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
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
Houses and that are furnish'd with the richest Furniture without Doors Windows Trunks or Chests to lock a Thief being there punish'd double to what they are in other Places Where they crack Lice with their Teeth like Monkeys and abhor to see them kill'd with ones Nails Where in all their Lives they neither cut their Hair nor pare their Nails and in another Place pare those of the Right-hand only letting the left grow for Ornament and Bravery Where they suffer the Hair on the right side to grow as long as it will and shave the other and in the neighb'ring Provinces some let their Hair grow long before and some behind shaving close the rest Where Parents let out their Children and Husbands their Wives to their Guests to hire Where a Man may get his own Mother with Child and Fathers make use of their own Daughters or their Sons without Scandal or Offence Where at their solemn Feasts they interchangeably lend their Children to one another without any consideration of Nearness of Blood In one Place Men feed upon Humane Flesh in another 't is reputed a charitable Office for a Man to kill his Father at a certain Age and elsewhere the Fathers dispose of their Children whilst yet in their Mothers Wombs some to be preserv'd and carefully brought up and others they proscribe either to be thrown off or made away Elsewhere the old Husbands lend their Wives to Young-men and in another place they are in common without offence in one place particularly the Women take it for a mark of Honour to have as many gay fring'd Tassels at the bottom of their Garment as they have lain with several men Moreover has not Custome made a Republick of Women separately by themselves Has it not put Arms into their Hands made them to raise Armies and fight Battels and does she not by her own Precept instruct the most ignorant Vulgar and make them perfect in things which all the Philosophy in the World could never beat into the Heads of the wisest men For we know entire Nations where Death was not only despis'd but entertain'd with the greatest Triumph where Children of seven years old offer'd themselves to be whip'd to death without changing their Countenance where Riches was in such Contempt that the poorest and most wretched Citizen would not have deign'd to stoop to take up a Purse of Crowns And we know Regions very fruitful in all manner of Provisions where notwithstanding the most ordinary Diet and that they are most pleas'd with is only Bread Cresses and Water Did not Custom moreover work that Miracle in Chios that of seven hundred Years it was never known that ever Maid or Wife committed any act to the prejudice of her Honour To conclude there is nothing in my opinion that she does not or may not do and therefore with very good reason it is that Pindar calls her the Queen and Empress of the World He that was seen to beat his Father and reprov'd for so doing made answer that it was the Custom of their Family that in like manner his Father had beaten his Grand-father his Grand-father his great Grand-father and this sayes he pointing to his Son when he comes to my Age shall beat me And the Father whom the Son dragg'd and hal'd along the streets commanded him to stop at a certain Door for he himself he said had dragg'd his Father no farther that being the utmost limit of the hereditary Insolence the Sons us'd to practice upon the Fathers in their Family It is as much by Custom as Infirmity sayes Aristotle that Women tear their Hair bite their Nails and eat Coals Chalk and such Trash and more by Custom than Nature that men abuse themselves with one another The Laws of Conscience which we pretend to be deriv'd from Nature proceed from Custome every one having an inward Veneration for the Opinions and Manners approv'd and receiv'd amongst his own People cannot without very great Reluctancy depart from them nor apply himself to them without applause In times past when those of Creet would curse any one they pray'd the Gods to engage them in some ill Custom But the principal effect of the power of Custom is so to seize and ensnare us that it is hardly in our power to disengage our selves from its gripe or so to come to our selves as to consider of and to weigh the things it enjoyns To say the truth by reason that we suck it in with our Milk and that the face of the World presents it self in this posture to our first sight it seems as if we were born upon condition to pursue this Practice and the common Fancies that we find in repute every where about us and infus'd into our Minds with the Seed of our Fathers appear to be most universal and genuine From whence it comes to pass that whatever is off the hinge of Custom is believ'd to be also off the hinges of Reason and how unreasonably for the most part God knows If as we who study our selves have learn'd to do every one who hears a good Sentence would immediately consider how it does any way touch his own private Concern every one would find that it was not so much a good Saying as a severe Lash to the ordinary Bestiality of his own Judgment but men receive the Precepts and Admonitions of Truth as generally directed to the Common Sort and never particularly to themselves and instead of applying them to their own manners do only very ignorantly and unprofitably commit them to memory without suffering themselves to be at all instructed or converted by them But let us return to the Empire of Custom Such People as have been bred up to Liberty and subject to no other Dominion but the authothority of their own Will every one being a Sovereign to himself or at least govern'd by no wiser Heads than their own do look upon all other Form of Government as monstrous and contrary to Nature Those who are inur'd to Monarchy do the same and what opportunity soever Fortune presents them with to change even then when with the greatest difficulties they have disengag'd themselves from one Master that was troublesome and grievous to them they presently run with the same difficulties to create another being not able how roughly dealt with soever to hate the Government they were born under and the obedience they have so long been accustom'd to 'T is by the mediation and perswasion of Custom that every one is content with the place where he is planted by Nature and the High-landers of Scotland no more pant after the better Air of Tourain than the starv'd Scythian after the delightful Fields of Thessaly Darius asking certain Greeks what they would take to assume the Custom of the Indians of eating the dead Corps of their Fathers for that was their Use believing they could not give them a better nor more noble Sepulture than to bury them in their own
