all things included And therefore to lament and take on that we shall not be alive a hundred Years hence is the same Folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred Years ago Death is the beginning of another Life So did we weep and so much it cost us to enter into this and so did we put off our former Veil in entring into it Nothing can be grievous that is but once and is it reasonable so long to fear a thing that will so soon be dispatch'd Long Life and short are by Death made all one for there is no long nor short to things that are no more Aristotle tells us that there are certain little Beasts upon the Banks of the River Hypanis that never live above a day they which dye at eight of the Clock in the Morning dye in their Youth and those that dye at five in the Evening in their extreamest Age which of us would not laugh to see this Moment of Continuance put into the consideration of Weal or Woe The most and the least of ours in comparison of Eternity or yet to the Duration of Mountains Rivers Stars Trees and even of some Animals is no less ridiculous But Nature compells us to it Go out of this World says she as you enter'd into it the same Pass you made from Death to Life without Passion or Fear the same after the same manner repeat from Life to Death Your Death is a part of the Order of the Universe 't is a part of the Life of the World inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi curores vitai lampada tradunt Mortals amongst themselves by turns do live And Life's bright Torch to the next Runner give 'T is the Condition of your Creation Death is a part of you and whilst you endeavour to evade it you avoid your selves This very Being of yours that you now enjoy is equally divided betwixt Life and Death The day of your Birth is one days advance towards the Grave Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit The Hour that gave of Life the benefit Did also a whole Hour shorten it Nascentes morimur finisque ab origine pendet As we are born we dye and our Life's end Upon our Life's beginning does depend All the whole time you live you purloin from Life and live at the expence of Life it self the perpetual work of our whole Life is but to lay the foundation of Death you are in Death whilst you live because you still are after Death when you are no more alive Or if you had rather have it so you are dead after Life but dying all the while you live and Death handles the dying much more rudely than the dead If you have made your profit of Life you have had enough of it go your way satisfied Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis Why should'st thou not go like a full gorg'd Guest Sated with Life as he is with a Feast If you have not known how to make the best use of it and if it was unprofitable to you what need you care to lose it to what end would you desire longer to keep it cur amplius addere quaeris Rursum quod pereat malè ingratum occidat omne And why renew thy time to what intent Live o're again a Life that was ill spent Life in it self is neither good nor evil it is the Scene of good or evil as you make it and if you have liv'd a day you have seen all one day is equal and like to all other dayes there is no other Light no other other Shade this very Sun this Moon these very Stars this very Order and Revolution of things is the same your Ancestors enjoy'd and that shall also entertain your Posterity Non alium videre patres aliumve nepotes Aspicient Your Grandsires saw no other things of old Nor shall your Nephews other things behold And come the worst that can come the distribution and variety of all the Acts of my Comedy is perform'd in a Year If you have observ'd the Revolution of the four Seasons they comprehend the Infancy Youth Virility and old Age of the World The Year has play'd his part and knows no other way has no new Farce but must begin and repeat the same again it will always be the same thing Versamur ibidem atque insumus usque Where still we plot and still contrive in vain For in the same state still we do remain Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus By its own footstepts led the Year doth bring Both ends together in an annual Ring Time is not resolv'd to create you any new Recreations Nam tibi praeterea quod machiner inveniamque Quod placeat nihil est eadem sunt omnia semper More Pleasures than are made Time will not frame For to all times all things shall be the same Give place to others as others have given place to you Equality is the Soul of Equity Who can complain of being comprehended in the same Destiny wherein all things are involv'd Besides live as long as you can you shall by that nothing shorten the space you are to lye dead in the Grave 't is all to no purpose you shall be every whit as long in the condition you so much fear as if you had died at Nurse licet quotvis vivendo vincere secla Mors aeterna tamen nihilominus illa manebit And live as many Ages as you will Death ne'rtheless shall be eternal still And yet I will place you in such a condition as you shall have no reason to be displeased In vera nescis nullum fore marte alium te Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum Stansque jacentem When dead a living self thou can'st not have Or to lament or trample on thy grave Nor shall you so much as wish for the Life you are so concern'd about Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum Life nor our selves we wish in that Estate Nor Thoughts of what we were unrest create Death were less to be fear'd than nothing if there could be any thing less than nothing multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum Si minus esse potest quam quod nihil esse videmus If less than nothing any thing can shew Death then would both appear and would be so Neither can it any way concern you whether you are living or dead living by reason that you are still in being dead because you are no more Moreover no one dies before his Hour and the Time you leave behind was no more yours than that was laps'd and gone before you came into the World nor does it any more concern you Respice enim quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas Temporis aeterni fuerit Look back
is neither Evil nor Torment of it self but only that our Fancy gives it that Quality and makes it so it is in us to change and alter it and it being in our own choice if there be no constraint upon us we must certainly be very strange Fools to take Arms for that side which is most offensive to us and to give Sickness Want and contempt a nauseous tast if it be in our power to give them a more graceful Relish and if Fortune simply providing the matter 't is for us to give it the form Now that which we call Evil is not so of it self or at least to that degree that we make it and that it depends upon us to give it another tast or complexion for all comes to one let us examine how that can be maintain'd If the original being of those things we fear had power to lodge themselves in us by their own authority it would then lodge it self alike and in like manner in all for Men are all of the same kind and saving in greater and less proportions are all provided with the same utensils and instruments to conceive and to judge but the diversity of opinions we have of those things does clearly evidence that they only enter us by composition One particular Person peradventure admits them in their true being but a thousand others give them a new and contrary being in them We hold Death Poverty and Grief for our principal Enemies but this Death which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things who does not know that others call it the only secure Harbour from the Storms and Tempests of Life The Soveraign good of Nature the sole Support of Liberty and the Common and sudden Remedy of all Evils And as the one expect it with Fear and Trembling the other support it with greater Ease than Life That Blade complains of its facility Mors utinam pavidos vitae subducere nolles Sed virtus te sola daret O Death I would thou wouldst the Coward spare That but the daring none might the conferr But let us leave these Glorious Courages Theodorus answer'd Lysimachus who threatned to Kill him thou wilt do a brave thing said he to arrive at the force of a Cantharides The greatest part of Philosophers are observ'd to have either purposely prevented or hastned and assisted their own Death How many ordinary people do we see led to Execution and that not to a simple Death but mixt with Shame and sometimes with grievous Torments appear with such assurance what through obstinacy or natural simplicity that a Man can discover no change from their ordinary condition Setling their Domestick affairs recommending them to their Friends Singing Preaching and Diverting the People so much as sometimes to Sally into Jests and to Drink to their Companions as well as Socrates One that they were leading to the Gallows told them they must not carry him through such a Street lest a Merchant that lived there should Arrest him by the way for an old Debt Another told the Hangman he must not touch his Neck for fear of making him Laugh he was so Ticklish Another answer'd his Confessor who promised him he should that day Sup with our Lord. Do you go then said he in my Room for I for my part keep fast to day Another having call'd for Drink and the Hangman having Drank first said he would not Drink after him for fear of catching the Pox. Every body has heard the Tale of the Picard to whom being upon the Ladder they presented a Whore telling him as our Law does sometimes permit that if he would Marry her they would save his Life he having a while considered her and perceiving that she Halted Come tye up tye up said he she limps And they tell another Story of the same kind of a fellow in Denmark who being condemn'd to lose his Head and the like condition being propos'd to him upon the Scaffold refus'd it by reason the Maid they offer'd him had hollow Cheeks and too sharp a Nose A Servant at Tholouse being accus'd of Heresie for the summ of his Belief referr'd himself to that of his Master a young Student Prisoner with him choosing rather to dye than suffer himself to be perswaded that his Master could err We read that of the inhabitants of Arras when Lewis the eleventh took that City a great many let themselves be Hang'd rather than they would say God Save the King And amongst that mean-soul'd race of Men the Buffoons there having been some who would not leave their Fooling at the very moment of Death He that the Hangman turn'd off the Ladder cry'd Launch the Galley an ordinary foolish saying of his and the other whom at the point of Death his Friends having laid upon a Pallet before the Fire the Physician asking him where his Pain lay betwixt the Bench and the Fire said he and the Priest to give him the extream Unction Groping for his Feet which his Pain had made him pull up to him you will find them said he at the end of my Legs To one that being present exhorted him to recommend himself to God why who goes thither said he and the other replying it will presently be your self if it be his good pleasure would I were sure to be there by to morrow Night said he do but recommend your self to him said the other and you will soon be there I were best then said he to carry my recommendations my self In the Kingdom of Narsingua to this day the Wives of their Priests are buried alive with the Bodies of their Husbands all other Wives are burnt at their Husbands Funerals which also they do not only constantly but chearfully undergo At the death of their King his Wives and Concubines his Favourites all his Officers and Domestick servants which make up a great number of people present themselves so chearfully to the Fire where his Body is burnt that they seem to take it for a singular honour to accompany their Master in death During our late War of Milan where there hapned so many takings and re-takings of Towns the people impatient of so many various changes of Fortune took such a resolution to dye that I have heard my Father say he there saw a List taken of five and twenty Masters of Families that made themselves away in one weeks time An accident somewhat resembling that of the Zanthians who being besieg'd by Brutus precipitated themselves Men Women and Children into such a furious appetite of dying that nothing can be done to evade death they did not put in practice to avoid life insomuch that Brutus had much ado to save but a very small number Every opinion is of force enough to make it self to be espoused at the expence of life The first Article of that valiant Oath that Greece took and observ'd in the Median War was that every one should sooner exchange life for death than their own Laws for
lay out all I can wrap and wring of my own rather than employ the bounty of another in any light or important occasion or necessity whatever My Friends do strangely importune me when they advise me to call in a third Person and I think it costs me little less to disengage him who is indebted to me by making use of him than to engage my self to him that owes me nothing These Conditions being remov'd provided they require of me nothing of any great trouble or care for I have renounc'd all business that requires great diligence I am easily intreated and ready to do every one the best service I can But yet I have I confess more avoided receiving than sought occasions of giving and also according to Aristotle it is more easie My Fortune has allow'd me but little to do others good withall and the little it can afford is put into a pretty close hand Had I been born a great Person I should have been ambitious to have made my self belov'd not to make my self fear'd or admired Shall I more plainly express it I should more have endeavour'd to please than to do good Cyrus very wisely and by the Mouth of a great Captain and better Philosopher prefers his Bounty and Benefits much before his Valour and Warlike Conquests And the elder Scipio wherever he would raise his Esteem sets a higher value upon his Affability and Humanity than his Prowess and Victories and has always this glorious Saying in his Mouth That he has given his Enemies as much occasion to love him as his Friends I will then say that if a man must of necessity owe something it ought to be by a more legitimate title than that whereof I am speaking to which the necessity of this miserable War compells me and not in so great a debt as that of my total Preservation both of Life and Fortune that over-whelms me I have a thousand times gone to bed at my own House with an apprehension that I should be betray'd and murther'd that very night compounding with Fortune that it might be without terror and with quick dispatch and after my Pater noster have cry'd out Impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit Shall impious Souldiers have these new plow'd Grounds What remedy 't is the Place of my Birth and most of my Ancestors have here fix'd their Affection and Name we inure our selves to whatever we are accustom'd And in so miserable a Condition as ours is Custom is a great bounty of Nature which benums our Senses to the sufferance of many evils A Civil War has this with it worse than other Wars have to make us stand Centinels in our own Houses Quam miserum porta vitam muroque tueri Vixque suae tutum viribus esse domus To ones own Walls and Gates 't is wretched sure To trust one's Life yet scarce to be secure 'T is a grievous extremity for a man to be justled in his own House The Countrey where I live is always the first in Arms and the last that lays them down and where there is never an absolute Peace Tum quoque cum pax est trepidant formidine belli quoties pacem fortuna lacessit Hac iter est bellis melius fortuna dedisset Orbe sub Eoo sedem gelidaque sub Areto Errantesque domos Oh ill built City too too near the Gaul Oh sadly scituated Place when all The World have Peace we are the spoil of War And first that are invaded happier farr Might we have liv'd in farthest North or East Or wandring Tents of Scythia than possest The edge of Italy I sometimes extract the means to fortifie my self against these Considerations from carelessness and sloth which also in some sort bring us on to resolution It oft befals me to imagine and expect mortal dangers with a kind of delight I stupidly plunge my self head-long into Death without considering or taking a view of it as into a deep and obscure Abyss which swallows me up at one leap and involves me in an instant in a profound sleep without any sense of pain And in these short and violent Deaths the Consequence that I fore-see administers more Consolation to me than the Effect does Fear They say that as Life is not better for being long so Death is better for being not long I do not so much evade being dead as I enter into confidence with dying I wrap and shrowd my self in the storm that is to blind and carry me away with the Fury of a sudden and insensible Attack Moreover what if it should fall out that as some Gardiners say that Roses and Violets spring more odoriferent near unto Garlick and Onions by reason that the last suck and imbibe all the ill odour of the Earth that these deprav'd Natures should also attract all the malignity of my Air and Climate and so render it so much better and purer by their vicinity that I should not lose all That cannot be but there may be something in this that Bounty and Goodness is more beautiful and attractive when it is rare and that Contrariety and Diversity fortifies and shuts up well-doing within it self and inflames it by the jealousie of opposition and glory Thieves and Robbers of their special favour have no particular aim at me no more have I to them I should have my hands too full Like Consciences are lodg'd under several sorts of Robes like Cruelty Disloyalty and Rapine and so much the worse as they are more mischievous to others and more secure and conceal'd in themselves under the colour of the Laws I less hate an open profess'd injury than one that is clandestine and treacherous an Enemy in Arms than an Enemy in a Gown Our Fever has seiz'd upon a Body that is not much the worse for 't There was Fire before and now 't is broke out into a Flame The noise is greater the evil much the same I casually answer such as ask me the reason of my Travels that I know very well what I fly from but not what I seek If they tell me that I may be as unhealthy amongst Strangers and that their Manners are no purer than ours I first reply that that is hard to be believ'd Tam multae scelerum facies Secondly that it is always gain to change an ill Condition for one that is uncertain and that the ills of others ought not to concern us so much as those of our own I will not here omit that I never mutiny so much against France that I am not perfectly friends with Paris that City has ever had my Heart from my infancy and it has fallen out as of excellent things that the more beautiful Cities I have seen since the more the beauty of this does still win upon my affection I love it by it self and more in its own native Being than in all the Pomp of foreign and acquir'd Embellishments I love it tenderly even to its
absolv'd of his Duty even though he had out-liv'd the other but the King of England wilfully and premeditately breaking his Faith was no more to be excus'd for deferring the Execution of his Infidelity till after his Death than Herodotus his Mason who having inviolably during the time of his Life kept the Secret of the Treasure of the King of Egypt his Master at his Death discover'd it to his Children I have taken notice of several in my time who convinc'd by their Consciences of unjustly detaining the Goods of another have endeavour'd to make amends by their Will and after their Decease but they had as good do nothing and delude themselves both in taking so much time in so pressing an Affair and also in going about to repair an Injury with so little Demonstration of Resentment and Concern They owe over and above something of their own and by how much their Payment is more strict and incommodious to themselves by so much is their Restitution more perfect just and meritorious for Penitency requires Penance but they yet do worse than these who reserve the Declaration of a mortal Animosity against their Neighbour to the last Gasp having conceal'd it all the time of their Lives before wherein they declare to have little regard of their own Honour whilst they irritate the Party offended against their Memory and less to their Conscience not having the Power even out of Respect to Death it self to make their Malice dye with them but extending the Life of their Hatred even beyond their own Unjust Judges who defer Judgment to a time wherein they can have no Knowledge of the Cause For my part I shall take Care if I can that my Death discover nothing that my Life has not first openly manifested and publickly declar'd CHAP. VIII Of Idleness AS we see some Grounds that have long lain idle and untill'd when grown rank and fertile by rest to abound with and spend their Vertue in the Product of innumerable sorts of Weeds and wild Herbs that are unprofitable and of no wholsome use and that to make them perform their true Office we are to cultivate and prepare them for such Seeds as are proper for our Service And as we see Women that without the Knowledge of Men do sometimes of themselves bring forth inanimate and formless Lumps of Flesh but that to cause a natural and perfect Generation they are to be husbanded with another kind of Seed even so it is with Wits which if not applyed to some certain Study that may fix and restrain them run into a thousand Extravagancies and are eternally roving here and there in the inextricable Labyrinth of restless Imagination Sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen ahenis Sole repercussum aut radiantis imagine Lunae Omnia per-volitat latè loca jamque sub auras Erigitur summique ferit laquearia tecti Like as the quivering Reflection Of Fountain Waters when the Morning Sun Darts on the Bason or the Moon 's pale Beam Gives Light and Colour to the captive Stream Whips with fantastick motion round the place And Walls and Roof strikes with its trembling Rays In which wild and irregular Agitation there is no Folly nor idle Fancy they do not light upon velut aegri somnia vanae Finguntur species Like sick mens Dreams that from a troubled Brain Phantasms create ridiculous and vain The Soul that has no establish'd Limit to circumscribe it loses it self as the Epigrammatist says Quisquis ubique habitat maxime nusquam habitat He that lives every where does no where live When I lately retir'd my self to my own House with a Resolution as much as possibly I could to avoid all manner of Concern in Affairs and to spend in privacy and repose the little remainder of time I have to Live I fancy'd I could not more oblige my mind than to suffer it at full leisure to entertain and divert it self which I also now hop'd it might the better be entrusted to do as being by Time and Observation become more settled and mature but I find variam semper dant otia mentem Even in the most retir'd Estate Leisure it self does various Thoughts create that quite contrary it is like a Horse that has broke from his Rider who voluntarily runs into a much more violent Career than any Horseman would put him to and creates me so many Chimaera's and fantastick Monsters one upon another without Order or Design that the better at leisure to contemplate their Strangeness and Absurdity I have begun to commit them to Writing hoping in time to make them asham'd of themselves CHAP. IX Of Lyers THere is not a Man living whom it would so little become to speak of Memory as my self for I have none at all and do not think that the World has again another so treacherous as mine My other Faculties are all very ordinary and mean but in this I think my self very singular and to such a Degree of Excellence that besides the Inconvenience I suffer by it which merits something I deserve methinks to be famous for it and to have more than a common Reputation though in truth the necessary 〈◊〉 of Memory consider'd Plato had Reason when he call'd it a great and powerful Goddess In my Country when they would decipher a Man that has no Sence they say such a one has no Memory and when I complain of mine they seem not to believe I am in earnest and presently reprove me as tho I accus'd my self for a Fool not discerning the Difference betwixt Memory and Understanding wherein they are very wide of my Intention and do me Wrong Experience rather daily shewing us on the contrary that a strong Memory is commonly coupled with infirm Judgment and they do me moreover who am so perfect in nothing as the good Friend at the same time a greater Wrong in this that they make the same Words which accuse my Infirmity represent me for an ingrateful Person wherein they bring my Integrity and good Nature into Question upon the account of my Memory and from a natural Imperfection unjustly derive a defect of Conscience He has forgot says one this Request or that Promise he no more remembers his Friends he has forgot to say or do or to conceal such and such a thing for my sake And truly I am apt enough to forget many things but to neglect any thing my Friend has given me in charge I never do it And it should be enough methinks that I feel the Misery and Inconvenience of it without branding me with Malice a Vice so much a Stranger and so contrary to my Nature However I derive these Comforts from my Infirmity first that it is an Evil from which principally I have found reason to correct a worse that would easily enough have grown upon me namely Ambition this Defect being intolerable in those who take upon them the Negotiations of the World an Employment of the greatest Honour
envious of the Grandeurs here below Vsque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam Obterit pulcros Fasces saevasque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur By which it does appear a Power unseen Rome's awful Fasces and her Axes keen Spurns under foot and plainly does despise Of humane Power the vain Formalities And it should seem also that Fortune sometimes lies in wait to surprize the last Hour of our Lives to shew the Power she has in a Moment to overthrow what she was so many Years in building making us cry out with Laberius Nimirum hac die una plus vixi mihi quà m vivendum fuit I have liv'd longer by this one day than I ought to have done And in this Sense this good Advice of Solon may reasonably be taken but he being a Philosopher with which sort of Men the Favours and Disgraces of Fortune stand for nothing either to the making a Man happy or unhappy and with whom Grandeurs and Powers Accidents of Quality are upon the Matter indifferent I am apt to think that he had some further Aim and that his meaning was that the very Felicity of Life it self which depends upon the Tranquillity and Contentment of a well-descended Spirit and the Resolution and Assurance of a well-order'd Soul ought never to be attributed to any Man till he has first been seen to play the last and doubtless the hardest act of his Part because there may be Disguise and Dissimulation in all the rest where these fine Philosophical Discourses are only put on and where Accidents do not touch us to the Quick they give us leisure to maintain the same sober Gravity but in this last Scene of Death there is no more counterfeiting we must speak plain and must discover what there is of pure and clean in the bottom Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo Ejiciuntur eripitur persona manet res Then then at last Truth issues from the Heart The Vizor's gone we act our own true part Wherefore at this last all the other Actions of our Life ought to be tryed and sifted 'T is the Master-day 't is the day that is judge of all the rest 'T is the Day says one of the Ancients that ought to be judge of all my foregoing Years To Death do I refer the Essay of the Fruit of all my Studies We shall then see whether my Discourses came only from my Mouth or from my Heart I have seen many by their Death give a good or an ill Repute to their whole Life Scipio the Father-in-law of Pompey the great in dying well wip'd away the ill Opinion that till then every one had conceiv'd of him Epaminondas being ask'd which of the three he had in greatest esteem Chabrias Iphicrates or himself You must first see us die said he before that Question can be resolv'd and in truth he would infinitely wrong that great Man who would weigh him without the Honour and Grandeur of his End God Almighty has order'd all things as it has best pleas'd him But I have in my time seen three of the most execrable Persons that ever I knew in all manner of abominable living and the most infamous to boot who all dyed a very regular Death and in all Circumstances compos'd even to Perfection There are brave and fortunate Deaths I have seen Death cut the Thread of the Progress of a prodigious Advancement and in the height and Flower of its encrease of a certain Person with so glorious an end that in my Opinion his Ambitious and generous Designs had nothing in them so high and great as their Interruption and he arriv'd without compleating his course at the Place to which his Ambition pretended with greater Glory than he could himself either hope or desire and anticipated by his Fall the Name and Power to which he aspir'd by perfecting his Career In the Judgment I make of another man's Life I always observe how he carried himself at his Death and the principal Concern I have for my own is that I may dye handsomly that is patiently and without noise CHAP. XIX That to study Philosophy is to learn to dye CIcero says That to study Philosophy is nothing but to prepare a Man's self to dye The reason of which is because Study and Contemplation do in some sort withdraw from us and deprive us of our Souls and employ it separately from the Body which is a kind of Learning to dye and a resemblance of Death or else because all the Wisdom and reasoning in the World does in the end conclude in this Point to teach us not to fear to dye And to say the Truth either our Reason does grosly abuse us or it ought to have no other Aim but our Contentment only nor to endeavour any thing but in Sum to make us live well and as the Holy Scripture says at our Ease All the Opinions of the World agree in this That Pleasure is our end though we make use of divers means to attain unto it they would otherwise be rejected at the first motion for who would give Ear to him that should propose Affliction and Misery for his end The Controversies and Disputes of the Philosophical Sects upon this Point are merely verbal Transcurramus solertissimas nugas Let us skip over those learned and subtle Fooleries and Trifles there is more in them of Opposition and Obstinacy than is consistent with so sacred a Profession but what kind of Person soever Man takes upon him to personate he over-mixes his own part with it and let the Philosophers all say what they will the main thing at which we all aim even in Virtue it self is Pleasure It pleases me to rattle in their Ears this Word which they so nauseate to hear and if it signifie some supream Pleasure and excessive Delight it is more due to the Assistance of Vertue than to any other Assistance whatever This Delight for being more gay more sinewy more robust and more manly is only to be more seriously voluptuous and we ought to give it the Name of Pleasure as that which is more benign gentle and natural and not that of Vigour from which we have deriv'd it the other more mean and sensual part of Pleasure if it could deserve this fair Name it ought to be upon the Account of Concurrence and not of Priviledge I find it less exempt from Traverses and Inconveniences than Vertue it self and besides that the Enjoyment is more momentary fluid and frail it has its Watchings Fasts and Labours even to Sweat and Blood and moreover has particular to it self so many several sorts of sharp and wounding Passions and so stupid a Saciety attending it as are equal to the severest Penance And we mistake to think that Difficulties should serve it for a Spur and a seasoning to its Sweetness as in Nature one Contrary is quickned by another and to say when we
come to Vertue that like Consequences and Difficulties overwhelm and render it austere and inaccessible whereas much more aptly than in Voluptuousness they enable sharpen and heighten the perfect and divine Pleasure they procure us He renders himself unworthy of it who will counterpoise his Expence with the Fruit and does neither understand the Blessing nor how to use it Those who Preach to us that the quest of it is craggy difficult and painful but the Fruition pleasant and grateful what do they mean by that but to tell us that it is always unpleasing The most perfect have been forc'd to content themselves to aspire unto it and to approach it only without ever possessing it But they are deceiv'd and do not take notice that of all the Pleasures we know the very Pursuit is pleasant The Attempt ever relishes of the quality of the thing to which it is directed for it is a good part of and consubstantial with the Effect The Felicity and Beatitude that glitters in Vertue shines throughout all her Apartments and Avenues even to the first Entry and utmost Pale and Limits Now of all the Benefits that Vertue confers upon us the Contempt of Death is one of the greatest as the means that accommodates Humane Life with a soft and easie Tranquillity and gives us a pure and pleasant Taste of Living without which all other pleasure would be extinct which is the Reason why all the Rules by which we are to live center and concur in this one Article And altho they all in like manner with one consent endeavour to teach us also to despise Grief Poverty and the other Accidents to which humane Life by its own Nature and Constitution is subjected it is not nevertheless with the same Importunity as well by reason the fore-named Accidents are not of so great necessity the greater part of Mankind passing over their whole Lives without ever knowing what Poverty is and some without Sorrow or Sickness as Xenophilus the Musician who liv'd a hundred and six Years in a perfect and continual Health as also because at the worst Death can whenever we please cut short and put an end to all these Inconveniences But as to Death it is inevitable Omnes eodem cogimur omnium Versatur Vrna serius ocius Sors exitura nos in aeternum exilium impositura Cymbae We all are to one Voyage bound by turn Sooner or later all must to the Urn When Charon calls aboard we must not stay But to eternal Exile sail away And consequently if it frights us 't is a perpetual Torment and for which there is no Consolation nor Redress There is no way by which we can possibly avoid it it commands all Points of the Compass we may continually turn our Heads this way and that and pry about as in a suspected Country quae quasi saxum Tantalo semper impendet but it like Tantalus his Stone hangs over us Our Courts of Justice often send back condemn'd Criminals to be executed upon the Place where the Fact was committed but carry them to all fine Houses by the way and prepare for them the best Entertainment you can non Sicula Dapes Dulcem elaborabunt saporem Non Avium Citharaeque cantus Somnum reducent the tasts of such as these Choicest Sicilian Dainties cannot please Nor yet of Birds or Harps the Harmonies Once charm asleep or close their watchful Eyes do you think they could relish it and that the fatal end of their Journey being continually before their Eyes would not alter and deprave their Pallat from tasting these Regalio's Audit iter numeratque dies spatioque viarum Metitur vitam torquetur peste futura He time and space computes by length of ways Sums up the number of his few sad dayes And his sad thoughts full of his fatal doom Can dream of nothing but the blow to come The end of our Race is Death 't is the necessary Object of our aim which if it fright us how is it possible to advance a step without a Fit of an Ague the Remedy the Vulgar use is not to think on 't but from what bruitish stupidity can they derive so gross a blindness They must bridle the Ass by the Tayl. Qui capite ipse suo instituit vestigia retro He who the order of his steps has laid To light and natural motion retrograde 't is no wonder if he be often trap'd in the Pitfall They use to fright People with the very mention of Death and many cross themselves as it were the name of the Devil and because the making a mans Will is in reference to dying not a man will be perswaded to take a Pen in hand to that purpose till the Physician has pass'd sentence upon him and totally given him over and then betwixt Grief and Terror God knows in how fit a condition of Understanding he is to do it The Romans by reason that this poor syllable Death was observ'd to be so harsh to the Ears of the People and the sound so ominous had found out a way to soften and spin it out by a Periphrasis and instead of pronouncing bluntly such a one is dead to say such a one has liv'd or such a one has ceas'd to live for provided there was any mention of Life in the case though past it carried yet some sound of Consolation And from them it is that we have borrow'd our expression of the late Monsieur such and such a one Peradventure as the Saying is the term we have liv'd is worth our money I was born betwixt eleven and twelve a clock in the Forenoon the last of February 1533. according to our Computation beginning the Year the first of January and it is now but just fifteen dayes since I was compleat nine and thirty years old I make account to live at least as many more In the mean time to trouble a mans self with the thought of a thing so far off is a sensless Foolery But what Young and Old dye after the very same manner and no one departs out of Life otherwise than if he had but just before enter'd into it neither is any so old and decrepid who has heard of Methusalem that does not think he has yet twenty years of Constitution good at least Fool that thou art who has assur'd unto thee the term of Life Thou depend'st upon Physicians Tales and Stories but rather consult Experience and the fragility of Humane Nature for according to the common course of things 't is long since that thou liv'dst by extraordinary Favour Thou hast already out-liv'd the ordinary term of Life and that it is so reckon up thy Acquaintance how many more have died before they arriv'd at thy Age than have attain'd unto it and of those who have ennobled their Lives by their Renown take but an Account and I dare lay a Wager thou wilt find more who have dyed before than after five and thirty
years of age It is full both of Reason and Piety too to take Example by the Humanity of Jesus Christ himself who ended his Life at three and thirty years The greatest man that ever was no more than a man Alexander died also at the same Age. How many several ways has Death to surprize us Quid quisque vitet nunquam homini satis Cautum est in horas Man fain would shun but 't is not in his Power T' evade the dangers of each threatning hour To omit Fevers and Pleurisies who would ever have imagin'd that a Duke of Brittany should be press'd to death in a Crowd as that Duke was at the entry of Pope Clement into Lyons Have we not seen one of our Kings kill'd at a Tilting and did not one of his Ancestors dye by the justle of a Hog Aeschylus being threatned with the fall of a house was to much purpose so circumspect to avoid that danger when he was knock'd o' th' head by a Tortoise-shell falling out of an Eagles Talons in the Fields Another was choak'd with a Grape-stone an Emperour kill'd with the scratch of a Comb in combing his Head Aemilius Lepidus with a stumble at his own threshold and Anfidius with a justle against the door as he entred the Council Chamber And betwixt the very Thighs of Women Cornelius Gallus the Praetor Tigillinus Captain of the Watch at Rome Ludovico Son of Guido de Gonzaga Marquis of Mantua and of worse example Spensippus a Platonick Philosopher and one of our Popes The poor Judge Bebius whilst he repriev'd a Criminal for eight dayes only was himself condemn'd to death and his own day of Life was expir'd Whilst Caius Julius the Physician was anointing the Eyes of a Patient Death clos'd his own and if I may bring in an Example of my own Blood A Brother of mine Captain St. Martin a young man of three and twenty years old who had already given sufficient testimony of his Valour playing a match at Tennis receiv'd a blow of a Ball a little above his right Ear which though it was without any manner of sign of Wound or depression of the Skull and though he took no great notice of it nor so much as sate down to repose himself he nevertheless died within five or six hours after of an Apoplexy occasion'd by that blow Which so frequent and common Examples passing every day before our Eyes how is it possible a man should disingage himself from the thought of Death or avoid fancying that it has us every moment by the Collar What matter is it you will say which way it comes to pass provided a man does not terrifie himself with the expectation For my part I am of this mind that if a man could by any means avoid it though by creeping under a Calves skin I am one that should not be ashamed of the shift all I aim at is to pass my time pleasantly and without any great Reproach and the Recreations that most contribute to it I take hold of as to the rest as little glorious and exemplary as you would desire praetulerim delirus inersque videri Dum mea delectant mala me vel denique fallant Quà m sapere ringi A Fool or Coward let me censur'd be Whilst either Vice does please or cozen me Rather than be thought wise and feel the smart Of a perpetual aking anxious Heart But 't is folly to think of doing any thing that way They go they come they gallop and dance and not a word of Death All this is very fine but withall when it comes either to themselves their Wives their Children or Friends surprizing them at unawares and unprepar'd then what torment what out-cries what madness and despair Did you ever see any thing so subdu'd so chang'd and so confounded A man must therefore make more early tryal of it and this bruitish negligence could it possibly lodge in the Brain of any man of Sense which I think utterly impossible sells us its merchandize too dear Were it an Enemy that could be avoided I would then advise to borrow Arms even of Cowardize it self to that effect but seeing it is not and that it will catch you as well flying and playing the Poltron as standing to 't like a man of Honour Nempe fugacem persequitur virum Nec parcit umbellis juventae Poplitibus timidoque tergo No speed of foot prevents Death of his prize He cuts the Hamstrings of the man that flies Nor spares the tender Stripling 's back does start T' out-run the distance of his mortal Dart. And seeing that no temper of Arms is of proof to secure us Ille licet ferro cautus se condat aere Mors tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput Shell thee with Steel or Brass advis'd by dread Death from the Cask will pull the cautious Head let us learn bravely to stand our ground and fight him And to begin to deprive him of the greatest Advantage he has over us let us take a way quite contrary to the common course Let us disarm him of his Novelty and Strangeness let us converse and be familiar with him and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as Death Let us upon occasions represent him in all his most dreadful shapes to our imagination at the stumbling of a Horse at the falling of a Tile at the lest prick with a Pin let us presently consider and say to our selves Well and what if it had been Death it self and thereupon let us encourage and fortifie our selves Let us evermore amidst our jollity and Feasting set the remembrance of our frail condition before our Eyes never suffering our selves to be so far transported with our Delight but that we have some intervals of reflecting upon and considering how many several wayes this Jollity of ours tends to Death and with how many dangers it threatens it The Egyptians were wont to do after this manner who in the height of their Feasting and Mirth caus'd a dried Skeleton of a Man to be brought into the Room to serve for a Memento to their Guests Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora. Think every day soon as the day is past Of thy Lives date that thou hast liv'd the last The next day's joyful Light thine Eyes shall see As unexpected will more welcome be Where Death waits for us is uncertain let us every where look for him The Premeditation of Death is the Premeditation of Liberty who has learnt to dye has forgot to serve There is nothing of Evil in Life for him who rightly comprehends that Death is no Evil to know how to dye delivers us from all Subjection and Constraint Paulus Aemylius answer'd him whom the miserable King of Macedon his Prisoner sent to entreat him that he would not lead him in his Triumph Let him make that Request to himself In truth in all things if
