presence of the gods, and before the magistrate, it was rather so order'd upon the score of health, and to inure us to the injuries of weather than upon the account of reverence. And since we are now talking of cold, and French men us'd to wear variety of colours, (not I my self, for I seldom wear other than black, or white, in imitation of my father,) let us add another story of captain Martin du Bellay, who affirms, that in the voyage of Luxemburg, he saw so great frosts, that the ammunition wine was cut with hatchets, and wedges; was deliver'd out to the soldiers by weight, and that they carried it away in baskets.

At the mouth of the lake Moeotis, the frosts are so very sharp, that in the very same place where Mithridates his lieutenant had fought the enemy dry-foot, and given them a notable defeat, the summer following he obtain❜d over them a famous naval victory. The Romans fought at a very great disadvantage, in the engagement they had with the Carthaginians near Placentia, by reason, that they went on to charge with their blood fix'd, and their limbs numb'd with cold, whereas Hannibal had caus'd great fires to be dispers'd quite through his camp to warm his soldiers, and oil to be distributed amongst them; to the end, that anointing themselves, they might render their nerves more supple and active, and fortifie the pores against the violence of the air, and freezing wind, that rag'd in that season. The retreat the Greeks made from Babylon into their own country, is famous, for the difficulties and calamities they had to overcome. Of which, this was one, that being encounter'd in the mountains of Armenia, with a horrible storm of snow, they lost all knowledge of the country, and of the ways, and being driven up, were a day and a night without eating or drinking; most of their cattel died, many of themselves starved dead, several struck blind with the driving, and the glittering of the snow, many of them maim'd in their fingers and toes, and many stiff and motionless with the extremity of the cold, who had yet their understanding entire. Alexander saw a nation, where they bury the fruit-trees in winter, to defend them from being destroy'd by the frost, and we also may see the same. But concerning cloaths, the king of Mexico chang'd four times a day his apparel, and never put them on more, employing those he left off, in his continual liberalities and rewards, as also, neither pot, dish, nor other utensil of his kitchen, or table, was ever serv'd in twice.

CHAP. XXVIII.--OF CATO THE YOUNGER.

I AM not guilty of the common errour of judging another by my self. I easily believe that in anothers humour that is contrary to my own : and though I find myself engag'd to one certain form, I do not oblige others to it as many do; but believe and apprehend a thousand ways of living, and contrary to most men, more easily admit of differences than uniformity amongst us. I as frankly, as any one would have me, discharge a man from my humours and principles, and consider him according to his own particular model. Though I am not continent myself, I nevertheless sincerely love, and approve the continency of the Capuchins, and other religious orders, and highly commend their way of living. Í insinuate my self by imagination into their place and love, and honour

K

146

VERTUE OWNS WHAT IS DONE FOR HERSELF ALONE.

them the more, for being other than I am. I very much desire, that we may be censur'd every man by himself, and would not be drawn in, to the consequence of common examples. My weakness does nothing alter the esteem I ought to have of the force and vigour of those who deserve it. "Sunt qui nihil suadent, quam quod se imitari posse confidunt."-Cicero de Or. ad. "There are who persuade nothing but what they believe they can imitate themselves." Crawling upon the slime of the earth, I do not for all that cease to observe up in the clouds the inimitable height of some heroick souls: 'tis a great deal for me to have my judgment regular and right, if the effects cannot be so, and to maintain this soveraign part at least free from corruption : 'tis something to have my will right and good, where my legs fail me. This age wherein we live in our part of the world at least, is grown so stupid, that not only exercise, but the very imagination of vertue is defective, and seems to be no other but college-fashion.

Virtutem verba putant, ut

Lucum ligna :—Horace Ep. 6. 7. 1.

Words finely couch'd, these men for vertue take;
As if each wood a sacred grove could make.

Quam vereri deberent, etiam si percipere non possent."-Cicero Tus. "Which they ought to reverence, though they cannot comprehend.” 'Tis a gew-gaw to hang in a cabinet, or at the end of the tongue, as on the tip of the ear, for ornament only. There is no more vertuous actions exstant, and those actions that carry a shew of vertue, have yet nothing of its essence; by reason, that profit, glory, fear and custom, and other such like foreign causes, put us in the way to produce them. Our justice also, valour, and good offices, may then be call'd so too, in respect to others, and according to the face they appear with to the publick; but in the doer it can by no means be vertue, because there is another end propos'd, another moving cause. Now vertue owns

