one Vowell encounter another nor stands amazed at meeting with an untoward word as if it were a Monster This favour I receive from him and he the like from me we allow all liberty to our thoughts and if in treating together wee should not sometimes violate the lawes of our Art wee should never shew confidence enough in our friendshippe Rhetoricke therefore hath no place in Writings where Truth takes up all There is great difference betweene an Oratour and a Register and my private testimony ought not to passe for your Encomium Yet you will have it to be so you had rather accuse me of being eloquent then confesse your selfe to be vertuous and you avoid presumption by a contrary extremitie It seemes this occasion is dangerous to you and as in a shipwracke where all runne to save the dearest things so you abandon your other vertues to preserve your modesty Shee doth her selfe wrong Sir to stand in opposition to the publike voyce and to reject the testimony of noble fame Shee ought not to contradict the two chiefe Courts of Europe whereof the one honoureth your memory the other makes use of your counsels Aristotle would never approove of this who speakes of a vice with which if a man be tainted he resembles him to one who will not confesse hee hath wonne in the Olympicke games though men come and adjudge him the Garland and calls himselfe still culpable though three degrees of the Areopage pronounce him innocent Be not you of solittle equitie to your selfe and suffer mee to tell you what I thinke seeing I thinke nothing but that which is the common opinion and I deliver not so much my owne particular conceit as the generall beleefe of the whole world They who preferre a Captaine of Carabins before Alexander the Great and know not how to praise the integritie of a Statesman without affronting that of Aristides fall into that excesse which reason requires should be avoided Yet we ought not for all this generally to slight all merit of the present age and fancie to our selves that we are not bound to revere vertue unlesse it be consecrated by Antiquitie For my selfe I judge more favourably of things present and doe not thinke I run any hazard in subscribing to the Popes judgement of you that in serving the King you have beene his governour This would be to be too scrupulous to feare mistaking after him that they say cannot erre and you are too courteous to count it a courtesie that I doe my dutie and to give mee thankes that I am not a Schismaticke Concerning the last Article of your Letter I say it gives me not so much as a temptation neither am I indeede capable to receive it It sufficeth me Sir that you protect my repose here for to enter into defence of my interests in the place where you are as you doe me the honour to promise me I would advise you not to undertake it You could never looke for better successe then the prime man of this age had who could not obtaine of the favour he required of him in my behalfe It is much easier to breake downe the Alpes and to bridle the Ocean then to procure the paiment of my Pension and there is nothing that can make a worker of miracles see there is some thing impossible for him to doe but onely my ill fortune There are the bounds of this power which is so much envied The good will hee beares me cannot draw from Spaine the eight thousand pounds which are due unto me and it is Gods will hee should be disobeyed in this that I may be a witnesse against them who say that he is absolute I onely intreate you seeing you desire to oblige me to you to shew him the constancie of my passions which is obdurate against ill successes and preserves it selfe entire amidst the ruines of my hopes It shall be satisfaction enough for me that hee doe me the honour to beleeve I can adore freely and without hope of reward and that I should doe him as great reverence if he were not in so great a height of happinesse I expect this favour from your ordinary goodnesse and promise my selfe that you will alwayes have a little love for me seeing I have a will to be all my life most perfectly Sir Your c. From Balzac 30. May 1633. To Mounsieur de la Nauve Counsellor of the King in his Great Chamber LETTER X. SIR say what you can I am not so indulgent to my passion as you are injurious to your owne merits Amongst all your good qualities you have one that seemes an enemy to all the rest detraction doth you more justice then you doe your selfe and envie it selfe gives you that which your owne modesty takes away from you This is not to handle the truth civilly to respect her then when shee embraceth you This is to render her evill for good to call her fabulous when shee calls you vertuous I finde in this Sir more scruple then Religion The first and most antient charitie is thereby broken and you are faultie in the first principle of your dutie if before doing justice to all the world you deny to doe it to your selfe alone It must bee a great precisenesse of conscience that shall finde in you the evills you accuse your selfe of and a sight more cleare then mine that shall see defaults in the course of your life If you have any that are surely immateriall and such as fall not under sence They come not within the knowledge of any It must bee a secret betweene your confessour and you None is knowne Sir at least not knowne to be revealed and if any were so knowne it would rather be found a proofe of humilitie then a marke of imperfection I am none therefore as you say I am of these charitable lyars who attribute to them they love all that they want nor of these forgers of commonwealths who carry their imagination beyond all possibilitie of things I present not unto you an Idea to make you better then you are but taking you into consideration I propose you as my example to stirre me up to goodnesse I draw your picture for my owne use and not for your glory I intend more the instructing my selfe then the pratling with you The object of so elevated a vertue fills my minde with great desires and if it astonish me sometimes with its heighth it makes mee at least see by experience that an inferiour vertue is possible to be acquired so that to say true I studie you more then I praise you and am in this more swayed with interest then with passion I meane this passion without eyes that riseth onely from the animall part for as for that which is reasonable and works with knowledge I have that for you in the highest degree and by all kinds of obligations and of duties am Sir Your c. At Balzac 6. Febru 1634. To Mounsieur Heinfius Professor of
