want of those wholesome and delightfull lessons those golden torrents that issue from your mouth with which you enrich your people amongst the least tolerable calamities of my exile It cannot but be a tormenting misfortune to be none of the world in a season when the world is so lovely a prospect and it is no little act of moderation to be contented with the silence of an Hermitage now when there is another Sonne of Thunder in the Church now you handle all divine things withall the vigour and dignity humane Eloquence is capable of At least my Lord if I may not be permitted to enjoy it I am not prohibited to love and long after it I shall with delight behold the progresse of your Renown in the Letters I expect from Monsieur Chaplain I will devoure the story of your Advent and Lent that is the acclamations and applauses of Paris in the Relations I desire from Monsieur de Menage It may be he may have so much charity as to allow me a larger share of his happinesse and to cheere up my solitude send me some short notes of those good and lovely things his memory will lay up so I shall not be altogether absent or at least I shall not lose all that is gotten in my absence With this thought I wil endeavour to moderate the great discontent in that I cannot be your most devout and attentive auditour as I am My Lord Your c. Dec. 1. 1644. LETTER XVII To Monsieur the President Maynard Counsellour to the King SIR THe man so much spoken of to me is in this country and we have already met three or four times I have set upon him withall my might I have laboured as much as is possible to blot out his unsound opinions but I protest his resistance is greater then my strength and you may tell our friends of Thoulouze that I have lost my paines and my argumentations There is no way to make him approve of Lent as well because of the preaching in it as the fasting He judges all Preachers by two or three Hedge-Priests that he hath heard and fancies that all sermons begin either with The valiant Captain Agesilaus or The learned Philosopher Socrates or Pliny in his naturall History or Pausanias in Arcadicis he urges to me continually the Buon per la Predica and the Riservate questo per la Predica of the Cardinall Hippolitus of Este when any merry fellow of his familiars spoke impertinently before him He doth not forget the Mortalium ineptissimus excepto uno Panigarolâ He paraphrases and comments upon these precepts that an old Doctour gave a young Batchelour Percute Cathedram fortiter respice crucifixum torvis oculis et nihil dic ad propositum et bene praedicabis I answer him that it is not just to consider things in that corruption they were once plunged into since now they are re-estated in their primitive purity and reformation hath succeeded disorder I lay before him when it comes to my turne the merit of our Chrysostomes and Basils but he replyes to me againe that according to my usuall custome I am liberall even to Prodigality and that I bestow great words and illustrious titles on every day in the year He maintaines that those good Fathers are dead long since without issue If he could he would introduce the Greek custome into the Latin Church he would have ancient Homilyes read to the people and a prohibition to make new ones for them If he durst he would do all his devotions in his Study and be auditour to none but his books What is to be done with this petulant morose fellow this head strong opinative man this ignorant pretender to reason It comes in my head to shew him that admirable Extract which you sent me and I do not think it will be any hard matter to put that off to him for a translation of a Greek Father which was preached at St. John en Greve yea for a Father of the first Classis in both Churches There needs nothing for this but to put Antioch in stead of Paris and translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into French I see no other course to draw him into a better conceit of our Ecclesiasticall Rhetorique He must be cheated for his own goode and without doubt he will admire that as a Homily which he would not abide if he were told it were a Sermon I am SIR Your c. Jun. 5. 1645. LETTER XVIII To Monsieur Menage SIR I Am not afraid to lose brave Gomez savour for my Epigramme of the hoarse Nightingale He is not backward in taking offence for he is only ambitious of military vertue and remembers the taunt of Philip to Alexander Art thou not ashamed to sing so well If he doth not make exceeding good verses not only Cicero and other Roman Consulls but Dionysius the tyrant and some other tyrants too whom I will not nominate had the same fate You may tell him if it please you that as I have quoted him in an Epigramme for a scurvy Poet I will hold him forth for a great souldier when I write his Encomium in Proâ—â— and speak in good earnest Especially Sir I will not forget his Prowesse on the other side the Alpes and above all that famous combat at Mantua I had the story from his owne mouth when he layed the dreadfull Captain Brancaleon sprawling on the ground The Ladies who saw him fight out at their windows which I had from him too called him a hundred times the honour of France and hope of Italy they cry'd out two hundred times Long live Gomes after his victory they flung him so many buckets of Jassamine and Orange flower water with such a storme of perfumed egges that they had like to have smothered him Is not here enough to comfort him abundantly against some triviall disgraces befalne him at the gate of Monsieur the Cardinall But he findes elsewhere more solid consolations are all the lawrells of your Parnassus and your Pindus worth that he crownes himselfe with when he gathers it from the Westphalia Hamme and relates his adventures in a Taverne If you see him put him in hopes of the Elogy I am studying and rellish the Epigramme I send you as he should do I am SIR Your c. Dec. 20. 1645. LETTER XIX To my Lord the Bishop of Lisieux SIR I Have done what you commanded me You will receive by Monsieur your Secretary the papers of that gentleman that writes so excellently and yet cannot spell that so happily makes use of the highest figures of Rhetorique and yet never learnt so much as the Elements of Grammar He is ignorant of the use of comma's and points yet never failes to make most ceven and just periods He familiarily puts a great Letter down where there should be a little one and never knew the difference between Kit and Chitte If he write to his mistris in the City concerning
it was filled with all the defilements of humane wit with the mudde and the corruption of all ages But what should not I say in a Preface of my making before the book I send you since I have made a Ticket speak so much already One word more in answer to your Letter Pardon me Madam my dearest Colen if I cannot do what you entreat me I do not think I shall quit St. John Chrysostome nor St. Leo the Pope who are the Chaplains of my Desart for your Preacher to whose Sermons you invite me And unlesse your selfe were to preach in your own Chappell it would be a very difficult task to entice me out of my Hermitage as long as this faire season lasts Do not think I am in jest when I speak of your Preaching you want nothing to do it but a priviledge which by misfortune hath not been granted to your sexe and you would have eloquence to spare if the Church would suffer you to make use of it I wish you a good day and am with all my soul Madam my Deare Cousen Your c. May. 7. 1634. LETTER XXV To My Lord the Bishop of Grasse My Lord I Received your Paraphrase on the Canonicall Epistes But you are more liberall then you conceive you are or else you give more then you speak of The Letter you did me the honour to write me promises me only four Apostles and I find five in the book I received from your favour Was it for want of memory that you made no mention of the fifth or an excesse of humility that you reckoned it for none This it selfe is one of the marks of Apostleship and the same God who exalts those of your order in the same rank with Angells by the power he hath given them inclines them to debase themselves beneath men by the example he hath left them But I am not obliged ever to assent to your Humility and believe a perfect man that preaches his imperfection For not to put any dissention between the Saints that triumph above and those who fight below I believe I may say the same spirit that animates you is no other but that which inspired them and that you speak with as much vigour as our Fathers did when the blood of our Saviour boiled yet in the Churches veines I observe in your works the language of those Heroick times and the courage of those Heroes Though I am all ice I kindle at the reading of them and I should find no difference between the Epistle you have made and those you have expounded but that you call them Gentlemen whom the Apostles style Brethren But it is not through affectation of certain termes out of use that we are to imitate the primitive Christians There is no great harme in complying with the age we are of in things of so small consequence and without letting slack the antient austerity some little toleration may be yielded to custome I am My Lord Your c. April 12. 1639. LETTER XXVI To the same My Lord SEek some other then me that may do what you order You require a thing of me that is not in my power and your works being my Mistrisses how can I possibly look on them with the eyes of an enemy To do this I must be as Barbarous as the ancient Goths who made warre on all excellent things or of as ill a nature as that moderne Italian who commented on Aristotle only to find fault with him I am neither a Goth nor Castelvetro I am your constant and perpetuall Admirer your Verses your Prose your inventions your imitations your lutes your flutes and your trumpets please me absolutely and without any condition Every thing that comes from you does so charme me that there is no meanes to make me censure uprightly of it unlesse passion and extasie are competent judges You shall have nothing else from me besides that true protestation But what would you more what can I say of your last compositions unlesse that the multitude of The beautious and The good takes away my free election of any one and that As one who to some flowery garden walkes Design'd in wreaths t' unite the sever'd stalkes Nature's enamell there the more he spies The more the choice distracts his wondering eyes I am without reserve My Lord Your c. Jan. 22. 1644. LETTER XXVII To Monsieur Maury Dr. in Divinity SIR YOur papers have taught me an infinity of good things both serious and delightfull strong and subtle Attick and Roman in an equall degree but this shall be our Sundayes conversation and I will not dilate my self on it till I am with you in attending that desired day I must tell you newes that Monsieur de who was so much your friend is become your accuser In earnest he impeached you yesterday for a Magician and he still averres that there is something supernaturall in your more then Ovidian smoothnesse He sweares that that of the Prophets and other inspired persons nay that of Apollo himselfe their inspirer was never comparable For my part I dare not go so high I only say that when you speak in Prose you are more puzzelled to avoid measures and number then we are to find them when we write Verses I believe it would be no hard task for you to turne all into rime that ever was written in the world and set all the Sciences in musicke that hereafter Philosophy and Divinity yea the Law and Physick too might be all sung of your composing There is no Authour so constant and stiffe in his way but alters in your hands none so serious and sad but you make him dance as often as you please There is no mortall in Print but you in an instant teach him the Language of the Gods by an extemporary Paraphrase You have already written a Rhetoricke in Verse but that is nothing you will make Cicero a Poet when you please his Orations and Epistles shall be transformed into Woods and Epigrames if you resolve it O latices numerorum O verba fluentia cursu Aeterno Talis Rhodanus vesterque Garumna Hybernis fluit auctus aquis Nec verba sed illas Res O Maure illas sed vastum ac fine carentem Miramur rerum Oceanum quas fundis ab ore Formosam que is Burdigalam ditare benignus Pictonicumque solum voluisti littora laté Santonica insignemque suis sine moenibus urbem Que is nostras mi Maure beâsti sepius aures I most humbly kisse your hands and am with all my soule SIR Your c. Aug. 30. 1640. LETTER XXVIII To Monsieur L'Huillier Councellour to the KING c. SIR I Felicitate you for having Monsieur De Roncieres for your Governour Monsieur Rigault for your Colleague and Madamoiselle Calista for your Mistress or your disciple If the word felicitate is not yet a French Denizen it shall be next year and Monsieur de Vaugelas hath promised not to oppose it I congratulate