nothing to be hers, but what is done by her self, and for her self alone. In that great battel of Potidæa, that the Greeks under the command of Pausanias obtain'd against Mardonius, and the Persians, the conquerours, according to their custom, coming to divide amongst them the glory of the exploit, they attributed to the Spartan nation the preeminence of valour in this engagement. The Spartans, great judges of vertue, when they came to determine, to what particular man of their nation the honour was due, of having the best behav'd himself upon this occasion, found, that Aristodemus had of all others hazarded his person with the greatest bravery: but did not however allow him any prize, or reward; by reason that his vertue had been incited by a desire, to clear his reputation from the reproach of his miscarriage at the bustness of Thermopyla, and with a desire to die bravely, to wipe off that former blemish. Our judgments are yet sick, and obey the humour of our deprav'd manners. I observe most of the wits of these times pretend to ingenuity, by endeavouring to blemish and to darken the glory of the bravest and most generous actions of former ages, putting one vile interpretation or another upon them, and forging and supposing vain causes and motives for those noble things they did. A mighty subtility indeed? Give me the greatest and most unblemish'd action

that ever the day beheld, and I will contrive a hundred plausible drifts and ends to obscure it: God knows, whoever will stretch them out to the full, what diversity of images our internal wills do suffer under; they do not so maliciously play the censurers, as they do it ignorantly and rudely in all their detractions. The same pains and licence that others take to blemish and bespatter these illustrious names, I would willingly undergo to lend them a shoulder to raise them higher. These rare images, and that are cull'd out by the consent of the wisest men of all ages, for the worlds example, I should endeavour to honour anew, as far as my invention would permit, in all the circumstances of favourable interpretation. And we are to believe that the force of our invention is infinitely short of their merit. 'Tis the duty of good men to pourtray vertues as beautifully as they can, and there would be no indecency in the case, should our passion a little transport us in favour of so sacred a form. What these people do to the contrary, they either do out of malice, or by the vice of confining their belief to their own capacity; or, which I am more inclin'd to think, for not having their sight strong, clear and elevated enough, to conceive the splendour of vertue in her native purity: as Plutarch complains, that in his time some attributed the cause of the younger Cato's death, to his fear of Cæsar, at which he seems very angry, and with good reason: and by that a man may guess how much more he would have been offended with those, who have attributed it to ambitious senceless people! He would rather have perform'd a handsome, just and generous action, and to have had ignominy for his reward, than_for glory. That man was in truth a pattern, that nature chose out to shew to what height human vertue and constancy could arrive: but I am not capable of handling so noble an argument, and shall therefore only set five Latin poets together by the ears who has done best in the praise of Cato; and inclusively for their own too. Now a man well read in poetry, will think the two first, in comparison of the others, a little flat and languishing; the third more vigorous, but overthrown by the extravagancy of his own force. He will then think, that there will be yet room for one or two gradations of invention to come to the fourth; but coming to mount the pitch of that, he will lift up his hands for admiration; the last, the first by some space, (but a space that we will swear is not to be fill'd up by any human wit,) he will be astonish'd, he will not know where he is. These are wonders. than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is different poem, than to understand a good one. tain low and moderate sort of poetry, than a judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supream and divine poesie, is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it, with the most assured and most steady sight, sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning. This is a sort of poesie, that does not exercise, but ravishes and overwhelms our judgment. The fury that possesses him who is able to penetrate into it, wounds yet a third man by hearing him repeat it. Like a loadstone, that not only attracts the needle, but also infuses into it the vertue to attract others. And it is more evidently eminent upon our theatres, that the sacred inspiration of the muses, having first stirr'd up the poet to anger,

We have more poets, easier to write an inThere is indeed a cerman may well enough

148 sorrow, hatred, and out of himself, to whatever they will, does moreover by the poet possess the actor, and by the actor consecutively all the spectators. So much do our passions hang and depend upon one another. Poetry has ever had that power over me from a child, to transpierce and transport me: but this quick resentment that is natural to me, has been variously handled by variety of forms, not so much higher and lower, (for they were ever the highest of every kind,) as differing in colour. First, a gay and spritely fluency, afterwards a lofty and penetrating subtilty; and lastly, a mature and constant force.

THE POWER POETRY HAS EVER HAD OVER ME.

CHAP. XXIX.-THAT WE LAUGH AND CRY FOR THE SAME THING.

