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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70610	Essays of Michael, seigneur de Montaigne in three books : with marginal notes and quotations and an account of the author's life : with a short character of the author and translator, by a person of honour / made English by Charles Cotton ...; Essais. English	Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592.; Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of, 1633-1695.; Cotton, Charles, 1630-1687.	1700 (1700)	Wing M2481; ESTC R17025	313,571	634

of youthful Heat berest 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 whither'd Body and decrepid motion pleasantly answer'd Thou fansiest 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 Horat. l. 3. Od. 3. 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 wherewithal to defie Violence and Injustice and to contemn Prisons and Chains Horat. l. 1. Epist 16. in Manicis Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo Ipse Deus simul atque volam me solvet opinor Hoc sentit moriar mors ultima linea rerum 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 die 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 The contempt of Death a certain Foundation of Religion 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 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 of 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 die at eight of the Clock in the Morning die in their Youth and those that die 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 compels 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 Lucret. l. 2. Inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt Mortals amongst themselves by turns do live And Life's bright Torch to the next Runner give Alluding to the Athenian Games wherein those that run a Race carried Torches in their Hands and the Race being done deliver'd them into the Hands of those who were to run next '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 Senec. Her fur chor 3. Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit The Hour that gave of Life the benefit Did also a whole Hour shorten it Manil. Ast 4. Nascentes morimur finisque ab origine pendet As we are born we die 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 Lucret. l. 3. Cur non ut

and I wonder that the Author of the Search after Truth should spend his time upon them in a manner so unbecoming his Character He tells us after Balzac and some others that Montagne's Vanity and Pride are not sutable to an Author and Philosopher that it was ridiculous and useless to keep a Page having hardly 6000 Livres a year and more ridiculous still to have so often mentioned it in his Writings but I may answer that it was very common in his time for Gentlemen of noble extraction to keep a Page to shew their quality tho their Estate could hardly afford them to keep a Footman and that the 6000 Livres a year were then more than 20000 now adays It was likewise very much uncoming the gravity of our famous Searcher after Truth to rail at Montagne because he does not mention in his Essays that he kept a Clerk when he was Councellor in the Parliament of Bourdeaux for Montagne having exercised that noble employment but for a short time in his youth he had no occasion to mention it and who shall believe that he has concealed it out of Vanity he who in the opinion of Malbranche himself talks of his imperfections and vices with too great a freedom It is likewise very ungenerous and ungentleman like to take no●ice that he did not very well succeed in his Mayoralty of Bourdeaux The times he lived in were very troublesome and supposing he committed some Error which they say without any Proof what is that to the merit of his Book Balzac introduces a Gentleman speaking thus to an admirer of Montagne You may praise your Author if you will more than our Cicero but I cannot fancy that a man who governed all the World was not at least equal to a Person who did not know how to govern Bourdeaux This may very well pass for a jest but is it a rational way for confuting an Author to have recourse unto personal Reflections or some incidents relating to his private Person or Quality This is so mean that I cannot fancy Balzac could be guilty of it and I wholly impute it to those who have published after his Death some loose discourses on several Subjects which they have intitled his Entretiens Notwithstanding these objections Montagne always had and is like to have Admirers as long as Sense and Reason have any credit in the World Justus Lipsius calls him the French Thales and Mezeray the Christian Seneca and the incomparable Thuanus has made an Eulogy of him which being very short I shall transcribe it here Michel de Montagne Chevalier was born in Perigord in a Castle which had the name of his Family He was made Councellor in the Parliament of Bourdeaux with Stephen de la Boetie with whom he contracted so great a Friendship that that dear Friend was even after his Death the object of his respect and veneration Montagne was extraordinary Free and Sincere as Posterity will see by his Essays for so he has intitled that Immortal Monument of his Genius While he was at Venice he was elected Mayor of Bourdeaux which place was only bestowed upon persons of the first quality and even the Governors of the Province thought it was an honor for them The Mareschal de Matignon who commanded the Kings Forces in that Province during the troubles of the State had such an esteem for him that he communicated unto him the most important affairs and admitted him into his Council As I had a correspondence with him while I was in his Country and since at Court the conformity of our Studies and Inclinations united us most intimately He dyed at Montagne in the 60th year of his Age. This testimony of Thuanus