be not of the number of the vertuous I am at least of their side I applaud them whom I cannot follow and admire that I cannot imitate I am glad if I can be praised not onely of the judicious and wise such as you and our Mounsieur de Boissat are but even of the simpler sort that are honestly minded such as I know Sir how to love in perfection and when you shall know me better you shall confesse there is none that can be more than I Your c. At Paris 2. Aprill 1635. To Mounsieur de Uoyture LETTER XXXIII SIR If I did not rely upon your goodnesse I should take more care than I doe in preserving your favour and I should not let a messenger goe from hence by whom I should not persecute you with my Letters But knowing you are no rigorous exactor of that which is your due much lesse expect I should give you more I have conceived I might be negligent without offence and that having an absolute power over mee as you have you would use it upon me with the moderation of good Soveraignes And I should still continue to follow mine owne inclination which findes a sweetenesse in idlenesse if I did not thinke it necessary to advertise you that I am in the world least you should thinke all your courtesies lost that you have done me I would have beene glad I could have loved you all my life long without any kinde of interest or temporall consideration yet it troubles me not to give honour to my friend by giving him matter for his vertue to worke upon I am content you shall hold the higher part in our friendship which is to doe good but then I looke to hold the lover and lesse noble part which is to acknowledge and this is so setled in my heart that a greator cannot be desired from a man exceedingly sensibly and exceedingly obliged But though it were so that you had no tie upon me and that without ungratefulnesse I might forbeare to love you yet I intreate you to beleeve that the knowledge I have of your worth and merit would never give me leave to do it but that the naturall respect we owe to things that are perfect would alwayes binde me infinitely to honour you and to be with all my soule as I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 15. Iuly 1630. Another to him LETTER XXXIV SIR you are welcome from Flanders from England and from Spaine I am not onely glad for your returne but I refresh my selfe after your voyages For if you know it not I must tell you that my spirit hath gone these voyages with you you never passed the sea that I was not neare a shipwracke They that knew what it is to love will not mislike the noveltie of this compliment I have borne my part in all the fits of your Feavour I have drunke part of all your potions I have accompanied you in all your strange adventures It is therefore great reason I should give you thankes for giving my friendship rest and that by fiuishing your travell you have finished my unquietnesse It is better Sir to be a private man at home where there is courtesie and freenesse than to be a Lord Ambassadour among publique enemies and if the Iewes said well that the Graves of Judea were more beautifull than the Pallaces of Babylon why may not we be bold to say that the Dirt of Paris is better than the Marble of Madrill It is a juster thing to adore M. the Cardinall than to put off ones hat to the President Rose or to the Marquesse of Aitona and it would have beene a newes no lesse shamefull than lamentable if we had come to reade in the Gazets these pittifull words A Sonne of France was waiting for the King of Spaines rising up Atque ibi magnus Mirandusque Cheus sedet ad Praetoria regis Donec Hesperio libâ—… Uigilare Tyrâ—…no Thankes be to God the face of things is changed and a great Princes libertie hath cost but the life of a good Horse At our next meeting you shall tell me all the fortunes you have passed and in requitall thereof I will tell you newes out of the Wildernesse and it shall be at Mounsieur de Châ—… Chamber that our conference shall be at least if you care any thing for it and that I be in his favour still How soever this I am sure he can never love any man that honours him more perfectly than I doe or that hath a greater opinion of the beautie and noblenesse of his minde Hee is alwayes one of the deere objects of my thoughts and I still take him for one of those true Knights which are no where to be found now but in the History of France I want such an example before my eyes tostirre up the faintnesse I feele in my duty and to thrust me forward in the love of Vertue The least of his words makes my spirit but higher and greater the onely sound of his voyce gives the both life and strength and I doubt not but I should be twice as good as I am if I could but see him once a moneth and make a third in your excellent conferences But this is a happinesse which is at home with you but farre off from mee though I have a designe to come nearer to it you injoy it to the full and leave to others onely a desire of it and a jealousie and jealous indeede I should be if I did not love you more then I love my selfe and if being bound to you for a thousand favours I did not acknowledge my selfe more bound to take a contentment in your good fortune Enjoy then your happinesse sir and never feare I will oppose it seeing I shall alwayes preferre your contentments before my owne and shall be all my life Your c. At Balzac 5. Novemb. 1634. To Mounsieur Mestivier Physitian to my Lord the Duke D'Espernon LETTER XXXV SIR I am a thirst for the waters of Uya ever since I heard you thinke them to be wholesome the reputation you give them hath made me to send for them to try whether this Drug will do me any more good then others I am apt to beleeve for the satisfaction of my taste that there are no better medicines then those that are least compounded and which come ready made from the bosome of our common mother but specially I have a confidence in nature when shee comes authorized by your judgement and hath the warrant of so esteemed a name as yours and by this meanes Sir you have saved mee a voyage into Italy For so but for you I was taking a journey of two hundred and fifty Leagues upon the word of an antient Poet to the end I might be of those happy ones of whom he writes these verses Non ven 〈◊〉 relecant nec vulnere vulnera sanant Pocula nec tristi gramine mist a bibunt Amissum lymphis reparant impune vigorem
see him doe wonders in the world you neede wish him no more but matter of imployment Hee hath all the Intendments of an honest man all the Characters of a great Lord by these he gaines mens eyes in present and their hearts in expectation and afterwards brings more goodnesse forth than ever he promised and exceedes expectation with performance And in truth if this Heroick countenance had no wares to vent but vulgar qualities this had beene a tricke put upon us by Nature to deceive us by hanging out a false signe The charge hee exerciseth in the Church is no burden to him hee hath in such sort accōmodated his humour to it that in the most painefull functions of so high a duty there lies nothing upon his shoulders but ease and delight He embraceth generally all that hee beleeves to be of the decencie of his profession and is neither tainted with the heate which accompanies the age wherein he is nor with the varietie which such a birth as his doth commonly bring with it In a word the way he takes goes directly to Rome Hee is in good grace with both the Courts and the Pope would be as willing to receive the Kings commendation of him as the King would be to give it He hath brought from thence a singular approbation and hath left behind him in all the holy Colledge a most sweete odour and that without making faces or making way to reputation by singularitie For in effect what heate soever there be in his zeale hee never suffers it to blaze beyond custome his piety hath nothing either weake or simple it is serious all and manly and he protesteth it is much better to imitate S. Charles than to