Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A30645
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The Roman the conversation of the Romans and Mæcenas, in three excellent discourses / written in French by Monsieur de Balsac ; translated into English.
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Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.
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1652
(1652)
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Wing B617; ESTC R33129
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34,832
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164
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THE ROMAN THE CONVERSATION OF THE ROMANS AND MAECENAS In Three Excellent DISCOURSES Written in French By Monsieur de BALSAC Translated into English LONDON Printed by T. N. for J. Holden at the Anchor in the New Exchange 1652. THE STATIONER TO THE READER NOthing but great Subjects can fall from the pen of Monsieur de Balsac who having formerly ravished the world with his immortal Prince hath now for a choice cabinet piece illuminated in small an invincible Roman Neither can any pen so powerfully commend his as his own Even commending Antiquity he hath out-done it So that the present Age may glory that the Vertue of well speaking is as high as ever Nay hee hath so highly praised our Predecessors that with an unheard of Rhetorick he forcibly perswades the contrary ravisheth for himself what he seems to bestow on them So that by his example we need not doubt but Posterity is as capable of true Nobility And that Antiquity it self must confess that in parallel lines although the parallel must be after the first yet it may as wel be drawn above as below it But as he of Hero's so we may say of Writers there is but one Balsac And indeed his Translator thought it a bold attempt to make him speak English like himself and to dare copy so high a subject after so illustrious an hand And therfore conceals himselfe behind the Curtain and timerously bids me enquire of you whither he hath don the Authour right If you are therefore pleas'd wee are all so But we are all at a loss unlesse you favorably pardon the escapes of the Presse which are many and require thy judgement as well as the help of this Errata ERRATA PAg. 23. line 15. read ever p. 45 l. 6. r. Heroes p. 48. l. 11. Conversation begins the Paragraph Id. l. 18. r. Nations p. 98. l. 22. r. writes p. 120. l 11. r. he never fell p. 123. l. ult. r. noblenesse p. 125. l. 19. r. could p. 126. l. 1. r. modest p. 133. l. ult. r. appeas'd Ib. l. 14. r. it p. 134. l. 6. r. debated p. 135. l. 2. r. when p. 136. l. 8. r. even p. 137. l. ult. r. thornes p. 142. l. 16. r. of THE ROMAN TO The Lady Marquess of RAMBOVILLET Discourse I. WHAT hath been told you Madam is most true and if you desire an illustrious witness I will confirm it Caesar shall assure you in two or three places of his commentaries There is no doubt but those great souls of which we have so often discours'd were lodged in bodies of a mean size your Ancestors were Hero's but were not Gyants and the most part of their enemies had the advantage both in stature and bulk This historical truth being without difficulty received there can be nothing more just then the consequences drawn from thence That had the men of those times been weighed and valued by weight an Alman had been neer upon worth two Romans The Almans were both longer and larger The Galls were stronger and more numerous The Affricans richer and craftier The Greeks better polished and better skilled in the excercises of wrestling and coursing But the Romans fitter for command better disciplined and more knowing in war And with this discipline which some have called the foundation of the Empire the source of their Triumphs they have subjugated the strength the number the wealth the subtilty and even the vertue of other Nations You ought not to doubt but there was vertue in the Provinces The despising of death was common among the Barbarians The love of liberty and the desire of glory were not unknown unto them But Madam the tru use of al these things was to be found at Rome Rome was the Shop where the gifts of Heaven were wrought and where the goods of Nature were perfected It was she who first of all shewed to the world juditious Armies wise Wars It was she knew how to mix as it ought to be Art with Adventure Conduct with Fury and the Divine quality of the Understanding with the brutal actions of the Irascible part Whereby it appears That the Soul is Soveraign Artisan of all things aswel of Military Actions as of Civil Affairs The principal part of valor depends not on the organs of the Body neither is it a privation of reason and a simple overflowing of the Gall as the People fancy it 'T is neither the eies that see nor the eares that hear nor the arms that move 'T is the Soul as a Poet says quoted by Aristotle 'T is the Soul that doth all whithout which the eies were blinde the ears deaf the arms paralitical It is the principle and the author of all the operations of man By the Soul a child hath cast down a Giant and Bulls are led in a string By the Soul an Architect sitting still orders the work of a thousand Masons and builds Temples and Palaces By the Soul a Pilot without stirring workes more then all the Slaves at the oare and a man would vainly sweat to hoise and loose the sailes did he not find his way by the Stars By the Soul Madam a Consul having been commanded to make war against a King an Enemy to the Republick studied the way so well and became so knowing in a profession wherein he was altogether ignorant That going from the City a man of Peace he arrived at the Army a Great Captain and divests his robes to gain presently a battel Thus did your Predecessors commence Thus did they manage their first Armes Their Prentiship was a Master-peece I am confident you would see one of those people Can we finde out no way to shew you a Roman Consul Is there no safer and more innocent means then that of Magick to bring him whole from the place where he is For without doubt you would see him both in body and minde with that gravity which bred respect in the heart of Kings and ravished the people with admiration you would see him with that visible acknowledgeable Authority which accompanied him to Prison and banishment which dwelt with him when he had lost all whereof Fortune could not dispoyl him when she had reduced him to his shirt Here he is Madam who comes not from the Elizian fields nor from a fabulous habitation He comes forth of the Histories of Polibius or of some such like Country and methinks he deserves very well to be looked upon First he no less knows how to obey the Laws then he knows how to command men and with an elevation of spirit which sees the Crowns of Soveraigns beneath him he hath a soul wholly subject to the power of the people He reveres the sanctity of that power in the hands of a Tribun or of a furious Man or of an Enemy or perhaps of both Beleeving that to fail is the onely ill that can happen to an honest man He beleeves there are no faults little and making a religion of the
