ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 13. 

XXXII. Defence of Seneca and Plutarch. XXXIII. The story of Spurina. XXXIV. Means to carry on a war according to Julius Caesar. XXXV. Of three good women. XXXVI. Of the most excellent men. XXXVII. Of the resemblance of children to their fathers. 

CHAPTER XXXII

DEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARCH

The familiarity I have with these two authors, and the assistance theyhave lent to my age and to my book, wholly compiled of what I haveborrowed from them, oblige me to stand up for their honour. 

As to Seneca, amongst a million of little pamphlets that those of theso-called reformed religion disperse abroad for the defence of their cause(and which sometimes proceed from so good a hand, that 'tis pity his penis not employed in a better subject), I have formerly seen one, that tomake up the parallel he would fain find out betwixt the government of ourlate poor King Charles IX. And that of Nero, compares the late Cardinalof Lorraine with Seneca; their fortunes, in having both of them been theprime ministers in the government of their princes, and in their manners, conditions, and deportments to have been very near alike. Wherein, in myopinion, he does the said cardinal a very great honour; for though I amone of those who have a very high esteem for his wit, eloquence, and zealto religion and the service of his king, and his good fortune to havelived in an age wherein it was so novel, so rare, and also so necessaryfor the public good to have an ecclesiastical person of such high birthand dignity, and so sufficient and capable of his place; yet, to confessthe truth, I do not think his capacity by many degrees near to the other, nor his virtue either so clean, entire, or steady as that of Seneca. 

Now the book whereof I speak, to bring about its design, gives a veryinjurious description of Seneca, having borrowed its approaches from Dionthe historian, whose testimony I do not at all believe for besides thathe is inconsistent, that after having called Seneca one while very wise, and again a mortal enemy to Nero's vices, makes him elsewhere avaricious, an usurer, ambitious, effeminate, voluptuous, and a false pretender tophilosophy, his virtue appears so vivid and vigorous in his writings, andhis vindication is so clear from any of these imputations, as of hisriches and extraordinarily expensive way of living, that I cannot believeany testimony to the contrary. And besides, it is much more reasonableto believe the Roman historians in such things than Greeks andforeigners. Now Tacitus and the rest speak very honourably both of hislife and death; and represent him to us a very excellent and virtuousperson in all things; and I will allege no other reproach against Dion'sreport but this, which I cannot avoid, namely, that he has so weak ajudgment in the Roman affairs, that he dares to maintain Julius Caesar'scause against Pompey [And so does this editor. D. W. ], and that of Antonyagainst Cicero. 

Let us now come to Plutarch: Jean Bodin is a good author of our times, and a writer of much greater judgment than the rout of scribblers of hisage, and who deserves to be read and considered. I find him, though, alittle bold in this passage of his Method of history, where he accusesPlutarch not only of ignorance (wherein I would have let him alone: forthat is beyond my criticism), but that he "often writes thingsincredible, and absolutely fabulous ": these are his own words. If hehad simply said, that he had delivered things otherwise than they reallyare, it had been no great reproach; for what we have not seen, we areforced to receive from other hands, and take upon trust, and I see thathe purposely sometimes variously relates the same story; as the judgmentof the three best captains that ever were, given by Hannibal; 'tis oneway in the Life of Flammius, and another in that of Pyrrhus. But tocharge him with having taken incredible and impossible things for currentpay, is to accuse the most judicious author in the world of want ofjudgment. And this is his example; "as, " says he, "when he relates thata Lacedaemonian boy suffered his bowels to be torn out by a fox-cub hehad stolen, and kept it still concealed under his coat till he fell downdead, rather than he would discover his theft. " I find, in the firstplace, this example ill chosen, forasmuch as it is very hard to limit thepower of the faculties of--the soul, whereas we have better authority tolimit and know the force of the bodily limbs; and therefore, if I hadbeen he, I should rather have chosen an example of this second sort; andthere are some of these less credible: and amongst others, that which herefates of Pyrrhus, that "all wounded as he was, he struck one of hisenemies, who was armed from head to foot, so great a blow with his sword, that he clave him down from his crown to his seat, so that the body wasdivided into two parts. " In this example I find no great miracle, nor doI admit the excuse with which he defends Plutarch, in having added thesewords, "as 'tis said, " to suspend our belief; for unless it be in thingsreceived by authority, and the reverence to antiquity or religion, hewould never have himself admitted, or enjoined us to believe thingsincredible in themselves; and that these words, "as 'tis said, " are notput in this place to that effect, is easy to be seen, because heelsewhere relates to us, upon this subject, of the patience of theLacedaemonian children, examples happening in his time, more unlikely toprevail upon our faith; as what Cicero has also testified before him, ashaving, as he says, been upon the spot: that even to their times therewere children found who, in the trial of patience they were put to beforethe altar of Diana, suffered themselves to be there whipped till theblood ran down all over their bodies, not only without crying out, butwithout so much as a groan, and some till they there voluntarily losttheir lives: and that which Plutarch also, amongst a hundred otherwitnesses, relates, that at a sacrifice, a burning coal having falleninto the sleeve of a Lacedaemonian boy, as he was censing, he sufferedhis whole arm to be burned, till the smell of the broiling flesh wasperceived by those present. There was nothing, according to theircustom, wherein their reputation was more concerned, nor for which theywere to undergo more blame and disgrace, than in being taken in theft. I am so fully satisfied of the greatness of those people, that this storydoes not only not appear to me, as to Bodin, incredible; but I do notfind it so much as rare and strange. The Spartan history is full of athousand more cruel and rare examples; and is; indeed, all miracle inthis respect. 

Marcellinus, concerning theft, reports that in his time there was no sortof torments which could compel the Egyptians, when taken in this act, though a people very much addicted to it, so much as to tell their name. 

A Spanish peasant, being put to the rack as to the accomplices of themurder of the Praetor Lucius Piso, cried out in the height of thetorment, "that his friends should not leave him, but look on in allassurance, and that no pain had the power to force from him one word ofconfession, " which was all they could get the first day. The next day, as they were leading him a second time to another trial, stronglydisengaging himself from the hands of his guards, he furiously ran hishead against a wall, and beat out his brains. 

Epicharis, having tired and glutted the cruelty of Nero's satellites, andundergone their fire, their beating, their racks, a whole day together, without one syllable of confession of her conspiracy; being the next daybrought again to the rack, with her limbs almost torn to pieces, conveyedthe lace of her robe with a running noose over one of the arms of herchair, and suddenly slipping her head into it, with the weight of her ownbody hanged herself. Having the courage to die in that manner, is it notto be presumed that she purposely lent her life to the trial of herfortitude the day before, to mock the tyrant, and encourage others to thelike attempt?

And whoever will inquire of our troopers the experiences they have had inour civil wars, will find effects of patience and obstinate resolution inthis miserable age of ours, and amongst this rabble even more effeminatethan the Egyptians, worthy to be compared with those we have just relatedof the Spartan virtue. 

I know there have been simple peasants amongst us who have endured thesoles of their feet to be broiled upon a gridiron, their finger-ends tobe crushed with the cock of a pistol, and their bloody eyes squeezed outof their heads by force of a cord twisted about their brows, before theywould so much as consent to a ransom. I have seen one left stark nakedfor dead in a ditch, his neck black and swollen, with a halter yet aboutit with which they had dragged him all night at a horse's tail, his bodywounded in a hundred places, with stabs of daggers that had been givenhim, not to kill him, but to put him to pain and to affright him, who hadendured all this, and even to being speechless and insensible, resolved, as he himself told me, rather to die a thousand deaths (as indeed, as tomatter of suffering, he had borne one) before he would promise anything;and yet he was one of the richest husbandmen of all the country. Howmany have been seen patiently to suffer themselves to be burnt androasted for opinions taken upon trust from others, and by them not at allunderstood? I have known a hundred and a hundred women (for Gascony hasa certain prerogative for obstinacy) whom you might sooner have made eatfire than forsake an opinion they had conceived in anger. They are allthe more exasperated by blows and constraint. And he that made the storyof the woman who, in defiance of all correction, threats, andbastinadoes, ceased not to call her husband lousy knave, and who beingplunged over head and ears in water, yet lifted her hands above her headand made a sign of cracking lice, feigned a tale of which, in truth, weevery day see a manifest image in the obstinacy of women. And obstinacyis the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability. 

We are not to judge what is possible and what is not, according to whatis credible and incredible to our apprehension, as I have said elsewhereand it is a great fault, and yet one that most men are guilty of, which, nevertheless, I do not mention with any reflection upon Bodin, to make adifficulty of believing that in another which they could not or would notdo themselves. Every one thinks that the sovereign stamp of human natureis imprinted in him, and that from it all others must take their rule;and that all proceedings which are not like his are feigned and false. Is anything of another's actions or faculties proposed to him? the firstthing he calls to the consultation of his judgment is his own example;and as matters go with him, so they must of necessity do with all theworld besides dangerous and intolerable folly! For my part, I considersome men as infinitely beyond me, especially amongst the ancients, andyet, though I clearly discern my inability to come near them by athousand paces, I do not forbear to keep them in sight, and to judge ofwhat so elevates them, of which I perceive some seeds in myself, as Ialso do of the extreme meanness of some other minds, which I neither amastonished at nor yet misbelieve. I very well perceive the turns thosegreat souls take to raise themselves to such a pitch, and admire theirgrandeur; and those flights that I think the bravest I could be glad toimitate; where, though I want wing, yet my judgment readily goes alongwith them. The other example he introduces of "things incredible andwholly fabulous, " delivered by Plutarch, is, that "Agesilaus was fined bythe Ephori for having wholly engrossed the hearts and affections of hiscitizens to himself alone. " And herein I do not see what sign of falsityis to be found: clearly Plutarch speaks of things that must needs bebetter known to him than to us; and it was no new thing in Greece to seemen punished and exiled for this very thing, for being too acceptable tothe people; witness the Ostracism and Petalism. --[Ostracism at Athenswas banishment for ten years; petalism at Syracuse was banishment forfive years. ]

There is yet in this place another accusation laid against Plutarch whichI cannot well digest, where Bodin says that he has sincerely paralleledRomans with Romans, and Greeks amongst themselves, but not Romans withGreeks; witness, says he, Demosthenes and Cicero, Cato and Aristides, Sylla and Lysander, Marcellus and Pelopidas, Pompey and Agesilaus, holding that he has favoured the Greeks in giving them so unequalcompanions. This is really to attack what in Plutarch is most excellentand most to be commended; for in his parallels (which is the mostadmirable part of all his works, and with which, in my opinion, he ishimself the most pleased) the fidelity and sincerity of his judgmentsequal their depth and weight; he is a philosopher who teaches us virtue. Let us see whether we cannot defend him from this reproach of falsity andprevarication. All that I can imagine could give occasion to thiscensure is the great and shining lustre of the Roman names which we havein our minds; it does not seem likely to us that Demosthenes could rivalthe glory of a consul, proconsul, and proctor of that great Republic; butif a man consider the truth of the thing, and the men in themselves, which is Plutarch's chiefest aim, and will rather balance their manners, their natures, and parts, than their fortunes, I think, contrary toBodin, that Cicero and the elder Cato come far short of the men with whomthey are compared. I should sooner, for his purpose, have chosen theexample of the younger Cato compared with Phocion, for in this couplethere would have been a more likely disparity, to the Roman's advantage. As to Marcellus, Sylla, and Pompey, I very well discern that theirexploits of war are greater and more full of pomp and glory than those ofthe Greeks, whom Plutarch compares with them; but the bravest and mostvirtuous actions any more in war than elsewhere, are not always the mostrenowned. I often see the names of captains obscured by the splendour ofother names of less desert; witness Labienus, Ventidius, Telesinus, andseveral others. And to take it by that, were I to complain on the behalfof the Greeks, could I not say, that Camillus was much less comparable toThemistocles, the Gracchi to Agis and Cleomenes, and Numa to Lycurgus?But 'tis folly to judge, at one view, of things that have so manyaspects. When Plutarch compares them, he does not, for all that, makethem equal; who could more learnedly and sincerely have marked theirdistinctions? Does he parallel the victories, feats of arms, the forceof the armies conducted by Pompey, and his triumphs, with those ofAgesilaus? "I do not believe, " says he, "that Xenophon himself, if hewere now living, though he were allowed to write whatever pleased him tothe advantage of Agesilaus, would dare to bring them into comparison. "Does he speak of paralleling Lysander to Sylla. "There is, " says he, "no comparison, either in the number of victories or in the hazard ofbattles, for Lysander only gained two naval battles. " This is not toderogate from the Romans; for having only simply named them with theGreeks, he can have done them no injury, what disparity soever there maybe betwixt them and Plutarch does not entirely oppose them to oneanother; there is no preference in general; he only compares the piecesand circumstances one after another, and gives of every one a particularand separate judgment. Wherefore, if any one could convict him ofpartiality, he ought to pick out some one of those particular judgments, or say, in general, that he was mistaken in comparing such a Greek tosuch a Roman, when there were others more fit and better resembling toparallel him to. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE STORY OF SPURINA

Philosophy thinks she has not ill employed her talent when she has giventhe sovereignty of the soul and the authority of restraining ourappetites to reason. Amongst which, they who judge that there is nonemore violent than those which spring from love, have this opinion also, that they seize both body and soul, and possess the whole man, so thateven health itself depends upon them, and medicine is sometimesconstrained to pimp for them; but one might, on the contrary, also say, that the mixture of the body brings an abatement and weakening; for suchdesires are subject to satiety, and capable of material remedies. 

Many, being determined to rid their soul from the continual alarms ofthis appetite, have made use of incision and amputation of the rebellingmembers; others have subdued their force and ardour by the frequentapplication of cold things, as snow and vinegar. The sackcloths of ourancestors were for this purpose, which is cloth woven of horse hair, ofwhich some of them made shirts, and others girdles, to torture andcorrect their reins. A prince, not long ago, told me that in his youthupon a solemn festival in the court of King Francis I. , where everybodywas finely dressed, he would needs put on his father's hair shirt, whichwas still kept in the house; but how great soever his devotion was, hehad not patience to wear it till night, and was sick a long time after;adding withal, that he did not think there could be any youthful heat sofierce that the use of this recipe would not mortify, and yet perhaps henever essayed the most violent; for experience shows us, that suchemotions are often seen under rude and slovenly clothes, and that a hairshirt does not always render those chaste who wear it. 

Xenocrates proceeded with greater rigour in this affair; for hisdisciples, to make trial of his continency, having slipt Lais, thatbeautiful and famous courtesan, into his bed, quite naked, excepting thearms of her beauty and her wanton allurements, her philters, findingthat, in despite of his reason and philosophical rules, his unruly fleshbegan to mutiny, he caused those members of his to be burned that hefound consenting to this rebellion. Whereas the passions which whollyreside in the soul, as ambition, avarice, and the rest, find the reasonmuch more to do, because it cannot there be helped but by its own means;neither are those appetites capable of satiety, but grow sharper andincrease by fruition. 

The sole example of Julius Caesar may suffice to demonstrate to us thedisparity of these appetites; for never was man more addicted to amorousdelights than he: of which one testimony is the peculiar care he had ofhis person, to such a degree, as to make use of the most lascivious meansto that end then in use, as to have all the hairs of his body twitchedoff, and to wipe all over with perfumes with the extremest nicety. And he was a beautiful person in himself, of a fair complexion, tall, and sprightly, full faced, with quick hazel eyes, if we may believeSuetonius; for the statues of him that we see at Rome do not in allpoints answer this description. Besides his wives, whom he four timeschanged, without reckoning the amours of his boyhood with Nicomedes, kingof Bithynia, he had the maidenhead of the renowned Cleopatra, queen ofEgypt; witness the little Caesario whom he had by her. He also made loveto. Eunoe, queen of Mauritania, and at Rome, to Posthumia, the wife ofServius Sulpitius; to Lollia, the wife of Gabinius to Tertulla, the wifeof Crassus, and even to Mutia, wife to the great Pompey: which was thereason, the Roman historians say, that she was repudiated by her husband, which Plutarch confesses to be more than he knew; and the Curios, bothfather and son, afterwards reproached Pompey, when he married Caesar'sdaughter, that he had made himself son-in-law to a man who had made himcuckold, and one whom he himself was wont to call AEgisthus. Besides allthese, he entertained Servilia, Cato's sister and mother to MarcusBrutus, whence, every one believes, proceeded the great affection he hadto Brutus, by reason that he was born at a time when it was likely hemight be his son. So that I have reason, methinks, to take him for a manextremely given to this debauch, and of very amorous constitution. Butthe other passion of ambition, with which he was infinitely smitten, arising in him to contend with the former, it was boon compelled to giveway. 