this testimony of the latter Juvenis genere nobilis manu fortis sensu celeâ— ultra barbarum promptus ingenio nomine Arminius Segemiri Principis gentis ejus filius ardorem animi vultu oculisque praeferens assiduus militiae nostrae prioris comes et jam Civitatis Romanae jus equestremque consequutus gradum segnitia Ducis in occasionem sceleris usus est haud imprudenter speculatus neminem celerius opprimi quà m qui nihil timeret et frequentissimum initium esse calamitatis securitatem In this passage Arminius is the sonne of Segemirus and if it be so might not some scrupulous Grammarian demand how you come to make the father of Arminius to be his sister in law but besides the community of names to either sexe as Hippolite Anne c. You have without question some historicall ground to oppose against this slight objection It was made to me by one who nevertheless valewes you perfectly and I send it you without any examination I will ever be of your opinion and withall my soul SIR Your c. Apr. 16. 1643. LETTER XXXVII To Monsieur de Lorme Councellour and Physitian in ordinary to his Majesty SIR I Am extreamly taken with the silver Medall in which you revive Hippolytus with these three words Diis geniti potuere but I maintaine besides that the name of Demy-god cannot be disputed against you but only by such as are ignorant of your fathers merit and the noblenesse of your profession The good Lord you speak of does not know that besides Apollo and Aesculapius his sonne there was in Greece one Hercules a Physitian Peter Mommor calls him in French of Alexica and he is yet to be seen in the Tapistry of Clement Alexandrinus but that honest Lord uses no Hangings but of Flanders or those of the Fairies and knowes no other Hercules but he that carries a Club and a Lions skinne This Demy-god Physitian we treat of had an infallible receit to cure pale complexions and yellownesse in lesse then four and twenty houres He was not contented only to bestow health and good plight upon the Ladies but he inspired youth and beauty into them It was he that cured the Queen Alceste of a disease which the faculty of Montpellier had judged incurable and I mention to you particularly what he did for women because I know you are readiest to give succour to that sexe which is most delicate and infirme as well as he But Hercules hath made me forget Hippolytus and I have filled that fragment of paper in which I intended to have thanked you with a comment upon your Medall I have no more roome left Sir but as much as to assure you that I am ever perfectly SIR Your c. Aug. 12. 1639. LETTER XXXVIII To Monsieur Girard Officiall and Prebend of Angoulesme SIR IT must be acknowledged that Madamoiselle de Schurman is an admirable Virgin and her verses are not the least of her wonders I do not thinke that the Sulpitia whom Martiall hath so highly extolled ever made better or more elegant in her native Latine But what modesty and vertue there is among the Graces and beauties of her Verses how the goodnesse of her soul is agreeably interwoven with the productions of her wit I am very much obliged to you for the knowledge of this admirable Lady and for sending me with her Epigrams the eloquent Letter of Monsieur Naudé I returne you them all againe by my Servant who should have set forth yesterday had it not been for an accident that befell me to restore more then I had received In the midst of this Epistle a new book was brought me and casting my Eye upon the preface I found these lines Habemus in urbe unius diei itinere hinc dissitâ virginem nobilem haud minus quâm Hippian numerosa arte multisciam tanto magis eo nomine mirandam quòd in hunc sexum rarò cadit tanta ingenii foecunditas tanta artium copia cum omnes calleat tot virtutum conjunctio cum nullâ careat Quaecunque manu confici â—t mente concipi possunt tenet una sic pingit ut nemo melius sculpit fingit ex aere ex cera ex ligno fimiliter in Phrygionica arte in omnibus quae muliebrium sunt curarum et operum omnes antiquas et hodiernas provocat ac vincit mulieres tot vero doctrinarum dotibus instructa est ut nescias in qua magis antestet tot linguarum donis ornata est ut non contenta Europaeis in orientem usque studio industria pervolârit comparatura ibi HebraÃcas Arbaicas Syriacasque quas adjungeret jam quaesitis Latinè ita scribit ut virorum qui totâ vitâ hanc elegantiam affectaverunt nemo politiús Gallicas Epistolas tales concinnat ut vix meliores Balzacius Cateris in Europa usitatis linguis aequè bene utitur ac illi quibus sunt vernacula Cum Iudaeis Hebraice cum Saracenis Arabice potest commercium habere literarum etiam viris arduas spinosas sententias ita tractat Philosophiam nempe Scholasticam et Theologâ—am ut omnes flupeant quia prodigio similis res est nemo aemuletur quia nemo potest imitari nullus etiam invideat quia supra invidiam ipsa est If Monsieur Salmasius be author of this book and the preface as I am written word when he puts out a second Edition I shal entreat him instead of Gallicas Epistolas tales concinnat ut vix meliores Balzacius thus he will please to change it multo minus bonâ—s minus Gallicas Balzacius I shall think my self yet too much honoured by this allay and moderation to my honour There is no glory in being neer so excellent a person in what manner soever it be and in such a similitude disadvantage it self is obliging I attend by my servant the inscriptions of Gruterus and the Chrysostome of the Father Fronton I am SIR Your c. May. 15. 1646. THE SECOND PART THE FIRST BOOK LETTER I. To Madam the Princess Madam IT is not for glory to approach the obscurity of a defart nor was its splendour ordained for Recesses and Solitude Your Highness has bestowed that on me which I am not capable of receiving and I acknowledge in the midst of a great amazement that I cannot in conscience esteem my self deserving the least word of that favourable Message which my Nephew delivered me Neverthelesse I can safely protest an infinite zeal to the Service of your Highness and this most assured truth gives me incouragement to believe that I do not merit to be wholly unregarded I know not whether it was not first fitting to learn that my devotion is not displeasing to you to the end I might with greater confidence performe my duty at certain altars I have raised to this effect and whose designe was not unpleasing to me in the conception Without this evidence of your goodnesse Madam I had never dared any
had need of life and vigour it is you who have undertaken a designe I believe the greatest that has been this hundred years But if you should chance to fail in your purpose it will not be construed either inability or unfaithfulnesse but want of convenience and leisure I am affraid that Paris with its complements will do the Maid more hurt then ever England did by all her force of Arms. I am told that something has passed unhandsome betwixt the Marshall de and our friend who has been menaced although the sacrednesse of his person preserves him secure We are here in a place where we catch cold whilst the Country you reside in burns with excessive heat May you enjoy a felicity pure and unmixt and passe such daies as are woven with the finest gold and silk that ever the three Sisters wrought calm and undisturbed I am SIR Your c. Balzac 30. Septemb. 1637. LET. XXIV SIR I See now you are a faithfull promiser and that a man may safely rely upon your word The fragments you are pleased to communicate to me is come to my hands But to tell you the truth this drop does but increase my thirst I burn with impatiency to have the sight of that entire body from which so rare a piece was taken But while I am in preparation to court you to that suit is it not true that a hundred Verses had been of no greater charge to you then thirty If you would have obliged me nobley I assure you they should be kept here in great secrecy neither will I communicate them to more then one person who shall also oblige her self by Oath never to remember any thing of that I shall recite to her Those distates you mention would some thing trouble me but that you sufficiently understand the brutishnesse of this age whose judgment concerning good things is yet worse then that of the precedent I jâ—st now came from reading in Monsieur de Thou the complaints made to him by the good man Victorius when he went to visit him being at Florence Querebatur is tum bonas litteras in Italiâ vilescere habere se multa quae publico libenter daret sed ea plerisque non tanti aestimari quanti conveniret c. I am of his mind that the pains we take are very ill bestowed and that we ought not to trouble our selves so much in making-pastime for impertinent and ingratefull persons If some ignorant fellow take exception at the learned World in the discourse you may alledge those verses to him Meritò cui doctior Orbis Submissis defert fascihus imperium I am SIR Your c. Balzac 20. Septemb. 1637. LET. XXV SIR I Presume you understand the designe of our Semicapro to put me into the Prelacy which he imagines to accomplish by the credit and recommendation of certain people whose names and existence I never yet heard of I send you the two wonderfull Letters they writ me to that effect which I think you can scarce read with a sober countenance you will there see the management of all bad policy and the whole Machiavel of the Village to draw two Letters from me in their own commendation But I am determin'd and that I assure my self with your allowance to equall their artifice wtth cruelty and to suffer their vanity to expire for want of succour If these Gentlemen were not comprised in my generall vow I should make a particular one for their sakes They have as little knowledge of me as I have sufficient of them And their attempt is contriv'd upon me by such means as I am hardest to be taken It is not in my skill either to canvasse for voices or beg any man's approbation I have forsaken those that were able to give and enrich and shall not now begin to court such as can onely promise and abuse You know Sir I have no ambition to raise a fortune if I had I should endeavour it all other waies before The kindnesse that our good Semicapro has for me and his readinesse to ingratiate me with my Lord perhaps as sincerely as many others have restrain'd him from discovering such a number of subtle devices as you may observe in the Letters I speak of For these friendly advices and all the propositions of advancement have in reality no other aime but two answers But I here solemnly protest they shall never be Masters of their designe And if it be requisite I will add to my former Oath all those Execrations of the Antients which you have read in Aulus Gellius You see the bad construction I make of other mens good-will But I have told you a thousand times that I am infinitely apprehensive of all injuries that abuse my reason I most humbly kisse your hands and remain SIR Your c. Balzac 28 Septemb. 1637. LETTER XXVI SIR YOur Letter represents the little Father as so jolly a person that my displeasure would be more vehement if he had been an experter Mountebank and endeavoured to beguile me with greater subtlety 'T is your happinesse to apprehend things alwaies on the right side and to proceed directly to truth This is no groundlesse asseveration We have friends of lesse exact judgment and you know the Writer of Politick Books is liable to be over-matcht by the little Father as well as he that prints them I am redevable to this latter for his good-will yet I would wish him to acquiesce absolutely in your advice He must not permit the mediocrity of his reason to strain forwards having learn'd from you or me the compasse it should move in I do not doubt but you are surprised even at the title of the litle Father's Letter and that Balzac l'Orateur does not extreamly please you Although he cannot confer that quality on me without displacing Monsieur de Colomby who is Oratour to the King and usurping upon the Jacobins and Cordeliers who are your most humble Oratours I am SIR Your c. Balzac 6 Octob. 1637. LETTER XXVII SIR THough I have no very commendable eyes yet I perceive the workmanship of Mellan is far gallanter and of better conceit then that of the other engraver The good Camusaâ— adds much honour to my writings by the ornament of so fair and ingenuous figures What do you conceive in particular of that pensive and melancholly Pallas May she not seem to be plac'd at the entry of the Book with her wand onely on purpose to defend it from the fingers of the Sophister Gorgias and Palemon the Grammatian That which I have sent you is of the style which the Romanes termed Attique and has not yet fallen into the observation of our people Nevertheless it was of great renown during the times that Eloquence and Orators flourish'd in the world and maintain'd its credit against Cicero even in his own dayes If I were minded I could send you somewhat more considerable for which I am confident of your thanks But that must be intreated
