Source: Michel Montaigne. The Essays of Michael Lord of Montaigne, 1580, 1597. Translated by John Florio, 1603. World's Classics edition. 3 volumes, Vol. 2. London:  Frowde, 1904. Before using any portion of this text in any theme, essay, research paper, thesis, or dissertation, please read the disclaimer.

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     THose which exercise themselves in controuling humane actions, finde no such let in any one part as to peece them together and bring them to one same lustre:  For they commonly contradict one another so strangely, as it seemeth impossible they should be parcels of one Warehouse. Young Marias is sometimes found to be the sonne of Mars, and other times the childe of Venus.  Pope Boniface the Eight is reported to have entred into his charge as a Fox, to have carried himselfe therein as a Lion, and to have died like a Dog.  And who would thinke it was Nero, that lively image of cruelty, who being required to sign (as the custome was) the sentence of a criminall offender that had beene condemned to die, that ever he should answer, 'Oh would to God I could never have written?  So neare was his heart grieved to doome a man to death.  The wo rld is so full of such examples that every man may store himselfe; and I wonder to see men of understanding trouble themselves with sorting these parcels:  Sithence (mee seemeth) irresolution is the most apparent and common
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vice of our nature: as witnesseth that famous verse of Publius the Commedian:

 Malum consilium est, quod mutari non potest./1

The counsel is but bad,
Whose change may not be had.

deliberation is the beginning of all virtue, and constancie the end and perfection.  If by reason or discourse we should take a certaine way, we should then take the fairest: but no man hath thought on it.

Quod petiit, spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit
AEstuat, et vitae disconvenit ordine toto./1

He scornes that which he sought, seek's that he scorn'd of late,
He flowes, ebbes, disagrees in his lifes whole estate.

Ducimur ut nervis alienis mobile lignum./2

So are we drawne, as wood is shoved,
By others sinnewes each way moved.

      ----- nonne videmus
Quid sibi quisque relit nescire et quaerere semper,
Commuttare locum quasi onus deponere possit? /3

See we not, every man in his thoughts height
Knowes not what he would have, yet seekes he streight
To change place, as he could lay downe his weight?

Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali Pater ipse
Jupiter auctifero lustravit lumine terras./1

Such are mens mindes, as that great God of might
Surveies the earth with encrease bearing light.

resolute countenance, and gored bloud (a true testimony of her chaste vertue) she might appeare to be the lively patterne of another Lucrece, yet know I certainly that, both before that time and afterward, she had beene enjoyed of others upon easier composition.  And as the common saying is; Faire and soft, as squemish-honest as she seemes, although you misse of your intent, conclude not rashly an inviolable chastitie to be in your Mistresse; for a groome or a horse-keeper may finde an houre to thrive in; and a dog hath a day.  Antigonus having taken upon him to favour a souldier of his by reason of his vertue and valour, to have great care of him, and see whether they could recover him of a lingering and inward disease which had long tormented him, who being perfectly cured, he afterward perceiving him to be nothing so earnest and diligent in his affaires, demanded of him how he was so changed from himselfe, and become so cowardish: 'Your selfe,h good sir,' answered he, 'have made me so by ridding me of those infirmities which so did grieve me that I made no accompt of my life.  A souldier of Lucullus, having by his enemies beene robbed of all he had, to revenge himselfe undertooke a notable and desperat atempt upon them; and having recovered his losses, Lucullus conceived a very good opinion of him, and with the greatest shewes of assured trust and loving kindnesse be could bethinke himselfe, made especiall accompt of him, and in any dangerous enterprize seemed to trust and employ him only:

Verbis qum timido quoque possent addere mentem./1

With words, which to a coward might
Adde courage, had he any spright.

      ------ quantumvis rusticus ibit,
Ibit eo quo vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit./1

None is, saith he, so clownish, but will-on,
Where you will have him, if his purse be gone

selfe it is because I looke diversly upon my selfe.  All contrarieties are found in her, according to some turne or removing, and in some fashion or other; shamefast, bashfull, insolent, chaste, luxurious, peevish, pratling, silent, fond, doting, labourious, nice, delicate, ingenious, slow, dull, froward, humorous, debonaire, wise, ignorant, false in words, true-speaking, both liberall, covetous, and prodigall. [characters] All these I perceive in some measure or other to bee in mee, according as I stirre or turne my selfe; And whosoever shall heedfully survey and consider himselfe, shall finde this volubility and discordance to be in himselfe, yea and in his very judgement.  I have nothing to say entirely, simply, and with soliditie of my selfe, without confusion, disorder, blending, mingling, and in one word, Distinguo is the most universall part of my logike.  Although I ever purpose to speak good of good, and rather to enterpret those things that will beare it, unto a good sense; yet is it that the strangenesse of our condition admitteth that we are often urged to doe well by vice it selfe, if well doing were not judged by the intention only.  Therefore may not a courageous act conclude a man to be valiant.  He that is so, when just occasion serveth, shall ever be so, and upon all occasions.  If it were an habitude of vertue, and not a sudden humour, it would make a man equally resolute at all assayes, in all accidents:  Such alone, as in company; such in a single combat, as in a set battel:  For, whatsoever some say, valour is all alike, and not one in the street or towne, and another in the campe or field.  As courageously should a man beare a sicknesse in his hed as a hurt in the field, and feare death no more at home in his house than abroad in an assault.  We should not then see one same man enter the breach, or charge his enemie with an assured and undouted fiercenesse, and afterward having escaped that, to vexe, to grive and torment himselfe like unto a seely woman, or faint- hearted milkesop for the losse of a sute, or death of a childe.  If one chance to be carelesly base-minded in his infancie, and constantly-resolute in 

povertie; if he be timorously-fearfull at sight of a barbers razor, and afterward stowtly-undismayed against his enemies swords: the action is commendable, but not the man.  Divers Grecians (saith Cicero) cannot endure to looke their enemy in the face, yet are they most constant in their sicknesses; whereas the Cimbrians and Celtiberians are meere contrary. Nihil enim potest esse aequabile, quod non a certa ratione proficiscatur:/1 'For nothing can beare it selfe even which proceedeth not from resolved reason.  There is no valor more extreme in his kinde than that of Alexander; yet it is but in species, nor every where sufficiently full and universall. As incomparable as it is, it hath his blemishes, which is the reason that in the idleest of suspitions he apprehendeth at the conspiracies of his followers against his life, we see him so earnestly to vex and trouble ^himselfe:  In search and pursuit of whereof he demeaneth himselfe with so vehement and indiscreet an injustice, and with such a demisse feare that even his naturall reason is thereby subverted.  Also the superstition wherewith he is so thoroughly tainted beareih some shew of pusilanimitie. And the unlimited excesse of the repentance he shewed for the murther of Clitus is also a witnesse of the inequalitie of his courage.  Our matters are but parcels hudled up and peeces patched together, and we endevour to acquire honour by false meanes and untrue tokens.   Vertue will not bee followed but by herselfe: and if at any time we borrow her maske, upon some other occasion she will as soone pull it from our face.  It is a lively hew and strong die, if the soule be once dyed with the same perfectly, and which will never fade or be gone, except it carry the skin away with it.  Therefore to judge a man, we must a long time follow, and very curiously marke his steps; whether constancie do wholy subsist and continue upon her owne foundation in him.  Cui vivendi via considerata atque provisa est./2 'Who hath forecast and considered the way of
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1 CIC.  Tusc.  Qu. ii. c. 27. 2 CIC.  Parad. v. 

life;' whether the variety of occurrences make him change his pace (I meane his way, for his pace may either be hastened or slowed) let him run on: such a one (as sayeth the imprease of our good Talbot) goeth before the wind.  It is no marvell (saith an old writer) that hazard hath such power over us, since wee live by hazard.  It is impossible for him to dispose of his particular actions, that bath not in grose directed his life unto one certaine end.  It is impossible for him to range all peeces in order, that hath not a plot or forme of the totall frame in his head.  What avayleth the provision of all sorts of colours unto one that knowes not what be is to draw?  No man makes any certaine designe of his life, and we deliberate of it but by parcels.  A skilfull archer ought first to know the marke he aimeth at, and then apply his hand, his bow, his string, his arrow and his motion accordingly.  Our counsels goe a stray because they are not rightly addressed, and have no fixed end.  No winde makes for him that hath no intended post to saile unto.  As for me, I allow not greatly of that judgement which some made of Sophocles, and to have concluded him sufficient in the managing of domesticall matters, against the accusation of his owne sonne, only by the sight of one of his tragedies.  Nor doe I commend the conjecture of the Parians sent to reforme the Milesians, as sufficient to the consequence they drew thence.  In visiting and surveying the ile, they marked the landes that were best husbanded, and observed the country houses that were, best governed.  And having registered the names of their owners, and afterward made an assembly of the Townesmen of the Citie, they named and instituted those owners as new Governours and Magistrates, judging and concluding, that being good husbands and carefull of their housebold affaires, they must consequently be so of publike matters.  We are all framed of flaps and patches and of so shapelesse and diverse a contexture that every peece and every moment playeth his part.  And there is as much difference found betweene us and our selves as there is betweene 

ourselves and other.  Magnam rem puta, unun hominem agere: 'Esteeme it a great matter to play but one man.       Since ambition may teach men both valor temperance, liberality, yea and justice: sith covetousnesse may settle in the minde of a Shop-prentise-boy, brought up in ease and idlenesse, a dreadlesse assurance to leave his home-bred ease, and forgoe his place of education, and in a small barke to yeeld himselfe unto the mercy of blustring waves, mercilesse windes and wrathfull Neptune; and that it also teacheth discretion and wisdome [Crusoe]; And that Venus [Mars/Venus] herself ministreth resolution and hardinesse unto tender youth as yet subject to the discipline of the rod, and teacheth the ruthlesse Souldier the soft and tenderly effeminate heart of women in their mothers laps:

Hac duce custodes furtim transgressa jacentes, Adjuvenem tenebris sola puella venit./1

The wench by stealeth her lodg'd guards having stript,
By this guide, sole, i'th darke, to' th yonker skipt;

THE world is nothing but variety and dissemblance.  Vices are all alike, inasmuch as they are all vices:  And so do haply the Stoikes meane it.  But though they are equally vices, they are not equall vices; and that hee who hath started a hundred steps beyond the limits

Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum,/l

On this side, or beyond the which
No man can hold a right true pitch

Nec vincet ratio, tantumdem ut peccet, idemque, Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti,
Et qui nocturnus divum sacra legerit./2

No reason can evict, as great or same sinne taints
Him that breakes in anothers Garden tender plants,
And him that steales by night things consecrate to Saints.

others, to whom the best is ever in vice, should say the like of knowledge to distinguish vices, without which, and that very exacet, both vertuous and wicked men remaine confounded and unknowen.  Now drunkennesse amongst others appeareth to me a grose and brutish vice.  The minde hath more part else where; and some vices there are which (if it may lawfully be spoken) have a kinde of I wot not what generosity in them.  Some there are that have learning, diligence, valour, prudence, wit, cunning, dexterity, and subtlety joyned with them; whereas this is meerely corporall and terrestriall. And the grosest and rudest nation that liveth amongst us at this day is only that which keepeth it in credit.  Other vices but alter and distract the understanding, whereas this utterly subverteth the same, and astonieth the body.

     ----- Cum vini vis penetravit,
Consequitur qravitas membrorum, praepediuntur
Crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua madet mens,
Nant oculi, clamor, singultus,jurgia gliscunt.1

When once the force of wine hath inly pierst,
Limbes-heavinesse is next, legs faine would goe,
But reeling cannot, tongue drawles, mindes disperst,
Eyes swimme, cries, hickups, brables grow.

      ------ tu sapientium
Curas, et arcanum jocoso
Consilium retegis Lyaeo./2
 

Thou (wine-cup) doest by wine reveale
The cares, which wise men would conceale
And close drifts, at a merry meale.

     Josephus reporteth that by making an Ambassador to tipple- square, whom his enemies had sent unto him, he wrested all his secrets out of him.  Neverthelesse Augustus having trusted Lucius Piso, that conquered Thrace, with the secretest affaires he had in hand, had never cause to be discontented with him; nor Tiberius with Cossus, to whom he imparted all his seriousest counsels, although we know them both to have so given themselves to drinking of wine that they were often faine to be carried from the Senat, and both were reputed notable drunkards.

      ------ Hesterno inflatum venas de more Lyaeo/1

Veines pufft up, as it used alway
By wine which was dranke yesterday.

      ------ Nec facilis victoria de madidis, et
Bloesis, atque mero titubantibus./2

Nor is the conquest easie of men sowst,
Lisping and reeling with wine they carowst.

Epaminondas), made him so dead-drunke that insensibly and without feeling he might prostitute his beauty as the body of a common hedge-harlot, to Mulettiers, Groomes and maany of the abject servants of his house.  And what a lady (whom I much honour and highly esteeme) told mee , protesting that neere Bourdeaux, towards Castres, where her house is, a widdow country-woman, reputed very chaste and honest, suspecting herselfe to be with childe, told her neighbours that had she a husband she should verily thinke she was with childe; but the occasion of this suspition increasing more and more, and perceiving herseIfe so big-bellied that she could no longer conceale it, she resolved to make the Parish-priest acquainted with it, whom she entreated to publish in the Church that whosover hee were that were guilty of the fact, and would avow it, she would freely forgive him, and if hee were so pleased, take him to her husband.  A certaine swaine or hyne-boy of hers, emboldened by this proclamation, declared how that having one holliday found her welltippled with wine, and so sound asleep by the chimnie side lying so fit and ready for him, without awaking her he had the full use of her body.  Whom she accepted for her husband, and both live together at this day.  It is assured that antiquitie hath not greatly described this vice.  The compositions of diverse Philosophers speake but sparingly of it.  Yea, and some of the Stoikes deeme it not amisse for man sometimes to take his liquor roundly, and drinke drunke, thereby to recreate his spirits.

Hoc quoque virtutum quondam certamine magnum
Socratem palmam promeruisse ferunt./1

They say, in this too, Socrates the wise,
And great in vertues combats, bare the prize.

Narratur et prisci Catonis
Saepe mero coluisse virtus./1

'Tis said, by use of wine repeated
Old Catoes vertue oft was heated.

a milder, a loose and freer taste.  To be a true drinker a man should not have so tender and squeamish a palat.  The Germans doe in a manner drinke equally of all sorts of wine with like pleasure.  Their end is rather to gulpe it downe freely than to tast it kindly.  And To say truth they have it better cheape.  Their voluptuousnesse is more plenteous and fuller.  Secondarily, to drinke after the French manner, as two droughts and moderately, is over much to restraine the favours of that God.  There is more time and constancie required thereunto.  Our forefathers were wont to spend whole nights in that exercise, yea often times they joyned whole long dayes unto them. And a man must proportion his ordinarie more large and firme.  I have in my dayes seene a principall Lord, a man of great employment and enterprises and famous for good success, who without straining himselfe and eating but an ordinary meales-meate, was wont to drinke little lesse than five pottles of wine, yet at his rising seemed to be nothing distempered, but rather, as we have found to our no small cost in managing our affaires, over- wise and considerate.  The pleasure of that whereof we would make account in the course of our life ought to be employed longer space.  It were necessary, as shop-boyes or labouring people, that we should refuse no occasion to drinke and continually to have this desire in our minde. It seemeth that wee daily shorten the use of this, and that in our houses (as I have seene in mine infancie) breakfasts, nunchions, and beavers should be more frequent and often used than now adayes they are.  And should wee thereby in any sort proceed towards amendment?  No verily.  But it may be that we have much more given our selves over unto paillardise and all manner of luxurie than our fathers were.  They are two occupations that enter-hinder one another in their vigor.  On the one side it hath empaired and weakned our stomacke, and on the other sobrietie serveth to make us more jolly-quaint, lusty, and wanton for the exercise of love matters.  It is a wonder to thinke on the strange tales I have heard my 

father report of the chastitie of his time.  He might well speake of it as he that was both by art and nature proper for the use and solace of ladies.  He spake little and well, few words, but to the purpose, and was ever wont to entermixe some ornament taken from vulgar bookes, and above all Spanish amongst his common speeches.  And of all Spanish authors, none was more familiar unto him than Marcus Aurelius./1  His demeanour and carriage was ever milde, meeke, gentle+, and, very modest, and above all grave and stately.  There is nothing he seemed to be more carefull of than of his honesty, and observe a kinde of decencie of his person, and orderly decorum in his habits, were it on foot or on horsebacke.  He was exceeding nice in performing his word or promise+.  And so strictly concscientious and obsequious in religion, that generally he seemed to incline toward superstition than the contrary.  Though he were but a little man, his courage and vigor was great.  He was of an upright and well proportioned stature, of a pleasing, cheerfull- Iooking countenance, of a swarthy hue, nimbly addicted, and exquisitely nimble unto all noble and gentleman-like exercises. I have seene some hollow staves of his filled with lead which hee wont to use and exercise his armes withall, the better to enable himselfe to pitch the barre, to throw the sledge, to cast the pole, and to @play at fence; and shoes with leaden soles, which he wore to ensure himselfe to leape, to vault, and to run.  I may without blushing say, that in memorie of himselfe, he hath left certaine petie miracles amongst us.  I have seene him when he was past threescore years of age mocke at all our sports, and out-countenance our youthfull pastimes with a heavy furr'd gowne about him to leap into his saddle.  To make the pommada round about a table upon his thumb, and seldome to ascend any staires without skipping three or four steps at once.  And concerning my discourse, hee was wont to say that in a whole province there was scarce any woman of qualitie that
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1 GUEVARA. 

had an ill name.  Hee would often report strange familiarities, namely of his owne, with very honest women, without any suspicion at all.  And protested very religiously that when he was married he was yet a pure virgine; yet had he long time followed the warres beyond the mountaines, and therein served long, whereof he hath left a Journall-booke of his owne collecting, wherein he hath particularly noted whatsoever happened day by day worthy the observation so long as he served, both for the publike and his particular use.  And he was well strucken in years when he tooke a wife.  For returning out of Italie in the yeare of our Lord one thousand five hundred eight and twenty, and being full three and thirty years old by the way hee chose himselfe a wife.  But come we to our drinking againe.  The incommodities of age wbich need some helpe and refreshing, might with some reason beget in me a desire or longing of this faculty, for it is in a man the last pleasure which the course of our years stealeth upon us.  Good fellowes say that naturall heat is first taken in our feet: that properly belongeth to infancie.  From thence it ascendeth unto the middle region, where it is setled and contitlueth a long time, and in mine opinion there produceth the only true and moving pleasures of this corporall life.  Other delight and sensualities in respect of that doe but sleepe.  In the end, like unto a vapour which by little and little exhaleth and mounteth aloft, it comes unto the throat and there makes her last bode.  Yet could I never conceive how any man may either encrease or prolong the pleasure of drinking beyond thirst, and in his imagination frame an artificial appetite, and against nature.  My stomacke could not well reach so farre: it is very much troubled to come to an end of that which it takes for his need.  My constitution is to make no accompt of drinking but to succeed meat, and therefore doe I ever make my last draught the greatest.  And forasmmuch as in age we have the roofe of our mouthes covered with rhume, or distempered, distated and altered through some other evill 

constitution, wine seemeth better unto us and of a quicker relish, according as our pores be either more or lesse open and washed.  At least I seldome relish the same very well, except it be the first drought I take.  Anacharsis wondered to see the Grecians drinke in greater glasses at the end of their meales than in the beginning.  It was (as I imagine) for the very same reason that the Germans doe it, who never begin to carouse but when they have well fed.  Plato forbiddeth children to drinke any wine before they be eighteene yeares of age, and to be drunke before they come to forty.  But to such as have once attained the age of fortie he is content to pardon them, if they chance to delight themselves with it, and alloweth them somwhat to blend the influence of Dionysius in their banquets, that good God, who bestoweth cheerfulnesse upon men, and youth unto aged men, who layeth and aswageteh the passions of the minde, even as yron is made flexible by the fire: and in his profitable lawes holds drinking-meetings or quaffing companies as necessary and commendable (alwaies provided there be a chiefe leader amongst them to containe and order them) drunkennesse being a good and certaine tryall of every mans nature; and therewithall proper to give aged men the courage to make merry in dancing and musicke; things alowable and profitable, and such as they dare not undertake being sober and settled: That wine is capable to supply the mind with temperance and the body with health.  Notwithstanding, these restrictions, partly borrowed of the Carthaginians, please him well.  Let those forbeare it that are going about any expedition of warre.  Let every magistrate and all judges abstain from it at what time they are to execute their charge, and to consult of publike affaires.  Let none bestow the day in drinking, as the time that is due unto more serious negotiations, nor the nights wherein a man intendeth to get children. It is reported that Stilpo the Philosopher, finding himselfe surcharged with age, did purposely hasten his end by drinking of with pure wine.  The like cause (though not wittingly) did 

also suffocate the vital forces, crazed through old age, of the Philosopher Arcesilaus.  But it is an old and pleasant question whether a wise mans mind were like to yeeld unto the force of wine.

Si munitae adhibet vim sapientia./1

If unresisted force it bends,
Gainst wisdome which it selfe defends.

Sudores itaque, et pallorem existere toto
Corpore, et infringi linguam, vocemque aboriri
Caligare, oculos, sonari aures, succidere artus,
Denique concidere ex animi terrore videmus./2

We see therefore, paleness and sweats oregrow
Our bodies, tongues doe falter, voyce doth breake,
Eyes dazle, eares buzze, joints doe shrinke below,
Lastly we swoune by hart-fright, terrours weake.

must cry out like a child:  Nature having purposed to reserve these light markes other aucthoritie unto herselfe, inexpuguable unto our reason, and to the Stoicke vertue: to teach him his mortalitie and our insipiditie. He waxeth pale for feare, be blusheth for shame, he groaneth feeling the cholike, if not with a desperate and lowd-roaring voice, yet with a low, smothered, and hoarse-sounding noise.

Humani a se nihil alienum putat,/1

He thinkes, that nothing strange be can
To him that longs to any man.

Sic fatur lachrymans, classigue immitit habemas./2

So said he weeping, and so saide,
Himselfe hand to the sterage laide.

Occupavi te, Fortuna, atqe cepi; omnesque aditus tuos interclusi, ut ad me amirare non posses:/3

'Fortune+, I have prevented, caught, and overtaken thee:
I have mured and ramd up all thy passages, whereby thou mightest attaine unto mee:

When Anaxarchus, by the appointment of Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cipres,
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1 TER.  Heaut. act i. sc. 1, 25. 2 VIRG.  Aen. 1. vi 1. 3 METR.  Cic. Tusc.  Qu. 1. v.

being laid along in a trough of stone, and smoten with yron sledges, ceaseth not to crie out, 'Streeke, smite and breake; it is not Anaxarchus, it is but his vaile you martyr so:' When we heare our martyrs in the middst of a flame crie aloud unto the Tyrant, 'This side is roasted enough, chop it, eat it, it is full roasted, now begin on the other:' When in Josephus wee heere a child all to rent with biting snippers, and pierced with the breath of Antiochus, to defie him to death, crie with a lowde-assured and undismaid voyce, 'Tyrant, thou losest time, loe I am still at mine ease; where is that smarting paine, where are those torments wherewith whilom thou didst so threaten me?  My constancie doth more trouble thee than I have feeling of thy crueltie:  Oh faint hearted varlet, doest thou yeeld when I gather strength?  Make mee to faint or shrinke, cause me to moane or lament, force me to yeeld and sue for grace if thou canst; encourage thy satallities, harden thy executioners; loe how they droope and have no more power; arme them, strengthen them, flesh them.  Verely we must needs confesse there is some alteration, and some furie (how holy soever) in those mindes, When we come unto these Stoick evasions:  I had rather be furious than voluptuous: the saying of Antisthenes, Gkasjh sasgsh, 'Rather would I be mad than merry;' when Sextius telleth us, he had rather be surprised with pain than sensuality; when Epicurus undertakes to have the goute to wantonize and faune upon him, and refuseth ease and health, with a hearty cheerefullnesse defie all evils, and scornefully despising lesse sharpe griefs disdaining to grapple with them, he blithely desireth and calleth for sharper, more forcible and worthy of him.

Spumantemque dari, pecora inter inertia, votis
Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem:/2

He wisht, mongst hartlesse beasts some foming Bore,
Or mountaine-Lyon would come downe and rore;

     Who would not judge them to be prankes of a courage removed from his wonted seate?  Our minde cannot out of her place attaine so higb.  She must quit it and raise herselfe aloft, and taking the bridle in her teeth, carry and transport her man so farre, that afterward he wonder at himselfe, and rest amazed at his actions.  As in exploit of warre, the heat and earnestnesse of the fight doth often provoke the noble minded souldiers to adventure on so dangerous passages that afterward being better advised, they are the first to wonder at it.  As also Poets are often surprised and rapt with admiration at their owne labours, and forget the trace by which they pass so happy a career.  It is that which some terme a fury or madnesse in them.  And as Plato saith that a setled and reposed man doth in vaine knocke at Poesies gate; Aristotle likewise saith that no excellent minde is freely exempted from some or other entermixture of folly.  And be hath reason to call any starting or extraordinarie conceit (how commendable soever) and which exceedeth our judgement and discourse, folly.  Forsomuch as wisdome is an orderly and regular managing of the minde, and which; she addresseth with measure, and conducteth with proportion; and taketh her owne word for it.  Plato disputeth thus: that the facultie of prophesying and divination is far above us, and that when wee treat it, we must be besides ourselves: our wisdome must be darkened and over shadowed by sleepe, by sicknesse, or by drowzinesse; or by some celestial fury, ravished from her owne seat. 

IF, as some say, to philosophate be to doubt; with much more reason to rave and fantastiquize, as I doe, must necessarily be to doubt:  For, to enquire and debate belongeth to a scholler, and to resolve appertaines to a cathedrall master.  But know, my cathedrall, it is the authoritie of Gods divine will, that without any contradiction doth sway us, and hath her ranke beyond these humane and vaine contestations.  Philip being with an armed band entered the countrie of Peloponnesus, some one told Damidas the Lacedemonians were like to endure much if they sought not to reobtaine his lost favour. 'Oh varlet as thou art (answered be).  And what can they suffer who have no feare at all of death?  Agis being demanded, how a man might do to live free, answered; 'Despising and contemning to die.  These and a thousand like propositions, which concurre in this purpose, do evidently inferre some thing beyond patient expecting of death it selfe to be suffered in this life: witnesse the Lacedemonian child, taken by Antigonus, and sold for a slave, who urged by his master to perform some abject service; 'Thou shalt see (said he) whom thou hast bought, for it were a shame for me to serve, having libertie so neere at hand;' and therewithall threw himselfe headlong downe from the top of the house.  Antipater, sharply threatning the Lacedemonians, to make them yeeld to a certains request of his; they answered, shouldest thou menace us worse than death, we will rather die. And to Philip, who having written unto them that he would hinder all their enterprises; 'What? (say they) wilt thou, also
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hinder us from dying?  That is the reason why some say that the wise man liveth as long as he ought, and not so long as he can.  And that the favourablest gift nature hath bequeathed us, and which removeth all meanes from us to complaine of our condition, is, that she hath left us the key of the fields.  She hath appointed but one entrance unto life, but many a thousand ways out of it:  Well may we want ground to live upon, but never ground to die, in; as Boiocalus answered the Romanes.  Why dost thou complaine against this world?  It doth not containe thee:  If thou livest in paine and sorrow, thy base courage is the cause of it.  To die there wanteth but will.

Ubigue nors est. optime hoc cavit Deus,
Eripere vitam memo non homini potest:
At nemo mortem: mille ad hanc aditus patent./1

Each where death is:  God did this well purvey,
No man but can from man life take away,
But none barres death, to it lies many a way.

is not our jugular or throat-veine as much at our command as the medians ?  To extreme sicknesses, extreme remedies.  Servius the Grammarian being troubled with the gowt, found no better meanes to be rid of it than to apply poison to mortifie his legs.  He cared not whether they were Podagrees or no, so they were insensible.  God giveth us sufficient privilege, when be placeth us in such an estate, as life is worse than death unto us.  It is weaknesse to yeeld to evils, but folly to foster them.  The Stoikes say it is a convenient naturall life, for a wise man, to forgoe life, although he abound in all happinesse, if he doe it opportunely:  And for a foole to prolong his life, albeit he be most miserable, provided he be in most part of things, which they say to be according unto nature; As I offend not the lawes made against theeves when I cut mine owne purse, and carry away mine owne goods; nor of destroyers when I burne mine owne wood; so am I nothing tied unto lawes made against murtherers, if I deprive my selfe of mine owne life.  Hegesias was wont to say, that even as the condition of life, so should the qualitie of death depend on our election.  And Diogenes meeting with the Philosopher Speusippus, long time afflicted with the dropsie, and therefore carried in a litter, who cried out unto him, All haile Diogenes: And to thee no health at all (replied Diogenes), that endurest to live in so wretched an estate.  True it is, that a while after, Speusippus, as overtired with so languishing a condition of life, compassed his owne death. But this goeth not without some contradiction:  For many are of opinion, that without the expresse commandment of him that hath placed us in this world, we may by no meanes forsake the garrison of it, and that it is in the hands of God only, who therein bath placed us, not for our selves alone, but for his glory, and others services when ever it shall please him to discharge us hence, and not for us to take leave:  That we are not borne for our selves, but for our Countrie:  The Lawes for their owne interest require an accompt at our hands for our selves, and have a just action of murther against us.  Else as for- 

sakers of our owne charge, we are punished in the other world.

Proxima deinde tenent maesti loca, qui sibi lethum
Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi
Projecere animas./1

Next place they lamentable hold in hell,
Whose hand their death caused causelesse, (but not well) And hating life did thence their soules expell.

Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus
Nigrae feraci frondis in Algido
Per damna, per caedes, ab ipso
Ducit opes animumque fero./2

As holme-tree doth with hard axe lopt
On hils with many holme-trees topt,
From losse, from cuttings it doth feele,
Courage and store rise ev'n from steele,

Non est putas virtus, pater,
Timere vitam, sed malis ingentibus
Obstare, nec se vertereac vetro dare./3

Sir, 'tis not vertue, as you understand,
To feare life, but grosse mischiefe to withstand,
Not to retire, turne backe, at any hand.

seeke to squat it selfe in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide her selfe under some massie tombe, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune. She never forsakes her course, nor leaves her way, what stormie weather soever crosse her.

Si fractus illabatur orbis.
Impavidam ferient ruinae./1

If the world broken should upon her fall,
The ruines may her strike, but not appall,

Hic, rogo, nonfuror est, ne moriare, mori?|2

Madnesse is't not, say I,
To dye, lest you should dye?

      ------ multos in summa pericula misit
Venturi timor ipse mali fortissimus ille est,
Qui promptus metuenda pati, si cominus instent
Et diferre potest./3

The very feare of ils to come, hath sent
Many to mighty dangers: strongest they,
Who fearfull things t' endure are ready bent
If they confront them, yet can them delay.

Usque adeo mortisformidine, vitae
Percepit humanos odium, lucisqe videndae,
Ut sibi consciscant maerenti pectore lethum,
Obliti fonte currarum hunc esse timorem.4

So far by feare of death, the hate of life,
And seeing light, doth men as men possesse,
They grieving kill themselves to end the strife,
Forgetting, feare is spring of their distresse.

neerest and deerest friend of life (that is to say, himselfe) and abridged him of the destinies course, not constrained by any publike judgement, nor by any lewd and inevitilble accident of fortune, nor by any intolerable shame or infamy, but through basenesse of minde, and weakenesse of a faint-fearful courage, to have a most ignominious and ever-reproachfull buriall.  And the opinion which disdaineth our life is ridiculous:  For in fine it is our being.  It is our all in all.  Things that have a nobler and richer being nay accuse ours:  But it is against nature, we should despise, and carelesly set our selves at naught:  It is a particular infirmitie, and, which is not seene in any other creature, to hate and disdaine himselfe.  It is of like vanitie, that we desire to be other than we are.  The fruit of such a desire doth not concerne us, forasmuch as it contradicteth and hindereth it selfe in it selfe.  He that desireth to be made of a man an Angell doth nothing for himselfe:  He should be nothing the better by it:  And being no more, who shall rejoyce or conceive any gladnesse of this change or amendment for him?

