by his Fall the Name and power to which he aspir'd by perfecting his Career In the Judgment I make of another Man's Life I always observe how he carried himself at his Death and the principal Concern I have for my own is that I may die handsomly that is patiently and without noise CHAP. XIX That to study Philosophy is to learn to die CIcero says That to study Philosophy is nothing but to prepare a Man's self to die The reason of which is because Study and Contemplation do in some sort withdraw from us and deprive us of our Souls and employ it separately from the Body which is a kind of Learning to die and a resemblance of Death or else because all the Wisdom and reasoning in the World does in the end conclude in this Point to teach us not to fear to die And to say the Truth either our Reason does grosly abuse us or it ought to have no other Aim but our Contentment only nor to endeavour any thing but in Sum to make us live well and as the Holy Scripture says at our Ease All the Opinions of the World agree in this That Pleasure is our end though we make use of divers means to attain unto it they would otherwise be rejected at the first motion for who would give Ear to him that should propose Affliction and Misery for his end The Controversies and Disputes of the Philosophical Sects upon this Point are meerly verbal Transcurramus solertissimas nugas Let us skip over those learned and subtle Fooleries and Trifles Seneca Epist there is more in them of Opposition and Obstinacy than is consistent with so sacred a Profession but what kind of Person soever Man takes upon him to personate he over-mixes his own part with it and let the Philosophers all say what they will the main thing at which we all aim even in Virtue it self is Pleasure It pleases me to rattle in their Ears this Word which they so nauseate to hear and if it signifie some supream Pleasure and excessive Delight it is more due to the Assistance of Virtue than to any other Assistance whatever This Delight for being more gay more sinewy more robust and more manly is only to be more seriously voluptuous and we ought to give it the Name of Pleasure as that which is more benign gentle and natural and not that of Vigour from which we have deriv'd it the other more mean and sensual part of Pleasure if it could deserve this fair Name it ought to be upon the Account of Concurrence and not of Privilege I find it less exempt from Traverses and Inconveniences than Vertue it self and besides that the enjoyment is more momentary fluid and frail it has its Watchings Fasts and Labours even to Sweat and Blood and moreover has particular to it self so many several sorts of sharp and wounding Passions and so stupid a Satiety attending it as are equal to the severest Penance And we mistake to think that Difficulties should serve it for a Spur and a seasoning to its Sweetness as in Nature one Contrary is quickned by another and to say when we come to Vertue that like Consequences and Difficulties overwhelm and render it austere and inaccessible whereas much more aptly than in Voluptuousness they enable sharpen and heighten the Perfect and divine Pleasure they procure us He renders himself unworthy of it who will counterpoise his Expence with the Fruit and does neither understand the Blessing nor how to use it Those who Preach to us that the quest of it is craggy difficult and painful but the Fruition pleasant and grateful what do they mean by that but to tell us that it is always unpleasing The most perfect have been forc'd to content themselves to aspire unto it and to approach it only without ever possessing it But they are deceiv'd and do not take notice that of all the Pleasures we know the very Pursuit is pleasant The Attempt ever relishes of the quality of the thing to which it is directed for it is a good part of and consubstantial with the Effect The Felicity and Beatitude that glitters in Vertue shines throughout all her Apartments and Avenues even to the first Entry and utmost Pale and Limits Now of all the Benefits that Vertue confers upon us the Contempt of Death is one of the greatest as the means that accommodates Humane Life with a soft and easie Tranquillity and gives us a pure and pleasant Taste of Living without which all other pleasure would be extinct which is the Reason why all the Rules by which we are to live centre and concur in this own Article And altho they all in like manner with one consent endeavour to teach us also to despise Grief Poverty and the other Accidents to which humane Life by its own Nature and Constitution is subjected it is not nevertheless with the same Importunity as well by reason the fore-named Accidents are not of so great necessity the greater part of Mankind passing over their whole Lives without ever knowing what Poverty is and some without Sorrow or Sickness as Xenophilus the Musician who liv'd a hundred and six Years in a perfect and continual Health as also because at the worst Death can whenever we please cut short and put an end to all these Inconveniences But as to Death it is inevitable Horat. l. 2. Od. 3. Omnes eodem cogimur omnium Versatur Urna serius ocyus Sors exitura nos in aeternum Exilium impositura Cymbae We all are to one Voyage bound by turn Sooner or later all must to the Urn When Charon calls aboard we must not stay But to eternal Exile sail away And consequently if it frights us 't is a perpetual Torment and for which there is no Consolation nor Redress There is no way by which we can possibly avoid it it commands all Points of the Compass we may continually turn our Heads this way and that and pry about as in a suspected Country Cicero de finib l. 1. quae quasi saxum Tantalo semper impendet but it like Tantalâ—s his Stone hangs over us Our Courts of Justice often send back condemn'd Criminals to be executed upon the Place where the Fact was committed but carry them to all fine Houses by the way and prepare for them the best Entertainment you can Hor. l. 3. Od. 1. non Sicula Dapeâ— Dulcem elaborabunt saporem Non avium citharaeque cantus Somnum reducent the tasts of such as these Choicest Sicilian Dainties cannot please Nor yet of Birds or Harps the Harmonies Once charm asleep or close their watchful Eyes do you think they could relish it and that the fatal end of their Journey being continually before their Eyes would not alter and deprave their Palate from tasting these Regalio's Claud. Audit iter numeratque dies spatioque viarum Meâ—itur vitam torquetur peste futura He time and space computes by length of ways Sums up
he no more enjoys what he has than one that has a Cold relishes the flavour of Canary or than a Horse is sensible of his Rich Comparison Plato is in the right when he tells us that Health Beauty Vigour and Riches and all the other things call'd Goods are equally Evil to the Unjust as Good to the Just and the Evil on the contrary the same And therefore where either the Body or the Mind are in disorder to what use serve these external Conveniences Considering that the least prick with a Pin or the least Passion of the Soul is sufficient to deprive us of the pleasure of being sole Monarch of the World At the first twitch of the Gout it signifies much to be call'd Sir and your Majesty Hor. lib. 1. El. 2. Totus argento conflatus totus auro Although his Chests are cram'd whilst they will hold With immense Sums of Silver Coin and Gold does he not forget his Palaces and Grandeurs If he be Angry can his being a Prince keep him from looking Red and looking Pale and grinding his Teeth like a Mad-man Now if he be a Man of parts and well descended Royalty adds very little to his Happiness Hor. lib. 1 Ep. 12. Si ventâ—i bene si lateri est pedibusque tuis nil Divitiae poterant regales addere majus If thou art right and sound from Head to Foot A King's Revenue can add nothing to 't He discerns 't is nothing but Counterfeit and Gullery Nay perhaps he would be of King Seleucus's opinion That who knew the weight of a Scepter would not deign to stoop to take it up which he said in reference to the great and painful Duty incumbent upon a good King Doubtless it can be no easie task to Rule others when we find it so hard a matter to Govern our selves And as to the thing Dominion that seems so sweet and charming the frailty of Humane Wisdom and the difficulty of choice in things that are new and doubtful to us consider'd I am very much of opinion that it is much more pleasant to follow than to lead and that it is a great settlement and satisfaction of Mind to have only one Path to walk in and to have none to answer for but for a Man's self Lucret. lib. 5. Ut satius multo jam sit parere quietum Quam regere imperio res velle So that 't is better Calmly to Obey Than in the Storms of State to Rule and Sway. To which we may add that saying of Cyrus That no Man was fit to Rule but he who in his own Worth was of greater Value than all those he was to Govern But King Hiero in Xenophon says further That in the Fruition even of Pleasure it self they are in a worse condition than private Men forasmuch aâ— the opportunities and facility they have of commanding those things at Will takes off from the Delight Ovid. Amor. l. 2. Ele. 19. Pinguis amor nimiumque potens in taedia nobis Vertitur Stomacho dulcis ut esca necet Too Potent Love in Loathing never ends As highest Sawce the Stomach most offends Can we think that the Singing-Boys of the Quire take any great delight in their own Musick The Satiety does rather render it troublesome and tedious to them Feasts Balls Masquerades and Tiltings delight such as but rarely see and desire to be at such Solemnities But having been frequent at such Entertainments the relish of them grows flat and insipid Nay Women the greatest Temptation do not so much delight those who make a common practice of the sport He who will not give himself leisure to be Thirsty can never find 〈◊〉 true pleasure of Drinking Farces and Tumbling Tricks are pleasant to thâ— Spectators but a pain to those by whom they are perform'd And that this is effectually so we see that Princes divert themselves sometimes in disguising their Qualities a while to depose themselves and to stoop to the poor and ordinary way of Living of the meanest of their People Hor. car lib. 3. Ode 29. Plerumque gratae Principibus vires Mundaeque parvo sub lare pauperum Coenae sine aulaeis ostro Sollicitum explicuere frontem Even Princes with Variety tempted are Which makes them oft feed on clean homely Fare In a poor Hut laying aside the State Purple and Pomp which should on Grandeur wait In such a Solitude to smooth the Frown Forc'd by the weighty Pressure of a Crown Nothing is so distastful and disappointing as Abundance What Appetite would not be baffled to see Three Hundred Women at his Mercy as the Grand Signior has in his Seraglio And what Fruition of Pleasure or Taste of Recreation did he of his Ancestors reserve to himself who never went a Hawking without Seven Thousand Falconers And besides all this I Fansie that this Lustre of Grandeur brings with it no little disturbance and uneasiness upon the Enjoyment of the most tempting pleasures they are too conspicuous and lie too open to every ones view Neither do I know to what end a man should any more require them to conceal their Errors since what is only reputed indiscretion in us they know very well the people in them brand with the names of Tyranny and contempt of the Laws and besides their proclivity to Vice are apt to censure that as a heightning pleasure to them to Insult over the Laws and to trample upon Publick Ordinances Plato indeed in his Gorgeas defines a Tyrant to be one who in a City has Licence to do whatever his own Will leads him to And by reason of this Impunity the Over-tacting and Publication of their Vices does oft-times more Mischief than the Vice it self Every one fears to be pry'd into and discover'd in their Evil Courses but Princes are even to their very Gestures Looks and thoughts the People conceiving they have right and title to Censure and be Judges of them Besides that the Blemishes of the Great naturally appear greater by reason of the Eminency and Lustre of the place where they are seated and that a Mole or a Wart appears greater in them than the greatest Deformity in others And this is the reason why the Poets feign the Amours of Jupiter to be perform'd in the disguises of so many borrowed shapes that amongst the many Amorous Practices they lay to his charge there is only one as I remember where he appears in his own Majesty and Grandeur But let us return to Hiero who complains of the Inconveniences he found in his Royalty in that he could not look abroad and Travel the World at liberty being as it were a Prisoner to the Bounds and Limits of his own Dominion And that in all his Actions he was evermore surrounded with an importunate Crowd And in truth to see our Kings set all alone at Table environed with so many People prating about them and so many strangers staring upon them as they always are I have
