Dum spectant oculi læsos, læduntur & ipsi : So the imagination, being vehemently agitated, emits My tender lambs bewitches so. women Magicians are but bad vouchers for me; yet we The imagifind by experience, that women imprint the marks nation of of their fancy on the infants they bear in their wombs. with child. Witness her that was brought to bed of a negro, and the girl that was brought from the neighbourhood of Pisa, and presented to Charles, king of Bohemia, and emperor, all over rough and hairy, whom her mother is said to have conceived when she was looking at an image of St. John the Baptist, that hung by her bed-side. tion in ani It is the same with animals; witness Jacob's sheep, The power and the partridges and hares, which turn out white of imagina upon the snowy mountains. There was at my house, mals. a little while ago, a cat watching a bird that was at the top of a tree, and after having fixed their eyes stedfastly upon one another for some time, the bird dropped down dead, as it were, into the cat's claws; either being intoxicated by its own imagination, or allured by some attractive power in puss. They who are fond of hawking, must no doubt have heard the story of the falconer, who, having steadily fixed * Ovid. de Remedio Amoris, lib. ii. ver. 320. Whether it is consist philoso his eye upon a kite in the air, laid a wager that he would bring her down by the mere power of his sight; and it was said he did so. As for the tales I borrow, I charge them upon the consciences of those from whom I have them. The arguments are my own, and founded upon the proof of reason, not of experience, to which every one is at the liberty of adding his own examples: and he that has none to offer, let him believe, nevertheless, that here are enough, considering the number and variety of accidents. If I have not made a just application of them, let any body else make a better. Also in the subjects whereon I treat of our manners and motives, the testimonies which I produce, how fabulous soever, provided they are not impossible, serve as well as the true ones. Whether they happened or not, at Rome or at Paris, to John or to Peter, it is still a turn of the human capacity, of which I have made good use by this recital. I see it, and benefit by it, as much in the shadow as in the substance; and of the various passages I meet with in history, I select that for my purpose which is the most rare and remarkable. There are some authors, whose aim it is to give an account of things that have really happened; mine, if I can attain to it, should be to represent what may possibly happen. There is a just liberty allowed in the schools, of supposing similes when they have none at hand. I do not, however, make any use of that liberty; and as to that affair in superstitious religion, I surpass all historical authority, in the instances which I here mention of what I have heard, read, done, or said. I have laid myself under a prohibition to presume to alter the slightest and most trifling circumstances. My conscience does not falsify one tittle; what my ignorance may do, I cannot say. This it is that makes me sometimes ponder with ent with a myself, whether it can be consistent with a divine pher and a and a philosopher, and men of such delicate condivine to sciences, and exquisite wisdom, to write history. How can they stake their credit on that of the pub. write histo lic? How can they be responsible for the opinions of men whom they do not know, and deliver their conjectures as canonical? Of actions performed before their own eyes, wherein several people were actors, they would be unwilling to give evidence before a judge, and they would not undertake to be absolute surety for the intentions of their most familiar acquaintance. For my part, I think there is less hazard in writing of things past, than present, forasmuch as the writer only relates matters upon the authority of others. of his own I am solicited to write the history of my own time Why Monby some people, who think I look upon its affairs not write with an eye less prejudiced than another, and that I the history have a clearer insight into them, by reason of the ac-time. cess which I have had, by my good fortune, to the leaders of the different factions; but they do not consider that, were I to gain the reputation of Sallust, I would not take the pains, being such a sworn enemy, as I am, to all obligation, assiduity, and perseverance; besides, that there is nothing so inconsistent with my style, as an extended narration. I often cut myself short in it for want of breath. I am neither good at composition nor comment, and know no more than a child the phrases and idioms proper for expressing the most common things: therefore I have undertaken to treat of what I know how to express, and have accommodated my subject to my capacity. Should I take a guide, I might not be able to keep pace with him. Nor do they consider, that while I indulge such a freedom, I might deliver opinions, which, in my own judgment, and according to reason, would be illegal and punishable. Plutarch would be ready to tell us, that what he has wrote is the work of others; that his examples are all and every where strictly true; that they are useful to posterity; and are exhibited with such a lustre, as will light us in the way to virtue, which was his aim. Whether an old story be true or false, it is not of dangerous consequence, CHAPTER XXI. One Man's Profit is another's Loss. DEMADES, the Athenian, condemned a fellowcitizen, who furnished out funerals, for demanding too great a price for his goods? and if he got an estate, it must be by the death of a great many people: but I think it a sentence ill grounded, forasmuch as no profit can be made, but at the expense of some other person, and that every kind of gain is by that rule liable to be condemned. The tradesman thrives by the debauchery of youth, and the farmer by the dearness of corn; the architect by the ruin of buildings, the officers of justice by quarrels and law-suits; nay, even the honour and function of divines is owing to our mortality and vices. No physician takes pleasure in the health even of his best friends, said the ancient Greek comedian, nor soldier in the peace of his country; and so of the rest.* And, what is yet worse, let every one but examine his own heart, and he will find, that his private wishes spring and grow up at the expense of some other person. Upon which consideration this thought came into my head, that nature does not hereby deviate from her general policy; for the naturalists hold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of any one thing is the decay and corruption of another: Nam quodcunque suis mutatum finibus exit, Continuo hoc mors est illius, quod fuit ante.† i. e. * Seneca de Beneficiis, lib. vi. cap. 38, from whence most of this chapter is taken. Lucret. lib. iii. ver. 752, 753. CHAPTER XXII. Of Custom, and the Difficulty of changing a Law once received. IN my opinion, that person had a very right con- The force ception of the power of custom, who invented of custom, the fable of the country woman, who having played with, and carried in her arms, a calf from the very hour it was cast, and continuing to do so as it grew up, did, by that custom, gain so much strength, that though it lived to be a large ox, she still carried it. For, in truth, custom is a violent, and yet an insinuating school-mistress; she establishes her authority over us gradually, and by stealth; but having by such a gentle and humble beginning planted and fixed it, she immediately unmasks, and shows us a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we hardly dare so much as to lift up our eyes. We see her at every turn breaking through the laws of nature; usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister;t i. e. Custom is the greatest tyrant in nature. I give credit to the account of Plato's cave in his republic, and to the custom of the physicians, who so often resign the reasons of their art to its authority. I believe the story of that king, who, by custom, brought his stomach to that pass, as to take poison for its nourishment; and that of the young woman, who, Albert reports, was accustomed to live on poison; for in the late discovered world of the Indies, there were found great nations, and in very different climates, who lived upon them, collected and * It is become a kind of proverb, which Petronius has thus expressed, -Tollere taurum Quæ tulerit vitulum illa potest. You will also find it among the adages of Erasmus, Chil. 1. Cent. 2. + Pliny's Nat. Hist. lib. xxvi. cap. 2. |