s certain that at the beginning God dispensed great largesses and although his arm is no shorter then it was yet are his hands less open then they were Besides birth-right which Antiquity hath over the latter times it hath had other advantages which ended with it and are not to be found in the succession It hath had vertues which our age is not capable of It belongs not to us to be Camillas and Catoes we want the vigour of such Men as those instead to provoke our courages they make our ambition despair They have rather braved us then instructed us by their actions By giving us examples they have obliged us to an uprofitable trouble They have given us what we cannot take These examples being of that height that there is no way to attain unto them I do not say Madam that in the most miserable times God cannot send some chosen Soul to make us remember his first Magnificence I will not deny but that hee may take a particular care of that soul and but that hee hath meanes to preserve it from the vices of the Court and the contagion of Custom In the most general stupidity of the world there is some one found to awakeÌ„ the rest who breaks the bounds of the age who is capable to conceiv the Idea of ancient vertue and to shew us that the miracles of History are still possible things It s true Madam there is such an one But this one makes no number he marks even sterility neither doth hee hinder this solitude Is there a priviledged soul an extraordinary person an Hero or two in all the world Yet is there not a multitude of Heroes There is no people of extraordinary persons There is no more a Rome nor Romans We must seek them under ruines and in their Monuments We must adore their Reliques in the Books I have told you of and in the places I have desired you to observe I at first thought to be quit having marked those places and chosen you those Books Yet are you not satisfied therewith and it seems you pretend that I should adde what is wanting to those Books The glories and triumphs of Rome satisfie not your curiosity It enquires of me some things more particular and less known You would desire Madam that I should shew you the Romans when they hid themselves and that I should open to you the door of their Cabinets After having seen them out of ceremony you would be acquainted with their conversation and know from me if so direct and elevated a greatness could stoop to the use of a common life could descend from affairs and employments even to sports and divertisements I doubt it not Madam all the houres of wise mens lives are not equally serious Their souls are not always extended nor always contracted yet in the same vigor though not the same action Does any man believe that the Sibarites only loved Feasts and that they alone rejoiced The Romans did it also But they did it in another manner loved other manner of Feasts A voluptuousnesse which riseth higher then sense which seeks the superiour part and fills it with images That holy chast and altogether innocent pleasure which acts on the mind without changing it or moves it with so much sweetnesse that it stirs not out of its place or with so much addresse that it removes it to a better place then it had This pleasure Madam was not a passion unworthy of your Romans Scipio and Laelius used it without scruple Augustus and his friends were of those honest voluptuous persons The Senate and the Field Civil affairs and Military actions had their seasons conversation The Theatre and Verse had theirs The pleasures of the mind were never better tasted then by them and with the same hands with which they gain'd Victories and signed the fate of Nariaeis they wrote Comedies or applauded those who acted them before them There is not every day Hannibals to bee conquered nor an Africa to bee subjugated Antony and the sonnes of Pompey died but every one once And then came the general Calm in which the most turbulent were at leisure and the world suffered it self to be as peaceably governed as if it had been but one family So that they have sometimes wanted enemies sometimes rested in peace And in this State Madam why should they have made wars against themselves why should they have sought enemies in their owne bowels why should they give themselves a prey to a distemper worse then Hannibal and more cruel then Africa Why should they bee afraid to rejoice there being no body to disturb their joy The Sicilian Sea being scoured and Aegypt reduced into a Province Sixius Pompey and Mark Antony being onely names and phantasmes I must confesse Madam the desire of glory was a ruling passion But Tyrants themselves doe not always reigne tyrannically 'T was the feavour of their minds but this feavour did not always burne them with an equall ardour it had as well its releases as its doubles And do you not believ Scipio was out of his high fit when he gathered Cockles on the Sea shoar with his friend or when he lent his words to Cremes and Micio in the Fables of Terence I undertake not here to decide whether he his friend were the true Authours of those Fables It sufficeth me to say That probably they were the first approvers and that they loved them if they did not make them And it may even be That the Poet changed the disposition of some scenes by their advice and that some half verses of theirs may be there And what we finde finest and best ajuâ—ed was not so much what hee borrowed from the works of Menander as what he hâ—d learnt from the conversation of Scipio As for the Emperour Augustus in whose person I consider the end of their good days as I doe the flower of them in that of Scipio It s most true Madam that hee hath judged most wholesomly of the value and merit of every thing and that he loved Glory but that he hated not Pleasure I speak of Pleasure in general because hee tasted of all and having afforded his senses very much he refused his Mind nothing He discerned good and fair in all the subjects wherein it was to be found and for that enquiry he employ'd the best skilled and most curious spies so that they left nothing for the succeeding ages to discover I dare not say as one hath already said that the Muses were his Buffoons and Iesters 't is an injurious and an uncivil word I shall onely say they had the honour to bee his familiars and his domesticks and at that time they were of his Court and Cabinet They were at least call'd at houres of conversation if not to the deliberation of affaires and if it bee too much to say that Virgil was the Fourth of the Councel held between Augustus and his two friends To know whether he