And here calling to mind Mohammed, who won Constantinople, and finallyexterminated the Grecian name, I do not know where these two were soevenly balanced; equally an indefatigable lecher and soldier: but wherethey both meet in his life and jostle one another, the quarrellingpassion always gets the better of the amorous one, and this though it wasout of its natural season never regained an absolute sovereignty over theother till he had arrived at an extreme old age and unable to undergo thefatigues of war. 

What is related for a contrary example of Ladislaus, king of Naples, isvery remarkable; that being a great captain, valiant and ambitious, heproposed to himself for the principal end of his ambition, the executionof his pleasure and the enjoyment of some rare and excellent beauty. Hisdeath sealed up all the rest: for having by a close and tedious siegereduced the city of Florence to so great distress that the inhabitantswere compelled to capitulate about surrender, he was content to let themalone, provided they would deliver up to him a beautiful maid he hadheard of in their city; they were forced to yield to it, and by a privateinjury to avert the public ruin. She was the daughter of a famousphysician of his time, who, finding himself involved in so foul anecessity, resolved upon a high attempt. As every one was lending a handto trick up his daughter and to adorn her with ornaments and jewels torender her more agreeable to this new lover, he also gave her ahandkerchief most richly wrought, and of an exquisite perfume, animplement they never go without in those parts, which she was to make useof at their first approaches. This handkerchief, poisoned with hisgreatest art, coming to be rubbed between the chafed flesh and openpores, both of the one and the other, so suddenly infused the poison, that immediately converting their warm into a cold sweat they presentlydied in one another's arms. 

But I return to Caesar. His pleasures never made him steal one minute ofan hour, nor go one step aside from occasions that might any way conduceto his advancement. This passion was so sovereign in him over all therest, and with so absolute authority possessed his soul, that it guidedhim at pleasure. In truth, this troubles me, when, as to everythingelse, I consider the greatness of this man, and the wonderful partswherewith he was endued; learned to that degree in all sorts of knowledgethat there is hardly any one science of which he has not written; sogreat an orator that many have preferred his eloquence to that of Cicero, and he, I conceive, did not think himself inferior to him in thatparticular, for his two anti-Catos were written to counterbalance theelocution that Cicero had expended in his Cato. As to the rest, was eversoul so vigilant, so active, and so patient of labour as his? and, doubtless, it was embellished with many rare seeds of virtue, lively, natural, and not put on; he was singularly sober; so far from beingdelicate in his diet, that Oppius relates, how that having one day attable set before him medicated instead of common oil in some sauce, heate heartily of it, that he might not put his entertainer out ofcountenance. Another time he caused his baker to be whipped for servinghim with a finer than ordinary sort of bread. Cato himself was wont tosay of him, that he was the first sober man who ever made it his businessto ruin his country. And as to the same Cato's calling, him one daydrunkard, it fell out thus being both of them in the Senate, at a timewhen Catiline's conspiracy was in question of which was Caesar wassuspected, one came and brought him a letter sealed up. Cato believingthat it was something the conspirators gave him notice of, required himto deliver into his hand, which Caesar was constrained to do to avoidfurther suspicion. It was by chance a love-letter that Servilia, Cato'ssister, had written to him, which Cato having read, he threw it back tohim saying, "There, drunkard. " This, I say, was rather a word of disdainand anger than an express reproach of this vice, as we often rate thosewho anger us with the first injurious words that come into our mouths, though nothing due to those we are offended at; to which may be addedthat the vice with which Cato upbraided him is wonderfully near akin tothat wherein he had surprised Caesar; for Bacchus and Venus, according tothe proverb, very willingly agree; but to me Venus is much more sprightlyaccompanied by sobriety. The examples of his sweetness and clemency tothose by whom he had been offended are infinite; I mean, besides those hegave during the time of the civil wars, which, as plainly enough appearsby his writings, he practised to cajole his enemies, and to make themless afraid of his future dominion and victory. But I must also say, that if these examples are not sufficient proofs of his naturalsweetness, they, at least, manifest a marvellous confidence and grandeurof courage in this person. He has often been known to dismiss wholearmies, after having overcome them, to his enemies, without ransom, ordeigning so much as to bind them by oath, if not to favour him, at leastno more to bear arms against him; he has three or four times taken someof Pompey's captains prisoners, and as often set them at liberty. Pompeydeclared all those to be enemies who did not follow him to the war; heproclaimed all those to be his friends who sat still and did not actuallytake arms against him. To such captains of his as ran away from him togo over to the other side, he sent, moreover, their arms, horses, andequipage: the cities he had taken by force he left at full liberty tofollow which side they pleased, imposing no other garrison upon them butthe memory of his gentleness and clemency. He gave strict and expresscharge, the day of his great battle of Pharsalia, that, without theutmost necessity, no one should lay a hand upon the citizens of Rome. These, in my opinion, were very hazardous proceedings, and 'tis no wonderif those in our civil war, who, like him, fight against the ancientestate of their country, do not follow his example; they areextraordinary means, and that only appertain to Caesar's fortune, and tohis admirable foresight in the conduct of affairs. When I consider theincomparable grandeur of his soul, I excuse victory that it could notdisengage itself from him, even in so unjust and so wicked a cause. 

To return to his clemency: we have many striking examples in the time ofhis government, when, all things being reduced to his power, he had nomore written against him which he had as sharply answered: yet he did notsoon after forbear to use his interest to make him consul. Caius Calvus, who had composed several injurious epigrams against him, having employedmany of his friends to mediate a reconciliation with him, Caesarvoluntarily persuaded himself to write first to him. And our goodCatullus, who had so rudely ruffled him under the name of Mamurra, comingto offer his excuses to him, he made the same day sit at his table. Having intelligence of some who spoke ill of him, he did no more, butonly by a public oration declare that he had notice of it. He still lessfeared his enemies than he hated them; some conspiracies and cabals thatwere made against his life being discovered to him, he satisfied himselfin publishing by proclamation that they were known to him, withoutfurther prosecuting the conspirators. 

As to the respect he had for his friends: Caius Oppius, being with himupon a journey, and finding himself ill, he left him the only lodging hehad for himself, and lay all night upon a hard ground in the open air. As to what concerns his justice, he put a beloved servant of his to deathfor lying with a noble Roman's wife, though there was no complaint made. Never had man more moderation in his victory, nor more resolution in hisadverse fortune. 

But all these good inclinations were stifled and spoiled by his furiousambition, by which he suffered himself to be so transported and misledthat one may easily maintain that this passion was the rudder of all hisactions; of a liberal man, it made him a public thief to supply thisbounty and profusion, and made him utter this vile and unjust saying, "That if the most wicked and profligate persons in the world had beenfaithful in serving him towards his advancement, he would cherish andprefer them to the utmost of his power, as much as the best of men. "It intoxicated him with so excessive a vanity, as to dare to boast in thepresence of his fellow-citizens, that he had made the great commonwealthof Rome a name without form and without body; and to say that his answersfor the future should stand for laws; and also to receive the body of theSenate coming to him, sitting; to suffer himself to be adored, and tohave divine honours paid to him in his own presence. To conclude, thissole vice, in my opinion, spoiled in him the most rich and beautifulnature that ever was, and has rendered his name abominable to all goodmen, in that he would erect his glory upon the ruins of his country andthe subversion of the greatest and most flourishing republic the worldshall ever see. 

There might, on the contrary, many examples be produced of great men whompleasures have made to neglect the conduct of their affairs, as MarkAntony and others; but where love and ambition should be in equalbalance, and come to jostle with equal forces, I make no doubt but thelast would win the prize. 

To return to my subject: 'tis much to bridle our appetites by theargument of reason, or, by violence, to contain our members within theirduty; but to lash ourselves for our neighbour's interest, and not only todivest ourselves of the charming passion that tickles us, of the pleasurewe feel in being agreeable to others, and courted and beloved of everyone, but also to conceive a hatred against the graces that produce thateffect, and to condemn our beauty because it inflames others; of this, Iconfess, I have met with few examples. But this is one. Spurina, ayoung man of Tuscany:

 "Qualis gemma micat, fulvum quae dividit aurum, Aut collo decus, aut cupiti: vel quale per artem Inclusum buxo aut Oricia terebintho Lucet ebur, "

 ["As a gem shines enchased in yellow gold, or an ornament on the neck or head, or as ivory has lustre, set by art in boxwood or Orician ebony. "--AEneid, x. 134. ]

being endowed with a singular beauty, and so excessive, that the chastesteyes could not chastely behold its rays; not contenting himself withleaving so much flame and fever as he everywhere kindled without relief, entered into a furious spite against himself and those great endowmentsnature had so liberally conferred upon him, as if a man were responsibleto himself for the faults of others, and purposely slashed anddisfigured, with many wounds and scars, the perfect symmetry andproportion that nature had so curiously imprinted in his face. To givemy free opinion, I more admire than honour such actions: such excessesare enemies to my rules. The design was conscientious and good, butcertainly a little defective in prudence. What if his deformity servedafterwards to make others guilty of the sin of hatred or contempt; or ofenvy at the glory of so rare a recommendation; or of calumny, interpreting this humour a mad ambition! Is there any form from whichvice cannot, if it will, extract occasion to exercise itself, one way oranother? It had been more just, and also more noble, to have made ofthese gifts of God a subject of exemplary regularity and virtue. 

They who retire themselves from the common offices, from that infinitenumber of troublesome rules that fetter a man of exact honesty in civillife, are in my opinion very discreet, what peculiar sharpness ofconstraint soever they impose upon themselves in so doing. 'Tis in somesort a kind of dying to avoid the pain of living well. They may haveanother reward; but the reward of difficulty I fancy they can never have;nor, in uneasiness, that there can be anything more or better done thanthe keeping oneself upright amid the waves of the world, truly andexactly performing all parts of our duty. 'Tis, peradventure, more easyto keep clear of the sex than to maintain one's self aright in all pointsin the society of a wife; and a man may with less trouble adapt himselfto entire abstinence than to the due dispensation of abundance. Use, carried on according to reason, has in it more of difficulty thanabstinence; moderation is a virtue that gives more work than suffering;the well living of Scipio has a thousand fashions, that of Diogenes butone; this as much excels the ordinary lives in innocence as the mostaccomplished excel them in utility and force. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

OBSERVATION ON THE MEANS TO CARRY ON A WAR ACCORDING TO JULIUS CAESAR

'Tis related of many great leaders that they have had certain books inparticular esteem, as Alexander the Great, Homer; Scipio Africanus, Xenophon; Marcus Brutus, Polybius; Charles V. , Philip'de Comines; and'tis said that, in our times, Machiavelli is elsewhere still in repute;but the late Marshal Strozzi, who had taken Caesar for his man, doubtlessmade the best choice, seeing that it indeed ought to be the breviary ofevery soldier, as being the true and sovereign pattern of the militaryart. And, moreover, God knows with that grace and beauty he hasembellished that rich matter, with so pure, delicate, and perfectexpression, that, in my opinion, there are no writings in the worldcomparable to his, as to that business. 

I will set down some rare and particular passages of his wars that remainin my memory. 

His army, being in some consternation upon the rumour that was spread ofthe great forces that king Juba was leading against him, instead ofabating the apprehension which his soldiers had conceived at the news andof lessening to them the forces of the enemy, having called them alltogether to encourage and reassure them, he took a quite contrary way towhat we are used to do, for he told them that they need no more troublethemselves with inquiring after the enemy's forces, for that he wascertainly informed thereof, and then told them of a number muchsurpassing both the truth and the report that was current in his army;following the advice of Cyrus in Xenophon, forasmuch as the deception isnot of so great importance to find an enemy weaker than we expected, thanto find him really very strong, after having been made to believe that hewas weak. 

It was always his use to accustom his soldiers simply to obey, withouttaking upon them to control, or so much as to speak of their captain'sdesigns, which he never communicated to them but upon the point ofexecution; and he took a delight, if they discovered anything of what heintended, immediately to change his orders to deceive them; and to thatpurpose, would often, when he had assigned his quarters in a place, passforward and lengthen his day's march, especially if it was foul and rainyweather. 

The Swiss, in the beginning of his wars in Gaul, having sent to him todemand a free passage over the Roman territories, though resolved tohinder them by force, he nevertheless spoke kindly to the messengers, andtook some respite to return an answer, to make use of that time for thecalling his army together. These silly people did not know how good ahusband he was of his time: for he often repeats that it is the best partof a captain to know how to make use of occasions, and his diligence inhis exploits is, in truth, unheard of and incredible. 

If he was not very conscientious in taking advantage of an enemy undercolour of a treaty of agreement, he was as little so in this, that herequired no other virtue in a soldier but valour only, and seldompunished any other faults but mutiny and disobedience. He would oftenafter his victories turn them loose to all sorts of licence, dispensingthem for some time from the rules of military discipline, saying withalthat he had soldiers so well trained up that, powdered and perfumed, theywould run furiously to the fight. In truth, he loved to have them richlyarmed, and made them wear engraved, gilded, and damasked armour, to theend that the care of saving it might engage them to a more obstinatedefence. Speaking to them, he called them by the name offellow-soldiers, which we yet use; which his successor, Augustus, reformed, supposing he had only done it upon necessity, and to cajolethose who merely followed him as volunteers:

 "Rheni mihi Caesar in undis Dux erat; hic socius; facinus quos inquinat, aequat:"

 ["In the waters of the Rhine Caesar was my general; here at Rome he is my fellow. Crime levels those whom it polluted. " --Lucan, v. 289. ]

but that this carriage was too mean and low for the dignity of an emperorand general of an army, and therefore brought up the custom of callingthem soldiers only. 

With this courtesy Caesar mixed great severity to keep them in awe; theninth legion having mutinied near Placentia, he ignominiously cashieredthem, though Pompey was then yet on foot, and received them not again tograce till after many supplications; he quieted them more by authorityand boldness than by gentle ways. 

In that place where he speaks of his, passage over the Rhine to Germany, he says that, thinking it unworthy of the honour of the Roman people towaft over his army in vessels, he built a bridge that they might passover dry-foot. There it was that he built that wonderful bridge of whichhe gives so particular a description; for he nowhere so willingly dwellsupon his actions as in representing to us the subtlety of his inventionsin such kind of handiwork. 

I have also observed this, that he set a great value upon hisexhortations to the soldiers before the fight; for where he would showthat he was either surprised or reduced to a necessity of fighting, healways brings in this, that he had not so much as leisure to harangue hisarmy. Before that great battle with those of Tournay, "Caesar, " says he, "having given order for everything else, presently ran where fortunecarried him to encourage his people, and meeting with the tenth legion, had no more time to say anything to them but this, that they shouldremember their wonted valour; not to be astonished, but bravely sustainthe enemy's encounter; and seeing the enemy had already approached withina dart's cast, he gave the signal for battle; and going suddenly thenceelsewhere, to encourage others, he found that they were already engaged. "Here is what he tells us in that place. His tongue, indeed, did himnotable service upon several occasions, and his military eloquence was, in his own time, so highly reputed, that many of his army wrote down hisharangues as he spoke them, by which means there were volumes of themcollected that existed a long time after him. He had so particular agrace in speaking, that his intimates, and Augustus amongst others, hearing those orations read, could distinguish even to the phrases andwords that were not his. 