Nature do not help a little it is very hard for Art and Industry to perform any thing to purpose I am in my own Nature not melancholick but thoughtful and there is nothing I have more continually entertain'd my self withall than the Imaginations of Death even in the gayest and most wanton time of my Age. Jucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret Of florid Age in the most pleasant Spring In the Company of Ladies and in the height of Mirth some have perhaps thought me possess'd with some Jealousie or meditating upon the Uncertainty of some imagin'd Hope whilst I was entertaining my self with the Remembrance of some one surpriz'd a few days before with a burning Fever of which he died returning from an Entertainment like this with his Head full of idle Fancies of Love and Jollity as mine was then and that for ought I knew the same Destiny was attending me Jam fuerit nec post unquam revocare licebit But now he had a Being amongst Men Now gone and ne're to be recall'd agen Yet did not this Thought wrinkle my Forehead any more than any other It is impossible but we must feel a sting in such Imaginations as these at first but with often revolving them in a Man's Mind and having them frequent in our Thoughts they at last become so familiar as to be no trouble at all otherwise I for my Part should be in a perpetual Fright and Frenzy for never Man was so distrustful of his Life never Man so indifferent for its Duration Neither Health which I have hitherto ever enjoyed very strong and vigorous and very seldom interrupted does prolong nor Sickness contract my Hopes Methinks I scape every minute and it eternally runs in my Mind that what may be done to morrow may be done to day Hazards and Dangers do in truth little or nothing hasten our end and if we consider how many more remain and hang over our Heads besides the Accident that immediately threatens us we shall find that the Sound and the Sick those that are abroad at Sea and those that sit by the Fire those who are engag'd in Battel and those who sit idle at home are the one as near it as the other Nemo altero fragilior est nemo in crastinum sui certior No Man is more frail than another no more certain of the morrow For any thing I have to do before I dye the longest leisure would appear too short were it but an Hours Business I had to do A Friend of mine the other day turning over my Table-Book found in it a Memorandum of something I would have done after my Decease whereupon I told him as it was really true that though I was no more than a League 's distance only from my own House and merry and well yet when that thing came into my Head I made haste to write it down there because I was not certain to live till I came home As a man that am eternally brooding over my own thoughts and who confine them to my own particular Concerns I am upon the matter at all hours as well prepar'd as I am ever like to be and Death whenever he shall come can bring nothing along with him I did not expect long before We should alwayes as near as we can be booted and spurr'd and ready to go and above all things to take care at that time to have no business with any one but a man's self Quid brevi fortes jaculamur aevo Multa Why cut'st thou out such mighty Work vain man Whose Life 's short date 's compriz'd in one poor span For we shall there find work enough to do without any need of Addition One complains more than of Death that he is thereby prevented of a glorious Victory another that he must dye before he has married his Daughter or settled and provided for his Children a third seems only troubled that he must lose the society of his beloved Wife a fourth the conversation of his Son as the principal Concerns of his Being For my part I am thanks be to God at this instant in such a condition that I am ready to dislodge whenever it shall please him without any manner of regret I disengage my self throughout from all Worldly Relations my leave is soon taken of all but my self Never did any one prepare to bid adieu to the World more absolutely and purely and to shake hands with all manner of Interest in it than I expect to do The deadest Deaths are the best miser o miser aiunt omnia ademit Vna dies infesta mihi tot praemia vitae Wretch that I am they cry one fatal day So many joyes of Life has snatch'd away And the Builder manent dit il opera interrupta minaeque Murorum ingentes aequataque machina Coelo Stupendious Piles says he neglected lie And Tow'rs whose Pinacles do pierce the Sky A man must design nothing that will require so much time to the finishing or at least with no such passionate desire to see it brought to Perfection We are born to action Cum moriar medium solvar inter opus When Death shall come he me will doubtless find Doing of something that I had design'd I would alwayes have a man to be doing and as much as in him lies to extend and spin out the Offices of Life and then let Death take me planting Cabages but without any careful thought of him and much less of my Garden 's not being finished I saw one dye who at his last gasp seem'd to be concern'd at nothing so much as that Destiny was about to cut the thread of a Chronicle History he was then compiling when he was gone no farther than the fifteenth or sixteenth of our Kings Illud in his rebus non addunt nec tibi earum Jam desiderium rerum superinsidet una They tell us not that dying we 've no more The same desires and thoughts that heretofore We are to discharge our selves from these vulgar and hurtful Humours and Concerns To this purpose it was that men first appointed the places of Sepulture and Dormitories of the dead near adjoyning to the Churches and in the most frequent places of the City to accustom sayes Licurgus the common People Women and Children that they should not be startled at the sight of a dead Corse and to the end that the continual Objects of Bones Graves Monuments and Funeral Obsequies should put us in mind of our frail condition Quinetiam exhilerare viris convivia caede Mos olim misere epulis spectacula dira Certatum ferro saepe super ipsa cadentum Pocula respersis non parco sanguine mensis 'T was therefore that the Ancients at their Feasts With tragick Objects us'd to treat their Guests Making their Fencers with their utmost spite Skill Force and Fury in their presence fight Till streams of Blood of those at last must fall Dash'd o're
their Tables Dishes Cups and all And as the Egyptians after their Feasts were wont to present the Company with a great Image of Death by one that cry'd out to them Drink and be merry for such shalt thou be when thou art dead so it is my Custom to have Death not only in my Imagination but continually in my Mouth neither is there any thing of which I am so inquisitive and delight to inform my self as the manner of mens Deaths their Words Looks and Gestures nor any places in History I am so intent upon and it is manifest enough by my crowding in Examples of this kind that I have a particular fancy for that Subject If I were a Writer of Books I would compile a Register with a Comment of the various Deaths of men and it could not but be useful for who should teach men to dye would at the same time teach them to live Dicearchus made one to which he gave that Title but it was design'd for another and less profitable end Peradventure some one may object and say that the pain and terror of dying indeed does so infinitely exceed all manner of imagination that the best Fencer will be quite out of his Play when it comes to the Push but let them say what they will to premeditate is doubtless a very great Advantage and besides is it nothing to come so far at least without any visible Disturbance or Alteration But moreover Nature her self does assist and encourage us If the Death be sudden and violent we have not leisure to fear if otherwise I find that as I engage further in my Disease I naturally enter into a certain loathing and disdain of Life I find I have much more ado to digest this Resolution of dying when I am well in Health than when sick languishing of a Fever and by how much I have less to do with the Commodities of Life by reason I even begin to lose the use and Pleasure of them by so much I look upon Death with less Terror and Amazement which makes me hope that the further I remove from the first and the nearer I approach to the latter I shall sooner strike a Bargain and with less Unwillingness exchange the one for the other And as I have experimented in other Occurrences that as Caesar says things often appear greater to us at distance than near at hand I have found that being well I have had Diseases in much greater Horror than when really afflicted with them The Vigour wherein I now am and the Jollity and Delight wherein I now live make the contrary Estate appear in so great a disproportion to my present condition that by imagination I magnifie and make those inconveniences twice greater than they are and apprehend them to be much more troublesome than I find them really to be when they lie the most heavy upon me and I hope to find Death the same Let us but observe in the ordinary changes and Declinations our Constitutions daily suffer how Nature deprives us of all sight and sense of our bodily decay What remains to an old man of the vigour of his Youth and better days Heu senibus vitae portio quanta manet Alas to men of youthful Heat bereft How small a Portion of Life is left Caesar to an old weather-beaten Souldier of his Guards who came to ask him leave that he might kill himself taking notice of his wither'd Body and decrepid motion pleasantly answer'd Thou fanciest then that thou art yet alive Should a man fall into the Aches and impotencies of Age from a spritely and vigorous Youth on the sudden I do not think Humanity capable of enduring such a change but Nature leading us by the hand an easie and as it were an insensible pace step by step conducts us to that miserable condition and by that means makes it familiar to us so that we perceive not nor are sensible of the stroak then when our Youth dies in us though it be really a harder Death than the final Dissolution of a languishing Body which is only the Death of old Age forasmuch as the Fall is not so great from an uneasie Being to none at all as it is from a spritely and florid Being to one that is unweildy and painful The Body when bow'd beyond its natural spring of Strength has less Force either to rise with or support a Burthen and it is with the Soul the same and therefore it is that we are to raise her up firm and erect against the Power of this Adversary for as it is impossible she should ever be at rest or at Peace within her self whilst she stands in fear of it so if she once can assure her self she may boast which is a thing as it were above Humane Condition that it is impossible that Disquiet Anxiety or Fear or any other Disturbance should inhabit or have any Place in her Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus A Soul well settled is not to be shook With an incensed Tyrant's threatning Look Nor can loud Auster once that Heart dismay The ruffling Prince of stormy Adria Nor yet th' advanced hand of mighty Jove Though charg'd with Thunder such a Temper move She is then become Sovereign of all her Lusts and Passions Mistress of Necessity Shame Poverty and all the other Injuries of Fortune Let us therefore as many of us as can get this Advantage which is the true and sovereign Liberty here on Earth and that fortifies us wherewithall to defie Violence and Injustice and to contemn Prisons and Chains in Manicis Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo Ipse Deus simul atque volam me solvet opinor Hoc sentit moriar mors ultima linea verum est With rugged Chains I 'll load thy Hands and Feet And to a surly Keeper thee commit Why let him shew his worst of Cruelty God will I think for asking set me free Ay but he thinks I 'll dye that Comfort brings For Death 's the utmost Line of Humane things Our very Religion it self has no surer humane Foundation than the Contempt of Death Not only the Argument of Reason invites us to it for why should we fear to lose a thing which being lost can never be miss'd or lamented But also seeing we are threatned by so many sorts of Death is it not infinitely worse eternally to fear them all than once to undergo one of them And what matter is it when it shall happen since it is once inevitable To him that told Socrates the thirty Tyrants have sentenc'd thee to Death and Nature them said he What a ridiculous thing it is to trouble and afflict our selves about taking the only Step that is to deliver us from all Misery and Trouble As our Birth brought us the Birth of all things so in our Death is the Death of
Estimate and Grandeur This great World which some do yet multiply as several Species under one Genus is the Mirror wherein we are to behold our selves to be able to know our selves as we ought to do In short I would have this to be the Book my young Gentleman should study with the most Attention for so many Humours so many Sects so many Judgments Opinions Laws and Customs teach us to judge aright of our own and inform our Understandings to discover their Imperfection and natural Infirmity which is no trivial Speculation So many Mutations of States and Kingdoms and so many Turns and Revolutions of publick Fortune will make us wise enough to make no great wonder of our own So many great Names so many famous Victories and Conquests drown'd and swallow'd in Oblivion render our Hopes ridiculous of eternizing our Names by the taking of half a score light Horse or a paltry Turret which only derives its Memory from its Ruine The Pride and Arrogancy of so many foreign Pomps and Ceremonies the tumorous Majesty of so many Courts and Grandeurs accustom and fortifie our Sight without Astonishment to behold and endure the lustre of our own So many millions of men buried before us encourage us not to fear to go seek so good Company in the other World and so of all the rest Pythagoras was wont to say That our Life retires to the great and populous Assembly of the Olympick Games wherein some exercise the Body that they may carry away the Glory of the Prize in those Contentions and others carry Merchandise to sell for Profit There are also some and those none of the worst sort who pursue no other Advantage than only to look on and consider how and why every thing is done and to be unactive Spectators of the Lives of other men thereby the better to judge of and to regulate their own and indeed from Examples all the Instruction couch'd in Philosophical Discourses may naturally flow to which all humane Actions as to their best Rule ought to be especially directed where a Man shall be taught to know Quid fas optare quid asper Vtile nummus habet patriae charisque propinquis Quantum elargiri deceat quem te Deus esse Jussit humana qua parte locatus es in re Quid sumus aut quidnam victuri gignimur What he may wish what 's Money 's natural use What to be liberal is and what profuse What God commands an honest Man should be And here on Earth to know in what Degree That God has plac'd thee what we are and why He gave us Being and Humanity What it is to know and what to be ignorant what ought to be the End and Design of Study what Valour Temperance and Justice are the difference betwixt Ambition and Avarice Servitude and Subjection License and Liberty by what Token a man may know the true and solid Contentation how far Death Affliction and Disgrace are to be apprehended Et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem And which way every one may know Labour t' avoid or undergo By what secret Springs we move and the Reason of our various Agitations and Irresolutions for methinks the first Doctrine with which one should season his Understanding ought to be that which regulates his Manners and his Sense that teaches him to know himself and how both well to dye and well to live Amongst the Liberal Sciences let us begin with that that makes us free not that they do not all serve in some measure to the Instruction and Use of Life as all other things in some sort also do but let us make choice of that which directly and profess'dly serves to that end If we are once able to restrain the Offices of Humane Life within their just and natural Limits we shall find that most of the Sciences in use are of no great use to us and even in those that are that there are many very unnecessary Cavities and Dilatations which we were better to let alone and following Socrates his Direction limit the Course of our Studies to those things only where a true and real Utility and Advantage are to be expected and found Sapere aude Incipe Vivendi qui recté prorogat Horam Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis at ille Labitur labetur in omne volubilis Ovum Dare to be wise begin who to their wrong The Hour of living well deferr too long Like Rustick Fools sit with a patient Eye Expecting when the murm'ring Brook runs dry Whose Springs can never fail 'till the last Fire Lick up the Ocean and the World expire 'T is a great foolery to teach our Children Quid moveant Piscis animosaque signa Leonis Lotus et Hesperia quid Capricornus aqua What influence Pisces have o're what the ray Of angry Leo bears the greatest sway Or Capricornus Province who still laves His threatning Fore-head in the Hesperian Waves the Knowledge of the Stars and the Motion of the eighth Sphere before their own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How swift the seven Sisters Motions are Or the dull Churls how slow what need I care Anaximenes writing to Pythagoras To what purpose said he should I trouble my self in searching out the Secrets of the Stars having Death or Slavery continually before my Eyes For the Kings of Persia were at that time preparing to invade his Country Every one ought to say the same Being assaulted as I am by Ambition Avarice Temerity and Superstition and having within so many other Enemies of Life shall I go cudgel my Brains about the Worlds Revolutions After having taught him what will make him more wise and good you may then entertain him with the Elements of Logick Physick Geometry and Rhetorick and the Science which he shall then himself most incline to his Judgment being before-hand form'd and fit to choose he will quickly make his own The Way of instructing him ought to be sometimes by Discourse and sometimes by reading sometimes his Governour shall put the Author himself which he shall think most proper for him into his Hands and sometimes only the Marrow and Substance of it and if himself be not conversant enough in Books to turn to all the fine Discourses the Book contains there may some Man of Learning be joyn'd to him that upon every occasion shall supply him with what he desires and stands in need of to recommend to his Pupil And who can doubt but that this way of teaching is much more easie and natural than that of Gaza In which the precepts are so intricate and so harsh and the Words so vain lean and insignificant that there is no hold to be taken of them nothing that quickens and elevates the Wit and Fancy whereas here the Mind has what to feed upon and to digest this Fruit therefore is not only without comparison much more fair and beautiful but will also
hit that they do not receive two for it of which St. Augustine gives a very great proof upon his Adversaries 'T is a Conflict that is more decided by strength of Memory than the force of Reason We are to content our selves with the Light it pleases the Sun to communicate to us by Vertue of his Rays and who will lift up his Eyes to take in a greater let him not think it strange if for the reward of his presumption he there lose his sight Quis hominum potest scire consilium Dei aut quis poterit cogitare quid vebit Dominus Who amongst Men can know the Council of God or who can think what the Will of the Lord is CHAP. XXXII That we are to avoid Pleasures even at the expence of Life I had long ago Observ'd most of the Opinions of the Ancients to concur in this That it is happy to Die when there is more ill than good in Living and that to preserve Life to our own Torment and Inconvenience is contrary to the very Rules of Nature as these old Laws instruct us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Happy is Death whenever it shall come To him to whom to Live is troublesome Whom Life does Persecute with restless Spite May Honourably bid the World good Night And infinitely better 't is to Die Than to prolong a Life of Misery But to push this Contempt of Death so far as to employ it to the removing our selves from the danger of Coveting Honours Riches Dignities and other Favours and Goods as we call them of Fortune as if Reason were not sufficient to perswade us to avoid them without adding this new Injunction I had never seen it either Enjoin'd or Practic'd till this passage of Seneca fell into my hands who advising Lucilius a Man of great Power and Authority about the Emperour to alter his Voluptuous and Magnificent way of Living and to retire himself from this Worldly Vanity and Ambition to some Solitary Quiet and Philosophical Life and the other alledging some Difficulties I am of Opinion says he either that thou leave that Life or Life it self I would indeed advise thee to the gentle way and to untie rather than to break the Knot thou hast undiscreetly Knit provided that if it be not otherwise to be unti'd then resolutely break it There is no Man so great a Coward that had not rather once fall than to be always falling I should have found this Counsel conformable enough to the Stoical Roughness But it appears the more strange for being borrowed from Epicurus who writes the same thing upon the like occasion to Idomenius And I think I have Observ'd something like it but with Christian Moderation amongst our own People St. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers that famous Enemy of the Arian Heresie being in Syria had Intelligence thither sent him that Abra his only Daughter whom he left at home under the Eye and Tuition of her Mother was sought in Marriage by the greatest Noblemen of the Country as being a Virgin Vertuously brought up Fair Rich and in the Flower of her Age whereupon he writ to her as it appears upon Record that she should remove her Affection from all these Pleasures and Advantages were propos'd unto her for he had in his Travels found out a much greater and more worthy Fortune for her a Husband of much greater Power and Magnificence that would present her with Robes and Jewels of inestimable value wherein his design was to dispossess her of the Appetite and use of Worldly Delights to join her wholely to God But the nearest and most certain way to this being as he conceiv'd the Death of his Daughter he never ceas'd by Vows Prayers and Oraizens to Beg of the Almighty that he would please to call her out of this World and to take her to himself as accordingly it came to pass for soon after his return she Died at which he exprest a singular Joy This seems to outdo the other forasmuch as he applys himself to this means at the first sight which they only take subsidiarily and besides it was towards his only Daughter But I will not omit the latter end of this Story though it be from my purpose St. Hilaries Wife having understood from him how the Death of their Daughter was brought about by his desires and design and how much happier she was to be remov'd out of this World than to have stay'd in it Conceiv'd so Lively an Apprehension of the Eternal and Heavenly Beatitude that she Begg'd of her Husband with the extreamest Importunity to do as much for her and God at their joint Request shortly after calling her to him it was a Death embrac'd on both sides with singular Content CHAP. XXXIII That Fortune is oftentimes Observed to Act by the Rule of Reason THe Inconstancy and various Motions of Fortune may reasonably make us expect she should present us with all sorts of Faces Can there be a more express Act of Justice than this The Duke of Valentenois having resolv'd to Poison Adrian Cardinal of Cornetto with whom Pope Alexander the Sixth his Father and himself were to go to Supper in the Vatican he sent before a Bottle of Poisoned Wine and withal strict Order to the Butler to keep it very safe The Pope being come before his Son and calling for Drink the Butler supposing this Wine had not been so strictly recommended to his Care but only upon the account of its Excellency presented it presently to the Pope and the Duke himself coming in presently after and being confident they had not meddled with his Bottle took also his Cup so that the Father Died immediately upon the place and the Son after having been long tormented with Sickness was reserv'd to another and a worse Fortune Sometimes she seems to play upon us just in the nick of an Affair Monsieur d' Estree at that time Guidon to Monsieur de Vendosme and Monsieur de Liques Lieutenant to the Company of the Duke of Ascot being both pretenders to the Sieur de Foungueselles his Sister though of several Parties as it oft falls out amongst Frontier Neighbours the Sieur de Liques carried her but on the same Day he was Married and which was worse before he went to Bed to his Wife the Bridegroom having a mind to break a Lance in Honour of his new Bride went out to Skirmish near to St. Omers where the Sieur d' Estree proving the stronger took him Prisoner and the more to illustrate his Victory the Lady her self was fain Conjugis ante coacta novi dimittere collum Quam veniens una atque altera rursus hyems Noctibus in longis avidum faturasset amorem Of her fair Arms the Amorous Ring to break Which clung so fast to her new Spouses Neck E're of two Winters many a friendly Night Had sated her Loves greedy Appetite to request him of Courtesie to deliver up
his Prisoner to her as he accordingly did the Gentlemen of France never denying any thing to Ladies Does she not seem to be an Artist here Constantine the Son of Hellen founded the Empire of Constantinople and so many Ages after Constantine the Son of Hellen put an end to it Sometimes she is pleas'd to Emulate our Miracles We are told that King Clouis Besieging Angoulesme the Walls fell down of themselves by Divine Favour And Bouchet has it from some Author that King Robert having sat down before a City and being stole away from the Seige to go keep the Feast of St. Aignan at Orleans as he was in Devotion at a certain place of the Mass the Walls of the beleaguered City without any manner of Violence fell down with a sudden Ruine But she did quite contrary in our Milan War for Captain Rense laying Seige to the City Verona and having carried a Mine under a great part of the Wall the Mine being sprung the Wall was lifted from its base but dropt down again nevertheless whole and entire and so exactly upon its foundation that the Besieged suffer'd no Inconvenience by that Attempt Sometimes she plays the Physician Jason Phereus being given over by the Physicians by reason of a desperate Imposthumation in his Breast having a mind to rid himself of his Pain by Death at least in a Battel threw himself desperately into the thickest of the Enemy where he was so fortunately wounded quite through the Body that the Imposthume brake and he was perfectly cur'd Did she not also excel the Painter Protogenes in his Art Who having finish'd the Picture of a Dog quite tir'd and out of breath in all the other parts excellently well to his own liking but not being able to express as he would the slaver and foam that should come out of his Mouth vext and angry at his work he took his Spunge which by cleaning his Pencils had imbib'd several sorts of Colours and threw it in a rage against the Picture with an intent utterly to deface it when Fortune guiding the Spunge to hit just upon the Mouth of the Dog it there perform'd what all his Art was not able to do Does she not sometimes direct our Counsels and correct them Isabel Queen of England being to Sail from Zeland into her own Kingdom with an Army in favour of her Son against her Husband had been lost had she come into the Port she intended being there laid wait for by the Enemy but Fortune against her will threw her into another Haven where she Landed in safety And he who throwing a Stone at a Dog hit and kill'd his Mother in Law had he not reason to pronounce this Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By this I see Fortune does better aim than we Fortune has more Judgment than we Icetes had contracted with two Souldiers to Kill Timoleon at Adranon in Sicily These Villains took their time to do it when he was assisting at a Sacrifice who thrusting into the Crowd as they were making signs to one another that now was a fit time to do their business in steps a third who with a Sword takes one of them full drive over the Pate lays him dead upon the place and away he runs Which the other seeing and concluding himself discover'd and lost he runs to the Altar and begs for Mercy promising to discover the whole truth which as he was doing and laying open the whole Conspiracy behold the third Man who being Apprehended was as a Murtherer thrust and hal'd by the People through the Prease towards Timoleon and other the most Eminent Persons of the Assembly before whom being brought he Crys out for Pardon pleading that he had justly Slain his Fathers Murtherer which he also proving upon the place by sufficient Witnesses which his good Fortune very opportunely supply'd him withal that his Father was really Kill'd in the City of the Leontins by that very Man on whom he had taken his Revenge he was presently Awarded Ten Attick Mine for having had the good Fortune by designing to revenge the the Death of his Father to preserve the Life of the common Father of Sicily This Fortune in her Conduct surpasses all the Rules of Humane Prudence But to conclude is there not a direct Application of her Favour Bounty and Piety manifestly discover'd in this Action Ignatius the Father and Ignatius the Son being proscrib'd by the Triumviry of Rome resolv'd upon this generous Act of mutual kindness to fall by the hands of one another and by that means to frustrate and defeat the Cruelty of the Tyrants and accordingly with their Swords drawn ran full drive upon one another where Fortune so guided the points that they made two equally Mortal Wounds affording withal so much Honour to so brave a Friendship as to leave them just strength enough to draw out their Bloody Swords that they might have liberty to embrace one another in this Dying Condition with so close and hearty an Embrace that the Executioners cut off both their Heads at once leaving the Bodies still fast link'd together in this Noble Knot and their Wounds join'd Mouth to Mouth affectionately sucking in the last Blood and remainder of the Lives of one another CHAP. XXXIV Of one Defect in one Government MY Father who for a Man that had no other advantages than Experience only and his own Natural Parts was nevertheless of a very clear Judgment has formerly told me that he once had thoughts of endeavouring to introduce this Practice that there might be in every City a certain place assign'd to which such as stood in need of any thing might repair and have their Business enter'd by an Officer appointed for that purpose as for Example I enquire for a Chapman to Buy my Pearls I enquire for one that has Pearls to Sell Such a one wants Company to go to Paris such a one enquires for a Servant of such a Quality such a one for a Master such a one enquires for such an Artificer some for one thing some for another every one according to what he wants And doubtless these mutual Advertisements would be of no contemptible Advantage to the Publick Correspondency and Intelligence For there are evermore Conditions that hunt after one another and for want of knowing one anothers occasion leave Men in very great necessity I have heard to the great shame of the Age we Live in that in our very sight two most excellent Men for Learning Died so Poor that they had scarce Bread to put in their Mouths Lilius Gregorius Giraldus in Italy and Sebastianus Castalio in Germany And do believe there are a Thousand Men would have invited them into their Families with very advantageous Conditions or have Reliev'd them where they were had they known their wants The World is not so generally Corrupted but that I know a Man that would heartily wish the Estate his Ancestors have left him might be employ'd so
those of Persia. What a World of people do we see in the Wars betwixt the Turks and the Greeks rather embrace a cruel death than to uncircumcise themselves to admit of Baptism An example of which no sort of Religion is incapable The Kings of Castile having Banisht the Jews out of their Dominions John King of Portugal in consideration of eight Crowns a Head sold them a retirement into his for a certain limited time upon condition that the time perfixt coming to expire they should be gone and he to furnish them with Shipping to transport them into Affrick The limited day came which once laps'd they were given to understand that such as were afterwards found in the Kingdom should remain Slaves Vessels were very slenderly provided and those who embarkt in them were rudely and villanously used by the Seamen who besides other indignities kept them cruising upon the Sea one while forwards and another backwards till they had spent all their provisions and were constrain'd to buy of them at so dear rates and so long withal that they set them not on Shoar till they were all stript to the very Shirts The news of this inhumane usage being brought to those who remained behind the greater part of them resolved upon Slavery and some made a shew of changing Religion Emanuel the successor for of John being come to the Crown first set them at liberty and afterwards altering his mind order'd them to depart his Country assigning three Ports for their passage Hoping says the Bishop Osorius no contemptible Latin Historian of these later times that the favour of the liberty he had given them having fail'd of convertâ—ng them to Christianity yet the difficulty of committing themselves to the mercy of the Mariners and of abandoning a Country they were now habituated to and were grown very rich in to go and expose themselves in strange and unknown Regions would certainly do it But finding himself deceiv'd in his expectation and that they were all resolved upon the Voyage he cut-off two of the three Ports he had promised them to the end that the length and incommodity of the passage might reduce some or that he might have opportunity by crouding them all into one place the more conveniently to execute what he had designed which was to force all the Children under fourteen years of Age from the Arms of their Fathers and Mothers to transport them from their sight and conversation into a place where they might be instructed and brought up in our Religion He says that this produc'd a most horrid Spectacle The natural affection betwixt the Parents and their Children and moreover their Zeal to their ancient Belief contending against this violent Decree Fathers and Mothers were commonly seen making themselves away and by a yet much more Rigorous Example precipitating out of Love and Compassion their young Children into Wells and Pits to avoid the Severity of this Law As to the remainder of them the time that had been prefix'd being expir'd for want of means to transport them they again return'd into Slavery Some also turn'd Christians upon whose Faith as also that of their Posterity even to this Day which is a Hundred Years since few Portuguese can yet relie or believe them to be real Converts though Custom and length of time are much more powerful Counsellors in such Changes than all other Constraints whatever In the Town of Castlenau-Darry Fifty Hereticks Albegeois at one time suffer'd themselves to be Burnt alive in one Fire rather than they would renounce their Opinions Quoties non modo ductores nostri dit Cicero sed universi etiam exercitus ad non dubiam mortem concurrerunt How oft have not only our Leaders but whole Armies run to a certain and apparent Death I have seen an intimate Friend of mine run headlong upon Death with a real affection and that was rooted in his heart by divers plausible Arguments which he would never permit me to dispossess him of upon the first Honourable occasion that offer'd it self to him to precipitate himself into it without any manner of visible reason with an obstinate and ardent desire of Dying We have several Examples of our own times of those even so much as to little Children who for fear of a Whipping or some such little thing have dispatch'd themselves And what shall we not fear says one of the Ancients to that purpose if we dread that which Cowardize it self has chosen for its Refuge Should I here produce a tedious Catalogue of those of all Sexes and Conditions and of all sorts even in the most happy Ages who have either with great Constancy look'd Death in the Face or voluntarily sought it and sought it not only to avoid the Evils of this Life but some purely to avoid the Saciety of Living and others for the hope of a better Condition elsewhere I should never have done Nay the Number is so infinite that in truth I should have a better Bargain on 't to reckon up those who have fear'd it This one therefore shall serve for all Pyrrho the Philosopher being one Day in a Boat in a very great Tempest shew'd to those he saw the most Affrighted about him and encourag'd them by the Example of a Hog that was there nothing at all concern'd at the Storm Shall we then dare to say that this advantage of Reason of which we so much Boast and upon the account of which we think our selves Masters and Emperours over the rest of the Creatures was given us for a Torment To what end serves the Knowledg of things if it renders us more Unmanly If we lose the Tranquility and Repose we should enjoy without it And if it put us into a worse Condition than Pyrrho's Hog Shall we employ the Understanding that was conferr'd upon us for our greatest Good to our own Ruine Setting our selves against the design of Nature and the universal Order of things which intend that every one should make use of the Faculties Members and Means he has to his own best Advantage But it may peradventure be Objected against me Your Rule is true enough as to what concerns Death But what will you say of Necessity What will you moreover say of Pain that Aristippus Hieronimus and almost all the Wise Men have reputed the worst of Evils And those who have deny'd it by word of Mouth did however confess it in Effects Possidonius being extreamly Tormented with a sharp and painful Disease Pompeius came to Visit him excusing himself that he had taken so unseasonable a time to come to hear him discourse of Philosophy God forbid said Possidonius to him again that Pain should ever have the power to hinder me from talking and thereupon fell imediately upon a discourse of the Contempt of Pain But in the mean time his own Infirmity was playing its part and plagu'd him to the purpose to which he Cry'd out thou may'st work thy Will Pain and Torment me with all
the power thou hast but thou shalt never make me say that thou art an Evil. This Story that they make such a Clutter withal what is there in it I fain would know to the Contempt of Pain It only Fights it with Words and in the mean time if the Shootings and Dolours he felt did not move him why did he interrupt his Discourse Why did he fancy he did so great a thing in forbearing to confess it an Evil All does not here consist in the Imagination our Fancies may work upon other things But this here is a certain Science that is playing its part of which our Senses themselves are judg Qui nisi sunt veri ratio quoque falsa sit omnis Which if it be not here most true Reason it self must be false too Shall we perswade our Skins that the Jerks of a Whip tickle us Or our Taste that a Potion of Aloes is Graves Wine Pyrrho's Hog is here in the same Predicament with us he is not afraid of Death 't is true but if you Beat him he will Cry out to some purpose Shall we force the general Law of Nature which in every Living Creature under Heaven is seen to Tremble under Pain The very Trees seem to Groan under the Blows they receive Death is only felt by Discourse forasmuch as it is the motion of an instant Aut fuit aut veniet nihil est presentis in illa Morsque minus paenae quam mora mortis habet Death's always past or coming on in this There never any thing of present is And the delays of Death more painful are Than Death it self and Dying is by far A Thousand Beasts a Thousand Men are sooner Dead than Threatned That also which we principally pretend to Fear in Death is Pain the ordinary fore-runner of it Yet if we may believe a Holy Father Malam mortem non facit nisi quod sequitur mortem Nothing makes Death Evil but what follows it And I should yet say more probably that neither that which goes before nor that which follows after are at all the appendants of Death We excuse our selves falsely And I find by experience that it is rather the impatience of the Imagination of Death that makes us impatient of Pain and that we find it doubly grievous as it Threatens us with Death But Reason accusing our Cowardize for fearing a thing so sudden so inevitable and so insensible we take the other as the more excusable pretence All ills that carry no other danger along with them but simply the Evils themselves we despise as things of no danger The Tooth-Ach or the Gout as painful as they are being yet not reputed Mortal who reckons them in the Catalogue of Diseases But let us presuppose that in Death we principally regard the Pain as also there is nothing to be fear'd in Poverty but the Miseries it brings along with it of Thirst Hunger Cold Heat Watching and the other Inconveniences it makes us suffer yet still we have nothing to do with any thing but Pain I will grant and very willingly that it is the worst Accident of our Being for I am the Man upon Earth that the most Hates and avoids it considering that hitherto I thank God I have had so little Traffick with it but still it is in us if not to annihilate at least to lessen it by Patience and though the Body should Mutiny to Maintain the Soul nevertheless in a good Temper And were it not so who had ever given Reputation to Vertue Valour Force Magnanimity and Resolution where were their parts to be plaid if there were no Pain to be Defi'd Avida est periculi virtus Vertue is greedy of danger Were there no lying upon the hard ground no enduring arm'd at all pieces the Meridional Heats no feeding upon the flesh of Horses and Asses no seeing a Man's self hack'd and hew'd to pieces no suffering a Bullet to be pull'd out from amongst the shatter'd Bones the sticking up cauterising and searching of Wounds by what means were the advantage we covet to have over the Vulgar to be acquir'd 'T is far from flying Evil and Pain what the Sages say that of Actions equally good a Man should most covet to perform that wherein there is greater Labour and Pain Non est enim hilaritate nec lascivia nec risu aut joco comite levitatis sed saepe etiam tristes firmitate constantia sunt beati For Men are not only happy by Mirth and Wantonness neither by Laughter and Jesting the Companion of Levity But oft times the Graver and more Melancholick sort of Men reap Felicity from their Steadiness and Constancy And for this reason it has ever been impossible to perswade our Fore-fathers but that the Victories obtain'd by dint of Force and the hazard of War were still more Honourable than those perform'd in great Security by Stratagem or Practice Laetius est quoties magno sibi constat honestum A handsome Act more handsome does appear By how much more it cost the doer dear Besides this ought to be our comfort that naturally if the Pain be violent 't is but short and if long nothing violent Si gravis brevis si longus levis Thou wilt not feel it long if thou feel'st it too much it will either put an end to it self or to thee if thou canst not support it it will export thee Memineris maximos morte finiri parvos multa habere intervalla requietis mediocrium nos esse dominos ut si tolerabiles sint feramus sin minus e vita quum ea non placeat tanquam e theatro exeamus Remember that great ones are terminated by Death that small have long Intermissions of Repose and that we are Masters of the moderate sort so that if tollerable we may bear them if not we can go out of Life as from a Theatre where the Entertainment does not please us that which makes us suffer Pain with so much Impatience is the not being accustomed to repose our chiefest Contentment in the Soul that we do not enough relie upon her who is the sole and soveraign Mistress of our Condition The Body saving in greater or less proportion has but one and the same Bent and Bias whereas the Soul is variable into all sorts of forms and subjects to her self and to her own Empire all things whatsoever both the Senses of the Body and all other Accidents and therefore it is that we ought to study her to enquire into her and to rowse up all her powerful Faculties There is neither Reason Form nor Prescription that can any thing prevail against her Inclination and Choice of so many Thousands of Biasses that she has at her disposal let us give her one proper to our repose and conservation and then we shall not only be shelter'd and secur'd from all manner of Injury and Offence but moreover gratified and oblig'd if we will with Evils