the War against 〈◊〉 Enemies fansying it would much contribuâ—â— to the Continuation of the Successes he had always obtain'd in the War against them Iâ— like manner certain of the Indians in a Day of Battel with the Spaniards carried with them the Bones of one of their Captains iâ— consideration of the Victories they had for merly obtain'd under his Conduct And other People of the same new World do yet carry about with them in their Wars the Relicks of valiant Men who have dyed in Battel to incite their Courage and advance their Fortune of which Examples the first reserve nothing for the Tomb but the Reputation they have acquir'd by their former Atchievements but these proceed yet further and attribute a certain Power of Operation The last Act of Captain Bayard is of a much better Composition who finding himself wounded to Death with a Harquebuze Shot and being by his Friends importun'd to retire out of the Fight made Answer That he would not begin at the last Gasp to turn his Back to the Enemy and accordingly still fought on till feeling himself too faint and no longer able to sit his Horse he commanded his Steward to set him down against the Root of a Tree but so that he might die with his Face towards the Enemy which he also did I must yet add another Example equally remarkable for the present Consideration with any of the former The Emperour Maximilian great Grand-father to Philip the Second King of Spain was a Prince endowed throughout with great and extraordinary Qualities and amongst the rest with a singular Beauty of Person but had withall a Humour very contrary to that of other Princes who for the dispatch of their most Important Affairs convert their Close-stool into a Chair of State which was that he would never permit any of his Bed-Chamber in what familiar degree of Favour soever Modesty of Maximilian the Emperor to see him in that Posture and would steal aside to make Water as religiously as a Virgin and was as shy to discover either to his Physician or any other whatever those Parts that we are accustomed to conceal And I my self who have so impudent a way of Talking am nevertheless naturally so modest this way that unless at the Importunity of Necessity or Pleasure I very rarely and unwillingly communicate to the Sight of any either those Parts or Actions that Custom orders us to conceal wherein I also suffer more Constraint than I conceive is very well becoming a Man especially of my Profession but he nourish'd this modest Humour to such a degree of superstition as to give express Orders in his last Will that they should put him on Drawen so soon as he should be dead to which methinks he would have done well to have added that he should have been hoodwink'd too that put them on The Charge that Cyrus left with his Children Cyrus's Reverence to Religion Xenophâ—n that neither they nor any other should either see or touch his Body after the Soul was departed from it I attribute to some superstitious Devotion of his both his Historian and Himself amongst other great Qualities having strew'd the whole Course of their Lives with a singular Respect to Religion I was by no means pleas'd with a Story was told me by a Man of very great Quality of a Relation of mine and one who had given a very good Account of himself both in Peace and War that coming to die in a very old Age of an excessive Pain of the Stone he spent the last Hours of his Life in an extraordinary Solicitude about ordering the Ceremony of his Funeral pressing all the Men of Condition who came to see him to engage their Word to attend him to his Grave importuning this very Prince who came to visit him at his last Gasp with a most earnest Supplication that he would order his Family to be assisting there and withal representing before him several Reasons and Examples to prove that it was a Respect due to a Man of his Condition and seem'd to die content having obtain'd this Promise and appointed the Method and Order of his Funeral Parade I have seldom heard of so long liv'd a Vanity Another though contrary Solitude of which also I do not want domestick Example seems to be somewhat a-kin to this That a Man shall cudgel his Brains at the last Moments of his Life to contrive his Obsequies to so particular and unusual a Parsimony as to conclude it in the sordid expence of one single Servant with a Candle and Lanthorn and yet I see this Humour commended and the Appointment of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus who forbad his Heirs to bestow upon his Hearse even the common Ceremonies in use upon such Occasions Is it not Temperance and Frugality to avoid the Expence and Pleasure of which the use and knowledge is imperceptible to us See here an easie and cheap Reformation If Instruction were at all necessary in this Case I should be of Opinion that in this as in all other Actions of Life the Ceremony and Expence should be regulated by the Ability of the Person deceas'd and the Philosopher Lycon prudently order'd his Executors to dispose of his Body where they should think most fit and as to his Funerals to order them neither too superfluous nor too mean For my part I should wholly referr the ordering of this Ceremony to Custom and shall when the time comes accordingly leave it to their Discretion to whose Lot it shall fall to do me that last Office Totus hic locus est contemnendus in nobis Cicero Tusc l. 1. non negligendus in nostris The Place of our Sepulture is wholly to be contemn'd by us but not to be neglected by our Friends but it was a holy Saying of a Saint August de civit Dei Curatio funeris conditio Sepulturae pompa Exequiarum magis sunt vivorum solatia quà m subsidia mortuorum The Care of Funerals the Place of Sepulture and the Pomp of Exequies are rather Consolations to the Living than any Benefit to the Dead Which made Socrates answer Criton who at the Hour of his Death ask'd him how he would be buried How you will said he If I could concern my self further than the Present about this Affair I should be most tempted as the greatest Satisfaction of this kind to imitate those who in their Life-time entertain themselves with the Ceremony of their own Obsequies before hand and are pleas'd with viewing their own Monument and beholding their own dead Countenance in Marble Happy are they who can gratify their Senses by insensibility and live by their Death I am ready to conceive an implacable Hatred against all Democracy and Popular Government though I cannot but think it the most natural and equitable of all others so oft as I call to mind the inhumane Injustice of the People of Athens who without Remission or once vouchsafing to hear what they had to say
for themselves put to death their brave Captains newly return'd triumphant from a Naval Victory they had obtained over the Lacedaemonians near the Arginusian Isles the most bloody and obstinate Engagement that ever the Greeks fought at Sea for no other Reason but that they rather followed their Blow and pursued the Advantages prescribed them by the Rule of War than that they would stay to gather up and bury their Dead an Execution that is yet rendred more odious by the Behaviour of Diomedon who being one of the condemn'd and a Man of most eminent both politick and military Vertue after having heard their Sentence advancing to speak no Audience till then having been allowed instead of laying before them his own Innocency or the Impiety of so cruel an Arrest only express'd a Solicitude for his Judges Preservation beseeching the Gods to convert this Sentence to their own Good and praying that for neglecting to pay those Vows which he and his Companions had done which he also acquainted them with in Acknowledgment of so glorious a Success they might not pull down the Indignation of the Gods upon them and so without more Words went courageously to his Death But Fortune a few Years after punishing them in their kind made them see the Error of their Cruelty for Chabrias Captain-General of their Naval Forces having got the better of Pollis Admiral of Sparta about the Isle of Naxos totally lost the Fruits of his Success and Content with his Victory of very great Importance to their Affairs not to incur the danger of this Example and lose a few Bodies of his dead Friends that were floating in the Sea gave opportunity to a world of living Enemies to sail away in Safety who afterwards made them pay dear for this unseasonable Superstition Seneca Tr. Cher. 2. Quaeris quo jaceas post obitum loco Quo non natae jacent Dost ask where thou shalt lie when dead With those that never Being had This other restores the sense of Repose to a Body without a Soul Cicero Tusc l. 1. Neque sepulcrum quo recipiat habeat portum corporis Ubi remissa humana vita Corpus requiescat à malis Nor with a Tomb as with a Haven blest Where after Life the Corps in Peace may rest As nature demonstrates to us that several dead things retain yet an occult Sympathy and relation to Life Wine changes its flavour and complexion in Cellars according to the changes and seasons of the Vine from whence it came and the Flesh of Venison alters its condition and taste in the powd'ring-tub according to the seasons of the living Flesh of its kind as it is observed by the Curious CHAP. IV. That the Soul discharges her Passions upon false Object where the true are wanting A Gentleman of my Country who was very often tormented with the Gout being importun'd by his Physicians totally to reclaim his Appetite from all manner of salt Meats was wont presently to reply that he must needs have something to quarrel with in the extremity of his Fits and that he fansy'd that railing at and cursing one while the Bolognia Sawsages and another the dry'd Tongues and the Hamms was some mitigation to his pain And in good earnest as the Arm when it is advanced to strike if it fail of meeting with that upon which is was design'd to discharge the blow and spends it self in vain does offend the Striker himself and as also that to make a pleasant Prospect the Sight should not be lost and dilated in a vast extent of empty Air but have some Bounds to limit and circumscribe it at a reasonable distance Ventus ut amittit vires nisi robore densae Occurant Sylvae spatio diffusus inani As Winds do lose their strength unless withstood By some dark Grove of strong opposing wood So it appears that the Soul being transported and discompos'd turns its violence upon its self if not supply'd with something to oppose it and therefore always requires an Enemy as an object on which to discharge its Fury and Resentment Plutarch says very well of those who are delighted with little Dogs and Monkeys that the amorous part which is in us for want of a legitimate Object rather than lie idle does after that manner forge and create one frivolous and false as we see that the Soul in the exercise of its Passions inclines rather to deceive it self by creating a false and fantastical Subject even contrary to its own Belief than not to have something to work upon And after this manner Brute Beasts direct their Fury to fall upon the Stone or Weapon that has hurt them and with their Teeth even execute their Revenge upon themselves for the Injury they have receiv'd from another Claudian Pannonis haud aliter post ictum saevior Ursa Cui jaculum parva Lybs amentavit habena Se rotat in vulnus telumque irata