counterfeit him Concerning his passion of horses which he calls his malady since hee is not extreme in it never counsell him to cure it it is not so bad as either the Sciatica or the ◅out and if he have no other disease but that hee hath not much to doe for a Physitian One may love Horses innocently as well as Flowers and Pictures and it is not the love of such things but the intemperate love that is the vice Of all beasts that have any commerce with men there are none more noble nor better conditioned and of them a great Lord may honestly and without disparagement be curious Hee indeede might well be said to be sicke of them who can sed mangers of Ivory to be made for them and gave them full measures of peeces of gold this was to be sicke of them to bestow the greatest part of his estate upon beautifying his Stable and to make a mocke what men said or thought of chusing a Consull by his horses neighing You shall give me leave to tell you another story to this purpose not unpleasant It is of Theophylact Patriarch of Constantinople who kept ordinarily two thousand horses and fedde them so daintily that in stead of Barley and Oates which to our horses are a feast hee gave them Almonds Dates and Pistache nuts and more than this as Cedrenus reports he watered them long time before in excellent wine and prepared them with all sorts of precious odours One day as hee was solemnizing his Office in the Church of Saint Sophia one came and told him in his eare that his Mare Phorbante had foaled a Colt with which hee was so ravished that instantly without having the patience to finish his Service or to put off his Pontificall Robes hee left the mysteries in the midst and ranne to his Stable to see the good newes hee had heard and after much joy expressed for so happy a birth he at last returned to the Altar and remembred himselfe of his dutie which the heate of his passion had made him to forget See Sir what it is to dote upon horses but to take a pleasure in them and to take a care of them this no doubt may make a man bee said to love them and neverthelesse not the lesse the wiser man Even Saints themselves have their pleasures and their pastimes all their whole life is not one continued miracle they were not every day foure and twentie houres in extasie amidst their Gifts their Illuminations their Raptures their Visions they had alwayes some breathing time of humane delight during all which time they were but like us and the Ecclesiasticall Story tells us that the great Saint Iohn who hath delivered Divinitie in so high a straine yet tooke a pleasure and made it his pastime to play with a Partridge which he had made tame and familiar to him I did not thinke to have gone so farre it is the subject that hath carried me away and this happens very often to mee when I fall into discourse with you My complements are very short and with men that are indifferent to mee I am in a manner dumbe but with those that are deare unto mee I neither observe Rule nor Measure and I hope you doubt not but that I am in the highest degree Sir Your c. At Balzac 5. of Ianuary 1633. To Mounsieur Godeau LETTER XXII SIR there is no more any merit in being devout Devotion is a thing so pleasing in your Booke that even prophane persons find a rellish in it and you have found out a way how to save mens soules with pleasure I never found it so much as within this weeke that you have fedde mee with the dainties of the antient Church and feasted me with the Agapes of your Saint Paul This man was not altogether unknowne to me before but I vow unto you I knew him not before but onely by sight though I had sometimes beene neare unto him yet I could never marke any more of him than his countenance and his outside your Paraphrase hath made me of his counsell and given me a part in his secrets and where I was before but one of the Hall I am now one of the Closet and see clearely and distinctly what I saw before but in cloudes and under shadowes You are to say true an admirable Decipherer of Letters in some passages to interpret your subtilty is a kinde of Devotion thoroughout the manner of your expressing is a very charme I am too proud to flatter you but I am just enough to be a witnesse of the truth and I vow unto you it never perswades me more that when it borrowes your style There reflects from it a certaine flash which pleaseth instantly as beauty doth and makes things to be lovely before one knowes they are to be loved Your words are no way unworthy of your Authour they neither weaken his conceits by stretching them out at length nor scatter the sence by spreading it out in breadth But contrariwise the powerfull spirit which was streightened within the bounds of a concise stile seemes to breath at ease in this new libertie and to encrease it selfe as much as it spreads it selfe hee seemes to passe from his fetters into triumph and to goe
of the Letters of Monsieur DE BALZAC Written by him in French and translated into English by Sr R. B. LONDON Printed by I. D. for Iohn Crooke Francis Eglesfield and Richard Serger and are to be sold at the Gray-hound in Pauls Church-yard 1638. To my Lord the Cardinall De la Valet LETTER I. SIR being not able to bring you this untoward Present my selfe I humbly entreat you to excuse mee that I send it Wherein I bind you not to a second perusall and to read that againe which perhaps you have read already with distast It is true Sir that something is altered in the Copie and well neere one halfe added to the originall but the spight is that base wares get no value by store and the water that comes from the same Spring can never be much differing but if in any of the passages I have not altogether come off ill and that I have had some tolerable conceits I acknowledge Sir that I have had it all from the good education I had with you and that it is the fruit of those Instructions which you have done me the honour to impart unto me For no man ever had conceits more pure more pregnant than your selfe no man ever saw things more cleerly than you doe you can tell precisely in what degree of good and evill any thing stands and to find out the truth there needs no more but to follow your opinion But to speake truly I feare this qualitie in you no lesse than I esteeme it you have too much knowledge in you for a Discourse that requires simplicitie in the Reader Neither am I so unadvised to expose it to the severitie of your judgement I submit it rather to the protection of your goodnesse and hope you will not lay open those faults which none but your selfe can see Humbly entreating you to protect a spirit of your owne making and not so much to consider my manner of expressing as the affection with which I am Sir Your c. To the same as before LETTER II. SIR I am negligent for feare of being troublesome and least I should be importunately complementall I forbeare to shew my selfe officiously dutifull But my fault growing from discretion I hope you will not take it ill that I have a care not to trouble you and that you will pardon the intermission of my Letters which hath no other end but the solacing your eyes I seeke no colours of Art to paint out the affection I owe to your service This were to corrupt the naturall puritie Truth is simple and shamefast