life but for five or six moneths And in our fathers daies Lodowicke Sforce tenth Duke of Millane vnder whom the state of Italie had so long beene turmoiled and shaken was seene to die a wretched prisoner at Loches in France but not till he had lived and lingered ten yeares in thraldome which was the worst of his bargaine The fairest Queene wife to the greatest King of Christendome was she not lately seene to die by the hands of an executioner Oh vnworthie and barbarous crueltie And a thousand such examples For it seemeth that as the sea-billowes and surging waves rage and storme against the surly pride and stubborne height of our buildings So is there above certain spirits that envie the rising prosperities and greatnesse heere below Vsque adeò res humanas res abdita quaedam Obterit pulchros fasces savásque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur A hidden power so mens states hath out worne Faire swordes fierce scepters signes of honours borne It seemes to trample and deride in scorne And it seemeth Fortune doth sometimes narrowly watch the last day of our life thereby to shew her power and in one moment to overthrow what for many yeares together she had beene erecting and makes vs crie after Laberius Nimirum hac die vna plus vixi mihi quà m vivendum fuit Thus it is I have lived longer by this one day than I should So may that good advise of Solon be taken with reason But for somuch as hee is a Philosopher with whom the favours or disfavours of fortune and good or ill lucke have no place and are not regarded by him and puissances and greatnesses and accidents of qualitie are well nigh indifferent I deeme it very likely he had a further reach and meant that the same good fortune of our life which dependeth of the tranquilitie and contentment of a wel-borne minde and of the resolution and assurance of a well ordered soule should never be ascribed vnto man vntill he have beene seene play the last act of his comedie and without doubt the hardest In all the rest there may besome maske either these sophisticall discourses of Philosophie are not in vs but by countenance or accidents that never touch vs to the quick give vs alwaies leasure to keep our countenance setled But when that last part of death and of our selves comes to be acted then no dissembling will availe then is it high time to speake plaine english and put off all vizards then whatsoever the pot containeth must be shewne be it good or bad foule or cleane wine or water Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo Eijciuntur eripitur persona manet res For then are sent true speeches from the heart We are our selves we leave to play a part Loe heere why at this last cast all our lives other actions must be tride and touched It is the master-day the day that judgeth all others it is the day saith an auncient Writer that must judge of all my forepassed yeares To death do I referre the essay of my studies fruit There shall wee see whether my discourse proceede from my heart or from my mouth I have seene divers by their death either in good or evill give reputation to all their forepassed life Scipio father in law to Pompey in well dying repaired the ill opinion which vntill that houre men had ever held of him Epaminondas being demanded which of the three he esteemed most either Chabrias or Iphicrates or himselfe It is necessary said he that we be seene to die before your question may well be resolved Verily we should steale much from him if he should be weighed without the honour and greatnesse of his end God hath willed it as he pleased but in my time three of the most execrable persons that ever I knew in all abomination of life and the most infamous have beene seen to die very orderly and quietly and in every circumstance composed even vnto perfection There are some brave and fortunate deaths I have seene her cut the twine of some mans life with a progresse of wonderfull advancement and with so worthie an end even in the flowre of his growth and spring of his youth that in mine opinion his ambitious and haughtie couragious designes thought nothing so high as might interrupt them who without going to the place where he pretended arived there more gloriously and worthily than either his desire or hope aimed at And by his fall fore-went the power and name whether by his course he aspired When I judge of other mens lives I ever respect how they have behaved themselves in their end and my chiefest study is I may well demeane my selfe at my last gaspe that is to say quietly and constantly The nineteenth Chapter That to Philosophie is to learne how to die CIcero saith that to Philosophie is no other thing than for a man to prepare himselfe to death which is the reason that studie and contemplation doth in some sort withdraw our soule from vs and severally employ it from the body which is a kind of apprentisage and resemblance of death or else it is that all the wisedome and discourse of the world doth in the end resolve vpon this point to teach vs not to feare to die Truely either reason mockes vs or it only aimeth at our contentment and in fine bends all her trauell to make vs live wel and as the holy Scripture saith at our ease All the opinions of the world conclude that pleasure is our end how be it they take divers meanes vnto and for it else would men reject them at their first comming For who would giue eare vnto him that for it's end would establish our paine and disturbance The dissentions of philosophicall sects in this case are verball Transcurramus solertissimas nugas Let vs runne over such over-fine fooleries and subtill trifles There is more wilfulnesse and wrangling among them than pertaines to a sacred profession But what person a man vndertakes to act he doth ever therewithall personate his owne Although they say that in vertue it selfe the last scope of our aime is voluptuousnes It pleaseth me to importune their eares still with this word which so much offends their hearing And if it imply any chiefe pleasure or exceeding contentments it is rather due to the assistance of vertue than to any other supply voluptuousnes being more strong sinnowie sturdie and manly is but more seriously voluptuous And we should give it the name of pleasure more favorable sweeter and more naturall and not terme it vigor from which it hath his denomination Should this baser sensuality deserue this faire name it should be by competencie and not by privilege I finde it lesse voide of incommodities and crosses than vertue And besides that her taste is more fleeting momentarie and fading she hath her fasts her eves and her travels and both sweate and blood Furthermore she hath perticularly
to encourage vs have more shew then force and more ornament then fruit Wee have forsaken nature and yet wee will teach her her lesson Shee that lead vs so happily and directed vs so safely And in the meane while the traces of her instructions and that little which by the benefit of ignorance remaineth of her image imprinted in the life of this rusticall troupe of vnpolished men learning is compelled to goe daily a borrowing thereby to make her disciples a patterne of constancie of innocencie and of tranquillitie It is a goodly matter to see how these men full of so great knowledge must imitate this foolish simplicitie yea in the first and chiefe actions of vertue And that our wisedome should learne of beasts the most profitable documents belonging to the chiefest and most necessari parts of our life How we should live and die husband our goods love and bring vp our children and entertaine justice A singular testimonie of mans infirmitie and that this reason we so manage at our pleasure ever finding some diversitie and noveltie leaveth vnto vs no maner of apparent tracke of nature Wherwith men have done as perfumers doe with oile they have adulterated her with so many argumentations and sofisticated her with so diverse farre-fetcht discourses that she is become variable and peculiar to every man and hath lost her proper constant and vniuersall visage whereof we must seeke for a testimonie of beasts not subject to favor or corruption nor to diversitie of opinions For it is most true that themselves march not alwayes exactly in natures path but if they chance to stray it is so little that you may ever perceive the tracke Even as horses led by hand doe sometimes bound and start out of the way but no further then their halters length and neverthelesse follow ever his steps that leadeth them And as a Hawke takes his flight but vnder the limites of hir cranes or twyne Exilia tormenta bella morbos naufragia meditare vt nullo sis malo tyro Banishments torments warres sicknesses shipwracks all these fore-cast and premeditate that thou maiest seeme no novice no freshwater Souldier to any misadventure What availeth this curiositie vnto vs to preoccupate all humane natures inconveniences and with so much labour and toyling against them to prepare our selves which peradventure shall nothing concerne vs Parem passis tristitiam facit patiposse It makes men as sad that they may suffer some mischiefe as if they had suffred it Not onely the blow but the winde and cracke strikes vs Or as the most febricitant for surely it is a kinde of fever now to cause your selfe to be whipped because fortune may one day chance to make you endure it and at Mid-Sommer to put-on your furr'd Gowne because you shall neede it at Christmas Cast your selves into the experience of all the mischiefes that may befall you namely of the extreamest there try your selfe say they there assure your selfe Contrarywise the easiest and most naturall were even to discharge his thought of them They will not come soone enough their true being doth not last vs long enough our spirit must extend and lengthen them and before hand incorporate them into himselfe and therewith entertaine himselfe as if they lay not sufficiently heavy on our senses They will weigh heavy enough when they shall be there saith one of the maisters not of a tender but of the hardest Sect meane while favour thy selfe Beleeve what thou lovest best What availes it thee to collect and prevent thy ill fortune and for feare of the future lose the present and now to be miserable because in time thou maiest bee so They are his owne wordes Learning doth vs willingly one good office exactly to instruct vs in the demensions of evils Curis acuens mortalia corda Mens cogitations whetting With sharpe cares inly fretting It were pitty any part of their greatnesse should escape our feeling and vnderstanding It is certaine that preparation vnto death hath caused more torment vnto most than the very sufferance It was whilome truely said of and by a most judicious Authour Minus afficit sensus fatigatiâ— quà m cogitatio Wearinesse lesse troubleth our senses then pensiâ—enesse doth The apprehension of present death doth sometimes of it selfe aâ—nimate vs with a ready resolution no longer to avoide a thing altogether inevitable Many Gladiators have in former ages beene seene having at first fought very cowardly most couragiously to embrace death offering their throate to the enemies sword yea and bidde them make haste The sight distant from future death hath neede of a slowe constancy and by consequence hard to bee found If you know not how to die take no care for it Nature her selfe will fully and sufficiently teach you in the nicke she will exactly discharge that worke for you trouble not your selfe with it Incert am frustra mortales funeris horam Quaeritis qua sit mors aditur a via Pana minor certam subitò perferreâ—â—inam Quod time as gravius sustinuisse diâ— Of death th' vncertaine houre you men in vaine Enquire and what way leath shall you distraine A certaine sodaine ruine is lesse paine More grievous long what you feare to sustaine We trouble death with the care of life and life with the care of death The one annoyeth the other assrights vs. It is not against death we prepare our selves it is a thing too momentary A quarter of an houre of passion without consequence and without annoyance deserves not particular precepts To say truth we prepare our selves against the preparations of death Philosophy teacheth vs ever to have death before our eyes to fore-see and consider it before it come Then giveth vs rules and precautions so to provide that such foresight and thought hurt vs not So doe Physitians who cast vs into diseases that they may employ their drugges and skill about them If we have not knowen how to live it is injustice to teach vs how to die and deforme the end from all the rest Have wee knowen how to live constantly and quietly wee shall know how to die resolutely and repâ—sedly They may bragge as much as they please Tota Philosophorum vita commentatio mortis est The whole life of a Philopher is the meditation of his death But me thinkes it is indeede the end yet not the scope of life It is her last it is her extremity yet not her object Hir selfe must be vnto hirselfe hir aime hir drift and her designe Hir direct studie is to order to direct and to suffer hir selfe In the number of many other offices which the generall and principall Chapter to know how to live containeth is this speciall Article To know how to die And of the easiest did not our owne feare weigh it downe To judge them by their profit and by the naked truth the lessons of simplicity yeeld not much to those which Doctrine preacheth to the contrary vnto vs. Men are different in feeling and
diverse in force they must be directed to their good according to themselves and by divers waies Quò me cumque rapit tempestas deferor hospes Where I am whirld by winde and wether I guest-like straight am carried thether I never saw meane paisant of my neighbours enter into cogitation or care with what assurance or countenance hee should passe this last houre Nature teacheth him never to muze on death but when he dieth And then hath hee a better grace in it than Aristotle whom death perplexed doubly both by her selfe and by so long a premeditation Therefore was it Caesars opinion that The least premeditated death was the happiest and the easâ—est Plus dolet quà m necesse est qui ante dolet quà m necesse est He grieves more than he need That grieves before he neede The sharpenesse of this imagination proceedes from our curiosity Thus we ever hinder our selves desiring to fore-runne and sway naturall prescriptions It is but for Doctors being in health to fare the worse by it and to frowne and startle at the image of death The vulgar sort have neither neede of remedy nor comfort but when the shocke or stroke commeth And justly considers no more of it than hee seeleth And is it not as we say that the vulgares stupidity and want of apprâ—hension affoorde them this patience in private evils and this deepe carelesnes of sinister future accidents That their mind being more grosse dull and blockish is lesse penetrable and agitable In Gods name if it be so let vs hence forth keepe a schoole of brutality It is the vtmost fruit that Sciences promise vnto vs to which she so gently bringeth her disciples We shall not want good teachers interpreters of naturall simplicity Socrates shall be one For as neare as I remember he speaketh in this sence vnto the Iudges that determine of his life I feare me my maisters saith hee that if I intreate you not to make me die I shall confirme the evidence of my accusers which is That I professe to have more vnderstanding than others as having some knowledge more secret and hidde of things both above and beneath vs. I know I have neither frequented nor knowen death nor have I seene any body that hath either felt or tried her qualities to instruct me in them Those who feare her presuppose to know As for me I neither know who or what shee is nor what they doe in the other worlde Death may peradventure be a thing indifferent happily a thing desirable Yet is it to bee beleeved that if it be a transmigration from one place to another there is some amendement in going to live with so many worthy famous persons that are deceased and be exempted from having any more to doe with wicked and corrupted Iudges If it be a consummation of ones being it is also an amendement and entrance into a long and quiet night Wee finde nothing so sweete in life as a quiet rest and gentle sleepe and without dreames The things I know to be wicked as to wrong or offend ones neighbour and to disobey his superiour be he God or man I carefully shâ—nne them Such as I know not whether they bee good or bad I cannot feare them If I goe to my death and leave you alive the Gods onely see whether you or I shall prosper best And therefore for my regarde you shall dispose of it as it shall best please you But according to my fashion which is to counsell good and profitable things this I say that for your owne conscience you shall doe best to free and discharge mee except you see further into mine owne cause than my selfe And iudging according to my former actions both publike and private according to my intentions and to the profit that so many of our Cittizens both yoong and olde draw daily from my conversation and the fruit all you reape by me you cannot more iustly or duely discharge your selves toward my desertes than by appointing my poverty considered that I may live and at the common charge bee kept in the Brytanâ—o which for much lesse reasons I have often seene you freely graunt to others Impute it not to obstinacy or disdaine in mee nor takâ— it in ill part that I according to custome proceede not by way of inâ—râ—atie and moove you to commiseration I have both friends and kinsfolkes being not as Homer saith begotten of a blocke or stone no more than other men capable to present themselves humbly suing with teares and mourning and I have three desolate wailing children to moove you to pittie But I should make your Cittie ashamed of the age I am in and in that reputation of wisedome as now I stand in prevention to yeeld vnto so base and abiect countenances What would the worlde say of other Athenians I have ever admonished such as have heard me speake never to purchase or redeeme their life by any dishonest or vnlawfull act And in my countries warres both at Amphipolis at Potidea at Delia and others in which I have beene I have shewen by effects how farre I was from warranting my safety by my shame Moreover I should interest your duty and preiudice your calling and perswade you to feule vnlan full things for not my prayers but the pure and â—olide reasons of iustice should perswade you You have swâ—rne to the Gods so to maintaine your selves Not to beleeve there were any might seeme I would suspect recriminate or retorte the fault vpon you And my selfe should witnesse against my selfe not to beleeve in them as I ought distructing their conduct and not meerely remitting my affaires into their handes I wholly trust and relâ—e on them and certainely holde that in this they will dispose as it shall bee nocetest for you and fittest for me Honest men that neither live nor are dead have no cause at all to feare the Gods Is not this a childish pleading of an inimaginable courage and in what necessity employed Verily it was reason hee should preferre it before that which the great Orator Lysiaâ— had set downe in writing for him excellency fashioned in a judiciary Stile but vnworthie of so noble a criminall Should a man have heard an humbly-suing voice out of Socrates his mouth Would that prowde vertue have failed in the best of her shew And would his rich and powerfull nature have committed her defence vnto arte and in her highest Essay renounced vnto trueth and sinceritie the ornaments of his speech to adorne and decke himselfe with the embellishment of the figures and fictions of a fore-lern'nt Oration Hee did most wisely and according to himselfe not to corrupt the tenure of an incorruptible life so sacred an image of humane forme to prolong his decrepitude for one yeere and wrong the immortall memory of so glorious an end He ought his life not to himselfe but to the worlds example Had it not beene a publike losse if he had finished the same in some idle base
for all his enemies threates without speaking one word returned onely an assured sterne and disdainefull countenance vpon him which silent obstinacie Alexander noting said thus vnto himselfe What would hee not bend his knee could he not vtter one suppliant voyce I will assuredly vanquish his silence and if I can not wrest a word from him I will at least make him to sobbe or groane And converting his anger into rage commanded his heeles to bee through-pierced and so all alive with a cord through them to be torne maâ—gled and dismembred at a carts taile May it be the force of his courage was so naturall and peculiar vnto him that because he would no-whit admire him he respected him the lesse or deemed he it so proper vnto himselfe that in his height he could not without the spight of an envious passion endure to see it in an other or was the naturall violence of his rage incapable of any opposition surely had it received any restraint it may be supposed that in the ransacking and desolation of the Citie of Thebes it should have felt the same in seeing so many Worthies lost and valiant men put to the sword as having no meanes of publike defence for aboue six thousand were slaine and massacred of which not one was seene either to runne away or beg for grace But on the contrary some here and there seeking to affront and endevouring to check their victorious enemies vrging and provoking them to force them die an honourable death Not one was seene to yeelde and that to his last gaspe did not attempt to revenge himselfe and with all weapons of dispaire with the death of some enemie comfort and sweeten his owne miserie Yet could not the affliction of their vertue find any ruth or pitie nor might one day suâ—â—ice to glut or asswage his revengefull wrath This burcherous slaughter continued vnto the last drop of any remaining blood where none were spared but the vnarmed and naked the aged and impotent the women and children that so from amongst them they might get thirtie thousand slaves The second Chapter Of Sadnesse or Sorrowe NO man is more free from this passion than I for I neither love nor regard it albeit the world hath vndertaken as it were vpon covenant to grace it with a particular favour Therewith they adorne age vertue and conscience Oh foolish and base ornament The Italians have more properly with it's name entitled malignitie for it is a qualitie ever hurtfull ever sottisâ— and as ever base and coward the Stoikes inhibit their Elders and Sages to be therewith tainted or have any feeling of it But the Storie saith that Psamneâ—icus king of Aegypt hauing been defeated and taken by Cambises king of Persia seeing his owne daughter passe before him in base and vile aray being sent to draw water from a well his friends weeping wailing about him he with his eies fixed on the ground could not be mooved to vtter one word and shortly after beholding his sonne led to execution held still the same vndaunted countenance but perceiving a familiar friend of his haled amongst the captives he began to beat his head and burst forth into extreame sorrow This might well be compared to that which one of our Princes was lately seene to doe who being at Trent and receiving newes of his elder brothers death but such a brother as on him lay all the burthen and honour of his house and shortly after tidings of his yonger brothers decease who was his second hope and having with an vnmatched countenance and exemplar constancie endured these two affronts it fortuned not long after that one of his servants dying he by this latter accident suffered himselfe to be so far transported that quitting and forgetting his former resolution he so abandoned himselfe to all maner of sorrow and griefe that some argued only this last mischance had toucht him to the quicke but verily the reason was that being otherwise full and over plunged in sorrow the least surcharge brake the bounds and barres of patience The like might I say be judged of our storie were it not it followeth that Cambises inquiring of Psamneticus why he was nothing distempered at the misfortune of his sonne and daughter he did so impatiently beare the disaster of his friend It is answered he Because this last displeasure may be manifested by weeping whereas the two former exceede by much all meanes and compasse to bee expressed by teares The invention of that ancient Painter might happily fitte this purpose who in the sacrifice of Iphigenia being to represent the griefe of the by-standers according to the qualitie and interest each one bare for the death of so faire so yong and innocent a Lady having ransacked the vtmost skill and effects of his art when he came to the Virgins father as if no countenance were able to represent that degree of sorrow he drew him with availe over his face And that is the reason why our Poets faine miserable Niobe who first having lost seaven sonnes and immediately as many daughters as one over-burthened with their losses to have beene transformed into a stone Diriguisse malis And grew as hard as stone By miserie and moane Thereby to expresse this mournfull silent stupiditie which so doth pierce vs when accidents surpassing our strength orewhelme vs. Verily the violence of a griefe being extreame must needs astonie the mind hinder the liberty of her actions As it hapneth at the sudden alarum of some bad tidings when wee shall feele ourselves surprised benummed and as it were deprived of al motion so that the soule bursting afterward forth into teares and complaints seemeth at more ease and libertie to loose to cleare and dilate it selfe Et via vix tandem voci laxata dolore est And scarse at last for speach By griefe was made a breach In the warres which king Ferdinando made against the widow of Iohn king of Hungaria about Buda a man at armes was particularly noted of all men forsomuch as in a certaine skirmish he had shewed exceeding prowesse of his body and though vnknowne beeing slaine was highly commended and much bemoaned of all but yet of none so greatly as of a Germane Lord called Raisciac as he that was amased at so rare vertue his body being recovered and had off this Lord led by a common curiositie drew neere vnto it to see who it might be and having caused him to be disarmed perceived him to be his owne sonne which knowne did greatly augment the compassion of all the camp he only without framing word or closing his eyes but earnestly viewing the dead body of his sonne stood still vpright till the vehemencie of his sad sorrow having suppressed and choaked his vitall spirits fell'd him starke dead to the ground Chipuo dir com'egli arde è in piâ—ciâ—l fâ—oÌ„co He that can say how he doth frie In pettie-gentle flames doth lie say those Lovers that would liuely
