and not violence Such is the progress that if brave carriage will reduce the party that is obnoxious to it the passion strait is in suspense If not yet it is not transported beyond satisfaction to bring as much more wrong by way of revenge and beyond the Talion on the subject of its displeasure So can it rise and fall with a grace and resume its equal temper without any straining And where there is such a just anger and a government and temper of reason in the prosecution it moves every one to be affected with the wrong to respect the person that seeks his own righting and not to hinder But against revenge all the world is opposite when it does discover the intention For indeed there is no revenge just but in hostility and there it may be acted beyond the law of nations too In private revenges only pride and malice do exulcerate the kidneyes and inflame the heart What would we have for a word misplaced An opprobrium Or a slander Who shall judge of it Will revenge let the cause go out of its own hand Will it suffer it to be extenuated or argued That indeed were against it self but to be aggravated to make an Odium to move the great Coloss of honor like the mighty shade that haunted Brutus to Philippi that fatal day to him with the conjuration of arbitrary punishment This it acts and executes within it self and by that means never wants depending causes For a suit sometime commenced in the Court of revenge upon a sleight occasion is transmitted to the sons and Nephews to be finished Neither are they small matters that revenge dealeth in while it can look on bloud spilt without horror on ruin brought upon its adversary with delight and glory and on his loss with the more content by how much it is the greater and the provocation given to the Procurer less For in this revenge doth magnify its own Patron making it equal to offend a proud man and a Prince But I dare not enter farther into this Argument least I be questioned into a Duel which is a thing now in fashion and which I do not intend to answer at the present § § II. To come to particular affections in respect of friendship so far as they are coincident with a Good Nature It may seem that there three sorts to which we cannot deny this appellation depending all more or less upon our proper choice and will Our common our concerned and our dearest friends which may pass out of one sort into the other without any fault or violation For a common friend may prove beneficial and a faithful friend to our concerns may prove dear And a dear friend may stand in every particular consideraton of friendship The observing of which distinction may serve to expedite us in some questions and save us in the mention of some others 1. And first of common friendship there is difference of degrees Some are our acquaintance that salute us and some come into our company as occasion serveth Others our familiars and confidents that usually converse with us Others our obliging friends that inervisit us entertain us and study to procure all mutual offices of kindness to us How low might we descend in division and subdivision of these orders if we might be as curious in the learning as we ought to be in the life and practice of it For of our ordinary acquaintance some are fleight and perfunctory others ceremonious that regard our quality rather then our persons others truly honourers and lovers of us as far as it happens to them to express it some are accomplished with vertues some are superficial Towards all a Generous spirit hath a large and open heart full of love unfeigned as the merit of things and persons calls it out you shall see a fresh alacrity rise in the meeting of every of them more or less according to the secret classis wherein they are disposed in his mind Neither is that classis made fraudulently or corruptly but according to the true knowledge or genuine apprehension that he hath conceived upon the measure of his acquaintance You shall see what pleasure he conceives in parleying with any of them what delight in making and receiving of addresses what light in his countenance when he congratulates what shadow when he condoles what naturalness in his comportment you cannot doubt of his reality Neither that it ought so to be among good men since all do dissemble the like behaviour as the most effectual and commendable amongst men And when we come to look into it none of these can be neglected On the sleightest may depend our fame and reputation whereby we live in the common light like Cameleons on the air To the Ceremonious we are beholden that they think us worthy of that quality that we obtain and would not envy our Advancement Though Alexander could distinguish and note the persons that loved him and that loved the King Yet he did not therefore hate them or think them Enemies The vertuous command regard and honour and nothing is so superficial but it may serve for ornament if it be well disposed of In those that truly love and honour us we have a seminary of succeeding confidents and a scope to exercise all obliging vertues and fashion our times to pregressive motion Who are negligent of all degrees of friendship have neither learned how to live nor how to go about it The source of all pleasure and contentment the treasure of all seasons the communion of joyes the Universal life I know the Politiques that teach us so much caution suspicion secret malice and dissembling and I contemn it as the greatest vanity and folly in the world locked up in Archives Wickedness as it were skrcen'd up in sanctuaries or Princely Cabinets yet gathered up from the dregs of people Odi prosanum vulgus arceo For our familiar and