Augustus his favours And how should he desire new things to meliorat his condition since he contented himself with a little part of those advantages which the present offered O rare example for happy Men Such a man is not to be found How strong and solid a piece he was in the foundation of a growing principality Tyranny it self might have been justified by the innocency of this Minister as it might have been upheld by the rest of his more lively and more ardent vertues Yet would I not deny but that his delicate complexion sometimes rendred him lesse fit for the labours of his body and for the toils of war and was the cause that ordinarily his Minde could onely work But Madam without being prest he did not forbear to do much and to render as useful services to the State as his Colleague although they were not followed with so much noise and pomp The Solitude he built himselfe in Town and the shadowes of his Gardens hid the half of his vertue His employments were covered with an outward appearance of lazinesse And perhaps Agrippa who appeared was praised for the conduct of Moecenas whilest he was retired The Emperour had more inclination for this but remembring the battels gotten in Sicilia and Egypt he esteemed the other more The one he believed loved him more and the other had obliged more All these deliberated of general Affairs But sometimes he consulted only Moecenas concerning the life and fortune of Agrippa Witnesse Madam that little word upon which one of Machiavels Disciples composed a great Discourse You must either put him to death or make him your sonne in Law That is to say you must either lose him or quite gain him You must secure your self of a greatnesse which is suspected to you either by taking him out of the world or planting him in your House You may thereby observe that Moecenas regarded onely his Master I speak like a French man and thought onely of confirming his Authority Agrippa had a taste of the lost liberty and turned his head about from time to time towards the ancient Republick This never proposed counsels but such as were purely honest but his companion wherein concerned the good of the State would add profit to honesty The first had the command of Armies and fought the Enemies of the Empire The second exercised his power even over the Emperours Minde and therein appeased the motions which rose up against Reason Which he did Madam with so much liberty that the Prince being once on the seat of Justice where some criminal processe was debaâ—â—ed and where he began to be carried away with the deceits and calumnies of the accusers Moecenas thereupon arriving and being unable to divide the croud which hindred his passage to him he handed a Note to him wherein were these words Hangman wilt thou not come away from them Augustus in stead of taking offence at the boldnesse of the word and of so pricking a familiarity took his friends zeal kindly And at the same time broke up the Assembly and descended from his Tribunal whom perhaps he had not innocently gotten down had he staid longer He often received such like proofs of his fidelity T was Maecenas who tempered the heat of his passions and sweetned the sharpnesse of his spirit who healed the wounds when he could not prevent the blows who consolated him when he was not in a condition to admit of joy Augustus very well understood the desert and value of this Friendship He perceived well that his person being nearer to him then his fortune such like services were to be valued in his Minde more then the taking of Towns and gaining of Battels He witnessed him also al the acknowledgments you can imagine from a just Prince and who knew how to distinguish inclination from duty and those who loved Caesar onely from those who mixt other passions therewith Even after his death he continued to acknowledge it to his Memory and whensoever any domestick affliction befel him or some outward displeasure sighing hee would say This would not have befaln me had Moecenas been living Hee thought himself unhappy in possessing the Empire of the world since he had lost his Moecenas Hee had indeed a great deal of reason to regret a person so equally good and intelligent who could neither deceive nor be deceived who could do ill neither out of weaknesse nor out of designe He had great cause to weep the losse of a friend who was both so necessary and so pleasing A friend at all houres and at all times in whom he found all he sought which was his Table and Common place Book the Witnesse and the Repository of his thoughts the treasury of his mind even his second soul In effect Madam to shew you the worth of a faithful friend about a great Prince how much doe you think hee confirmed fortified and augmented the reason of Augustus How many thrones hath hee drawn out of those businesses he hath had to dispatch How many expedients did he propose to himself to facilitate his designes How many platforms hath he made to raise his works You need not doubt but hee hath often spared the pains of his foresight and charged himself with the cares and disquiets of the future that he might leave him entirely in the action That the vigour of his spirit might not by being divided bee diminished That I might with truth at this time say That they divided amongst themselves the several functions of the same duty and that they both lived but one life The faithful Moecenas divers times Madam upheld Augustus when hee was tired with the search of difficult good and presented him with the image of a crowned and enjoyed vertue to divert his sight from the sad