The first time that he went out of Rome with any public command, hearrived in eight days at the river Rhone, having with him in his coach asecretary or two before him who were continually writing, and him whocarried his sword behind him. And certainly, though a man did nothingbut go on, he could hardly attain that promptitude with which, havingbeen everywhere victorious in Gaul, he left it, and, following Pompey toBrundusium, in eighteen days' time he subdued all Italy; returned fromBrundusium to Rome; from Rome went into the very heart of Spain, where hesurmounted extreme difficulties in the war against Afranius and Petreius, and in the long siege of Marseilles; thence he returned into Macedonia, beat the Roman army at Pharsalia, passed thence in pursuit of Pompey intoEgypt, which he also subdued; from Egypt he went into Syria and theterritories of Pontus, where he fought Pharnaces; thence into Africa, where he defeated Scipio and Juba; again returned through Italy, where hedefeated Pompey's sons:

 "Ocyor et coeli fiammis, et tigride foeta. "

 ["Swifter than lightning, or the cub-bearing tigress. " --Lucan, v. 405]

 "Ac veluti montis saxum de, vertice praeceps Cum ruit avulsum vento, seu turbidus imber Proluit, aut annis solvit sublapsa vetustas, Fertur in abruptum magno mons improbus actu, Exultatque solo, silvas, armenta, virosque, Involvens secum. "

 ["And as a stone torn from the mountain's top by the wind or rain torrents, or loosened by age, falls massive with mighty force, bounds here and there, in its course sweeps from the earth with it woods, herds, and men. "--AEneid, xii. 684. ]

Speaking of the siege of Avaricum, he says, that it, was his custom to benight and day with the pioneers. --[Engineers. D. W. ]--In all enterprisesof consequence he always reconnoitred in person, and never brought hisarmy into quarters till he had first viewed the place, and, if we maybelieve Suetonius, when he resolved to pass over into England, he was thefirst man that sounded the passage. 

He was wont to say that he more valued a victory obtained by counsel thanby force, and in the war against Petreius and Afranius, fortunepresenting him with an occasion of manifest advantage, he declined it, saying, that he hoped, with a little more time, but less hazard, tooverthrow his enemies. He there also played a notable part in commandinghis whole army to pass the river by swimming, without any manner ofnecessity:

 "Rapuitque ruens in praelia miles, Quod fugiens timuisset, iter; mox uda receptis Membra fovent armis, gelidosque a gurgite, cursu Restituunt artus. "

 ["The soldier rushing through a way to fight which he would have been afraid to have taken in flight: then with their armour they cover wet limbs, and by running restore warmth to their numbed joints. "--Lucan, iv. 151. ]

I find him a little more temperate and considerate in his enterprisesthan Alexander, for this man seems to seek and run headlong upon dangerslike an impetuous torrent which attacks and rushes against everything itmeets, without choice or discretion;

 "Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus; Qui regna Dauni perfluit Appuli, Dum saevit, horrendamque cultis Diluviem meditatur agris;"

 ["So the biforked Aufidus, which flows through the realm of the Apulian Daunus, when raging, threatens a fearful deluge to the tilled ground. "--Horat. , Od. , iv. 14, 25. ]

and, indeed, he was a general in the flower and first heat of his youth, whereas Caesar took up the trade at a ripe and well advanced age; towhich may be added that Alexander was of a more sanguine, hot, andcholeric constitution, which he also inflamed with wine, from whichCaesar was very abstinent. 

But where necessary occasion required, never did any man venture hisperson more than he: so much so, that for my part, methinks I read inmany of his exploits a determinate resolution to throw himself away toavoid the shame of being overcome. In his great battle with those ofTournay, he charged up to the head of the enemies without his shield, just as he was seeing the van of his own army beginning to give ground';which also several other times befell him. Hearing that his people werebesieged, he passed through the enemy's army in disguise to go andencourage them with his presence. Having crossed over to Dyrrachium withvery slender forces, and seeing the remainder of his army which he hadleft to Antony's conduct slow in following him, he undertook alone torepass the sea in a very great storms and privately stole away to fetchthe rest of his forces, the ports on the other side being seized byPompey, and the whole sea being in his possession. And as to what heperformed by force of hand, there are many exploits that in hazard exceedall the rules of war; for with how small means did he undertake to subduethe kingdom of Egypt, and afterwards to attack the forces of Scipio andJuba, ten times greater than his own? These people had, I know not what, more than human confidence in their fortune; and he was wont to say thatmen must embark, and not deliberate, upon high enterprises. After thebattle of Pharsalia, when he had sent his army away before him into Asia, and was passing in one single vessel the strait of the Hellespont, he metLucius Cassius at sea with ten tall men-of-war, when he had the couragenot only to stay his coming, but to sail up to him and summon him toyield, which he did. 

Having undertaken that furious siege of Alexia, where there werefourscore thousand men in garrison, all Gaul being in arms to raise thesiege and having set an army on foot of a hundred and nine thousandhorse, and of two hundred and forty thousand foot, what a boldness andvehement confidence was it in him that he would not give over hisattempt, but resolved upon two so great difficulties--which neverthelesshe overcame; and, after having won that great battle against thosewithout, soon reduced those within to his mercy. The same happened toLucullus at the siege of Tigranocerta against King Tigranes, but thecondition of the enemy was not the same, considering the effeminacy ofthose with whom Lucullus had to deal. I will here set down two rare andextraordinary events concerning this siege of Alexia; one, that the Gaulshaving drawn their powers together to encounter Caesar, after they hadmade a general muster of all their forces, resolved in their council ofwar to dismiss a good part of this great multitude, that they might notfall into confusion. This example of fearing to be too many is new; but, to take it right, it stands to reason that the body of an army should beof a moderate greatness, and regulated to certain bounds, both out ofrespect to the difficulty of providing for them, and the difficulty ofgoverning and keeping them in order. At least it is very easy to make itappear by example that armies monstrous in number have seldom doneanything to purpose. According to the saying of Cyrus in Xenophon, "'Tis not the number of men, but the number of good men, that gives theadvantage": the remainder serving rather to trouble than assist. AndBajazet principally grounded his resolution of giving Tamerlane battle, contrary to the opinion of all his captains, upon this, that his enemiesnumberless number of men gave him assured hopes of confusion. Scanderbeg, a very good and expert judge in such matters, was wont to saythat ten or twelve thousand reliable fighting men were sufficient to agood leader to secure his regulation in all sorts of military occasions. The other thing I will here record, which seems to be contrary both tothe custom and rules of war, is, that Vercingetorix, who was made generalof all the parts of the revolted Gaul, should go shut up himself inAlexia: for he who has the command of a whole country ought never to shuthimself up but in case of such last extremity that the only place he hasleft is in concern, and that the only hope he has left is in the defenceof that city; otherwise he ought to keep himself always at liberty, thathe may have the means to provide, in general, for all parts of hisgovernment. 

To return to Caesar. He grew, in time, more slow and more considerate, as his friend Oppius witnesses: conceiving that he ought not lightly tohazard the glory of so many victories, which one blow of fortune mightdeprive him of. 'Tis what the Italians say, when they would reproach therashness and foolhardiness of young people, calling them Bisognosid'onore, "necessitous of honour, " and that being in so great a want anddearth of reputation, they have reason to seek it at what price soever, which they ought not to do who have acquired enough already. There mayreasonably be some moderation, some satiety, in this thirst and appetiteof glory, as well as in other things: and there are enough people whopractise it. 

He was far remote from the religious scruples of the ancient Romans, whowould never prevail in their wars but by dint of pure and simple valour;and yet he was more conscientious than we should be in these days, anddid not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory. In the waragainst Ariovistus, whilst he was parleying with him, there happened somecommotion between the horsemen, which was occasioned by the fault ofAriovistus' light horse, wherein, though Caesar saw he had a very greatadvantage of the enemy, he would make no use on't, lest he should havebeen reproached with a treacherous proceeding. 

He was always wont to wear rich garments, and of a shining colour inbattle, that he might be the more remarkable and better observed. 

He always carried a stricter and tighter hand over his soldiers when nearan enemy. When the ancient Greeks would accuse any one of extremeinsufficiency, they would say, in common proverb, that he could neitherread nor swim; he was of the same opinion, that swimming was of great usein war, and himself found it so; for when he had to use diligence, hecommonly swam over the rivers in his way; for he loved to march on foot, as also did Alexander the Great. Being in Egypt forced, to save himself, to go into a little boat, and so many people leaping in with him that itwas in danger of sinking, he chose rather to commit himself to the sea, and swam to his fleet, which lay two hundred paces off, holding in hisleft hand his tablets, and drawing his coatarmour in his teeth, that itmight not fall into the enemy's hand, and at this time he was of a prettyadvanced age. 

Never had any general so much credit with his soldiers: in the beginningof the civil wars, his centurions offered him to find every one aman-at-arms at his own charge, and the foot soldiers to serve him attheir own expense; those who were most at their ease, moreover, undertaking to defray the more necessitous. The late Admiral Chastillon

 [Gaspard de Coligny, assassinated in the St. Bartholomew massacre, 24th August 1572. ]

showed us the like example in our civil wars; for the French of his armyprovided money out of their own purses to pay the foreigners that werewith him. There are but rarely found examples of so ardent and so readyan affection amongst the soldiers of elder times, who kept themselvesstrictly to their rules of war: passion has a more absolute command overus than reason; and yet it happened in the war against Hannibal, that bythe example of the people of Rome in the city, the soldiers and captainsrefused their pay in the army, and in Marcellus' camp those were brandedwith the name of Mercenaries who would receive any. Having got the worstof it near Dyrrachium, his soldiers came and offered themselves to bechastised and punished, so that there was more need to comfort thanreprove them. One single cohort of his withstood four of Pompey'slegions above four hours together, till they were almost all killed witharrows, so that there were a hundred and thirty thousand shafts found inthe trenches. A soldier called Scaeva, who commanded at one of theavenues, invincibly maintained his ground, having lost an eye, with oneshoulder and one thigh shot through, and his shield hit in two hundredand thirty places. It happened that many of his soldiers being takenprisoners, rather chose to die than promise to join the contrary side. Granius Petronius was taken by Scipio in Africa: Scipio having put therest to death, sent him word that he gave him his life, for he was a manof quality and quaestor, to whom Petronius sent answer back, thatCaesar's soldiers were wont to give others their life, and not to receiveit; and immediately with his own hand killed himself. 

Of their fidelity there are infinite examples amongst them, that whichwas done by those who were besieged in Salona, a city that stood forCaesar against Pompey, is not, for the rarity of an accident that therehappened, to be forgotten. Marcus Octavius kept them close besieged;they within being reduced to the extremest necessity of all things, sothat to supply the want of men, most of them being either slain orwounded, they had manumitted all their slaves, and had been constrainedto cut off all the women's hair to make ropes for their war engines, besides a wonderful dearth of victuals, and yet continuing resolute neverto yield. After having drawn the siege to a great length, by whichOctavius was grown more negligent and less attentive to his enterprise, they made choice of one day about noon, and having first placed the womenand children upon the walls to make a show, sallied upon the besiegerswith such fury, that having routed the first, second, and third body, andafterwards the fourth, and the rest, and beaten them all out of theirtrenches, they pursued them even to their ships, and Octavius himself wasfain to fly to Dyrrachium, where Pompey lay. I do not at presentremember that I have met with any other example where the besieged evergave the besieger a total defeat and won the field, nor that a sortieever achieved the result of a pure and entire victory. 

CHAPTER XXXV

OF THREE GOOD WOMEN

They are not by the dozen, as every one knows, and especially in theduties of marriage, for that is a bargain full of so many nicecircumstances that 'tis hard a woman's will should long endure such arestraint; men, though their condition be something better under thattie, have yet enough to do. The true touch and test of a happy marriagehave respect to the time of the companionship, if it has been constantlygentle, loyal, and agreeable. In our age, women commonly reserve thepublication of their good offices, and their vehement affection towardstheir husbands, until they have lost them, or at least, till then deferthe testimonies of their good will; a too slow testimony andunseasonable. By it they rather manifest that they never loved them tilldead: their life is nothing but trouble; their death full of love andcourtesy. As fathers conceal their affection from their children, women, likewise, conceal theirs from their husbands, to maintain a modestrespect. This mystery is not for my palate; 'tis to much purpose thatthey scratch themselves and tear their hair. I whisper in awaiting-woman's or secretary's ear: "How were they, how did they livetogether?" I always have that good saying m my head:

 "Jactantius moerent, quae minus dolent. "

 ["They make the most ado who are least concerned. " (Or:) "They mourn the more ostentatiously, the less they grieve. " --Tacitus, Annal. , ii. 77, writing of Germanicus. ]

Their whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead. Weshould willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead, providedthey will smile upon us whilst we are alive. Is it not enough to make aman revive in pure spite, that she, who spat in my face whilst I was inbeing, shall come to kiss my feet when I am no more? If there be anyhonour in lamenting a husband, it only appertains to those who smiledupon them whilst they had them; let those who wept during their liveslaugh at their deaths, as well outwardly as within. Therefore, neverregard those blubbered eyes and that pitiful voice; consider herdeportment, her complexion, the plumpness of her cheeks under all thoseformal veils; 'tis there she talks plain French. There are few who donot mend upon't, and health is a quality that cannot lie. That starchedand ceremonious countenance looks not so much back as forward, and israther intended to get a new husband than to lament the old. When I wasa boy, a very beautiful and virtuous lady, who is yet living, the widowof a prince, wore somewhat more ornament in her dress than our laws ofwidowhood allow, and being reproached with it, she made answer that itwas because she was resolved to have no more love affairs, and wouldnever marry again. 

I have here, not at all dissenting from our customs, made choice of threewomen, who have also expressed the utmost of their goodness and affectionabout their husbands' deaths; yet are they examples of another kind thanare now m use, and so austere that they will hardly be drawn intoimitation. 

The younger Pliny' had near a house of his in Italy a neighbour who wasexceedingly tormented with certain ulcers in his private parts. His wifeseeing him so long to languish, entreated that he would give her leave tosee and at leisure to consider of the condition of his disease, and thatshe would freely tell him what she thought. This permission beingobtained, and she having curiously examined the business, found itimpossible he could ever be cured, and that all he had to hope for orexpect was a great while to linger out a painful and miserable life, andtherefore, as the most sure and sovereign remedy, resolutely advised himto kill himself. But finding him a little tender and backward in so rudean attempt: "Do not think, my friend, " said she, "that the torments I seethee endure are not as sensible to me as to thyself, and that to delivermyself from them, I will not myself make use of the same remedy I haveprescribed to thee. I will accompany thee in the cure as I have done inthe disease; fear nothing, but believe that we shall have pleasure inthis passage that is to free us from so many miseries, and we will gohappily together. " Which having said, and roused up her husband'scourage, she resolved that they should throw themselves headlong into thesea out of a window that overlooked it, and that she might maintain tothe last the loyal and vehement affection wherewith she had embraced himduring his life, she would also have him die in her arms; but lest theyshould fail, and should quit their hold in the fall through fear, shetied herself fast to him by the waist, and so gave up her own life toprocure her husband's repose. This was a woman of mean condition; and, amongst that class of people, 'tis no very new thing to see some examplesof rare virtue:

 "Extrema per illos Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit. "

 ["Justice, when she left the earth, took her last steps among them. "--Virgil, Georg. , ii. 473. ]

The other two were noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarelylodged. 

Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a consular person, was the mother ofanother Arria, the wife of Thrasea Paetus, he whose virtue was sorenowned in the time of Nero, and by this son-in-law, the grandmother ofFannia: for the resemblance of the names of these men and women, andtheir fortunes, have led to several mistakes. This first Arria, herhusband Caecina Paetus, having been taken prisoner by some of the EmperorClaudius' people, after Scribonianus' defeat, whose party he had embracedin the war, begged of those who were to carry him prisoner to Rome, thatthey would take her into their ship, where she would be of much lesscharge and trouble to them than a great many persons they must otherwisehave to attend her husband, and that she alone would undertake to servehim in his chamber, his kitchen, and all other offices. They refused, whereupon she put herself into a fisher-boat she hired on the spot, andin that manner followed him from Sclavonia. When she had come to Rome, Junia, the widow of Scribonianus, having one day, from the resemblance oftheir fortune, accosted her in the Emperor's presence; she rudelyrepulsed her with these words, "I, " said she, "speak to thee, or give earto any thing thou sayest! to thee in whose lap Scribonianus was slain, and thou art yet alive!" These words, with several other signs, gave herfriends to understand that she would undoubtedly despatch herself, impatient of supporting her husband's misfortune. And Thrasea, herson-in-law, beseeching her not to throw away herself, and saying to her, "What! if I should run the same fortune that Caecina has done, would youthat your daughter, my wife, should do the same?"--"Would I?" repliedshe, "yes, yes, I would: if she had lived as long, and in as goodunderstanding with thee as I have done, with my husband. " These answersmade them more careful of her, and to have a more watchful eye to herproceedings. One day, having said to those who looked to her: "Tis tomuch purpose that you take all this pains to prevent me; you may indeedmake me die an ill death, but to keep me from dying is not in yourpower"; she in a sudden phrenzy started from a chair whereon she sat, andwith all her force dashed her head against the wall, by which blow beinglaid flat in a swoon, and very much wounded, after they had again withgreat ado brought her to herself: "I told you, " said she, "that if yourefused me some easy way of dying, I should find out another, how painfulsoever. " The conclusion of so admirable a virtue was this: her husbandPaetus, not having resolution enough of his own to despatch himself, ashe was by the emperor's cruelty enjoined, one day, amongst others, afterhaving first employed all the reasons and exhortations which she thoughtmost prevalent to persuade him to it, she snatched the poignard he worefrom his side, and holding it ready in her hand, for the conclusion ofher admonitions; "Do thus, Paetus, " said she, and in the same instantgiving herself a mortal stab in the breast, and then drawing it out ofthe wound, presented it to him, ending her life with this noble, generous, and immortal saying, "Paete, non dolet"--having time topronounce no more but those three never-to-be-forgotten words: "Paetus, it is not painful. "

 "Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto, Quern de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis Si qua fides, vulnus quod feci non dolet, inquit, Sed quod to facies, id mihi, Paete, dolet. "

 ["When the chaste Arria gave to Poetus the reeking sword she had drawn from her breast, 'If you believe me, ' she said, 'Paetus, the wound I have made hurts not, but 'tis that which thou wilt make that hurts me. '"---Martial, i. 14. ]

The action was much more noble in itself, and of a braver sense than thepoet expressed it: for she was so far from being deterred by the thoughtof her husband's wound and death and her own, that she had been theirpromotress and adviser: but having performed this high and courageousenterprise for her husband's only convenience, she had even in the lastgasp of her life no other concern but for him, and of dispossessing himof the fear of dying with her. Paetus presently struck himself to theheart with the same weapon, ashamed, I suppose, to have stood in need ofso dear and precious an example. 

Pompeia Paulina, a young and very noble Roman lady, had married Seneca inhis extreme old age. Nero, his fine pupil, sent his guards to him todenounce the sentence of death, which was performed after this manner:When the Roman emperors of those times had condemned any man of quality, they sent to him by their officers to choose what death he would, and toexecute it within such or such a time, which was limited, according tothe degree of their indignation, to a shorter or a longer respite, thatthey might therein have better leisure to dispose their affairs, andsometimes depriving them of the means of doing it by the shortness of thetime; and if the condemned seemed unwilling to submit to the order, theyhad people ready at hand to execute it either by cutting the veins of thearms and legs, or by compelling them by force to swallow a draught ofpoison. But persons of honour would not abide this necessity, but madeuse of their own physicians and surgeons for this purpose. Seneca, witha calm and steady countenance, heard their charge, and presently calledfor paper to write his will, which being by the captain refused, heturned himself towards his friends, saying to them, "Since I cannot leaveyou any other acknowledgment of the obligation I have to you, I leave youat least the best thing I have, namely, the image of my life and manners, which I entreat you to keep in memory of me, that by so doing you mayacquire the glory of sincere and real friends. " And there withal, onewhile appeasing the sorrow he saw in them with gentle words, andpresently raising his voice to reprove them: "What, " said he, "are becomeof all our brave philosophical precepts? What are become of all theprovisions we have so many years laid up against the accidents offortune? Is Nero's cruelty unknown to us? What could we expect from himwho had murdered his mother and his brother, but that he should put histutor to death who had brought him up?" After having spoken these wordsin general, he turned himself towards his wife, and embracing her fast inhis arms, as, her heart and strength failing her, she was ready to sinkdown with grief, he begged of her, for his sake, to bear this accidentwith a little more patience, telling her, that now the hour was comewherein he was to show, not by argument and discourse, but effect, thefruit he had acquired by his studies, and that he really embraced hisdeath, not only without grief, but moreover with joy. "Wherefore, mydearest, " said he, "do not dishonour it with thy tears, that it may notseem as if thou lovest thyself more than my reputation. Moderate thygrief, and comfort thyself in the knowledge thou hast had of me and myactions, leading the remainder of thy life in the same virtuous mannerthou hast hitherto done. " To which Paulina, having a little recoveredher spirits, and warmed the magnanimity of her courage with a mostgenerous affection, replied, --"No, Seneca, " said she, "I am not a womanto suffer you to go alone in such a necessity: I will not have you thinkthat the virtuous examples of your life have not taught me how to die;and when can I ever better or more fittingly do it, or more to my owndesire, than with you? and therefore assure yourself I will go along withyou. " Then Seneca, taking this noble and generous resolution of his wifem good part, and also willing to free himself from the fear of leavingher exposed to the cruelty of his enemies after his death: "I have, Paulina, " said he, "instructed thee in what would serve thee happily tolive; but thou more covetest, I see, the honour of dying: in truth, I will not grudge it thee; the constancy and resolution in our common endare the same, but the beauty and glory of thy part are much greater. "Which being said, the surgeons, at the same time, opened the veins ofboth their arms, but as those of Seneca were more shrunk up, as well withage as abstinence, made his blood flow too slowly, he moreover commandedthem to open the veins of his thighs; and lest the torments he enduredmight pierce his wife's heart, and also to free himself from theaffliction of seeing her in so sad a condition, after having taken a veryaffectionate leave of her, he entreated she would suffer them to carryher into her chamber, which they accordingly did. But all theseincisions being not yet enough to make him die, he commanded StatiusAnneus, his physician, to give him a draught of poison, which had notmuch better effect; for by reason of the weakness and coldness of hislimbs, it could not arrive at his heart. Wherefore they were forced tosuperadd a very hot bath, and then, feeling his end approach, whilst hehad breath he continued excellent discourses upon the subject of hispresent condition, which the secretaries wrote down so long as they couldhear his voice, and his last words were long after in high honour andesteem amongst men, and it is a great loss to us that they have not comedown to our times. Then, feeling the last pangs of death, with thebloody water of the bath he bathed his head, saying: "This water Idedicate to Jupiter the deliverer. " Nero, being presently informed ofall this, fearing lest the death of Paulina, who was one of the best-bornladies of Rome, and against whom he had no particular unkindness, shouldturn to his reproach, sent orders in all haste to bind up her wounds, which her attendants did without her knowledge, she being already halfdead, and without all manner of sense. Thus, though she lived contraryto her own design, it was very honourably, and befitting her own virtue, her pale complexion ever after manifesting how much life had run from herveins. 

These are my three very true stories, which I find as entertaining and astragic as any of those we make out of our own heads wherewith to amusethe common people; and I wonder that they who are addicted to suchrelations, do not rather cull out ten thousand very fine stories, whichare to be found in books, that would save them the trouble of invention, and be more useful and diverting; and he who would make a whole andconnected body of them would need to add nothing of his own, but theconnection only, as it were the solder of another metal; and might bythis means embody a great many true events of all sorts, disposing anddiversifying them according as the beauty of the work should require, after the same manner, almost, as Ovid has made up his Metamorphoses ofthe infinite number of various fables. 

In the last couple, this is, moreover, worthy of consideration, thatPaulina voluntarily offered to lose her life for the love of her husband, and that her husband had formerly also forborne to die for the love ofher. We may think there is no just counterpoise in this exchange; but, according to his stoical humour, I fancy he thought he had done as muchfor her, in prolonging his life upon her account, as if he had died forher. In one of his letters to Lucilius, after he has given him tounderstand that, being seized with an ague in Rome, he presently tookcoach to go to a house he had in the country, contrary to his wife'sopinion, who would have him stay, and that he had told her that the aguehe was seized with was not a fever of the body but of the place, itfollows thus: "She let me go, " says he, "giving me a strict charge of myhealth. Now I, who know that her life is involved in mine, begin to makemuch of myself, that I may preserve her. And I lose the privilege my agehas given me, of being more constant and resolute in many things, when Icall to mind that in this old fellow there is a young girl who isinterested in his health. And since I cannot persuade her to love memore courageously, she makes me more solicitously love myself: for wemust allow something to honest affections, and, sometimes, thoughoccasions importune us to the contrary, we must call back life, eventhough it be with torment: we must hold the soul fast in our teeth, sincethe rule of living, amongst good men, is not so long as they please, butas long as they ought. He that loves not his wife nor his friend so wellas to prolong his life for them, but will obstinately die, is toodelicate and too effeminate: the soul must impose this upon itself, whenthe utility of our friends so requires; we must sometimes lend ourselvesto our friends, and when we would die for ourselves must break thatresolution for them. 'Tis a testimony of grandeur of courage to returnto life for the consideration of another, as many excellent persons havedone: and 'tis a mark of singular good nature to preserve old age (ofwhich the greatest convenience is the indifference as to its duration, and a more stout and disdainful use of life), when a man perceives thatthis office is pleasing, agreeable, and useful to some person by whom heis very much beloved. And a man reaps by it a very pleasing reward; forwhat can be more delightful than to be so dear to his wife, as upon heraccount he shall become dearer to himself? Thus has my Paulina loaded menot only with her fears, but my own; it has not been sufficient toconsider how resolutely I could die, but I have also considered howirresolutely she would bear my death. I am enforced to live, andsometimes to live in magnanimity. " These are his own words, as excellentas they everywhere are. 

CHAPTER XXXVI

OF THE MOST EXCELLENT MEN

If I should be asked my choice among all the men who have come to myknowledge, I should make answer, that methinks I find three moreexcellent than all the rest. 

One of them Homer: not that Aristotle and Varro, for example, were not, peradventure, as learned as he; nor that possibly Virgil was not equal tohim in his own art, which I leave to be determined by such as know themboth. I who, for my part, understand but one of them, can only say this, according to my poor talent, that I do not believe the Muses themselvescould ever go beyond the Roman:

 "Tale facit carmen docta testudine, quale Cynthius impositis temperat articulis:"

 ["He plays on his learned lute a verse such as Cynthian Apollo modulates with his imposed fingers. "--Propertius, ii. 34, 79. ]

and yet in this judgment we are not to forget that it is chiefly fromHomer that Virgil derives his excellence, that he is guide and teacher;and that one touch of the Iliad has supplied him with body and matter outof which to compose his great and divine AEneid. I do not reckon uponthat, but mix several other circumstances that render to me this poetadmirable, even as it were above human condition. And, in truth, I oftenwonder that he who has produced, and, by his authority, given reputationin the world to so many deities, was not deified himself. Being blindand poor, living before the sciences were reduced into rule and certainobservation, he was so well acquainted with them, that all those who havesince taken upon them to establish governments, to carry on wars, and towrite either of religion or philosophy, of what sect soever, or of thearts, have made use of him as of a most perfect instructor in theknowledge of all things, and of his books as of a treasury of all sortsof learning:

 "Qui, quid sit pulcrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit:"

 ["Who tells us what is good, what evil, what useful, what not, more clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor?" --Horace, Ep. , i. 2, 3. ]

and as this other says, "A quo, ceu fonte perenni, Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis"

 ["From which, as from a perennial spring, the lips of the poets are moistened by Pierian waters. "--Ovid, Amoy. , iii. 9, 25. ]

and the other, "Adde Heliconiadum comites, quorum unus Homerus Sceptra potitus;"

 ["Add the companions of the Muses, whose sceptre Homer has solely obtained. "--Lucretius, iii. 1050. ]

and the other:

 "Cujusque ex ore profusos Omnis posteritas latices in carmina duxit, Amnemque in tenues ausa est deducere rivos. Unius foecunda bonis. "

 ["From whose mouth all posterity has drawn out copious streams of verse, and has made bold to turn the mighty river into its little rivulets, fertile in the property of one man. " --Manilius, Astyon. , ii. 8. ]

'Tis contrary to the order of nature that he has made the most excellentproduction that can possibly be; for the ordinary birth of things isimperfect; they thrive and gather strength by growing, whereas herendered the infancy of poesy and several other sciences mature, perfect, and accomplished at first. And for this reason he may be called thefirst and the last of the poets, according to the fine testimonyantiquity has left us of him, "that as there was none before him whom hecould imitate, so there has been none since that could imitate him. "His words, according to Aristotle, are the only words that have motionand action, the only substantial words. Alexander the Great, havingfound a rich cabinet amongst Darius' spoils, gave order it should bereserved for him to keep his Homer in, saying: that he was the best andmost faithful counsellor he had in his military affairs. For the samereason it was that Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, said that he wasthe poet of the Lacedaemonians, for that he was an excellent master forthe discipline of war. This singular and particular commendation is alsoleft of him in the judgment of Plutarch, that he is the only author inthe world that never glutted nor disgusted his readers, presentinghimself always another thing, and always flourishing in some new grace. That wanton Alcibiades, having asked one, who pretended to learning, fora book of Homer, gave him a box of the ear because he had none, which hethought as scandalous as we should if we found one of our priests withouta Breviary. Xenophanes complained one day to Hiero, the tyrant ofSyracuse, that he was so poor he had not wherewithal to maintain twoservants. "What!" replied he, "Homer, who was much poorer than thouart, keeps above ten thousand, though he is dead. " What did Panaetiusleave unsaid when he called Plato the Homer of the philosophers? Besideswhat glory can be compared to his? Nothing is so frequent in men'smouths as his name and works, nothing so known and received as Troy, Helen, and the war about her, when perhaps there was never any suchthing. Our children are still called by names that he invented abovethree thousand years ago; who does not know Hector and Achilles? Notonly some particular families, but most nations also seek their origin inhis inventions. Mohammed, the second of that name, emperor of the Turks, writing to our Pope Pius II. , "I am astonished, " says he, "that theItalians should appear against me, considering that we have our commondescent from the Trojans, and that it concerns me as well as it does themto revenge the blood of Hector upon the Greeks, whom they countenanceagainst me. " Is it not a noble farce wherein kings, republics, andemperors have so many ages played their parts, and to which the vastuniverse serves for a theatre? Seven Grecian cities contended for hisbirth, so much honour even his obscurity helped him to!

 "Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenm. "

The other is Alexander the Great. For whoever will consider the age atwhich he began his enterprises, the small means by which he effected soglorious a design, the authority he obtained in such mere youth with thegreatest and most experienced captains of the world, by whom he wasfollowed, the extraordinary favour wherewith fortune embraced andfavoured so many hazardous, not to say rash, exploits, "Impellens quicquid sibi summa petenti Obstaret, gaudensque viam fecisse ruins;"

 ["Bearing down all who sought to withstand him, and pleased to force his way by ruin. "--Lucan, i. 149. ]

that greatness, to have at the age of three-and-thirty years, passedvictorious through the whole habitable earth, and in half a life to haveattained to the utmost of what human nature can do; so that you cannotimagine its just duration and the continuation of his increase in valourand fortune, up to a due maturity of age, but that you must withalimagine something more than man: to have made so many royal branches tospring from his soldiers, leaving the world, at his death, dividedamongst four successors, simple captains of his army, whose posterity solong continued and maintained that vast possession; so many excellentvirtues as he was master of, justice, temperance, liberality, truth inhis word, love towards his own people, and humanity towards those heovercame; for his manners, in general, seem in truth incapable of anymanner of reproach, although some particular and extraordinary actions ofhis may fall under censure. But it is impossible to carry on such greatthings as he did within the strict rules of justice; such as he are to bejudged in gross by the main end of their actions. The ruin of Thebes andPersepolis, the murder of Menander and of Ephistion's physician, themassacre of so many Persian prisoners at one time, of a troop of Indiansoldiers not without prejudice to his word, and of the Cossians, so muchas to the very children, are indeed sallies that are not well to beexcused. For, as to Clytus, the fault was more than redeemed; and thatvery action, as much as any other whatever, manifests the goodness of hisnature, a nature most excellently formed to goodness; and it wasingeniously said of him, that he had his virtues from Nature, his vicesfrom Fortune. As to his being a little given to bragging, a little tooimpatient of hearing himself ill-spoken of, and as to those mangers, arms, and bits he caused to be strewed in the Indies, all those littlevanities, methinks, may very well be allowed to his youth, and theprodigious prosperity of his fortune. And who will consider withal hisso many military virtues, his diligence, foresight, patience, discipline, subtlety, magnanimity, resolution, and good fortune, wherein (though wehad not had the authority of Hannibal to assure us) he was the first ofmen, the admirable beauty and symmetry of his person, even to a miracle, his majestic port and awful mien, in a face so young, ruddy, and radiant:

 "Qualis, ubi Oceani perfusus Lucifer unda, Quem Venus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes, Extulit os sacrum coelo, tenebrasque resolvit;"

 ["As when, bathed in the waves of Ocean, Lucifer, whom Venus loves beyond the other stars, has displayed his sacred countenance to the heaven, and disperses the darkness"--AEneid, iii. 589. ]

the excellence of his knowledge and capacity; the duration and grandeurof his glory, pure, clean, without spot or envy, and that long after hisdeath it was a religious belief that his very medals brought good fortuneto all who carried them about them; and that more kings and princes havewritten his actions than other historians have written the actions of anyother king or prince whatever; and that to this very day the Mohammedans, who despise all other histories, admit of and honour his alone, by aspecial privilege: whoever, I say, will seriously consider theseparticulars, will confess that, all these things put together, I hadreason to prefer him before Caesar himself, who alone could make medoubtful in my choice: and it cannot be denied that there was more of hisown in his exploits, and more of fortune in those of Alexander. Theywere in many things equal, and peradventure Caesar had some greaterqualities they were two fires, or two torrents, overrunning the world byseveral ways;

 "Ac velut immissi diversis partibus ignes Arentem in silvam, et virgulta sonantia lauro Aut ubi decursu rapido de montibus altis Dant sonitum spumosi amnes, et in aequora currunt, Quisque suum populatus iter:"

 ["And as fires applied in several parts to a dry wood and crackling shrubs of laurel, or as with impetuous fall from the steep mountains, foaming torrents pour down to the ocean, each clearing a destructive course. "--AEneid, xii. 521. ]

but though Caesar's ambition had been more moderate, it would still be sounhappy, having the ruin of his country and universal mischief to theworld for its abominable object, that, all things raked together and putinto the balance, I must needs incline to Alexander's side. 