his indifference proceeded from a soul so much elevated above such accidents that he disdain'd to let it take any more hold of his Fancy than any other ordinary adventure In the Naval Engagement that Augustus won of Sextus Pompeius in Sicily just as they were to begin the Fight he was so fast asleep that his Friends were compell'd to wake him to give the Signal of Battel And this was it that gave Mark Anthony afterwards occasion to reproach him that he had not the Courage so much as with open Eyes to behold the order of his own Squadrons and not to have dar'd to present himself before the Souldiers till first Agrippa had brought him news of the Victory obtain'd But as to the business of young Marius who did much worse for the day of the last Battel against Sylla after he had order'd his Army given the word and Signal of Battel he laid him down under the Shade of a Tree to repose himself and fell so fast asleep that the Rout and Fight of his Men could hardly wake him having seen nothing of the Fight he is said to have been at that time so extreamly spent and worn out with Labour and want of Sleep that Nature could hold out no longer Now upon what has been said the Physicians may determine whether sleep be so necessary that our lives depend upon it for we read that King Perseus of Macedon being Prisoner at Rome was wak'd to Death but Pliny instances such as have lived long without sleep Herodotus speaks of Nations where the Men sleep and wake by half years And they who write the Life of the Wise Epimenides affirm that he slept seven and fifty years together CHAP. XLV Of the Battel of Dreux OUr Battel of Dreux is remarkable for several extraordinary accidents But such as have no great kindness for the Duke of Guise nor do much favour his reputation are willing to have him thought too blame and that his making a Halt and delaying time with this Forces he Commanded whilst the Constable who was General of the Army was Rackt through and through with the Enemies Artillery his Battalion Routed and himself taken Prisoner is not to be excus'd And that he had much better have ran the hazard of charging the Enemy in the Flank than staying for the advantage of falling in upon the Rear to suffer so great and so important a loss But besides what the event demonstrated who will consider it without passion or prejudice will easily be induced to confess that the aim and design not of a Captain only but of every Private Souldier ought to look at the Victory in general and that no particular occurrences how nearly soever they may concern his own interest should divert him from that pursuit Philopemen in an encounter with Machanidas having sent before a good strong party of his Archers to begin the Skirmish which were by the Enemy Routed and pursu'd who pursuing them and pushing on the Fortune of their Arms in the heat of Victory and in that pursuit passing by the Battalion where Philopemen was though his Souldiers were impatient to fall on yet he was better temper'd and did not think fit to stir from his post nor to present himself to the Enemy to relieve his Men but having suffer'd them to be chaste about the Field and Cut in pieces before his Face then charged in upon their Battalion of Foot when he saw them left Naked by their Horse and notwithstanding that they were Lacedemonians yet taking them in the nick when thinking themselves secure of the Victory they began to disorder their Ranks he did his business with great facility and then put himself in pursuit of Machanidas Which case is very like that of Monsieur de Guise In that Bloody Battel betwixt Agesilaus and the Baeotians which Zenophon who was present at it reports to be the rudest and most Bloody that he had ever seen Agesilaus wav'd the advantage that Fortune presented him to let the Baeotians Battalion pass by and then to charge them in the Rear how certain soever he made himself of the Victory Judging it would rather be an effect of Conduct than Valour to proceed that way And therefore to shew his prowess rather chose with a wonderful ardour of Courage to charge them in the Front but he was well beaten and wounded for his pains and constrain'd at last to disengage himself and to take the course he had at first neglected opening his Battalion to give way to this torrent of the Baeotians fury and being past by taking notice that they march'd in disorder like men that thought themselves out of danger he then pursu'd and charg'd them in their Flanks and Rear yet could not so prevail as to bring it to so general a Rout but that they leisurely retreated still Facing about upon him till they were retired into safety CHAP. XLVI Of Names WHat variety of Herbs soever are shuffled together in the Dish yet the whole Mass is swallow'd up in one name of a Sallet In line manner under the consideration of Names I will make a hodg-podg of differing Articles Every Nation has certain Names that I know not why are taken in no good sense as with us John William and Benoist In the Genealogy of Princes also there seems to be certain Names fatally affected as the Ptolomies of Egypt the Henry's of England the Charles's of France the Baldwins of Flanders and the Williams of our Ancient Aquitaine from whence 't is said the Name of Guyenne has its derivation which would seem far fetch'd were there not as rude derivations in Plato himself 'T is a very frivolous thing in it self but nevertheless worthy to be Recorded for the strangeness of it which is writ by an Eye-witness that Henry Duke of Normandy Son of Henry the Second King of England making a great Feast in France the concourse of Nobility and Gentry was so great that being for Sports sake divided into Troops according to their Names in the first Troop which consisted of Williams there were found an Hundred and Ten Knights sitting at the Table of that Name without reckoning the ordinary Gentlemen and their Servants It is as pleasant to distinguish the Tables by the Names of the Guests as it was in the Emperour Geta to distinguish the several Courses of his Meat by the first Letters of the Meats themselves where those that began with B were serv'd up together as Brawn Beef Breame Bustards and Becca-ficos and so of others Now there is a saying that it is a good thing to have a good Name that is to say Credit and a good Repute But besides this it is really convenient to have such a Name as is easie of pronunciation and easie to be remembred by reason that Kings and other great Persons do by that means the more easily know and the more hardly forget us and indeed of our own Servants we more frequently call and employ those whose Names are
only that a Man may conclude no Man not very fit to treat of Theological Affairs A true Prayer and Religious reconciling of our selves to Almighty God cannot enter into an impure Soul and at the very instant subjected to the very Dominion of Satan He who calls God to his Assistance whilst in a Habit of Vice does as if a Cut-purse should call a Magistrate to help him or like those who introduce the Name of God to the Attestation of a Lie Tacito mala vota susurro Concipimus In Whispers we do guilty Prayers make There are few Men who durst Publish to the World the Prayers they make to Almighty God Haud cuivis promptum est murmurque humilesque susurros Tollere de Templis aperto vivere voto 'T is not convenient for every one To bring the Prayer he mutters over there Out of the Temple to the publick Ear. And â—hâ—s is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always Publick to be heard by every one to the end they might not prefer indecent or unjust Petitions as he did who having Clare cum dixit Apollo Labra movet metuens audiri pulcra Laverna Da mihi fallere da justum sanctumque videri Noctem peccatis fraudibus objice nubem Apollo's Name pronounc'd aloud for fear Any his Orizons should over-hear Muâ—tâ—ed betwixt his Teeth Laverna great Grant me the Talent to Deceive and Cheat All I shall have to do with ev'ry where Yet all the while Holy and Just appear And from the sight of Men be pleas'd to Shroud My Sins with Night Frauds with a Sable Cloud The God did severely punish the Wicked Prayers of Oedipus in granting them He had Pray'd that his Children might amongst themselves Determine the Succession to his Throne by Arms and was so miserable as to see himself taken at his word We are not to Pray that all things may go as we would have them but as is most conducing to the good of the World and we are not in our Prayers to Obey our Wills but Prudence We seem in truth to make use of our Prayers as of a kind of Gibberish and as those do who employ Holy Words about Sorceries and Magical Operations And as if we made account the benefit we are to reap from them depended upon the contexture sound and gingle of Words or upon the composing of the Countenance For having the Soul contaminated with Concupiscence not touch'd with Repentance or comforted by any late Reconciliation with Almighty God we go to present him such Words as the Memory suggests to the Tongue and hope from thence to obtain the Remission of our Sins There is nothing so easie so sweet and so favourable as the Divine Law She calls and invites us to her Guilty and Abominable as we are Extends her Arms and receives us into her Bosome as foul and polluted as we at present are and are for the future to be But then in return we are to look upon her with a respective and a graceful Eye we are to receive this Pardon with all imaginable gratitude and submission and for that instant at least wherein we Address our selves to her to have the Soul sensible of the ills we have committed and at defiance with those Passions that seduc'd her to offend for neither the Gods nor Good Men says Plato will accept the present of a Wicked Man Immunis aram si tetigit manus Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos Penates Farre pio salienta mica The pious Off'ring of a peice of Bread If by a pure Hand on the Altar laid Than Costly Hecatombs will better please Th' offended Gods and their just Wrath appease CHAP. LVII Of Age. I Cannot allow of the proportion we settle upon our selves and the space we allot to the duration of Life I see that the Wise contract it very much in comparison of the common Opinion What said the Younger Cato to those who would stay his Hand from Killing himself am I now of an Age to be Reproach'd that I go out of the World too soon And yet he was but Eight and Forty Years Old He thought that to be a mature and competent Age considering how few arrive unto it and such as soothing their Thoughts with I know not what course of Nature promise to themselves some Years beyond it could they be priviledg'd from the infinite number of Accidents to which we are by a natural subjection expos'd might have some Reason so to do What an Idle Conceit it is to expect to Die of a decay of Strength which is the last of effects of the extreamest Age and to propose to our selves no shorter lease of Life than that considering it is a kind of Death of all others the most rare and very hardly seen We call that only a Natural Death as if it were contrary to Nature to see a Man break his Neck with a Fall be Drown'd in Shipwrack at Sea or snatch'd away with a Plurisie or the Plague and as if our ordinary condition of Life did not expose us to these Inconveniences Let us no more flatter our selves with these fine sounding Words We ought rather at a venture to call that Natural which is Common and Universal To Die of Old Age is a Death rare extraordinary and singular and therefore so much less Natural than the others 'T is the last and extreamest sort of Dying And the more remote the less to be hop'd for It is indeed the Boundary of Life beyond which we are not to pass Which the Law of Nature has pitch'd for a Limit not to be exceeded But it is withal a Priviledg she is rarely seen to give us to last till then 'T is a Lease she only Signs by particular savour and it may be to one only in the space of two or three Ages and then with a Pass to boot to carry him through all the Traverses and Difficulties she has strew'd in the way of this long Carreer And therefore my Opinion is that when once Forty Years Old we should consider it is as an Age to which very few arrive For seeing that Men do not usually proceed so far it is a sign that we are pretty well advanc'd and since we have exceeded the ordinary Bounds which make the just measure of Life we ought not to expect to go much further having escap'd so many Precipices of Death whereinto we have seen so many other Men to fall we should acknowledg that so extraordinary a Fortune as that which has hitherto rescu'd us from those Eminent Perils and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of Living is not likely to continue long 'T is a fault in our very Laws to maintain this Errour That a Man is not capable of managing his own Estate till he be Five and Twenty Years Old whereas he will have much ado to manage his Life so long Augustus cut off Five Years from the Ancient Roman Standard
didst so threaten me Is this all thou canst doe My Constancy torments thee more than thy Cruelty does me O Pitiful Coward thou Faintest and I grow Stronger make my Complain make me Bend make me Yield if thou canst Encourage they Guards Chear up thy Executioners see see they Faint and can do no more Arm them Flesh them anew Spur them up Really a man must confess that there is some alteration and fury how Holy soever that does at that time possess those Souls When we come to these Stoical Sallies I had rather be Furious than Voluptuous a saying of Antisthenes When Sextius tells us he had rather be Fetter'd with Affliction than Pleasure When Epicurus takes upon him to play with his Gout and that refusing Health and Ease he defies all Torments and despising the Lesser Pains as disdaining to contend with them he covets and calls out for Sharper more violent and more worthy of him Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis Optat aprum aut fulvum descendere monte leonem And for ignobler Chaces wishes some Lyon or Boar would from the Mountain come Who but must conclude that they are pusht on by a Courage that has broke loose from its place Our Soul cannot from her own Seat reach so high 't is necessary she must leave it raise her self up and taking the Bridle in her Teeth transport her man so far that he shall after himself be astonisht at what he has done As in occasion of War the Heat of Battle sometimes pushes the generous Souldiers to perform things of so infinite Danger as after having recollected themselves they themselves are the first to wonder at As also fares with the Poets who are often rapt with admiration of their own Writings and know not where again to find the track through which they performed so happy a Carreer which also is in them call'd Rage and Rapture And as Plato says t is to purpose for a Sober man to knock at the door of Poesy And Aristotle says to the same effect that no excellent Soul is exempt from the mixture of Folly and he has reason to call all Transports how commendable soever that surpass our own Judgment and understanding Folly For as much as Wisdom is a regular Government of the Soul which is carryed on with Measure and Proportion and which she is to her self responsible for Plato argues thus that the Faculty of Prophecying is so far above us that we must be out of our selves when we meddle with it and our Prudence must either be obstructed by Sleep or Sickness or lifted from her place by some Celestial Rapture CHAP. III. The Custom of the Isle of Cea IF to Philosophize be as 't is defin'd to doubt much more to write at randome and play the Fool as I do ought to be reputed doubting for it is for Novices and Fresh-men to inquire and to dispute and for the Chair-man to moderate and determine My Moderator is the Authority of the Divine Will that Governs us without contradiction and that is Seated above these vain and humane contests Philip being forceably intred into Peloponnesus and some one saying to Damidas that the Lacedaemonians were likely very much to suffer if they did not in time reconcile themselves to his favour Why you pitiful Fellow replied he what can they suffer that do not fear to dye It being also demanded of Agis which way a man might live free Why said he by despising Death These and a thousand other sayings to the same purpose do distinctly sound something more than the Patient attending the stroke of Death when it shall come for there are several Accidents in Life far worse to suffer than Death it self Witness the Lacedaemonian Boy taken by Antigonus and sold for a Slave who being by his new Master commanded to some base Imployment Thou shalt see says the Boy whom thou hast bought it would be a shame for me to serve being so near the reach of Liberty and having so said threw himself from the top of the house Antipater severely threatning the Lacedaemonians that he might the better encline them to acquiesce in a certain demand of his If thou threatnest us with more than Death replied they we shall the more willingly Dye And to Philip having writ them word that he would frustrate all their Enterprizes What wilt thou also hinder us from dying This is the meaning of the Sentence That the Wise man lives as long as he ought not so long as he can and that the most obliging Present Nature has made us and which takes from us all colour of complaint of our condition is to have delivered into our own custody the Keys of Life She has only Ordered one door into life but a hundred thousand ways out We may be straightned for Earth to Live upon but Earth sufficient to Dye upon can never be wanting as Boiocatus answered the Romans why doest thou complain of this World It deteins the not thy own cowardize is the cause if thou livest in Pain There remains no more to Dye but to be willing to do it Vbique mors est Optimè hoc cavit Deus Eripere Vitam nemo non homini potest At nemo Mortem Mille ad hanc aditus patent To Death a man can never want a Gate Heav'n has provided very well for that There 's not so mean a Wretch on earth but may Take the most Noble Hero's life away But to the willing none can Death refuse There are to that a thousand Avenues Neither is it a Recipe for one Disease Death is the Infallible Cure of all 't is a most assured Port that is never to be fear'd and very often to be sought It comes all to one whether a man gives himself his end or stays to receive it by some other means whether he pays before his day or stay till his day of payment come From whencesoever it comes it is still his In what part soever the thread breaks there 's the end of the Clue the most voluntary Death is the most brave Life depends upon the Pleasure and Discretion of others Death upon our own We ought not to accommodate our selves to our own Humour in any thing so much as in that Reputation is not concern'd in such an enterprize and it 's a folly to be diverted by any such apprehension living is Slavery if the liberty of dying be away The ordinary method of Cures is carried on at the expence of Life they torment us with Causticks Incisions and Amputations of limbs at the same time interdicting Aliments and exhausting our Blood one step father and we are cur'd indeed Why are not the Jugular Veines as much at our dispose as the Cephalick Basilick or Median Veine For a desperate disease a desperate cure Servius the Grammarian being tormented with the Gout could advise of no better remedy than to apply Poison to his Legs to deprive them of their sence then
let them be Gouty on Gods name so they were insensible of pain God gives us leave enough when he is pleased to reduce us to such a condition that to live is far worse than to die 'T is weakness to truckle under infirmities but it 's madnes to nourish them The Stoicks say that it is living according to Nature in a Wise man to take his leave of Life even in the height of prosperity if he do it opportunely and in a Fool to prolong it though he be miserable provided he be indigent of those things which are reputed the necessaries of human life As I do not offend the Law provided against Thieves when I embezel my own Money and cut my own Purse nor that against Incendiaries when I burn my own Wood so am I not under the lash of those made against Murtherers for having depriv'd my self of my own life Hegesius said that as the condition of life did so the condition of death ought to depend upon our own choice And Diogenes meeting the Philosopher Speucippus so blown up with an inveterate Dropsie that he was fain to be carried in a Litter and by him saluted with the complement of I wish you good health no health to thee reply'd the other who art content to live in such a condition And in truth not long after Speucippus weary of so languishing an estate of Life found a means to dye But this does not pass without admitting a dispute For many are of Opinion that we cannot quit this Garrison of the World without the express command of him who has plac'd us in it and that it appertains to God who has plac'd us here not for ourselves only but for his Glory and the service of others to dismiss us when it shall best please him and not for us to depart without his Licence That we are not born for ourselves only but for our Country also the Laws of which require an account from us upon the score of their own interest and have an action of Man-slaughter good against us Or if these fail to take cognizance of the Fact we are punish'd in the other World as deserters of our Duty Proxima deinde tenent maesti Loca qui sibi lethum Insontes peperere manu lucémque perosi Proiecere animas Next these those Melancholick Souls remain Who innocent by their own hands were slain And hating light to voluntary Death Ecclipst their eye-balls and bequeath'd their breath There is more Constancy in suffering the Chain we are tied in than in breaking it and more pregnant evidence of fortitude in Regulus than in Cato 'T is Indiscretion and Impatience that pushes us on to these precipices No accidents can make true Vertue turn her back she seeks and requires Evils Pains and Grief as the things by which she is nourish'd and supported The menaces of Tyrants Wracks and Tortures serve only to animate and rouse her Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus Nigrae feraci frondis in Algido Per damna per caedes ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro As in Mount Algidus the sturdy Oak Ev'n from th' injurious Axes wounding stroak Derives new vigour and does further spread By amputations a more graceful head And as another says Non est ut putas virtus Pater Timere vitam sed malis ingentibus Obstare nec se vertere ac retro dare They are mistaken and do judge amiss Who think to fear to live a Vertue is He 's brave the greatest evils can withstand And not retire nor shift to either hand Or as this Rebus in adversis facile est contemnere mortem Fortius ille facit qui miser esse potest The wretched well may laugh at death but he Is braver far can live in misery 'T is Cowardize not Vertue to lye squat in furrow under a Tomb to evade the blows of Fortune Vertue never stops nor goes out of her path for the greatest storm that blows Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidam ferient ruinae Should the World's Axis crack and Sphear fall down The ruins would but crush a fearless Crown And for the most part the flying of other inconveniences brings us to this that endeavouring to evade death we run into the mouth of it Hic rogo non furor est ne moriare mori Can there be greater madness pray reply Than that one should for fear of dying die Like those who for fear of a precipice throw themselves headlong into it Multos in summa pericula misit Venturi timor ipse mali Fortissimus ille est Qui promptus metuenda pati si cominus instent Et differre potest The fear of future ills oft makes men run Into far worse than those they strive to shun But he deserves the noblest Character Dare boldly stand the mischeifs he does fear When they confront him and appear in view And can defer at least if not eschew usque adeo mortis formidine vitae Percipit humanos odium lucisque videndae Vt sibi consciscant maerenti pectore lethum Obliti fontem curarum hunc esse timorem Death unto that degree does some men fright That causing them to hate both life and light They kill themselves in sorrow not aware That this same fear 's the fountaine of that care Plato in his laws assigns an ignominious sepulture to him who has depriv'd his nearest and best freind namely himself of life and his destin'd course of years being neither compell'd so to do by publick judgment by any sad and inevitable accident of fortune nor by any insupportable disgrace but merely pusht on by cowardize and the imbecillity of a timorous soul. And the opinion that makes so little of life is ridiculous for it is our being 't is all we have Things of a nobler and more elevated being may indeed accuse this of ours but it is against nature for us to contemn and make little account of our selves 't is a disease particular to man and not discern'd in any other creatures to hate and despise itself And it is a vanity of the same stamp to desire be something else than what we are The effects oâ— such a desire do not at all concern us for as much as it is contradicted and hindred in it self and he that desires of a man to be made an Anâ—gel wishes nothing for himself he would bâ— never the better for it for being no more whâ—â— should rejoice or be sensible of this benefit foâ— him Debet enim miserè cui fortè aegréque futurum est Ipse quoque esse in eo tum tempore cùm male possit Accidere For it is necessary sure that he Who for the future wretched is to be Should then be by himself inhabited That the events of Fate been frustrated But that the ills he threatned is withall Should rightly in their due appointment fall Security indolency impassibility and the privation of the evils of
life which we pretend to purchase at the price of dying are of no manner of advantage to us That man evades war to very little purpose that can have no fruition of peace and as impertinently does he avoid labour and toile who cannot enjoy repose Amongst those of the first of these two opinions there has been great debate what occasions are sufficient to justifie the meditation of self-murther which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a handsome Exit For though they say that men are often to dye for trivial causes seeing those that deteine us in life are of no very great weight yet there is to be some measure There are fantastick and sencelesse humors that have prompted not only particular men but whole Nations to destroy themselves of which I have elsewhere given some examples and we further read of the Milesian virgins that by a furious compact they hang'd themselves one after another till the Magistrate took order in it enacting that the bodies of such as should be found so hang'd should be drawn by the same halter starke naked through the City When Threicion persuaded Cleomenes to dispatch himself by reason of the ill posture of his affairs and having evaded a death of the most honor in the battail he had lost to accept of this the second in honor to it and not to give the Conquerors leisure to make him undergo either an ignominious death or an infamous life Cleomenes with a courage truly Stoick and Lacedaemonian rejected his Counsel as unmanly and poor that said he is a remedy that can never be wanting and which a man is never to make use of whilst there is an inch of hope remaining telling him that it was sometimes constancy and valour to live that he would that even his death should be of use to his Country and would make of it an act of honor and vertue Threicion notwithstanding thought himself in the right and did his own business and Cleomenes after did the same but not till he had first tried the utmost malevolence of fortune All the inconvenences in the world are not considerable enough that a man should die to evade them and besides there being so many so suddain and unexpected changes in humane things it is hard rightly to judg when we are at the end of our hope Sperat in saeva victus gladiator arena Sit licet infesto pollice turba minax The fencer conquer'd in the lists hopes on Though the Spectators point that he is gon All things says the old Adage are to be hop'd for by a man whilst he lives ay but replies Seneca why should this rather be always running in a mans head that Fortune can do all things for the living man than this that Fortune has no power over him that knows how to dye Josephus when engag'd in so near and apparent danger a whole People being violently bent against him that there was no visible means of escape neverthelesse being as himself says in this extreamity counsell'd by Simon one of his faithful Guards to dispatch himself it was well for him that he yet maintain'd himself in some hope for fortune diverted the accident beyond all humane expectation so that he saw himself deliver'd without any manner of inconvenience Whereas Brutus and Cassius on the contrary threw away the remains of the Roman liberty of which they were the sole Protectors by the precipitation and temerity wherewith they kill'd themselves before the due time and a just occasion Monsieur d' Anguien at the Battel of Cerisolles twice attempted to run himself through despairing of the fortune of the day which went indeed very untowardly on that side of the Feild where he was engag'd and by that precipitation was very near depriving himself of the joy and honor of so brave a Victory I have seen a hundred Hares escape out of the very teeth of the Grey-hounds Aliquis carnifici suo superstes fuit Some have surviv'd their Executioners Multa dies variúsque labor mutabilis aevi Rettulit in melius multos alterna revisens Lusit in solido rursus fortuna locavit Much time and labour often does translate Life's mutability t' a better state Now fortune turning shews a reverse face And then again in solid joy does place Pliny says there are three sorts of diseases to escape any of which a man has good title to destroy himself the worst of which is the stone in the bladder when the urine is supprest Seneca says those only which for a long time discompose the functions of the Soul And some there have been who to avoid a worse have chosen one to their own liking Democritus General of the Aetolians being brought prisoner to Rome found means to make his escape by night but close pursu'd by his keepers rather than suffer himself to be retaken he fell upon his own sword and died Antinous and Theodotus their City of Epirus being reduct by the Romans to the last extremity gave the People counsel generally to kill themselves but the advice of giving themselves up to the armes of the Enemy prevayling they went to seek the death they desir'd rushing furiously upon the Enemy with an intention to strike home but not to defend a blow The Isle Gosa forc't some years ago by the Turks a Sicilian who had two beautiful daughters marriagable kill'd them both with his own hand and their mother running in to save them to boot Which having done sallying out of the House with a cros-bow and a harquebuze with those two shoots he kill'd two of the first Turks nearest to his door and drawing his sword charg'd furiously in amongst the rest where he was suddainly enclos'd and cut to peices By that means delivering his family and himself from slavery and dishonor The Jewish women after having circumciz'd their Children threw themselves down a Precipice to avoid the cruelty of Antigonus I have been told of a prisoner of condition in one of our prisons that his friends being inform'd he would certainly be condemn'd to avoid the ignominy of such a death suborn'd a Preist to tell him that the only means of his deliverance was to recommend himself to such a Saint under such and such vowes and fast eight days togeather without taking any manner of nourishment what ever what weakeness or faintness so ever he might find in himself during the time he follow'd their advice and by that means destroid himself before he was aware not dreaming of death or any danger in the Experiment Scribonia advising her Nephew Libo to kill himself rather than to attend the stroke of Justice told him that it was properly to do others Peoples business to preserve his life to put it after into the hands of those who within three or four days would come fetch him to execution and that it was to serve his Enemies to keep hi◠blood to gratifie their malice We read in the Bible that Nicanor
the persecutor of the Law of God having sent his Souldiers to seize upon the good old man Razis sirnam'd in honor of his vertue the Father of the Jews the good man seeing no other remedy his Gates burnt down and the Enemies ready to seize him choosing rather to dye generously than to fall into the hands of his wicked adversaries and suffer himself to be cruelly butcher'd by them contrary to the honor of his ranck and quality he stabb'd himself with his own sword but the blow for hast not having been given home he ran and threw himself from the top of a wall headlong among them who separating themselves and making room he pitcht directly upon his head Notwithstanding which feeling yet in himself some remains of life he renu'd his courage and starting up upon his feet all bloody and wounded as he was and making his way through the Crowd through one of his wounds drew out his bowells which tearing and pulling to pieces with both his hands he threw amongst his pursuers all the while attesting and invoking the Divine vengeance upon them for their cruelty and injustice Of violences offer'd to the conscience that against the chastity of woman is in my opinion most to be evaded for as much as there is a certain pleasure naturally mixt with it and for that reason the dissent cannot therein be sufficiently perfect and entire so that the violence seems to bee mix't with a little consent of the forc't party The Ecclesiastical History has several examples of devout persons who have embrac't death to secure them from the outrages prepar'd by Tyrants against their Religion and honor Pelagia and Sophronia both Canoniz'd the first of these precipitated herself with her mother and sisters into the river to avoid being forc't by some Souldiers and the last also kill'd herself to evade being ravish't by the Emperor Maxentius It may peradventure be an honor to us in future Ages that a learned Author of this present time and a Parisian takes a great deal of pains to persuade the Ladies of our age rather to take any other course than to enter into the horrid meditation of such a despaire I am sorry he had never heard that he might have inserted it amongst his others stories the saying of a woman which was told me at Tholouze who had past thorough the handling of some Souldiers God be prais'd said she that once at least in my life I have had my fill without sin I must confess these cruelties are very unworthy the French sweetness and good nature and also God be thanked the air is very well purg'd of it since this good advice 't is enough that they say no in doing it according to the Rule of the good Marot History is every where full of such as after a thousand ways have for death exchanged a painful and irksome Life Lucius Arruntius kill'd himself to fly he said both the future and the past Granius Silvanus and Statius Proximus after having been pardoned by Nero kill'â— themselves either disdaining to live by the favour of so Wicked a man or that they might not be troubled at some other time to obtain 〈◊〉 second Pardon considering the proclivity and faculties of his Nature to suspect and credit accusations against worthy men Spargapize's the 〈◊〉 of Queen Tomyris being a Prisoner of War 〈◊〉 Cyrus made use of the first favour Cyrus shew'â— him in commanding him to be unbound to kill himself having pretended to no other beâ—nefit of liberty but only to be reveng'd of himselâ— for the disgrace of being taken Bogez Governor in Eion for King Xerxes being beseigeâ—â— by the Athenian Arms under the conduct 〈◊〉 Cimon refused the conditions offered that 〈◊〉 might safe return into Asia with all his wealthâ— impatient to survive the loss of a place his Masteâ— had given him to keep wherefore having defended the City to the last extremity nothinâ— being left to eat he first threw all the Gold and what ever else the Enemy could make bootâ— of into the River Strymon and after causing 〈◊〉 great pile to be set on fire and the throats 〈◊〉 all the Women Children Concubines and Serâ—vants to be cut he threw their Bodies into thâ— fire and at last leapt into it himself Ninacheâ—tuen an Indian Lord so soon as he heard thâ— first whisper of the Portugal Vice-Roy's determiâ—nation to dispossess him without any apparent cause of the Command in Malaca to transâ—fer it to the King of Campar he took this resoâ—lution with himself He caus'd a scaffold more long than broad to be erected supported by Columns royally adorn'd with tapestry and strewd with flowers and abundance of perfumes All which being thus prepar'd in a Robe of cloth of Gold set full of Jewels of great value he came out into the street and mounted the Steps to the Scaffold at one corner of which he had a pile lighted of Aromatick wood Every body ran to the novelty to see to what end these unusual preparations were made When Ninachetuen with a manly but discontented countenance began to remonstrate how much he had oblig'd the Portuguese Nation and with how unspotted fidelity he had carried himself in his Charge that having so often with his sword in his hand manifested in the behalf of others that honor was much more dear to him than life he was not to abandon the concern of it for himself that Fortune denying him all means of opposing the affront was design'd to be put upon him his courage at least enjoyn'd him to free himself from the sence of it and not to serve for a fable to the People nor for a tryumph to Men less deserving than himself which having said he leapt into the Fire Sextilia the wife of Scaurus and Praxea the wife of Labeo to encourage their husbands to evade the dangers that prest upon them wherein they had no other share than meer conjugal affection voluntarily expos'd their own lives to serve them in this extream necessity for company and example What they did for their husbands Cocceius Nerva did for his Country with less utility though with equal affection This great Lawyer flourishing in health riches reputation and favour with the Emperor had no other cause to kill himself but the sole compassion of the miserable Estate of the Roman Republick Nothing can be added to the nicety of the death of the wife of Fulvius a familiar favourite of Augustus Augustus having discover'd that he had vented an important secret he had intrusted him withal one morning that he came to make his Court receiv'd him very coldly and lookt frowningly upon him He returns home full of despaire where he sorrowfully told his wife that being fall'n into this misfortune he was resolv'd to kill himself To which she roundly replied 't is but reason you should seeing that having so often experimented the incontinency of my tongue you could not learn nor take warning but let me kill my self first and without
any more dispute ran herself through the Body with a Sword Vibius Virius despayring of the safty of his City beseig'd by the Romans and of their mercy in the last deliberation of his Cities Senat after many Remonstrances conducing to that end concluded that the most Noble means to escape Fortune was by their own hands telling them that the Enemy would have them in honor and Hannibal would be sensible how many faithful friends he had abandoned inviting those who approv'd of his advice to go take a good supper he had ready at home where after they had eaten well they would drink togeather of what he had prepar'd a beverage said he that will deliver our Bodies from torments our Souls from injury and our Eyes and Ears from the sence of so many hateful mischiefs as the Conquer'd are to suffer from cruel and implacable Conquerours I have said he taken order for fit persons to throw our Bodies into a funeral pile before my door so soon as we are dead Enow approv'd this high resolution few imitated it seaven and twenty Senators follow'd him who after having tri'd to drown the thought of this fatal determination in Wine ended the feast with the mortal Mess and embracing one another after they had jointly deplor'd the misfortune of their Country some retir'd home to their own houses others staid to be burnt with Vibius in his funeral Pyre and were all of them so long a dying the vapour of the Wine having prepossest the Veines and by that means deferring the effect of the Poison that some of them were within an hour of seeing the Enemy within the walls of Capua which was taken the next morning and of undergoing the miseries they had at so dear a rate endeavour'd to evade Taurea Jubellius another Citizen of the same Country the Consul Fulvius returning from the shameful butcherie he had made of two hundred twenty five Senators call'd him back feircely by his name and having made him stop give the word said he that some body may dispatch me after the Massacre of so many others that thou maist boast to have kill'd a much more valiant Man than thyself Fulvius disdaining him as a man out of hiâ— wits as also having received Letters from Rome contrary to the inhumanity of this Execution which tied his hands Jubellius proceeded since that my Country being taken my freinds dead and having with my own hands slaine my wife and children to rescue them from desolation of this ruine I am deni'd to die the death of my fellow-Citizens let us borrow from vertue the vengeance of this hated life and therewithal drawing a short sword he carried conceal'd about him he ran it thorough his own Bosome falling down backward and expiring at the Consuls feet Alexander laying Seige to a City of the Indies those within finding themselves very hardly set put on a vigorouâ— resolution to deprive him of the pleasure 〈◊〉 his Victory and accordingly burnt themselveâ— in general togeather with their City in despite of his humanity A new kind of Warre where the Enemies sought to save them and they 〈◊〉 lose themselves doing to make themselves sure of death all that men do to secure their lives Astapa a City of Spain finding it seâ—â— weak in walls and defence to withstand the Romans the Inhabitants made a heap of alâ— their riches and furniture in the publick place and having rang'd upon this heap all the woâ—men and children and pil'd them round witâ— wood and other combustible matter to take suddain Fire and left fifty of their young meâ— for the Execution of that whereon they haâ—â— resolv'd They made a deperate sally where for want of power to overcome they caus'd themselves to be every man slain The fifty after having Massacred every living Soul throughout the whole City and put Fire to this Pile threw themselves lastly into it finishing their generous liberty rather after an insensible than after a sorrowful and disgraceful manner giving the Enemy to understand that if fortune had been so pleas'd they had as well the courage to snatch from them Victory as they had to frustrate and render it dreadful and even mortal to those who allured by the splendor of the Gold melting in this flame having approcht it a great number were there suffocated and burnt being kept up from retiring by the crow'd that follow'd after The Abideans being prest by King Philip put on the same resolution but being curbed so short they could not put it in effect the King who abhor'd to see the temerarious precipitation of this Execution the treasure and movables that they had variously condemn'd to Fire and water being first seized drawing off his Souldiers graunted them three days time to kill themselves in that they might do it with more order and at greater ease which space they fill'd with Blood and slaughter beyond the utmost excess of all hostil cruelty So that not so much as any one Soul was left alive that had power to destroy it self There are infinite examples of like Popular conclusions which seem the more feirce and cruel by how much the effect is more universal and yet are really less than when singly executed What arguments and persuasion cannot make upon every individual man they can do upon all the ardour of Society ravishing particular judgments The condemn'd who would live to be executed in the Reign of Tiberius forfeited their goods and were denied the riteâ— of Sepulture those who by killing themselves did anticipate it were enterred and had liberty to dispose of their Estates by Will But men sometimes covet death out of hope of a greater good I desire says St. Paul to be with Christ and who shall rid me of these bands Cleombrotus Ambraciota having read Plato's Phaedo entred into so great a desire 〈◊〉 the life to come that without any other occasion he threw himself into the Sea By which it appears how improperly we call this voluntary dissolution despair to which the eagerness of hope does often encline us and ofteâ— a calme and temperate desire proceeding from a mature and considerate judgment Jacquâ— du Castel Bishop of Soissons in St. Lewis his foreign expedition seing the King and whole Army upon the point of returning into France leaving the affairs of Religion imperfect tool a resolution rather to go into Paradise wherefore having taken solemn leave of his freinds he charg'd alone in the sight of every onâ— into the Enemies Army where he was presently cut to peices In a certain Kingdom 〈◊〉 the new discover'd World upon a day of soâ—lemn Procession when the Idol they adore is drawn about in publick upon a Chariot of wonderful greatness besides that several are then seen cutting of cantells of their quick flesh to offer to him there are a number of others who prostrate themselves upon the place causing themselves to be crusht and broke to peices with the weighty wheels to obtain the veneration of Sanctity after