object of suffering and labouring vertue after a discovered Conspiracy and when hee judged Clemency better then Iustice He fancied glory to him fairer and more attractive then shee was to provoke him the more to the love thereof to oblige him to convert wicked persons to honest men By changing sentences of death into abolitions to doe so that hee preferred the praise of goodnes which lasts as long as the families and races are preserved before vengeance which passeth as quickly as the stroak of a hatchet can bee given and an head cut off And after this you may if you please believe Seneca who condemns the style and eloquence of Moecenas Me thinks Madam that to obtain such like graces from a provoked soul a man should not want Eloquence I speak of that good and wise Eloquence the Eloquence of Affairs and Action bred in the Sun and in the light of the great World incomparably stronger then the Rhetorick of the Sophists although that can far better hide and dissemble its strength There is no doubt but it s absolutely necessary to speak well for to have to doe with Princes who commonly cannot relish reason if it be not delicately prepared 'T is
and for a shew only of a tyrannical and savage power and if the Poets Fables are the Philosophers mysteries Mee thinks Madam that their Jupiter did an action far more admirable and more worthy the Father of the Gods and the King of Men when he removed all things with one of his eye-browes and shaking his head caused Olympus to tremble then when by force of thunder and tempest he tears up Trees and breakes downe Roofs Power is a heavy and material thing which draws after it a long Train of humane means without which it would remain immoveable It acts only with Land and Sea Armies Upon a march it must have a thousand springs a thousand wheels and a thousand Machines It commits a violence in fetching a step Authority on the contrary which holds from the Nobility of its Origine and from the vertue of divine things quietly works its wonders Needs neither instruments nor materials nor even time to set them on work It s all wrapt up in the person of who exerciseth it without seeking aid or demanding a second It s strong though naked and alone fights though it bee disarmed Authority needs but one word to perswade Three of its syllables Madam humbles the bold makes the rebel repent stops the impetuosity of mutinous Legions stifles sedition at its birth and those whom the General was wont to cal my companions cannot endure that he should name them either my Friends or Sirs Gentlemen of Rome or how you please to render Quirites They fancy that that very word hath already degraded them That those three syllables have torn their belts and swords from them that it hath put them amongst the scum of the most unclean and most vile populacy I would but ask you the question Madam whether the name of Quirites coming out of any other mouth but that of Caesar would have entred so far into the hearts of the Legions and would have had the same power over their minds For my part I should hardly believe it I know the height of Rhetorick and understand the vertue of the best pronounced words But it reacheth not so far Authority is incomparably more perswasive then Eloquence The soldiers would have mocked a dozen of Ciceroes Orations and yet yeild themselves at one of Caesars words Nay I doe verily believe they would have yeilded to his silence had he been content to have given them but a sign of leaving the Camp without having taken the pains to have spoken to them By this dumb condemnation treating them as accursed and excommunicated by their Country declaring them unworthy of any kinde of society with their General beyond that of complaints and reproaches which hee might have made them Such a scorn would have so griev'd them that they would have begged death for a favour would have cast themselvs at his feet to pray him that he would handsomely dispatch them But I am vext that so great a word which was so great an action was not of som Roman in the good and healthful time of the Republick that I might not alledge a doubtfull vertue whose cause was undecided as was that of Caesar I would Madam that this example of Military Authority were either of Scipio or of Fabritius that I might justly join it with that other example of Civil Authority after which you will give mee leave to conclude You know well that honest Man Appius Claudius look upon him I beseech you burthened with years and diseases who so long time never stirred out of his chamber and can scarce get himselfe from his bed to his chimney Yet in that condition hee resolves to be carried to the Senate to quarrel with all the Senators single and to oppose himself to the shameful peace they were about to conclude 'T is to bee believed Madam that they were no lesse frighted to see that hideous old man then if it had been a ghost which entred the Councel Chamber and in my thought they did not at first take him for Appius Claudius They took him for his shadow or his fantasme which came from the other world to give them Lessons and make them Remonstrances Who came to tell them with a tone of command and a strong voice which his anger raised in the weakness of his confiscate body Who ever was the Author of so filthy a Proposition is no true nor legitimate Roman He must either bee a Forainer or a Bastard He must be the son of one of our slaves or he hath not a drop of bloud left of our fathers which his basenesse hath not corrupted What would not this angry old man have done had he had his eyes and the rest of his body