Debet enim misere cui forte aegreque futuram est,
Ipse quoque esse in eo tum tempore, cum male possit
Accidere./1

For he, who shall perchance prove miserable,
And speed but ill, should then himselfe be able
To be himselfe, when ils may chance unstable.

often dye for slight causes, since these that keepe us alive are not very strong; yet is some measure required in them.  There are certaine fantasticall and brainesicke humors, which have not only provoked particular men, but whole Nations to defeat themselves.  I have heretofore aleaged some examples of them:  And moreover we reade of certaine Milesian virgins, who upon a furious conspiracie hanged themselves one after another, untill such time as the Magistrate provided for it, appointing that such as should be found so hanged, should with their owne halters be dragged naked thorow the streets of the citie.  When Threicion perswadeth Cleomenes to kill himselfe, by reason of the bad and desperate estate his affaires stood in, and having escaped a more honourable death in the battell which he had lately lost, moveth him to accept of this other, which is second to him in honour, and give the Conqueror no leisure to make him endure, either another death, or else a shamefull life, Cleomenes, with a Lacedemonian and Stoike courage, refuseth this counsell as base and effeminate:  It is a receipt (saith he) which can never faile me, and whereof a man should make no use, so long as there remaineth but one inch of hope:  That to live, is sometimes constancie and valour; 'That he will have his very death serve his Countrie, and by it shew an act of honour and of vertue.  Threicion then beleeved, and killed himselfe.  Cleomenes did afterwards as much, but not before he had tried and assayed the utmost power of fortune.  All inconveniencies are not so much worth that a man should dye to eschue them.  Moreover, there being so many sudden changes and violent alterations in humane things, it is hard to judge in what state or point we are justly at the end of our hope: [Edgar]

Sperat et in saeva victus gladiator arena,
Sit licet infesto pollice turba minax./1

The Fencer hopes, though down in lists he lye,
And people with turn'd hand threats he must dye.

hope for so long as he liveth: yea, but answereth Seneca, wherefore shall I rather have that in minde; that fortune can do all things for him that is living, than this; that fortune hath no power at all over him who knoweth how to dye?  Josephus is seene engaged in so apparent-approaching danger, with a whole nation against him, that according to humane reason there was no way for him to escape; notwithstanding being (as he saith) counselled by a friend of his, at that instant, to kill himselfe, it fell out well for him to opinionate himselfe yet in hope: for fortune, beyond all mans discourse, did so turne and change that accident, that without any inconvenience at all, he saw himselfe delivered: whereas on the contrarie Brutus and Cassius, by reason of the down-fall and rashnesse, wherewith before due time and occasion they killed themselves; did utterly lose the reliques of the Roman libertie , whereof they were protectors.  The Lord of Anguien in the battell of Serisolles, as one desperate of the combats successe, which on his side went to wracke, attempted twice to run himselfe thorow the throat with his rapier and thought by precipitation to bereave himselfe of the enjoying of so notable a victorie.  I have seene a hundred Hares save themselves even in the Grey-hounds jawes: liquis carnifici suo superstes fuit./1  'Some man hath outlived his Hang-man.

Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis evi
Rettulit in melius, multos alterna revisens
Lusit, et in solido rursus fortuna locavit./2

Time, and of turning age the divers strains,
Hath much to better brought, fortunes turn'd traine
Hath many mock'd, and set them fast againe.

some are of opinion, a man should take it at his owne pleasure.  Democritus, chiefe of the AEtolians, being led captive to Rome, found meanes to escape by night but being pursued by his keepers, rather, than he would be taken againe, ran himselfe thorow with his sword.  Antinous and Theodotus, their Citie of Epirus being by the Romans reduced unto great extremitie, concluded, and perswaded all the people to kill themselves.  But the counsell, rather to yield, having prevailed, they went to seeke their owne death, and rushed amidst the thickest of their enemies, with an intention rather to strike than to ward themselves.      The Iland of Gosa, being some yeares since surprised and over-run by the Turkes, a certaine Sicilian therein dwelling, having two faire daughters ready to be marrried, killed them both with his owne bands, together with their mother, that came in to help them that done, running out into the streets, with a crossebow in one band and a caliver in the other, at two shoots slew the two first Turks that came next to his gates, then resolutely drawing his sword, ran furiously among them, by whom he was suddenly hewen in peeces:  Thus, did be save himselfe from slavish bondage, having first delivered his owne from it.  The Jewish women, after they had caused their children to be circumcised, to avoid the crueltie of Antiochus, did headlong precipitate themselves and them unto death.  I have heard it credibly reported that a gentleman of qood quality being prisoner in one of our gaols, his parents advertized that he should assuredly be condemned to avoid the infamie of so reproachfull a deathg, appointed a priest to tell him that the best remedy was to recommend himselfe to such a with such a saint, with such ,@and such a vow, and to continue eight dayes without taking any sustenance, what faintnesse or weaknesse soever he should feele in himselfe.  He believed them, and so without thinking on it, was delivered out of life and danger.  Scribonia perswading Libo her nephew, to kill himselfe, rather than to await the stroke of justice, told him that for a 

man to preserve his owne life, to put it into the hands of such as three or foure dayes after should come and seek it, was even to dispatch another man's business, and that it was no other than for one to serve his enemies to preserve his bloud, therewith to make food.  We read in the Bible that Nicanor the persecutor of Gods law, having seint his satellites to apprehend the good old man Rasias for the honour of his vertue, surnamed the father of the Jewes; when that good man saw no other means left him, his gate being burned, and his enemies ready to lay hold on him, chose rather than to fall into the hands of such villaines and be so basely abused against the honour of his place, to dye nobly, and so smote himselfe with his owne sword; but by reason of his haste, having not thoroughly slaine himselfe, he ran to throw himselfe downe from an high wall, amongst the throng of people, which making him roome, he fell right upon his head.  All which notwithstanding, perceiving life to remaine in him, he tooke heart againe; and getting up on his feet, all goared with bloud and loaden with strokes, making way through the prease, came to a craggy and downe-steepy rock, where, unable to go any further, by one of his wounds with both his hands pulled out his guts, and tearing and breaking them cast them amongst such as pursued him, calling and attesting the vengeance of God to light upon them.  Of all violences committed against conscience, the most in mine opinion to be avoided is that which is offered against the chastitie of women. Forasmuch as there is naturally some corporall pleasure commixt with it, and therefore the dissent cannot fully enough be joyned thereunto; and it seemeth that force is in some sort intermixed with some will.  The ecclesiastical storie hath in especiall reverence sundry such examples of devout persons who called for death to warrant them from the outrages which some tyrants prepared against their religion and consciences.  Pelagia and Sophronia, both canonised, the first, together with her mother and sisters, to escape the outrageous rapes of some souldiers, threw 

her selfe into a river; the other, to shun the force of Maxentius, the Emperor, slew her selfe.  It shall peradventure redound to our honour in future ages, that a wise author of these dayes, and namely a Parisian,, doth labour to perswade the ladies of our times rather to hazard upon any resolution than to embrace so horrible a counsell of such desperation. I am sorie that to put amongst his discourses he knew not the good saying I learnt of a woman at Tholouse, who had passed through the hands of some souldiers: 'God be praised,' said she, 'that once in my life I have had my belly full without sinne.  Verify these cruelties are not worthy of the French curtesie.  And God be thanked, since this good advertisement, our ayre is infinitely purged of them.  Let it suffice that in doing it they say no, and take it, following the rule of Marot.  The historie is very full of such, who a thousand ways have changed lingering, toylsome life with death.  Lucius Aruntius killed himselfe, as he said to avoid what was past and eschue what was to come.  Granius Sylvanus and Statius Proximus, after they had beene pardoned by Nero, killed themselves, either because they scorned to live by the favour of so wicked a man, or because they would not another time be in danger of a second pardon, seeing his so easie-yielding unto suspicions and accusations against honest men.  Spargapises, sonne unto Queene Tomiris, prisoner by the law of warre unto Cyrus, employed the first favour that Cyrus did him by setting him free, to kill himselfe, as be who never pretended to reap other fruit by his liberty, than to revenge the infamie of his taking upon himselfe.  Boges, a Governor for King Xerxes, in the country of Ionia, being besieged by the Athenians army, under the conduct of Cymon, refused the composition to returne safely, together with his goods and treasure, into Asia, as one impatient to survive the loss of what his master had given him in charge; and after he had stoutly, and even to the last extremity, defended the towne, having no manner of victuals left him; first he all the gold and treasure, with whatsoever he 

imagined the enemy might reap any commoditie by, into the river Strimon. Then having caused a great pile of wood to be set on fire, and made all women, children, concubines and servants to be stripped and throwne into the flames, afterward ran in himselfe, where all were burned.  Ninachetuen, a lord in the East Indies, having had an inkling of the King of Portugales viceroys deliberation to dispossess him, without any apparent cause of the charge he had in Malaca, for to give it unto the King of Campar, of himselfe took this resolution:  First, he caused an high scaffold to be set up, somewhat longer than broad, underpropped with pillars, all gorgeously hanged with rich tapestrie, strewed with flowers and adorned with precious perfumes.  Then, having put on a sumptuous long robe of cloth of gold, richly beset with store of precious stones of inestimable worth, he came out of the palace into the street, and by certaine steps ascended the scaffold, in one of the corners whereof was a pile of aromaticall wood set afire. All the people of the citie were flocked together to see what the meaning of such unaccustomed preparation might tend unto.  Ninachetuen, with an undanted, bold, yet seeming discontented countenance, declared the manifold obligations which the Portugal nation was endebted unto him for, expostulated how faithfully and truly he had dealt in his charge; that having so often witnessed, armed at all assayes for others, that his honour was much dearer unto him than life, he was not to forsake the care of it for himselfe; that fortune refusing him all means to oppose himselfe against the injurie intended against him, his courage at the least willed him to remove the feeling thereof, and not become a laughing stocke unto the people, and a triumph to men of lesse worth than himselfe, which words, as he was speaking, he cast himselfe into the fire.  Sextilia, the wife of Scaurus, and Praxea, wife unto Labeo, to encourage their husbands to avoid the dangers which pressed them, wherein they had no share (but in regard of the interest of their conjugal 

affection), voluntarily engaged their life, in this extreme necessitie, to serve them as an example to imitate and company to regard.  What they performed for their husbands, Cocceius Nerva acted for his countrie, and though lesse profitable, yet equall in true love.  That famous interpreter of the lawes, abounding in riches, in reputation, in credit, and flourishing in health about the Emperour, had no other cause to rid himselfe of life but the compassion of the miserable estate, wherein he saw the Romane commonwealth. Nothing can be added unto the daintinesse of the wifes death of Fulvius who was so inward with Augustus.  Augustus perceiving he had blabbed a certaine secret of importance, which he on trust had revealed unto him, one morning comming to visit him, he seemed to frowne upon him for it; whereupon as guilty, he returneth home as one full of despaire, and in piteous sort told his wife that sithence he was falne into such a misechiefe, be was resolved to kill himselfe; shee, as one no whit dismaied, replied unto him: 'Thou shalt doe but right, since having so often exprienced the incontinence of my tongue, thou hast not learnt to beware of it, yet give me leave to kill my selfe first,' and without more adoe ran her selfe thorow with a sword.  Vibius Virius despairing of his cities safetie, besieged by the Romans, and mistrusting their mercie, in their Senates last consultation, after many remonstrances employed to that end, concluded that the best and fairest way was to escape fortune by their owne bands.  The very enemies should have them in more honour, and Hanniball might perceive what faithfull friends he had forsaken.  Enviting those that should allow of his advice to come and take a good supper, which was prepared in his house, where, after great cheere, they should drinke together whatsoever should be presented unto him; a drinke that shall deliver our bodies from torments, free our mindes from injuries, and release our eyes and eares from seeing and hearing so horrible mischiefes, which the conquered must endure at the hands of most cruell and offended conquerors. 

'I have,' quoth he, 'taken order that nen fit for that purpose shall be ready, when we shall be expired, to cast us into a great burning pile of wood.  Diverse approved of his high resolution, but few did imitate the same.  Seven and twentie Senators followed him, who after they had attempted to stifle so irkesome and suppress so terror-moving a thought, with quaffing and swelling of wine, they ended their repast by this deadly messe: and enter-bracing one another, after they had in common deplored and bewailed their countries misfortunes, some went home to their owne house, othersome stayed there, to be entombed with Vibius in his owne fire, whose death was so long and lingering, forsomuch as the vapor of the wine having possessed their veines, and slowed the effect and operation of the poyson, that some lived an hour after they had seen their enemies enter Capua,, which they caried the next day after, and incurred the miseries and saw the calamities which at so high a rate they had sought to eschue.      Taurea Iubellius, another citizen there, the Consull Fulvius returning from that shameful slaughter which he had committed of 225 Senators, called him churlishly by his name, and having arrested him; 'Co;nmand, 'quoth he unto him, 'that I also be massacred after so many others, that so thou maiest brag to have murthered a much more valiant man than ever thou wast. Fulvius, as one enraged, disdaining him; forasmuch as be had newly received letters from Rome contrarie to the inhumanitie of his execution, which inhibited him to proceed any further; Iubellius, continuing his speech, said: 'Sithence my Countrie is taken, my friends butchered, and having with mine owne hands slaine my wife and children, as the onely meane to free them from the desolation of this ruine, I may not dye the death of my fellow citizens, let us borrow the vengeance of this hatefull life from vertue:' And drawing a blade he had hidden under his garments, therewith ran himselfe thorow, and falling on his face, died at the Consuls feet. Alexander besieged a Citie in India, the inhabitants whereof, 

perceiving themselves brought to a very narrow pinch, resolved obstinately to deprive him of the pleasure he might get of his victorie, and together with their Citie, in despite of his humanitie set both the Towne and themselves on a light fire, and so were all consumed.  A new kinde of warring, where the enemies did all they could, and sought to save them, they to loose themselves, and to be assured of their death, did all a man can possibly effect to warrant his life.  Astapa, a Citie in Spaine, being very weake of wals and other defences, to withstand the Romanes that besieged it; the inhabitants drew all their riches and wealth into the market-place, whereof having made a heap, and on the top of it placed their wives and children, and encompassed and covered the same with drie brush wood that it might burne the easier, and having appointed fifty lusty young men of theirs for the performance of their resolution, made a sally, where following their determined vow, seeing they could not vanquish, suffered themselves to be slaine every mothers childe.  The fifty, after they had massacred every living soule remaining in the Citie, and set fire to the heap joyfully leaped there-into, ending their generous liberty in a state rather insensible than dolorous and reproachfull; showing their enemies that, if fortune had beene so pleased, they should as well have had the courage to bereave them of the victory as they, had to yeeld it them both vaine and hideous, yea, and mortall to those who allured by the glittering of the gold that moulten ran from out the flame, thicke and threefold approching greedily unto it, were therein smothered and burned, the formost being unable to give back, by reason of the throng that followed them.  The Abideans, pressed by Philip, resolved upon the very same, but being prevented, the King whose heart abhorred to see the fond-rash precipitation of such an execution (having first seized upon and saved the treasure and moveables, which they had diversly condemned to the lames and utter spoyle) retiring all the Souldiers, granted them the full space of three dayes to make 

themselves away, that so they might doe it with more order and leisure; which three dayes they replenished with blood and murther beyond all hostile cruelty:  And which is strange, there was no one person saved that had power upon himselfe.  There are infinite examples of such-like popular conclusions, which seeme more violent by how much more the effect of them is more universall. They are lesse than when severall.  What discourse would not doe in each one, it doth in all the vehemence of societie ravishing particular judgements. Such as were condemned to dye in the time of Tiberius, and delaid their execution any while, lost their goods, and could not be buried; but such as prvented the same, in killing themselves,, were solemnly enterred, and might at their pleasure bequeath such goods as they had to whom they list. But a man doth also sometimes desire death, in hope of a greater good. 'I desire,' saith Saint Paul, 'to be out of this world, that I may be with Jesus Christ: and who shal release me out of these bonds?  Cleombrotus Ambraciota, having read Platoes Pheadon, was so possessed with a desire and longing for an after-life, that without other occasion or more adoe, he went and headlong cast himselfe into the sea.  Whereby it appeareth how improperly we call this voluntarie dissolution despaire; unto which the violence of hope doth often transport us, and as often a peacefull ana setled inclination of judgement.  Iaques du Castell, Bishop of Soissons, in the voyage which Saint Lewes undertooke beyond the seas, seeing the King and all his army ready to returne into France, and leave the affaires of Religion imperfect, resolved with himselfe rather to goe to heaven; And having bidden his friends farewell, in the open view of all men, rushed alone into the enemies troops, of whom he was forthwith hewen in pieces.  In a certaine kingdome of these late- discovered Indies, upon a day of a solemne procession, in which the idols they adore are publikely carried up and down upon a chariot of exceeding greatnesse: besides that, there are many seene to cut 

and slice great mammocks of their quicke flesh to offer the said idols; there are numbers of others seene who, prostrating themselves alongst the ground, endure very patiently to be mouldred and crushed to death under the chariots wheels, thinking thereby to purchase after their death a veneration of holinesse, of which they are not defrauded.  The death of this Bishop, armed as we have said, argueth more generositie and lesse sense: the heat of the combat ammusing one part of it.  Some common-wealths there are that have gone about to sway the justice and direct the opportunitie of voluntarie deaths.  In our Citie of Marseille they were wont in former ages ever to keepe some poison in store, prepared and compounded with hemlocke, at the Cities charge, for such as would upon any occasion shorten their daies, having first approved the reasons of their enterprise unto the six hundred Elders of the Towne, which was their Senate:  For otherwise it was unlawfull for any body, except by the Magistrates permission, and for very lawfully-urgent occasions, to lay violent hands upon himselfe.  The very same law was likewise used in other places.  Sextus Pompeius, going into Asia, passed thorow the Iland of Cea, belonging to Negropont; it fortuned whilest he abode there (as one as one reporteth that was in his companie) that a woman of great authority, having first yielded an accompt unto her Citizens and shewed good reasons why she was resolved to end her life, earnestly entreated Pompey to be an assistant at her at her death, that so it might be esteemed more honourable, which he assented unto; and having long time in vaine sought, by vertue of his eloquence (wherein be was exceeding ready) and force of perswasion, to alter her intent and remove her from her purpose, in the end yeelded to her request.  She had lived foure score and ten yeares in a most happy state of minde and body, but when lying on her bed, better adorned than before she was accustomed to have it, and leaning on her elbow, thus she bespoke: 'The Gods, O Sextus Pompeius, and rather those I forgoe than those I goe unto, reward and appay thee, for that 

thou hast vouchsafed to be both a counsellor of my life and a witnesse of my death.  As for my part, having hitherto ever tasted the favourable visage of fortune, for feare the desire of living overlong should make me taste of her frownes, with an happy and successfull end I will now depart, and set free the remainder of my soule, leaving behind me two daughters of, mine, with a legion of grand-children and nephewes.  That done, having preached unto and exhorted all her people and kinsfolks to an unitie and peace, and divided her goods amongst them, and recommended her household Gods unto her eldest daughter, with an assuredly-staide hand she tooke the cup wherein the poyson was, and having made her vowes unto Mercurie, and prayers to conduct her unto some happy place in the other world, roundly swallowed that mortall potion; which done, she intertained the progresse of her behaviour, and as the parts of her body were one after another possessed with the cold operation of that venom: untill such time as shee felt it worke at the heart and in her entrals, shee called her daughter to doe her the last office and close her eyes.  Plinie reporteth of a certaine Hiperborean nation, wherein, by reason of the mild temperature of the aire, the inhabitants thereof commonly never dye, but when they please to make themselves away, and that being weary and tired with living they are accustomed at the end of a long-long age, having first made merry and good cheare with their friends, from the top of an high-steepy rocke appointed for that purpose, to cast themselves headlong into the sea.  Grieving-smart, and a worse death seeme to me the most ecxusable incitations. 

     I DO with some reason, as me seemeth, give pricke and praise unto Iaques Amiot above all our French writers, not only for his natural purity, and pure elegancie of the tongue, wherin he excelleth all others, nor for his indefatigable constancie of so long and toilesome a labour, nor for the unsearchable depth of his knowledge, having so successfully-happy been able to explaine an Author so close and thorny, and unfold a writer so mysterious and entangled (for let any man tell me what he list, I have no skill of the Greeke, but I see thorowout al his translation a sense so closely-joynted, and so pithily- continued, that either he hath assuredly understood and inned the very imagination, and the true conceit of the Author, or having through a long and continnall conversion, lively planted in his minde a generall Idea of that of Plutarke, he hath at least lent him nothing that doth belye him, or misseeme him) but above all, I kon him thanks that he hath had the hap to chuse, and knowledge to cull-out so worthy a worke, and a booke so fit to the purpose, therewith to make so unvaluable a present unto his Countrie.  We that are in the number of the ignorant had beene utterly confounded, had not his booke raised us from out the dust of ignorance:  God-a-mercy his endevours we dare not both speak and write:  Even Ladies are therewith able to confront Masters of arts:  It is our breviarie.  If so good a man chance to live, I bequeath Xenophon unto him, to doe as much.  It is an easier peece of worke, and so much the more agreeing to his age.  Moreover I wot not how me
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seemeth, although he roundly and clearly disintangle himself from hard passages,, that notwithstanding his stile is more close and neerer it selfe when it is not laboured and wrested, and that it glideth smoothly at his pleasure.  I was even now reading of that place where Plutarke speaketh of himself, that Rusticus being present at a declamation of his in Rome, received a packet from the Emperour, which he temporized to open untill he had made an end: wherein (saith he) all the assistants did singularly commend the gravitie of the man.  Verily, being on the instance of curiositie and on the greedy and insatiate passion of newes, which with such indiscreet impatience and impatient indiscretion, induceth us to neglect all things for to entertaine a new-come guest, and forget all respect and countenance whersoover we be, suddenly to break up such letters as are brought us; he had reason to commend the gravitie of Rusticus: to which he might also have added the commendation of his civilitie and curtesie, for that be would not interrupt the course of his declamation:  But I make a question whether he might be commended for his wisdome; for receiving unexpected letters, and especially from an Emperour, it might very well have fortuned that this deferring to read them might have caused some notable inconvenience. Recklesness is the vice contrarie unto curiosity+, towards which I am naturally inclined, aud wherein I have seen many men, so extremely plunged, that three or foure days after the receiving of letters which have been sent them, they have been found in their pockets yet unopened.  I never opened any, not only of such as had beene committed to my keeping, but of such as by any fortune came to my hands.  And I make a conscience standing neare some great person if mine eyes chance unawares to steale some knowledge of any letters of importance that he readeth.  Never was man lesse inquisitive, or pryed lesse into other mens affaires than I.  In our fathers time the Lord of Boutieres was like to have lost Turin, forsomuch as being one night at supper in very good company he deferred the reading 

of an advertisement which was delivered him of the treasons that were practised and complotted against that Citie where he commanded.  And Plutarke himselfe has taught me that Iulius Caesar had escaped death, if going to the Senate-house that day wherein he was murdered by the conspirators he had read a memorial which was presented unto him.  Who likewise reporteth the storie of Archias, the Tyrant of Thebes, how the night fore- going the execution of the enterprize that Pelopidas had complotted to kill him, thereby to set his Countrie at libertie: another Archias of Athens writ him a letter wherein he particularly related unto him all that was conspired and complotted against him; which letter being delivered him whilst he sate at supper, he deferred the opening of it, pronouncing this by-word: 'To morrow is a new day,' which afterward was turned to a Proverb in Greece. A wise man may, in mine opinion, for the interest of others, as not unmannerly to breake companie like unto Rusticus, or not to discontinue some other affaire of importance, remit and defer to understand such newes as are brought him; but for his own private interest or particular pleasure, namely, if he be a man having publike charge, if he regard his dinner so much that he will not break it off, or his sleepe that he will not interrupt it: to doe it, is inexcusable.  And in former ages was the Consulate-place in Rome, which they named the most honourable at the table, because it was more free and more accessible for such as might casually come in, to entertaine him that should be there placed.  Witnesse, that though they were sitting at the board, they neither omitted nor gave over the managing of other affaires and following of other accidents.  But when all is said, it is very hard, chiefely in humane actions, to prescribe so exact rules by discourse of reason, that fortune+ doe not sway, and keepe her right in them.

My brother the Lord of Brousse and myself, during the time of our civill warres, travelling one day together, we fortuned to meet upon the way with a Gentleman in outward semblance, of good demeanour:  He was of our contrary faction, but forasmuch as he counterfeited himselfe otherwise, I knew it not.  And the worst of these tumultuous intestine broyles is, that the cards are so shuffled (your enemie being neither by language nor by fashion, nor by any other apparent marke distinguished from you; nay, which is more, brought up under the same lawes and customes, and breathing the same ayre) that it is a very hard matter to avoid confusion and shun disorder.  Which consideration made me not a little fearefull to meet with our troopes, especially where I was not knowns, lest I should be urged to tell my name, and haply doe worse.  As other times before it had befalne me; for, by such a chance, or rather mistaking, I fortuned once to lose all my men and horses and hardly escaped myself: and amongst other my losses and servants that were slaine, the thing that most grieved me was the untimely and miserable death of a young Italian Gentlemen whom I kept as my Page, and very carefully brought up, with whom dyed as forward, as budding and as hopefull a youth as ever I saw.  But this man seemed fearfully dismaid, and at every encounter of horseman and passage by, or thorow any Towne that held for the King, I observed him to be so strangely distracted that in the end I perceived and guessed they were but guilty alarums that his conscience gave him. It eemed unto this seely man that all might apparently,
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both through his blushing selfe-accusing countenance, and by the crosses he wore upon his upper garments, read the secret intentions of his faint heart.  Of such marvailous-working power is the sting of conscience: which often induceth us to bewray, to accuse, and to combat our selves; and for want of other evidences she produceth our selves against our selves.

Occultum quaetiens animo tortore flagellum./1

Their minde, the tormentor of sinne,
Shaking an unscene whip within.

      ------ vitasque in vulnere ponunt./1

They, while they others sting,
Death to themselves do bring.

Quippe ubi se multi per somnia saepe loquentes, Aut morbo delirantes protraxe ferantur,
Et celata diu in medium peccata delisse./2

Many in dreames oft speaking, or unhealed,
In sicknesse raving have themselves revealed,
And brought to light their sinnes long time concealed.

      ------ prima est haec ultio, quod se
Iudice nemo nocens absolvitur./3
 

This is the first revenge, no guilty mind
Is quitted, though it selfe be judge assign'd.

Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ita concipit intra
Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo./1

As each mans minde is guiltie, so doth he
Inlie breed hope and feare, as his deeds be.

great, and enured to overhigh fortune (saith Titus Livius) to know how to be a criminall offender, and stoopingly to yeeld himself to the baseness to defend his innocencie.  Tortrure and racking are dangerous inventions, and seeme rather to be trials of patience than Essayes of truth.  And both he that can, and he that cannot endure them, conceale the truth.  For wherefore shall paine or smart rather compell me to confesse that which is so indeed than force me to tell that which is not?  And contrariwise, if he who hath not done that whereof he is accused, is sufficiently patient to endure those torments, why shall not he @ able to tolerate them who hath done it, and is guilty indeed; so deare and worthy a reward as life being proposed unto him?  I am of opinion that the ground of this invention proceedeth from the consideration of the power and facultie of the conscience.  For, to the guilty, it seemeth to give a kinde of furtherance to the torture, to make him confesse his fault, and weakneth and dismayeth him: and on the other part, it encourageth and strengthneth the innocent against torture. To say truth, it is a meane full of uncertainty and danger.  What would not a man say, nay, what not doe, to avoid so grievous paines and shun such torments?

Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor./1

Torment to lye sometimes will drive,
Ev'n the most innocent alive.

though, in my conceit, very inhumanely, and there withall most unprofitably. Many Nations lesse barbarous in that than the Grecian or the Romane, who terme them so, judge it a horrible and cruell thing to racke and torment a man for a fault whereof you are yet in doubt.  Is your ignorance long of him?  What can he doe withall?  Are not you unjust who because you will not put him to death without some cause, you doe worse than kill him?  And that it is so, consider but how often he rather chuseth to dye guiltlesse than passe by this informat1on, much more painfull than the punishment or torment; and who many times, by reason of the sharpnesse of it, preventeth, furthereth, yea, and executeth the punishment.  I wot not whence I heard this story, but it exactly hath reference unto the conscience of our Justice. A countrie woman accused a souldier before his Generall, being a most severe Justicer, that he, with violence, had snatched from out her poore childrens hands, the small remainder of some pap or water-gruell, which she had onely left to sustaine them, forsomuch as the Army had ravaged and wasted all. The poore woman had neither witnesse nor proofe of it: it was but her yea and his no; which the Generall perceiving, after be had summoned her to be well advised what she spake, and that shee should not accuse him wrongfully; for, if shee spake an untruth, shee should then be culpable of his-accusation: But shee constantly persisting to charge him, he forthwith, to discover the truth, and to be thoroughly resolved, caused the accused Souldiers belly to be ripped, who was found faulty, and the poore woman to have said true; whereupon shee was discharged.  A condemnation instructive to others. 

It is a hard matter (although our conceit doe willingly apply, it selfe unto it) that Discourse and Instruction should sufficiently be powerful to direct us to action, and addresse us to performance, if, over and besides that, we doe not by experience exercise and frame our minde to the traine whereunto we will range it: otherwise, when we shall be on the point of the effects, it will doubtlesse finde it selfe much engaged aud empeached. And that is the reason why amongst Philosophers, those that have willed to attaine to some greater excellence, have not beene content, at home and at rest, to expect the rigors of fortune+, for feare she should surprise them unexperienced and finde them novices, if she should chance to enterfight with them but have rather gone to meet and front her before, and witting-earnestly cast themselves to the triall of the hardest difficulties.  Some have thereby voluntarily forsaken great riches, onely to practise a voluntarie povertie; others have willingly found out labour, and an austeritie of a toylesome life thereby to harden and enure themselves to evill and travell; othersome have frankly deprived themselves of the dearest and best parts of their body, as of their eyes and members of generation, lest their overpleasing and too-too wanton service might in any sort mollifie and distract the constant resolution of their minde.  But to dye, which is the greatest worke we have to doe, exercise can nothing availe us thereunto.  A man may, by custome aud experience, fortifie himselfe against griefe, sorrow, shame, want, and such like accidents; but concerning
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death, we can but once feele and trie the same.  We are all novices, and new to learne when we come unto it.  There have, in former times, beene found men so good husbands and thrifty of time, that even in death they have assayed to taste and savor it; and bent their minde to observe and see what manner of thing that passage of death was; but none did ever yet come backe againe to tell us tidings of it. [Hamlet]

      ------ nemo expergitus extat
Frigida quem semel est vitai pausa sequuta./1

No man doth ever-after wake,
Whom once his lifes cold rest doth take.

       ----- jus hoc animi morientis habebat.2/

This power of minde had he,
When it from him did flee.

     Me seemeth, neverthelesse, that in some sort there is a meane to familiarize our selves with it, and to assay it.  We may have some experience of it, if not whole and perfect, at least such as may not altogether be unprofitable, and whicb may yeeld us better fortified and more assured.  If we cannot attaine unto it, we may at least approch it, and discerne the same:  And if we cannot enter her fort, yet shal we see and frequent the approches unto it.  It is not without reason we are taught to take notice of our sleepe for the resemblance it hath with death. [Donne, Hamlet] How easily we passe from wakmg to sleeping; with how little interest we lose the knowledge of light and of our selves.  The facultie of sleepe might haply seeme unprofitable and against nature, sithence it depriveth up of all actions and barreth us of all sense, were it not that nature doth thereby instruct us that she hath equally made us as well to live as to die; and by life presenteth the eternal state unto us which she after the same reserveth for us, so to accustome us thereunto, and remove the feare of it from us.  But such as by some violent accident are falne into a faintnes of heart, and have lost all senses, they, in mine opinion, have well-nigh beene where they might behold her true and naturall visage:  For, touching the instant or moment of the passage, it is not to be feared it should bring any traveil or displeasure with it, forasmuch as we can have nor sense nor feeling without pleasure.  Our sufferances have need of time, which is so short, and plunged in death, that necessarily it must be insensible.  It is the approches that lead unto it we should feare; and those may fall within the compasse of mans experience.  Many things seeme greater by imagination than by effect.  I have passed over a good part of my age in sound and perfect health.  I say not only sound but blithe and wantonly lustfull.  That state full of lust, of prime and mirth, made me deeme the consideration of sicknesses so yrkesome and horrible, that when I came to the experience of them I have found their fits but weake, and their assaults but faint, in respect of my apprehended feare. Lo here 

what I daily prove.  Let me be under a roofe, in a good chamber, warme-clad, and well at ease, in some tempestuous and stormy night.  I am exceedingly perplexed and much grieved for such as are abroad and have no shelter: But let me be in the storme my selfe, I doe not so much as desire to be else-where:  Only to be continually pent up in a chamber seemed intolerable to me.  I have now enured my selfe to live a whole weeke, yea a moneth in my chamber, full of care, trouble, alteration, and weaknesse; and have found that in the time of my best health I moaned such as were sicke much more than I can well moane my selfe when I am ill at ease: and that the power of my apprehension did well- nigh halfe endeare the essence and truth of the thing it selfe.  I am in good hope the like will happen to me of death: and that it is not worth the labour I take for so many preparations as I prepare against her; and so many helpes as I call to sustaine, and assemble to endure the shocke and violence of it.  But hab or nab we can never take too much advantage of it.  During our second or third troubles (I doe not well remember which) I fortuned one day, for recreation sake, to goe forth and take the ayre, about a league from my house, who am seated even in the bowels of all troubles of our civill warres of France, supposing to be most safe, so neere mine owne home and retreite, that I had no need of better attendance or equipage.  I was mounted upon a very easie-going nag, but not very sure.  At my returning home againe, a sudden occasion being offered me to make use of this nag in a peece of service whereto he was neither trained nor accustomed, one of my men (a strong sturdy fellow), mounted upon a young strongheaded horse, and that a desperate hard mouth, fresh, lusty and in breath, to shew his courage, and to outgoe his fellowes, fortuned with might and maine to set spurrs unto him, and givinf him the bridle, to come right into the path where I was, and as a colossus with his weight riding over me and my nag, that were both very little, he overthrew us both, and made us fall with our heeles upward: so that the nag lay along astonied 

in one place, and I in a trance groveling on the ground ten or twelfe paces wide of him: my face all torne and brused, my sword which I had in my hand a good way from me, my girdle broken, with no more motion or sense in me than a stocke.  It is the only swooning that ever I felt yet.  Those that were with, me, after they had assayed all possible meanes to bring me to my selfe againe, supposing me dead, tooke me in their armes, and with much adoe were carrying me home to my house, which was about halfe a French league thence: upon the way, and after I had for two houres space by all beene supposed dead and past all recoverie, I began to stir and breathe: for so great aboundance of bloud was falne into my stomake, that to discharge it nature was foreed to rowse up her spirits.  I was immediately set upon my feet, and bending forward, I presently cast up in quantitie as much clottie pure bloud as a bucket will hold and by the way was constrained to doe the like divers times before I could get home, whereby, I began to recover a little life, but it was by little and little, and so long adoing, that my chiefe senses were much more enclining to death than to life.