an aime either high or low in a matter so sudden It may rather be thought that fortune favoured their feare and which an other time might as well bee a meane to make them fall into the cannons-mouth as to avoid the same I cannot chuse if the cracke of a musket doe suddenly streeke mine eares in a place where I least looke for it but I must needs start at-it which I have seene happen to men of better sort than my selfe Nor doe the Stoickes meane that the Soule of their wisest man in any sort resist the first visions and sudden fantasies that surprise the same but rather consent that as it were unto a naturall subjection he yeelds and shrinks unto the loud clattering and roare of heaven or of some violent downefall for example-sake unto palenesse and contraction So likewise in other passions alwaies provided his opinion remaines safe and whole and the situation of his reason admit no tainting or alteration whatsoever and hee no whit consent to his fright and sufferance Touching the first part the same hapneth to him that is not wise but farre otherwise concerning the second For the impression of passions doth not remaine superficiall in him but rather penetrates even into the secret of reason infecting and corrupting the same He judgeth according to them and conformeth himselfe to them Consider precisely the state of the wise Stoicke Mens immota manet lachrymae volvuntur inanes His minde doth firme remaine Teares are distill'd in vaine The wise Peripatetike doth not exempt himselfe from perturbations of the mind but doth moderate them The thirteenth Chapter Of Ceremonies in the enterview of Kings THere is no subject so vaine that deserveth not a place in this rapsodie It were a notable discourtesie vnto our common rules both towards an equall but more toward a great person not to meete with you in your house if he have once warned you that he will come And Margaret Queene of Navarre was woont to say to this purpose That it was a kinde of incivilitie in a gentleman to depart from his house as the fashion is to meete with him that is comming to him how worthy soever he be and that it more agreeth with civilitie and respect to stay for him at home and there to entertaine him except it were for feare the stranger should misse his way and that it suffioeth to companie and waite vpon him when he is going away againe As for me I oftentimes forget both these vaine offices as one that endevoureth to abolish all maner of ceremonies in my house Some will bee offended at it what can I doe withall I had rather offend a stranger once then my selfe everie day for it were a continuall subjection To what end doe men avoid the servitude of Courts and entertaine the same in their owne houses Moreover it is a common rule in all assemblies that hee who is the meaner man commeth first to the place appointed forsomuch as it belongs to the better man to be staid-for and waited vpon by the other Neverthelesse we saw that at the enterview prepared at Merceilles betweene Pope Clement the seventh and Francis the first King of France the King having appointed all necessatie preparations went him-selfe out of the Towne and gave the Pope two or three dayes-leasure to make his entrie into it and to refresh himselfe before he would come to meete him there Likewise at the meeting of the said Pope with the Emperour at Bologna the Emperour gave the Pope advantage and leasure to be first there and afterward came himselfe It is say they an ordinarie ceremonie at enterparlies betweene such Princes that the better man should ever come first to the place appointed yea before him in whose countrey the assembly is and they take it in this sence that it is because this complement should testifie he is the better man whom the meaner goeth to seeke and that hee sueth vnto him Not only ech countrey but every Citie yea and every vocation hath his owne particular decorum I have every carefully beene brought vp in mine infancie and have lived in verie good company because I would not be ignorant of the good maners of our countrey of France and I am perswaded I might keepe a scoole of them I love to follow them but not so cowardly as my life remaine thereby in subjection They have some painefull formes in them which if a man forget by discretion and not by errour he shall no whit be disgraced I have often seene men proove vnmanerly by too much maners and importunate by over-much curtesie The knowledge of entertainment is otherwise a profitable knowledge It is as grace and beautie are the reconciler of the first accoastings of society and familiarity and by consequence it openeth the entrance to instruct vs by the example of others and to exploit and produce our example if it have any instructing or communicable thing in it The fourteenth Chapter Men are punished by too-much opiniating themselves in a place without reason VAlour hath his limites as other vertues have which if a man out-go he shall find himselfe in the traine of vice in such sort that vnlesse a man know their right bounds which in truth are not on a sudden easily hit vpon he may fall into rashnesse obstinacie and folly For this consideration grew the custome wee hold in warres to punish and that with death those who wilfully opiniate themselves to defend a place which by the rules of warre cannot be kept Otherwise vpon hope of impunitie there should be no cotage that might not entertaine an Armie The Lord Constable Momorancie at the siege of Pavia having beene appointed to passe over the river Tâ—siâ—e and to quarter himselfe in the suburbs of Saint Antonie being impeached by a tower that stood at the end of the bridge and which obstinately would needes hold out yea and to be battered caused all those that were with-in it to be hanged The same man afterward accompanying my Lord the Dolphin of France in his journey beyond the Alpes having by force taken the castle of Villane and all those that were within the same having by the â—urie of the Souldiers bin put to the sword except the Captaine and his Ancient for the same reason caused them both to be hanged and strangled As did also Captaine Martin du Bellay the Governour of Turin in the same countrey the Captaine of Saint Bony all the rest of his men having beene massacred at the taking of the place But for somuch as the judgement of the strength or weakenesse of the place is taken by the estimate and counterpoise of the forces that assaile it for som man might justly opinionate himselfe against two culverins that wold play the mad-man to expect thirtie cannons where also the greatnesse of the Prince conquering must be considered his reputation and the respect that is due vnto him there is danger a man should somewhat bend the ballance on that
side By which termes it hapneth that some have so great an opinion of themselves and their meanes and deeming it vnreasonable any thing should be woorthie to make head against them that so long as their fortune continueth they overpasse what hill or difficultie soever they finde to withstand or resist them As is seene by the formes of sommonings and challenges that the Princes of the East and their successors yet remaining have in vse so fierce so haughtie and so full of a barbarous kinde of commandement And in those places where the Portugales abated the pride of the Indians they found some states observing this vniuersall and inviolable law that what enemie soever he be that is overcome by the King in person or by his Lieutenant is exempted from all composition of ransome or mercie So above all a man who is able should take heed lest he fall into the hands of an enemie-judge that is victorious and armed The fifteenth Chapter Of the punishment of cowardise I Have heretofore heard a Prince who was a very great Captaine hold opinion that a souldier might not for cowardise of heart be condemned to death who sitting at his table heard report of the Lord of Veruins sentence who for yeelding vp of Bollein was doomed to loose his head Verily there is reason a man should make a difference betweene faultes proceeding from our weakenesse and those that grow from our malice For in the latter we are directly bandied against the rules of reason which nature hath imprinted in vs and in the former it seemeth we may call the same nature as a warrant because it hath left-vs in such imperfection and defect So as divers nations have judged that no man should blame vs for any thing we doe against our conscience And the opinion of those which condemne heretikes and miscreants vnto capitall punishments is partly grounded vpon this rule and the same which establisheth that a Iudge or an advocate may not be called to account for any matter committed in their charge through oversight or ignorance But touching cowardise it is certain the common fashion is to punish the same with ignominie and shame And some hold that this rule was first put in practise by the Law-giver Charondas and that before him the lawes of Greece were woont to punish those with death who for feare did runne away from a Battell where he onely ordained that for three daies together clad in womens attire they should be made to sit in the market-place hoping yet to have some service at their hands and by meanes of this reproch they might recover their courage againe Suffundere malis hominis sanguinem quà m effundere Rather moove a mans bloud to blush in his face than remoove it by bleeding from his body It appeareth also that the Romane lawes did in former times punish such as had runaway by death For Animianus Marcellinus reporteth that Iulian the Emperor condemned tenne of his Souldiers who in a charge against the Parthians had but turned their backes from it first to be degraded then to suffer death as he saith according to the ancient lawes who neverthelesse condemneth others for a like fault vnder the ensigne of bag and baggage to be kept amongst the common prisoners The sharp punishment of the Romanes against those Souldiers that escaped from Cannae and in the same warre against those that accompanied Ca. Fuluius in his defeate reached not vnto death yet may a man feare such open shame may make them dispaire and not only prove faint and cold friends but cruell and sharp enemies In the time of our forefathers the Lord of Franget Whilom Lieutenant of the Marshall of Chastillions companie having by the Marshall of Chabanes been placed Governor of Fontarabie instead of the Earle of Lude and having yeelded the same vnto the Spaniards was condemned to be degraded of all Nobilitie and not only himselfe but all his succeding posteritie declared villains and clownes taxable and incapable to beare armes which seuere sentence was put in execution at Lyons The like punishment did afterward al the Gentlemen suffer that were within Guise when the Earle of Nansaw entred the town and others since Neuerthelesse if there were so grosse an ignorance and so apparant cowardise as that it should exceede all ordinarie it were reason it should be taken for a sufficient proofe of inexcusable treacherie and knaverie and for such to be punished The sixteenth Chapter A tricke of certaine Ambassadors IN all my trauels I did ever observe this custome that is alwaies to learne something by the communication of others which is one of the bests schooles that may be to reduce those I confer withall to speake of that wherein they are most conversant and skilfull Basti al nochiero ragionar de'venti Albifolco de'â—ori lesue piaghe Conti il guerrier conti il pastor gl' armenti Sailers of windes plow-men of beastes take keep Let Souldiers count their wounds sheepheards their sheep For commonly we see the contrary that many chuse rather to discourse of any other trade than their own supposing it to be so much new reputation gotten witnes the quip Archidamus gaue Periander saying that he forsooke the credit of a good Phisitian to become a paltry Poet. Note but how Caesar displaieth his invention at large when he would have vs conceive his inventions how to build bridges and devises how to frame other war-like engins and in respect of that how close and succinct he writes when he speaketh of the offices belonging to his profession of his valour and of the conduct of his warre-fare His exploits prove him a most excellent Captain but he would be known for a skilfull Ingenier a qualitie somewhat strange in him Dionysius the elder was a very great chieftaine and Leader in warre as a thing best sitting his fortune but he greatly labored by meanes of Poetrie to assume high commendation vnto himselfe howbeit he had but little skill in it A certain Lawier was not long since brought to see a studie stored with all manner of bookes both of his owne and of all other faculties wherein he found no occasion to entertaine himselfe withall but like a fond cunning clarke earnestly busied himselfe to glosse and censure a fence or barricado placed over the screw of the studie which a hundred Captaines and Souldiers see every day without observing or taking offence at them Optat ephippia bâ—s piger optat arare caballus The Oxe would trappings weare The Horse ploughs-yoake would beare By this course you never come to perfection or bring any thing to good passe Thus must a man indevor to induce the Architect the Painter the Shoomaker to speake of their owne trade and so of the rest everie man in his vocation And to this purpose am I wont in reading of histories which is the subject of most men to consider who are the writers If they be such as professe nothing but bare learning the
pietie to take example by the humanity of Iesus Christ who ended his humane life at three and thirtie yeares The greatest man that ever was being no more than a man I meane Alexander the great ended his dayes and died also of that age How many severall meanes and waies hath death to surprise vs. Quid quisque vitet nunquum homini satis Cautum est in horas A man can never take good heede Hourely what he may shun and speede Iomit to speake of agues and pleurisies who would ever have imagined that a Duke of Brittanie should have beene stifled to death in a throng of people as Whilome was a neighbour of mine at Lyons when Pope Clement made his entrance there Hast thou not seene one of our late Kings slaine in the middest of his sportes and one of his ancestors die miserably by the chocke of an hog Eschilus fore-threatned by the fall of an house when he stood most vpon his guard strucken dead by the fall of a Tortoise shell which fell out of the tallans of an Eagle flying in the aire and another choaked with the kernell of a grape And an Emperour die by the scratch of a combe whilest he was combing his head And Aemylius Lepidus with hitting his foote against a doore-seele And Aufidius with stumbling against the Consull-Chamber doore as he was going in thereat And Cornelius Gallus the Praetor Tigillinus Captaine of the Romane watch Lodowike sonne of Guido Gonzaga Marquis of Mantua end their daies betweene womens thighs And of a farre worse example Speusippus the Plantonian Philosopher and one of our Popes Poore Bebius a judge whilest he demurreth the sute of a plaintife but for eight daies behold his last expired And Caius Iulius a Physitian whilest he was annointing the eies of one of his patients to have his ownesight closed for ever by death And if amongst these examples I may adde one of a brother of mine called Captaine Saint Martin a man of three and twentie yeares of age who had alreadie given good testimonie of his worth and forward valor playing at tennis received a blow with a ball that hit him a little above the right care without apparance of any contusion bruse or hurt and never sitting or resting vpon it died within six houres after of an Apoplexie which the blow of the ball caused in him These so frequent and ordinary examples hapning and being still before our eies how is it possible for man to forgo or forget the remembrance of death and why should it not continually seeme vnto vs that shee is still ready at hand to take vs by the throat What matter is it will you say vnto me how and in what manner it is so long as a man do not trouble and vex himselfe therewith I am of this opinion that howsoeuer a man may shrowd or hide himselfe from her dart yea were it vnder an oxe-hide I am not the man would shrinke backe it sufficeth me to live at my ease and the best recreation I can have that do I evertake in other matters as little vainglorious and exemplare as you list praetulerim delirus inérsque videri Dum mea delectent mala me vel denique fallant Quà m sapere ringi A dotard I had rather seeme and dull So me my faults may please make me a gull Than to be wise and beat my vexed scull But it is folly to thinke that way to come vnto it They come they goe they trot they daunce but no speech of death All that is good sport But if she be once come and on a sudden and openly surprise either them their wiues their children or their friends what torments what out-cries what rage and what dispaire doth then overwhelme them saw you ever any thing so drooping so changed and so distracted A man must looke to it and in better times fore-see it And might that brutish carelessenesse lodge in the minde of a man of vnderstanding which I find altogether impossible she sels vs her ware at an over deere rate were she an enemie by mans wit to be auoided I would advise men to borrow the weapons of cowardlinesse but since it may not be and that be you either a coward or a runaway an honest or valiant man she overtakes you Nempe sugacempersequitur virum Nec parcit imbellis inuenta Poplitibus timidóque tergo Shee persecutes the man that flies Shee spares not weake youth to surprise But on their hammes and backe turn'd plies And that no temper of cuirace may shield or defend you Ille licet ferro cautus se condat aere Mors tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput Though he with yron and brasse his head empale Yet death his head enclosed thence will hale Let vs learne to stand and combate her with a resolute minde And begin to take the greatest advantage she hath vpon vs from her let vs take a cleane contrary way from the common let vs remove her strangenesse from her let vs converse frequent and acquaint our selves with her let vs have nothing so much in minde as death let vs at all times and seasons and in the vgliest manner that may be yea with all faces shapen and represent the same vnto our imagination At the stumbling of a horse at the fall of a stone at the least prick with a pinne let vs presently ruminate and say with our selves what if it were death itselfe and thereupon let vs take heart of grace and call our wits together to confront her A middest our bankets seasts and pleasures let vs ever have this restraint or object before vs that is the remembrance of our condition and let not pleasure so much mislead or transport vs that we altogether neglect or forget how many waies our joyes or our feastings be subject vnto death and by how many hold-fasts shee threatens vs and them So did the Aegyptians who in the middest of their banquetings and in the full of their greatest cheere caused the anatomie of a dead man to be brought before them as a memorandum and warning to their guests Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora. Thinke every day shines on thee as thy last Welcome it will come whereof hope was past It is vncertaine where death looks for vs let vs expect hir everie where the premeditation of death is a fore-thinking of libertie He who hath learned to die hath vnlearned to serve There is no evill in life for him that hath well conceived how the privation of life is no evill To know how to die doth freevs from all subjection and constraint Paulus Aemâ—â—us answered one whom that miserable king of Macedon his prisoner sent to entreate him he would not leade him in triumph let him make that request vnto himselfe Verily if Nature afforde not some helpe in all things it is very hard that arte and industrie should goe farre before
Of my selfe I am not much given to melancholy but rather to dreaming and sluggishnes There is nothing wherewith I have ever more entertained my selfe than with the imaginations of death yea in the most licentious times of my age Iucundum cùm aetas florida ver ageret When my age flourishing Did spend it's pleasant spring Being amongst faire Ladies and in earnest play some have thought me busied or musing with my selfe how to digest some jealousie or meditating on the vncertaintie of some conceived hope when God he knowes I was entertaining my selfe with the remembrance of some one or other that but few daies before was taken with a burning feuer and of his sodaine end comming from such a feast or meeting where I was my selfe and with his head full of idle conceits of love and merry glee supposing the same either sicknes or end to be as neere me as him Iam fuerit nec post vnquam revocare licebit Now time would be no more You can this time restore I did no more trouble my selfe or frowne at such a conceit then at any other It is impossible we should not apprehend or feele some motions or startings at such imaginations at the first and comming sodainely vpon vs but doubtlesse he that shall manage and meditate vpon them with an impartiall eye they will assuredly in tract of time become familiar to him Otherwise for my part I should be in continuall feare and agonie for no man did evermore distrust his life nor make lesse account of his continuance Neither can health which hitherto I have so long enjoied and which so seldome hath bin crazed lengthen my hopes nor any sicknesse shorten them of it At every minute me thinkes I make an escape And I vncessantly record vnto my selfe that whatsoever may be done another day may be effected this day Truely hazards and dangers do little or nothing approach vs at our end And if we consider how many more there remaine besides this accident which in number more than millions seeme to threaten vs and hang over vs we shall find that be we sound or sicke lustie or weake at sea or at land abroad or at home fighting or at rest in the middest of a battell or in our beds she is ever alike neere vnto vs. Nemo altero fragilior est nemo in crastinum sui certior No man is meaker then other none surer of himselfe to live till to morrow Whatsoever I have to do before death all leasure to end the same seemeth short vnto me yea were it but of one houre Some body not long since turning over my writing tables found by chance a memoriall of something I would have done after my death I told him as indeed it was true that being but a mile from my house and in perfect health and lustie I had made hast to write it because I could not assure my selfe I should ever come home in safety As one that am ever hatching of mine owne thoughts and place them in my selfe I am ever prepared about that which I may be nor can death come when she please put me in mind of any new thing A man should ever as much as in him lieth be ready booted to take his journey and above all things looke he have then nothing to do but with himselfe Quid brevifortes iaculamur aevo Multa To aime why are we ever bold At many things in so short hold For then we shall have worke sufficient without any more accrease Some man complaineth more that death doth hinder him from the assured course of an hoped for victorie than of death itself another cries out he should give place to her before he have married his daughter or directed the course of his childrens bringing vp another bewaileth he must forgo his wives company another moaneth the losse of his children the chiefest commodities of his being I am now by meanes of the mercie of God in such a taking that without regret or grieving at any worldly matter I am prepared to dislodge whensoever he shall please to call me I am everie where free my farewell is soone taken of all my friends except of my selfe No man did ever prepare himselfe to quit the world more simply and fully or more generally spake of all thoughts of it then I am fully assured I shall do The deadest deaths are the best Miser ô miser aiunt omnia ademit Vna dies infesta mihi tot praemia vitae O wretch O wretch friends cry one day All ioies of life hath ta'ne away And the builder maneant saith he opera interrupta minaeque Murorumingentes The workes vnfinisht lie And walles that threatned hie A man should designe nothing so long afore hand or at least with such an intent as to passionate himselfe to see the end of it we are all borne to be doing Cùm moriar medium soluar inter opus When dying I my selfe shall spend Ere halfe by businesse come to end I would have a man to be doing and to prolong his lives offices as much as lieth in him and let death seize vpon me whilest I am setting my cabiges carelesse of her dart but more of my vnperfect garden I saw one die who being at his last gaspe vncessantly complained against his destenie and that death should so vnkindly cut him off in the middest of an historie which he had in hand and was now come to the fifteenth or sixteenth of our Kings Illud in his rebus non addunt nec tibi earum Iam desiderium rerum super insidet vna Friends adde not that in this case now no more Shalt thou desire or want things wisht before A man should rid himselfe of these vulgar and hurtfull humours Even as Churchyards were first placed adjoyning vnto churches and in the most frequented places of the Citie to enure as Lycurgus said the common people women and children not to be skared at the sight of a dead man and to the end that continuall spectacle of bones sculs tombes graves and burials should forewarne vs of our condition and fatall end Quin etiam exhilarare viris convivia caede Mos olim miscere epulis spectacula dira Certantum ferro saepe super ipsa cadentum Pocula resper sis non parco sanguine mensis Nay more the manner was to welcome guests And with dire shewes of slaughter to mix feasts Of them that fought at sharpe and with bords tainted Of them with much bloud who o're full cups fainted And even as the Aegyptians after their feastings and carowsings caused a great image of death to be brought in and shewed to the guests and by-standers by one that cried aloud Drinke and be mery for such shalt thou be when thou art dead So have I learned this custome or lesson to have alwaies death not only in my imagination but continually in my mouth And there is nothing I desire more to be informed of than
of the death of men that is to say what words what countenance and what face they shew at their death and in reading of histories which I so attentively observe It appeareth by the shuffling and hudling vp of my examples I affect no subject so particularly as this Were I a composer of bookes I would keepe a register commented of the diverse deaths which in teaching men to die should after teach them to live Dicearcus made one of that title but of an other and lesse profitable end Some man will say to me the effect exceedes the thought so farre that there is no fence so sure or cunning so certaine but a man shall either loose or forget if he come once to that point let them say what they list to premeditate on it giveth no doubt a great advantage and is it nothing at the least to go eso farre without dismay or alteration or without an ague There belongs more to it Nature herselfe lends her hand and gives vs courage If it be a short and violent death we have no leasure to feare it if otherwise I perceive that according as I engage my selfe in sicknesse I do naturally fall into some disdaine and contempt of life I find that I have more ado to disgest this resolution that I shall die when I am in health than I have when I am troubled with a feaver forsomuch as I have no more such fast hold on the commodities of life whereof I begin to loose the vse and pleasure and view death in the face with a lesse vndanted looke which makes me hope that the further I go from that and the neerer I approch to this so much more easily do I enter in composition for their exchange Even as I have tried in many other occurrences which Caesar affirmed that often somethings seeme greater being farre from vs than if they be neere at hand I have found that being in perfect health I have much more beene frighted with sicknesse than when I have felt it The jollitie wherein I live the pleasure and the strength make the other seeme so disproportionable from that that by imagination I amplifie these commodities by one moitie and apprehended them much more heauie and burthensome then I feele them when I have them vpon my shoulders The same I hope will happen to me of death Consider we by the ordinary mutations and daily declinations which we suffer how Nature deprives vs of the night of our losse and empairing what hath an aged man left him of his youths vigor and of his forepast life Heu senibus vitae portio quanta manet Alas to men in yeares how small A part of life is left in all Caesar to a tired and crazed Souldier of his guard who in the open streete came to him to beg leave he might cause himselfe to be put to death viewing his decrepit behauiour answered pleasantly Doest thou thinke to be alive then Were man all at once to fall into it I do not thinke we should be able to beare such a change but being faire and gently led on by her hand in a slow and as it were vnperceived descent by little and little and step by step she roules vs into that miserable state and day by day seekes to acquaint vs with it So that when youth failes in vs we feele nay we perceive no shaking or transchange at all in our selves which in essence and veritie is a harder death then that of a languishing and irkesome life or that of age Forsomuch as the leap from an ill being vnto a not being is not so dangerous or steeple as it is from a delightfull and flowrishing being unto a painfull and sorrowfull condition A weake bending and faint stooping bodie hath lesse strength to beare and vndergo a heauie burden So hath our soule She must be rouzed and raised against the violence and force of this adversarie For as 〈…〉 s impossible shee should take any rest whilest shee feareth whereof if she be assured which is a thing exceeding humane condition she may boast that it is impossible vnquietnesse torment and feare much lesse the least displeasure should lodge in her Non vulius instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae Nec fulminantis magna Iovis manus No vrging tyrants threatning face Where minde is sound can it displace No troublous wind the rough seas Master Nor Ioves great hand the thunder-caster She is made Mistris of her passions and concupiscence Lady of indulgence of shame of povertie and of all fortunes injuries Let him that can attaine to this advantage Herein consists the true and Soveraigne libertie that affords vs meanes wherewith to jeast and make a scorne of force and in justice and to deride imprisonment gives or fetters in manicis Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo Ipse Deus simul atque volam me solvet opinor Hoc sensit moriar mor◠vltima linearerum est In gyves and fetters I will hamper thee Vnder a Iayler that shall cruell be Yet when I will God me deliver shall He thinkes I shall die death is end of all Our religion hath had no surer humane foundation then the contempt of life Discourse of reason doth not onely call and summon vs vnto it For why should we feare to loose a thing which being lost cannot be moaned but also since we are threatned by so many kinds of death there is no more inconvenience to feare them all than to endure one what matter is it when it commeth since it is vnavoidable Socrates answered one that told him The thirty Tyrants have condemned thee to death And Nature them said he What fondnesse is it to carke and care so much at that instant and passage from all exemption of paine and care As our birth brought vs the birth of all things so shall our death the end of all things Therefore is it as great follie to weepe we shall not live a hundred yeeres hence as to waile we lived not a hundred yeeres agoe Death is the beginning of another life So wept we and so much did it cost vs to enter into this life and so did we spoile vs of our ancient vaile in entring into it Nothing can be grievous that is but once Is it reason so long to feare a thing of so short time Long life or short life is made all one by death For long or short is not in things that are no more Aristotle saith there are certaine litle beasts alongst the river Hyspanis that live but one day she which dies at 8. a clocke in the morning dies in her youth she that dies at 5. in the afternoon dies in her decrepitude who of vs doth not laugh when we shall see this short moment of continuance to be had in consideration of good or ill fortune The most the least in ours if we compare it with eternitie or equall it to