and when shee cannot shew her selfe by reall effects shee will scorne to doe it by verball expressions It is not in my tongue to expresse her otherwise than in such termes as are the engagements of a lye and when I shall have made you most sincere protestations of inviolable fidelitie there will come a coozening companion that will out-vie me and endeare himselfe beyond all my oathes I could wish there were some marke to distinguish protestations that are true from those that are feigned for if there were I should have great advantage over many Courtiers more officious and more hot in offering their service than I am and you should acknowledge that the eminency of your vertue not to speake of the eminency of your dignitie is of no man more religiously reverenced than of my selfe who am and ever will be Sir Your c. To Monsieur Godeau LETTER III. SIR Disguising will not serve your turne you are a remarkable man and whether it be that you call the dissembling of Art Negligence or that you cannot put off those ornaments which are naturall in you I let you know that the excellency of your style extends even to your familiar speech and that you are able to sweeten it without sawcing it A man may see that come springing flowing from you which in others is brought â—…farre off and that with engines you gather that which others pull off and though you write nothing loosly yet you write nothing with streyning yet I must tell you they are not the periods of your sentences nor the pawses that winne mee so much unto you I am too grosse for such slender and fine threads if you had nothing but rich conceits and choice words this were but the vertue of a Sophister and I should place you in the number of things that may please but not of things that one ought to love I make more reckoning of the honesty of a dumbe man than of the eloquence of a varlet I looke after the good of societie and the comfort of life not after the delight of Theaters and the amusement of company Let us make then a serious profession of our duties and let us give good examples to an evill age let us make the world see that the knowledge wee have of vertue is not meerly speculative and let us justifie our Bookes and our Studies that now are charged with the vices and imperfections of their Teachers Philosophy is not made to be playd withall but to be made use of and we must count it an Armour and not a painted Coate They are men of the worst making that now adayes make the worst doing sots take upon them to be subtle and wee have no more any tame Beasts amongst us they are all savage and wilde For my selfe who have seene wickednesse in its Triumph and who have sometime lived in the Countrey of subtlety craft I assure you I have brought nothing from thence but loathing and before ever I tasted it was cloyed I am exceeding glad to find you of the same dyet and doubt not of the Doctrine I Preach seeing I read the same in your owne Letter Beleeve it Sir there is none more wholesome none more worthy of our Creation Which I am resolved to maintaine even to Death and will no more leave it than the resolution I have made to be without ceasing Sir Your c. To Monsieur Godeau againe LETTER IIII. SIR I have knowne a good while that you are no longer a Druyde and that you lately made your entry into Paris I doubt not but with magnificence enough and not without bestowing some publike largesse I never knew you goe a forraging that you returned not home laden with bootie and your Voyages have alwayes enriched your followers I pretend my selfe to have a feeling of this and though farre remooved from the place where you act them yet I cannot learne that my absence makes me loose my part in the distribution of your good deedes Cease not Sir I entreat you to bind me unto you and to deserve well of my tongue Fill our Closets with the fruits of your braine and since you can doe it make us to gather more sheaves of Corne than the best workmen hitherto have left us eares My devotion stands waiting continually for your Christian workes and I entreat you they may be done in such a volume that we
Caesonia yet in the greatest heat of his fire he made love to her in these termes This fayre head shall be chopt off as soone as I but speake the word and told her sometimes that he had a greater minde to put her on the racke to make her tell him why he loved her so much The meaning Madam of all this is that the tamest of all Tygers is a cruell Beast and that it is a most dangerous thing to be wooâ—…d with talons I have seene the Booke you write to me of and finde it not unpleasing particularly where speaking of the makers of Pasquius and of saâ—… tyricall Poets he sayth that besides the golden age the age of silver of brasse and of iron so famous and so much talkt of in their Fables there is yet behinde to come an age of wood of which the ancient Poets never dreamt and in the miseries and calamities whereof they themselves shall have a greater part than any other If I goe abroad to morrow I hope to have the honour to see you In the meane time that I may observe good manners and not be wanting in formalities I will say I am Madam Your c. At Balzae 16. Aug. 1627. To LETTER XLV MY Lord besides the thankes I owe you for my Head I have a speciall charge from Madam de to thanke you from her and to give you a testimonie of your Coach-mans skill He is in truth a great man in his profession one might well trust him and slip from hence to Paris He glides by the brinke of Praecipices and passeth broken bridges with an admirable dexteritie say what you can of his manners otherwise Pardon mee my Lord if I maintaine that they be no vices and that you doe him great wrong to reproach him with them in your Letter Hee doth that by designe which you thinke hee doth by inclination and because he hath heard that a man once overthrew the Common-wealth when he was sober he thinkes that to drinke well is no ill qualitie to well governing Hee takes otherwise no care for going astray seeing he hath a God for his guide and a God that was returned from the Indies before Alexander was come into the world After so long a voyage one may well trust Father Denys with a short walke and hee that hath tamed Tygers may well be allowed to mannage horses Your Coach-man my Lord hath studied thus farre and if they who hold in their hands the reynes of the State to use the phrase of had beene as intelligent and dextrous as he they would have runne their race with a better fortune and our age should not have seene the fall of the Duke of nor of the Earle of it is written to me from the Court that These are the onely Newes I received by the last Post but I send you in their companie the Booke you desired which is as you know the booke of the wickednesse of the world and the ancient originall of all the moderne subtleties The first Christians endevoured to suppresse it and called it Mendacoorum Loquacissemum but men at this day make it their Oracle and their Gospell and seeke in it rather for Sejanus and Tygellinus to corrupt their innocency than for Corbulo or Thraseus to instruct them to vertue at our next meeting wee shall talke more hereof The great Personage I have praysed stands in doubt that his Encomium is at an end and presseth