Perche dubbiosa ancor del suo ritorno
iVon s'assicura attonita la mente./1

For yet the minde doubtfull of it's returne
Is not assured, but astonished.

      ------ come quel ch'or apre, or chiude
Gli occhi, mezzo tra l' sonno e l'esser desto./2

As he that sometimes opens, sometimes shuts
His eyes, betweene sleepe and awake.

     Touching the functions of the soule, they started up and came in the same progresse as those of the bodie.  I perceived my selfe all bloudy; for my doublet was all sullied with the bloud I had cast. The first conceit I apprehended was that I had received some shot in my head; and in truth, at the same instant, there were divers that shot round about us.  Me thought my selfe had no other hold of me but of my lips-ends. I closed mine eyes to help (as me seemed) to send it forth, and tooke a kinde of pleasure to linger and languishingly to let my selfe goe from my selfe.  It was an imagination swimming superficially in my minde, as weake and as tender as all the rest: but in truth, not only exempted from displeasure but rather commixt with that pleasant sweetesse which they feel that suffer themselves to fall into a soft-slumbring and sense-entrancing sleepe.  I beleeve it is the same state they find themselves in, whom in the agony of death we see to droop and faint thorow weaknesse: and am of opinion we plaine and moane them without cause, esteeming that either they are agitated with grievous pangs, or that their soule is pressed with painfull cogitations.  It was ever my conceit against the opinion of many, yea and against that of Estienne de la Bo‰tie,that those whom we see so overwhelmed and faintly-drooping at the approches of their end, or utterly cast downe with the lingring tediousnesse of their deseases, or by accident of some apoplexie or falling-evill,

     ----- (vi morbi saepe coactus
Ante oculos aliquis nostros ut fulminis ictu,
Concidit, et spumas agit, ingemit, et fremit artus,
Desipit exentant nervos torquetur, anhelat,
Inconstanter et in jactando membra fatigat),/1

(Some man by force of sicknesse drivn doth fall,
As if by thunder stroke, before our eyes;
He fomes, he grones, he trembles over all,
He raves, he stretches, he's vext, panting lyes,
He tyr's his limmes by tossing,
Now this now that way crossing,)

or hurt in the head, whom we heare throb and rattle, and send forth grones and gaspes, although we gather some tokens from them, whereby it seemeth they have yet some knowledge left and certaine motions we see them make with their body:  I say, I have ever thought they had their soule and body buried and asleepe.

Vivat et est vitae nescius ipse sum./1

He lives yet knowes not he,
That he alive should be.

     -----hunc ego Diti
Sacrum jussa fero, teque isto corpore solvo./2

This to death sacred, I, as was my charge,
Doe beare, and from this body thee enlarge.

And the faltering speeches and uncertaine answers, that by continuall ringing in their eares and incessant urging them, are sometimes by force wrested from them, or by the motions which seeme to have some sympathy with that whereof they are examined, is notwithstanding no witnes that they live at least a perfect sound life.  We do also in yawning, before sleep fully seize upon us, apprehend as it were in a slumber, what is done about us, and with a troubled and uncertains hearing, follow the voyces, which seeme to sound but on the outward limits of our soule; and frame answers according to the last words we heard, which taste more of chance than of sense: which thing now I have proved by experience, I make no doubt but hitherto I have well judged of it.  For, first lying as in a trance, I laboured even with my nailes to open my doublet (for I was unarmed), and well I wot that in my imagination I felt nothing did hurt me.  For, there are several motions in us which proceed not of our free wil.

Semianimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant./1

The halfe-dead fingers stirre, and feele,
(Though it they cannot stirre) for steele.

Falciferos memorant currus abscindere membra,
Ut tremere in terra videatur ab artubus, id quod
Decidit abscissum, cum mens tamen atque hominis vis
Mobilitate mali non quit sentire dolorem./2

They say, sith-bearing chariots limbes bereave,
So as on earth, that which cut-off they leave,
Doth seeme to quake; when yet mans force and minde
Doth not the paine, through so quicke motion, finde.

My stomacke was surcharged with clotted bloud, my hands of themselves were still running to it, as often they are wont (yea against the knowledge of our will) where we feele it to itch.  There are many creatures, yea and some men, in whom after they are dead we may see their muskles to close and stirre.  All men know by experience, there be some parts of our bodies which often without any consent of ours doe stirre, stand, and lye down againe.  Now these passions, which but exteriourly touch us, cannot properly be termed ours; for, to make them ours, a man must wholy be engaged unto them:  And the paities that ourlfeet or hands feele whilst we sleepe are not ours.  When I came neere my house, where the tidings of my fall was already come, and those of my household met me, with such outcries as are used in like times, I did not only answer some words to what I was demanded, but some tell me I had the memory to command my men to give my wife a horse, whom I perceieved to be overtired, and labouring in the way, which is very hilly, foule, and rugged.  It seemeth this consideration proceeded from a vigilant soule: yet was I cleane distracated from it, they were but vaine conceits, and as in a cloud, were only moved by the senses of the eyes and eares: they came not from my selfe.  All which not withstanding, I knew neither whence I came nor whither I went, nor could I understand or consider what was spoken unto me.  They were but light effects, that my senses produced of themselves, as it were of custome.  Whatsoever the soule did assist it with was but a dreame, being lightly touched, and only sprinkled by the soft impression of the sense.  In the meane time my state was verily most pleasant and easefull.  I felt no manner of care or affliction, neither for my selfe nor others.  It was a slumbering, languishing and extreme weaknesse, without any paine at all.  I saw mine own house and knew it not; when I was laid in my bed, I felt great ease in my rest, For I had beene vilely hurried and haled by those poore men, which had taken the paines to carry me upon their armes a long and wearysome way, and to

say truth, they had all beene wearied twice or thrice over, and were faine to shift several] times.  Many remedies were presently offered me, but I tooke none, supposing verily I had beene deadly hurt in the head. To say truth, it had beene a very happy death:  For, the weaknesse of my discourse hindered me from judging of it, and the feeblenesse of my body from feeling the same.  Me thought I was yeelding up the ghost so gently, and after so easie and indolent a manner, that I feele no other action lesse burthensome than that was.  But when I began to come to life againe and recover my former strength -

Vt tandem sensus convaluere mei - /1

At last when all the sprites I beare,
Recalled aild recollected were -

enter my thoughts) me seemed it was a flashing or lightning that smote my soule with shaking, and that I came from another world.  This discourse of so slight an accident is but vaine and frivolous were not the instructions I have drawne from thence for my use:  For truly, for a man to acquaint himselfe with death+, I finde no better way than to approach unto it.  Now, as Plinie saith, every man is a good discipline unto himselfe, alwayes provided he be able to prie into himselfe.  This is not my doctrine, it is but my study and not another man's lesson, but mine owne:  Yet ought no man to blame me if I impart the same.  What serves my turne may haply serve another mans: otherwise I marre nothing; what I make use of is mine owne.  And if I play the foole, it is at mine owne cost, and without any other bodies interest, For it is but a kind of folly that dies in me, and hath no traine.  We have notice but of two or three former ancients that have trodden this path; yet can we not say, whether altogether like unto this of mine, for we know but their names.  No man since hath followed their steps; it is a thorny and crabbed enterprise, and more than it makes show of, to follow so strange and vagabond a path as that of our spirit: to penetrate the shady, and enter the thicke-covered depths of these infernall winding crankes; to chuse so many and settle so severall aires of his agitatations: And tis a new extraordinary ammusing that distracts us from the common occupation of the world, yea, and from the most recommended:  Many yeares are past since I have no other aime whereto my thoughts bend, but my selfe, and that I controule and study nothing but my selfe.  And if I study anything else, it is immediately to place it upon, or to say better in myselfe. And met hinks I err not, as commonly men doe in other sciences, without all comparison less profitable.  I impart what I have content not my selfe therein. 'There is no description so hard, nor so profitable, as is the description of a man own life.  Yet must a man handsomely 

trimme-up, yea and dispose and range himselfe to appeare on the Theatre of this world.  Now I continually tricke up my selfe; for I uncessantly describe my selfe.  Custome hath made a mans speech of himselfe vicious, and obstinately forbids it in hatred of boasting+, which ever seemeth closely to follow one's selfe witnesses.  Whereas a man should wipe the childs nose, that is now called to unnose himselfe.

In vicium ducit culpae fuga./1

Some shunning of some sinne,
Doe draw some further in.

virtue it self is faulty and repentable.  My art and profession is to live.  Who forbids me to speake of it according to my sense, experience, and custome; let him appoint the Architect to speake of buildings, not according to himselfe, but his neighbours according to anothers skill, and not his owne.  If it be a glory for a man to publish his owne worth himselfe, why does not Cicero prefer the eloquence of Hortensius, and Hortensius that of Cicero?  Some may peradventure suppose that by deeds and effects, and not simply by words, I witnesse of my selfe.  I principally set forth my cogitations; a shapelesse subject, and which cannot fall within the compasse of a workemanlike production; with much adoe can I set it downe in this ayrie bodie of the voice.  Wiser men, and more learned and devout, have lived avoiding all apparent effects.  Effects would speak more of fortune than of me.  They witnesse their part and not mine, unlesse it be conjecturally and uncertainly: parcels of a particular shew.  I wholy set forth and expose my selfe:  It is a Sceletos; where at first sight appeare all the vaines, muskles, gristles, sinnewes and tendons, each severall part in his due place.  The effect of the cough produceth, one part, that of at of palenesse or panting of the heart another, and that doubtfully.  I write not my gests, but my selfe and my essence.  I am of opinion that a man must be very wise to esteeme himselfe, and equally consciencious to give testimony of it: be it low, be it high indifferently.  If I did absolutely seeme good and wise unto my selfe, I would boldly declare it.  To speake lesse of himselfe than he possesseth, is folly, and not modesty+.  To say himself for lesse than he is worth is basenesse and pusilanimity, saith Aristotle.  No vertue aids it self with false-hood, and truth is never a matter of errour.  And yet for a man to say more of himself than he can well prove, is not ever presumption though often sottishnesse.  For a man to over-weene and please himself exceedingly with what he is, and fall into indiscreet love with himselfe, is in my conceit the substance of this vice.  The best remedy to cure him, is to do 

cleane contrary to that which those appoint, who in forbidding men to speak of themselves, do consequentiy also inhibit more to thinke of themselves. Pride consisteth in conceit.  The tongue can have no great share in it. For one to ammuse on himself is in their imagination to please himselfe: And for a man to frequent and practise himselfe, is at an over-deare rate to please himselfe.  But this excess doth only breed in them, that but superficially feele and search themselves that are seene to follow their affaires, which call idleness and fondnesse for a man to entertaine, to applaud, and to endeare himselfe, and frame Chimeraes or build Castles in the ayre, deeming themselves as a third person and strangers to themselves.  If any be besotted with his owne knowledge looking upon himselfe, let him cast his eyes towards former ages, his pride shall be abated, his ambition shall be quailed; for there shall he find many thousands of spirits that will cleane suppress and tread him under.  If he fortune to enter any selfe-presumption of his own worth, let him but call to remembrance the lives of Scipio+ and Epaminondas+; so many armies, and so many Nations which leave him so far behind them.{ancients+} No particular quality shall make him proud, that therewith shall reckon so many imperfect and weak qualities that in him and at last the nullity of the human condition.  Forsomuch as Socrates+ had truly only nibled on the precept of his God to know himself, and had learned to contemne himself, he alone was esteemed worthy of the name of Wise.  Whosoever shall so know himselfe let him boldly make himself knowns by his own mouth. 

THOSE which write the life of Augustas Caesar note this in his military discipline, that he was exceeding liberal and lavish in his gifts to such as were of any desert; but as sparing and strait-handed in meere recompences of honour+.  Yet so it is that himselfe had beene liberally gratified by his Unkle with militarie rewards, before ever he went to warres.  It hath beene a witty invention, and received in most parts of the worlds Common-wealths, to establish and ordaine certaine vaine and worthles markes, therewith to honour and recompence vertue:  As are the wreathes of Lawrell, the Chaplets of Oake, and the Garlands of Myrtle, the forme of a certaine peculiar garment; the privilege to ride in Coach thorow the City; or by night to have a Torch carried before one:  Some particular place to sit in in common assemblies; the prerogatives of certaine surnames and titles, and proper additions in armes, and such like things; the, use whereof hath beene diversly received according to the opinion of nations which continueth to this day.  We have for our part, together with divers of our neighbour-nations, the orders of knighthood, which only were established to this purpose.  Verily it is a most laudable use and profitable custome, to find means to reward the worth and acknowledge the valour of rare and excellent men, to satisfie and content them with such payments as in no sort charge the commonwealth, and put the prince to no cost at all.  And that which was ever knowne by ancient experience, and at other times we have plainly perceived amongst ourselves, that men of qualitie were ever more jealous
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of such recompences than of others wherein was both gaine and profit, which was not without reason and great apparence.  If to the prize, which ought simply to be of honour, there be other commodities and riches joyned, this kinde of commixing, instead of encreasing the estimation thereof, doth empaire, dissipate, and abridge it.  The order of the Knights of Saint Michael in France, which of so long contuauance hath beene in credit amongst as, had no greater commoditie than that it had no manner of communication with any other advantage or profit, which hath heretofore beene the cause that there was no charge or state of what quality soever, whereto the nobilitie pretended with so much desire, or aspired with more affection, as it did to obtaine that order; nor calling that was followed with more respect or greatnesse.  Vertue+ embracing with more ambition, nud more willingly aspiring after a recompense, that is meerely and simply her owne, and which is rather glorious than profitable.  For, to say truth, other gifts have no use so worthy, inasmuch as they are imployed to all manner of occasions. With riches a man doth reward the service of a groome, the diligence of a messenger, the hopping of a dancer, the tricks of a vaulter, the breath of a lawyer+, and the basest offices a man may receive; yea, with the same paultry pelfe mony, vice is payed and sin requited, as flattery, murther, treason, Maquerelage, and what not?  It is then no marvel, if vertue doth lesse willingly desire this kinde of common trash, mony, than that which is only proper and peculiar to her selfe, and is altogether noble and generous. Augustus had therefore reason to be much more niggardly amd sparing of this last than of the former, forasmuch as honour+ is a privilege that draws his preincipall essence from rareness; and so doth verture it selfe.

Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?/1

To him who good can seeme,
Who doth none bad esteeme?

     We shall not see a man highly regarded, or extraordinarily commended, that is curiously carefull to have his children well nurtured, because it is a common {usthem+} action, how just and worthy praise soever it be, no more than one great tree, where the forrest is full of such.  I doe not thinke that any Spartane Citizen did boastingly glorifie himselfe for his valour, because it was a popular vertue in that nation, and as, little for his fidelity+ and contempt of riches.  There is no recompence falls unto vertue, how great soever it be, if it once have past into custome; and I wot not whether we might call it great, being common.  Since then the rewards of honour have no other prise and estimation than that few enjoy it, there is no way to disannul them but to make a largesse of them.  Were there now more men found deserving the same than in former ages, yet should not the reputation of it be corrupted.  And it may easily happen that more deserve it, for there is no vertue doth so easily spread it selfe as military valiancie.  There is another true, perfect, and philosophicall, whereof I speake not (I use this word according to our custome), farre greater and more full than this,, which is a force and assurance of the soule, equally contemning all manner of contrarie accidents, upright, uniforme, and constant, whereof ours is but an easie and glimmering raie.  Custome, institution, example and fashion, may effect what ever they list in the establishing of that I speake of, and easily make it vulgare, as may plainely be seene by the experience our civill warres give us of it.  And whosoever could now joyne us together, and eagerly flesh all our people to a common enterprise, we should make our ancient military name and chivalrous credit to flourish againe.  It is most certaine that the recompense of our order did not in former nines only concerne prowis and respect valour; it had a further aime.  It was never the reward or payment of a valiant ssouldier, but of a famous Captaine.  The skill to obey+ could not deserve so honorable an hire; for, cast we back our eyes to antiquity, we shall perceive that for the worthy obtaining 

thereof, there was required more universal warrelike expertnesse, and which might embrace the greatest part, and most parts of a military man. Neque enim eaedem militares et imperatoriae artes sunt, 'For the same arts and parts belong not to a generall and common souldier;' and who besides that should also be of a fit and accommodable condition for such a dignitie. But I say, that if more men should now adayes be found worthy of it than have been heretofore, yet should not ounr princes be more liberall of it, and it had beene much better not to bestow it upon all them to whom it was due, than for ever to lose, as of late we have done, the use of so profitable an invention.  No man of courage vouchsafeth to advantage himselfe of that which is common unto many.  And those which in our dayes bee least merited that honourable recompence, seeme, in all apparence, most to disdaine it, by that meanes place themselves in the ranke of those to whom the wrong is offered by unworthy bestowing and vilifying of that badge which particularly was due unto them.  Now by defacing and abolishing this to suppose, suddenly to be able to bring into credit and renue a semblable custome, is no convenient enterprise in so licentious, so corruptedi and so declining age, as is this wherein we now live.  And it will come to passe that the last shall even from her birth incur the incommodities which have lately ruined and overthrowne the other.  The rules of this new orders dispensation had need to be otherwise wrested and constrained for to give it authority, and this tumultuous season is not capable of a short and ordered bridle.  Besides, before a man is able to give credit unto it, it is requisite a man lose the memory of the first, and of the contempt whereinto it is fallen.  This place might admit some discourse upon the consideration of valour, and difference betweene this virtue and others.  But Plutarch having often spoken of this matter, it were in vaine here for me to repeat what he says of it.  This is worthy to be considered, that our nation giveth the chiefe preheminence of all vertue unto valiancie, as the 

etymology of the word sheweth, which cometh of valour or worth; and that according to our received custome, when after the phrase of our court and nobility we speake of a worthy man, or of an honest man, we thereby inferre no other thing than a valiant man; after the usuall Roman fashion. For the generall denomination of vertue doth amongst them take her etymology of force or might.  The only proper and essentiall forme of our nobility in France is military_vocation+.  It is very likely that the first vertue that ever appeared amongst men, and which to some hath given preheminence over others, hath beene this by which the strongest and most courageous have become masters over the weakest, and purchased a particular ranke and reputation to themselves.  Whereby this honour and dignity of speech is left unto it: or else these nations, being very warlike, have given the price unto that of vertues, which was the worthiest and more familiar unto them.  Even as our passion, and this heart-panting and mind-vexing carefull diligence, and diligent carefulnesse, which we continually apprehend about woman's chastity, causeth also that a good woman, an honest woman, a woman of honour and vertue, doth in effect and substance signifle no other thing unto us than a chaste wife or woman; as if to bind them to this duty, we did neglect all others, and give them free liberty to commit any other fault, to covenant with them never to quit or forsake this duty. 

MADAME, if strangenesse doe not save or novelty shield mee, which are woiat to give things reputation, I shall never, with honesty, quit myselfe of this enterprise yet is it so fantasticall and bears a shew so differient from common custome, that that may haply purchase it free passage.  It is a melancholy humour, and consequently a hatefull enemy to my natural complexion, bred by the anxietie and produced by the anguish of carking care, whereinto some years since I cast myselfe, that first put this humorous conceipt of writing into my head.  And finding myselfe afterward wholy unprovided of subject, and void of other matter, I have presented myselfe unto myselfe for a subject to write and argument to descant upon.  It is the only booke in the world of this kinde, and of a wilde extravagant designe.  Moreover, there is nothing in it worthy the marking but this fantasticalnesse.  For, to so vaine a ground and base a subject, the worlds best workman could never have given a fashion deserving to be accompted of.  Not (worthy Lady) sithence I must pourtray my selfe to the life, I should have forgotten a part of importance, if therewithall I had not represented the honour I have ever yeelded to your deserts, which I have especially beene willing to declare in the forefront of this chapter; Forasmuch as amongst your other good parts and commendable qualities, that of loving amity, which you have shewen to your children, holdeth one of the first rankes.  Whosoever shall understand and know the age, wherein your late
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husband the Lord of Estissac left you a Widdow, the great, and nonorable matches have beene offered you (as worthy and as many as to any other Lady in France of your condition) the constant resolution, and resolute constancie, wherewith so many yeares you have sustained, and even in spight or athwart so manifold thorny difficulties, the charge and conduct of their affaires, which have tossed, turmoyled and removed you in all comers of France, and still hold you besieged; the happy and successfull forwardnes you, which only through your wisdome or good fortune have given them, he will easily say with mee, that in our age we have no patterne of motherly affecttion more exemplarie than yours.  I praise God (Madame) it hathe beene so well employed :  For, the good hopes, which the young Lord of REstissac, your sonne, giveth of himselfe, fore-shew he shall come to an undoubted assurance that when he shall come to yeares of discretion, you shall reape the obedience of a noble, and finde the acknowledgement of a good childe.  But because, by reason of his child-hood, he could not take notice of the exceeding kindnesse and many-fold offices he hath received from you, my meaning is, that if ever these my compositions shall haply one day come into his hands (when-peradventure I shall neither have mouth nor speech to declare it unto him), he receive this testimonie in all veritie from me; which shall also more lively be testified unto him by the good effects, (whereof, if so it please God, be shall have a sensible feeling) that there is no Gentleman in France more endebted to his mother than he; and that hereafter he cannot yeeld a more certaine proofe of his goodnes, and testimonie of his vertue, than in acknowledging and confessing you for such.  If there be any truly-naturall law, that is to say, any instinct, universally and perpetually imprinted, both in beasts and us, (which is not without controversie) I may, according to mine opinion, say, that next to the care which each living creature hath to his preservation, and to flie what doth hurt him, the affection which the engenderer beareth his off-spring holds the second place in this ranke.  And 

forasmuch as nature seemeth to have recommended the same unto us, ayming to extend, encrease, and advance the successive parts or parcels of this her frame; it is no wonder if backagaine it is not so great from children unto fathers.  This other Aristotelian consideration remembred: that hee who doth benefit+ another, loveth him better than hee is beloved of him againe; and hee to whom a debt is owing, loveth better than hee that oweth: And every workman loveth his worke better than hee should bee beloved of it againe, if it had sense or feeling.  Forasmuch as we love to be, and being consisteth in moving and action; therefore is every ma-n, in some sort or other.. in his owne workmanship.  Whosoever doth a good deed, exerciseth a faire and honest action: whosoever receiveth exerciseth only a profitable action.  And profit is nothing so much to be esteemed or loved as honesty+.{PlainDealer+} Honesty is firme and permanent, affording him that did it a constant gratification.  Profit is very slipperie and easily lost, nor is the memorie of it so sweet or so fresh.  Such things are dearest unto us, that have cost us most; and to give is of more cost that to take.  Since it hath pleased God to endow us with some capacitie of discourse, that as beasts we should not servily be subjected to common lawes, but rather with judgement and voluntary liberty apply ourselves unto them; we ought somewhat to yeeld unto the simple auctoritie of Nature, but not suffer her tyranny to carry us away: only reason ought to have the conduct of our inclinations.  As for me, my tast is strangely distasted to its propensions, which in us are produced without the ordinance and direction of our judgement. As upon this subject I speak of, I cannot receive this passion, wherewith some embrace children scarsly borne,. having neither motion in the soule, nor forme well to be distinguished in the body whereby they might make themselves lovely or amiable.  And I could never well endure to have them brought up or nursed neere about me.  A true and well ordered affection ought to be borne and augmented, with the knowledge they owe us of themselves; and 

then, if they deserve it (naturall inclination marching hand in hand with reason) to cherish and make much of them, with a perfect fatherly love and loving friendship, and conformably to judge of them if they be otherwise, alwayes yeelding our selves unto reason, notwithstanding natural power.  For the most part, it goeth cleane contrary, and commonly we feele our selves more moved with the sports, idlenesses wantonnesse, and infant- trifles of our children, than afterward we do with all their actions, when they bee men:  As if we had loved them for our pastimes, as we do apes, monkies, or perokitoes, and not as man.  And some that liberally furnish them with sporting bables while they be children, will miserably pinch it in the least expense for necessaries when they grow men.  Nay, it seemeth that the jelousie we have to see them appeare into, and injoy the world, when we are ready to leave them, makes us more sparing and close-handed toward them.  It vexeth and grieveth us when we see them following us at our heels, supposing they solicite us to be gone hence: {Hal+} And if we were to feare that since the order of things beareth, that they cannot indeed, neither be, nor live, but by our being and life, we should not meddle to be fathers.  As for mee, I deeme it a kind of cruelty and injustice, not to receive them into the share and society of our goods, and to admit them as Partners in the understanding of our domestical affaires (if they be once capable of it and not to cut off and shut-up our commodities to provide for theirs, since we have engendred them to that purpose.  It is meere injustice to see an old, crazed, sinnow-shronken, and nigh dead father sitting alone in a Chimny-corner, to enjoy so many goods as would suffice for the preferment and entertainment of many children, and in the meane while, for want of meanes, to suffer them to lose their best dayes and yeares, without thrusting them into publike service and knowledge of men; whereby they are often cast into dispaire, to seeke, by some way how unlawfull soever to provide for their necessaries.  And in my dayes, I have seene divers yong-men, of 

good houses so given to stealing and filching, that no correction could divert them from it.  I know one very well alied, to whom, at the instance of a brother of his (a most honest, gallant, and vertuous Gentleman) I spake to that purpose, who boldly answered and confessed unto me, that only by the rigor and covetism of his father he had beene forced and driven to fall into such lewdnesse and wickednesse.  And even at that time he came from stealing certaine jewels from a Lady, in whose bed-chamber he fortuned to come with certaine other Gentlemen when she was rising, and had almost beene taken.  He made me remember a tale I had heard of another Gentleman, from his youth so fashioned and inclined to this goodly trade of pilfering that comming afterward to be heire and Lord of his owne goods, resolved to give over that manner of life, could notwithstanding (if he chanced to come neere a shop, where he saw any thing he stood in need of) not chuse but steale the same, though afterward he would ever send mony and pay for it.  And I have seene diverse so inured to that vice, that amongst their companios they would ordinarily steale such things as they would restore againe.  I am a Gascoine, and there is no vice wherein I have lesse skill: I hate it somewhat more by complexion than I accuse it by discourse.  I doe not so much as desire another mans goods.  And although my Countrey-men be indeed somewhat more taxed with this fault than other Provinces of France, yet have we seene, of late dayes, and that sundry times, men well borne and of good parentage in other parts of France, in the hands of justice, and lawfully convicted of many most horrible robberies.  I am of opinion that in regard of these debauches and lewd actions, fathers may, in some sort, be blamed, and that it is only long of them.  And if any shall answer mee, as did once a Gentleman of good worth and understanding, that he thriftily endevoured to hoard up riches, to no other purpose, nor to have any use and commodity of them, than to be honoured, respected and suingly sought unto by his friends and kinsfolke 

and that age having bereaved him of all other forces, it was the only remedy he had left to maintaine himselfe in authority with his houshold, and keepe him from falling into contempyt and disdaine of all the world. And truly according to Aristotle, not only old_age+, but each imbecility, is the promoter and motive of covetousnesse+.  That is something, but it is a remedy for an evill, whereof the birth should have beene hindered, and breeding avoyded.  That father may truly be said miserable that holdeth the affection of his children tied unto him by no other meanes than by the need they have of his helpe, or want of his assistance, if that may be termed affection:  A man should yeeld himselfe respectable by virtue and sufficiency, and amiable by his goodnesse, and gentlenesse of manners. The very cinders of so rich a matter have their value: so have the bones and relics of honourable men, whom we hold in respect and reverence.  No age can be so crazed and drooping in a man that hath lived honourably, but must needs prove venerable, and especially unto his children, whose minds ought so to be directed by the parents, that reason and wisdome, not necessity and need, nor rudenesse and compulsion, may make them know and performe their dutie.

      ------ et errat longe, mea quidem sententia,
Qui imperium credat esse gravius aut stabilius,
Vi quod fit, quam illud quod amicitia adjungitur./1

In mine opinion he doth much mistake,
Who, that command more grave, more firme doth take,
Which force doth get, than that which friendships make.

lightly.  And what education I have had myselfe, the same have l given mv children.  But such is my ill hap,that they dye all very yong: {usthem+} yet hath Leonora my only daughter escaped this misfortune, and attained to the age of six yeares, and somewhat more; for the conduct of whose youth and punishment childish faults (the indulgence of her mother applying it selfe very mildly unto it) was never other meanes used but gentle words. And were my desire frustrate there are diverse other causes to take hold of without reproving my discipline, which I know to be just and naturall. I would also have beene much more religious in that towards male-children, not borne to serve as women and of a freer condition.  I should have loved to have stored their minde with ingenuity and liberty.  I have seene no other effects in rods, but to make childrens mindes more remisse, or more maliciously headstrong.      Desire we to be loved of our children!  Will we remove all occasions from them to wish our death? (although no occasion of so horrible and unnaturall wishes can either be just or excusable) nullum scelus rationem habet, no ill deed hath a good reason.  Let us reasonably accommodate their life with such things as are in our power.  And therefore should not we marry so young that our age do in a manner confound it selfe with theirs.  For, this inconvenience doth unavoidably cast us into many difficulties and encombrances.  This I speake chiefly unto nobility, which is of an idle disposition, or loitering condition, and which (as we say) liveth ony by her lands or rents: for else, where life standeth upon gaine, plurality and company of children is an easefull furtherance of husbandry.  They are as many new implements to thrive, and instruments to grow rich.  I was married at thirty yeares of age and commend the opinion of thirty-five, which is said to be Aristotles.  Plato would have no man married before thirty, and hath good reason to scoffe at them that will defer it till after fifty- five and then marry; and condemneth their breed as unworthy of life and sustenance.  Thales appointed the best limits, who by his 

mother being instantly urged to marry whilest he was young, answered that it was not yet time; and when he came to be old, he said it was no more time.  A man must refuse opportunity to every importunate action.  The ancient Gaules deemed it a shamefull reproach to have the acquaintance of a woman before the age of twenty yeares; and did especially recommend unto men that sought to be trained up in warres the carefull preservation of their maiden-head until they were of good yeares, forsomuch as by losing it in youth, courages are thereby much weakned and greatly empaired, and by coupling with women diverted from all vertuous action. {effeminacy+}

Ma hor congiunto i giovinetta sposa,
Lieto homai de' figli', era invilito
Ne gli afetti di padre et di marito./1

But now conjoyn'd to a fresh-springing spouse,
Joy'd in his children, he was thought-abased,
In passions twixt a sire and husband placed.

land as sea, and doe his prince as good service, in court or elsewhere, as his sonne:  He hath need of all his parts and ought truly to impart them, but so that be forget not himselfe for others:  And to such may justly that answer serve which fathers have commonly in their mouthes: 'I will not put off my clothes before I be ready to go to bed.  But a father over- burthened with yeares and crazed through sicknesse and by reason of weaknesse and want of health barred from the common society of men, doth both wrong himself, injure his, idly and to no use to hoord up and keepe close a great heape of riches and deal of pelfe.  He is in state good enough, if he be wise to have a desire to put off his clothes to goe to bed.  I will not say to his shirt, but to a good warme night gowne, As for other pomp and trash whereof hee hath no longer use or need, hee ought willingly to distribute and bestow them amongst those to whom by naturall degree they ought to belong.  It is reason he should have the use and bequeath the fruition of them, since nature doth also deprive him of them, otherwise without doubt there is both envy and malice stirring.  The worthiest action that ever the Emperour Charles the fifth performed was this, in imitation of some ancients of his quality, that he had the discretion to know that reason commanded us to strip or shift our selves when our cloathes trouble and are too heavy for us, and that it is high time to go to bed when our legs faile us. {usthem+} He resigned his meanes, his greatnesse and Kingdome to his Sonne, at what time he found his former undanted resolution to decay, and force to conduct his affaires to droope in himselfe, together with the glory he had thereby acquired.

