relation and correspondence the other Pleasures we receive may be acknowledg'd by recompences of another nature but this is not to be paid but with the same kind of Coin In earnest in this sport the Pleasure I give does more tickle my imagination than that they give me Now as he has nothing of generosity in him that can receive a courtesie where he conferrs none it must needs be a mean Soul that will owe all and can be contented to maintain a Friendship with Persons to whom he is a continual charge There is no Beauty Grace nor Privacy so exquisite that a gallant man ought to desire at this rate If they only can be kind to us out of Pity I had much rather dye than live upon Charity I would have right to ask in the style that I saw some beg in Italy Fate ben per voi Do good for your self or after the manner that Cyrus exhorted his Souldiers Who loves me follow me Consort your self some one will say to me with Women of your own condition whom the company of one of the same Age will render more easie to your desire O ridiculous and stupid composition nolo Barbam vellere mortuo Leoni Rouse not a sleeping Lioness Xenophon lays it for an objection and an accusation against Menon that he never made love to any but old Women for my part I take more pleasure in seeing only the just and sweet mixture of two young Beauties or only to meditate of it in my fancy than to be my self an Actor in the second with a deform'd creature I leave that fantastick Appetite to the Emperour Galba that was only for old curried flesh and to this poor wretch O ego Di faciant talem te cernere possim Charaque mutatis oscula ferre comis Amplectique meis corpus non pingue lacertis O would to Heaven that such I might thee see To kiss those Locks gray with Antiquity And thy lank wither'd Body to embrace And amongst the Deformities I reckon forc'd and artificial Beauties Emonez a young Curtezan of Chios thinking by fine dressing to acquire the Beauty that Nature had deny'd her came to the Philosopher Arcesilaus and ask'd him if it was possible for a wise man to be in love Yes reply'd he provided it be not with a sarded and adulterated Beauty like thine The Deformity of a confess'd Antiquity is not to me so despiseable and nauseous as another that is polish'd and plaister'd up Shall I speak it without the danger of having my Throat cut Love in my Opinion is not properly and naturally in its Season but in the Age next to Child-hood Quem si puellarum insereres choro Mille sagaces falleret hospites Discrimen obscurum solutis Crinibus ambiguoque vultu Whom should you with dishevell'd Hair And that ambiguous face bring in Amongst the Chorus of the fair He would deceive the subtlest there So smooth so rosie is his Skin nor beauty neither For whereas Homer extends it so far as to the budding of the Chin Plato himself has observ'd it for rare And the reason why the Sophist Dion call'd the first appearing Hairs of adolescence Aristogitons and Harmodii is sufficiently known I find it in virility already in some sort a little out of date though not so much as in old Age. Importunus enim transvolat aridas Quercus Love restless with quick motion flies From wither'd Oaks And Marguerite Queen of Navarre like a Woman does very far extend the Advantage of Women ordaining that it is time at thirty years old to convert the title of Fair into that of Good The shorter Authority we give him over our lives 't is so much the better for us Do but observe his Comportment 't is a beardless Boy that knows not how they proceed in his School contrary to all Order Study Exercise and Usance are ways for Insufficiency to proceed by There Novices rule Amor ordinem nescit Love knows no Order Doubtless his conduct is much more graceful when mixt with Inadvertency and Trouble Miscarriages and ill Successes give him Appetite and Grace provided it be sharp and eager 't is no great matter whether it be prudent or no. Do but observe how he goes reeling tripping and playing you put him in the Stocks when you guide him by Art and Wisdom and he is restrain'd of his Divine Liberty when put into those hairy and callous Clutches As to the rest I oft hear them set out this Intelligence as intirely spiritual and disdain to put the interest the Senses there have into Consideration Every thing there serves turn but I can say that I have often seen that we have excus'd the weakness of their Understandings in favour of their outward Beauty but have never yet seen that in favour of a mind how mature and well-dispos'd soever any one would lend a hand to support a Body that was never so little decay'd Why does not some one make an attempt to make that noble Socratical Contract and Union of the Body to the Soul purchasing a philosophical and spiritual Intelligence and Generation at the price of his Thighs which is the highest price it can amount to Plato ordains in his Laws that he who has perform'd any signal and advantageous Exploit in War may not be refus'd during the whole Expedition his Age or Deformity notwithstanding a kiss or any other amorous Favour from any whatever What he thinks to be so just in Recommendation of Military Valour why may it not be the same in Recommendation of any other good Quality And why does not some Woman take a fancy to prepossess over her Companions the Glory of this chaste Love I may well say chaste nam si quando ad praelia ventum est Vt quondam in stipulis magnus sine viribus ignis Incassum furit For when to joyn Love's Battel they engage Like Fire in Straw they fondly spend their rage the Vices that are stifled in the thought are not the worst To conclude this notable Commentary which has escap'd from me in a Torrent of babble a Torrent sometimes impetuous and offensive Vt missum sponsi furtivo munere malum Procurrit casto Virginis è gremio Quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum Dum adventu matris prosilit excutitur Atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor As a fair Apple by a Lover sent To 's Mistriss for a private Complement Does tumble from the rosie Virgins lap Where she had quite forgot it by mishap When starting at her Mothers coming in It is shak'd out her Garments from between And rouls over the Floor before her Eyes A guilty blush her fair Complexion dyes I say that Males and Females are cast in the same Mould and that Education and Usage excepted the difference is not great Plato indifferently invites both the one and the other to the
in a Vizor and by concealing his true Being from the People Commend a crooked Fellow for his Stature he has reason to take it for an affront If you are a Coward and that men commend you for your Valour is it of you that they speak They take you for another I should like him as well who glorifies himself in the Complements and Congees are made him as if he were Master of the Company when he is one of the most inferiour of the Train Archelaus King of Macedonia walking along the Street some body threw Water on his Head which they who were with him said he ought to punish I but said he whoever it was he did not throw the Water upon me but upon him who he took me to be Socrates being told that People spoke ill of him Not at all said he there is nothing in me of what they say For my part if any one should commend me for a good Pilot for being very modest or very chaste I should owe him no Thanks And also whoever ever should call me Traitor Robber or Drunkard I should be as little concern'd They who do not rightly know themselves may feed themselves with false Approbations not I who see my self and who examine my self even to my very Bowels and who very well know what is my due I am content to be less commended provided I am better known I may be reputed a wise man in such a sort of wisdom as I take to be folly I am vex'd that my Essays only serve the Ladies for a common moveable a Book to lye in the Parlour Window this Chapter shall prefer me to the Closet I love to traffick with them a little in private publick conversation is without favour and without favour In farewels we above ordinary heat our Affections towards the things we take leave of I take my last leave of the pleasures of this World these are our last embraces But to return to my Subject What he rendred the act of Generation an act so natural so necessary and so fit for men a thing not to be spoken of without blushing and to be excluded from all serious and regular Discourses We boldly pronounce kill rob betray but the other we dare only to mutter betwixt the Teeth Is it to say that the less we say in Words we may pay it so much the more with thinking For it is certain that the Words least in use most seldom writ and best kept in are the best and most generally known No Age no Manners are ignorant of them nay more than the Word bread They imprint themselves in every one without being express'd without Voice and without Figure And the Sex that most practices it is bound to say least of it 'T is an act that we have plac'd in the Free-franchise of Silence from whence to take it is a Crime We are not to accuse and judge it neither dare we reprehend it but by Periphrasis and in Picture A great favour to a Criminal to be so execrable that Justice thinks it unjust to touch and see him free and safe by the benefit of the severity of his Condemnation Is it not here as in matter of Books that sell better and become more publick for being suppress'd For my part I will take Aristotle at his word who says that Bashfulness is an Ornament to Youth but a Reproach to old Age. These Verses are preach'd in the antient School a School that I much more adhere to than the Modern the Virtues of it appear to me to be greater and the Vices less Ceux qui par trop fuyant Venus estrivent Faillent autant que ceux qui trop la suivent They err as much Venus too much forbear As they who in her Rites too frequent are Tu Dea tu rerum naturam sola gubernas Nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras Exoritur neque fit laetum nec amabile quicquam Thou Nature's powerful Ruler without whom Nothing that 's lovely nothing gay can come From darksome Chaos deep and ugly Womb. I know not who could set Pallas and the Muses at variance with Venus and make them cold towards Love but I see no Deities so well met or that are more indebted to one another Who will deprive the Muses of amorous Imaginations will rob them of the best Entertainment they have and of the noblest matter of their Work and who will make Love lose the Communication and Service of Poesi will disarm him of his best Arms. By this means they charge the God of Familiarity and good Will and the protecting Goddesses of Humanity and Justice with the Vice of Ingratitude and Unthankfulness I have not been so long casheer'd from the State and Service of this God that my Memory is not still perfect in his Force and Power agnosco veteris vestigia flammae Of my old flame some Foot-steps yet remain There are yet some remains of heat and emotion after the Fever Nec mihi deficiat calor hic hyemantibus Annis Of Youth though I am past the burning rage I have some heat yet in my Winter Age. Wither'd and drooping as I am I feel yet some remains of that past ardour Qual l'atto Aegeo per che Aquilone o Noto Cessi che tutto prima il vuolse scosse Non S'accheta ci pero ma'l son◠e'l moto Ritien de l'onde anco agitate è grosse As Aegean Seas when storms be calm'd again That roul'd their tumbling Waves with troublous blasts Do yet of Tempests pass'd some shews retain And here and there their swelling billows cast But for what I understand of it the force and power of this God are more lively and animating in the Picture of Poesie than in their own Essence Et versus digitos habet For there is charming harmony in Verse It has I know not what kind of air more amorous than Love it self Venus is not so beautiful naked alive and panting as she is here in Virgil. Dixerat niveis hinc atque hinc Diva lacertis Cunctantem amplexu molli fovet I lle repente Accepit solitam flammam notusque medullas Intravit calor labefacta per ossa cucurrit Non secus atque olim tonitru cum rupta corusco Ignea rima micans percurrit limine nimbos paulo post ea verba loquutus Optatos dedit amplexus placidumque petivit Conjugis infusus gremio per membra soporem The Goddess here round in her snowy arms In soft embraces him consulting warms Straight he takes fire and through his marrow came Accustom'd heat which did his blood inflame So from a fiery Breach erupted flies Shining with flame bright Thunder from the Skies and a little after This having said After a sweet Embrace he takes his rest Reposing on the beauteous Goddess Breast All that I find fault with in considering it is that he has represented her a little too
persecute teaze and rifle those tender and obliging Favours This our immoderate and illegitimate Exasperation against this Vice springs from the most vain and turbulent Disease that afflicts humane Minds which is Jealousie Quis vetat apposito Lumen de lumine sumi Dent licet assiduè nil tamen inde perit That Light from Light be taken who 'll deny Though they do nought but give nought's lost thereby she and Envy her Sister seem to me to be the most idle and foolish of the whole Troop As to the last I can say little to 't a Passion that though said to be so mighty and powerful had never to do with me As to the other I know it by sight and that 's all Beasts feel it The Shepherd Cratis being fall'n in love with a She-Goat the He out of jealously came to butt him as he was laid a sleep and beat out his Brains We have rais'd this Fever to a greater excess by the Examples of some barbarous Nations the best disciplin'd have been touch'd with it and 't is reason but not transported Ense maritali nemo confessus Adulter Purpureo Stygias Sanguine tinxit aquas Ne're did Adulterer by a Husband slain With purple Blood the Stygian Waters stain Lucullus Caesar Pompey Antonius Cato and other brave men were Cuckolds and knew it without making any bustle about it There was in those days but one Coxcomb Lepidus that died for Grief that his Wife had us'd him so Ah! tum te miserum malique fati Quem attractis pedibus patente porta Percurrent mugilesque raphanique And the God of our Poet when he surpriz'd one of his Companions with his Wife satisfied himself with putting them to shame only Atque aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat Sic fieri turpis they shamefully lay bound Yet one a wanton wish'd to be so found and nevertheless took fire at the soft embraces she gave him complaining that upon that account she was grown jealous of his Affection Quid causas petis ex alto fiducia cessit Quo tibi Diva mei What need'st thou doubt and make a question thus Where is your Confidence repos'd in us Nay she entreats Arms for a Bastard of hers Arma rogo genitrix nato Another for her Son does Armour crave which are freely granted and Vulcan speaks honourably of Aeneas Arma acri facienda viro Arms for a valiant Hero must be made with in truth a more than humane Humanity And I am willing to leave this excess of Bounty to the Gods Nec divis homines componere aequum est Nor is it fit to equal men with Gods As to the confusion of Children besides that the gravest Legislators ordain and affect it in their Republicks it nettles not the Women where this Passion is I know not how much better seated Saepe etiam Juno maxima Caelicolam Conjugis in culpa flagravit quotidiana And Juno with fierce jealousie inflam'd Her Husband 's daily slips has often blam'd When Jealousie seizes these poor weak and resistless Souls 't is pity to see how miserably it torments and tyrannizes over them it insinuates it self into them under the title of Friendship but after it has once possess'd them the same causes that serv'd for a foundation of good Will serve them for a foundation of mortal Hatred 't is of all the diseases of the Mind that which most things serve for Aliment and fewest for Remedy The Virtue Health Merit and Reputation of the Husband are the Incendiaries of their Fury and ill Will Nullae sunt inimicitiae nisi amoris acerbae Their Anger 's are but the effects of Love This Fever defaces and corrupts all they have of beautiful and good besides And there is no action of a jealous Woman let her be how chaste and how good a Housewife soever that does not relish of Anger and Rudeness 'T is a furious Agitation that rebounds them to an