continual compass rounding like a Wheel never passed forward but reeling in a circumference could not arrive to the Point and Centre of Vertue There were others who never found the way but as soon as they began to set forward stopped and gave over their farther progress The Idle These with their hands in their bosoms sluggishly moved their unnimble legs which weary of doing nothing being sick with the Scurvy of Sloth fainted before they accomplished their intents Another said out of love to curiosity he would tread those paths which none had done before him but being ruled by none but his capritious Humour Humoursome was soon ruined and lost Do you not observe Critilo that all follow in most preposterous ways and run upon those Extreams which naturally they disaffect and refuse The Fool becomes presumptuous of his Parts and Knowledge and the Wise out of a distrustful confidence is reserved and silent the Coward affects Valour and only talks of Arms and War whilst the Valiant disdains them the Comely affect a decent negligence in their Dress and the ill-favoured set out their defects with helps and advantages and think they exceed the very Sun in glory and Splendor the Prince affects a Courteous humility and the common and ignoble sort vaunt themselves as if they were of more then mortal Race the Eloquent are silent and the Ignorant take on them the whole Discourse the Dexterous is dissident of his Art and the Unskilful fills the World with the unpolisht pieces of his rude hand In fine you will see all run through Extremities which is the course of Error and which strays from the way of life But let us pass through the most secure way the most plausible and happy Mediocrity happy in that it can contain it self in a prudent Mean There were few whom they could perswade to follow them yet as soon as they saw them enter on that Path they felt a more than ordinary sence of Comfort and satisfaction of Conscience which transported their Affections they observed that besides those pretious Jewels which adorned them they were no less glorious with the rich Endowments and Abilities of Reason which began to shine in that degree that every one seemed a glistering Star forming Tongues in his rayes crying out this is the way of Truth and the Truth of life On the contrary all those that followed the Prospects and Glasses of their own Brain soon lost their Eyes and Sight that they blindly wandred and were Eclipsed both in their Judgment and Journy Andrenio always observing that they went upward This said he seems rather a way to bring us to Heaven then to the Earth So it is said Critilo for this is the Path that leads us to Eternity for though we trample on the Earth yet our thoughts are raised above it and soar to that heighth that they become Neighbours and Citizens with the Stars for these are they which we now eye and steer by being engolfed between the Cylla and Caribdis of the World for such is the entrance we are now upon into this great City the Babylon of Spain the Treasury of Riches the Theatre of Learning the Sphere of Nobility and the large compass of a Humane life Andrenio was more astonished to see the strange Accidents of the World which before he knew not than when first he proceeded from his cause to the unknown Light for then he beheld them only at a distance and in a long view and perspective when to see only and contemplate on them was not so much as by Experience to try them so that all seemed strangely disfigured and the face of things of a different complexion but that which was most strange was that in a populous City and at Mid-day no man appeared though they with great diligence and affection sought them Where are the Men said Andrenio is not this their Country their beloved World their desired Centre where then are they gone or in what part or place do they lie concealed they diligently searched in one place but discovered none until but how and where they found them is related in the following Crisis The Sixth CRISIS The Estate and Condition of this Age. WHosoever hears this word World presently conceives an orderly composure of this Universe fitted in the most perfect and best manner For the word Mundus signifying as much as Clean or Neat. We ought to consider it as some stately Palace contrived for the Divine and infinite Wisdom erected by Omnipotency and by his Provident Bounty fitted for Mans conveniency that he as King thereof may Rule and maintain the original Agreement and Harmony which the Divine Creator hath setled and ordained So that it is nothing but a House made and fitted for God and Man nor is there any other definition by which its Perfection may be more plainly declared for the very word Mundus doth sufficiently denote its Perfection and both the beginning and ending are Testimonies thereof but how Mans ill management hath disappointed this Order and disgraced the Honour of this Title was the consideration of Critilo who together with Andrenio were placed in the World but not in the Society and Conversation of