is sufficient to justify the memory of our Author for no body will believe that a man of that integrity would have been so great a Friend with so vicious a man as Malbranche has represented Montagne I shall therefore conclude this discourse with a very remarkable circumstance mentioned by Thuanus in his own Life lib. 3. which shew that Montagne was beloved by the greatest Princes in his time and honored with their confidence While the States of the Kingdom says he were sitting at Blois Montagne and I were discoursing of the division between the King of Navarre and the Duke of Guise whereupon he told me that he knew the most secret thoughts of those Princes as having been employed to compose their differences and that he was perswaded that neither of 'em was of the Religion he professed That the King of Navarr would have willingly embrac'd the Religion of his Predecessors if he had not feared that his Party had abandoned him and that the Duke of Guise would have declared himself for the confession of Augsburg which the Cardinal of Lorrain his Unkle had inspired him with if he could have done it without any prejudice to his Interests I thought this circumstance was not unworthy of being placed here but I must beg the Readers pardon for having been so long which must be attributed to the respect I have for the Memory of that excellent author I designed to shew the reason why Montagne meets with a more favourable entertainment in England than in his Native Country but having been already too long I shall content my self to observe that an Author who talks freely of every thing is not suitable to the temper of a servile Nation who has lost all sence of Liberty Monsieur La Bruyere in his celebrated Book of the Characters or Manners of the Age gives another reason why some people condemn Montagne Two Writers says he meaning La Mothe Le Vayer and Malbranche have condemned Montagne I know that Author may be justly blamed in some things but neither of 'em will allow him to have any thing valuable One of 'em thinks too little to taste such an Author who thinks a great deal and the other thinks too subtilely to be pleased with what is natural This I believe is the general Character of Montagne's enemies ESSAYS OF Michael Seigneur de Montaigne The First BOOK CHAP. I. That Men by various Ways arrive at the same end THE most likely and most usual way in Practice of appeasing the Indignation of such as we have any way offended when we see them in Possession of the Power of Revenge and find that we absolutely lie at their Mercy Submission mollifies the Hearts of the offended is by Submission than which nothing more flatters the Glory of an Adversary to move them to Commiseration and Pity and yet Bravery Constancy and Resolution however quite contrary means have sometimes served to produce the same effect Edward the Black Prince of Wales the same who so long govern'd our Province of Guienne Edward the Black Prince a Person whose high Condition excellent Qualities and remarkable Fortune have in them a great deal of the most noble and most considerable Parts of Grandeur having through some Misdemeanours of theirs been highly incens'd

have no business with any one but a man's self Hor. l. 2. Od. 16. 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 than he is thereby prevented of a glorious Victory another that he must die 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 Lucret. l. 3. miser O miser aiunt omnia ademit Una dies infesta mihi tot praemia vitae Wretch that I am they cry one fatal day So many joys of Life has snatch'd away And the Builder Aeneid l. 4. manent dit il opera interrupta minaeque Murorum ingentes aequataque machina Coelo Stupendious Piles say 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 Ovid. Amor. lib. 2. Eleg. 10. 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 always 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 Cabbages but without any careful thought of him and much less of my Garden 's not being finished I saw one die 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 Lucret. l. 3. Illud in his rebus non addunt nec tibi earum J am desiderium rerum superinsidet una They tell us not that dying we 've no more The same desires and thoughts that heretosore 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 says Lycurgus the common People Women and Children that they should not be startled at the sight of a dead Corps and to the end that the continual Objects of Bones Graves Monuments and Funeral Obsequies should put us in Mind of our frail condition Silius Ita●icus l. 11. Quinetiam exhilarare viris convivia caede Mos olim miscere 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'er 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 die would at the same time teach them to live D●cearchus 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 Estat● 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 Corn. Galli vel potius Maximian Eleg. 1. He is senibus vitae portio quanta manet Alas to men