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
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
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
understanding depriv'd me of the faculty of discerning and that of my body from the sense of feeling I suffered my self to glide away so sweetly and after so soft and easy a manner that I scarce find any other action less troublesom than that was But when I came again to my self and to reassume my faculties Vt tandem sensus convaluere mei As my lost senses did again return Which was two or three hours after I felt my self on a suddain involv'd in terrible pain having my limbs shatter'd and groun'd to pieces with my fall and was so exceeding ill two or three nights after that I thought once more to die again but a more painful death having concluded my self as good as dead before and to this hour am sensible of the bruises of that terrible shock I will not here omit that the last thing I could make them beat into my head was the memory of this accident and made it be over and over again repeated to me whither I was going from whence I came and at what time of the day this mischance besel me before I could comprehend it As to the manner of my fall that was conceal'd from me in favour to him who had been the occasion and other slimflams were invented to palliate the truth But a long â—â—me aâ—â—er and the very next day that my memory began to return and to represent to me the eâ—â—ate wherein I was at the Instant that I perceived this horse comming full drive upon me for I had seen him come thundring at my heeles and gave my self for gone But this thought had been so suddain that fear had had no leisure to introduce it self it seem'd to me like a flash of lightning that had peirc'd thorough my Soul and that I came from the other World This long Story of so light an accident would appear vain enough were it not for the knowledge I have gain'd by it for my own use for I do really find that to be acquainted with death is no more but nearly to approach it Every one as Pliny says is a good Doctrine to himself provided he be capable of discovering himself near at hand This is not my Doctrine 't is my study and is not the lesson of another but my own and yet if I communicate it it ought not to be ill taken That which is of use to me may also peradventure be useful to another As to the rest I spoile nothing I make use of nothing but my own and if I play the fool 't is at my own expence and no body else is concern'd in 't for 't is a folly that will die with me and that no one is to inherit We hear but of two or three of the Ancients who have beaten this Road and yet I cannot say if it be after this manner knowing no more of them but their names Not one since has followed the track 't is a tickle subject and more nice than it seems to follow a pace so extravagant and uncertain as that of the Soul to penetrate the dark Profundities of their intricate internal windings to choose and lay hold of so many little graces and nimble motions and a new and extraordinary undertaking and that withdraws us from the common and most recommended emploiments of the World 'T is now many years since that my thoughts have had no other aime and level than my self and that I have only pried into and studied my self Or if I study any other thing 't is to lay it up for and to apply it to my self And yet I do not think it a fault if as others do by other much less profitable Sciences I communicate what I have learn't in this affair though I am not very well pleased with what I have writ upon this Subject There is no description so difficult nor doubtless of so great utility as that of a Mans self And withall a Man must curle set out and adjust himself to appear in publick Now I am perpetually tricking my self for I am eternally upon my own description Custome has made all speaking of a Man's self vicious and do's positively interdict it in hatred to the vanity that seems inseparably joyn'd with the testimony men give of themselves I do not know that necessarily follows but allowing it to be true and that it must of necessity be presumption to entertain the people with Discourses of ones self I ought not pursuing my general Design to forbear an action that publishes this Infirmity of mine nor conceal the Fault which I not only practise but profess Notwithstanding to speak my thought freely I do think that the custom of condemning Wine because some people will be drunk is it self to be condemned A man cannot abuse any thing but what is good in it self and I believe that this Rule has only regard to the popular Vice they are Bits with which neither the Saints whom we hear speak so highly of themselves nor the Philosophers nor the Divines will be curb'd neither will I who am as little the one as the other Of what does Socrates treat more largely than of himself To what does he more direct and address the Discourses of his Disciples than to speak of themselves not of the Lesson in the Book but of the Essence and Motion of their Souls We confess our selves Religiously to God and our Confessor and as they are our Neighbours to all the people But some will answer and say that we there speak nothing but Accusation against our selves Why then we say all for our very Vertue it self is faulty and penitable my Trade and Art is to live He that forbids me to speak according to my own Sense Experience and Practice may as well enjoyn an Architect not to speak of Building according to his own knowledge but according to that of his Neighbour according to the knowledge of another and not according to his own If it be Vain-glory for a man to publish his own Vertues why does not Cicero prefer the Eloquence of Hortensius and Hortensius that of Cicero Peradventure they mean that I should give testimony of my self by Works and Effects not barely by Words I chiefly paint my Thoughts an Inform Subject and incapable of Operative Production 'T is all that I can do to couch it in this airery body of the Voice The Wisest and Devoutest Men have liv'd in the greatest Care to avoid all discovery of Works Effects would more speak of Fortune than of me They manifest their own Office and not mine but uncertainly and by conjecture They are but Patterns of some one particular Vertue I expose my self entire 't is a Skeleton where at one view the Veins Muscles and Tendons are apparent every of them in its proper place I do not write my own Acts but my Self and my Essence I am of opinion that a man must be very wise to value himself and equally consciencious to give a true Report be it better or worse