Extremity quite contrary to its Cause Which was very manifest in one Octavius at Rome who having lain with Pontia Posthumia found his love so much augmented by Fruition that he sollicited with all importunity to marry her which seeing he could not persuade her to this excessive Affection precipitated him to the effects of the most cruel and mortal hatred for he kill'd her In like manner the ordinary symptoms of this other amorous Disease are intestine Hatreds private Conspiracies and Conjurations Notumque furens quid foemina possit The cause unknown But that a desp'rate Woman carry'd on With Rage might do and a Rage which so much the more frets it self as it is compell'd to excuse it self by a pretence of good Will Now the duty of Chastity is of a vast Extent Is it their Wills that we would have them restrain That is a very pliant and active thing a thing very quick and nimble to be staid How if Dreams sometimes ingage them so far that they cannot deny them It is not in them nor peradventure in Chastity it self seeing it is a Female to defend it self from Lust and Desire If we are only interested in their Will what a case are we in then Do but imagine what crowding there would be amongst Men in pursuance of these Priviledges to run full speed though without Tongue and Eyes into every Womans Arms that would accept them The Scythian Women put out the Eyes of all their Slaves and Prisoners of War that they might have their Pleasure of them and they never the wiser Oh the furious advantage of Opportunity Should any one ask me what was the first part of Love I should Answer that it was how to take a man's time and so the second and so the third 't is a point that can do every thing I have sometimes wanted Fortune but I have also sometimes been wanting to my self in matter of Attempt There is greater Temerity requir'd in this Age of ours which our young People excuse under the name of heat But should Women examin it more strictly they would find that it rather proceeded from Contempt I was always superstitiously afraid of giving offence and have ever had a great respect for her I lov'd Besides who in this traffick takes away the Reverence defaces at the same time the Lustre I would in this Affair have a Man a little play the Child the Timorous and the Servant If not altogether in this I have in other things some air of the foolish bashfulness whereof Plutarch makes mention and the course of my Life has been divers ways hurt and blemish'd with it a Quality very ill suiting my universal Form And what is there also amongst us but Sedition and Discord I am as much our of Countenance to be deny'd as I am to deny and it so much troubles me to be troublesome to others that in occasions where Duty compells to try the good-will of any one in a thing that is
so many changes and so many several Enamorato's But 't is true withall that 't is contrary to the nature of Love if it be not violent and contrary to the nature of Violence if it be constant And they who make it a wonder exclaim and keep such a clutter to find out the causes of this Frailty of theirs as unnatural and not to be believ'd how comes it to pass they do not discern how often they are themselves guilty of the same without any Astonishment or Miracle at all It would peradventure be more strange to see the Passion fixt 'T is not a simply corporeal Passion If there be no end in Avarice and Ambition there is doubtless no more in Desire It still lives after Saciety and 't is impossible to prescribe either constant Satisfaction or end it ever goes beyond its possession and by that means Inconstancy peradventure is in some sort more pardonable in them than in us They may plead as well as we the inclination to Variety and Novelty common to us both And secondly without us that they buy a Pig in a poak Joan Queen of Naples caus'd her first Husband Andreosse to be hang'd at the Barrs of her Window in a Halter of Gold and Silk woven with her own Hand because that in Matrimonial performances she neither found his Parts nor Abilities answer the Expectation she had conceiv'd from his Stature Beauty Youth and Activity by which she had been caught and deceiv'd There is more pains requir'd in doing than in suffering and so they are on their part always at least provided for Necessity whereas on our part it may fall out otherwise For this Reason it was that Plato wisely made a Law that before Marriage to determine of the fitness of the Persons the Judges should see the young Men who pretended to it stript stark naked and the Women but to the Girdle only When they come to try us they do not perhaps think us worthy of their choice Experta latus medidoque simillima loro Inguina nec lassa stare coacta manu Deserit imbelles thalamos 'T is not enough that a man's Will be good Weakness and Insufficiency lawfully break a Marriage Et quaerendum aliunde foret nervosius illud Quod posset Zonam solvere virgineam why not and according to her own scantling and amorous intelligence more bold and active Si blando nequeat superesse labori If strength they want Loves task to undergo But is it not a great Impudence to offer our Imperfections and Imbecillities where we desire to please and leave a good Opinion and Esteem of our selves For the little that I am able to do now ad unum Mollis opus One bout a Night I would not trouble a Woman that I am to reverence and fear fuge suspicari Cujus undenum trepidavit aetas claudare lustrum suspect not him One whose Love 's Wild-fire Age doth throw it's cooling Snow Nature should satisfie her self in having rendred Age miserable without rendring it ridiculous too I hate to see it for one poor inch of pitiful Vigour which comes upon it but thrice a Week to strut and set out it self with as much eagerness as if it could do mighty feats a true flame of Flax and wonder to see it so boyl and bubble at a time when it is so congeal'd and extinguish'd This Appetite ought not to appertain to any thing but the flower of beautiful Youth Trust not to it because you see it seconds that indefatigable full constant and magnanimous ardour that is in you for it will certainly leave you in the lurch at your greatest need but rather return it to some tender bashful and ignorant Boy who yet trembles at the Rod and blushes Indum sanguineo veluti violaverit ostro Si quis ebur vel mista rubent ubi lilia multa Alba rosa So Indian Ivory streak'd with Crimson shows Or Lillies white mixt with the Damask Rose who can stay till the Morning without dying for shame to behold the disdain of the fair Eyes of her who knows so well his fumbling impertinence Et taciti fecere tamen convitia vultus and though she nothing say How ill she likes my work her looks betray he never had the satisfaction and the glory of having cudgel'd them till they were weary with the vigorous performance of one heroick Night When I have observ'd any one to be troubled with me I have presently accus'd her Levity but have been in doubt if I had not reason rather to complain of Nature she has doubtless us'd me very uncivilly and unkindly Si non longa satis si non bene mentula crassa Nimirum sapiunt videntque parvam Matronae quoque mentulam illibenter and done me a most irreparable injury Every Member I have as much one as another is equally my own and no other does more properly make me a man than this I universally owe my intire Picture to the publick The Wisdom of my Instruction wholly consists in Liberty and naked Truth disdaining to introduce these little feign'd common and provincial Rules into the Catalogue of its real Duties all natural general and constant of which Civility and Ceremony are Daughters indeed but illegitimate We are sure to have the Vices of Apparence when we shall have had those of Essence When we have done with these we run full drive upon others if we find it must be so For there is danger that we shall fancy new Offices to excuse our Negligence toward the natural ones and to confound them That this is so it is manifest that in places where the Faults are Witch-crafts the Witch-crafts are but Faults That in Nations where the Laws of Decency are most rare and most remiss the primitive Laws of common reason are better observ'd the innumerable multitude of so many Duties stifling and dissipating our Industry and Care The Application of our selves to light and trivial things diverts us from those that are necessary and just O that these superficial men take an easie and plausible way in comparison of ours These are shadows wherewith we palliate and pay one another but we do not pay but inflame the reckoning towards that great Judge who tucks up our rags and tatters above our shameful Parts and is not nice to view us all over even to our inmost and most secret Nudities it were an useful Decency of our maidenly Modesty could it keep him from this Discovery In fine whoever could reclaim man from so scrupulous a verbal Superstition would do the World no great disservice Our Life is divided betwixt Folly and Prudence Whoever will write but what is reverend and Canonical will leave above the one half behind I do not excuse my self to my self and if I did it should rather be for my Excuses that I would excuse my self than for any other Fault I excuse my self of certain Humours which I
be prevail'd upon what mean and unmanly Satisfactions soever had been tender'd to him to condescend to milder Conditions than that the Ladies and Gentlewomen only who were in the Town might go out without Violation of their Honour on Foot and with so much only as they could carry about them Which was no sooner known but that out of Magnanimity of Heart and an Excess of good Nature they presently contriv'd to carry out upon their Shoulders their Husbands and Children and even the Duke himself a Sight at which the Emperour was so pleased that ravish'd with the Generosity of the Action he wept for Joy and immediately extinguishing in his Heart the mortal and implacable Hatred he had conceiv'd against this Duke he from that time forward treated Him and His with all Humanity and Affection The one or the other of these two ways would with great Facility work upon my Nature for I have a marvellous Propensity to Mercy and Mildness and to such a degree of Tenderness that I fancy of the two I should sooner surrender my Anger to Compassion than Esteem And yet Pity is reputed a Vice amongst the Stoicks who will that we succour the Afflicted but not that we should be so affected with their Sufferings as to suffer with them I conceiv'd these Examples not ill suited to the Question in hand and the rather because therein we observe these great Souls assaulted and tryed by these two several ways to resist the one without relenting and to be shook and subjected by the other It is true that to suffer a Man's Heart to be totally subdued by Compassion may be imputed Facility Effeminacy and Over-tenderness whence it comes to pass that the weakest Natures as of Women Children and the common sort of People are the most subject to it but after having resisted and disdain'd the Power of Sighs and Tears to surrender a Man's Animosity to the sole Reverence of the sacred Image of Vertue this can be no other than the Effect of a strong and inflexible Soul enamour'd of and ravish'd with a Masculine and obstinate Valour Nevertheless Astonishment and Admiration may in less generous Minds beget a like Effect Witness the People of Thebes who having put two of their Generals upon Tryal for their Lives for having continued in Arms beyond the precise Term of their Commission very hardly pardon'd Pelopidas who bowing under the weight of so dangerous an Accusation had made no manner of Defence for himself nor produc'd other Arguments than Prayers and Supplications to secure his Head whereas on the contrary Epaminondas being brought to the Bar and falling to magnifie the Exploits he had perform'd in their Service and after a haughty and arrogant manner reproaching them with Ingratitude and Injustice they had not the Heart to proceed any further in his Tryal but broke up the Court and departed the whole Assembly highly commending the Courage and Confidence of this Man Dionysius the elder after having by a tedious Siege and through exceeding great Difficulties taken the City of Rhegium and in it the Governour Phyton a very gallant Man who had made so obstinate a Defence he was resolved to make him a tragical Example of his Revenge in order whereunto and the more sensibly to afflict him he first told him That he had the Day before caus'd his Son and all his Kindred to be drown'd To which Phyton return'd no other Answer but this That they were then by one Day happier than he After which causing him to be strip'd and delivering him into the Hands of the Tormentors he was by them not only dragg'd thorough the Streets of the Town and most ignominiously and cruelly whip'd but moreover villified with most bitter and contumelious Language yet still in the Fury of all this Persecution he maintain'd his Courage entire all the way with a strong Voice and undaunted Countenance proclaiming the glorious Cause of his Death namely for that he would not deliver up his Country into the Hands of a Merciless Tyrant at the same time denouncing against him a sudden Chastisement from the offended Gods At which the Tyrant rowling his Eyes about and reading in his Souldiers Looks that instead of being incens'd at the haughty Language of this conquer'd Enemy to the Contempt of him their Captain and his Triumph they not only seem'd struck with Admiration of so rare a Vertue but moreover inclin'd to Mutiny and were even ready to rescue the Prisoner out of the Hangman's hands he caus'd the Execution to cease and afterwards privately caus'd him to be thrown into the Sea Man in good earnest is a marvellous vain fickle and unstable Subject and on whom it is very hard to form any certain or proportionate Judgment For Pompey could pardon the whole City of the Mammertines though furiously incens'd against it upon the single Account of the Vertue and Magnanimity of one Citizen Zeno who took the Fault of the Publick wholly upon himself neither intreated other Favour but alone to undergo the Punishment for all and yet Sylla's Host having in the City of Perusia manifested the same Vertue obtain'd nothing by it either for himself or his Fellow-Citizens And directly contrary to my first Examples the bravest of all Men and who was reputed so gracious and civil to all those he overcame Alexander the Great having after many great Difficulties forc'd the City of Gaza and entring found Betis who commanded there and of whose Valour in the time of this Siege he had most noble and manifest Proof alone forsaken by all his Souldiers his Arms hack'd and hew'd to pieces covered all over with Blood and Wounds and yet still fighting in the Crowd of a great Number of Macedonians who were laying on him on all sides he said to him netled at so dear bought a Victory and two fresh Wounds he had newly receiv'd in his own Person Thou shalt not dye Betis so honourably as thou dost intend but shalt assuredly suffer all the Torments that can be inflicted on a miserable Captive To which Menaces the other returning no other Answer but only a fierce and disdainful Look What says the Conquerour observing his obstinate Silence Is he too stiff to bend a Knee Is he too proud to utter one suppliant Word I shall certainly conquer this Silence and if I cannot force a Word from his Mouth I shall at least extract a Groan from his Heart And thereupon converting his Anger into Fury presently commanded his Heels to be boar'd through causing him alive to be drag'd mangled and dismembred at an infamous Carts-Tail Was it that the height of Courage was so natural and familiar to this Conquerour that because he could not admire he should the less esteem this Hero Or was it that he conceiv'd Valour to be a Vertue so peculiar to himself that his Pride could not without Envy endure it in another Or was it that the natural Impetuosity of his Fury was incapable
