390 JUDGMENTS FOUNDED ON APPEARANCES ARE INCERTAIN.

Strangers see nothing but events and outward apparences; every body can set a good face on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within. They do not see my heart, they see but by my countenance. 'Tis with good reason that men decry the hypocrite that is in war; for what is more easie to an old souldier, than to shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave, when he has no more heart than a chicken? There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a man's own person, that we have deceiv'd the world a thousand times, before we come to be engag'd in a real danger and even then, finding our selves in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that time to conceal our apprehensions with setting a good face on the business, though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonick ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turn'd inward towards the palm of the hand; a great many would hide themselves when they ought most to appear; and would repent being plac'd in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them brave.

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Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external apparences, are marvellously incertain and doubtful; and that there is no certain testimony as every one is to himself. In these other, how many powder monkeys are made companions of our glory? He that stands firm in an open trench, what does he in that do more than fifty poor pioneers, who open him the way, and cover it with their own bodies for five pence a day pay, have done before him?

The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great; we will have them there well receiv'd, and that this increase turn to their advantage, which is all that can be excusable in this design; but the excess of this disease proceeds so far, that many covet to have a name, be it what it will. Trogus Pompeius says of Herostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, "that they were more ambitious of a great reputation, than a good one." This vice is very common. We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and 'tis enough for us that our names are often mention'd, be it after what manner it will. It should seem, that to be known, is in some sort to have a man's life, and its duration, in another's keeping. I for my part hold, that I am not but in my self, and of that other life of mine which lies in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in it self, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment, but by the vanity of a fantastick opinion; and when I shall be dead, I shall be much less sensible of it; and shall withal absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes accidentally follow it; I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation: neither shall it have any whereby to take hold of, or to cleave to me. For, to expect that my name should be advanc'd by it, in the first place, I have no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all my race, and even to others also. There are two families at Paris and Montpellier, whose sirname is Montaigne; another in Brittany, and another Montaigne in Xaintonge. The transposition of one syllable only is enough to ravel our affairs, so that I shall peradventure share in their glory, and they shall partake of my shame; and moreover, my ancestors have formerly been sirnam'd Eyquem, a name wherein a family well known in England,

is at this day concern'd. As to my other name, every one may take it that will. And so perhaps I may honour a porter in my own stead. And besides, though I had a particular distinction by my self, what can it distinguish when I am no more? Can it favour inanity? But of this I have spoken elsewhere. As to what remains, in a great battel where ten thousand men are maim'd or kill'd, there are not fifteen that are taken notice of. It must be some very eminent greatness, or some consequence of great importance, that fortune has added to it, that must signalize a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten, to expose a mans self bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of us, because we there hazard all; but for the worlds concern, they are things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown.

Of so many thousands of valiant men that have died within these fifteen years in France, with their swords in their hands, not a hundred have come to our knowledge. The memory, not of the commanders only, but of battels and victories is buried and gone. The fortunes of above half of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish without duration. If I had unknown events in my possession, I should think with great ease to out-do those that are recorded in all sorts of examples. Is it not strange, that even of the Greeks and Romans, amongst so many writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few are arriv'd at our knowledge?

Ad nos vix tenuis famæ perlabitur aura.—Æn. l. 7.

An obscure rumor scarce is hither come.

It will be much if a hundred years hence it be remembred in gross, that in our times there were civil wars in France. The Lacedæmonians entering into battel, sacrific'd to the Muses, to the end that their actions might be well and worthily writ; looking upon it as a divine, and no ordinary favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could give them life and memory. Do we expect that at every musket-shot we receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to record them? and besides, a hundred registers may enroll them, whose commentaries will not last above three days, and they shall never come to the sight of any one. We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings; 'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life according to her favour; and 'tis lawful to doubt whether those we have be not the worst, having not seen the rest. Men do not write histories of things of so little moment: a man must have been general in the conquest of an empire, he must have won two and fifty set battels, and always the weaker in number, as Cæsar did. Ten thousand brave fellows, and several great captains lost their lives bravely in his service, whose names lasted no longer than their wives and children liv'd :

Quos fama obscura recondit.-Ænei. l. 5.

Even those we see behave themselves the best; three months, or three years after they have been knock'd on the head, they are no more spoken of than if they had never been. Whoever will justly consider,

392

LEGISLATORS SHOULD NOT DESPISE POPULAR OPINION.

and with due proportion, of what kind of men, and of what sorts of actions glory supports it self in the records of history, will find, that there are very few actions, and very few persons of our times who can there pretend any right. How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation, who have seen and suffered the honour and glory most justly acquir'd in their youth, extinguish'd in their own presence? And for three years of this fantastick and imaginary life, we must go and throw away our true and essential life, and engage our selves in a perpetual death? The Sages propose to themselves a nobler and more just end in so important an enterprize. "Recte facti, fecisse merces est officii fructus ipsum officium est."-Seneca. "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it: the fruit of a good office, is the office it self." It were peradventure excusable in a painter, or any other artizan, or yet in a rhetorician, or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise themselves a name by their works; but the actions of vertue are too noble in themselves, to seek any other reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in the vanity of human judgments. If this false opinion nevertheless be of that use to the publick, as to keep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stir'd up to vertue; if princes are touch'd to see the world bless the memory of Trajan, and abominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of that great beast, once so terrible, and fear'd by every school-boy, so freely curs'd and revil'd, let it in the name of God increase, and be as much as possibly, nurs'd up, cherish'd and countenanced amongst us. And Plato, bending his whole endeavour to make his citizens vertuous, does also advise them not to despise the good esteem of the people; and says, that it falls out by a certain divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves oft-times, as well by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the vertuous from the wicked. This person and his tutor are both marvellous bold artificers, every where to add divine operations and revelations where human force is wanting. And peradventure for this reason it was, that Timon, railing at him, call'd him the great forger of miracles. Ut tragici poetæ confugiunt ad Deum, cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt."-Cicero de Nat. Deor. "As tragick poets fly to some God, when they cannot explain the issue of their argument." Seeing that men by their insufficiency cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let the counterfeit be superadded. 'Tis a way that has been practis'd by all the legislators; and there is no government that has not some mixture either of ceremonial vanity, or of false opinion, that serves for a curb to keep the people in their duty. 'Tis for this that most of them have their fabulous originals and beginnings, and so enriched with supernatural mysteries. 'Tis this that has given credit to bastard religions, and caus'd them to be countenanc'd by men of understanding; and for this that Numa and Sertorius, to possess their men with a better opinion of them, fed them with this foppery; one, that the nymph Egeria, the other, that his white hind brought them all their resolutions from the gods. And the authority that Numa gave to his laws under the title of a patronage of this goddess; Zoroaster, legislator of the Bactrians and Persians, gave to his under the name of Oromazis: Trismegistus legislator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; Xamboxis legislator of the Scythians,