obliging friends we will suppose them to be of spirit and humour agreeable to our liking for to build upon a crafty nature is to build upon an hollow ground undiscovered and to associate with persons that are humerous self-lovers is in vain for they will leave their companion in the middle of the way without reason and if any thing or person come to thwart them they presently break into outrage and hate incontinent what even now they seem'd to favour It is enough to know these and a kindness only not to have to do with them beyond the hour of the day or the bon-jour Yet we must acknowledge a good friend may be found sometimes among the more morose Natures And among the more severe where it happens that is among those that have a temperament of good qualities to their seeming fowrness they may have excellent vertues to it none more noble But let us enter into our discourse and stick in the Porch no longer the Acts of a Good Nature in these respects are divers 1. It loves to
There is no apology no reason no vertue to excuse it 'T is incompatible with the temper of a Good Nature When the daughter of Servius Tullius being married to a Tarquin conspired with her Husband the death of the King her Father through ambition of the Kingdom she made her Chareteere to drive over his dead body as he lay slain in the streets to the utter detestation of mankind but with such a sort of wickedness as is yet untermed by any name For if Solon thought fit to make no law against Parricide because it had never been committed least he should seem to admonish of a crime unheard of rather than to prohibit it how could such a fact as hers an instance once for ever be known or branded by any common appellation She is an example without parallel But should we go about to enumerate others on the contrary we might be infinite Only that same Manlius who was so severe a Father deserves to be commended as a Son For whereas his Father was accused by the Tribunes of the People among other things for ignoble and unworthy breeding of himself he came to M. Pomponius the chief Prosecutor and entring with him as it were for farther information into his appartment he there obliged him seting his ponyard to his breast to dismiss the whole appeal which when it came to light procured him honor and advancement 3. Fratrum quoque gratiarara est 'T is observed that Brothers seldom do agree whether through too much familiarity which engenders contempt or too much competition while they account themselves by nature equal by favour prejudiced or by law and custom impeached of their native priviledges interfering with one another They are ost in brigues and skirmishes and as oft in reconcilements and recrudities Their fallings out are but means of their holding still together and when they seem to be at the greatest distance they fall into an easy coalition against a stranger that seeks the wrong of either Acquaintance from the cradle similitude derived from their parents sympathy of affections frequent broiles and passions do the more cement them and though the wealth of one be the impoverishing of another yet the cause is foreign and the stronger hath a natural respect for the weaker and the weaker a natural dependance upon the stronger which is more near than remote acquired aids and less offensive because more secret and more due to the sense of honor and reputation So that brotherly love answers many obligations that are to be understood and never to be exprest And wherever any Amity is comprehensive of more respects it may multiply unto infinite especially where the ground of it is so pure and unquestionable Which hath moved the most intimate of friends to adopt this appellation as the most significant of perfect Amity Cato the younger who could find in his heart to let his friend Munatius coming kindly to see him in his province of Cyprus to part from him disobliged and take no notice of it neither was so ready afterwards to make him satisfaction was so fond of his Brother Caepio that for 20 years he neither sup't nor walk't abroad without him he followed him into the Camp he left his charge to visit him in another Countrey being sick and finding him deceased lamented over him in such manner as was not accounted seemly in a valiant or a wise man such as he was reputed and being ever counted parsimonious to it spent the value of eight Talents upon his Monument So much may be in Brotherhood when ingenuous Minds are brought up both together Nor peradventure whatsoever is conceited can any other friends depending upon will or fancy be any more than an imitation of it even as art imitates Nature or the shadow represents the life for secondary acts can but tend to make an union like the first What can we do for a friend more than to make him as our self to adopt him into our bloud and account him as con-native to us 4. The love of a Brother to a Sister is so pure and innocent by Nature as if it took no notice of any difference of sexes save only as a Brother respects the tenderness of a Sister and a Sister honours the worth and valour of a Brother and is most passionate in his concerns and services Q. Margaret de valois hath written her memoirs almost on purpose to shew what affection she bore the person and the interests of her Brother the Duke of Alençon the name that was so gracious to our Q Elizabeth and what persecutions it did occasion her So that this sex may have a pure Amity towards men and are most unjustly bespattered anent their fairest offices Their civility their secrecy their pity their sedulity their pretty arts of covering and dissembling which are unsearchable when they seek