discoursing with his Patient about the method of his Cure he told him that one thing which would be very conducing to it was to give me such Occasion to be pleased with his Company that I might come often to see him by which means and by fixing his Eyes upon the Freshness of my Complexion and his Imagination upon the Sprightliness and Vigour that glowed in my Youth and possessing all his Senses with the flourishing Age wherein I then was his Habit of Body might peradventure be amended but he forgot to say that mine at the same time might be made worse Gallus Vibius so long cudgell'd his Brains to find out the Essence and Motions of Folly till by the Inquisition in the end he went directly out of his Wits and to such a Degree that he could never after recover his Judgment and he might brag that he was become a Fool by too much Wisdom Some there are who thorough Fear prevent the Hangman like him whose Eyes being unbound to have his Pardon read to him was found stark dead upon the Scaffold by the Stroak of Imagination We start tremble turn pale and blush as we are variously mov'd by Imagination and being a-bed feel our Bodies agitated with its Power to that degree as even sometimes to Expiration And boyling Youth when fast asleep grows so warm with Fancy as in a Dream to satisfie amorous Desires Vt quasi transactis saepe omnibus rebus profundant Fluminis ingentes fluctus vestemque cruentent Who fancy gulling Lies enflamed Mind Lays his Loves Tribute there where not design'd Although it be no new thing to see Horns grown in a Night on the Fore-head of one that had none when he went to Bed notwithstanding what befell Cyppus a noble Roman is very memorable who having one day been a very delighted Spectator of a Bull-baiting and having all the night dreamt that he had Horns on his Head did by the Force of Imagination really cause them to grow there Passion made the Son of Croesus to speak who was born dumb by that means supplying him with so necessary a Faculty which Nature had deny'd him And Antiochus fell into a Fever enflam'd with the Beauty of Stratonissa too deeply imprinted in his Soul Pliny pretends to have seen Lucius Crossitius who from a Woman was turn'd into a Man upon her very Wedding-day Pontanus and others report the like Metamorphosis that in these latter days have hapned in Italy and through the vehement Desire of him and his Mother Vota puer solvit quae foemina voverat Iphis. Iphis a Boy the Vow defray'd That he had promis'd when a Maid My self passing by Vitry le Francois a Town in Champagne saw a Man the Bishop of Soissons had in Confirmation call'd German whom all the Inhabitanrs of the Place had known to be a Girl till two and twenty Years of Age call'd Mary He was at the time of my being there very full of Beard Old and not Married who told us that by straining himself in a Leap his male Instruments came out and the Maids of that Place have to this day a Song wherein they advise one another not to take too great Strides for fear of being turn'd into Men as Mary German was It is no wonder if this sort of Accident frequently happen for if Imagination have any Power in such things it is so continually and vigorously bent upon this Subject that to the end it may not so often relapse into the same Thought and Violence of Desire it were better once for all to give these young Wenches the Things they long for Some stick not to attribute the Scars of King Dagobert and St. Francis to the Force of Imagination and it is said that by it Bodies will sometimes be removed from their Places and Celsus tells us of a Priest whose Soul would be ravish'd into such an Extasie that the Body would for a long time remain without Sense or Respiration St. Augustine makes mention of another who upon the hearing of any lamentable or doleful Cries would presently fall into a Swoon and be so far out of himself that it was in vain to call hollow in his Ears pinch or burn him till he voluntarily came to himself and then he would say that he had heard Voices as it were a-far off and did feel when they pinch'd and burn'd him and to prove that this was no obstinate Dissimulation in defiance of his Sense of Feeling it was manifest that all the while he had neither Pulse nor Breathing 'T is very probable that Visions Enchantments and all extraordinary Effects of that Nature derive their Credit principally from the Power of Imagination working and making its chiefest Impression upon vulgar and more easie Souls whose Belief is so strangely impos'd upon as to think they see what they do not I am not satisfied and make a very great Question Whether those pleasant Ligatures with which this Age of ours is so fetter'd that there is almost no other Talk are not mere voluntary Impressions of Apprehension and fear for I know by experience in the Case of a particular Friend of mine one for whom I can be as Responsible as for my self and a Man that cannot possibly fall under any manner of Suspition of insufficiency and as little of being enchanted who having heard a Companion of his make a Relation of an unusual Frigidity that surpriz'd him at a very unseasonable time being afterwards himself engag'd upon the same Account the Horror of the former Story on a sudden so strangely possess'd his Imagination that he ran the same Fortune the other had done and from that time forward the scurvy Remembrance of his Disaster running in his Mind and tyrannizing over him was extreamly subject to Relapse into the same Misfortune He found some Remedy however for this Inconvenience by himself franckly confessing and declaring before-hand to the Party with whom he was to have to do the Subjection he lay under and the Infirmity he was subject to by which means the Contention of his Soul was in some sort appeas'd and knowing that now some such Misbehaviour was expected from him the Restraint upon those Faculties grew less and he less suffer'd by it and afterwards at such times as he could be in no such Apprehension as not being about any such Act his Thoughts being then disengag'd and free and his Body being in its true and natural Estate by causing those Parts to be handled and communicated to the Knowledge of others he was at last totally freed from that vexatious Infirmity After a Man has once done a Woman right he is never after in danger of misbehaving himself with that Person unless upon the account of a manifest and excusable Weakness Neither is this Disaster to be fear'd but in Adventures where the Soul is over-extended with Desire or Respect and especially where we meet with an unexpected Opportunity that requires a sudden and quick Dispatch and
need to take no other care but only to counterplot their Fancy The indocile and rude liberty of this scurvy Member is sufficiently remarkable by its importunate unruly and unseasonable tumidity and impatience at such times as we have nothing for it to do and by its more unseasonable stupidity and disobedience when we stand most in need of his vigour so imperiously contesting the authority of the Will and with so much obstinacy denying all sollicitation both of hand and fancy And yet though his Rebellion is so universally complain'd of and that proofs are not wanting to condemn him if he had nevertheless feed me to plead his Cause I should peradventure bring the rest of his fellow-members into suspition of complotting this mischief against him out of pure envy at the importance and ravishing pleasure particular to his Employment so as to have by Confederacy arm'd the whole World against him by malevolently charging him alone with their common offence For let any one consider whether there is any one Part of our Bodies that does not often refuse to perform its Office at the Precept of the Will and that does not often exercise its Function in defiance of her Command They have every one of them proper Passions of their own that rouze and awake stupifie and benum them without our Leave or Consent How often do the involuntary motions of the Countenance discover our inward Thoughts and betray our most private Secrets to the Knowledge of the Standers by The same Cause that animates this Member does also without our Knowledge animate the Lungs Pulse and Heart the sight of a pleasing Object imperceptibly diffusing a Flame thorough all our Parts with a febrifick motion Is there nothing but these Veins and Muscles that swell and flag without the Consent not only of the Will but even of our Knowledge also We do not command our Hairs to stand an end nor our Skin to shiver either with Fear or Desire The Hands often convey themselves to Parts to which we do not direct them The Tongue will be interdict and the Voice sometimes suffocated when we know not how to help it When we have nothing to eat and would willingly forbid it the Appetite of Eating and Drinking does not for all that forbear to stir up the Parts that are subjected to it no more nor less than the other Appetite we were speaking of and in like manner does as unseasonably leave us The Vessels that serve to discharge the Belly have their proper Dilatations and Compressions without and beyond our Intelligence as well as those which are destin'd to purge the Reins And that which to justifie the Prerogative of the Will St. Augustine urges of having seen a Man who could command his Backside to discharge as often together as he pleas'd and that Vives does yet fortifie with another Example in his time of one that could Fart in Tune does nothing suppose any more pure Obedience of that Part for is any thing commonly more tumultuary or indiscreet To which let me add that I my self knew one so rude and ungovern'd as for forty Years together made his Master-Vent with one continued and unintermitted Hurricane and 't is like will do till he expire that way and vanish in his own Smoak And I could heartily wish that I only knew by Reading how oft a Man's Belly by the Denial of one single Puff brings him to the very door of an exceeding painful Death and that the Emperour who gave Liberty to let fly in all Places had at the same time given us Power to do it But for our Will in whose Behalf we prefer this Accusation with how much greater Similitude of Truth may we reproach even her her self with Mutiny and Sedition for her Irregularity and Disobedience Does she always will what we would have her to do Does she not often will what we forbid her to will and that to our manifest Prejudice Does she suffer her self any more than any of the other to be govern'd and directed by the Results of our Reason To conclude I should move in the Behalf of the Gentleman my Clyent it might be consider'd that in this Fact his Cause being inseparably conjoyn'd with an Accessary yet he is only call'd in Question and that by Arguments and Accusations that cannot be charg'd nor reflect upon the other whose Business indeed is sometimes inoportunely to invite but never to refuse and to allure after a tacite and clandestine manner and therefore is the Malice and Injustice of his Accusers most manifestly apparent But be it how it will protesting against the Proceedings of the Advocates and Judges Nature will in the mean time proceed after her own way who had done but well if she had endow'd this Member with some particular Priviledge The Author of the sole immortal Work of Mortals A divine Work according to Socrates and of Love Desire of Immortality and himself an immortal Daemon Some one perhaps by such an Effect of Imagination may have had the good luck to leave that behind him here in France which his Companion who has come after and behav'd himself better has carried back with him into Spain And that you may see why Men in such cases require a mind prepar'd for the thing they are to do Why do the Physicians tamper with and prepossess before-hand their Patients credulity with many false promises of Cure if not to the end that the effect of imagination may supply the imposture and defect of their Aposeme They know very well that a great Master of their Trade has given it under his hand that he has known some with whom the very sight of a potion would work which Examples of Fancy and Conceit come now into my head by the remembrance of a story was told me by a domestick Apothecary of my Father's a blunt Swisse a Nation not much addicted to vanity and lying of a Merchant he had long known at Thoulouse who being a valetudinary much afflicted with Fits of the Stone had often occasion to take Clysters of which he caus'd several sorts to be prescrib'd him by the Physicians according to the accidents of his Disease one of which being one time brought him and none of the usual forms as feeling if it were not too hot and the like being omitted he was laid down on his Belly the Syringe put up and all Ceremonies perform'd injection excepted after which the Apothecary being gone the Patient accommodated as if he had really receiv'd a Clyster he found the same operation and effect that those do who have taken one indeed and if at any time the Physician did not find the Operation sufficient he would usually give him two or three more after the same manner And the Fellow moreover swore to me that to save charges for he pay'd as if he had really taken them this sick mans Wife having sometimes made tryal of warm Water only the effect discover'd the Cheat
sorts of Prescriptions and Receipts the good Man being extreamly timorous of any way failing in a thing he had so wholly set his Heart upon suffer'd himself at last to be over-rul'd by the common Opinion and complying with the method of the time having no more those Persons he had brought out of Italy and who had given him the first Model of Education about him he sent me at six Years of Age to the Colledge of Guienne at that time the best and most flourishing in France And there it was not possible to add any thing to the care he had to provide me the most able Tutors with all other Circumstances of Education reserving also several particular Rules contrary to the Colledge Practice but so it was that with all these Precautions it was a Colledge still My Latine immediately grew corrupt of which also by Discontinuance I have since lost all manner of use so that this new way of Institution serv'd me to no other end than only at my first coming to prefer me to the first Forms for at thirteen Years old that I came out of the Colledge I had run thorough my whole Course as they call it and in truth without any manner of Improvement that I can honestly brag of in all this time The first thing that gave me any Taste of Books was the Pleasure I took in reading the Fables of Ovid's Metamorphoses and with them I was so taken that being but Seven or Eight Years old I would steal from all other Divertisements to read them both by reason that this was my own natural Language the easiest Book that I was acquainted with and for the Subject the most accommodated to the Capacity of my Age for as for Lancelot du Lake Amadis de Gaule Huon of Bourdeaux and such Trumpery which Children are most delighted with I had never so much as heard their Names no more than I yet know what they contain so exact was the Discipline wherein I was brought up But this was enough to make me neglect the other Lessons were prescrib'd me and here it was infinitely to my Advantage to have to do with an understanding Tutor who very well knew discreetly to connive at this and other Truantries of the same nature for by this means I ran thorough Virgil's Aeneids Terence Plautus and some Italian Comedies allur'd by the Softness and Pleasure of the Subject whereas had he been so foolish as to have taken me off this Diversion I do really believe I had brought nothing away from the Colledge but a Hatred of Books as almost all our young Gentlemen do but he carried himself very discreetly in that Business seeming to take no notice and allowing me only such time as I could steal from my other regular and yet moderate Studies which whetted my Appetite to devour those Books I was naturally so much in love with before For the chief things my Father expected from their Endeavour to whom he had deliver'd me for Education was Affability of Manners and good Humour and to say the Truth mine had no other Vice but Sloth and want of Mettal There was no fear that I would do ill but that I would do nothing no body suspected that I would be wicked but useless they foresaw an Idleness but no Malice in my Nature and I find it falls out accordingly The Complaints I hear of my self are these he is idle cold in the Offices of Friendship and Relation and remiss in those of the Publick he is too particular he is too proud but the most Injurious do not say Why has he taken such a thing Why has he not paid such a one But why does he part with nothing Why does