430 ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON, EVEN THE BEST.

Mecmed very often practis'd, of cutting off men in the middle by the Diaphragma with one blow of a scimeter; by which it follow'd, that they died as it were two deaths at once, and both the one part, says he, and the other, were seen to stir and strive a great while after in very great torment. I do not think there was any great sufferance in this motion. The torments that are the most dreadful to look on, are not always the greatest to endure; and I find those that other historians relate to have been practis'd upon the Epirot lords, to be more horrid and cruel, where they were condemn'd to be flead alive by pieces, after so malicious a manner that they continued fifteen days in this misery. As also these other two following. Croesus, having caus'd a gentleman, the favourite of his brother Pantaleon, to be seized on, carryed him into a fuller's shop, where he caus'd him to be scratch'd and carded with the cards and combs belonging to that trade till he died. George Jechel, chief commander of the peasants of Polonia, who committed so many mischiefs under the title of the Crusado, being defeated in battel, and taken by the Vayvod of Transylvania, was three days bound naked upon the rack, exposed to all sorts of torments that any one could contrive against him; during which time, many other prisoners were kept fasting; in the end, he living, and looking on, they made his beloved brother Lucat (to whom he only entreated, taking upon himself the blame of all their evil actions) to drink his blood, and caused twenty of his most favour'd captains to feed upon him, tearing his flesh in pieces with their teeth, and swallowing the morsels. The remainder of his body and his bowels, so soon as he was dead, were boyl❜d, and others of his followers compell❜d to eat them.

CHAP. LXVI.—ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON.

SUCH as compare Cato the Censor, with the younger Cato that kill'd himself, compare two beautiful natures, and much resembling one another. The first acquir'd his reputation several ways, and excells in military exploits, and the utility of his publick vocation; but the vertue of the younger, besides, that it were blasphemy to compare any to him in vigour, was much more pure and unblemish'd. For who can acquit the Censor of envy and ambition, having dar'd to justle the honour of Scipio, a man in worth, valour, and all other excellent qualities infinitely beyond him, or any other of his time? That which they report of him amongst other things, that in his extream old age he put himself upon learning the Greek tongue, with so greedy an appetite, as if to quench a long thirst, does not seem to me to make much for his honour; it being properly what we call being twice a child. All things have their season, even the best, and a man may say his Paternoster out of time; as they accused T. Q. Flaminius, that being general of an army, he was seen praying apart in the time of a battel that he won. Eudemonidas, seeing Xenocrates, when very old, still very intent upon his school-lectures, "When will this man be wise," said he, "he does yet learn?" And Philopomen, to those who extoll'd king Ptolemy for every day inuring his person the exercise of arms; "It is not," said he, commendable in a king of his age to exercise himself in those things,

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he ought not really to employ them." The young are to make preparations, the old to enjoy them, say the sages: we are always re-beginning to live. Our studies and desires should sometimes be sensible of age; The longest of my designs is not of above a years extent; I think of nothing now but ending; rid my self of all new hopes and enterprizes; take my last leave of every place I depart from, and every day dis

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posses my self of what I have. Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi, nec acquiritur: plus superest viatici, quam viæ."-Sen. Epist. "Henceforward I will neither lose, nor expect to get: I have more wherewith to defray my journey than I have way to go."

To conclude, 'tis the only comfort I find in my old age, that it mortifies in me several cares and desires wherewith my life has been disturbed; the care how the world goes, the care of riches, of grandeur, of knowledge, of health, and my self. There are, who are learned to speak at a time when they should learn to be silent for ever. A man may always study, but he must not always go to school. What a contemptible thing is an old school-boy !

If we must study, let us study what is suitable to our present condition, that we may answer as he did, who being ask'd to what end he studied in his decrepid age; "that I may go out better," said he, "and at greater ease." Such a study was that of the younger Cato, feeling his end approach; and which he met with in Plato's discourse of the immortality of the soul: not as we are to believe that he was not long beforehand furnished with all sorts of ammunition for such a departure; for of assurance, an established will and instruction he had more than Plato had in all his writings; his knowledge and courage were in this respect above philosophy. He applied himself to this study, not for the service of his death, but as a man whose sleeps were never disturbed by the importance of such a deliberation, he also without choice or change, continued his studies with the other accustomary actions of his life. The night that he was deny'd the Prætorship, he spent in play. That wherein he was to die, he spent in reading. The loss either of life or office was all one to him.

CHAP. LXVII.-OF VERTUE.