to do a kindness are traduced and prophaned The abuse of them is the more hainous especially where there should not be any shadow of suspition as among relations Incest is as Murther or as treason a thing abhorrent unto Nature which many brutes decline and will rather wast their solitude And to bring dishonor on a kinswoman is conspiracy against the whole bloud an act of malice greater than of lust For the fences that are between relations are but weak and moveable being their distinct estates are apt to be coincident into one family Hence an uncle is collateral to a Father a Cosin-german to a Brother and the more remote are but supplemental to defects that may happen The distinct and distant Mansions of a worthy kindred are like City and Countrey-houses to one another where they have confidence community and are mutual stayes and pledges against vicissitudes and turns of fortune They are friends which nature gives which use confirms which are made perfect at the first fight if Relation be but mentioned Cosins do as frequently resemble one another as Brothers Uterines They have somewhat in them gentilitial to the family Their lineaments features aires graces manners some or other more or less do symbolize together and call as it were upon one another to be mutually ingratiated Yet there are that flight these bonds as complemental and unnecessary that hate an obligation coming on them without election that prefer any other of their own acquist that think themselves to be born at liberty and not to be contracted but by their own choice and pleasure This I hear but take it to be most ungrateful and unworthy of a noble spirit if in what it vindicates to its own will it derogates from Nature whose bond is indispensable Neither can I judge that person capable of a chosen friendship who is but a formal and perfunctory Courtier of his consanguinity or allyances § V. Of the next sort of Amity me-seemes there may be some doubt whether the Heroick love which being in order to it we will therefore consider under the same head be not greater then
token of commencement where it happens at the first encounter of such an happy pair of lovers So that this must be imagined to be somewhat rare and extraordinary it being not only hard to find such a second self in whose bosom we may have equal confidence as in our own in whose help the same assurance who can have the same delight in our affection that he hath in loving of himself and in our embraces the same satisfaction that he hath in cherishing of his own soul and body and who can be equally concerned in our welfare and his own but also to find a first who can love as much as may deserve such requital Let every one try how he finds it in himself how he feels his pulse beating towards it or his heart panting to escape from him into another breast This noble affection fals not on vulgar and common constitutions but on such as are mark't for vertue he that can love his friend with this noble ardour will in a competent degree affect all I begin with this sentence since it comes into my mind That it is but ordinary for some men to have sometimes a pheere or concubine as Mahomet the great who after sacrificed her with his own hand to his pride and tyranny that takes up all their time and pleasure Others a Privado or only favourite the solitary object of their fancy and delight as our Edward II was accounted to have in Piers Gaveston which was reputed too an effeminate impotency and enthralment of his mind An affection springing out of weakness and insufficiency and only tending to ease and pleasure When a man is captivated with a man as if he were enamoured of a woman while his time his business his honour is distracted while a senseless humour is only gratified and he that is beloved for the most part knoweth how to make other use of it then his lover A thing so fatal notwithstanding to that unhappy Prince that when sedition and rebellion had removed one he could not live without the raising of another in the person of the Lord Spencer whom the other Lords finding to draw all the Kings heart one way they never left till they had ungraciously procured both their ruines So we see in common instances who are fond of one neglect all others which breeds contempt and hatred for who are despised despise again and who think they ought to have an interest in one that is transported where they have it not do envy the transporter and cannot well refrain from some attempt upon him In vices it is most common to have one seducer who gains a power upon his ward We must not therefore measure this affection by intension much less by excess or intemperance but by adaequation of the object vertue of the persons and regularity of the Acts. Let us therefore hear my Lord of Montaigne's report instead of many other of his singular Amity with Monsicur de la Boitic which indeed he hath propounded to us though of himself as a rare example Which he affirmeth to have been such that certainly the like was not be read of and that amongst us men there is no track of it to be found in use That there needeth so much happiness of rencounter to raise such another that it is much if fortune do afford the like once in three ages They were first known to one another by report they sought one anothers acquaintance they found it by chance at a feast and became forthwith so taken so known and so obliged betwixt themselves that presently nothing became so intimate as the one to the other That it was not one special consideration nor two nor three nor four nor a thousand It was he knew not what quintessence of all which having seised his whole will brought it