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under that of Vesta: Charondas legislator of the Chalcedonians, under that of Saturn: Minos legislator of the Candiots, under that of Jupiter: Lycurgus legislator of the Lacedæmonians, under that of Apollo: and Draco, and Solon, legislators of the Athenians, under that of Minerva. And every government has a god at the head of it; others falsely, that truly which Moses set over the Jews at their departure out of Egypt. The religion of the Bedoins, as the Sire de Joinville reports, amongst other things, enjoin'd a belief, that the soul of him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another more happy body, more beautiful, than the former; by which means they willingly ventur'd their lives. This is a very comfortable, however an erroneous belief. Every nation has many such examples of its own: but this subject would require a treatise by it self. To add one word more to my former discourse, I would advise the ladies no more to call that honour, which is but their duty," Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum."-Cicero de fin. lib. 2. "According to the vulgar chat, which only approves that for laudable, that is glorious by the publick voice;" their duty is the mark, their honour but the outward rind. Neither would I advise them to give that excuse for payment of their denial: for I presuppose that their intentions, their desire and will, which are things wherein their honour is not at all concern'd, as nothing appears without, are better regulated than the effects.

CHAP. LVIII.-OF PRESUMPTION.

THERE is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion of our own worth. 'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter our selves, and that represents us to our selves other than we truly are. Like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the person it does embrace; and that makes those who are caught with it, with a deprav'd and corrupt judgment, consider the thing they love, other and more perfect than it is. I would not nevertheless for fear of failing on the other side, that a man should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is, the judgment ought in all things to keep it self upright and just: 'tis all the reason in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what truth sets before him; if he be Cæsar, let him boldly think himself the greatest captain in the world. We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the branches and quit the trunk. Ceremony forbids us to express by words, things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and no body obeys it. I find my self here fetter'd by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a man to speak well of himself nor ill. We will leave her there for this time. They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to pass their lives in some eminent degree, may by their publick actions manifest what they are: but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom no body will say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excus'd, if they take the boldness to speak of themselves to such whose interest it is to know them; by the example of Lucilius, according to Horace.

394 COURTESY, WITHOUT RESPECT OF PERSONS, LOSES ITS EFFECT.

He always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there pourtray'd himself such as he found himself to be. "Nec id Rutilio, et Scauro citra fidem, aut obtrectationi fuit."-Tacitus. "Nor were Rutilius or Scaurus misbeliev'd, or condemn'd for so doing." I remember then, that from my infancy there was observ'd in me I know not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seem'd to relish of pride and arrogancy. I will say this by the way, that it is not inconvenient to have propensions so proper and incorporated into us, that we have not the means to feel and be aware of them. And of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain bent, without our knowledge or consent. It was an affectation confederate with his beauty; that made Alexander carry his head on one side, and Alcibiades to lisp ; Julius Cæsar scratch'd his head with one finger, which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome thoughts: and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to tweak his nose, a sign of a man given to scoffing. Such motions as these may imperceptibly happen in us: there are other artificial ones which I meddle not with; as salutations and congees, by which men for the most part unjustly acquire the reputation of being humble and courteous; or perhaps, humble out of pride. I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in summer, and never am so saluted, but I pay it again, from persons of what quality soever, unless they be in my own dependance. I should make it my request to some princes that I know, that they would be more sparing of that ceremony, and bestow that courtesie where it is more due; for being so indiscreetly and indifferently conferr'd on all, they are thrown away to no purpose, if they be without respect of persons, they lose their effect. Amongst irregular countenances, let us not forget that severe one of the emperour Constantius, that always in publick held his head upright and steady, without bending or turning on either side, not so much as to look upon those who saluted him on one side, planting his body in a stiff immovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the motion of his coach; not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face before people. I know not whether the gestures that were observ'd in me were of this first quality, and whether I had really any secret propension to this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be responsible for the motions of the body: but as to the motions of the soul, I must here confess that I am sensible of something of that kind there. This glory consists of two parts, the one in setting too great a value upon our selves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others. As to the one, methinks these considerations ought in the first place to be of some force. I feel my self importun'd by an error of the soul that displeases me, both as it is unjust, and as it is troublesome. I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out, which is, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue others, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine. This humour spreads very far. Not so much that the jealousie of my preferment, and the bettering of my affairs does trouble my judgment, and hinder me from satisfying my self, as that dominion of it self begets a contempt of what is our own, and over which we have an absolute command. Foreign governments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves into my esteem and I am very sensible that Latin allures