may approach it and view it and if we do not advance so far as to the Fort we may at least discover it and make our selves perfect in the Avenues It is not without reason that we are taught to consider sleep as a resemblance of death With how great facility do we pass from waking to sleeping and with how little concern do we lose the knowledg of light and of ourselves Peradâ—â—nture the faculty of sleeping would seem useless and contrary to nature being it deprives us of all action and sense were it not that by it Nature instructs us that she has equally made us to die as to live and from life presents us the Eternal Estate she reserves for us after it to accustom us to it and to take from us the fear of it But such as have by some violent accident fallen into a swoon and in it have lost all sense these methinks have been very near seeing the true and natural face of death for as to the moment of the passage it is not to be fear'd that it brings with it any pain or displeasure for as much as we can have no feeling without leisure Our sufferings require time which in death is so short and so precipitous that it must necessarily be insensible They are the approaches that we are to fear and those may fall within the limits of experience Many things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect I have past a good part of my age in a perfect and entire health I say not only entire but moreover spritely and wanton This estate so full of verdure jollity and vigour made the consideration of sickness so formidable to me that when I came to experiment it I found the attacques faint and easy in comparison of what I had apprehended Of this I have daily experience If I am under the shelter of a warm room in a stormy and tempestuous night I wonder how People can live abroad and am afflicted for those who are out in the 〈◊〉 If I am there my self I do not wish to be any where else This one thing of being always shut up in a chamber I fancâ—ed insupportable but I was presently inur'd to be so imprison'd a week nay a month togeather And have found that in the time of my health I did much more lament the sick than I think my self to be lamented when I am so and that the force of my imagination enhances near one half of the essence and reality of the thing I hope that when I come to die I shall find the same and that I shall not find it worth the pains I take so much preparation and so much assistance as I call in to undergo the stroak But we cannot give our selves too much advantage at all adventures In the time of our third or second troubles I do not well remember which going one day abroad to take the aire about a league from my own house which is seated in the very Center of all the bustle and mischeif of the late Civil wars of France thinking my self in all security and so near to my retreat that I stood in need of no better Equipage I had taken a horse that went very easy upon his pace but was not very strong Being upon my return home a suddain occasion falling out to make use of this horse in a kind of service that he was not acquainted with one of my train a lusty proper fellow mounted upon a strong German horse that had a very ill mouth but was otherwise vigorous and unfoild to play the Bravo and appear a better man than his fellowes comes thundring full speed in the very track where I was rushing like a Colossus upon the little man and the little horse with such a carreer of strength and weight that he turn'd us both over and over topsy turvy with our heeles in the aire so that there lay the horse over thrown and stun'd with the fall and I ten or twelve paces from him stretcht out at length with my face all batter'd and broken my sword which I had in my hand above ten paces beyond that and my belt broke all to pieces without motion or sence any more than a stock 'T was the only swoon I was ever in till this hour in my life Those who were with me after having used all the means they could to bring me to my self concluding me dead took me up in their arms and carried me with very much difficulty home to my house which was about half a French league from thence Having been by the way and two long hours after given over for a dead man I began to move and to fetch my breath for so great abundance of blood was fall'n into my stomack that Nature had need to rouse her forces to discharge it They then raised me upon my feet where I threw off a great quantity of pure Florid blood as I had also don several times by the way which gave me so much ease that I began to recover a little life but so leisurely and by so small advances that my first sentiments were much neare the approaches of death than life Perche dubbiosa anchor del suo ritorna Non s'assecura attonita la mente Because the Soul her mansion half had quit And was not sure she was return'd to it The remembrance of this accident which is very well imprinted in my memory so naturally representing to me the Image and Idea of death has in some sort reconcil'd me to that untoward accident When I first began to â—pen my eyes after my trance it was with so perplex't so weak and dead a sight that I could yet distinguish nothing and could only discern the light Come quel ch'or apre or chiude Gli occhi mezzo tra'l sonno è l'esser desto As people in the morning when they rise 'Twixt sleep and wake open and shut their eyes As to the functions of the Soul they advanced with the same pace and measure with those of the Body I saw my self all bloody my doublet being stain'd and spotted all over with the blood I had vomited and the first thought that came into my mind was that I had a Harquebuze shot in my head and indeed at the same time there were a great many fir'd round about us Methought my life but just hung upon my lips and I shut my eyes to help methought to thrust it out and took a pleasure in languishing and letting my self go It was an imagination that only superficially sloâ—ed upon my Soul as tender and weak as all the rest but really not only exempt from pain but mixt with that sweetness and pleasure that People are sensible of when they indulge themselves to drop into a slumber I beleive it is the very same condition those People are in whom we see to swoon with weakness in she agonie of death and am of opinion that we lament them without cause supposing
of very good Understanding once did that he hoarded up Wealth not to extract any other fruit and use from his Parsimony but to make himself honour'd and sought to by his own Relations and that Age having depriv'd him of all other Forces it was the only remaining Remedy to maintain his Authority in his Family and to keep him from being neglected and despis'd by all the World and in truth not only old age but all other imbecillity according to Aristotle is the Promoter of Avarice This is something but it is Physick for a Disease that a man should prevent A Father is very miserable that has no other hold of his Childrens Affection than the need they have of his Amstance if that can be call'd Affection he must render himself worthy to be respected by his Vertue and Wisdom and belov'd by his Bounty and the sweetness of his Manners Even the very Ashes of a rich Matter have their Value and we are wont to have the Bones and Relicks of worthy Men in regard and reverence No old Age can be so ruinous and offensive in a man who has past his Life in Honour but it must be Venerable especially to his Children the Soul of which he must have train'd up to their Duty by Reason not by Necessity and the Need they have of him nor by roughness and force errat longè mea quidem sententia Qui imperium credat esse gravius aut stabilius Vi quod fit quà m illud quod amicitia adjungitur And he does mainly vary from my sence Who thinks the Empire gain'd by violence More absolute and durable than that Which gentleness and friendship do create I condemn all Violence in the Education of a tender Soul that is design'd for Honour and Liberty There is I know not what of Servile in Rigour and Restraint and I am of opinion that what is not to be done by Reason Prudence and Address is never to be effected by Force I my self was brought up after that manner and they tell me that in all my first Age I never felt the Rod but twice and then very easily I have practis'd the same Method with my Children who all of them died at Nurse but Leonor my onely Daughter is arriv'd to the age of six years and upward without other Correction for her Childish Faults her Mothers Indulgence easily concurring than Words only and those very gentle In which kind of proceeding though my end and expectation should be both frustrated there are other Causes enough to lay the Fault on without blaming my Discipline which I know to be natural and just and I should in this have yet been more Religious towards the Males as born to less Subjection and more free and I should have made it my business to swell their Hearts with Ingenuity and Freedom I have never observ'd other effects of Whipping unless to render them more cowardly or more wilful and obstinate Do we desire to be belov'd of our Children Will we remove from them all occasion of wishing our Death though no occasion of so horrid a Wish can either be just or excusable Nullum scelus rationem habet let us reasonably accommodate their Lives with that is in our power In order to this we should not marry so young that our Age shall in a manner be confounded with theirs for this inconvenience plunges us into many very great Difficulties I say the Gentry of the Nation who are of a condition wherein they have little to do and live upon their Revenues only For elsewhere where the Life is dedicated to profit the plurality and numbers of Children is an encrease to the good husbandry and they are as so many new Tools and Instruments wherewith to grow rich I married at three and thirty years of Age and concur in the opinion of thirty five which is said to be that of Aristotle Plato will have no body marry before thirty but he has reason to laugh at those who undertake the work of Marriage after five and fifty and condem their Off-spring as unworthy of Aliment and Life Thales gave to this the truest Limits who young and being importun'd by his Mother to Marry answered That it was too soon and being grown into years and urg'd again That it was too late A man must deny opportunity to every importunate Action The ancient Gauls look'd upon it as a very horrid thing for a man to have had Society with a woman before twenty years of age and strictly recommended to the men who design'd themselves for War the keeping their Virginity till well grown in years forasmuch as Courage is abated and diverted by the use of Women Ma hor congiunto à giovinetta sposa Lieto homai de figli era invilito Negli affetti di padre di marito But now being married to a fair young wife He 's quite faln off from his old course of life His metle is grown rusty and his care His Wife and Children do betwixt them share Muleasses King of Tunis he whom the Emperour Charles the Fifth restor'd to his Kingdom reproacht the Memory of his Father Mahomet with the Frequentation of Women styling him Loose Effeminate and a Getter of Children The Greek History observes of Jecus the Tarentine of Chryso Astiplus Diopompus and others that to keep thir Bodies in order for the Olympick Games and such like Exercises they deny'd themselves during that preparation all Commerce with Venus In a certain Country of the Spanish Indies men were not admitted to marry till after Fourty years of Age and yet the Girls were allowed to go to 't at Ten. 'T is not time for a Gentleman of Five and thirty years old to give place to his Son who is Twenty he being himself in a condition to serve both in the Expeditions of War and in the Court of his Prince has himself need of all his Equipage and yet doubtless ought to allow his Son a share but not so great a one as wholly to disfurnish himself and for such a one the saying that Fathers have ordinarily in their mouths That they will not put off their Cloaths before they go to bed is proper enough But a Father over-worn with Age and Infirmities and depriv'd by his weakness and want of health of the common Society of men wrongs himself and his to rake together a great Mass of useless Treasure He has liv'd long enough if he be wise to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed not to his very Shirt I confess but to that and a good warm Night-Gown the remaining Pomps of which he has no further use he ought voluntarily to surrender to those to whom by the order of Nature they belong 'T is reason he should refer the use of those things to them seeing that Nature has reduc'd him to such an Estate that he cannot enjoy them himself otherwise there is doubtless ill nature and envy in the case The greatest
had all the pleasure of it and all the Obligation I forc'd and rack'd my self to put on and maintain this vain Disguise and have by that means depriv'd my self of the pleasure of his Conversation and I doubt in some measure his Affection which could not but be very cold towards me having never other from me than Austerity nor felt other than a tyrannical manner of proceeding I find this Complaint to be rational and rightly apprehended for as I my self know by too cortain Experience there is no so sweet Consolation in the loss of Friends as the conscience of having had no reserve of secret for them and to have had with them a perfect and entire Communication Oh my Friend am I the better for being sensible of this or am I the worse I am doubtless much the better I am consolated and honoured in the sorrow for his death Is it not a pious and a pleasing Office of my Life to be always upon my Friends Obsequies Can there be any joy equal to this Privation I open my self to my Family as much as I can and very willingly let them know in what estate they are in my opinion and good will as I do every body else I make haste to bring out and expose my self to them for I will not have them mistaken in me in any thing Amongst other particular Customs of our ancient Gauls this as Caesar reports was one That the Sons never presented themselves before their Fathers nor durst never appear in their company in publick till they began to bear Arms as if they would intimate by that that it was also time for their Fathers to receive them into their familiarity and acquaintance I have observ'd yet another sort of Indiscretion in Fathers of my time That not contented with having depriv'd their Children during their own long lives of the share they naturally ought to have had in their Fortunes they afterwards leave to their Wives the same Authority over their Estates and Liberty to dispose of them according to their own fancy And have known a certain Lord one of the principal Officers of the Crown who having in his prospect by right of succession above Fifty thousand Crowns yearly Revenue died necessitous and overwhelm'd with debt at above fifty years of age his Mother in his extreamest decrepitude and necessity being yet in possession of all his Goods by the Will of his Father who had for his part liv'd till near Fourscore years Old This appears by no means reasonable to me And therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man whose Affairs are well enough to seek a Wife that will charge his Estate with too great a Joynture There being no sort of foreign Debt or Encumbrance that brings greater and more frequent ruin to Estates and Families than that My Predecessors have ever been aware of that danger and provided against it and so have I But these who dissuade us from rich Wives for fear they should be less tractable and kind are out in their Advice to make a man lose a real Convenience for so frivolous a Conjecture It costs an unreasonable Woman no more to pass over one Reason than another They love but where they have the most wrong Injustice allures them as the Honour of their vertuous Actions does the good and the more Riches they bring with them they are by so much the more gentle and sweet Natur'd as women who are fair are more inclin'd and proud to be chast 'T is reasonable to leave the administration of Affairs to the Mothers during the minority of the Children but the Father has brought them up very ill if he cannot hope that when they come to Maturity they will have more Wisdom and Dexterity in the management of Affairs than his Wife considering the ordinary Weakness of the Sex It were notwithstanding to say the truth more against Nature to make the Mothers depend upon the Discretion of their Children They ought to be plentifully provided for to maintain themselves according to their Quality and Age by reason that Necessity is much more indecent and insupportable to them than to men and therefore the Son is rather to be cut short than the Mother In general the most judicious Distribution of our Goods when we come to dye is in my Opinion to let them be distributed according to the Custom of the Country The Laws have considered it better than we know how to do and 't is better to let them fail in their Election than rashly to run the hazard of miscarrying in ours Neither are they properly ours since by a Civil Prescription and without us they are all judg'd to certain Successors And although we have some liberty beyond that yet I think we ought not without great and manifest cause to take away that from one which his Fortune has allotted him and to which the publick Equity gives him Title and that it is against reason to abuse this liberty in making it to serve our own frivilous and private Fancies My Destiny has been kind to me in not preventing me with Occasions to tempt and divert my Affection from the common and legitimate Institution I see well enough with whom 't is time lost to employ a long Diligence of Good Offices A word ill taken obliterates ten years merit and he is happy who is in place to oyle their Good Will at this last Passage The last Action carries it Not the best and most frequent Offices but the most recent and present do the Work These are people that play with their Wills as with Apples and Rods to gratifie or chastise every Action of these that pretend to an Interest in their Care 'T is a thing of too great weight and consequence to be so tumbled and tost and alter'd every moment And wherein the Wise men of the World determin once for all having therein above all things a regard to reason and the publick observance We also lay these Masculine Substitutions too much to heart proposing a ridiculous Eternity to our Names And are moreover too superstitious in the vain Conjectures of the future which we derive from the little Observations we make of the Words and Actions of Children Peradventure they might have done me an injustice in dispossessing me of my Right for having been the most dull and heavy the most slow and unwilling at my Book not of all my Brothers only but of all the Boys in the whole Province Whether about learning my Lesson or any other bodily Exercise 'T is a folly to make an extraordinary Election upon the Credit of these Divinations wherein we are so often deceived If the Rule of Primogeniture were to be violated and the Destinies corrected in the Choice they have made of our Heirs one might more plausibly do it upon the account of some enormous personal Deformity a constant and incorrigible Vice and in the opinion of us French who are great admirers of Beauty
him the Attribute of Vertuous being that all his Operations are natural and without Endeavour It has been the Opinion of many Philosophers not only Stoicks but Epicureans that it is not enough to have the Soul seated in a good place of a good temper and well disposed to Vertue It is not enough to have our Resolutions fixed above all the power of Fortune but that we are moreover to seek occasions wherein to put it to the proof We are to covet Pain Necessity and Contempt to contend with them and to keep the Soul in Breath Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita 'T is one of the Reasons why Epaminondas who was yet of a third Sect refused the Riches Fortune presented to him by very lawful means because said he I am to contend with Poverty In which Extream he maintain'd himself to the last Socrates put himself methinks upon a rude Tryal keeping for his Exercise a confounded scolding Wife which was fighting at Sharp Metellus having of all the Senators alone attempted by the power of Vertue to withstand the Violence of Saturninus Tribune of the People at Rome who would by all means cause an unjust Law to pass in favour of the Commons and by so doing having incurr'd the Capital Penalties that Saturninus had established against the Dissenters entertain'd those who in this Extremity led him to Execution with words to this effect That it was a thing too easie and too base to do ill and that to do well where there was no danger was a common thing but that to do well where there was danger was the proper Office of a Man of Vertue These words of Metellus do very clearly represent to us what I would make out viz. That Vertue refuses Facility for a Companion and that that easie smooth and descending Way by which the regular Steps of a sweet Disposition of Nature are conducted is not that of a true Vertue She requires a rough and stormy Passage she will have either Exotick Difficulties to wrestle with like that of Metellus by means whereof Fortune delights to interrupt the Speed of her Carreer or internal Difficulties that the inordinate Appetites and Imperfections of our Condition introduce to disturb her I am come thus far at my ease but here it comes into my head that the Soul of Socrates the most perfect that ever came to my knowledge should by this Rule be of very little Recommendation for I cannot conceive in that Person any the least Motion of a vicious Inclination I cannot imagine there could be any Difficulty or Constraint in the Course of his Vertue I know his Reason to be so powerful and soveraign over him that she would never have suffered a vicious Appetite so much as to spring in him To a Vertue so elevated as his I have nothing to oppose Methinks I see him march with a victorious and triumphant pace in Pomp and at his Ease without Opposition or Disturbance If Vertue cannot shine bright but by the Conflict of contrary Appetites shall we then say that she cannot subsist without the Assistance of Vice and that it is from her that she derives her Reputation and Honour What then also would become of that brave and generous Epicurean Pleasure which makes account that it nourishes Vertue tenderly in her Lap and there makes it play and wanton giving it for Toys to play withal Shame Fevers Poverty Death and Torments If I presuppose that a perfect Vertue manifests it self in Contending in patient enduring of Pain and undergoing the uttermost extremity of the Gout without being moved in her Seat if I give her Austerity and Difficulty for her necessary Objects what will become of a Vertue elevated to such a degree as not only to despise Pain but moreover to rejoyce in it and to be tickled with the Daggers of a sharp Cholick such as the Epicureans have established and of which many of them by their Actions have given most manifest Proofs As have several others who I find to have surpassed in effects even the very Rules of their own Discipline Witness the younger Cato when I see him dye and tearing out his own Bowels I am not satisfied simply to believe that he had then his Soul totally exempt from all Troubles and Horrour I cannot think that he only maintained himself in the Steadiness that the Stoical Rules prescribed him Temperate without Emotion and imperturb'd There was methinks something in the Vertue of this Man too spritely and youthful to stop there I do believe that without doubt he felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an Action and was more pleased in it than in any other of his Life Sic abiit è vita ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet I believe so far that I question whether he would have been content to have been deprived of the occasion of so brave an Execution And if the Sincerity that made him embrace the publick Concern more than his own withheld me not I should easily fall into an Opinion that he thought himself obliged to Fortune for having put his Vertue upon so brave a Tryal and for having favoured that Thief in treading under foot the ancient Liberty of his Country Methinks I read in this Action I know not what Exaltation in his Soul and an extraordinary and manly Emotion of Pleasure when he looked upon the Generosity and Height of his Enterprise Deliberata morte ferocior Not stimulated with any hope of Glory as the popular and effeminate Judgments of some have concluded for that Consideration has been too mean and low to possess so generous so haughty and so obstinate a Heart as his but for the very beauty of the thing in it self which he who had the handling of the Springs discern'd more clearly and in its Perfection than we are able to do Philosophy has obliged me in determining that so brave an Action had been indecently placed in any other Life than that of Cato and that it only appertain'd to His to end so Notwithstanding and according to Reason he commanded his Son and the Senators that accompanied him to take another Course in their Affairs Catoni quum incredibilem natura tribuisset gravitatem â—ámque ipse perpetua constantia roboravisset sempérque in proposito consilio permansisset moriendum potius quà m Tyranni vultus aspiciendus erat Nature having endued Cato with an incredible Gravity which he had also fortified with a perpetual Constancy without ever flagging in his Resolution he must of necessity rather dye than see the face of the Tyrant Every Death ought to hold proportion with the Life before it We do not become others for dying I always interpret the Death by the Life preceding and if any one tell me of a Death strong and constant in appearance annexed to a feeble Life I conclude it produced by some feeble Cause and suitable to the Life before The Easiness then of
some frozen River and turn him out before them to that purpose lay his Ear upon the Banks of the River down to the Ice to listen if from a more remote or nearer Distance he can hear the noise of the Waters Current and according as he finds by that the Ice to be of a less or greater thickness to retire or advance had we not a reason to believe from thence that he had some thoughts that we should have upon the like Occasion and that it is a Ratiocination and Consequence drawn from natural Sence that that which makes a noise runs that which runs is not frozen what is not frozen is liquid and that which is liquid yeilds to Impression For to attribute this to a vivacity of the Sence of Hearing without Meditation and Consequence is a Chimera that cannot enter into the Imagination We are to suppose the same of so many sorts of Subtleties and Inventions with which Beasts secure themselves from and frustrate the Enterprizes we complot against them And if we will make an Advantage even of this that it is in our power to seize them to employ them in our Service and to use them at our Pleasure 't is but still the same Advantage we have over one another We have our Slaves upon these terms and the Climacidae were they not Women in Syria which being on all four serv'd for a Ladder and half Pace by which the Ladies mounted the Coach And the greatest part of free Persons surrender for very trivial Conveniences their Life and Being into the Power of another The Wives and Concubines of the Thracians contend who shall be chosen to be slain upon their Husbands Tomb. Have Tyrants ever fail'd of finding men enough vow'd to their Devotion Some of them moreover adding this necessity of accompanying them in Death as well as Life Whole Armies have obliged themselves after this manner to their Captains The form of the Oath in the rude School of Fencers who were to fight it out to the last was in these Words We swear to suffer our selves to be chain'd burnt hurt and kill'd with the Sword and to endure all that true Gladiators suffer from their Master religiously engaging both Bodies and Souls in his Service Vre meum si vis flamma caput pete ferro Corpus inorto verbere terga seca Wound me with Steel burn off my Head with Fire Or scourge my Shoulders with well-twisted Wire This was an Obligation indeed and yet there were some Years ten thousand who entred into it and lost themselves in it When the Scythians interr'd their King they strangled upon his Body the most beloved of his Concubines his Cupbearer the master of his Horse his Chamberlain the Usher of his Chamber and his Cook And upon his Anniversary they kill'd fifty Horses mounted by fifty Pages that they had empail'd all up the spine of the Back to the Throat and there left them sixt in Triumph about his Tomb. The men that serve us do it better cheap and for a less curious and favorable Usage than that we entertain our Hawkes Horses and Dogs withal To what Solicitude do we not submit for their Convenience I do not think that Servant of the most abject Condition would willingly do that for their Masters that Princes think it an Honor to do for these Beasts Diogenes seeing his Relations solicitous to redeem him from Servitude They are Fools said he 't is that which treats and nourishes and that serves me and they who make so much of Beasts ought rather to be said to serve them than to be serv'd by them And withal they have this of more generous that one Lyon never submitted to another Lyon nor one Horse to another for want of Courage As we go to the Chace of Beasts so do Tigers and Lyons to the Chace of Men and do the same Execution upon one another Dogs upon Hares Pikes upon Tenches Swallows upon Flies and Sparhawkes upon Blackbirds and Larks Serpente ciconia pullos Nutrit inventa per devia rura lacerta Et leporem aut capream famulae Jovis generosae In saltu venantur aves The Storke her young ones nourishes with Snakes And Lizards found in Meadows and in Lakes Joves Eagle trusses Hares and Birds of Prey Hawke in the Woods We divide the Quarry as well as the Pains and Labor of the Chace with our Hawkes and Hounds And above Amphipolis in Thrace the Hawkers and wild Faulcons equally divide the Prey in the middle As also along the Lake Maeotis if the Fishermen do not honestly leave the Wolves an equal Share of what he has caught they presently go and tear his Nets in pieces And as we have a way of fishing that is carried on more by Subtlety than Force namely angling with Lines and Hooks there is also the like amongst other Animals Aristotle say's that the Cuttle-Fish casts a Gut-out of his Throat as long as a Line which he extends and draws back at pleasure and as she perceives some little Fish approach her she lets it nibble upon the end of this Gut lying herself conceal'd in the sand or mud and by little and little draws it in till the little Fish is so near her that at one spring she may surprize it As to what concerns strength there is no Creature in the World expos'd to so many Injuries as Man We need not a Whale an Elephant or a Crocodile nor any such like Animals of which one alone is sufficient to defeat a great number of men to do our business Lice are sufficient to vacate Sylla's Dictatorship and the heart and life of a great and triumphant Emperor is the breakfast of a little contemptible Worm Why should we say that it is only for man by Knowledg improv'd by Art and Meditation to distinguish the things commodious for his being and proper for the cure of his Diseases to know the virtues of Rhubarb and Polypody And when we see the Goates of Candie when wounded with an Arrow amongst a million of Plants choose out Dittanie for their cure and the Tortoise when she has eaten of a Viper immediately go to look out for Origanum to puage her the Dragon to rub and clear his Eyes with Fennel the Storkes to give themselves Clysters of Sea-Water the Elephants to draw not only out of their own Bodies and those of their Companions but out of the Bodies of their Master too witness the Elephant of King Porus whom Alexander defeated the Dart and Javelins thrown at them in Battaile and that so dexterously that we our selves could not do it with so little pain to the Patient why do not we say the same that this is Knowledg and Prudence For to alledg to their disparagement that 't is by the sole instruction and dictate of Nature that they know all this is not to take from them the dignity of Knowledg and Prudence But with greater Argument to attribute it to them than
compos'd of all the fixt Stars as of so many Members the seventh and the eighth the Sun and the Moon Heraclides Ponticus does nothing but float in his Opinion and finally deprives God of Sense and makes him shift from one Form to another and at last says that 't is Heaven and Earth Theophrastus wanders in the same Irresolution amongst his Fancies attributing the Superintendency of the World one while to the Vnderstanding another while to Heaven and another to the Stars Strato that 't is Nature she having the power of Generation Augmentation and Diminuition without Form and Sentiment Zeno says 't is the Law of Nature commanding Good and prohibiting Evil which Law is an Animal and takes away the accustom'd Gods Jupiter Juno and Vesta Diogenes Apolloniates this 't is Age. Zenophanes makes God round seeing and hearing not breathing and having nothing in common with Human Nature Aristo thinks the Form of God to be incomprehensible deprives him of Sence and knows not whether he be an Animal or something else Cleanthes one while supposes it to be Reason another while the World another the Soul of Nature and then the supream Heat rouling about and environing all Perseus Zeno's Disciple was of Opinion that Men have given the Title of Gods to such as have been useful and have added any advantage to Human Life and even to profitable things themselves Crysippus made a confus'd heap of Old Sentences and reckons amongst a thousand Forms of Gods that he makes the Men also that have been Deified Diagoras and Theodorus flatly deny'd that there were any Gods at all Epicurus makes the Gods shining transparent and perflable lodg'd as betwixt two Forts betwixt the two Worlds secure from blows cloth'd in a Human Figure and with such Members as we have which Members are to them of no use Ego Deum genus esse semper duxi dicam caelitum Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat humanum genus I ever thought that Gods above there were But do not think they care what Men do here Trust to your Philosophy my Masters And brag that you have found the Bean in the Cake What a Rattle is here with so many Philosophical Heads The perplexity of so many Worldly Forms have gain'd this over me that Manners and Opinions contrary to mine do not so much displease as instruct me nor so much make me proud as they humble me in comparing them And all other choice than what comes from the Express and immediate Hand of God seems to me a Choice of very little Priviledge The Policies of the World are no less opposite upon this Subject than the Schools by which we may understand that Fortune it self is not more variable and inconstant nor more blind and inconsiderate than our Reason The things that are most unknown are most proper to be deified wherefore to make Gods of our selves as the Ancients did exceeds the extreamest Weakness of Understanding I should much rather have gone along with those who ador'd the Serpent the Dog or the Oxe Forasmuch as their Nature and Being is less known to us and that we have more Authority to imagine what we please of those Beasts and to attribute to them extraordinary Faculties But to have made Gods of our own condition of whom we ought to know the Imperfections and to have attributed to them Desire Anger Revenge Marriages Generation Alliances Love and Jealousie our Members and Bones our Feavers and Pleasures our Death and Obsequies this must needs proceed from a marvelous Intoxication of Human Understanding Que procul usque adeo divino ab numine distant Inque Deum numero quae sint indigna videri From Divine Natures which so distant were They are unworthy of that Character Formae aetates vestitus ornatus noti sunt Genera conjugia cognationes omnidque traducta ad similitudinem imbecillitatis humanae nam perturbatis animis inducuntur Accipimus enim Deorum cupiditates aegritudines iracundias Their Forms Ages Cloaths and Ornaments are known Their Descents Marriages and Kindred and all appropriated to the similitude of Human Weakness for they are represented to us with anxious Minds and we read of the Lusts Sickness and Anger of the Gods As having attributed Divinity not only to Faith Vertue Honour Concord Liberty Victory and Piety but also to Voluptuousness Fraud Death Envy Old Age Misery to fear Feaver ill Fortune and other Injuries of our frail and transitory Life Quid juvat hoc templis nostros inducere mores O curvae in terris anâ—mae caelestium inanes Into our Temples to what end or use Do we our Ceremonies introduce Oh crooked Souls that to the Earth bow low And nought of Heav'nly Mysteries do know The Egyptians with an impudent Prudence interdicted upon pain of hanging that any one should say that their Gods Serapis and Isis had formerly been Men And yet no one was ignorant that they had been such And their Effigies represented with the Finger upon the Mouth signified says Varro that mysterious Decree to their Priests to conceal their mortal Original as it must by necessary Consequence cancel all the Veneration pay'd to them Seeing that Man so much desir'd to equal himself to God he had done better says Cicero to have attracted those Divine Conditions to himself and have drawn them down hither below than to send his Corruption and Misery up on high But to take it right he has several ways done both the one and the other with like vanity of Opinion When Philosophers search narrowly into the Hierarchy of their Gods and make a great bustle about distinguishing their Alliances Offices and Power I cannot believe they speak as they think When Plato describes Pluto's Verger to us and the bodily Conveniences or Pains that attend us after the ruin and annihilation of our Bodies and accommodate them to the resentment we have in this Life Secreti celant colles myrtea circùm Sylva tegit curae non ipsa in morte relinquunt In Vales and mirtle Groves they pensive lye And their Cares do not leave them when they dye When Mahomet promises his Followers a Paradise hung with Tapestry guilded and enamel'd with Gold and precious Stones furnished with Wenches of excelling Beauty rare Wines and delicate Dishes it is easily discern'd that these are Deceivers that accommodate their Promises to our Sensuality to attract and allure us by Hopes and Opinions suitable to our mortal Appetite And yet some amongst us are fallen into the like Error promising to themselves after the Resurrection a Terrestial and Temporal Life accompanied with all sorts of Worldly Conveniences and Pleasures Can we believe that Plato he who had so heavenly Conceptions and was so well acquainted with the Divinity as thence to derive the Name of the Divine Plato ever thought that the poor Creature Man had any thing in him applicable to that incomprehensible Power And that he believ'd that the weak Holds we