to be plunged and lost in his friends and his again in like manner with a pareil longing and concurrence in his own not reserving any thing that was proper to either of them nothing that was his or mine That such a friendship abolisheth all words of difference benefit obligation acknowledgement request remerciment or the like all in effect being common between them their wills thoughts judgements goods wives children honour and life and their agreement to be but one soul in two bodies And such a friendship he affirms to be discussive at all other obligations incompatible with any other friendship Though his life had been sweetly passed to the time of his writing without any other great affliction then the loss of his friend yet if he compare the whole to those four years wherein he enjoyed him that all the rest was but smoak or a dark and a tedious night to him In fine that thereafter he abandoned all pleasure since his Participant was gone since all the comforts in the world did but redouble to him the regret of his loss thus far that noble Humanist Let us yet hear another refined spirit of our own Nation I confess saith he I do not observe that order that the Schools ordain our affections to love our Parents wives children and then our friends For excepting the injunctions of religion I do not find in my self such a necessary and indissoluble sympathy to all those of my bloud I hope I do not break the fifth Commandment if I conceive I may love my friend before the nearest of my bloud even those to whom I owe the principles of life I never yet cast a true affection on a woman but I have loved my friend as I do vertue my soul my God There are wonders in true affection it is a body of Enigmaes mysteries and riddles wherein two so become one as they both become two I love my friend before my self and yet methinks I do not love him enough some few moneths hence my multiplyed affection will make me believe I have not loved him at all when I am from him I am dead till I be with him when I am with him I am not satisfied but would still be nearer him united souls are not satisfied with embraces but desire to be truly each other which being impossible their desires are infinite and must proceed without a possibility of satisfaction If we can bring our affections to look beyond the body and cast an eye upon the soul we have found out the true object not only of friendship but charity c. I am ashamed of transcribing their sense and eloquence hath imported me And yet I have maimed both by the culling But 't is more to my purpose then mine own What shall we say to all this If it were but wit or generosity pity to be wrack't or chopt with Logick but these are no ventets of smoak or chass If there be such an Amity what shall I think of my self if not what of these excellent persons that have dilivered it We must suffer such souls to have suffered somewhat extraordinary Therefore I am still either
querulous or inquisitive For what is that that I should love in such an Amity The person of my friend not for one special consideration nor two nor three nor four nor a thousand but a quintessence of I know not what that plungeth my will Will it not also plunge my reason while agreableness to my fancy is all that is in view While I seem to abstract from sense and pleasure will not this ingulf me in unwary sensuality Is it likeness How can I then love him before my self Or how can I have a principle before my self though it be to love my Creator and Redeemer Is it the unity that is between us Whether then do I love my self in Him or him in me Whether more Or how do I distinguish so as to prefer that in will and reason which in Nature is the later Besides souls have no union but of consent they know no plunging or confusion Therefore stil I am the rule and measure of my own affection and the constant principle to it My friend can be but a moral or objective informer to me He cannot bound or comprehend me much less can he circumscribe all my powers and my faculties though I may yield them to be determined at his pleasure So that I am plunged indeed in this Rhetorick though I would be loth to spoil so fair an argument But in what order shall we place this Amitie The learned Doctor prefers his Countrey But Montaigne hesitates in a fine story When Tiberius Gracchus was condemned of conspiracy C. Blosius his principal friend suspected of intelligence with him was convented before the Consuls who demanding of him what he would do for Gracchus answered All things And what if he had commanded you to burn our Temples He would never have done it replied Blosius But what if he had said he I would have done it Whereupon my Author Those which accuse this answer as seditious do not apprehend this mystery nor presuppose as it was in reality that Blosius had the will of Gracchus in his sleeve both by power and cognisance They were more friends then Citisens more friends then friends or enemies of their Countrey then friends of ambition and trouble Having perfectly committed themselves one to the other they held perfectly the reins of one anothers inclination And make them to guide this harness by vertue and the conduct of reason as it is impossible to suppose it without the answer of Blosius was as it should be What do we think of this If the judgement of one lead him unto Treason by vertue and the conduct of reason as he supposeth must the others too Again must we prefer our friend or vertue If our friend we are as before If vertue our wives and children at the least have a preobligement on us And vertue defends any intercession of a later act of choice between the first and the