III. To Monsieur Du Pui Counsellour and Library-Keeper to his Majesty SIR THe infinite value which I set upon your love ha's made me receive the tokens of it with a sort of extasie and triumph and although as to the essentiall part of friendship your generosity do's sufficiently assure my possession yet it is great contentment to me that I have that in my Cabinet which unquestionably confirmes my Title I received together with those dear pledges the advantageous testimony you were pleas'd to bestow upon my Book which I intend shall serve me as a buckler against all the insolences of Censure and the injustice of those perverse judges you speak of I do not covet the suffrages of all the world even the Heroes have come short of universall approbation The most just and cleare fame ha's been brought into question and disputed I have seen a Gallant in Euripides Tragedies accuse Hercules for a pitifull and cowardly Lubber the morall whereof is this that there is alwayes some body in the world that are of contrary opinions to the whole race of mankind and whose â—xtravagant singularity is not scrupulous to put the lye upon the affirmation of all men upon earth Pro and Con are of equall antiquity in the world with Meum and Tuum and Reason is not of longer duration then opposition and disputes Sound opinions have never been at peace or free from the Alarmes of Malice and Ignorance and even at this day how many Schisms Sects and Heresies make open warre upon poore truth That part of it which ha's the holinesse of Religion and her Mysteries for its object is of much greater importance then that which is only interested in the contrivance of a Comedy and the purity of language and yet there were counted a hundred Atheists and Sectaries for one of a right perswasion Every thing under Heaven is contradicted yea even what God himselfe hath spoken We must look for unity of Tenets somewhere else here we can find nothing but Diversity and Medly for as long as there are heads and passions there will be contentions and suits I esteem my self Victor in all those that concern me since you do me the honour to uphold the justnesse of my cause and since it is at the house of Monsieur de Thou and not at that of Monsieur de where the true and lawfull Senate is held whose right it is to judge our Book-affaires Let the worst come I do not so take things to heart as perhaps you imagine since I write lesse to please others then to divert my selfe and have need to be rowsed up that way from my repose lest it turne into a Lethargy it suffices me that your goodnesse dispences with my Papers as a Course prescribed by my Physitian and that you do me the favour to believe It is not necessary to be perfectly eloquent to be perfectly what I am SIR Your c. Octob. 20. 1644. LETTER IV. To Monsieur d'Argenson Controller of the Revenue in Poictou c. SIR I Begin to conceive my solitude lesse obscure since I received the Title of Illustrious from the hand of one of his Majesty's Officers and to esteem my selfe a more considerable person in that you have daign'd from amids your high employments to cast an obliging aspect upon the valleys of my Hermitage To represent to you my manner of living is an enterprize on which I dare not presume neither would the Relation be fit the Curiosity of him that understands the affaires of all Courts and States Yet I must not dispute my obedience and will tell you in a word either what I do or what I do not My life Sir is a profound and drowzy pensivenesse which yet is sometimes interrupted by not unpleasing visions Hunting is the delight of my neighbours but I affect it not nor have I skill in matters of Husbandry the divertisement of our Monsieur d'Andilly Our woods do not afford me a Nymph to entertaine the tedousnesse of the time with as the good man Numa had and our honest friend Des Yveteaux I am no gamester at Hoc Primero or Tick-tâ—ck So that I am forc't to busie my selfe sometimes upon my books to discusse the torpor and languishing of idlenesse But 't is fit you know that my meditations are not seldome brought to a perfect birth I imploy paper and a Scribe and am continually sending somewhat to my good Lords and friends wherewith either to justifie my lazinesse or request pardon for it Since you intend to be at Poictiers the Fifteenth of this month I have design'd a present of this nature to meet you there And were not my Coach crippled by the losse of two of my horses I should my selfe be the bearer of my offering and assure you in person that I am with as much ardour as ever SIR Your c. Aug. 1. 1645. LETTER V. To Monsieur the Abbot de Talan SIR HAd not Monsieur de given me assurance of your facility to pardon I should not have presum'd to appeare before you after a negligence of so many ages You may please to judge the proportion of my remorse by the large periods wherewith I compute the duration of my fault I should have sinn'd above forgivenesse according to the punctuall regularity of Complement on the other side the Mountains and the Courtship of Italy But I perswade my selfe you will allow somewhat to the French liberty You have heard there was once in Italy an honest man that made a Hymne to the Goddesse Sloath and took it on him as a piece of honour to be her Priest My ambition is not depraved yet to such extravagancie and I shall not be competitor with him for his function The cloudy fumes of my melancholly have not yet so overcast my reason as to make me in love with nothing but night and sleep And though I am much affected with this Recesse of mine as prohibiting admission to all Letters and Newes yet I cannot but confesse that it is destructive to all civill society and commerce and of neere resemblance to that wild condition of mankind before their union into Government I acknowledge my duty although I wholly faile in the performance of it It is true I am sometimes enchanted for whole yeares together and do no more correspond with my dearest friends and next neighbours then with our Enemies of Spaine or the People that are separated from us by the maine Ocean But it is also a truth that in my profoundest drowsinesse I delight to be awakened with the remembrance of such persons as I infinitely honour and esteem in which number I am proud to recken you It is yet a greater truth Sir that I shall ever most constantly observe the essentiall part of friendship and remaine with much fervency though with little blaze and shew SIR Your c. July 14th 1640. LETTER VI. To Monsieur de la Nauve Ensigne to the Queenes Guard SIR My deare Cousen I Conceive not
lazar When I imagine the patheticall beseechings to which he was necessitated to descend for the obtaining of an ordinary answer I blush for shame at tenne leagues distance and a month after the thing done Pardon my weakenesse I am the worst beggar in France I cannot crave importunately or be glad of a favour that is gotten so Monsieur de was too obliging to debase himselfe so much in my behalfe and to esteem nothing unworthy of his quality whereby he might do me a kindnesse I shall desire much lesse from him another time I had rather have only his good wishes naked and pure then his good turnes that come with so much violence and are rather extorted then granted And the case would be equally eligible to me for one to fling bread at my head and that that bread were rather made of stone then flower I am SIR Your c. Feb. 14. 1639. LETTER XIII To the same SIR IT is not for want of any kind endeavours on your part that I am not in a state of congratulating the propitiousnesse of fortune Were she an enemy that could be possibly reconcil'd you should be the mediatour to accommode our fewd But without question she will never trust the businesse to you and on the other side I should forward it so coldly that it would be extreamly difficult to bring your good intentions to effect Notwithstanding all adventures I am already deeply engag'd to you and search no further into the cause for which you are pleas'd to lay a new favour upon me Yet I will not omit to tender my civilities to the person you know of and to testifie my acknowledgments to him in the manner you injoyne me But a convenient time must be regarded and the complement shall neverthelesse be sooner at Paris then the money can be brought to Angoulesme In the meane time you may please to shew her the Letter of the late Marshall d'Effiat which she is so desirous to see and you shall receive with this Packet She will there observe that in former times men could be pleasant and obliging in those places where now they deride and destroy and that the raillery wherewith favours and courtesies were clothed in those dayes was more honest and becomming then this which outbraves modesty and want I am with much passion SIR Your c. 4. Jan. 1640. To Monsieur Charlot Farmer Generall of the Taxes SIR I Never thought it would come to be necessary to recommend the Muses interest to you who make profession of generosity Monsieur de Balzac whose merits have given him an universall esteeme complaines that you refuse him that contentment which he promis'd himselfe from your favour Although his rare qualities besides the justnesse of his request may seem to speak enough for him with a person so noble and intelligent yet I was willing to write thus much to you and assure you that I resent the denyall you gave him as an injury done to me as that on the contrary I shall also be partaker with him in the obligation which your speedy satisfaction of his desires shall lay upon him In confidence that you will not faile herein I rest SIR Your most affectionate servant d'Effiat Paris 14 March 1629. LETTER XIIII To my Lord Bouthilier Lord Treasurer My Lord YOu think you have done me but one favour and I account I have received two For in my Arithmetick 't is a second benefit that you did not expect till I requested for the first and the favour you have done me is not of much greater value with me then what your readinesse to anticipate my desires ha's spar'd me A man that petitions with trembling and falls back upon the least refusall who ha's all the necessary qualities that go to the making up of an ill Courtier is very much oblig'd to you for pardoning him so many feares and inquietudes as he should have undergone in his addresses to you and for that you have not had lesse regard to his modesty then his wants These goodnesses are not after the fashion of our Age nor even of a better then ours For Antiquity ha's complain'd before us of a certain art of Difficulty which great ones practice in the doing of good offices to enhance their price They would have not onely Petitions and sollicitations from their supplicants but if they durst even be propitiated with Hymnes and Sacrifices You act My Lord by principles more humane and yet withall more noble The obligation I have received comes so immediately from your selfe that I did not so much as contribute my desires to it but you were pleased to prevent them What I conceive I am bound to assure you of in testimony of my gratefull resentments is this my Lord that I receive the obligation with all its circumstances and there is no part of it to which I have not an especiall regard I am not ignorant that in these dayes Philosophers are but little usefull to the State or to learne what reason persons that are farre distant from the verge of the Court have to hope for any influences from it I see that favours are distributed with much frugality And the Astrologers have inform'd me of a mortall constellation in the Heavens that hangs over the most deserved pensions These considerations made me resolve to have nothing nor desire nothing and I commended the good mannagement of him that did at first refuse me with scurvy Tickets But My Lord you have corrected the Malignity of the Aspects and qualifi'd the Influence of the starres in my favour You were pleas'd to exempt me by the prudence of your Conduct from being involv'd in the calamities of the times and partaking in the common losses What shall I adde further You have either recover'd one from death or raised that which was already dead For in effect I began to reckon my annuall allowance in the number of things past and to style it My pension of happy memory After my consideration and astonishment at these evenements all that I can do is to proclaime the Miracle to blesse the hand that wrought it and to protest to you with the zeale and devotion of a soul sensibly oblig'd that I eternally am My Lord Your c. May. 12. 1639. LETTER XV. To the same My Lord YOur favours are conveyed with so gracefull and obliging circumstances and your manner of giving is so transcendent above the vulgar that if I did not apprehend something in it beyond the advantages of the present I might be deservedly esteemed of such grosse ignorance as not to be able to distinguish betwixt rarities and ordinary occurrents I owe you new acknowledgments for a new favour for which I should endeavour a retribution if it were possible for my gratitude to be as ingenuous as your goodness and I had the gift to embellish fine language as you have the art of adding value and richnesse to gold It is precious in its owne nature but it receives
to tell you in the meane time that it is no small matter to be Associat with the Sun to guide his productions to their end to understand the Art of making flowers durable to build prisons for the most subtle and thin spirits that inhabite the aire You confine them after such a manner and your structure is so admirable that they still streame forth and notwithstanding remaine still lockt up in their fountaine This halfe restraint hinders them onely from being lost in a totall liberty and if they had been lesse barr'd up it might happily have been I should onely have received the tidings of their flight and your civility Because my good kinswoman procuâ—ed it for me she thinks she hath received it as well as I and desires to testifie the thanks she owes you for it Be pleas'd not to disallow that she comes in to my assistance and charges her selfe with the conclusion of my complement I resigne the hardest taske to her as being the most eloquent and leave her all the part of returning thanks to assure you in a single expression that I am Madam Your c. Jul. 15. 1636. LETTER XIX To Monsieur de Preizac of the Kings Privy Councill SIR THe gentlewoman who presents this Letter to you assures me that I am your favourite and promiseth her selfe great things from the power I have in you upon my recommending of her cause unto you For my part I willingly believe what I extreamly desire and there is no need of much eloquence to perswade me you do me the honour to love me If it be so Sir I beseech you let this poore Oratrix experiense that your friendship is no unprofitable happinesse and that my recommendation shall not disadvantage a good cause She is persecuted by the most notorious Barreter of our Country and I do not think there ever came a more formidable one out of Normandy His very name makes the Widdowes tremble and Orphans runne away there is no parcell of meadow or vineyard within three leagues of him secure to the possessor He thinks he is charitable to the children when he vouchafes to be contented to take but an equall dividend of their fathers estate He dwells in deskes and other places sacred to the exercise of discord and if you think it fit for me to use the phrase of our honest Plautus He is oftner seen in the Court then the Pretour Shall I conclude his Eulogy in one word He is Attila in Epitome that is the scourge of God to all his neighbourhood and the cruellest persecution that the world ever suffered or History relates He is possibly proceeded from one of lesse tyrannicall principles You will do a meritorious work or rather an action of Heroick charity in contributing somewhat to the chastisement of this publique enemy You will in one single person oblige a thousand more that are concerned But I shall not have a lesse engagement to you then if you regarded only my selfe who am your suppliant and most passionately SIR Your c. Sep. 12. 