Solve senescentem mature sanus equum ne
Peccet ad extremum ridentus, et ilia ducat./1
If you be wise, the horse growne-old betimes cast-off,
Lest he at last fall lame, foulter, and breed a skoffe.

alteration that age doth naturally bring, both to the body and the minde (which in my opinion is equall if the mind hath but one halfe), hath lost the reputation of the most part of the great men in the world.  I have in my dayes both seene and familiarly knowen some men of great authority, whom a man might easily discerne, to be strangely fallen from that ancient sufficiency, which I know by the reputation they had thereby attained unto in their best yeares.  I could willingly for their honors sake have wisht them at home about their own businesse, discharged from all negotiations of the commonwealth and employments of war that were no longer fit for them.  I have sometimes beene familiar in a Gentleman's house, who was both an old man and a widdower, yet lusty of his age.  This man had many daughters marriageable and a sonne grown to mans state and ready to appeare in the world; a thing that drew-on and was the cause of great charges and many visitations, wherein he tooke but little pleasure, not only for the continuall care hee had to save but more by reason of his age, hee had betoken himselfe to a manner of life farre different from ours.  I chanced one day to tell him somewhat boldly (as my custome is) {Kent+} that it would better beseeme him to give us place and resigne his chiefe house to his sonne (for he had no other mannor-house conveniently well furnished), and quietly retire himselfe to some farme of his where no man might trouble him or disturbe his rest, since he could not otherwise avoid our importunitie, seeing the condition of his children; who afterward followed my counsell and found great ease by it.  It is not to be said that they hate any thing given them by such a way of obligation, which a man may not recall againe:  I, that am ready to play such a part, would give over unto them the full possession of my house and enjoying of my good and limited condition as if they should give me occasion, I might repent myself of my gift and revoke my deed. I would leave the use and fruition of all unto them, the rather because it were no longer fit for me to weald the 

same.  And touching the disposing of all matters in grosse, I would reserve what I pleased unto my selfe.  Having ever judged that it must be a great contentment to an aged father, himselfe to direct his children in the government of his household affaires, and to be able whilest himselfe liveth to checks and controule their demeanors, storing them with instruction and advised counsell, according to the experience he hath had of them, and himselfe to address the ancient honour and order of his house in the hands of his successours, and that way warrant himselfe of the hope hee may conceive of their future conduct and or successe.  And to this effect I would not shun their company.  I would not be far from them, but as much as the condition of my age would permit, enjoy and be a partner of their sports, mirths, and feasts.  If I did not continually live amongst them (as I could not well without offending their meetings and hindering their recreation, by reason of the peevish. forwardnesse of my age and the trouble of my infirmities, and also without forcing their rules, and resisting the forme of life I should then follow), I would at least live neere them, in some corner of my house, not the best and fairest in show, but the most easefull and commodious. And not, as some years since I saw a Deane of S.  Hillarie of Poictiers, reduced by reason and the incommoditie of his melancholy to such a continuall solitarinesse, that when I entered into his chamber be had never removed one step out of it in two and twenty yeares before; yet had all his faculties free and easie, onely a rheume excepted that fell into his stomacke.  Scarce once a weeke would he suffer any body to come and see him.  Hee would ever be shut up in his chamber all alone, where no man should come, except a boy, who once a day brought him meat, and who might not tarry there, but as soone as he was in must goe out again.  All his exercise was sometimes to walke up and downe his chamber, aud now and then reade on some booke (for he had some understanding of letters) but obstinately resolved to live and dye in that course, as he did shortly after.  I would endevour by 

a kinde of civil demeanour and milde conversation to breede and settle in my children a true-harty loving friendship, and unfained good will towards me: a thing easily obtained amongst well-borne mindes, For if they prove, or be such surly-furious beasts, or given to churlish disobedience, as our age bringeth forth thousands, they must as beasts be hated, as churls neglected, and as degenerate avoided.  I hate this custome, to forbid children to call their fathers father, and to teach them another strange name, as of more reverence; as if nature had not sufficiently provided for our authoritie. We call God Almighty by the name of father, and disdaine our children should call us so.  I have reformed this fault in mine owne household.  It is also folly and injustice to deprive children, especially being of competent age, of their fathers familiaritie, and ever to shew them a surly, austere, grim, and disdainefall countenance, hoping thereby, to keepe them in awfull feare and duteous obedience.  For it is a very unprofitable proceedingy and which maketh fathers yrkesome unto children, and which is worse, ridiculous. They have youth and strength in their hands, and consequently the breath and favour of the world; and doe with mockery and contempt receive these churlish, fierce, and tyrannical countenances, from a man that hath no lusty bloud left him, neither in his heart nor in his vaines; meere bugbeares, and scar crowes, to scare birdes withall.  If it lay in my power to make my selfe feared, I had rather make my selfe beloved. {tyrant+} There are so many sorts of defects in age, and so much impuissance; it is so subject to contempt, that the best purchase it can make is the good will, love and affection of others. {Koffka+} Commandement and feare are no longer her weapons.  I have knowne one whose youth had beene very imperious and rough, but when he came to mans age, although hee live in as good plight and health as may be, yet he chaseth, he scoldeth, he brawleth, he fighteth, he sweareth, and biteth, as the most boistrous and tempestuous master of France; he frets and consumes hims-elfe 

with carke and care and vigilancy (all which is but a jugling and ground for his familiar to play upon, and cozen him the more) as for his goods, his garners, his cellars, his coffers, yea his purse, whilst himselfe keepes the keyes of them close in his bosome and under his boulster, as charily as he doth his eyes, other enjoy and command the better part of them; whilst he pleaseth and flattereth himselfe with the niggardly sparing of his table, all goth to wracke, and is lavishly wasted in divers corners of his house, in play, in riotous spending, and in soothingly entertaining the accompts or tales of his vaine chasing, foresight, and providing.  Every man watcheth and keepeth sentinell against him, if any silly or heedless servant doe by fortune apply himselfe unto it, he is presently made to suspect him. A quality on which age doth immediately bite of it selfe.  How many times hath he vaunted and applauding himselfe the strict orders of his house, of his good husbandry, of the awe he kept his household in, and of the exact obedience and regardfull reverence he received of all his family, and how cleare-sighted he was in his own businesse:

Ille solus nescit omnia./1

Of all things none but he,
Most ignorant must be.

but whither? onely out of his sight, not out of his house.  The steps of age are so slow, the senses so troubled, the minde so distracted, that he shall live and doe his office a whole year in one same house, and never be perceived.  And when fit time or occasion serveth, letters are produced from farre places, humbly suing and pittifully complayning, with promises to doe better and to amend, by which he is brought into favour and office again.  Doth the master make any bargaine or dispatch that pleaseth not, it is immediately smothered and supressed soon after forging causes, and devising colourable excuses, to excuse the want of execution or answer. No forraine letters being first presented unto him, he seeth but such as are fit for his knowledge. lf peradventure they come into his hands, as he that trusteth some one of his men to reade them unto him, he will presently devise what he thinketh good, whereby they often invent that such a one seemeth to aske him forgivenesse, that wrongeth him by his letter.  To conclude, he never lookes into his owne businesse, but by a disposed, designed and as much as may be pleasing image, so contrived by such as are about him, because they will not stirre up his choler, move his impatience, and exasperate his frowardnesse.  I have seene under different formes many long and constant, and of like effect, economies.  It is ever proper unto women to be readily bent to contradict and crosse their husbands.  They will with might and maine, hand over head, take hold of any colour oG thwart and withstand them: the first excuse they meet with serves them as a plenary justification. I have seene some that would in grosse steale from their husbands to the end (as they told their Confessor) they might give the greater almes.  Trust you to such religious dispensations.  They thinke no libertie to have or managing to possesse sufficient authoritie, if it come from their husbands consent:  They must necessarily usurpe it, either by wily craft or maine force, and ever iniuriouslv, thereby to give it more grace and authoritie. As in my discourse, when it is 

against a poore old man, and for children, then take they hold of this title, and therewith gloriously serve their turne and passion, and as in a common servitude, easily usurpe and monopolize against his government and domination.  If they be men-children, tall, of good spirit, and forward, then they presently suborne, either by threats, force, or favour, both Steward, Bailiffe, Clarke, Receiver, and all the Fathers Officers, and Servant.  Such as have neither wife nor children, do more hardly fall into his mischiefe; but yet more cruelly and unworthily.  Old Cato was wont to say, 'So many servants, so many enemies.  Note whether according to the distance that was between the purity of his age, and the corruption of our times, he did not fore-warne us that wives, children, and servants are to us so many enemies.  Well fits it decrepitude to store us with the sweet benefit of ignorance and unperceiving facility wherewith we are deceived. If we did yeeld unto it, what would become of us?  Doe we not see that even then if we have any suits in lawe, or matters to be decided before Judges, both Lawyers+ and Judges will commonly take part with and favour our childrens causes against us, as men interested in the same?  And if I chance not to spy or plainly perceive how I am cheated, cozoned and beguiled, I must of necessitie discover in the end how I am subject, and may be cheated, beguiled, and cozened.  And shall the tongue of man ever bee able to expresse the ynvaluable worth of a friend+, in comparison of these civill bonds? The lively image and idea whereof I perceive to be among beasts so unspotted. Oh, with what religion doe I respect and observe the same!  If others deceive me, yet do I not deceive my selfe, to esteeme my selfe capable and of power to looke unto my selfe, nor to trouble my braines to yeeld my selfe unto it.  I doe beware and keepe my selfe from such treasons, and cunny- catching in mine owne bosome, not by an unquiet and tumultuary curiosity, but rather by a diversion and resolution.  When I heare the state of any one reported or discoursed of, I ammuse not my 

selfe on him, but presently cast mine eyes on my selfe, and all my wits together, to see in what state I am, aud how it goeth with me.  Whatsoever concerneth him, the same hath relation to me.  His fortunes forewarne me, and summon up my spirits that way; There is no day nor houre but we speake that of others we might properly speake of ourselves, could we as well enfold as we can infold our consideration. {common+} And many authours doe in this manner wound the protection of their cause by over- rashly running against that which they take hold of, thirling such darts at their enemies that might with much more advantage be cast at them.  The Lord of Montluc, late one of the Lord Marshals of France, having lost his sonne, who died in the Iland of Madera, a worthy, forward and gallant young gentleman, and truely of good hope, amongst other his griefes and regrets did greatly move me to condole the infinite displeasure and hearts- sorrow that he felt, inasmuch as he had never communicated and opened himselfe vnto him: for, with his austere humour and continuall endevouring to hold a grimme-stern-fatherly gravity over him, he had lost the meanes perfectly to finde and throughly to know his sonne, and so to manifest vnto him the extreme affection he bare him, and the worthy judgement he made of his vertue. 'Alas,' was he wont to say, 'the poore lad saw never anything in me but a severe-surly countenance, full of disdaine, and haply was possessed with this conceit, that I could neither love nor esteeme him according to his merits.  Ay- me, to whom did I reserve, to discover that singular and loving affection which in my soule I bare vnto him?  Was it not he that should have had all the pleasure and acknowledgenient thereof?  I have forced and tormented my selfe to maintaine this vaine maske, and have vtterly lost the pleasure of his conversation, and therwithal his good will, which surely was but faintly cold towards me, forsomuch as he never received but rude entertainement of me, and never felt but a tyrannicall proceeding in me towards him.  I am of opinion his complaint was reasonable and well 

grounded.  For, as I know by certaine experience, there is no comfort so sweet in the losse of friends, as that our owne knowledge or conscience tels vs we never omitted to tell them everything, and expostulate all matters vnto them, and to have had a perfect and free communication with them. Tell me, my good friend, am I the better or the worse by having a taste of it?  Surely I am much the better.  His griefe doth both comfort and honour mee.  Is it not a religious and pleasing office of my life for ever to make the obsequies thereof?  Can there be any pleasure worth this privation? I doe vnfold and open my self as much as I can to mine owne people, and willingly declare the state of my will and judgment towards them, as commonly I doe towards all men:  I make haste to produce and present my selfe, for I would have no man mistake me, in what part soever.  Amongst other particular customes which our ancient Gaules had as Caesar affirmeth), this was one, that children never came before their fathers, nor were in any publike assembly seene in their company, but when they began to beare armes: as if they would infer that then was the time fathers should admit them to their acquaintance and familiarity.  I have also observed another kinde of indiscretion in some fathers of our times, who during their owne life would never be induced to acquaint or impart vnto their children that share or portion which, by the Law of Nature, they were to have in their fortunes: nay, some there are who, after their death, bequeath and commit the same auctority over them and their goods, vnto their wives, with full power and law to dispose of them at their pleasure.  And my selfe have knowen a Gentleman, a chiefe officer of our crowne, that by right and hope of succession (had he lived unto it) was to inherit above fifty thousand crownes a yeere good land, who at the age of more then fifty yeeres, fell into such necessity and want, and was run so farre in debt, that he had nothing left him, and, as it is supposed, died for very need: whilest his mother, in her extreme decrepitude, enjoyed all 

his lands and possessed all his goods, by vertue of his fathers will and testament, who had lived very neere foure-score years: a thing (in my conceit) no way to be commended, but rather blamed.  Therefore doe I thinke that a man but little advantaged or bettered in estate who is able to liue of himselfe, and is out of debt, especially if he have children, and goeth about to marry a wife that must have a great joynter out of his lands, assuredly there is no other debt that brings more ruine vnto houses than that.  My predecessors have commonly followed this counsell, and so have I, and all have found good by it.  But those that disswade vs from marrying of rich wives, lest they might proove over disdainefull and peevish, or lesse tractable and loving, are also deceived to make vs neglect and for-goe a reall commoditie for so frivolous a conjecture, To an vnreasonable woman, it is all one cost to her whether they passe vnder one reason or vnder another. 'They love to be where they are most wronged.  Injustice doth allure them, as the honour of their vertuous actions enticeth the good.  And by how much richer they are, so much more milde and gentle are they; as more willingly and gloriously chaste, by how much fairer they are.  Some colour of reason there is, men should leave the administration of their goods and affaires vnto mothers whilest their children are not of competent age, or fit according to the lawes to manage the charge of them:  And ill hath their father brought them vp, if he cannot hope, these comming to yeares of discretion, they shal have no more wit, reason, and sufficiencie, than his wife, considering the weaknesse of their sexe.  Yet truly were it as much against nature so to order things that mothers must wholy depend on their childrens discretion.  They ought largely and competently to be provided wherewith to maintaine their estate according to the quality of their house and age: because 'need and want is much more unseemely and hard to he indured in women than in men:' And children rather than mothers ought to be charged therewith.  In generall, my opinion is that the best 

distribution of goods is, when we die, to distribute them according to the custome of the Country.  The lawes have better thought vpon them than we:  And better is it to let them erre in their election than for vs rashly to hazard to faile in ours.  They are not properly our owne, since without vs, and by a civil prescription, they are appointed to certaine successours.  And albeit we have some further liberty, I thinke it should be a great and most apparent cause to induce vs to take from one, and barre him from that which Fortune hath allotted him, and the common lawes and Justice hath called him unto:  And that against reason we abuse this liberty, by suting the same unto our priuate humours and frivolous fantasies.  My fortune hath beene good, inasmuch as yet it never presented me with any occasions that might tempt or divert my affections from the common and lawful ordinance.  I see some towards whom it is but labour lost, carefully to endevour to doe any good offices.  A word ill taken defaceth the merit of ten yeeres.  Happy he that, at this last passage, is ready to sooth and applaud their will.  The next action transporteth him; not the best and most frequent offices, but the freshest and present worke the deede.  They are the people that play with their wils and testaments as with apples and rods, to gratify or chastize every action of those who pretend any interest thereunto.  It is a matter of over-long pursute, and of exceeding consequence, at every instance to be thus dilated, and wherein the wiser sort establish themselves once for all, chiefely respecting reason and publike observance.  We somewhat over-much take these masculine substitutions to hart, and propose a ridiculous eternity unto our names.  We also over-weight such vaine future conjectures, which infant-spirits give vs.  It might peradventure have beene from out my rancke, because I was the dullest, the slowest, the unwillingest, the most leaden-pated to learn my lesson or any good, that ever was not onely of all my brethren, but of all the children in my countrie, were the lesson concerning 

my exercise of the minde or body.  It is follie to trie any extraordinarie conclusions vpon the trust of their divinations+, wherein we are so often deceived.  If this rule may be contradicted, and the destinies corrected, in the choice they have made of our heires, with so much more apparence, may it be done in consideration of some remarkable and enormous corporall deformtie; a constant and incorrigible vice; and according to vs great esteemers of beautie; a matter of important prejudice.  The pleasant dialogue of Plato the law-giver, with his citizens, will much honour this passage: "Why then,' say they, perceiving their end to approach, 'shall we not dispose of that which, is our owne towhom and according as we please?  O Gods, what cruelty is this?  That it shall not be lawfull for us to give or bequeath more or lesse, according to our fantasies, to such as have served us, and taken paines with us in our sicknesses, in our age, and in our business? To whom the law-giver answereth in this manner: 'My friends,' saith he, 'who doubtlesse shall shortly die, it is a hard matter for you both to know yourselves and what is your's according to the Delphike inscription: As for me, who am the maker of your lawes, I am of opinion that neither yourselves are your owne, nor that which you enjoy. {property+} And both you and your goods, past and to come, belong to your familie; and, moreover, both your families and your goods are the common_wealths+.  Wherefore, lest any flatterer, either in your age or in time of sickness, or any other passion, should unadvisedly induce you to make any unlawfull conveyance or unjust will and testament, I will looke to you and keepe you from it. But having an especiall respect both to the universall interest of your Citie, and particular state of your houses, I will establish lawes, and by reason make you perceive and confesse that a particular commoditie ought to yeeld to a publike benefit.  Follow that course meerely whereto humane necessitie doth call you.  To me it belongeth, who have no more regard to one thing than to another, and who, as much as I can, take care for the general, to 

have a regardful respect of that which you leave behind you.  But to return to my former discourse, me thinkes we seldome see that woman borne to whom the superioritie or majestie over men is due, except the motherly and naturall; unlesse it be for the chastisement of such as by some fond-febricitant humour have voluntarily submitted themselves unto them:  But that doth nothing concerne old women, of whom we speake here.  It is the apparence of this consideration hath made us to frame and willingly to establish this law (never seene elsewhere) that barreth women from the succession of this crowne, and there are few principalities in the world where it is not alleaged, as wel as here, by a likely and apparent reason, which authoriseth the same.  But fortune hath given more credit unto it in some places than in other some.  It is dangerous to leave the dispensation of our succession unto their judgement, according to the choyse they shall make of their children, which is most commonly unjust and fantasticall.  For the same unrulie appetite and distasted relish, or strange longings, which they have when they are great with child, the same have they at al times in their minds.  They are commonly seene to affect the weakest, the simplest and most abject, or such, if they have any, that had more need to sucke. For, wanting reasonable discourse to chuse, and embrace what they ought, they rather suffer themselves to be directed where nature's impressions are most single as other creatures, which take no longer knowledge of their yonng ones than they are sucking.  Moreover, experience doth manifestly shew unto us that the same naturall affection to which we ascribe so much authoritie, hath but a weake foundation.  For a very small gaine we daily take mothers owne children from them and induce them to take charge of ours.  Doe we not often procure them to bequeath their children to some fond, filthie, sluttish, and unhealthie nurce, to whom we would be very loth to commit ours, or to some brutish goat, not onely forbidding them to nurce and feed their owne children, what danger soever 

may betide them, but also to have any care of them, to the end they may the more diligently follow and carefully attend the service of ours? Whereby wee soone see through custome a certaine kinde of bastard affection to be engendered in them, more vehement than the naturall, and to be much more tender and carefull for the welfare and preservation of other men's children than for their owne.  And the reason why I have made mention of goats is, beeause it is an ordinarie thing round about me where I dwell to see the countrie women, when they have not milke enough to feed their infants with their owne breasts, to call for goats to helpe them.  And myselfe have now two lackies wayting on me, who except it were eight daies never suck't other milk than goats.  They are presently to come at call and give young infants sucke, and become so well acquainted with their voice that when they heare them crie they runne forthwith unto them.  And if by chance they have any other child put to their teats then their nurseling, they refuse and reject him, and so doth the child a strange goat.  Myselfe saw that one not long since, from whom the father tooke a goat, which he had sucked two or three daies, because he had but borrowed it of one of his neighbours, who could never be induced to sucke any other, whereby he shortly died, and, as I verily thinke, of meere hunger. {usthem+} Beasts, as well as we, doe soon alter, and easily bastardize their naturall affection. I believe that in that which Herodotus reporteth of a certaine province of Libia, their often followeth great error and- mistaking.  He saith that men doe indifferently use, and as it were in common frequent women, and that the childe, as soone as he is able to goe, comming to any solemne meetings and great assemblies, led by a naturall instinct, findeth out hes owne father; where being turned loose in the middest of the multitude, looke what man the childe: doth first addresse his steps unto, and then goe to him, the same is ever afterward reputed to be his right father. Now if we shall duly consider this simple occasion of loving our children, because we have 

begotten them, for which we mu them our other selves; it seemes there is another production coming from us, and which is of no lesse recommendation and consequence.  For what we engender by the minde, the fruits of our courage, sufficiencie, or spirit, are brought forth by a far more noble part than the corporall, and more our owne.  We are both father and mother together in this generation; such fruits cost us much dearer and bring us more honour, and chiefly if they have any good or rare thing in them.  For the value of our other children is much more theirs than ours.  The share we have in them is but little, but of these all the beautie, all the grace, and all the worth is ours.  And therefore do they represent and resemble us much more lively than others.  Plato addeth, moreover, that these are immortant issues, and immortalize their fathers, yea and desire them, as Licurgus, Solon, and Minos.  All histories being full of examples of this mutuall friendship of fathers toward their children, I have not thought it amisse to set downe some choice ones of this kinde.  Heliodorus, that good Bishop of Tricea, loved rather to lose the dignity, profit, and devotion of so venerable a prelateship than to forgoe his daughter, a young woman to this day commended for her beautie, but haply somewhat more curiously and wantonly pranked up than beseemed the daughter of a churchman and a Bishop, and of over-amorous behaviour.  There was one Labienus, in Rome, a man of great worth and authority, and amongst other commendable qualities, most excellent in all manner of learning, who, as I thinke, was the sonne of that great Labienus, chiefe of all the captaines that followed and were under Caesar in the warres against the Gaules, and who afterward taking great Pompey's part, behaved himselfe so valiantly and so constantly, that he never forsooke him untill Caesar defeated hm@ in Spaine.  This Labienus, of whom I spake, had many that envied his vertues: but above all, as it is likely, courtiers, and such as in his time were favored of the Emperors, who hated his franknesse,{PlainDealer+} his fatherly humors, and distaste he bare 

still against tyrannie, wherewith it may be supposed he had stuffed his bookes and compositions.  His adversaries vehemently pursued him before the magistrate of Rome, and prevailed so far that many of his works which he had published were condemned to be burned.  He was the first on whom this new example of punishment was put in practice, which after continued long in Rome, and executed on divers others, to punish learning, studies, and writings with death and consuming fire.  There were neither means enough, or matter sufficient of crueltie, unlesse we had entermingled among them things which nature hath exempted from all sense and sufferance, as reputation, and the inventions of our minde: and except we communicated corporall mischiefs unto disciplines and monuments of the muses.  Which losse Labienus could not endure, nor brooke to survive those his deare and highly-esteemed issues, and therefore caused himselfe to be carried, and shut up alive within his authors monument, where, with a dreadlesse resolution, he at once provided both to kill himselfe and be buried together.  It is hard to shew any more vehement fatherly affection than that.  Cassius Severus, a most eloquent man, and his familiar friend, seeing his bookes burnt, exclaimed, that by the same sentenee hee should therewithall be condemned to be burned alive, for hee still bare and kept in minde what they contained in them. A like accident happened to Geruntius Cordus, who was accused to have commended Brutus and Cassius in his bookes.  That base, senile, and corrupted Senate, and worthie of a farre worse master than Tiberius, adjudged his writings, to be consumed by fire; and he was pleased to accompany them in their death, for he pined away by abstaining from all manner of meat.  That notable man Lucane, being adjudged by that lewd varlet, Nero, to death, at the latter end of his life, when al his bloud was well-nigh spent from out the veins of his arme, which by his physician he had caused to be opened to hasten his death, and that a chilling cold began to seize the uttermost parts of his 

limbes, and approach his vital spirits, the last thing he had in memory was some of his owne verses, written in his booke of the Pharsalian warres, which with a distinct voice hee repeated, and so yeelded up the ghost, having those last words in his mouth.  What was that but a kinde, tender, and fatherly farewell which he tooke of his children? representing the last adiewes, and parting embracements, which at our death we give vnto our dearest issues?  And an effect of that naturall inclination, which in that last extremity puts us in minde of those things which in our life we have held dearest and most precious?  Shall we imagine that Epicurus, who (as himselfe said) dying tormented with the extreme paine of the chollik, had all his comfort in the beauty of the doctrine which he left behinde him in the world, would have received as much contentment of a number of well-borne and better-bred children (if he had had any) as he did of the production of his rich compositions?  And if it had beene in his choise, to leave behind him either a counterfeit, deformed, or ill-borne childe, or a foolish, triviall, and idle booke, not onely he, but all men in the world besides of like learning and sufficiency, would much rather have chosen to incurre the former than the latter mischiefe.  It might peradventure be deemed impiety in Saint Augustine (for example- sake) if on the one part one should propose unto him to bury all his bookes, whence our religion receiveth so much good, or to interre his children of in case he had any) that he would not rather chuse to bury his children, or the issue of his loynes, than the fruits of his minde.  And I wot not well, whether my selfe should not much rather desire to beget and produce a perfectly-well-shaped and excellently-qualited infant, by the acquaintance of the Muses than by the acquaintance of my wife.  Whatsoever I give to this, let the world allow of it as it please, I give it as purely and irrevocable as any man can give it to his corporall children.  That little good which I have done him is no longer in my disposition.  He may know many things that my selfe know no 

longer, and hold of me what I could not hold my selfe: and which (if need should require) I must borrow of him as of a stranger.  If I be wiser than be, he is richer than I.  There are few men given unto Poesie that would not esteeme it for a greater honour to be the fathers of Virgils AEneidos than of the goodliest boy in Rome, and that would not rather endure the losse of the one than the perishing of the other.  For, according to Aristotle, 'Of all workemen, the Poet is principally the most amorous of his productions and conceited of his Labours.  It is not easie to be beleeved that Epaminondas, who wanted to leave some daughters behind him, which unto all posterity, should one day highly honour their father (they were the two famous victories which be had gained of the Lacedemonians) would ever have given his free consent to change them with the best-borne, most gorgeous, and goodliest damsels of all Greece: or that Alexander and Caesar did ever wish to be deprived of the greatnesse of their glorious deeds of warre, for the commodity to have children and heires of their owne bodies, how absolutely-perfect and well accomplished so ever they might be.  Nay, I mahe a great question whether Phidias, or any other excellent Statuary, would as highly esteeme and dearely love the preservation and successfull continuance of his naturall children, as be would an exquisite and matchlesse-wrought Image, that with long study and diligent care he had perfected according unto art.  And as concerning those vicious and furious passions which sometimes have inflamed some fathers to the love of their daughters, or mothers towards their, sonnes, the very same and more partially-earnest is also found in this other kinde of childe-bearing and aliance.  Witnesse that which is reported of Pigmalion, who having curiously framed a goodly statue of a most singularly-beauteous woman, was so strange- fondly and passionately surprised with the lustfull love of his owne workmanship that the Gods through his raging importunity were faine in favour of him to give it life. 

Tentatum mollescit ebur, positogue rigore
Subsidit digitis./1

As he assaid it, th' ivory softned much,
And (hardnesse left) did yeeld to fingers touch.

OF THE PARTHIANS ARMES IT is a vitious, fond, fashion of the Nobility and Gentry of our age, and full of nice-tendernesse, never to betake themselves to armes, except upon some urgent and extreme necessitie: and to quit them as soone as they perceive the least hope or apparence that the danger is past; Whence ensue many disorders, and inconveniences:  For, every one running and calling for his armes when the alarum is given, some have not yet buckled their cuirace when their fellowes are already defeated.  Indeed our forefathers would have their Caske, Lance, Gantlets, and Shields carried, but so long as the service lasted, themselves would never leave-off their other peeces. Our troopes are now all confounded and disordered, by reason of bag and baggage, of carriages of lackies, and foot-boies, which because of their masters armes they carry, can never leave them.  Titus Livius, speaking of the French, saith, Intolerantissima laboris corpora vix arma humeris gerebant:  Their bodies most impatient of labour could hardly beare armour on their backes. /1 Divers Nations, as they did in former times, so yet at this day, are seene to goe to the warres, without any thing about them, or if they had, it was of no defence; but were all naked and bare.

Tegmina quas capitum raptus de subere cortex./2

Whose caske to cover all their head,
Was made of barke from Corke-tree flea'd.

that ever was, did very seldome arme himselfe:  And those which amongst us neglect them, doe not thereby much empaire their reputation.  If any man chance to be slaine for want of an armour, there are as many more that miscarry with the over-heavy burthen of their armes, and by them are engaged, and by a counterbutte are brused, or otherwise defeated.  For in truth to see the unweildy weight of our and their thicknesse, it seemeth we but endevour to defend our selves, and we are rather charged than covered by them.  We have enough to doe to endure the burthen of them, and are so engived and shackled in them, as if we were to fight but with the shocke or brunt of our armes, and as if we were as much bound to defend them as they to shield us. {Agincourt+} Cornelius Tacitus doth pleasantly quip and jest at the men of war of our ancient Gaules, so armed, only to maintaine themselves, as they that have no meane either to offend or to be offended, or to raise themselves being overthrowne.  Lucullus seeing certaine Median men at armes, which were in the front of Tigranes Army, heavily and unweildily armed, as in an iron prison, apprehended thereby an opinion that he might easily defeat them, and began to charge them first, and got the victory.  And now that our Muskettiers, are in such credit, I thinke we shall have some invention found to immure us up, that so we may be warranted from them, and to traine us to the warres in Skonces and Bastions, as those which our fathers caused to be carried by Elephants.  A humour farre different from that of Scipio the younger, who sharply reprooved his souldiers because thy had scattered certaine Calthrops under the water alongst a dike, by which those of the Towne that he had besieged might sally out upon him, saying, that those which assailed should resolve to enterprise and not to feare:  And had some reason to feare that this provision might secure and lull their vigilancy asleepe to guard themselves.  Moreover he said to a young man, that shewed him a faire shield he had, 'Indeed good youth, it is a faire one; but a Roman souldier ought to have more confidence in his 

right hand than in his left.  It is onely custome that makes the burthen of our armes intolerable unto us.

L'usbergo in dosso haveano, e l'elmo in testa,
Due di quelli guerrier dei quali io canto.
Ne notte o di dopo ch'entraro in questa
Stanza, gl'haveano mai messi da canto;
Che facile a portar come la resta
Era lor, perche in vso l'havean tanto.

Cuirasse on backe did those two warriors beare,
And caske on head, of whom I make report,
Nor day, nor night, after they entred there,
Had they them laid aside from their support
They could with ease them as a garment weare,
For long time had they usde them in such sort.

men far.  Marcellinus, a man well trained in the Roman wars, doth curiously observe the manner which the Parthians used to arme themselves, and noteth it so much the more by how much it was far different from the Romans.  They had (saith he) certaine armes so curiously enter-wrought as they seemed to be made like feathers, which nothing hindered the stirring of their, bodies and yet so strong, that our darts hitting them did rather rebound, or glance by, than hurt them (they be the scales our ancestors were so much wont to use).  In another place they had (saith he) their horses stiffe and strong, covered with thick hides, and themselves armed from head to foot with massie iron plates so artificially contrived that where the joynts are there they furthered the motion and helped the stirring.  A man would have said they had been men made of yron, for they had peeces so handsomly fitted, and so lively representing the forme and parts of the face, that there was no way to wound them but at certaine little holes before their eyes, which served to give them some light, and by certaine chinkes about their nostrils by which they hardly drew breath.