me to conclude that I am My Lord Your c. At Bolzac 4. June 1634. To LETTER XLVI SIR I am sorry to heare of the continuance of your maladie though I hope it be not so great as you make it These are fruits of this unseasonable time and I doubt not but your â—…leame which overflowes with the rivers will also with the fall of the rivers returne againe to its naturall bounds I have had my part in this inundation and it would be no small commoditie to me that things should stay in the state they now are in for by this meanes my house being made an Island I should be lesse troubled than now I am by people of the firme Land But seeing upon the abating of the waters depends the abating of your Rhume I am contented with all my heart they shall abate aâ—… above all things desiring your health yet withall I must tell you there is care to be used you must absteine from all moyst meates forbeare the good cheare of Paris and follow the advise of an ancient sage who counselled a man troubled with your disease to change the rayne into drowth You see how bold I am to send you my praescriptions I entreat you to follow them but not to imitate me for in this matter of Medicines I confesse my selfe a Pharisee I commend a Julippe to others but I drinke my selfe the Sweetest Wines But to speake of something else I cannot imagine why Monsieur de should keepe me languishing so long and having made mee stand waiting three moneths after his time appointed should now require a further prorogation and a longer delay For my part I verily beleeve he spake not in earnest when he made you this untoward answer and that it was rather for a tryall of your patience than for an exercise He hath the reputation of so honest and just a man that I can make no doubt of that he hath promised to Monsieur de and I am perswaded he accounts himselfe more streightly tyed by his word than by his bond Monsieur the beleeves that I have fingred my silver a yeare since and you know it is a summe provided to stoppe three or foure of my Persecutours mouthes who will never leave vexing you with their clamours day and night till they be satisfied It is therefore your part to use all meanes possible to content them at least if you love your libertie and take not a pleasure to be every morning saluted with extreame unpleasing good morrowes I expect hereupon to heare from you and am Sir Your c. At Balzac 17. Jan. 1630. To LETTER XLVII SIR you are too just to desire such duties from a sicke friend as you would exact from one that were in health The reasons I can give of my silence are much juster than I would they were and me thinkes three moneths continuing in a Feaver may well dispense with any obligation whatsoever of a civill life Yet seeing you will needs have me speake I cannot but obey you though I make use of a strangers hand to quarrell with you I cannot endure the dissimulation you shew in doubting of my affection and of the truth of my words I understand no jeasting on that side these are Games that I am uncapable to learne and in matter of friendship I am of that tendernesse that I am even wounded with that which is perhaps intended but for a tickling I perceive I have beene complained upon to you but I entreat you to beleeve it hath been upon very
now I leave following it my selfe and put it wholly into your hands a place perhaps to which my ill fortune her selfe will beare a respect but if shee shall be opposite to your desire and prevaile above your favour yet at least I shal thereby know the force of destinie to which all other forces give place and which cannot be mastered by any force nor corrected by any industrie but yet it shall not hinder me from resting well satisfied seeing I shall in this receive much more from you then I am denied by him if I hold any part in your grace and favour which is already my comfort against whatsoever ill successe can happen It sufficeth me to bee happy with this kind of happinesse which is more deare to mee than all the happinesse the Court can give me being a man no more ambitious then I am My Lord Your c. At Balzac 25. Decemb. 1634. To my Lord the Bishop of Poitiers LETTER XXVII MY Lord although Mounsieur de hath promised me to give you assurance of the continuation of my service yet I cannot forbeare to adde these few lines to his testimony and to tell you that which I tell to all the world that your vertue is a transcendent farre above the abilities and cariage of our age It is a match for antiquitie in its greatest purenesse and severitie When the Camilli and the Scipioes were not in imployment they reposed themselves and tooke their ease as you doe and when I consider sometimes the sweeteÌ„ life you leade at Dissay I conclude that all the imployments of the Pallace and all the intricacies of the Court are not worth one moment of a wise mans idlenesse It is well knowne that from your childhood you have despised vanitie even in her kingdome and that in an ayre where shee had attractives able to draw the oldest and most reluctant spirits All the pompe of Rome hath not so much as given you one temptation and you are so confirmed in a generous contempt that if good Fortune her selfe should come to looke you out you would scarce goe out of your Closet to meete her in your Chamber This is that I make such reckoning of in your Lordship and which I prefer before all your other qualities for those how great soever they be are yet but such as are common with many base and mercenarie Doctors where as this force and courage are things that cannot bee acquired in the noyse and dust of Schooles You found not these excellent qualities in the Vatican Library nor yet got them by reading of old Manuscripts you owe them indeede to Mounsieur your deceased father that true Knight without spot or wrinckle equally skilfull in the art of warre and in affaires of peace and that was the Heros of Muret of Scaliger and of Saint Mart. I propose not a lesse object for my worship then they did neither indeede is it lesse or lesse religious then theirs was and though you did not love mee as you doe and though you should denounce warre against me and become head of a faction to seeke my ruine yet I should not for all that forbeare to revere so rare a vertue as yours is but should stil remaine My Lord Your c. At Balzac 4. May 1630. To Mounsieur Guyet LETTER XXVIII SIR I feare not much to lose a thing I esteem but little but holding your friendship in that account I doe if I should not have it I should never see day of comfort more you must not therefore thinke it strange that I was mooved with the Alarum that was given mee for though I know my selfe to be innocent yet my unfortunatenesse is such that I conceive any bad newes to bee no more then my due Now that Mounsieur de hath quieted the agitation of my minde and hath assured me of your love I cannot forbeare to signifie unto you the joy I take telling you wit tall that so I may preserve a friend of your merit and worth I doe not greatly care for losing him that will leave me There is litle to be seene amongst men but malice weaknesse and even of good men the greatest part is scarce sound there is a cause why a firme and constant spirit as yours is is of wonderfull use in societie ' and it is no small benefit