The third and in my opinion the most excellent, is Epaminondas. Of gloryhe has not near so much as the other two (which, for that matter, is buta part of the substance of the thing): of valour and resolution, not ofthat sort which is pushed on by ambition, but of that which wisdom andreason can plant in a regular soul, he had all that could be imagined. Of this virtue of his, he has, in my idea, given as ample proof asAlexander himself or Caesar: for although his warlike exploits wereneither so frequent nor so full, they were yet, if duly considered in alltheir circumstances, as important, as bravely fought, and carried withthem as manifest testimony of valour and military conduct, as those ofany whatever. The Greeks have done him the honour, withoutcontradiction, to pronounce him the greatest man of their nation; and tobe the first of Greece, is easily to be the first of the world. As tohis knowledge, we have this ancient judgment of him, "That never any manknew so much, and spake so little as he";--[Plutarch, On the Demon ofSocrates, c. 23. ]--for he was of the Pythagorean sect; but when he didspeak, never any man spake better; an excellent orator, and of powerfulpersuasion. But as to his manners and conscience, he infinitelysurpassed all men who ever undertook the management of affairs; for inthis one thing, which ought chiefly to be considered, which alone trulydenotes us for what we are, and which alone I make counterbalance all therest put together, he comes not short of any philosopher whatever, noteven of Socrates himself. Innocence, in this man, is a quality peculiar, sovereign, constant, uniform, incorruptible, compared with which, itappears in Alexander subject to something else subaltern, uncertain, variable, effeminate, and fortuitous. 

Antiquity has judged that in thoroughly sifting all the other greatcaptains, there is found in every one some peculiar quality thatillustrates his name: in this man only there is a full and equal virtuethroughout, that leaves nothing to be wished for in him, whether inprivate or public employment, whether in peace or war; whether to livegloriously and grandly, and to die: I do not know any form or fortune ofman that I so much honour and love. 

'Tis true that I look upon his obstinate poverty, as it is set out by hisbest friends, as a little too scrupulous and nice; and this is the onlyfeature, though high in itself and well worthy of admiration, that I findso rugged as not to desire to imitate, to the degree it was in him. 

Scipio AEmilianus alone, could one attribute to him as brave andmagnificent an end, and as profound and universal a knowledge, might beput into the other scale of the balance. Oh, what an injury has timedone me to deprive me of the sight of two of the most noble lives which, by the common consent of all the world, one of the greatest of theGreeks, and the other of the Romans, were in all Plutarch. What amatter! what a workman!

For a man that was no saint, but, as we say, a gentleman, of civilian andordinary manners, and of a moderate ambition, the richest life that Iknow, and full of the richest and most to be desired parts, all thingsconsidered, is, in my opinion, that of Alcibiades. 

But as to what concerns Epaminondas, I will here, for the example of anexcessive goodness, add some of his opinions: he declared, that thegreatest satisfaction he ever had in his whole life, was the contentmenthe gave his father and mother by his victory at Leuctra; wherein hisdeference is great, preferring their pleasure before his own, so dust andso full of so glorious an action. He did not think it lawful, even torestore the liberty of his country, to kill a man without knowing acause: which made him so cold in the enterprise of his companionPelopidas for the relief of Thebes. He was also of opinion that men inbattle ought to avoid the encounter of a friend who was on the contraryside, and to spare him. And his humanity, even towards his enemiesthemselves, having rendered him suspected to the Boeotians, for that, after he had miraculously forced the Lacedaemonians to open to him thepass which they had undertaken to defend at the entrance into the Morea, near Corinth, he contented himself with having charged through them, without pursuing them to the utmost, he had his commission of generaltaken from him, very honourably upon such an account, and for the shameit was to them upon necessity afterwards to restore him to his command, and so to manifest how much upon him depended their safety and honour;victory like a shadow attending him wherever he went; and indeed theprosperity of his country, as being from him derived, died with him. 

CHAPTER XXXVII

OF THE RESEMBLANCE OF CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS

This faggoting up of so many divers pieces is so done that I never setpen to paper but when I have too much idle time, and never anywhere butat home; so that it is compiled after divers interruptions and intervals, occasions keeping me sometimes many months elsewhere. As to the rest, I never correct my first by any second conceptions; I, peradventure, mayalter a word or so, but 'tis only to vary the phrase, and not to destroymy former meaning. I have a mind to represent the progress of myhumours, and that every one may see each piece as it came from the forge. I could wish I had begun sooner, and had taken more notice of the courseof my mutations. A servant of mine whom I employed to transcribe for me, thought he had got a prize by stealing several pieces from me, wherewithhe was best pleased; but it is my comfort that he will be no greater againer than I shall be a loser by the theft. I am grown older by sevenor eight years since I began; nor has it been without same newacquisition: I have, in that time, by the liberality of years, beenacquainted with the stone: their commerce and long converse do not wellpass away without some such inconvenience. I could have been glad thatof other infirmities age has to present long-lived men withal, it hadchosen some one that would have been more welcome to me, for it could notpossibly have laid upon me a disease for which, even from my infancy, Ihave had so great a horror; and it is, in truth, of all the accidents ofold age, that of which I have ever been most afraid. I have oftenthought with myself that I went on too far, and that in so long a voyageI should at last run myself into some disadvantage; I perceived, and haveoften enough declared, that it was time to depart, and that life shouldbe cut off in the sound and living part, according to the surgeon's rulein amputations; and that nature made him pay very strict usury who didnot in due time pay the principal. And yet I was so far from beingready, that in the eighteen months' time or thereabout that I have beenin this uneasy condition, I have so inured myself to it as to be contentto live on in it; and have found wherein to comfort myself, and to hope:so much are men enslaved to their miserable being, that there is nocondition so wretched they will not accept, provided they may live! HearMaecenas:

 "Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede, coxa, Lubricos quate dentes; Vita dum superest, bene est. "

 ["Cripple my hand, foot, hip; shake out my loose teeth: while there's life, 'tis well. "--Apud Seneca, Ep. , 101. ]

And Tamerlane, with a foolish humanity, palliated the fantastic crueltyhe exercised upon lepers, when he put all he could hear of to death, todeliver them, as he pretended, from the painful life they lived. Forthere was not one of them who would not rather have been thrice a leperthan be not. And Antisthenes the Stoic, being very sick, and crying out, "Who will deliver me from these evils?" Diogenes, who had come to visithim, "This, " said he, presenting him a knife, "soon enough, if thouwilt. "--"I do not mean from my life, " he replied, "but from mysufferings. " The sufferings that only attack the mind, I am not sosensible of as most other men; and this partly out of judgment, for theworld looks upon several things as dreadful or to be avoided at theexpense of life, that are almost indifferent to me: partly, through adull and insensible complexion I have in accidents which do notpoint-blank hit me; and that insensibility I look upon as one of the bestparts of my natural condition; but essential and corporeal pains I amvery sensible of. And yet, having long since foreseen them, though witha sight weak and delicate and softened with the long and happy health andquiet that God has been pleased to give me the greatest part of my time, I had in my imagination fancied them so insupportable, that, in truth, Iwas more afraid than I have since found I had cause: by which I am stillmore fortified in this belief, that most of the faculties of the soul, aswe employ them, more trouble the repose of life than they are any wayuseful to it. 

I am in conflict with the worst, the most sudden, the most painful, themost mortal, and the most irremediable of all diseases; I have alreadyhad the trial of five or six very long and very painful fits; and yet Ieither flatter myself, or there is even in this state what is very wellto be endured by a man who has his soul free from the fear of death, andof the menaces, conclusions, and consequences which physic is everthundering in our ears; but the effect even of pain itself is not sosharp and intolerable as to put a man of understanding into rage anddespair. I have at least this advantage by my stone, that what I couldnot hitherto prevail upon myself to resolve upon, as to reconciling andacquainting myself with death, it will perfect; for the more it pressesupon and importunes me, I shall be so much the less afraid to die. I hadalready gone so far as only to love life for life's sake, but my painwill dissolve this intelligence; and God grant that in the end, shouldthe sharpness of it be once greater than I shall be able to bear, it doesnot throw me into the other no less vicious extreme to desire and wish todie!

 "Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes:"

 ["Neither to wish, nor fear to die. " (Or:) "Thou shouldest neither fear nor desire the last day. " --Martial, x. 7. ]

they are two passions to be feared; but the one has its remedy muchnearer at hand than the other. 

As to the rest, I have always found the precept that so rigorouslyenjoins a resolute countenance and disdainful and indifferent comportmentin the toleration of infirmities to be ceremonial. Why shouldphilosophy, which only has respect to life and effects, trouble itselfabout these external appearances? Let us leave that care to actors andmasters of rhetoric, who set so great a value upon our gestures. Let herallow this vocal frailty to disease, if it be neither cordial norstomachic, and permit the ordinary ways of expressing grief by sighs, sobs, palpitations, and turning pale, that nature has put out of ourpower; provided the courage be undaunted, and the tones not expressiveof despair, let her be satisfied. What matter the wringing of our hands, if we do not wring our thoughts? She forms us for ourselves, not forothers; to be, not to seem; let her be satisfied with governing ourunderstanding, which she has taken upon her the care of instructing;that, in the fury of the colic, she maintain the soul in a condition toknow itself, and to follow its accustomed way, contending with, andenduring, not meanly truckling under pain; moved and heated, not subduedand conquered, in the contention; capable of discourse and other things, to a certain degree. In such extreme accidents, 'tis cruelty to requireso exact a composedness. 'Tis no great matter that we make a wry face, if the mind plays its part well: if the body find itself relieved bycomplaining let it complain: if agitation ease it, let it tumble and tossat pleasure; if it seem to find the disease evaporate (as some physicianshold that it helps women in delivery) in making loud outcries, or if thisdo but divert its torments, let it roar as it will. Let us not commandthis voice to sally, but stop it not. Epicurus, not only forgives hissage for crying out in torments, but advises him to it:

 "Pugiles etiam, quum feriunt, in jactandis caestibus ingemiscunt, quia profundenda voce omne corpus intenditur, venitque plaga vehementior. "

 ["Boxers also, when they strike, groan in the act, because with the strength of voice the whole body is carried, and the blow comes with the greater vehemence. "--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes. , ii. 23. ]

We have enough to do to deal with the disease, without troublingourselves with these superfluous rules. 

Which I say in excuse of those whom we ordinarily see impatient in theassaults of this malady; for as to what concerns myself, I have passed itover hitherto with a little better countenance, and contented myself withgroaning without roaring out; not, nevertheless, that I put any greatconstraint upon myself to maintain this exterior decorum, for I makelittle account of such an advantage: I allow herein as much as the painrequires; but either my pains are not so excessive, or I have more thanordinary patience. I complain, I confess, and am a little impatient in avery sharp fit, but I do not arrive to such a degree of despair as he whowith:

 "Ejulatu, questu, gemitu, fremitibus Resonando, multum flebiles voces refert:"

 ["Howling, roaring, groaning with a thousand noises, expressing his torment in a dismal voice. " (Or:) "Wailing, complaining, groaning, murmuring much avail lugubrious sounds. "--Verses of Attius, in his Phaloctetes, quoted by Cicero, De Finib. , ii. 29; Tusc. Quaes. , ii. 14. ]

I try myself in the depth of my suffering, and have always found that Iwas in a capacity to speak, think, and give a rational answer as well asat any other time, but not so firmly, being troubled and interrupted bythe pain. When I am looked upon by my visitors to be in the greatesttorment, and that they therefore forbear to trouble me, I often essay myown strength, and myself set some discourse on foot, the most remote Ican contrive from my present condition. I can do anything upon a suddenendeavour, but it must not continue long. Oh, what pity 'tis I have notthe faculty of that dreamer in Cicero, who dreaming he was lying with awench, found he had discharged his stone in the sheets. My painsstrangely deaden my appetite that way. In the intervals from thisexcessive torment, when my ureters only languish without any great dolor, I presently feel myself in my wonted state, forasmuch as my soul takes noother alarm but what is sensible and corporal, which I certainly owe tothe care I have had of preparing myself by meditation against suchaccidents:

 "Laborum, Nulla mihi nova nunc facies inopinave surgit; Omnia praecepi, atque animo mecum ante peregi. "

 ["No new shape of suffering can arise new or unexpected; I have anticipated all, and acted them over beforehand in my mind. " --AEneid, vi. 103. ]

I am, however, a little roughly handled for an apprentice, and with asudden and sharp alteration, being fallen in an instant from a very easyand happy condition of life into the most uneasy and painful that can beimagined. For besides that it is a disease very much to be feared initself, it begins with me after a more sharp and severe manner than it isused to do with other men. My fits come so thick upon me that I amscarcely ever at ease; yet I have hitherto kept my mind so upright that, provided I can still continue it, I find myself in a much bettercondition of life than a thousand others, who have no fewer nor otherdisease but what they create to themselves for want of meditation. 

There is a certain sort of crafty humility that springs from presumption, as this, for example, that we confess our ignorance in many things, andare so courteous as to acknowledge that there are in the works of naturesome qualities and conditions that are imperceptible to us, and of whichour understanding cannot discover the means and causes; by this so honestand conscientious declaration we hope to obtain that people shall alsobelieve us as to those that we say we do understand. We need not troubleourselves to seek out foreign miracles and difficulties; methinks, amongst the things that we ordinarily see, there are suchincomprehensible wonders as surpass all difficulties of miracles. What awonderful thing it is that the drop of seed from which we are producedshould carry in itself the impression not only of the bodily form, buteven of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers! Where can thatdrop of fluid matter contain that infinite number of forms? and how canthey carry on these resemblances with so precarious and irregular aprocess that the son shall be like his great-grandfather, the nephew likehis uncle? In the family of Lepidus at Rome there were three, notsuccessively but by intervals, who were born with the same eye coveredwith a cartilage. At Thebes there was a race that carried from theirmother's womb the form of the head of a lance, and he who was not born sowas looked upon as illegitimate. And Aristotle says that in a certainnation, where the women were in common, they assigned the children totheir fathers by their resemblance. 

'Tis to be believed that I derive this infirmity from my father, for hedied wonderfully tormented with a great stone in his bladder; he wasnever sensible of his disease till the sixty-seventh year of his age; andbefore that had never felt any menace or symptoms of it, either in hisreins, sides, or any other part, and had lived, till then, in a happy, vigorous state of health, little subject to infirmities, and he continuedseven years after in this disease, dragging on a very painful end oflife. I was born about five-and-twenty years before his disease seizedhim, and in the time of his most flourishing and healthful state of body, his third child in order of birth: where could his propension to thismalady lie lurking all that while? And he being then so far from theinfirmity, how could that small part of his substance wherewith he mademe, carry away so great an impression for its share? and how soconcealed, that till five-and-forty years after, I did not begin to besensible of it? being the only one to this hour, amongst so manybrothers and sisters, and all by one mother, that was ever troubled withit. He that can satisfy me in this point, I will believe him in as manyother miracles as he pleases; always provided that, as their manner is, he do not give me a doctrine much more intricate and fantastic than thething itself for current pay. 

