I can the more freely dispose of my fortune the more it is mine, and of my self, the more I am my own. Nevertheless, if I were good at setting out my own actions, I could peradventure very well repell these reproaches, and could give some to understand, that they are not so much offended, that I do not enough, as that I am able to do a great deal more than I do. Yet for all this heavy disposition of mine, my mind, when retir'd into it self, was not altogether idle, nor wholly depriv'd of solid inquisition, nor of certain and infallible results about those objects it could comprehend, and could also without any helps digest them; but amongst other things, I do really believe, it had been totally impossible to have made it to submit by violence and force. Shall I here acquaint you with one faculty of my youth? I had great boldness and assurance of countenance, and to that a flexibility of voice and gesture to any part I undertook to act. Alter ab undecimo tum me vix seperat annus.-Virg. Bucol. 8. For the next year to my eleventh had Me but a very few days older made. When I play'd the chiefest parts in the Latin tragedies of Bucanan, Guerente, and Muretus, that were presented in our college of Guienne, with very great applause: wherein Andreas Goveanus, our principal, as in all other parts of his undertaking, was without comparison, the best of that employment in France; and I was look'd upon as one of the chief actors. 'Tis an exercise that I do not disapprove in young people of condition, and have since seen our princes, by the example of the ancients, in person handsomly and commendably perform these exercises; and it was moreover allow'd to persons of the greatest quality to profess, and make a trade of it in Greece. "Aristoni Tragico actori rem aperit: huic et genus, et fortuna honesta erant: nec Ars, quia nihil tale apud Græcos pudori est ea deformabat."-Lib. 1. 6. 26. He imparted this affair to Aristo the tragedian, a man of a good family and fortune, which nevertheless, did neither of them receive any blemish by that profession; nothing of that kind being reputed a disparagement in Greece." Nay, I have always tax'd those with impertinence who condemn these entertainments, and with injustice those who refuse to admit such comedians as are worth seeing into the good towns, and grudge the people that publick diversion. Well-govern'd corporations take care to assemble their citizens, not only to the solemn duties of devotion, but also to sports and spectacles. They find society and friendship augmented by it; and besides, can there possibly be allow'd a more orderly and regular diversion than what is perform'd in the sight of every one, and very often in the presence of the supream magistrate himself? And I, for my part, should think it reasonable, that the prince should sometimes gratifie his people at his own expence ; and that in great and populous cities there might be theatres erected for such entertainments, if but to divert them from worse and more private actions. But, to return to my subject, there is nothing like alluring the appetite and affection, otherwise you make nothing but so many asses loaden with books, and by vertue of the lash, give them their pocket full of learning to keep; whereas, to do well, you should not only lodge it with them, but make them to espouse it. 116 IT IS FOLLY TO MEASURE TRUTH AND ERROR BY OURSELVES. CHAP. XXI.-THAT IT IS FOLLY TO MEASURE TRUTH AND ERROR BY OUR OWN CAPACITY. 'Tis not perhaps without reason, that we attribute facility of belief, and easiness of persuasion, to simplicity and ignorance, and I have heard the belief compar'd to the impression of a seal stamp'd upon the soul, which by how much softer and of less resistance it is, is the more easie to be impos'd upon. "Ut necesse est lancem in libra ponderibus impositis, de primis sic animum perspicuis cedere ;" "As the scale of the balance must give way to the weight that presses it down, so the mind must of necessity yield to demonstration ;" and by how much the soul is more empty, and without counterpoise, with so much greater facility it dips under the weight of the first perswasion. And this is the reason that children, the common people, women, and sick folks, are most apt to be led by the ears. But then on the other side, 'tis a very great presumption, to slight and condemn all, things for false that do not appear to us likely to be true; which is the ordinary vice of such as fansie themselves wiser than their neighbours. I was my self once one of those; and if I heard talk of dead folks walking, of prophecies, enchantments, witchcrafts, or any other story, I had no mind to believe, Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala; Dreams, magick terrors, wonders, sorceries, I presently pitied the poor people that were abus'd by these follies; whereas I now find, that I my self was to be pitied as much at least as they; not that experience has taught me any thing to convince my former opinion, tho' my curiosity has endeavoured that way; but reason has instructed me, that thus resolutely to condemn any thing for false and impossible, is arrogantly and impiously to circumscribe and limit the will of God, and the power of nature, within the bounds of my own capacity, than which no folly can be greater. If we give the names of monster and miracle to every thing our reason cannot comprehend, how many are continually presented before our eyes? Let us but consider through what clouds, and as it were groping in the dark, our teachers lead us to the knowledge of most of the things we apply our studies to, and we shall find that it is rather custom than knowledge that takes away the wonder, and renders them easie and familiar to us. - Jam nemo cessus, saturusque videndi, Suspicere in cœli dignatur lucida templa.