are able to take were capable or the Force of our Understanding sufficient to participate of Beatitude or Eternal Pains We should then tell him from Human Reason If the Pleasures thou dost promise us in the other Life are of the same kind that I have injoy'd here below this has nothing in common with Infinity Though all my five Natural Senses should be even loaded with Pleasure and my Soul full of all the Contentment it could hope or desire we know what all this amounts to all this would be nothing If there be any thing of mine there there is nothing Divine if this be no more than what may belong to our present Condition it cannot be of any value All Contentment of Mortals is mortal Even the Knowledge of our Parents Children and Friends if that can effect and delight us in the other World if there that still continue a satisfaction to us we still remain in earthly and finite Conveniences We cannot as we ought conceive the greatness of these High and Divine Promises if we could in any sort conceive them To have a worthy Imagination of them we must imagine them inimaginable inexplicable and incomprehensible and absolutely another thing than those of our miserable experience Eye hath not seen saith St. Paul nor ear heard neither have entred into the Heart of Man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him And if to render us capable our being be reform'd and chang'd as thou Plato sayst in thy Purifications it ought to be so extream and total a Change that by Physical Doctrine it will be no more Hector erat tunc cùm bello certabat at ille Tractus ab Aemonio non erat Hector equo He Hector was whilst he could fight but when Drag'd by Achilles Steeds no Hector then It must be something else that must receive these Recompences quod mutatur dissolvitur interit ergo Trajiciuntur enim partes atque ordine migrant What 's chang'd dissolv'd is and doth therefore dye For parts are mixt and from their Order fly For in Pythagoras his Metempsycosis and the change of Habitation that he imagin'd in Souls can we believe that the Lyon in whom the Soul of Caesar is inclos'd does espouse Caesar's Passions or that the Lyon is he For if it was still Caesar they would be in the right who controverting this Opinion with Plato reproach him that the Son might be seen to ride his Mother transform'd into a Mule and the like Absurdities And can we believe that in the Mutations that are made of the Bodies of Animals into others of the same kind that the new Commers are not other than their Predecessors From the Ashes of a Phoenix a Worm they say is engendred and from that another Phoenix who can imagine that this second Phoenix is not other than the first We see our Silk-worms as it were dye and wither and from this wither'd Body a Butterflie is produced and from that another Worm how ridiculous would it be to imagine that this were still the first That which has once ceas'd to be is no more Nec si materiam nostram collegerit aetas Post obitum rursumque redegerit ut sit a nunc est Atque iterum nobis fuerint data lumina vitae Pertineat quidquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum Interrupta semel cùm sit repetentia nostra Neither though time should gather and restore Our Matter to the Form it was before And give again new Light to see withal Would that new Figure us concern at all Or we again ever the same be seen Our Being having interrupted been And Plato when thou saist in another place that it shall be the Spiritual part of Man that will be concern'd in the Fruition of the Recompences of another Life thou tellest us a thing wherein there is as little appearance of Truth Scilicet avolsis radicibus ut neque ullam Dispicere ipse oculus rem seorsum corpore toto No more than Eyes once from their Opticks torn Can ever after any thing discern For by this account it would no more be Man nor consequently us who should be concern'd in this Enjoyment For we are compos'd of two principally Essential Parts the separation of which is the Death and Ruin of our Being Inter enim jacta est vitai pausa vagèque Deerarunt passim motus ab sensibus omnes When Life 's extinct all Motions of Sence Are ta'ne away dispers'd and banish'd thence We cannot say that the Man suffers much when the Worms feed upon his Members and that the Earth consumes them Et nihil hoc ad nos qui coitu conjugiòque Corporis atque animae consistimus uniter apti What 's that to us who longer feel not Pain Than Body and Soul united do remain Moreover upon what Foundation of their Justice can the Gods take notice of or reward Man after his Death for his good and vertuous Actions since it was they themselves that put them in the way and mind to do them And why should they be offended at or punish him for wicked ones since themselves have created him in so frail a condition and what with one Glaunce of their Will they might prevent him from falling Might not Epicurus with great colour of Human Reason object that to Plato did he not often save himself with this Sentence That it is impossible to establish any thing certain of the immortal Nature by the Mortal She does nothing but err throughout but especially when she meddles with Divine things Who does more evidently perceive this than we For although we have given her certain and infallible Principles and though we have inlightned her Steps with the Sacred Lamp of Truth that it has pleas'd God to communicate to us we daily see nevertheless that if she swerve never so little from the ordinary Path and that she strays from or wander out of the way set out and beaten by the Church how soon she loses confounds and fetters her self tumbling and floating in this vast turbulent and waving Sea of Human Opinions without restraint and without any determinate end So soon as she loses that Great and Common Road she enters into a Labyrinth of a thousand several Paths Man cannot be any thing but what he is nor imagine beyond the reach of his Capacity 'T is a greater Presumption says Plutarch in them who are but Men to attempt to speak and discourse of the Gods and Demi-Gods than it is in a Man utterly ignorant of Musick to judge of Singing or in a Man who never saw a Camp to dispute about Arms and Martial Affairs presuming by some light Conjecture to understand the effects of an Art he is totally a Stranger to Antiquity I believe thought to put a Complement upon and to add something to the Divine Grandeur in assimilating it to Man investing it with his Faculties and adorning it with his ugly Humors and more
shameful Necessities Offering it our Aliments to eat presenting it with our Dances Masquerades and Farces to divert it with our Vestments to cover it and our Houses to inhabit caressing it with the Odors of Incense and the Sounds of Musick Festons and Nosegayes And to accommodate it to our vicious Passions flattering his Justice with inhuman Vengeance that is delighted with the Ruin and Dissipation of things by it created and preserv'd As Tiberius Sempronius who burnt the rich Spoils and Arms he had gained from the Enemy in Sardignia fer a Sacrifice to Vulcan And Paulus Emylius those of Macedonia to Mars and Minerva And Alexander arriving at the Indian Ocean threw several great Vessels of Gold into the Sea in Favour of Thetis and moreover loading her Altars with a slaughter not of innocent Beasts only but of Men also as several Nations and ours amongst the rest were ordinarily used to do And I believe there is no Nation under the Sun that has not done the same Sulmone creatos Quatuor hic juvenes totidem quos educat Vfens Viventes rapit inferias quos immolet umbris At Sulmo born he took of young Men four Of those at Vfens bred as many more Of these alive in most inhuman wise To offer an infernal Sacrifice The Getes hold themselves to be Immortal and that their Death is nothing but a Journey towards Zamolxis Once in five Years they dispatch some one amongst them to him to entreat of him such Necessaries as they stand in need of Which Envoy is chosen by Lot and the form of his Dispatch after having been instructed by Word of Mouth what he is to deliver is that of the Assistants three hold out so many Javelins against which the rest throw his Body with all their Force If he happen to be wounded in a mortal Part and that he immediately dye 't is reputed a certain Argument of Divine Favor but if he escape he is look'd upon as a wicked and execrable Wretch and another is dismist after the same manner in his stead Amestris the Mother of Xerxes being grown old caus'd at once fourteen young Men of the best Families of Persia to be buried alive according to the Religion of the Country to gratify some infernal Deity And yet to this Day the Idols of Temixtitan are cemented with the Blood of little Children and they delight in no Sacrifice but of these pure and infantine Souls a Justice thirsty of innocent Blood Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Such impious Use was of Religion made So many Ills and Mischiefs to persuade The Carthaginians immolated their own Children to Saturn and who had none of their own bought of others the Father and Mother being in the mean time obliged to assist at the Ceremony with a gay and contented Countenance It was a strange Fancy to gratify the Divine Bounty with our Affliction like the Lacedemonians who regal'd their Diana with the tormenting of young Boys which they caus'd to be whip'd for her Sake very often to Death It was a savage Humor to think to gratify the Architect by the Subversion of his Building and to think to take away the Punishment due to the Guilty by punishing the Innocent And that poor Iphigenia at the Port of Aulis should by her Death and being Sacrific'd acquit towards God the whole Army of the Greeks from all the Crimes they had committed Et casta incestè nubendi tempore in ipso Hostia concideret mactatu maesta parentis And that the chast should in her nuptial Band Dye by a most unnatural Fathers Hand And that the two noble and generous Souls of the two Decii the Father and the Son to encline the Favour of the Gods to be propitious to the Affairs of Rome should throw themselves headlong into the thickest of the Enemy Quae fuit tanta Deorum iniquitas ut placari populo Romano non possent nisi tales viri occidissent How great an Injustice in the Gods was that that they could not be reconcil'd to the People of Rome unless such Men perished To which may be added that it is not in the Criminal to cause himself to be scourg'd according to his own Measure nor at his own time but that it purely belongs to the Judg who considers nothing as Chastisements but the Penalty that he appoints and cannot call that Punishment which proceeds from the Consent of him that suffers The Divine Vengeance presupposes an absolute Dissent in us both from its Justice and our own Penalty And therefore it was a ridiculous Humor of Polycrates the Tyrant of Samos who to interrupt the continued Course of his good Fortune and to ballance it went and threw the dearest and most precious Jewel he had into the Sea beleiving that by this voluntary and antedated Mishap he brib'd and satisfied the Revolution and Vicissitude of Fortune and she to delude his Folly ordered it so that the same Jewel came again into his Hands found in the Belly of a Fish And then to what end are those Tearings and Demembrations of the Corybantes the Menades and in our times of the Mahometans who slash their Faces Bosoms and their Limbs to gratify their Prophet Seeing that the Offence lies in the Will not in the Breast Eyes Genitories in the Beauty the Shoulders or the Throat Tantus est perturbatae mentis sedibus suis pulsae furor ut sic dii placentur quemadmodum ne homines quidem saeviunt So great is the Fury and Madness of troubled Minds when once displac'd from the Seat of Reason As if the Gods should be appeas'd with what even Men are not so mad as to approve The use of this natural Contexture has not only respect to us but also to the Service of God and other Men. And 't is unjust willingly to wound or hurt it as to kill our selves upon any Pretence whatever It seems to be great Cowardize and Treason to exercise Cruelty upon and to destroy the Functions of the Body that are stupid and servile to spare the Soul the Solicitude of Governing them according to Reason Vbi iratos Deos timent qui sic propitios habere merentur In regiae libidinis voluptatem castrati sunt quidam sed nemo sibi ne vir esset jubente Domino manus intulit Where are they so afraid of the anger of the Gods as to merit their Favour at that rate Some indeed have been made Eunuchs for the Lust of Princes But no Man at his Masters Command has put his own Hand to unman himself So did they fill their Religion with several ill Effects saepius olim Religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta In elder times Religion did commit notorious Crimes Now nothing of ours can in any sort be compared or likened unto the Divine Nature which will not blemish and smut it with so much Imperfection How can that infinite Beauty Power and Bounty admit of
the Proportion of his Ignorance How many occult Properties and Quintessences do we daily discover For for us to go according to Nature is no more but to go according to our Intelligence as far as that is able to follow and as far as we are able to see into it All beyond that must be monstrous and irregular Now by this Account all things shall be monstrous to the wisest and most understanding men for human Reason has persuaded them that there was no manner of Ground or Foundation not so much as to be assured that Snow is white and Anaxagoras affirm'd it to be black If there be any thing or if there be nothing If there be Knowledg or Ignorance which Metrodorus Chius denied that Man was able to determine Or whether we live as Euripides doubts whether the Life we live is Life or whether that we call Death be not Life Who knows if Life been't that which we call Death And Death the thing that we call Life And not without some apparence For why do we from this Instant derive the Title of Being which is but a Flash in the infinite Course of an eternal Night and so short an Interruption of our perpetual and natural Condition Death possessing all that past before and all the future of this moment and also a good part of the moment it self Others swear there is no motion at all as the Followers of Melissus and that nothing stirs For if there be but one neither can that Spherical Motion be of any use to him nor the Motion from one place to another as Plato proves That there is neither Generation nor Corruption in Nature Protagoras says That there is nothing in Nature but Doubt That a man may equally dispute of all things and even of this whether a man can equally dispute of all things Mansiphanes that of things which seem to be nothing is more than it is not That there is nothing certain but incertainty Parmenides that of that which seems there is no one thing in general That there is but one thing Zeno that one same is not and that there is nothing If there were one thing it would either be in another or in it self If it be in another they are two If it be in it self they are yet two the comprehending and the comprehended According to these Doctrines the Nature of things is no other than a Shadow either false or vain This way of speaking in a Christian Man has ever seem'd to me very Indiscreet and Irreverent God cannot dye God cannot contradict himself God cannot do this or that I do not like to have the divine Power so limited by the Laws of Mens Mouths And the apparence which presents itself to us in those Propositions ought to be more religiously and reverently expressed Our speaking has its Failings and Defects as well as all the rest Grammar is that which creates most Disturbance in the World Our Suits only spring from the Debate of the interpretation of Laws And most Wars proceed from the Inability of Ministers clearly to express the Conventions and Treaties of Amity of Princes How many Quarrels and of how great Importance has the doubt of the meaning of this Sillable Hoc created in the World Let us take the clearest Conclusion that Logick it self presents us with If you say it is fair and that you say true it is then fair Weather Is not this a very certain form of speaking And yet it will deceive us That it will do so let us follow the Example If you say you lye and that you say true then you do lye The Art the Reason and Force of the Conclusion of this are the same with the other and yet we are gravelled The Pyrrhonian Philosophers I discern cannot express their general Conception in any kind of speaking For the World requires a new Language on purpose Ours is all form'd of affirmative Propositions which are totally antartick to them Insomuch that when they say I doubt they are presently taken by the Throat to make them confess that at least they know and are assur'd that they do doubt By which means they have been compelled to shelter themselves under this medicinal Comparison without which their Humor would be inexplicable When they pronounce I know not Or I doubt they say that this Proposition carries off it self with the rest no more nor less than Rubarb that drives out the ill Humors and carries it self off with them This Fancy will be more certainly understood by Interrogation What do I know as I bear it in the Emblem of a Ballance See what use they make of this irreverend way of speaking In the present Disputes about our Religion if you press the Adversaries to it too hard they will roundly tell you that it is not in the Power of God to make it so that his Body should be in Paradice and upon Earth and in several Places at once And see what Advantage the old Scoffer makes of this At least says he it is no little Consolation to Man to see that God cannot do all things For he cannot kill himself though he would which is the greatest Privilege we have in our Condition He cannot make Mortals Immortal nor revive the Dead Nor make it so that he who has lived has not nor that he who has had Honours has not had them having no other right to the past than that of Oblivion And that the Comparison of a Man to God may yet be made out by pleasant Examples he cannot order it so he says that twice ten shall not be twenty This is what he says and what a Christian ought to take heed shall not escape his Lips Whereas on the contrary it seems as if all Men studied this impudent kind of blasphemous Language to reduce God to their own measure cras vel atra Nube polum pater occupato Vel sole puro non tamen irritum Quodcumque retro est efficiet neque Diffinget infectumque reddet Quod fugiens semel hora vexit To morrow let it shine or rain Yet cannot this the past make vain Nor uncreate and render void That which was yesterday enjoy'd When we say that the infinity of Ages as well past as to come are but one Instant with God That his Bounty Wisdom and Power are the same with his Essence Our Mouths speak it but our Understandings apprehend it not And yet such is our vain Opinion of our selves that we must make the Divinity to pass through our Seive And from thence proceed all the Dreams and Errors with which the World abounds whilst we reduce and weigh in our Ballance a thing so far above our Poize Mirum quò procedat improbitas cordis humani parvulo aliquo invitata successu 'T is a wonder to what the wickedness of Mans Heart will proceed if elevated with the least Success How magisterially and insolently does Epicurus reprove the Stoicks from maintaining that the
Religion which are observable in some of these Examples are Testimonies of its Dignity and Divinity Its is not only in some sort insinuated into all the Infidel Nations one this side of the World by a certain Imitation but into the fore-nam'd Barbarians also as by a common and supernatural Inspiration For we find there the Belief of Purgatory but of a new Form that which we give to the Fire they give to the Cold and imagine that the Souls are both purg'd and punish'd by the rigour of an excessive Coldness And this Example puts me in mind of another pleasant diversity For as there were in hat place some people who took a Pride to strip and unmuffle the Glances of their Instruments and clipt off the Prepuce after the Mahometan and Jewish manner there were others who made so great conscience of laying it bare that they carefully purs'd it up with little Strings to keep that end from peeping into the Air. And of this other diversity that whereas we to honour Kings and Festivals put on the best Cloths we have In some Religions to express their Disparity and Submission to their King his Subjects present themselves before him in their vilest Habits and entring his Palace throw some old tatter'd Garment over their better Apparel to the end that all the Lustre and Ornament may solely remain in him But to proceed if Nature inclose within the Bounds of her ordinary Progress the Beliefs Judgments and Opinions of Men as well as all other things If they have their Revolution their Season their Birth and Death like Cabage Plants If the Heavens agitate and rule them at their pleasure what Magisterial and Permanent Authority do we attribute to them If we experimentally see that the Form of our Being depends upon the Air upon the Climat and upon the Soile where we are born And not only the Colour the Stature the Complexion and the Countenances but moreover the very Faculties of the Soul it self Et plaga Caeli non solùm ad robur corporum sed etiam animorum facit The Climate is of great Efficacy not only to the strength of Bodies but to that of Souls also says Vegetius And that the Goddess who founded the City of Athens chose to scituate it in a temperature of Air fit to make Men prudent as the Egyptian Priests told Solon Athenis tenue Caelum Ex quo etiam cutiores putantur Attici Crassum Thebis Itaque pingues Thebani valentes The Air of Athens is subtle and thin From whence also the Athenians are reputed to be more acute And at Thebes more gross and thick wherefore the Thebans are look'd upon as more heavy-witted and more strong In such sort that as the Fruits and Animals differ the Men should also be more or less warlike just temperate and docile here given to Wine elsewhere to Theft or Uncleanness Here inclin'd to Superstition elsewhere to Miscreancy In one place to Liberty in another to Servitude capable of one Science or of one Art Dull or Ingenious Obedient or Mutinous Good or Ill according as the place where they are seated inclines them and assume a new Complexion if remov'd like Trees Which was the reason why Cyrus would not grant the Persians leave to quit their rough and craggy Country to remove to another more pleasant and plain Saying that fertile and tender Soiles made Men effeminate and soft If we see one while one Art and one Belief flourish and another while another thorough some Celestial Influence Such an Age to produce such Natures and to incline Mankind to such and such a Propension The Spirits of Men one while gay and another grum like our Feilds what becomes of all those fine Prerogatives we so sooth our selves withal Seeing that a wise Man may be mistaken a hundred Men a hundred Nations nay that even Human Nature it self as we believe is many Ages wide in one thing or another what assurance have we that she sometimes is not mistaken or not in this very Age of ours Methinks that amongst others Testimonies of our Imbecillity this ought not to be forgotten that Man cannot by his own Wish and Desire find out what is necessary for him that not in Fruition only but in Imagination and Wish we cannot agree about what we would have to satisfie and content us Let us leave it to our own Thought to cut out and make up at pleasure It cannot so much as covet what is proper for it and satisfie it self quid enim ratione timemus Aut cupimus Quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te Conatus non poeniteat votique peracti For what with Reason does Man wish or fear Or undertake upon a Ground so clear That afterward he may not well repent Both the Attempt and the desir'd Event And therefore it was that Socrates beg'd nothing of the Gods but what they knew to be best for him And the both private and publick Prayers of the Lacedemonians were only simply to obtain good and useful things referring the Choice and Election of them to the Discretion of the Supream Power Conjugium petimus partumque Vxoris at illis Notum qui pueri qualisque futura sit Vxor. We pray for Wives and Children they above Know only when we have them what they 'l prove And Christians pray to God that his Will may be done That they may not fall into the Inconvenience the Poet feigns of King Midas He pray'd to the Gods that all he touch'd might be turn'd into Gold His Prayer was heard his Wine was Gold his Bread was Gold and the Feathers of his Bed his Shirt and Clothes were turn'd into Gold so that he found himself ruin'd and overwhelm'd with the Fruition of his Desire and being inrich'd with an inollerable Wealth was fain to unpray his Prayers Attonitus novitate mali divesque miserque Effugere optat opes quae modo voverat odit Astonish'd at the strangeness of the ill To be so rich yet miserable still He wishes now he could his wealth evade And hates the thing for which before he pray'd To instance in my self Being young I desir'd of Fortune above all things the Order of St. Michel which was then the utmost distinction of Honour amongst the French Nobless and very rare She pleasantly gratified my longing Instead of raising me and lifting me up from my own place to attain to it she was much kinder to me for she brought it so low and made it so cheap that It stoopt down to my Shoulders and lower Cleobis and Biton Trophonius and Agamedes having requested the first of their Goddess the last of their God a Recompence worthy of their Piety had Death for a Reward so differing are the heavenly Opinions concerning what is fit for us from ours God might grant us Riches Honours Life and Health sometimes to our own hurt for every thing that is pleasing to us is not
is not a thing that is and it were a great folly and an apparent falsity to say that that is which is not yet in being or that has already ceas'd to be And as to these words present instant and now by which it seems that we principally support and found the intelligence of Time Reason discovering does presently destroy it for it immediately divides and splits it into the future and past being of necessity to consider it divided in two The same happens to Nature that is measur'd as to Time that measures it for she has nothing more subsisting and permanent than the other but all things are either born bearing or dying By which means it were a sinful saying to say of God who is He who only is that He was or that He shall be for those are Terms of declension transportation and vicissitude of what cannot continue nor remain in Being Wherefore we are to conclude that God only is not according to any measure of Time but according to an immutable and immoveable Eternity not measur'd by Time nor subject to any Declension before whom nothing was and after whom nothing shall be either more new or more recent but a real Being that with one sole Now fills the for ever and that there is nothing that truly is but He alone without being able to say He has been or shall be without beginning and without end To this Religious conclusion of a Pagan I shall only add this testimony of one of the same condition for the close of this long and tedious Discourse which would furnish me with endless matter What a vile and abject thing says he is man if he do not raise himself above Humanity 'T is a good word and a profitable desire but withall absurd For to make the handle bigger than the Hand and the Cubit longer than the Arm and to hope to stride further than our Legs can reach is both impossible and monstrous or that Man should rise above himself and Humanity for he cannot see but with his Eyes nor seize but with his Power He shall be exalted if God will lend him his extraordinary hand he shall exalt himself by abandoning and renouncing his own proper means and by suffering himself to be rais'd and elevated by means purely Celestial It belongs to our Christian Faith and not to the Stoical Vertue to pretend to that Divine and miraculous Metamorphosis CHAP. XIII Of judging of the Death of another WHen we judge of another's assurance in Death which without doubt is the most remarkable action of humane Life we are to take notice of one thing which is that men very hardly believe themselves to be arriv'd to that period Few men dye in an opinion that it is their latest hour and there is nothing wherein the flattery of Hope does more delude us It never ceases to whisper in our Ears Others have been much sicker without dying my condition is not so desperate as 't is thought and at the worst God has done other Miracles Which happens by reason that we set too much value upon our selves It seems as if the Universality of things were in some measure to suffer by our dissolution and that it did commiserate our condition For as much as our deprav'd sight represents things to it self after the same manner and that we are of opinion they stand in as much need of us as we do of them like People at Sea to whom Mountains Fields Cities Heaven and Earth are toss'd at the same rate they are Provehimur portu terraeque urbesque recedunt Out of the Port with a brisk gale we speed And making way Cities and Lands recede Whoever saw old Age that did not applaud the past and condemn the present time laying the fault of his Misery and Discontent upon the World and the Manners of Men Jamque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert Praeteritis laudat fortunas saepe parentis Et crepat antiquum genus ut pietate repletum Now the old Ploughman sighs and shakes his Head And present times comparing with those fled His predecessors happiness does praise And the great Piety of that old Race We will make all things to go along with us whence it follows that we consider our Death as a very great thing and that does not so easily pass nor without the solemn Consultation of the Stars Tot circa unum Caput tumultuantes Deos and so much the more think it as we more value our selves What shall so much Knowledge be lost with so much damage to the World without a particular concern of the Destinies Does so rare and exemplary a Soul cost no more the killing than one that is mean and of no use to the publick This Life that protects so many others upon which so many other Lives depend that employs so vast a number of men in his Service and that fills so many places shall it drop off like one that hangs but by its own simple Thread None of us layes it enough to Heart that we are but one Thence proceeded those Words of Caesar to his Pilot more tumid than the Sea that threatned him Italiam si coelo authore recusas Me pete sola tibi causa haec est justa timoris Victorem non nosce tuum perrumpe procellas Tutela secure mei If thou to sail to Italy decline Under the Gods Protection trust to mine The only just cause that thou hast to fear Is that thou dost not know thy Passenger But I being aboard slight Neptunes braves And fearless cut thorough the swelling Waves And these credit jam digna pericula Caesar Fatis esse suis tantusque evertere dixit Me superis labor est parva quem puppe sedentem Tam magno petiere mari These Dangers worthy of his Destiny Caesar did now believe and then did cry What is it for the Gods a task so great To overthrow me that to do the feat In a poor little Bark they must be fain Here to surprize me on the swelling Main And that idle Fancy of the Publick that the Sun carried in his Face the Mourning for his Death a whole Year Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam Cum Caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit And pittying Rome Great Caesar being dead In mourning Clouds Sol veil'd his shining Head and a thousand of the like wherewith the World suffers it self to be so easily impos'd upon believing that our interests alter the Heavens and that they are concern'd at our ordinary Actions Non tanta Coelo societas nobiscum est ut nostro fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor There is no such Alliance betwixt us and Heaven that the Brightness of the Stars should be made Mortal by our Death Now to judge of the Constancy and Resolution in a Man that does not yet believe himself to be certainly in Danger though he
really is is no Reason and 't is not enough that he dies in this posture unless he did purposely put himself into it for this effect It most commonly falls out in most men that they set a good Face upon the Matter and speak with great Indifferency to acquire Reputation which they hope afterward living to enjoy Of all that I have seen dye Fortune has dispos'd their Countenances and no design of theirs and even of those who in ancient times have made away themselves there is much to be consider'd whether it were a sudden or a lingring Death That cruel Roman Emperour would say of his Prisoners That he would make them feel Death and if any one kill'd himself in Prison That Fellow has made an escape from me he would say he would spin out Death and make it felt by Torments Vidimus toto quamvis in Corpore caeso Nil animae lethale datum moremque nefandae Durum saevitiae percunctis parcere morti And in tormented Bodies we have seen Amongst those Wounds none that have mortal been Inhumane Method of dire Cruelty That means to kill yet will not let men dye In plain truth it is no such great Matter for a Man in Health and in a temperate state of Mind to resolve to kill himself it is very easie to give ill signâ— before one comes to the push insomuch that Heliogabalus the most effeminate Man in the World amongst his most sensual Pleasures could forecast to make himself dye delicately when he should be forc'd thereto And that his Death might not give the lye to the rest of his Life had purposely built a sumptuous Tower the Front and Base whereof was cover'd and lay'd with Planks enrich'd with Gold and precious Stones thence to precipitate himself and also caus'd Cords twisted with Gold and Crimson Silk to be made wherewith to strangle himself and a Sword with the blade of Gold to be hammer'd out to fall upon and kept Poyson in Vessels of Emerald and Topaze wherewith to poyson himself according as he should like to choose one of these ways of dying Impiger fortis virtute coacta By a forc'd Valour resolute and brave Yet for so much as concerns this Person the effeminacy of his Preparations makes it more likely that he would have thought better on 't had he been put to the test But in those who with greater Resolution have determin'd to dispatch themselves we must examine whether it were with one blow which took away the leisure of feeling the Effect for it is to be question'd whether perceiving Life by little and little to steal away the sentiment of the Bodâ—â— mixing it self with that of the Soul and the means of repenting being offer'd whether I say Constancy and Obstinacy in so dangerous a will is to be found In the Civil Wars of Caesar Lucius Domittus being taken in Prussia and thereupon poysoning himself afterward repented It has hapned in our time that a certain Person being resolv'd to dye and not having gone deep enough at the first thrust the sensibility of the Flesh opposing his Arm gave himself three or four Wounds more but could never prevail upon himself to thrust home Whilst Plantius Sylvanus was upon his Tryal Virgulantia his Grand Mother sent him a Poignard with which not being able to kill himself he made his Servants to cut his Veins Albucilla in Tiberius his Time having to kill himself struck with too much tenderness gave his Adversaries Oportunity to imprison and put him to Death their own way and that great Leader Demosthenes after his Rout in Sicily did the same and C. Fimbria having struck himself too weakly intreated his Servant to dispatch him and to kill him out On the contrary Ostorius who could not make use of his own Arm disdain'd to employ that of his Servant to any other use but only to hold the Poignard straight and firm and running his Breast full drive against it thrust himself through 'T is in truth a morsel that is to be swallow'd without chewing unless a man be throughly resolv'd and yet Adrian the Emperour made his Physiâ—ian mark and incircle in his Pap the mortal place wherein he was to stab to him he had given order to kill him For this reason it was that Caesar being ask'd what Death he thought to be the most desir'd made Answer The least premeditated and the shortest If Caesar dar'd to say it it is no Cowardize in me to believe it A short Death says Pliny is the sovereign good hap of humane Life They do not much care to discover it No one can say that he is resolv'd for Death who fears to trifle with it and that cannot undergo it with his Eyes open They that we see in exemplary Punishments run to their Death hasten and press their Execution do it not out of Resolution but they will not give themselves leisure to consider it it does not trouble them to be dead but to dye Emori nolo sed me esse mortuum nihili aestimo I would not dye but care not to be dead 'T is a degree of Constancy to which I have experimented that I can arrive to do like those who plunge themselves into Dangers as into the Sea with their Eyes shut There is nothing in my Opinion more illustrious in the Life of Socrates than that he had thirty whole days wherein to ruminate upon the Sentence of his Death to have digested it all that time with a most assured hope without care and without alteration and with Words and Actions rather careless and indifferent than any way stirr'd or discompos'd by the weight of such a Thought That Pomponius Atticus to whom Cicero writes so oft being sick caus'd Agrippa his Son-in-law and two or three more of his Friends to be call'd to him and told them That having found all means practis'd upon him for his Recovery to be in vain and that all he did to prolong his Life did also prolong and augment his Pain he was resolved to put an end both to the one and the other desiring them to approve of his Deliberation or at least not to lose their labour in endeavouring to disswade him Now having chosen to destroy himself by Abstinence his Disease was accidentally so cur'd and the Remedy that he had made use of wherewith to kill himself restor'd him to his perfect Health His Physicians and Friends rejoycing at so happy an Event and coming to congratulate him found themselves very much deceiv'd it being impossible for them to make him alter his Purpose he telling them that he must one day dye and that being now so far on his way he would save himself the labour of beginning again another time This Man having discover'd Death at leisure was not only not discourag'd at the approach of it but provokes it for being satisfied that he had engag'd in the Combat he consider'd it as a piece of Bravery and that he
a Station by it self and separate it from Fortune for what is more accidental than Reputation Profecto Fortuna in omni re dominatur ea res cunctas ex libidine magis quam ex vero celebrat obscuratque Fortune rules in all things and does advance and depress things more out of her own Will than Right and Justice So to order it that Actions may be known and seen is purely the work of Fortune 't is Chance that helps us to glory according to its own temerity I have often seen her go along with Merit and often very much exceed it He that first liken'd Glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of They are both of them things excellently vain Glory also like a shadow goes sometimes before the Body and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it They that instruct Gentlemen only to employ their Valour for the obtaining of Honour Quasi non sit honestum quod nobilitatum non sit As though it were not a Vertue unless ennobled What do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard themselves if they are not seen and to observe well if there be Witnesses present who may carry News of their Valour whereas a thousand Occasions of well doing present themselves when we cannot be taken notice of How many brave Actions are buried in the crowd of a Battel Whoever shall take upon him to censure anothers Behaviour in such a Confusion is not very busie himself and the Testimony he shall give of his Companions Deportments will be Evidence against himself Vera sapiens Animi magnitudo honestum illud quod maxime naturam sequitur in factis positum non in Gloria judicat The true and wise magnanimity judges that the bravery which most follows Nature more consists in Act than Glory All the Glory that I pretend to derive from my Life is that I have liv'd it in quiet In quiet not according to Metrodorus Archesilans or Aristippus but according to my self for seeing Philosophy has not been able to find out any way to tranquility that is good in common let every one seek it in particular To what do Caesar and Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their Renown but to Fortune How many Men has she extinguish'd in the beginning of their Progress of whom we have no Knowledge who brought as much Courage to the Work as they if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the first sally of their Arms Amongst so many and so great Dangers I do not remember I have any where read that Caesar was ever wounded a thousand have fallen in less Dangers than the least of those he went through A great many brave Actions must be expected to be perform'd without Witness and so lost before one turn to account A man is not alwayes on the top of a Breach or at the head of an Army in the sight of his General as upon a Scaffold A man is oft surpris'd betwixt the Hedg and the Ditch he must run the hazard of his Life against a Hen-roost he must bolt four rascally Musketeers out of a Barn he must prick out single from his Party and alone make some Attempts according as Necessity will have it And whoever will observe will I believe find it experimentally true that Occasions of the least Lustre are ever the most dangerous and that in the Wars of our own Times there have more brave Men been lost in Occasions of little moment and in the dispute about some little paltery Fort than in Places of greater Importance and where their Valours might have been more honourably employ'd Who thinks his Death unworthy of him if he do not fall in some signal Occasions instead of illustrating his Death does willfully obscure his Life suffering in the mean time many very just Occasions of hazarding himself to slip out of his Hands And every just one is illustrious enough every mans Conscience being a sufficient Trumpet to him Gloria nostra est Testimonium Conscientiae nostrae For our rejoycing is this the Testimony of our Conscience Who is only a good Man that Men may know it and that he may be the better esteem'd when 't is known who will not do well but upon Condition that his Virtue may be known to Men is one from whom much Service is not to be expected Credo ch' el resto di quel verno cose Facesse degne di tener ne conto Ma fur fin à quel tempo si nascose Che non è colpa mia s'hor ' nor le conto Porche Orlando a far ' opre virtuose Piu ch'à narra le poi sempre era pronto Ne mai fu alcun ' de li suoi fatti espresso Senon quando hebbei testimonii appresso The rest o' th Winter I presume was spent In Actions worthy of eternal Fame Which at the end was so in Darkness pent That if I name them not I 'm not to blame Orlando's noble Mind being more bent To do great Acts than boast him of the same So that no Deeds of his were ever known But those that luckily had lookers on A Man must go to the War upon the account of Duty and expect the Recompence that never fails brave and worthy Actions how private and conceal'd soever not so much as Virtuous Thoughts 'T is the Satisfaction that a well dispos'd Conscience receives in it self to do well A Man must be valiant for himself and upon the account of the Advantage it is to him to have his Courage seated in a firm and secure place against the Assaults of Fortune Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae Virtue that n'ere Repulse admits In taintless honours glorious sits Nor takes or leaveth Dignities Rais'd with the Noise of vulgar Cries It is not for outward shew that the Soul is to play its part but for our selves within where no Eyes can pierce but our own there she defends us from the fear of Death of Pains and Shame it self she there arms us against the loss of our Children Friends and Fortunes and when Opportunity presents it self she leads us on to the Hazards of War Non emolumento aliquo sed ipsius honestatis decore Not for any Profit or Advantage but for the Decency of Virtue A much greater Advantage and more worthy to be coveted and hop'd for than Honour and Glory which is no other than the favourable Judgment is given of us A dozen men must be call'd out of a whole Nation to judge of an Acre of Land and the Judgment of our Inclinations and Actions the hardest and most important thing that is we refer to the Voice and determinations of the Rabble the Mother of Ignorance Injustice and Inconstancy Is it reasonable that the Life of a wise Man should depend upon the Judgment of Fools An quidquam stultius