the lasting of mountaines rivers stars and trees or any other living creature is no lesse ridiculous But nature compels vs to it Depart saith she out of this world even as you came into it The same way you came from death to life returne without passion or amazement from life to death your death is but a peece of the worlds order and but a parcell of the worlds life inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt Mortall men live by mutuall entercourse And yeeld their life-torch as men in a course Shal I not change this goodly contexture of things for you It is the condition of your creation death is a part of your selves you flie from your selves The being you enjoy is equally shared between life and death The first day of your birth doth aswell addresse you to-die as to live Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit The first houre that to men Gave life strait cropt it then Nascentes morimur finisque ab origine pendet As we are borne we die the end Doth of th' originall depend All the time you liue you steale it from death it is at her charge The continuall work of your life is to contrive death you are in death during the time you continue in life for you are after death when you are no longer living Or if you had rather have it so you are dead after life but during life you are still dying death doth more rudely touch the dying then the dead and more lively and essentially If you haue profited by life you haue also beene fed thereby depart then satisfied Cur non vt plenus vitae conviva recedis Why like a full-fed guest Depart you not to rest If you have not knowne how to make vse of it if it were vnprofitable to you what neede you care to have lost it to what end would you enioy it longer cur amplius addere quaris Rursum quod pereat malè ingratum occidat omne Why seeke you more to gaine what must againe All perish ill and passe with griefe or paine Life in it selfe is neither good nor euill it is the place of good or evill according as you prepare it for them And if you have liued one day you have seene all one day is equal to all other daies There is no other light there is no other night This Sunne this Moone these Starres and this disposition is the very same which your forefathers enjoyed and which shall also entertaine your posteritie Non alium â—idâ—re patres aliúmue nepotes Aspicient No other saw our Sires of old No other shall their sonnes behold And if the worst happen the distribution and varietie of all the acts of my comedie is performed in one yeare If you have observed the course of my foure seasons they containe the infancie the youth the virilitie the old age of the world He hath plaied his part he knowes no other wilinesse belonging to it but to begin againe it will ever be the same and no other Versamur ibidem atque insumus vsque We still in one place turne about Still there we are now in now out Atque inse sua per vestigia volvitur annus The yeare into it selfe is cast By those same steps that it hath past I am not purposed to devise you other new sports Nam tibi praeterea quod machiner inveniámque Quod placeat nihil est eadem sunt omnia semper Else nothing that I can devise or frame Can please thee for all things are still the same Make roome for others as others have done for you Equalitie is the chiefe ground-worke of equitie who can complaine to be comprehended where all are contained So may you live long-enough you shall never diminish any thing from the time you have to die it is bootelesse so long shall you continue in that state which you feare as if you had died being in your swathing-clothes and when you were sucking licet quot vis vivendo vincere secla Mors aeterna tamen nihil ominus illa manebit Though yeares you live as many as you will Death is eternall death remaineth still And I will so please you that you shall have no discontent In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum Stánsque iacnetem Thou know'st no there shall be not other thou When thou art dead indeede that can tell how Alive to waile thee dying Standing to waile thee lying Nor shall you wish for life which you so much desire Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitámque requirit Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit vllum For then none for himselfe himselfe or life requires Nor are we of our selves affected with desires Death is lesse to be feared than nothing if there were any thing lesse than nothing multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum Si minus esse potest quám quod nihil esse videmus Death is much lesse to vs we ought esteeme If lesse may be then what doth nothing seeme Nor alive nor dead it doth concerne you nothing Alive because you are Dead because you are no more Moreover no man dies before his houre The time you leave behinde was no more yours then that which was before your birth and concerneth you no more Respice enim quà m nil ad nos anteacta vetustas Temporis aeterni fuerit For marke how all antiquitie fore-gone Of all time e're we were to vs was none Wheresoever your life endeth there is it all The profit of life consistes not in the space but rather in the vse Some man hath lived long that hath had a short life Follow it whilest you have time It consists not in number of yeeres but in your will that you have lived long enough Did you thinke you should never come to the place where you were still going There is no way but hath an end And if company may solace you doth not the whole world walke the same path Omnia te vita perfuncta sequenter Life past all things at last Shall follow thee as thou hast past Doe not all things moove as you doe or keepe your course Is there any thing grows not old togither with your selfe A thousand men a thousand beasts and a thousand other creatures die in the very instance that you die Nam nox nulla diem neque noctem aurora sequuta est Quae non audierit mistos vagitibus aegris Ploratus mortis comites funeris atri No night ensued day light no morning followed night Which heard not moaning mixt with sick-mens groaning With deaths and funerals joyned was that moaning To what end recoile you from it if you cannot goe backe You have seene many who have found good in death ending thereby many many miseries But have you seene any that hath received hurt
thereby Therefore is it meere simplicitie to condemne a thing you never prooved neither by your selfe nor any other Why doest thou complaine of me and of destinie Doe we offer thee any wrong is it for thee to direct vs or for vs to governe thee Although thy age be not come to her period thy life is A little man is a whole man as well as a great man Neither men nor their lives are measured by the Ell. Chiron refused immortalitie being informed of the conditions thereof even by the God of time and of continuance Saturne his father Imagine truely how much an ever during life would be lesse tollerable and more painefull to a man then is the life which I have given him Had you not death you would then vncessantly curse and cry out against me that I had deprived you of it I have of purpose and wittingly blended some bitternes amongst it that so seeing the commoditie of it's vse I might hinder you from over greedily embracing or indiscreetly calling for it To continue in this moderation that is neither to flie from life nor to run to death which I require of you I have tempered both the one and other betweene sweetenes sowrenes I first taught Thales the chiefest of your Sages and Wise men that to live die were indifferent which made him answer one very wisely who asked him wherefore he died not Because saith he it is indifferent The water the earth the aire the fire and other members of this my vniverse are no more the instruments of thy life then of thy death Why fearest thou thy last day He is no more guiltie and conferreth no more to thy death then any of the others It is not the last step that causeth wearinesse it onely declares it All daies march towards death onely the last comes to it Behold heere the good precepts of our vniversall mother Nature I have oftentimes bethought my selfe whence it proceedeth that in times of warre the visage of death whether wee see it in vs or in others seemeth without all comparison much lesse dreadfull and terrible vnto vs then in our houses or in our beds otherwise it should be an armie of Phisitians and whiners and she ever being one there must needes bee much more assurance amongst contrie-people and of base condition then in others I verily beleeve these fearefull lookes and astonishing countenances wherewith we encompasse it are those that more amaze and terrifie vs then death a new forme of life the out-cries of mothers the wailing of women and children the visitation of dismaid and swouning friends the assistance of a number of pale-looking distracted and whining servants a darke chamber tapers burning round about our couch beset round with Phisitians and Preachers and to conclude nothing but horror and astonishment on every side of vs are wee not alreadie dead and buried The very children are afraid of their friends when they see them masked and so are we The maske must as well be taken from things as from men which being remooved we shall finde nothing hid vnder it but the very same death that a seely varlet or a simple maide-servant did lately suffer without amazement or feare Happie is that death which takes all leasure from the preparations of such an equipage The twentieth Chapter Of the force of Imagination FOrtis imaginatio generat casum A strong imagination begetteth chance say learned clearkes I am one of those that feele a very great conflict and power of imagination All men are shockt therewith and some overthrowne by it The impression of it pierceth me and for want of strength to resist her my endevour is to avoid it I could live with the only assistance of holy and mery hearted men The sight of others anguishes doth sensibly drive me into anguish and my sense hath often vsurped the sense of a third man If one cough continually he provokes my lungs and throate I am more vnwilling to visite the sicke dutie doth engage me vnto than those to whom I am little beholding and regard least I apprehend the evill which I studie and place it in me I deeme it not strange that she brings both agues and death to such as give her scope to worke her will and applaude her Simon Thomas was a great Phisitian in his daies I remember vpon a time comming by chance to visit a rich old man that dwelt in Tholouse and who was troubled with the cough of the lungs who discoursing with the said Simon Thomas of the meanes of his recoverie he told him that one of the best was to give me occasion to be delighted in his companie and that fixing his eyes vpon the livelines and freshnes of my face and setting his thoughts vpon the jolitie and vigor wherewith my youthfull age did then flourish and filling all his senses with my florishing estate his habitude might thereby be amended and his health recovered But he forgot to say that mine might also be empaired and infected Gallus Vibius did so well enure his minde to comprehend the essence and motions of folly that he so transported his judgement from out his seate as he could never afterward bring it to his right place againe and might rightly boast to have become a soole through wisdome Some there are that through feare anticipate the hang-mans hand as he did whose friends having obtained his pardon and putting away the cloth wherewith he was hood-winkt that he might heare it read was found starke dead vpon the scaffold wounded onely by the stroke of imagination Wee sweate we shake we grow pale and we blush at the motions of our imaginations and wallowing in our beds we feele our bodies agitated and turmoiled at their apprehensions yea in such manner as sometimes we are ready to yeeld vp the spirit And burning youth although asleepe is often therewith so possessed and enfoulded that dreaming it doth satisfie and enjoy her amorous desires Vt quasi transactis saepe omnibu'rebu ' profundant Fluminis ingentes fluctus vest émque cruentent And if all things were done they powre foorth streames And bloodie their night-garment in their dreames And although it be not strange to see some men have hornes growing vpon their head in one night that had none when they went to bed notwithstanding the fortune or successe of Cyppus King of Italie is memorable who because the day before he had with earnest affection assisted and beene attentive at a bul-baâ—ting and having all night long dreamed of hornes in his head by the very force of imagination brought them foorth the next morning in his forehead An earnest passion gave the son of Croesus his voice which nature had denied him And Antiochus got an ague by the excellent beautie of Stratonicâ— so deepely imprinted in his minde Plinie reporteth to have seene Lucius Cossitius vpon his marriage day to have beene transformed from a woman to a man Pontanus and others recount the like Metamorphosies
so much ground which I guessed to be about 4. or 5. thousand men moreover I demanded if when warres were ended all his authoritie expired he answered that hee had onely this left him which was that when he went on progresse and visited the villages depending of him the inhabitants prepared paths and high-waies athwart the hedges of their woods for him to passe through at ease All that is not very ill but what of that They weare no kinde of breeches nor hosen The one and thirtieth Chapter That a man ought soberly to meddle with iudging of divine lawes THings vnknowne are the true scope of imposture and subject of Legerdemaine forasmuch as strangenesse it selfe doth first giue credite vnto matters and not being subject to our ordinarie discourses they deprive vs of meanes to withstand them To this purpose said Plato it is an easie matter to please speaking of the nature of the Gods then of mens For the Auditors ignorance lends a faire and large cariere and free libertie to the handling of secret hidden matters Whence it followeth that nothing is so firmly beleeued as that which a man knoweth least nor are there people more assured in their reports then such as tell vs fables as Alâ—humists Prognosticators Fortune-tellers Palmesters Phisitians idgenus omne and such like To which if I durst I would joyne a rable of men that are ordinarie interpreters and controulers of Gods secret desseignes presuming to finde out the causes of every accident and to prie into the secrets of Gods divine will the incomprehensible motives of his works And howbeit the continuall varietie and discordance of events drive them from one corner to another and from East to West they will not leave to follow their bowle and with one small penâ—ill drawe both white and blacke There is this commendable observance in a certaine Indian nation who if they chance to be discomfited in any skirmish or battle they publikely beg pardon of the Sunne who is their God as for an vnjust action referring their good or ill fortune to divine reason submitting their judgement and discourses vnto it It suffiseth a Christian to beleeve that all things come from God to receive them from his divine and inscrutable wisedome with thanksgiving and in what manner soever they are sent him to take them in good part But I vtterly disalow a common custome amongst vs which is to ground and establish our religion vpon the prosperitie of our enterprises Our beleefe hath other sufficient foundations and need not be authorized by events For the people accustomed to these plausible arguments agreeing with his taste when events sort contrarie and disadvantageous to their expectation they are in hazard to waver in their faith As in the civill warres wherein we are now for religions sake those which got the advantage at the conflict of Rochâ—labeâ—lle making great ioy and bone-fires for that accident and vsing that fortune as an assured approbation of their faction when afterward they come to excuse their disaster of Mort-contour and Iarnac which are scourges and fatherly chastisements if they have not a people wholy at their mercy they will easily make him perceive what it is to take two kinds of corne out of one saâ—ke from one and the same mouth to blow both hot and cold It were better to entertaine it with the true foundations of veritie It was a notable Sea-battle which was lately gained against the Turkes vnder the conduct of Don Iohn of Austria But it hath pleased God to make vs at other times both see and feele otheâ— such to our no small losse and detriment To conclude it is no easie matter to reduce divine things vnto our ballance so they suffer no impeachment And he that would yeeld a reason why Arrius and Leo his Pope chiefe Principals and maine supporters of this hereâ—ie died both at severall times of so semblable and so strange deaths for being forced through a violent bellie-ach to goe from their disputations to their close-stoole both suddenly yeelded vp their ghosts on them exaggerate that divine vengeance by the circumstance of the place might also adde the death of Helâ—ogabalus vnto it who likewise was slaine vpon a privie But what Ireneus is found to be engaged in like fortune Gods intent being to teach vs that the good have some thing else to hope for and the wicked somewhat else to feare then the good or bad fortune of this world He manageth and applieth them according to his secret disposition and depriveth vs of the meanes thereby foolishly to make our profit And those that according to humane reason will thereby prevaile doe but mocke themselves They never give one touch of it that they receive not two for it S. Augustine giveth a notable triall of it vpon his adversaries It is a conflict no more decided by the armes of memorie than by the weapons of reason A man should be satisfied with the light which it pleaseth the Sunne to communicate vnto vs by vertue of his beames and he that shal lift vp his eies to take a greater within his bodie let him not thinke it strange if for a reward of his over-weening and arrogancie he looseth his sight Quis hominum potest scire consilium Deâ—â— aut quis poterit cogitare quid velit dominus Who amongst men can know Gods counsell or who can thinke what God will doe The two and thirtieth Chapter To avoide voluptuousnesse in regard of life I Have noted the greatest part of ancient opinions to agree in this That when our life affords more evill than good it is then time to die and to preserve our life to our torment and incommoditie is to spurre and shocke the very rules of nature as say the old rules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or live without distresse Or die with happinesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 T' is good for them to die Whom life bring 's infamie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 T' is better not to live Then whetchedly not thrive But to drive off the contempt of death to such a degree as to imploy it to distract and remoovâ— himselfe from honours riches greatnesse and other goods and favours which wee call the goods of fortune as if reason had not enough to doe to perswade vs to forgoe and leave them without adding this new surcharge vnto it I had neither seene the same commanded nor practised vntill such time as one place of Seneca came to my hands wherein counselling Lucilius a man mightie and in great authoritie about the Emperour to change this voluptuous and pompous life and to withdraw himselfe from this ambition of the world to some solitarie quiet and philosophicall life about which Lucilius alleaged some difficulties My advise is saith he that either thou leave and quit that life or thy life altogether But I perswade thee to follow the gentler way and rather to vntie than breake what thou hast so ill â—â—it alwaies provided
Virtutis Heerto himselfe the Romane Generall The Graecian the Barbarian rouz'd and rais'd Heâ—re hence drew cause of perils travailes all So more then to be good thirst to be prais'd The seven and fortieth Chapter Of the vncertaintiâ— of our iudgement IT is even as that verse saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of words on either side A large doale they divide There is law sufficient to speake every where both pro and contra As for example Vinse Hannibal non seppe vsar'poi Ben la vittâ—riosa sua ventura Hanniball conquer'd but he knew not after To vse well his victorious good fortune He that shall take this part and with our men go about to make that over-sight prevaile that we did not lately pursue our fortune at Montcontour Or he that shall accuse the King of Spaine who could not vse the advantage he had against-vs at Saint Quintin may say this fault to have proceeded from a mind drunken with his good fortune and from a courage ful-gorged with the beginning of good lucke looseth the taste how to encrease-it being already hindred from digesting what he hath conceived of-it He hath his hands full and can not take hold any more Vnworthie that ever fortune should cast so great a good into his lap For what profit hath he of-â—t if notwithstanding he give his enemie leasure and meanes to recover himselfe What hope may one have that he will once more adventure to charge these re-enforced and re-united forces and new armed with despite and vengeance that durst-not or knew-not how to pursue them being dismaied and put to rout Dum fortuna calet dum conficit omnia terror While fortune is at height in heat And terror worketh all by great But to conclude what can he expect better then what he hath lately lost It is not as at Fence where the number of venies given gets the victorie So long as the enemie is on foote a man is newly to begin It is no victorie except it end the warre In that conflict where Caesar had the worse neer â—he Citie of Oricum he reprochfully said vnto Pompeis Souldiers That he had vtterly been overthrowne had their Captaine knowne how to conquer and paide him home after another fashion when it came to his turne But why may not a man also hold the contrarie That â—t is the effect of an insatiate and rash-headlong minde not to know how to limit or periode his covetousnesse That it is an abusing of Gods favours to go about to make them loose the measure he hath prescribed them and that a-new to cast himselfe into danger after the victory is once â—ore to remit the same vnto the mercie of fortune That one of the chiefest policies in militarie profession is not to drive his enemie vnto dispaire Sillâ— and Marius in the sociall warre having discomfited the Marsians seeing one squadron of them yet on foote which through dispaire like furious beasts were desperately comming vpon them could not be induced to stay or make head against them If the fervor of Monsieur de Foix had not drewne-him over rashly and moodily to pursue the straglers of the victorie at Raveâ—na he had not blemished the same with his vntimely death yet did the fresh-bleeding memory of his example serve to preserve the Lord of Aâ—gusen from the like inconvenience at Serisoles It is dangerous to assaile a man whom you have bereaved of all other meanes to escape or shift for himselfe but by his weapons for necessitie is a violent school-mistris and which teacheth strange lessons Gravissimi sunt mâ—rsuâ— irritatae necessicatis No biting so grievous as that of necessitie provoked and enraged Vincuur haud gratis ingula qui provâ—â—at hostâ—m For nought you over-come him not Who bids his foe come cut his throat And that is the reason why 〈◊〉 empeached the King of Lacedemoâ— who came from gaining of a victory against the Mantinaeans from going to charge a thousand Argians that were escaped whole from the discomâ—ture but rather to let them passe with al libertie lest he should come to make triall of provoked despited vertue through and by ill fortune Clodomire king of Aquitaine after his victorie pursuing Gondemar king of Bâ—rgundie vanquished and running away forced him to make a stand and make head againe but his vnadvised wilfulnesse deprived him of the fruit of the victorie for he dyed in the action Likewise he that should chuse whether it were best to keep his souldiers richly and sumptuously armed or only for necessitie should seeme to yeeld in favour of the first whereof was Sertorious Philopoemen Brutus Caesar and others vrging that it is ever a spur to â—â—â—â—â— and glorie for a souldier to see himself gorgiously attired and richly armed an occasion to yeeld himselfe more obstinate to sight having the care to save his armes as his goods and inheritance A reason saith Xenophon why the Asiatikes carried with them when they went to warres their wives and Concubines with all their jewels and chiefest wealth And might also encline to the other side which is that a man should rather remoove from his souldier all care to preserve himselfe than to encrease-it vnto him for by that meanes he shall doubly feare to hazard or engage himselfe seeing these rich spoiles do rather encrease an earnest desire of victorie in the enemie and it hath been observed that the said respect hath sometimes wonderfully encouraged the Romans against the Samnites Antiochus shewing the Armie he prepared against them gorgeously accountred with all pompe and statelinesse vnto Hanniball and demanding of him whether the Romanes would be contented with-it yea verily answered the other they will be verie well pleased with-it They must needs be so were they never so covetous Licurgus forbad his Souldiers not only all maner of sumptuousnesse in their equipage but also to vncase or strip their enemies when they overcame them willing as he said that frugalitie povertie should shine with the rest of the battell Both at sieges and else-where where occasion brings vs neere the enemie we freely give our souldiers libertie to brave to disdaine and injurie him with all maner of reproaches And not without apparance of reason for it is no small matter to take from them all hope of grace and composition in presenting vnto them that there is no way left to expect-it from-him whom they have so egregiously outraged and that there is no remedy left but from victorie Yet had Vitelluis but bad successe in that for having to deale with Otho weaker in his Souldiers valour and oflong disaccustomed from warre and effeminated through the delights and pleasures of the Citie himselfe in the end set them so on fire with his reproachsull and injurious words vpbrayding them with their pusilanimitie and faint-hartednesse and with the regret of their Ladies banquettings and sensualities which they had left at Rome that he put them into hart againe which no perswasions or