1640. LETTER XX. To Monsieur de SIR IF I were as officious as I have been sollicited to be you had received from me within this fortnight a hundred and fifty recommendations compleat Even at this very hower I have occasion for denyalls and I should continue in the old posture of my immoveable stubbornnesse against all sorts of requests but it is impossible to stand out against the assaults of friendship and I have strength enough to resist the importunate and come off safe with my modesty clean but I am not hard-hearted enough to disoblige good men or neglect the kind Offices of Civill life Sometimes a man must suffer himselfe to be overcome and not obstinately keep the same Guard Although I am gone out of the world I willing re-enter it when either Honour or Vertue calls me thither In such a case a vow undertaken at the foot of the altars might be dispensed withall My first designe was not altogether so religious at present it would be beyond superstition and a scandall to all Morality if it should deterre me from doing that pleasure to Monsieur which he attendâ— from me This gentleman hath been my deer friend ever since the reigne of Henry the Great and known to be such by all France that can but read I beseech you Sir let me not be discouraged that I should be unserviceable to him by my intercession for being able onely to wish him successe in a businesse where he expects greater effects from my interest in you It is in your power to grant me his Quietus either wholly or in part One would please me much better then the other and since there is scarce any taxe but you mitigate without any mans entreaties I promise my selfe the obliging and deciding stroake of your pen that will expunge this for my sake and leave nothing deficient in your benefit the Graces are not lame or crippled they are all lovely Goddesses and faire in perfection and having seen them so in Seneca's books you would not have mishapen and out of my knowledge in the favour which I hope from you who have all Seneca by heart The way to interpret him admirably and understand him better then Liferius who hath commented on him and Malherbe who hath translated him is to do what he advises you and be as beneficent as you are good I once more beseech your aide in this affair and to believe that I am perfectly SIR Your c. Jan. 3. 1646. LETTER XXI To my Lord Bishop of Angoulesme Almoner to the Queen of great Brittaine My Lord BE pleas'd to admit my second addresse either in the way of an acknowledgment or a further instance in the behalfe of the Reverend Father It were great pitty that his eloquence should lye idle and his zeal is so impatient of rest that if he preaches not in your Church he will have much adoe to be kept within his Cell I conceived you had formerly granted me this favour for him and I did already assure him of it But what I attend from your goodness may be Christned with what name you please If you would not have it styled the confirmation of a benefit formerly received let it be the conferring a new one I am contented to owe it you as long as I live and as if I received it every day and will thank you for it as often as you please for I think it not any trouble to returne you my respects and protestations that I am My Lord Your c. â—ul 25. 1643. LETTER XXII To Monsieur de Lorme Counsellour and Physitian to the King SIR FOr an infinite number of good offices which I have received from Monsieur Drouet I have promised to recompense him with your favour so that you are he that must pay what I owe him and this is the only way I have to acquit my scores with him I will believe you will not be backward to
then lamenesse I renounce the use of my legges and beg God to give me my infirmity againe on condition he send back my comforter That is to say I am not my selfe without you Lately I held you in esteem only for your vertue which I lookt upon then as being unconcern'd and as on a good I had no title to Now I am in love with your person wch gives me a propriety in you and a right to call you my own This rowzes and awakes me in the night this makes me jealous of Monsieur d'Espesses the Lord Abbot of Cerisy our deare Monsieur de la Chambre c. I say nothing to you about your most learned and eloquent discourses Monsieur Caplain will shew you what I write to him concerning them in the extasie you left me to which I can onely annexe this little labell of my admiration O how prevalent is truth when you dispense it and how much have good causes need of you to be as strong as they are just I am with all my soul SIR Your c. Apr. 3. 1639. LETTER VII To Monsieur de Couvrelles SIR AFter I have told you that honouring you perfectly as I do I cannot be moderately touched with your losse I have no mind to engage my selfe in the Common place of Consolations I preach not stedfastnesse to a man who hath kept himselfe upright more then once in the publique ruines and hath afforded us examples You are he that I would be and Monsieur Huggens's Constanter which he took for his Motto because his name was Constantine belongs to you much more justly then if you had only a title to it by vertue of an allusion to your name Well in earnest I am too much obliged to that honest Gallo-Belgick for his remembrance of me and that fine language he write you to shew me But since he is afraid to trouble me with unnecessary Letters me thinks I ought to have as great a respect to his businesse as he hath indulgence to my sloath and then I shall do discreetly by not putting my selfe to trouble nor him About five or six months since he sent me the Plat-forme of a Palace that he hath builded and write me word that he was providing me an apartment there Since I am so unfortunate that I am not able to crawle so farre as to Saint Bris to tender my respects to you sure I shall hardly get over sea to take possession of the lodging prepared for me But knowing Sir that you have an exquisite skill in the curiosity of Arts and that you are taken with handsome figures I thought it would not displease you to look upon this and that a house so learned within and without whose weather-cocks are Spheares would deserve to entertaine a guest of as brave a spirit as your selfe I beseech you then accept this picture for you are a better judge of it then I and take it kindly that in this present penury of my own village I treat you with what is sent me out of a forraine Country I am ever with passion SIR Your c. Jul. 2. 1641. LETTER VIII To Monsieur l'Huillier of the King Councell c. SIR I Believe more then you have written to me I doubt not but the Mourning hath been generall in the place where you are that you have made the Parliament the Garrison and the people weep your eloquence makes your griefe contagiousâ— and what ice I meane not of Lorraine but of Norway or Muscovia would not thaw at the warmth of your lovely teares what Barbarous man could forbeare to become gentle and share in your woes hearing you lament in termes so patheâ—icall and which are so easily conveyed from one heart to another For my part I who believe I have lost a friend in Monsiour d'Aligre as well as you need neither example nor perswasion to be excited to pay him my sad tribute for before I received your Letters Crudeles Superos atque Astra vocabam If you desire any thing more and that I can contribute ought to the consecration of a memory already sacred to me you know your desires are commands to me and I promise you not to be sparing upon this occasion I shall be very glad to do an act of obedience in an act of piety and now immediately I invoke our Goddesses to dictate lines to me that may last while the vanity of man carves out marble that shall decay c. I am SIR Your c. Jan. 18. 1642. LETTER IX To Madam des Loges Madam I Received your Letter upon the taking the anniversary journey of Since you are so good as to give him audience whensoever he appeares before you I will only deliver you the matter in grosse of which he shall give you a more particular account at Oradour He will make you Madam a most lamenâ—able relation you will understand from him that my miseries are everlasting and the comforts I had begin to slack My mind growes obstinate in Melancholly and abandons it selfe to a faintnesse that makes it incapable of all the noble functions you speak of The only sustenance that was not unpleasant to it it now disrelishes like the rest and my books are no more my comforters How can cheerfull thoughts be conversant with such fatall objects as environ us on the right and left hand or how can we quietly enjoy the Present which is not good on the Eve of a Future which must be worse and which threatens all men with famine and poverty I protest I never attain'd to so high a pitch of Philosophy Monsieur de himselfe sayes it would be such a grand equivocation as would make all Philosophers counted ridiculous He sayes nothing must be read but the lamentations of Jeremy nor any thing written but Wills I am reduced almost to such a condition and am not valiant enough to resume the employment I have discontinued did not Madam your commands interpose and you imagine you had occasion of my language I have sent you what you enjoyned me and it is drawn from the bottome of my heart Possibly it may want the graces and ornaments of a Rhetorician but I conceive that for that reason it will not be of lesse valid evidence that he who writ it is perfectly MADAM Your c. May 12. 1640. LETTER X. To the same Madam I Understood from a friend of mine newly come out of Holland of the losse you lately receiv'd before Breda but judging of your griefe according to my acquaintance with your disposition and not doubting but it is much greater then ordinary I dare not presume to apply any thing to it These are maladyes to which forraine medecines are not to be apply'd since they commonly prove but ineffectuall It is possible a man may not weep with you but it is impossible to condemne your teares The austerest Philosophers do here suspend the severity of their Decrees and Zeno would be worse then Phalaris if amidst the
tyranny he exercises over humane passions he were not indulgent to naturall piety So that Madam none hath any title to comfort you but your selfe you alone are capable to do that good office to your selfe and manage that affliction which I look upon with amazement I am confident you will be successefull in it for knowing very well that there is as much fortitude as tendernesse in your soul I do not believe that contrary to the course of things you would have fortitude submit and the weaker get the mastery of the stronger Heretofore I have heard you valew life so little that by your own principles it were no great misfortune to do dead And though you may have renounced this opinion yet you will grant that the absence which seperates those who live from those who live no more is too short a thing to merit any long bemoaning The cause of obstinate griefes cannot be justified but by presupposing an eternity in this life or a despaire of that which is to come But the very example of the persons we bewaile confutes the first supposition and the last is inconsistent with the promises of the sonne of God So that Madam I should not only forget the common Fundamentalls of our Faith if I should comply with the persistance of your sadnesse but on the other side should forget that I deal with a Lady who is able to read excellent lectures of wisedome to Men and with a Mother who gives not precedence in point of courage and Magnanimity to all the Matrons of Lacedemon I will onely therefore represent to you to banish vulgar thoughts out of your head that it is not in vaine we call you Heroine and besides to give satisfaction to truth and my affection that it is impossible but I must be sick of all your griefes being as I am withall my soul MADAM Your c. Dec. 16. 1638. LETTER XI To Monsieur de Borstel SIR THere are words to bewaile other afflictions there is none to expresse this for I confesse I know not what are become of my wits since the losse we received I am as planet-strucken as if the Sun had tumbled out of the firmament and instead of blending my teares with yours or taking heart from your example I abide here without motion and action as stiffe as heavy and insensible as one of the rockes of my Hermitage A foul interdicted by griefe cannot make any use of her reason My Stoicall resolutions are reversed Zeno and Chrysippus hath given me the slip Hîc me Philosophia eloquentia loquentia ipsa deficit What shall I do what shall I fay in the affrights of an Ecclipse so mortall to all that professe vertue in the mourning in the desolation of our Pernassus Every thing is blind every thing is deafe every thing is dumbe amongst the Muses I have nothing else to say then unlesse once againe that I have lost the use of my speech except for those three or four words which will assure you that such as I am I will be all my life SIR Your c. Sep. 1. 