Let the physicians a little excuse the liberty I take, for by this sameinfusion and fatal insinuation it is that I have received a hatred andcontempt of their doctrine; the antipathy I have against their art ishereditary. My father lived three-score and fourteen years, mygrandfather sixty-nine, my great-grandfather almost fourscore years, without ever tasting any sort of physic; and, with them, whatever was notordinary diet, was instead of a drug. Physic is grounded upon experienceand examples: so is my opinion. And is not this an express and veryadvantageous experience. I do not know that they can find me in alltheir records three that were born, bred, and died under the same roof, who have lived so long by their conduct. They must here of necessityconfess, that if reason be not, fortune at least is on my side, and withphysicians fortune goes a great deal further than reason. Let them nottake me now at a disadvantage; let them not threaten me in the subduedcondition wherein I now am; that were treachery. In truth, I have enoughthe better of them by these domestic examples, that they should restsatisfied. Human things are not usually so constant; it has been twohundred years, save eighteen, that this trial has lasted, for the firstof them was born in the year 1402: 'tis now, indeed, very good reasonthat this experience should begin to fail us. Let them not, therefore, reproach me with the infirmities under which I now suffer; is it notenough that I for my part have lived seven-and-forty years in goodhealth? though it should be the end of my career; 'tis of the longersort. 

My ancestors had an aversion to physic by some occult and naturalinstinct; for the very sight of drugs was loathsome to my father. TheSeigneur de Gaviac, my uncle by the father's side, a churchman, and avaletudinary from his birth, and yet who made that crazy life hold out tosixty-seven years, being once fallen into a furious fever, it was orderedby the physicians he should be plainly told that if he would not make useof help (for so they call that which is very often an obstacle), he wouldinfallibly be a dead man. That good man, though terrified with thisdreadful sentence, yet replied, "I am then a dead man. " But God soonafter made the prognostic false. The last of the brothers--there werefour of them--and by many years the last, the Sieur de Bussaguet, was theonly one of the family who made use of medicine, by reason, I suppose, ofthe concern he had with the other arts, for he was a councillor in thecourt of Parliament, and it succeeded so ill with him, that being inoutward appearance of the strongest constitution, he yet died long beforeany of the rest, save the Sieur de Saint Michel. 

'Tis possible I may have derived this natural antipathy to physic fromthem; but had there been no other consideration in the case, I would haveendeavoured to have overcome it; for all these conditions that spring inus without reason, are vicious; 'tis a kind of disease that we shouldwrestle with. It may be I had naturally this propension; but I havesupported and fortified it by arguments and reasons which haveestablished in me the opinion I am of. For I also hate the considerationof refusing physic for the nauseous taste. 

I should hardly be of that humour who hold health to be worth purchasingby all the most painful cauteries and incisions that can be applied. And, with Epicurus, I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided, ifgreater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted, that willterminate in greater pleasures. Health is a precious thing, and the onlyone, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out, not only his time, sweat, labour, and goods, but also his life itself to obtain it;forasmuch as, without it, life is wearisome and injurious to us:pleasure, wisdom, learning, and virtue, without it, wither away andvanish; and to the most laboured and solid discourses that philosophywould imprint in us to the contrary, we need no more but oppose the imageof Plato being struck with an epilepsy or apoplexy; and, in thispresupposition, to defy him to call the rich faculties of his soul to hisassistance. All means that conduce to health can neither be too painfulnor too dear to me. But I have some other appearances that make mestrangely suspect all this merchandise. I do not deny but that there maybe some art in it, that there are not amongst so many works of Nature, things proper for the conservation of health: that is most certain: Ivery well know there are some simples that moisten, and others that dry;I experimentally know that radishes are windy, and senna-leaves purging;and several other such experiences I have, as that mutton nourishes me, and wine warms me: and Solon said "that eating was physic against themalady hunger. " I do not disapprove the use we make of things the earthproduces, nor doubt, in the least, of the power and fertility of Nature, and of its application to our necessities: I very well see that pikes andswallows live by her laws; but I mistrust the inventions of our mind, ourknowledge and art, to countenance which, we have abandoned Nature and herrules, and wherein we keep no bounds nor moderation. As we call thepiling up of the first laws that fall into our hands justice, and theirpractice and dispensation very often foolish and very unjust; and asthose who scoff at and accuse it, do not, nevertheless, blame that noblevirtue itself, but only condemn the abuse and profanation of that sacredtitle; so in physic I very much honour that glorious name, itspropositions, its promises, so useful for the service of mankind; but theordinances it foists upon us, betwixt ourselves, I neither honour noresteem. 

In the first place, experience makes me dread it; for amongst all myacquaintance, I see no people so soon sick, and so long before they arewell, as those who take much physic; their very health is altered andcorrupted by their frequent prescriptions. Physicians are not content todeal only with the sick, but they will moreover corrupt health itself, for fear men should at any time escape their authority. Do they not, from a continual and perfect health, draw the argument of some greatsickness to ensue? I have been sick often enough, and have always foundmy sicknesses easy enough to be supported (though I have made trial ofalmost all sorts), and as short as those of any other, without theirhelp, or without swallowing their ill-tasting doses. The health I haveis full and free, without other rule or discipline than my own custom andpleasure. Every place serves me well enough to stay in, for I need noother conveniences, when I am sick, than what I must have when I am well. I never disturb myself that I have no physician, no apothecary, nor anyother assistance, which I see most other sick men more afflicted at thanthey are with their disease. What! Do the doctors themselves show usmore felicity and duration in their own lives, that may manifest to ussome apparent effect of their skill?

There is not a nation in the world that has not been many ages withoutphysic; and these the first ages, that is to say, the best and mosthappy; and the tenth part of the world knows nothing of it yet; manynations are ignorant of it to this day, where men live more healthful andlonger than we do here, and even amongst us the common people live wellenough without it. The Romans were six hundred years before theyreceived it; and after having made trial of it, banished it from the cityat the instance of Cato the Censor, who made it appear how easy it was tolive without it, having himself lived fourscore and five years, and kepthis wife alive to an extreme old age, not without physic, but without aphysician: for everything that we find to be healthful to life may becalled physic. He kept his family in health, as Plutarch says if Imistake not, with hare's milk; as Pliny reports, that the Arcadianscured all manner of diseases with that of a cow; and Herodotus says, theLybians generally enjoy rare health, by a custom they have, after theirchildren are arrived to four years of age, to burn and cauterise theveins of their head and temples, by which means they cut off alldefluxions of rheum for their whole lives. And the country people of ourprovince make use of nothing, in all sorts of distempers, but thestrongest wine they can get, mixed with a great deal of saffron andspice, and always with the same success. 

And to say the truth, of all this diversity and confusion ofprescriptions, what other end and effect is there after all, but to purgethe belly? which a thousand ordinary simples will do as well; and I donot know whether such evacuations be so much to our advantage as theypretend, and whether nature does not require a residence of herexcrements to a certain proportion, as wine does of its lees to keep italive: you often see healthful men fall into vomitings and fluxes of thebelly by some extrinsic accident, and make a great evacuation ofexcrements, without any preceding need, or any following benefit, butrather with hurt to their constitution. 'Tis from the great Plato, thatI lately learned, that of three sorts of motions which are natural to us, purging is the worst, and that no man, unless he be a fool, ought to takeanything to that purpose but in the extremest necessity. Men disturb andirritate the disease by contrary oppositions; it must be the way ofliving that must gently dissolve, and bring it to its end. The violentgripings and contest betwixt the drug and the disease are ever to ourloss, since the combat is fought within ourselves, and that the drug isan assistant not to be trusted, being in its own nature an enemy to ourhealth, and by trouble having only access into our condition. Let italone a little; the general order of things that takes care of fleas andmoles, also takes care of men, if they will have the same patience thatfleas and moles have, to leave it to itself. 'Tis to much purpose we cryout "Bihore, "--[A term used by the Languedoc waggoners to hasten theirhorses]--'tis a way to make us hoarse, but not to hasten the matter. 'Tis a proud and uncompassionate order: our fears, our despair displeaseand stop it from, instead of inviting it to, our relief; it owes itscourse to the disease, as well as to health; and will not suffer itselfto be corrupted in favour of the one to the prejudice of the other'sright, for it would then fall into disorder. Let us, in God's name, follow it; it leads those that follow, and those who will not follow, itdrags along, both their fury and physic together. Order a purge for yourbrain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach. 

One asking a Lacedaemonian what had made him live so long, he madeanswer, "the ignorance of physic"; and the Emperor Adrian continuallyexclaimed as he was dying, that the crowd of physicians had killed him. A bad wrestler turned physician: "Courage, " says Diogenes to him; "thouhast done well, for now thou will throw those who have formerly thrownthee. " But they have this advantage, according to Nicocles, that the sungives light to their success and the earth covers their failures. And, besides, they have a very advantageous way of making use of all sorts ofevents: for what fortune, nature, or any other cause (of which the numberis infinite), products of good and healthful in us, it is the privilegeof physic to attribute to itself; all the happy successes that happen tothe patient, must be thence derived; the accidents that have cured me, and a thousand others, who do not employ physicians, physicians usurp tothemselves: and as to ill accidents, they either absolutely disown them, in laying the fault upon the patient, by such frivolous reasons as theyare never at a loss for; as "he lay with his arms out of bed, " or "he wasdisturbed with the rattling of a coach:"

 "Rhedarum transitus arcto Vicorum inflexu:"

 ["The passage of the wheels in the narrow turning of the street"--Juvenal, iii. 236. ]

or "somebody had set open the casement, " or "he had lain upon his leftside, " or "he had some disagreeable fancies in his head": in sum, a word, a dream, or a look, seems to them excuse sufficient wherewith to palliatetheir own errors: or, if they so please, they even make use of ourgrowing worse, and do their business in this way which can never failthem: which is by buzzing us in the ear, when the disease is moreinflamed by their medicaments, that it had been much worse but for thoseremedies; he, whom from an ordinary cold they have thrown into a doubletertian-ague, had but for them been in a continued fever. They do notmuch care what mischief they do, since it turns to their own profit. In earnest, they have reason to require a very favourable belief fromtheir patients; and, indeed, it ought to be a very easy one, to swallowthings so hard to be believed. Plato said very well, that physicianswere the only men who might lie at pleasure, since our health dependsupon the vanity and falsity of their promises. 

AEsop, a most excellent author, and of whom few men discover all thegraces, pleasantly represents to us the tyrannical authority physiciansusurp over poor creatures, weakened and subdued by sickness and fear, when he tells us, that a sick person, being asked by his physician whatoperation he found of the potion he had given him: "I have sweated verymuch, " says the sick man. "That's good, " says the physician. Anothertime, having asked how he felt himself after his physic: "I have beenvery cold, and have had a great shivering upon me, " said he. "That isgood, " replied the physician. After the third potion, he asked him againhow he did: "Why, I find myself swollen and puffed up, " said he, "as ifI had a dropsy. "--"That is very well, " said the physician. One of hisservants coming presently after to inquire how he felt himself, "Truly, friend, " said he, "with being too well I am about to die. "

There was a more just law in Egypt, by which the physician, for the threefirst days, was to take charge of his patient at the patient's own riskand cost; but, those three days being past, it was to be at his own. Forwhat reason is it that their patron, AEsculapius, should be struck withthunder for restoring Hippolitus from death to life:

 "Nam Pater omnipotens, aliquem indignatus ab umbris Mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae, Ipse repertorem medicinae talis, et artis Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas;"

 ["Then the Almighty Father, offended that any mortal should rise to the light of life from the infernal shades, struck the son of Phoebus with his forked lightning to the Stygian lake. " --AEneid, vii. 770. ]

and his followers be pardoned, who send so many souls from life to death?A physician, boasting to Nicocles that his art was of great authority:"It is so, indeed, " said Nicocles, "that can with impunity kill so manypeople. "

As to what remains, had I been of their counsel, I would have rendered mydiscipline more sacred and mysterious; they begun well, but they have notended so. It was a good beginning to make gods and demons the authors oftheir science, and to have used a peculiar way of speaking and writing, notwithstanding that philosophy concludes it folly to persuade a man tohis own good by an unintelligible way: "Ut si quis medicus imperet, utsumat:"

 "Terrigenam, herbigradam, domiportam, sanguine cassam. "

 ["Describing it by the epithets of an animal trailing with its slime over the herbage, without blood or bones, and carrying its house upon its back, meaning simply a snail. "--Coste]

It was a good rule in their art, and that accompanies all other vain, fantastic, and supernatural arts, that the patient's belief shouldprepossess them with good hope and assurance of their effects andoperation: a rule they hold to that degree, as to maintain that the mostinexpert and ignorant physician is more proper for a patient who hasconfidence in him, than the most learned and experienced whom he is notso acquainted with. Nay, even the very choice of most of their drugs isin some sort mysterious and divine; the left foot of a tortoise, theurine of a lizard, the dung of an elephant, the liver of a mole, blooddrawn from under the right wing of a white pigeon; and for us who havethe stone (so scornfully they use us in our miseries) the excrement ofrats beaten to powder, and such like trash and fooleries which rathercarry a face of magical enchantment than of any solid science. I omitthe odd number of their pills, the destination of certain days and feastsof the year, the superstition of gathering their simples at certainhours, and that so austere and very wise countenance and carriage whichPliny himself so much derides. But they have, as I said, failed in thatthey have not added to this fine beginning the making their meetings andconsultations more religious and secret, where no profane person shouldhave admission, no more than in the secret ceremonies of AEsculapius; forby the reason of this it falls out that their irresolution, the weaknessof their arguments, divinations and foundations, the sharpness of theirdisputes, full of hatred, jealousy, and self-consideration, coming to bediscovered by every one, a man must be marvellously blind not to see thathe runs a very great hazard in their hands. Who ever saw one physicianapprove of another's prescription, without taking something away, oradding something to it? by which they sufficiently betray their tricks, and make it manifest to us that they therein more consider their ownreputation, and consequently their profit, than their patient's interest. He was a much wiser man of their tribe, who of old gave it as a rule, that only one physician should undertake a sick person; for if he donothing to purpose, one single man's default can bring no great scandalupon the art of medicine; and, on the contrary, the glory will be greatif he happen to have success; whereas, when there are many, they at everyturn bring a disrepute upon their calling, forasmuch as they oftener dohurt than good. They ought to be satisfied with the perpetualdisagreement which is found in the opinions of the principal masters andancient authors of this science, which is only known to men well read, without discovering to the vulgar the controversies and various judgmentswhich they still nourish and continue amongst themselves. 

Will you have one example of the ancient controversy in physic?Herophilus lodges the original cause of all diseases in the humours;Erasistratus, in the blood of the arteries; Asclepiades, in the invisibleatoms of the pores; Alcmaeon, in the exuberance or defect of our bodilystrength; Diocles, in the inequality of the elements of which the body iscomposed, and in the quality of the air we breathe; Strato, in theabundance, crudity, and corruption of the nourishment we take; andHippocrates lodges it in the spirits. There is a certain friend oftheirs, --[Celsus, Preface to the First Book. ]--whom they know betterthan I, who declares upon this subject, "that the most important sciencein practice amongst us, as that which is intrusted with our health andconservation, is, by ill luck, the most uncertain, the most perplexed, and agitated with the greatest mutations. " There is no great danger inour mistaking the height of the sun, or the fraction of some astronomicalsupputation; but here, where our whole being is concerned, 'tis notwisdom to abandon ourselves to the mercy of the agitation of so manycontrary winds. 