our offences There is nothing so easie so sweet so comfortable and favourable as the law of God she of his infinit mercie calleth vs vnto him how faultie and detestable soever we be she gently stretcheth forth hir armes vnto vs and mildely receiveth vs into hir lap how guiltie polluted and sinfull soever we are and may be in after-times But in recompence of so boundlesse and vnspeakable a favour she must be thankfully accepted and cheerfully regarded and so gracious a pardon must be received with a gratitude of the soule and at least in that instant that we addresse our selves vnto hir presence to have our soule grieved for hir faults penitent of hir sinnes hating those passions and affections that have caused or provoked vs to transgresse his lawes to offend his Majestie and to breake his commaundments Plato saith That neither the Gods nor honest men will ever accept the offring of a wicked man Immunis aram si tetigit manus Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos Penates Farre pio saliente mica If guiltlesse hand the Altar tuch No offring cost it ne're so much Shall better please our God offended Then corne with crackling-corne-salt blended The seven and fiftieth Chapter Of Age. I Cannot receive that manner whereby we establish the continuance of our life I see that some of the wiser sort doe greatly shorten the same in respect of the common opinion What said Cato Iunior to those who sought to hinder him from killing him-selfe Doe I now live the age wherein I may iustly be reproved to leave my life too soone Yet was he but eight and fortie yeares old He thought that age verie ripe yea and well advanced considering how few men come vnto-it And such as entertaine themselves with I wot not what kind of course which they call naturall promiseth some few yeares beyond might do-it had they a priviledge that could exempt them from so great a number of accidents vnto which each one of vs stands subject by a naturall subjection and which may interrupt the said course they propose vnto themselves What fondnesse is-it for a man to thinke he shall die for and through a failing and defect of strength which extreame age draweth with-it and to propose that terme vnto our life seeing it is the rarest kind of all deaths and least in vse We onely call it naturall as if it were against nature to see a man breake his necke with a fall to be drowned by shipwracke to be surprised with a pestilence or pleurisie and as if our ordinarie condition did not present these inconveniences vnto vs all Let vs not flatter ourselves with these fond-goodly woords a man may peradventure rather call that naturall which is generall common and vniversall To die of age is a rare singular and extraordinarie death and so much lesse naturall then others It is the last and extreamest kind of dying The further it is from vs so much the lesse is it to be hoped for Indeed it is the limit beyond which we shall not passe and which the law of nature hath prescribed vnto vs as that which should not be outgon by any but it is a rare priviledge peculiar vnto hir selfe to make vs continue vnto-it It is an exemption which through some particular favour she bestoweth on some one man in the space of two or three ages discharging him from the crosses troubles and difficulties she hath enterposed betweene both in this long cariere and pilgrimage Therefore my opinion is to consider that the age vnto which we are come is an age whereto few arive since men come not vnto it by any ordinarie course it is a signe we are verie forward And since we have past the accustomed bounds which is the true measure of our life we must not hope that we shall goe much further Having escaped so many occasions of death wherein we see the world to fall we must acknowledge that such an extraordinarie fortune as that is which maintaineth vs and is beyond the common vse is not likely to continue long It is a fault of the verie lawes to have this false imagination They allow not a man to be capable and of discretion to manage and dispose of his owne goods vntill he be five and twentie yeares old yet shall he hardly preserve the state of his life so long Augustus abridged five yeares of the ancient Romane Lawes and declared that for any man that should take vpon him the charge of judgement it sufficed to be thirtie yeares old Servius Tullius dispensed with the Knights who were seaven and fortie yeares of age from all voluntarie services of warre Augustus brought them to fortie and five To send men to their place of sojourning before they be five and fiftie or three score yeares of age me seemeth carrieth no great apparance with-it My advice would be that our vacation and employment should be extended as far as might be for the publike commoditie but I blame some and condemne most that we begin not soone enough to employ our selves The same Augustus had been vniversall and supreame judge of the world when he was but nineteene yeares old and would have another to be thirtie before he shall bee made a competent judge of a cottage or farme As for my part I thinke our minds are as full growne and perfectly joynted at twentie yeares as they should be and promise as much as they can A mind which at that age hath not given some evident token or earnest of hir sufficiencie shall hardly give-it afterward put hir to what triall you list Naturall qualities and vertues if they have any vigorous or beauteous thing in them will produce and show the same within that time or never They say in Daulphiné Si l'espine nou picque quand nai A peine que picque iamai A thorne vnlesse at first it pricke Will hardly ever pearce to th' quicke Of all humane honorable and glorious actions that ever came vnto my knowledge of what nature soever they be I am perswaded I should have a harder taske to number those which both in ancient times and in ours have been produced and atchieved before the age of thirtie yeares then such as were performed after yea often in the life of the same men May not I boldly speak it of those of Hanniball and Scipio his great adversarie They lived the better part of their life with the glorie which they had gotten in their youth And though afterward they were great men in respect of all others yet were they but meane in regard of themselves As for my particular I am verily perswaded that since that age both my spirit and my bodie have more decreased then encreased more recoyled then advanced It may be that knowledge and experience shall encrease in them together with life that bestow their time well but vivacitie promptitude constancie and other parts much more our owne more important and more essentiall
they droope they languish and they faint vbi iam validis quassatum est viribus aevi Corpus obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus Claudicat ingenium delirat linguáquè ménsque Whence once the bodie by shrewd strength of yeares Is shak't and limmes drawne-downe from strength that weares Wit halts both tongue and mind Doe dailie doat we find It is the bodie which sometimes yeeldeth first vnto age and other times the mind and I have seene many that have had their braines weakned before their stomake or legges And forasmuch as it is a disease little or nothing sensible vnto him that endureth-it and maketh no great shew it is so much the more dangerous Here I exclaime against our Lawes not because they leave vs so long and late in working and employment but that they set vs a worke no sooner and it is so late before we be employed Me thinkes that considering the weaknesse of our life and seeing the infinite number of ordinarie rockes and naturall dangers it is subject vnto we should not so soone as we come into the world alot so great a share thereof vnto vnprofitable wantonnesse in youth il-breeding idlenesse and slow-learning prentissage The end of the first Booke THE ESSAYES OR MORAL POLITIKE AND MILITARIE Discourses Of LO MICHAEL de Montaigne Knight Of the noble Order of St. MICHAEL and one of the Gentlemen in Ordinarie of the French king HENRY the Third his Chamber THE SECOND BOOKE 1613. THE ESSAYES OF MICHAEL LORD OF MONTAIGNE The second Booke The first Chapter Of the inconstancie of our actions THose which exercise themselves in controuling humane actions finde no such let in any one part as to peece them together and bring them to one same lustre For they commonly contradict one an other so strangely as it seemeth impossible they should be parcels of one Ware-house Young Marius is sometimes found to be the sonne of Mars and other times the childe of Venus Pope Bonifaeâ— the Eight is reported to have entred into his charge as a Fox to have carried himselfe therein as a Lion and to have died like a dog And who would thinke it was Nero that lively image of cruelty who being required to signe as the custome was the sentence of a criminall offendor that had beene condemned to die that ever he should answer Oh would to God I could never have written So neare was his heart grieved to doome a man to death The world is so full of such examples that every man may store himselfe and I wonder to see men of vnderstanding trouble themselves with sorting these parcels Sithence me seemeth irresolution is the most apparant and common vice of our nature as witnesseth that famous verse of Publius the Comoedian Malum consilium est quod mutari non potest The counsell is but bad Whose change may not be had There is some apparance to judge a man by the most common conditions of his life but seeing the naturall instability of our customes and opinions I have often thought that even good Authors doe ill and take a wrong course wilfully to opinionate themselves about framing a constant and solide contexture of vs. They chuse an vniversall ayre and following that image range and interpret all a mans actions which if they cannot wrest sufficiently they remit them vnto dissimulation Augustus hath escaped their hands for there is so apparant so sudden and continuall a variety of actions found in him through the course of his life that even the boldest judges and strictest censurers have beene faine to give him over and leave him vndecided There is nothing I so hardly beleeve to be in man as constancy and nothing so easie to be found in him as inconstancy He that should distinctly and part by part judge of him should often jumpe to speake truth View all antiquity over and you shall finde it a hard matter to chuse out a dozen of men that have directed their life vnto one certaine setled and assured course which is the surest drift of wisedome For to comprehend all in one word saith an ancient writer and to embrace all the rules of our life into one it is at all times to will and not to will one same thing I would not vouchsafe saith he to adde anything alwaies provided the will be just for if it be vnjust it is impossible it should ever continue one Verily I have heeretofore learned that vice is nothing but a disorder and want of measure and by consequence it is impossible to fasten constancy vnto it It is a saying of Demosthenes as some report That consultation and deliberation is the beginning of all vertue and constancy the end and perfection If by reason or discourse we should take a certaine way we should then take the fairest but no man hath thought on it Quod petijt sperâ—â— repetit quod nuper omisit Astuat vitae disconvenit or dine toto He scorn's that which he sought seek's that he scorn'd of late He flowes ebbes disagrees in his lifes whole estate Our ordinary manner is to follow the inclination of our appetite this way and that way on the left and on the right hand vpward and downe-ward according as the winde of occasions doth transport vs we never thinke on what we would have but at the instant we would have it and change as that beast that takes the colour of the place wherein it is laid What we even now purposed we alter by and by and presently returne to our former biase all is but changing motion and inconstancy Ducimur vt nervis alienis mobile lignum So are we drawne as wood is shooved By others sinnewes each way mooved We goe not but we are carried as things that flote now gliding gently now hulling violently according as the water is either stormy or calme nónne videmus Quid sibi quisque velit nescire quaerere semper Commutare locum quasi onus deponere possit See we not every man in his thoughts height Knowes not what he would have yet seekes he straight To change place as he could lay downe his weight Every day new toies each houre new fantasies and our humours moove and fleete with the fleetings and movings of time Tales sunt hominum mentes quali Pater ipse Iuppiter auctifero lustravit lumine terras Such are mens mindes as that great God of might Survaies the earth with encrease bearing light We floate and waver betweene divers opinions we will nothing freely nothing absolutely nothing constantly Had any man prescribed certaine Lawes or established assured policies in his owne head in his life should we daily see to shine an equality of customes an assured order and an infallible relation from one thing to another Empedocles noted this deformity to be amongst the Agrigentines that they gave themselves so over vnto delights as if they should die tomorrow next and built as if they should never die the discourse thereof
hearty cheerefulnesse defie all evils and scornefully despising lesse sharpe griefes disdayning to grapple with them he blithely desireth and calleth for sharper more forcible and worthy of him Spumantémque dari pecora inter inereiâ— votis Optat aprum aut fulvum descendere monte leonem He wisht mongst hartlesse beasts some foming Bore Or mountaine-Lyon would come downe and rore Who would not judge them to be prankes of a courage remooved from his wonted seate Our minde cannot out of hir place attaine so high She must quit it and raise hir selfe a loft and taking the bridle in hir teeth carry and transport hir man so farre that afterward hee wonder at himselfe and rest amazed at his actions As in exploites of warre the heat and earnestnesse of the fight doth often provoke the noble-minded-souldiers to adventure on so dangerous passages that afterward being better advised they are the first to wonder at it As also Poets are often surprised and rapt with admiration at their owne labours and forget the trace by which they past so happy a career It is that which some terme a fury or madnesse in them And as Plato saith that a setled and reposed man doth in vaine knocke at Poesies gate Aristotle likewise saith that no excellent minde is freely exempted from some or other entermixture of folly And he hath reason to call any starting or extraordinarie conceit how commendable soever and which exceedeth our judgement and discourse folly Forsomuch as wisedome is an orderly and regular managing of the minde and which she addresseth with measure and conducteth with proportion And take hir owne word for-it Plato disputeth thus that the facultie of prophesiyng and divination is far above-vs and that when wee treate it we must be besides our selves our wisdome must be darkened and ouer shadowed by sleepe by sickenesse or by drowzinesse or by some celestiall fury ravished from hir owne seat The third Chapter A custome of the I le of Cea IF as some say to philosophate be to doubt with much more reason to rave and fantastiquize as I doe must necessarily be to doubt For to enquire and debate belongeth to a scholler and to resolve appertaines to a cathedrall master But know my cathedrall it is the authoritie of Gods divine will that without any contradiction doth sway-vs and hath hir ranke beyond these humane and vaine contestations Philip being with an armed hand entred the Countrie of Peloponnesus some one told Damidas the Lacedemonians were like to endure much if they sought not to reobtaine his lost favour Oh varlet as thou art answered he And what can they suffer who have no feare at all of death Agis being demanded how a man might do to live free answered Despising and contemning to die These and a thousand like propositions which concurre in this purpose do evidently inferre some thing beyond the patient expecting of death it selfe to be suffered in this life witnesse the Lacedemonian child taken by Antigonus and sold for a slave who vrged by his master to performe some abject service Thou shalt see said he whom thou hast bought for it were a shame for me to serve having libertie so neere at hand and therewithall threw himselfe headlong downe from the top of the house Antipater sharply threatning the Lacedemonians to make them yeeld to a certaine request of his they answered shouldest thou menace vs worse then death we will rather die And to Philip who having written vnto them that he would hinder all their enterprises What say they wilt thou also hinder vs from dying That is the reason why some say that the wiseman liveth as long as he ought and not so long as he can And that the favourablest gift nature hath bequeathed-vs and which removeth all meanes from-vs to complaine of our condition is that she hath left-vs the key of the fieldes She hath appointed but one entrance vnto life but many a thousand wayes out of it Well may we want ground to live vpon but never ground to die in As Boiocatus answered the Romanes Why doost thou complaine against this world It doth not containe thee If thou livest in paine and sorrow thy base courage is the cause of-it To die there wanteth but will Vbique mors est optimè hoc cavit Deus Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest At nemo mortem mille ad hanc aditus patent Each where death is God did this well purvay No man but can from man life take away But none barr's death to it lies many'a way And it is not a receipt to one maladie alone Death is a remedie against all evils It is a most assured haven never to be feared and often to be sought All comes to one period whether man make an end of himselfe or whether he endure it whether he run before his day or whether he expect it whence soever it come it is ever his owne where ever the threed be broken it is all there it 's the end of the web The voluntariest death is the fairest Life dependeth on the will of others death on ours In nothing should we so much accommodate our selves to our humors as in that Reputation doth nothing concerne such an enterprise it is follie to have any respect vnto it To live is to serve if the libertie to die be wanting The common course of curing any infirmitie is ever directed at the charge of life we have incisions made into vs we are cauterized we have limbes cut and mangled we are let blood we are diâ—ted Go we but one step further we need no more phisicke we are perfectly whole Why is not our jugular or throat veine as much at our commaund as the mediane To extreame sicknesses extreame remedies Servius the Gramarian being troubled with the gowt found no better meanes to be rid of it then to applie poison to mortifie his legs He cared not whether they were Podagrees or no so they were insensible God giveth vs sufficient priviledge when he placeth vs in such an estate as life is worse then death vnto vs. It is weaknesse to yeeld to evils but follie to foster them The Stoikes say it is a convenient naturall life for a wiseman to forgoe life although he abound in all happinesse if he do it opportunely And for a foole to prolong his life albeit he be most miserable provided he be in most part of things which they say to be according vnto nature As I offend not the lawes made against theeves when I cut mine owne purse and carrie away mine owne goods nor of destroyers when I burne mine owne wood so am I nothing tied vnto lawes made against murtherers if I deprive my selfe of mine owne life Hegesias was wont to say that even as the condition of life so should the qualitie of death depend on our election And Diogenes meeting with the Philosopher Speufippus long time afflicted with the dropsie and therefore carried in a litter who cried out
common deplored and bewailed their countries misfortunes some went home to their owne houses othersome staied there to be entombed with Vibius in his owne fire whose death was so long and lingring forsomuch as the vapor of the wine having possessed their veines and slowed the effect and operation of the poyson that some lived an houre after they had seene their enemies enter Capua which they caried the next day after and incurred the miseries and saw the calamities which at so high a rate they had sought to eschew Taurea Iubellius another citizen there the Consul Fulvius returning from that shamefull slaughter which he had committed of 225. Senators called him churlishly by his name and having arested him Command quoth he vnto him that I alâ—o be massacred after so many others that so thou maist brag to have murthered a much more valiant man then ever thou wast Fulvius as one enraged disdaining him forasmuch as he had newly received letters from Rome contrarie to the inhumanitie of his execution which inhibited him to proceed any further Iubellius continuing his speach said sithence my Countrie is taken my friends butchered having with mine owne hands slaine my wife and children as the only meane to free them from the desolation of this ruine I may not die the death of my fellow-citizens let vs borrow the vengeance of this hatefull life from vertue And drawing a blade he had hidden vnder his garments therwith ran himselfe through and falling on his face died at the Consuls feet Alexander besieged a citie in India the inhabitants whereof perceiving themselves brought to a very narrow pinch resolved obstinately to deprive him of the pleasure he might get of his victorie and together with their citie in despite of his humanitie set both the Towne themselves on a light fire and so were all consumed A new kind of warring where the enemies did all they could and fought to save them they to loose themselves and to be assured of their death did all a man can possible effect to warrant his life Astapa a Citie in Spaine being very weake of wals and other defences to withstand the Romanes that besieged the same the inhabitants drew all their riches and wealth into the market-place whereof having made a heap and on the top of it placed their wives and children and encompassed and covered the same with drie brush wood that it might burne the easier and having appointed fiftie lusty yong men of theirs for the performance of their resolution made a sallie where following their determined vow seeing they could not vanquist suffered themselves to be flame every mothers childe The fiftie after they had massacred every living soule remaining in the Citie and set fire to the heap joyfully leaped there-into ending their generous libertie in a state rather insensible then dolorous and reprochfull shewing their enemies that if fortune had been so pleased they should aswell have had the courage to bereave them of the victorie as they had to yeeld it them both vaine and hideous yea and mortall to those who allured by the glittering of the gold that moulten ran from out the flame thicke and three-fold approching greedily vnto it were therein smothered burned the formost being vnable to give backe by reason of the throng that followed them The Abideans pressed by Philip resolved vpon the verie same but being prevented the King whose heart yerned and abhorred to see the fond-rash precipitation of such an execution having first seized-vpon and saved the treasure and moveables which they had diversly condemned to the flames and vtter spoyle retiring all the Souldiers granting them the full space of three daies to make themselves away that so they might do it with more order and leasure which three daies they replenished with blood and murther beyond all hostile crueltie And which is strange there was no one person saved that had power vpon himselfe There are infinite examples of such-like popular conclusions which seeme more violent by how much more the effect of them is more vniversall They are lesse then severall what discourse would not doe in every one it doth in all The vehemence of societie ravishing particular judgements Such as were condemned to die in the time of Tiberius and delaide their execution any while lost their goods and could not be buried but such as prevented the same in killing themselves were solemnly enterred might at their pleasure bequeath such goods as they had to whom they list But a man doth also sometimes desire death in hope of a greater good I desire saith Saint Paul to be out of this world that I may be with Iesus Christ and who shall release me out of these bonds Cleombrotus Ambraciota having read Platoes Phaedon was so possessed with a desire and longing for an after-life that without other occasion or more adoe he went and headlong cast himselfe into the sea Whereby it appeareth how improperly we call this voluntarie dissolution dispaire vnto which the violence of hope doth often transport-vs and as often a peacefull setled inclination of judgement Iaques du Castell Bishop of Soissons in the voyage which Saint Lewes vndertooke beyond the Seas seeing the King all his Armie readie to returne into France and leave the affaires of Religion imperfect resolved with himself rather to go to heaven And having bidden his friends farewell in the open view of all men rushed alone into the enemies troops of whom he was forthwith hewen in pieces In a certaine kingdome of these late-discovered Indies vpon the day of a solemne procession in which the Idols they adore are publikely caried vp and downe vpon a chariot of exceeding greatnesse besides that there are many seen to cut and slice great mammocks of their quicke flesh to offer the said Idols there are numbers of others seen who prostrating themselves alongst vpon the ground endure verie patiently to be mouldred and crushed to death vnder the Chariots wheeles thinking thereby to purchase after their death a veneration of holinesse of which they are not defrauded The death of this Bishop armed as we have said argueth more generositie and lesse sence the heat of the combate ammusing one part of it Some common-wealths there are that have gone about to sway the justice and direct the opportunitie of voluntarie deaths In our Citie of Marseille they were wont in former ages ever to keep some poison in store prepared and compounded with hemlocke at the Cities charge for such as would vpon any occasion shorten their daies having first approved the reasons of their enterprise vnto the six hundred Elders of the Towne which was their Senate For otherwise it was vnlawfull for any bodie except by the Magistrates permission and for verie lawfully-vrgent occasions to lay violent hands vpon himselfe The verie same law was likewise vsed in other places Sextus Pompeius going into Asia passed through the Iland of Cea belonging to Negropont it fortuned whilst he abode there