1641. LETTER XII To Monsieur Menage SIR SInce you have heard talke of Alcimedon and have a mind to see him your longing shall be satisfi'd But I tell you this is not a counterfeit Alcimedon as you have been informed nor do I by a Roman Gentleman personate a French Lord. No man is concealed under this picture He is a native and true Roman of the race of the Fabricii the Fabii or the Scipioes chuse which you please He died of a sicknesse at Rome the day before the City was taken by the duke of Bourbon who commanded the Emperour Charle's army It is true History doth not mention this last of the Romanes but tradition hath discovered him to me and you know I have had severall conferences with Marquesse Pompeo Frangipane who was a treasury of the rarities of his Country I am lately in a scurvy humour withall that I do and my most darling compositions do not like me a whole day together yet I must needs tell you this hath not yet distasted me and I am still constant to Alcimedon I shall know from you whether my inclination judges rightly and if my Love be lawfull Rivalisque utinam noster dignum Alcimedonta Igne tuo credas Licini tunc se omnibus unum Romulidis meliórque etiam quos protulit Hellas Praeferat Alcimedon I am SIR Your c. Sep. 15. 1643. LETTER XIII To the same SIR A Whimsey hath come into my Doctour's crown to make a collection of funerall verses and to add them to Alcimedon it was not his fault that you had not Arguments to every one of them nor that the margents of every Copy were not fringed with Annotations I gave him thanks for his good will and thought I had no occasion to use a Grammarian Yet it will not be amisse to informe you what the subject was which occasion'd those Ridiculous teares which you will find in the end of the book It was the death of an old university-post famous for his ill favoured looks and â—atter'd breeches a disciple of Jack Puddings and neere of kinne to Amadis Jamin a profound writer of Madrigalls Ballades and Catches These thirty yeares past he hath come downe but once from St Hillaryes Mount over the bridges he was a more religious observer of St. John Portelatins feast then of that of Easter He never called Jupiter any thing but the Thunder-thumper nor Heaven by any other name but the Choyse of the Universe He made Chimney alwayes rime to Polyhymne he would not change th' ilke for the same though the measure of the Verse would have allowed him he stood up stiffe for Whilome Mickle and howbeit against all the adverbes that were as he said younger and more effeminate The first tidings of his death comming to me by a Pedant his admirer with this perpetuall ingemination O what a thousand pitties it is made me at that instant laugh very heartily but next morning as you shall see I droled like a Philosopher and plunged my selfe deep in the Cosi va discorrendo The Morality is somewhat long yet possibly not tedious and if you take notice of the latter part of it it is called here the funerall Oration of Cardinal Perron you will confesse that your Amintâ—s is no ill imitatour of your Lucretia if after all this time you do not know Vrania that Nymph whom I have so extolled and for whom I now weep so bitterly I informe you that it is my late good friend Madam des Loges who in her life time was more then once styled by an Academick the Celestiall the Divine the tenth Muse c. and was esteemed both within and without the Kingdome by crowned heads by the Demy-Gods of our Age by my Lord Duke of Orleans the King of Sweden the Duke of Weymar c. I am of an opinion that the verses which celebrate her memory I
for I am impatient to be with you and protest to you by word of mouth that none is more truly then my selfe SIR Your c. Oct. 8. 1645. LETTER XXV To Monsieur Esprit SIR HEre lately passed a Nymph this way whose elegancy and promptnesse of tongue is admirable She informed me of an infinite number of things that I was ignorant of before And though she has not so many mouths as that other lying Nymph who presides over Panegyrickes and funerall Orations yet she hath one extreamly eloquent which does not marre good subjects as it embellishes only such as are true I perceive I exercise your patience and you expect the name of this Nymph Not to make you Languish any longer She is called in the Language of men Madamoiselle de Newfoic But it concernes you to know she is your votary though her selfe adored by me and others You may please to know that she sings you in what place soever she can find Auditours or Ecchoes She hath strewed our Hillocks our Plaines and Valleyes with your praises Among other things she affirmes you better performe the duties of Amity then the illustrious friends mentioned in Lucians Toxaris She is in a word a very magnificent and generous publisher of all your merits But to tel you the truth this last hath made most impression on me and is the reason why I write this Letter to you with as little ceremony as if these six yeares silence I had written to you by every poste Nor is this all I intend something more then a Letter and I recommend a Suite and a solicitour to you I entreat your credit and care for him to obtain what he desires and beseech you to oblige me effectually in his person with your interest in our common Lord I promise my selfe this good office from your friendship and rest with passion SIR Your c. Oct. 15. 1643. LETTER XXVI To Monsieur de la Chetardie Sir My deare Cousen I Secure my selfe to the utmost of my power from the persecution of complements and for that purpose I have sought out a desart more out of the way and lesse known then my own At present I inhabite an enchaunted Island where few guests are admitted and all sort of Letters are not read Yours indeed deserve a priviledge not one of them arrives here is fraughted but with some good tidings or other or attended with some excellent rarity and presents me sometimes with temporall goods sometimes with spirituall not seldome with both These last have feasted me with double magnificence and are so farre from disturbing my repose that I assure you they make a part of my pleasures Who can be so much his own enemy or an inhabitant of the Earth in despight of Heaven as to complaine of his happinesse I meane the favours of Madam de la Chetardio and the civilities of Monsieur the Count of Cremâ—il Who can possibly be so distemper'd or it is too little to call him delicate as to taste such exquisite meates without making exclamations as he tastes them without lifting up his eyes without crying out upon the first morsell that the Nectar and Ambrosia which Jove receives from the hand of Ganymede are neither sweet nor divine incomparison But Madam my Cousen will some little time dispence with the thanks which is due to her since all the gratitude I have at present and all my words this day must be for Monsieur our Count and you will not take it ill that I go to finish those Commentations I have begun in satisfaction on his questions I beg the continuance of your good offices to the excellent Chevalier and beseech you to believe that I am ever passionately Sir my Deare Cousen Your c. Mar. 6. 1645. LETTER XXVII To my Lord the Marquesse of Montausier Governour and Lieutenant Generall to the King in Saintonge Angoumois c. My Lord HAnnibal laughed at a Scholler that discoursed of warre before him This example has been an impediment in the designe I had to write to you in favour of Monsieur des Ardillers And in truth I know not what you will conceive of me or what you will take me for if I venture to give an officer of your Troopes a Certificate there being so little affinity betwxit his profession and mine If it be possible I will not do any thing that shall be ridiculous I will restraine my judgment within the confines of my art I do not meddle with setting prices upon things which I do not understand I only conceive my Lord you will not disapprove a passion I beare to a person whose discourse to me is nothing but your History and who comforts himselfe for many miseries he has suffered with the honour only he had to serve under you These ten months we have been upon this subject and I find in him so intelligent an admiration of your vertue so much ardour and zeal to your glory that though he be not runne through and through and cannot shew his wounds in Germany nor his hurts in Catalonia I cannot have a mean esteem of him since he ha's so perfect an understanding of your worth This is at least the testimony I owe him and the acknowledgment he hath deserved from me for the pleasant houres he hath made me in the rehearsall of your brave actions I wish I could be as serviceable to him as he was acceptable to me But I have no power in the world and can only make vowes in the desart Yet I am sure of one thing never man my Lord knew better then I how to owne the courtesies done to my friends This gentleman hath no great reason to be contented with his fortune and for my part since I am able only to wish him a better if you judge him worthy of any of your favours I shall willingly beare a part in the obligation and not be lesse then if I received them my selfe My Lord Your c. Jan. 21. 1647. LETTER XXVIII To Monsieur Conrart Councellour and Secretary to the King SIR MY indisposednesse having hitherto retarded my good designes I could not possibly perform this duty to you sooner nor give you notice since May that I received Monsieur Dailles Sermons and Monsieur des Cartes discourses Both of them have written me so many obliging caresses and commended me with such excesse that there is nothing in their excellent Letters which belongs to me besides my name I know my selfe in it only by that and without doubt the high opinion these two great persons have conceived of me will one day be reproached to them by their adversaries it will be one of the errours of your excellent Heretick and one of the over-sights of my admirable maker of Spectacles I have no mind whatsoever you please to enjoyn me to give you my judgment of the last man for I know he sees nothing but Heaven above his reason and Soveraignety hath no judge Since he tells me
bestow on me but I had only one heart to give you the propriety of which I offered to you eighteen years ago and you had gain'd it sometime before It is true the present was but trivial I am ashamed to put you in mind now that great hearts are so necessary in great enterprizes and unless you reckon a great deal of passion and zeal for something I should not in time of War have mention'd a toy of so little use as that Yet my Lord is there no place for a violent passion in your service Cannot a zealous spirit produce some thoughts couragious enough to venter beyond the prospect of our present age and more Noble then to injure the glory of your great Name There are some persons over-credulons in my favour as to imagine so and I were very happy if their perswasions were not upon bad grounds As it is the most ambitious of all my designes so it is also the most ardent of all my desires But herein I must confess I can but little satisfie my self For what ever indulgent friends say I have little encouragement to believe from the view of my sufficiencies I discover neither a Mine nor a Bank in my brain to suffice for the recompence of supream vertue for requitall of heroicke actions and for the price of that which is inestimable On the other side I want that other facultie which descends from above and is called Enthusiasme The muses do not answer me at all times when I call them and I have often times begun Poems that ended at the Invocation It is possible I shall be better inspired for the future The excellencies of invention may at length be infused into me from Heaven and I may have my part of those illuminations it sends down to our brethren of the Academy I attend this happy hour of inspiration with impatience that I may employ it well and I cannot live contented till I have testified by some eminent act of gratitude pardon that eminent upon this occasion that I am as I ought to be My LORD Your c. Feb. 25. 1645. LETTER VIII To my Lord the Arch-Bishop of Thoulose My Lord THE successes of which I receiv'd information from your Letter redoun'd so much to your glory that Honouring you perfectly as I do I could not receive them with a moderate joy You have had justice at length of the Senate but it was the same Senate that did it you You do not only receive the just Honours that are due to you but even with the consent of them who disputed them with you by one and the same victory you have gain'd both your cause and your adversaries affection So though the conquest be desireable but the peace far better nothing should be wanting to your satisfaction who have obtained at once both the Good and the Better It remaines now my Lord that you enjoy this faire calme and these dayes of Serenity you have made such that is employ them all in that harvest that respects you and in the conduct of that flock which Jesus CHRIST hath entrusted to your care If you would you might have climb'd to Glory by other steps But all things being considered this is the surest and shortest for him that aimes at nothing but Heaven Could you exceed Cardinal Baronio in the solidity of your learning yet it is better to follow Cardinal Borromeo in the Sanctity of your Life and be the subject of others writings then the Historian of their actions How happy do I esteem the meanest labourers that you use in your great work and I cannot express how it troubles me to be perpetually desirous of being with you and yet to stick fast here and to be able to profess to you only with wishes and idle passions I know not when that I am more then any person in the World My Lord Your c. Jul. 25. 