those to whose Words and Actions they could not confide or trust They were now busied and inquisitive in search of Men for having trod many steps and weariedly travelled over much ground they met no Man unless it were one half a Man and half a Beast an encounter welcome to Critilo but strange and unexpected to Andrenio who starting demanded the Nature and Condition of this deformed Monster do not fear said Critilo for it is more Man than Man himself this is the Master and Ruler of Kings and the King of Rulers this is that wise Quiron Quiron whose presence is as welcome as the occasion for his prudence and direction must guide us into this entrance to the World and hand us in the way through the Journey of our life with that they went towards him and saluting him had their Salutes returned with the like civility they acquainted him that they had been in search of Men and after a hundred turns and walks either through ill Fortune or scarcity of them they had met none Wonder not at it replied the Centaure for this is not an Age for Men such I mean whose noble Acts have famed the years of former times Do you think to find now a Don Alonso the Valiant in Italy a Great Captain in Spain a Henry the Fourth in France whose Sword hath maintained his Scepter and the Flower-de-Luces made up the hilt and guard of it There are now no such Heroes in this World nor memory of their past Acts and shall there be none hereafter replied Andrenio There is no appearance of them at present said he and shortly it will be too late for them to remedy the evils past But why are they not now demanded Critilo and the Offspring of this Generation There is much
Paul Rycaut Esq late Consul of Smyrna Fellow of the Royall Societie THE CRITICK WRITTEN Originally in SPANISH BY LORENZO GRACIAN One of the Best Wits of Spain And Translated into English By PAUL RYCAUT Esq LONDON Printed by T. N. for Henry Brome at the Gun in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1681. The Epistle Dedicatory To the KING May it please your Most Excellent Majesty THis little Treatise which was written in my Youth was the first Fruits of my Travels and ought to have been offered in the Years of my Minority when perhaps it had looked much more like my self then it doth at present But because the Words only are Mine and the Sence and Scope the Thoughts and Contrivance of a Serious Don the Subject will be liable to no other Incongruity then that which is now common in the World where we see Men of Years and Gravity dressed in the Hair and Fashion of the Youthful But be the Attire what it will I am sure the Subject which is Morality giving Rules for a Vertuous and Prudent Life is seasonable in all Ages and much more conduducing to the common good of Your Majesties Kingdoms then the swarms of Libels and Seditious Pamphlets which fill the Press and are the Entertainments of Men who are wanton and at ease It is want of true Morality which makes Men Censurers of others Actions neglecting in the mean time to pry into their own It makes them Proud High-minded and Boasters and gives them confidence to arraign Princes and their Cabinet Counsels of Government whilst in the mean time they are so far from Ruling their own little World within them that they are not able to subdue a Passion or moderate that little or untowardly Member of their Tongue But our CRITICK which suggests better things doth with that Humility which he teaches appear before your Majesty being conducted to your Royal Presence by the Interpreter who having received Encouragement by the Gracious Eye your Majesty hath been pleased to bestow on his other Writings doth with greater Boldness and yet with due Reverence tender this at your Royal Feet Praying always for the long Life of your Sacred Majesty in which the Peace Prosperity and Welfare of your People is bound up and that God Almighty may ever Bless your Majesty with Increase of Honour Triumph and greater Exaltation of Glory are the unfaigned and fervent Prayers of Most Dread Soveraign Your MAJESTIES Most Dutiful Subject and most Humble Servant PAUL RYCAUT THE TRANSLATOR TO THE Reader WHen I was about the Age of Twenty of which I had spent Five in the University of Cambridge my good Father who was desirous to bestow on me a liberal Education though the youngest of his Ten Sons and to improve me in all the Languages which are common to Europe thought fit to send me to the Court of Spain in company with my eldest Brother whose principal Business there was to recover a Debt of One hundred thousand Pieces of Eight which his Catholick Majesty owed unto my Father The Demand was unquestionable for the Account was liquid and clearly stated by the Councel of the Exchequer and the King upon their report was pleased to give his own Royal Firm for confirmation of it and to make several Decrees for the Payment but as the Proceedings in Spain are always Dilatory and the Kings Revenue most commonly Anticipated so our private Pretensions were forced to give place to the more importunate Necessities