at liberty Would hee not have beaten those which hee was content to chide onely Would he not have deposed Pyrrhus and interdicted him his Kingdome far from relinquishing by Treaty an inch of Land in Italy I know not what hee could have done But I know very well Madam that he did very much Rome and Pyrrhus were agreed upon conditions for a Treaty of Peace Claudius opposeth it and at the conclusion comes and breaks it off So that hee proves stronger then Rome and Pyrrhus both together and carries it away from either of them When so strange a Newes was told Cyneas its likely he cryed out Behold a greater thing then I have yet admired in Rome I have there seen a multitude of Kings but as yet I had not seen their Tutor 'T is this blind Man who is the light of the Commonwealth 'T is this sick Man who warres against us 'T is this good Man who was unable to stir from his bed who drives us out of Italy 'T is this Chair which bore him to the Senate which is more to bee feared then our Towres full of soldiers then our Elephants then our Machins A Discourse of the Conversation of the Romans TO The Lady Marquess of RAMBOVILLET Discourse II. But this was while your Ancestors of old For vertue with the Gods their names inroll'd Nature in wonders fruitful was yong The world with Hero's peopl'd stout as strong Our ages vigor now alas was spent The languors oâ— old age it doth resent Your Rome is dâ—â—â— all its glory gone The supream vertue is in Hist'ry alone Let 's be content their active strife t' admire Which made that fatal place 'bove all aspire Th' example of those Grandies let 's adore With incense let 's your sought for temples store T Is near the matter Madam What I yesterday answered you in our common Discourse when I took my leave I have since found the sense of my prose in the Verses of a Poet who never made any but those And I conceived it was not amisse after that manner to enter upon this days Conference and to binde with a knot which perhaps will not displease you the things I told with those which you would have me write unto you Let 's again Madam confess it It
Soveraign Justice which thus laughed and indeed Madam although he and the rest were incorruptible Judges yet must we not therefore say that their good dispensation of justice proceeded from their ill humor They knew how to change vertue according to the diversity of time and place They received at night in their closets the favours they had in the morning rejected on the Tribunal But the Graces being at home with them they were neither affected nor licentious They were wise and modest They painted not Majesty They drest her the least they could and hindred her onely from frighting others These Graces Madam and this Majesty were at last separated and the Graces appeared again under their Emperours But they appeared alone for that Majesty I mean the Majesty of words was lost with their Liberty Fabritius his style lasted but till Brutus and Cassius and indeed it s very observable whether it bee in some of their Letters which are still visible or in the Discourse they had together the Eve before the Philippi battel There is no man so much a stranger to Antiquity who is ignorant of Brutus his evil Angel and who knows not their Dialogue Next day after their Funeral Conference Brutus related it to Cassius with more trouble and disturbance then he had when the Daemon appeared unto him But observe Madam with what a byass turn'd so distastful a matter and how he made it profitable for the use of Conversation Without appearing an astonished admirer or an incredulous opiniator hee laughing told his friend That the cares of the Minde the contention of the spirit the weariness of the body and the darknesse of the night might be the cause of his vision and had formed unto him those strange Images That as for him from the principles of Philosophy which he profest he could not believe there were Daemons and much lesse that they were visible Yet neverthelesse hee wished there were and that his Philosophy were false Forasmuch as apparently those spirits without bodies ought to be just and vertuous The action of the Ides of March was so fair and the cause so honest that undoubtedly they would bear their part in it And that so they would be friends and allies of whom he had not thought of which would come to his relief and Troops of reserve which at a need would fight for them which being granted he ought not to reckon of their party only so many Companies of foot so many Cornets of horse so many Legions and so many Vessels But besides that there was an immortal people and a most happy Militia which needed no pay and declared themselves for the good cause and which hee never need feare would serve Antony against Brutus or preferre Tyranny before Liberty These words Madam were the last words of the Republick which she uttered before she gave up the ghost and after which she expired 'T was the Character of the spirit of Rome It was the natural language of its Majesty And doe you not finde that Cassius was very Eloquent in that Tongue Would you not be well pleased to bee more particularly acquainted with that Excellent Man to see him in other society then this and to hear him discourse on lesse ungratefull subjects and at another time then the Eve of the Philippin Battel The mischief is that a quick voice dies assoon as it s brought forth and leaves nothing after it forming no subsisting bodies in the air Words have wings you know its Homers Epithete and a Syrian Poet hath made a sort of language amongst birds So that Madam if we stop not