1633. LETTER IX To the same My Lord I Perceive there is no possibility for me to execute my grand enterprize or to effect what I have had in designe these ten yeares My journey to Languedoc is likely to become the exercise of a man that stirs not or the dreame of one awake If Heaven will have it so I shall at least have this happiness nothing can hinder me the enjoying in my mind the contentment which I fancy My imagination that hath power to bring me neer to places where I desire to be walks me continually round about this distant happiness and puts me into possession of one of the apartments of your Palace and soon after lodges me even in your Library O how I contemne the Jasper and guildings of the Escuriall when I am in that Cabinet This indeed is to inhabite a more Noble and stately Court to be the guest of an infinite number of rare souls and blessed intelligences where after a repast of Tanzies and Mellons the entertainment might be with light and truth I do not seek out high words to abuse them I employ them in their proper and naturall signification for what is there My Lord which the desire of knowledge and ambition of learning can imagine exquisite and rare but is to be found either in your books or conversation those three or four hours I had the honour to pass with you presented to me the riches of ages and antiquity you taught me things which not only the commonalty of the learned are ignorant of but such as it may be the Princes of the Schools understand not The severall manuscripts your goodness daign'd to shew me left so faire an impression of Christianity upon my soul that immediately I divorced my self from my old Loves and bad adieu to all the muses that are not holy Since that time I speak nothing but of the Primitive Church and the Oecumenicall Councells and you have so alienated me from Pagan-Rome that in those places of History where I meet with Aquilae I am sometimes ready to change it into Labarum A communication of such advantage deserves to be sought though it were at the end of the World and a thousand leagues are nothing to be travelled for it To confess freely the voyages of the Graecian Philosophers into Aegypt do very much reproach my immobilitie It is necessary that I rouze up this Lethargy or to speak more humanely that I prop up this weakness and provide redress to this infirmity and since it is impossible it should endure a Coach unless in a Downe or a Meadow I am at this instant going to purchase a Litter to make it more capable of the journey and transport me without disturbance to the feet of a greater Master then Gamaliel The ambition of a spirit cured of the Court may well be terminated there where I shall receive your answers to my Questions after I have rendred you my respects and sworne to you in the presence of Eusebius Theodoret and such like kind of witnesses that I am ever perfectly My Lord Your
traunce must not ever continue so drowzy as to hinder me from turning my eyes sometimes towards that side from whence my good fortune shines If I be dumbe with admiration I will at least make signes that I am not ungratefull on purpose and when I shall taste those pleasant dayes at Plassac which you invite me to seek I will say at least in my heart that you and the Sunne bestow them on me or make use of a verse in Virgil It is a God that do's indulge this leisure The gods my Lord I speak in the Language of Virgil can not make a richer present to mankind nay they have not reserved a better for themselves for it was affirm'd by one that leisure was their businesse and by another that it was their proper possession I hid my selfe in the village for the better pursuance of this businesse of Heaven and to enjoy a happy idlenesse to satiety but my fruition hath been disturbed and I could not escape discovery Though this little corner of the world be unknown both to the ancient and moderne Geography and Mercator speakes no more of it then Ptolomy my ill fate ha's pleas'd to bring it into reputation since my comming to it and it is now depriv'd of that sweet and peaceable obscurity wherein things unknown do rest All the Prose and Verse in Christendome have learnt the way thither Paraphrases and Comments Orations and Panegyricks flock to it from all parts but especially Letters which claime a right to be admitted from the farthest Countries of the earth and do verily believe they come to their own home because I have written volumes of them They do me much honour I confess it This persecution is too glorious for me But yet it is still a persecution to a spirit over-charged and that is no longer able I fret and repine here in vaine against this glory there is no way to acquit me from it but by escaping into some place of freedome where there is not only a porter to tell them I am not within but a Captain to speak it with authority and repell curiosity from searching after me You do me the favour my Lord to offer me this place of refuge wherein I may hope to be in security and I know well enough that without need either of Captain or Souldiers you have no house but your Name alone fortifies It is the safeguard of other mens and War respects it even upon the door of a cottage How can I fear my quiet then when so powerfull an authority assures it to me and your goodness vouchsafes to own me of whom I am and will ever be passionately all my life My Lord Your c. Janua 5. 1645. LETTER XIX To my Lord the Duke de la Roche-foucaut Peer of France My Lord IT is a great reproach to me to be so neer a neighbour to you and make so little improvement of that advantage But it would be a kind of lesser treason to live in your territories and repose my self under your protection without expressing one thought of gratitude for it It troubles me I am not able to say an action of it and I heartily wish it were possible for me to venture so far But my repose being grown to an incapacity of motion I am constrained my Lord to render you my duty in my mind and be of the Court of Vertevill in the same manner I am of the Academy of Paris that is without stirring from hence to either My indisposition sowes thornes for me every where it meets with precipices in the eevenest wayes and the infirmities of age do already so over-press me that if they encrease never so little more I shall not dare to go out of my Chamber till I have made my will In this pitious estate you preceive cleerly my Lord my faults are rather from necessity then choice and that I am not guilty of my unhappiness I lose so much in the want of your commerce your person hath so many Qualities to render it desireable abstracted from those of your condition that were I naturally an Enemy of greatness I should not be so much my own foe as to keep at distance from my good when it were in my power to approach it There needs not more for this but common sense and self-love and as in some mens judgment I have some of this love to spare so in my own opinion I do not altogether fail in the rationall part You may please to permit me this little act of vaine glory upon this occasion I will receive it as a favour from you But on the otherside you will do me justice in this honourable beliefe of me that there is no person more truly in his heart then my self My Lord Your c. Apr. 12. 1639. LETTER XX. To Monsieur the Count de la Vauguion SIR THe day you had the goodness to come and visit me my spirits were so enfeebled with a restless night and I was so incapable of all reasonable Society that if you went not away with a very low opinion of me you did an act of very high charity Since that time the disgrace of that unlucky half hour hath lain upon my heart and I have often fancied what you might conceive of the testimonies and approbation of the publique Questionless Sir you accused the people either of simplicity or imposture you judg'd that they had suffer'd themselves to be deluded by a very unable man or else they would deceive others for his sake had I but an indifferent esteem of you I should comfort my self up against all you could speak thereupon but I knowing your valour great as your valew I must confess Sir I have doubtfull apprehensions of my reputation for I am afraid I have either utterly lost it with you or extreamly endangered it To piece my self up again some way or other and try to shew my self to you at a more advantagious light then you saw me I have just now resolved to send you the discourse I was obliged to make Of the conversation of the Romans You will find there what you sought in mine at least you cannot be ill entertain'd in a place where Consuls and Dictatours make up the honour of the house I shall think my labour happy if it please you better then I have done but I should esteem my self much happyer then my labour and believe I had repaired my detriment with advantage could I but evidence to you with what respect I am SIR Your c. Mar. 28. 1640. LETTER XXI To the Reverend Father Stephen de Bourges a Capuchin Preacher Reverend Father YOu ought to commiserate me instead of complaining of me You know well on whom the unhappiness of your seperation falls or at least who loses most by it since you will be so good as to take a share in the mishap For my justification be pleas'd to consider only the present estate of things You are the distributer of the favours
observed you I did not think it any miracle that you should become fortunate or that the choice of a goddess hath crowned the Graces of Heaven All that has been attempted to trouble the successe of this envied election hath done nothing but bred occasion for you to triumph over envy and you draw this advantage from your paines and contests that in a possession which was too peaceable for so desired a good there is now neer as much splendor as sweetness and something that resembles conquest after your victory in Parliament It was such a one my Lord that it will seem to some that the envy which assailed you held correspondence with you since she only made the onset that she might yield and set up an Incognito in competition with you to give you occasion to interess in your cause and discover in your Race and Alliances more Heroes and great Lords than came out of the Trojan Horse When I consider that brave throng of Illustrious names that Triumph rather then that Audience that day of your glory after those of your good fortune so much Grandeur and lustre at an hundred leagues distance from me I confess I am somewhat ashamed of my solitude and obscurity But I must tell you further and Monsieur Gautier shall pardon me if he please that I have a little season of jealousie against him and his Eloquence and I wish if it had been possible for me to have been your advocate that day being to that degree as I am My Lord Your c. Apr. 17. 1646. LETTER XXIX To Monsieur de Couppeau ville Abbot of La Victoire SIR THat you may know your reputation hath no limits and that you are esteemed both within and without the World I advertise you that Monsieur de la is to come to preach you in our desart and that in a weeks conversation we have had together he hath told me more things of you then a dozen mistresses that he left at Paris The charmes of your tongue are sufficiently known and you have made great experiments of them but be assured they never wrought more powerfully â—hen on the spirit of this Gentleman you never spoke with more success then when he heard you and never dismiss'd an auditour better edified Salust was his first beloved Quintilian â—ath since taken Salusts place and you have succeeded Quintilian I saw the beginning of a book he is writing of your â—pophthegms he hath learnt you by heart and understands you throughly so that if by any mischance you should be lost you might be retriv'd in his â—emory I leave you Sir to imagine the pleasure he did me to concurre so exactly with my resentments and chuse my inclinations for the subject of his discourse It lyes upon him to give you a further account when he sees you and informe you of the first motions your name excited in a languishing soul and the continuance of my joy in the sequell of his relations He told me nothing concerning you but I desired him to repeate it and mentioned nothing of vows but what deserved this complement of the Academy Italian Di gratia Signor un altra Volta But particularly the description of the feast you made Monsieur Chavigny was acted over more then once at my most humble supplication I found in it I know not what of learned Antiquity But on your conscience Sir was that Terence which was served in for one of your sweet-meats so stuck with perfumes and covered with flowers absolutely of your owne invention Is it not an Originall of Maecenos or at least that gallant man of the following Century qui deliciarum arbiter cujus eruditus luxus à nostro Cornelio celebratur How ever it be we never heard of such cates before and you wanted nothing that day but Dionysius Lambinus for cook and Adrian Turnebus for Steward The piece is throughly ingenious and much more humane and rationall then the desire of that Barbarous Graecian who at Alexanders table wished for a Satrapa's head in a dish This was a resemblance of the haughtiness of Turky before there were any Turks in the world and it is an example only fit for Machiavell's imitation if he had invited Caesar Borgia to dinner But you are to deal with a man who hath the palat of Roman Consuls and not Asian Princes and you have accordingly treated him after the Roman fashion for it must be confessed that the appetite of his mind could not be better represented by an embleme more spirituall nor more gallant then that you had devised When if you make him a second Entertainment I have entreated our friends to give you a present from me and deliver you some Latine verses of the last inspiration of my Muses they are neither the Ragousts of Scipio nor the delicacies of Mecaenas yet they are fruits transplanted from the nursery of those happy Ages and I have inserted my grafts upon their Stocks You may please to judge of them when you have tasted them and continue ever to love me a little since I will never cease to be infinitely SIR Your c. Sep. 3. 1642. LETTER XXX To Monsieur de Bourzeys Abbot of Cores SIR IF I did not know that Generosity takes delight in speaking improperly and thinks it owes that which it gives I should not understand the intentions of Monsieur your brother His conversation hath dispelled the clouds of my melancholly his quittance hath melted the stubbornnesse of my soul he hath been my intercessour to the Commissary he hath shewed me one of your Sermons and after all this he thanks me for all the good turnes he has done me and will not make me happy without being obliged to me for it And yet more Sir he would have this conceit of obligation extend even to you and disturbe you in the middle of your conflicts that I might receive a complement from that hand which strikes dead Heresie Here is enough to satisfie the most ambitious spirit in the world One graine of your incense is worth a masse of anothers and nothing is so sweet even in the sense of wise Antiquity as the praises that come from a person that is universally commended They that contemne the acclamations of the people should yet be sensible of these which cannot be indifferent to any but such as honour their sullen humour with the Title of Stoick Philosophy For my part Sir I declare my selfe to be none of that sect every kind of allurement would not be apt to tempt me but how is it possible to abstaine from a meat which you have dressed or resist a passion that workes its effect by your Language So that I must needs tell you freely I never received more joy then when I received your Letter Monsieur de la Thibaudiere was a witnesse of my traunce Monsieur Chaplain had notice of my good newes if it were possible I would have divulged it to all the Earth and have printed it
