60 MOREOVER, NO ONE DIES BEFORE HIS HOUR. Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque.—Lucret. L. 3 Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.-Vir. Georg. l. 2. Time is not resolv'd to create you any new recreations. Quod placeat, nihil est : eadem sunt omnia semper.-Lucret. l. 3. For to all times, all things shall be the same. Give place to others, as others have given place to you. Equality is the soul of equity. Who can complain of being comprehended in the same destiny wherein all things are involved? Besides, live as long as you can, you shall by that nothing shorten the space you are to lie dead in the grave; 'tis all to no purpose; you shall be every whit as long in the condition you so much fear, as if you had died at nurse. licet quot vis vivendo vincere secla, Mors æterna tamen, nihilominus illo manebit.—Ibidem. Death ne'ertheless shall be eternal still. And yet I will place you in such a condition as you shall have no reason to be displeased. In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum. When dead, a living self thou canst not have Nor shall you so much as wish for the life you are so concern'd about. Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamq; requirit, Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.-Ibidem. Death were less to be fear'd than nothing, if there could be anything less than nothing. multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum, Si minus esse potest quam quod nihil esse videmus.—Ibidem. Death then would both appear, and would be so. Neither can it any way concern you, whether you are living or dead; living, by reason that you are still in being; dead, because you are no more. Moreover, no one dies before his hour; and the time you leave behind was no more yours, than that was laps'd, and gone before you came into the world; nor does it any more concern you. Respice enim quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas Look back and though times past eternal were, Where-ever your life ends it is all there; neither does the utility of living consist in the length of days, but in the well husbanding and improving of time, and such an one may have been who has longer continued in the world than the ordinary age of man; that has yet liv'd but a little while. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine ever to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. But if company will make it more pleasant, or more easie to you, does not all the world go the self same way? omnia te vita perfuncta sequentur.—Ibidem. When thou art dead, let this thy comfort be, That all the world, by turn, must follow thee. Does not all the world dance the same brawl that you do? Is there any thing that does not grow old as well as you? A thousand men, a thousand animals, and a thousand other creatures, die at the same moment that you expire. Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora secuta est, Ploratus, mortis comites, et funeris atri.—Lucret. l. 2. To what end should you endeavour to avoid, unless there were a possibility to evade it? you have seen examples enough of those who have received so great a benefit by dying, as thereby to be manifestly deliver'd from infallible miseries; but have you talked with any of those who have feared a disadvantage by it? It must therefore needs be very foolish to condemn a thing you neither experimented in your own person, nor by that of any other. "Why (says Nature) dost thou complain of me and destiny? Do we do thee any wrong? Is it for thee to govern us, or for us to dispose of thee? Though peradventure, thy age may not be accomplish'd, yet thy life is. A man of low stature is as much a man as a gyant; neither men, nor their lives, are measured by the ell. Chiron refus'd to be immortal, when he was acquainted with the conditions under which he was to enjoy it, by the God of time it self, and its duration, his father Saturn. Do but seriously consider how much more insupportable an immortal and painful life would be to man than what I have already design'd him. If you had not death to ease you of your pains and cares, you would eternally curse me for having depriv'd you of the benefit of dying. I have, 'tis true mixt a little bitterness with it, to the end, that seeing of what conveniency and use it is, you might not too greedily and indiscreetly seek and embrace it: and that you might be so establish'd in this moderation, as neither to nauseate life, nor have an antipathy for dying, which I have decreed you shall once do, I have temper'd the one and the other betwixt pleasure and pain: and 'twas I that first taught Thales, the most eminent of all your sages, that to live and to die were indifferent; which made him very wisely answer him who ask'd him, Why then did he not die? because (says he) it is indifferent. The elements of water, earth, fire, and air, and the other parts of this creation of thine, are no more the instruments of thy life than they are 62 EVERY DAY TRAVELS TOWARDS DEATH. of thy death. Why dost thou fear thy last day, it contributes no more to thy dissolution than every one of the rest? The last step