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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02322	Nevv epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac. Translated out of French into English, by Sr. Richard Baker Knight. Being the second and third volumes; Correspondence. English. Selections	Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.; Marshall, William, fl. 1617-1650, engraver.; Baker, Richard, Sir, 1568-1645.	1638 (1638)	STC 12454; ESTC S103515	233,613	520

Starres These heads that now have neither skinne nor flesh nor hayre These carkasses and dry bones have beene in their time the divinities and wonders of the world and was heretofore called the Dutchesse of Valentinois the Dutchesse of Beaufort the Marquis of Besides there may happen diseases which will doe old ages worke before hand and are oftentimes more gastly than death it selfe Wee are frighted sometimes to see the spoyle and ruines of Faces upon which the foote of sicknesse hath troaden and there is nothing in which wee may more observe the lamentable markes of the inconstancie of humane things From hence I conclude that beautie being a thing so frayle and tender subject to so many accidents and so hard to keepe it is fit wee should seeke after another beautie that is more firme and permament that can better withstand corruption and better defend it selfe against the force of time Above all it is not fit that women should be proud of a qualitie that is infamous for the losses and wracks of many poore Consciences and which as innocent and chast as it can be will yet be a cause to rayse in others a thousand fowle desires and a thousand unhallowed and wicked thoughts Say my Niece hath some thing in her that is pleasing some thing that is fayre and beautifull as her friends conceive yet shee ought alwayes to be afraid of such a good that is so dangerous for doing hurt to others I set before her eyes the sad Picture of that which shee shall be hereafter to the end shee may not grow proud of that which shee is now There is no hurt in meditating a little upon this poynt But allow her the libertie wee even now tooke from her yet withall put her alwayes in minde that of the foure beauties I have shewed her in my Tasso there is but one of them that will be a fit example for her to follow Shee must leave Armida and Erminia for the Gallants of the Court Clorinda is for the valourous men of Gascoigne and Perigord but shee that I propose for her Patterne is Sophronia And if shee have not courage enough to say to the Tyrant as shee sayd It is I that am the Delinquent you looke for let her at least have the other conditions that are necessary to the being her follower and imitate her in them This fayre Saint made profession of modestie and neglected her beautie shee was alwayes eyther hidden under a veile or shut up in her Chamber and all the world might suspect her to be fayre but there was scarce any at all that knew it but her mother Shee had no designe to entrappe any mans libertie and therefore layd not her snares in their way nor went to Church to see and to be seene My deare sister I cannot choose but take upon me here to be a reformer of corrupt manners and make my complaint to you of a Custome which as well as many other naughtie things the Court hath cast upon us What reason is there in the world that women should enter into holy places of purpose to draw upon them the view and attention of the Company as much as to say to trouble and disturbe the whole devotion of a Towne and to doe as bad or worse as those buyers and sellers did whom Christ whipped out of the Temple By this meanes good actions become evill and Pietie comes to have no better odour before the Altaus than Perfumes that are mustie and corrupted Women now adayes are bound to be seene to be at Church and this very desire of being seene there is the ordinary prophanation of the place where they are seene And in truth seeing this place is particularly called the House of God what is it but to vilifie God even in the highest degree to come and offend at his owne doores and as it were to his face It is even as great an Impudency as that of the first Angells who sinned in Paradise Yet herein certainly the Italian women are more pardonable than the French for they indeed have no other breathing time of their unfortunate libertie being at all other times kept up as slaves and prisoners but in France where women are not denyed the company and visits of honest men they can have nothing to say in justification of this incontinency of their eyes and of this unsufferable vanitie to seeke to part stakes with God in mens vowes and to share with him in his publike Adoration You little thought this morning to heare a Preacher and I as little thought to be one but as you see the zeale of Gods House hath brought mee to it and finding my selfe at leisure I was desirous to bestow part of it upon you The Text was given mee yesterday by the company that was here where my Nieces beautie was so much extolled that sending you Newes which are to her so glorious I thought fit to send her withall a cooling to keepe her glorying in some temper and so my deare Sister I take my leave and am with all my soule Your c. At Bolzac 3. May. 1635. Another to her LETTER LV. MY dearest sister having both of