Before the Peloponnesian war there was no great talk of this science. Hippocrates brought it into repute; whatever he established, Chrysippusoverthrew; after that, Erasistratus, Aristotle's grandson, overthrew whatChrysippus had written; after these, the Empirics started up, who took aquite contrary way to the ancients in the management of this art; whenthe credit of these began a little to decay, Herophilus set another sortof practice on foot, which Asclepiades in turn stood up against, andoverthrew; then, in their turn, the opinions first of Themiso, and thenof Musa, and after that those of Vectius Valens, a physician famousthrough the intelligence he had with Messalina, came in vogue; the empireof physic in Nero's time was established in Thessalus, who abolished andcondemned all that had been held till his time; this man's doctrine wasrefuted by Crinas of Marseilles, who first brought all medicinaloperations under the Ephemerides and motions of the stars, and reducedeating, sleeping, and drinking to hours that were most pleasing toMercury and the moon; his authority was soon after supplanted byCharinus, a physician of the same city of Marseilles, a man who not onlycontroverted all the ancient methods of physic, but moreover the usage ofhot baths, that had been generally and for so many ages in common use; hemade men bathe in cold water, even in winter, and plunged his sickpatients in the natural waters of streams. No Roman till Pliny's timehad ever vouchsafed to practise physic; that office was only performedby Greeks and foreigners, as 'tis now amongst us French, by those whosputter Latin; for, as a very great physician says, we do not easilyaccept the medicine we understand, no more than we do the drugs weourselves gather. If the nations whence we fetch our guaiacum, sarsaparilla, and China wood, have physicians, how great a value must weimagine, by the same recommendation of strangeness, rarity, and dearpurchase, do they set upon our cabbage and parsley? for who would dareto contemn things so far fetched, and sought out at the hazard of so longand dangerous a voyage?

Since these ancient mutations in physic, there have been infinite othersdown to our own times, and, for the most part, mutations entire anduniversal, as those, for example, produced by Paracelsus, Fioravanti, andArgentier; for they, as I am told, not only alter one recipe, but thewhole contexture and rules of the body of physic, accusing all others ofignorance and imposition who have practised before them. At this rate, in what a condition the poor patient must be, I leave you to judge. 

If we were even assured that, when they make a mistake, that mistake oftheirs would do us no harm, though it did us no good, it were areasonable bargain to venture the making ourselves better without anydanger of being made worse. AEsop tells a story, that one who had boughta Morisco slave, believing that his black complexion had arrived byaccident and the ill usage of his former master, caused him to enter withgreat care into a course of baths and potions: it happened that the Moorwas nothing amended in his tawny complexion, but he wholly lost hisformer health. How often do we see physicians impute the death of theirpatients to one another? I remember that some years ago there was anepidemical disease, very dangerous and for the most part mortal, thatraged in the towns about us: the storm being over which had swept away aninfinite number of men, one of the most famous physicians of all thecountry, presently after published a book upon that subject, wherein, upon better thoughts, he confesses that the letting blood in that diseasewas the principal cause of so many mishaps. Moreover, their authors holdthat there is no physic that has not something hurtful in it. And ifeven those of the best operation in some measure offend us, what mustthose do that are totally misapplied? For my own part, though there werenothing else in the case, I am of opinion, that to those who loathe thetaste of physic, it must needs be a dangerous and prejudicial endeavourto force it down at so incommodious a time, and with so much aversion, and believe that it marvellously distempers a sick person at a time whenhe has so much need of repose. And more over, if we but consider theoccasions upon which they usually ground the cause of our diseases, theyare so light and nice, that I thence conclude a very little error in thedispensation of their drugs may do a great deal of mischief. Now, if themistake of a physician be so dangerous, we are in but a scurvy condition;for it is almost impossible but he must often fall into those mistakes:he had need of too many parts, considerations, and circumstances, rightlyto level his design: he must know the sick person's complexion, histemperament, his humours, inclinations, actions, nay, his very thoughtsand imaginations; he must be assured of the external circumstances, ofthe nature of the place, the quality of the air and season, the situationof the planets, and their influences: he must know in the disease, thecauses, prognostics, affections, and critical days; in the drugs, theweight, the power of working, the country, figure, age, and dispensation, and he must know how rightly to proportion and mix them together, tobeget a just and perfect symmetry; wherein if there be the least error, if amongst so many springs there be but any one out of order, 'tis enoughto destroy us. God knows with how great difficulty most of these thingsare to be understood: for (for example) how shall the physician find outthe true sign of the disease, every disease being capable of an infinitenumber of indications? How many doubts and controversies have theyamongst themselves upon the interpretation of urines? otherwise, whenceshould the continual debates we see amongst them about the knowledge ofthe disease proceed? how could we excuse the error they so oft fall into, of taking fox for marten? In the diseases I have had, though there wereever so little difficulty in the case, I never found three of oneopinion: which I instance, because I love to introduce examples wherein Iam myself concerned. 

A gentleman at Paris was lately cut for the stone by order of thephysicians, in whose bladder, being accordingly so cut, there was foundno more stone than in the palm of his hand; and in the same place abishop, who was my particular friend, having been earnestly pressed bythe majority of the physicians whom he consulted, to suffer himself to becut, to which also, upon their word, I used my interest to persuade him, when he was dead and opened, it appeared that he had no malady but in thekidneys. They are least excusable for any error in this disease, byreason that it is in some sort palpable; and 'tis thence that I concludesurgery to be much more certain, by reason that it sees and feels what itdoes, and so goes less upon conjecture; whereas the physicians have no'speculum matricis', by which to examine our brains, lungs, and liver. 

Even the very promises of physic are incredible in themselves; for, having to provide against divers and contrary accidents that oftenafflict us at one and the same time, and that have almost a necessaryrelation, as the heat of the liver and the coldness of the stomach, theywill needs persuade us, that of their ingredients one will heat thestomach and the other will cool the liver: one has its commission to godirectly to the kidneys, nay, even to the bladder, without scattering itsoperations by the way, and is to retain its power and virtue through allthose turns and meanders, even to the place to the service of which it isdesigned, by its own occult property this will dry-the brain; that willmoisten the lungs. Of all this bundle of things having mixed up apotion, is it not a kind of madness to imagine or to hope that thesediffering virtues should separate themselves from one another in thismixture and confusion, to perform so many various errands? I should verymuch fear that they would either lose or change their tickets, anddisturb one another's quarters. And who can imagine but that, in thisliquid confusion, these faculties must corrupt, confound, and spoil oneanother? And is not the danger still more when the making up of thismedicine is entrusted to the skill and fidelity of still another, towhose mercy we again abandon our lives?

As we have doublet and breeches-makers, distinct trades, to clothe us, and are so much the better fitted, seeing that each of them meddles onlywith his own business, and has less to trouble his head with than thetailor who undertakes all; and as in matter of diet, great persons, fortheir better convenience, and to the end they may be better served, havecooks for the different offices, this for soups and potages, that forroasting, instead of which if one cook should undertake the wholeservice, he could not so well perform it; so also as to the cure of ourmaladies. The Egyptians had reason to reject this general trade ofphysician, and to divide the profession: to each disease, to each part ofthe body, its particular workman; for that part was more properly andwith less confusion cared for, seeing the person looked to nothing else. Ours are not aware that he who provides for all, provides for nothing;and that the entire government of this microcosm is more than they areable to undertake. Whilst they were afraid of stopping a dysentery, lestthey should put the patient into a fever, they killed me a friend, --[Estienne de la Boetie. ]--who was worth more than the whole of them. They counterpoise their own divinations with the present evils; andbecause they will not cure the brain to the prejudice of the stomach, they injure both with their dissentient and tumultuary drugs. 

As to the variety and weakness of the rationale of this art, they aremore manifest in it than in any other art; aperitive medicines are properfor a man subject to the stone, by reason that opening and dilating thepassages they help forward the slimy matter whereof gravel and stone areengendered, and convey that downward which begins to harden and gather inthe reins; aperitive things are dangerous for a man subject to the stone, by reason that, opening and dilating the passages, they help forward thematter proper to create the gravel toward the reins, which by their ownpropension being apt to seize it, 'tis not to be imagined but that agreat deal of what has been conveyed thither must remain behind;moreover, if the medicine happen to meet with anything too large to becarried through all the narrow passages it must pass to be expelled, thatobstruction, whatever it is, being stirred by these aperitive things andthrown into those narrow passages, coming to stop them, will occasion acertain and most painful death. They have the like uniformity in thecounsels they give us for the regimen of life: it is good to make wateroften; for we experimentally see that, in letting it lie long in thebladder, we give it time to settle the sediment, which will concrete intoa stone; it is good not to make water often, for the heavy excrements itcarries along with it will not be voided without violence, as we see byexperience that a torrent that runs with force washes the ground it rollsover much cleaner than the course of a slow and tardy stream; so, it isgood to have often to do with women, for that opens the passages andhelps to evacuate gravel; it is also very ill to have often to do withwomen, because it heats, tires, and weakens the reins. It is good tobathe frequently in hot water, forasmuch as that relaxes and mollifiesthe places where the gravel and stone lie; it is also ill by reason thatthis application of external heat helps the reins to bake, harden, andpetrify the matter so disposed. For those who are taking baths it ismost healthful. To eat little at night, to the end that the waters theyare to drink the next morning may have a better operation upon an emptystomach; on the other hand, it is better to eat little at dinner, that ithinder not the operation of the waters, while it is not yet perfect, andnot to oppress the stomach so soon after the other labour, but leave theoffice of digestion to the night, which will much better perform it thanthe day, when the body and soul are in perpetual moving and action. Thusdo they juggle and trifle in all their discourses at our expense; andthey could not give me one proposition against which I should not knowhow to raise a contrary of equal force. Let them, then, no longerexclaim against those who in this trouble of sickness suffer themselvesto be gently guided by their own appetite and the advice of nature, andcommit themselves to the common fortune. 

I have seen in my travels almost all the famous baths of Christendom, andfor some years past have begun to make use of them myself: for I lookupon bathing as generally wholesome, and believe that we suffer no littleinconveniences in our health by having left off the custom that wasgenerally observed, in former times, almost by all nations, and is yet inmany, of bathing every day; and I cannot imagine but that we are much theworse by, having our limbs crusted and our pores stopped with dirt. Andas to the drinking of them, fortune has in the first place rendered themnot at all unacceptable to my taste; and secondly, they are natural andsimple, which at least carry no danger with them, though they may do usno good, of which the infinite crowd of people of all sorts andcomplexions who repair thither I take to be a sufficient warranty; andalthough I have not there observed any extraordinary and miraculouseffects, but that on the contrary, having more narrowly than ordinaryinquired into it, I have found all the reports of such operations thathave been spread abroad in those places ill-grounded and false, and thosethat believe them (as people are willing to be gulled in what theydesire) deceived in them, yet I have seldom known any who have been madeworse by those waters, and a man cannot honestly deny but that they begeta better appetite, help digestion, and do in some sort revive us, if wedo not go too late and in too weak a condition, which I would dissuadeevery one from doing. They have not the virtue to raise men fromdesperate and inveterate diseases, but they may help some lightindisposition, or prevent some threatening alteration. He who does notbring along with him so much cheerfulness as to enjoy the pleasure of thecompany he will there meet, and of the walks and exercises to which theamenity of those places invite us, will doubtless lose the best andsurest part of their effect. For this reason I have hitherto chosen togo to those of the most pleasant situation, where there was the bestconveniency of lodging, provision, and company, as the baths of Bagneresin France, those of Plombieres on the frontiers of Germany and Lorraine, those of Baden in Switzerland, those of Lucca in Tuscany, and especiallythose of Della Villa, which I have the most and at various seasonsfrequented. 

Every nation has particular opinions touching their use, and particularrules and methods in using them; and all of them, according to what Ihave seen, almost with like effect. Drinking them is not at all receivedin Germany; the Germans bathe for all diseases, and will lie dabbling inthe water almost from sun to sun; in Italy, where they drink nine days, they bathe at least thirty, and commonly drink the water mixed with someother drugs to make it work the better. Here we are ordered to walk todigest it; there we are kept in bed after taking it till it be wroughtoff, our stomachs and feet having continually hot cloths applied to themall the while; and as the Germans have a particular practice generally touse cupping and scarification in the bath, so the Italians have their'doccie', which are certain little streams of this hot water broughtthrough pipes, and with these bathe an hour in the morning, and as muchin the afternoon, for a month together, either the head, stomach, or anyother part where the evil lies. There are infinite other varieties ofcustoms in every country, or rather there is no manner of resemblance toone another. By this you may see that this little part of physic towhich I have only submitted, though the least depending upon art of allothers, has yet a great share of the confusion and uncertainty everywhereelse manifest in the profession. 

The poets put what they would say with greater emphasis and grace;witness these two epigrams:

 "Alcon hesterno signum Jovis attigit: ille, Quamvis marmoreus, vim patitur medici. Ecce hodie, jussus transferri ex aeede vetusta, Effertur, quamvis sit Deus atque lapis. "

 ["Alcon yesterday touched Jove's statue; he, although marble, suffers the force of the physician: to-day ordered to be transferred from the old temple, where it stood, it is carried out, although it be a god and a stone. "--Ausonius, Ep. , 74. ]

and the other:

 "Lotus nobiscum est, hilaris coenavit; et idem Inventus mane est mortuus Andragoras. Tam subitae mortis causam, Faustine, requiris? In somnis medicum viderat Hermocratem:"

 ["Andragoras bathed with us, supped gaily, and in the morning the same was found dead. Dost thou ask, Faustinus, the cause of this so sudden death? In his dreams he had seen the physician Hermocrates. " --Martial, vi. 53. ]

upon which I will relate two stories. 

The Baron de Caupene in Chalosse and I have betwixt us the advowson of abenefice of great extent, at the foot of our mountains, called Lahontan. It is with the inhabitants of this angle, as 'tis said of those of theVal d'Angrougne; they lived a peculiar sort of life, their fashions, clothes, and manners distinct from other people; ruled and governed bycertain particular laws and usages, received from father to son, to whichthey submitted, without other constraint than the reverence to custom. This little state had continued from all antiquity in so happy acondition, that no neighbouring judge was ever put to the trouble ofinquiring into their doings; no advocate was ever retained to give themcounsel, no stranger ever called in to compose their differences; nor wasever any of them seen to go a-begging. They avoided all alliances andtraffic with the outer world, that they might not corrupt the purity oftheir own government; till, as they say, one of them, in the memory ofman, having a mind spurred on with a noble ambition, took it into hishead, to bring his name into credit and reputation, to make one of hissons something more than ordinary, and having put him to learn to writein a neighbouring town, made him at last a brave village notary. Thisfellow, having acquired such dignity, began to disdain their ancientcustoms, and to buzz into the people's ears the pomp of the other partsof the nation; the first prank he played was to advise a friend of his, whom somebody had offended by sawing off the horns of one of his goats, to make his complaint to the royal judges thereabout, and so he went onfrom one to another, till he had spoiled and confounded all. In the tailof this corruption, they say, there happened another, and of worseconsequence, by means of a physician, who, falling in love with one oftheir daughters, had a mind to marry her and to live amongst them. Thisman first of all began to teach them the names of fevers, colds, andimposthumes; the seat of the heart, liver, and intestines, a science tillthen utterly unknown to them; and instead of garlic, with which they werewont to cure all manner of diseases, how painful or extreme soever, hetaught them, though it were but for a cough or any little cold, to takestrange mixtures, and began to make a trade not only of their health, butof their lives. They swear till then they never perceived the eveningair to be offensive to the head; that to drink when they were hot washurtful, and that the winds of autumn were more unwholesome than those ofspring; that, since this use of physic, they find themselves oppressedwith a legion of unaccustomed diseases, and that they perceive a generaldecay in their ancient vigour, and their lives are cut shorter by thehalf. This is the first of my stories. 