pledges of God and Nature Some things are incommunicable of their own Nature of all others friendship may have power But it cannot by seising of my soul procure that I should not be perswaded as I judge that I should not will what I think most meet Nay external things My Prince and Countrey bear away my allegiance and the rights of my wife and children are inviolate against the necessities of my friend but not the hazarding of them if it ly in my power I can do no more but communicate with him in all I am and have that is communicable But methinks my Authors has improved this Notion very curiously when he tells us that such a friendship abolisheth all words of difference benefit obligation request or remerciement c. And so it seems to me in comparison that the dearest friends cannot be beholden the one to the other cannot exceed or surpass one another nor have any thing private saving wherein privacy advantageth community For if our thoughts and apprehensions were plainly one now should there be place for advice and councel If our mutual endeavours did meet one another in the same actions how could their be accommodation If estates and interests were not distinct how should one have to supply what the other wanted But such is the Candour of benevolence making no account or difference of penury or abundance in one subject so either be supplyed or both alike miserable Wherefore a miserable man is not capable of this beatitude Now 't was ever agreed that the friendship of dearness cannot extend unto many My Author seems to hold not only that it cannot be beyond a duality but that one failing the other never can repair it Though a man may renew his espousals he must live a perpetual widower to his friend Indeed we cannot put but one in the superlative degree but a father of 20. children may have so natural an affection to them all that he can hardly tell in all respects which to forego if he were put to the necessity of his choice And of a few friends when one is present he may be as the dearest when another comes he may be in balance Gold may weigh against Gold when the pieces the scales are both even And it is not probably want of high affections that holds the common lover of more friends in this suspense but only want of partiality acting by the goodness of his Nature and not calling reason to distinguish Of this unique Amity we are the less sollicitous because it is not properly any part or consequent of a Good Nature but only of some Heroick vertue if any such be in Nature whose effects are impossible to be truly each other and desires infinite to be satisfied with enjoyment whereas by Nature never any tendency was in vain But by this I am put upon examining what kind of passions I have ever found within my own breast towards an high Amity In my childhood I found the first allective of my affections was admiration When I saw any of my play-fellows of a jovial hardy and complyant Nature fashion'd to his own pleasure and others favour I remember I were wont to have an unquiet fondness to be endeared to him sometimes with more sometimes with less success until my passions oft returning weary disappointed finding as I imagine spirits light and aiery to be made to favour rather then affection and that friendship could not be without somewhat of the deep humour became timerous sollicitous about the next objects that I assayled thinking that I wanted wit or spirit to go about to gain any one since I still seemed to my self to love more then to have been beloved Therefore where I found my childish accoglienzaes answered I thought my self beholden and were ready to spoil all by being over-busy with my foolish kindnesses But when I came to have learned some letters I found to be of one form of one exercise and often one in fault together one punishment was a means of endearing me to one or other of my
Classis and that indeed there was some geniality in that affection that was able to hold us great friends in the University Addicting my self to some study I had a fit of great regret of the times past like the pang of Doctor Faustus who desired of his familiar to see Rosamond that had been dead an 100 years before I could not be satisfied for want of pictures to represent those brave men whom I read and read of thinking that they had left no commendation possible for posterity Nay at last I could not be kind with my stars because I were not born to know and live in the constant sight of that most accomplish't and taking person the immortal Sir P. Sidney under whose two pictures I have stood gazing at wilton-house till shame has impell'd me to look on other things with little notice and desire has brought me back again In the ardour of my youth those same vagary qualities that keep women from being tame and entice us with we know not what Graces as the birds in the air render themselves amiable as they fly in their party-coloured feathers which being taken are despised allured me no otherwise in men suspecting still there was more in such persons than I could discover and holding me enamour'd to the objects of my suspicion which touched me in things as well as persons So that being ready to visit France I expected to find as much difference as if they had had another Heaven and Earth then we enjoy And so I found my self in vain affected at the Key of Calais there being a goodly high wall and magnificent towards the sea and an indifferent town within it Since I came to years of discretion which I am feign to account by law rather then by reason admiration ceased but not that opinion that there are some inimitable qualities and graces in certain persons which