these Fugitives by Writing they easily escape our Memorie Even all that is written is not sure to last and Books perish as Tradition is forgot Time which ends Marble and Iron wants not strength against frailer subjects And the Northern people who seemed to come to hasten time and precipitate the end of the world declared so particular a warre to written things that it was not wanting in them but that even the Alphabet had been abolished Elsewhere Madam there is a fate of Letters which loseth and saveth without choice the motions of human intelligence which pardon ill verses and ill intended fables to suppresse Oracles and deprive the world of the Light of needful History The Ancients acknowledged a Daemon who presides at the birth of Books and Soveraignly disposeth of their fortune successe whether they result well or ill whether they are short or long-lived as it succeeds either favourable or adverse Now its certain if this Daemon were an ill willer to the Publick and envious of honest curiosity and contrary to the reputation of great persons it was principally in that part of their Memories which design'd their humour which acquainted us with the relishes and delicacies of their Mindes which discovered the truth of their Manners to posterity and the secrets of their private lives What a misfortune 't is Madam that wee cannot accost them by that accessible part proportionable to the debility of our strength that we have lost that easy object and which wee could better beare then a higher elevation of their glory That we know the most part of their battels and order of their Militia and yet are ignorant of their calm Conferences and of the Method they used in their treaties with one another knowing of their solemn Feasts and great Ceremonies and yet have no share in their familiarity or in their domestick affairs Truly Madam it had been no small unhappinesse had it altogether so befallen us yet me thinks wee cannot with reason deny but that some amongst them have had a care of us nor justly complain that we have been frustrated of what by succession belongs unto us Two or three by way of Comedy have left us the tract of four and twenty howres I mean the representation of some merily past day and others have shewed them us in their Dialogues and in their Letters These Dialogues and these Letters are their immortal entertainments Conversations which are still lasting whereto wee have every houre free admittance where that Idea of vertue is preserved of which Aristotle speakes in the Fourth Book of his Ethicks where the first Master of this noble Patrician raillery as they cal it is to be found which was so compatible with the Romane gravity These Copies are more correct and clearer perhaps then their first Originals were and if they have not the advantage of a lively voice and presence which perswades the senses and gives a lustre to vile things they have that of attention and of a second view wch polisheth the rude and unmixeth the confused which adds what is commonly wanting to sudden and carnal actions Here is enough Madam to satisfie a Minde possest onely with languishing passions and to content a hunger which is satisfied with a little nourishment But being desirous of much and greedy of new knowledge and lovers of change we must confesse that there is
admirable charm and enchantment for him to sweeten the bitternesse of disgustfull Orders so that hee can execute them without trouble of Minde or repugnancy of will It hath a strange force to winn the heart of the Souldiery and draw their inclinations were they harder to move and more insensible then the iron and steel they use By this charm they binde themselves not only to him but they unloose themselvs from all other things They minde neither Pay Plunder or Recompence They neither care for the feasts of Rome nor for delights of Italy They demand and desire nothing but their General of whom they are so enamor'd even so jealous that they apprehend the end of the war for fear onely they should lose him by a peace They murmur against the Senate when he is revoked neither can they consolate themselves with a Victory which ravisheth the Victor from them What an one good God! Must so passionate a Militia be 'T is not obedience in pursuit of command 'T is zeal which even prevents it T is not affection which obligeth them to the cause of their Chief 'T is a transport which ravisheth them from themselves and makes him say I am going with the tenth Legion against the Enemy of which I am no less confident then of mine own person I know it would pass through the midst of flames naked did honour will or necessity require it So that Madam they are no more souldiers of his army which march with him They are as the members of his body which move when he stirs They are as we may say stranger parts of himself which are more united to him then his natural On the other side the respect they bare him is no less powerful then the love they shew him at least its more powerful then the right of life and death which he hath over them This respect governs and rules all his troopes He drives or stops them as he needs their different obedience He might be unto them insteed of Discipline Let no man think that it is the laws of war or military orders which hinders the soldiers from committing offences T is his presence and his testimony When they fail they fear more least he should know it then they fear to be punished and divers have been kept in their duties with apprehension of displeasing him which would nether have done it for fear of punishment or