Poetae confugiunt ad Deum cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt As tragick Poets fly to some God when they cannot explain the issue of their Argument Seeing that Men by their insufficiency cannot pay themselves well enough with current Money let the counterfeit be superaded 'T is a way that has been practis'd by all the Legislators and there is no Government that has not some mixture either of ceremonial Vanity or of false Opinion that serves for a curb to keep the People in their Duty 'T is for this that most of them have their fabulous Originals and Beginnings and so enrich'd with supernatural Mysteries 'T is this that has given Credit to Bastard Religions and caus'd them to be countenanc'd by men of Understanding and for this that Numa and Sextorius to possess their Men with a better Opinion of them fed them with this Foppery one That the Nympth Egeria the other That his white Hind brought them all their Resolutions from the Gods And the Authority that Numa gave to his Laws under the Title of a Patronage of this Goddess Zeroaster Legislator of the Bactrians and Persians gave to his under the name of Oromazis Trismegistus Legislator of the Egyptians under that of Mercury Xamobxis Legislator of the Scythians under that of Vesta Charondas Legislator of the Chalcedonians under that of Saturn Minos Legislator of the Candiots under that of Jupiter Licurgus Legislator of the Lacedaemonians under that of Apollo and Draco and Solon Legislators of the Athenians under that of Minerva And every Government has a God at the head of it others falsely that truly which Moses set over the Jews at their departure out of Egypt The Religion of of the Bedoins as the Sire de Joinville reports amongst other things enjoin'd a Belief that the Soul of him amongst them who died for his Prince went into another more happy Body more beautiful and more robust than the former by which means they much more willingly ventur'd their Lives In ferrum mens prona viris animaeque capaces Mortis ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae Men covet wounds and strive Death to embrace To save a Life that 's to return is base This is a very comfortable however an erronious Belief Every Nation has many such Examples of it's own but this Subject would require a Treatise by it self To add one word more to my former Discourse I would advise the Ladies no more to call that Honour which is but their Duty Vt enim consuetudo loquitur id solum dicitur honestum quod est populari fama gloriosum According to the vulgar Chat which only approves that for laudable that is glorious by the publick Voice their Duty is the mark their Honour but the outward rind Neither would I advise them to give that excuse for payment of their denial for I presuppose that their Intentions their Desire and Will which are things wherein their Honour is not at all concern'd forasmuch as nothing appears without are much better regulated than the effects Quae quia non liceat non facit illa facit She who not sins 'cause it unlawful is In being therefore Chaste has done amiss The Offence both towards God and in the Conscience would be as great to desire as to do it And besides they are Actions so private and secret of themselves as would be easily enough kept from the Knowledge of others wherein the Honour Consists if they had not another respect to their Duty and the Affection they bear to Chastity for it self Every Woman of Honour will much rather choose to lose her Honour than to hurt her Conscience CHAP. XVII Of Presumption THere is another sort of Glory which is the having too good an opinion of our own Worth 'T is an inconsiderate Affection with which we flatter our selves and that represents us to our selves other than we truly are Like the passion of Love that lends beauties and graces to the Person it does embrace and that makes those who are caught with it with a deprav'd and corrupt Judgement consider the thing they love other and more perfect than it is I would not nevertheless for fear of failing on the other side that a man should not know himself aright or think himself less than he is the Judgement ought in all things to keep it self upright and just 't is all the reason in the world he should discern in himself as well as in others what Truth sets before him if it be Caesar let him boldly think himself the greatest Captain in the world We are nothing but Ceremony Ceremony carries us away and we leave the Substance of things we hold by the Branches and quit the Trunk We have taught the Ladies to blush when they hear that but nam'd that they are not at all afraid to do we dare not call our members by their right names and are not afraid to employ them in all sorts of Debauches Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural and we obey it Reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill and no body obeys it I find my self here fetter'd by the Laws of Ceremony for it neither permits a man to speak well of himself nor ill We will leave her there for this time They whom fortune call it good or ill has made to pass their Lives in some eminent degree may by their publick Actions manifest what they are but they whom she has only employed in the crowd and of whom no body will say a word unless they speak themselves are to be excus'd if they take the boldness to speak of themselves to such whose Interest it is to know them by the Example of Lucilius Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim Credebat libris neque si malè cesserat usquam Decurrens alio neque si benè quo fit ut omnis Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella Vita senis His way was in his Books to speak his mind As freely as his Secrets he would tell To a try'd Friend and took it ill or well He held his Custom Hence it came to pass The old man's Life is there as in a Glass He always committed to Paper his Actions and Thoughts and there pourtray'd himself such as he found himself to be Nec id Rutilio Scauro citra fidem aut obtrectationi fuit Nor were Rutilius or Scaurus misbeliev'd or condemn'd for so doing I remember then that from my Infancy there was observ'd in me I know not what kind of Carriage and Behaviour that seem'd to relish of Pride and Arrogancy I will say this by the way that it is not inconvenient to have Propensions so proper and incorporated into us that we have not the means to feel and be aware of them And of such natural Inclinations the Body will retain a certain bent without our Knowledge or Consent It was an Affectation confederate with
consuming the Enemy and in drawing them far from the assistance of the Naval Army they had in the Ports of Affrick even till the last day of his Life which he designedly reserv'd for this furious Battel He order'd his Battel in a circular Form environning the Portugal Army on every side which round comming to close in the Wings and to draw up close together did not only hinder them in the Conflict which was very sharp through the Valour of the young invading King considering they were every way to make a Front but prevented their Flight after the Defeat so that finding all Passages possest and shut up by the Enemy they were constrain'd to close up together again coacervanturque non solum caede sed etiam fuga and there they were slain in heaps upon one another leaving to the Conquerour a very bloody and entire Victory Dying he caus'd himself to be carried and hurried from place to place where most need was and passing through the Files encouraged the Captains and Souldiers one after another But a corner of his Battel being broken he was not to be held from mounting on Horseback with his Sword in his hand He did his utmost to break from those about him and to rush into the thickest of the Battel they all the while withholding him some by the Bridle some by his Robe and others by his Stirrups This last Effort totally overwhelm'd the little Life he had left they again lay him upon his Bed but comming to himself again and starting out of his Swoon all other faculties failing to give his People notice that they were to conceal his Death the most necessary command he had then to give that his Souldiers might not be discourag'd with the news he expos'd with his Finger upon his Mouth the ordinary sign of keeping silence Who ever liv'd so long and so far in Death whoever died more like a Man The most extream degree of entertaining Death and the most natural is to look upon it not only without astonishment but without care continuing the wonted course of Life even into it As Cato did who entertain'd himself in study and went to sleep having a violent and bloody one in his Heart and the Weapon in his hand with which he was resolved to dispatch himself CHAP. XXII Of Posts I Have been none of the least able in this Exercise which is proper for men of my pitch short and well knit but I give it over it shakes us too much to continue long I was just now reading that King Cyrus the better to have News brought him from all parts of the Empire which was of a vast extent caus'd it to be try'd how far a Horse could go in a day without baiting and at that distance appointed Stages and Men whose business it was to have Horses always in readiness to mount those who were dispatch'd away to him And some say that this swift way of posting is equal to that of the flight of Cranes Caesar says that Lucius Vibulus Rufus being in great haste to carry Intelligence to Pompey rid Day and Night still taking fresh Horses for the greater Diligence and Speed and himself as Suetonius reports travelled a hundred miles a day in a hir'd Coach but he was a furious Courrier from where the Rivers stopt his way he always past them by swimming without turning out of his way to look for either Bridg or Ford. Tiberius Nero going to see his Brother Drusus who was sick in Germany travell'd two hundred miles in four and twenty hours having three Coaches In the War the Romans had against King Antiochus T. Sempronius Gracchus says Livie Per dispositos equos propè incredibili celeritate ab Amphissa tertio die Pellam pervenit Vpon Horses purposely laid in he by an almost incredible speed rid in three dayes from Amphissa to Pella And it appears there that they were establish'd Posts and not Horses purposely laid in upon this Occasion Cecinna's Invention to send back News to his Family was much more quick for he took Swallows along with him from home and turn'd them out towards their Nests when he would send back any News setting a mark of some colour upon them to signifie his meaning according to what he and his People had before agree'd upon At the Theater at Rome Masters of Families carried Pigeons in their Bosomes to which they tyed Letters when they had a mind to send any Orders to their People at home and the Pigeons were train'd up to bring back an Answer D. Brutus made use of the same Device when besieg'd in Mutina and others elsewhere have done the same In Peru they rid post upon mens shoulders who took them upon their shoulders in a certain kind of Litter made for that purpose and ran with such Agility that in their full speed the first Couriers throw their load to the second without making any stop and so on I understand that the Valachians who are the grand Signiors Couriers perform wonderful Diligences by reason they have Liberty to dismount the first they meet upon the road giving him their own tir'd Horses to preserve themselves from being weary they gird themselves straight about the middle with a broad Girdle but I could never find any benefit by it CHAP. XXIII Of ill means employ'd to a good end THere is wonderful Relation and Correspondence in this universal Government of the Works of Nature which very well makes it appear that it is neither accidental nor carried on by divers Masters The Diseases and Conditions of our Bodies is in like manner manifest in Estates and the various Governments of the World Kingdoms and Republicks are founded flourish and decay with Age as we do We are subject to a repletion of Humours either useless or dangerous either of those that are good for even those the Physicians are afraid of and being that we have nothing in us that is permanent they say that a too brisk and vigorous perfection of Health must be abated by Art lest being that our Nature cannot rest in any certain condition and not having whither to rise to mend it self it makes too sudden and too disorderly a Retreat and therefore prescribe Wrestlers to purge and bleed to qualifie that superabundant Health or else a Repletion of evil Humours which is the ordinary cause of Sickness Estates are very often sick of the like Repletion and therefore sorts of Purgations have commonly been us'd Sometimes a great multitude of Families are turn'd out to clear the Country who seek out new Abodes elsewhere and encroach upon others After this manner our ancient Francs came from the remotest part of Germany to seize upon Gaule and to drive thence the first Inhabitants so was that infinite deluge of Men made up that came into Italy under the Conduct of Brennus and others so the Goths and Vandals also the People who now possess Greece left their native Country to go settle elsewhere where
infinitely beyond him or any other of his time That which they report of him amongst other things that in his extream old Age he put himself upon learning the Greek Tongue with so greedy an Appetite as if to quench a long Thirst does not seem to me to make much for his Honour it being properly what we call being twice a Child All things have their Season even the best and a man may say his Pater noster out of time as they accused T. Quintus Flaminus that being General of an Army he was seen praying apart in the time of a Battel that he won Imponit finem sapiens rebus honestis The wise man limits even decent things Eudemonidas seeing Xenocrates when very old still very intent upon his School-Lectures When will this man be wise said he he does yet learn And Philopaemen to those who extoll'd King Ptolomy for every day inuring his Person to the Exercise of Arms It is not said he commendable in a King of his Age to exercise himself in those things he ought now really to employ them The young are to make their Preparations the old to enjoy them say the Sages and the greatest Vice they observe in us is that our Desires incessantly grow young again we are always re-beginning to live Our studies and desires should sometimes be sensible of Age but we have one foot in the Grave and yet our Appetites and Pursuits spring every day new upon us Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus sepulcri Immemor struis domos When Death perhaps is near at hand Thou fairest Marbles dost command Be cut for use yet do'st neglect Thy Grave and Houses still erect The longest of my Designs is not of above a years extent I think of nothing now but ending rid my self of all new Hopes and Enterprizes take my last leave of every place I depart from and every day disposses my self of what I have Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi nec acquiritur plus superest viatici quam viae Henceforward I will neither lose nor expect to get I have more wherewith to defray my Journey than I have way to go Vixi quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi I 've liv'd and finish'd the career Wherein my Fortune plac'd me here To conclude 't is the only comfort I find in my old Age that it mortifies in me several Cares and Desires wherewith my Life has been disturbed the Care how the World goes the Care of Riches of Grandeur of Knowledge of Health and my self There are who are learning to speak at a time when they should learn to be silent for ever A man may always study but he must not always go to School What a contemptible thing is an old School-boy Diversos diversa juvant non omnibus annis Omnia conveniunt For several things do several men delight And all things are not for all Ages right If we must study let us study what is suitable to our present Condition that we may answer as he did who being ask'd to what end he studied in his decrepid Age that I may go out better said he and at greater ease Such a study was that of the younger Cato feeling his end approach and which he met with in Plato's Discourse of the immortality of the Soul Not as we are to believe that he was not long before-hand furnished with all sorts of Ammunition for such a Departure for of assurance an established Will and Instruction he had more than Plato had in all his Writings his Knowledge and Courage were in this respect above Philosophy He applyed himself to this study not for the Service of his Death but as a man whose sleeps were never disturbed in the Importance of such a deliberation he also without choice or change continued his Studies with the other accustomary Actions of his Life The Night that he was den the Praetorship he spent in play That wherein he was to dye he spent in reading The loss either of Life or of Office was all one to him CHAP. XXIX Of Virtue I Find by experience that there is a vast difference betwixt the starts and sallies of the Soul and a resolute and constant habit and very well perceive that there is nothing we may not do nay even to the surpassing the Divinity it self says a certain Person forasmuch as it is more to render a mans self impassible by his own study and industry than to be so by his natural condition and even to be able to conjoyn to man's imbecillity and frailty a God-like resolution and assurance But it is by fits and starts and in the Lives of those Heroes of Times past there are sometimes miraculous Sallies and that seem infinitely to exceed our natural force but they are indeed but sallies and 't is hard to believe that in these so elevated qualities a man can so thoroughly tinct and imbue the Soul that they should become constant and as it were natural in him It accidentally happens even to us who are but abortive births of men sometimes to dart out our Souls when rous'd by the Discourses or Examples of others much beyond their ordinary stretch but 't is a kind of Passion which does push and prick them on and in some sort ravishes them from themselves but this Whirlwind once blown over we see that they insensibly flag and slacken of themselves if not to the lowest degree at least so as to be no more the same insomuch as that upon every trivial occasion the losing of a Hawk or the breaking of a Glass we suffer our selves to be mov'd little less than one of the common People I am of opinion that Order Moderation and Constancy excepted all things are to be done by a man that is indifferent and defective in general Therefore it is say the Sages that to make a right judgment of a man you are chiefly to pry into his common Actions and surprize him in his every day habit Pyrrho he who erected so pleasant a knowledge upon Ignorance endeavour'd as all the rest who were really Philosophers did to make his Life correspond with his Doctrine And because he maintain'd the imbecillity of Humane Judgment to be so extreme as to be incapable of any choice or inclination and would have it wavering and suspended considering and receiving all things as indifferent 't is said that he always comported himself after the same manner and countenance if he had begun a Discourse he would always end what he had to say though the Person he was speaking to was gone away and if he walk'd he never stop'd for any impediment that stood in his way being preserv'd from Precipices the justle of Carts and other like accidents by the care of his Friends for to fear or to avoid any thing had been to justle his own Propositions which depriv'd the Senses themselves of all certainty and election Sometimes he suffer'd
taken by Scipio in Affrick Scipio having put the rest to death sent him word that he gave him his Life for he was a man of Quality and Questor to whom Petronius sent answer back that Caesar's Souldiers were wont to give others their Lives and not to receive it and immediately with his own hand kill'd himself Of their Fidelity there are infinite Examples amongst which that which was done by those who were besieg'd in Salona a City that stood for Caesar against Pompey is not for the rarity of an Accident that there hapned to be forgot Marcus Octavius kept them close besieg'd they within being reduc'd to the extreamest necessity of all things so that to supply the want of men most of them being either slain or wounded they had manumitted all their Slaves and had been constrain'd to cut of all the Womens Hair to make Ropes besides a wonderful Dearth of Victuals and yet continuing resolute never to yield After having drawn the Siege to a great length by which Octavius was grown more negligent and less attentive to his Enterprize they made choice of one Day about Noon and having first plac'd the Women and Children upon the Walls to make a shew sallied upon the Besiegers with such fury that having routed the first second and third Court of Guard and afterwards the fourth and all the rest and beaten them all out of their Trenches they pursu'd them even to their Ships and Octavius himself was fain to fly to Dyrrachium where Pompey lay I do not at present remember that I have met with any other Example where the Besieged ever gave the Besieger a total Defeat and won the Field nor that a sally ever arriv'd at the consequence of a pure and entire Victory of Battel CHAP. XXXV Of three good Women THey are not by the dozen as every one knows and especially in the Duties of Marriage for that is a bargain full of so many nice Circumstances that 't is hard a Womans Will should long endure such a restraint Men tho' their condition be something better under that tye have yet enough to do The true touch and test of a happy Marriage respects the time of their Cohabitation only if it has been constantly mild loyal and commodious In our Age Women commonly reserve the publication of their good Offices and their vehement affection towards their Husbands untill they have lost them or at least till then defer the Testimonies of their good Will A too slow Testimony and that comes too late by which they rather manifest that they never lov'd them till dead Their Life is nothing but Trouble their Death full of Love and Courtesie As Fathers conceal their affection from their Children Women likewise conceal theirs from their Husbands to maintain a modest Respect This mystery is not for my pallat 't is to much purpose that they scratch themselves and tear their Hair I whisper in a Wayting-woman or a Secretaries Ear how were they how did they live together I always have that good Saying in my head jactantius maerent quae minus dolent They make the most ado who are least concern'd Their whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead we should willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead provided they will smile upon us whilst we are alive Is it not to make a man revive in spite that she who spit in my face whilst I was shall come to kiss my feet when I am no more If there be any Honour in lamenting a Husband it only appertains to those who smil'd upon them whilst they had them let those who wept during their Lives laugh at their Deaths as well outwardly as within Moreover never regard those blubber'd Eyes and that pittiful Voice but consider her Deportments her Complexion and the plumpness of her Cheecks under all those formal Veils 't is there the discovery is to be made There are few who do not mend upon 't and Health is a quality that cannot lye that starch'd and ceremonious Countenance looks not so much back as forward and is rather intended to get a new one than to lament the old When I was a Boy a very beautiful and virtuous Lady who is yet living and the Widow of a Prince had I know not what more Ornament in her Dress than our Laws of Widow-hood will well allow which being reproach'd withall as a great Indecency she made Answer That it was because she was resolv'd to have no more Friendships and would never marry again I have here not at all dissenting from our Customs made choice of three Women who have also express'd the utmost of their Goodness and Affections about their Husbands deaths yet are they Examples of another kind than are now in Use and so severe as will hardly be drawn into Imitation The younger Pliny had near unto a House of his in Italy a Neighbour who was exceedingly tormented with certain Ulcers in his private Parts His Wife seeing him so long to languish intreated that he would give her leave to see and at leisure to consider of the condition of his Disease and that she would freely tell him what she Thought This Permission being obtain'd and she having curiously examin'd the Business found it impossible he could ever be cur'd and that all he was to hope for or expect was a great while to linger out a painful and miserable Life and therefore as the most sure and sovereign Remedy resolutely advis'd him to kill himself But finding him a little tender and backward in so rude an Attempt Do not think my Friend said she that the Torments I see thee endure are not as sensible to me as to thy self and that to deliver my self from them I will not my self make use of the same Remedy I have prescrib'd to thee I will accompany thee in the Cure as I have done in the Disease fear nothing but believe that we shall have pleasure in this Passage that is to free us from so many Miseries and we will go happily together Which having said and rous'd up her Husband's Courage she resolv'd that they should throw themselves headlong into the Sea out of a Window that lean'd over it and that she might maintain to the last the loyal and vehement Affection wherewith she had embrac'd him during his Life she would yet have him dye in her Arms but for fear they should fail and lest they should leave their hold in the fall and through fear she tyed herself fast to him by the waste and so gave up her own Life to procure her Husband's repose This was a mean Woman and even amongst that condition of People 't is no very new thing to see some rare Examples of Virtue extrema per illos Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit When from the Earth Justice her self bereft She her lost steps upon such People left The other two were noble and rich where Examples of Vertue are rarely
lodg'd Arria the Wife of Cecinna Petus a Consular Person was the Mother of another Arria the Wife of Tharsea Petus he whose Vertue was so renown'd in the time of Nero and by means of this Son-in-Law the Grand-mother of Fannia for the resemblance of the names of these Men and Women and their fortunes have made many mistake This first Arria her Husband Cecinna Petus having been taken prisoner by some of the Emperour Claudius his People after Scribonianus his Defeat whose Party he had embrac'd in the War begg'd of those who were to carry him prisoner to Rome that they would take her into their Ship where she should be of much less charge and trouble to them than a great many Persons they must otherwise have to attend her Husband and that she alone would undertake to serve him in his Chamber his Kitchen and all other Offices But they refus'd her wherefore she put her self into a Fisher boat she hir'd on a sudden and in that manner from Slavonia followed him Being come to Rome Junia the Widow of Scribonianus one day for the resemblance of their Fortune accosting her in the Emperour's presence she rudely repuls'd her with these words I said she speak to thee or give ear to any thing thou sayst to thee in whose lap Scribonianus was slain and thou art yet alive These words with several other signs gave her Friends to understand that she would undoubtedly dispatch herself impatient of supporting her Husband's Fortune And Thrasea her Son-in-Law beseeching her not to throw away herself and saying to her What If I should run the same Fortune that Cecinna has done would you that your Daughter my Wife should do the same Would I reply'd she Yes yes I would if she had liv'd as long and in as good intelligence with thee as I have done with my Husband These Answers made them more careful of her and to have a more watchful Eye to her Deportments One day having said to those that look'd to her 'T is to much purpose that you take all this pains to prevent me you may indeed make me to dye an ill death but to keep me from dying is not in your power she suddenly furious started from a Chair wherein she sate and with all her force ran her head against the wall by which blow being laid flat in a swoon and very much wounded after they had again with much ado brought her to her self I told you said she that if you refused me some easie way of dying I should find out another how painful soever The conclusion of so admirable a Virtue was thus Her Husband Petus not having Resolution enough of his own to dispatch himself as he was by the Emperour's cruelty enjoyn'd one day amongst others after having first employ'd all the Reasons and Exhortations which she thought most prevalent to perswade him to it she snatch'd the Poignard he wore from his side and holding it ready in her hand for the conclusion of her Admonitions Do thus Petus said she and in the same instant giving herself a mortal stab in the Breast and then drawing it out of the wound presented it to him ending her Life with this noble generous and immortal Saying Paete non dolet Petus it hurts not having strength to pronounce no more but those three never to be forgotten words Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto Quem de viceribus traxerat ipso suis Si qua fides vulnus quod feci non dolet inquit Sed quod tu facies id mihi Paete dolet When the Chaste Arria gave the reeking brand That had new goar'd her heart to Petus's hand Petus the wound I 've made hurts not quoth she But the wound thou wilt make 't is that hurts me The Action was much more noble in it self and of a braver sence than the Poet could express it for she was so far from being deterr'd by the Cruelty of her Husbands Wound and Death and her own that she had been the Promotress and had given the Advice but having perform'd this high and courageous Enterprize for her Husbands only Convenience she had even in the last gasp of her Life no other concern but for him and of dispossessing him of the fear of dying with her Petus presently struck himself to the Heart with the same Weapon asham'd I believe to have stood in need of so dear and pretious an Example Pompeia Paulina a young and very noble Roman Lady had married Seneca in his extream old Age. Nero his fine Pupil sent his Guards to him to denounce the Sentence of Death which was perform'd after this manner When the Roman Emperours of those times had condemn'd any man of Quality they sent to him by their Officers to choose what Death he would and to execute it within such or such a time which was limited according to the mettle of their Indignation to a shorter or a longer respite that they might therein have better leisure to dispose their Affairs and sometimes depriving them of the means of doing it by the shortness of the time and if the condemn'd seem'd unwilling to submit to the Order they had People ready at hand to execute it either by cutting the Veins of the Arms and Legs or by compelling them by force to swallow a draught of Poison But Persons of Honour would not stay this Necessity but made use of their own Physicians and Chirurgeons for this purpose Seneca with a calm and steady Countenance heard their charge and presently call'd for Paper to write his Will which being by the Captain deny'd he turn'd himself towards his Friends saying to them Since I cannot leave you any other Acknowledgment of the Obligation I have to you I leave you at least the best thing I have namely the Image of my Life and Manners which I intreat you to keep in Memory of me that so doing you may acquire the Glory of sincere and real Friends And therewithall one while appeasing the Sorrow he saw them in with gentle Words and presently raising his Voice to reprove them What said he are become of all our brave Philosophical Precepts What are become of all the Provisions we have so many years laid up against the Accidents of Fortune Is Nero's Cruelty unknown to us What could we expect from him who had murther'd his Mother and his Brother but that he should put his Governour to Death who had nourish'd and bred him After having spoke these Words in general he turn'd himself towards his Wife and embracing her fast in his Arms as her Heart and Strength failing her she was ready to sink down with Grief he beg'd of her for his sake to bear this Accident with a little more Patience telling her that now the hour was come wherein he was to shew not by Argument and Discourse but by effect the Fruit he had acquir'd by his Studies and that he really embrac'd his Death not only without Grief but
and well worthy of admiration that I find so severe as not to desire to imitate my self to the degree it was in him The sâ—le Scipio Aemilianus would any attribute to him as brave and magnificent an end and as profound and universal a knowledge might be put into the other Scale of the Balance Oh! what an injury has Time done me to deprive me of the sight of two of the most noble Lives which by the common consent of all the World one the greatest of the Greeks and the other of the Romans were in all Plutarch What a Matter what a Workman For a man that was no Saint but as we say a gallant man of civil and ordinary Manners and of a moderate Ambition the richest Life that I know and full of the richest and most to be desir'd Parts all things consider'd is in my opinion that of Alcibiades But as to what concerns Epaminondas I will here for the example of an excessive goodness add some of his Opinions He declar'd that the greatest satisfaction he ever had in his whole Life was the contentment he gave his Father and Mother in his Victory of Leuctra wherein his deference is great preferring their pleasure before his own so just and so full of so glorious an Action He did not think it lawful even to restore the Liberty of his Country to kill a man without knowing a cause which made him so cold in the enterprize of his Companion Pelopidas for the relief of Thebes He was also of Opinion that men in Battel ought to avoid the encounter of a Friend that was on the contrary side and to spare him And his Humanity even towards his Enemies themselves having render'd him suspected to the Beotians for that after he had miraculously forc'd the Lacedemonians to open him the Pass which they had undertaken to defend at the entry into Morca near unto Corinth he contented himself with having charg'd thorough them without pursuing them to the utmost he had his Commission of General taken from him Very honourably upon such an account and for the shame it was to them upon necessity afterwards to restore him to his command and then to see how much upon him depended their Safety and Honour Victory like a shadow attending him wherever he went and indeed the Prosperity of his Country as being from him deriv'd died with him CHAP. XXXVII Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers THis fagotting up of divers pieces is so odly compos'd that I never set Pen to Paper but when I have too much idle time and never any where but at home so that it is compil'd at several Interruptions and Intervals as Occasions keep me sometimes many Months abroad As to the rest I never correct my first by any second Conceptions I peradventure may alter a Word or so but 't is only to vary the Phrase and not to destroy my former meaning I have a mind to represent the progress of my Humour that every one may see every piece as it came from the Forge I could wish I had begun sooner and had taken more notice of the course of my Mutations A Servant of mine that I employ'd to transcribe for me thought he had got a prize by stealing several pieces from me wherewith he was best pleas'd but it is my comfort that he will be no greater a gainer than I shall be a loser by the Theft I am grown older by seven or eight years since I begun neither has it been without some new Acquisition I have in that time by the Liberty of years been acquainted with the Stone a long Conversation which time hardly wears off without some such Inconvenience I could have been glad that of other Infirmities Age has to present long liv'd men it had chosen some one that would have been more welcome to me for it could not possibly have laid upon me a Disease for which even from my Infancy I have had so great a Horror and it is in truth of all the accidents of old Age that of which I have ever been most afraid I have often thought with my self that I went on too far and that in so long a Voyage I should at last run my self into some misadvantage I perceiv'd and have oft enough declar'd that it was time to knock off and that Death was to be cut off in the sound and living part according to the Chirurgions Rule in Amputations And that Nature made him pay very strict Usury who did not in due time pay the Principal And yet I was so far from being ready that in eighteen Months time or thereabout that I have been in this uneasie Condition I have so inur'd my self to it as to be content to live on in it and have found wherein to comfort my self and to hope so much are men enslav'd to their miserable Being that there is no Condition so wretched they will not accept provided they may live according to that of Moecenas Debilem facito manu Debilem pede coxa Lubricos quate dentes Vita dum superest bene est Maim both my Hands and Feet break Legs and Thighs Knock out my Teeth and bore out both my Eyes Let me but live all 's well enough he cries And Tamberlain with his foolish humanity palliated the fantastick cruelty he exercis'd upon Lepers when he put all he could hear of to death to deliver them as he pretended from the painful Life they liv'd For there was not one of them who would not rather have undergone a triple Leprosie than to be depriv'd of their Being And Antisthenes the Stoick being very sick and crying out who will deliver me from these Evils Diogenes who was come to visit him This said he presenting him a Knife presently if thou wilt I do not mean from my Life he reply'd but from my Disease The sufferings that only attaque the Mind I am not so sensible of as most other Men and that partly out of Judgment for the World looks upon several things as dreadful or to be avoided at the expence of Life that are almost indifferent to me partly thorough a stupid and insensible Complexion I have in Accidents which do not point-blanck hit me and that insensibility I look upon as one of the best parts of my natural Condition but essential and corporeal pains I am very sensible of And yet having long since foreseen them though with a sight weak and delicate and softned with the long and happy Health and Quiet that God has been pleas'd to give me the greatest part of my time I had in my Imagination fancied them so insupportable that in truth I was more afraid than I have since found I had cause by which I am still more fortified in this belief that most of the Faculties of the Soul as we employ them more trouble the repose of Life than they are any way useful to it I am in conflict with the worst the most sudden
the most painful the most mortal and the most irremediable of all Diseases I have already had the tryal of five or six very long and very painful fits and yet I either flatter my self or there is even in this estate what is very well to be endur'd by a man who has his Soul free from the fear of Death and the Menaces Conclusions and Consequences which Physick is ever thundring in our Ears But the effect even of pain it self is not so sharp and intollerable as to put a man of understanding into impatience and despair I have at least this advantage by my Stone that what I could not hitherto wholly prevail upon my self to resolve upon as to reconciling and acquainting my self with Death it will perfect for the more it presses upon and importunes me I shall be so much the less afraid to dye I had already gone so far as only to love Life for Life's sake but my pain will dissolve this Intelligence and God grant that in the end should the sharpness of it be once greater then I shall be able to bear it does not throw me into the other no less vicious extream to desire and wish to dye Summum nec metuas diem nec optes Neither to wish nor fear to dye They are two Passions to be fear'd but the one has its remedy much nearer at hand than the other As to the rest I have always found the Precept that so exactly enjoyns a constant Countenance and so disdainful and indifferent a Comportment in the toleration of Infirmities to be meerly Ceremonial Why should Philosophy which only has respect to Life and its Effects trouble it self about these external Apparences Let us leave that Care to Histrios and Masters of Rhetorick that set so great a value upon our Gestures Let her in God's name allow this vocal Frailty if it be neither cordial nor stomachal to the Disease and permit the ordinary ways of expressing Grief by sighs sobs palpitations and turning pale that Nature has put out of our power And provided the Courage be undaunted and the Expressions not sounding of despair let her be satisfied What makes matter for the wringing of our hands if we do not wring our Thoughts She forms us for our selves not for others to be not to seem let her be satisfied with governing our Understandings which she has taken upon her the care of instructing that in the fury of the Cholick she maintains the Soul in a condition to know it self and to follow its accustom'd way contending with and enduring not meanly truckling under Pain mov'd and heated not subdu'd and conquer'd in the Contention but capable of Discourse and other things to a certain degree In so extream Accidents 't is Cruelty to require so exact a Composedness 'T is no great matter what Faces we cut if we find any ease by it if the Body find it self reliev'd by complaining let him go too if Agitation eases him let him tumble and toss at pleasure if he finds the Disease evaporate as some Physicians hold that it helps Women in delivery extreamly to cry out or if it do but amuse his Torments let him roar aloud Let us not command this Voice to sally but stop it not Epicurus does not only forgive his Sage for crying out in Torments but advises him to it Pugiles etiam quum feriunt in jactandis caestibus ingemiscunt quia profundenda voce omne corpus intenditur venitque plaga vehementior When men fight with Clubs they groan in laying on because the whole strength of Body goes along with the Voice and the blow is laid on with greater force We have enough to do to deal with the Disease without troubling our selves with these superfluous Rules which I say in excuse of those whom we ordinarily see impatient in the assaults of this Infirmity for as to what concerns my self I have pass'd it over hitherto with a little better Countenance and contented my self with grunting without roaring out Not nevertheless that I put any great constraint upon my self to maintain this exterior Decency for I make little account of such an Advantage I allow herein as much as the Pain requires but either my Pains are not so excessive or I have more than ordinary Patience I complain I confess and am a little impatient in a very sharp fit but I do not arrive to such a degree of despair as he who with Ejulatu questu gemitu fremitibus Resonando multum flebiles voces refert Howling Roaring and a thousand noises Express'd his Torment in most dismal Voices I relish my self in the midst of my Dolor and have always found that I was in a Capacity to speak think and give a rational Answer as well as at any other time but not so coldly and indifferently being troubled and interrupted by the Pain When I am look'd upon by my Visiters to be in the greatest Torment and that they therefore forbear to trouble me I oft try my own strength and my self set some Discourse on foot the most remote I can contrive from my present condition I can do any thing upon a sudden endeavour but it must not continue long What pitty 't is I have not the Faculties of that Dreamer Cicero who dreaming he was lying with a Wench found he had discharg'd his Stone in the Sheets My Pains do strangely disappetite me that way In the intervals from this excessive Torment when my Uriters only languish without any great dolor I presently feel my self in my wonted state forasmuch as my Soul takes no other alarm but what is sensible and corporal which I certainly owe to the care I have had of preparing my self by Meditation against such Accidents laborum Nulla mihi nova nunc facies inopinaque surgit Omnia praecepi atque animo mecum ante peregi No face of Pain or Labour now can rise Which by its novelty can me surprize I 've been accustom'd all things to explore And been inur'd unto them long before I am a little roughly handled for a Learner and with a sudden and sharp alteration being fall'n in an instant from a very easie and happy condition of Life into the most uneasie and painful that can be imagin'd For besides that it is a Disease very much to be fear'd in it self it begins with me after a more sharp and severe manner than it uses to do with other men My Fits come so thick upon me that I am scarcely ever at ease and yet I have hitherto kept my mind so upright that provided I can still continue it I find my self in a much better condition of Life than a thousand others who have no Fever nor other Disease but what they create to themselves for want of meditation There is a certain sort of crafty Humility that springs from Presumption as this for Example that we confess our Ignorance in many things and are so courteous as to acknowledge that there are