Flexilis inductis animator lamina nembris,
Horribilis visu, credas simulacra moveri
Ferrea, cognatoque viros spirare metallo.
Par vestitus equis, ferrata fronte minantur,
Ferratosque movent securi vulneris armos/1

The bending plate is hook't on limbes orespread,
Fearefull to fight, steele images seem'd lead,
And men to breathe in mettall with them bred,
Like furniture for horse, with steeled head,
They threat, and safe from wound,
With barr'd limbs tread the ground.

I MAKE no doubt but it shall often befall me to speake of things which are better, and with more truth, handled by such as are their crafts-masters. Here is simply an essay of my natural faculties, and no whit of those that I have acquired.  And he that shall task me with ignorance shall have no great victory at my hands; for hardly could I give others reasons for my discourses that give none unto my selfe, and am not well satisfied with them.  He that shall make search after knowledge, let him seek it where it is: there is nothing I professe lesse. {PlainDealer+} These are but my fantasies by which endevour not to make things known, but my selfe. They may haply one day be knowne unto me, or have bin at other times, according as fortune hath brought me where they were declared or manifested.  But I remember them no more.  And if I be a man of some reading, yet I am a man of no remembering.  I conceive no certainty, except it bee to give notice how farre the knowledge I have of it doth now reach.  Let no man busie himselfe about the matters, but on the fashion I give them.  Let that which I borrow be surveied, and then tell me whether I have made good choice of ornaments to beautifie and set foorth the invention which ever comes from mee.  For I make others to relate (not after mine owne fantastie, but as it best falleth out) what I cannot so well expresse either through unskill of language or want of judgement.  I number not my borrowings, but I weigh them. {ancients+} And if I would have made their number to prevail, I would have had twice as many.  They are
<Mont2-101> 

all, or almost all, of so famous and ancient names that me thinks they sufficiently name themselves without mee.  If in reasons, comparisons, and arguments, I transplant any into my soile, or confound them with mine owne, I purposely conceale the author, thereby to bridle the rashnesse of these hastie censures that are so headlong cast upon all manner of compositions, namely young writings of men yet living; and in vulgare that admit all the world to talke of them and which seemeth to convince the conception and publike designs alike.  I will have them to give Plutarch+ a bob upon mine own lips, and vex themselves in wronging Seneca+ in mee.  My weaknesse must be hidden under such great credits.  I will love him that shal trace or unfeather me; I meane through clearenesse of judgement, and by the onely distinction of the force and beautie of my discourses.  For my selfe, who for want of memorie am ever to seeke how to trie and refine them by the knowledge of their country, knowe perfectly, by measuring mine owne strength, that my soyle is no way capable of some over-pretious flowers that therein I find set, and that all the fruits of my increase could not make it amends. This am I bound to answer for if I hinder my selfe, if there be either vanitie or fault in my discourses that I perceive not or am not able to discerne if they be showed me.  For many faults do often escape our eyes; but the infirmitie of judgement consisteth in not being able to perceive them when another discovereth them unto us.  Knnowledge and truth may be in us without judgement, and we may have judgement without them yea, the acknowledgement of ignorance is one of the best and surest testimonies of judgement that I can finde. {Socrates+} {PlainDealer+} I have no other sergeant of band to marshal] my rapsodies than fortune.  And looke how my humours or conceits present themselves, so I shuffle them up.  Sometimes they prease thicke and three fold, and other times they come out languishing one by one.  I will have my naturall and ordinarie pace seen as loose and shuffling as it is.  As I am so go I on plodding.  And 

besides, these are matters that a man may not be ignorant of, and rashly and casually to speake of them.  I would wish to have a more perfect understanding of things, but I will not purchase it so deare as it cost.  My intention is to passe the remainder of my life quietly and not laboriously, in rest and not in care.  There is nothing I will trouble or vex myself about, no not for science it selfe, what esteeme soever it be of.  I doe not search and tosse over books but for an honester recreation to please, and pastime to delight my selfe: or if I studie, I only endevour to find out the knowledge that teacheth or handleth the knowledge of my selfe, and which may instruct me how to die_well+ and how to live well.

Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus./1

My horse must sweating runne,
That this goale may be wonne.

Greeke_books+, forasmuch as my understanding cannot well rid his worke with a childish and apprentise intelligence.  Amongst moderne bookes meerly pleasant, I esteeme Bocace+ his Decameron, Rabelais+, and the kisses of John the second (if they may be placed under this title), worth the paines-taking to reade them.  As for Amadis+ and such like trash of writings, they had never the credit so much as to allure my youth to delight in them.  This I will say more, either boldly or rashly that this old and beavie-pased minde of mine will no more be pleased with Aristotle+, or tickled with good Ovid+: his facility and quaint inventions, which heretofore have so ravished me, they can now a days scarcely entertaine me.  I speake my minde freely of all things, yea, of such as peradventure exceed my sufficiencie, and that no way I hold to be of my jurisdiction.  What my conceit is of them is told also to manifest the proportion of my insight, and not the measure of things.  If at any time I finde my selfe distasted of Platoes Axiochus, as of a forceles worke, due regard had to such an Author, my judgement doth nothing beleeve it selfe:  It is not so fond-hardy, or selfe-conceited, as it durst dare to oppose it selfe against the authority of so many other famous ancient judgements, which he reputeth his regents and masters, and with whom hee had rather erre.  He chafeth with, and condemneth himselfe, either to rely on the superficiall sense, being unable to pierce into the centre, or to view the thing by some false lustre.  He is pleased only to warrant himselfe from trouble and unrulinesse:  As for weaknesses he acknowledgeth and ingeniously avoweth the same.  He thinks to give a just interpretation to the apparences which his conception presents unto him, but they are shallow and imperfect.  Most of Aesopes+ fables have divers senses, and severall interpretations:  Those which inlythologize them, chose some kiude of colour well sutirig with the fable; but for the most part, it is no other than the firstand superficiall glosse:  There are others more quicke, more siniaowie, more essentiall, and more internall, into which they could 

never penetrate; and thus thinke I with them.  But to follow my course., I have ever deemed that in Poesie, Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Horace, doe doubtles by far hold the first ratike: and especially @ir@ in his Georgiks, which I esteeme to be the most accomplished peece of.worke of Poesie:  In comparison of which one may easily discerne, that there are some passages in the AEneidos to which the Author (had he lived) would no doubt have given some review or correction:  The fifth booke whereof is (in my minde) the most absolutely perfect.  I also love Lucan+, and willingly read him, not so much for his stile, as for his owne worth and truth of his opinion and judgement.
As for good Terence, I allow the quaintnesse and grace of his Latine tongue, and judge him wonderfull conceited and apt, lively to represent the motions and passions of the minde, and the condition of our manners: our actions make me often remember him.  I can never reade him so often but still I discover some new grace and beautie in him.  Those that lived about Virgil's time, complained that some would compare Lucretius unto him.  I am of opinion that verily it is an unequall comparison; yet can I hardly assure my seffe in this opinion whensoever I finde my selfe entangled in some notable passage of Lucretius.  If they were moved at this comparison, what would they say now of the fond, hardy and barbarous stupiditie of those which now adayes compare Ariosto unto him?  Nay, what would Ariosto say of it himselfe?

O seclum insipiens et infacetum.

O age that hath no wit,
And small conceit in it.

Terence, that the father of the Roman eloquence, of men of his quality doth so often make mention of him; and the censure which the chiefs Judge of the Roman Poets giveth of his companion.  It hath often come unto my minde, how such as in our dayes give themselves to composing of comedies (as the Italians who are very happy in them) employ three or foure arguments of Terence and Plautus to nake up one of theirs.  In one onely comedy they will huddle up five or six of Bocaces tales.  That which makes them so to charge themselves with matter, is the distrust they have of their owne sufficiency, and that they are not able to undergoe so heavie a burthen with their owne strength.  They are forced to finde a body on which they may rely and leane themselves: and wanting matter of their owne wherewith to please us, they will have the story or tale to busie and ammuse us: where as in my Authors it is cleane contrary:  The elegancies, the perfections and ornaments of his manner of speech, make us neglect and lose the longing for his subject.  His quaintnesse and grace doe still retaine us to him. He is every where pleasantly conceited,

Liquidus puroque simillimus amni,/1

So clearely-neate, so neately-cleare,
As he a fine-pure River were,

Epigrams, than all the sharpe quips and witty girds wherewith Martiall doth whet and embellish the conclusions of his.  It is the same reason I spake of erewhile, as Martiall of himselfe.  Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit, in cuius locum materia successerat:/1  'He needed the less worke with his wit, in place whereof matter came in supply.' The former without being moved or pricked cause themselves to be beard lowd enough: they have matter to laugh at every where, and need not tickle themselves; where as these must have foraine helpe: according as they have lesse spirit, they must have more body.  They leape on horse- backe, because they are not sufficiently strong in their legs to march on foot.  Even as in our dances, those base conditioned men that keepe dancing schooles, because they are unfit to represent the port and decencie of our nobilitie, endevour to get commendation by dangerous lofty trickes, and other strange tumbler-like friskes and motions.  And some Ladies make a better shew of their countenances in those dances, wherein are divers changes, cuttings, turnings, and agitations of the body, than in some dances of state and gravity, where they need but simply to tread a naturall, measure, represent an unaffected cariage, and their ordinary grace; And as I have also seene some excellent Lourdans, or Clownes, attired in their ordinary workyday clothes, and with a common homely countenance, affoord us all the pleasure that may be had from their art: but prentises and learners that are not of so high a forme, besmeare their faces, to disguise themselves, and in motions counterfeit strange visages and antickes, to enduce us to laughter.  This my conception is no where better discerned than in the comparison betweene Virgils AEneidos and Orlando Furioso.  The first is seene to soare aloft with full-spread wings, and with so high and strong a pitch, ever following his point; the other faintly to hover and flatter from tale to tale, and as it were skipping from bough to bough, alwayes distrusting his owne wings, except it be for some short
-----
1 MART.  Praef. 1. viii. 

flight, and for feare his strength and breath should faile him, to sit downe at every fields-end;

Excursusque breves tentat./1

Out-lopes sometimes he doth assay,
But very short, and as he may.

common use, but in my conceit more proper particular, and more solid. It appeareth in Seneca that he somewhat inclineth and yeeldeth to the tyrannie of the Emperors which were in his daies; for I verily believe, it is with a forced judgement he condemneth the cause of those noblie-minded murtherers of Caesar; {Brutus+} Plutarke is every where free and open hearted; Seneca fullfraught with points and sallies; Plutarke stuft with matters.  The former doth move and enflame you more; the latter content, please, and pay you better:  This doth guide you, the other drive you on!  As for Cicero, of all his works, those that treat of Philosophie (namely morall) are they which best serve my turne, and square with my intent.  But boldly to confess the truth (for, since the bars of impudencie were broken downe, all curbing is taken away), his manner of writing seemeth verie tedious unto me, as doth all such like stuffe.  For his prefaces, definitions, divisions, and Etymologies consume the greatest part of his works; whatsoever quick, wittie, and pithie conceit is in him is surcharged and confounded by those his long and far-fetcht preambles.  If I bestow but one hour in reading them, which is much for me, and let me call to minde what substance or juice I have drawne from him, for the most part I find nothing but wind and ostentation in him; for he is not yet come to the arguments which make for his purpose, and reasons that concerne the knot or pith I seek after.  These Logicall and Aristotelian ordinances are not availfull for me who onely endeavour to become more wise and sufficient and not more wittie or eloquent.  I would have one begin with the last point; I understand sufficiently what death and voluptuousuesse are: let not a man busie himselfe to anatomize them. At the first reading of a booke I seeke for good and solid reasons that may instruct me how to sustaine their assaults.  It is neither grammaticall subtilties or logicall quiddities, nor the wittie contexture of choice words or arguments and syllogismes, that will serve my turne. {PlainDealer+} I like those discourses that give the first charge to the strongest part of the doubt; 

his are but flourishes, and languish everywhere.  They are good for schooles, at the barre, or for Orators and Preachers, where we may slumber: and though we wake a quarter of an houre after, we may finde and trace him soone enough. Such a manner of speech is fit for those judges that a man would corrupt by hooke or crooke, by right or wrong, or for children and the common people, unto whom a man must tell all, and see what the event would be.  I would not have a man go about and labour by circumlocutions to induce and winne me to attention, and that (as our Heralds or Criers do) they shall ring out their words:  Now heare me, now listen, or ho-yes.  The Romanes in their religion were went to say, 'Hoc age;' which in ours we say, 'Sursum corda. There are so many lost words for me.  I come readie prepared from my house. I neede no allurement nor sawce, my stomacke is good enough to digest raw meat:  And whereas with these preparatives and flourishes, or preambles, they thinke to sharpen my taste or stir my stomacke, they cloy and make it wallowish.  Shall the privilege of times excuse me from this sacrilegious boldnesse, to deeme Platoes Dialogismes to be as languishing, by overfilling and stuffing his matter?  And to bewaile the time that a man who had so many thousands of things to utter, spends about so many, so long, so vaine, and idle interlocutions, and preparatives?  My ignorance shall better - excus me, in that I see nothing in the beautie of his language.  I generally enquire after bookes that use sciences, and not after such as institute them.  The two first, and Plinie, with others of their ranke, have no Hoc age in them, they will have to doe with men that have forewarned themselves; or if they have, it is a materiall and substantiall Hoc age, and that hath his bodie apart.  I likewise love to read the Epistles and ad Atticum, not onely because they contains a most ample instruction of the historic and affaires of his times, but much more because in them I descrie his private humours.  For (as I have said elsewhere) I am wonderfull curious to discover and know the minde, the soul the genuine 

disposition and naturall judgement of my authors.  A man ought to judge their sufficiencie and not their customes, nor them by the show of their writings, which they set forth on this world's theatre.  I have sorrowed a thousand times that ever we lost the booke that Brutus+ writ of Vertue. Oh it is a goodly thing to learne the Theorike of such as understand the practice well.  But forsomuch as the Sermon is one thing and the Preacher an other, I love as much to see Brutus in Plutarke+ as in himself:  I would rather make choice to know certainly what talk he had in his tent with some of his familiar friends, the night fore-going the battell, than the speech he made the morrow after to his Armie and what he did in his chamber or closet, than what in the senate or market place.  As for Cicero+, I am of the common judgement, that besides learning there was no exquisite eloquence in him:  He was a good citizen, of an honest, gentle nature, as are commonly fat and burly men: for so was he:  But to speake truly of him, full of ambitious vanity and remisse niceness.  And I know not well how to excuse him, in that be deemed his Poesie worthy to be published.  It is no great imperfection to make bad verses, but it is an imperfection in him that he never perceived how unworthy they were of the glorie of his name.  Concerning his eloquence, it is beyond all comparison, and I verily beleeve that none shall ever equall it.  Cicero the younger, who resembled his father in nothing but in name, commanding in Asia, chanced one day to have many strangers at his board, and amongst others, one Caestius sitting at the lower end, as the manner is to thrust in at great mens tables:  Cicero inquired of one of his men what he was, who told him his name, but he dreaming on other matters, and having forgotten what answere his man made him, asked him his name twice or thrice more: the servant, because he would not be troubled to tell him one thing so often, and by some circumstance to make him to know him better, 'It is,' said he, 'the same Caestius of whom some have told you that, in respect of his owne, maketh no accompt of your fathers eloquence:' 

Cicero being suddainly mooved, commanded the said Caestius to be presently taken from the table, and well whipped in his presence:  Lo heere an uncivill and barbarous host.  Even amongst those which (all things considered) have deemed his eloquence matchlesse and incomparable, others there have been who have not spared to note some faults in it.  As great Brutus+ said, that it was an eloquence broken, halting, and disjoynted, fractam et elumbem. 'Incoherent and sinnnowlesse.  Those Orators that lived about his age, reproved also in him the curious care he had of a certaine long cadence at the end of his clauses, and noted these words, esse videatur, which he so often useth.  As for me, I rather like a cadence that falleth shorter, cut like Iambikes: yet doth he sometimes confounde his numbers, but it is seldome: I have especially observed this one place;
Ego vero me minus diu senem esse mallem, quam esse senem, antequam essem:/1  'But I had ather not be an old man, so long as I might be, than to be old before I should be.'    Historians are my right hand, for they are pleasant and easie; and therewithall the man with whom I desire generally to be acquainted may more lively and perfectly be discovered in them than in any other composition: the varietie and truth of his inward conditions, in grosse and by retale: the diversitie of the meanes of his collection and composing, and of the accidents that threaten him.  Now those that write of mens lives, forasmuch as they ammuse and busie themselves more about counsels than events, more about that which commeth from within than that which appeareth outward; they are fittest for me: And that's the reason why Plutarke above all in that kind doth best please me.  Indeed I am not a little grieved that we have not a dozen of Laertius, or that be is not more knowne, or better understood; for I am no lesse curious to know the fortunes and lives of these great masters of the world than to understand the diversitie of their decrees and conceits.  In this kind of studie of historie a man must, without distinction, tosse and - ---- CIC.  De Senect. 

turne over all sorts of Authors, both old and new, both French and others, if he will learne the things they so diversly treat of.  But me thinkes that Caesar+ above all doth singularly deserve to be studied, not onely for the understanding of the historie as of himselfe; so much perfection and excellencie is there in him more than in others, although Salust be reckoned one of the number.  Verily I read that author with a little more reverence and respects than commonly men reade profane and humane Workes: sometimes considering him by his actions and wonders of his greatnesse, and other times waighing the puritie and inimitable polishing and elegancie of his tongue, which (as Cicero saith) hath not onely exceeded all historians, but haply Cicero+ himselfe: with such sinceritie in his judgement, speaking of his enemies, that except the false colours wherewith he goeth about to cloakebis bad cause, and the corruption and filthinesse of his pestilent ambition, I am perswaded there is nothing in him to be found fault with: and that he hath been over-sparing to speake of himselfe; for so many notable and great things could never be executed by him, unlesse he bad put more of his owne into them than be setteth downe.  I love those Historians that a-re either very simple or most excellent.  The simple who have nothing of their owne to adde unto the storie and have but the care and diligence to collect whatsoever come to their knowledge, and sincerely and faithfully to register all things, without choice or culling, by the naked truth leave our judgment more entire and better satisfied.  Such amongst others (for examples sake) plaine and well-meaning Froissard+, who in his enterprise hath marched with so free and genuine a puritie, that having committed some oversight, he is neither ashamed to acknowledge nor afraid to correct the same, wheresoever h hath either notice or warning of it: and who representeth unto us the diversitie of the newes then current and the diferent reports that were made unto him.  The subject of an historie should be naked, bare, and formelesse; each man according to his capacitie or 

understanding may reap commoditie out of it.  The curious and most excellent have the sufficiencie to cull and chuse that which is worthie to be knowne and may select of two relations that which is most likely: from the condition of Princes and of their humours, they conclude their counsels and attribute fit words to them: they assume a just authoritie and bind our faith to theirs.  But truly that belongs not to many.  Such as are betweene both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and encline the storie according to their fantasie; for, where the judgement bendeth one way, a man cannot chose but wrest and turne his narration that way.  They undertake to chuse things worthy to bee knowne, and now and then conceal either a word or a secret action from us, which would much better instruct us: omitting such things as they understand not as incredible: and haply such matters as they know not how to declare either in good Latin or tolerable French.  Let them boldly enstall their eloquence and discourse:  Let them censure at their pleasure, but let them also give us leave to judge after them:  And let them neither alter nor dispense by their abridgements and choice anything belonging to the substance of the matter; but let them rather send it pure and entire with all her dimensions unto us.  Most commonly (as chiefly in our age) this charge of writing histories is committed unto base, ignorant, and mechanicall kind of people, only for this consideration that they can speake well; as if we sought to learne the Grammer of them; and they have some reason, being only hired to that end, and publishing nothing but their tittle-tattle to aime at nothing else so much.  Thus with store of choice and quaint words, and wyre drawne phrases, they huddle up and make a hodge-pot of a laboured contexture of the reports which they gather in the market places or such other assemblies.  The only good histories are those that are written by such as commanded or were 

imploied themselves in weighty affaires or that were partners in the conduct of them, or that at least have had the fortune to manage others of like qualitie.  Such in a manner are all the Graecians and Romans.  For many eyewitness having written of one same subject it hapned in those times when Greatnesse and Knowledge did commonly meet) if any fault or oversight have past them, it must be deemed exceeding light and upon some doubtfull accident.  What may a man expect at a Phisitians hand that discourseth of warre, or of a bare Scholler treating of Princes secret designes?  If we shall but note the religion which the Romans had in that, wee need no other example:  Asinus Pollio found some mistaking or or oversight in Caesars Commentaries, whereinto he was faine, only because he could not possiblie oversee all things with his owne eyes that hapned in his Armie, but was faine to rely on the reports of particular men, who often related untruths unto him; or else because he had not been curiously advertised and distinctly enformed by his Lieutenants and Captaines of such matters as they in his absence had managed or affected.  Whereby may be seen that nothing is so hard or so uncertaine to be found out as the certaintie of the truth, sithence no man can put any assured confidence concerning the truth of a battel, neither in the knowledge of him that was Generall or commanded over it, nor in the soldiers that fought, of anything that hath hapned amongst them; except after the manner of a strict point of law, the severall witnesses are brought and examined face to face, and that all matters be nicely and thorowly sifted by the objects and trials of the successe of every accident. Verily the knowledge we have of our owne affaires is much more barren and feeble.  But this hath sufficiently been handled by Bodin, and agreeing with my conception.  Somewhat to aid the weaknesse of my memorie and to assist her great defects; for it hath often been my chance to light upon bookes which I supposed to be new and never to have read, which I had not understanding diligently read and ran over 

many years before, and all bescribled with my notes:  I have a while since accustomed my selfe to note at the end of my booke (I meane such as I purpose to read but once) the time I made an end to read it, and to set downe what censure or judgement I gave of it; that so it may at least at another time represent unto my mind the aire and generall idea I bad conceived of the author in reading him.  I will here set downe the Copie of some of my annotations, and especially what I noted upon my Guicciardine about ten yeares since (For what language soever my books speake unto me I speake unto them in mine owne.) He is a diligent Historiographer and from whom in my conceit a man may as exactly learne the truth of such affaires as passed in his time, as of any other writer whatsoever and the rather because himselfe hath been an Actor of most part of them and in verie honourable place.  There is no signe or apparance that ever be disguised or coloured any matter, either through hatred, malice, favour, or vanitie; whereof the free and impartiall judgements he giveth of great men, and namely of those by whom he had been advanced or imployed in his important charges, as of Pope Clement the seaventh, beareth undoubted testimony.  Concerning the parts wherein be most goeth about to prevaile, which are his digressions and discourses, many of them are verie excellent and enriched with faire ornaments, but he hath too much pleased himselfe in them: for endeavouring to omit nothing that might be spoken, having so full and large a subject, and almost infinite, he proveth somewhat languishing, and giveth a taste of a kind of scholasticall tedious babling.  Moreover, I have noted this, that of so severall and divers armes, successes, and effects he judgeth of; of so many and variable motives, alterations, and counsels, that be relateth, he never referreth any one unto vertue, religion, or conscience as if they were all extinguished and banished the world: {morality_of_history+} and of all actions how glorious soever in apparance they be of themselves, he doth ever impute the cause of them to some vicious and blame-worthie 

occasion, or to some commoditie and profit.  It is impossible to imagine that amongst so infinite a number of actions whereof he judgeth, some one have not been produced and compassed by way of reason.  No corruption could ever possesse men so universally but that some one must of necessity escape the contagion; which makes me to feare he hath had some distaste or blame in his passion, and it hath haply fortuned that he hath judged or esteemed of others according to himselfe.  In my Philip de Comines there is this: In him you shall find a pleasing-sweet and gently-gliding speech, fraught with a purely sincere simplicitie, his narration pure and unaffected, and wherein the Authours unspotted good meaning doth evidently appeare, void of all manner of vanitie or ostentation speaking of himselfe, and free from all afection or envie-speaking of others; his discourses and perswasions accompanied more with a well-meaning zeale and meere veritie than with any laboured and exquisite sufficiencie, and allthrough with gravitie and authoritie, representing a man well-borne and brought up in high negotiations. Upon the menioires and historie of Monsieur du Bellay.  It is ever a well-pleasing thing to see matters written by those that have assaid how and in what manner they ought to be directed and managed: yet can it not be denied but that in both these Lords there will manifestly appeare a great declination from a free libertie of writing, which clearely shineth in ancient writers of their kind: as in the Lord of Iouinille, familiar unto Saint Lewis; Eginard, Chancellor unto Charlemaine; and of more fresh memorie in Philip de Comines.  This is rather a declamation or pleading for king Francis against the Emperour Charles the fifth, than an Historie.  I will not beleeve they have altered or changed any thing concerning the generalitie of matters, but rather to wrest and turne the judgement of the events many times against reason, to our advantage, and to omit whatsoever they supposed to be doubtful or ticklish in their masters life: they have made a business of it: witnesse the recoylings of the 

Lords of Momorancy and Byron, which therein are forgotten; and which is more, you shall not so much as find the name of the Ladie of Estampes mentioned at all.  A man may sometimes colour and haply hide secret actions, but absolutely to conceal that which all the world knoweth, and especially such things as have drawne-on publike effects, and of such consequence, it is an inexcusable defect, or as I may say unpardonable oversight.  To conclude, whosoever desireth to have perfect information and knowledge of king Francis the first, and of the things hapned in his time, let him addresse himselfe elsewhere if he will give any credit unto me.  The profit he may reap here is by the particular description of the battels and exploits of warre wherein these gentlemen were present; some privie conferences, speeches, or secret actions of some princes that then lived, and the practices managed, or negotiations directed by the Lord of Langeay, in which doubtless are verie many things well worthy to be knowne, and diverse discourses not vulgare. 

METHINKS Virtue+ is another manner of thing, and much more noble than the inclinations unto Goodnesse, which in us are engendered.  Mindes wellborne, and directed by themselves, follow one same path, and in their actions represent the same visage that the vertuous doe.  But Vertue importeth and soundeth somewhat I wot not what greater and more active than by an happy complexion, gently and peaceably, to suffer itself to be led or drawne to follow reason.  He that through a naturall facilitie and genuine mildnesse should neglect or contemne injuries received, should no doubt performe a rare action, and worthy commendation: but he who being toucht and stung lo the quicke with any wrong or offence received, should arme himselfe with reason against this furiously blind desire of revenge, and in the end after a great conflict yeeld himselfe master over it, should doubtlesse doe much more.  The first should doe well, the other vertuously: the one action might be termed Goodnesse, the other Vertue.  For it seemeth that the very name of Vertue presupposeth difficulties and inferreth resistance, and cannot well exercise itselfe without an eneniie.  It is peradventure the reason why we call God good, mightie, liberall, and just, but we term him not vertuous.  His workes are all voluntarie, unforced, and without compulsion.  Of Philosophers, not only Stoicks, but also Epicureans (which phrasing I borrow of the common received opinion, which is false, whatsoever the nimble saying or wittie quipping of Arcesilaus implied, who answered the man that upbraided him, how divers men went from his schoole to the Epicureans, but none came
<Mont2-119>

from thence to him:  I easily beleeve it (said he) for of cocks are many capons made, but no man could ever make a cock of a capon.  For truly in constancie opinion and strictnesse of precepts, the Epicurean_sect+ doth in no sort yeeld to the Stoicke+.  And a Stoike acknowledging a better faith than those disputers who, to contend with Epicurus and make sport with him, make him to infer and say what he never meant, wresting and wyre-drawing his words to a contrarie sense, arguing and silogizing, by the grammarians privilege, another meaning, by the manner of his speech and another opinion than that they knew he had either in his minde or manners, saith that he left to be an Epicurean for this one consideration amongst others, that he findeth their pitch to be over high and inaccessible:

Et ii qui otzOovot vocantur, sunt pt

JwaXOL et OiXo8imatot omnesque virtutes et colunt et retinent:/1

the peevish frowardnesse of his wife, than which no essay can be more vexfull, and is a continuall fighting at the sharpe.  Metellus of all the Roman senators he onely having undertaken with the power of vertue, to endure the violence of Saturninus Tribune of the people in Rome, who by maine force went about to have a most unjust law passe in favour of the Communaltie: by which opposition, having incurred all the capital paines that Saturninus had imposed on such as should refuse it, entertained those that led him to the place of execution, with such speeches:  That to doe evill was a thing verie easie, and too demissely base, and to doe well where was no danger, was a common thing, but to doe well where was both perill and opposition, was the peculiar office of a man of vertue. {Kent+} These words of Metellus doe clearly represent unto us what I would have verified ; which is, that vertue rejecteth facilitie to be her companion: And that an easefull, pleasant, and declining way by which the regular steps of a good inclination of nature are directed is not the way of true vertue.  She requireth a craggie, rough, and thornie way. {Donne+} She would either have strange difficulties to wrestle withall (as that of Metellus) by whose meanes fortune her selfe is pleased to breake the roughnesse of his course; or such inward incombrances as the disordinate appetites and imperfections of our condition bring unto her.  Hitherto I have come at good ease; but at the end of this discourse one thing commeth into my minde, which is that the soule of Socrates+, which is absolute the perfectest that ever came to my knowledge, would, according to my accompt, prove a soule deserving but little commendation:  For I can conceive no manner of violence or vicious concupiscence in him:  I can imagine no manner of difficultie or compulsion in the whole course of his vertue.  I know his reason so powerfull, and so absolute mistress over him, that she can never give him way in any vicious desire, and will not suffer it so much as to breed in him.  To a vertue so exquisite and so high raised as his is, I can perswade nothing. Me thinks I see it march with a victorious 

and triumphant pace, in pompe and at ease, without let or disturbance. If vertue cannot shine but by resisting contrarie appetites, shall we then say it cannot passe without the assistance of vice, and oweth him this, that by his meanes it attaineth to honour and credit?  What should also betide of that glorious and generous Epicurean voluptuousnesse that makes accompt effeminately to pamper vertue in her lap, and there wantonly to entertains it, allowing it for her recreation, shame, reproch, agues, povertie, death, and tortures? if I presuppose that perfect vertue is knowne by combating sorrow and patiently undergoing paine, by tolerating the fits and agonies of the gout, without stirring out of his place; if for a necessarie object I appoint her sharpnesse and difficultie, what shall become of that vertue which hath attained so high a degree, as it doth not only despise all manner of paine, but rather rejoyceth at it, and when a strong fit of the collike shall assaile it, to cause it selfe to be tickled, as that is which the Epicureans have established, and whereof divers amongst them have by their actions left most certaine proofes unto us?  As also others have, whom ill effect finde to have exceeded the verie rules of their discipline; witnesseCato+ the younger; when I see him die, tearing and mangling his entrails, I cannot simply content my selfe to beleeve that at that time he had his soule wholly exempted from all trouble or free from vexation:  I cannot imagine be did only maintaine himselfe in this march or course which the rule of the Stoike sect had ordained unto him, setled, without alteration or emotion, and impassible.  There was, in my conceit, in this mans vertue overmuch cheerefulnesse and youthfulnesse to stay there.  I verily beleeve he felt a kind of pleasure and sensualitie in so noble an action, and that therein he more pleased himself than in any other be ever performed in his life.  Sic abiit e vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet:/1 'So departed be his life, that he rejoiced to have found an occasion of death.' I doe so constantly beleeve it,
-----
1 CIC.  Tusc.  Qu. 1. i. 

that I make a doubt whether be would have had the occasion of so noble an exploit taken from him.  And if the goodnesse which induced him to embrace publike commodities more than his owne did not bridle me, I should easily fall into this opinion, that he thought himselfe greatly beholding unto fortune to have put his vertue unto so noble a triall, and to have favoured that robber to tread the ancient libertie of his countrie under foot.  In which action me thinks I read a kinde of unspeakable joy in his minde, and a motion of extraordinary pleasure, joined to a manlike voluptuonsnesse, at what time it beheld the worthinesse, and considered the generositie and haughtinesse of his enterprise,

Deliberata morte ferocior/1

Then most in fiercenesse did he passe,
When he of death resolved was,

death+ should be such as the life hath been.  By dying we become no other than we were.  I ever interpret a mans death by his life.  And if a man shall tell me of any one undanted in apparance, joyned unto a weake life; I imagine it to proceed of some weake cause, and sutable to his life.  The ease therefore of his death, and the facilitie he had acquired by the vigor of his minde, shall we say, it ought to abate something of the lustre of his vertue? And which of those that have their spirits touched, be it never so little, with the true tincture of Philosophie, can content himselfe to imagine Socrates, onely, free from feare and passion, in the accident of his imprisonment, of his fetters, and of his condemnation?  And who doth not perceive in him, not onely constancie+ and resolution (which were ever his ordinarie qualities) but also a kinde of I wot not what new contentment, and carelesse rejoycing in his last behaviour, and discourses?  By the startling at the pleasure, which he feeleth in clawing of his legges, after his fetters were taken-off; doth he not manifestly declare an equal glee and joy in his soule for being rid of his former incommodities, and entering into the knowledge of things to come?  Cato shall pardon me (if he please) his death is more tragicall, and further extended, whereas this in a certaine manner is more faire and glorious.  Aristippus answered those that bewailed the same, 'When I die, I pray the Gods send me such a death.  A man shall plainly perceive in the minds of these two men, and of such as imitate them (for I make a question whether ever they could be matched) so perfect an habitude unto vertue, that it was even converted into their complexion.  It is no longer a painefull vertue, nor by the ordinances of reason, for the maintaining of which their minde must be strengthened:  It is the verie essence of their soule; it is her naturall and ordinarie habit.  They have made it such, by a long exercise and observing the rules and precepts of Philosophic, having lighted upon a faire and rich nature.  Those vicious passions which breed in us finde no entrance in them.  The vigor and con- 

stancie of their soules, doth suppresse and extinguish all manner of concupiscences so soone as they but begin to move.  Now that it be not more glorious, by an undaunted and divine resolution, to hinder the growth of temptations, and for a man to frame himselfe to vertue, so that the verie seeds of vice be cleane rooted out; than by mayne force to hinder their progresse; and having suffred himselfe to be surprised by the first assaults of passions, to arme and bandie himselfe, to stay their course and to suppresse them:  And that this second effect be not also much fairer than to be simply stored with a facile and gentle nature, and of it selfe distasted and in dislike with licentiousnesse and vice, I am perswaded there is no doubt. For this third and last manner seemeth in some sort to make a man innocent, but not vertuous: free from doing ill, but not sufficiently apt to doe well.  Seeing this condition is so neere unto imperfection and weaknesses that I know not well how to cleare their confines and distinctions.  The verie names of goodnesse and innocencie, are for this respect in some sort names of contempt.  I see that many vertues, as chastitie, sobrietie, and temperance, may come unto us by meanes of corporall defects and imbecilities. Constancie in dangers (if it may be termed constancie) contempt of death, patiencie in misfortunes, may happen and are often seen in men, for want of good judgeent in such accidents, and that they are not apprehended for such as they are indeed.  Lacke of apprehension and stupiditie counterfeit vertuous effects.  As I have often seen come to passe, that some men arc commended for things they rather deserve to be blamed.  An Italian gentleman did once hold this position in my presence, to the prejudice and disadvantage of his nation; That the subtiltie of the Italians, and the vivacitie of their conceptions was so great that they foresaw such dangers and accidents as might betide them so far-off that it was not to be deemed strange if in times of warre they were often seene to provide for their safetie, yea, before they had perceived the danger:  That we and the 

Spaniards, who were not so warie and subtill, went further; and that before we could be frighted with any perill, we must be induced to see it with our eyes, and feel it with our hands, and that even then we had no more hold:  But that the Germanes and Switzers, more shallow and leaden-headed, had scarce the sense and wit to re-advise themselves, at what times they were even overwhelmed with miserie, and the axe readie to fall on their heads.  It was peradventure but in jest that be spake-it, yet is it most true that in the art of warre-fare new trained souldlers, and such as are but novices in the trade, doe often headlong and hand over head cast themselves into dangers, with more inconsideration than afterward when they have seene and endured the first shocks, and are better trained in the schoole of perils.