do necessarily draw my heart to a bien-veilance and a passion of acquaintance yet it seems to me when I have made my addresses that not what i like in them so much as what they like in me is my assured ground of friendship but if I am sought unto by any that has so mean a spirit then what I like in them only or in their intention is my obligement for I ask no more but rectitude other accomplishments I account matter of respect but only this of true affection And having found this but in divers breasts I cannot complain of the falseness of the world as many do which should rather reflect on the fallacy of their former judgements their oscitancy of conversation but rather of my own deficiencies if I have not any one friendship high and absolute Nothing is more molestation to me then to apprehend that the meanest of my friends is unsatisfied in any thing of my behaviour that the best should not be highly drawen and allured with the postures and expressions of my affection Of reality I cannot doubt feeling how effectual it is within myself but to noble strains and advancements every wit and spirit is not proper Only when Stars meet they leap into conjunction and accomplish their own orbe and amuse the world with their light and splendour In brief that I may not spoil my character with too much oftentation I account my friendship my repast my entertainment my diversion my religion and no fault to be so great as any Act of pride or ingratitude that tendeth to dissolve it I love with vertue and I love for vertue to what degree soever I observe it yet I do not covet to Monopolize any one unto my self that he should love no other besides me I do not think that I can deserve so much of any man nor am I myself willing to be sequestred But I love to walk and talk and intermingle with all the world taking such friendship for restraint and no bounty which shall go about to abridge me or confine me save only in respect of special Acts and services I am contented to live only at the rate of a Good Nature without attaining higher glory or seeking of an Amity in Unity and an Unity in Identity of soules or of Platonical Ideaes which every man that can be a friend cannot understand or hardly any other who is so perswaded as generally we are of creation and production of things visible § VII When I would dispatch I am incumbred I did not think there had been so much in hospitality Whoever receiveth me with a good look is presently become my Host and a mans bounty is a much seen in his countenance as at his Table Sometimes an invitation obligeth more then an entertainment commonly the lesser feasts are the more gracious and the meaner houses and narrow entries afford the more receipt within The fair City of Siena hath an ancient wall and a strait gate but with his inscription that slack'd my weariness when I arrived there Cor pandit tibi Sena magis Thy heart Siena's more enlarged then thy door And so it has reputation of the hospitablest Town in Italy I know not whether receiveth the more content in it he that affordeth a bounteous aspect or he that accepts it for it is no less hospitality to accept of kindness worthily then to bestow it freely A Good Nature is seen alike in both what joy and promptness is there in the action What love and service in the addresses of mind and body It stands not upon its provision Let decency or magnificence see to that If it have it it is ready to produce it If not it is not abashed it absents not itself it supplies as much as may be with good will and it may be grieved if things necessary be not in its power to procure Caesar in an house where he was honestly entertained dipped his salad freely in corrupted oyl which by error was brought to the Table rebuking his company for taking notice of it and eat of it yet more freely to rebuke them save his Host from having any apprehension of it Such a value did he put upon a small punctilio of civility as some other might have reckon'd it but indeed it was no small matter in the reason which touched so nearly on the Coast of Gratitude And so I leave the rest of this vertue to liberality and her associates I know not but I may borrow somewhat from the next title if I entreat here of Charity first of that which receiveth strangers in and next of that that relieveth them without whether it be Humanity or Hospitality It is certainly a character of Good Nature which is more apt to condescend then to aspire and to yield to pity then to rise to glory The poor Mariner driven in by tempest is not to be questioned for his pratique nor an enemy ship-wrack't upon our Coast to be treated as a prisoner of war If it be in boistrous weather a poor Traveller is not sent to seek for a sign where Gentle people
excellent way of Charity to give for the love of God rather then for the love of our selves and our own quiet or any man and his relief but I do not think in Religion that they can be dis-joyned or distinguished As to say I give out of Charity not because I campassionate my Brother but because I am so commanded but I am commanded to have compassion if Nature do not give it me and so to exhibit I do not think that to give out of Good Nature is so much as a Moral vertue but a good disposition that by reason may be directed to any height or perfection whatsover but without it that neither will not reason can produce an Act of Charity So that still to advance reason or Religion is not to derogate from the simplicity of Nature which when Divines lay so low in corruption and imbecillity I suppose they mean in another sense then I intend § VIII I reckon not much what entertainment I have made but I am now ready