WHEN we read in history, that Antigonus was very much displeas'd with his son, for presenting him the head of king Pyrrhus his enemy, but newly slain, fighting against him, and that seeing it, he wept : that Rene duke of Lorraine also lamented the death of Charles duke of Burgundy, whom he had himself defeated, and appear'd in mourning at his funeral and that in the battel of Auroy, (which Count Monfort obtain❜d over Charles de Blois, his concurrent for the dutchy of Brittany,) the conquerour meeting the dead body of his enemy, was very much afflicted at his death, we must not presently cry out,

Et cosi auen che l' animo ciascuna,

Sua passion sotto el contrario manto,

Ricopre, con la vista hor' chiara, hor' bruna.-Petrarcha. When Pompey's head was presented to Cæsar, the histories tell us, that he turn'd away his face, as from a sad and unpleasing object. There had been so long an intelligence and society betwixt them, in the management of the publick affairs, so great a community of fortunes, so many mutual offices, and so near an alliance, that this countenance of his ought not to suffer under any misinterpretation; or to be suspected for or counterfeit, as this other seems to believe.

It may be true, that the greatest part of our actions, are no other than vizor and disguise, and yet may sometimes be real and true; so is it, that in judging of these accidents, we are to consider how much our souls are oft-times agitated with divers passions. And as they say, that in our bodies there is a congregation of divers humours, of which, that is the soveraign, which according to the complexion we are of, is commonly most predominant in us: so, though the soul have in it divers motions to give it agitation; yet must there of necessity be one to over-rule all the rest, though not with so necessary and absolute a dominion, but that through the flexibility and inconstancy of the soul, those of less authority, may upon occasion, reassume their place, and make a little sally in turn. Thence it is, that we see not only children, who innocently obey, and follow nature, often laugh and cry at the same thing but not one of us can boast, what journey soever he may have in hand, that he has the most set his heart upon, but when he comes to part with his family and friends, he will find something that troubles him within; and though he refrain his tears, yet he puts foot i' th'

:

Neither is it strange to

stirrup, with a sad and cloudy countenance. lament a person, whom a man would by no means should be alive : when I rattle my man, I do it with all the mettle I have, and load him with no feign'd, but downright real curses; but the heat being over, if he should stand in need of me, I should be very ready to do him good: for I instantly turn the leaf. When I call him calf and coxcomb, I do not pretend to entail those titles upon him for ever; neither do I think I give my self the lye in calling him an honest man presently after. Were it not the sign of a fool to talk to ones self, there would hardly be a day or hour wherein I might not be heard to grumble, and mutter to my self and against my self; "sham'd in the fools teeth," and yet I do not think that to be my character. Who for seeing me one while cold, and presently very kind to my wife, believes the one or the other to be counterfeited, is an ass. Nero taking leave of his mother, whom he sent to be drown'd, was nevertheless sensible of some emotion at this farewel, and was struck with horror, and pity. 'Tis said, that the light of the sun is not one continuous thing, but that he darts new rays so thick one upon another, that we cannot perceive the intermission.

Largus enim liquidi fons luminis æthereus Sol

Irrigat assidue cœlum candore recenti,

Suppetit atque novo confestim lumine lumen.-Lucret. l. 5. Just so the soul variously and interceptibly darts out her passions. Artabarus surprising once his nephew Xerxes, chid him for the sudden alteration of his countenance. As he was considering the immeasurable greatness of his forces passing over the Hellespont, for the Grecian expedition, he was first seiz'd with a palpitation of joy, to see so many millions of men under his command, which also appear'd in the gayety of his looks: but his thoughts at the same instant suggesting to him, that of so many lives, once in an age at most, there would not be one left, he presently knit his brows, and grew sad, even to tears. We have resolutely pursu'd the revenge of an injury receiv'd, and been sensible of a singular contentment for the victory: but we shall weep notwithstanding: 'tis not for the victory, though that we shall weep there is nothing alter'd by that: but the soul looks upon things with another eye, and represents them to it self with another kind of face; for every thing has many faces, and several aspects. Relations, old acquaintance, and friendships, possess our imaginations, and make them tender for the time: but the counterturn is so quick, that 'tis gone in a moment.

And therefore, while we would make one continued thing of all this succession of passion, we deceive our selves. When Timoleon laments the murther he had committed upon so mature, and generous deliberation, he does not lament the liberty restor❜d to his country, he does not lament the tyrant, but he laments his brother: one part of his duty is perform'd, let us give him leave to perform the other.

CHAP. XXX.-OF SOLITUDE.

LET us pretermit that old comparison betwixt the active, and the solitary life, and as for the fine saying, with which ambition and avarice