      ------ haud iqnarus, quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et praedulce decus primo certamine possit.

Not ignorant, how much in armes new praise,
And sweetest honour, in first conflict weighes.

have gon hard with me: for, I could never perceive any great constancie in my soule, to resist and undergoe passions, had they been any thing violent. I cannot foster quarels, or endure contentions in my house.  So am I not greatly beholding unto my selfe, in that I am exempted from many vices:

      ------ si vitiis mediocribus, et mea paucis
Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si
Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos./1

If in a few more faults my nature faile,
Right otherwise: as if that you would raile
On prettie moles well placed,
On bodie seemely graced:

Seu Libra, seu me Scorpius aspicit
Formidolosus, pars violentior
Natalis horae, seu tyrannus
Hesperiae Capricornus undae/2

Whether the chiefe part of my birth-houre were
Ascendent Libra, or Scorpius full of feare,
Or in my Horoseope were Capricorne,
Whose tyrannie neere westerne seas is borne:

could ever make me alter the same: no, not mine owne discourses, which, because they have been somewhat lavish in noting or taxing something of the common course, could easily induce me to some actions which this my naturall inclination makes me to hate.  I will tell you a wonder, I will tell it you indeed:  I thereby find in many things more stay and order in my manners than in my opinion: and my concupiscence lesse debauched than my reason.  Aristippus established certaine opinions so bold, in favour of voluptuousnesse and riches, that he made all Philosophie to mutinie against him.  But concerning his manners, Dionysius the tyrant, having presented him with three faire young wenches, that he might chuse the fairest, he answered he would chuse them all three, and that Paris had verie ill successes forsomuch as be had preferred one above her fellowes.  But they being brought to his owne house, he sent them backe againe, without tasting them.  His servant one day carrying store of money after him, and being so overcharged with the weight of it that he complained, his master commanded him to cast so much thereof away as troubled him.  And Epicurus, whose positions are irreligious and delicate, demeaned himselfe in his life very laboriously and devoutly.  He wrote to a friend of his, that he lived but with browne bread and water, and entreated him to send him a piece of cheese, against the time he was to make a solemne feast.  May it be true, that to be perfectly good we must be so by an hidden, naturall, and universall proprietie, without law, reason, and example?  The disorders and excesses wherein I have found my selfe engaged are not (God be thanked) of the worst.  I have rejected and condemned them in my selfe, according to their worth; for my judgement was never found to be infected by them.  And on the other side, I accuse them more rigorously in my selfe than in another.  But that is all: as for the rest, I applie but little resistance unto them, and suffer my selfe over-easily to encline to the other side of the ballance, except it be to order and empeach them from being 

commixt with others, which (if a man take not good heed unto himselfe) for the most part entertaine and enterchaine themselves the one with the other.  As for mine, I have, as much as it hath laine in my power, abridged them, and kept them as single and as alone as I could:

     -----nec ultra,
Errorem foveo/1

Nor doe I cherish any more,
The error which I bred before.

by any apprentiship.  The innocericie that is in me is nde of simple-plaine innocencie, ivitbout vigor or art.  Amongst all other vices, there is none I hate more than Crueltie, both by nature and judgement, as the extremist of all vices. {Prospero+} But it is with such an yearning and faint-hartednesse, that if I see but a chickins necke puld off, or a pigge stickt, I cannot chuse but grieve, and I cannot well endure a seelie dewbedabled hare to groane when she is seized upon by the houndes, although hunting be a violent pleasure.  Those that are to withstand voluptuousnesse doe willingly use this argument, to shew it is altogether vicious and unreasonable:  That where she is in her greatest prime and chiefe strength, she doth so over-sway us, that reason can have no accesse unto us, and for a further triall, alleage the experience wee feel and have of it in our acquaintance with women.

      ------cum iam praesagit gaudia corpus
Atque in eo est Venus, ut muliebria conserat arva./1

When now the bodie doth light-joyes fore-know,
And Venus set the womans fields to sow.

a man to weare out a whole night, in all opportunitie and libertie, in companie of a faire mistresses long time before sued-unto, and by him desired; religiously keeping his word, if be have engaged himselfe, to be contented with simple kisses and plaine touching.  I am of opinion that the example of the sport in hunting would more fit the same: wherein as there is lesse pleasure, so there is more distraction and surprising, whereby our reason being amazed, looseth the leasure to prepare her selfe against it: when as after a long game, the beast doth suddenly start, or rowse up before us, and haply in such a place where we least expected the same. That suddaine motion and the earnestnesse of showting, jubeting and hallowing, still ringing in our eares, would make it verie hard for those who love that kind of close or chamber-hunting, at that verie instant, to withdraw their thoughts elsewhere.  And poets make Diana victoriously to triumph both over the firebrand and arrowes of Cupid.

Quis non malarum quas amor curas habet
Haec inter obliviscitur/1

While this is doing, who doth not forget
The wicked cares wherewith Love's heart doth fret?

about to witnesse the clemencie of lulius Caesar; 'He was,' saith he, 'tractable and milde in matters of revenge.  Having compelled the pirates to yeeld themselves unto him, who had before taken him prisoner and put him to ransome, forasmnch as he had threatned to have them all crucified, he condemned them to that kind of death, but it was after he had caused them to be strangled.  Philemon his secretarie, who would have poysoned him, had no sharper punishment of him than an ordinarie death.  Without mentioning the Latin Author, who for a testimonie of clemencie, dared to alleage the onely killing of those by whom a man hath been offended, it may easily be guessed that he is tainted with vile and horrible examples of cruelties such as Romane Tyrants brought into fashion.  As for me, even in matters of justice, whatsoever is beyond a simple death, I deeme it to be meere crueltie: and especiall amongst us, who ought to have a regardfull respect that their soules should be sent to heaven, which cannot be, having first by intolerable tortures agitated, and as it were brought them to dispaire.  A souldier, not long since, being a prisoner, and perceiving from a loft a tower, where he was kept, that store of people flocked together on a greene, and carpenters were busie at worke to erect a skaffold, suppposing the same to be for him, as one desperat, resolved to kill himselfe, and searching up and downe for something to make himselfe away, found nothing but an old rustie cart-naile, which fortune presented him with; he tooke it, and therewithall, with all the strength he had, strooke and wounded himselfe twice in the throat, but seeing it would not rid him of life, he then thrust it into his bellie up to the head, where he left it fast- sticking.  Shortly after, one of his keepers coming in unto him, and yet living, finding him in that miserable plight, but weltring in his goare-blood and readie to gaspe his last, told the Magistrates of it, which, to prevent time before he should die, hastned to pronounce sentence against him: which when he heard, and that he was onely condemned to have his 

head cut off, he seemed to take heart of grace againe, and to be sorie for what be had done, and tooke some comfortable drinks, which before be had refused, greatly thanking the Judges for his unhoped gentle condemnation: And told them, that for feare of a more, sharply-cruell, and intolerable death by law, he had resolved to prevent it by some violent manner of death, having by the preparations he had seen the carpenters make, and by gathering of people together, conceived an opinion that they would torture him with some horrible torment, and seemed to be delivered from death onely by the change of it.  Were I worthie to give counsell, I would have these examples of rigor, by which superior powers goe about to keep the common people in awe, to be onely exercised on the bodies of criminall malefactors: {usthem+} For, to see them deprived of Christian buriall, to see them haled, disbowelled, parboyled, and quartered, might haply touch the common sort as much as the paines they make the living to endure: howbeit in effect it be little or nothing, as saith God,  Qui corpus occidunt, et postea non habent quod faciant./1 'Those that kill the bodie', but have afterwards no more to doe:' And Poets make the horror of this picture greatly to prevaile, yea, and above death,

Heu reliquias semiassi Regis, denudatis ossibus,
Per terram sanie delibutas foede divexarier./2

O that the reliques of an halfe burnt King, bones bared,
On earth besmear'd with filth, should be so fouly marred.

be exercised against the rinde, and not practised against the quicke. In a case somewhat like unto this, did Artaxerxes asswage and mitigate the sharpnesse of the ancient lawes of Persia, appointing that the Lords which had trespassed in their estate, whereas they were wont to be whipped, they should be stripped naked, and their clothes whipped for them; and where they were accustomed to have their haire pulled off, they should onely have their hat taken off.  The Aegyptians, so devout and religious, thought they did sufficiently satisfie divine Justice, in sacrificing painted and counterfeit hogges unto it:  An over-hardy invention to go about with pictures and shadowes to appease God, a substance so essentiall and divine. I live in an age wherein we abound with incredible examples of this vice, through the licentiousnesse of our civill and intestine warres: and read all ancient stories, be they never so tragicall, you shall flnd none to equall those we daily see practised.  But that hath nothing made me acquainted with it.  I could hardly be perswaded before I had seene it, that the world could have afforded so marble-hearted and savage-minded men, that for the onely pleasure of murther would commit it; then cut, mangle, and hacke other members in pieces to rouze and sharpen their wits, to invent unused tortures and unheard-of torments: to devise new and unknowne deaths, and that in cold blood, without any former enmitie or quarrell, or without any gaine or profit; and onely to this end, that they may enjoy the pleasing spectacle of the languishing gestures, pitifull notions, horror-moving yellings, deep fetcht groanes, and lamentable voyces of a dying and drooping man.  For that is the extremest point whereunto the crueltie of man may attaine.  Ut homo hominem, non iratus, non timens, tantum spectaturus occidat;/1 'That one man should kill another, neither being angrie nor afeard, but onely to looke on.  As for me, I could never so much as endure, without remorse or griefe, to see a poore, sillie, and innocent beast pursued and killed, which is
-----
1 SEN.  Clem. 1. ii. c. 4. 

harmlesse and void of defence, and of whom we receive no offence at all.  And as it commonly hapneth, that when the Stag begins to be embost, and finds his strength to faile him, having no other remedie left him, doth yeeld and bequeath himselfe unto us that pursue him, with teares suing to us for mercie:

      ------ questque cruentus
Atque imploranti similis:/1

With blood from throat, and teares from eyes,
It seemes that he for pittie cryes:

      ------ primoque a caede ferarum
Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum./2

And first our blades in blood embrude deeme
With slaughter of poore beasts did reeking steeme.

I say it hath some reason to injoyne us to shew some respect and affection towards them.  Pythagoras borrowed etempsychosis of the AEgyptians, but since it hath been received of divers Nations, and especially of our Druides:

Morte carent animae, semperique priore relicta
Sede, novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptae./1

Our death-lesse soules, their former seats refrained,
In harbors new live and lodge entertained.

      ----  muta ferarum
Cogit vincla pati truculentos ingerit ursis,
Praedonesque lupis, fallaces vilpibus addit.
Atque per varios annos per mille figuras
Egit, letheo purgatos flumine tandem
Rursus ad humanae revocat primordia formae./2

Dumbe hands of beasts he makes men's soules endure,
Blood-thirstie soules he doth to Beares enure,
Craftie to Foxes, to Woolves bent to rapes;
Thus when for many yeares, through many shapes,
He hath them driv'n in Lethe lake at last,
Them purg'd he turns to mans forms whence they past.

Ipse ego, nam memini, Troiani tempore belli
Panthoides Euphorbus eram,/1

When Troy was won, I, as I call to mind,
Euphorbus was, and Panthus sonne by kind,

     ----- crocodilon adorat
Pars haec, illa pavet saturam serpentibus Ibin,
Effigies sacri hic nitet aurea Corcopitheci./3

This Country doth the Crocodile adore,
That feares the Storks glutted with Serpents gore,
The sacred Babion here,
In gold shape doth appeare.

      ------hic piscem fluminis, illic
Oppida tota canem venerantur./4

A fish here whole Townes reverence most,
A dog they honour in that coast.

represented the liberty which they loved and adored beyond all other divine faculty, and so of others.  But when amongst the most moderate opinions I meet with some discourses that goe about and labour to shew the &rC resemblance betweene us and beasts, and what share they have in our greatest privileges, and with how much likely-hood they are compared unto us, truly I abate much of our presumption, and am easily removed from that imaginary soveraigntie that some& ve and ascribe unto us above all other creatures. If g&ll that were to be contradicted, yet is there a kinde of respect and a generall duty of humanity which tieth us not only unto brute beasts that have life and sense, but even unto trees and plants.  Unto men we owe Justice, and to all other creatures that are capable of it, grace and benignity. There is a kinde of enterchangeable commerce and mutual bond betweene them and us.  I am not ashamed nor afraid to declare the tendernesse of my childish Nature which is such that I cannot well reject my Dog if he chance (although out of season) to fawne upone me, or beg of me to play with him.  The Turkes have almes and certaine hospitals appointed for brute beasts.  The Romans have a publike care to breed and nourish Geese,&by whose vigilance their capital had beene saved.  The Athenians did precisely ordaine that all manner of Mules which had served or beene imploied about the building of their temple called Hecatorn&%doil should be free and suffered to feed wheresoever they pleased, without any let or impeachment.  The Agrigentines had an ordinary custome seriously and solemnly to bury all such beasts as they had held deare; as horses of rare worth and merit speciall dogs, choice or profitable birds, or such as had but served to make their children sport.  And the sumptnous magnificence which in all other things was ordinary and peculiar unto them, appeared also almost notably in the stately sumptuousnesse and costly number of monuments erected to that end, which many ages after have endured and been maintained in pride and state.  The AEgyptians were wont to bury their Wolves, their Dogs, their Cats, 

their Beares, and Crocodiles in holy places, embalming their carcasses, and at their deaths, to weare mourning weeds for them.  Cymon caused a stately honourable tombe to be erected for the Mares, wherewith he had three times gained the prize at running in the Olimpike games.  Ancient Xantippus caused his Dog to be enterred upon a hill by the sea shore, which ever since hath beene named by him.  And Plutarch (as himselfe saith) made it a matter of conscience, in hope of a small gaine to sell or send an Oxe to the shambles that had served him a long time. 

KNOWLEDGE is without all Contradiction a most profitable and chiefe ornament, Those who despise it declare evidently their sottishnesse:  Yet doe not I value it at so excessive a rate as some have done; namely Herillus the Philosopher, who grounded his chiefe felicitie upon it, and held that it lay in her power to make us content and wise: which I cannot beleeve, nor that which others have said, that Knowledge is the mother of all vertue, and that all vice proceedeth of ignorance.  Which if it be it is subject to a large interpretation.  My house hath long since ever stood open to men of understanding, and is very well knowne to many of them: for my father, who commanded the same fifty yeeres and upward, set on fire by that new kinde of earnestnesse wherewith King Francis the first imbraced Letters, and raised them unto credit, did with great diligence and much cost endevour to purchase the acquaintance of learned men; receiving and entertaining them as holy persons, and who had some particular inspiration of divine wisdom; collecting their sentences and discourses as if they had beene Oracles; and with so much more reverence and religious regard by how much lesse authority hee had to judge of them: for hee had no knowledge of Letters no more than his predecessors before him.  As for mee I love them indeed, but yet I worship them not.  Amongst others, Peter Bunel (a man in his time by reason of his learning of high esteeme) having sojourned a few daies at Montaigne with my father and others of his coat being ready to depart thence, presented him
<Mont2-140> 

with a booke entituled Theologia naturalis; sive liber creaturarum magistri Raimondi de Sebonde.  And for so much as the Italian and Spanish tongues were very familiar unto him, and that the book was written in a kinde of latinized Spanish, whereof divers words had Latine terminations; he hoped that with little aid he might reape no small profit by it, and commended the same very much unto him, as a booke most profitable, and fitting the dayes in which he gave it him.  It was even at what time the new fangles of Luther began to creepe in favour, and in many places to shake the foundation of our ancient beleefe.  Wherein he seemed to be well advised, as be who by discourse of reason fore-saw that this budding disease would easily turne to an execrable Atheisme:  For the vulgar wanting the faculty to judge of things by themselves, suffering it selfe to be carried away by fortune and led on by outward appamraces, if once it be possessed with the boldnesse to despise and malapertnesse to impugne the opinions which tofore it held in awful reverence (as are those wherein consisteth their salvation) and that some articles of their religion be made doubtfull and questionable, they will soon and easily admit an equal uncertainty in all other parts of their beleefe, as they that had no other grounded authoritie or foundation but such as are now shaken and weakned, and immediately reject (as a tyrannical yoke) all impressions they had in former times received by the authoritie of Lawes, or reverence of ancient custome.

Nam cupide conculcatur nimis anti metutum./1

That which we fear'd before too much,
We gladly scorne when tis not such.

mee to translate the same into French.  It is easie to translate such Authors, where nothing but the matter is to be represented; but hard and dangerous to undertake such as have added much to the grace and elegancy of the language, namely to reduce them into a weaker and poorer tongue. It was a strange taske and new occupation for me: but by fortune being then at leisure and unable to gainsay the commandement of the best father that ever was, I came ere long (as well as I could) to an end of it: wherein he toook singular delight, and commanded the same to be printed, which accordingly was after his decease performed.  I found the conceits of the author to be excellent, the contexture of his worke well followed, and his project full of pietie.  Now forasmuch as divers ammuse themselves to reade it, and especially Ladies, to whom we owne most service, it hath often beene my hap to help them, when they were reading it, to discharge the booke of two principall objections, which are brought against the same. His drift is bold, and his scope adventurous for he undertaketh by humane and naturall reasons, to establish and verifie all the articles of Christian religion against Atheists.  Wherein (to say truth) I find him so resolute and so happy, as I deem it a thing impossible to doe better in that argument, and thinke that none equalleth him.  Which booke seeming to me both over-rich and exquisite, being written by an author whose name is so little knowne, and of whom all we know is, that be was a Spaniard, who about two hundred yeeres since professed Physicke in Tholouse:  I demanded once of Adrianus Turnebus (a man who knew all things) what such a booke might be; who answered, that he deemed the same to be some Quintessence extracted from out Saint Thomes Aquinas:  For, in good truth, onely such a spirit fraught with so infinite erudition, and so full admirable subtilities was capable of such and so rare imitiations.  So it is, that whosoever be the author or deviser of it (the title whereof ought not without further reason to be taken from Sebond) he was a very 

sufficient-worthie man, and endowed with sundrie other excellent qualities. The first thing he is reproved for in his Booke is, that Christians wrong themselve much, in that they ground their beleefe upon humane reasons, which is conceived but by faith and by a particular inspiration of God. Which objection seemeth to containe some zeale of pietie; by reason whereof we ought, with so much more mildnes and regard, endevour to satisfie them that propose it.  It were a charge more befitting a man conversant, and sutable to one acquainted with the holy Scriptures, than me, who am altogether ignorant in them.  Neverthelesse I thinke, that even as to a matter so divine and high, and so much exceeding al humane understanding, as is this verity, wherwith it hath pleased the goodness of God to enlighten as, it is most requisit that he affoord and lend us his helpe; And that; with an extraordinary and privileged favour, that so we may the better conceive and entertaine the same:  For, I suppose that meanes meerely humane can no way be capable of it; which if they were, so many rare and excellent mindes, and so plenteously stored with naturall faculties, as have beene in times past, would never by their discourse have mist the attayning of this knowledge.  It is faith onely which lively and assuredly embraceth the high mysteries of our Religion. And no man can doubt but that it is a most excellent and commendable enterprise, properly to accommodate and fit to the service of our faith, the natural helpes and humane implements which God hath bestowed upon us.  And no question is to be made but that it is the most honourable employment we can put them unto; and that there is no occupation or intent more worthy a good Christian, than by all meanes, studies, and imaginations, carefully to endevour how to embellish, amplifie, and extend the truth of his beleefe and religion.  It is not enough for us to serve God in spirit and soule; we owe him besides, and wee yeeld unto him, a corporall worshipping; we applie our limbs, our motions, and all external things, to honour him. 

The like ought to be done, and we should accompany our faith with all the reason we possesse:  Yet alwayes with this proviso, that we thinke it doth not depend of us, and that all our strength and arguments can never attaine to so supernaturall and divine a knowledge:  Except it seize upon us, and as it were enter into us by an extraordinarie infusion:  And unlesse it also enter into us not onely by discourse, but also by humane meanes, she is not in her dignitie nor in her glorie.  And verily I feare therfore, that except this way, we should not enjoy it.  Had we fast-hold on God; by the interposition of a lively faith; had we hold-fast on God by himselfe, and not by us; had we a divine foundation; then should not humane and worldly occasions have the power so to shake and totter us, as they have.  Our hold would not then yeeld to so weake a batterie:  The love of noveltie; the constrainte of Princes; the good successe of one partie; the rash and casuall changing of our opinions, should not then have the power to shake and alter our beleefe.  We should not suffer the same to be troubled at the wil and pleasure of a new argument, and at the perswasion , no, not of all the rhetorike that ever was we should withstand these boistrous billowes with an inflexible and unmoveable constancie+:

Illisos fluctus rupes, ut vasta refundit
Et varias circumlatrantes dissipat undas,
Mole sua./1

As huge rocks doe regorge th' invective waves,
And dissipate the billowes brawling braves,
Which these gainst those still bellowe out.
Those being big and standing stout.

was never any so factious, what difficultie or strangenesse soever his doctrine maintained, but some sort conforme his behaviors and square his life unto it:  Whereas so divine and heavenly an institution never markes Christians but by the tongue.  And will you see whether it be so?  Compare but our manners unto a Turke, or a Pagan, and we must needs yeeld unto them:  Whereas in respect of our religious superioritie, we ought by much, yea by an incomparable distance, out-shine them in excellencie:  And well might a man say, Are they so just, so charitable, and so good?  Then must they be Christians.  All other outward shewes and exterior apparences are common to all religious:  As hope, affiance, events, ceremonies, penitence, and martyrdoms.  The peculiar badge of our truth should be vertue; As it is the heavenliest and most difficult marke, and worthiest production of Verity it selfe, And therefore was our good Saint Lewis in the right, when that Tartarian King, who was become a Christian, intended to come to Lyons, to kisse the Popes feet, and there to view the sanctitie he hoped to find in our lives and manners, instantly to divert him from it, fearing lest our dissolute manners and licentious kind of life might scandalize him, and so alter his opinion fore-conceived of so sacred a religion.  Howbeit the contrary happened to another, who for the same effect being come to Rome, and there viewing the disolutenesse of the Prelates and people of those dayes, was so much the more confirmed in our religion; considering with himselfe what force and divinity it must of consequence have, since it was able, amidst so many corruptions and so viciously- poluted hands, to maintaine her dignitie and splendor.  Had wee but one onely graine of faith, wee should then be able to remove mountaines from out their place, saith the Holy Writ.  Our actions being guided and accompanied with Divinitie, should not then be meerely humane, but eveil as our beliefe, containe some wonder-causing thing.  Brevis est institutio vitae honestae beataeque, si credas: 'The institution of an honest and 

blessed life is but short, if a man beleeve.  Some make the world beleeve that they beleeve things they never doe.  Others (and they are the greater number) perswade themselves they doe so, as unable to conceive what it is to beleeve.  We thinke it strange if in warres, which at this time doe so oppresse our state we see the events to float so strangely, and with so common and ordinarie a manner to change and alter:  The reason is, we adde nothing unto it but our owne.  Justice, which is on the one side, is used but for a cloake and ornament; she is indeed alleadged, but not received, nor harboured, nor wedded.  She is as in the mouth of a Lawyer, and not as she ought in the heart and affection of the partie.  God oweth his extraordinarie assistance unto faith and religion, and not to our passions.  Men are but directors unto it and use religion for a show:  It ought to be cleane contrarie. Doe hot marke if we doe not handle it as it were a peece of waxe, from out so right and so firme a rule, to draw so many contrary shapes.  When was this better seene than now-adaies in France?  Those which have taken it on the left, and those who have taken it on the right hand:  Such as speake the false, and such who speake the truth of it, do so alike employ and fit the same to their violent and ambitious enterprises, proceede unto it with so conformable a proceeding in riotousnesse and injustice, they make the diversitie they pretend in their opinions doubtfull, and hard to be beleeved, in a thing from which depends the conduct and law of our life.  Can a man see from one same Schoole and Discipline, more united and like customes and fashions to proceed?  View but the horrible impudencie wherewith we tosse divine reasons to and fro, and how irreligiously wee have both rejected and taken them againe, according as fortune hath in these publike stormes transported us from place to place.  This solemne proposition:  Whether it be lawfull for a subject, for the defence of religion, to rebell and take armes against his Prince:  Call but to minde in what mouthes but a twelve-moneth agoe the affirmative 

of the same was the chiefe pillar of the one part; the negative was the maine-underprop of the other:  And listen now from whence commeth the voyce and instruction of one and other: and whether armes clatter and clang less for this than for that cause.  And we burne those men which say that truth must be made to abide the yoke of our need:  And how much worse doth France than speak it.  Let us confesse the truth: he that from out this lawfull armie should cull out first those who follow it for meere zeale of a religious affection than such as only regard the defence and protection of their countries lawes or service of their Prince; whether hee could ever erect a compleat company of armed men.  How comes it to passe that so few are found who have still held one same wil and progresse in our publike revolutions, and that we see them now and then but faintly and sometimes as fast as they can headlong to runne into the action?  And the same men, now by their violence and rashnesse, and now through their slowness demissnes, and heavines to spoile, and as it were overthrow our affaires, but that ihey are thrust into them by casual motives, and particular consideration, according to the diversities wherewith they are moved?  I plainly perceive we lend nothing unto devotion but the offices that flatter our passions. There is no hostilitie so excellent as that which is absolutely Christian. Our zeale worketh wonders, whenever it secondeth our inclinations towards hatred, crueltie, ambition, avarice, detraction, or rebellion.  Towards goodnes, benignitie, or temperance it goeth but slowly, and against the haire, except miraculously, some rare complexion leade him unto it, it neither runnes nor flieth to it.  Our religion was ordained to root out vices, but it shrowdeth, fostreth, and provoketh them.  As commonly we say, 'We must not make a foole of God.  Did we believe in him, I say not through faith, but with a simple beleefe; yea (I speake it to our confusion) did we but beleeve and know him, as wee doe another storie, or as one of our companions; we should then love him 

above all other things, by reason of the infinite goodnes and unspeakable beauty that is and shines in him:  Had he but the same place in our affections that riches, Pleasures, glory, and our friends have:  The best of us doth not so much feare to wrong him as he doth to injure his neighbour, his kinsman, or his master.  Is there so simple a minde who, on the one side having before him the object of one of our vicious pleasures, and on the other to his full view perfect knowledge and assured perswasion, the state of an immortall glorie, that would enter into contention of one for the other?  And so we often refuse it through meere contempt: for what drawes us to blaspheming, unlesse it be at all adventures, the desire it selfe of the offence?  The Philosopher Antisthenes, when he was initiated in the mysteries of Orpheus, the priest saying unto him that such as vowed themselves to that religion should after death receive eternall and perfect felicities, replied, 'If thou beleeve it, why dost thou not die thy selfe?  Diogenes more roughly (as his manner was) and further from our purpose, answered the priest who perswaded him to be one of his order, that so he might come unto and attaine the happinesse of the other world: 'Wilt thou have me beleeve that those famous men, Agesilaus and Epaminondas, shall be miserable, and that thou, who art but an asse, and doth nothing of any worth; shalt be happy, because thou art a Priest?  Did we but receive these large promises of everlasting blessednesse with like authoritie as we do a philosophicall discourse, we should not then have death in that horror as we have:

Non jam se moriens dissolvi conquereretur,
Sed magis ire foras, vestemque relinquere ut anguis
Gauderet, praelonga senex aut cornua cervus./1

He would not now complains to be dissolved dying,
But rather more rejoice, that now he is forth-flying,
Or as a Snake his coat out-worne,
Or as old Harts, doth cast his horne.

     I will be dissolved, should we say, and be with Jesus Christ.  The forcible power of Platoes discourse of the immortality of the soule provoked divers of his Schollers unto death, that so they might more speedily enjoy the hopes he told them of.  All which is a most evident token that we receive our religion but according to our fashion and by our owne hands, and no otherwise than other religions are received. We are placed in the countrie where it was in use; where we regard her antiquity, or the authority of those who have maintained her; where we fears the menaces wherewith she threatneth all misbeleevers, or follow her promises.  The considerations ought to be applied and employed to our beleefe, but as subsidiaries: they be human bonds.  Another country, other testimonies, equall promises, alike menaces, might semblaby imprint a cleane contrary religion in us: we are Christians by the same title as we are either Perigordins or Germans.  And as Plato saith: 'There are few so confirmed in Atheisme but some great danger will bring unto the knowledge of God's divine power.  The part doth not touch or concerne a good Christians:  It is for mortall and worldly religions to be received by a humane convoy. What faith is that like to be which cowardice of heart doth plant and weaknesse establish in us?  A goodly faith, that beleeves that which it beleeveth onely because it wanteth the courage not to beleeve the same.  A vicious passion, as that of inconstancie and astonishment is, can it possibly ground any regular production in our mindes or soules?  They establish, saith he, by the reason of their judgement, that whatsoover is reported of hell, or of after-comming paines, is but a fiction: but the occasions to make triall of it, offering itselfe at what time age or sicknesse doth summon them to death, the errour of the same, through the horrour of their future condition, doth then replenish them with another kind of beleefe.  And because such impressions make mens hearts fearfull, hee by his lawes inhibiteth all instruction of such threats and the perswasion that any evill may come unto man from the 

Gods, except for his greater good, and for a medicinable effect, whensoever he falleth into it.  They report of Bion that being infected with the Atheismes of Theodorus, he had for a long time made but a mockerie of religious men; but when death did once seize upon him he yeelded unto the extremest superstitious: As if the Gods would either be removed or come again, according to Bions businesses Plato and these examples conclude that we are brought to beleeve in God either by reason or by compulsion, Atheisme being a proposition as unnaturall and monstrous as it is hard and uneasie to be established in any mans minde, how insolent and unruly soever he may be: many have beene seene to have conceived either through vanitie or fiercenesse, strange and seld-knowne opinion, as if they would become reformers of the world by affecting a profession only in countenance: who though they be sufficiently foolish, yet are they not powerfull enough to ground or settle it in their consciences.  Yet will not such leave to lift up their joyned hands to heaven, give them but a stoccado on their breast: and when fear shall have supprest, or sicknesse vanquished this licentious fervour of a wavering minde, then will they suffer themselves gently to be reclaimed, and discreetly to be perswaded to give credit unto true beliefe and publike examples.  A decree seriously digested is one thing, and these shallow and superficiall impressions another, which bred by the dissolutenesse of a loose spirit, doe rashly and uncertainely float up and downe the fantasie of a man.  Oh men, most braine-sicke and miserable, that endeavour to be worse than they can!  The errour of Paganisme and the ignorance of our sacred truth, was the cause of this great soules-fall: but onely great in worldly greatnes; also in this next abuse, which is, that children and old men are found to be more susceptible or capable of religion, as if it were bred and had her credit from our imbecillitie.  The bond which should binde our judgement, tie our will, enforce and joyne our soules to our Creator, should be a bond taking his doubling and forces, not 

Atque adeo faciem coeli non invidet orbi
Ipse Deus, vultusque suos corpusque recludit

Semper volvendo! seque ipsum inculcat et offert
Ut bene coqnosci possit, doceatque videndo
Qualis est, doceatque suas attendere leges./1

God to the world doth not heav'ns face envie,
But by still moving it doth notifie
His face and essence, doth himselfe applie,
That he may well be knowen, and teach by seeing,
How he goes, how we should marke his decreeing.