-Lucret. l. 2. Heaven's lucid temples deigns to look upon. And that if those things were now newly presented to us, we should think them as strange and incredible, if not more than any others. Si nunc primum mortalibus adsint Ex improviso, seu sint objecta repentè, Nil magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici, Aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes.—Id. ibid. At nothing could they be astonish'd more, He that had never seen a river, imagin'd the first he met with to be the sea, and the greatest things that have fall'n within our knowledge, we conclude the extreams that nature makes of the kind. Scilicet et fluvius qui non est maximus, ei est A little river unto him does seem, That bigger never saw, a mighty stream: O'th kind the greatest, that ne'er greater knew. "Consuetudine oculorum, assuescunt animi, neque admirantur, neque requirunt rationes earum rerum, quas semper vident."-Cicero de Nat. Deor. lib. 2. "Things grow familiar to mens minds by being often seen; so that they neither admire, nor are inquisitive into things they daily see." The novelty, rather than the greatness of things, tempts us to enquire into their causes. But we are able to judge with more reverence, and with greater acknowledgment of our own ignorance and infirmity of this infinite power of nature. How many unlikely things are there testified by people of very good repute, which if we cannot persuade our selves absolutely to believe we ought at least to leave them in suspence; for to conclude them impossible, is by a temerarious presumption to pretend to know the utmost bounds of possibility. Did we rightly understand the difference betwixt impossible, betwixt extraordinary, and what is contrary to the common opinion of men, in believing rashly, and on the other side, in being not too incredulous, we should then observe the rule of "Ne quid nimis," enjoyn'd by Chilo. When we find in Froissart, that the Count de Foix knew in Bearn the defeat of John king of Castile at Juberoth the next day after, and the means by which he tells us he came to do so we may be allow'd to be a little merry at it, as also at what our Annals report, that Pope Honorius, the same day that king Philip Augustus died at Mant performed his publick obsequies at Rome, and commanded the like throughout all Italy; the testimony of these authors not being perhaps of authority enough to restrain us. But what if Plutarch, besides several examples that he produces out of antiquity, tells us, he is assur'd by certain knowledge, that in the time of Domitian, the news of the battel lost by Antonius in Germany, was publish'd at Rome, many days journey from thence, and dispers'd throughout the whole world, the same day it was fought and if Cæsar was of opinion, that it has often happened, that the report has preceeded the accident; shall we not say, that these simple people have suffer'd themselves to be deceived with the vulgar, for not having been so clear sighted as we? Is there any thing more delicate, more clear, more spritely, than Pliny's judgment, when he is pleased to set it to work? Any thing more remote from vanity? Setting aside his learning, of which I make less account, in which of these do any of us excell him? And yet there is scarce a puisne sophister that does not convince him of untruth, and that pretends not to instruct FIERCE CONFLICTS BETWEEN CATHOLIC AND HUGUENOT. 66 118 him in the progress of the works of nature: when we read in Bouchet the miracles of St. Hilary's relicks; away with it, his authority is not sufficient to bear us the liberty of contradicting him: but generally to condemn all such like stories, seems to me an impudence of the worst character. The great St. Augustine, professes himself to have seen a blind child recover sight upon the relick of St. Gervase, and St. Protasius at Milan, a woman at Carthage cur'd of a cancer, by the sign of the cross made upon her by a woman newly baptiz'd. Hesperius, a familiar friend of his, to have driven away the spirits that haunted his house, with a little earth of the sepulchre of our Lord; which earth being also transported thence into the church, a paralytick to have there been suddenly cur'd by it. A woman in procession, having touch'd St. Stephen's shrine with a nosegay, and after rubbing her eyes with it, to have recovered her sight lost many years before; with several other miracles, of which he professes himself to have been an eye-witness. Of what shall we accuse him and the two holy bishops, Aurelius and Maximinus, both which he attests to the truth of these things? Shall it be of ignorance, simplicity, and facility; or of malice and imposture? Is any man now living so impudent, as to think himself comparable to them, either in virtue, piety, learning, judgment, or any kind of perfection? Qui ut rationem nullam afferent, ipsa authoritate me frangerent."