to them that are wearied overtoyled as I am to have a person to rest upon that cannot fall There is neede of courage to maintaine a friendship and indeede of prudence to performe the meanest duty of life t is nothing worth to have a sound will if the understanding bee defective our does a great matter to make vowes and sacrifices Nil veta furentem Nil delubrajuvant hee complaines without cause upon his tax and other inferiour matters this is to accuse innocents the evill no doubt comes from a higher place and it is the braine that is cause of all the disorder The knowledge I have hereof makes mee have compassion of him and excuse in a Doctor of three score yeares old those base shifting tricks that are not pardonable in a Schollar of eighteene Any man but my selfe would call his action a cowardice and a treason but I love to sweeten my griefe as much as I can I cannot become an enemy at an instant and passe from one extremity to another without making a little stay by the way I honour still the memory of our former friendship cannot wish ill to a man to whom I have once wisht well but this is too much I to complaine and you to quarrell doe me this favour I beseâ—… you to make choyse of something in your studie for a consolation of my solitude I have already the 〈◊〉 of Mounsieur the Admirall de la Volet but I would faine have the Epitaph of my Lady the Dutchesse of Esperâ—… and those admirable Elegies you shewed mee once In quibus 〈◊〉 es Tibullo â—…milis quam Tubullus sibi I intreate you to deliver them to Mounsieur who will see them safely delivered to mee if you please we will use him hereafter as our common correspondent who knowing me to the very bottome of my heart will I doubt not most willingly adde his testimony to my protestations that I truly am Sir Your c. At Balzac 25. Septem 1630. To Mounsieur de L'orme Physitian in ordinary to the King and Treasurer of France at Burdeaux LETTER XXIX SIR it is not now onely that I make a benefit of your friendship I have had profit by it a long time and you have often bin my advocate with so great force and so good successe that they who had before condemned me were glad to revoke their sentence as soone as they heard you speake yet all this while you did but onely speake well of me now you begin to doe well for me it is you whom this yeare I may thanke for my pension Without you Sir my warrant would never have perswaded my partner
you were your selfe the richer for it but now the losse is common to us both we both lament a common friend and your selfe have rather the greater share in this sad societie in as much as herein you have advantage over me for having performed to him the last duties Hee saw your teares fall amongst his blood you filled your eyes and your spirit with all circumstances of his death and I doubt not but it hindred you from being perfectly sensible of the victory at Mastrich and to shew a joyfull countenance in the most joyfull day of all your Princes life For my selfe I am not as yet capable of consolation yet have layd upon my wound all the plasters Philosophie could minister Mee thinkes my griefe is to mee in place of my friend I possesse it with a kind of sweetnesse and am so tender of it that I should thinke it a second losse if I had it not to passe my time withall yet I must intreate it a little forbearance that I may have time to make you an account of your liberalitie and that you may know what is become of the presents you sent me I received them Sir after your Letter and that by another kind of adventure I have imparted them to the worthiest persons of our Province I am at this time adorning my Closet with them and make more reckoning of them then of all the riches your Havens can shew or then all the pretious rarities the Sea brings to you from the farthest parts of the earth There is as much difference betweene your friends stile and that of other Panegyrists as betweene the stoutnesse of a Souldier and the coynesse of a Courtesan This manly eloquence full of mettall and courage seemes rather to fight then to discourse and rather to aide the King of Sweden then to praise him The ordering of his Tragedie is according to the rules and intention of Aristotle precise decencie most religiously observed The verses lofty and worthy of a Theater of Ivory Every part pleased me but that of the Chorus'es even ravished me and because I sigh alwayes after Italy that Chorus of the Romane Souldiers put me in passion I finde my selfe touched with it at the very quicke and in all company where I come I cannot forbeare crying out as if I were in rapture with divine fury O laeta otia Formiae Lucrini O tepids lacus Baiarum O medii dies O sola Elysiis aemula vallibus Lassi temperies Maris Campani via littoris lia Baccho ac Cereri vetus c I have onely one litâ—…le seruple to propose unto you I know not well why Tysiphone is brought in with Mariamne speaking of Styx Cocytus and Acheron and I cannot conceive how it is possiâ—…le a naturall body should be formed of two as differing peeces as are in my opinion the Iewish religion and the Heathenish My doubt growes from my ignorance and not from presumption I aske as desirous to learne and not to picke a quarrell specially with a man who in such Criticismes is a King and whom I acknowledge for the true and lawfull successor of the great Scaliger I have read his two Tracts upon the Satyre of Horace which are indeede two Master-peeces and I doe not thinke I ever saw together so much antiquitie renued so much reason displaied so much subtiltie fortified with so much force Hee stands not dreaming upon a word of no difficultie erecting as it were Trophees of like passages after the fashion of our Note-makers now adayes who heape up places upon places and bring nothing in their writings but the cruditie and indigestion of their reading He handles Grammar like a Philosopher and makes Bookes to be subject to Reason and the authority which time hath given them to the Principles which truth hath established he hath discovered that Idea of art which the best workemen never yet came neere and hath added that last perfection which shewes spots and impuritie in the most elaborate writings I have a great designe Sir to goe make my selfe an Artist under his discipline and to be at once both your Courtier and his Schollar I have thought upon this Voyage a yeare since but I would faine your warres would make passage for mee the way I would goe and that there were nothing Spanish betweene Paris and the Hage The sanctitie of Oratours and Poets is not reverenced over all the world they beare no awe amonst Barbarians these publike enemies would not spare Apollo himself nor the Muses and my person would find as little respect at their hands as my Booke did which in full councell they caused to be burnt by the hands of the Marquesse of Aytona yet I think you may say you never heard speake of a more illustrious Executioner nor of one that doth more honour to his trade and that the Counts of Egmont and Horne were not handled in their punishment with such pompe and state I dare not laugh Sir at this extravagant crueltie The Truce I had taken is expired and I cannot possibly stretch the leave which my griefe gave me any further I therefore