Si melius quid habes, accerse, vel imperium fer./1

If you have any better, send for me,
Or else that I bid you, contented be.

O. @ap IVOPOV46,@ 0 oe6y 14iy.n

Of greater, better, wiser minde than he,
God can abide no mortall man should be.

     Let us suppress this overweening, the first foundation of the tyrannie of the wicked spirit.  Deus superbis resistit: humilibus autem dat gratiam: 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.  Plato saith 'that intelligence is in all the Gods, but little or nothing at all in men.  Meanewhile it is a great comfort unto a Christian man to see our mortall implements and fading tooles so fitly sorted to our holy and divine faith; that when they are employed to the mortal and fading subjects of their nature, they are never more forcible nor more joyntlie appropriated unto them.  Let us then see whether man hath an other stronger reasons in his power then Sebondes, and whether it be in him, by argument or discourse, to come to any certainty.  For, St.  Augustine, pleading against these kind of men, because he would upbraid them with their injustice, in that they hold the parts of our beleefe to be false, and that our reason faileth in establishing them: and to shew that many things may be, and have beene, whereof our discourse can never ground the nature and the causes: he proposeth and setteth downe before them certaine knowen and undoubted experiments, wherein man confesseth to see nothing, which he doth as all things else, with a curious and ingenious search. More must be done, and they must be taught, that to convince the weaknesse of their reason we need not go far to cull out rare examples.  And that it is so defective and blinde, as there is no facility so clear that is clear enough unto her: that easie and uneasie is all one to her; that all subjects equally, and Nature in generall disavoweth her jurisdiction and interposition.  What preacheth truth unto us, when it biddeth us flie and shun worldly philosophy; when it so often telleth us 'that all our wisdome is but folly before God; that of all vanities man is the greatest; that man, who presumeth of his knowledge, doth not yet know what knowledge is: and that man, who is nothing, if he but thinke to be something, seduceth and deceiveth bimselfe?  These sentences of the Holy Ghost do so lively and manifestly 

expresse what I would maintaine, as I should neede no proofe against such as with all submission and obeysance would yeeld to his authority. But these will needs be whipt to their owne cost, and cannot abide their reason to be combatted, but by itselfe.  Let us now but consider man alone without other help, armed but with his own weapons, and unprovided of the grace and knowledge of God, which is all his honour, all his strength, and all the ground of his being.  Let us see what hold-fast or free- bold he hath in this gorgeous and goodly equipage.  Let him with the utmost power of his discourse make me understand upon what foundation he hath built those great advantages and ods he supposeth to have over other creatures. Who hath perswaded him that this admirable moving of heavens vaults, that the eternal light of these lampes so fiercely rowling over his head, that the horror-moving and continnall motion of this infinite vaste ocean were established, and continue so many ages for his commoditie and service? Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous as this miserable and wretched creature, which is not so much as master of himselfe, exposed and subject to offences of all things, and yet dareth call himselfe Master and Emperour of this Universe?  In whose power it is not to know the least part of it., much lesse to command the same.  And the Privileges which he so fondly challengeth to be the onely absolute creature in this huge worlds frame, perfectly able to know the absolute beautie and several parts thereof, and that he is only of power to yeeld the great architect thereof due thanks for it, and to keepe account both of the receipts and layings out of the world.  Who hath sealed him his patent?  Let him shew us his letters of privilegefor so noble and so great a charge.  Have they been granted onely in favour of the wise?  Then concerne they but a few.  Are the foolish and wicked worthy of so extraordinary a favour, who being the worst part of the world, should they be preferred before the rest?  Shall we believe him:  Quorum igitur causa quis dixerit effectum esse mundum?

Eorum scilicet animantium quo ratione utuntur.  Hi sunt dii et homines, quibus profecto nihil est melius:/1 'For whose cause then shall a man say that the world was made?'  In sooth, for those creatures sake which have the use of reason; those are Gods and men, than whom assuredly nothing is better.  We shall never sufficiently baffle the impudency of this conjoyning.  But silly wretch, what hath he in him worthie such an advantage?  To consider the incorruptible life of the celestiall bodies, their beauty, greatnesse, and agitation, continued with so just and regular a course.

      ------ cum suspicimus magni celestia mundi
Templa super, stellisque micantibus Aethera fixum,
Et venit in mentem Lunae Solisque viarum./2

When we of this great world the heavenly temples see
Above us, and the skies with shine-starres fixt to be,
And marks in our discourse,
Of Sunne and Moone the course.

Facta etenim et vitas hominum suspendit ab astris./3

For on the stars he doth suspend
Of men, the deeds, the lives, and end.

      ------ speculataque longe
Deprendit tacitis dominantia legibus astra.
Et totum alterna mundum ratione moveri,
Fatorumque vices certis discernere signis./4

By speculation it from far discerns,
How stars by secret lawes do guide our sterns,
And this whole world is moov'd by entercourse
And by sure signes of fates to know the course.

     Seeing that not a man alone, nor a king only, but monarchies and empires; yea, and all the world below is moved at the shaking of one of the least heavenly motions.
Quantaque quam parvi faciant discrimina motus:
Tantum est hoc regnum quod regibus imperat ipsis./1

How little motions make, how different affection:
So great this Kingdoms is, that hath Kings in subjection.

          -----furit alter amore,
Et pontum tranare potest, et vertere Troiam,
Alterius sors est scibendis legibus apta:
Ecce patrem nati perimunt, natosque parentes,
Mutuaque armati coeunt in vulnera fratres,
Non nostrum hoc bellum est; coquntur tanta movere,
Inque suas ferri ponas, lacerandaque membra:
Hoc quoque fatale est sic ipsum expandere fatum:/2

One with love madded, his love to enjoy
Can crosse the seas, and overturns all Troy
Anothers lot is to set lawes severe.
Loe sonnes ill fathers, fathers sonnes destroy,
Brothers for mutuall wounds their armes doe beare,
Such war is not our owne, forc't are we to it,
Drawne to our owne paines, our owne limbs to teare
Fates so t'observe t'is fatall, we must doe it

What masons and carpenters were to so great a worke?
Why doe we then deprive them of soule, of life, and of discourse?

same imagination that he dare equall himself to God, that he ascribeth divine conditions unto himself, that he selecteth and separateth himselfe from out the ranke of other creatures; to which his fellow-brethren and compeers he cuts out and shareth their parts, and allotteth them what portions of meanes or forces he thinkes good.  How knoweth he by the vertue of his understanding the inward and secret motions of beasts?  By what comparison from them to us doth he conclude the brutishnesse be ascribeth unto them? When I am playing with my cat, who knowes whether she have more sport in dallying with me than I have in gaming with her?  We entertaine one another with mutuall apish trickes.  If I have my houre to begin or to refuse, so hath she hers.  Plato in setting forth the golden age under Saturne, amongst the chiefe advantages that man had then, reporteth the communication he had with beasts, of whom enquiring and taking instruction, he knew the true qualities and differences of every one of them: by and from whom he got an absolute understanding and perfect wisedome, whereby he led a happier life than we can doe.  Can we have a better proofe to judge of mans impudency touching beasts?  This notable author was of opinion that in, the greatest part of the corporall forme which nature hath bestowed on them, she hath only respected the use of the prognostications, which in his daies were thereby gathered.  The defect which hindreth the communication betweene them and us, why may it not as well be in us as in them?  It is a matter of divination to guesse in whom the fault is that we understand not one another.  For we understand them no more than they us.  By the same reason, may they as well esteeme us beasts as we them.  It is no great marvell if we understand them not: no more doe we the Cornish, the Welch, or Irish. Yet have some boasted that they understood them, as Apollonius Thyaneus, Melampus, Tiresias, Thales, and others.  And if it be (as Cosmographers report that there are nations who receive and admit a dogge 

to be their king, it must necessarily follow that they give a certaine interpretation to his voice and moving.  We must note the parity that is betweene us.  We have some meane understanding of their senses, so have beasts of ours, about the same measure.  They flatter and faune upon us, they threat and entreat us, so doe we them.  Touching other matters, we manifestly perceive that there is a full and perfect communication amongst them, and that not only those of one same kinde understand one another, but even such as are of different kindes.

Et mutae pecudes, et denique secla ferarum
Dissimilis fuerunt voces variasqe cluere,
Cum metus aut dolor est, aut eum tam gaudia gliscunt./1

Whole heard's (though dumbe) of beasts, both wild and tame,
Use divers voices, diffrent sounds to frame,
As joy, or griefe, or feare,
Upspringing passions beare.

Non alia longe ratione atque ipse videtur
Protrahere ad gestum, pueros infantia lingua/2

No otherwise, then for they cannot speake,
Children are drawne by signes their mindes to breake.

El silentio ancor suole
Haver prieghi e parole.

Silence also hath a way,
Words and prayers to convay.

I have suffered thee to speake all thou wouldst, and as long as thou pleasedst, without ever speaking one word.  Is not this a kind of speaking silence, and easie to be understood?  And as for other matters; what sufficiency is there in us that we must not acknowledge from the industry and labours of beasts?  Can there be a more formall and better ordained policie, divided into so severall charges and offices, more constantly entertained, and better maintained, than that of Bees?  Shall we imagine their so orderly disposing of their actions, and managing of their vocations, have so proportioned and formall a conduct without discourse, reason, and forecast?

His quidam signis atque hoc exempla sequuti,
Esse apibus partem divinae mentis, et haustus
Aethereos doxere./1

Some by these signes, by these examples moved,
Said that in Bees there is and may be proved
Some taste of heavenly kinde,
Part of celestial minde.

unlesse they knew the different conditions of winds, and considered that some are more healthfull and safe for them than some others?  Why doth the Spider spin her artificiall web thicke in one place and thin in another? And now useth one, and then another knot, except she had an imaginary kinde of deliberation, fore-thought, and conclusion?  We perceive by the greater part of their workes what excellency beasts have over us, and how weake our art and short our cunning is, if we goe about to imitate them.  We see, notwithstanding, even in our grosest works, what faculties we employ in them, and how our minde employeth the uttermost of her skill and forces in them: why should wee not thinke as much of them?  Wherefore doe we attribute the workes which excell whatever we can performe, either by nature or by art, unto a kinde of unknowne, naturall, and servile inclination?  Wherein unawares wee give them a great advantage over us, to infer that nature, led by a certaine loving kindnesses leadeth and accompanieth them (as it were by the hand) unto all the actions and commodities of their life; and that she forsaketh and leaveth us to the hazard of fortune; and by art to quest and finde out those things that are behovefull and necessarie for our preservation: and therewithall demeth us the meanes to attaine by any institution and contention of spirit to the naturall sufficiency of brute beasts:  So that their brutish stupidity doth in all commodities exceed whatsoever our divine intelligence can effect.  Verily, by this account, wee might have just cause and great reason to terme her a most injust and partiall step-dame:  But there is no such thing, our policy is not so deformed and disordered.  Nature hath generally imbraced all her creatures:  And there is not any but she hath amply stored with all necessary meanes for the preservation of their being.  For the daily plaints, which I often heare men (when the licence of their conceits doth sometimes raise them above the clouds, and then headlong tumble them downe even to the Antipodes), 

exclaiming that man is the onely forsaken and out-cast creature, naked on the bare earth, fast bound and swathed, having nothing to cover and arme himselfe withall but the spoile of others; whereas Nature hath clad and mantled all other creatures, some with shels, some with huskes, with rindes, with haire, with wooll, with stings, with bristles, with hides, with mosse, with feathers, with skales, with fleeces, and with silke, according as their quality might need or their condition require:  And hath fenced and armed them with clawes, with talons, with hoofes, with teeth, with stings, and with hornes, both to assaile others and to defend themselves: And hath moreover instructed them in everything fit and requisite for them, as to swim, to runne, to creepe, to flie, to roare, to bellow, and to sing: whereas man only (Oh, silly, wretched man) can neither goe, nor speake, nor shift, nor feed himselfe, unlesse it be to whine and weepe onely, except hee bee taught.

Tum porro, puer ut saevis projectus ab undis
Navila, nudus humi, jacit infans indignus omni
Vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras
Nexibus ex alvomatris natura profundit,
Vagituque locum lugibri complet, et aequm est
Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum:
At variae crescunt pecudes, armenta, feraeque,
Nec crepitacula eis opus est, nec cuiquam adhibenda est
Almae nutricis blanda atque infracta loquela:
Nec varias quaerunt vestes pro tempore caeli:
Denique non armis opus est, non maenibus altis
Qeis sua tutentur quando omnibus omnia large
Tellus ipsa parit, naturaque daedata rerum./1

An infant, like a shipwracke ship-boy cast from seas,
Lies naked on the ground and speechlesse, wanting all
The helpes of vitall spirit, when nature with small ease
Of throes, to see first light, from her wombe lets him fall,
Then, as is meet, with mournfull cries he fils the place,
For whom so many ils remaine in his lives race.
But divers herds of tame and wild beasts foreward spring,
Nor need they rattles, nor of Nurces cockring-kind

The flattering broken speech their lullaby need sing.
Nor seeke they divers coats, as divers seasons bind.
Lastly no armour need they, nor high-reared wall
Whereby to guard their owne, since all things unto all
Worke-master nature doth produce, And the earth largely to their use.

Sentit enim vim quisque suam quam possit abuti./1

For every one soone-understanding is
Of his owne strength, which he may use amisse.

labour or tilling doth sufficiently produce and offer him as much as he shall need.  And if not at all times, no more doth she unto beasts; witnesse the provision wee see the ants and other silly creatures to make against the cold and barren seasons of the yeare.  The nations that have lately bin discovered, so plenteously stored with all manner of naturall meat and drinke, without care or labor, teach us that bread is not our onely food: and that without toyling our common mother nature hath with great plentie stored us with whatsoever should be needfull for us, yea, as it is most likely, more richly and amply than now adaies she doth, that we have added so much art unto it.

Et tellus nitidas fruges vinetaque laeta
Sponte sua primum mortalibus creavit,
Ipsa dedit dulces foetus, et pabulaa laeta,
Quae nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore,
Conterimusque boves et vires agricolarum:

The earth it selfe at first of th' owne accord
Did men rich Vineyards, and cleane fruit afford.
It gave sweet of-springs, food from sweeter soyle
Which yet scarse greater grow for all our toyle,
Yet tire therein we doe,
Both Plough-men's strength and Oxen too.

he useth in warre (for he hath some he only useth for that purpose) which he heedfully spareth and never puts them to other service:  When buls prepare themselves to fight, and they raise, scatter, and with their feet cast the dust about them: the wilde boare whets his tusks; when the Ichneumon is to grapple with the crocodile, he walloweth his body in the mire, then lets the same drie and harden upon him, which he doth so often that at last the same becomes as hard and tough as well as any compact crust, which serveth him in stead of a cuirace.  Why shall we not say that it is as naturall for us to arme our selves with wood and yron?  As for speech, sure it is that if it be not naturall it is not necessary.  I beleeve, neverthelesse, that if a childe, bred in some uncouth solitarinesse, farre from haunt of people (though it were a hard matter to make triall of it) would no doubt have some kinde of words to expresse, and speech to utter his conceits. And it is not to be imagined that nature hath refused us that meane and barred us that helpe which she hath bestowed upon many and divers other creatures: for what is that faculty we see in them when they seeme to complaine, to rejoice, to call one unto another for helpe, and bid one another to loving conjunction (as commonly they doe) by the use of their voice, but a kind of speech?  And shall not they speake among themselves that speake and utter their minde unto us and we to them?  How many waies speake we unto our dogges, and they seeme to understand and answer us?  With another language and with other names speake we unto and call them than we doe our birds, our hogges, our oxen, our horses, and such like; and according to their different kindes we change our idiome.

Cosi per entro loco schiera bruna
S'ammusa l'una con I'altra formica,
Forse a spiar lor via, et lor fortuna./1

So Ants amidst their sable-coloured band
One with another mouth to mouth confer,
Haply their way, or state to understand.

     ----- variaeque volucres
Longe alias alio jaciunt in temepore voces,
Et partim mutant cum tempestatibus una
Raucisonos cantus./2

And divers birds, send forth much divers sounde
At divers times, and partly change the grounds
Of their hoarce-sounding song,
As seasons change along.

Indupedita suis fatalibus omnia vinclis./3

All things enfolded are,
In fatall bonds as fits their share. {Pope+}

     Some difference there is, there are orders and degrees; but all is under the visage of one same nature,

     ----- res quaque suo ritu procedit, et omnes
Faedere natura certo discrimina servant./1

All things proceed in their course, natures all
Keeps difference, as in their league doth fall.

it is safer to leave the reignes of our conduct unto nature than unto ourselves.  The vanitie of our presumption maketh us rather to be beholding and as it were endebted unto our owne strength, {Shylock+} {Antonio] for our sufficiency, than unto her liberalitie; and we enrich other creatures with naturall gifts, and yeeld those unto them, that so we may ennoble and Honour our selves with gifts purchased, as me thinketh, by a very simple humour: for I would prize graces and value gifts that were altogether mine owne, and naturall unto me, as much as I would those I had begged, and, with a long prentiship, shifted for.  It lyeth not in our power to obtaine a greater commendation than to be favoured both of God and Nature.  By that reason, the fox, which the inhabitants of Thrace use when they will attempt to march upon the yce of some frozen river, and to that end let her go loose afore them, should we see her running alongst the river side, approch her eare close to the yce, to listen whether by any farre or neere distance she may heare the noyse or roaring of the water running under the same, and according as she perceiveth the yce thereby to be thicke or thinne, to goe either forward or backward; might not we lawfuify judge that the same discourse possesseth her head as in like case it would ours?  And that it is a kinde of debating reason and consequence drawen from naturall sense? Whatsoever maketh a noyse moveth, whatsoever moveth is not frozen, whatsoever is not frozen is liquid, whatsoever is liquid yeelds under any weight? For to impute that only to a quicknesse of the sense of hearing, without discourse or consequence, is but a fond conceipt, and cannot enter into my imagination.  The like must be judged of so many wiles and inventions wherewith beasts save themselves from the snares and scape the baits we lay to entrap them.  And if we will take hold of any advantage tending to that purpose, that it is in our power to seize upon them, to employ them to our service, and to use them at our pleasure; it is but the same oddes we have one upon another.  To which purpose we have our slaves or 

bond-men; and were not the Climacides certain women in Syria, which creeping on al foure upon the ground, served the ladies in steed of footstoles or ladders to get up into their coachs?  Where the greater part of free men, for very slight causes, abandon both their life and being to the power of others.  The wives and concubines of the Thracians strive and contend which of them shal be chosen to bee slaine over her husbands or lovers tombe.  Have tyrants ever failed to find many men vowed to their devotion? Where some for an overplus or supererogation have added this necessity, that they must necessarily accompany them as well in death as in life. Whole hostes of men have thus tyed themselves unto their captaines.  The tenor of the oath ministred unto the schollars that entered and were admitted the rude schoole of Roman Gladiators emplied these promises, which was this: we vow and sweare to suffer our selves to be enchained, beaten, burned, and killed with the sword, and endure whatsoever any lawfull fenser ought to endure for his master: most religiously engaging both our bodie and soule to the use of his service:

Ure meum, si vis, flamma caput et pete ferro
Corpus, et intorto verbere terga seca,/1

Burne tyrant (if thou wilt my head with fire, with sword
My body strike, my backe cut with hard-twisted cord.

orderly rankes about the tombe.  The men that serve us doe it better cheape, and for a lesse curious and favourable entreating than we use unto birds, unto horses, and unto dogges.  What carke and toile apply we not ourselves unto for their sakes?  Me thinks the vilest and basest servants will never doe that so willingly for their masters which princes are glad to doe for their beasts.  Diogenes, seeing his kinsfolks to take care how they might redeeme him out of thraldome; 'they are fooles,' said he, 'for it is my master that governeth, keepeth, feedeih, and serveth me:' And such as keepe or entertaine beasts may rather say they serve them than that they are served of them. {service+} And yet they have that naturall greater magnanimity, that never lyon was seen to subject bimselfe unto another lyon, nor one horse unto another horse, for want of heart.  As wee hunt after beasts, so tygers and lyons hunt after men, and have a like exercise one upon another: hounds over the hare; the pike or luce over the tench; the swallowes over the grasse- hoppers) and the sparrow-hawkes over blacke-birds and larkes.

     ----- serpente ciconia pullos
Nutrit, et inventa per devia rura lacerta,
Et leporem aut capream famulae Iovis, et generosae
In saltu venantur aves./1

The storke her young feeds with serpents prey,
And lyzarts found somewhere out of the way,
Joves servants - Eagles, hawkes of noblera kynde,
In forrests hunt, a hare or kid to finde,

As that of hooke and line about our angling-rods, so have beasts amongst themselves.  Aristotle reporteth that the cuttle-fish casteth a long gut out of her throat, which like a line she sendeth forth, and at her pleasure pulleth it in againe, according as she perceiveth some little fish come neere her, who being close hidden in the gravell or stronde, letteth him nible or bite the end of it, and then by little and little drawes it in unto her, untill the fish be so neere that, with a soudaine leape, she may catch it.  Touching strength, there is no creature in the world open to so many wrongs and injuries as man: we need not a whale, an elephant, nor a crocodile, nor any such other wilde beast, of which one alone is of power to defeat a great number of men; seely lice are able to make Silla give over his Dictatorship: the heart and life of a mighty and triumphant emperor is but the break-fast of a seely little worme.  Why say we that skill to discerne and knowledge to make choyce (gotten by art and acquired by discourse) of things good for this life, and availfull against sicknesse, and to distinguish of those which are hurtfull, and to know the vertue of reubarb, qualitie of oake ferne and operation of polipodie, is only peculiar unto man?  When we see the Goats of Candia being shot with an arrow to choose from out a million of simples the herb Dittany or Garden-ginger, and there-with cure themselves; and the Tortoise having eaten of a Viper immediately to seek for Origon or wild Marjoram to purge herselfe: the Dragon to run and cleare his eies with Fenel:  Cranes with their bils to minister glisters of sea-water unto themselves; the Elephants to pull out, not only from themselves and their fellowes, but also from their masters (witnesse that of King Porus, whom Alexander defeated) such javelins or darts as in fight have beene hurled or shot at them, so nimbly and so cunningly as ourselves could never do it so easily and with so little paine:  Why say wee not likewise that that is science and prudence in them?  For, if to depress them some would alleage it is by the onely instruction and instinct of Nature they 

know it, that will not take the name of science and title of prudence from them; it is rather to ascribe it unto them than unto us for the honour of so assured a schoole-mistris.  Chrysippus, albeit in other things as disdainfull a judge of the condition of beasts as any other Philosopher, considering the earliest movings of the dog, who comming into a path that led three severall wayes in search or quest of his Master, whom he had lost, or in pursuit of some prey that hath escaped him, goeth senting first one way and then another, and having assured himself of two, because he findeth not the tracke of what he hunteth for, without more adoe furiously betakes himselfe to the third; he is enforced to confesse that such a dog must necessarily discourse thus with himselfe, 'I have followed my Masters footing hitherto, hee must of necessity pass by one of these three wayes; it is neither this nor that, then consequently hee is gone this other. And by this conclusion or discourse assuming him selfe, comming to the third path, hee useth his sense no more, nor sounds it any longer, but by the power of reason suffers himselfe violently to be carried through it.  This meere logicall tricke, and this use of divided and conjoyned. propositions, and of the sufficient numbring of parts: is it not as good that the dog know it by him selfe, as by Trapezuntius his logicke?  Yet are not beasts altogether unapt to be instructed after our manner.  We teach Blacke-birds, Starlins, Ravens, Piots, and Parots to chat; and that facilitie we perceive in them to lend us their voyce so supple and their wind so tractable, that so wee may frame and bring it to a certaine number of letters and silables, witnesseth they have a kinds of inward reason which makes them so docile and willing to learne.  I thinke every man is cloied and wearied with seeing so many apish and mimmike trickes that juglers teach their Dogges, as the dances, where they misse not one cadence of the sounds or notes they heare:  Marke but the divers turnings and severall kinds of motions which by the commandement of their bare words they make them performe: But I wonder 

not a little at the effect, which is ordinary amongst us; and that is, the dogs which blind men' use, both in Citie and in Country:  I have observed how sodainly they will stop when they come before some doores where they are wont to receive alms: how carefully they will avoyd the shocke of Carts and Coaches, even when they have roome enough to passe by themselves.  I have seene some going along a Towne-ditch leave a plaine and even path and take a worse, that so they might draw their Master from the ditch. How could a man make the dog conceive his charge was only to looke to his masters safetie, and for his service to despise his own commoditie and good?  And how should he have the knowledge that such a path would be broade enough for him, but not for a blind man?  Can all this he conceived without reason?  We must not forget what Plutarke affirmeth to have seene a dog in Rome doe before the Emperour Vespasian the father in the Theatre of Marcellus.  This Dog served a jugler, who was to play a fiction of many faces and sundry countenances, where he also was to act a part.  Amongst other things he was for a long while to counterfeit and faine himself dead, because he had eaten of a certain drugge: having swallowed a piece of bread, which was supposed to be the drug, he began sodainly to stagger and shake as if he had beene giddie, then stretching and laying himselfe along as stiffe as if hee were starke dead, suffered himself to be dragged and haled from one place to another, according to the subject and plot of the play, and when he knew his time, first he began faire and softly to stirre as if he were roused out of a dead slumber, then lifting up his head hee looked and stared so gastly that all the bystanders were amazed.  The Oxen, which in the Kings gardens of Susa were taught to water them and to draw water out of deepe wells, turned certaine great wheeles, to which were fastned great buckets (as in many places of Languedoke is commonly seene) and being every one appointed to draw just a hundred turnes a day, they were so accustomed to that number as it was impossible by any 

compulsion to make them draw one more, which taske ended they would suddenly stop.  We are growne striplings before we can tell a hundred; and many nations have lately beene discovered that never knew what numbers meant.  More discourse is required to teach others than to be taught.  And omitting what Democritus judged and proved, which is, that beasts have instructed us in most of our Arts:  As the Spider to weave and sew, the Swallow to build, the Swan and the Nightingale musicke, and divers beasts, by imitating them, the art of Physicke:  Aristotle is of opinion that Nightingales teach their young ones to sing, wherein they employ both long time and much care: whence it followeth that those which we keepe tame in cages and have not had leasure to go to their parents schoole, lose much grace in their singing.  Whereby we may conclude they are much amended by discipline and study.  And amongst those that run wilde, their song is not all one nor alike.  Each one hath learnt either better or worse, according to his capacity.  And so jealous are they in their prentiseship, that to excell one another they will so stoutly contend for the mastery that many times such as are vanquished die; their winde and strength sooner failing than their voice.  The young ones wil very sadly sit recording their lesson, and are often seene labouring how to imitate certaine song-notes:  The Scholler listeneth attentively to his Masters lesson, and carefully yeeldeth account of it; now one and then another shall hold his peace:  Marke but how they endevour to amend their faults, and how the elder striveth to reprove the youngest.  Arrius protesteth to have seene an Elephant who on every thigh had a cimball hanging and one fastned to his truncke, at the sound of which all other Elephants danced in a round, now rising aloft, then lowting full low at certaine cadences, even as the instrument directed them, and was much delighted with the harmony.  In the great showes of Rome Elephants were ordinarily seene, taught to move and dance at the sound of a voice, certaine dances, wherein 

were many strange shifts, enterchanges, caprings, and cadences, very hard to be learned.  Some have beene noted to konne and practise their lessons, using much study and care, as being loath to be chidden and beaten of their masters.  But the tale of the piot is very strange, which Plutarke confidently witnesseth to have seene: 'This jay was in a Barbers shop of Rome, and was admirable in counterfeiting with her voice whatsoever she heard:  It fortuned one day that certaine Trumpeters staied before this shop and there sounded a good while; and being gone, all that day and the next after the piot began to be very sad, silent, and melancholy, whereat all men marvelled, and surmized that the noise or clang of the trumpets had thus affrighted and dizzied her, and that with her hearing she had also lost her voice. But at last they found she was but in a deep study and dumpish, retracting into herself, exercising her minde, and preparing her voice to represent the sound, and expresse the noise of the Trumpets she had heard.  And the first voice she uttered was that wherein she perfectly expressed their straines, their closes, and their changes: having by her new prentiship altogether quit, and as it were scorned whatever she could prattle before. I will not omit to alleage another example of a Dogge, which Plutarke also saith to have seen (as for any order or method I know very well I do but confound it, which I observe no more in ranging these examples than I doe in all the rest of my business), who being in a ship, noted that his Dogge was in great perplexity how to get some Oyle out of a deepe Pitcher, which by reason of its narrow mouth he could not reach with his tongue, got him presently some Pibble stones, and put so many into the jarre that he made the Oyle come up so neare the brimme as he could easily reach and licke some.  And what is that but the effect of a very subtill spirit?  It is reported that the ravens of Barbary will doe the like, when the water they would drinke is too low.  This action doth somewhat resemble that which Juba, a King of that Nation, relateth of their elephants; 

that when through the wiles of those that chase them, anyone chanceth to fall into certaine deep pits which they prepare for them, and to deceive them they cover over with reeds, shrubs, and boughes, his fellowes will speedily with all diligence bring great store of stones and peeces of timber that so they may helpe to recover him out againe.  But this beast hath in many other effects such affinity with man's sufficiency, that would I particularly trace out what experience hath taught, I should easily get an affirmation of what I so ordinarily maintaine, which is, that there is more difference found betweene such and such a man, than betweene such a beast and such a man.  An Elephants keeper in a private house of Syria was wont every meale to steele away halfe of the allowance which was allotted him; it fortuned on a day his master would needs feed him himselfe, and having poured that just measure of barley which for his allowance he had prescribed for him, into his manger, the elephant, sternely eying his master, with his truncke divided the provender in two equal parts, and laid the one aside, by which he declared the wrong his keeper did him.  Another having a keeper, who to encrease the measure of his provender was wont to mingle stones with it, came one day to the pot which with meat in it for his keepers dinner was seething over the fire, and filled it up with ashes.  These are but particular effects, but that which all the world hath seene, and all men know, which is, that in all the armies that came out of the East, their chiefest strength consisted in their elephants, by whom they reaped, without comparison, farre greater effects than now adaies we do by our great ordnance, which in a manner holds their place in a ranged battel (such as have any knowledge in ancient histories may easily guesse it to be true).

      -----si quidem Tyrio servire solebant
Anibali, et nostris ducibus, regique Molosso
Horum majores, et dorso ferre cohortes,
Partem aliquam belli, et euntem in praelia surriam./1

Their elders usde great Hannibal to steed
Our Leaders, and Molossian Kings at need,
And on their backe to beare strong guarding Knights,
Part of the warre, and troupes addrest to fights.

ignorant of the French tongue, of our kissing the hands, of our low-lowting courtesies, of our behaviour and carriage, by which without contradiction, humane nature ought to take her patterne?  Whatsoever seemeth strange unto us, and we understand not, we blame and condemne. {otherphobia+} The like befalleth us in our judging of beasts.  They have diverse qualities, which somewhat simbolize witih ours, from which we may comparatively draw some conjecture, but of such as are peculiar unto them what know we what they are?  Horses, dogges, oxen, sheepe, birds, and the greater number of sensitive creatures that live amongst us, know our voyce, and by it suffer themselves to be directed.  So did the lamprey which Crassus had, and came to him when he called it: so do the eeles that breed in Arethusa's fountains.  And my selfe have seene some fish-ponds where at a certaine crie of those that kept them, the fish would presently come to shoare, where they were wont to be fed.