of the Publick and after a year and halfs Sollicitation we were dispatched thence with a poor Auyda de costas or something under the name of a Largess to bear our Expences paid in Vellion or the Base Copper Money of Spain Since which the Interest hath encreased without either payment of it or of the Principal though our King of Great Britain whom God preserve hath been graciously pleased often to recommend our case to his Ambassadors sent to Madrid and to make it one particular in their Instructions But all this being without effect gave me often cause to conclude that it was much better and of more Security to have a Mortgage on good Farms and Tenements in England then of honour to be a Creditor of the most Mighty and Potent Monarch of both the Indies But I who in the gaity of my Youth little regarded the Interest of Wealth leaving that care to the incumbence of my pious Parents attended wholly to the Improvements of my Mind and to that end not to loose time I studied awhile at Alcala de Henares called in Latin Collegium Complusense where I had the Honour to be esteemed more for my skill in the Latin Tongue and my Faculty in Poetry then ever I had a Reputation for in my own Vniversity I there applyed my self especially to learn the Spanish Tongue in gaining of which I had something more then an ordinary advantage by having no conversation with English and then this Book of the Critick being newly published and recommended to me for being wrote by one of the best Wits and Pens of Spain I was easily perswaded to read it over the Stile being smooth and pleasant in the beginning gave me an easie Introduction to it but the remainder being more harsh and crabbed I forced my self with some difficulty to understand the sence and humour of the Author fancying in the mean time that I was entred into those steep and thorny ways of Vertue which Critilo teaches and from which no difficulties ought to divert or discourage a Wise and a resolved Person When I had once read it I was so pleased with the Subject that I was willing to try how it would run in English which being finished I was infinitely pleased with the Work both for the Argument which is Vertue Morality and for my own improvement by the Translation for it had almost made me a Master of the Spanish Tongue Howsoever as our greatest Enjoyments and things which please our Minds most at first grow dull and disrelishing with time so these beloved Papers were neglected and thrown by me whilst I had occasion to travel the World for I was afterwards in Italy and there I embarked on the Fleet under command of General Blake and was present at the burâ—ing of nine Turkish Ships and batterâ—ng the Castles at Porta Farina near Tunis I also spent about two years in the Low Countries when his Majesty resided at Bruxelles after which having the Employment of Secretary to the Earl of Winchilsea at Constantinople for seven years and Subsequent to that of Consul at Smirna for the space of eleven more I was so taken up with the Thoughts and Business of that Country that I had no leisure to remember or reflect upon my little Critick But now being by Gods Providence returned to a more quiet and reposed life in my own Country and tumbling one day over my old Memoires these Papers casually offered themselves to my hands torn and worm-eaten with bad Ink and in
nothing what they command and so armed with the Vertue of this Lesson which is to see and hear and be silent let us venture up this Street All the Street was rowed with the Shops of Handicrafts-men no Forraign Labourer appeared there whose simplicity was unpractised in the art of fraudulent Dealings through these Streets crost flocks of Crows which bred under the Eves of the Houses and maintained a sociable familiarity with their Landlords which Andrenio judged for an ill omen that presaged som future disaster But Proteus informed him and bid him not to wonder at this for that these had not been the antient Inhabitants of the City which Pythagoras in honour of his foolish opinion supposed to be the Souls of evil livers whom God for a just punishment had transmigrated into the Bodies of these irrational Creatures making their being now the same with theirs since their death whose actions they so fully imitated in their life the scarlet Souls of cruel Tyrants he transfued into Tygers the Proud into the Lions Skin and the Souls of the dishonest to animate the Boar but Souls of Artisans Mechanicks especially those that make our Cloaths were covered with Crows feathers for they having always used to say to their Customers to morrow it shall be done to morrow without fail hath aptly in punishment thereof put the same term into their Mouths that continual Cras Cras Cras signifies to morrow a time which eternity it self shall never overtake But having passed the Suburbs into the heart and middle of the City they saw most stately Palaces magnificent Buildings the first of which they said was Solomon's Seraglio before any asked the question for there he lay slumbering