What sort

whenever they will, does moreover by the poet possess the actor, and by the actor consequently all the spectators. So much do our passions hang and depend upon one another.

Poetry has ever had that power over me from a of poetry child, to pierce and transport me; but this quick preferred. sense of it that is natural to me, has been variously

Montaigne

handled by variety of forms, and not so much higher and lower (for they were ever the highest in every kind), as differing in colour. First, a gay and sprightly fluency, afterwards an acute and penetrating subtlety; and lastly, a mature and constant force. An example from Ovid, Lucan, and Virgil, will better express them. But our poets are beginning their career.

One says,

Sit Cato dum vivit fama vel Cæsare major.*
Let Cato's fame,

Whilst he shall live, eclipse great Cæsar's name.

A second says,

Et invictum devictâ morte Catonem.+

And Cato fell, invincible in death.

And the third, speaking of the civil wars between Cæsar and Pompey:

Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.‡

Heaven approves

The conquering cause, the conquer'd Cato loves.
And the fourth, upon the praises of Cæsar, says,

Et cuncta terrarum subacta,

Præter atrocem animum Catonis.§

And conquer'd all where'er his eagle flew,
But stubborn Cato nothing could subdue.

The master of the choir, after having characterised the greatest Romans, ends thus:

His dantem jura Catonem.

And Cato giving laws to all the rest.

Mart. lib. vi. epig. 32.

+ Manil. Astronomicon, lib. iv. ver. 87.

Lucan. lib. i. ver. 121. § Hor. Car. lib. ii. od. i. ver. 23, 24.

Virgil, Æneid. lib. viii. ver. 670.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

quished be

That we laugh and cry for the same Thing. WHEN we read in history, that Antigonus was The death very much displeased with his son, for presenting of the vanhim the head of king Pyrrhus his enemy, just killed wailed by fighting against him, and that seeing it he heartily the victors. wept: that Rene, duke of Lorrain, also lamented the death of Charles, duke of Burgundy,† whom he had just defeated, and appeared in mourning at his funeral: and that, in the battle of Auroy (which the count de Montfort obtained over Charles de Blois, his competitor for the duchy of Brittany), the conqueror, meeting the corpse of his enemy, was much afflicted at his death; § we must not presently cry out:

Et cosi aven che l'animo ciascuna,

Sua passion sotto el contrario manto,

Ricopre, con la vista hor' chiara, hor' bruna.||
There ev'ry person, whether of joy or woe,
The passion of his mind can govern so,
As when most griev'd, to show a visage clear,
And melancholic, when best pleas'd, appear.

When Pompey's head was presented to Cæsar, his-
tory tells us, that he turned away his face, as from a
sad and displeasing object. There had been so long
a correspondence between them, in the management
of the public affairs, so great a community of for-
tunes, so many mutual offices, and so near in alli-
ance, that this countenance of his ought not to suffer
under any misinterpretation; or to be altogether
suspected for false or counterfeit, as this author seems
to believe:

Before Nancy in 1477.

* Plutarch, in the Life of Pyrrhus.
In 1364, in the reign of Charles V. king of France.
Froissart, vol. i. cap. 228.

Petrarch, fol. 25, edit. of 1545.

Mankind

Tutumque putavit

Jam bonus esse socer, lachrymas non sponte cadentes
Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto.*
And now he saw

'Twas safe to be a pious father-in-law,

He shed forc'd tears, and from a joyful breast,
Fetch'd sighs and groans.

For though it be true, that most of our actions are
deceitful, and that sometimes

Hæredis fletus sub persona risus est.†

The heir's dissembled tears, behind the skreen
Could one but peep, would joyful smiles be seen.