he not give And I should take it for a Favour that Men would expect from me no greater Effects of Supererogation than these But they are unjust to exact from me what I do not owe and in condemning me to it they efface the Gratification of the Act and deprive me of the Gratitude that would be due to me upon such a Bounty whereas the active Benefit ought to be of so much the greater Value from my hands by how much I am not passive that way at all I can the more freely dispose of my Fortune the more it is mine and of my self the more I am my own Nevertheless if I were good at setting out my own Actions I could peradventure very well repell these Reproaches and could give some to understand that they are not so much offended that I do not enough as that I am able to do a great deal more than I do Yet for all this heavy Disposition of mine my Mind when retir'd into it self was not altogether idle nor wholly depriv'd of solid Inquisition nor of certain and infallible Results about those Objects it could comprehend and could also without any Helps digest them but amongst other things I do really believe it had been totally impossible to have made it to submit by Violence and Force Shall I here acquaint you with one Faculty of my Youth I had great Boldness and Assurance of Countenance and to that a Flexibility of Voice and Gesture to any Part I undertook to act Alter ab undecimo tum me vix ceperat annus For the next Year to my eleventh had Me but a very few days older made When I play'd the chiefest Parts in the Latine Tragedies of Bucanan Guerente and Muretus that were presented in our Colledge of Guienne with very great Applause wherein Andreas Goveanus our Principal as in all other Parts of his Undertaking was without Comparison the best of that Employment in France and I was look'd upon as one of the chief Actors 'T is an Exercise that I do not disapprove in young People of Condition and have since seen our Princes by the Example of the Ancients in Person handsomly and commendably perform these Exercises and it was moreover allow'd to Persons of the greatest Quality to profess and make a Trade of it in Greece Aristoni Tragico actori rem aperit huic genus fortuna honesta erant nec Ars quia nihil tale apud Graecos pudori est ea deformabat He imparted this Affair to Aristo the Tragedian a man of a good Family and Fortune which nevertheless did neither of them receive any Blemish by that Profession nothing of that kind being reputed a Disparagement in Greece Nay I have always tax'd those with Impertinence who condemn these Entertainments and with Injustice those who refuse to admit such Comedians as are worth seeing into the good Towns and grudge the People that publick Diversion Well-govern'd Corporations take care to assemble their Citizens not only to the solemn Duties of Devotion but also to Sports and Spectacles They find Society and Friendship augmented by it and besides can there possibly be allow'd a more orderly and regular Diversion than what is perform'd in the Sight of every one and very often in the Presence
abhorr'd by our manners which also for having according to their practice a so necessary disparity of Age and difference of Offices betwixt the Lovers hold no more proportion with the perfect Union and Harmony that we here require than the other Quis est enim iste amor amicitiae cur neque deformem adolescentem quisquam amat neque formosam senem For what is that Love of Friendship why does no one Love a deform'd Youth or a comely Old Man Neither will that very Picture that the Academy presents of it as I conceive contradict me when I say that the first fury inspir'd by the Son of Venus into the heart of the Lover upon the sight of the Flower and prime of a springing and blossoming Youth to whom they allow all the Insolencies and Passionate Attempts that an immoderate Ardour can produce was simply founded upon an external Beauty the false image of Corporal Generation for upon the Soul it could not ground this Love the sight of which as yet lay conceal'd was but now springing and not of maturity to Blossom Which fury if it seiz'd upon a mean Courage the means by which he preferr'd his suit were rich Presents favour in advancement to Dignities and such Trumpery which they by no means approve If on a more generous Soul the pursuit was suitably generous by Philosophical Instructions Precepts to revere Religion to obey the Laws to die for the good of his Country by examples of Valour Prudence and Justice the Lover studying to render himself acceptable by the Grace and Beauty of his Soul that of his Body being long since faded and decay'd hoping by this mutual Society to establish a more firm and lasting Contract When this Courtship came to effect in due season for that which they do not require in the Lover namely Leisure and Discretion in his pursuit they strictly require in the person Loved forasmuch as he is to judg of an internal Beauty of difficult Knowledg and obscure Discovery then there sprung in the Person Loved the desire of a spiritual Conception by the mediation of a spiritual Beauty This was the Principal the Corporeal Accidental and Second Causes are all the wrong side of the Lover For this reason they prefer the Person Beloved maintaining that the Gods in like manner prefer him too and very much blame the Poet Aeschilus for having in the Loves of Achilles and Patroclus given the Lovers part to Achilles who was in the first flower and pubescency of his Youth and the handsomest of all the Greeks After this general Familiarity and mutual Community of Thoughts is once setled supposing the soveraign and most worthy Part to preside and govern and to perform its proper Offices they say that from thence great Utility deriv'd both to private and publick Concerns That the force and power of Countries receiv'd their beginning from thence and that it was the chiefest security of Liberty and Justice Of which the Salutiferous Loves of Harmonius and Aristogiton is a good instance and therefore it is that they call'd it Sacred and Divine and do conceive that nothing but the Violence of Tyrants and the Baseness of the common People is mimical to it finally all that can be said in favour of the Academy is that it was a Love which ended in Friendship which also well enough agrees with the Stoical definition of Love Amorem conatum esse amicitiae faciendae ex pulchritudinis specie That Love is a desire of contracting Friendship by the Beauty of the Object I return to my own more just and true description Omnino amicitiae corroboratis jam confirmatis ingeniis aetatibus judicandae sunt Those are only to be reputed Friendships that are fortified and confirmed by Judgment and length of time For the rest which we commonly call Friends and Friendships are nothing but Acquaintance and Familiarities either occasionally contracted or upon some design by means of which there happens some little intercourse betwixt our Souls but in the Friendship I speak of they mix and work themselves into one piece with so universal a mixture that there is no more sign of the Seame by which they were first conjoin'd If a Man should importune me to give a reason why I Lov'd him I find it could no otherwise be exprest than by making answer because it was he because it was I. There is beyond I am able to say I know not what inexplicable and fatal power that brought on this Union We sought one another long before we met and by the Characters we heard of one another which wrought more upon our Affections than in reason meer reports should do I think by some secret appointment of Heaven we embra'd in our Names and at our first meeting which was accidentally at a great City entertainment we found our selves so mutually taken with one another so acquainted and so endear'd betwixt our selves that from thenceforward nothing was so near to us as one another He writ an excellent Latin Satyr which I since Printed wherein he excuses the precipitation of our intelligence so suddenly came to perfection saying that being to have so short continuance as being begun so late for we were both full grown Men and he some Years the older there was no time to lose nor was ti'd to conform it self to the example of those slow and regular Friendships that require so many precautions of a long praeliminary Conversation This has no other Idea than that of its self this is no one particular consideration nor two nor three nor four nor a thousand 't is I know not what quintessence of all this mixture which seizing my whole Will carried it to plunge and lose it self in his and that having seiz'd his whole Will brought it back with equal concurrence and appetite to plunge and lose it self in mine I may truly say lose reserving nothing to our selves that was either his or mine When Laelius in the presence of the Roman Consuls who after they had sentenc'd Tiberius Gracchus prosecuted all those who had had any familiarity with him also came to ask Cajus Blosius who was his chiefest Friend and Confident how much he would have done for him And that he made Answer All things How All things said Laelius And what if he had commanded you to Fire our Temples He would never have commanded me that repli'd Blosius But what if he had said Laelius Why if he had I would have Obey'd him said the other If he was so perfect a Friend to Gracchus as the Histories report him to have been there was yet no necessity of offending the Consuls by such a bold confession though he might still have retain'd the assurance he had of Gracchus his disposition However those who accuse this Answer as Seditious do not well understand the Mystery nor presuppose as it was true that he had Gracchus his Will in his sleeve both by the power of a Friend and the perfect knowledg
hit that they do not receive two for it of which St. Augustine gives a very great proof upon his Adversaries 'T is a Conflict that is more decided by strength of Memory than the force of Reason We are to content our selves with the Light it pleases the Sun to communicate to us by Vertue of his Rays and who will lift up his Eyes to take in a greater let him not think it strange if for the reward of his presumption he there lose his sight Quis hominum potest scire consilium Dei aut quis poterit cogitare quid vebit Dominus Who amongst Men can know the Council of God or who can think what the Will of the Lord is CHAP. XXXII That we are to avoid Pleasures even at the expence of Life I had long ago Observ'd most of the Opinions of the Ancients to concur in this That it is happy to Die when there is more ill than good in Living and that to preserve Life to our own Torment and Inconvenience is contrary to the very Rules of Nature as these old Laws instruct us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Happy is Death whenever it shall come To him to whom to Live is troublesome Whom Life does Persecute with restless Spite May Honourably bid the World good Night And infinitely better 't is to Die Than to prolong a Life of Misery But to push this Contempt of Death so far as to employ it to the removing our selves from the danger of Coveting Honours Riches Dignities and other Favours and Goods as we call them of Fortune as if Reason were not sufficient to perswade us to avoid them without adding this new Injunction I had never seen it either Enjoin'd or Practic'd till this passage of Seneca fell into my hands who advising Lucilius a Man of great Power and Authority about the Emperour to alter his Voluptuous and Magnificent way of Living and to retire himself from this Worldly Vanity and Ambition to some Solitary Quiet and Philosophical Life and the other alledging some Difficulties I am of Opinion says he either that thou leave that Life or Life it self I would indeed advise thee to the gentle way and to untie rather than to break the Knot thou hast undiscreetly Knit provided that if it be not otherwise to be unti'd then resolutely break it There is no Man so great a Coward that had not rather once fall than to be always falling I should have found this Counsel conformable enough to the Stoical Roughness But it appears the more strange for being borrowed from Epicurus who writes the same thing upon the like occasion to Idomenius And I think I have Observ'd something like it but with Christian Moderation amongst our own People St. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers that famous Enemy of the Arian Heresie being in Syria had Intelligence thither sent him that Abra his only Daughter whom he left at home under the Eye and Tuition of her Mother was sought in Marriage by the greatest Noblemen of the Country as being a Virgin Vertuously brought up Fair Rich and in the Flower of her Age whereupon he writ to her as it appears upon Record that she should remove her Affection from all these Pleasures and Advantages were propos'd unto her for he had in his Travels found out a much greater and more worthy Fortune for her a Husband of much greater Power and Magnificence that would present her with Robes and Jewels of inestimable value wherein his design was to dispossess her of the Appetite and use of Worldly Delights to join her wholely to God But the nearest and most certain way to this being as he conceiv'd the Death of his Daughter he never ceas'd by Vows Prayers and Oraizens to Beg of the Almighty that he would please to call her out of this World and to take her to himself as accordingly it came to pass for soon after his return she Died at which he exprest a singular Joy This seems to outdo the other forasmuch as he applys himself to this means at the first sight which they only take subsidiarily and besides it was towards his only Daughter But I will not omit the latter end of this Story though it be from my purpose St. Hilaries Wife having understood from him how the Death of their Daughter was brought about by his desires and design and how much happier she was to be remov'd out of this World than to have stay'd in it Conceiv'd so Lively an Apprehension of the Eternal and Heavenly Beatitude that she Begg'd of her Husband with the extreamest Importunity to do as much for her and God at their joint Request shortly after calling her to him it was a Death embrac'd on both sides with singular Content CHAP. XXXIII That Fortune is oftentimes Observed to Act by the Rule of Reason THe Inconstancy and various Motions of Fortune may reasonably make us expect she should present us with all sorts of Faces Can there be a more express Act of Justice than this The Duke of Valentenois having resolv'd to Poison Adrian Cardinal of Cornetto with whom Pope Alexander the Sixth his Father and himself were to go to Supper in the Vatican he sent before a Bottle of Poisoned Wine and withal strict Order to the Butler to keep it very safe The Pope being come before his Son and calling for Drink the Butler supposing this Wine had not been so strictly recommended to his Care but only upon the account of its Excellency presented it presently to the Pope and the Duke himself coming in presently after and being confident they had not meddled with his Bottle took also his Cup so that the Father Died immediately upon the place and the Son after having been long tormented with Sickness was reserv'd to another and a worse Fortune Sometimes she seems to play upon us just in the nick of an Affair Monsieur d' Estree at that time Guidon to Monsieur de Vendosme and Monsieur de Liques Lieutenant to the Company of the Duke of Ascot being both pretenders to the Sieur de Foungueselles his Sister though of several Parties as it oft falls out amongst Frontier Neighbours the Sieur de Liques carried her but on the same Day he was Married and which was worse before he went to Bed to his Wife the Bridegroom having a mind to break a Lance in Honour of his new Bride went out to Skirmish near to St. Omers where the Sieur d' Estree proving the stronger took him Prisoner and the more to illustrate his Victory the Lady her self was fain Conjugis ante coacta novi dimittere collum Quam veniens una atque altera rursus hyems Noctibus in longis avidum faturasset amorem Of her fair Arms the Amorous Ring to break Which clung so fast to her new Spouses Neck E're of two Winters many a friendly Night Had sated her Loves greedy Appetite to request him of Courtesie to deliver up