employ'd than upon your Stomack One asking a Lacedemonian who had made him live so long he made answer the ignorance of Physick And the Emperour Adrian continually exclaim'd as he was dying that the croud of Physicians had kill'd him An ill Wrestler turn'd Physician Courage says Diogenes to him thou hast done well for now thou wilt throw those who have formerly thrown thee But they have this Advantage according to Nicocles that the Sun gives Light to their Success and the Earth covers their Failures and besides they have a very advantageous way of making use of all sorts of Events for what Fortune Nature or any other Causes of which the number is infinite produces of good and healthful in us it is the Priviledge of Physick to attribute to it self All the happy Successes that happen to the Patient must be deriv'd from thence The Occasions that have cur'd me and thousand others Physicians usurp to themselves and their own Skill and as to ill Accidents they either absolutely disown them in laying the fault upon the Patient by such frivolous and idle Reasons as they can never be to seek for as he lay with his Arms out of Bed or he was disturb'd with the ratling of a Coach Rhedarum transitus arcto Vicorum inflexu He heard the Wheels and Horses trampling Feet In the straight turning of a narrow Street or some body had set open the Casement or he had lain upon his left side or had had some odd Fancies in his Head in sum a Word a Dream or a look seem to them excuse sufficient wherewith to palliate their own Errors Or if they so please they yet make use of their growing worse and do their Business that way which can never fail them which is by buzzing us in the Ears when the Disease is more inflam'd by their Medicaments that it had been much worse but for those Remedies He who from an ordinary cold they have thrown into a double Tertian-Ague had but for them been in a continued Fever They do not much care what Mischief they do since it turns to their own Profit In earnest they have Reason to require a very favourable belief from their Patients and indeed it ought to be a very easie one to swallow things so hard to be believ'd Plato said very well that Physicians were the only men that might lye at Pleasure since our Health depends upon the Vanity and Falsity of their Promises Aesop a most excellent Author and of whom few men discover all the Graces does pleasantly represent to us the tyrannical Authority Physicians usurp over poor Creatures weakned and subdued hy Sickness and Fear for he tells us that a sick Person being ask'd by his Physician what Operation he found of the Potion he had given him I have sweat very much says the sick man that 's good says the Physician another time having ask'd him him how he felt himself after his Physick I have been very cold and have had a great shivering upon me said he that is good reply'd the Physician After the third Potion he ask'd him again how he did Why I find my self swell'd and puff'd up said he as if I had a Dropsie That is very well said the Physician One of his Servants coming presently after to inquire how he felt himself Truly Friend said he with being too well I am about to dye There was a more just Law in Egypt by which the Physician for the three first days was to take charge of his Patient at the Patients own Peril and Fortune but those three days being past it was to be at his own For what Reason is it that their Patron Aesculapius should be struck with Thunder for restoring Hyppolitus from Death to Life Nam pater omnipotens aliquem indignatus ab umbris Mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae Ipse repertorem medicinae talis artis Flumine Phaebigenam stygias detrusit ad undas For Jupiter offended at the sight Of one he had struck dead restor'd to light He struck the Artist durst it undertake With his fork'd lightning to the Stygian Lake and his followers be pardoned who send so many Souls from Life to Death A Physician boasting to Nicocles that his Art was of great Authority It is so indeed said Nicocles that can with impunity kill so many People As to what remains had I been of their Counsel I would have render'd my Discipline more sacred and mysterious they had begun well but they have not ended so It was a good beginning to make Gods and Daemons the Authors of their Science and to have us'd a peculiar way of speaking and writing And notwithstanding that Philosophy concludes it folly to persuade a man to his own good by an unintelligible way Vt si quis medicus imperet ut sumat Terrigenam herbigradam domiportam sanguine cassam as if a Physician should command his Patient to take Snails by unknown Names and Epithets It was a good Rule in their Art and that accompanies all other vain fantastick and supernatural Arts that the Patients belief should prepossess them with good hope and assurance of their effects and operation A Rule they hold to that degree as to maintain that the most inexpert and ignorant Physician is more proper for a Patient that has confidence in him than the most learned and experienc'd that he is not acquainted with Nay even the very choice of most of their Drugs is in some sort mysterious and divine The left foot of a Tortoise the Urine of a Lizard the Dung of an Elephant the Liver of a Mole Blood drawn from under the Wing of a white Pidgeon and for us who have the Stone so scornfully they use us in our Miseries the Excrement of Rats beaten to Powder and such like trash and fooleries which rather carry a face of Magical Enchantment than any solid Science I omit the odd number of their Pills the appointment of certain days and feasts of the year the Superstition of gathering their Simples at certain hours and that austere grim Countenance and haughty carriage which Pliny himself so much derides But they have as I said fail'd in that they have not added to this fine beginning the making their Meetings and Consultations more religious and secret where no profane Person ought to have been admitted no more than in the secret Ceremonies of Aesculapius For by Reason of this it falls out that their irresolution the weakness of their Arguments Divination and Foundations the sharpness of their Disputes full of hatred jealousie and particular interest coming to be discover'd by every one a man must be very blind not to discern that he runs a very great hazard in their Hands Who ever saw one Physician approve of anothers Prescription without taking something away or adding something to it By which they sufficiently betray their Art and make it manifest to us that they therein more consider their own Reputation and
thoughts and imaginations He must be assur'd of the external circumstances of the nature of the Place the quality of the Air and Season the scituation of the Planets and their influences he must know in the Disease the Causes Prognosticks Affections and Critical dayes in the Druggs the weight the power of working the Countrey figures age and dispensations and he must know how rightly to proportion and mix them together to beget a just and perfect proportion wherein if there be the least error if amongst so many Springs there be but any one out of order 't is enough to destroy us God knows of how great difficulty most of these things are to be understood For for Example how shall a Physician find out the true sign of the Disease every Disease being capable of an infinite number of Indications How many Doubts and Controversies have they amongst themselves upon the Interpretation of Vrines Otherwise from whence should the continual Debates we see amongst them about the knowledge of the Disease proceed How would we excuse the error they so oft fall into of taking one thing for another In the Disease I have had were there never so little difficulty in the case I never found three of one Opinion which I instance because I love to introduce Examples wherein I am my self concern'd A Gentleman was at Paris lately cut for the Stone by order of the Physicians in whose Bladder being accordingly so cut there was found no more Stone than in the palm of his Hand and in the same place a Bishop who was my particular good Friend having been earnestly prest by the major part of the Physicians in Town whom he consulted to suffer himself to be cut to which also upon their words I us'd my interest to persuade him when he was dead and open'd it appear'd that he had no Stone but in the Reins They are least excusable for any error in this Disease by reason that it is in some sort palpable and 't is by that that I conclude Chirurgery to be much more certain by reason that it sees and feels what it does and so goes less upon conjecture whereas the Physicians have no speculum Matricis by which to discover our Brains Lungs and Liver Even the very promises of Physick are incredible in themselves for being to provide against divers and contrary Accidents that often afflict us at one and the same time and that have almost a necessary relation as the heat of the Liver and the coldness of the Stomach they will needs persuade us that of their Ingredients one will heat the Stomach and the other will cool the Liver one has its commission to go directly to the Reins nay even to the Bladder without scattering its Operations by the way and is to retain its Power and Virtue thorough all those stops and meanders even to the place to the service of which it is design'd by its own occult propriety the other will dry the Brain and another will moisten the Lungs All these things being mix'd in one Potion is it not a kind of madness to imagine or to hope that these differing Virtues should separate themselves from one another in this mixture and confusion to perform so many various errands I should very much fear that they would either lose or change their Tickets and trouble one anothers quarters And who can imagine but that in this liquid confusion these Faculties must corrupt confound and spoil one another And is not the danger still more when the making up of this Medicine is intrusted to the Skill and Fidelity of another to whose mercy we again abandon our Lives As we have Doublet and Breeches-makers distinct Trades to Clothe us and are so much the better fitted being that each of them meddles only with his own Business and has less to trouble his head withall than a Taylor that undertakes all and as in matter of Diet great Persons for their better convenience and to the end they may be better serv'd have Cooks of distinct Offices some for Soops and Pottages and others for Roasting which one Cook that should undertake the whole Service could not so well perform so must we be treated in our Cures The Aegyptians had reason to reject this general Trade of a Physician and to divide the Profession to several peculiar Diseases to every part of the Body a particular Operator For that part was more properly and with less confusion provided for being they especially regarded nothing else Ours are not aware that he who provides for all provides for nothing and that the entire government of this Microcosme is more than they are able to undertake Whilst they were afraid of stopping a Loosness lest they should put him into a Fever they killed me a Friend that was worth more than the whole pack of them put altogether They counterpoise their own Divinations with the present Evils and because they will not cure the Brain to the prejudice of the Stomach they offend both with their mutinous and tumultuary Drugs As to the variety and weakness of Reasons it is more manifest in this than in any other Art Aperitive Medicines are proper for a man subject to the Stone by reason that opening and dilating the Passages they help forward the slimy Matter whereof Gravel and the Stone is engender'd and convey that downward which begins to harden and gather in the Reins Aperitive things are dangerous for a man subject to the Stone by reason that opening and dilating the Passage they help forward toward the Reins the matter proper to create the Stone which by their own propension that way being apt to seize it 't is not to be imagin'd but that a great deal of what has been so convey'd thither must remain behind Moreover if the Medicine happen to meet with any thing too gross to be carried thorough all those narrow Passages it must pass to be expell'd that obstruction whatever it is being stirr'd by these aperitive things and thrown into those narrow Passages coming to stop them will occasion a certain and most painful Death They have the like constancy in the advices they give us for the regiment of Life It is good to make water often for we experimentally see that in letting it lye long in the Bladder we give it time to settle the Sedement which will concreate into a Stone It is good not to make water often for the heavy Excrements it carried along with it will not be voided without violence as we see by experience that a Torrent that runs with force washes the ground it rowls over much clearer than the course of a slow and tardy Stream Likewise it is good to have often to do with Women for that opens the Passages and helps to evacuate Gravel It is also very ill to have often to do with Women because it heats tires and weakens the Reins It is good to bath frequently in hot waters forasmuch as that refreshes and
evade it This other lesson is too high and too difficult 'T is for men of the first Form of knowledge purely to insist upon the thing to consider and judge of it It appertains to one sole Socrates only to entertain Death with an indifferent Countenance to grow acquainted with it and to sport with it he seeks no consolation out of the thing it self dying appears to him a natural and indifferent accident 't is there that he fixes his sight and resolution without looking elsewhere The Disciples of Hegesias that pine themselves to death animated thereunto by his fine Lectures which were so frequent that King Ptolomy order'd he should be forbidden to entertain his followers with such homicide Doctrines those People do not consider death it self neither do they judge of it it is not there that they fix their Thoughts they run towards and aim at a new Being The poor wretches that we see brought upon the Scaffold full of ardent devotion and therein as much as in them lies employing all their Senses their Ears in hearing the instructions are given them their Eyes and Hands lifted up towards Heaven their Voices in loud Prayers with a vehement and continual emotion are doubtless things very commendable and proper for such a necessity We ought to commend them for their Devotion but not properly for their constancy They shun the encounter they divert their thoughts from the consideration of death as Children are amus'd with some Toy or other when the Chirurgion is going to give them a prick with his Lancet I have seen some who casting sometimes their eyes upon the dreadful Instruments of death round about have fainted and furiously turn'd their thoughts another way Such as are to pass a formidable Precipice are advis'd either to shut their eyes or to look another way Subrius Flavius being by Nero's command to be put to death and by the hand of Niger both of them great Captains when they led him to the place appointed for his Execution seeing the hole that Niger had caus'd to be hollow'd to put him into ill-favour'dly contriv'd Neither is this said he turning to the Souldiers who guarded him according to Military Discipline And to Niger who exhorted him to keep his head firm do but thou strike as firmly said he And he very well fore-saw what would follow when he said so for Niger's arm so trembled that he had several blows at his head before he could cut it off This man seems to have had his thoughts rightly fix'd upon the subject he that dyes in a Battel with his Sword in his hand does not then think of death he feels nor considers it not the ardour of the Fight diverts his thoughts another way An honest Man of my acquaintance falling as he was fighting a Duel at single Rapier and feeling himself nail'd to the earth by nine or ten thrusts of his Enemy every one present call'd to him to think of his Conscience but he has since told me that though he very well heard what they said it nothing mov'd him and that he never thought of any thing but how to disengage and revenge himself He afterwards kill'd his Man in that very Duel He who brought L. Syllanus the sentence of Death did him a very great kindness in that having receiv'd his answer that he was well prepar'd to dye but not by base hands he run upon him with his Souldiers to force him and as he naked as he was obstinately defended himself with his fists and feet he made him lose his Life in the dispute by that means dissipating and diverting in a sudden and furious Rage the painful apprehension of the lingring Death to which he was design'd We always think of something else either the hope of a better Life comforts and supports us or the hope of our Childrens Valour or the future glory of our Name or the leaving behind the evils of this Life or the Vengeance that threatens those who are the causers of our death administers Consolation to us Spero equidem mediis si quid pia numina possunt Supplicia hausurum scopulis nomine Dido Saepe vocaturum Audiam haec manes veniet mihi fama subimos Sure if the Gods have any power at all Split on a Rock thou shalt on Dido call thy Fortunes I shall know By Fame convey'd me to the shades below Xenophon was sacrificing with a Crown upon his Head when one came to bring him News of the Death of his Son Gryllus slain in the Battel of Mantinea At the first surprize of the News he threw his Crown to the Ground but understanding by the sequel of the Narrative the manner of a most brave and valiant Death he took it up and replac'd it upon his Head Epicurus himself at his Death consolates himself upon the Utility and Eternity of his Writings Omnes clari nobilitati Labores fiunt tolerabiles All Labours that are illustrious and renown'd are supportable And the same Wound the same Fatigue is not says Xenophon so intolerable to a General of an Army as to a common Souldier Epaminondas dyed much more cheerful having been inform'd that the Victory remain'd to him Haec sunt solatia haec fomenta summorum Dolorum These are lenitives and fomentations to the greatest Pains And such other Circumstances amuse divert and turn our thoughts from the consideration of the thing in it self Even the Arguments of Philosophy are always diverting and putting by the Matter so as scarce to rub upon the Sore The greatest man of the first Philosophical School and Superintendent over all the rest the great Zeno against Death forms this Syllogism No Evil is honourable but Death is honourable Therefore Death is no Evil. Against Drunkenness this No one commits his Secrets to a Drunkard but every one commits his Secrets to a Wise Man therefore a wise man is no Drunkard Is this to hit the white I love to see that these great and leading Souls cannot rid themselves of our Company As perfect men as they would be they are yet but simple men Revenge is a sweet Passion of great and natural impression I discern it well enough though I have no manner of Experience of it From which not long ago to divert a young Prince I did not tell him that he must to him who had struck him upon the one Cheek turn the other upon the account of Charity nor go about to represent to him the tragical Events that Poetry attributes to this Passion I did not touch upon that string but made it my Business to make him relish the Beauty of a contrary Image and by representing to him what Honour Esteem and good Will he would acquire by Clemency and good Nature diverted him to Ambition Thus a man is to deal in such Cases If your Passion of Love be too violent disperse it say they and they say true for I have oft try'd it with Advantage break
it into several Desires of which let one be regent if you will over the rest but lest it should tyrannize and domineer over you weaken and protract in dividing and diverting it Cum morosa vago singultiet inguine venae Conjicito humorem collectum in Corpora quaeque and look to 't in time lest it proves too troublesome to deal with when it has once seiz'd you Si non prima novis conturbes vulvera plagis Volgivagaque vagus venere ante recentia cures Unless you fancy every one you view Revel in Love and cure old Wounds by new I was once wounded with a vehement Displeasure and withal more just than vehement I might peradventure have lost my self in it if I had merely trusted to my own Strength Having need of a powerful Diversion to disengage me by amorous Art and Study wherein I was assisted by my Youth I found one out Love reliev'd and rescu'd me from the evil wherein Friendship had engag'd me 'T is in every thing else the same a violent Imagination hath seiz'd me I find it a nearer way to change than to subdue it I depute if not one contrary yet another at least in its place Variation does always relieve dissolve and dissipate if I am not able to contend with it I escape from it and in avoiding it slip out of the way and make my doubles shifting of Place Business and Company I secure my self in the crowd of other Thoughts and Fancies where it loses my trace and I escape After the same manner does Nature proceed by the benefit of Inconstancy for the time she has given us for the sovereign Physician of our Passions does chiefly work by that that supplying our Imaginations with other and new Affairs it un-nerves and dissolves the first apprehension how strong soever A wise man sees his Friend little less dying at the end of five and twenty years than the first year and according to Epicurus no less at all for he did not attribute any alleviation of Afflictions neither to the foresight of the man or the Antiquity of the Evils themselves But so many other thoughts traverse the first that it languishes and tires at last Alcibiades to divert the Inclination of common Rumours cut off the Ears and Tail of his beautiful Dog and turn'd him out into the publick place to the end that giving the People this occasion to prate they might let his other Actions alone I have also seen for this same end of diverting the Opinions and Conjectures of the People and to stop their Mouths some Women conceal their real Affections by those that were only counterfeit and put on to blind mens Eyes but some of them withall who in counterfeiting have suffer'd themselves to be caught indeed and who have quitted the true and original Affection for the feign'd and by them have found that they who find their Affections well plac'd are Fools to consent to this disguise The favourable and publick reception being only reserv'd for this pretended Servant a man may conclude him a Fellow of very little address and less Wit if he does not in the end put himself into your place and you into his this is properly to cut out and make up a Shooe for another to draw on A little thing will turn and divert us because a little thing holds us We do not much consider Subjects in gross and single in themselves but they are little and superficial Circumstances that wound us and the outward useless rinds that pill off those Subjects Folliculos ut nunc teretes aestate cicadae Linquunt Such as the terous husks or shells we find In Summer Grashoppers do leave behind Even Plutarch himself laments his Daughter for the little apish tricks of her Infancy The remembrance of a Farewel of the particular grace of an Action of a last recommendation afflicts us The sight of Caesar's Robe troubled all Rome which was more than his death had done Even the sound of Names ringing in our ears as my poor Master my faithful Friend Alas my dear Father or my sweet Daughter afflict us When these Repetitions torment me and that I examin it a little nearer I find 't is no other but a Grammatical complaint I am only wounded with the word and tone as the Exclamations of Preachers do very oft work more upon their Auditory than their Reasons and as the pitiful eyes of a Beast kill'd for Service without my weighing or penetrating in the interim into the true and real essence of my Subject His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit With these incitements grief it self provokes These are the foundations of our mourning The obstinacy of my Stone to all remedies especially those in my Bladder has sometimes thrown me into so long suppressions of Urine for three or four days together and so near death that it had been folly to have hop'd to evade it and it was much rather to have been desir'd considering the miseries I endure in those cruel Fits Oh that the good Emperour who caus'd Criminals to be ty'd that they might dye for want of pissing was a great Master in the Hangman 's Science Finding my self in this condition I consider'd by how many light causes and objects Imagination nourish'd in me the regret of Life and of what Atoms the weight and difficulty of this dislodging was compos'd in my Soul and to how many idle and frivolous thoughts we give way in so great an Affair A Dog a Horse a Book a Glass and what not were consider'd in my loss To others their ambitious hopes their money their knowledge not less foolish Considerations in my opinion than mine I look upon Death carelesly when I look upon it universally as the end of Life I insult over it in gross but in retail it domineers over me The Tears of a Foot-man the disposing of my Cloaths the touch of a friendly hand which is a common Consolation discourages and entenerates me So do the Complaints in Tragedies infect our Souls with Grief and the Regrets of Dido and Ariadne impassionate even those who believe them not in Virgil and Catullus 'T is a simptom of an obstinate and obdurate Nature to be sensible of no emotion as 't is reported for a Miracle of Polemon who not so much as alter'd his Countenance at the biting of a mad-Dog who tore away the Calf of his Leg. And no Wisdom proceeds so far as to conceive so lively and entire a cause of Sorrow by Judgment that it does not suffer an increase by presence where the Eyes and Ears have their share parts that are not to be moved but by vain accidents Is it reason that even the Arts themselves should make an advantage of our natural brutality and weakness An Orator says Rhetorick in the farce of his pleading shall be mov'd with the sound of his own Voice and feign'd Emotions and suffer himself to be impos'd upon by the passion
Wishes as much Liberty and Indiscretion but yet it never befell me to wish for either Empire or Royalty for the Eminency of those high and commanding Fortunes I do not aim that way I love my self too well When I think to grow greater 't is but very moderately and by a compell'd and timorous Advancement such as is proper for me in Resolution in Prudence in Health in Beauty and even in Riches too But this supream Reputation and this mighty Authority oppress my Imagination And quite contrary to some others I should peradventure rather choose to be the second or third in Perigourd than the first at Paris at least without lying the third than the first at Paris I would neither dispute a miserable unknown with a Noble-man's Porter nor make Crowds open in Adoration as I pass I am train'd up to a moderate Condition as well by my choice as Fortune and have made it appear in the whole Conduct of my Life and Enterprizes that I have rather avoided than otherwise the climbing above the degree of Fortune wherein God has plac'd me by my Birth all natural Constitution is equally just and easie My Soul is so sneaking and mean that I measure not good Fortune by the height but by the Facility But if my Heart be not great enough 't is open enough to make amends at any ones request freely to lay open its Weakness Should any one put me upon comparing the Life of L. Thorius Balbus a brave man handsom learned healthful understanding and abounding in all sorts of Conveniencies and Pleasures leading a quiet Life and all his own his Mind well prepar'd against Death Superstition Pains and other Incumbrances of humane Necessity dying at last in Battel with his Sword in his Hand for the defence of his Country on the one part and on the other part the Life of M. Regulus so great and high as is known to every one and his end admirable the one without Name and without Dignity the other exemplary and glorious to wonder I should doubtless say as Cicero did could I speak as well as he But if I was to touch it in my own Phrase I should then also say that the first is as much according to my Capacity and Desire which I conform to my Capacity as the second is far beyond it that I could not approach the last but with Veneration the other I would willingly attain by Custom But let us return to our temporal Greatness from which we are digress'd I disrelish all Dominion whether active or passive Otanes one of the seven who had right to pretend to the Kingdom of Persia did as I should willingly have done which was that he gave up to his Concurrents his right of being promoted to it either by Election or by Lot provided that he and his might live in the Empire out of all Authority and Subjection those of the ancient Laws excepted and might injoy all liberty that was not prejudicial to them as impatient of commanding as of being commanded The most painful and difficult Employment in the World in my Opinion is worthily to discharge the Office of a King I excuse more of their mistakes than men commonly do in consideration of the intolerable weight of their Function which does astonish me 'T is hard to keep measure in so immeasurable a Power Yet so it is that it is to those who are not the best natur'd men a singular incitement to Virtue to be seated in a place where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon Record and where the least benefit redounds to so many men and where your Talent of Administration like that of Preachers does principally address it self to the People no very exact Judge easie to deceive and easily content There are few things wherein we can give a sincere Judgement by reason that there are few wherein we have not in some sort a particular Interest Superiority and Inferiority Dominion and Subjection are bound to a natural Envy and Contest and must necessarily perpetually intrench upon one another I neither believe the one nor the other touching the rights of the adverse Party let Reason therefore which is inflexible and without Passion determine 'T is not above a Month ago that I read over two Scoth Authors contending upon this Subject of which he who stands for the People makes Kings to be in a worse Condition than a Carter and he who writes for Monarchy places him some degrees above God-Almighty in Power and Sovereignty Now the Inconveniency of Greatness that I have made choice of to consider in this place upon some occasion that has lately put it into my head is this There is not peradventure any thing more pleasant in the Commerce of men than the Tryals that we make against one another out of Emulation of Honour and Valour whether in the Exercises of the Body or in those of the Mind wherein the Sovereign Greatness can have no true part And in earnest I have often thought that out of force of respect men have us'd Princes disdainfully and injuriously in that particular For the thing I was infinitely offended at in my Child-hood that they who exerciz'd with me forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their utmost endeavour is what we see happen to them every day every one finding himself unworthy to contend with them If we discover that they have the least Passion to have the better there is no one who will not make it his Business to give it them and who will not rather betray his own Glory than offend theirs and will therein employ so much force only as is necessary to advance their Honour What share have they then in the Engagement wherein every one is on their side Methinks I see those Paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to Justs with enchanted Arms and Bodies Brisson running against Alexander purposely mist his blow and made a fault in his Career Alexander chid him for it but he ought to have had him whipt Upon this consideration Carneades said that the Sons of Princes learn'd nothing right but to ride the great Horse by reason that in all their Exercises every one bends and yields to them but a Horse that is neither a Flatterer nor a Courtier throws the Son of a King with no more remorse than he would do that of a Porter Homer was compell'd to consent that Venus so sweet and delicate as she was should be wounded at the Battel of Troy thereby to ascribe Courage and Boldness to her Qualities that cannot possibly be in those who are exempt from Danger The Gods are made to be angry to fear to run away to be jealous to grieve and to be transported with Passions to honour them with the Virtues that amongst us are built upon these Imperfections Who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty can pretend no interest in the Honour
warts and blemishes I am not a French-man but by this great City great in People great in the felicity of her Scituation but above all great and incomparable in variety and diversity of Commodities the Glory of France and one of the most noble Ornaments of the World God of his Goodness compose our Differences and deliver us from this Civil War I find her sufficiently defended from all other Violences I give her caution that of all sorts of People those will be the worst that shall set it in Division I have no fears of her but of her self and certainly I have as much fear for her as for any other City in the Kingdom Whilst she shall continue I shall never want a retreat where I may live or dye sufficient to make me amends for parting with any other home or retreat whatever Not because Socrates has said so but because it is in truth my own Humour and peradventure not without some excess I look upon all men as my Compatriots and embrace a Polander with as sincere an Affection as a French-man preferring the universal and common tye to all National tyes whatever I am not much taken with the sweetness of a natural Air Acquaintance wholly new and wholly my own appear to me full as good as the other common and accidental ones with our Neighbours Friendships that are purely of our own acquiring ordinarily carry it above those to which the Communication of the Clime or of Blood oblige us Nature has plac'd us in the World free and unbound we imprison our selves in certain streights like the Kings of Persia who oblige themselves to drink no other Water but that of the River Choaspes and foolishly quit claim to their right of usage in all other Streams and as to what concern'd themselves dried up all the other Rivers of the World What Socrates did towards his end to look upon a Sentence of Banishment as worse than a Sentence of Death against him I shall I think never be either so decrepid or so strictly habituated to my own Country to be of that Opinion These Celestial Lives have Images enow which I embrace more by Esteem than Affection and they have some also so elevated and extraordinary that I cannot embrace them so much as by Esteem for as much as I cannot conceive them This Humour was very tender in a man that thought the whole World his City It is true that he disdain'd Travel and had hardly ever set his Foot out of the Attick Territories What though he complain'd of the Money his Friends offer'd to save his Life and that he refus'd to come out of Prison by the Mediation of others not to disobey the Laws in a time when they were otherwise so corrupted These Examples are of the first kind for me of the second there are others that I could find out in the same Person Many of these rare Examples surpass the force of my Action but some of them do moreover surpass the force of my Judgement These Reasons set aside Travel is in my Opinion a very improving thing the Soul is there continually imploy'd in observing new and unknown things and I do not know as I have often said a better School wherein to model Life than by incessantly exposing to it the diversity of so many other lives fancies and usances and to make it relish so perpetual a variety of the form of humane Nature The Body is therein neither idle nor over-wrought and that moderate Agitation puts in breath I can keep on Horse-back as much tormented with the Stone as I am without alighting or being weary eight or ten hours together Vires ultra sortemque senectae Beyond the strength and common use of Age. No Season is Enemy to me but the parching heat of a scorching Sun for the Vmbrellas made use of in Italy ever since the time of the ancient Romans more burthen a mans Arm than they relieve his Head I would fain know what pain it was to the Persians so long ago and in the Infancy of their Luxury to make such Ventiducts and plant such Shades about their abodes as Xenophon reports they did I love Rain and to dabble in the Dirt as well as tame Ducks do the change of Air and Climate never concern me every Sky is alike I am only troubled with inward Alterations which I bred within my self and those are not so frequent in Travel I am hard to be got out but being once upon the Road I hold out as well as the best I take as much pains in little as in great Attempts and am as sollicitous to equip my self for a short Journey if but to visit a Neighbour as for the longest Voyage I have learnt to travel after the Spanish fashion and to make but one Stage of a great many Miles and in excessive heats I always travel by Night from Sun-set to Sun-rising The other method of baiting by the way in haste and hurry to gobble up a Dinner is especially in short days very inconvenient My Horses perform the better for never any Horse tir'd under me that was able to hold out the first days Journey I water them at every Brook I meet and have only a care they have so much way to go before I come to my Inn as will warm the Water in their Bellies My unwillingness to rise in a Morning gives my Servants leisure to dine at their ease before they go out For my own part I never eat too late my Appetite comes to me in eating and not else and am never hungry but at Table Some of my Friends blame me for continuing this travelling Humour being married and old But they are out in 't for it is the best time to leave a man's House when a man has put it into a way of continuing without us and settled such an Oeconomy as corresponds to it for mere Government 'T is much greater imprudence to abandon it to a less faithful House-keeper and who will be less sollicitous to provide for the Family and look after your Affairs The most useful and honourable Knowledge and Employment for the Mother of a Family is the Science of good Housewifry I see some that are covetous indeed but very few that are saving 'T is the supream quality of a Woman and that a man ought to seek after before any other as the only dowry that must ruine or preserve our Houses Let men say what they will according to the Experience I have learn't I require in married Women the Oeconomical Virtue above all other Virtues I put my Wife to 't as a Concern of her own leaving her by my absence the whole Government of my Affairs I see and am asham'd to see in several Families I know Monsieur about Dinner time come home all dirt and in great disorder from trotting about amongst his Husbandmen and Labourers when Madam is perhaps scarce out of her Bed and afterwards is
Benefice or a Hare run not they only run that run at Base and to exercise their running My design is divisible throughout it is not grounded upon any great hopes every day concludes my expectation And the Journey of my Life is carried on after the same manner and yet I have seen Places enow a great way off when I could have wish'd to have been stay'd And why not if Chrysippus Cleanthes Diogenes Zeno Antipater so many Sages of the sourest Sect cheerfully abandoned their Countrey without occasion of complaint and only for the enjoyment of another Air In earnest that which most displeases me in all my Voyages is that I cannot resolve to settle my Abode where I should best like but that I must always propose to my self to return to accommodate my self to the common Humour If I fear'd to dye in any other Place than that of my Birth if I thought I should dye more uneasily remote from my own Family I should hardly go out of France I should not without fear step out of my Parish I feel Death always twitching me by the Throat or by the Back but I am of another temper 't is in all Places alike to me yet might I have my choice I think I should rather chuse to dye on Horse back than in a Bed out of my own House and far enough from my own People There is more Heart-breaking than Consolation in taking leave of ones Friends I am willing to omit that civility for that of all the Offices of Friendship is the only one that is unpleasant and could with all my heart dispence with that great and eternal Farewell If there be any convenience in so many standers by it brings an hundred inconveniencies along with it I have seen many miserably dying surrounded with all his Train 't is a crowd that choaks them 'T is against Duty and a testimony of little kindness and little care to permit you to dye in Repose one torments your Eyes another afflicts your Ears another tires your faultring Tongue you have neither Sense nor Member that is not violated by them Your Heart is wounded with compassion to hear the mourning of those that are your real Friends and perhaps with spite to hear the counterfeit condolings of those who only pretend and make a shew of being so Who ever has been delicate that way when well is much more so in his weakness In such a necessity a tender Hand is required and accomodated to his Sentiments to scratch him just in the place where he itches or not to meddle with him at all If we stand in need of a Knowing Woman to bring us into the World we have much more need of a wiser Man to help us out of it Such a one and a Friend to boot a man ought to purchace at any rate for such an Occasion I am not yet arriv'd to such a pitch of Bravery as to disdain all assistance in that fatal Hour nor pretend to be able so to fortifie my self in my own Strength that nothing can assist or offend me I have not brought my self to that I endeavour to hide my self and to escape from this Passage not by Fear but by Art I do not intend in this act of dying to muster up and make a shew of my constancy For whom should I do it All the right and title I have to reputation will then cease I content my self with a death involv'd within it self quiet solitary and all my own suitable to my retir'd and private life Quite contrary to the Roman Superstition where a man was look'd upon as unhappy who dyed without speaking and that had not his nearest Relations to close his eyes I have enough to do to comfort my self without giving my self the trouble of consolating others thoughts enough in my head not to need that Circumstances should possess me with new and matter enough to entertain my self withall without borrowing This critical minute is out of the part of Society 't is the act of one single Person Let us live and be merry amongst our Friends let us go dye and be sullen amongst Straners A man may find those for his money that will shift his pillow and rub his feet and will trouble him no more than he would have them who will present him with an indifferent Countenance and suffer him to govern himself and to complain according to his own Method I wean my self daily by my Reason from this childish and inhumane Humour of desiring by our sufferings to move the Compassion and Mourning of our Friends We stretch our Inconveniencies beyond their just extent when we extract tears from them and the Constancy which we commend in every one in supporting his own adverse Fortune we accuse and reproach in our Friends when the case is our own we are not satisfied that they should be sensible of our Condition only unless they be moreover afflicted A man should publish and communicate his joy but as much as he can conceal and smother his grief He that makes himself lamented without Reason is a man not to be lamented when there shall be real Cause To be always complaining is the way never to be lamented by making himself always in so pitiful a Taking he is never commiserated by any He that makes himself dead when he is alive is subject to be thought likely to live when he is dying I have seen some who have taken it ill when they have been told that they look'd well and that their Pulse was temperate contain their smiles because they betray'd a Recovery and be angry at their Health because it was not to be lamented And which is a great deal more they were not Women neither I describe my Infirmities but such as they really are at most and avoid all Expressions of ill Prognostick and compos'd Exclamations If not Mirth at least a temperate Countenance in the standers by is proper in the Presence of a wise sick Man He does not quarrel with Health for seeing himself in a contrary Condition He is pleas'd to contemplate it found and intire in others and at least to enjoy it for company He does not for feeling himself melt away abandon all thoughts of Life nor avoid to discourse of ordinary and indifferent things I will study sickness whilst I am well when it has seiz'd me it will make its impression real enough without the help of my Imagination We prepare our selves before hand for the Journey we undertake and resolve upon we leave the appointment of the Hour when to take Horse to the Company and in their favour deferr it I find this unexpected advantage in the publication of my Manners that it in some sort serves me for a Rule I have sometimes some consideration of not betraying or falsifying the History of my Life This publick Declaration obliges me to keep my way and not to give the lye to the Image I have drawn of my Qualities
