under our protection, when the articles of capitulation were so far advanced, that it was looked upon as good as concluded, several Spaniards, being slipped in, made use of this treachery, as an absolute victory. And since that time, at Ligny in the Barrois, where the count de Brienne commanded, the emperor having besieged it in person, and Bertheville, the said count's lieutenant, going out to hold a parley, whilst he was capitulating, the town was taken. They say,

Fu il vincer sempre mai laudabil cosa,
Vincasi è per fortuna, ò per ingegno.
That conquest ever was a glorious thing,
Which way soe'er the conqu'ror purchas'd it,
Whether it was by fortune, or by wit.

But the philosopher Chrysippus was not of this opinion, nor I heartily; for he said,† That he who runs a race, ought to exert all his strength in speed; but that it is by no means fair in him to lay hand upon his adversary, to stop him, or to set a leg before him to throw him down. And yet more generous was the answer of the great Alexander to Polypercon, when he persuaded him to take advantage of the darkness of the night to fall upon Darius: By no means, said he; I do not want to steal a victory, I had rather be sorry for my fortune, than ashamed of my victory.‡

Atque idem fugientem haud est dignatus Orodem
Sternere, nec jacta cæcum dare cuspide vulnus:
Obvius adversoque occurrit, seque viro vir
Contulit; haud furto melior, sed fortibus armis.§

His heart disdain'd to strike Orodes dead,
Or in his back to stab him as he fled.
Then with disdain the haughty victor view'd
Orodes flying, nor the wretch pursu'd:

Nor thought the dastard's back deserv'd a wound,
But hast'ning to o'ertake him, gain'd the ground :
Then, turning short, he met him face to face,
To give his victory the better grace.

* Ariosto, cant. xv. ver. 1, 2.
Quint. Curtius. lib. iv. cap. 13.

+ Cicero de Offic. lib. iii. cap. 10.

§ Æneid. lib. x. ver. 732.

CHAPTER VII.

discharges

our obliga.

That our Actions are to be judged by the Intention, IT is a common saying, “That death discharges us In what "of all our obligations." Yet I know some that sense death have taken it in another sense. Henry VII. king of us of all England, articled with Don Philip, son to Maximi- tions. lian the emperor, or to give him the more honourable appellation, father to the emperor Charles V. that the said Philip should deliver up to him his enemy, the duke of Suffolk, of the White Rose, who had taken refuge in the Netherlands, and promised that, upon such surrender of him, he would attempt nothing against the said duke's life, in which he was as good as his word, but when he came near to his latter end, he enjoined his son, by his last will and testament, to put him to death immediately after his decease. And lately, in the tragedy which the duke of Alva presented to us at Brussels, in the persons of the counts of Horne and Egmont, there were many very remarkable passages, one of which was, that the said count of Egmont (upon the security of whose word and honour the count of Horne surrendered himself to the duke of Alva) earnestly entreated that he might first mount the scaffold, to the end that his death might disengage him from his obligation to the count Horne. In this case, methinks, death did not acquit the king of his engagement, and the count of Egmont was acquitted of his, even though he had not died. We cannot be bound beyond our abilities: and because the effects and performances are not in our power, and as in truth there is nothing in our power but the will, it is on this that all the rules of man's duty are necessarily founded and establised. Thus the count of Egmont, thinking his soul and will bound to his promise,

though he had not the power to make it good, had doubtless been absolved of his obligation, even if he had outlived the count of Horne. But the king of England, breaking his faith by previous intention, could no more excuse himself for deferring the execution of his treachery till after his death, than Herodotus's mason,* who, having kept the treasures of the king of Egypt, his sovereign, inviolably secret in his life-time, discovered it at his death to his children.

Satisfac- I have known many persons in my time, who, tion after being reproached by their consciences of with-holdsignificant. ing the property of another person, have aimed at

making satisfaction by their last will and testament,
and after their decease; but they do nothing who
take so much time in so pressing an affair, or who
think to repair an injury with so little compunction
and expense.
They owe, besides, something of
what they have in their immediate possession; and
the more they incommode themselves, by restoring
what they have unjustly taken, the juster and the
more commendable is their satisfaction; for peni-
tence requires penance. Those do yet worse, who,
by their last will, declare a mortal animosity against
their neighbour, which they had concealed in their
life-time, wherein they shew their little regard to
their own honour, by irritating the person offended
against their memory; and less to their conscience,
not having the power, even in respect to death, to
let their malice die with them, but extending its ex-
istence beyond their own. Unjust judges, who de-
fer judgment to a time when they can have no
knowledge of the cause! for my part, I shall take
what care I can, that my death make no discovery
of what my life has not first declared, and that
publicly.

* Herodotus, lib. ii. p. 151.

CHAPTER VIII.

Of Idleness.

As we see some lands that have lain fallow, if the

soil is fat and fertile, produce innumerable sorts of wild herbs that are good for nothing, for want of being cultivated and sown with certain seeds proper for our service; and as we find that some women who have not known men, do of themselves bring forth shapeless lumps and pieces of flesh, and that to cause a proper and natural generation, it is necessary to impregnate them with another kind of seed: even so it is with our minds, which if not applied to some particular subject to check and restrain them, rove about confusedly in the vague expanse of imagination:

Sicut aquæ tremulum labris ubi lumen ahenis
Sole repercussim, aut radiantis imagine lunæ,
Omnia pervolitat latè loca, jamque sub auras
Erigitur; summique ferit laquearia tecti.*

Thus translated by Mr. DRYDEN.
So when the sun by day, or moon by night,
Strikes on the polished brass their trembling light,
The glitt'ring species here and there divide,
And cast their dubious beams from side to side;
Now on the walls, now on the pavement play,
And to the ceiling flash the glaring day.

In which agitation, there is no folly, nor idle fancy, which they do not create:

velut ægri somnia, vance

Finguntur species—†

Like sick men's dreams, that from a troubled brain
Phantasms créate, ridiculous and vain.

The soul that has no established limit to circum

scribe it, loses itself; for, as the epigrammatist says,

Æneid, lib. viii. ver. 22. VOL I.

Hor. Art. Poet. ver. 7, 8,

D

Idleness bewilders

the mind.

Quisquis ubique habitat, maxime nusquam habitat.*
He that is every where, is no where.

When I lately retired to my own house, with a resolution to avoid all manner of concern in affairs as much as possible, and to spend the small remainder of my life in privacy and peace, I fancied I could not give my mind more enjoyment, than to leave it at full liberty to entertain rest, and compose itself: which I also hoped that it might do the more easily henceforwards, as being by time become more settled and improved: but I find,

-variam semper dant otia mentem. -Even in the most retired states,

A thousand thoughts an idle life creates.

that, on the contrary, like a horse broke loose, which runs away with greater speed than the rider would put him to, it gives birth to so many chimeras, and fantastic monsters, one upon the neck of another, without order and design, that, for the sake of surveying the folly and absurdity of them when I list, I have begun to draw a catalogue of them, hoping in time to make my mind ashamed of itself.

Mon. taigne's

Donfession

happy me

CHAPTER IX.

Of Liars.

THERE is not a man whom it would so ill become

to boast of memory as myself; for I own I have that he has scarce any, and do not think that in the world there not a very is another so defective as mine. My other faculties mory. are all mean and common; but in this respect, I think myself so singular and rare, as to deserve a more than ordinary character. Besides the inconve

*Martial. lib. vii. ep. 72.

Lucan. lib. iv. ver. 704.