I FIND by experience, that there is a vast difference betwixt the starts and sallies of the soul, and a resolute and constant habit; and very well perceive, that there is nothing we may not do, nay, even to the surpassing the divinity itself, says a certain person; forasmuch as it is more to render a mans self impassable by his own study and industry, than to be so by his natural condition; and even to be able to conjoyn to man's imbecility, and frailty a God-like resolution and assurance. But it is by fits and starts; and in the lives of those heroes of times past there are sometimes miraculous sallies, and that seem infinitely to exceed our natural force, but they are indeed but sallies: and 'tis hard to believe, that in these so elevated qualities a man can so thoroughly tinct and imbue the soul, that they should become constant, and, as it were, natural in him. It accidentally happens even to us, who are but abortive births of men, sometimes to dart out our souls, when rous'd

432 TO JUDGE A MAN RIGHTLY, KNOW HIS EVERY-DAY HABITS.

by the discourses or examples of others, much beyond their ordinary stretch; but 'tis a kind of passion which does push and prick them on, and in some sort ravishes them from themselves: but this whirl-wind once blown over, we see that they insensibly flag, and slacken of themselves, if not to the lowest degree, at least so as to be no more the same; insomuch as that upon every trivial occasion, the losing of a hawk, or the breaking of a glass, we suffer our selves to be mov'd little less than one of the common people. I am of opinion, that order, moderation and constancy excepted, all things are to be done by a man that is indifferent, and defective in general. Therefore it is, say the sages, that to make a right judgment of a man, you are chiefly to pry into his common actions, and surprise him in his everyday habit. Pyrrho, he who erected so pleasant a knowledge upon ignorance, endeavour'd, as all the rest who were really philosophers did, to make his life correspond with his doctrine. And because he maintain'd the imbecility of human judgment to be so extream as to be incapable of any choice or inclination, and would have it wavering and suspended, considering and receiving all things as indifferent, 'tis said, that he always comported himself after the same manner and countenance: if he had begun a discourse, he would always end what he had to say, though the person he was speaking to, was gone away and if he walked, he never stop'd for any impediment that stood in his way, being preserv'd from precipices, the justle of carts, and other like accidents, by the care of his friends : for, to fear, or to avoid any thing, had been to justle his own propositions, which depriv'd the senses themselves of all certainty and election. Sometimes he suffered incisions and cauteries with so great constancy, as never to be seen so much, as to wince or stir. 'Tis something to bring the soul to these imaginations, more to joyn the effects, and yet not impossible; but to coenjoy them with such perseverance and constancy, as to make them habitual, is certainly, in attempts so remote from the common usance, almost incredible to be done. Therefore it was, that being one day taken in his house terribly scolding with his sister, and being reproach'd that he therein transgress'd his own rules of indifference; "What," said he, "must this foolish woman also serve for a testimony to my rules?" Another time, being seen to defend himself against a dog. “It is,” said he, “very hard totally to put off man; and we must endeavour and force our selves to resist and encounter things, first by effects, but at last by reason." A few days since, at Bergerac, within five leagues of my house, up the river Dordogne, a woman having over-night been beaten and abus'd by her husband, a cholerick ill-condition'd fellow, resolv’d to escape from his ill usage at the price of her life: and going so soon as she was up the next morning to visit her neighbours, as she was wont to do, and having let some words fall of the recommendation of her affairs, she took a sister of hers by the hand, and led her to the bridge; whither being come, as it were in jest, without any manner of alteration in her countenance, there taking leave of her, she threw her self headlong from the top into the river, and was there drown'd. That which is most remarkable in this, is, that this resolution was a whole night forming in her head: but it is quite another thing with the Indian women, for it being the custom there for the men to have many

wives, and the best beloved of them to kill her self at her husbands decease, every one of them makes it the business of her whole life to obtain this privilege, and gain this advantage over her companions, and the good offices they do their husbands, aim at no other recompence, but to be prefer'd in accompanying him in death.