liew of pleading or excusing his cause gave him this sodaine and short answere Let vs goe quoth he my good Citâ—zens let-vs forthwith goe I say to give hartie thankes vnto the Gods for the victorie which even vpon such a day as this is they gave me against the Carthaginians And therewith advancing hâ—â— selfe to march before the people all the assemblie and even his accuser him selfe did vndelayedly follow him towards the Temple After that Peâ—â—lius having been aâ—â—mated and stirred vp by Câ—â—â— to solicite and demaund a strict accompt of him of the money 〈◊〉 had â—â—auaged and which was committed to his trust whilst he was in the Province of 〈◊〉 Scipio being come into the Senate-house of purpose to answer for himselfe pullâ—ng ouâ— the booke of his accompts from vnder his gowne told them all that that booke contained truely both the receipt and laying out thereof and being required to deliver the same vnto a Clarke to register it he refused to doe-it saying he would not doe himselfe that wrong or indignitie and therevpon with his owne hands in presence of all the Senate tore the booke in pieces I cannot apprehend or beleeve that a guiltie-cauterized conscience could possil lie dissemble or couâ—terfet such an vndismaied assurance His heart was naturally too great and enured to overhigh fortune saith Tâ—tus Liviâ—s to know how to be a criminall offender and stoopingly to yeeld himselfe to the basenesse to defend his innocencie Torture and racking are dangerous inventions and seeme rather to be trials of patience then Essayes of truth And both he that can and he that cannot endure them conceal the truth For wherefore shall paine or smart rather compell me to confesse that which is so indeed then force me to tell that which is not And contrariwise if he who hath not done that whereof he is accused is sufficiently patient to endure those torments why shall not he be able to tolerate them who hath done it and is guiltie indeed so deare and worthie a reward as life being proposed vnto him I am of opinion that the ground of his invention proceedeth from the consideration of the power and facultie of the conscience For to the guiltie it seemeth to give a kind of furtherance to the torture to make him confesse his fault and weakneth and dismayeth him and on the other part it encourageth and strengthneth the innocent against torture To say truth it is a meane full of vncertaintie and danger What would not a man say nay what not doe to avoide so grievous paines and shun such torments Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor Torment to lie sometimes will drive Ev'n the most innocent alive Whence it followeth that he whom the Iudge hath tortured because he shall not die an innocent he shall bring him to his death both innocent and tortured Many thousands have thereby charged their heads with false confessions Amongst which I may well place Phylotas considering the circumstances of the endâ—ctment that Alexander framed against him and the progresse of his torture But so it is that as men say it is the least evill humane weaknesse could invent though in my conceit verie in humanely and therewith all most vnprofitablie Many Nations lesse barbarous in that then the Graeâ—ian or the Romane who terme them so judge it a horrible and cruell thing to racke and torment a man for a fault whereof you are yet in doubt Is your ignorance long of him What can he doe withall Are not you vnjust who because you will not put him to death without some cause you doe worse then kill him And that it is so consider but how often he rather chuseth to die guiltlesse then passe by this information much more painfull then the punishment or torment and who many times by reason of the sherpnesse of it preventeth furthereth yea and executeth the punishment I wot not whence I heard this storie but it exactly hath reference vnto the conscience of our Iustice A countrie woman accused a souldier before his Generall being a most severe Iusticâ—r that he with violence had snatched from out hir poore childrens hands the smalâ— remainder of some pappe or water gruell which shee had onely left to sustaine them forsomuch as the Armie had ravaged and wasted all The poore woman had neither witnesse nor proofe of it It was but hir yea and his no which the Generall perceiving after he had summoned hir to be well advised what thee spake and that shee should not accuse him wrongfully for if shee spake an vntruth shee should then be culpable of his accusation But shee constantly persisting to charge him he forthwith to discover the truth and to be throughly resolved caused the accused Souldiers belly to be ripped who was found faultie and the poore woman to have said true whereupon shee was discharged A condemnation instructive to others The sixt Chapter Of Exercise or Practise IT is a hard matter although our conceit doe willingly applie it selfe vnto it that Discourse and Instruction should sufficiently be powerful to direct vs to action and addresse vs to performance if over and besides that we doe not by experience exercise and frame our mind to the traine whereunto we will range-it otherwise when we shall be on the point of the effects it will doubtlesse find it selfe much engaged and empeached And that is the reason why amongst Philosophers those that have willed to attaine to some greater excellence have not been content at home and at rest to expect the rigors of fortune for feare she should surprise them vnexperienced and find them novices if she should chance to enter fight with them but have rather gone to meet and front hir before and witting-earnestly cast themselves to the triall of the hardest difficulties Some have thereby voluntarily forsaken great riches onely to practise a voluntarie povertie others have willingly found out labour and an austeritie of a toylesome life thereby to harden and envre themselves to evill and travell othersome have frankly deprived themselves of the dearest and best parts of their body as of their eyes and members of generation lest their over-pleasing and too-too wanton service might in any sort mollifie and distract the constant resolution of their minde But to die which is the greatest worke we have to doe exercise can nothing availe vs therevnto A man may by custome and experience fortifie himselfe against griefe sorrow shame want and such like accidents But concerning death we can but once feele and trie the same We are all novices and new to learne when we come vnto it There have in former times beene found men so good husbands and thriftie of time that even in death they have assayde to tast and savour it and bent their minde to observe and see what manner of thing that passage of death was but none did ever yet come backe againe to tell vs tidings of-it nemo expergiâ—us extat Frigida quem semel est vit
glorious and generous Epicurian voluptuousnesse that makes accompt effeminately to pamper vertue in hir lap and there wantonly to entertaine it allowing it for hir recreation shame reproch agues povertie death and tortures If I presuppose that perfect vertue is knowne by combating sorrow and patiently vnder-going paine by tollerating the fits and agonies of the gout without stirring out of his place if for a necessarie object I appoint hir sharpnesse and difficultie what shall become of that vertue which hath attained so high a degree as it doth not onely despise all maner of paine but rather rejoyceth at-it and when a strong fit of the collike shall assaile-it to cause it selfe to be tickled as that is which the Epicurians have established and whereof divers amongst them have by their actions left most certaine proofes vnto-vs As also others have whom in effect I finde to have exceeded the verie rules of their discipline witnesse Cato the yonger when I see him die tearing and mangling his entrails I cannot simply content my selfe to beleeve that at that time he had his soule wholy exempted from all trouble or free from vexation I cannot imagine he did onely maintaine himselfe in this march or course which the rules of the Stoike sect had ordained vnto him setled without some alteration or motion and impassibilitie There was in my conceit in this mans vertue overmuch cheerefulnesse and youthfulnesse to stay there I verily beleeve he felt a kind of pleasure and sensualitie in so noble an action and that therein he more pleased himselfe then in any other he ever performed in his life Sic abijt è vita vt causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet So departed he his life that he reioyced to have found an occasion of death I doe so constantly beleeve-it that I make a doubt whether he would have had the occasion of so noble an exploit taken from him And if the goodnesse which induced him to embrace publike commodities more then his owne did not bridle me I should easily fall into this opinion that he thought himselfe greatly beholding vnto fortune to have put his vertue vnto so noble a triall and to have favoured that robber to tread the ancient libertie of his Countrie vnder foote In which action me thinks I read a kinde of vnspeakable joy in his minde and a motion of extraordinarie pleasure joyned to a manlike voluptuousnesse at what time it beheld the worthinesse and considered the generositie and haughtinesse of his enterprise Deliberat a morte ferociâ—r Then most in fiercenesse did he passe When he of death resolved was not vrged or set-on by any hope of glorie as the popular and effeminate judgements have judged For that consideration is over base to touch so generous so haughtie and so constant a heart but for the beautie of the thing it selfe in it selfe which he who managed all the springs and directed all the wards thereof saw much more clearer and in it's perfection then we can doe Philosophie hath done me a pleasure to judge that so honorable an action had been vndecently placed in any other life then in Catoes and that onely vnto his it appertained to make such an end Therefore did he with reason perswade both his sonne and the Senators that accompanied him to provide otherwise for themselves Catoni quum incredibilem natura tribuisset gravitatem eámque ipse perpetua constantia roboravisset sempérque in proposito consilio permansisset moriendum potius quà m tyranni vultus aspiciendus erat Whereas nature had affoorded Cato an incredible gravitie and he had strengthned it by continuall constancie and ever had stood firme in his purposed desseignes rather to die then behold the Tyrants face Each death should be such as the life hath been By dying we become no other then we were I ever interpret a mans death by his life And if a man shall tell me of any one vndanted in apparance joyned vnto a weake life I imagine it to proceed of some weake cause and sutable to his life The ease therefore of his death and the facilitie he had acquired by the vigor of his minde shall we say it ought to abate something of the lustre of his vertue And which of those that have their spirites touched be it-never so little with the true tincture of Philosophie can content himselfe to imagine Socrates onely free from feare and passion in the accident of his imprisonment of his fetters and of his condemnation And who doth not perceive in him not onely constancie and resolution which were ever his ordinarie qualities but also a kinde of I wot not what new contentment and carelesse rejoycing in his last behaviour and discourses By the startling at the pleasure which he feeleth in clawing of his legges after his fetters were taken-off doth he not manifestly declare an equall glee and joy in his soule for being rid of his former incommodities and entring into the knowledge of things to come Cato shall pardon me if he please his death is more tragicall and further extended whereas this in a certaine manner is more faire and glorious Aristippus answered those that bewailed the same when I die I pray the Gods send me such a death A man shall plainly perceive in the minds of these two men and of such as imitate them for I make a question whether ever they could be matched so perfect an habitude vnto vertue that it was even converted into their complexion It is no longer a painfull vertue nor by the ordinances of reason for the maintaining of which their minde must be strengthned It is the verie essence of their soule it is hir naturall and ordinarie habite They have made it such by a long exercise and observing the rules and precepts of Philosophie having lighted vpon a faâ—â—e and rich nature Those vicious passions which breed in vs finde no entrance in them The vigor and constancie of their soules doth suppresse and extinguish all manner of concupisences so soone as they but begin to move Now that it be not more glorious by an vndaunted and divine resolution to hinder the growth of temptations for a man to frame himselfe to vertue so that the verie seeds of vice be cleane rooted out then by maine force to hinder their progresse and having suffred himselfe to be surprised by the first assaults of passions to arme and bandie himselfe to stay their course and to suppresse them And that this second effect be not also much fairer then to be simply stored with a facile and gentle nature and of it selfe distasted and in dislike with licenciousnesse and vice I am perswaded there is no doubt For this third and last manner seemeth in some sort to make a man innocent but not vertuous free from doing ill but not sufficiently apt to doe well Seeing this condition is so neere vnto imperfection and weaknesse that I know not well how to cleare their confines and distinctions The
immortall by the creators decree Now if there be divers Worldes as Democritus Epicurus and well-neere all Phylosophie hath thought what know wee whether the principles and the rules of this one concerne or touch likewise the others Happily they have another semblance and another policie Epicurus imagineth them either like or vnlike We see an infinite difference and varietie in this world only by the distance of places There is neyther Corne nor Wine no nor any of our beastes seene in that new Corner of the World which our fathers have lately discovered All things differ from ours And in the old time marke but in how many parts of the world they had never knowledge nor of Bacchus nor of Ceres If any credit may be given vnto Plinie or to Herodotus there is in some places a kind of men that have very little or no resemblance at all with ours And there be mungrell and ambiguous shapes betweene a humane and brutish Nature Some Cuntries there are where men are borne headlesse with eyes and mouthes in their breasts where al are Hermaphrodites where they creep on all foure Where they have but one eie in their forehead and heads more like vnto a dog than ours Where from the Navill downewards they are halfe fish and live in the water Where women are brought a bed at five yeares of age and live but eight Where their heads and the skinne of their browes are so hard that no yron can pierce them but wil rather turne edge Where men never have beardes Other Nations there are that never have vse of fire Others whose sperme is of a blacke colour What shall we speake of them who naturally change themselves into Woolves into Coults and then into Men againe And if it bee as Plutark saith that in some part of the Indiaes there are men without mouthes and who live only by the smell of certaine sweete odours how many of our descriptions be then false Hee is no more riâ—ible nor perhappes capable of reason and societie The direction and cause of our inward frame should for the most part be to no purpose Moreover how many things are there in our knowledge that oppugne these goodly rules which we have allotted and prescribed vnto Nature And we vndertake to joyne GOD himselfe vnto hir How manie things doe we name miraculous and against Nature Each man and every Nation doth it according to the measure of his ignorance How many hidden proprieties and quintessences doe we dayly discover For vs to goe according to Nature is but to follow according to our vnderstanding as farre as it can follow and asmuch as we can perceive in it Whatsoever is beyond it is monstrous and disordred By this accoumpt all shall then be monstrous to the wisest and most sufficient for even to such humane reason hath perswaded that she had neither ground nor footing no not so much as to warrant snow to be white And Anaxagoras said it was blacke Whether there be any thing or nothing Whether there be knowledge or ignorance Which Metrodorus Chius denyed that any man might say Or whether we live as Euripides seemeth to doubt and call in question whether the life we live be a life or no or whether that which we call death be a life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who knowes if thus to live be called death And if it be to die thus to draw breath And not without apparance For wherefore doe we from that instant take a title of being which is but a twinckling in the infinit course of an eternall night and so short an interruption of our perpetuall and naturall condition Death possessing what-ever is before and behind this moment and also a good part of this moment Some others affirme there is no motion and that nothing stirreth namely those which follow Melissus For if there be but 〈…〉 this sphericall motion serve him nor the mooving from one place to another as Plato prooveth that there is neither generation nor corruption in nature Protagoras saith there is nothing in Nature but doubt That a man may equally dispute of all things and of that also whether all things may equally be disputed of Mansiphanes said that of things which seeme to be no one thing is no more then it is not That nothing is certaine but vncertainty Parmenides that of that which seemeth there is no one thing in Generall That there is but one Zeno that one selfe same is not And that there is nothing If one were he should either be in another or in himselfe if he be in another then are they two If he be in himselfe they are also two the comprizing and the comprized According to these rules or doctrines the Nature of things is but a false or vaine shadow I have ever thought this manner of speech in a Christian is full of indiscretion and irreverence God cannot die God cannot gaine-say himselfe God cannot doe this or that I cannot allow a man should so bound Gods heavenly power vnder the Lawes of our word And that apparance which in these propositions offers it selfe vnto vs ought to be represented more reverently and more religiously Our speech hath his infirmities and defects as all things else have Most of the occasions of this worlds troubles are Grammaticall Our sutes and processes proceed but from the canvasing and debating the interpretation of the Lawes and most of our warres from the want of knowledge in State-counsellors that could not cleerely distinguish and fully expresse the Covenants and Conditions of accords betweene Prince and Prince How many weighty strifes and important quarrels bath the doubt of this one silable Hoc brought forth in the world examine the plainest sentence that Logike it selfe can present vnto vs. If you say it is faire Weather and in so saying say true it is faire Weather then Is not thie a certaine forme of speech Yet will it deceive vs That it is so Let vs follow the example If you say I lie and that you should say true you lie then The Arte the reason the force of the conclusion of this last are like vnto the other notwithstanding we are entangled I see the Pyrhonian Phylosophers who can by no manner of speech expresse their General conceit for they had neede of a new language Ours is altogether composed of affirmative propositions which are directly against them So that when they say I doubt you have them fast by the throte to make them a vow that at least you are assured and know that they doubt So have they been compelled to save themselves by this comparison of Physicke without which their conceite would be inexplicable and intricate When they pronounce I know not or I doubt they say that this proposition transportes it selfe together with the rest even as the Rewbarbe doeth which scowred ill humours away and therewith is carryed away himselfe This conceipt is more certainly conceived by an interrogation What can I
murthering of children and of parents the communication with women traffike of robbing and stealing free licence to all maner of sensualitie to conclude there is nothing so extreame and horrible but is found to be received and allowed by the custome of some nation It is credible that there be naturall lawes as may be seene in other creatures but in vs they are lost this goodly humane reason engrafting it selfe among all men to sway and command confounding and topsie-turving the visage of all things according to her inconstant vanitie and vaine inconstancie Nihil it aque amplius nostrum est quod nostrum dico artâ—s est Therefore nothing more is ours all that I call ours belongs to Arte. Subjects have divers lustres and severall considerations whence the diversitie of opinions is chiefly engendred One nation vieweth a subject with one visage and thereon it stayes an other with an other Nothing can be imagined so horrible as for one to eate and devoure his owne father Those people which anciently kept this custome holde it neverthelesse for a testimonie of pietie and good affection seeking by that meane to give their fathers the worthiest and most honorable sepulchre harboring their fathers bodies reliques in themselves and in their marrow in some sorte reviving and regenerating them by the transmutation made in their quicke flesh by digestion and nourishment It is easie to be considered what abhomination and crueltie it had beene in men accustomed and trained in this inhumane superstition to cast the carcasses of their parents into the corruption of the earth as foode for beasts and wormes Lycurgus wisely considered in theft the vivacitie diligence courage and nimblenesse that is required in surprising or taking any thing from ones neighbour and the commoditie which thereby redoundeth to the common-wealth that every man heedeth more curiously the keeping of that which is his owne and judged that by this two fold institution to assaile and to defend much good was drawne for military discipline which was the principall Science and chiefe vertue wherein he would enable that nation of greater respect and more consideration then was the disorder and injustice of prevailing and taking other mens goods Dionysius the tyrant offered Plato a robe made after the Persian fashion long damasked and perfumed But he refused the same saying that being borne a man he would not willingly put-on a womans garment But Aristippus tooke it with this answere that no garment could corrupt a chaste minde His Friends reproved his demissenesse in being so little offended that Dionysius had spitten in his face Tut said he Fishers suffer themselves to be washed ouer head and eares to get a gudgion Diogenes washing of coleworts for his dinner seeing him passe by said vnto him If thou couldest live with coleworts thou wouldest not courâ— and faune vpon a tyrant to whom Aristippus replied If thou couldest live among men thou wouldest not wash coleworts See here how reason yeeldeth apparance to divers effects It is a pitcher with two eares which a man may take hold-on either by the right or left hand bellum ô terra hospita portas Bello armantur equi bellum haec arment a minantur Sed tamen ijdem molim curru succedere sueti Quadrupedes franaiugo concordia serre Spes est pacis O stranger-harb'ring land thou bringst vs warre Steed's serve for warre These heard's do threaten jarre Yet horses erst were wont to drawe our waines And harnest matches beare agreeing raines Hope is hereby that wee In peace shall well agree Solon being importâ—ned not to shed vaine and bottles teares for the death of his sonne That 's the reason answered hee I may more iustly shed them because they are bootelesse and vaine Socrates his wife exasperated her griefe by this circumstance Good Lord said she how vniustly doe these bad iudges put him to death What Wouldest thou rather they should execute me iustly replide he to her It is a fashion amongst vs to have holes bored in our â—ares the Greekes held it for a badge of bondage We hide our selves when we will enjoy our wives The Indians doe it in open view of all men The Scithians were wont to sacrifice strangers in their Temples whereas in other places Churches are Sanctuaries for them Inde furor vulgi quòd numina vicinorum Odit quisque locus cùm solos credat habendos Esse Deos quos ipse colit The vulgar hereupon doth rage because Each place doth hate their neighbours soveraigne lawes And onely Gods doth deeme Those Gods themselues esteeme I have heard it reported of a Iudge who when he met with any sharp conflict betweene Bartolus and Baldus or with any case admitting contrariety was wont to write in the margin of his booke A question for a friend which is to say that the truth was so entangled and disputable that in such a case he might favour which party he should thinke good There was no want but of spirit and sufficiency if he set not every where through his books A Question for a friend The Advocates and Iudges of our time find in all cases by ases too-too-many to fit them where they thinke good To so infinite a science depending on the authoritie of so many opinions and of so arbitrary a subject it cannot be but that an exceeding confusion of judgements must arise There are very few processes so cleere but the Lawiers advises vpon them will be found to differ What one company hath judged another will adjudge the contrary and the very same will another time change opinion Whereof wee see ordinarie examples by this licence which wonderfully blemisheth the authoritie and lustre of our Law never to stay vpon one sentence but to run from one to another Iudge to decide one same case Touching the liberty of Philosophicall opinions concerning vice and vertue it is a thing needing no great extension and wherin are found many advises which were better vnspoken then published to weake capacities Arcesilaus was wont to say that in pailliardize it was not worthy consideration where on what side and how it was done Et obsâ—oenas volupt at es si nat ura requirit non genere aut loco aut ordine sed forma aetate figura metiendas Epicurus putat Ne amores quidem sanctos à sapiente alienos esse arbitrantur Quaeramus ad quam vsque aet â—tem iâ—venâ—s amandi sint Obscene pleasures if nature require them the Epicure esteemeth not to be measured by kinde place or order but by forme age and fashion Nor doth he thinke that holy loves should be strange from a wiseman Let vs then question to what yeares yoong folke may be beloved These two last Stoicke places and vpon this purpose the reproch of Diogarchus to Plato himselfe shew how many excessive licenses and out of common vse soundest Philosophie doth tolerate Lawes take their authoritie from pâ—ssâ—ssion and custome It is dangerous to reduce them to their beginning