receptum Impetit secum fugientem circuit Hastam So the fierce Bear made fiercer by the smart Of the bold Lybian's mortal guided Dart Turns round upon the Wound and the tough Spear Contorted o'er her Breast does flying bear What causes of the misadventures that befall us do we not invent what is it that we do not lay the fault to right or wrong that we may have something to quarrel with Those beautiful Tresses young Lady you may so liberally tear off are no way guilty nor is it the whiteness of those delicate Breasts you so unmercifully beat that with an unlucky Bullet has slain your beloved Brother quarrel with something else Livy Livy dec l. 5. speaking of the Roman Army in Spain says that for the loss of two Brothers who were both great Captains Flere omnes repente offensare capita that they all wept and tore their Hair 'T is the common practice of Affliction And the Philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the King who by handfulls pull'd his Hair off his Head for Sorrow Does this man think that Baldness is a Remedy for Grief Who has not seen peevish Gamesters worry the Cards with their Teeth and swallow whole Bales of Dice in revenge for the Loss of their Money Xerxes whip'd the Sea and writ a Challenge to Mount Athos Cyrus employ'd a whole Army several days at work to revenge himself of the River Gâ—idus for the Fright it had put him into in passing over and Caligula demolish'd a very beautiful Palace for the Pleasure his Mother had once enjoy'd there I remember there was a Story currant when I was a Boy That one of our Neighbouring Kings having receiv'd a Blow from the Hand of GOD swore he would be reveng'd and in order to it made Proclamation that for ten Years to come no one should pray to him or so much as mention him throughout his Dominions by which we are not so much to take measure of the Folly as the Vain-Glory of the Nation of which this Tale was told They are Vices that
of youthful Heat berest How small a Portion of Life is left Caesar to an old weather-beaten Souldier of his Guards who came to ask him leave that he might kill himself taking notice of his whither'd Body and decrepid motion pleasantly answer'd Thou fansiest then that thou art yet alive Should a man fall into the Aches and impotencies of Age from a spritely and vigorous Youth on the sudden I do not think Humanity capable of enduring such a change but Nature leading us by the hand an easie and as it were an insensible pace step by step conducts us to that miserable condition and by that means makes it familiar to us so that we perceive not nor are sensible of the stroak then when our Youth dies in us though it be really a harder Death than the final Dissolution of a languishing Body which is only the Death of old Age forasmuch as the Fall is not so great from an uneasie being to none at all as it is from a spritely and florid Being to one that is unweildy and Painful The Body when bow'd beyond its natural spring of Strength has less Force either to rise with or support a burthen and it is with the Soul the same and therefore it is that we are to raise her up firm and erect against the Power of this Adversary for as it is impossible she should ever be at rest or at Peace within her self whilst she stands in fear of it so if she once can assure her self she may boast which is a thing as it were above Humane Condition that it is impossible that Disquiet Anxiety or Fear or any other Disturbance should inhabit or have any Place in her Horat. l. 3. Od. 3. Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus A Soul well settled is not to be shook With an incensed Tyrant's threatning Look Nor can loud Auster once that Heart dismay The ruffling Prince of stormy Adria Nor yet th' advanced hand of mighty Jove Though charg'd with Thunder such a Temper move She is then become Sovereign of all her Lusts and Passions Mistress of Necessity Shame Poverty and all the other Injuries of Fortune Let us therefore as many of us as can get this Advantage which is the true and sovereign Liberty here on Earth and that fortifies us wherewithal to defie Violence and Injustice and to contemn Prisons and Chains Horat. l. 1. Epist 16. in Manicis Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo Ipse Deus simul atque volam me solvet opinor Hoc sentit moriar mors ultima linea rerum est With rugged Chains I 'll load thy Hands and Feet And to a surly Keeper thee commit Why let him shew his worst of Cruelty God will I think for asking set me free Ay but he thinks I 'll die that Comfort brings For Death 's the utmost Line of Humane things Our very Religion it self has no surer humane Foundation than the Contempt of Death The contempt of Death a certain Foundation of Religion Not only the Argument of Reason invites us to it for why should we fear to lose a thing which being lost can never be miss'd or lamented but also seeing we are threatned by so many sorts of Death is it not infinitely worse eternally to fear them all than once to undergo one of them And what matter is it when it shall happen since it is once inevitable To him that told Socrates the thirty Tyrants have sentenc'd thee to Death and Nature them said he What a ridiculous thing it is to trouble and afflict our selves about taking the only Step that is to deliver us from all Misery and Trouble As our Birth brought us the Birth of all things so in our Death is the Death of all things included And therefore to lament and take on that we shall not be alive a hundred Years hence is the same Folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred Years ago Death is the beginning of another Life So did we weep and so much it cost us to enter into this and so did we put of our former Veil in entring into it Nothing can be grievous that is but once and is it reasonable so long to fear a thing that will so soon be dispatch'd Long Life and short are by Death made all one for there is no long nor short to things that are no more Aristotle tells us that there are certain little Beasts upon the Banks of the River Hypanis that never live above a day they which die at eight of the Clock in the Morning die in their Youth and those that die at five in the Evening in their extreamest Age Which of us would not laugh to see this Moment of Continuance put into the consideration of Weal or Woe The most and the least of ours in comparison of Eternity or yet to the Duration of Mountains Rivers Stars Trees and even of some Animals is no less ridiculous But Nature compels us to it Go out of this World says she as you enter'd into it the same Pass you made from Death to Life without Passion or Fear the same after the same manner repeat from Life to Death Your Death is a part of the Order of the Universe 't is a part of the Life of the World Lucret. l. 2. Inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt Mortals amongst themselves by turns do live And Life's bright Torch to the next Runner give Alluding to the Athenian Games wherein those that run a Race carried Torches in their Hands and the Race being done deliver'd them into the Hands of those who were to run next 'T is the Condition of your Creation Death is a part of you and whilst you endeavour to evade it you avoid your selves This very Being of yours that you now enjoy is equally divided betwixt Life and Death The day of your Birth is one days advance towards the Grave Senec. Her fur chor 3. Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit The Hour that gave of Life the benefit Did also a whole Hour shorten it Manil. Ast 4. Nascentes morimur finisque ab origine pendet As we are born we die and our Life's end Upon our Life's beginning does depend All the whole time you live you purloin from Life and live at the expence of Life it self the perpetual work of our whole Life is but to lay the foundation of Death you are in Death whilst you live because you still are after Death when you are no more alive Or if you had rather have it so you are dead after Life but dying all the while you live and Death handles the dying much more rudely than the dead If you have made your profit of Life you have had enough of it go your way satisfied Lucret. l. 3. Cur non ut
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 Inhabitants 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 Ecstasie 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 Exchantments 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 and 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 Suspicion 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 Incovenience 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 inexcusable 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 in those Cases there is no possible means for a Man always to defend himself from such a Surprize as shall put him damnably out of Countenance And yet I have known some who have secured themselves from this Mischance by coming half sated elsewhere purposely to abate the ardour of his Fury and others who by being grown old find themselves less impotent by being loss able and particularly one who found an Advantage by being assur'd by a Friend of his that he had a Counter-charm against certain Enchantments that would defend him from this Disgrace The Story it self is not much amiss and therefore you shall have it A Count of a very great Family and with whom I had the Honour to be very familiarly intimate being married to a very fair Lady who 〈◊〉 formerly been pretended to and importunately courted by one who was invited to and present at the Wedding all his Friends were in very great Fear but especially an old Lady his Kinswoman who had the ordering of the Solemnity and in whose House it was kept suspecting his Rival would in Revenge offer soul Play and procure some of these kind of Sorceries to put a Trick upon him which Fear she also communicated to me who to comfort her bad her not trouble her self but relie upon my Care to prevent or frustrate any such Designs Now I had by chance about me a certain flat Plate of Gold whereon were graven some Coelestial Figures good to prevent Frenzy occasion'd by the Heat of the Sun or for any Pains of the Head being applied to the Suture where that it might the better remain firm it was sowed to a Ribban to be tyed under the Chin. A Foppery Cozen-German to this of which I am speaking was by Jaques Pelletiâ—r who liv'd in my House presented to me for a singular Rarety and a thing of Sovereign Vertue I had a fancy to make some use of this Knack and therefore privately told the Count that he might possibly run the same Fortune other Bridegrooms had sometimes done especially some Persons being in the House who no doubt would be glad to do him such a Courtesie but let him boldly go to Bed for I would do him the Office of a Friend and if need were would not spare a Miracle that it was in my Power to do provided he would engage to me upon his Honour to keep it to himself and only when they came to bring him his Cawdle A Custom in France to bring the Bridegroom a Cawdle in the middle of the night on his Wedding night if Matters had not gone well with him to give me