waking her and they yet live together Man and Wife It is true that Antiquity has not much decry'd this Vice The Writings of several Philosophers speak very tenderly of it and even amongst the Stoicks there are some who advise to give themselves sometimes the liberty to Drink to a debauch to recreate and refresh the Soul Hoc quoque virtutum quondam certamine magnum Socratem palmam promeruisse ferunt And Socrates the Wise they say of yore Amongst Boon-blades the palm of Drinking bore That Censor and Reprover of others Cato was reproach'd that he was a Good-fellow Narratur prisci Catonis Saepe mero caluisse virtus And of the Elder Cato it is said He often went with a hot Pate to Bed Cyrus that worthy renowned King amongst his other qualities by which he pretended to be preferred before his Brother Artaxerxes urged this excellency that he could Drink a great deal more than he And in the best governed Nations this trial of skill in Drinking is very much in use I have heard Silvius an excellent Physitian of Paris say that lest the digestive faculties of the Stomach should grow idle it were not amiss once a month to rouse them by this excess and to spur them lest they should grow dull and resty and one Author tells us that the Persians used to consult about their most important Affairs after being well warmed with Wine My taste and constitution are greater Enemies to this Vice than I am for besides that I easily submit my belief to the Authority of antient opinions I look upon it indeed as a stupid and ungraceful Vice but less malicious and hurtful than the others which almost all more directly justle publick Society And if we cannot please our selves but it must cost us something as they hold I find this Vice costs a mans conscience less than the others besides that it is of no difficult preparation nor what we look for hard to be found a consideration not altogether to be despised A man well advanc'd both in Dignity and Age amongst three principal Commodities that he said remained to him of life reckoned to me this for one and where would a man more justly find it than amongst the natural conveniences But he did not take it right for delicacy and the curious choice of Wines is therein to be avoyded If you found your pleasure upon Drinking of the best you condemn your self to the penance of Drinking of the worst Your taste must be more indifferent and free So delicate a Palate is not required to make a good Toper The Germans Drink almost indifferently of all Wines and Liquors with delight their business is to power down and not to taste and it 's so much the better for them their pleasure is so much the more constant and nearer at hand Now on the other side not to Drink after the French fashion but at meals and then very moderately too is to be ingrate to this bountiful God of Wine There is more time and constancy required than so The Antients spent whole nights in this exercise and oft-times added the day following to eke it out and therefore we are to take greater liberty than so and stick closer to our work I have seen a great Lord of my time a man of high enterprise and famous success that without setting himself to 't and after his ordinary rate of Drinking at meals Drank not much less than five quarts of Wine and at his going away appeared but too wise and discreet to the detriment of our affairs The pleasure we design the greatest esteem for the whole course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it We should like Shop-boys and Labourers refuse no occasion nor omit no opportunity of Drinking and always have it in our minds But methinks we every day abridg and curtail the use of Wine and the Break-fast Drinking and Collations I used to see in my Fathers house when I was a Boy were more usual and frequent then than now Is it that we pretended to a Reformation Truly no. But it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our Fathers were They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigour Letchery has weakned our Stomach on the one side and on the other Sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of Love 'T is not to be imagined what strange Stories I have heard my Father tell of the Chastity of that Age wherein he lived It was for him to say it being both by Art and Nature cut out and finish'd for the service of Ladies He spoke well and little ever mixing his Language with some Illustration out of vulgar Authors especially Spanish and amongst them Maâ—cus Aurelius was very frequent in his mouth His behaviour was grave humble and modest He was very solicitous of neatness and decency both in his Person and Cloaths whether on Horseback or a Foot He was exceeding punctual of his Word and of a Conscience and Religion generally tending rather towards Superstition than otherwise For a Man of little Stature very Strong well Proportion'd and well Knit of a pleasing Countenance enclining to Brown and very Adroit in all noble Exercises I have yet in the House to be seen Canes powr'd full of Lead with which they say he exercis'd his Arms for throwing the Bar or the Stone and Shoes with Leaden Soals to make him after lighter for Running or Leaping Of his Vaulting he has left little Miracles behind him I have seen him when past three-score laugh at our Exercises and throw himself in his Furr'd Gown into the Saddle make the Tour of a Table upon his Thumbs and scarce ever mount the Stairs into his Chamber without taking three or four steps at a time But upon what I was speaking before he said there was scarce one Woman of Quality of ill Fame in a whole Province Would tell of strange Privacies and some of them his own with Vertuous Women without any manner of suspition And for his own part solemnly swore he was a Virgin at his Marriage and yet it was after a long practice of Arms beyond the Mountains of which War he has left us a Paper-Journal under his own hand wherein he has given a precise account from point to point of all passages both relating to the Publick and to Himself And was also Married at a well advanc't Maturity in the year 1528 the three and thirtieth year of his Age upon his way home from Italy But let us turn to our Battel The incommodities of old Age that stand in need of some refreshment and support might with reason beget in me a desire of this faculty it being as were the last pleasure the course of years deprives us of The natural heat say the Good-fellows first seats itself in the Feet that concerns Infancy thence it mounts into the middle Region where it makes a
have King Lysimachus his Dog Hyracan his Master being dead lay upon his Bed obstinately refusing either to eat or drink and the day that his Body was burnt he took a run and leap'd into the Fire where he was consum'd As also did the Dog of one Pyrrhus for he would not stir from off his Masters Bed from the time that he died and when they carried him away let himself be carried with him and at last leap'd into the Pile where they burnt his Master's Body There are certain Inclinations of Affection which sometimes spring in us without the consultation of Reason and by a fortuitous Temerity which others call Sympathy Of which Beasts are as capable as we We see Horses take such an Acquaintance with one another that we have much ado to make them eat or travail when separated We observe them to fancy a particular Colour in those of their own kind and where they meet it run to it with great Joy and Demonstrations of Good Will and have a dislike and hatred for some other Colour Animals have choice as well as we in their Amours and cull out their Mistresses neither are they exempt from our Jealousies and implacable Malice Desires are either natural and necessary as to eat and drink or natural and not necessary as the coupling with Females or neither natural nor necessary Of which last sort are almost all the Desires of Men They are all superfluous and artificial For 't is not to believed how little will satisfie Nature how little she has left us to desire Our Ragous and Kickshaws are not of her Ordinary The Stoicks say that a Man may live of an Olive a day Our delicacy in our Wines is no part of her Instruction nor the over-acting the Ceremonies of Love neque illa Magno prognatum deposcit Consule cunnum These irregular Desires that the Ignorance of Good and a false Opinion have infus'd into us are so many as they almost exclude all the Natural no otherwise than if there were so great a number of Strangers in a City as to thrust out the Natural Inhabitants or usurping upon their Ancient Rights and Priviledges should extinguish their Authority and introduce new Laws and Customs of their own Animals are much more regular than we and keep themselves with greater moderation within the limits Nature has prescrib'd but yet not so exactly that they have not an Analogy with our Debauches And as there have been known furious Desires that have hurried Men to the love of Beasts so there has been examples of Beasts that have fallen in love with us and caught with monstrous Affection betwixt different kinds Witness the Elephant who was rival to Aristophanes the Grammarian in the love of a young Herbwench in the City of Alexandrin who was nothing behind him in all the Offices of a very passionate Suitor For going through the Market where they sould Fruit he would take some in his Trunck and carry them to her He would as much as possible keep her always in his sight and would sometimes put his Trunck under her Hankerchief into her Bosom to feel her Breasts They tell also of a Dragon in love with a Maid and of a Goose enamor'd of a Child of a Ram that was Servant to the Minstrelless Glaucia and we see with our own eyes Baboons furiously in love with Women We see also certain Male Animals that are fond of the Males of their own kind Oppianus and others give us some examples of the Reverence that Beasts have to their Kindred in their Copulations but experience often shews us the contrary nec habetur turpe juvencae Ferre patrem tergo Fit equo sua filia conjux Quasque creavit init pecudes caper Ipsaque cujus Semine concepta est ex illo concepit ales The Heifer thinks it not a shame to take Her curled Sire upon her willing Back The Horse his Daughter leaps Goats scruple not T' encrease the Heard by those they have begot And Birds of all sorts do in common live And by the Seed they were conceiv'd conceive And for malicious Subtilty can there be a more pregnant example than in the Philosopher Thales's Mule Who foarding a River loaden with Salt and by accident stumbling there so that the Sacks he carried were all wet perceiving that by the melting of the Salt his Burthen was something lighter he never failed so oft as he came to any River to lye down with his Load till his Master discovering the Knavery order'd that he should be loaden with Wool wherein finding himself mistaken he ceas'd to practise that Device There are several that very lively represent the true Image of our Avarice for we see them infinitely solicitous to catch all they can and hide it with exceeding great Care though they never make any use of it at all As to Thrift they surpass us not only in the foresight and laying up and saving for the time to come but they have moreover a great deal of the Science necessary thereto The Ants bring abroad into the Sun their Grain and Seeds to air refresh and dry them when they perceive them to mould and grow musty lest they should decay and rot But the caution and prevention they use in gnawing their Grains of Wheat surpass all Imagination of Human Prudence For by reason that the Wheat does not always continue sound and dry but grows soft thaws and dissolves as if it were steept in Milk whilst hasting to Germination for fear lest it should shoot and lose the Nature and Property of a Magazine for their subsistence they nibble of the end by which it should shoot and sprit As to what concerns War which is the greatest and most magnificent of Human Actions I would very fain know whether we would serve for an Argument of some Prerogative or on the contrary for a Testimony of our Weakness and imperfection as in truth the Science of undoing and killing one another and of ruining and destroying our own kind has nothing in it so tempting as to make it be coveted by Beasts who have it not quando leoni Fortior eripuit vitam Leo quo nemore unquam Expiravit aper majoris dentibus Apris who ever yet beheld A weaker Lyon by a stronger kill'd Or in what Forrest was it ever known That a small Boar dy'd by a mighty one Yet are they not universally exempt Witness the furious Encounters of Bees and the Enterprizes of the Princes of the contrary Armies saepè duobus Regibus incessit magno discordia motu Continuoque animos vulgi trepidantia bello Corda licet longè praesciscere Betwixt two Kings strange Animosities With great Commotion often do arise When streight the Vulgar sort are heard from far Sounding their little Trumpets to the War I never read this Divine Observation but that methinks I there see Human Folly and Vanity represented in their true and lively Colours For these Preparations for
Life But that to live well is his own According to this other In virtute verè gloriamur quod non contingeret si id donum à Deo non à nobis haberemus We truly glory in our Virtue Which would not be if it was given us of God and not by our selves This is also Seneca's saying That the Wise Man has Fortitude equal with God but in human Frailty wherein he surmounts him There is nothing so ordinary as to meet with Sallies of the like Temerity There is none of us who takes so much Offence to see himself equal to God as he does to see himself undervalued by being rancked with other Creatures so much more are we jealous of our own Interest than that of our Creator But we must trample under foot this foolish Vanity and briskly and boldly shake the ridiculous Foundation upon which these false Opinions are founded So long as Man shall believe he has any Means and Power of himself he will never acknowledg what he owes to his Maker his Eggs shall always be Chickens as the saying is We must therefore strip him to his Shirt Let us see some notable Example of the Effects of his Philosophy Possidonius being tormented with a Disease so painful as made him Writh his Armes and Gnash his Teeth thought he sufficiently baffell'd the Dolor by crying out against it Thou dost exercise thy Malice to much Purpose I will not Confess that thou art an Evil. He is as sensible of the Pain as my Footman but he mightily values himself upon brideling his Tongue at least and restraining it within the Laws of his Sect. Re succumbere non oportebat verbis gloriantem It did not become him that spoke so big to confess his Frailty when he came to the Test. Archesilaus being ill of the Gout and Carneades coming to see him was returning troubled at his Condition whom having call'd back and shewing him his Feet and his Breast There is nothing come from thence hither said he This has something a better Grace for he feels himself in Pain and would be disengaged from it But his Heart notwithstanding is not Conquered nor Subdued by it The other stands more obstinately to his Work but I fear rather verbally than really And Dionysius Heracleotes afflicted with a vehement smarting in his Eyes was reduc'd and made to quit these stoical Resolutions But tho Knowledg should in effect do as they say and could blunt the Point and dull the Edge of the Misfortunes that attend us what does she yet more than what Ignorance does more purely and evidently do The Philosopher Pyrrho being at Sea in very great Danger by reason of a mighty Storm presented nothing to those who were with him to imitate in this Extremity but the Security of a Hog they had aboard that was Fearless and unconcerned at the Tempest Philosophie when she has said all she can refers us at last to the Example of a Wrestler or a Muletteer in which sort of People we commonly observe much less apprehension of Death sense of Pain and other Infirmities and more Constancy than ever Knowledg furnished any one withal that was not born with those Infirmities and of himself prepared by a natural Habit What is the Cause that we make Incisions and cut the tender Limbs of an Infant and those of a Horse more easily than ours but Ignorance only How many has meer force of Imagination made sick We often see Men cause themselves to be let Blood Purg'd and Physick'd to be cured of Diseases they only feel