being Wherfore we must conclude that onely God is not according to any measure of time but according to an immoovable and immutable eternity not measured by time nor subiect to any declination before whom nothing is nor nothing shall be after nor more now nor more recent but one really being which by one onely Now or Present filleth the Ever and there is nothing that truly is but the alone Without saying he hath beene or he shall be without beginning and sans ending To this so religious conclusion of a heathen man I will onely adde this word taken from a testimony of the same condition for an end of this long and period of this tedious discourse which might well furnish me with endlesse matter Oh what a vile and abiect thing is man saith he vnlesse he raise himselfe aboue humanity Observe here a notable speech and a profitable desire but likewise absurd For to make the handful greater than the hand and the embraced greater then the arme and to hope to straddle more than our legs length is impossible and monstious nor that man should mount over and above himselfe or humanity for he cannot see but with his owne eies nor take hold but with his owne armes He shall raise himselfe vp if it please God extraordinarily to lend him his helping hand He may elevate himselfe by forsaking and renouncing his owne meanes and suffering himselfe to be elevated and raised by meere heavenly meanes It is for our Christian faith not for his Stoicke vertue to pretend or aspire to this divine Metamorphosis or miraculous transmutation The thirteenth Chapter Of iudging of others death WHen we judge of others assurance or boldnesse in death which without all peradventure is the most remarkeable action of humane life great heed is to be taken of one thing which is that a man will hardly beleeve he is come to that point Few men die with a resolution that it is their last houre And no where doth hopes deceit ammuse vs more She never ceaseth to ring in our eares that others have beene sicker and yet have not died the cause is not so desperate as it is taken and if the worst happen God hath done greater wonders The reason is that we make to much account of our selves It seemeth that the generality of things doth in some sort suffer for our annullation and takes compassion of our state Forsomuch as our sight being altered represents vnto it selfe things alike and we imagine that things faile it as it doth to them As they who travell by Sea to whom mountaines fields townes heaven and earth seene to goe the same motion and keepe the same course they doe Provehimur portu terraeque vrbésque recedunt We sayling launch from harbour and Behinde our backee leave townes leave land Who ever saw old age that commended not times past and blamed not the present charging the world and mens customes with hir misery and lowring discontent Iámque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator Et cùm tempor a temporibus praesentia confert Praeteritis laudat fortunas saepe parentis Et crepat antiquum genus vt pietate repletum The gray-beard Plow-man sighes shaking his hoary head Compares times that are now with times past heretofore Praises the fortunes of his father long since dead And crakes of ancient men whose honesty was more We entertaine and carry all with vs Whence it followeth that we deeme our death to be some great matter and which passeth not so easily nor without a solemne consultation of the Starres Tot circa vâ—um caput tumultuantes Deos. So many Gods keeping a stirre about one mans life And so much the more we thinke it by how much more we praise our selves What Should so much learning and knowledge be lost with so great dommage without the Destinies particular care A soule so rare and exemplar costs it no more to be killed then a popular and vnprofitable soule This life that covereth so many others of whom so many other lives depend that for his vse possesseth so great a part of the world and filleth so many places is it displaced as that which holdeth by it's owne simple string No one of vs thinkes it sufficient to be but one Thence came those words of Caesar to his pilot more proudly swolne then the Sea that threatned him Italiam si caelo authore recusas Mepete sola tibi causa haec est iusta timoris Vectorem non nosse tuum perrumpe procellas Tutelâ secure maie If Italie thou do refuse with heav'n thy guide Turne thee to me to thee only just cause of feare Is that thy passinger thou know'st not stormie tide Breake through secure by guard of me whom thou dost beare And these credit iam digna pericula Caesar Fatis esse suis tantúsque evertere dixit Mesuperis labor est parvâ qâ—em puppe sedentem Tam magno petiere mari Cesar doth now beleeve those dangers worthie are Of his set fate and saies doe Gods take so much paine Me to vndoe whom they thus to assault prepare Set in so small a skiffe in such a surging maine And this common foppery that Phoebus for one whole yeare bare mourning weedes on his forehead for the death of him Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam Cùm caput obscurá nitidum ferrugine texit The Snnne did pittie take of Rome when Caesar dide When he his radiant head in obscure rust did hide And a thousand such wherewith the world suffers it selfe to be so easily conicatcht deeming that our owne interests disturbe heaven and his infinitie is moved at our least actions Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est vt nostro fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor There is no such societie betweene heaven and vs that by our destinie the shining of the starres should be mort all as we are And to judge a resolution and constancie in him who though he be in manifest danger dooth not yet beleeve it it is no reason And it sufficeth not that he die in that ward vnlesse he have directly and for that purpose put himselfe into it It hapneth that most men set a sterne countenance on the matter looke big and speake stoutly thereby to acquire reputation which if they chance to live they hope to enjoy Of all I have seene die fortune hath disposed their countenances but not their desseignes And of those which in ancient times have put themselves to death the choise is great whether it were a sodaine death or a death having time and leasure That cruell Romane Emperor said of his prisoners that he would make them feele death And if any fortuned to kill himselfe in prison That fellow hath escaped me would he say He would extend and linger death and cause it be felt by torments Vidimus toto quamuis in corpore caese Nil animae let hale datum morémque nefandae Durum
replyed I thanke Iesus Christ that he hath deprived me of my sight that so I might not view thy impudent face affecting therby as they say a kind of Philosophicall patience So it is this part cannot be referred to the cruelties which he is said to have exercised against vs. He was saith Eutropius my other testimony an enemy vnto Christianity but without shedding of bloud But to returne to his justice he can be accused of nothing but of the rigors he vsed in the beginning of his Empire against such as had followed the faction of Constantius his Predecessour Concerning sobrietie he ever lived a Souldiers kinde of life and in time of peace would feede no otherwise than one who prepared and enured himselfe to the austeritie of warre Such was his vigilancie that he divided the night into three or foure parts the least of which hee allotted vnto sleepe the rest he employed in visiting the state of his army and his guardes or in study for amongest other his rare qualities he was most excellent in all sorts of learning It is reported of Alexander the Great that being laide down to rest fearing lest sleep should divert him from his thoughts and studies he caused a basen to be set neere his bed side and holding one of his handes out with a brazen ball in it that if sleepe should surprize him loosing his fingers endes the ball falling into the basen might with the noyse rouze him from out his sleepe This man had a mind so bent to what he vndertook and by reason of his singular abstinence so little troubled with vapours that he might well have past this devise Touching military sufficiencie he was admirable in all partes belonging to a great Captaine So was he almost all his life time in continuall exercise of War and the greater part with vs in France against the Alemans and French Wee have no great memorie of any man that either hath seene more dangers nor that more often hath made triall of his person His death hath some affinitie with that of Epaminoudas for being strucken with an arrow and attempting to pull it out he had surely done it but that being sharpe-cutting it hurt and weakened his hand In that plight he earnestly requested to bee carryed forth in the middest of his army that so he might encourage his souldiers who without him couragiously maintained the battell vntill such time as darke night severed the Armies Hee was beholding to Philosophie for a singular centempt both of himselfe and of all humane things Hee assuredly believed the eternitie of soules In matters of religion he was vicious every-where He was surnamed Apostata because he had forsaken ours notwithstanding this opinion seemes to mee more likely that never tooke it to hart but that for the obedience which he bare to the lawes he dissembled til he had gotten the Empire into his hands He was so superstitious in his that even such as lived in his time and were of his owne religion mocked him for it and it was saide that if he had gained the Victory of the Parthians hee would have consumed the race or breede of Oxen to satisfie his sacrifices He was also besetted with the Art of sooth saying and gave authoritie to all manner of prognostikes Amongst other things hee spake at his death he saide he was much beholding to the Gods and greatly thanked them that they had not suffred him to be slaine sodainely or by surprize as having long before warned him both of the place and houre of his end nor to die of a base and easie death more beseeming idle and effeminate Persons nor of a lingring languishing and dolorous death and that they had deemed him worthy to end his life so nobly in the course of his victories and in the flower of his glory There had before appeared a vision vnto him like vnto that of Marcus Brutus which first threatned him in Gaule and afterward even at the point of his death presented it selfe to him in Persia The speach he is made to speake when he felt himselfe hurt Thou hast vanquished ô Nazaraean or as some wil have it Content thy self oh Nazaraean would scarce have beene forgotten had it beene believed of my testimonies who being present in the army have noted even the least motions and wordes at his death no more than certaine other wonders which they annex vnto it But to returne to my theame he had long before as saith Marcellinus hatched Paganisme in his hart but forsomuch as he saw all those of his armie to be Christians he durst not discover him selfe In the end when he found himselfe to be sufficiently strong and durst publish his minde he caused the Temples of his Gods to be opened and by all meanes endevoured to advance idolatrie And to attaine his purpose having found in Constantinople the people very loose and at ods with the Prelates of the christian church and caused them to appeare before him in his pallace he instantly admonished them to appease all their civill dissentions and every one without hinderance or feare apply themselves to follow and serve religion Which he verie carefully sollicited hoping this licence might encrease the factions and controversies of the division and hinder the people from growing to any vnity and by consequence from fortifying themselves against him by reason of their concord and in one mind-agreeing intelligence having by the cruelty of some Christians found that There is no beast in the world so much of man to be feared as man Loe-heere his very words or very neare Wherin this is worthy consideration that the Emperor Iulian vseth the same receipt of libertie of conscience to enkindle the trouble of civill dissention which our Kings employ to extinguish It may be saide on one side that To give factions the bridle to entertaine their opinion is to scater contention and sew division and as it were to lend it a hand to augment and encrease the same There beeing no Barre or Obstacle of Lawes to bridle or hinder hir course But on the other side it might also bevrged that to give factions the bridle to vpholde their opinion is by that facilitie and ease the readie way to mollifie and release them and to blunt the edge which is sharpned by rarenesse noveltie and difficultie And if for the honour of our Kings devotion I believe better it is that since they could not doe as they would they have fained to will what they could not The twentieth Chapter We taste nothing purely THe weakenes of our condition causeth that things in their naturall simplicitie and puritie cannot fall into our vse The elements we enjoy are altered Metals likewise yea golde must be empaired with some other stuffe to make it fit for our service Nor vertue so simple which Ariston Pirrho and the Stoikes made the end of their life hath beene able to doe no good without composition Nor the Cirenaike sensualitie or Aristippian voluptuousnes
advanced in his dominions And was exceedingly grieved that for want of a litle longer life and a substitute to manage the Warre and affaires or so troubled a state he was enforced to seeke a bloody and hazardous battell having another pure and vndoubted victory in hand He notwithstanding managed the continuance of his sicknes so miraculously that he consumed his enemy diverted him from his Sea-Fleete and Maritime places he helde along the Coaste of Affricke even vntill the last day of his life which by designe he reserved and emploied for so great and renowmed a fight He ranged his battell in a round on ev'ry side besieging the Portugals army which bending round and comming to close did not onely hinder them in the conflict which through the valour of that yong-assailant King was very furious since they were to turne their faces on all sides but also hindred them from running away after the rowte And finding all issewes seized and all passages closed they were constrained to turne vpon themselves coacervantúrque non solum caede sed etiam fugâ— They fall on heapes not only by slaughter but by flight And so pel-mell to heape one on anothers neck preparing a most murthrous and compleat victory to the Conquerours When he was even dying hee caused himselfe to be carryed and haled where-ever neede called for him and passing along the files hee exhorted the Captaines and animated the Souldiers one after another And seeing one wing of the fight to have the worst and in some danger no man could hold him but he would needs with his naked-sword in hand get on hors-backe striving by all possible meanes to enter the throng his men holding him some by the Bridle some by the Gowne and some by the Stirrops This toyle and straining of himselfe made an end of that litle remainder of his life Then was he laid on his bed But comming to himselfe again starting vp as out of a swowne each other faculty failing him he gave them warning to conceale his death which was the necessariest commandement he could give his servaunts lest the souldiers hearing of his death might fal into dispaire and so yeelded the Ghost holding his fore-fingers vpon his mouth an ordinary signall to impose silence What man ever lived so long and so neere death Who ever died so vpright and vndaunted The extreamest degree and most naturall couragiously to manage death is to see or front the same not only without amazement but without care the course of life continuing free even in death As Cato who ammuzed himselfe to studie and sleepe having a violent and bloudy death present in his hart and as it were holding it in his hand The two and twentieth Chapter Of running Posts or Curriers I Have beene none of the weakest in this exercise which is proper vnto men of my stature well-trust short and tough but now I have given it over It toyles vs over-much to holde out long I was even-now reading how King Cyrus that he might more speedily receave newes from all parts of his Empire which was of exceeding great length would needs have it tried how farre a horse could in a day goe out-right without baiting at which distance hee caused Stations to be set and men to have fresh horses ready for al such as came to him And some report this swift kinde of running answereth the flight of Cranes Caesar saith that Luâ—ius Vibulus Rufus making haste to bring Pompey an advertisement rode day and night and to make more speed shifted many horses And himselfe as Suetonius writeth would vpon an hyred coache runne a hundred miles a day And sure he was a rancke-runner for where any river hindred his way he swam it over and never went out of his way to seeke for a bridge or foarde Tib erius Nero going to visite his brother Drusus who lay sicke in Germanie having three coaches in his companie ranne two hundred miles in foure and twenty hours In the Romane warres against King Antiochus Titus Sempronius Gracchus saiâ—h Titus Livius per dispositos equos propè incredibili celeritae ab Amphisa tertio dic Pellam pervenit By horse laide poste with incredible speede within three dayes he past from Amphisa to Pella And viewing the place it seemeth they were set Stations for Postes and not newly appointed for that race The inuention of Cecinna in sending newes to those of his house had much more speede he carried certaine swallowes with him and having occasion to send newes home he let them flie toward their nests first marking them with some colour proper to signifie what he meant as before he had agreed vpon with his friends In the Theatres of Rome the houshold Masters carried Pigeons in their bosomes vnder whose wings they fastened letters when they would send any word home which were also taught to bring back an answer D. Brutus vsed some being besieged in Mutina and otherselfe-where In Peru they went poste vpon mens backes who tooke their Masters vpon their shoulders sitting vpon certaine beares or chaires with such agilitie that in full running speede the first porters without any stay cast their loade vpon others who vpon the way waited for them and so they to others I vnderstand that the Valachians which are messengers vnto the great Turk vse extreame diligence in their businesse forasmuch as they have authoritie to dis-mount the first passenger they meete vpon the high-way and give him their tyred Horse And bicause they shall not be weary they are wont to swathe themselves hard about the bodie with a broade Swathe or Seare cloath as diverse others doe with vs I could never finde ease or good by it The three and twentieth Chapter Of bad meanes emploied to a good end THere is a woonderfull relation and correspondencie found in this vniversall pollicie of Natures workes which manifestly sheweth it is neither casuall nor directed by diverse masters The infirmities and conditions of our bodies are likewise seene in states and goverments Kingdomes and Commowealths as well as we are borne florish and fade through age We are subject vnto a repleatnesse of humours hurtfull and vnprofitable yea be it of good humours for even Phisitians feare that and because there is nothing constant in vs they say that perfection of health over joyfull and strong must by arte be abated and diminished lest our nature vnable to settle it selfe in any certaine place and for hir amendment to ascend higher should over-violently recoile backe into disorder and therefore they prescrib vnto Wrestlers purging and phlebotomie to substract that superabundance of health from them or of bad which is the ordinarie cause of sickenesse Of such like repletion are States often seene to be sicke and diverse purgations are wont to be vsed to purge them As wee have seene some to dismisse a great number of families chiefly to disburthen the Countrey which else where goe to seeke where they may at others charge seare themselves In this
sorte our ancient French leaving the high Countries of Germanie came to possesse Gaule whence they displaced the first Inhabitants Thus grew that infinite confluence of people which afterward vnder Brennus and others over-ranne Italie Thus the Gothes and Vandalles as also the Nations which possesse Greece left their naturall countries to go where they might have more elbow-roome And hardly shall we see two or three corners in the worlde that have not felt the effect of such a remooving alteration The Romanes by such meanes erected their Colonies for perceiving their Cittie to growe over-populous they were wont to discharge it of vnnecessarie people which they sent to inhabite and manure the Countries they had subdued They have also sometimes maintained warre wiâ—h some of their enemies not onely thereby to keepe their men in breath lest Idlenesse the mother of Corruption should cause them some worse inconvenience Et patimur longae pacis mala saevior armis Luxuria incumbit We suffer of long peace the soking harmes On vs lies luxury more fierce then armes But also to let the Common-wealth bloud and somewhat to allay the over vehement heat of their youth to lop the sprigs and thin the branches of this over-spreading tree too much abounding in ranknesse and gaillardise To this purpose they maintained a good while war with the Carthaginians In the treaty of Bretigny Edward the third King of England would by no meanes comprehend in that generall peace the controversie of the Dutchie of Britany to the end he might have some way to disburthen himselfe of his men of war and that the multitude of English-men which he had emploied about the warres of France should not returne into England It was one of the reasons induced Philip our King to consent that his sonne Iohn should be sent to warre beyond the seas that so he might carry with him a great number of yong hot-blouds which were amongst his trained military men There are divers now adaies which will speake thus wishing this violent and burning emotion we see and feele amongst vs might be derived to some neighbour war fearing lest those offending humours which at this instant are predominant in our bodie if they be not diverted elsewhere will still maintaine our fever in force and in the end cause our vtter destruction And in truth a forraine warre is nothing so dangerous a disâ—ase as a civill But I will not beleeve that God would favour so vnjust an enterprise to offend and quarrell with others for our commodity Nil mihi tam valdè placeat Rhammusia virgo Quòd temerè invitis suscipiatur heris That fortune likes me not which is constrained By Lords vnwilling rashly entertained Notwithstanding the weaknesse of our condition doth often vrge vs to this necessity to vse bad meanes to a good end Lycurgus the most vertuous and perfect Law-giver that ever was devised this most vnjust fashion to instruct his people vnto temperance by force to make the Helotes which were their servants to be drunke that seeing them so lost and buried in wine the Spartanes might abhor the excesse of that vice Those were also more to be blamed who anciently allowed that criminall offendors what death soever they were condemned vnto should by Phisitians all alive be torne in pieces that so they might naturally see our inward parts and thereby establish a more assured certainty in their arte For if a man must needes erre or debauch himselfe it is more excusable if he doe it for his soules health then for his bodies good As the Romans trained vp and instructed their people to valour and contempt of dangers and death by the outragious spectacles of Gladiators and deadly fighting Fencers who in presence of them all combated mangled sliced and killed one another Quid vesani aliud sibi vult ars impia luds Quid mortes iuvenum quid sanguine pasta voluptas What else meanes that mad arte of impious fense Those yong-mens deaths that blood-fed pleasing sense which custome continued even vntill the time of Theodosius the Emperour Arripe delatam tua dux in tempora famam Quódque patris superest successor laudis habeto Nullus in vrbe cadat cuius sit poena voluptas Iam solis contenta feris infamis arena Nulla cruentatis homicidia ludat in armis The fame defer'd to your times entertaine Enherite praise which doth from Sire remaine Let none die to give pleasure by his paine Be shamefull Theaters with beastes content Not in goar'd armes mans slaughter represent Surely it was a wonderfull example and of exceeding benefit for the peoples institution to see dayly one or two hundred yea sometimes a thousand brace of men armed one against another in their presence to cut and hacke one another in pieces with so great constancy of courage that they were never seene to vtter one word of faintnesse or commiseration never to turne their backe nor so much as to shew a motion of demissenesse to avoide their adversaries blowes but rather to extend their neckes to their swords and present themselves vnto their strokes It hath hapned to diverse of them who through many hurts being wounded to death have sent to aske the people whether they were satisfied with their duty before they would lie downe in the place They must not onely fight and die constantly but jocondly in such sort as they were cursed and bitterly scolded at if in receiving their death they were any way seene to strive yea maidnes encited them to it consurgit adictus Et quoties victor ferrum iugulo inserit illa Delicias ait esse suas pectúsque iacentis Virgo modesta iubet converso pollice rumpi The modest maide when wounds are giv'n vpriseth When victors sword the vanquisht throate surpriseth She saith it is hir sport and doth command T'embrue the conquer'd breast by signe of hand The first Romans disposed thus of their criminals But afterward they did so with their innocent servants yea of their free-men which were sold to that purpose yea of Senators and Roman Knights and women also Nunc caput in mortem vendunt fumus arenae Atque hostem sibi quisque parat cùm bella quiescunt They sell mens lives to death and Stages sight When wars doe cease they finde with whom to fight Hos inter fremitus novósque lusus Stat sexus rudis insciúsque ferri Et pugnas capit improbus viriles Amidst these tumults these strange sporting sights That Sex doth sit which knowes not how sword bites And entertaines vnmov'd those manly fights Which I should deeme very strange and incredible if we were not dayly accustomed to see in our wars many thousands of forraine nations for a very small some of mony to engage both their blood and life in quarrels wherein they are nothing interessed The foure and twentieth Chapter Of the Roman greatnesse I Will but speake a word of this infinite argument and slightly glance at it to shew
sundry prognostications that one Phocas a Souldier at that time yet vnknowne should kill him demanded of Philip his sonne in law who that Phocas was his nature his conditions and customes and how amongst other things Philip told him he was a fainte cowardly and timorousfellow The Emperour thereby presently concluded that he was both cruell and a murtherer What makes tyrants so bloud-thirstie it is the care of their securitie and that their faint-hart yeelds them no other meanes to assure themselves then by rooting out those which may in any sort offend them yea silly women for feare they should or bite or scrach them Cuncta ferit dum cuncta timet Of all things he afraide At all things fiercely laide The first cruelties are exercised by themselves thence proceedeth the feare of a just revenge which afterward produceth a swarme of new cruelties by the one to stisâ—le the other Philip the King of Macedon who had so many crowes to pull with the Romanes agitated by the horrour of so many murthers committed by his appointment and vnable to make his partie good or to take any saue resolution against so many families by him at severall times injuried resolved at last to seize vpon all their children whom he had caused to be murthered that so he might day by day one after another rid the world of them and so establish his safety Matters of worth are not impertinent wheresoever they be placed I who rather respect the weight and benefite of discourses then their order and placing neede not feare to place here at randone a notable storie When they are so rich of their owne beautie and may very well vpholde themselves alone I am content with a haires end to fitte or joyne them to my purpose Amongst others who had beene condemned by Philip was one Herodicus Prince of the Thessalians After whome he caused his two sonnes in lawe to bee put to death each of them leaving a yoong sonne behinde him Theoxena and Arco were the two widdowes Theoxena although shee were instantly vrged therevnto coulde never be induced to marry againe Arco tooke to husbande Poris a chiefe man amongst the Aenians and by him had diverse children all which she left very yoong Theoxena moved by a motherly charitie toward her yoong nephewes and so to have them in her protection and bringing vp wedded Poris Vpon this came out the proclamation of the Kings Edict This noble-minded mother distrusting the kings crueltie and fearing the mercilesnes of his Satelities or officers towards these noble hopefull and tender youths feared not to say that shee would rather kil them with her owne hands then deliver them Poris amazed at her protestations promiseth her secretly to convey them to Athens there by some of his faithfull friends to be kept safely They take occasion of an yearely feast which to the honor of Aeneas was solemnized at Aenia and thither they goe where having all day-long assisted to the ceremonies and publike banket night being come they convay themselves iuto a shippe appointed for that purpose in hope to save themselves by Sea But the winde fell out so contrarie that the next morning they found themselves in view of the towne whence the night before they had hoised sailes where they were pursued by the guarders and Souldiers of the Porte Which Poris perceiving laboured to hasten and encourage the Mariners to shift away But Theoxena enraged through love and revenge remembring her first resolution prepared both weapons and poison and presenting them to their sight thus shee bespake them Oh my deere children take a good heart death is now the onely meane of your defence and libertie and shall be a just cause vnto the Gods for their holy justice These bright-keene blades these full cuppes shall free you the passage vnto it Courage therefore and thou my eldest childe take this sworde to die the strongest death Who on the one side hauing so vndaunted a perswader and on the other their enemies ready to cut their throates in furious manner ranne all to that which came next to his hand And so all goared and panting were throwne into the Sea Theoxena prowde shee had so gloriouslie provided for her childrens safety lovingly embracing her husband saide thus vnto him Oh my deare heart let vs follow these boyes and together with them enjoy one selfe same graue And so close-claspt-together they flung themselves in to the maine So that the ship was brought to shoare againe but emptie of hir Maisters Tyrants to act two things together that is to kill and cause their rage to be felt have employed the vtmost of their skill to devise lingring deaths They will have their enemies die yet not so soone but that they may have leisure to feele their vengeance Wherein they are in great perplexitie for if the torments be over-violent they are short if lingring not grievous inough In this they imploy their wits and devises Many examples whereof we see in antiquitie and I wot not whether wittingly we retaine some spice of that barbariâ—me Whatsoever is beyond a simple death seemeth to mee meere crueltie Our justice cannot hope that he whom the terror of death cannot dismay be he to be hanged or beheaded can in any sort be troubled with the imagination of a languishing fire of a wheele or of burning pincers And I wot not whether in that meane time we bring him to despaire For what plight can the soule of a man be in that is broken vpon wheele or after the olde fashion nailed vpon a Crosse and xxiiij houres together expects his death Iosephus reporteth that whilest the Romane warres continued in Iurie passing by a place where certaine Iewes had beene crucified three dayes before he knew three of his friends amongst them and having gotten leave to remoove then two of them died but the third lived long after Chalcondylas a man of credite in the memories he left off matters happened in his time and thereabouts maketh report of an extreame torment the Emperor Mechmed was often wont to put in practise which was by one onely blow of a Cimitary or broad Persian Sword to have men cutte in two parts by the waste of the body about the Diaphragma which is a membrane lying ouerthwart the lower part of the breast separating the heart and lights from the stomake which caused them to dy two deaths at once and affirmeth that both parts were seene full of life to moove and stirre long time after as if they had beene in lingring torment I doe not thinke they felt any great torture in that mooving The gastliest torments to looke vpon are not alwaiâ—s the greatest to be endured And I finde that much more fiercely-horrible which other Historians write and which he vsed against certain Lords of Epirus whom faire and leasurely he caused to be fleade all over disposed by so malicious a dispensation that their lives continued fifteene daies in that languor and anguish And these two