I durst not so much as one day deferr it And if nothing be done 't is as much as to say either that doubt hinder'd my choice and sometimes 't is well chosen not to choose or that I was positively resolv'd not to do any thing at all I write my Book to few men and to few years Had it been matter of duration I should have put it into a better Language for according to the continual variation that ours has been continually subject to who can expect that the present force should be in use fifty years hence It slips every day thorough our Fingers and since I was born is alter'd above one half We say that it is now perfect and every Age says the same of the Language then spoken But I shall hardly trust to that so long as it varies and changes as it does 'T is for good and usefull Writings to nail and rivet it to them and its Reputation will go according to the Fortune of our State For which Reason I am not afraid to insert in it several private Articles which will spend their use amongst the men that are now living and that concern the particular knowledge of some who will see further into them than every common Reader I will not after all as I oft hear dead men spoken of that men should say of me He judg'd and liv'd so and so he would have done this or that could he have spoke when he was dying he would have said so or so and have given this thing or t'other I knew him better than any Now as much as Decency permits I here discover my Inclinations and Affections but I do it more willingly and freely by word of Mouth to any one who desires to be inform'd So it is that in these Memoires if any one observe he will find that I have either told or design'd to tell all What I cannot express I point out with my Finger Verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagaci Sunt per quae possis cognoscere caetera tute But by these foot-steps a sagacious mind May easily all other Matters find I leave nothing to be desir'd or to be ghess'd at concerning me If People must be talking of me I would have it to be justly and truly I would come again with all my Heart from the other World to give any one the lye that should report me other than I was though he did it to honour me I perceive that People represent even living men quite another thing than what they really are and had I not stoutly defended a Friend whom I have lost they would have torn him into a thousand several pieces To conclude the account of my frail Humours I do confess that in my Travel I seldom come to my Inn but that it comes into my Mind to consider whether I could there be sick and dying at my ease I would be lodg'd in some convenient part of the House remote from all noise ill scents and smoke I endeavour to flatter Death by these frivolous Circumstances or to say better to discharge my self from all other Incumbrances that I may have nothing to do nor be troubled with any thing but it which will lye heavy enough upon me without the assistance of any other thing to mend the Load I would have my Death share in the ease and conveniencies of my Life 't is a great part of it and of the greatest importance and hope it will not for the future contradict what is past Death has some forms that are more easie than others and receives divers Qualities according to every ones Fancy Amongst the natural ones those that proceed from Weakness and Stupidity I think the most favourable amongst those that are violent I can worse endure to think of a precipice than the fall of a House that will crush me flat in a moment and a wound with a Sword than a Harquebuss shot and should rather have chosen to poyson my self with Socrates then stab my self with Cato And though it be the same thing yet my Imagination makes as great a difference as betwixt Death and Life betwixt throwing my self into a burning Furnace and plunging into the Channel of a River So idely does our Fear more concern it self in the Means than the Effect It is but an instant 't is true but withall an instant of such weight that I would willingly give a great many days of my Life to pass it over after my own fashion Since every ones Imagination renders it more or less terrible and since every one has some choice amongst the several forms of dying let us try a little further to find some one that is wholly clear from all Offence Might not one render it moreover Voluptuous as they did who died with Anthony and Cleopatra I set aside the brave and exemplary efforts produc'd by Philosophy and Religion But amongst men of little mark such as Petronius and a Tigillinus at Rome there have been found men condemn'd to dispatch themselves who have as it were rock'd Death asleep with the delicacy of their Preparations They have made it slip and steal away even in the height of their accustomed Diversions Amongst Whores and good Fellows not a word of Consolation no mention of making a Will no ambitious affectation of Constancy no talk of their future Condition amongst Sports Feastings Wit and Mirth common and indifferent Discourses Musick and amorous Verses Were it not possible for us to imitate this Resolution after a more decent manner Since there are Deaths that are fit for fools and fit for the wise let us find out such as are fit for those who are betwixt both My Imagination suggests to me one that is easie and since we must dye to be desir'd The Roman Tyrants thought they did in a manner give a Criminal Life when they gave him the choice of his Death But was not Theophrastus that so delicate so modest and so wise a Philosopher compell'd by Reason when he durst repeat this Verse-translated by Cicero Vitam regit Fortuna non Sapientia Fortune not Wisdom humane Life doth sway Fortune is assisting to the Facility of the bargain of my Life having plac'd it in such a condition that for the future it can be no advantage nor hindrance to those that are concern'd in me 'T is a Condition that I would have accepted at any time of my Age but in this occasion of trussing up my Baggage I am particularly pleas'd that in dying I shall neither do them good nor harm she has so order'd it by a cunning Compensation that they who may pretend to any considerable advantage by my death will at the same time sustain a material Inconvenience Death sometimes is more grievous to us in that it is grievous to others and interests us in their interest as much as in our own and sometimes more In this Conveniency of lodging that I desire I mix nothing of Pomp and Splendor I
then a Talent said the other that is not a Present befitting a Cynick Seu plures calor ille vias caeca relaxat Spiramenta novas veniat qua succus in herbas Seu durat magis venas astringit hiantes Ne tenues pluviae rapidive potentia solis Acrior aut Boreae penetrabile frigus adurat Whether from this new force and nourishment The Earth receives or else all venom spent By fire and froth superfluous moisture sweat Or many dark hid breathings lax'd by heat By which fresh sap the springing Corn sustains Or more condens'd it binds the gaping Veins Lest soaking show'rs or Sol's more potent Beam Or Boreas piercing cold should wither them Ogni medaglia ha il suo reverso Every Medal has its reserve This is the reason why Clitomucus said of old that Carneades had out-done the Labours of Hercules in having fixt the consent of men that is to say their Opinion and the Liberty of judging This so strong fancy of Carneades sprung in my Opinion anciently from the impudence of those who made Profession of Knowledge and their immeasurable self-conceit Esop was set to sale with two other Slaves the buyer ask'd the first what he could do who to enhance his own value promis'd Mountains and Miracles saying he could do this and that and I know not what the second as much of himself and more when it came to Esop's turn and that he was also ask'd what he could do nothing said he for these two have taken up all before me they can do every thing So has it hapned in the School of Philosophy The pride of those who attributed the Capacity of all things to humane Wit created in others out of spite and Emulation this Opinion that it is capable of nothing The one maintain the same extream in Ignorance that the others do in Knowledge To make it undeniably manifest that man is immoderate throughout can give no other positive sentence but that of Necessity and the want of Ability to proceed further CHAP. XII Of Physiognomy ALmost all the Opinions we have are deriv'd from Authority and taken upon trust and 't is not amiss We could not choose worse than by our selves in so weak an Age. This Image of Socrates his Discourses which his Friends have transmitted to us we approve upon no other account but merely the reverence to publick Approbation 'T is not according to our own knowledge they are not after our way If any thing of this kind should spring up new few men would value them We discern not the graces otherwise than by certain features touch'd up and illustrated by Art Such as glide on in their own Purity and Simplicity easily escape so gross a sight as ours they have a delicate and conceal'd Beauty such as requir'd a clear and purified sight to discover so secret a light Is not Simplicity as we accept it Cosin-german to Folly and a Quality of reproach Socrates makes his Soul move a natural and common motion A country Peasant said this a Woman said that he has never any thing in his Mouth but Carters Joiners Coblers and Masons These are inductions and similitudes drawn from the most common and known Actions of men every one understands them We should never have entertain'd the Nobility and Splendor of his admirable Conceptions under so vile a form we I say who think all things low and flat that are not elevated by Learning and who discern no riches but in pomp and shew This World of ours is only form'd for Ostentation Men are only puffd up with Wind and are bandied too and fro like Tennis-Balls This man proposes to himself no vain and idle Fancies his design was to furnish us with Precepts and things that more really and fitly serve to the use of Life servare modum finemque tenere Naturamque sequi To keep a mean his end still to observe And from the Laws of Nature ne're to swerve He was also always one and the same and rais'd himself not by starts but by complexion to the highest pitch of vigour or to say better he exalted nothing but rather brought down and reduc'd all asperities and difficulties to their original and natural Condition and subjected their power for in Cato 't is most manifest that there is a proceeding extended far beyond the common ways of ordinary men In the brave exploits of his Life and in his Death we find him always mounted upon his manag'd Horses Whereas this man always creeps upon the ground and with a slow and ordinary pace treats of the most usefull Discourses and bears himself through both at his Death and the nicest traverses that would present themselves in the course of humane Life It has fallen out well that the man most worthy to be known and to be presented to the World for Example should be he of whom we have the most certain knowledge he has been pry'd into by the most clear-sighted men that ever were The Testimonies we have of him are admirable both in Fidelity and Knowledge 'T is a great thing that he was able so to order the pure Imaginations of a Child that without altering or wresting them he has thereby produc'd the most beautiful effects of a humane Soul He presents it not either elevated or rich he only represents it sound but certainly with a brisk and spritely Health By these common and natural Springs by these vulgar and ordinary Fancies without being mov'd or making any bustle in the Businesâ— he set up not only the most regular but the most high and vigorous Beliefs Actions and Manners that ever were 'T is he who brought again from Heaven where she lost her time humane Wisdom to restore her to man wherein her most just and greatest business lies See him plead before his Judges do but obserâ—e by what reasons he rouzes his Courage to the hazards of War with what Arguments he fortifies his Patience against Calumny Tyranny Death and the perverseness of his Wife you will find nothing in all this borrow'd from Arts and Sciences The simplest may there discover their own means and power 't is not possible more to retire or to creep more low He has done humane Nature a great kindness in shewing it how much it can do of it self We are all of us richer than we think we are but we are taught to borrow and to beg and brought up more to make use of what is anothers than our own Man can in nothing fix and conform himself to his meer Necessity Of Pleasure Wealth and Power he grasps at more than he can hold his greediness is incapable of moderation And I find that in curiositioy of knowing he is the same â—e cuts himself out more work than he can do and more than he needs to do Extending the utitility of knowledge as far as the matter Vt omnium rerum sic literarum quoque intemperantiâ— laboramus That as of every thing else
some who were afraid of staying behind as in a dreadful solitude and did not commonly observe any other sollicitude amongst them than that of Sepultures they were troubled to see the dead bodies scatter'd about the Fields at the mercy of Beasts which presently began to flock about them How differing are the fancies of Men The Neorites a Nation subjected by Alexander threw the bodies of their dead in the deepest and least frequented part of their Woods on purpose to have them there eaten the only Sepulture reputed happy amongst them Some who were yet in health digg'd their own Graves and others laid them down in them whilst alive and a Labourer of mine in dying with his Hands and Feet pull'd the Earth upon him Was not this to nustle and settle himself to sleep at greater ease A bravery in some sort like that of the Roman Souldiers who after the Battel of Cannae were found with their Heads thrust into holes in the Earth which they had made and in suffocating themselves with their own hands pull'd the Earth about their Ears In short a whole Nation by usance was brought to a Discipline nothing inferiour in undauntedness to the most studied and premeditated Resolution Most instructions of Sciences to encourage us have in them more of shew than of force and of Ornament than effect We have abandon'd Nature and will teach her what to do her who did so happily and so securely conduct us And in the mean time from the foot-steps of her Instruction and that little which by the benefit of ignorance remains of her Image imprinted in the life of this rustick rout of unpolish'd men Science is constrain'd every day to borrow thence to make a pattern for her Disciples of Constancy Tranquility Innocence 'T is pretty to see that these complain of so much fine Knowledge being to imitate this foolish simplicity and that in the most principal acts of Virtue And that our Wisdom must learn even from Beasts the most profitable instructions in the greatest and most necessary Concerns of humane life As how we are to live and dye mannage our Fortunes love and bring up our Children and to maintain Justice A singular testimony of humane Infirmity and that this Reason we so handle at our Pleasure finding evermore some diversity and novelty leaves with us no apparent trace of Nature And they make men as Perfumers mix their Oyls they have sophisticated it with so many Argumentations and far-fetch'd Discourses that it is become variable and particular to every one of them and has lost its proper constant and universal face And we must seek testimony from Beasts not subject to favour corruption nor diversity of Opinions For it is indeed true that even they themselves do not always go exactly in the Path of Nature but wherein they do swerve 't is so little that you may always see the track As Horses that are lead make several bounds and curvets but 't is always at the length of the Collar and they still follow him that leads them and as a Hawk takes his flight but still under the restraint of his Cranes Exilia Tormenta Bella Morbos Naufragia meditare ut nullo sis malo tyro Meditate upon Banishments Tortures Wars Diseases and Shipwracks that thou may'st not be to seek in any disaster What good will this Curiosity do us to preoccupate all the Inconveniencies of humane Nature and to prepare our selves with so much trouble against things which peradventure will never befall us parem passis tristitiam facit pati posse It troubles men as much that they may possibly suffer as if they really did Not only the blow but the wind of the blow strikes us Or like Phrenetick People for certainly 't is a Phrensie to go immediately and whip your self because it may so fall out that Fortune may one day make you undergo it and to put on your Furr'd-gown at Midsummer because you will stand in need of it at Christmas Throw your selves say they into the experience of all the evils the most extream evils that can possibly befall you assure your selves there On the contrary the most easie and most natural way would be to banish even the thoughts of them They will not come soon enough their true Being will not continue with us long enough we must lengthen and extend them we must incorporate them in us before hand and there entertain them as if they would not otherwise sufficiently press upon our Senses We shall find them heavy enough when they come says one of our Masters of none of the tender but the most severe Sects in the mean time favour thy self believe what pleases thee best What good will it do thee to prevent thy ill Fortune to lose the present for fear of the future and to make thy self immediately miserable because thou art to be so in time These are his Words Science indeed does us one good Office in instructing as exactly in the dimensions of Evils Curis acuens mortalia corda 'T were pity that any part of their Grandeur should escape our Sense and Knowledge 'T is certain that for the most part the preparation for Death has administred more Torment than the thing it self It was of old truly said and by a very judicious Author Minus afficit sensus fatigatio quam cogitatio Suffering it self does less afflict the Senses than the apprehension of suffering The Sentiment of present death does sometimes of it self animate us with a prompt Resolution no more to avoid a thing that is utterly inevitable Several Gladiators have been seen who after having fought timorously and ill have courageously entertain'd Death offering their Throats to the Enemies Sword and bidding them dispatch The remote sight of future Death requires a Constancy that is slow and lazy and consequently hard to be got If you know not how to dye never trouble your self Nature will fully and sufficiently instruct you upon the place she will exactly do that business for you take you no care Incertam frustra mortales funeris horam Quaeritis qua sit mors aditura via Poenâ— minor certam subito perferre ruinam Quod timeas gravius sustinuisse diu Mortals in vain 's your Curiosity To know the Hour and Death that you must dye Better your fate strike with a sudden blow Than that you long should what you fear foreknow We trouble Life by the care of Death and Death by the care of Life The one torments the other frights us 'T is not against Death that we prepare that is too momentary a thing a quarter of an hours suffering without consequence and without nuisance does not deserve particular Precepts To say the truth we prepare our selves against the Preparations of Death Philosophy ordains that we should always have Death before our Eyes to fore-see and consider it before the time and after gives us Rules and Precautions to provide that this
fore-sight and thought do us no harm Just so do Physicians who throw us into Diseases to the end they may have whereon to lay out their Druggs and their Art If we have not known how to live 't is mystery to teach us to dye and make the end difform from all the rest If we have known how to live constantly and quietly we shall know how to dye so too They may boast as much as they please Tota Philosophorum Vita commentatio mortis est That the whole Life of a Philosopher is the Meditation of his Death But I fancy that though it be the end 't is not the aim of his Life 'T is his end his extremity but not nevertheless his object She ought her self to be to her self her own aim and design her true study is to order govern and suffer her self In the number of several other Offices that the general and principal Chapter of knowing how to live comprehends is this Article of knowing how dye and did not our fears give it weight one of the lightest too To judge of them by the utility and by the naked truth the lessons of simplicity are not much inferiour to those which the contrary Doctrine preaches to us Men are differing in sentiment and force we must lead them to their own good according to their Capacities and by various ways Quo me cumque rapit tempestas deferor hospes sworn to no mans words To this and that side I make tacks and bords Now plung'd in billows of the active Life At Virtues Anchor ride contemplative I never saw any Countryman of my Neighbours concern himself with the thought of with what countenance and assurance he should pass over his last hour Nature teaches him not to dream of Death till he is dying and then he does it with a better grace than Aristotle upon whom Death presses with a double weight both of it self and of so long a premeditation And therefore it was the opinion of Caesar that the least premeditated Death was the easiest and the most happy Plus dolet quam necesse est qui ante dolet quam necesse est He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before it is necessary The sharpness of this imagination springs from our own curiosity Thus do we ever hinder our selves desiring to prevent and govern natural prescriptions 'T is only for Doctors to dine worst when in the best Health and that they have the best stomachs and to frown and be out of humour at the Image of Death The common sort stand in need of no remedy nor consolation but just in the shock and when the blow comes and consider no more than just what they endure Is it not then as we say that the stupidity and name of apprehension in the Vulgar gives them that patience in present Evils and that profound carelesness of future sinister Accidents That their Souls by being more gross and dull are less penetrable and not so easily mov'd if it be so let us henceforth in Gods name teach nothing but Ignorance 'T is the utmost fruit which the Sciences promise us to which this Stupidity so gently leads its Disciples We have no want of good Masters who are interpreters of natural simplicity Socrates shall be one For as I remember he speaks something to this purpose to the Judges who sate upon his Life and Death I am afraid my masters that if I intreat you to put me to death I shall confirm the Evidence of my Accusers which is that I pretend to be wiser than others as having some more secret knowledge of things that are above and below us I know very well that I have neither frequented nor known Death nor have ever seen any person that has try'd his Qualities from whom to inform my self Such as fear it presuppose they know it as for my part I neither know what it is nor what they do in the other World Death is peradventure an indifferent thing peradventure a thing to be desired 'T is nevertheless to be believ'd if it be a transmigration from one place to another that it is a bettering of ones condition to go live with so many great Persons deceas'd and to be exempt from having any more to do with unjust and corrupted Judges if it be an annihilation of our Being 't is yet a bettering of ones condition to enter into a long and peaceable night We find nothing more sweet in Life than a quiet Repose and a profound Sleep without Dreams The things that I know to be evil as to offend a mans Neighbour and to disobey ones Superiour whether it be God or Man I carefully avoid such as I do not know whether they be good or evil I cannot fear them If I go to dye and leave you alive the Gods alone only know whether it will go better either with you or me wherefore as to what concerns me you may do as you shall think fit but according to my method of advising just and profitable things I do affirm that you will do your Consciences more right to set me at liberty unless you see further into my cause than I. And judging according to my past actions both publick and private according to my intentions and according to the profit that so many of our Citizens both young and old daily extract from my Conversation and the fruit that you reap from me your selves you cannot more duely acquit your selves towards my merit than in ordering that my poverty consider'd I should be maintain'd in the Prytaneum at the Publick expence a thing that I have often known you with less reason grant to others Do not impute it to obstinacy or disdain that I do not according to the custom supplicate and go about to move you to commiseration I have both Friends and Kindred not being as Homer says begotten of a block or of a stone no more than others that are able to present themselves before 〈◊〉 in tears and mourning and I have three desolute children with which to move you to compassion But I should do a shame to our City at the Age I am and in the reputation of Wisdom wherein I now stand to appear in such an object form What would men say of the other Athenians I have always admonish'd those who have frequented my Lectures not to redeem their Lives by an indecent action and in any the Wars of my Countrey at Amphipolis Potidea Delia and other Expeditions where I have been I have effectually manifested how far I was from securing my safety by my shame I should moreover inâ—erest your Duty and should tempt you to unhandsome things for 't is not for my Prayers to persuade you but for the pure and solid reason of Justice You have sworn to the Gods to keep your selves upright and it would seem as if I suspected or would recriminate upon you should I not believe that you are so And I should give
Let such as those sit at home It is in every man indecent but in a Souldier vicious and intolerable who as Philopoemenes said ought to accustom himself to all variety and inequality of Life Though I have been brought up as much as was possible to liberty and indifference yet so it is that growing old and having more settled upon certain forms my Age is now past Instruction and I have henceforward nothing to do but to keep it up as well as I can Custom has already e're I was aware so imprinted its Character in me in certain things that I look upon it as a kind of excess to leave them off And without a force upon my self cannot sleep in the day-time nor eat between meals nor break-fast nor go to bed without a great interval betwixt eating and sleeping as of three hours after Supper nor get Children but before I sleep and never standing upon my feet nor endure my own Sweat nor quench my thirst either with pure Water or Wine nor keep my head long bare nor cut my hair after dinner and should be as uneasie without my Gloves as without my Shirt or without washing when I rise from Table or out of my bed and could not lye without a Canopy and Curtains as if they were necessary things I could dine without a Table-cloth but without a clean Napkin after the German fashion very incommodiously I foul them more than they or the Italians do and make but little use either of Spoon or Fork I am sorry that the same is not in use amongst us that I see the Example of in Kings which is to change our Napkins at every service as they do our Plates We are told of that laborious Souldier Marius that growing old he became nice in his Drinking and never drank but out of a peculiar Cup of his own I in like manner have suffer'd my self to fancy a certain form of Glasses and do not willingly drink in common Glasses no more than from a common hand All metal offends me in comparison of a clear and transparent matter let my eyes taste too according to their capacity I owe several other such niceties to Custom Nature has also on the other side helpt me to some of hers as no more to be able to endure two full meals in one day without overcharging my Stomach nor a total abstinence from one of those meals without filling my self with Wind drying up my Mouth and dulling my Appetite and finding great inconvenience in the Evening Air. For of late years in night marches which often happen to be all night long after five or six hours my Stomach begins to be queasie with a violent pain in my Head so that I always vomit before the day can break When others go to break-fast I go to sleep and when I rise am as brisk and gay as before I had always been told that the serene never desperst it self but in the beginning of the Night but for certain years past long and familiar frequenting a Lord possess'd with this Opinion that the serene is more sharp and dangerous about the declining of the Sun an hour or two before his Set which he carefully avoids and despises that of the Night he had almost imprinted in me not only his Discourse but his Opinion What shall the very doubt and inquisition wound our Imagination so as to turn to our Inconvenience Such as absolutely and on a sudden give way to their Propensions put a total ruine upon themselves And I am sorry for several Gentlemen who through the Folly of their Physicians have in their Youth and Health put themselves into Consumptions It were yet better to endure a Cough than by disusance for ever to lose the commerce of the common Life in an Action of so great use Ill natur'd Science to interdict us the sweetest and most pleasant hours of the Day Let us keep Possession of it to the last For the most part a man hardens himself by being obstinate and corrects his Constitution as Caesar did the Falling-sickness by dint of Contempt A man should addict himself to the best Rules but not inslave himself to them if not to such if there be any such to which the Obligation and Servitude are of Profit Both Kings and Philosophers go to stool and Ladies too publick Lives are bound to Ceremony mine that is obscure and private enjoys all natural Dispensation Souldier and Gascon are also qualities a little subject to Indiscretion wherefore I shall say this of this action of exonerating Nature that it is necessary to referr it to certain prescrib'd and nocturnal Hours and force a mans self to it by Custom as I have done but not to subject himself as I have done in my declining years to a particular Convenience of Place and Seat for that purpose and make it troublesome by long sitting and yet in the foulest Offices is it not in some measure excusable to require more care and cleanliness Natura homo mundum elegans animal est Man is by Nature a clean and elegant Creature Of all the actions of Nature I am the most impatient of being interrupted in that I have seen many Souldiers troubled with the unruliness of their Bellies whilst mine and I never fail of our punctual assignation which is at leaping out of Bed if some indispensable Business or Sickness do not molest us I do then think as I said before that sick men can better place themselves any where in better safety than in sitting still in that course of Life wherewith they have been bred and train'd up Alteration be it what it will does distemper and astonish Can any believe that Chest-nuts can hurt a Perigourdin or one of Luca or Milk and Cheese the Mountain People men enjoy them not only a new but a contrary Method of Life a change that the more healthfull could not endure Prescribe Water to a Breton of threescore and ten shut a Sea-man up in a Stove and forbid a Basque Foot-man walking they will deprive them of Motion and in the end of Air and Light an vivere tanti est Cogimur à suctis animum suspendere rebus Atque ut vivamus vivere desinimus Hoc superesse reor quibus spirabilis aer Et lux qua regimur redditur ipsa gravis Is Life of such a mighty consequence We must accustom'd things quite over give And that we may live we must cease to live I can't imagine they should longer live Whom light and air by which they live do grieve If they do no other good they do this at least that they prepare Patients betimes for Death by little and little undermining and cutting off the usage of Life Both well and sick I have ever willingly suffer'd my self to obey the Appetites that prest upon me I give great Authority to my propensions and desires I do not love to cure one Disease by another I hate remedies that are more troublesom than
but generally I give way and accommodate my self as much as any one to necessity Sleeping has taken up a great part of my Life and I yet continue at the Age I now am to sleep eight or nine hours together I wean my self to my advantage from this propension to sloth and am evidently the better for so doing I find the change a little hard indeed but in three days 't is over and see but few that live with less Sleep when need requires and that more constantly exercise themselves nor to whom long Journeys are less troublesome My Body is capable of a firm but not of a violent or sudden Agitation I evade of late all violent exercises and such as make me sweat wherein my Limbs grow weary before they are hot I can stand a whole day together and am never weary of walking But from my Youth I never lov'd to Ride upon Pavements On foot I go up to the Breech in dirt and little Fellows as I am are subject in the Streets to be Elbow'd and Justled for want of Presence and Stature and I have ever lov'd to repose my self whether sitting or lying with my Heels as high or higher than my Seat There is no profession is more pleasant than the military a profession both noble in its execution for Valour is the strongest proudest and most generous of all Vertues and noble in its cause There is no Utility either more Universal or more Just than the protection of the Peace and grandeur of a mans Country The company of so many Noble Young and Active men delights you the ordinary sight of so many Tragick Spectacles the liberty of this Conversation without Art with a Masculine and unceremonious way of living pleases you the variety of a Thousand several Actions the encouraging Harmony of Martial Musick that ravishes and inflames both your Ears and Souls the Honour of this exercise nay even the sufferings and difficulties of War which Plato so little esteems that he makes Women and Children share in it in his Republick are delightful to you You put your selves voluntarily upon particular Exploits and hazards according as you judge of their lustre and importance and see when even life it self is excusably employed Pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis And we conceive it brave to die in Arms. To fear common dangers that concern so great a multitude of men not to dare to do what so many sorts of Souls and a whole people do is for a heart that is low and mean beyond all measure Company encourages so much as Children If others excell you in Knowledge in Gracefulness in Strength or Fortune you have third causes to blame for that but to give place to them in stability of mind you can blame no one for that but your self Death is more Abject more Languishing and Painful in Bed than in Battel and Fevers and Catharrs as Painful and Mortal as a Musquet-shott And whoever has fortified himself valiantly to bear the accidents of common life would not need to raise his courage to be a Souldier Vivere mi Lucilli militare est To live my Lucillus is to make War I do not remember that I ever had the Itch and yet scratching is one of natures sweetest gratifications and nearest at hand but the smart follows too near I use it most in my Ears which are often apt to Itch. I came into the World with all my Senses intire even to perfection My Stomach is commodiously good as also is my Head and my Breath and for the most part uphold themselves so in the height of Fevers I have past the age to which some Nations not without reason have prescrib'd so just a term of Life that they would not suffer men to exceed it and yet I have some intermissions though short and inconstant so clean and sound as are little inferiour to the Health and Indolency of my Youth I do not speak of Vigour and Spriteliness 't is not reason that it should follow me beyond its limits Non hoc amplius est liminis aut aquae Coelestis patiens latus My sides no longer can sustain The hardships of the Wind and Rain My Face and Eyes presently discover me All my alterations begin there and appear worse than they really are My Friends oft pity me before I feel the cause in my self My Looking-glass does not fright me for even in my Youth it has befaln me more than once to have a scurvy complexion and of ill Prognostick without any great consequence insomuch that the Physicians not finding any cause within answerable to that outward alteration attributed it to the mind and some secret passion that tormented me within but they were deceiv'd If my Body would govern it self as well according to my Rule as my Mind does we should move a little more at our ease My mind was then not only free from Trouble but moreover full of Joy and Satisfaction as it commonly is half by Complexion and half by its own Design Nec vitiant artus aegrae contagia mentis I never yet could find That e're my Body suffer'd by my mind I am of the opinion that this temperature of my Soul has oft rais'd my Body from its lapses It is oft deprest and if the other be not brisk and gay 't is at least quiet and at rest I had a Quartan Ague four or five months that had made me look miserably ill my mind was always if not calm yet pleasant if the pain be without me the weakness and langour do not much afflict me I see several corporal faintings that beget a horrour in me but to name which yet I should less fear than a thousand passions and agitations of mind that I see in use I resolve no more to run 't is enough that I crawl along and no more complain of the natural decadency that I feel in my self Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus than I regret that my duration shall not be as long and entire as that of an Oak I have no reason to complain of my imagination for I have had few thoughts in my Life which have so much as broke my sleep if not those of desire which have awak'd without afflicting me I dream but seldom and then of Chimera's and fantastick things commonly produc'd from pleasant thoughts and rather ridiculous than sad and believe it to be true that dreams are the true Interpreters of our inclinations but there is art requir'd to sort and understand them Res quae in vita usurpant homines cogitant curant vident Quaeque agunt vigilantes agitantque ea sicut in fomno accidunt minus nimirum est 'T is no wonder if what men practice think care for see and do when waking should also run in their Heads and disturb them when they are asleep Plato moreover says that 't is the office of Prudence to draw instructions of Divination of future things from
But withal if it once comes in my sight 't is in vain to perswade me to forbear so that when I design to Fast I must be parted from those that eat Suppers and must have only so much given me as is required for a regular Collation for if I sit down to Table I forget my resolution When I order my Cook to alter the manner of dressing any Dish of Meat all my Family know what it means that my Stomach is out of order and that I shall scarce touch it I love to have all meats that will indure it very little boyl'd or roasted and love them mightily mortified and even to stinking in many Nothing but hardness generally offends me of any other quality I am as patient and indifferent as any man I have known So that contrary to the common humour even in Fish it oft happens that I find them both too fresh and too firm Not for want of Teeth which I ever had good even to Excellence and that Age does but now begin to threaten at this time of my Life I have ever been us'd every Morning to rub them with a Napkin and before and after Dinner God is favourable to those whom he makes to dye by degrees 't is the only benefit of old Age the last Death will be so much the less painful it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most I have one Tooth lately fall'n out without drawing and without pain it was the natural term of its duration Both that part of my Being and several others are already dead and others half dead of those that were most active and in highest esteem during my vigorous years so that I melt and steal away from my self What a folly would it be in my understanding to apprehend the height of this fall already so much advanc'd as if it were from the utmost Precipice I hope I shall not I in truth receive a principal Consolation in the meditations of my Death that it will be just and natural and that henceforward I cannot herein either require or hope from Destiny any other but unlawfull Favour Men make themselves believe that they have formerly had as greater Statures so longer Lives But they deceive themselves and Solon who was of those elder times does nevertheless limit the Duration of Life to threescore and ten years I who have so much and so universally ador'd this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mean is best of ancient times and shall I who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect pretend to an immeasurable and prodigious old Age Whatever happens contrary to the Course of Nature may be troublesome but what comes according to her should always be acceptable and pleasant Omnia quae secundum Naturam fiunt sunt habenda in bonis All things that are done according to Nature are to be accounted good And so Plato likewise says that the Death which is occasion'd by Wounds and Diseases is violent but that which surprises us old Age conducting us to it is of all others the most easie and in some sort delicious Vitam adolescentibus vis aufert senibus maturitas Young men are taken away by force old men by Maturity Death mixes and confounds it self throughout with Life decay anticipates its Hour and Shoulders even into the course of our growing up I have Pictures of my self taken at five and twenty and five and thirty years of Age I compare them with that lately drawn how often is it no more me how much more is my present Image unlike the former than to that I shall go out of the World withall It is too much to abuse Nature to make her trot so far that she must be forc'd to leave us and abandon our Conduct our Eyes Teeth Legs and all the rest to the mercy of a foreign and begg'd assistance and to resign us into the hands of Art being weary of following us her self I am not very fond either of Sallets or Fruits except Melons My Father hated all sorts of Sawces and I love them all Eating too much hurts me but for the quality of what I eat I do not yet certainly know that any sort of Meat disagrees with my Stomach neither have I observed that either Full-moon or Decrease Spring or Autum are hurtfull to me We have in us motions that are inconstant and for which no reason can be given For Example I found Radishes first grateful to my Stomach since that nauseous and now at present grateful again In several other things likewise I find my Stomach and Appetite to vary after the same manner I have chang'd and chang'd again from White to Claret from Claret to White I am a great lover of Fish and consequently make my Fasts Feasts and my Feasts Fasts and believe what some People say that it is more easie of digestion than Flesh. As I make a Conscience of eating Flesh upon Fish-days so does my Taste make a Conscience of mixing Fish and Flesh the difference betwixt them seems to me to be too great so to do From my Youth I have us'd sometimes to be out of the way at Supper either to sharpen my Appetite against the next Morning for as Epicurus fasted and made lean Meals to accustom his Pleasure to make shift without abundance I on the contrary do it to prepare my Pleasure to make better and more chearful use of Abundance or else I fasted to preserve my Vigour for the service of some Action of Body or Mind for both the one and the other of those are cruelly dull'd in me by Repletion and above all things I hate that foolish coupling of so healthful and spritely a Goddess with that little belching God bloated with the fume of his Liquor or to cure my sick Stomach and for want of fit Company For I say as the same Epicurus did that a man is not so much to regard what he eats as with whom And commend Chilo that he would not engage himself to be at Perianders Feast till he first was inform'd who were to be the other Guests No Dish is so acceptable to me nor no Sawce so alluring as that which is extracted from Society I think it to be more wholesome to eat more liesurely and less and to eat ofter but I will have the value of Appetite and Hunger enhanc'd I should take no pleasure to be fed with three or four pittiful and stinted Repasts a day after a Physical manner Who will assure me that if I have a good Appetite in the morning I shall have the same at Supper But especially let us old Fellows take the first opportune time of eating and leave to Almanack-makers the hopes and Prognosticks The utmost fruit of my health is pleasure let us take hold of the present and known I avoid constancy in these Laws of Fasting Who will that one Form shall serve him let him evade the continuing of it We harden our selves