only troubles the Water for anothers Net and beats the Bush whilst another gets the Hare The Unity and Contexture of this Monarchy having been manifestly in her old Age rip'd and torn by this thing call'd Innovation has since laid open a Rent and given sufficient Admittance to the like Injuries in these latter Times The Royal Majesty does with greater Difficulty stoop and debase it self from the height to the Middle than it falls and tumbles headlong from the Middle to the Foundation But if the Inventors did the greater mischief the Imitators are more vicious to follow Examples of which they have felt and punish'd both the Horror and the Offence And if there can be any degree of Horror in ill doing these last are indebted to the other for the Glory of contriving and the Courage of making the first Attempt All sorts of new Disorder easily draw from this primitive and over-flowing Fountain Examples and Presidents to trouble and discompose our Government We read in our very Laws made for the remedy of this first Evil the Beginning and Pretences of all sorts of naughty Enterprises and in favour of publick Vices give them new and more plausible Names for their Excuse sweetning and disguising their true Titles which must be done to win forsooth and reclaim us Honesta oratio est but the best Pretence for Innovation is of very dangerous Consequence and freely to speak my Thoughts it argues methinks a strange self Love and a great Presumption of a Man's self to be so fond of his own Opinions that a publick Peace must be overthrown to establish them and to introduce so many inevitable Mischiefs and so dreadful a Corruption of Manners as a Civil War and the Mutations of State consequent to it always brings in its Train and to introduce them in a thing of so high Concern into the Bowels of a Man 's own Country Can there he worse Husbandry than to set up so many certain and detected Vices against Errors that are only contested and disputable whether they be such or no And are there any worse sorts of Vices than those committed against a man's own Conscience and the natural Light of his own Reason The Senate upon the Dispute betwixt it and the People about the Administration of their Religion was bold enough to return this Evasion for current Pay Ad Deos id magis quàm ad se pertinere ipsos visuros ne sacra sua polluantur That those things more belong to the Gods to determine than to them let them therefore have a care their sacred Mysteries were not prophan'd according to that the Oracle answer'd to those of Delphos who fearing to be invaded by the Persians in the Median War enquir'd of Apollo how they should dispose of the holy Treasure of his Temple whether they should hide or remove it to some other Place He return'd them Answer that they should stir nothing from thence and only take care of themselves for he was sufficient to look to what belong'd to him Christian Religion has all the Marks of the utmost Utility and Justice but none more manifest than the severe Injunction it lays indifferently upon all to yield absolute Obedience to the Civil Magistrate and to maintain and defend the Laws of which what a wonderful Example has the Divine Wisdom left us who to work and establish the Salvation of Mankind and to conduct this his glorious Victory over Death and Sin would do it after no other way but at the Mercy of our ordinary forms of Justice submitting the Progress and Issue of so high and so salutiferous an Effect to the blindness and injustice of our Customs and Observations suffering the innocent Blood of so many of his Elect and so long a loss of so many Years to the maturing of this inestimable Fruit There is a vast difference betwixt the Cases of one that follows the Forms and Laws of his Country and another that will undertake to regulate and change them of which the first pleads Simplicity Obedience and Example for his Excuse who whatever he shall do it cannot be imputed to Malice 't is at the worst but Misfortune Quis est● enim Cicero de Divin l. quem non moveat clarissimis monumentis testata consignataque antiquitas For who is it that Antiquity sealed and attested with so many glorious Monuments cannot move Besides what Isocrates says that Defect is nearer ally'd to Moderation than Excess The other is a much more ruffling Gamester for whosoever shall take upon him to choose to alter and usurp the Authority of judging ought to look well about him and make it his Business to discover the Defect of what he would abolish and the vertue of what he is about to introduce This so easie and so vulgar consideration is that which settled me in my Station and kept even my most extravagant and ungovern'd Youth under the rein so as not to burthen my Shoulders with so great a weight as to render my self responsible for a Science of that importance and in this to dare what in my better and more mature Judgment I durst not do in the most easie and indifferent things I had been instructed and wherein the temerity of judging is of no consequence at all It seeming to me very unjust to go about to subjest publick and establish'd Customs and Institutions to the weakness and instability of a private and particular Fancy for private Reason is but a private Jurisdiction and to attempt that upon the Divine which no Government will endure a Man should do upon the Civil Laws With which though humane Reason has much more Commerce than with the other yet are they sovereignly judg'd by their own proper Judges and the utmost sufficiency serves only to expound and set forth the Law and Custom receiv'd and neither to wrest it nor to introduce any thing of Innovation And if sometimes the Divine Providence have gone beyond the Rules to which it has necessarily bound and oblig'd us Men it is not to give us any Dispensation to do the same those are only master stroaks of the Divine hand which we are not to imitate but admire and extraordinary Examples marks of purpos'd and particular Testimonies of Power of the Nature of Miracles presented before us for Manifestations of its Almighty Operation equally above both our Rules and Forces which it would be folly and Impiety to attempt to represent and imitate and that we ought not to follow but to contemplate with the greatest Reverence and Astonishment Arts proper for his Person who has Power to do them and not for us Cotta very opportunely declares that when Matter of Religion is in question he will be govern'd by T. Corunconus P. Scipio P. Scaevola who were the High Priests and not by Zeno Cleanthes or Chrysippus who where Philosophers God knows in the present Quarrel of our Civil War where there are a hundred Articles to dash out and to put in and