dishonor That Madam was the only thing which the Roman Army fear'd and never did Souldiers so much slight their Enemy nor so much redoubt their Cheif There never was at once Spirits so fierce and so docile did overflow the Field with more impetuosity and retire to their places in the Camp with lesse appearance of having even gone out After they had done wonders for Courage they came to enquire whether they had done well or no They came to render an accompt of their Victory wherof they were somtimes fain to justifie themselves and for which they were somtimes punish'd This fear of Piety and Religion hath produced thousands of examples in pure Antiquity and in the Colleges they past over them they are so common and so numerous But we must choose what we are to present you I must shew you Madam a mark of that generous fame even when the Empire declined when Rome was no more then the sepulchre of Rome When Nature according to my Opinion would preserve her Rights and make known that the Ashes of things soveraignly excellent are still rich and precious Under the Empire of Justinian a Captain named Fulcar inconsiderately casting himself amongst the enemies and having engaged his Troop in a disadvantageous fight when a certain man in that extremity represented to him That if hee would hee might yet retreat with a good part of his men 'T were better to die said hee For how shall I bee able after this to endure the sight of Narses 'T was not that Narses was cruel but that the soveraign vertue is redoubtable 'T is that the Mine of the General of a Roman Army is frightful to those who have it not from naked swords or assured death With a look he pierceth the guilty to the heart punisheth them with his sight Is not this Madam an effect of that Authority wch comes from Heaven of that Authority inherent in the person of him who hath it distinct and separate from that other authority bred by the power given him by the Republick verified by the Senate and to be read in Pattents of Parchment and confirmed with Eagles and Dragons in picture by Rods Axes and Archers This second Authority of which you presume I should say somewhat which as yet was never said Is a certain light of glory and a certain character of greatness which heroick vertue imprints in the countenance of men And this Character and this Light corrects the defects and the imperfections of nature makes little men appear great imbellisheth ugly faces defends the solitariness and nakedness of a person expos'd to the outrages of fortune over-prest under the ruines of a destroyed party abandoned of his own wishes and of his own hopes This Character Madam is to this person a safeguard from Heaven against the violences of the Earth Renders him inviolable to his provoked enemies binds the hands of Traitors which com against him with ill designs findes respect and tenderness amongst Scythes and Tartars By this mark the Roman Princes were known by their enemies in the Wars although they disguised themselves although they were mixt in a croud of soldiers although they had never been seen before Nothing is able to blot out this character nor to obscure this light not even disgraces imprisonment and the chains of a poor Captive The Executioner falls backwards at sight of his patient and can scarce forbear to beg his life of him Hee fancies that a great flame issues out of his eyes which enlightens the Dungeon and that he hears a hideous voice which cries out Who art thou unhappy man who darest lay thy hand en Cajus Marius Are not these Madam give me leave once more to ask you are not these the highest and the dearest favours which can be received from the Supream vertue And this second Authority which survives the first This Authority which preserves it self in the ruines of power which consecrates misfortunes chains and dungeons which renders affliction holy and venerable Is it not far a more noble thing then the unworthy prosperity of the happy Then all the Scepters all the Diadems and all the Magnificence of idle Kings Questionless Authority is far more noble then power and that which is formed from the reverence of vertue far more worthy then that which is established by the terror of punishments The pure and innocent triumph of an infinite many subjected hearts is far a more illustrious and glorious sight then the bloudy and miserable trophies of some cast-down heads I mean cast away without any extream necessity
Victorious Peasants knowing nothing but husbandry and fighting were sensible onely of gross pleasures proportionable to the hardship of their births there is no great likelihood that they did possess a Vertue directly opposite to the rudeness they made profession of and which seldome accompanies poverty which is almost alwayes followed with an ill humour So long as their Eloquence to use the termes of Varro smelt of Garlick and Onions we could expect nothing very exquisite and it was hard for so sad an austerity as theirs to hearken to raillery and to be toucht with joy First then they were without weakning to soften themselves They must sweeten their courages and unrust their Manners That at last they might advise to cultivate themselves as they did their Gardens and their Lands They indeed did it with so much success and found so happy a foundation That presently the good Genius was amongst them a popular thing This politeness past from the Senate to inferiour degrees even to the lowest form of the meaner people And if in their cause their own witness is to be believ'd they have blotted out all the Graces and all the Vertues of