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 Back-side 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 seâ—f 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 Client it might be considerâ—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 inopportunely 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 wav who had done but well if she had endow'd this Member with some particular Privilege 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 * Videlicet the Pox 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 Apozem 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 Tholouse who being a valethdinary and 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 and 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 and finding these would do no good was fain to return to the old way A Woman fansying she had swallow'd a pin in a piece of Bread cry'd out of an intolerable pain in her Throat where she thought she felt it stick but an ingenious Fellow that was brought to her seeing no outward Tomour nor alteration supposing it only to be conceit taken at some Crust of Bread that had hurt her as it went down caus'd her to vomit and cunningly unseen threw a crooked Pin into the Bason which the Woman no sooner saw but believing she had cast it up she presently found her self eas'd of her pain I my self knew a Gentleman who having treated a great deal of good Company at his house three or four days after bragg'd in jest for there was no such thing that he had made them eat of a bak'd Cat at which a young Gentlewoman who had been at the Feast took such a horror that falling into a violent vomiting end a Fever there was no possible means to save her Even brute Beasts are also subject to the force of Imagination a well as we as is seen by Dogs who die of grief for the loss of their Masters and are seen to quest tremble and start as Horses will kick and whinney in their sleep Now all this may be attributed to the affinity and relation betwixt the Souls and Bodies of Brutes but 't is quite another thing when the Imagination works upon the Souls of rational men and not only to the prejudice of their own particular Bodies but of others also And as an infected Body communicates its Malady to those that approach or live near it as we see in the Plague the small Pox and sore Eyes that run through whole Families and Cities Ovid. Amor l. 2. Dum spectant oculi laesos laeduntur ipsi Multáque corporibus transitione nocent Viewing sore eyes eyes to be sore are brought And many ills are by transition caught So the Imagination being vehemently agitated darts out Infection capable of offending the stranger Object The Ancients had an opinion of certain Women of Scythia that being animated and inrag'd against any one they kill'd them only with their looks Tortoises and Ostriches hatch their Eggs with only looking on them which inferrs that their Eyes have in them some ejaculative vertue And the Eyes of Witches are said to be dangerous and hurtful Virg. Eclog 3. Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos What Eye it is
the Crown where for the Regulation of Community in Goods and Estates observ'd in the Country certain Sovereign Magistrates have committed to them the universal Charge and over-seeing of the Agriculture and Distribution of the Fruits according to the Necessity of every one Where they lament the Death of Children and Feast at the Decease of old Men Where they lie ten or twelve in a Bed Men and their Wives together Where Women whose Husbands come to violent Ends may marry again and others not Where the servile Condition of Women is look'd upon with such Contempt that they kill all the native Females and buy Wives of their Neighbours to supply their Use Where Husbands may repudiate their Wives without shewing any Cause but Wives cannot part from their Husbands for what cause soever Where Husbands may sell their Wives in case of sterility Where they boyl the Bodies of their dead and afterwards pound them to a pulp which they mix with their Wine and drink it Where the most coveted Sepulture is to be eaten with Dogs and elsewhere by Birds Where they believe the Souls of the happy live in all manner of Liberty in delightful Fields furnish'd with all sorts of Delicacies and that it is those Souls repeating the words we utter which we call Echo Where they fight in the Water and shoot their Arrows with the most mortal aim swimming Where for a sign of Subjection they lift up their Shoulders and hang down their Heads and put off their shooes when they enter the King's Palace Where the Eunuchs who take charge of the Religious Women have moreover their Lips and Noses cut away and disguis'd that they may not be lov'd and the Priests put out their own Eyes to be better acquainted with their Daemons and the better to receive and retain their Oracles Where every one creates to himself a Deity of what he likes best according to his own Fancy the Hunter a Lyon or a Fox the Fisher some certain Fish and Idols of every Humane Action or Passion in which place the Sun the Moon and the Earth are the principal Deities and the form of taking an Oath is to touch the Earth looking up to Heaven and there both Flesh and Fish is eaten raw Where the greatest Oath they take is to swear by the Name of some dead Person of Reputation laying their hand upon his Tomb Where the New-years Gift the King sends every Year to the Princes his Subjects is Fire which being brought all the old Fire is put out and the neighbouring People are bound to fetch of the new every one for themselves upon pain of Treason Where when the King to betake himself wholly to Devotion retires from his Administration which often falls out his next Successor is oblig'd to do the same by which means the Right of the Kingdom devolves to the third in Succession Where they vary the Form of Government according to the seeming necessity of Affairs Depose the King when they think good substituting ancient men to govern in his stead and sometimes transferring it into the hands of the Common-People Where Men and Women are both Circumcis'd and also Baptiz'd Where the Souldier who in one or several Engagements has been so fortunate as to present seven of the Enemies Heads to the King is made noble where they live in that rare and singular Opinion of the Mortality of the Soul Where the Women are deliver'd without Pain or Fear Where the Women wear Copper Fetters upon both their Legs and if a Louse bite them are bound in Magnanimity to bite them again and dare not marry till first they have made their King a Tender of their Virginity if he please to accept it Where the ordinary way of Salutation is by putting a Finger down to the Earth and then pointing it up towards Heaven Where Men carry Burthens upon their Heads and Women on their Shoulders the Women pissing standing and the Men cowring down Where they send their Blood in token of Friendship and cense the men they would honour like Gods Where not only to the fourth but in any other remote Degree Kindred are not permitted to marry Where the Children are four Years at Nurse and sometimes twelve in which Place also it is accounted mortal to give the Child suck the first day after it is born Where the Correction of the male Children is peculiarly design ' d to the Fathers and to the Mothers of the Females the Punishment being to hang them by the Heels in the Smoak Where they eat all sorts of Herbs without other Scruple than of the Illness of the Smell Where all things are open the finest Houses and that are furnish'd with the richest Furniture without Doors Windows Trunks or Chests to lock a Thief being there punish'd double to what they are in other Places Where they crack Lice with their Teeth like Monkeys and abhorr to see them kill'd with ones Nails Where in all their Lives they neither cut their Hair nor pare their Nails and in another Place pare those of the Right hand only letting the Left grow for Ornament and Bravery Where they suffer the Hair on the right side to grow as long as it will and shave the other and in the neighbâ—ring Provinces some let their Hair grow long before and some behind shaving close the rest Where Parents let out their Children and Husbands their Wives to their Guests to hire Where a man may get his own Mother with Child and Fathers make use of their own Daughters or their Sons without Scandal or Offence Where at their solemn Feasts they interchangeably lend their Children to one another without any consideration of Nearness of Blood In one Place Men feed upon Humane Flesh in another 't is reputed a charitable Office for a Man to kill his Father at a certain Age and elsewhere the Fathers dispose of their Children whilst yet in their Mothers Wombs some to be preserv'd and carefully brought up and others they proscribe either to be thrown off or made away Elsewhere the old Husbands lend their Wives to Young-men and in another place they are in common without offence in one place particularly the Women take it for a mark of Honour to have as many gay fring'd Tassels at the bottom of their Garment as they have lain with several men Moreover has not Custom made a Republick of Women separately by themselves Has it not put Arms into their Hands made them to raise Armies and fight Battels and does she not by her own Precept instruct the most ignorant Vulgar and make them perfect in things which all the Philosophy in the World could never beat into the Heads of the wisest men For we know entire Nations Where Death was not only despis'd but entertain'd with the greatest Triumph where Children of seven years old offer'd themselves to be whip'd to death without changing their Countenance where Riches were in such Contempt that the poorest and most wretched Citizen would
kind of man he is For within all this there was not a more illustrious and polite Soul living upon Earth I have often purposely put him upon Arguments quite wide of his Profession wherein I found he had so clear an insight so quick an apprehension and so solid a Judgment that a man would have thought he had never practis'd any other thing but Arms and been all his life enploy'd in Affairs of State And these are great and vigorous Natures Juven Sat. 14. Queis arte benigna Et meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan. With greater Art whose mind The Sun has made of Clay much more refin'd that can keep themselves upright in defiance of a Pedantick Education But it is not enough that our Education does not spoil us it must moreover alter us for the better Some of our Parliaments when they are to admit Officers examine only their Talent of Learning to which some of the others also add the tryal of Understanding by asking their Judgment of some Case in Law of which the latter methinks proceed with the better Method for although both are necessary and that it is very requisite they should be defective in neither yet in truth Knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as Judgment and the last may make shift without the other but the other never without this For as the Greek Verse says Menander in Gnom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Learning is nothing worth if Wit And Understanding be not joyn'd with it To what Use serves Learning if the Understanding be away Would to God that for the good of our Judicature those Societies were as well furnish'd with Understanding and Conscience as they are with Knowledge Non Vitae Sen. Epist â—06 sed Scholae discimus We do not study for the service of our future Life but only for the present use of the School Whereas we are not to â—ie Learning to the Soul but to work and incorporate them together not to tincture it only but to give it a thorough and perfect dye which if it will not take colour and meliorare its imperfect state it were without question better to let it alone 'T is a dangerous weapon and that will endanger to wound its master if put into an aukard and unskilful hand Ut fuerit melius non didicisse So that it were better never to have learn'd at all And this peradventure is the reason why neither we nor indeed Christian Religion require much Learning in Women and that Francis Duke of Britany Son of John the Fifth one being talking with him about his Marriage with Isabelle the Daughter of Scotland and adding that she was homely bred and without any manner of Learning made answer That he lik'd her the better and that a Woman was wise enough if she could distinguish her Husband's Shirt and his Doublet So that it is no so great wonder as they make of it that our Ancestors had Letters in no greater Esteem and that even to this day they are but rarely met with in the Privy Councils of Princes and if this End and Design of acquiring Riches which is the only thing we propose to our selves by the means of Law Physick Pedantry and even Divinity it self did not uphold and keep them in credit you would without doubt see them as poor and unregarded as ever And what loss would it be if they neither instruct us to think well nor to do well Postquam docti prodierunt boni desinunt After once they become Learned they cease to be good All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the Science of Honesty and good Nature But