in Opinion When real Infirmities fail us Knowledg lends us hers That Colour that Complexion portend some Defluxion This hot Season threatens us with a Feaver This breach in the life-Line of your left Hand gives you notice of some near and dangerous Indisposition and at last roundly attacks Health it self saying this spriteliness and vigor of Youth cannot continue in this Posture there must be Blood taken and the Heat abated lest it turn to your Prejudice Compare the Life of a Man subjected to such Imaginations to that of a Labourer that suffers himself to be led by his natural Appetite measuring things only by the present Sense without Knowledg and without Prognostick that feels no Pain nor Sickness but when he is really tormented or sick Whereas the other has the Stone in his Soul before he has it either in his Reins or Bladder As if it were not time enough to suffer the Evil when it shall come he must anticipate it by Fancy and run to meet it What I say of Physick may generally serve in Example for all other Sciences From thence is derived that antient Opinion of Philosophers that plac'd the soveraine Good in the discovery of the weakness of our Judgment My Ignorance affords me as much occasion of Hope as of Fear And having no other Rule for my Health than that of the Examples of others and of Events I see elsewhere upon the like Occasion I find of all sorts and rely upon the Comparisons are most favourable to me I receive Health with open Arms free full and entire and by so much the more whet my Appetite to enjoy it by how much it is at present less ordinary and more rare So far I am from troubling its Repose and Sweetness with the bitterness of a new and constrain'd manner of Living Beasts sufficiently shew us how much the agitation of the Soul brings Infirmities and Diseases upon us That which is told us of those of Brazile that they never died but of old Age is attributed to the Serenity and tranquillity of the Air they live in but I rather attribute it to the serenity and tranquillity of their Souls free from all Passion Thought or Employments Tenter'd or Unpleasing as People that pass over their Lives in an admirable Simplicity and Ignorance without Letters without Law without King or any manner of Religion And whence comes that which we find by Experience that the greatest and most rough-hewn Clowns are the most able and the most to be desired in amorous Performances And that the Love of a Muletter oft renders it self more acceptable than that of a well-bred Man If it be not that the Agitation of the Soul in the later disturbs his natural Ability dissolves and tires it as it also troubles and tires it self What puts the Soul besides it self and more usually throws it into Madness but her own Promptness Vigor and Agility and finally her own proper Force Of what is the most subtile Folly made but of the most subtile Wisdom As great Friendships spring from great Enmities and vigorous Healths from mortal Diseases So from the rare and quick Agitations of our Souls proceed the most wonderful and most deprav'd Frenzies 't is but a half turn of the Toe from the one to the other In the Actions of mad Men we see how infinitely that Madness resembles the most vigorous Operations of the Soul
it into several Desires of which let one be regent if you will over the rest but lest it should tyrannize and domineer over you weaken and protract in dividing and diverting it Cum morosa vago singultiet inguine venae Conjicito humorem collectum in Corpora quaeque and look to 't in time lest it proves too troublesome to deal with when it has once seiz'd you Si non prima novis conturbes vulvera plagis Volgivagaque vagus venere ante recentia cures Unless you fancy every one you view Revel in Love and cure old Wounds by new I was once wounded with a vehement Displeasure and withal more just than vehement I might peradventure have lost my self in it if I had merely trusted to my own Strength Having need of a powerful Diversion to disengage me by amorous Art and Study wherein I was assisted by my Youth I found one out Love reliev'd and rescu'd me from the evil wherein Friendship had engag'd me 'T is in every thing else the same a violent Imagination hath seiz'd me I find it a nearer way to change than to subdue it I depute if not one contrary yet another at least in its place Variation does always relieve dissolve and dissipate if I am not able to contend with it I escape from it and in avoiding it slip out of the way and make my doubles shifting of Place Business and Company I secure my self in the crowd of other Thoughts and Fancies where it loses my trace and I escape After the same manner does Nature proceed by the benefit of Inconstancy for the time she has given us for the sovereign Physician of our Passions does chiefly work by that that supplying our Imaginations with other and new Affairs it un-nerves and dissolves the first apprehension how strong soever A wise man sees his Friend little less dying at the end of five and twenty years than the first year and according to Epicurus no less at all for he did not attribute any alleviation of Afflictions neither to the foresight of the man or the Antiquity of the Evils themselves But so many other thoughts traverse the first that it languishes and tires at last Alcibiades to divert the Inclination of common Rumours cut off the Ears and Tail of his beautiful Dog and turn'd him out into the publick place to the end that giving the People this occasion to prate they might let his other Actions alone I have also seen for this same end of diverting the Opinions and Conjectures of the People and to stop their Mouths some Women conceal their real Affections by those that were only counterfeit and put on to blind mens Eyes but some of them withall who in counterfeiting have suffer'd themselves to be caught indeed and who have quitted the true and original Affection for the feign'd and by them have found that they who find their Affections well plac'd are Fools to consent to this disguise The favourable and publick reception being only reserv'd for this pretended Servant a man may conclude him a Fellow of very little address and less Wit if he does not in the end put himself into your place and you into his this is properly to cut out and make up a Shooe for another to draw on A little thing will turn and divert us because a little thing holds us We do not much consider Subjects in gross and single in themselves but they are little and superficial Circumstances that wound us and the outward useless rinds that pill off those Subjects Folliculos ut nunc teretes aestate cicadae Linquunt Such as the terous husks or shells we find In Summer Grashoppers do leave behind Even Plutarch himself laments his Daughter for the little apish tricks of her Infancy The remembrance of a Farewel of the particular grace of an Action of a last recommendation afflicts us The sight of Caesar's Robe troubled all Rome which was more than his death had done Even the sound of Names ringing in our ears as my poor Master my faithful Friend Alas my dear Father or my sweet Daughter afflict us When these Repetitions torment me and that I examin it a little nearer I find 't is no other but a Grammatical complaint I am only wounded with the word and tone as the Exclamations of Preachers do very oft work more upon their Auditory than their Reasons and as the pitiful eyes of a Beast kill'd for Service without my weighing or penetrating in the interim into the true and real essence of my Subject His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit With these incitements grief it self provokes These are the foundations of our mourning The obstinacy of my Stone to all remedies especially those in my Bladder has sometimes thrown me into so long suppressions of Urine for three or four days together and so near death that it had been folly to have hop'd to evade it and it was much rather to have been desir'd considering the miseries I endure in those cruel Fits Oh that the good Emperour who caus'd Criminals to be ty'd that they might dye for want of pissing was a great Master in the Hangman 's Science Finding my self in this condition I consider'd by how many light causes and objects Imagination nourish'd in me the regret of Life and of what Atoms the weight and difficulty of this dislodging was compos'd in my Soul and to how many idle and frivolous thoughts we give way in so great an Affair A Dog a Horse a Book a Glass and what not were consider'd in my loss To others their ambitious hopes their money their knowledge not less foolish Considerations in my opinion than mine I look upon Death carelesly when I look upon it universally as the end of Life I insult over it in gross but in retail it domineers over me The Tears of a Foot-man the disposing of my Cloaths the touch of a friendly hand which is a common Consolation discourages and entenerates me So do the Complaints in Tragedies infect our Souls with Grief and the Regrets of Dido and Ariadne impassionate even those who believe them not in Virgil and Catullus 'T is a simptom of an obstinate and obdurate Nature to be sensible of no emotion as 't is reported for a Miracle of Polemon who not so much as alter'd his Countenance at the biting of a mad-Dog who tore away the Calf of his Leg. And no Wisdom proceeds so far as to conceive so lively and entire a cause of Sorrow by Judgment that it does not suffer an increase by presence where the Eyes and Ears have their share parts that are not to be moved but by vain accidents Is it reason that even the Arts themselves should make an advantage of our natural brutality and weakness An Orator says Rhetorick in the farce of his pleading shall be mov'd with the sound of his own Voice and feign'd Emotions and suffer himself to be impos'd upon by the passion
Passionate for a married Venus In this discreet kind of coupling the Appetite is not usually so wanton but more grave and dull Love hates that People should hold of any but herself and goes but faintly to work in Familiarities derived from any other title as Marriage is The Alliance and Dowry do therein sway by Reason as much or more than Grace and Beauty Men do not marry for themselves though they deny it they marry as much or more for their Posterity and Family The Custom and Interest of Marriage concerns our Race much more than us and therefore it is that I like to have a Match carried on by a third hand rather than a Man 's own and by another Man's liking than that of the Party himself and how much is all this opposite to contracts of Love And also it is a kind of Incest to employ in this venerable and sacred Alliance the heat and extravagance of amorous Licence as I think I have said elsewhere A man says Ariosto must approach his Wife with Prudence and Modesty lest in dealing too lasciviously with her the extream Pleasure make her exceed the bounds of Reason What he says upon the account of Conscience the Physicians say upon the account of Health That a Pleasure excessively lascivious voluptuous and frequent makes the Seed too hot and hinders Conception 'T is said on the contrary that to a languishing Congression as that naturally is to supply it with a due and fruitfull Heat a man must do it but seldom and by notable Intermissions Quod rapiat sitiens venerem interiusque recondat I see no marriages where the conjugal Intelligence sooner fails than those that we contract upon the account of Beauty and amorous Desires there should be more solid and constant foundation and they should proceed with greater Circumspection this furious Ardour is worth nothing They who think they honour marriage by joyning Love to it do methinks like those who to favour Virtue hold that Nobility is nothing else but Virtue they are indeed things that have some relation to one another but there is a great deal of difference we should not so mix their Names and Titles 't is a wrong to them both so to confound them Nobility is a brave Quality and with good reason introduc'd but forasmuch as 't is a Quality depending upon others and may happen in a vicious Person 't is in estimate infinitely below Virtue 'T is a Virtue if it be one that is artificial and apparent depending upon Time and Fortune various in form according to the Countreys Living and Mortal without Birth as the River Nile genealogical and common drawn by Consequence and a very weak one Knowledge Strength Bounty Beauty Riches and all other Qualities fall into Communication and Commerce but this is consummated in it self and of no use to the Service of others There was propos'd to one of our Kings the choice of two Concurrents who both pretended to the same Command of which the one was a Gentleman the other was not he order'd that without respect to Quality they should chuse him who had the most merit but where the worth of the Competitors should appear to be intirely equal they should have respect to Birth this was justly to give it its due rank A Young-man unknown coming to Antigonus to make suit for his Fathers Command a valiant Man but lately dead Friend said he in such preferments as those I have not so much regard to the Nobility of my Souldiers as their Prowess And indeed it ought not to go as it did with the Officers of the Kings of Sparta Trumpeters Fiddlers Cooks the Children of whom always succeeded in their Places how ignorant soever and were prefer'd before the most experimented in the Trade They of Callicut make a sort of Nobles above humane They are interdicted marriage and all but warlike Employments They may have Concubines their fill and the Women as many Ruffians without being jealous of one another but 't is a capital and irremissible Crime to couple with a Person of meaner Condition than themselves and they think themselves polluted if they have but touch'd one in walking along and supposing their Nobility to be marvellously injur'd and interested in it kill such as only approach a little too near them insomuch that the ignoble are oblig'd to cry as they go like the Gundeleers of Venice at the turnings of Streets for fear of justling and the Nobles command them to step aside to what part they please by which means the last avoid what they repute a perpetual Ignominy and the other a certain Death No time no favour of the Prince no Office or Virtue or Riches can ever prevail to make a Plebean become noble To which this Custom is assisting that marriages are interdicted betwixt several Trades neither is the Daughter of a Shoomaker permitted to marry with a Carpenter and the Parents are oblig'd to train up their Children precisely in their own Callings and not put them to any other Trade by which means the distinction and continuation of their Fortune is maintained A good marriage if it be really so rejects the Company and Conditions of Love and tries to represent those of Friendship 'T is a sweet Society of Life full of Constancy Trust and an infinite number of usefull and solid Offices and mutual Obligations of which any Woman that has a right taste Optato quam junxit lumine taedae Whose Hymeneal Torch shines bright Kindled by a whisked light would be loth to serve her Husband in quality of a Mistris If they be lodg'd in his affection as a Wife she is more honourably and securely plac'd When he pretends to be in love with another and works all he can to obtain his desire let any one but then ask him on which he had rather a Disgrace should fall his Wife or his Mistris which of their misforunes would most afflict him and to which of them he wishes the most Grandeur these Questions are out of dispute in a sound marriage and that so few are observ'd to be happy is a token of its Price and Value If well form'd and rightly taken 't is the best of all humane Societies We cannot live without it and yet we do nothing but decry it It happens as with Cages the Birds without despair to get in and those within despair of getting out Socrates being ask'd whether it was more commodious to take a Wife or not Let a Man take which course he will said he he will be sure to repent 'T is a Contract to which the common Saying Homo homini aut Deus aut Lupus Man to Man is either a God or a Wolf may very fitly be apply'd There must be a Concurrence of many Qualities to the erecting it It is found now a days more convenient for innocent and Plebean Souls where Delights Curiosity and Idleness do not so much disturb it but extravagant Homours such as mine that hate