us but one passion it makes us alwayes talking of one thing My Neece is the subject of all our Letters as she is the object of all our cares For my owne part I see not a good or a bad example which I make not use of for her instruction and endevour to imploy it to her profit You remember a woman the other day who values nothing likes of nothing excuses nothing and let her be in the best most pleasing company that may be yet she is sureto put them all into dumpes and melancholy You can come on no side of her but she pricks and bites all her coasts are craggie and rockie And it was not without cause my brother sayd that if the man you wot of had married her there would certainly have nothing come of that marriage but Teeth and Nayles It is impossible to live in peace with such a savadge chastitie I make no more reckoning of it than of that of the Furies whom the ancient Poets call virgines and wonder not that women of this humour love no man seeing they hate the whole world This sad and sullen poyson taking up all the roome in their soules leaves no place at all for other passions that are sweet and pleasing They flye pleasures rather by having their mouth out of taste than by having their judgement in perfection and are so continually fretting that they have no leasure at any time to be merrie As long as they bee chaste they thinke they may lawfully bee discourteous and scratch men so they doe not kisse them They have a conceit that by wanting one vice they have presently all vertues and that for a little good fame they gaine to their husbands they may keepe them under yoake and affront all mankinde It is true the losse of a womans

the tendernesse of a Father and shall he uncompassionate to my dearest issues as often as your pleasure shall be that they should perish My Writings are to mee no better than Monsters when they offend your eyes and to seeme vile to you is to be vile indeede and therefore in stead of asking there pardon I have beene my selfe the hastner of their punishment There cannot a greater test●…ony be given of a mans integritie then when the Delinquent concurres in opinion with the judge and is the Executioner where he is the condemner All this have I already done and although in that unhappy passage which gave you distaste I had not somuch a meaning to bite as to laugh yet I confesse I tooke my marke amisse for laughing justly Oftentimes one countenance for another changeth the face of the most innocent action of the world and though I failed onely in ill explaning my selfe yet it was fault enough seeing thereby I gave you cause to doubt of my intention Truly my Lord it was never my meaning so much as to touch the resplendent glory of your divine Princesse I know well enough it was fitter to consider her by the magnanimity of her spirit whereof your whole posteritie shall taste the fruits then by the light flower of bodily beauty which not onely falls away by death but runs away at the very first approaches of age I should come out of another world if I were ignorant of the Encomiums shee hath in this kinde received by all peoples voyces She hath I know beene stiled the Starre of the North the goddesse of the sea the true Thetis I have read in a Letter which Henry the great writ unto her in the hight of all his troubles and in the violence of the league these words I will Madam be your Captaine Genorall Even hee that excommunicated her spake of her with honour and hee was as you know an understanding Prince and admirable in the Art of Ruling Hee tooke a pleasure to be discoursing of her with Embassadours resident at his Court and would sometimes say merily that if hee had beene her husband certainely Greatnesse and Authority would have beene the issues of so renowned a marriage But though she had not ascended to this high degree of reputation and though shee should be devested of all these glorious markes of honour yet there are two considerations lesse specious indeede in the eyes of the world but more sensible to my spirit that would binde mee strongly to reverence her memory One Sir that she hath not scorned our Muses the other that shee hath loved your house I was taught by Cambden the knowledge shee had in all kindes of learning so farre as that she had happily Translated out of Greeke into Latine some of Sophocles Tragedies and some of Isecrates Orations Of the same Authour also I have learned the great part your Ancestours bare in her confidence and secrets and your name is so often used in the history of her life that where soever Elizabeth is mentioned there Cicile for the most part is never left out So that she being by good right your domesticall Deitie and the reverence you beare her your most antient inclination it is farre from me to violate that which you adore or to hate that which you so dearely love seeing I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Iune 1634. To my Lord the Archbishop of Thoulouse LETTER II. SIR I have never beene sociable since your departure from hence no man can make me speake and I doe not yet breake my sullen silence but onely to tell you I am the saddest Hermite that ever was Those whom Saint Hierome reports to have beene companions of Serpents and Scorpions were never of so untoward an humour as I for I have their vexation and I have not their