present is unvaluable and to helpe my selfe in speaking of it I have beene forced to fetch comparisons from heaven because inferiour things are never able to expresse it You doe it wrong to give it the name of a Preface but what may we expect from the worke it selfe before which such a preface is set If the outside be so rich and there bee so great magnificence in the Gate-house what will bee in the Galleries and Cabinets and what will the Palace be that is worthie of such an entrance I see indeed that it is a mark of greatnesse but I feare withall that it is a want of proportion and being not possible the rest should equall the the beginning you will bee accused for disturbing the order of things and for putting perfection out of its place which should not come in but at the last See here an accusation that is verie nice and whereof it is a glorie to bee convinced In this there is lesse account to be made of vertue than of vice and the disorder which makes a magnificence is more worth than the method which retaines a povertie Blame not sir the event of this dispute Beautie begets the prize in all causes where the eyes are judges and they who blame you for adorning too much your refutation of the Bookes of Flanders blame you for having your Armour too much guilded and that in striking you dazle their eyes It seemes they know not that the Lacedemonians never tricked up themselves but when they went to fight and that Caesar made his vaunt hee wanne battailes with perfumed Souldiers The pompe of your stile arrests not the sight without profit It is pleasing to the Reader but withall it is fatall to slander In it there is to bee seene the luster and braverie of Tournaments but withall there is to bee seene in it the force and terriblenesse of warre The onely pittie is you had not a competent Enemie to fight withall and that so much force and valour should bee spent upon a feeble furie and which is now at the last drop of its poyson The wretched man you pursue and who dyes blaspheming was not worthie of so noble a Resentment as yours having nothing considerable in him but that you vouchsafe to speake of him you make him of some worth by alledging him so often In undoing him you make him famous and his objections will one day not be found but in your answeres It is five and twentie yeares since hee was a fugitive from his order and should have had his triall before the Generall of the Iesuites And if these good Fathers did not deale too gently with delinquents and change imprisonment into banishment hee had from that time beene suppressed with all the filthy bookes hee hath made ever since But it was necessarie that to crowne his inconstancie after hee had abandoned above a dozen sides hee should now for his last prize become a parasite to the Spaniards and a Secretarie to those bad French that are at their Court. Let it never trouble us Sir that hee calles us Flatterers Atheists call honest men superstitious Catiline called them all slaves that would not be parracides and it hath alwayes been impossible to be vertuous with approbation of the wicked They are delinquents themselves that find fault with our innocency they are idle fellows who prostrate themselves every day before a Don Dego or a Don Roderigo and yet thinke much wee should doe any reverence to M. the Cardinall Richlieu But it is fit they should be taught that here is the true worship at Bruxells but Idolatrie and that to adore a forreigne Power and such a one that doth mischiefe to the whole earth is not at least an action so truely French as to revere a vertue that is native of France and that doth good to all the world Seeing they abuse our tongue in praysing their Tyrants and justifying our Rebells It cannot be denyed us to bring it backe to its naturall and proper use and in more honest subjects to purifie and make cleane those words and phrases which they have prostituted to the conceits of the Marquis of Aytona or made to serve the passion of Spaine If tyrannie were more to be feared than it is and that the unfortunatenesse of France should make it reach hither yet it should never make mee to unsay the propositions I hold and it shall be all my life a most pleasing object to mee to see my selfe enrolled in the Catalogue of Authours condemned by the enemies of my Countrey I thinke I may boldly say I was one of the first mainteiners of the truth and he perhaps that layd open the field where so many Oratours and Poets finde themselves exercise It is time now that I leave it to younger men and such as are more able than I am Yet I intreat you to remember Sir that I give place without running away and that it is the coldnesse of my bloud and the abatement of my strength that forceth mee 〈◊〉 not any want of courage or change of will Never thinke I will ever fayle in these I alwayes preserve in my heart the principles of good actions I meane good desires and when I can no longer be a runner in the Race yet I will be one of the most earnest Spectatours and fight at Cuffes when I can doe nothing else In the meane time to the end that a good part of my ancient travaile may not be lost and that I may not make that an unprofitable secret betweene my Muses and mee which may perhaps serve for some edification to the Publicke I thinke fit to make you account of certaine things I have heretofore conceived and to shew you that in actions of my dutie I oftentimes content my selfe with the testimony of my owne Conscience These are Pieces that were wrought before the second voyage into Italie and before the lamentable Divisions of the Royall Familie In the puritic of publick joy amidst the applauses of all the Kings subjects and even of those who have since lost their loyaltie and now lye rayling upon us at Bruxells I send you some sheets as I first light upon them and I send them Sir rather to doe you Homage by laying my Compositions at your feete than to make a Challenge as opposing them to yours rather to acknowledge the superioritie of your Eloquence and to goe in your Lyverie than to make my selfe your Competitor and seeke to brave you with so rash a Comparison If you finde any rellish in Discourses so farre short of the force and merit of yours and if you thinke they may give my Masters of the Universitie any the least contentment I earnestly entreate you to present them a Copie and withall my humble submission to their judgement I know this Societie is at this day the supreme Tribunall that Censures all workes of the Braine and gives Rules to all other Tribunalls of France I neither doubt of the susficiencie
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
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
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
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