of their incoâ—… merit I will sometimes expect to heare from you and will alwayes be with all my heart Sir Your c. At Balzac 3. Septem 1632. To Mounsieur de Brye LETTER XIV SIR My deare Cousin I have received three of your Letters within these 〈◊〉 moneths the other you speake of are not yet come to my hands of which losse I am very sensible for being deprived of your conversation I cannot but exceedingly esteeme of that which 〈◊〉 it to me I here
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