all sorts of Obligation and Restraint are not proper for it Et mihi dulce magis resoluto vivere collo For Liberty to me is far more sweet Than all the Pleasures of the Nuptial Sheet Might I have had my own Will I would not have married Wisdom her self if she would have had me But 't is to much purpose to evade it the common custom and usance of Life will have it so The most of my Actions are guided by Example not by Choice And yet I did not go to it of my own voluntary Motion I was led and drawn to it by strange and accidental Occasions For not only things that are incommodious in themselves but also nothing so ugly vitious and to be avoided that may not be rendred acceptable by some Condition or Accident so unsteady and vain is all humane Resolution And I was persuaded to it when worse prepar'd and more backward than I am at present that I have tryed what it is And as great a Libertine as I am taken to be I have in truth more strictly observ'd the Laws of Marriage than I either promis'd or expected 'T is in vain to kick when a Man has once put on his Fetters A man must prudently manage his Liberty but having once submitted to Obligation he must confine himself within the Laws of common Duty at least do what he can towards it They who engage in this Contract with a Design to carry themselves in it with hatred and contempt do an unjust and inconvenient thing and the fine Rule that I hear pass from hand to hand amongst the Women as a sacred Oracle Sers ton mary comme ton maistre Et t'en garde comme d'un traitre Serve thy Husband like a Waiter But guard thy self as from a Traitor which is to say comport thy self towards him with a dessembled inimical and distrustful Reverence and Respect a stile of War and Defiance is equally injurious and hard I am too mild for such rugged Designs To say the truth I am not arriv'd to that Perfection of cunning and gallantry of Wit to confound Reason with Justice and to laugh at all Rule and Order that does not please my Palate because I hate Superstition I do not presently run into the contrary extream of irreligion If a man does not always perform his Duty he ought at least to love and acknowledge it 't is Treachery to marry without espousing Let us proceed further Our Poet represents a Marriage happy in good intelligence wherein nevertheless there is not much Loyalty Does he mean that it is not impossible but a Woman may give the reins to her own Passion and yield to the importunities of Love and yet reserve some Duty toward Marriage and that it may be hurt without being totally broken Such a serving Man there may be as may ride in his Masters Saddle whom nevertheless he does not hate Beauty Opportunity and Destiny for Destiny has also a hand in 't fatum est in partibus illis Quas sinus abscondit nam si tibi Sidera cessent Nil faciet longi mensura incognita Nervi have debauch'd her to a Stranger though not so wholly peradventure but that she may have some remains of kindness for her Husband They are two Designs that have several paths leading to them without being confounded with one another and a Woman may yield to such a Man as she would by no means have married not only for the Condition of his Fortune but the dislike of his Person Few men have made a Wife of a Mistress that have not repented it And even in the other World what an unhappy Life does Jupiter lead with his whom he had first enjoy'd as a Mistress 'T is as the Proverb is to shite in the Basket and then to put it upon his Head I have in my time seen Love shamefully and dishonestly cur'd in a good Family by Marriage the Considerations are too much different We love at once two things contrary in themselves without any disturbance Isocrates was wont to say that the City of Athens pleas'd as Ladies do that men court for Love every one lov'd to come thither to take a turn and pass away his time but no one lik'd it so well as to espouse it that is to inhabit there and to make it his constant Residence I have been vex'd to see Husbands hate their Wives only because they do them wrong We should not however methinks love them the less for our Faults they should at least upon the account of Repentance and Compassion be dearer to us They are different ends and yet in some sort compatible Marriage has Utility Justice Honour and Constancy for its share a flat but more universal Pleasure Love founds it self wholly upon Pleasure and indeed has it more full lively and stinging a Pleasure inflam'd by difficulty there must be in it sting and ardour 'T is no more Love if without Darts and Fire The Bounty of Ladies is too profuse in marriage and dulls the point of Affection and Desire To evade which inconvenience do but observe what pains Lycurgus and Plato take in their Laws Women are not to blame at all when they refuse the Rules of Life that are introduc'd into the World forasmuch as the Men made them without their Consent There is naturally Contention and Brawling betwixt them and us and the strictest Friendship we have with them is yet mixt with Tumult and Tempest In the Opinion of our Author we deal inconsiderately with them in this After we have discover'd that they are without comparison more able and ardent in the Effects of Love than we and that the old Priest has testified so much who had been one while a Man and then a Woman Venus huic erat utraque nota Tiresias must decide The difference who both Delights had try'd and moreover that we have learnt from their own Mouths the proof that in several Ages was made by an Emperour and an Empress of Rome both famous for Ability in that Affair for he in one Night defloured ten Sarmatian Virgins that were his Captives but she had five and twenty bouts in one Night changing her Man according to her need and liking adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine vulvae Et lassata Viris nondum satiata recessit and that upon the difference which hapned in Catalognia wherein a Wife complaining of her Husbands too frequent addresses to her not so much as I conceive that she was incommodated by it for I believe no Miracles out of Religion as under this pretence to curtail and curb in this which is the fundamental act of Marriage the Authority of Husbands over their Wives and to shew that their Frowardness and Malignity go beyond the Nuptial Bed and spurn under foot even the Graces and sweets of Venus the Husband a man really brutish and unnatural reply'd that on fasting dayes he could not subsist with less than ten courses Whereupon
long and lively Descriptions in Plato of the Loves of his time pretend to And the Book call'd the Lover of Demetrius Phalerus And Clinias that of getting Children or of Weddings and the other of the Master or the Lover And that of Aristo of amorous Exercises What those of Cleanthes one of Love the other of the art of Loving The amorous Dialogues of Spherus and the Fable of Jupiter and Juno of Chrysippus impudent beyond all toleration And his fifty so lascivious Epistles I will let alone the Writings of the Philosophers of the Epicurean Sect protectrice of Voluptuousness and Pleasure Fifty Deities were in time past assign'd to this Office and there has been a Nation found out where to asswage the Lust of those that came to their Devotion they had purposely Strumpets in their Temples for them to lye withall and it was an act of Ceremony to do that before they went to Prayers Nimirum propter continentiam incontinentia necessaria est incendium ignibus extinguitur Doubtless Incontinency is necessary for Continency's sake a Conflagration is extinguish'd by fire In the greatest part of the World that Member of our Body was deified In the same Province some flead off the Skin to offer and consecrate a Piece others offered and consecrated their Seed In another the Young-men publickly cut through betwixt the Skin and the Flesh of that part in several places and thrust pieces of Wood into the Overtures as long and thick as they would receive and of those pieces of Wood afterwards made a fire for an Offering to their Gods and were reputed neither Vigorous nor Chaste if by the force of that intolerable Pain they seem'd to be any thing dismay'd Elsewhere the most Sacred Magistrate was reverenc'd and acknowledg'd by that Member and in several Ceremonies the Picture of it was carried in pomp to the Honour of several Divinities The Aegyptian Ladies in their Bacchanals carried every one one carv'd of Wood about their Necks exactly made great and heavy as every one was able to bear besides one which the Statue of their God represented which in greatness surpass'd all the rest of his Body The married Women near to the place where I live make of their Kerchiefs the Figure of one upon their Foreheads to glorifie themselves in the injoyment they have of it and coming to be Widows they throw it behind and cover it with their Head-cloths The most modest Matrons of Rome thought it an Honour to offer Flowers and Garlands to the God Priapus And they made the Virgins at the time of their Espousals sit upon his shameful Parts And I know not whether I have not in my time seen some air of like Devotion What was the meaning of that ridiculous thing our Fore-fathers wore before on their Breeches and that is still worn by the Swisse To what end do we make a shew of our Implements in Figure under our Gaskins and often which is worse above their natural size by a kind of Imposture I have half a mind to believe that this sort of Vestment was invented in the better and more Conscientious Ages that the World might not be deceiv'd and that every one should give a publick account of his Dimensions The simple Nations wear them yet and near about the real size In those days the Taylor took measure as the Shoomaker does now of a Leg or a Foot That good Man who when I was young gelt so many noble and antick Statues in his great City that they might not corrupt the sight according to the advice of this other old good Man Flagitii principium est nudare inter cives corpora 'T is the beginning of Wickedness to shew their Nudities in publick I should have call'd to mind that as in the Mysteries of the Goddesses all Masculine apparence was excluded that he did no thing if he did not geld Horses and Asses and finally all Nature too Omne adeo genus in terris hominumque ferarumque Et genus aequoreum pecudes pictaeque volucres In furias ignemque ruunt All men on Earth and Beasts both mild and tame Sea-Monsters gaudy Foul rush to this flame The same love works in all The Gods says Plato have given us one disobedient and unruly Member that like a furious Animal attempts by the Violence of its Appetite to subject all things to it And they have given Women one that has the same Qualities like a greedy and ravenous Animal which if one refuse to give him Food in season grows wild impatient of delay and infusing the rage into their Bodies stops the passages and hinders Respiration causing a thousand Inconveniencies till having imbib'd the Fruit of the common thirst he has plentifully besprinkled and bedew'd the bottom of their Womb. Now my Legislator should also have consider'd that peradventure it were a chaster and more fruitful usance to let them know the quick betimes than permit them to guess according to the liberty and heat of their own Fancy instead of real parts they substitute through hope and desire others that are three times more extravagant And a certain Friend of mine lost himself by producing his in place not yet fit to admit them to their more serious use What Mischeif do not those Pictures of prodigious dimension do that the Boys make upon the Stair-cases and Galleries of the Royal Houses which give them a strange contempt of our natural Furniture And what do we know but that Plato after other well instituted Republicks order'd that the Man and Woman old and young should expose themselves naked to the view of one another in his Gymnastick upon that very account The Indians who see the men stark naked have at least cool'd the sense of Seeing And let the Women of the Kingdom of Pegu say what they will who below the waste have nothing to cover them but a Cloth slit before and so straight that what decency and modesty soever they pretend by it at every step all is to be seen that it is an Invention found out to allure the men to them and to divert them from the Boys to which that Nation is generally inclin'd yet peradventure they lose more by it than they get and a man may venture to say that an intire Appetite is more sharp than one already glutted by the eyes And also Livia was wont to say that to a Virtuous Woman a naked Man was but a Statue The Lacedaemonian Women more Virgins when Wives than our Daughters are saw every day the Young-men of their City strip'd naked in their Exercises little minding themselves to cover their Thighs in walking believing themselves says Plato sufficiently cover'd with their Virtue without any other Robe But those of whom St. Austin speaks have given nudity a wonderful power of Temptation that have made it a Doubt whether Women at the day of Judgment shall rise again in their own Sex and not rather in ours for fear of tempting us
more particular uncertain and contradicted they are by so much thou employ'st thy whole endeavour in them The Laws of thy Parish bind thee those of the World concern thee not run but a little over the Examples of this kind thy Life is full of them Whilst the Verses of these two Poets treat so reservedly and discreetly of wantonness as they do methinks they discover it much more Ladies cover their Necks with Net-work as Priests do several sacred things and Painters shadow their Pictures to give them greater lustre and 't is said that the Sun and Wind strike more violently by Reflection than in a direct Line The Aegyptian wisely answer'd him who ask'd him what he had under his Cloak it is hid under my Cloak said he that thou mayst not know what it is but there are certain other things that People hide only to shew them Hear this that speaks plainer Et nudam pressi corpus adusque meum And in these naked Arms of mine Her naked Body I did twine methinks I am eunuch'd with the Expression Let Martial turn up Venus's Coats as high as he can he cannot shew her so naked He who says all that is to be said gluts and disgusts us He who is afraid to express himself draws us on to guess at more than is meant There is a kind of treachery in this sort of Modesty and specially whilst they half open as they do so fair a path to Imagination both the action and description should relish theft The more respective more timorous more coy and secret Love of the Spaniards and Italians please me I know not who of old wish'd his weason as long as that of a Crane that he might the longer taste what he swallow'd it had been better wish'd in this quick and precipitous Pleasure especially in such natures as mine that had the fault of being too prompt To stop its flight and delay it with preambles all things a Wink a Bow a Word a Sign stand for favour and recompence betwixt them Were it not an excellent piece of Thrift in him that could dine on the steam of the roast 'T is a Passion that mixes very little with solid Essence much more with vanity and feverish raving and we are to reward and pay it accordingly Let us teach the Ladies to value and esteem themselves to amuse and fool us We give the last Charge at the first Onset the French impetuosity will still shew it self By spinning out their favours and exposing them in small parcels even miserable old Age it self will find some little share of reward according to its worth and merit who has no fruition but in fruition who wins nothing unless he sweeps the stakes and who takes no pleasure in the chace but in the quarry ought not to introduce himself in our School The more steps and greices there are so much higher and more honourable is the uppermost Seat We should take a pleasure in being conducted to it as in magnificent Palaces by Portico's Entries long and pleasant Galleries by many turns and windings This disposition of things would turn to our advantage we should there longer stay and longer love without hope and without desire we proceed not worth a pin Our Conquest and intire possession is what they ought infinitely to dread when they wholly surrender themselves up to the mercy of our Fidelity and