The other is, that before I was afflicted with the stone, hearing thatthe blood of a he-goat was with many in very great esteem, and lookedupon as a celestial manna rained down upon these latter ages for the goodand preservation of the lives of men, and having heard it spoken of bymen of understanding for an admirable drug, and of infallible operation;I, who have ever thought myself subject to all the accidents that canbefall other men, had a mind, in my perfect health, to furnish myselfwith this miracle, and therefore gave order to have a goat fed at homeaccording to the recipe: for he must be taken in the hottest month of allsummer, and must only have aperitive herbs given him to eat, and whitewine to drink. I came home by chance the very day he was to be killed;and some one came and told me that the cook had found two or three greatballs in his paunch, that rattled against one another amongst what he hadeaten. I was curious to have all his entrails brought before me, where, having caused the skin that enclosed them to be cut, there tumbled outthree great lumps, as light as sponges, so that they appeared to behollow, but as to the rest, hard and firm without, and spotted and mixedall over with various dead colours; one was perfectly round, and of thebigness of an ordinary ball; the other two something less, of animperfect roundness, as seeming not to be arrived at their, full growth. I find, by inquiry of people accustomed to open these animals, that it isa rare and unusual accident. 'Tis likely these are stones of the samenature with ours and if so, it must needs be a very vain hope inthose who have the stone, to extract their cure from the blood of a beastthat was himself about to die of the same disease. For to say that theblood does not participate of this contagion, and does not thence alterits wonted virtue, it is rather to be believed that nothing is engenderedin a body but by the conspiracy and communication of all the parts: thewhole mass works together, though one part contributes more to the workthan another, according to the diversity of operations; wherefore it isvery likely that there was some petrifying quality in all the parts ofthis goat. It was not so much for fear of the future, and for myself, that I was curious in this experiment, but because it falls out in mine, as it does in many other families, that the women store up such littletrumperies for the service of the people, using the same recipe in fiftyseveral diseases, and such a recipe as they will not take themselves, andyet triumph when they happen to be successful. 

As to what remains, I honour physicians, not according to the preceptfor their necessity (for to this passage may be opposed another of theprophet reproving King Asa for having recourse to a physician), but forthemselves, having known many very good men of that profession, and mostworthy to be beloved. I do not attack them; 'tis their art I inveighagainst, and do not much blame them for making their advantage of ourfolly, for most men do the same. Many callings, both of greater and ofless dignity than theirs, have no other foundation or support than publicabuse. When I am sick I send for them if they be near, only to havetheir company, and pay them as others do. I give them leave to commandme to keep myself warm, because I naturally love to do it, and to appointleeks or lettuce for my broth; to order me white wine or claret; and soas to all other things, which are indifferent to my palate and custom. I know very well that I do nothing for them in so doing, becausesharpness and strangeness are incidents of the very essence of physic. Lycurgus ordered wine for the sick Spartans. Why? because theyabominated the drinking it when they were well; as a gentleman, aneighbour of mine, takes it as an excellent medicine in his fever, because naturally he mortally hates the taste of it. How many do we seeamongst them of my humour, who despise taking physic themselves, are menof a liberal diet, and live a quite contrary sort of life to what theyprescribe others? What is this but flatly to abuse our simplicity? fortheir own lives and health are no less dear to them than ours are to us, and consequently they would accommodate their practice to their rules, ifthey did not themselves know how false these are. 

'Tis the fear of death and of pain, impatience of disease, and a violentand indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us: 'tis purecowardice that makes our belief so pliable and easy to be imposed upon:and yet most men do not so much believe as they acquiesce and permit; forI hear them find fault and complain as well as we; but they resolve atlast, "What should I do then?" As if impatience were of itself a betterremedy than patience. Is there any one of those who have sufferedthemselves to be persuaded into this miserable subjection, who does notequally surrender himself to all sorts of impostures? who does not giveup himself to the mercy of whoever has the impudence to promise him acure? The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square; thephysician was the people: every one who passed by being in humanity andcivility obliged to inquire of their condition, gave some adviceaccording to his own experience. We do little better; there is not sosimple a woman, whose gossips and drenches we do not make use of: andaccording to my humour, if I were to take physic, I would sooner chooseto take theirs than any other, because at least, if they do no good, theywill do no harm. What Homer and Plato said of the Egyptians, that theywere all physicians, may be said of all nations; there is not a manamongst any of them who does not boast of some rare recipe, and who willnot venture it upon his neighbour, if he will let him. I was the otherday in a company where one, I know not who, of my fraternity brought usintelligence of a new sort of pills made up of a hundred and oddingredients: it made us very merry, and was a singular consolation, forwhat rock could withstand so great a battery? And yet I hear from thosewho have made trial of it, that the least atom of gravel deigned not tostir fort. 

I cannot take my hand from the paper before I have added a wordconcerning the assurance they give us of the certainty of their drugs, from the experiments they have made. 

The greatest part, I should say above two-thirds of the medicinalvirtues, consist in the quintessence or occult property of simples, of which we can have no other instruction than use and custom; forquintessence is no other than a quality of which we cannot by our reasonfind out the cause. In such proofs, those they pretend to have acquiredby the inspiration of some daemon, I am content to receive (for I meddlenot with miracles); and also the proofs which are drawn from things that, upon some other account, often fall into use amongst us; as if in thewool, wherewith we are wont to clothe ourselves, there has accidentallysome occult desiccative property been found out of curing kibed heels, oras if in the radish we eat for food there has been found out someaperitive operation. Galen reports, that a man happened to be cured of aleprosy by drinking wine out of a vessel into which a viper had crept bychance. In this example we find the means and a very likely guide andconduct to this experience, as we also do in those that physicianspretend to have been directed to by the example of some beasts. But inmost of their other experiments wherein they affirm they have beenconducted by fortune, and to have had no other guide than chance, I findthe progress of this information incredible. Suppose man looking roundabout him upon the infinite number of things, plants, animals, metals;I do not know where he would begin his trial; and though his first fancyshould fix him upon an elk's horn, wherein there must be a very pliantand easy belief, he will yet find himself as perplexed in his secondoperation. There are so many maladies and so many circumstancespresented to him, that before he can attain the certainty of the point towhich the perfection of his experience should arrive, human sense will beat the end of its lesson: and before he can, amongst this infinity ofthings, find out what this horn is; amongst so many diseases, what isepilepsy; the many complexions in a melancholy person; the many seasonsin winter; the many nations in the French; the many ages in age; the manycelestial mutations in the conjunction of Venus and Saturn; the manyparts in man's body, nay, in a finger; and being, in all this, directedneither by argument, conjecture, example, nor divine inspirations, butmerely by the sole motion of fortune, it must be by a perfectlyartificial, regular and methodical fortune. And after the cure isperformed, how can he assure himself that it was not because the diseasehad arrived at its period or an effect of chance? or the operation ofsomething else that he had eaten, drunk, or touched that day? or byvirtue of his grandmother's prayers? And, moreover, had this experimentbeen perfect, how many times was it repeated, and this long bead-roll ofhaps, and concurrences strung anew by chance to conclude a certain rule?And when the rule is concluded, by whom, I pray you? Of so manymillions, there are but three men who take upon them to record theirexperiments: must fortune needs just hit one of these? What if another, and a hundred others, have made contrary experiments? We might, peradventure, have some light in this, were all the judgments andarguments of men known to us; but that three witnesses, three doctors, should lord it over all mankind, is against reason: it were necessarythat human nature should have deputed and chosen them out, and that theywere declared our comptrollers by express procuration:

"TO MADAME DE DURAS. 

 --[Marguerite de Grammont, widow of Jean de Durfort, Seigneur de Duras, who was killed near Leghorn, leaving no posterity. Montaigne seems to have been on terms of considerable intimacy with her, and to have tendered her some very wholesome and frank advice in regard to her relations with Henry IV. ]--

"MADAME, --The last time you honoured me with a visit, you found me at workupon this chapter, and as these trifles may one day fall into your hands, I would also that they testify in how great honour the author will takeany favour you shall please to show them. You will there find the sameair and mien you have observed in his conversation; and though I couldhave borrowed some better or more favourable garb than my own, I wouldnot have done it: for I require nothing more of these writings, but topresent me to your memory such as I naturally am. The same conditionsand faculties you have been pleased to frequent and receive with muchmore honour and courtesy than they deserve, I would put together (butwithout alteration or change) in one solid body, that may peradventurecontinue some years, or some days, after I am gone; where you may findthem again when you shall please to refresh your memory, without puttingyou to any greater trouble; neither are they worth it. I desire youshould continue the favour of your friendship to me, by the samequalities by which it was acquired. 

"I am not at all ambitious that any one should love and esteem me moredead than living. The humour of Tiberius is ridiculous, but yet common, who was more solicitous to extend his renown to posterity than to renderhimself acceptable to men of his own time. If I were one of those towhom the world could owe commendation, I would give out of it one-half tohave the other in hand; let their praises come quick and crowding aboutme, more thick than long, more full than durable; and let them cease, inGod's name, with my own knowledge of them, and when the sweet sound canno longer pierce my ears. It were an idle humour to essay, now that I amabout to forsake the commerce of men, to offer myself to them by a newrecommendation. I make no account of the goods I could not employ in theservice of my life. Such as I am, I will be elsewhere than in paper: myart and industry have been ever directed to render myself good forsomething; my studies, to teach me to do, and not to write. I have madeit my whole business to frame my life: this has been my trade and mywork; I am less a writer of books than anything else. I have covetedunderstanding for the service of my present and real conveniences, andnot to lay up a stock for my posterity. He who has anything of value inhim, let him make it appear in his conduct, in his ordinary discourses, in his courtships, and his quarrels: in play, in bed, at table, in themanagement of his affairs, in his economics. Those whom I see make goodbooks in ill breeches, should first have mended their breeches, if theywould have been ruled by me. Ask a Spartan whether he had rather be agood orator or a good soldier: and if I was asked the same question, Iwould rather choose to be a good cook, had I not one already to serve me. My God! Madame, how should I hate such a recommendation of being aclever fellow at writing, and an ass and an inanity in everything else!Yet I had rather be a fool both here and there than to have made so ill achoice wherein to employ my talent. And I am so far from expecting togain any new reputation by these follies, that I shall think I come offpretty well if I lose nothing by them of that little I had before. Forbesides that this dead and mute painting will take from my natural being, it has no resemblance to my better condition, but is much lapsed from myformer vigour and cheerfulness, growing faded and withered: I am towardsthe bottom of the barrel, which begins to taste of the lees. 

"As to the rest, Madame, I should not have dared to make so bold with themysteries of physic, considering the esteem that you and so many othershave of it, had I not had encouragement from their own authors. I thinkthere are of these among the old Latin writers but two, Pliny and Celsusif these ever fall into your hands, you will find that they speak muchmore rudely of their art than I do; I but pinch it, they cut its throat. Pliny, amongst other things, twits them with this, that when they are atthe end of their rope, they have a pretty device to save themselves, byrecommending their patients, whom they have teased and tormented withtheir drugs and diets to no purpose, some to vows and miracles, others tothe hot baths. (Be not angry, Madame; he speaks not of those in ourparts, which are under the protection of your house, and all Gramontins. )They have a third way of saving their own credit, of ridding their handsof us and securing themselves from the reproaches we might cast in theirteeth of our little amendment, when they have had us so long in theirhands that they have not one more invention left wherewith to amuse us, which is to send us to the better air of some other country. This, Madame, is enough; I hope you will give me leave to return to mydiscourse, from which I have so far digressed, the better to divert you. "

It was, I think, Pericles, who being asked how he did: "You may judge, "says he, "by these, " showing some little scrolls of parchment he had tiedabout his neck and arms. By which he would infer that he must needs bevery sick when he was reduced to a necessity of having recourse to suchidle and vain fopperies, and of suffering himself to be so equipped. I dare not promise but that I may one day be so much a fool as to commitmy life and death to the mercy and government of physicians; I may fallinto such a frenzy; I dare not be responsible for my future constancy:but then, if any one ask me how I do, I may also answer, as Pericles did, "You may judge by this, " shewing my hand clutching six drachms of opium. It will be a very evident sign of a violent sickness: my judgment will bevery much out of order; if once fear and impatience get such an advantageover me, it may very well be concluded that there is a dreadful fever inmy mind. 

I have taken the pains to plead this cause, which I understandindifferently, a little to back and support the natural aversion to drugsand the practice of physic I have derived from my ancestors, to the endit may not be a mere stupid and inconsiderate aversion, but have a littlemore form; and also, that they who shall see me so obstinate in myresolution against all exhortations and menaces that shall be given me, when my infirmity shall press hardest upon me, may not think 'tis mereobstinacy in me; or any one so ill-natured as to judge it to be anymotive of glory: for it would be a strange ambition to seek to gainhonour by an action my gardener or my groom can perform as well as I. Certainly, I have not a heart so tumorous and windy, that I shouldexchange so solid a pleasure as health for an airy and imaginarypleasure: glory, even that of the Four Sons of Aymon, is too dear boughtby a man of my humour, if it cost him three swinging fits of the stone. Give me health, in God's name! Such as love physic, may also have good, great, and convincing considerations; I do not hate opinions contrary tomy own: I am so, far from being angry to see a discrepancy betwixt mineand other men's judgments, and from rendering myself unfit for thesociety of men, from being of another sense and party than mine, that onthe contrary (the most general way that nature has followed beingvariety, and more in souls than bodies, forasmuch as they are of a moresupple substance, and more susceptible of forms) I find it much more rareto see our humours and designs jump and agree. And there never were, inthe world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains:their most universal quality is diversity. 

 ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

 I am towards the bottom of the barrel Accusing all others of ignorance and imposition Affection towards their husbands, (not) until they have lost them Anything of value in him, let him make it appear in his conduct As if impatience were of itself a better remedy than patience Assurance they give us of the certainty of their drugs At least, if they do no good, they will do no harm Attribute to itself; all the happy successes that happen Best part of a captain to know how to make use of occasions Burnt and roasted for opinions taken upon trust from others Commit themselves to the common fortune Crafty humility that springs from presumption Did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory Disease had arrived at its period or an effect of chance? Dissentient and tumultuary drugs Do not much blame them for making their advantage of our folly Doctors: more felicity and duration in their own lives? Doctrine much more intricate and fantastic than the thing itself Drugs being in its own nature an enemy to our health Even the very promises of physic are incredible in themselves Fathers conceal their affection from their children He who provides for all, provides for nothing Health depends upon the vanity and falsity of their promises Health is altered and corrupted by their frequent prescriptions Health to be worth purchasing by all the most painful cauteries Homer: The only words that have motion and action I dare not promise but that I may one day be so much a fool I see no people so soon sick as those who take physic Indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us Intended to get a new husband than to lament the old Let it alone a little Life should be cut off in the sound and living part Live a quite contrary sort of life to what they prescribe others Live, not so long as they please, but as long as they ought Llaying the fault upon the patient, by such frivolous reasons Long a voyage I should at last run myself into some disadvantage Making their advantage of our folly, for most men do the same Man may with less trouble adapt himself to entire abstinence Man runs a very great hazard in their hands (of physicians) Mark of singular good nature to preserve old age Men must embark, and not deliberate, upon high enterprises Mercenaries who would receive any (pay) Moderation is a virtue that gives more work than suffering More valued a victory obtained by counsel than by force Most men do not so much believe as they acquiesce and permit Never any man knew so much, and spake so little No danger with them, though they may do us no good No other foundation or support than public abuse No physic that has not something hurtful in it Noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarely lodged Obstinacy is the sister of constancy Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better Ordinances it (Medicine) foists upon us Passion has a more absolute command over us than reason Pay very strict usury who did not in due time pay the principal People are willing to be gulled in what they desire Physician's "help", which is very often an obstacle Physicians are not content to deal only with the sick Physicians fear men should at any time escape their authority Physicians were the only men who might lie at pleasure Physicians: earth covers their failures Plato said of the Egyptians, that they were all physicians Pure cowardice that makes our belief so pliable Recommendation of strangeness, rarity, and dear purchase Send us to the better air of some other country Should first have mended their breeches Smile upon us whilst we are alive So austere and very wise countenance and carriage (of physicians) So much are men enslaved to their miserable being Solon said that eating was physic against the malady hunger Strangely suspect all this merchandise: medical care Studies, to teach me to do, and not to write Such a recipe as they will not take themselves That he could neither read nor swim The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square They (good women) are not by the dozen, as every one knows They have not one more invention left wherewith to amuse us They juggle and trifle in all their discourses at our expense They never loved them till dead Tis in some sort a kind of dying to avoid the pain of living wel Tis not the number of men, but the number of good men Tis there she talks plain French To be, not to seem To keep me from dying is not in your power Two opinions alike, no more than two hairs Tyrannical authority physicians usurp over poor creatures Venture it upon his neighbour, if he will let him Venture the making ourselves better without any danger We confess our ignorance in many things We do not easily accept the medicine we understand What are become of all our brave philosophical precepts? What we have not seen, we are forced to receive from other hands Whatever was not ordinary diet, was instead of a drug Whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead Who does not boast of some rare recipe Who ever saw one physician approve of another's prescription Willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead With being too well I am about to die Wont to give others their life, and not to receive it You may indeed make me die an ill death