the reason I glanc'd upon but now may it not also proceed from hence that our Study having almost no other Aim but Profit fewer of those who by Nature are born to Offices and Employments rather of Glory than Gain addict themselves to Letters or for so little a while being taken from their Studies before they can come to have any taste of them to a Prosession that has nothing to do with Books that there ordinarily remain no other to apply themselves wholly to Learning but People of mean Condition who in that only study to live and have Preferment only in their Prospect and by such People whose Souls are both by Nature and Education and domestick Example of the basest Metal and Allay the Fruits of Knowledge are both immaturely gathered ill-digested and deliver'd to their Pupils quite another thing For it is not for Knowledge to enlighten a Soul that is dark of it self nor to make a blind man to see Her Business is not to find a man Eyes but to guide govern and direct his steps provided he have sound Feet and straight Legs to go upon Knowledge is an excellent Drug but no Drug has virtue enough to preserve it self from Corruption and Decay if the Vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep Such a one may have a Sight clear and good enough who looks a squint and consequently sees what is good but does not follow it and sees Knowledge but makes no use of it Plato's principal Institution in his Republick is to fit his Citizens with Employments suitable to their Nature Nature can do all and does all Cripples are very unfit for Exercises of the Body and lame Souls for Exercises of the Mind Degenerate and vulgar Souls are unworthy of Philosophy If we see a Shooe-maker with his Shooes out at the Toes we say 't is no wonder for commonly none go worse shod than their Wives and they In like manner Experience does often present us a Physician worse physick'd a Divine worse reform'd and frequently a Scholar of less Sufficiency than another Ariosto of Chios had anciently Reason to say That Philosophers did their Auditories harm forasmuch as most of the Souls of those that heard them were not capable of making benefit of their Instructions and if they did not apply them to good would certainly apply them to ill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex Aristippi acerbos ex Zenonis Schola exire Cicero de Natu. Deoâ— l. 2. They proceeded effeminate prodigals from the School of Aristippus and Churls and Cynicks from that of Zeno. In that excellent Institution that Xenophon attributes to the Persians we find that they taught their Children Vertue as other Nations do Letters Plato tells us that the eldest Son in their Royal Succession was thus brought up so soon as he was born he was deliver'd not to Women but to Eunuchs of the greatest Authority about their Kings for their Vertue whose Charge it was to keep his Body healthful and in good plight and after he came to seven Years of Age to teach him to ride and to go a Hunting when he arriv'd at fourteen he was transferr'd into the hands of four the wisest the most just the most temperate and most valiant of the Nation of which the first was to instruct him in Religion the second
reason amongst others that there is some danger lest the Friendship a Man bears to such a Woman should be immoderate for if the Conjugal Affection be full and perfect betwixt them as it ought to be and that it be over and above surcharg'd with that of Kindred too there is no doubt but such an addition will carry the Husband beyond the bounds of reason Those Sciences that regulate the manners of Men Divinity and Philosophy will have a saying to every thing There is no Action so private that can escape their Inspection and Jurisdiction but they are best taught who are best able to censure and curb their own Liberty 'T is the Women that expose their Nudities over freely upon the account of Pleasure though in the Necessities of Physick and Chirurgery they are more shy and more reserv'd I will therefore in their behalf teach the Husbands that is such as are too extravagant and sensual in the exercise of the Matrimonial Duty this Lesson that the very Pleasures they enjoy in the Society of their Wives are Reproachable if immoderate and that a Licentious and Riotous abuse of them are Faults as reproveable here as illegitimate and adulterous Practices Those immodest and Debauch'd Tricks and Postures that the first Ardour suggests to us in this Affair are not only indecently but inconveniently practis'd upon our Wives Let them at least learn impudency from another hand they are always ready enough for our Business and I for my part always went the plain way to work Marriage is a Solemn and Religious Tie and therefore the pleasure we extract from thence should be a sober and serious delight and mix with a certain kind of Gravity it should be a kind of discreet and conscientious pleasure And being that the chief end of it is Generation some make a Question whether when Men are out of hopes of that fruit as when they are superannuated or already with Child it be lawful to lie with our Wives 'T is Homicide according to Plato and certain Nations the Mahometan a mongst others Abominate all Conjunction with Women with Child and others also with those who are Unclean Zenobia would never admit her Husband for more than one Encounter after which she left him to his own swing for the whole time of her Conception and not till after that would any more receive him A brave Example of Conjugal Continency It was doubtless from some Lascivious Poet and one that himself was in great distress for a little of this sport that Plato borrowed this Story that Jupiter was one Day so hot upon his Wife that not having so much patience as till she could get to the Couch he threw her upon the Floor where the vehemency of pleasure made him forget the great and important Resolutions he had but newly taken with the rest of the Gods in his Celestial Council and to brag that he had had as good a Bout as when he got her Maidenhead unknown to their Parents The Kings of Persia were wont to invite their Wives to the beginning of their Festivals but when the Wine began to work in good earnest and that they were to give the Reins to pleasure they sent them back to their private Apartments that they might not participate of their immoderate Lust sending for other Women in their stead with whom they were not oblig'd to so great a decorum of respect All Pleasures and all sorts of Gratifications are not properly and fitly conferr'd upon all sorts of Persons Epaminondas had Committed a young Man for certain Debauches for whom Pelopidas mediated that at his request he might be set at liberty which notwithstanding the great intelligence betwixt them Epaminondas resolutely deny'd to him but granted it at the first word to a Wench of his that made the same intercession saying that it was a Gratification fit for such a one as she but not for a Captain Sophocles being joint Praetor with Pericles seeing accidentally a fine Boy pass by O what a delicate Boy is that said he I that were a Prize answered Pericles for any other than a Praetor who ought not only to have his Hands but his Eyes Chaste too Elius Verus the Emperour answered his Wife who Reproach'd him with his Love to other Women That he did it upon a Conscientious account forasmuch as Marriage was a Name of Honour and Dignity not of Wanton and Lascivious Desire And our Ecclesiastical History preserves the Memory of that Woman in great Veneration who parted from her Husband because she would not comply with his indecent and inordinate Desire In fine there is no so just and lawful pleasure wherein the Intemperance and Excess is not to be Condemn'd But to speak the truth is not Man a most miserable Creature the while It is scarce by his Natural Condition in his power to taste one Pleasure pure and entire and yet must he be contriving Doctrines and Precepts to Curtail that little he has he is not yet Wretched enough unless by Art and Study he Augment his own Misery Propert. lib. 3. Ele. 6. Fortunae miseras auximus Arte vias We with Misfortune ' gainst our selves take part And our own Miseries encrease by Art Humane Wisdom makes as ill use of her Talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those Pleasures that are naturally our due as she employs it favourably and well in Artifically disguising and tricking out the ills of Life to alleviate the Sense of them Had I rul'd the Roast I should have taken another and more natural course which to say the truth is both Commodious and Sacred and should peradventure have been able to have limited it too Notwithstanding that both our Spiritual and corporal Physicians as by compact betwixt themselves can find no other way to cure nor other Remedy for the Infirmities of the Body and the Soul than what is oft times worse than the Disease by tormenting us more and by adding to our Misery and Pain To this end Watchings Fastings Hair-shirts remote and solitary Banishments perpetual Imprisonments Whips and other Afflictions have been introduc'd amongst Men But so that they should carry a sting with them and be real Afflictions indeed and not fall out so as it once did to one Gallio who having been sent an Exile into the Isle of Lesbos news was not long after brought to Rome that he there Liv'd as Merry as the Day was long and that what had been enjoyn'd him for a Penance turn'd to his greatest Pleasure and Satisfaction Whereupon the Senate thought fit to recall him home to his Wife and Family and confine him to his own House to accommodate their Punishment to his feeling and apprehension For to him whom Fasting would make more Heathful and more Spritely and to him to whose Palate Fish were more acceptable than Flesh it would be no proper nor sanative Receipt no more than in the other sort of Physick where the Drugs
aliter manifesta putans abscondere mentis Gaudia quam Lacrymas And now he saw 'T was safe to be a Pious Father-in-Law He shed forc'd Tears and from a Joyful Breast Fetch'd Sighs and Groans conceiving Tears would best Conceal his inward Joy For though it be true that the greatest part of our Actions are no other than Vizor and Disguise and yet may sometimes be Real and True that Aulus Gelli Noct. Haeredis fletus sub persona risus est The Heirs dissembled Tears behind the Skreen Could one but peep would Joyfull smiles be seen so is it that in judging of these Accidents we are to consider how much our souls are oft-times agitated with divers Passions And as they say that in our Bodies there is a Congregation of divers Humours of which that is the Soveraign which according to the Complexion we are of is commonly most predominant in us So though the Soul have in it divers motions to give it Agitation yet must there of necessity be one to over-rule all the rest though not with so necessary and absolute a Dominion but that through the Flexibility and Inconstancy of the Soul those of less Authority may upon occasion reassume their place and make a little Sally in turn Thence it is that we see not only Children who Innocently Obey and follow Nature often Laugh and Cry at the same thing but not one of us can boast what Journey soever he may have in hand that he has the most set his Heart upon but when he comes to part with his Family and Friends he will find something that troubles him within and though he refrain his Tears yet he puts Foot i' th' Stirrup with a Sad and Cloudy Countenance and what gentle Flame soever may have warm'd the Heart of Modest and Well-Born Virgins yet are they fain to be forc'd from about their Mothers Necks to be put to Bed to their Husbands whatever this Boon Companion is pleas'd to say Catul. Num. 67. Estne novis nuptis odio Venus anne parentum Frustrantur falsis gaudia lachrymulis Ubertim Thalami quas intra limina fundunt Non ita me Divi vera gemunt juverint Does the Fair Bride the Sport so mainly Dread That she takes on so when she 's put to Bed Her Parents Joys t' allay with a feign'd Tear She does not Cry in Earnest I dare Swear Neither is it strange to lament a person whom a man would by no means should be alive When I rattle my man I do it with