consolation Nothing pleaseth mee in the place where I am you have carried away with you all its worth and goodnesse and it is not the hardnesse of the season it is your absence that obscures the beauties of my solitude It was not well done Sir to accustome mee to a pleasure which you meant so suddenly to take away from me or to say better to shew mee onely my good fortune thereby to procure me envie and then goe presently and make others happy with enjoying it and yet I know well that such petty considerations owe obedience to a greater and that particular interests ought alwayes to give place to publicke Mine therefore is not so deare unto me but that I willingly forget it upon such occasions and easily forgoe my owne conceits to enter upon the purpose of divine providence The peace wee hope for shall perhaps by your voyage be advanced and you are now perhaps sent from heaven to goe whither you thought to have gone without commanding If peradventure there be found some particular men that are too much heated your Eusebius and your Theodoret will helpe to allay their heate and if they be too stifly bent upon severitie you will make them abate their rigour by the examples you bring them of the moderation of their fathers I have too good an opinion of so many worthy Prelates as are in your assemblies to imagine they would ever agree to arme Princes either against a penitent or against an honest man mistaken and would not in the interests of their order content themselvs with imploying the Thunderbolts of the Vatican but would doe their uttermost to call forth also those of the Arsenall Whatsoever may be sayd in defence of such proceeding it can never in my opinion have so generall approbation but that some honest spirits will bee scandalized by it This would bee to bring excommunication into a poore account to make it serve onely for an Essay and for a preparative of punishment and to make it the first plaster of a light wound which ought to be the last remedy of the extremest evills Such practise would be farre from the custome of the antient Christianitie and of the age of Martyrs and I cannot conceive neither can it be that Christian Pastors should become Butchers of their Flocke and that the Church which hither to hath beene in persecution should now it selfe begin to persecure This Church Sir as your selfe and my masters your brethren teach us is not a cruell Stepdame proud and maligning her spouses children but it is a naturall mother compassioning her owne and desirous to adopt even Proselytes and strangers You tell us that shee runnes after the greatest sinners and goes as a guide before all the world which is farre from saying that it stands not with her dignitie to be an instrument of their conversion nor so much as once to take care what becomes of them It is you who assure us that shee is content to lose her richest vessels so as thereby shee may recover the sacriledge of her robbers it is from you wee learne that shee is farre from animating justice to ruine innocents who

and am Sir Your c. At Balzac 10. Febr. 1633. Another to him LETTER XL. SIR I love you better than I thought since you parted from hence I have had a number of Alarums for you and though I stand in convert yet that keepes mee not from the foule weather of your voyage But I hope by this time you are upon returning and that shortly we shall sit by the fires side and heare you tell your adventures of Beausse and of Mantelan Whatsoever Mounsieur de have said unto you when you tooke leave of him I doe not thinke that in all the whole Discourse there can one passage be found that is subject to any badde interpretation if it be considered as a member depending upon the body and not as a piece that is broken off There may perhappes be found some proposition a little bold but never to goe so farre as rashnesse the Antecedents and the Consequents so temper it that if a man will not be too witty in another mans intentions hee can never make any doubt of mine It was never intended you know but onely to prove a Monarchie to be the best forme of governement and the Catholike Church to be the onely Spouse of Christ Neither yet doe I write so negligently but that I am ready to give a reason of that I write and am able to defend my opinions against those particular persons that oppugne them for as for the soveraigne authority you can witnesse for me with what humility I submit my selfe unto it The day after your departure Mounsieur de came to Balzac whom I kept with me three whole dayes I never saw man lesse interessed lesse ambitions lesse dazeled with the splendour of the Court and to speake generally better cured of all popular diseases By this I come to know the noblenesse and even the soveraigntie of reason when it is well schooled and instructed we neede not mount up to heaven to finde cause of scorne in the littlenesse of the earth the study of wisedome will teach it as well A wise man counts all things to bee below him Pallaces to him appeare but Cottages and Scepters but baubles it pitties him to see that which is called the greatnesse and fortune of Princes and from the heighth of his spirit Il void comme f●…rmis m●…rcher nos legions Dans ce petit a●…as de poussiere de bove Dont nostre vanite fait tant de regions I have at last found the Letter you