amidst of his Three hundred Concubines making Hell with these Sports and Pastimes equivocate a Paradise in one House which seemed a Fortress but was no other then a tottering Cottage founded on an unstabled Sand sate Hercules made effeminate spinning with his Omphale the shirt or winding-sheet of his dying Fame at the same Window peeped out Sardanapalus dressed in Womans habit and attire and Marc Anthony not far from him unhappy Man whose Fortune was both told and made by a Gipsie In another ruinous Castle did not live but died the Goth Roderigo since whose time the Nobles have been fatal to Spain Another Palace there was half Gold half Dirt cemented with Humane Bloud this was the House of extravagant Nero whose Reign began with the mild calm of a prodigious Clemency but ended with a storm of bloudy Cruelty within the next room sate Pedro the Cruel mad and enraged grating his Teeth and crackling Bones with anger There were other Edifices erecting in all haste but none could tell as yet for whom they were though diversly reported by the World certain it is not for the enjoyment of those whose pains and cost raised the Structure but for the possession of others who perhaps as yet unborn will reap the fruits of anothers labour but one in a green Coat standing by told them that in this part of the World live the deceived and in the other the deceivers these laugh at the others and the others at them again but at the end of the year they ballanced Accounts one having no more cause to laugh than the other Andrenio being weary of the company of the deceived The Deceivers deceived desired to see all and to divert his humour would needs pass to the quarters of the deceivers so that proceeding forward they found none but Merchants shops and those dark having no other but False which they called Shop-lights to set off their counterfeit Ware others sold false Teeth and Peruwigs and all sorts of Habits and disguises for Comedians There was one Shop full of nothing but Foxes skins which the cunning Citizen swore that they were more in demand and in esteem than the best Sables which they easily believed when they perceived the Shop so well customed by the famous Themistocles and other modern Heroes of our time It was really the only Fur in fashion here for want of the Lions skin which was grown a scarce Commodity because it was not in demand and it is said that the subtlest and greatest Polititians used to line their Garments therewith instead of Ermines In another Shop they sold Spectacles by the Whole-sale to blind Men so as neither to see nor to be seen and these were all Grandees who bought them for to blind their Porters which carried them on their Shoulders that they might be the more tractable and quiet as they do Horses to make them stand still The married Wives bought them up a pace to blind their Husbands with and to make them believe they loved them more than they did some were like multiplying Glasses which were of all sorts and sizes for Young and Old Men and Women and these were the dearest because most in demand another Shop was full of Cork heels to raise men in their Stature and make them seem more Personable than they are But that which most pleased Andrenio was to see Gloves an unknown invention and a novelty to him What means this said he these seem to be an useful contrivance for all occasions against the Heat and Cold the Sun and Air nay they are very convenient for those who have nothing else to do were it only to put them off and on Above all said Critilo they take most excellently a Perfume and is the cheapest way to conserve rich smells How well you understand it replied the Glover if you had said they serve to mask the Fingers that they should not behold the hands you had hit the difficulty for there are those who catch at their Prey with Gloves on How can that be said Critilo for that is against the Proverb The Proverb said he alas Sir all Proverbs now either lie or are belied for there are Gamesters now adays that hunt in Gloves and though the Proverb says the mousing Cat preys not with Mittens it here meets an exception and let me tell you that more is given now for Gloves than formerly for Cloaths Reach me one said Critilo that I may try it Having thus past the Streets of Hypocrisie Ostentation and Artifice they came at last to the Market-place on which was erected a famous Palace overtopping all the rest and situated in the Heart and Centre of the City it was spacious but not uniform nor of equal proportion but all angles and confusion had no prospect nor equality many Gates it had but all false and those shut and more Towers and Pinnacles than Babilon it self The Windows were green a grateful colour to the sight promising fair and deceiving most Here lived or rather lay undiscovered that hidden Monarch of the World who one day appeared in publick to honour certain Feasts which he had dedicated to the deceived Vulgar to whom it was not permitted to argue or ask questions His sacred Majesty sate retired under the cautious