all the mettle I have and load him with no feign'd but downright real Curses but the heat being over if he should stand in need of me I should be very ready to do him good for I instantly turn the leaf When I call him Calf and Coxcomb I do not pretend to entail those titles upon him for ever neither do I think I give my self the lye in calling him an honest man presently after Were it not the sign of a fool to talk to ones self there would hardly be a day or hour wherein I might not be heard to grumble and mutter to my self and against my self Turd in the fools teeth and yet I do not think that to be my Character Who for seeing me one while cold and presently very kind to my Wife believes the one or the other to be counterfeited is an Ass Nero taking leave of his Mother whom he sent to be drown'd was nevertheless sensible of some emotion at this farewel and was struck with horror and Pity 'T is said that the light of the Sun is not one continuous thing but that he darts new rays so thick one upon another that we cannot perceive the intermission Lucret. l. 5. Largus enim liquidi fons luminis aethereus Sol Irrigat assidue coelum candore recenti Suppetit atque novo confestim lumine lumen For the aethereal Sun that shines so bright Being a fountain large of liquid light With fresh Rays sprinkles still the chearful Sky And with new light the light does still supply Just so the Soul variously and interceptibly darts out her Passions Artabarus surprising once his Nephew Xerxes Chid him for the sudden alteration of his Countenance As he was considering the immeasurable Greatness of his Forces passing over the Hellespont for the Grecian Expedition he was first seiz'd with a palpitation of Joy to see so many Millions of Men under his Command which also appear'd in the gayety of his Looks But his Thoughts at the same instant suggesting to him that of so many Lives once in an Age at most there would not be one left he presently Knit his Brows and grew Sad even to Tears We have resolutely pursu'd the Revenge of an Injury receiv'd and been sensible of a singular Contenement for the Victory But we shall Weep notwithstanding 't is not for the Victory though that we shall Weep there is nothing alter'd by that but the Soul looks upon things with another Eye and represents them to it self with another kind of Face for every thing has many Faces and several Aspects Relations old Acquaintance and Friendships possess our Imaginations and make them tender for the time but the Counterturn is so quick that 't is gone in a Moment Lucret. l. 3. Nil à Deo fieri celeri ratione videtur Quam si mens fieri proponit inchoat ipsa Ocius ergo animus quam res se perciet ulla Ante oculos quarum in promptu natura videtur No Motions seem so brisk and quick as those The working mind does to be done propose Which once propos'd her violent motions are Swifter than any thing we know by far And therefore while we would make one continued thing of all this succession of passion we deceive our selves When Timoleon laments the murther he had committed upon so mature and generous deliberation he does not lament the liberty restor'd to his Country he does not lament the Tyrant but he laments his Brother One part of his duty is perform'd let us give him leave to perform the other CHAP. XXXVIII Of Solitude LEt us pretermit that old comparison betwixt the active and the solitary life and as for the fine saying with which Ambition and Avarice palliate their vices That we are not born for our selves but for the publick let us boldly appeal to those who are most interested in publick affairs let them lay their hand upon their Hearts and then say whether on the contrary they do not rather aspire to Titles and Offices and that tumult of the World to make their private advantage at the publick expence But we need not ask them the question for the corrupt ways by which they arrive at the height to which their ambitions aspire does manifestly enough declare that their ends cannot be very good Let us then tell Ambition that it is she her self who gives us a taste of Solitude for what does she so much avoid as Society What does she
This Book Employment is as painful as any other and as great an Enemy to Health which ought to be the first thing in every Man's prospect neither ought a Man to be allur'd with the pleasure of it which is the same that destroys the Wary Avaritious Voluptuous and Ambitious Men. The Wise give us Caution enough to beware the Treachery of our Desires and to distinguish true and entire Pleasures from such as are mix'd and complicated with greater Pain For the greatest part of Pleasures say they Wheedle and Caress only to strangle us like those Thieves the Egyptians call'd Philiste and if the Head-Ach should come before Drunkenness we should have a care of Drinking too much but Pleasure to deceive us Marches before and conceals her Train Books are pleasant but if by being over Studious we impair our Health and spoil our good Humour two of the best pieces we have let us give it over for I for my part am one of those who think that no Fruit deriv'd from them can recompence so great a Loss As Men who feel themselves weakned by a long Series of Indisposition give themselves up at last to the Mercy of Medicine and submit to certain Rules of Living which they are for the future never to Transgress so he who Retires weary of and disgusted with the common way of Living ought to model this new One he enters into by the Rules of Reason and to Institute and Establish it by Premeditation and after the best Method he can contrive He ought to have taken leave of all sorts of Labour what advantage soever he may propose to himself by it and generally to have shaken off all those Passions which disturb the Tranquility of Body and Soul and then choose the Way that best suits with his own Humour Propert. lib. Eleg. 25. Unusquisque sua noverit ire via Every one best doth know In his own Way to go In Menagery Study Hunting and all other Exercises Men are to proceed to the utmost limits of Pleasure but must take heed of engaging further where Solitude and Trouble begin to mix We are to reserve so much Employment only as is necessary to keep us in Breath and to defend us from the Inconveniences that the other Extream of a Dull and Stupid Laziness brings along with it There are some Steril Knotty Sciences and chiefly Hammer'd out for the Crowd let such be left to them who are Engag'd in the Publick Service I for my part care for no other Books but either such as are pleasant and easie to delight me or those that comfort and instruct me how to Regulate my Life and Death Hor. Ep. 44. lib. 1. Tacitum sylvas inter reptare salubres Curantem quidquid dignum sapiente bonoque est Silently Meditating in the Groves What best a Wise and Honest Man behoves Wiser Men propose to themselves a Repose wholly Spiritual as having great force and vigour of Mind but for me who have a very ordinary Soul I find it very necessary to support my self with Bodily Conveniences and Age having of late depriv'd me of those Pleasures that were most acceptable to me I instruct and whet my Appetite to those that remain and are more suitable to this other season We ought to hold with all our force both of Hands and Teeth the use of the Pleasures of Life that our Years one after another snatch away from us Persius Sat. 5. Carpamus dulcia nostrum est Quod vivis cinis manes fabula fies Let us enjoy Life's Sweets for shortly we Ashes Pale Ghost's and Fables all shall be Now as to the End that Pliny and Cicero propose to us of Glory 't is infinitely wide of my account for Ambition is of all other the most contrary Humour to Solitude and Glory and Repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly Inhabit in one and the same place and for so much as I understand those have only their Arms and Legs disingag'd from the Crowd their Mind and Intention remain engag'd behind more than ever Perseus Sat. 1. Tun ' vetule auriculis alienis colligis escas Dost thou Old Dotard at these Years Gather fine Tales for others Ears They are only Retir'd to take a better Leap and by a stronger Motion to give a brisker Charge into the Crowd Will you see how they shoot short Let us put into the Counterpoise the Advice of two Philosophers of two very different Sects Writing the one to Idomeneus the other to Lucilius their Friends to Retire into Solitude from Worldly Honours and the Administration of Publick Affairs You have say they hitherto Liv'd Swimming and Floating come now and Die in the Harbour You have given the first part of your Life to the Light give what remains to the Shade It is impossible to give over Business if you do not also quit the Fruit and therefore disengage your selves from all the Concerns of Name and Glory 'T is to be fear'd the Lustre of your former Actions will give you but too much Light and follow you into your most private and most obscure Retreat Quit with other Pleasures that which proceeds from the Approbation of another And as to your Knowledge and Parts never concern your selves they will not lose their effect if your selves be ever the better for them Remember him who being ask'd why he took so much Pains in an Art that could come to the Knowledge of but few Persons A few are enough for me reply'd he I have enough of one I have enough of never a one He said true you and a Companion are Theatre enough to one another or you to your self Let us be to you the whole People and the whole People to you but one 'T is an unworthy Ambition to think to derive Glory from a Man's Sloath and Privacy You are to do like the Beasts of Chace who put out the Track at the entrance into their Den. You are no more to concern your self how the World talks of you but how you are to talk to your self Retire your self into your self but first prepare your self there to receive your self It were a folly to trust your self in your own Hands if you cannot Govern your self a Man may as well miscarry alone as in Company till you have rendred your self as such as before whom you dare not Trip and till you have a Bashfulness and Respect for your self Observantur species honestae animo Cicero Tusc Quaest 1 2. Let just and honest things be still Represented to the Mind Present continually to you Imagination Cato Phocion and Aristides in whose presence the Fools themselves will hide their Faults and make them Controulers of all your Intentions Should they deviate from Vertue your Respect to them will again set you right they will keep you in the way of being Contented with your self to Borrow nothing of any other but your self to restrain and fix your Soul in certain and limited Thoughts wherein