is not the cause of lassitude, it does but confess it. Every day travels towards death, the last only arrives at it." These are the good lessons our mother nature teaches. I have often consider'd with my self whence it should proceed, that in war the image of death, whether we look upon it as to our own particular danger, or that of another, should without comparison appear less dreadful than at home in our own houses, (for if it were not so, it would be an army of whining milksops) and that being still in all places the same, there should be notwithstanding much more assurance in peasants, and the meaner sort of people, than others of better quality and education: and I do verily believe, that it is those terrible ceremonies and preparations wherewith we set it out, that more terrifie us than the thing it self; a new quite contrary way of living, the cries of mothers, wives and children, the visits of astonish'd and afflicted friends, the attendance of pale and blubbering servants, a dark room set round with burning tapers, our beds environed with physicians and divines; in sum, nothing but ghostliness and horror round about us, render it so formidable, that a man almost fancies himself dead and buried already. Children are afraid even of those they love best, and are best acquainted with, when disguised in a vizor, and so are we; the vizor must be removed as well from things as persons; which being taken away, we shall find nothing underneath but the very same death that a mean servant, or a poor chamber-maid, died a day or two ago, without any manner of apprehension or concern. Happy therefore is the death that deprives us of leisure to prepare things requisite for this unnecessary pomp, a pomp that only renders that more terrible which ought not to be fear'd, and that no man upon earth can possibly avoid. CHAP. XVII.-OF CUSTOM, AND THAT WE SHOULD NOT EASILY CHANGE A LAW RECEIV'D. HE seems to me to have had a right and true apprehension of the power of custom, who first invented the story of a country-woman, who having accustom'd her self to play with, and carry a young calf in her arms, and daily continuing to do so as it grew up, obtain'd this by custom, that when grown to be a great ox she was still able to bear it. For in truth, custom is a violent and treacherous school-mistress. She, by little and little, slily, and unperceiv'd, slips in the foot of her authority, but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fix'd and establish'd it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannick countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. We see it at every turn forcing and violating the rules of nature: "Usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister."-Plin. l. 6. "Custom is the greatest master of all things." I believe Plato's care in his republick, and the physicians, who so often submit the reasons of their art to the authority of habit; as also the story of that king, who by custom brought his stomach to that pass, as to live by poison, and the maid that Albertus reports to have liv'd upon spiders; and in that new world of the Indies, there were found great 66 nations, and in very differing climates, who were of the same diet, made provision of them, and fed them for their tables; as also, they did grashoppers, mice, rats and lizards; and in a time of scarcity of such rareties, a toad was sold for six crowns, all which they cook, and dish up with several sawses. There were also others found, to whom our diet, and the flesh we eat were venomous and mortal. Consuetudinis magna vis est : pernoctant venatores in nive: in montibus uri se patiuntur: pugiles cæstibus contusi, ne ingemiscunt quidem."-Cicero Tusc. 7. 2. "The power of custom is very great: hunts-men will one while lie out all night in the snow, and another suffer themselves to be parch'd in the mountains; and fencers, inur'd to beating, when bang'd almost to pulp with clubs and whirl-batts, disdain so much as to groan." These are strange examples, but yet they will not appear so strange if we consider what we have ordinary experience of, how much custom stupifies our senses; neither need we go to be satisfied of what is reported of the cataracts of Nile; and of what philosophers believe of the musick of the spheres, that the bodies of those circles being solid and smooth, and coming to touch, and rub upon one another, cannot fail of creating a wonderful harmony, the changes and cadencies of which, cause the revolutions and dances of the stars: but that the hearing sense of all creatures here below, being universally, like that of the Ægyptians, deaf'd, and stupified with the continual noise, cannot, how great soever perceive it. Smiths, millers, pewterers, forge-men, and armorers, could never be able to live in the perpetual noise of their own trades, did it strike their ears with the same violence that it does ours. My perfum'd doublet gratifies my own smelling at first, as well as that of others; but after I have worn it three or four days together, I no more perceive it; but it is yet more strange, that custom, notwithstanding the long intermissions