precedent day only to mocke that Tyrant and encorage others to attempt the like enterprize against him And he that shall enquire of our Argolettiers or Free-booters what experiences they have had in these our late Civill wars shall no doubt find effects examples of patience of obstinacy and stif-neckednesse in these our miserable dayes and amidst the effeminate and puling worldlings farre beyond the Aegyptian and well worthy to be compared to those already reported of Spartan vertue I know there have beene found seely boores who have rather endured to have their feet broiled vpon a Greedyron their fingers ends crusht and wrung with the locke of a Pistole their eyes all bloody to be thrust out of their heades with wringing and wresting of a corde aboute their foreheads before they would so much as be ransomed I have seene and spoken with one who had beene left all naked in a ditch for dead his necke all brused and swolne with a halter about it wherewith he had beene dragged a whole night at a horses taile through thick thinne with a hundred thrusts in his body given him with daggers not to kil him outright but to grieve and terrifie him and who had patiently endured all that and lost both speech and sense fully resolved as himselfe told me rather to die a thousand deaths as verily if you apprehend what he suffered he past more then one full death then promise any ransome yet was he one of the wealthiest husbandmen in all his countrie How many have bin seene who have patiently endured to be burnt and rosted for vnknowne and wilful opinions which they had borrowed of others My selfe have knowne a hundred and a hundred women for the saying is Gaskoine heads have some prerogative in that whom you might sooner have made to bite a red-hot piece of yron then recant an opinion they had conceived in anger They will be exasperated and growe more fell against blowes and compulsion And he who first invented the tale of that woman which by no threates or stripes would leave to call her husband pricke-lowse and being cast into a pond and duckt vnder water lifted vp her hands and joyning her two thumbs-nailes in act to kill lice above her head seemed to call him lousie still devised a fable whereof in truth we dayly see the expresse image in divers womens obstinacie and wilfulnesse And yet obstinacie is the sister of constancy at least in vigor and stedfastnesse A man must not judge that which is possible and that which is not according to that which is credible and incredible to our sense and vnderstanding as I have already saide elsewhere And it is a great fault wherein the greater number of men doe dayly fall I speake not this of Bodine to make a difficultie in believing that of others which themselves neither can nor would doe Every man perswades himselfe that the chiefe-forme of humane nature is in himselfe according to her must all others be directed The proceedings that have no reference to hirs are false and faâ—â—ed Is any thing proposed vnto him of anothers mans faculties or actions The first thing he calls to the judgement of his consultation is his owne examples according as it goeth in him so goeth the worlds order Oh dangerous sottishnesse and intolerable foppery I consider some men a farre-off beyond and above my selfe namely amongst those ancient ones and though I manifestly acknowledge mine owne insufficiencie to follow or come neere them by a thousand paces I cease not to keepe them still in view and to judge of those wardes and springs that raise them so high the seedes whereof I somewhat perceive in my selfe as likewise I doe of the mindes extreame basenes which amazeth me nothing at all and I misbelieve no more I see the turne those give to wind vp themselves and I admire their greatnesse and those starts which I perceive to be so wondrous faire I embrace them and if with man wrength I reach not vnto them at least my judgement doth most willingly apply it selfe vnto them The other example he alledgeth of things incredible and altogether fabulous reported by Plutarke is that Agesilaus was fined by the Ephories because he had drawne tee harts and good wills of all his fellow-cittizens ento himselfe alone I knowe not what marke of falshood or shew of impossibiiltie he findes in it but so it is that Plutarke speakes there of things which in all likelihood were better knowne to him then to vs And as it was not strange in Geecce to see men punished and exiled onely because they were too popular and pleased the common people over much Witnesse the Ostracisme amongst the Athenians and the Petalisme among the Siracusans There is another accusation in the same place which for Plutarkes sake doth somewhat touch me where he saieth that he hath very well and in good trueth sorted the Romanes with the Romanes and the Graecians amongst themselues but not the Romanes with the Graecians witnesse saith he Demosthenes and Cicero and Aristides Syllâ— and Lysander Marcellus and Pelopidas Pompey and Agesilaus deming thereby that hee hath fauoured the Graecians in giving them so vnequall companions It is a just reproving of that which is most excellent and commendable in Plutarke Eor in his comparisons which is the most admirable part of his worke and wherein in mine opinion hee so much pleased himselfe the faithfulnesse and sinceritie of his judgement equalleth their depth and weight Hee is a Philosopher that teacheth vs vertue But let vs see whether wee can warrant him from this reproch of prevarication and false-hood That which I imagine hath given occasion or ground to this judgement is that great and farre-spreading lustre of the Romane names which still are tingling in our eares and never our of our mindes Wee doe not thinke Demosthenes may equall the glory of a Consull of a Proâ—ousull and a Questor of this great Common wealth of Rome But hee that shall impartially consider the truth of the matter and men in themselves which Plutarke did chiefly aime at and more to balance their custome their naturall dispositions and their sufficiencie then their fortune I am of a cleane opposite opinion to Bodine and thinke that Cicero and old Cato are much behinde or short of their parallels For this purpose I would rather have chosen the example of yong Cato compared to Phocion for in that paire might well be found a more likely disparitie for the Romanes advantage As for Marcellus Sylla and Pompey I see very well how their exploites of warre be more swolne glorious and pompous then the Craecians whom Plutarke compareth vnto them but the most vertuous and fairest actions no more in warre then elsewhere are not alwayes the most famous I often see the names of some Captaines smothered vnder the brightnesse of other names of lesser desert witnesse Labienus Ventidius Telesinus and diverse others And to take him in that sense were I to
huge multitude for feare they might breede a confusion This example is new to feare to bee over many yet if it be well taken it is very likely that The bodie of an Armie ought to have a well proportioned greatnesse and ordered to indifferent bounds Whether it be for the difficulty to feed the same or to lead it in order and keepe it in awe And we may easily verifie by examples that These numerous and infinite Armies haue seldome brought any not able thing to passe According to Cyrus his saying in Xenophon It is not the multitude of men but the number of good men that causeth an advantage The rest rather breeding confusion and trouble than helpe or availe And Baiazeth tooke the chiefest foundation of his resolution against the advise of all his Captaines to joyne fight with Tamburlane onely because the innumerable number of men which his enemie brought into the field gave him an assured hope of route and confusion Scanderbeg a sufficient and most expert Iudge in such a case was wont to say that tenne or twelve thousand trusty and resolute fighting men ought to suffice any sufficient Chieftaine of Warre to warrant his reputation in any kinde of military exploite The other point which seemeth to be repugnant both vnto custome and reason of Warre is that Vercingentorix who was appointed chiefe Generall of all the forces of the revolted Gaules vndertooke to immure and shutte himselfe into Alexia For He that hath the commaundement of a whole Countrie ought never to engage himselfe except in cases of extreamitie and where all his rest and last refuge goeth on it and hath no other hope lest him but the defence of such a place Otherwise he ought to keepe himselfe free that so he may have meanes to provide in all partes of his Government But to returne to Caesar hee became in time somewhat more slow heedy and considerate as witnesseth his familiar friend Oppius deeming he should not so easily hazard the honour of so many Victories which one onely disaster or mis-encounter might make him loose It is that the Italians are wont to say when they will or blame or reproach any man with this overdaring or rash fond-hardinesle which is often seene in yoong men calling them Bisognosid honore as much to say as needie of honour And that being yet hungrie greedy and voyde of reputation they have reason to seeke after it whatsoever it may cost them Which they should never doe that have already acquired the same There may be some just moderation in this desire of glory and some sacietie in this appetite as well as in others Divers doe so practize it He was farre from that religion of the auncient Romans who in their Warres would never prevaile but with meere and genuine vertue But rather joyned more conscience vnto it than now-adayes wee should doe And would never allow of all meanes were he never so certaine to get the victory In his Warres against Ariovistus whilest he was in Parly with him some tumult or insurrection happened betweene the two armies which beganne by the fault or negligence of some of Ariovistus horsmen In which hurlie-burlie Caesar found himselfe to have a great advantage over his enâ—emies which notwithstanding he would not embrace for feare he might be taxed or suspected to have proceeded falsly or consented to any trechery At what time soever hee went to fight he was accustomed to weare a verie rich garment and of a sheene and garish colour that so he might the better be marked When his Souldiers were neerest vnto their enemies he restrained and kept them very short When the ancient Graecians would accuse or tax any man of extreame insufficiencie they vsed this common Proverbe That he could neyther read nor swimme And himselfe was of this opinion that the arte of swimming was most necessary and beneficiall in Warre and a Souldier might reape divers commodities by it If hee were in haste and to make speede he would ordinarily swimme over al the Rivers hee met withal and loved greatly to travell on foote as Alexander the Great was wont In Aegypt being on a time forced to save himselfe to leape into a little Whirry or Boate and so many of his people following him that he was in danger to sinke hee rather chose to fling himselfe into the Sea which he did and swimming came into his fleete that was more than two hundred paces from him holding his writing-Tables in his left hand out of the Water and with his teeth drawing his Coate of Armes after him that his enemies might not enjoy it and this did hee being well strucken in yeares No Generall of Warre had ever so much credit with his Souldiers In the beginning of his civill warres his Centeniers offered him every one at their owne charges to pay and finde him a man at Armes and his foote men to serve him for nothing and those that were best able to defray the poore and needie Our late Admirall of France Lord Chastillion in our late civill warres shewed such an example For the French-men of his armie at their proper cost and charges helped to pay such strangers as followed him Few examples of so loving and earnest affection may bee found amongst those that follow the old manner of warre and strictly hold themselves vnder the ancient pollicie of their lawes Passion hath more sway over vs then reason Yet hath it chanced in the warres against Hanniball that imitating the example of the Romane Peoples liberalitie in the Cittie the Souldiers and Captaines refused their pay and in Marcellus his campe those were called mercenarie that tooke any pay Having had some defeate neere vnto Dyrrachium his Souldiers came voluntarily before him and offred themselves to be punished so that he was more troubled to comfort then to chide them One onely of his Cohortes whereof ten went to a Legion held fight above foure howres with foure of Pompeies whole Legions vntill it was well-nigh all defeated with the multitude and force of arrowes And in his trenches were afterward found one hundred and thirtie thousand shafts A Souldier of his named Scava who commanded one of the entrances did so invincibly defend and keepe himselfe that he had one of his eyes thrust out and one shoulder and one thigh thrust through and his sheild flawed and pearced in two hundred and thirtie severall places It hath befalne to many of his Souldiers being taken prisoners to chuse rather to die then promise to follow any other faction or receive any other entertainement Granius Petronius taken by Scipio in Affricke After Scipio had caused all his fellowes to bee put to death sent him word that hee gave him his life forsomuch as hee was a man of ranke and a Questor Petronius answered that Caesars Souldiers were wont to give life to others and not accept it themselves And therewithall with his owne handes killed himselfe Infinite examples there are of their fidelitie That part which they
and of a wondrous strange disposition to ridde herselfe from the importunate pursuit of a thousand amorous sutors who sollicited her for mariage prescribed this law vnto them that shee would accept of him that should equall her in running on condition those she should ouercome might lose their lives Some there were found who deemed this prize worthy the hazard and who incurred the penaltie of so cruell a match Hippomenes comming to make his essay after the rest deuoutly addressed himselfe to the diuine protectresse of all amorous delights earnestly inuoking her assistance who gently listning to his hearty praiers furnished him with three golden Apples and taught him how to vse them The scope of the race being plaine according as Hippomenes perceiued his swift footed mistresse to approch his heeles he let fall as at vnawares one of his Apples the heedlesse maiden gazing and wondring at the alluring beautie of it failed not to turne and take it vp Obstupuit virgo nitidique cupidine pomi Declinat cursus aurumque volubile tollit The maid amaz'd desiring that faire gold Turnes by her course takes it vp as it rold The like hee did at his need with the second and third vntill by this digressing and diverting the goale and aduantage of the course was judged his When Physitians cannot purge the rheume they divert and remooue the same vnto some lesse dangerous part I also perceiue it to be the most ordinary receit for the mindes diseases Abducendus etiam nonnunquam animus est ad alia studia sollicitudines curas negotia Loci denique mutatione tanquam aegroti non conualescentes saepe curandus est Our minde also is sometimes to bee diuerted to other studies cogitations cares and businesses and lastly to be cured by change of place as sicke folkes vse that otherwise cannot get health We make it seldome to shocke mischiefes with direct resistance we make it neither to beare nor to breake but to shun or divert the blow This other lesson is too high and over-hard It is for them of the first ranke meerely to stay vpon the thing it selfe to examine and iudge it It belongeth to one onely Socrates to accost and entertaine death with an vndaunted ordinary visage to become familiar and play with it He seeketh for no comfort out of the thing it selfe To die seemeth vnto him a naturall and indifferent accident thereon he wishly fixeth his sight and thereon he resolueth without looking else-where Hegosias his disciples who with hunger starued themselues to death incensed therevnto with the perswading discourses of his lessons and that so thicke as King Ptolomey forbad him any longer to entertaine his schoole with such murtherous precepts Those considered not death in it selfe they iudge it not This was not the limit of their thoughts they run on and ayme at another being Those poore creatures we see on scaffolds fraught with an ardent deuotion therein to the vttermost of their power employing all their sences their eares attentive to such instructions as Preachers give them their hands and eies liâ—t vp towardes heaven their voice vttering loud and earnest praiers all with an eager and continual ruth-mooving motion doe verily what in such an vnavoidable exigent is commendable and conuenient One may well commend their religion but not properly their constancy They shunne the brunt they divert their consideration from death as we vse to dandle and busie children when we would lance them or let them bloud I have seene some who if by fortune they chanced to cast their eies towards the dreadfull preparations of death which were round about them fall into trances and with fury cast their cogitations else-where We teach those that are to passe-over some steepy downe fall or dreadfull abisse to shut or turne aside their eies Subrius Flauius being by the appointment of Nero to be put to death by the hands of Niger both chiefe commanders in war when he was brought vnto the place where the execution should be performed seeing the pit Niger had caused to be digged for him vneuen and vnhandsomely made Nor is this pit quoth he to the souldiers that stood about him according to the true discipline of war And to Niger who willed him to hold his head steddy I wish thou wouldest stricke as steddily He guessed right for Nigers arme trembling he had divers blowes at him before he could strike it off This man seemeth to haue fixed his thoughts surely and directly on the matter He that dies in the fury of a battle with weapons in hand thinkes not then on death and neither feeleth nor considereth the same the heate of the fight transports him An honest man of my acquaintance falling downe in a single combat and feeling himselfe stab'd nine or ten times by his enemy was called vnto by the by-standers to call on God and remember his conscience but he tould me after that albeit those voices came vnto his eares they had no whit mooued him and that he thought on nothing but how to discharge and reuenge himselfe In which combat he vanquished and slew his aduersary He who brought L. Syllanus his condemnation did much for him in that when he heard him answer he was prepared to die but not by the hands of base villaines ran vpon him with his souldiers to force him against whom obstinately defending himselfe though vnarmed with fists and feet he was slaine in the conflict dispersing with a ready and rebellious choller the painefull sence of a long and fore-prepared death to which he was assigned We euer thinke on somewhat else either the hope of a better life doth settle and support vs or the confidence of our childrens worth or the future glory of our name or the auoyding of these liues mischieues or the reuenge hanging ouer their heads that have caused and procured our death Spero equidem medijs si quid â—ia numina possunt Supplicia hausurum scopulis nomine Dido Saepe vocaturum Audiam haec manes veniet mihi fama sub imos I hope if powers of heaven have any power On rockes he shall be punisht at that houre He oft on Didoes name shall pittilesse exclaime This shall I heare and this report shall to me in my grave resort Xenophon sacrificed with a crowne on his head when one came to tell him the death of his sonne Gryllus in the battell of Mantinea At the first hearing whereof hee cast his crowne to the ground but finding vpon better relation how valiantly hee died hee tooke it vp and put it on his head againe Epicurus also at his death comforted himselfe in the eternitie and worth of his writings Omnes clari nobilitati labores fiunt tolerabiles All glorious and honourable labours are made tolerable And the same wound and the same toile saith Xenophon toucheth not a Generall of an armie as it doth a private souldier Epaminondas tooke his death much the more cheerefully being informed that the victorie
Even so is my lifes voiage directed Yet have I seene divers farre-countries where I would have beene glad to have beene staied Why not If Chrysippus Diogenes Cleanthes Antipater and Zeno with so many other wise men of that roughly-severe and severely-strict Sect forsooke their Countries without iust cause to bee offended with them onely to enioy another aire Truly the greatest griefe of my peregrinations is that I cannot have a firme resolution to establish my abiding where I would And that I must ever resolve with my selfe to returne for to accommodate my selfe vnto common humours If I should feare to die in any other place then where I was borne if I thought I should die lesse at my ease farre from mine owne people I would hardly goe out of France nay I should scarcely goe out of mine owne parish without feeling some dismay I feele death ever pinching me by the throat or pulling me by the backe But I am of another mould to me it is ever one and at all times the same Neverthelesse if I were to chuse I thinke it should rather be on horsebacke than in a bed from my home and farre from my friends There is more hartssorrow than comfort in taking ones last farewell of his friends I doe easily forget or neglect these duties or complements of our common or civill courtesie For of Offices appertaining to vnaffected amitie the same is the most displeasing and offensive And I should as willingly forget to give a body that great adiew or eternall farewell If a body reape any commoditie by this assistance hee also findes infinite inconveniences in it I have seene divers die most piteously compassed and beset round with their friends and servants Such multitudes and thronging of people doth stifle them It is against reason and a testimony of smal affection and little care they have of you should die at rest One offendeth your eies another molesteth your eares the third v exeth your mouth You have neither sense nor limme or parte of your body but is tormented and grieved Your hart is ready to burst for pittie to heare your friends moanes and complaints and to rive asunder with spite to heare peradventure some of their wailings and moans that are but fained and counterfet If a man have ever had a milde or tender nature being weake and ready to die he must then necessarily have it more tender and relenting It is most requisite that in so vrgent a necessitie one have a gentle hand and fitly applied to his sences to scratch him where he itcheth or else he ought not be clawed at all If wee must needs have the helpe of a Midwife to bring vs into this world there is reason we should also have the aiding-hand of a wise man to deliver vs out of the same Such a one and there with all a true friend should a man before-hand purchase very deare only for the service of such an occasion I am not yet come to that disdainfull vigor which so fortifieth it selfe that at such times nothing aideth nor nothing troubleth I flie a lower pitch I seeke to squat my selfe and steale from that passage not by feare but by Art My intent is not in such an action to make either triall or shew of my constancie Wherefore Because then shall the right and interest I have in reputation cease I am content with a death vnited in it selfe quiet and solitarie wholly mine convenient to my retired and private life Cleane contrary to the Roman superstition where hee was judged vnhappie that died without speaking and had not his neerest friends to close his eies I have much adoe to comfort my selfe without being troubled to comfort others cares and vexations â—now in my minde without needing circumstances to bring me new and sufficient matter to entertaine my selfe without borrowing any This share belongs not to the part of societie It is the act of one man alone Let vs live laugh and be merry amongst our friends but die and yeeld vp the ghost amongst strangers and such as wee know not Hee who hath money in his purse shall ever finde some ready to turne his head make his bedde rubbe his feet attend him and that will trouble and importune him no longer than hee list and will ever shew him an indifferent and well-composed countenance and without grumbling or grudging give a man leave to doe what he please and complaine as he list I daily endevour by discourse to shake off this childish humour and inhumane conceit which causeth that by our griefes and paines we ever desire to moove our friends to compassion and sorrow for vs and with a kinde of sympathie to condole our miseries and passions We endeare our inconveniences beyond measure to extract teares from them And the constancie we so much commend in all others vndauntedly to endure all evill fortunes we accuse and vpbraid to our neerest allies when they molest vs we are not contented they should have a sensible feeling of our calamities if they doe not also afflict themselves for them A man should as much as he can set foorth and extend his joy but to the vtmost of his power suppresse and abridge his sorrow He that will causelesly be moaned and sans reason deserveth not to be pitied when he shall have cause and reason for it To be ever complaining and alwaies moaning is the way never to be moaned and seldome to be pitied and so often to seeme over-passionately-pitifull is the meane to make no man feelingly-ruthfull towards others He that makes himselfe dead being alive is subiect to be accounted alive when he is dying I have seene some take pepper in the nose forsomuch as they were told that they had a cheerefull countenance that they looked well that they had a temperate pulse to force laughter because some betraied their recoverie and hate their health because it was not regreetable And which is more they were no women I for the most represent my infirmities such as they are And shunne such words as are of evill presage and avoid composed exclamations If not glee and mirth at least an orderlysetled countenance of the by-standers and assistants is sufficiently-convenient to a wise and discreet sicke-man who though he see himselfe in a contrary state he will not picke a quarrell with health He is pleased to behold the same sound and strong in others and at least for company-sake to enjoy his part of it Though he feele and finde himselfe to faint and sinke downe he doth not altogether reject the conceits and imaginations of life nor doth he avoid common entertainments I will studie sicknesse when I am in health when it comes it will really enough make her impression without the helpe of my imagination We deliberately prepare our selves before hand for any voiage we vndertake and therein are resolved the houre is set when we will take horse and we give it to our company in whose favour we extend it I