Advantage But it may peradventure be Objected against me Your Rule is true enough as to what concerns Death But what will you say of Necessity What will you moreover say of Pain that Aristippus Hieronymus and almost all the Wise Men have reputed the worst of Evils And those who have deny d it by Word of Mouth did however confess it in Effects Possidonius being extreamly Tormented with a Sharp and painful Disease Pompeius came to Visit him excusing himself that he had taken so unseasonable a time to come to hear him discourse of Philosophy God forbid said Possidonius to him again that Pain should ever have the power to hinder me from talking and thereupon fell immediately upon a discourse of the Contempt of Pain But in the mean time his own Infirmity was playing its part and plagu'd him to the purpose to which he Cry'd out thou may'st work thy Will Pain and Torment me with all the power thou hast but thou shalt never make me say that thou art an Evil. This Story that they make such a Clutter withal what is there in it I fain would know to the Contempt of Pain It only Fights it with Words and in the mean time if the Shootings and Dolours he felt did not move him why did he interrupt his Discourse Why did he fancy he did so great a thing in forbearing to confess it an Evil All does not here consist in the Imagination our Fancies may work upon other things But this here is a certain Science that is playing its part of which our Senses themselves are judge Luc. l. 4. Qui nisi sunt veri ratio quoque falsa sit omnis Which if it be not here most true Reason it self must be false too Shall we perswade our Skins that the Jerks of a Whip tickle us Or our Taste that a Potion of Aloes is Graves Wine Pyrrho's Hog is here in the same Predicament with us he is not aâ—raid of Death 't is true but if you Beat him he will Cry out to some purpose Shall we force the general Law of Nature which in every Living Creature under Heaven is seen to Tremble under Pain The very Trees seem to Groan under the Blows they receive Death is only felt by Discourse forasmuch as it is the motion of an instant Ovid. Epist Ariad. Aut suit aut veniet nihil est praesentis in illa Morsque minus poenae quam mora mortis habet Death 's always past or coming on in this There never any thing of present is And the delays of Death more painful are Than Death it self and Dying is by far A Thousand Beasts a Thousand Men are sooner Dead than Threatned That also which we principally pretend to Fear in Death is Pain the ordinary fore-runner of it Yet if we may believe a Holy Father Malam mortem non facit nisi quod sequitur mortem Nothing makes Death Evil but what follows it And I should yet say more probably that neither that which goes before nor that which follows after are at all the appendants of Death We excuse our selves safely And I find by experience that it is rather the impatience of the Imagination of Death that makes us impatient of Pain and that we find it doubly grievous as it Threatens us with Death But reason accusing our Cowardice for fearing a thing so sudden so inevitable and so insensible we take the other as the more excusable pretence All ills that carry no other danger along with them but simply the Evils themselves we despise as things of no danger The Tooth-Ach or the Gout as painful as they are being yet not reputed Mortal who reckons them in the Catalogue of Diseases But let us presuppose that in Death we principally regard the Pain as also there is nothing to be fear'd in Poverty but the Miseries it brings along with it of Thrist Hunger Cold Heat Watching and the other Inconveniencies it makes us suffer yet still we have nothing to do with any thing but Pain I will grant and very willingly that it is the worst Accident of our Being for I am the Man upon Earth that the most Hates and avoids it considering that hitherto I thank God I have had so little Traffick with it but still it is in us if not to annihilate at least to lessen it by Patience and though the Body should Mutiny to Maintain the Soul nevertheless in a good Temper And were it not so who had ever given Reputation to Vertue Valour Force Magnanimity and Resolution where were their parts to be plaid if there were no pain to be Defi'd Seneca Avida est periculi virtus Vertue is greedy of danger Were there no lying upon the hard ground no enduring arm'd at all pieces the Meridional Heats no feeding upon the flesh of Horses and Asses no seeing a Man's self hack'd and hew'd to pieces no suffering a Bullet to be pull'd out from amongst the shatter'd Bones the stitching up cauterising and searching of Wounds by what means were the advantage we covet to have over the Vulgar to be acquir'd 'T is far from flying Evil and Pain what the Sages say that of Actions equally good a Man should most covet to perform that wherein there is greater Labour and Pain Non est enim hilaritate Cicero de fin l. 2. neck lascivia nec risu aut joco comite levitatis sed saepe etiam tristes firmitate constantia sunt beati For Men are not only happy by Mirth and Wantonness neither by Laughter and Jesting the Companion of Levity But oft-times the Graver and more Melancholick sort of Men reap Felicity from their Steadiness and Constancy And for this reason it has ever been impossible to perswade our Fore-fathers but that the Victories obtain'd by dint of Force and the hazard of War were still more Honourable than those perform'd in great Security by Stratagem or Practice Luc. lib. 9. Laetius est quoties magno sibi constat honestum A handsome Act more handsome does appear By how much more it cost the doer dear Besides this ought to be our comfort that naturally if the Pain be violent 't is but short and if long nothing violent Si gravis Cicero brevis si longus levis Thou wilt not feel it long if thou feel'st it too much it will either put an end to it self or to thee if thou canst not support it it will export thee Memineris maximos morte finiri Cloero de fin parvos multa habere intervalla requietis mediocrium nos esse dominos ut si tolerabiles sint feramus sin minus è vita quum ea non placeat tanquam è theatro exeamus Remember that great ones are terminated by Death that small have long Intermissions of Repose and that we are Masters of the moderate sort so that if tolerable we may bear them if not we can go out of Life as from a Theatre where the Entertainment
does not please us that which makes us suffer Pain with so much Impatience is the not being accustomed to repose our chiefest Contentment in the Soul that we do not enough relie upon her who is the sole and soveraign Mistress of our Condition The Body saving in greater or less proportion has but one and the same Bent and Biass whereas the Soul is variable into all sorts of forms and subjects to her self and to her own Empire all things whatsoever both the Senses of the Body and all other Accidents and therefore it is that we ought to study her to enquire into her and to rowse up all her powerful Faculties There is neither Reason Form nor Prescription that can any thing prevail against her Inclination and Choice of so many Thousands of Biasses that she has at her disposal let us give her one proper to our repose and conservation and then we shall not only be shelter'd and secur'd from all manner of Injury and Offence but moreover gratified and oblig'd if we will with Evils and Offences She makes her profit indifferently of all things Errour and Dreams serve her to good use as a Loyal matter to Lodge us in Safety and Contentment 'T is plain enough to be seen that 't is the sharpness of our Conceit that gives the Edge to our Pains and Pleasures Beasts that have no such thing leave to their Bodies their own free and natural Sentiments and consequently in every kind very near the same as appears by the resembling Application of their Motions If we would not disturb in our Members the Jurisdiction that appertains to them in this 't is to be believed it would be the better for us and that Nature has given them a just and moderate Temper both to Pleasure and Pain neither can it fail of being Just being Equal and Common But seeing we have Enfranchis'd our selves from these Rules to give our selves up to the rambling Liberty of our own Fancies let us at least help to encline them to the most agreeable side Plato fears our too vehemently engaging our selves with Grief and Pleasure forasmuch as these too much Knit and Ally the Soul to the Body whereas I rather quite contrary by reason it too much separates and disunites them As an Enemy is made more Fierce by our Flight so Pain grows Proud to see us Truckle under it She will surrender upon much better Terms to them who make Head against her A Man must oppose and stoutly set himself against it In retiring and giving ground we invite and pull upon our selves the Ruine that Threatens us As the Body is more firm in an Encounter the more stiffly and obstinately it applys it self to it so is it with the Soul But let us come to Examples which are the proper Commodity for Fellows of such feeble Reins as my self where we shall find that it is with Pain as with Stones that receive a more spritely or a more languishing Lustre according to the Foil they are set upon that it has no more room in us than we are pleas'd to allow it Tantum doluerunt Aug. de Civit Dei quantùm doloribus se inseruerunt They Griev'd so much the more by how much they set themselves to Grieve We are more sensible of one little touch of a Chirurgeon's Lancet than of Twenty Wounds with a Sword in the heat of Fight The Pains of Child-bearing said by the Physician and by God himself to be very great and which our Women keep so great a Clutter about there are whole Nations that make nothing of it To say nothing of the Lacedaemonian Women what alteration can you see in our Switzers Wives of the Guard saving as they trot after their Husbands you see them to Day with the Child hanging at their Backs that they carried yesterday in their Bellies And the counterfeit Gipsies we have amongst us go themselves to Wash their's so soon as they come into the World in the first River they meet Besides so many Where 's as Daily steal their Children out of their Womb as before they stole them in that fair and noble Wife of Sabinus a Patrician of Rome for anothers interest alone without help without crying out or so much as a Groan endur'd the Bearing of Two Twins a poor simple Boy of Lacedaemon having stole a Fox for they more fear the Shame of their Knavery in stealing than we do the Punishment of our Knavery and having got him under his Coat did rather endure the tearing out of his Bowels than he would discover his Theft And another Cursing at a Sacrifice suffer'd himself to be Burnt to the Bone by a Coal that fell into his Sleeve rather than disturb the Ceremony And there have been a great Number for a sole Trial of Vertue following their instruction who have at Seven Years old endur'd to be Whipt to Death without changing their Countenance And Cicero has seen them Fight in Parties with Fists Feet and Teeth till they have fainted and sunk down rather than confess themselves overcome Custom would never Conquer Nature for she is ever invincible but we have infected the Mind with Shadows Delights Wantonness Negligence and Sloath and with vain Opinions and corrupt Manners render'd it Effeminate and Mean Every one knows the Story of Scaevola that being slipt into the Enemies Camp to Kill their General and having miss'd his Blow to repair his fault by a more strange Invention and to deliver his Country he boldly confess'd to Porsenna who was the King he had a purpose to Kill not only his design but moreover added That there were then in his Camp a great Number of Romans his Complices in the Enterprize as good Men as he and to shew what a one he himself was having caus'd a Pan of Burning Coals to be brought he saw and endur'd his Arm to Broil and Roast till the King himself conceiving Horrour at the sight commanded the Pan to be taken away What would you say of him that would not vouchsafe to respite his Reading in a Book whilst he was under Incision And of the other that persisted to Mock and Laugh in Contempt of the Pains inflicted upon him so that the provok'd Cruelty of the Executioners that had him in handling and all the Inventions of Tortures redoubled upon him one after another spent in vain gave him the Bucklers But he was a Philosopher What! a Fencer of Caesar's Endur'd and Laughing all the while Cicero Tusc l. 2. his Wounds to be search'd Launc'd and laid open Quis mediocris gladiator ingemuit Quis vultum mutavit unquam Quis non modo stetit verum etiam decubuit turpiter Quis cum decubuisset ferrum recipere jussus collum contraxit What mean Fencer ever so much as gave a Groan Which of them ever so much as chang'd his Countenance Which of them standing or falling did either with Shame Which of them when he was down and commanded to receive the Blow of