fall of the Soul as well as of the Body Contrahi animum quasi labi putat atque decidere He thinks the Mind is transported and that it slips and falls And what they perceiv'd in some that the Soul maintained its force and vigour to the last gasp of Life they attributed to the variety of Diseases as it is observable in Men at the last Extremity that some retain one Sence and some another one the Hearing and another the Smell without any manner of Defects or Alteration and that there is no so universal a Deprivation that some parts do not remain vigorous and entire Non alio pacto quà m si pes cum dolet agri In nullo caput intera sit fortè dolore As if a sick Man's Foot in pain should be And yet his Head perhaps from Dolours free The sight of our Judgment is to Truth the same that the Owles Eyes are to the Sun says Aristotle By what can we better convince him than by so gross Blindness in so apparent a Light For the contrary Opinion of the immortality of the Soul which Cicero says was first introduc'd by the Testimony of the Authors at least by Pherecides Syrius in the time of King Tullus though others attribute it to Thales and others to others 't is the part of human Science that is treated of with the most doubt and the greatest reservation The most positive Dogmatists are in this point principally to fly to the Refuge of Academy No one knows what Aristotle has established upon this Subject no more than all the Ancients in general who handle it with a wavering Belief Rem gratissimam promittentium magis quà m probantium A thing more acceptable in the Promisers than the Provers He conceals himself in clouds of Words of difficult and unintelligible Sense and has left to those of his Sect as great a Dispute about his Judgment as the matter it self Two things rendred this Opinion plausible to them One that without the immortality of Souls there would be nothing whereon to ground the vain Hopes of Glory which is a Consideration of wonderful Repute in the World The other that it is a very profitable Impression as Plato says that Vices when they escape the Discovery and Cognizance of human Justice are still within the reach of the Divine which will pursue them even after the Death of the Guilty Man is excessively solicitous to prolong his Being and has to the utmost of his Power provided for it Monuments are erected and embalming in use for the Conservation of the Body and glory to preserve the Name He has employed all his Wit and Opinion to the rebuilding of himself impatient of his Form and to prop himself by his Inventions The Soul by reason of its Anxiety and Impotence being unable to stand by it self wanders up and down to seek out Consolations Hopes and Foundations and alien Circumstances to which she adheres and fixes And how light or fantastick soever Invention delivers them to it relies more willingly and with greater Assurance upon them than it self But 't is wonderful to observe how short the most constant and obstinate Maintainers of this just and clear Persuasion of the Immortality of the Soul do fall and how weak their Arguments are when they go about to prove it by human Reason Somnia sunt non docentis sed optantis They are Dreams not of the Teacher but Wisher says one of the Antients By which Testimony Man may know that he owes the Truth he himself finds out to Fortune and Accident since that even then when it is fallen into his Hand he has not wherewith to hold and maintain it and that his Reason has not Force to make use of it All things produc'd by our own Meditation and Understanding whether true or false are subject to Incertitude and Controversy 'T was for the Chastisement of our Pride and for the Instruction of our Misery and Incapacity that God wrought the Perplexity and Confusion at the Tower of Babel Whatever we undertake without his Assistance whatever we see without the Lamp of his Grace is but Vanity and Folly We corrupt the very Essence of Truth which is uniform and constant by our Weakness when Fortune puts it into our Possession What Course soever Man takes of himself God still permits it to come to the same Confusion the Image whereof he so lively represents to us in the just Chastisement wherewith he crusht Nimrod's Presumption and frustrated the vain Attempt of his proud Structure Perdam sapientiam sapientium prudentiam prudentium reprobabe I will destroy the Wisdom of the Wise and will bring to nothing the Vnderstanding of the Prudent The Diversity of Idiomes and Languages with which he disturb'd this work what are they other than this infinite and perpetual alteration and discordance of Opinions and Reasons which accompany and confound the vain Building of human Wisdom And 't is to very good effect that they do so For what would hold us if we had but the least grain of Knowledg This Saint has very much oblig'd me Ipsa utilitatis occultatio aut humilitatis exercitatio est aut elationis attritio The very concealment of the Vtility is either an exercise of Humility or a quelling of Presumption To what a pitch of Presumption and Insolence do we raise our Blindness and Folly But to return to my Subject it was truly very good Reason that we should be beholding to God only and to the favour of his Grace for the Truth of so noble a Belief since from his sole Bounty we receive the Fruit of Immortality which consists in the Enjoyment of eternal Beatitude Let us ingeniously confess that God alone has dictated it to us and the Faith For 't is no Lesson of Nature and our own Reason And whoever will enquire into his own Being and Power both within and without without this divine Privilege Whoever shall consider Man impartially and without Flattery will see nothing in him of Efficacy nor any kind of Faculty that relishes of any thing but Death and Earth The more we give and confess to owe and render to God we do it with the greater Christianity That which this Stoick Philosopher says he holds from the fortuitous Consent of the popular Voice had it not been better that he had held it from God Cùm de animorum aeternitate disserimus non leve momentum apud nos habet consensus hominum aut timentium inferos aut colentium Vtor hac publica persuasione When we discourse of the Immortality of Souls the consent of Men that either fear or adore the infernal Power is of no small Advantage I make use of this publick Persuasion Now the weakness of human Arguments upon this Subject is particularly manifested by the fabulous Arguments they have superadded as Consequences of this Opinion to find out of what Condition this Immortality of ours was Let us omit the Stoicks