Greece and have left the Atticism thereof far short of their Urbanity It s that Madam which they call'd that lovely Vertue of Society after having practised it many years without having given it a Name and should use have ripened amongst us a word of so ill a savour and have corrected the bitternesse which might have been found in it Wee might accustome our selves thereunto as to others which wee borrowed from the same language Now whether that word expresseth in Ours a certain Air of the great World and a colour and tincture of the Court which not only marks words and opinions but even the tone of the voice and the motion of the body Or whether it signifie a lesse perceptible motion which is known but by chance which hath nothing but is noble high and nothing which appears studied or learnt which is felt and is not seen and inspires a secret Genius which we lose in seeking it Or whether in a farther stretched signification it means the Science of Conversation and the gift to please in good company Or restraining of it it be taken for an addresse to touch the Spirit with I know not what kind of pricking yet whose pungency is pleasing to who receives it because it tickles and hurts not because it leaves a wound without grief and awakens only that part which malice offends To conclude Madam according to the judgment of a good Judge in such cases It was a knowledge abused by the Greeks which other people were ignorant of and from whom the Romans only learnt the true and lawful use Being so fit for them and so incommunicable to their nearest neighbours that those even of Italy could not acquire it without some failings nor so nicely counterfeit it that the resemblance should not mark the diversity It was then according to this accompt a domestick plant which could grow up but on the shore of the Tiber or on the Mount Palatin or at the foot of the Capitol or near the Camp of Mars and near some other quarter of that Capitall City of the world Is it possible that the Heaven and the Sun of Rome should have so much force and so much vertue Did they so sensibly agitate on the spirits of men Were they so absolutely necessary to make them good company I fear not of my self to say it not to wrong the rest of Italy and the rest of the civilized Provinces But to speak in general its certain Madam that the Citizens of Rome had great advantages in the world owed much to their Mothers and to their Breeding and knew many things which no body taught them there is no doubt but in their most familiar entertainment some graces were neglected some ornaments without art which the Doctors are ignorant of and which are above rules and precepts I doubted not but when I had seen it Thunder and Heaven and Earth mix in the Oâ—ations of the Tribunals but it was a change most agreeably pleasing to consider them under more then an humane appearance disarmed of their Enthymemes and of their figures having left their feigned exclamations and artificial angers appearing in a condition wherein one might say They were truly themselves 'T was there Madam for example where Cicero was neither Sophist nor Rhetorician neither Idolater of this man nor furious against that neither of this nor of that party There hee was the true Cicero and after mocked himself privately of what he had adored publickly 'T was there he defin'd Men painted them not where he spoke of Cato as of a Pedant of the Portico or at most but as of a Citizen of Plato's Republick where he said That the purple of the Senate was finer but the steele of the Rebels was better where he confest Caesar was the Contriver of his own Fortune and that Pompey was but the work of his These sentiments which parted from the heart were hidden in great Assemblies and were discovered but between two or three friends and as many faithful domesticks and with whom hee communicated this secret felicity And if some of them have said that they reign'd all the time they Oration'd so soveraign was the power they exercised over mens mindes we may speak even of those which in their conversation restored the liberty which they had taken away in their Orations That they set at large and at ease the minds of those they opprest and tormented and that they drew them from that admiration which had agitated them with violence to make them sensible of a sweeter transport and ravish them with less force I have seen a great Prince in the low countries who in that envied the fortune of their free men and of those inferior friends and of the meaner sort which they had brought out of slavery to choose them their confidents and in effect it was a wonderful contentment to be a witness of their interiour lives and to be private to the more particular houres of their leisure And it were an incomparable satisfactioÌ„ to know those good things which have been said of Scipio and Laelius Atticus and Cicero and other honest people of every age To have the History of their conversation and Cabinets to adde to those of Affairs State Being born in the Empire and bred up in Triumphs all what proceeded from them bore the Character of Nobleness which distinguished theÌ„ from Subjects All of them were sensible of Command and Authority though government and conduct were not in question all was remarkable and exemplary even their Secrets and Solitude Having from their infancy seene Kings led Captives through the streets and other Kings Petitioners and Solicitors come in person to demand Justice and expect at the doore of the Senate their good or ill success They could retain nothing that was low in such rais'd