Yet, in judging of these accidents, we are to consubject to sider how much our souls are oftentimes agitated passions. with different passions. And, as they say, that in

different

our bodies there is a collection of divers humours, of which, that is the governing passion, 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 there must be one master of the field, yet not with so entire a conquest, but that through the flexibility and inconstancy of the soul, those of less authority may, upon occasion, re-assume their place, and make a little sally in turn. Thence it is that we see not only children, who simply 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 set his heart upon, but when he comes to part with his family and friends, he will find something within that troubles him; and though he refrain his tears, yet he puts foot in the stirrup with a sad and cloudy countenance. We may further observe, that whatever kindly flame have warmed the heart of well-born virgins, yet they are fain to be forced from about their mothers' necks, to be put to bed to their husbands; whatever this boon companion is pleased to say:

*Lucan. lib. ix. ver. 1037.

+ Aulus Gellius ex Noctes Publii Mimis, lib. xvii. cap. 14.

Estne novis nuptis odio Venus, anne parentum
Frustrantur falsis gaudia lachrymalis,
Ubertim thalami quas intra limina fundunt?
Non, ita me Divi, vera gemunt, juverint.*
Docs the fair bride the sport so greatly dread,
That she takes on so, when she's put to bed,
Her parents joys t'allay with a feign'd tear?
She does not cry in earnest, I dare swear.

So that it is not strange to lament the death of 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 give him no feigned, but hearty 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 over a new leaf. When I call him calf and coxcomb, I do not mean to entail those titles upon him for ever; neither do I think I give myself the lie in calling him an honest fellow presently after. No one quality engrosses us abstractedly and universally. Were it not the sign of a fool to talk to one's self, there would hardly be a day or hour wherein I might not be heard to mutter to myself, and against myself, Wretched fool that I am! And yet I do not think that to be my character. He who seeing me one while cold, and presently very fond of 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 drowned, was nevertheless sensible of some emotion at this farewell, and was struck with horror and pity. It is said, that the light of the sun is not one continuous thing, but that it darts new rays so quick one upon another, that we cannot perceive the intermission:

Largus enim liquidi fons luminis æthereus Sol
Irrigat assiduè cælum candore recenti,
Suppetit atque novo confestim lumine lumen.†

*Catull. de Comâ Berenices, num. lxiv. ver. 15.
+ Lucret. lib. v. ver, 282, &c.

Xerxes

verwhelm

For the æthereal sun that shines so bright,
Being a fountain large of liquid light,

With fresh rays sprinkles still the cheerful sky,
And with new light the light does still supply.

Just so the soul variously and imperceptibly darts out
her passions.

Artabanus surprising once his nephew Xerxes, both trans- chid him for the sudden alteration of his counteported with joy and o- nance. As he was viewing his forces without numed with ber, passing over the Hellespont, for the Grecian sadness at expedition, his heart leaped with joy,' to see so many thousands of men under his command; it also appeared in the gaiety and alacrity of his countenance. But his thoughts at the same instants suggesting to him, that of so many lives, in an age at most, there would not be one left, he knit his brows, and grew sad, even to the shedding of tears.

the sight of his vast army.

The soul does not

same eye,

nor with

one and

*

We have resolutely pursued the revenge of an look upon injury received, and felt a singular satisfaction in the things with victory: yet we are sorry, though it is not for the one and the victory that we weep: there is nothing altered in that: but the soul looks upon the thing with another eye, and represents it to itself with another kind of face for every thing has many biasses and aspects. Relations, old acquaintances, and friendships, possess our imagination, and make it tender for the time, according to their condition; but the revolution is so quick, that we do not perceive it:

the same bias.

Nil adeò fieri celeri ratione videtur,

Quam si mens fieri proponit, et inchoat ipsa.
Ocius ergo animus quàm res se perciet ulla,
Ante oculos quarum in promptu natura videtur.†
As no one action seems so swiftly done,

As what the mind as plann'd, and once begun,
This observation evidently proves,

The mind than other things more swiftly moves.

Therefore, while we desire to make a work complete, and all of a piece, we deceive ourselves.

*Herodot, lib. vii. p. 456, 457.

Lucr. lib. iii. ver. 183, &c.