Respects That the Heavens the Stars and the Sun have all of them sometimes Motions retrograde to what we see changing East into West The Egyptian Priests told Herodotus that from the time of their first King which was eleven thousand and od Years and they shew'd him the Effigies of all their Kings in Statues taken by the Life the Sun had four times altered his Course That the Sea and the Earth did alternately change into one another Aristotle and Cicero both say that the Beginning of the VVorld is undetermin'd And some amongst us are of Opinion that it has been from all Eternity is mortal and renued again by several Vicissitudes calling Salomon and Isaiah to witness To evade those Oppositions that God has once been a Creator without a Creature that he has had nothing to do that he has contradicted that Vacancy by putting his Hand to this VVork and that consequently he is subject to Change In the most famous of the Greek Schools the World is taken for a God made by another God greater than he and is composed of a Body and a Soul fix'd in his Center and dilating himself by musical-Numbers to his Circumference Divine infinitely Happy and infinitely Great infinitely Wise and Eternal In him are other Gods the Sea the Earth the Stars who entertain one another with a harmonious and perpetual Agitation and divine Dance Sometimes meeting sometimes retiring from one another concealing and discovering themselves changing their Order one while before and another behind Heraclytus was positive that the World was composed of Fire and by the order of Destiny was one Day to be enflam'd and consum'd in Fire and then to be again renew'd And Apuleius says of Men Sigillatim mortales cunctim perpetui That they are Mortal in particular and Immortal in general Alexander writ to his Mother the Narration of an Egyptian Priest drawn from their Monuments testifying the Antiquity of that Nation to be infinite and comprizing the Birth and Progress of other Countries Cicero and Diodorus say that in their time the Chaldees kept a Register of four hundred thousand and odd Years Aristotle Pliny and others that Zoroaster flourished six thousand Years before Plato's time Plato says that they of the City of Sais have Records in Writing of eight thousand Years And that the City of Athens was built a thousand Years before the said City of Sais Epicurus that at the same time things are here in the Posture we see they are alike and in the same manner in several other Worlds VVhich he would have delivered with greater Assurance had he seen the Similitude and Concordance of the new discovered VVorld of the West-Indies with ours present and past in so many strange Examples In earnest considering what is arriv'd at our Knowledg from the Course of this terrestrial Policy I have often wondred to see in so vast a Distance of Places and Times such a Concurrence of so great a number of popular and wild Opinions and of savage Manners and Beliefs which by no means seem to proceed from our natural Meditation Human VVit is a great VVorker of Miracles But this Relation has moreover I know not what of Extraordinary in it 't is found to be in Names also and a thousand other things For they found Nations there that for ought we know never heard of us where Circumcision was in use VVhere there were States and strict Civil Goverments maintain'd by VVomen only without Men VVhere Feasts and Lent were represented to which was added the Abstinence from VVomen VVhere our Crosses were several ways in Repute VVhere they were made use of to Honor and adorn their Sepultures where they were erected and namely that of St. Andrew to protect themselves from Nocturnal Visions and to lay upon the Cradles of the Infants against Inchantments Elsewhere there was found one of VVood of very great Stature which was ador'd for the God of Rain and that a great way into the firm Land where there was seen an express Image of our Shriving-Priests with the use of Miters the Coelibacy of Priests the Art of Divination by the Entrails of Sacrific'd Beasts Abstinence from all sorts of Flesh and Fish in their Diet the manner of Priests Officiating in a particular and not a vulgar Language And this Fancy that the first God was dishonoured by a second his younger Brother That they were Created with all sorts of Necessaries and Conveniences which have since been taken from them for their Sins their Territory chang'd and their natural Condition made worse That they were of old overwhelm'd by the Inundation of VVater from Heaven that but few Families escaped who retired into Caves of high Mountains the Mouths of which they so stopp'd that the Waters could not get in having shut up together with themselves several sorts of Animals that when they perceived the Rain to cease they sent out Dogs which returning clean and wet they judg'd that the Water was not much abated Afterward sending out others and seeing them return durty they issued out to re-people the World which they found only full of Serpents In one place they met with the persuasion of a day of Judgment insomuch that they were marvelously displeas'd at the Spaniards for discomposing the Bones of the Dead in rifling the Sepultures for Riches saying that those Bones so disorder'd could not easily rejoyn The Traffick by Exchange and no other way Fairs and Markets for that end Dwarfs and deform'd people for the Ornament of the Tables of Princes The use of Falconry according to the Natures of their Hawks tyrannical Subsidies Curiosity in Gardens Dances tumbling Tricks Musick of Instruments Armories Tennis Courts Dice and Lotteries wherein they are sometimes so eager and hot as to stake and play themselves and their liberty Physick no otherwise than by Charms And the way of writing in Cipher The belief of only one first Man the Father of all Nations The Adoration of one God who formerly liv'd a Man in perfect Virginity Fasting and Penitence preaching the Law of Nature and the Ceremonies of Religion and that vanished from the World without a Natural Death The Opinion of Gyants the Custom of making themselves drunk with their Beverages and drinking to the utmost The religious Ornaments painted with Bones and dead Mens Sculls Surplices Holy Water sprinkled Wives and Servants who present themselves with Emulation to be burnt and interr'd with the dead Husband or Master A Law by which the Eldest succeeds to all the Estate no other Provision being made for the Younger but Obedience The Custom that upon Promotion to a certain Office of great Authority the Promoted is to take upon him a new Name and to leave that he had before Another to strew Lime upon the Knee of the New-born Child with those Words From Dust thou camest and to Dust thou must return As also the Art of Augury These vain â—hadows of our