leave you to returne to her and end with swearing Per illos manes numina doloris nostri that there is nothing in the world more deare unto mee than your friendship and that I am with all my soule Sir Your c. At Balzac 2. of February 1633. To Mounsieur de la Nauue Counsellor of the King in his first Court of Enquests LETTER XIX SIR my deare Cosin I never doubted of your affection towards me but I thought it proceeded of pittie rather then of merit and that having nothing considerable in me but my ill fortune your good nature was thereby onely excited to doe me this charitie but now I see you propose to your selfe a more noble Object and thinke to finde a better reason for your loving me yet I know not whether it be so just as the former and whether you may as lawfully respect a vulgar person as you may protect an unfortunate If I had had any such seedes of goodnesse in me as you speake of my ill fortune would have stifled all their vertue Nothing can bud forth in an aire perpetually tempestuous It is not enough for the labouring man that he take paines in his husbandry and that his soyle be good but there must be a sweetnesse of the season also to favour his trauell which I have hitherto proved so contrary that I wounder how I have the heart to be alwayes planting for tempests to spoile I finde more good for me in idlenesse than in labour and more gaine by doing nothing than by doing well When I am idle I am at least at quiet and envy rests as well as I but as soone as once I offer but to stirre there is presently an alarum raised in the Latine Province and opposition is made before I have conceived any thing to be opposed Other mens good deedes are rewarded mine onely if
that being but of a meane stature he hath yet by his knowledge in the Mathematicks found a meanes to make himselfe as high as Heaven But I will content my selfe to say that he is my friend and your Oratour that if my commendation and your own glory be deare unto you you cannot but very shortly send him backe with full satusfactuib I promised to send you the two Sonnets you have heard so much spoken of but my bad memory makes me fayle in a part of my promise and I can send you but one and a halfe The one entyre is this Tu reposois Dephnis au plus haut de Parnasse Couronné de lauriers si touffus fivers Qu'ils sombloit te Couurir des orages divers Dont la rigueur du sort trouble nostre bonacâ—… Quand l'injuste Menalque a been eu cett ' audace D'employer les poysons sans sarabe couuerts Pour corrumpre ton Noâ—… 〈◊〉 â—…plit l'univerâ—… Et me sprise du temps la fatale menace Mais si durant la paix tes Innocents Escrits Forcerant d'avouer les plus â—…ares asprits Que Florence devoit tu Temple ata memoire Ce style de combat Cet Efford plus qu'humain Feravoir aqual poyut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mettre ta gloire Qu'and l'iujure t' a mis les armes a la main The halfe one is this Quelque fois ma raison par des foibles discans M'incite a la revolte me promet secours Mais lors que tout de bon je me veur servir d'elle Apres beaucoup de peine et a'efforts impuissants Elle dit qu' vrâ—… est seule aymable belle Et m'y rengage plus que ne font tous mes sens The Authour of this last Sonnet hath made one in Spanish which in the Court of Spaine goes under the Name of Lopez de Vega and another in Italian which Marino verily beleeved he had read in Petrarke It is a Spirit that changeth himselfe at pleasure and transformes himselfe into what shape he list yet he deserves better prayses than this and his Morall qualities are nothing behinde his Intellectuall I will tell you his Name when it shall be lawfull to love him openly and to make his Encomium without soruple But first it is needfull that Fortune which hath cast him upon an Enemies Countrey should bring him backe to Paris where both of us meane to waite upon you to make our Court and from whence I desire not over to returne but onely to testifie to you more carefully than heretofore I have done that I am Madam my deare Cousin Your c. 〈◊〉 Balzâ—…e 4. May 1633. To Madam de Campagnole LETTER LIII MY most deare Sister I send you the Book which you required of mee for my Niece and I beleeve that this and her Prayer-Booke make her whole Librarie shee shall finde in it a Devotion that is not too mysticall nor too much refined and which hath nothing but Morall and reasonable I like this popular Divinitie which meets us halfe way and stoops a little that we may not strayne our selves too much It followes the example of its Authour who made himselfe familiar with common people and put not backe so much as Courtisans and Publicans farre from making division in families and withdrawing women from obedience to their mothers and their husbands It commends this obedience as their principall verue and calles it a second worship and a second religion I shall be glad to see my Neece make profession of a pietie so conformable to naturall reason and so good a counsellour of all other duties But let her not I pray climbe higher and undertake Meditations of her owne head Grenada whom I sent her hath taken this paines for her and hath meditated for her and for all other that shall reade his Bookes There is nothing more dangerous than to mount up to Heaven without a helper and a guide and it is a great confidence one must have in his Spirit to let it goe so farre and be assured it will ever come backe againe It is not long agoe there was in a Towne of Spaine a Societie of devoted persons who continued in meditation so many houres a day leaving off all base works to live as they sayd a more heavenly life but what thinke you became of it even a thousand domesticall disorders and a thousand publike extravagancies The lesse credulous tooke the pricke of a pinne for a Saints marke the more humble accounted their husbands prophane the wiser sort spake what came in their heads and made faces perpetually In so much that when in the moneth of May there did not past three or foure runne madde it was counted a good yeare It is fit to stay ones selfe upon the true vertue and not to follow the vaine Phantasmes of holinesse And it is farre safer to ground ones selfe upon a solid and certaine reading than to goe wandring in a hollow and unsteady contemplation If I had more time you should have more words but hee that brings you the letter calls upon mee for it and I can no more to it but that I perfectly am My deare sister Your c. At Balzac 15. April 1635. Another to her LETTER LIIII MY dearest Sister all the world tells meâ—… that my Niece is fayre and you may beleeve I will challenge no man for saying so Beautie is in Heaven a qualitie of those glorious bodies and in Earth the most visible marke that comes from Heaven It is not fit therefore to slight these gifts of God nor to make small account of this sparke of the life to come It is not fit to be of so crosse an humour to blame that which is generally praysed Marke when a comely personage comes in place having but this advantage of her birth you shall presently see all that were talking to hold their peace and what noyse soever there was before you shall have all husht and an universall calme upon a suddaine you shall see a whole great multitude all busie in different labours to make presently but one body and that onely to stand to gaze and wonder some leave to make up the reckoning they had begunne some curtoll their complements and cut them off in the midst every man puts off his conceits to some other time onely to take a full view and to contemplate this divine thing that presents it selfe If it be at a Sermon they leave hearkening to the Preacher and they are no longer the auditours of M. de Nantes but the spectatours of Calista The fayre can never be seene without respect without prayses without acclamations They triumph as often as they appeare and their youth hath not morâ—… dayes than their beautie hath Festivalls But the mischiefe is my deere Sister that the Festivals are short the youth is not lasting and the fayre at last come to be ill favoured Queenes and Princesses grow old and there is no old beautie but that of God of the Sunne and of the