required of me which I now send you by this Post our good father hath taken a coppie of it and saith it is fit to be kept for an eternall monument in our house and addes moreover that Erasmus never had so much honour done him by the Sorbone which instead of condemning my divinitie hath given a faire testimony in praise of my eloquence for so hee pleaseth to call the little ability I have in writing for it is his custome to make choyce of very noble termes for expressing of very vulgar qualities For your selfe Sir you know it very well and I intreate you to advertise our other friends that know it not that all this testimony and all this honour that is done me is happened to mee by a meare mistaking I had satisfied the desire of the Sorbone long before it if I had understood they desired any satisfaction from me but two Editions of my booke comming forth at one time my charitable neighbours in my absence delivered the Sorbone the lesse corrected Copy in which indeede my proposition was not so fully cleared unfoulded as was fit but never told them that in the other Copy I had cleane taken away all colour of wrangling and justified before hand that wherein I imagined they could finde any thing to say against mee I expect to heare by the next messenger of your comming to Paris and am with all my heart Sir Your c. At Paris 25. Ianu. 1632. Clarissimo Balzacio Facultas Theologiae Parisiensis S. REdditae sunt nobis ad Calendas Aprilis abs te Litterae vir clarissime omnibus quidem gratissimae non eo solum nomine quod multam in ordinem nostrum observantiam praese ferrent sed etiam vel maxime quod propensissimam tuam voluntatem immutandi ea quae in Principe t●…o offendere mentes Christianas possent Hunc in librum inquirendi Fama quae nec te latere potuit non tam occasionem nobis quam necessitatem attulit In quo sane uti nulla nisi disertissimo sic incogitanti quaedam excidisse deprehensa sunt ex eorum relatione quibus recensendi ejusdem delegata provincia fuerat Praecipua eaque maxime instituti nostri huic Epistolae subnectemus quae si judicabantur minus ad orthodoxa doctrine a nussim quadrare aequum tamen pro Christiana charitate ac dignitate tua duximus ut omnem judicij aequitatem amicae monitionis humanitas praecederet quo tu ipse operi tuo emendando quaqua operam dares Istud vero quam pro voto nostro succ●…sserit vel ex eo intelleximus ipse quod tua sponte in idem consilium conspiraveris docilitatem facultati nostrae ad id tua Epistola pollicitus Quod maxime tibi gratulamur neque velimus tamen in Illud incumbas ordinis nostri duntaxat authoritate motus uti benevole recipis sed ipsius veritatis cui nunquam faelicius triumphant inge●…ia quam dum cedunt summissis praesertim per religionis obsequium armis quorum usus quantum subsidii ad decertandum conferret tantum non posset non affere Impedimento ad victoriam siquidem hoc in genere Uincere nisi victi non poss●…mus Nae tu etiam talem deinceps debebis Modestie tuae gloriam Cujus laude non minor inter Christianos audies quam inter mortales Facundia audiisti hactenus ejusdem merito lubentissimos laudatores habebis quos àlias multa urgente querimonia off●…oii ratio coegisset velinvitos esse Censores De Mandato D. D. Decani Magistrorum Sacrae Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis Prt. Bouuot Apud Sorbonam Anno Christi 1632. Another to him LETTER XLI SIR my Philosophy is not of so little humanity but that I grieved exceedingly at the reading of your Letter and was touched to the very quicke for the death of yet seeing he is happier then they that mourne for him and that he hath left the world in an age when he yet knew it not I thinke it no wisedome to be obstinate in an ill grounded sorrow or to account that an evill to another which is the greatest good could have happened to my selfe Christianity will not let me say Optimum non nasci Bonum vero quam citissime interire but it hinders me not to believe that one day of life with Baptisme is better then a whole age of iniquity I write this letter to you from whether I am come to lodge after I had entertained my

Jonnius whose Verses you sent me is no ordinary man The boldnesse and beautie of his phrase comes veri neare the greatnesse and magnificence of Horace Hee chuseth and placeth his words with the same precisenesse and care he speakes alwayes loftily and if in all things there be bounds and limits hee sometimes seemes to goe beyond them For example upon the Canonization of Ignatius made by Pope Gregory the fifteenth Nam te ille primus Vaticanis ritibus Admovit aris Caelitem Mixtumque superis aureo curru dedit perambulare sydera A Pagan Poet could have said no more of the deifying of Iulius Cesar yet in saying so much he should have said too much there being great difference betweene consecrating the memory of a mortall man or the giving him a Divinitie between the declaring or the making a God between being Augustus or being Iupiter I know not also why speaking of Protestant Ministers he stands so punctually to descant upon the word which of all cōceits is the poorest Maleque ominata Verba inter Obscana Exinde lege publica reponendum Solus Ministri Carnifex geret nomen I should thinke that this descanting makēs not much for the honour of Princes chiefe counsellours and it seemes the Poet in this place forgot M. the