these Propositions as of things indifferent to him and by this Rule we must have a Judge that never was To judge of the apparence that we receive of Subjects we ought to have a deciding Instrument to prove this Instrument we must have Demonstration to verifie this Demonstration an Instrument and here we are upon the Wheel Seeing the Senses cannot determine our Dispute being full of incertainty themselves it must then be Reason that must do it but no Reason can be erected upon any other foundation than that of another Reason and so we run back to all Infinity Our fancy does not apply it self to things that are strange but is conceiv'd by the mediation of the Senses and Senses do not comprehend a foreign Subject but only their own Passions by which means fancy and apparence are no part of the Subject but only of the Passion and Sufferance of Sense which Passion and Subject are several things wherefore whoever judges by Apparences judges by another thing than the Subject And to say that the Passions of the Senses convey to the Soul the quality of strange Subjects by Resemblance how can the Soul and Understanding be assur'd of this Resemblance having of it self no Commerce with foreign Subjects As they who never knew Socrates cannot when they see his Picture say it is like him Now whoever would notwithstanding judge by Apparences if it be by all it is impossible because they hinder one another by their Contrarieties and Discrepancies as we by Experience see Shall some select Apparences govern the rest You must verifie this Select by another Select the second by the third and consequently there will never be any end on 't Finally there is no constant Existence neither of the Objects Being nor our own Both we and our Judgements and all mortal things are evermore incessantly running and rowling and consequently nothing certain can be establish'd from the one to the other both the judging and the judged being in a continual Motion and Mutation We have no Communication with Being by reason that all humane Nature is always in the mid'st betwixt being Born and Dying giving but an obscure Apparence and Shadow a weak and uncertain Opinion of it self And if peradventure you fix your thought to apprehend your Being it would be but like grasping Water for the more you clutch your hand to squeeze and hold what is in it's own nature flowing so much more you lose of what you would grasp and hold So seeing that all things are subject to pass from one change to another Reason that there looks for a real Substance finds it self deceiv'd not being able to apprehend any thing that is Subsistent and Permanent because that every thing is either entring into Being and is not yet wholly arriv'd at it or begins to Dye before it is Born Plato said that Bodies had never any Existence but only Birth conceiving that Homer had made the Ocean and Thetis Father and Mother of the Gods to shew us that all things are in a perpetual Fluctuation Motion and Variation the Opinion of all the Philosophers as he says before his time Parmenides only excepted who would not allow things to have Motion of the Power whereof he sets a mighty Value Pythagoras was of Opinion that all Matter was flowing and unstable The Stoicks that there is no time present and that what we call so is nothing but the juncture and meeting of the future and the past Heraclitus that never any man entred twice into the same River Epicharmus that who borrow'd Money but an hour ago does not owe it now and that he who was invited over-night to come the next day to Dinner comes nevertheless uninvited considering that they are no more the same men but are become others and that there could not a mortal Substance be found twice in the same Condition for by the suddenness and quickness of Change it one while disperses and another reassembles it comes and goes after such a manner that what begins to be Born never arrives to the Perfection of Being forasmuch as that Birth is never finish'd and never stays as being at an end but from the Seed is evermore changing and shifting from one to another As humane Seed is first in the Mothers Womb made a formless Embrio after deliver'd thence a sucking Infant afterwards it becomes a Boy then consequently a Youth after that a full Man then a middle-ag'd Man and at last a decrepid old Man So that Age and subsequent Generation is always destroying and spoiling that which went before Mutat enim Mundi naturam totius aetas Ex alioque alius status excipere omnia debet Nec manet illa sui similis res omnia migrant Omnia commutat natura vertere cogit For Time the Nature of the World translates And gives all things new from preceding states Nought like it self remains but all do range And Nature forces every thing to change And yet we foolishly fear one kind of Death whereas we have already past and do daily pass so many other For not only as Heraclitus said the Death of the Fire is the Generation of the Air and the Death of Air the Generation of Water but moreover we may more manifestly discern it in our selves The Flower of Youth dies and passes away when Age comes on and youth is terminated in the Flower of Age of a full grown Man Infancy in Youth and the first Age dies in Infancy Yesterday died in to Day and to Day will die in to Morrow and there is nothing that remains in the same state or that is always the same thing And that it is so let this be the Proof If we are alwayes one and the same how comes it then to pass that we are now pleas'd with one thing and by and by with another How comes it to pass that we love contrary things that we praise or condemn them How comes it to pass that we have different Affections and no more retain the same Sentiment in the same Thought For it is not likely that without mutation we should assume other Passions and that which suffers Mutation does not remain the same and if it be not the same it is not at all But the same that the Being is does like it unknowingly change and alter becoming evermore another from another thing And consequently the natural Senses abuse and deceive themselves taking that which seems for that which is for want of well knowing what that which is is But what is it then that truly is That which is Eternal that is to say that never had beginning nor never shall have ending and to which Time can bring no mutation For Time is a mobile thing and that appears as in a shadow with a matter evermore flowing and running without ever remaining stable and permanent and to which those words appertain before and after has been or shall be Which at the first sight evidently shew that it