the Ornaments of your language to no other end but that I may see truth is not alwaies plain and poorly clad but that she hath her feastivalls and actions of Ceremony Can any thing be imagined more gallant and yet more passionate then this devotion of yours and those vows which you continually pay in the Church where we first saw one another The secresie and the solitude which you fought out to enjoy apart from witnesses the paper which Monsieur Chaplain lent you obliges me to cry out Hony soit qui mal y pense and advertize the prophane people that virtue weares sometimes the countenance of vice and our Muses cease not to be chaste though they are voluptuous But what shall I say to your shutting the door and fortifying your self in your chamber that no body might disturbe you in the possession of a dozen of lines The long and greedy kisses you bestowed on the paper that wore my name and the other almost sensuall pleasures to which your spirit yielded it self when you read my testimony of your merit are farre from the actions of a dissembler and can never possibly seem such to me though I saw them only written and in the Relation I received The fabulous Pilades and Orestes cannot be so lively acted nor the two Pythagoreans in the story For my part I having some familiarity with Hermogenes and a little acquaintance with formes and Ideas do maintaine there is no Rhetorick but the Amorous that can speak in that style and that is the true and natural strain of noble affection Mine being more strong then handsome I do not venture to wrappe it up in a delicate style I know not how to answer a Relation which I can only admire and you shall be contented if you please with vulgar expressions but such as I do warrant every syllable of them in their most Rigorous signification protesting to you that I am SIR Your c. Nov. 5. 1639. LETTER II. To the same SIR YOu are not contented only to bestow your own affection on me and place me in your heart you labour for me elsewhere and cease not either to acquire or preserve me illustrious friends Is it true wch you write of Monsieur the Embassadour of Sweden and am I happy enough to be esteemed by him I speak this to you as religiously as if I touch'd the altars whereon we swore our friendship My ambition was dead but you have restored it to life againe and I should have the same extasies as you were but my blood as subtle and spiritful in my veines Who would not think himselfe glorious by his esteem of whose birth our Age ha's cause to be proud He is a Living one whom the President Jannin oppos'd to all the dead Grandees of Antiquity and had Holland brought forth no more then this learned head our deare friend is to blame she had deserved alone all the laurells he would dispoil the rest of For Messieurs du Puy you cannot believe what good you have done me in telling me they alwayes love me and that my sloath hath not forfeited their favour For though Monsieur L' Huillier ha's engaged for me and undertaken to preserve me in their remembrance yet I should not have left all to him and been deficient in a duty which is payed them in all Languages and from all places of the Earth Nevertheless if you please to associate with that admirable Monsieur l'Huillier and act joyntly in my name who makes any question but they had rather hear you then read me and that my Agents would be valewed more then either I or my Letters Oblige me therefore to let them know Sir but this from your eloquent mouth that they have not cherish'd a savage and that he who received their favours is a Denizen of the civilized world capable of gratitude and who both knowes and is sensible of a benefit bestowed on him If it were not almost as hard to bring me to Paris as to bring Paris hither to me I would willingly ease you of this Commission and be my self the bearer of my complement In truth though Paris have many allurements to make it be desirable and though the Majesty of the State be not only contracted there in the person of the Prince but diffus'd into as many parts as there are Courts of Justice yet all this greatness and all this Majesty cannot tempt me to return thither again It is not the Louvre that attractes me thither it is the Closet of those excellent brothers and the fortune I seek hath nothing in it but pure spirituall and learned I am neither Courtier Lawyer nor Usurer I am ignorant in all knowledge of these professions but out of all that ignorance there is found a certain animall extreamly free and indifferently reasonable who hath not been disliked by Monsieur the Embassadour of Sweden who hath formerly been acceptable to Messieurs du Puy and whom you may now prize to them at what rate you please I do not implore you to enrich the definition of me to valew me at more then I am worth I only beseech you not to forget what really I am master of and to perswade even your selfe for with you I have most need of your good offices that I can love without interest that my tenderness is firme and constant that I am a Violent that lasts that is that I shall be all my life with passion SIR Your c. Sep. 30. 1639. LETTER III. To my Lord the Marquesse of Montausier Governour and Lieutenant Generall for the King in Saintonge Angoumois c. My Lord SInce it is infinitely beyond my power to returne a sutable answer to the favourable Relations I received from Monsieur Chapelain what can I do but despaire as to my acknowledgments of so many solid effects and sensible obligations as I have received from your goodnesse You take too much care to preserve that which you cannot lose my passion is the most unprofitable thing you are Master of it is withall the most assured The mischiefe is that having reserv'd nothing of my self when first I made you the gift I have nothing now left to offer you and I very well perceive that at the same time you intend to shew your own power and my disability I was immediately drained of my complements but your favours are inexhaustible and whosoever shall understand that your imprisonment in Germany did not bereave you of the meanes to oblige me there will not wonder that your Government of Angoumois affords you occasions to do it During your confinement you entertain'd your solitude with me in your thoughts In a time of melancholly you conceived me capable to divert you yea my only name and image have serv'd to do it and as remote as I was from you I made such rayes of joy streame into your soul as caus'd an admirable and glorious spring in it I preserve my Lord the bundle of those excellent flowers it
brought forth with much care I bedeck my self and flatter my vanity with them I look upon them as the fairest token of remembrance that Polybius could have wished from his Scipio and Paulus Jovius from his Marquesse of Pescara It is not without some designe of Heaven or some good presage that this Marquesse is come into my mind Since you are not lesse brave then he it is just you be not lesse happy The Victoria Colonna of our age must compleat your felicity since vertue hath begun it There are no wishes to be made for you after these And though the present I have received from you be something more obliging then the grant of Exemptions and Protections or then the Majoralty of Angoulesme and that of Saintes which you have conferr'd at my instance yet I think my self sufficiently gratefull if I prognosticate with successe the possession of a good which you esteem infinitely higher then all others It hath hitherto been in vain desired God hath refused it to the prayers and devotion of men But without doubt you are elected in the secret of Providence to be the happy possessour of it Believe me my Lord I have been inspired more then once and I tell you in the name of Heaven and in the language of my Oracles Tua tua erit et sua te propter esse desinet Tu certè dignus es quem ipsa Minerva praeferat virginitati fibi I dare not adde any thing to these high words and cannot better conclude my Letter then with a Prophecie I am ever passionately My Lord Your c. Apr. 25. 1645. LETTER IV. To the same My Lord YOur remembrance is not a bare token of your civility You remember me in termes that perswade me although they come from a suspected place and that I know at Court words are not much used but to disguise intentions You use them with greater integrity and more faithfull to the intent of nature They are the faire interpreters of your soul and in your Letters the representation of the thing is no other then the thing it self You love my Lord where ever you have said it and your word gives me firmer assurance of my good then my possession of it I repose confidence in that who have reason to distrust the decrees of Jupiter and in whom so many Oracles have proved lyars I am not a little proud to find room in a memory which usually is stored with Orders from the King and determinate resolutions of the Councell But I am much more glorious in being beloved by a man that looks on all Employments and charges beneath him who makes serious profession of Probity and honour whom the Court hath not been able to effeminate nor War to exasperate I think I have said all in this For is it not a little miracle to escape without flying from the contagion of a corrupted Age to have more true strength then custome hath violence to know how to manage fury and mixe the Man with the Lyon to be vertuous rationall wise amidst the tumult of unchained passions And in this place you must if it please you pardon me the liberty I am about to take and permit me to demand of you whether you alwayes intend to employ Reason to a use that seems so contrary to her Will you ever exercise an Art so mortall to the quiet of the World Shall the wise my Lord and vertuous be any longer injurious to the ruine of mankind It may be a milder season will succeed this and heaven may be reconciled to earth possibly the future reserves some good dayes for us and all our feastivalls are not extinct In case it should be so you will have leisure to let us see you in your government and that is at least one fruit of the peace which I hope to gather on the banke of our fair Charante I do not tell you in her behalfe and as her Poet that the Rhine and Danow make her jealous I speak of my own head that I impatiently expect the honour of kissing your hands and am more then any person in the World My Lord Your c. Jan. 7. 1646. LETTER V. To Monsieur de Puy Councellour to the King SIR SInce your books are your mistresses and I am the cause of an eighteen months absence having detained them here so long I believe you have put up many unprofitable vowes for their return and they will come to your hands at the instant you are making imprecations against me so long a stay from their own home and the opinion which they have at Paris that all on this side the Loire is Gascon may have rendred my fidelity suspected to you and given you some reason to fear that the Romans had much difficulty to themselves from the Barbarians Yet here they are Sir as sound and entire as I received them from Monsieur Girard and I prâ—test I have borne such respect to them that had it been possible I would not have touched them but with sattin fingers Every thing that comes to me from you and that weares the Livery of Monsieur de Thou satisfies me immediately of its price and merit and if I did but see that marke on an Almanack or on the works of the Count Vi Ma I should restrain my self from terming them pitifull papers You may judge by this in what consideration I held your Hubertus Fobietta and his excellent company Since the bastards of Vandalls and Goths if owned by you should be treated honourably by me you may believe Sir that the same warrant did not permit me to dis-esteem the true and magnanimous Nephews of Remus Monsieur Menage who knows my resentments in this particular and the perfect value I set upon your vertue and your brothers will tell you in more Courtly manner what I only write you in the style of the village He will chuse out words which shall not extenuate as mine do the greatness of my passion and gratitude If there be any necessity of it he shall bind himself by oath to you he is good and my friend enough to do it that I am not less then he SIR Your c. Jul. 15. 1642. LETTER VI. To Monsieur the President de Nesmond Sir my dear Cosen I Am so good a husband of that portion I conceive I have in your favour that I would not willingly ever touch it and had rather pass for a bad friend then make a custome of recommending suits to you But discretion must not be so scrupulous as to violate Society and one may suspend the rigour of his principles without forfeiting the reputation of constancy I thought I was obliged to offer that to Monsieur Couvrelles which I had refused to an infinite number of Suitours and I have intreated him to deliver you this Letter from me to the end an action not usuall with me might be a token to you of his extraordinary vertue He is a Gentleman whose noble extraction