I be alwayes forced to passe two Seas to fetch it when I need it I hope your justice will doe me reason and that Heaven will at last heare the most ardent of all my prayers but in the meane time whilst I stay waiting for so perfect a contentment I would be glad to have of it now and then some little taste which if it be not in your power to give mee at least lend it mee for some few dayes and come and sit as supreme President over both my French and Latin I promise you I will never appeale from you to any other onely for this once give mee leave to tell you that the word Ludovix which you blame as too new seemes to me a more Poeticall and pleasing word than either the Aloysius of the Italians or our Ludovicus and besides It savours of the Antiquitie of our Nation and of the first language of the Gaules witnesse these words Ambiorix Eporedorix Orgetorix Vercingetorix c. In which you see the Analogie to be plaine yet more than this I have an Authoritie which I am sure you will make difficultie to allow you know Monsieur Guyet is a great Master in this Art but perhaps you know not that hee hath used this very word Ludovix before I used it for I tooke it from excellent Verses of his Non tulit hoc Ludovix justa puer acer ab ira Etpatriae casum sic videamus ait For other matters Sir you may adde to that which was last alledged in the cause of Madam Gourney this passage out of the divine Jerusalem where Aladin calles Clorinda the Intercessour of Sophronia and of her lover Habbian vita Rispose libertade E Nulla a tanto Intercessor si neghi I kisse the hands of that faire creature you love and am with all my soule Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Septemb. 1635. To my Lord the Earle of Port. LETTER X. SIR I have received a letter from you since your being in England but not being able to read the Gentlemans hand that writ it to me for want of a decipherer I have been forced to bee uncivill till now and have therefore not answered you because indeed I know not whom to answer but now that this Gentleman whose name is a mysterie in his letters is by good fortune come againe into this countrey I can by no meanes suffer him to part without some testimonie of the account I make of your favour and the desire I have to preserve it by all the possible meanes I can I will make you Sir no studied Protestations nor send complements to a man that is borne in the Countrey of good words I will onely say there are many respects that make your person deaâ—… unto mee and that besides the consideration of your vertue which gives mee just cause to honour you that also of the name you beare and of the ranke you hold are things that exceed the value of indifferencie I love all them that love France and wish well to our great Prince of whom in truth I have heard you speake so worthily that as often as I remember it it stirres mee up to doing my dutie and to profit by so good an example If hee had been seconded in Italy wee should have seene all we could have hoped But God himselfe saves none but such as contribute themselves to their salvation Saguntum was taken while the Senatours were deliberating and a wisedome that is too scrupulous commonly doth nothing for feare of doing ill The most part of Italians are themselves the workmen to make their owne fetters they lend the Spaniard their blood and their heares to make a slave of their countrey and are the particides of their mother of whom they might have been the redeemers But of all this wee shall talke more at Paris if you come thither this Winter as I am put in hope you will In the means time doe mee the honor to let me have your love and to believe mee there is none in the world more truely than I Sir Yours c. At Balzac 10 Sept. 1630. To my Lord the Bishop of Nantes LETTER XI MY Lord the joy I take in the recoverie of your health is not yet so pure but that it alwayes represents unto me a terrible Image of your last sicknesse The imagination of a danger thogh past gone yet makes my momorie afraid I looke upon it rather in safetie than with assurance We missed the loosing you but very narrowly and you were upon the poynt to leave us Orphans I speake it seriously and without any flattery at all all the victories we have gotten or shall get would never be able to make us amends for such a losse you would have made our conquest turne to mourning M. the Cardinall would have found something to complaine of in his great felicitie and would have watred his triumph with his teares Let it not be Gods will to lay this crosse upon our time and if it be a crosse inevitable yet let it be deferred to our posteritie It is necessarie the Phoâ—…nix should live out her age and that the world should be allowed time for enjoying the possession and so profitable and sweet a life as yours It is true the world is not worthy of you but my Lord the world hath need of you your vertue indeed should long since have beene crowned but that your example is still necessarie and the more happie ones there be in heaven the fewer honest ones will be left upon earth Love therefore your selfe a little for our sakes begin now at last to studie your health which hitherto you have neglected and make a difference hereafter between cold and heate betweene good and bad aire between meates that are sweet and those that are bitter Though you take no care of your health for your owne sake yet you must take care of it for the common good For I beseech you my Lord tell me what should become of the cause of the poore what of the desolation of widowes what of the innocencie of men oppressed I speak not of the hope of such as hope for preferment by you for though I write to you my Father and call you Monsieur yet I am none of that number I desire nothing from you at this time but that which you may give me without asking it of another your love and good will is the onely object of my present passion I renounce with all my heart all other things in the world so I may keepe but this and shall never complaine of my shipwracke if it leave me so solid a planke as this to rest upon Beâ—… pleased to doe me the honour to believe it and that I am with all my soule My Lord Your c. At Balzac 15. June 1635. To Monsieur Senne Theologall of the Church of Saints LETTER XII SIR I have been in extasie to heare of your health and that you keepe your bodie in that reasonable