him and the main stress of the Battel hapned to be in that place which made the Lords that were with him finding themselves overmatcht to send to King Edward that he would please to advance to their Relief who thereupon enquiring of the condition his Son was in and being answered that he was yet living and on Horse-back I should then do him wrong said the King now to go and deprive him of the honour of winning this Battel he has so long and so bravely disputed what hazard soever he runs it shall be entirely his own and accordingly would neither go nor send knowing that if he went it would be said all had been lost without his succour and that the honour of the Victory would be wholly attributed to him Semper enim quod postremum adjectum est id rem totam videtur traxisse For the last st roak to a business seems to draw along with it the performance of the whole action Many at Rome thought and would usually say that the greatest of Scipio's Acts were in part due to Lelius whose constant practice it was still to advance and Shoulder Scipio's Grandeur and Renown without any care of his own And Theopompus King of Sparta to him who told him the Republick could not miscarry since he knew so well how to Command 'T is rather answered he because the people know so well how to Obey As Women succeeding to Peerages had notwithstanding their Sex the privilege to assist and give in their Votes in the Causes that appertained to the Jurisdiction of Peers So the Ecclesiastical Peers notwithstanding their prosession were obliged to assist our Kings in their Wars not only with their Friends and Servants but in their own Persons As the Bishop of Beauvais did who being with Philip Augustus at the Battle of Bouvines had a notable share in that action but he did not think it fit for him to participate in the Fruit and Glory of that Violent and Bloody Trade He with his own Hand reduc'd several of the Enemy that Day to his Mercy whom he delivered to the first Gentleman he met either to Kill or receive them to Quarter referring the execution to another hand As also did William Earl of Salisbury to Messire Jean de Nesle with a like subtlety of Conscience to the other we named before he would Kill but not wound him and for that reason never Fought with a Mace And a certain person of my time being reproacht by the King that he had laid hands on a Priest stiffly and positively deny'd he had done any such thing the meaning of which was he had Cudgell'd and Kick'd him CHAP. XLII Of the Inequality amongst us PLutarch says somewhere that he does not find so great a difference betwixt Beast and Beast as he does betwixt Man and Man Which is said in reference to the internal Qualities and Perfections of the Soul And in truth I find according to my poor Judgment so vast a distance betwixt Epaminondas and some that I know who are yet Men of common sense that I could willingly enhance upon Plutarch and say that there is more difference betwixt such and such a Man than there is betwixt such â— Man and such a Beast Ter. For. Act. 5. Sc. 3. Hem vir viro quid praestat How much alass One man another doth surpass And that there are as many and innumerable degrees of Wits as there are Cubits betwixt this and Heaven But as touching the Estimate of Men 't is strange that our selves excepted no other Creature is esteem'd beyond its proper Qualities We commend a Horse for his Strength and sureness of Foot Juvenal Sat. 8. Volucrem Sic laudamus equum facili cui plurima palma Fervet exultat rauco victoria circo So we commend the Horse for being fleet Who many Palms by Breath and Speed does get And which the Trumpets in the Circle grace With their hoarse Levets for his well run Race and not for his Rich Comparisons a Greyhound for his share of Heels not for his fine Collar a Hawk for her Wing not for her Gesses and Bells Why in like manner do we not value a Man for what is properly his own He has a great Train a beautiful Palace so much Credit so many Thousand Pounds a Year and all these are about him but not in him You will not buy a Pig in a Poke if you cheapen a Horse you will see him stript of his Housing-cloaths you will see him naked and open to your Eye or if he be Cloath'd as they anciently were wont to present them to Princes to Sell 't is only on the less important parts that you may not so much consider the beauty of his Colour or the breadth of his Crupper as principally to examine his Limbs Eyes and Feet which are the Members of greatest use Hor. lib. 1. Sat. 2. Regibus hic mos est ubi equos mercantur opertos Suspiciunt ne si facies ut saepe decora Molli fulta pede est emptorem inducat hiantem Quod pulchrae clunes breve quod caput ardua cervix When Kings Steeds Cloath'd as 't is their manner Buy They straight examine very Curiously Lest a short Head a thin and well rais'd Crest A broad spread Buttock and an ample Chest Should all be propt with an old beaten Hoof To gull the Buyer when they come to proof Why in giving your Estimate of a Man do you Prize him wrapt and muffled up in Cloaths He then discovers nothing to you but such parts as are not in the least his own and conceals those by which alone one may rightly judge of his Value 'T is the price of the Blade that you enquire into and not of the Scabbard You would not peradventure bid a Farthing for him if you saw him stripp'd You are to judge him by himself and not by what he wears And as one of the Ancients very pleasantly said Do you know why you repute him Tall You reckon withal the heighth of his Chepines whereas the Pedestal is no part of the Statue Measure him without his Stilts let him lay aside his Revenues and his Titles let him present himself in his Shirt then examine if his Body be sound and spritely active and dispos'd to perform its Functions What Soul has he Is it Beautiful capable and happily provided of all her Faculties Is she Rich of what is her own or of what she has Borrowed Has Fortune no hand in the Affair Can she without winking stand the lightning of Swords is she indifferent whether her Life expire by the Mouth or through the Throat Is she Settled Even and Content This is what is to be examin'd and by that you are to judge of the vast differences betwixt Man and Man Is he H. Lib. 2. Sat. 7. Sapiens sibique imperiosus Quem neque pauperies neque mors neque vincula terrent Responsare cupidinibus contemnere honores Fortis in
am I now of an Age to be Reproach'd that I go out of the World too soon And yet he was but Eight and Forty Years Old He thought that to be a mature and competent Age considering how few arrive unto it and such as soothing their Thoughts with I know not what course of Nature promise to themselves some Years beyond it could they be privileg'd from the infinite number of Accidents to which we are by natural subjection expos'd might have some Reason so to do What an Idle Conceit it is to expect to Die of a decay of Strength which is the last of effects of the extreamest Age and to propose to our selves no shorter lease of Life than that considering it is a kind of Death of all others the most rare and very hardly seen We call that only a Natural Death as if it were contrary to Nature â—o see a Man break his Neck with a Fall be Drown'd in Shipwrack at Sea or snatch'd away with a Pleurisie or the Plague and as if our ordinary condition of Life did not expose us to these Inconveniences Let us no more flatter our selves with these fine sounding Words We ought rather at a venture to call that Natural which is Common and Universal To Die of Old Age is a Death rare extraordinary and singular and therefore so much less Natural than the others 'T is the last and extreamest sort of Dying And the more remote the less to be hop'd for It is indeed the Boundary of Life beyond which we are not to pass Which the Law of Nature has pitch'd for a 〈◊〉 not to be exceeded But it is withal a Privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then 'T is a Lease she only Signs by particular favour and it may be to one only in the space of two or three Ages and then with a Pass to boot to carry him through all the Traverses and Difficulties she has strew'd in the way of this long Carreer And therefore my Opinion is that when once Forty Years Old we should consider it as an Age to which very few arrive For seeing that Men do not usually proceed so far it is a fign that we are pretty well advanc'd and since we have exceeded the ordinary Bounds which make the just measure of Life we ought not to expect to go much further having escap'd so many Precipices of Death whereinto we have seen so many other Men to fall we should acknowledge that so extraordinary a Fortune as that which has hitherto rescu'd us from those imminent Perils and 〈◊〉 us alive beyond the ordinary term of Living is not likely to continue long 'T is a fault in our very Laws to maintain this Errour That a Man is not capable of managing his own Estate till he be Five and Twenty Years Old whereas he will have much ado to manage his Life so long Augustus cut off Five Years from the Ancient Roman Standard and declar'd that Thirty Years Old was sufficient for a Judge Sâ—â—vius Tullius superseded the Knights of above Seven and Forty Years of Age from the Fatigues of War Augustus dismiss'd them at Forty Five Though methinks it seems a little unlikely that Men should be sent to the Fire-side till Five and Fifty or Sixty Years of Age. I should be of Opinion that both our Vacancy and Employment should be as far as possible extended for the Publick Good But I find the fault on the other side that they do not employ us Early enough This Emperour was arbiter of the whole World at Nineteen and yet would have a Man to be Thirty before he could be fit to bear Office in the Common-wealth For my part I believe our Souls are Adult at Twenty such as they are ever like to be and as capable then as ever A Soul that has not by that time given evident earnest of its Force and Vertue will never after come to proof Natural Parts and Excellencies produce that they have of Vigorous and Fine within that Term or never Of all the great Humane Actions I ever Heard or Read of of what sort soever I have Observ'd both in former Ages and 〈◊〉 own more perform'd before the Age of Thirty than after And oft times in the very Lives of the same Men. May I not confidently instance in those of Hannibal and his great concurrent Scipio The better half of their Lives they Liv'd upon the Glory they had acquir'd in their Youth great Men after 't is true in comparison of others but by no means in comparison of themselves As to my own particular I do certainly believe that since that Age both my Understanding and my Constitution have rather decay'd than improv'd and retir'd rather than advanc'd T is possible that with those who make the best use of their Time Knowledge and Experience may grow up and encrease with their Years but the Vivacity Quickness and Steadiness and other pieces of us of much greater Importance and much more Essentially our own Languish and Decay Lucret. l. 3. Ubi jam validis quassatum est aevi viribus Corpus obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus Claudicat ingenium delirat linguaque mensque When once the Body 's shaken by Time's Rage The Blood and Vigour Ebbing into Age The Judgment then Halts upon either Hip The Mind does Doat Tongue into Nonsense Trip. Sometimes the Body first submits to Age sometimes the Soul and I have seen enow who have got a Weakness in their Brains before either in their Hams or Stomach And by how much the more it is a Disease of no great pain to the infected Party and of obscure Symptoms so much greater the danger is And for this reason it is that I complain of our Laws not that they keep us too long to our Work but that they set us to work too late For the Frailty of Life consider'd and to how many Natural and Accidental Rubs it is Obnoxious and Expos'd Birth though Noble ought not to share so large a Vacancy and so tedious a course of Education The End of the First Book Books Printed for and Sold by MATTHEW GILLYFLOWER at the Spread-Eagle in Westminster-Hall FOLIO's CAbbala or Mysteries of State and Government In Letters of Illustrious Persons in the Reigns of Henry the VIII Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles The Third Edition with large Additions The Compleat Gard'ner or Directions for the right Ordering of Fruit-gardens and Kitchin-gardens with the Culture of Oranges and Melons Made English by John Evelyn Esq The compleat Horseman discovering the surest Marks of the Beauty Goodness Faults and Imperfections of Horses with the Signs and Causes of their Diseases the true Method both of their Preservation and Cure with the regular Use of Bleeding and Purging Also the Art of Shooing Breeding and Backing of Colts with a Supplement of Riding By the Sieur de Solleysell Querry to the French King Made English from the 8th Edition by Sir John Hope