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
his Sobriety he liv'd always a Souldier's kind of Life and kept a Table in the most profound Peace like one that prepar'd and inur'd himself to the austerities of War His Vigilancy was such that he divided the Night into three or four parts of which always the least was dedicated to sleep the rest was spent either in visiting the estate of his Army and Guards in Person or in Study for amongst other rare Qualities he was very excellent in all sorts of Learning 'T is said of Alexander the Great that being in Bed for fear lest sleep should divert him from his Thoughts and Studies he had always a Bason set by his Bed-side and held one of his hands out with a Ball of Copper in it to the end that beginning to fall asleep and his Fingers leaving their hold the Ball by falling into the Bason might awake him But the other had his mind so bent upon what he had a mind to do and so little disturb'd with Fumes by reason of his singular Abstinence that he had no need of any such Invention As to his Military Experience he was excellent in all the Qualities of a great Captain as it was likely he should being almost all his Life in a continual exercise of War and most of that time with us in France against the Germans and Franes We hardly read of any Man that ever saw more Dangers or that made more frequent Proofs of his personal Valour His Death has something in it parallel with that of Epaminondas for he was wounded with an Arrow and try'd to pull it out and had done it but that being edg'd it cut and disabled his Hand He incessantly call'd out that they would carry him again in this condition into the heat of the Battel to encourage his Souldiers who very bravely disputed the Battel without him till Night parted the Armies We stood oblig'd to his Philosophy for the singular contempt he had for his Life and all Humane things He had a firm Belief of the immortality of the Soul In matter of Religion he was vicious throughout and was surnam'd the Apostate for having relinquish'd ours though methinks 't is more likely that he had never throughly embrac'd it but had dissembled out of obedience to the Laws till he came to the Empire He was in his own so superstitious that that he was laught at for it by those of the same Opinion of his own time who jeeringly said that had he got the Victory over the Parthians he had destroy'd the breed of Oxen in the World to supply his Sacrifices He was moreover besotted with the Art of Divination and gave Authority to all sorts of Predictions He said amongst other things at his Death that he was oblig'd to the Gods and thank'd them in that they would not cut him off by Surprize having long before advertis'd him of the Place and Hour of his Death nor by a mean and unmanly Death more becomming lazy and delicate People nor by a Death that was languishing long and painful and that they had thought him worthy to Dye after that noble manner in the progress of his Victories in the flower of his Age and in the height of his Glory He had a Vision like that of Marcus Brutus that first threatned him in Gaul and afterward appear'd to him in Persia just before his Death These Words that some make him say when he felt himself wounded Thou hast overcome Nazaren or as others Content thy self Nazaren would hardly have been omitted had they been believ'd by my Witnesses who being present in the Army have set down to the least motions and words of his end no more than certain other Miracles that are recorded of him And to return to my Subject he long nourish'd says Marcellinus Paganism in his Heart but all his Army being Christians he durst not own it But in the end seeing himself strong enough to dare to discover himself he caus'd the Temples of the Gods to be thrown open and did his utmost to set on foot and to encourage Idolatry Which the better to effect having at Constantinople found the People disunited and also the Prelates of the Church divided amongst themselves having conven'd them all before him he gravely and earnestly admonish'd them to calm those civil Dissentions and that every one might freely and without fear follow his own Religion Which he did the more sedulously sollicit in hope that this Licence would augment the Schisms and Faction of their Division and hinder the People from reuniting and consequently fortifying themselves against him by their unanimous Intelligence and Concord having experimented by the cruelty of some Christians that there is no Beast in the World so much to be fear'd by Man as Man These are very near his Words wherein this is very worthy of consideration that the Emperor Julian made use of the same Receipt of Liberty of Conscience to inflame the civil Dissentions that our Kings do to extinguish them So that a man may say on one side that to give the People the Reins to entertain every man his own Opinion is to scatter and sow Division and as it were to lend a hand to augment it their being no fence nor correction of Law to stop and hinder their Carreer but on the other side a Man may also say that to give the People the Reins to entertain every Man his own Opinion is to mollifie and appease them by Facility and Toleration and dull the point which is whetted and made sharper by variety novelty and difficulty And I think it is better for the Honour of the Devotion of our Kings that not having been able to do what they would they have made a shew of being willing to do what they could CHAP. XX. That we taste nothing pure THE imbecillity of our Condition is such that things cannot in their natural simplicity and purity fall into our Use the Elements that we enjoy are chang'd even Metals themselves and Gold must in some sort be debas'd to fit it for our Service Neither has Virtue so simple as that which Aristo Pyrro and also the Stoicks have made the principal end of Life nor the Cerenaick and Aristippick Pleasure been without mixture useful to it Of the Pleasure and Goods that we enjoy there is not one exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience medio de fonto leporum Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat Something that 's bitter will arise Even amidst our jollities Our extreamest Pleasure has some Air of groaning and complaining in 't Would you not say that it is dying of Pain Nay when we forge the Image of it we stuff it with sickly and painful Epithets Languor Softness Feebleness Faintness Morbidezza a great Testimony of their Consanguinity and Consubstantiality The most profound Joy has more of Severity than Gayety in it The most extream and most full contentment more of the