-Cicero 2. de Div. l. 2. "Who though they should give me no reason for what they affirm, would yet convince me with their authority." 'Tis a presumption of great danger and consequence, besides the absurd temerity it draws after it, to contemn what we do not comprehend. For after that, according to your fine understanding, you have establish'd the limits of truth and error, and that afterwards there appears a necessity upon you of believing stranger things than those you have contradicted, you are already oblig'd to quit your hold, and to acquiesce. That which seems to me so much to disorder our consciences in the commotions we are now in concerning religion, is the catholicks dispensing so much with their belief; they fansie they appear moderate, and wise, when they grant to the Huguenots some of the articles in question; but besides that, they do not discern what advantage it is to those with whom we contend, to begin to give ground, and to retire, and how much this animates our enemy to follow his blow: these articles which they insist upon as things indifferent, are sometimes of very great importtance, and dangerous consequence. We are either wholly and absolutely to submit our selves to the authority of our ecclesiastical polity, or totally throw off all obedience to it. 'Tis not for us to determine what and how much obedience we owe to it, and this I can say, as having my self made trial of it, that having formerly taken the liberty of my own swing and fancy, and omitted or neglected certain rules of the discipline of our church, which seem'd to me vain, and of no foundation coming afterwards to discourse it with learned men, I have found those very things to be built upon very good and solid ground, and strong foundation; and that nothing but brutality and ignorance make us receive them with less reverence than the rest: why do we not consider what contradictions we find in our own judgments, how many things were yesterday articles of our faith, that to day appear no other than fables? Glory and curiosity are the scourges of the soul; of which the last prompts us to thrust our noses into every thing, and the other forbids us to leave any thing doubtful and undecided. CHAP. XXII.-OF FRIENDSHIP. HAVING considered the fancy of a painter, I have that serves me, I had a mind to imitate his way; for he chooses the fairest place, and middle of any wall, or pannel of wainscote, wherein to draw a picture which he finishes with his utmost care and art, and the vacuity about it he fills with grotesque; which are odd fantastick figures, without any grace, but what they derive from their variety, and the extravagancy of their shapes. And in truth, what are these things I scribble, other than grotesques, and monstrous bodies, made of dissenting parts, without any certain figure, or any other than accidental order, coherence or proportion? Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne.—Hor. de Art. Poetica. That a fair woman's face above doth show; But in a fishes tail doth end below. In the second part I go hand in hand with my painter, but fall very short of him in the first, and the better, my power of handling not being such, that I dare to offer at a brave piece, finely painted, and set off according to art. I have therefore thought fit to borrow one of Estienno de Boitic, and such a one as shall honour and adorn all the rest of my work; namely, a discourse that he called, "the voluntary servitude," a piece writ in his younger years, by way of essay, in honour of liberty against tyrants, and which has since run through the hands of several men of great learning and judgment, not without singular, and merited commendation, for it is finely writ, and as full, as any thing can possibly be though a man may confidently say it is far short of what he was able to do; and if in that more mature age, wherein I had the happiness to know him, he had taken a design like this of mine, to commit his thoughts to writing, we should have seen a great many rare things, and such as would have gone very near to have rival'd the best writings of antiquity: for in natural parts especially, I know no man comparable to him. But he has left nothing behind him, save this treatise only, (and that too by chance, for I believe he never saw it after it first went out of his hands,) and some observations upon that edict of January, made famous by our civil wars, which also shall elsewhere peradventure find a place. These were all I could recover of his remains, I to whom, with so affectionate a remembrance, upon his death-bed, he by his last will bequeath'd his library, and papers, the little book of his works only excepted, which I committed to the press. And this particular obligation I have to this treatise of his, that it was the occasion of my first coming acquainted with him; for it was shew'd to me long before I had the good fortune to know him ; and gave me the first knowledge of his name; proving so the first cause and foundation of a friendship, which we afterwards improv'd, and maintain'd, so long as God was pleas'd to continue us together, so perfect, inviolate, and entire, that certainly the like is hardly to be found in story, and amongst the men of this age, there is no sign nor trace of any such thing in use; so much concurrence is requir'd to the |