A certain author of our times, reports, that he has seen in those oriental nations this custom in practice, that not only the wives bury themselves with their husbands, but even the slaves also; which is done after this manner: the husband being dead, the widow may if she will (but few will) demand two or three months respite wherein to order her affairs. The day being come, she mounts on horse-back, dress'd as fine as at her wedding, and with a cheerful countenance says, she is going to sleep with her spouse, holding a looking-glass in her left hand, and an arrow in the other. Being thus conducted in pomp, accompanied with her kindred and friends, and a great concourse of people, with great joy, she is at last brought to the public place appointed for such spectacles: this is a spacious place, in the midst of which is a pit full of wood, and adjoyning to it a mount raised four or five steps, upon which she is brought and served with a magnificent repast; which being done, she falls to dancing and singing, and gives order when she thinks fit to kindle the fire; which being perform'd, she descends, and taking the nearest of her husbands relations by the hand, they walk together to the river close by, where she strips her self stark naked, and having distributed her cloaths and jewels to her friends, plunges her self into the water, as if there to cleanse her self from her sins; coming out thence, she wraps her self in a yellow linen of five and twenty ells long, and again giving her hand to this kinsman of her husbands they return back to the mount, where she makes a speech to the people, and recommends her children to them if she have any. Betwixt the pit and the mount there is commonly a curtain drawn to skreen the burning furnace from their sight, which some of them to manifest the greater courage, forbid. Having ended what she has to say, a woman presents her with a vessel of oyl, wherewith to anoint her head, and her whole body; which having done with, she throws into the fire, and in an instant precipitates her self after. Immediately the people throw a great many billets and logs upon her, that she may not be long in dying, and convert all their joy into sorrow and mourning. If they are persons of meaner condition, the body of the defunct is carried to the place of sepulture, and there plac'd sitting, the widow kneeling before him, embracing the dead body; and continue in this posture whilst they build a wall about them, which so soon as it is raised to the height of the womans shoulders, some of her relations come behind her, and taking hold of her head writhe her neck in two, and so soon as she is dead, the wall is presently rais'd up, and clos'd, where they remain entomb'd. There was in this same country something like this in their Gymnosophists; for not by constraint of others, nor by the impetuosity of a sudden humour, but by the express profession of their order, their custom was, that so soon as they arriv'd at a certain age, or that they saw themselves threatned by any disease, to cause a funeral pile to be erected for them, and on the top a stately bed, where after having joyfully feasted their friends and acquaintance, they laid them down

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434 EVENTS CAUSE KNOWLEDGE, BUT IT DOES NOT CAUSE EVENTS.

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with so great a resolution, that fire being apply'd to it, they were never seen to stir either hand or foot; and after this manner one of them, Calanus by name, expir'd in the presence of the whole army of Alexander the great; and he was neither reputed holy, nor happy amongst them, that did not thus destroy himself; dismissing his soul purg'd and purified by the fire, after having consum'd all that was earthly and mortal. This constant premeditation of the whole life is that which makes the wonder. Amongst our other controversies, that of Fatum is also crept in, and to tye things to come, and even our own wills to a certain and inevitable necessity, we are yet upon this argument of time past; "Since God foresees that all things shall so fall out, as doubtless he does, it must then necessarily follow, that they must so fall out." To which our masters reply, “that the seeing any thing come to pass, as we do, and as God himself also does (for all things being present with him, he rather sees, than foresees) is not to compel an event: that is, we see because things do fall out, but things do not fall out because we see. Events cause knowledge, but knowledge does not cause events That which we see happen, does happen; but it might have hapned otherwise and God, in the catalogue of the causes of events which he has in his prescience, has also those which we call accidental and unvoluntary, which depend upon the liberty he has given our free will, and knows that we do amiss because we would do so." I have seen a great many commanders encourage their soldiers with this fatal necessity; that if our time be limited to a certain hour, neither the enemies shot, nor our own boldness, nor our flight or cowardize, can either shorten or prolong our lives. This is easily said, but see who will be so perswaded, and if it be so that a strong and lively faith draws along with it actions of the same, certainly this faith we so much brag of, is very light in this age of ours, unless the contempt it has of works, makes it disdain their company. So it is, that to this very purpose the Sire de Joinville, as credible a witness as any other whatever, tells us of the Bedoins, a nation amongst the Saracens, with whom the king St. Lewis had to do in the Holy-land, that they in their religion, did so firmly believe the number of every mans days to be from all eternity prefix'd, and set down by an inevitable decree, that they went naked to the wars, excepting a Turkish sword, and their bodies only cover'd with a white linen cloth: and for the greatest curse they could invent when they were angry, this was always in their mouths, "Accursed be thou, as he that arms himself for fear of death." This is a testimony of faith very much beyond ours. And of this sort is that also that two religious men of Florence gave in our fathers days. Being engag'd in some controversie of learning, they agreed to go both of them into the fire in the sight of all the people, each for the verification of his argument, and all things were already prepar'd, and the things just upon the point of execution, when it was interrupted by an unexpected accident. A young Turkish lord, having perform'd a notable exploit, in his own person in the sight of both armies, that of Amurath, and that of Hunniades ready to joyn battel, being ask'd by Amurath, who in so tender and unexperienc'd years (for it was his first sally into arms) had inspir'd him with so brave a courage, reply'd, that his chief tutor for valour was a hare. "For being," said he, 66 one day a hunting, I found