to serve up the disette with a few sprinklings yet remaining under the notion of humanity with its adjuncts and embellishments knowing that the banquet is oftentimes more valuable then the whole meal 1. And first it is the part of humanity to refrain all disgusts to restrain all incommodities and to aid against the incursion of any evils in our common life Therefore it doth not cherish in it self any private humour of diet or repose or singular mode of carriage to be allow'd or yielded to it by any other it affecteth not usurpation of precedences or accommodations but is contented with such part as time and occasion and the persons present do freely and readily afford to it nor to fill any place with it self through vain glory and self commendation or assume all the talk or take upon it self to censure persons or judge of things nor admits of jeers or abuses or suffers the dead or the absent to be traduced or the simple to be too much disparaged It questions not the merit or the quality which any one pretends to though it discern an incomportment it makes no semblance of it it will not expose any one unless it be to detect some malice it helpeth good constructions being tender of others fame as it is of its own and desireth to have others so it taketh notice of distinctions being a sign of rudeness to come a second time into the Company of any Noble Person and not to know who he is it yieldeth honor to men of spirit and of vertuous acquirements though modest and to their arrogance too sometimes For in Ben Johnson's company they say that an absolute domination ruled with the pleasure of his subjects Further though a Good Nature do avoid oftentation for its own part yet is it not impatient of anothers impertinence or idle commendations of himself but rather sollicitous and concern'd for him how he will come off it is apt to bear a part of shame for him if he be impudent or with him if he be sensible as it often happens when he doth not find that applause that he expected I know not how it happens to ingenious spirits such as have real wit and real courage to be bashful when dunces and droans are confident is it a vertue or a weakness in them Only this we may observe as there is a laughter that sheweth no complacency so there is a blushing that argues sometimes a conscious guilt and no goodness sometimes a purpose of revenge And how do you think does blushing become a Blackmoor But where this passion doth express a sense or doubt thought it be but a misprision of any indecency or unhandsome faltring or miscarrying I cannot say it is it self a vertue but a token of it nor a weakness but a kind of remission such as is an ample satisfaction of it self for any small fault and a tacit promise of amendment for he that hath blushed for his mis-adventure ha's stopt all anger and has his pardon without asking which is some relief to such an one as knows That apologies are not to be made without reason neither are as other Compliments but intrench so much upon the Quality or discretion of the Author I should say more that it is an excellent token when blushes do not put out of countenance for then a vertuous confidence is seen under it which will soon recover and overcome it and then these foolish blushes do not misbecome but add a singular grace and lustre to a young face especially and to the other sex for who sees a Lady Blush and take it up handsomely can hardly escape to be enamour'd It is a sign of vertue which is more alluring then the fairest skin and neatest features in the world But still it is to be regarded how this suffusion is recollected for if the shamefulness proceed from ignorance or imbecillity it rather paints then lightens if it happen to a sullen nature it dejects and stains it they cannot presently resume their confidence and reduce it with a glory as our Good Nature can and can do no otherwise To restrain incommodities it behooves us also to bear our own infirmities and inconveniences and as much as possibly to conceal them that we may not disturb our friends or neighbours or impede the alacrity of our company Sick persons do retire and they that visit them come on purpose to condole and sympathize with them only they that have the Plague love to spread their infection and many that have the Itch and of this latter sort are the Querulous company that are ever complaining or finding fault with one or other being either old or crazy or prejudiced or otherwise distempered Nescio an Anticyram ratio illis destinet omnem Humanity requires us to take sometimes a part of others inconveniences upon our selves to alieviate them to personate another man sometimes to save a mischief that is coming towards him to bear a part of anothers blame when we are innocent and to conceal his to save anger or divert punishment for a Good Nature is averse to all punishment and inclin'd to all lenity It was a speech taken well from Nero and promising a better reign when a table was brought to him to be signed for the death of a malefactor he took the style saying of his own motion O quà m mallem nescisse literas O how I had rather that I could not write And as Tacitus has left the History he became worst the soonest that we ever read of any Nay it is but humanity sometimes to run voluntarily into danger to prevent a greater or a publick jeopardy And some one man has taken strangely upon himself A soldier of the Great Caesar took a pile into his own body to cover his Commander Curtius mounted and arm'd at all points leaped into a gulph to divert an ill Omen The two Decii devoted their lives for two victories Tribune with 400. soldiers took a mortal station to