Constancy they run a mighty hazard they are Virtues very rare and hard to be found they are no sooner ours but we are no more theirs Postquam cupidae mentis satiata libido est Verba nihil metuere nihil perjuria curant When our Desires and Lusts once sated are For Oaths and Promises we little care And Thrasonides a young man of Greece was so in love with his Passion that having gain'd a Mistresses consent he refus'd to enjoy her that he might not by fruition quench and stupifie the unquiet ardour of which he was so proud and with which he so pleased himself Dearness is a good Sauce to Meat Do but observe how much the manner of Salutation particular to our Nation has by its facility made Kisses which Socrates sayes so powerful and dangerous for the stealing of Hearts of no esteem It is a nauseous and injurious Custom for the Ladies that they must be oblig'd to lend their Lips to every Fellow that has three Foot-men at his heels how nasty or deform'd soever Cujus livida naribus caninis Dependet glacies rigetque barba Centum occurrere malo culilingis And we do not get much by the bargain for as the World is divided for three beautiful Women we must kiss threescore ugly ones and to a tender Stomach like those of my Age an ill kiss over pays a good one In Italy they passionately court even their common Women who prostitute themselves for money and justifie the doing so by saying that there are degrees of fruition and that by their Services they will procure themselves that which is best and most intire They sell nothing but their Bodies the Will is too free and too much its own to be expos'd to sale so say these that 't is the Will they undertake and they have reason 'T is indeed the Will that we are to serve and have to do withall I abhor to imagine mine in a Body without Affection And this madness is methinks Cousin-German to that of the Boy who would needs lye with the beautiful Statue of Venus made by Praxiteles or that of the furious Egyptian who violated the dead Carcass of a Woman he was embalming which was the occasion of the Law afterwards made in Egypt that the Corps of beautiful young Women of those of good Quality should be kept three dayes before they should be delivered to those whose Office it was to take care for the Interrment Periander did more wonderfully who extended his conjugal Affection more regular and legitimate to the enjoyment of his Wife Melissa after she was dead Does it not seem a Lunatick humour in the Moon seeing she could no otherwise enjoy her Darling Endymion to lay him for several Months asleep and to please her self with the fruition of a Boy who stirr'd not but in his sleep I likewise say that we love a Body without a Soul when we love a Body without its consent and concurring desire All Enjoyments are not alike There are some that are Hectick and languishing a thousand other causes besides good Will may procure us this Favour from the Ladies this is not a sufficient testimony of Affection Treachery may lurk there as well as elsewhere they sometimes go to 't but by halves tanquam thura merumque parent absentem marmoreamve putes So coldly they unto the work prepare You 'd think them absent or else marble were I know some who had rather lend that than their Coach and who only impart themselves that way You are to examin whether your company pleases them upon any
sign either that Wit is grown shorter sighted when it is satisfied or that it is grown weary No generous Mind can stop in it self it will still pretend further and beyond its power it has Sallies beyond its Effects If it do not advance and press forward and retire rush turn and wheel about 't is but spritely by halves its pursuits are without Bound or Method its aliment is Admiration ambiguity the Chace which Apollo sufficiently declared in always speaking to us in a double obscure and oblique Sence not feeding but amusing and puzling us 'T is an irregular and perpetual motion without Example and without Aim His Inventions heat pursue and interproduce one another Ainsi voit on en unraisseau coulant Sans fin l'une eau apres l'autre roulant Et tout de rang d'un eternel conduict L'une suit l'autre l'une autre fuit Par cette-cy celle-là est poussée Et cette-cy par l'autre est devancée Tousiours l'eau va dans l'eau tousiours est-ce Mesme ruisseau tousiours eau diverse So in a running stream one Wave we see After another roul incessantly And as they glide each does successively Pursue the other each the other fly By this that 's ever-more push'd on and this By that continually preceded is The Water still does into Water swill Still the same Brook but different Water still There is more ado to interpret Interpretations than Things and more Books upon Books than upon all other Subjects we do dothing but comment upon one another Every place saies with Commentaries of Authors there is great scarcity Is it not the principal and most reputed knowledge of our Ages to understand the Learned Is it not the common and almost end of all Studies Our Opinions are grafted upon one another the first serves for a stock to the second the second to the third and so forth Thus step by step we climb the Ladder From whence it come to pass that he which is mounted highest has oft more Honour than Merit for he is got up but a grain upon the shoulders of the last but one How oft and peradventure how foolishly have I stretch'd my Book to make it speak of it self foolishly if for no other reason but this that I ought to call to mind what I say of others who do the same These frequent amorous glances that they so oft cast upon their works witness that their Hearts pant with self love and that even the disdainful Severity wherewith they lash and scourge them are no other than the wanton Dissimulations of a nataral kindness According to Aristotle whose valuing and undervaluing himself oft spring from the same air of Arrogancy I urge for my excuse that I ought in this to have more liberty than others forasmuch as I write of my self and of my Writings very near as I do of my other Actions and let my Theam return upon my self I know not whether or no every one else will take it I have observ'd in Germany that Luther has left as many Divisions and Disputes about the doubt of his Opinions and more than he himself has rais'd upon the Holy Scriptures Our contest is verbal I demand what Nature is what Pleasure Circle and Substitution are The Question is about words and is answer'd accordingly A Stone is a Body but if a man should further urge and what is a Body Substance and what is Substance and so on he would drive the respondent to the end of his Calâ—pin We exchange one word for another and oft times for one less understood I better know what man is than I know what animal is or mortal or rational To satisfie one doubt they pop 〈◊〉 in the mouth with three 't is the Hydra's head Socrates ask'd Memnon what Virtue was There is says Memnon the Virtue of a Man and of a Woman of a Magistrate and of a private Person of an old Man and of a Child very well cry'd Socrates we were in quest of our Virtue and thou hast brought us a whole swarm He put out one question and thou returnest us a whole Hive As no Event nor no Face intirely resembles another so do they not intirely differ An ingenious mixture of Nature If our Faces were not alike we could not distinguish man from Beast if they were not unlike we could not distinguish one man from another All things hold by some Similitude all Example halts And the relation which is drawn from Experience is always faulty and imperfect comparisons are always coupled at one end or other So do the Laws serve and are fitted to every one of our Affairs by some wrested bias'd and forc'd Interpretation Since the Ethick Laws that concern the particular Duty of every one in himself are so hard to be taught and observ'd as we see they are 't is no wonder if those who govern so many particulars is much more Do but consider the form of this Justice that governs us 't is a true Testimony of humane weakness so full it is of Error and Contradiction What we find to be Favour and Severity in Justice and we find so much of them both that I know not whether the mean is so often met with are sick parts and unequal Members of the very Body and offence of Justice The Country People run to bring me News in great haste that they just left in a Forrest of mine a man with a hundred Wounds upon him who was yet breathing and begg'd of them Water for pitty's sake and help to carry him to some place of relief saying they durst not come near him but run away lest the Officers of Justice should catch them there and as it falls out with those who are found near a murther'd Person they should be call'd in question about this accident to their utter ruine having neither Money nor Friends to defend their Innocence What should I have said to these People 'T is certain that this Office of humanity would have brought them into trouble How many Innocents have we known that have been punish'd without the Judges fault and how many that have not arriv'd at our knowledge This hapen'd in my time Certain men were condemn'd to die for a murther committed their Sentence if not pronounc'd at least determin'd and concluded on The Judges just in the nick are advertis'd by the Officers of an inferiour Court hard by that they have some men in Custody who have directly confess'd the said Murther and make an undubitable discovery of all the particulars of the Fact 'T was then notwithstanding put to the question whether or no they ought to suspend Execution of the Sentence already past upon the first accus'd They consider'd the novelty of the Example and the consequence of reversing Judgments that the Sentence of Death was duly pass'd and the Judges acquit of repentance To conclude these poor Devils were sacrifis'd to the forms of Justice Philip or some other provided against a like Inconvenience
should be equally the Office of Fortitude to fight against Pain and against the immoderate and charming blandishments of Pleasure They are two Fountains from which whoever draws when and as much as he needs whether City Man or Beast is very happy The first is to be taken physically and upon necessity more scarcely the other for thirst but not to drunkenness Pain Pleasure Love and Hatred are the first things that a Child is sensible of if when his Reason comes to him he apply himself to it that is Virtue I have a peculiar method of my own I squander away my time when it is ill and uneasie but when 't is good I will not squander it away I run it over again and stick to 't a man must run over the ill and insist upon the good This ordinary Phrase of past-time and passing away the time represents the usance of those wise sort of People who think they cannot have a better account of their Lives than to let them run out and slide away to pass them over and to baulk them and as much as they can to take no notice of them and to shun them as a thing of troublesome and contemptible Quality but I know it to be another kind of thing and find it both valuable and commodious even in its latest decay wherein I now injoy it and Nature has deliver'd it into our hands in such and so favourable Circumstances that we commonly complain of our selves if it be troublesome to us or slide unprofitably away Stulti Vita ingrata est trepida est tota in futurum fertur The Life of a Fool is uneasie timorous and wholly bent upon the future Nevertheless I compose my self to lose mine without regret but withall as a thing that is loseable by its Condition not that it troubles or importunes me Neither does it properly well become any not to be displeas'd when they dye excepting such as are pleas'd to live There is good husbandry in enjoying it I enjoy it double to what others do for the measure in Fruition depends more or less upon our application to it Now especially that I perceive mine to be so short in time I will extend it in weight I will stop the suddenness of its flight by the suddenness of my seising upon it and by the vigour of using it recompence the speed of its running away By how much the possession of living is more short I must make it so much deeper and more full Others are sensible of Contentment and of Prosperity I feel it too as well as they but not only as it slides and passes by and also a man ought to study taste and ruminate upon it to render condign thanks to him that grants it to us They enjoy the other Pleasures as they do that of sleep without knowing it to the end that even sleep it self should not so stupidly escape from me I have formerly caus'd my self to be disturb'd in my sleep to the end that I might the better and more sensibly relish and taste it I consult with my self of a contentment I do not skin but sound it and bend my Reason now grown perverse and ill humour'd to entertain it Do I find my self in any calm composedness is there any Pleasure that tickles me I do not suffer it to dally with my Senses only I associate my Soul to it too not there to engage it self but therein to take delight not there to lose it self but to be present there and employ it on its part to view it self in this prosperous Estate to weigh esteem and amplifie the good hap It reckons how much it stands indebted to Almighty God that it is in repose of Conscience and other intestine Passions to have the Body in a natural disposedness orderly and competently enjoying the soft and flattering functions by which he of his bounty is pleas'd to recompence the sufferings wherewith his Justice at his good Pleasure does scourge and chastise us How great a benefit is it to man to have his Soul so seated that which way soever she turns her Eye the Heaven is calm and serene about her No Desire no Fear or Doubt that troubles the Air nor any Difficulty past present or to come that his Imagination may not pass over without Offence This Consideration takes great lustre from the comparison of different Conditions and therefore it is that I propose to my self in a thousand faces those whom Fortune or their own Error torment and carry away and moreover those who more like to me so negligently and incuriously receive their good Fortune They are men who pass away their time indeed they run over the present and that which they possess to give themselves up to hope and for vain Shadows and Images which fancy puts into their Heads Morte obita quales fama est volitare figuras Aut quae sopitos deludunt somnia sensus Such shapes they say that dead mens Spirits have Or those in Dreams our drousie Sense deceive which hasten and prolong their flight according as they are pursu'd The fruit and end of their pursuit is to pursue as Alexander said that the end of his labour was to labour Nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum Thinking nought done if ought was left to do For my part then I love Life and cultivate it such as it hath pleas'd God to bestow it upon us I do not desire it should be without the necessity of eating and drinking and I should think to offend no less excusably to wish it had been double Sapiens divitiarum naturalium quaesitor acerrimus A wise man is an avaricious gaper after natural riches Nor that we should support our selves by putting only a little of that Drug into our Mouths by which Epimenides took away his Appetite and kept himself alive Nor that a man should stupidly beget Children with his Fingers or heels but rather with reverence I speak it that we might voluptuously beget them with our Fingers and heels Nor that the Body should be without desire and void of delight These are ungrateful and wicked complaints I accept kindly and with acknowledgment what Nature has done for me am well pleas'd with it and proud of it A man does wrong to the Great and Potent Giver of all things to refuse disannull or disfigure his Gift He has made every thing well Omnia quae secundum Naturam sunt aestimatione digna sunt All things that are according to Nature are worthy of esteem Of Philosophical Opinions I more willingly embrace those that are most solid that is to say the most humane and most our own my Discourse is suitably to my manners low and humble I then bring forth a Child to my own liking when it puts it self upon its Ergo's to prove that 't is a barbarous alliance to marry the Divine with the Earthly the Reasonable with the Vnreasonable the Severe with the Indulgent and