Cardinall who guides the publike fortune and governs the world under this name of Minister There is no great reckoning to be made no great matter to be built upon three or foure little syllables which signifie nothing but what custome without any reason pleaseth are of no more value than use gives them This word Vates is taken sometimes for a foole sometimes for a sor●…erer sometimes for a Prophet and the word Prophet it selfe is sometimes taken for a Juggler witnesse the Greek Proverbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Will you upon this goe raile upon Prophets and send them with their name to the Grave or shut them up Dans le petites maisas and yet further to endeere this subtilty of Ionicus you may say that Ministers at all times have beene enemies of Christ and prove it by this because a Minister was one of those that stroke him on the face in presence of the high Priest as it is sayd U●…us ex Ministris Caiphae c. The ground upon which such Figures are built is so weake and ruinous that there is no meanes to make it stand firme our adversaries may make use of it as well as wee and to be even with you for your Text of the Minister of Caiphas they will I doubt not bring you another Text where our Saviour himselfe is sayd to be a Minister come to execute in the world the decrees of him that sent him and to doe the eternall will of his Father This is called triumphing for syllables and words and running after Phantasmes If the antient Rome had used to play in this fashion Bishops called by them Pontifices would have beene but makers or Bridges nor Dictators any more then Schoolemasters Poc●…e Brutus would have beene the Butt for all the arrowes of his time The Assinu the Porc●… the Beshie would not have had one day of rest they would have beene forced to get themselves adopted into some other Families and to change their names thereby to save themselves from the opprobrious Figures of Orateurs and Poets I meant to have written but two or three lines and I am come to the bottome of my Paper this is the pleasure to bee talking with you that deceives mee thus and makes me thinke that we are walking together and conferring about our Bookes and Studies After all that hath beene sayd I conclude that your Poet is a great Lyricke Poet and would have had a Pension of Augustus and have sate at Table with Mecoenas I bid you good night and am Sir Your c. At Balzac 10. Febru 1631. Another to him LETTER XLVII SIR I am at leasure for no body but you and though I am pestred with a multitude of small affaires yet I quit them all to come and tell you that I have received your last dispatch and finde my selfe infinitely obliged to Mounsieur de seeing you put me in hope that hee will spend this winter at Paris I purpose at that time to bee a daily waiter upon him and try what I can doe to mend my fortune I am told that you are growne friends with the graces and will no longer be any enemy to honest pleasures Hold you firme I beseech you in this resolution and never give it over if you meane well to your life There is no danger in refreshing your selfe sometimes with pleasing companie that so you may returne more fresh and vigorous to your learned exercises It is better to bee innocently merry at the Inne in Venice then to goe kill ones selfe in the vaute of the Church as the poore I lament him in truth as a man dead and miserable and it greeves mee he had not time to bethinke him of his soules health and to aske pardon of God but to concerve that by his death a great light is extinguished and that the world hath lost a great man I knew him too well to have any such opinion Hee was to say true a man of mettall and 〈◊〉 d●…ine 〈◊〉 of wit that were not unpleasant so long as they were not biting but who would endure him to be enrolled amongst moderne Authors or give hisverse a place amongst the Poets of this time yet he him selfe counted his courage and his military vertues as nothing in comparison of his eloquence and excellent gift of speaking writing wherein he was so highly conceited of himselfe that onely for telling him one day of it he never loved me after and is dead I assure my selfe with a heartburning against me for it They that reproove me for writing Nonvelles Victorienses in my first Letter to M. the Cardinall make it appeare they are no farre travellours in the Latin Country and never come to discover Victrices literas Laureatas literas Nuntiam laurum c. Malice is a very unjust thing but ignorance much more Homine imperito you know the rest And never take offence that there bee some will not so much as allow mee for a Grammar Scholler and perhaps have reason Wee oftentimes thinke our selves to bee the true owners of things of which indeede wee are but usurpers there is nothing secure against wrangling every thing is matter of suite in this wretched world yet I meane not so easily to yeeld and give up my right for if I were not able to write according to the rules of Art I must certainly be one of a most dull capacitie and altogether uncapable of all discipline For did I learne nothing by seeing the Cardinall Perron nothing by being a Schollar in the French tongue under Master Nicholas Coeffeteau nothing by a thousand conferences with the good man Malherbe and lastly nothing by lodging with father Baudoin Vel in