whole habitable Earth and in half a Life to have attain'd to the utmost of what humane Nature can do so that you cannot imagine his duration just and the continuation of his increase in Virtue and Fortune even to a due maturity of Age but that you must withall imagine something more than man To have made so many Royal Branches to spring from his Souldiers leaving the World at his death divided amongst four Successors who were no better than Captains of his Army whose Posterity have so long continued and maintain'd that vast possession so many excellent Vertues as he was master of Justice Temperance Liberality Truth in his word Love towards his own and Humanity towards those he overcame for his manners in general seem in truth incapable of any manner of reproach though some particular and extraordinary Actions of his may peradventure fall under censure But it is impossible to carry on so great things as he did with the strict Rules of Justice such as he are to be judg'd in gross by the main end of their Actions The ruin of Thebes the murther of Menander and of Ephestion's Physician the massacre of so many Persian Prisoners at once of a Troop of Indian Souldiers not without prejudice to his word and of the Cosseyans so much as to the very Children are indeed Sallies that are not well to be excus'd For as to Clytus the fault was more than recompenc'd in his Repentance and that very action as much as any other whatever manifests the sweetness of his nature a nature most excellently form'd to goodness and it was ingeniously said of him that he had his Vertues by Nature and his Vices by Chance As to his being a little given to bragging and a little too impatient of hearing himself ill spoken of and as to those Mangers Arms and Bits he caus'd to be strew'd in the Indies all those little Vanities methinks may very well be allow'd to his Youth and the prodigious prosperity of his fortune And who will consider withall his so many Military vertues his Diligence Foresight Patience Discipline Subtilty Magnanimity Resolution and good Fortune wherein though we had not had the Authority of Hannibal to assure us he was the first of men the admirable beauty and symmetry of his Person even to a miracle his majestick Port and awful Deportment in a Face so young so ruddy and so radiant Qualis ubi Oceani perfusus Lucifer unda Quem Venus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes Extulit os sacrum coelo tenebrasque resolvit Such the Day-star does from the Ocean rise Above all Lights grateful to Venus's eyes When he from Heaven darts his sacred light And dissipates the sullen shades of Night the excellency of his Knowledge and Capacity the duration and grandeur of his Glory pure clean without spot or envy and that long after his Death it was a religious belief that his very Medals brought good fortune to all that carried them about them and that more Kings and Princes have writ his Acts than other Historians have written the Acts of any other King or Prince whatever and that to this very day the Mahometans who despise all other Histories admit of and honour his alone by a special Priviledge whoever I say will seriously consider these particulars will confess that all these things put together I had reason to prefer him before Caesar himself who alone could make me doubtful in my choice and it cannot be deny'd but that there was more of his own in his Exploits and more of Fortune in those of Alexander They were in many things equal and peradventure Caesar had the advantage in some particular qualities They were two Fires or two Torrents to over-run the World by several ways Et velut immissi diversis partibus ignes Arentem in sylvam virgulta sonantia lauro Aut ubi decursu rapido de montibus altis Dant sonitum spumosi amnes in aequora currunt Quisque suum populatus iter And like to Fires in several parts apply'd To a dry Grove of crackling Lawrel's side Or like the Cataracts of foaming Rills That tumble headlong from the highest hills To hasten to the Ocean even so They bear all down before them where they go But though Caesar's ambition had been more moderate it would still he so unhappy having the ruin of his Country and the universal mischief to the World for its abominable object that all things rak'd together and put into the Balance I must needs incline to Alexander's side The third in my opinion and the most excellent of all is Epaminondas Of glory he has not near so much as the other two which also is but a part of the substance of the thing of Valour and Resolution not of that sort which is push'd on by Ambition but of that which Wisdom and Reason can raise in a regular Soul he had all that could be imagin'd Of this Vertue of his he has in my thoughts given as ample proof as either Alexander himself or Caesar for although his Expeditions were neither so frequent and so renown'd they were yet if duely consider'd in all their circumstances as important as bravely fought and carry'd with them as manifest testimony of Valour and military Conduct as those of any whatever The Greeks have done him the honour without contradiction to pronounce him the greatest man of their Nation and to be the first of Greece is easily to be the first of the World As to his Knowledge we have this ancient judgment of him That never any man knew so much and spake so little as he For he was of the Pythagorean Sect. But when he did speak never any man spake better an excellent Orator and of powerful insinuation But as to his Manners and Conscience he has infinitely surpass'd all men that ever undertook the management of Affairs for in this one thing which ought chiefly to be consider'd that alone truly denotes us for what we are and that alone I counter-balance with all the rest put together he comes not short of any Philosopher whatever not even of Socrates himself Innocency in this man is a quality peculiar sovereign constant uniform and incorruptible compar'd to which it appears in Alexander subject to something else above it uncertain variable effeminate and accidental Antiquity has judg'd that in thorowly sifting all the other great Captains there is found in every one some peculiar quality that illustrates his Name In this man only there is a full and equal vertue throughout that leaves nothing to be wish'd for in him whether in private or publick Employment whether in Peace or War whether gloriously to live or dye I do not know any Form or Fortune of Man that I so much honour and love 'T is true that I look upon his obstinate Poverty as it is set out by his best Friends a little too scrupulous and nice And this is the only action tho high in it self
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