opportunities are spoil'd and perish When the design is to raise sieges or lose Armies there needs no more then to imploy them At the same moment all Fortresses become Acro Corinthes and all the enemies Alexanders We may conclude that in every Country and upon all occasions 't is more profitable to be happy then wise and better to win though ignorant of the game then to have the commendation of playing well and lose I am SIR Your c. Balzac 8 May 1638. LET. XII SIR FAther Retavius hath sent me his Genethliacall Oration and I have likewise receiv'd another gratulatory upon the same subject which was pronounced at Charenton It resembles neither the style of Monsieur le Faucheur nor that of Monsieur Daille and hath nothing good besides the terms of Scripture which are woven into it from the beginning to the end I do not question but Monsieur de Grasse is framing some admirable Sonnet under the shadow of his Orange-trees and if there remains one drop of good blood in the veins of the Father Bourbon he will imploy it to the honour of my Lord the Dolphin It is not fit he should suffer the Jesuits to have advantage in this before the Fathers of the Oratory or that the Society be esteemed more really French then the Congregation its Rivall I have been long since acquainted with the dowtinesse of the Abbot you tell me of I know how violently he is transported in heat of dispute and since he threatned the Bastinado to a President of the Grand Chamber that came in company with him to visit me I have alwayes extreamly dreaded him I am SIR Your c. Balzac 19 Octob. 1638. LETTER XIII SIR Since the King does not approve that men should say Monsieur the Dolphin is a Child of Wonder can he in your judgement allow that our friend speaking to the Queen should term her his Queen And is not this familiarity sufficient to give him apprehensions of jealousie It is verily admirable what he sayes of Tagus and Rhine that their Channels would have been dry'd up unlesse they had receiv'd supplies from our tears as likewise where he beseeches Monsieur the Dolphin to come and visit Monsieur the Chancellour I do not question that if Monsieur the Surintendant or even Monsieur Cornuel had given him the summe of two hundred Crowns but he also had been one whom Monsieur the Dolphin should have been desired to visit This is you see a man very acknowledging of favours which he receives and spares not the visits of new born Princes where there is opportunity to thank his benefactors But when the Spaniards devoured France in their imagination what induces him to name Quercy amongst the principal objects of their appetite which is no more then a member of the Government of Guyenne Certainly it was to fit a Rime to Nancy and this last syllable was the cause that the Spaniards slighted Burgundy and Picardy c. to gain a little corner of Gascony In another place it seems he had forgot that there were Rivers of Wine in the golden Age as well as Rivers of milk and that Jupiter who succeeded Saturn passim rivis currentia vina repressit But pethaps he presum'd to alter the Fable for the better conclusion of his Period which you know is no more sufferable in Poets then the falsification of holy Scripture in Divines He is otherwise a very gallant man and makes excellent Verses here and there To tell you freely nothing I have yet seen upon this great subject transcends mediocrity And though at the first view I took the Poem of Monsieur de for the Tables of the Law and thought the finger of Heaven had not written in greater Characters yet I must confess to you it did not possess me with devotion and after I had read it I found my selfe the same man I was before I am SIR Your c. Balzac 1 Novemb. 1638. LET. XIV SIR I Delivered my opinion upon some Verses but you have pass'd your sentence upon the Poet together Your judgments are alwaies the effects of supream understanding and you know men as throughly as if you had made them If Monsieur de Saint Blancat write our History I could wish you would lend him your skill so exact subtle and piercing for the making such Elogies with truth as are usually placed in the conclusion of every Book This Historian-Poet is not unknown to me I have seen long ago both of his Prose and Verse wherein he imitates two examples extreamly dangerous I mean Tacitus and Statius I believe your testimony concerning his Leucate But if I will believe my self for the beginning of a History of our times I conceive it necessary that he change aâ—d reform his style before he can resemble Titus Livius I have the same esteem of his Poem with you 't is written in a high strain saving that it is sometimes over-short and falls into the vitious extream As for instance in these two Verses which struck me with amazement at the first reading and made me smile the second Ille ore horrendum lituis respondet aperto Obscuratque tubas vagitu tympana terret Good God! what a representation is this of Monsieur the Dolphin in his cradle Me-thinks I rather see Pantagruel there or Garagantua frighting his poor Nurse Heavens what a voice that drowns the noise of Drums and renders the sound of Trumpets imperceptible This is indeed a fair beginning to speak one day with the mouth of Canons Quod solum orationis genus Principi concedit beatissimae memoriae Theophilus I remember I have read something of neer likenesse to this in Silius Italicus where he speaks of Hannibal then an Infant and puts these words into his fathers mouth He cries with some sort of gravity I see in his countenance the portraict of my hatred and choler which are reproduc'd in him and shall encrease with his years Vagitumque gravem atque irarum elementa mearum Silius Italicus is very high in his expressions but Monsieur de Saint Blancat is many degrees above him I am SIR Your c. Balzac 20 Decemb. 1638. LETTER XV. SIR I Much approve the Idea you have drawn of your austere and rigid History being not so great a lover of ornaments and dressing as that I would have them enervate virility But yet you must confesse that it is an Idea purely spirituall which appear'd onely to you in your Closet and is not to be found in the nature of things Your accomplish'd reading cannot produce me one example of it in all Roman Antiquity For I do not consider Quicquid Graecia mendax Audet in Historiâ I have a most confident assurance you cannot do it Just now I ended the entire History of Titus Livius who seems to me more eloquent if it be possible then Cicero As for Salust he manifestly transgresses your maxims and is not contented to use good language but he lends it out to Marius
touching your service Your name is cherish'd and respected of all the earth and Monsieur de la Nauue who is a man perfectly honest will look onely upon you in the good justice he will do you I have endur'd a fit of more then thirty hours and all the respite that I can obtain from my anguishes is onely enough to entreat you to believe that I am as of old SIR Your c. Balzac 22 March 1641. LET. X. SIR I Perceive I must contest no longer with you about the worth of my words they shall be rated at what value you put upon them and be accounted handsome since they please you I would onely desire they were as strong as by your favour they are gracefull and that I had the faculty of healing with my words as well as in your belief I have that of praising I would not deny so easie remedies at this time but prepare them with all the skill whereof I am capable to the end they might operate more effectually against the feavour of your friend It should also be permitted to make experience in my own person and the Physitian undertake the cure of himself But there is no medecine for such old and obstinate maladies as mine 't is here that the rhetorick of Demosthenes yea and the magick of Zoroaster would manifest the weaknesse and impotency of their Art There will certainly come better times then these and we shall be well one day at least at the day of the Resurrection cum mortale hoc nostrum induet immortalitatem in gloriâ resurgemus by the grace and mercy of our Lord. I think I sent you my opinion of the Verses of the Lyrick Madelenet for the others of raillerie whereof you speak I have no curiosity to see them The raillery of this man alwaies seem'd to me so cold and flat that it was not possible for me to laugh at it and if I were in the place where you are and a necessity lay'd upon me to commend them 't is so hard for me to go against my knowledge that I should rather die at that instant I am astonished at what I hear of Doctor Palemon I believ'd that he liv'd onely in spirit and that he was so perswaded of the immortality of the soul whereof he speaks so much that he held no longer commerce with his senses But I perceive he is one of those hypocriticall Philosophers who contented themselves with discoursing of vertue and never took further pains to follow it It may please God to give him better thoughts one day and possibly he has permitted the publication of the secret of this brave man to the end he may hereafter make him a great Saint I am SIR Your c. Balzac 4 April 1641. LETTER XI SIR TO lose nothing in this bad age 't is the onely security to possesse nothing If you have suffered great losses 't is because you had great riches Magnae opes amicissime Capellane magnae jacturae locum faciunt Quid verò inter opes majus praestantius veris bonae fidei amicis I will believe the person you lament worthy of your tears and although his merit be sufficiently problematicall in the judgement of the people Yet I know the people is but a bad esteemer of worth and their aversion is many times as unjust as their love But however it be the King of Sweden is dead and so is the Duke of Weymar and if a man out-live War and Combats he comes at last to dye in Feasts and Triumphs Let us look upon all men as lost or ready to be so and account every hour of our life for Climactericall Let us expect bad news by each Post and conclude that the onely means to avoid being afflicted is to be none of this world In effect Sir we must either see others perish or perish our selves and therefore what unreasonable delicateness is it to be in love with life and not to be able to endure the appendances that accompany it and what profit is it to bewail an evill whereunto all the world cannot afford a remedy I have long since left the Stoicks their insensibility yet am not in the contrary extream I remember a Rime rhat begins thus Thy tender pitty makes me pitty thee c. and flouts the good nature of one of our friends As I do not approve the heart of steel of Zeno and his eyes of Pumice so neither can I commend those that were turn'd into fountains in the Regions of Metamorphoses or at least became blear-ey'd all the rest of their lives This softnesse cannot befoll a soul of that firm constitution as yours so that you will not fail to maintain your place between the two extreams where there is honest and assured contentment Your Predecessour Monsieur de Malherbe will tell you that King Priam King Francis and himselfe were comforted and that it is permitted to every one to doe the like 'T is very true as you tell me that the Princes do at length become weary of the Warre and that the Caducei of my Lords the Nuntio's will have the virtue to separate the Combatants who are so exasperated and cruelly animated against one another If his Holinesse be the Author of this great good he will receive as many benedictions as he bestowes and the Orator Jean Jaques shall be commission'd to make him an ample Remerciment in the name of all Christendom I am SIR Your c. Balzac 20 April 1641. LET. XII SIR ACcording to your custome you set a value upon all that I write and find a perfection in things that scarce reach a mâ—diocrity 'T is friendship that disguises objects to you and makes you mistake appeearances for truth I was indispos'd when I writ to Monsieur de la Nauue and if there were any thing in my Letter that deserves your esteem it ought to be rather ascrib'd to fortune then to me who contributed no more then a good intention This indeed is so pure that I will not deny but it merits your allowance and you must at least consider it as an honest and generous inability which having nothing but desires to give will never be accus'd of sparing them As for the praises which are burthensome to your modesty I besceech you to believe that they are neither amplifications nor common places I am so throughly perswaded of your vertue that when I render the like testimony of it I imagine thar I am holding up my hand and swearing before a Judge If the Demon of Socrates did report you all that pass'd in your absence you would know that I never speak of you but I am transported and that in this I imitate the Sybills who delivered their predictions with fury Concerning the other part of your Letter I declare unto you that I will not undertake to plead the cause of the accused and that I neither justifie nor condemn at the first sight Yet I know that all the