vpon her to persecute vs. When I am sicke I want nothing that is extraordinarie what nature cannot worke in me I will not have a Bolus or a glister to effect At the very beginning of my agues or sickenesses that cast me downe whilst I am yet whole in my senses and neere vnto health I reconcile my selfe to God by the last duties of a Christian whereby I finde my selfe free and discharged and thinke I have so much more reason and authoritie over my sickenesse I finde lesse want of Notaries and counsell then of Physitions What I have not disposed of my affaires or settled of my state when I was in perfect health let none expect I should doe it beeing sicke Whatever I will doe for the service of death is alwayes ready done I dare not delay it one onely day And if nothing be done it is as much to say that either some doubt hath delaide the choise For sometimes it is a good choise not to chuse at all Or that absolutely I never intended to doe any thing I write my booke to few men and to few yeares Had it beene a matter of lasting continuance it should have beene compiled in a better and more polished language According to the continuall variation that hitherto hath followed our French tongue Who may hope that it 's present forme shall be in vse fifty yeares hence It dayly changeth and slips our hands and since I could speake the same it is much altred and well nigh halfe varied We say it is now come to a full perfection There is no age but saith as much of hirs It lies not in my power so long as it glideth and differeth and altereth as it doth to keepe it at a stay It is for excellent and profitable compositions to fasten it vnto them whose credit shall either diminish or encrease according to the fortune of our state For all that I feare not to insert therein divers private articles whose vse is consumed amongst men living now adayes and which concerne the particular knowledge of some that shall further see into it then with a common vnderstanding When all is done I would not as I often see the memory of the deceased tossed too and fro that men should descant and argue Thus and thus be iudged thus he lived thus he ment had he spoken when his life left him he would have given I wot what There is no man knew him better then my selfe Now as much as modestie and decorum doth permit me I heere give a taste of my inclinations and an essay of my affection which I doe more freely and more willingly by word of mouth to any that shall desire to be throughly informed of them But so it is that if any man shall looke into these memorialls he shall finde that either I have said all or desseigned all What I cannot expresse the same I point at with my finger Verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagaci Sunt per quae possis cognoscere cateratnte But this small footing to a quicke-sent minde May serve whereby safely the rest to finde I leave nothing to bee desired or divined of mee If one must entertaine himselfe with them I would have it to be truely and justly I would willingly come from the other world to give him the lie that should frame me other then I had beene were it he meant to honour mee I see that of the living men never speake according to truth and they are ever made to he what they are not And if with might and maine I had not vpheld a friend of mine whom I have lately lost he had surely been mangled and torne in a thousand contrrary shapes But to make an end of my weake humours I confesse that in travelling I seldome alight in any place or come to any Inne but first of all I cast in my minde whether I may conveniently lie there if I should chance to fall sicke or dying die at my ease and take my death quietly I will as neere as I can be lodged in some convenient part of the house and in particular from all noise or stinking favours in no close filthy or smoaky chamber I seeke to flatter death by these frivolous circumstances Or as I may rather say to discharge my selfe from all other trouble or encombrance that so I may wholly apply and attend her who without that shall happily lie very heavy vpon me I will have her take a full share of my lives eases and commodities it is a great part of it and of much consequence and I hope it shall not belie what is past Death hath some formes more easie then others and assumeth divers qualities according to all mens fantazies Among the naturall ones that proceeding of weakenesse and heavy dulnesse to me seemeth gentle and pleasant Among the violent I imagine a precipice more hardly then a ruine that overwhelmes me and a cutting blow with a sword then a shot of an harquebuse and I would rather have chosen to drinke the potion of Socrates then wound my selfe as Cato did And though it bee all one yet doth my imagination perceive a difference as much as is betweene death and life to cast my selfe into a burning furnace or in the channell of a shallow river So foolishly doth our feare respect more the meane then the effect It is but one instant but of such moment that to passe the same according to my desire I would willingly renounce many of my lives-dayes Since all mens fantazies finde either excesse or diminution in her sharpensse since every man hath some choise betweene the formes of dying let vs trie a little further whether we can finde out some one free from all sorrow and griefe Might not one also make it seeme voluptuous as did those who died with Anthonic and Cleopatra I omit to speake of the sharpe and exemplar efforts that philosophy and religion produce But amongst men of no great fame some have beene found as one Petronius and one Tigillinus at Rome engaged to make themselves away who by the tendernesse of their preparations have in a manner lulled the same asleepe They have made it passe and glide away even in the midst of the security of their accustomed pastimes and wanton recreations Amongst harlots and good felowes no speech of comfort no mention of will or testament no ambitious affectation of constancie no discourse of their future condition no compunction of sinnes committed no apprehension of their soules-health ever troubling them amid sports playes banketting surfetting chambring jesting musicke and singing of amorous verses and all such popular and common entertainments Might not wee imitate this manner of resolution in more honest affaires and more commendable attempts And since there are deaths good vnto wise men and good vnto fooles let vs find some one that may be good vnto such as are betweene both My imagination presents me some easie and milde countenance thereof and since we
must all die to bee desired The tyrants of Rome have thought they gave that criminall offender his life to whom they gave the free choise of death But Theophrastus a Philosopher so delicate so modest and so wise was he not forced by reason to dare to vtter this verse latinized by Cicero Vitam regit fortuna non sapientia Fortune our life doth rule Not wisedome of the schoole Fortune giveth the facilitie of my lives-condition some aide having placed it in such a time wherein it is neither needefull nor combersome vnto my people It is a condition I would have accepted in all the seasons of my age but in this occasion to trusse vp bag and baggage and take vp my bed and walke I am particularly pleased that when I shall die I shall neither breede pleasure nor cause sorrow in them Shee hath caused which is the recompence of an artist that such as by my death may pretend any materiall benefit receive thereby elsewhere jointly a materiall losse and hinderance Death lies sometimes heavie vpon vs in that it is burthensome to others and interesseth vs with their interest almost as much as with ours and somtimes more yea altogether In this inconveniency of lodging that I seeke I neither entermix pompe nor amplitude For I rather hate it But a certaine simple and homely proprietie which is commonly found in places where lesse Arte is and that nature honoureth with some grace peculiar vnto her selfe Non ampliter sed munditer convivium Plus salis quà m sumptus Not a great but a neate feast More conceite then cost And then it is for those who by their vrgent affaires are compelled to travell in the midst of deepe Winter and amongest the Grisons to be surprized by such extreamities in their journies But I who for the most part never travell but for pleasure will neither bee so ill advised nor so simply guided If the way be fowle on my right hand I take the left If I find my selfe ill at ease or vnfit to ride I stay at home Which doing and observing this course in very truth I see no place and come no where that is not as pleasant as convenient and as commodious as mine owne house True it is that I ever finde superfluitie superfluous and observe a kinde of troublesomenesse in delicatenesse and plenty Have I omitted or left any thing behind me that was worth the seeing I returne backe It is ever my way I am never out of it I trace no certaine line neither right nor crooked Comming to any strange place finde I not what was tould mee As it often fortuneth that others judgements agree not with mine and have most times found them false I grieve not at my labour I have learned that what was reported to bee there is not I have my bodies complexion as free and my taste as common as any man in the world The diversity of fashions betweene one and other nations concerneth mee nothing but by the varieties-pleasure Each custome hath his reason Bee the trenchers or dishes of wood of pewter or of earth bee my meate boyled rosted or baked butter or oyle and that of Olives or of Wall-nuts hot or colde I make no difference all is one to me And as one that is growing old I accuse the generous facultie and had neede that delicatnesse and choise should stay the indiscretion of my appetite and sometime ease and solace my stomacke When I have beene out of France and that to do me curtesie some have asked me whether I would be served after the French maner I have jested at them and have ever thrust-in amongest the thickest tables and fullest of strangers I am ashamed to see our men besotted with this foolish humor to fret and chafe when they see any fashions contrary to theirs They thinke themselves out of their element when they are out of their Village Where ever they come they keepe their owne country fashions and hate yea and abhorre all strange maners Meete they a countriman of theirs in Hungary they feast that good fortune And what doe they Marry close and joyne together to blame to condemne and to scorne so many barbarous fashions as they see And why not Barbarous since not French Nay happily they are the better sort of men that have noted and so much exclaimed against them Most take going out but for comming home They travell close and covered with a silent and incommunicable wit defending themselves from the contagion of some vnknowne ayre What I speake of such puts mee in minde in the like matter of that I have heretofore perceived in some of your yoong Courtiers They onely converse with men of their coate and with disdaine or pitty looke vpon vs as if we were men of another World Take away their new fangled mysterious and affected courtly complements and they are out of their byase As farre to seeke and short of vs as we of them That saying is true That An honest man is a man compounded Cleane contrary I travell fully glutted with out fashions Not to seeke Gaskoines in Sicilie I have left over many at home I rather seeke for Graecians and Persians Those I accost them I consider and with such I endevor to be acquainted to that I prepare and therein I employ my selfe And which is more me seemeth I have not met with many maners that are not worth ours Indeede I have not wandred farre scarsly have I lost the sight of our Chimnies Moreover most of the casuall companies you meete withall by the way have more incommodity than pleasure a matter I doe not greatly take hold of and lesse now that age dooth particularize and in some sort sequester me from common formes You suffer for other or others endure for you The one inconvenience is yrkesome the other troublesome but yet the last is in my conceipt more rude It is a rare chaunce and seld-seene fortune but of exceeding solace and inestimable woorth to have an honest man of singular experience of a sound iudgement of a resolute vnderstanding and constant resolution and of manners comformable to yours to accompany or follow you with a goodwill I have found great want of such a one in all my voyages Which company a man must seeke with discretion and with great heed obtaine before he wander from home With me no pleasure is fully delightsome without communication and no delight absolute except imparted I do not so much as apprehend one rare conceipt or conceive one excellent good thought in my minde but me thinks I am much grieved and grievousty perplexed to have produced the same alone and that I have no simpathyzing companion to impart it vnto Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia vt illam inclusam tencam nec enunciem reijciam If wisdome should be offered with this exception that I should keepe it concealed and not vtter it I would refuse it The other strain'd it one note higher
formes I saw a miserable sicke man for the infinite desire he had to recover ready to burst yea and to die with thirst whom not long since another Physitian mocked vtterly condemning the others counsell as hurtfull for him Had not hee bestowed his labour well A man of that coate is lately dead of the stone who during the time of his sickenesse vsed extreame abstinence to withstand his evill his fellowes affirme that contrary his long fasting had withered and dried him vp and so concocted the gravell in his kidnies I have found that in my hurts and other sickenesses earnest talking distempers and hurts me as much as any disorder I commit My voice costs me deare and wearieth me for I have it lowd shrill and forced So that when I have had occasion to entertaine the eares of great men about weighty affaires I have often troubled them with care how to moderate my voice This story deserveth to bee remembred and to divert me A certaine man in one of the Greeke schooles spake very lowde as I doe the maister of the ceremonies sent him word hee should speake lower let him quoth he send mee the tune or key in which he would have me speake The other replied that hee should take his tune from his eares to whom he spake It was well sayd so hee vnderstood himselfe Speake according as you have to doe with your auditory For if one say let it suffice that he heareth you or governe your selfe by him I do not thinke he had reason to say so The tune or motion of the voyce hath some expression or signification of my meaning It is in me to direct the same that so I may the better represent my selfe There is a voyce to instruct one to flatter and another to chide I will not onely have my voyce come to him but peradventure to wound and pierce him When I brawle and rate my lackey with a sharpe and piercing tune were it fit he should come to me and say Master speake softly I vnderstand and heare you very well Est quaedam vox ad auditum accomodâ—ta non magnitudine sed proprietatâ— There is a kinde of voyce well applied to the hearing not by the greatnesse of it but by the propriâ—tie The word is halfe his that speakeh and halfe his that harkoneth vnto it The heaâ—er ought to prepare himselfe to the motion or bound it taketh As betweene those that play at tennis he who keepes the hazard doth prepare stand stirre and march according as he perceives him who stands at the house to looke stand remoove and strike the ball and according to the stroake Experience hath also taught mee this that wee lose our selves with impatience Evills have their life their limites their diseases and their health The constitution of diseases is framed by the patterne of the constitution of living creatures They have their fortune limited even at their birth and their dayes allotted them Hee that shall imperiously goe about or by compulsion contrary to their courses to abridge them doth lengthen and multiply them and instead of appealing doth harsell and wring them I am of Crantors opinion that a man must neither obstinately nor frantikely oppose himselfe against evills nor through demissenesse of courage faintingly yeeld vnto them but according to their condition and ours naturally incline to them A man must give sickenesses their passage And I finde that they stay least with mee because I allow them their swinge and let them doe what they list And contrary to common-received rules I have without ayde or arte râ—dde my selfe of some that are deemed the most obstinately lingring and vnremoovably-obstinate Let nature worke Let hir have hir will Shee knoweth what snee hath to doe and vnderstands hir selfe better then wee doe But such a one died of it will you say So shall you doubtlesse if not of that yet of some other disease And how many have wee seene die when they have had a whole Colledge of Physitians round about their bed and looking in their excrements Example is a bright looking-glasse vniversall and for all shapes to looke-into If it be a lushious or taste-pleasing potion take it hardly it is ever so much present ease So it be delicious and sweetely tasting I will never stand much vpon the name or colour of it Pleasure is one of the chiefest kindes of profite I have suffered rheumes gowty defluxions relaxions pantings of the heart megreimes and other such-like accidents to grow old in me and die their naturall death all which have left me when I halfe enured and framed my selfe to foster them They are better conjured by curtesie then by bragging or threats We must gently obey and endure the lawes of our condition We are subject to grow aged to become weake and to fall sicke in spight of all physicke It is the first lesson the Mexicans give their children When they come out of their mothers wombes they thus salute them My childe thou art come into the world to suffer Therefore suffer and hold thy peace It is injustice for one to grieve that any thing hath befallen to any one which may happen to all men Indignare si quid in te iniquè propriè constitutum est Then take it ill if any thing bee decreed vniustly against thee alone Looke on an aged man who sueth vnto God to maintaine him in perfect full an vigrous health that is to say he will be pleased to make him yong againe Stulte quid haec frustra votis puerilibus opt as Foole why dost thou in vaine desire With childish prayers thus t' aspire Is it not folly his condition will not beare it The gowt the stone the gravell and indigestion are symptomes or effects of long continued yeares as heates raines and windes are incident to long voyages Plato cannot beleeve that Aescuâ—apius troubled himselfe with good rules and diet to provide for the preservarion of life in a weake wasted and corrupted body being vnprofitable for his country inconvenient for his vocation vnfit to get sound and sturdy Children and deeme not that care inconvenient vnto divine justice and heavenly Wisedome which is to direct all things vnto profite My good sir the matter is at an end You cannot be recovered for the most you can be but tampered withall and somewhat vnder-propt and for some houres have your misery prolonged Non secus instantem cupiens fulcire ruinam Diversis contrà nititur obicibus Donec certa dies omni compage solutâ Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium So he that would an instant ruine stay With divers props strives it to vnderlay Till all the frame dissolvd a certaine day The props with th'edifice doth oversway A man must learne to endure that patiently which he cannot avoyde conveniently Our life is composed as is the harmony of the World of contrary things so of divers tunes some pleasant some harsh some sharpe some flat some low and some high What
would that Muâ—â—tition say that should love but some one of them He ought to know how to vse them severally and how to entermingle them So should we both of goods and evils which are consubstantiall to our life Our being cannot subsist without this commixture whereto one side is no lesse necessarie than the other To goe about to kicke against naturall necessity were to represent the folly of Câ—esiphon who vndertooke to strike or wince with his â—ule I consult but little about the alterations which I feele For these kinde of men are advantagious when they hold you at their mercy They glut your eares with their Prognostications and surprising mee heretofore when by my sickenesse I was brought very lowe and weake they have injuriously handled me with their Doctrines positions prescriptions magistrall fopperies and prosopopeyall gravity sometimes threatning me with great paine and smart and othertimes menacing me with neere and vnavoydable death All which did indeede move stirre and touch me neere but could not dismay or remoove mee from my place or resolution If my judgement be thereby neither changed nor troubled it was at least hindred It is ever in agitation and combating Now I entreate my imagination as gently as I can and were it in my power I would cleane discharge it of all paine and contestation A man must further help flatter and if he can cozen and deceive it My spirit is fit for that office There is no want of apparances every where Did he perswade as he preacheth he should successefully ayde me Shall I give you an example He tels me it is for my good that I am troubled with the gravell That the compositions of my age must naturally suffer some leake or flaw It is time they beginne to relent and gaine-say themselves It is a common necessity And it had beene no new wonder for mee That way I pay the reward due vnto age and I could have no better reckoning of it That such company ought to comfort me being fallen into the most ordinary accident incident to men of my dayes I every where see some afflicted with the same kinde of evill whosesociety is honourable vnto mee forsomuch as it commonly possesseth the better sort of men and whose essence hath a certaine nobility and dignity connexed vnto it That of men tormented therewith fewe are better cheape quit of it and yet it costs them the paine of a troublesome dyet tedious regiment and daily loath some taking of medicinall drugges and phisicall potions Whereas I meerly owe it to my good fortune For some ordinary broths made of Eringos or Sea-Holme and Burstwort which twice or thrice I have swallowed downe at the request of some Ladies who more kindely then my disease is vnkind offred me the moity of theirs have equally seemed vnto mee as easie to take as vnprofitable in operation They must pay a thousand vowes vnto Aesculapius and as many crownes to their Physition for an easie profluvion or aboundant running of gravell which I often receive by the benefite of Nature Let mee bee in any company the decency of my countenance is thereby nothing troubled and I can hold my water full tenne houres and if neede bee as long as any man that is in perfect health The feare of this evill saith hee did heeretofore affright thee when yet it was vnknowen to thee The cries and despaire of those who through their impatience exasperate the same bred a horror of it in thee It is an evill that comes and falles into those limmes by and with which thou hast most offended Thou art a man of conscience Quae venit indignè paena dolenda venit The paine that comes without desart Comes to vs with more griefe and smart Consider but how milde the punishment is in respect of others and how favourable Consider his slowenesse in comming hee onely incommodeth that state and encombreth that season of thy life which all things considered is now become barren and lost having as it were by way of composition given place vnto the sensuall licenciousnesse and want on pleasures of thy youth The feare and pitty men have of this evil may serve thee as a cause of glory A quality whereof if thy judgement be purified and thy discourse perfectly sound thy friends doe notwithstanding discover some sparkes in thy complexion It is some pleaâ—ure for a man to heare others say of him Loe there a patterne of true fortitude loe there a mirrour of matchlesse patience Thou art seene to sweate with labour to grow pale and wanne to wax red to quake and tremble to cast and vomite blood to endure strange contractions to brooke convulsions to trill downe brackish and great teares to make thicke muddie blacke bloody and fearefull vrine or to have it stopt by some sharpe or rugged stone which pricketh and cruelly wringeth the necke of the yarde entertaining in the meane while the by-standers with an ordinary and vndanted countenance by pawses jesting and by entermissions dallying with thy servants keeping a parte in a continued discourse with wordes now and then excusing thy griefe and abating thy painefull sufferance Dost thou remember those men of former ages who to keep their vertue in breath and exercise did with such greedinesse seeke after evills Suppose Nature driveth and brings thee vnto that glorious Schoole into which thou hadst never come of thine owne accord and freewill If thou tel me it is a dangerous and mortall evill what others are not so For it is a kinde of physicall cousenage to except any and so they goe directly vnto death what matter is it whether they goe by accident vnto it and easily slide on either hand toward the way that leadeth vs therevnto But thou diest not because thou art sicke thou diest because thou art living Death is able to kill thee without the helpe of any sickenesse Sickenesses have to some prolonged their death who have lived the longer inasmuch as they imagined they were still dying Seeing it is of woundes as of diseases that some are medicinall and wholesome The chollike is often no lesse long-lived than you Many are seene in whom it hath continued even from their infancy vnto their extreamest age who had they not forsaken hir company she was like to have assisted them further You oftner kill her than she doth you And if she did present thee with the image of neer-imminent death were it not a kinde office for a man of that age to reduce it vnto the cogitations of his end And which is woorse thou hast no longer cause to be cured Thus and howsoever common necessity calles for thee against the first day Consider but how artificially and how mildely she brings thee in distaste with life and out of liking with the world not forcing thee with a tyrannicall subjection as infinite other diseases doe wherwith thou seest olde men possessed which continually holde them fettered and ensnared and without release of weakenesse nor intemission