and intervals, should yet have the power to unite, and establish the effect of its impressions upon our senses, as is manifest in such as live near unto steeples, and the frequent noise of the bells. I my self lie at home in a tower, where every morning and evening a very great bell rings out the Ave Maria, the noise of which shakes my very tower, and at first seem'd insupportable to me; but having now a good while kept that lodging, I am so us'd to't, that I hear it without any manner of offence, and often without awaking at it. Plato reprehending a boy for playing at some childish game; "thou reprov'st me (says the boy) for a very little thing:" "custom (reply'd Plato) is no little thing." And he was in the right; for I find that our greatest vices derive their first propensity from our most tender infancy, and that our principal education depends upon the nurses, mothers are mightily pleas'd to see a child writhe off the neck of a chicken, or to please it self with hurting a dog or a cat; and such wise fathers there are in the world, who look upon it as a notable mark of a martial spirit, when he hears his son mis-call, or sees him domineer over a poor peasant, or a lacquey, that dares not reply, nor turn again; and a great sign of wit when he sees him cheat and over-reach his play-fellow by some malicious trick of treachery and deceit; but for all that, these are the true seeds and roots of cruelty, tyranny, and treason. They bud and put out there, and afterwards shoot up vigorously, and grow to a prodigious bulk and stature, being cultivated and improv'd by custom: 64 NO GAME SO SMALL IN WHICH DECEIT MAY NOT MIX. and it is a very dangerous mistake to excuse these vile inclinations upon the tenderness of their age, and the triviality of the subject, first, it is nature that speaks, whose declaration is then more sincere, and inward thoughts more undisguised, as it is more weak and young: secondly the deformity of cozenage does not consist, nor depend upon the difference betwixt crowns and pins; but meerly upon it self, for a cheat is a cheat be it more or less; which makes me think it more just to conclude thus, why should he not cozen in crowns since he does it in pins, than as they do, who say, they only play for pins, he would not do it if it were for money. Children should carefully be instructed to abhor even the vices of their own contriving; and the natural deformity of those vices ought so to be represented to them, that they may not only avoid them in their actions, but especially so to abominate them in their hearts, that the very thought should be hatefull to them, with what mask soever they may be palliated or disguis'd. I know very well, for what concerns my self, that for having been brought up in my childhood to a plain, and sincere way of dealing, and for having then had an aversion to all manner of juggling and foul play in my childish sports and recreations (and indeed it is to be noted, that the plays of children are not perform'd in play, but are to be judg'd in them as their most serious actions) there is no game so small wherein from my own bosom naturally, and without study or endeavour, I have not an extream aversion for deceit. I shuffle, and cut, and make as much clatter with the cards, and keep as strict accounts for farthings, as it were for double pistoles, when winning or losing against my wife and daughter is indifferent to me, as when I play in good earnest with others for the roundest sums. At all times, and in all places, my own eyes are sufficient to look to my fingers; I am not so narrowly watch'd by any other, neither is there any I more fear to be discover'd by, or to offend. I saw the other day, at my own house, a little fellow who came to show himself for money, a native of Nantes born without arms, who has so well taught his feet to perform the services his hands should have done him, that indeed they have half forgot their natural office, and the use for which they were design'd; the fellow too calls them his hands, and we may allow him so to do, for with them he cuts any thing, charges and discharges a pistol, threds a needle, sows, writes, and puts off his hat, combs his head, plays at cards and dice, and all this with as much dexterity as any other could do who had more, and more proper limbs to assist him; and the money I gave him he carried away in his foot, as we do in our hand. I have seen another, who being yet a boy, flourish'd a two-handed sword, and (if I may say ) handled a halbert with the mere motions and writhing of his neck and shoulders for want of hands, tost them into the air, and catch'd them again, darted a dagger, and crack'd a whip as well as any coach-man in France. But the effects of custom are much more manifest in the strange impressions she imprints in our minds, where she meets with less resistance, and has nothing so hard a game to play. What has she not the power to impose upon our judgments and belief? Is there any so fantastick opinion (omitting the gross impostures of religions, with which we see so many populous nations and so many understanding men, so strangely besotted; for |