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
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
evidence against my self not to believe them as I ought mistrusting their Conduct and not purely committing my Affair into their hands I do wholly rely upon them and hold my self assur'd they will do in this what shall be most fit both for you and me Good men whether living or dead have no reason to fear the Gods Is not this an innocent childish pleading of an immaginable loftiness and in what a necessity imploy'd In earnest he had very good reason to prefer it before that which the great Orator Lysias had penn'd for him admirably couch'd indeed in the judiciary style but unworthy of so noble a Criminal Had a suppliant voice been heard out of the mouth of Socrates that lofty Virtue had struck sail in the height of its glory And ought his rich and powerful nature to have committed her defence to Art and in her highest proof have renounc'd truth and simplicity the ornaments of his speaking to adorn and deck it self with the Embellishments of figures and equivocations of a premeditated Speech He did very wisely and like himself not to corrupt the tenure of an incorrupt Life and so sacred an image of humane form to spin out his Decrepitude the poor eeching of a year and to betray the immortal memory of that glorious end He ow'd his Life not to himself but to the Example of the World Had it not been a publick dammage that he should have concluded it after a lazy and obscure manner Doubtless that careless and indifferent consideration of his Death very well deserves that Posterity should consider him so much the more as they also did And there is nothing so just in Justice than that which Fortune ordain'd for his recommendation For the Athenians abominated all those who had been causers of his death to such a degree that they avoided them as excommunicated Persons and look'd upon every thing as polluted that had been touch'd by them no one would wash with them in the publick Baths none would salute or own acquaintance with them so that at last unable longer to support this publick hatred they hang'd themselves If any one shall think that amongst so many other Examples that I had to chuse out of in the Sayings of Socrates for my present purpose I have made an ill choice of this and shall judge that this Discourse is elevated above common Conceit I must tell them that I have purposely done it for I am of another opinion and do hold it a Discourse in rank and simplicity much behind and inferiour to common contrivance He represents in an inartificial boldness and infantive security the pure and first impression and ignorance of Nature For it is to be believ'd that we have naturally a fear of Pain but not of Death by reason of it self 'T is a part of our Being and no less essential than Living To what end should Nature have begot in us a hatred to it and a horror of it considering that it is of so great utility to her in maintaining the Succession and Vicissitude of her Works And that in this universal Republick it conduces more to truth and augmentation than to loss or ruine sic rerum summa novatur Mille animus una necata dedit The failing of one Life is the passage to a thousand other Lives Nature has imprinted in Beasts the care of themselves and of their conservation Nay they proceed so far as to be timorous of being worse of hitting or hurting themselves and of our halâ—ering and beating them accidents which are subject to their sense and experience but that we should kill them they cannot fear nor have not the faculty to imagine and conclude such a thing as Death Yet it is said that we see them not only cheerfully undergo it Horses for the most part neighing and Swans singing when they dye but moreover seek it at need of which Elephants have given many Examples But besides all this is not the way of arguing which Socrates here makes use of equally admirable both in simplicity and vehemence Really it is much more easie to speak like Aristotle and to live like Caesar than to speak and live as Socrates did There lies the extream degree of perfection and difficulty Art cannot reach it Now our Faculties are not so train'd up We do not try we do not know them we invest our selves with those of others and let our own lye idle As some one may say of me that I have here only made a Nosegay of cull'd Flowers and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them In earnest I have so far yielded to the publick Opinion that those borrow'd Ornaments do accompany me but I do not think that they totally cover and hide me that is quite contrary to my design who desire to make a shew of nothing but what is my own and what is my own by Nature and had I taken my own advice I had at all adventures spoken purely alone I daily more and more load my self every day beyond my purpose and first Method upon the account of Idleness and the humour of the Age. If it misbecome me as I believe it does 't is no matter it may be of use to some other Such there are who quote Plato and Homer who never saw either of them and I also have taken out of places far enough distant from their Source Without pains and without Learning having a thousand Volumes about me in the place where I write I can presently borrow if I please from a dozen such Scrap-gatherers as I am Authors that I do not much trouble my self withall wherewith to embellish this Treatise of Physiognomy There needs no more but a praeliminary Epistle of the German cut to stuff me with proofs and we by that means go a begging for a fading Glory and a cheating the sottish World These Rhapsodies of Common Places wherewith so many furnish their Studies are of little use but to common Subjects and serve but to shew and not to direct us a ridiculous fruit of Learning that Socrates does so pleasantly canvase against Euthidemus I have seen Books made of things that were never either studied or understood the Author committing to several of his learned Friends the examination of this and t'other matter to compile it contenting himself for his share to have projected the Design and by his industry to have ty'd together this Fagot of unknown Provisions the Ink and Paper at least are his This is to buy or borrow a Book and not to make one 't is to shew men not that a man can make a Book but that whereof they may be in doubt that he cannot make one A President in my hearing boasted that he had clutter'd two hundred and odd common places in one of his Judgments in telling which he depriv'd himself of the Glory that had been attributed to him In my Opinion a pusillanimous and absurd Vanity for such a Subject and