      ------ nomen habent, et ad magistri
Vocem quisque sui venit citatus./1

They have their proper Dames, and every one
Comes at his master's voyce, as call'd upon.

ant, toward another emmets nest, from which many other ants came, as it were to meet them by the way to parly with them, who after they had continued together awhile, they which came last, returned backe to consult (as you may imagine) with their fellow-citizens, and because they could hardly come to any capitulation, they made two or three voyages to and fro.  In the end, the last come brought unto the other a worme from their habitation, as for a ransome of the dead, which worme the first company tooke upon their backes, and carried it home, leaving the dead body unto the other.  Loe, here the interpretation that Cleanthes gave it:  Witnessing thereby that those creatures which have no voice at all, have neverthelesse mutual commerce and enterchangeable communication, whereof if we be not partakers, it is onely our fault; and therefore doe we fondly to censure it.  And they yet produce divers other effects, farre surpassing our capacity, and so farre out of the reach of our mutation that even our thoughts are unable to conceive them.  Many hold opinion that in the last and famous sea-fight which Antonie lost against Augustus, his admiral-galley was in her course staied by that little fish the Latines call Remora, and the English a Suck-stone, whose property is to stay any ship he can fasten himselfe unto.  And the Emperour Caligula, sailing with a great fleet along the coast of Romania, his owne galley was suddenly staied by such a fish, which he caused to be taken sticking fast to the keele, moodily raging that so little a creature had the power to force both sea and winde, and the violence of all his oares, onely with her bil sticking to his galley (for it is a kinde of shellfish) and was much more amazed when he perceived the fish being brought aboord his ship to have no longer that powerfull vertue which it had being in the sea.  A certaine citizen of Cyzicum, whilom purchased unto himselfe the reputation to be an excellent mathematician, because he had learnt the quality of the hedge-hogge, whose property is to build his hole or denne open diverse waies, and toward severall winds,

and fore-seeing rising stormes, he presently stoppeth the holes that way, which thing the foresad citizen heedfully observing, would in the City foretell any future storm, and what wind should blow.  The cameleon taketh the colour of the place wherein he is.  The fish called a pourcontrell, or manie-feet, changeth him selfe into what colour he lists as occasion offereth it selfe, that so he may hide himselfe from what he feareth, and catch what he seeketh for.  In the cameleon it is a change preceding of passion, but in the pourcontrell a change in action; we ourselves doe often change our colour and alter our countenance through sudden feare, choler, shame, and such like violent passions, which are wont to alter the hew of our faces, but it is by the effect of sufferance, as in the cameleon. The jaundise hath power to make us yelow, but it is not in the disposition of our wils.  The effects we perceive in other creatures, greater than ours, witnesse some more excellent faculty in them, which is concealed from us; as it is to be supposed diverse others of their conditions and forces are, whereof no appearance or knowledge commeth to us.  Of all former predictions, the ancientest and most certaine were such as were drawen from the flight of birds; we have nothing equall unto it, nor so admirable.  The rule of fluttering, and order of shaking their wings, by which they conjecture the consequences of things to ensue, must necessarily be directed to so noble an operation by some excellent and supernaturall meane.  For it is a wresting of the letter to attribute so wondrous effects to any naturall decree, without the knowledge, consent, or discourse of him that causeth and produceth them, and is a most false opinion, which to prove, the torpedo or cramp-fish hath the property to benumme and astonish, not onely the limbs of those that touch it, but also theirs that with any long pole or fishing line touch any part thereof, shee doth transmit and convey a kinde If heavie numming into the hands of those that stirre or handle the same. Moreover, it is averred that if any matter be cast upon them 

the astonishment is sensibly felt to gaine upward, untill it come to the hands, and even through the water it astonisheth the feeling-sence. Is not this a wonderfull power?  Yet is it not altogether unprofitable for the Cramp-fish, she both knowes and makes use of it: for to catch prey she pursueth, she is seene to hide berselfe under the mud, that, other fishes swimming over her, strucken and benummed with her exceeding coldnesse, may fall into her clawes.  The Cranes, swallowes, and other wandering birds, changing their abode according to the seasons of the years, shew evidently the knowledge they have of their fore-divining faculty, and often put the same in use.  Hunters assure us that to chose the best dog, and which they purpose to keepe from out a litter of other young whelps, there is no better meane than the damme herselfe: for, if they be removed from out their kennell, him that she first brings thither againe shall alwaies prove the best; or if one but encompasse her kennell with fire, looke which of her whelps she first seeketh to save, is undoubtedly the best; whereby it appeareth they have a certaine use of prognosticating that we have not; or else some hidden vertue to judge of their young ones, different and more lively than ours.  The manner of all beasts breeding, engendering, nourishing, working, moving, living, and dying, being so neere to ours, what ever we abridge from their moving causes, and adde to our condition above theirs can no way depart from our reasons discourse.  For a regiment of our health, Physitians propose the example of bats manner of life and proceeding unto us: for this common saying is alwaies in the people's mouth:

Tenez chauds les pieds et la teste,
Au demeurant vivez en beste./1

Keep warme ('tis meete) the head and feete:
In all the rest, live like a beast.

a certaine disposition of some members fittest for that purpose; nevertheless, they bid us range our selves unto a brutish situation and disposition, as most effectuall:

     ----- more ferarum,
Quadrupedumque maqis ritu, plerumque putantur
Concipere uxores: quia sic loca sumere possunt,
Pectoribus positis, sublatis semina lumbis./1

Nam mulier prohibet se concipere, atgue repugnat,
Clunibus ipse viri Venerem si laeta retractet,
Atque exposato ciet omni pectore fluctus,
Et enim sulci recta regione viaque
Vomerem, atque locis avertit seminis ictum./2

capable of it.  We see horses take a kinde of acquaintancee one of another, so that often, traveling by the highway or feeding together, we have much ado to keep them asunder; wee see them bend and applie their affections to some of their fellowes colours, as if it were upon a certaine visage: and when they meet with any such, with signes of joy and demonstration of good will to joine and accost them, and to hate and shunne some other formes and colours.  Beasts as well as wee have choice in their loves, and are very nice in chusing of their mates.  They are not altogether void of our extreme and unappeasable jealousies.  Lustfull desires are either naturall and necessary as eating and drinking; or else naturall and not necessary, as the acquaintance of males and females; or else neither necessary nor naturall: of this last kinde are almost all mens, for they are all superfluous and artificiall.  It is wonderfull to see with how little nature will be satisfied, and how little she hath left for us to be desired.  The preparations in our kitchens doe nothing at al concede her lawes.  The Stoikes say that a man might very well sustaine himselfe with one olive a day.  The delicacy of our wines is no part of her lesson, no more is the surcharge and relishing which we adde unto our letcherous appetites.

     -----neque illa
Magno prognatum deposcit console cunnum./1

but that they have some coherency with our riotous licenciousnesse. And even as there have beene found, certaine furious longings and unnaturall desires which have provoked men unto the love of beasts, so have diverse times some of them beene drawn to love us, and are possessed with monstrous affections from one kind to another: witnesse the elephant that in the love of an herb-wife, in the city of Alexandria, was corivall with Aristophanes the Grammarian, who in all offices pertayning to an earnest woer and passionate suiter yeelded nothing unto him; for, walking thorow the fruit-market, he would here and there snatch up some with his truncke, and carry them unto her: as neere as might be he would never loose the sight of her, and now and then over her hand put his truncke into her bosome, to feele her breasts.  They also report of a dragon that was exceedingly in love with a young maiden, and of a goose in the city of Asope which dearely loved a young childe; also of a ram that belonged to the musitian Glausia.  Do we not daily see munkies ragingly in love with women, and furiously to pursue them?  And certaine other beasts given to love the males of their owns sex?  Oppianus and others report some examples to show the reverence and manifest the awe some beasts in their marriages beare unto their kindred; but experience makes us often see the contrary:

     -----nec habetur turpe juvencae
Ferre patrem tergo: tua filia coniux:
Quasque creavit, init pecudes caper: ipsaque cuius
Semine concepta est, ex illo conecepit ales/1

To beare her Sire the Heifer shameth not:
The Horse takes his owne Fillies maiden-head:
The Goat gets them with young whom he begot:
Birds bred by them, by whom themselves were bred.

to stumble, so that the sacks she carried were all wet, and perceiving the salt (because the water had melted it to grow lighter, ceased not, as seene as she came neere any water, together with her load, to plunge herselfe therein, untill her master, being aware of her craft, commanded her to be laden with wooll, which being wet became heavier; the mule finding herselfe deceived, used her former policy no more.  There are many of them that lively represent the visage of our avarice, who with a greedy kinde of desire endevour to surprise whatsoever comes within their reach, and though they reap no commodity, nor have any use of it, to hide the same very curiously.  As for husbandry, they exceed us, not onely in fore-sight to spare and gather together for times to come, but have also many parts of the skill belonging thereunto.  As the ants, when they perceive their corne to grow mustie and graine to be sowre, for feare it should rut and putrifie, spread the same abroad before their nests, that so it may aire and drie.  But the caution they use in gnawing, and prevention they employ in paring their graines of wheat, is beyond all imagination of mans wit: Because wheat doth not alwaies keep drie nor wholesome, but moisten, melt, and dissolve into a kind of whey, namely, when it beginneth to bud, fearing it should turne to seed, and lose the nature of a storehouse, for their sustenance, the part and gnaw off the end whereat it wonts to bud.  As forwarre+, which is the greatest and most glorious of all humane actions, I would faine know if we will use it for an argument of some prerogative, or otherwise for a testimonie of our imbecilitie and imperfection, as in truth the science we use to defeat and kill one another, to spoile and utterly to overthrow our owne kind, it seemeth it hath not much to make it selfe to be wished for in beasts, that have it not.

     ----- quando leoni
Fortior eripuit ritam leo, quo nemore unquam
Expirarit aper maioris dentibus apri?/1

When hath a greater Lion damnifide
A Lions life? in what wood ever di'de,
A boare by tusks and gore,
Of any greater boare?

     ----- saepe duobus
Regibus incessit magn6o discordia motu,
Continuoque animos vulgi et trepidantia bello
Corda licet longe praesciscere./1

Oft-times twixt two so great Kings great dissentio
With much adoe doth set them at contention;
The vulgare mindes strait may you see from farre,
And hearts that tremble at the thought of warre.

Fulgur ubi ad caelum se tollit, totaque circum
AEre renidescit tellus, subterque virum vi
Excitur pedibus sonitus, clamoreque montes
Icti rejectant voces ad sidera mundi:/2

Where lightning raiseth it selfe to the skies,
The earth shines round with armour, soundes doe rise
By mens force under feet, wounded with noyse
The hilles to heav'n reverberate their voyce.

     ----- Paridis propter narrator amorem
Graecia Barbariae diro collisa duello./3

For Paris lustfull love (as Stories tell)
All Creece to direfull warre with Asia fell.

     The hatred of one man, a spight, a pleasure, a familiar suspect, or a jealousie, causes which ought not to move two scolding fish-wives to scratch one another, is the soule and motive of all this hurly-burly.  Shall we beleeve them that are the principall authors and causes therof?  Let us but hearken unto the greatest and most victorious Emperour that ever, was, how pleasantly he laughs and wittily he plaies at so many battells and blooody fights, hazarded by both sea and land, at the blood and lives of five hundred thousand soules which followed his fortune, and the strength and riches of two parts of the world consumed and drawne drie for the service of his enterprise:

Quod futuit Glaphyran Antonius, hanc mihi poenam
Fulvia constituit, se quoque uti futuam
Fulviam ego ut furuam? quid si me Manius oret
Paedicam, faciam? non puto, si sapiam.
Aut futue, aut pugnemus, ait: quid si mihi vita
Charior est ipsa mentula?  Signa canant./1

Quam multi Lybico volvuntur marmore fluctus,
Saevus ubi Orion hybernis conditur undis.
Vel cum sole novo densae torrentur aristae,
Aut Hermi campo, aut Lyciae flaventibus arvis,
Scuta sonant, pulsuque pedum tremit excita tellus./2

As many waves as rowle in Affricke marble bounds,
When fierce Orion hides in Winter waves his head:
Or when thicke-eares of Corne are parch't by Suune new- spred.
In Hermus fruitfull fields, or Lycaes yellow grounds,
With noyse of shields and feet, the trembling earth so sounds.

It nigrum campis agmen:/1

The sable-coloured band,
Marches along the Land.

Hi motus animorum, atque haec certamina tanta,
Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescent./2

Their stomacke-motions, these contentions great,
Clam'd with a little dust, strait lose their heat.

and their weight, wee perswade ourselves they are brought forth by some weighty and important causes; wee are deceived:  They are moved, stirred and removed in their motions by the same springs and wards that we are in ours.  The same reason that makes us chide and braule and fall out with any of our neighbours, causeth a warre to follow betweene Princes; the same reason that makes us whip or beat a lackey maketh a Prince (if hee apprehend it) to spoyle and waste a whole Province.  They have as easie a will as we, but they can doe much more.  Alike desires perturbe both a skinne-worme and an Elephant.  Touching trust and faithfulnesse, there is no creature in the world so trecherous as man.  Our histories report the earnest pursuit and sharpe chase that some dogges have made for the death of their masters.  King Pirrhus, finding a dog that watched a dead man, and understanding he had done so three daies and nights together, commanded the corps to be enterred and tooke the dog along with himn It fortuned one day, as Pirrbus was surveying the general] musters of his army the dog perceiving in that multitude the man who had murthered his maister, loud-barking and with great rage ran furiously upon him; by which signes he furthered and procured his maisters revenge, which by way of justice was shortly executed.  Even so did the dogge belonging to Hesiodus, surnamed the wise, having convicted the children of Canister of Naupactus of the murther committed on his Masters person.  Another Dogge being apointed to watch a Temple in Athens, having perceived a sacrilegious theefe to carrie away the fairest jewels therein, barked at him so long as he was able, and seeing he could not awaken the Sextons or temple- keepers, followed the theefe whither-soever he went; daie-light being come, he kept himselfe a loof-off, but never lost the sight of him: if he offered him meat, he utterly refused it; but if any passenger chanced to come by, on them he fawned, with wagging his taile, and tooke what-ever they offered him; if the theefe staied to rest himselfe, 

he also staied in the same place.  The newes of this Dogge being come to the Temple-keepers, they as they went along, enquiring of the Dogs haire and colour, pursued his tracke so long that at last they found both the Dog and the theefe in the Citie of Cromyon, whom they brought backe to Athens, where for his offence he was severely punished.  And the judges in acknowledgement of the Dogges good office, at the Cities charge appointed him for his sustenance a certaine daily measure of Corne, and enjoyned the Priests of the Temple, carefully to looke unto him.  Plutarke affirmeth this storie to be most true, and to have hapned in his time.  Touching gratitude+ and thankfulnesse (for me thinks we have need to further this word greatly), this onely example shall suffice, of which Appion reporteth to have been a spectator himself.  One day (saith he) that the Senate of Rome (to please and recreate the common people) causd a great number of wilde beasts to be baited, namely huge great Lions, it so fortuned that there was one amongst the rest, who by reason of his furious and stately carriage, of his unmatched strength, of his great limbs, and of his loud and terror-causing roaring, drew all bystanders eyes to gaze upon him.  Amongst other slaves, that in sight of all the people were presented to encounter with these beasts, there chanced to be one Androclus+ of Dacia, who belonged unto a Roman Lord who had been Consull.  This huge Lion, having eyed him afar off, first made a suddaine stop, as strucken into a kind of admiration, then with a milde and gentle contenance, as if he would willingly have taken acquaintance of him), faire and softly approached unto him:  Which done, and resting, assured he was the man he tooke him for, begun fawningly to wagge his taile, as dogges doe that fawne upon their newfound masters, and licke the poore and miserable slaves bands and thighs, who through fears was almost out of his wits and halfe dead.  Androclus at last taking hart of grace, and by reason of the Lions mildnesse having rouzed up his spirits, and wishly 

fixing his eies upon him, to see whether he could call him to remembrance, it was to all beholders a singular pleasure to observe the love, the joy, and blandishments each endevored to enter-shew one another.  Whereat the people raising a loud crie, and by their shouting and clapping; of hands seeming to be much pleased, the Emperour willed the slave to be brought before him, as desirous to understand of him the cause of so strange and seld-seene an accident, who related this new and wonderfull storie unto him.      My Master (said he) being Proconsull in Affrica, forsomuch as he caused me every day to be most cruelly beaten, and held me in so rigorous bondage, I was constrained, as being wearie of my life, to run away; and safely to scape from so eminent a person, and who had so great authoritie in the Countrie, I thought it best to get me to the desart and most unfrequented wildernesses of that region, with a full resolution, if I could not compasse the meanes to sustaine my selfe, to finde one way or other, with violence to make myselfe away.  One day the Sunne about noone- tide became extremely hote, and the scorching heat thereof intolerable, I fortuned to come unto a wilde unhauted cave, hidden amongst crags and almost inaccessible, and where imagined no footing had ever been; therein I hid myselfe.  I had not long been there but in comes this Lion, with one of his pawes sore hurt, and bloody-goared, wailing for the smart, and groaning for the paine he felt; at whose arrivall I was much dismaied, but he seeing me lie close-cowering in a corner of his den, gently made his approaches unto me, holding forth his goared paw toward me and seemed with shewing the same humbly to sue and suppliantly to beg for help at my hands.  I, moved with ruth, taking it into my hand, pulled out a great splint which was gotten into it, and shaking off all feare, first I wrung and crusht his sore, and caused the filth and matter, which therein was gathered, to come forth; then, as gently as for my heart I could, I cleansed, wiped, and dried the same.  He feeling 

some ease in his griefe, and his paine to cease, still holding his foot betweene my hands, began to sleep and take some rest.  Thence forward he and I lived together the full space of three yeares in his den, with such meat as he shifted-for; for what beasts he killed, or what prey soever he tooke, he ever brought home the better part and shared it with me, which for want of fire I rotted in the Sunne, and therewith nourished my selfe all that while.  But at last, wearied with this kind of brutish life, the Lion being one day gone to purchase his wonted prey, I left the place, hoping to mend my fortunes, and having wandred up and downe three dayes, I was at last taken by certaine souldiers, which from Africa brought me into this Citie to my Master againe, who immediately condemned me to death, and to be devoured by wilde beasts.  And as I now perceive, the same Lion was also shortly after taken, who as you see hath now requited me of the good turne I did him, and the health which by my meanes he recovered.  Behold here the historie Androclus reported unto the Emperour, which after he caused to be declared unto all the people, at whose generall request he was forthwith set at libertie, and quit of his punishment, and by the common consent of all had the Lion bestowed upon him.  Appion saith further, that Androclus was daily seen to lead the Lion up and downe the streets of Rome, tied onely with a little twine, and walking from taverne to taverne, received such money as was given him, who would gently suffer himseIf to be handled, touched, decked, and strowed with flowers, all over and over, many saying when they met him: 'Yonder is the Lion that is the mans hoste, and yonder is the man that is the Lions Physitian.  We often mourne and weepe for the losse of those beasts we love, so doe they many times for the losse of us.

Post bellator equus positis insiqnibus Aethon
It lacrimans, guttisque humectat grandibus ora./1

Next AEthon horse of warre, all omaments laid downe,
Goes weeping, with great drops bedewes his cheeckes adowne.

     As some of our nations have wives in common and some in severall, each man keeping himselfe to his owne, so have some beasts; yet some there are that observe their marriage with as great respect as we doe ours.  Touching the mutuall societie and reciprocall confederation which they devise amongst themselves, that so they may be fast combined together, and in times of need help one another, it is apparant that if Oxen, Hogs, and other beasts, being hurt by us, chance to crie, all the heard runnes to aid him, and in his defence will joine all together.  The fish, called of the Latines Scarus, having swallowed the fishers hook, his fellowes will presently flocke about him, and nible the line in sunder; and if any of them happen to be taken in a bow-net, some of his fellowes, turning his head away, will put his taile in at the neck of the net, who with his teeth fast- bolding the same, never leave him untill they have pulled him out.  The Barbel fishes, if one of them chance to be engaged, will set the line against their backes, and with a fin they have, toothed like a sharp saw, presently saw and fret the same asunder.  Concerning particular offices, which we for the benefit of our life draw one from an other, many like examples are found amongst them.  It is assuredly beleeved that the Whale never swimmeth unlesse she have a little fish going before her as her vantgard; it is in shape like a Gudgeon, and both the Latines and we call it the Whale-guide; for she doth ever follow him, suffering herself as easily to be led and turned by him as the ship is directed and turned by a sterne: for requitall of which good turne, whereas all things else, be it beast, fish, or vessell, that comes within the horrible Chaos of this monstrous mouth, is presently lost and devoured, this little fish doth safety retire himselfe therein, and there sleepes verie quietly, and as long as he sleepes the Whale never stirs; but as soone as he awaketh and goeth his way, wherever he takes his course she alwaies followeth him, and if she fortune to lose him, she wanders here and there, and often striketh upon the rocks, as a ship that hath nor 

mast nor rudder.  This Plutarke witnesseth to have seen in the Iland of Anticyra.  There is such a like societie betweene the little bird called a Wren and the Crocodill; for the Wren serveth as a sentinell to so great a monster:  And if the Ichneumon, which is his mortall enemie, approach to fight with him, the little birdlet, lest he might surprise him whilst he sleepeth, with his singing, and pecking him with his bill, awakens him, and gives him warning of the danger he is in.  The bird liveth by the scraps, and feedeth upon the leavings of that monster, who gently receiveth him into his mouth, and suffers him to pecke his jawes and teeth for such mamokes of flesh as sticke betweene them: and if he purpose to close his mouth, he doth first warne him to be gone, faire and easie closing it by little and little, without any whit crushing or hurting him.  The shell-fish called a nacre liveth even so with the pinnotere, which is a little creature like unto a crabfish, and as his porter or usher waits upon him, attending the opening of the nacre, which he continually keepes gaping until he see some little fish enter in, fit for their turne, then he creepes into the nacre, and leaves not pinching his quicke flesh untill he makes him close his shell, and so they both together, fast in their hold, devour their prey. In the manner of the tunnies life may be discovered a singular knowledge of the three parts of the mathematikes.  First for astrologie, it may well be said that man doth learne it of them: for wheresoever the winter Solstitium doth take them, there do they stay themselves, and never stir till the next Equinoctium, and that is the reason why Aristotle doth so willingly ascribe that art unto them: then for geometric and arithmetike, they alwaies frame their shole of a cubike figure, every way square: and so forme a solide close and well-ranged battalion, encompassed round about of six equall sides.  Thus orderly marshaled, they take their course and swim whither their journey tends, as broad and wide behind as before: so that he that seeth and telleth but one ranke, may easily number all the troope, forsomuch as 

the number of the depth is equall unto the bredth, and the bredth unto the length.  Touching magnanimitie and haughtie courage, it is hard to set it forth more lively, and to produce a rarer patterne than that of the dog which from India was sent unto Alexander: to whom was first presented a stag, then a wilde boare, and then a beare, with each of which he should have foughten, but he seemed to make no accompt of them, and would not so much as remove out of his place for them; but when he saw a lion, he presently rouzed himselfe, shewing evidently he meant onely so noble a beast worthie to enter combat with him.  Concerning repentance and acknowledging of faults committed, it is reported that an elephant, having, through rage of choler, slaine his governour, conceived such an extreme inward griefe that he would never afterward touch any food, and suffered himselfe to pine to death.  Touching clemencie, it is reported of a tiger (the fiercest and most inhumane beast of all having a kid given her to feed upon, endured the force of gnawing hunger two daies together rather than she would hurt him; the third day with maine strength she brake the cage wherein she was kept pent, and went elsewhere to shift for feeding; as one unwilling to seize upon the seelie kid, her familiar and guest.  And concerning privileges of familiaritie and sympathie caused by conversation, is it not oft seen how some make cats, dogs, and hares so tame, so gentle, and so milde, that, without harming one another, they shall live and continue together?  But that which experience teacheth sea-faring men, especially those that come into the seas of Sicilie, of the qualitie and condition of the Halcyon bird, or as some call it alcedo or kings-fisher, exceeds all mens conceit. In what kinds of creature did ever nature so much prefer both their hatching, sitting, brooding, and birth?  Poets faine that the Iland of Delos, being before wandring and fleeting up and downe, was for the delivery of Latona made firme and setled; but Gods decree hath beene that all the watrie wildernesse should be quiet and made calm, without raine, wind, 

Now from what vanitie can it proceed, we should so willfully contemne and disdainfully interpret those effects, which we can neither imitate nor conceive?  But to follow this equalitie or correspondences betweene us and beasts somewhat further: the privilege whereof our soule vants, to bring to her condition whatsoever it conceiveth, and to despoile what of mortall and corporall qualities belongs unto it, to marshall those things which she deemed worthie her acquaintance, to disrobe and deprive their corruptible conditions, and to make them leave as superfluous and base garments, thicknesses, length, depth, weight, colour, smell, roughnesse, smoothnesse, hardnesse, softnesse, and all sensible accidents else, to fit and appropriate them to her immortall and spirituall condition: so that Rome and Paris, which I have in my soule; Paris which I imagine; yea, I imagine and conceive the same without reatnesse and place, without stone and morter. and without wood; then say I unto my selfe, the same privilege seemeth likewise to be in beasts: for a horse accustomed to heare the sound of trumpets, the noyse of shot, and the clattering of armes, whom we see to snort, to startle, and to neigh in his sleep, as he lies along upon his litter, even as he were in the hurly burly; it is most certaine, that in his minde he apprebends the sound of a drum without any noyse, and an armie without armes or bodie.

Quippe videbis equos fortes, cum membra jacebunt
In somnis, sudare tamen, spirareque saepe,
Et quasi de palma summas contenders vires./1

You shall see warlike horses, when in sleep
Their limbs lie, yet sweat, and a snorting keep.
And stretch their utmost strength,
As for a goale at length.

legs, and perfectly represent the motions of his course the same is a hare without bones, without haire.

Venantumque canes in molli saepe quiete,
Iactant crura tamen subito, vocesque repente
Mittunt, et crebras reducunt naribus auras,
Ut vestigia si teneant inventa ferarunt
Expergefactique, sequuntur inania saepe,
Crvorum simulacra, fugae quasi dedita cernant:
Donec discussis redeant erroribus ad se./1

Oft times the hunters dogs in easie rest
Stir their legs, suddainly, open, and quest,
And send from nosthrils thicke-thicke snuffing sent
As if on traile they were of game full-bent:
And wakened so, they follow shadowes vaine
Of Deere in chase, as if they fled amaine:
Till, their fault left, they turne to sense againe.

      ------Consueta domi catulorum blanda propago
Degere, saepe levem ex oculis volucremque soporem
Discutere, et corpus de terra corripere instant
Proinde quasi ignotas facies atque ora tuantur./2

The fawning kind of whelps, at home that liv's,
O From eyes to shake light-swift sleepe often striv's,
And from the ground their starting bodies hie,
As if some unknowne stranger they did spie.

We imagine and faine her formes, as our fantasies lead us.

Turpis Romano Belgicus ore color./1

A Dutch-froes colour hath no grace,
Seen in a Roman Ladies face.

majestie to be joyned with it.  Even as the preheminence in beauties which Plato ascribeth unto the Sphericall figure, the Epicureans refer the same unto the Piramidall or Square; and say they cannot swallow a God made round like a bowle.  But howsoever it is, nature hath no more privileged us in that than in other things, concerning her common lawes.  And if we impartially enter into judgement with our selves, we shall finde that if there be any creature or beast lesse favoured in that than we, there are others (and that in great numbers) to whom nature hath been more favourable than to us.  A multis animalibus decore vincimur:/1 'We are excelled in comelinesse, by many living creatures:'  Yea, of terrestriall creatures that live with us.  For, concerning those of the Sea, omitting their figure, which no proportion can containe, so much doth it differ, both in colour, in neatnesse, in smoothnesse, and in disposition, we must give place unto them: which in all qualities we must likewise doe to the eyrie ones.  And that prerogative which Poets yeeld unto our upright stature, looking towards heaven whence her beginning is,

Pronaque cum spectent animalia caetera terram,
Os homini sublime dedit, caelumque videre
Iussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus,/2

Where other creatures on earth looke and lie,
A loftie looke God gave man, had him prie
On heav'n, rais'd his high countenance to the skie,

filthiest of all the rout:  As for outward apparance and true shape of the visage, it is the Munkie or Ape:

Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis!/1

An Ape, a most il-favored beast,
How like to us in all the rest?' {Yahoo+}

Ille quod obscaenas in aperto corpore partes
Viderat, in cursu qui fuit, heasit amor./2

The love stood still, that ran in full cariere,
When bare it saw parts that should not appeare.

into their closets before they are fully readie and throughly painted, to come abroad and shew themselves:

Nec veneres nostras hoc fallit, quo magis ipsae
Omnia summopere hos vitae post scaenia celant,
Quos retinere volunt adstrictoque esse in amore./1

Our Mistresses know this, which makes them not disclose
Parts to be plaid within, especially from those
Whom they would servants hold, and in their love-bands close:

unto health, than they do in this other proposition of theirs, where they say, that if Circe had presented Vlisses with two kinds of drinke, the one to turne a wise man into a foole, the other to change a foole into a wise man, he would rather have accepted that of folly, than have been pleased that Circe should transforme his humane shape into a beasts.  And they say that Wisdome herselfe would thus have spoken unto him: 'Meddle not with me, but leave me rather than then shouldst place me under the shape and bodie of an Asse.  What?  This great and heavenly wisdom?  Are Phylosophers contented then to quit it for a corporall and earthly veile?  Why then it is not for reasons sake, nor by discourse and for the soule, we so much excell beasts: it is for the love we beare unto our beautie, unto our faire hew, and goodly disposition of limbs, that we reject and set our understanding at naught, our wisdome, and what else we have.  Well, I allow of this ingenious and voluntarie confession surely they knew those parts we so much labour to pamper to be meere fantasies.  Suppose beasts had all the vertue, the knowledge, the wisdome and sufficiency of the Stoikes, they should still be beasts; nor might they ever be compared unto a miserable, wretched, and senseless man.  For, when all is done, whatsoever is not as we are, is not of any worth.  And God to be esteemed of us, must (as we will show anon) draw somewhat neere it.  Whereby it appeareth that it is not long of a true discourse, but of a foolish hardinesse and selfe-perfuming obstinacie, we prefer ourselves before other creatures, and sequester our selves from their condition and societie. {Gulliver+} But to returne to our purpose: we have for our part inconstancie, irresolution, uncertaintie, sorrow, superstition, carefulnesse for future things (yea after our life), ambition, covetousnesse, jelousie, envie, inordinate, mad, untamed appetites, warre, falsehood, disloyaltie, detraction, and curiositie.  Surely we have strangely overpaid this worthie discourse, whereof we so much glorie, and this readinesse to judge, or capacitie to 

Knowow, if we have purchased the same with the price of so infinite passions to which we are uncessantly enthralled.  If we be not pleased (as Socrates is) to make this noble prerogative over beasts, to be of force, that whereas nature hath subscribed them certaine seasons and bounds for their naturall lust and voluptuousnesse, she hath given us at all howers and occasions the full reines of them.

Ut vinum aegrotis, quia prodest raro, nocet saepissime, melius est non adhibere omnino, quam, spe dubiae salutis, in apertam perniciem incurrere:  Sic, ha ud scio, an melius fuerit humano generi motum motum celerem cogitationis, acumen, solertiam quam rationem vocamus, quoniam pestifera sint multis, admodum paucis salutaria, non dari omnino, quam tam munifice et tam large dari:/1

wherein sciences flourished most, we could never learne they had any speciall excellencie in their life.  Wee see the Graecian hath been put to his plunges in seeking to discharge himselfe from some notable imputations in his life.  Was it ever found that sensualitie and health are more pIeasing unto him that understands Astrologie and Grammar?

(Illiterate num minus nervi rigent?/1

As stiffe unlearned sinnewes stand,
As theirs that much more understand.)

Scilicet et morbis, et debilitate carebis,
Et luctun, et curam et tempora vitae
Longa tibi posthaec fato meliore dabuntur./2

Thou shalt be from disease and weaknesse free,
From moane, from care, long time of life to thee
; Shall by more friendly fate affoorded be.

forth many men of much more valour and sufficiencie, both for peace and warre, than this late learned Rome, which with all her wisdom hath overthrowne her erst-flourishing estate.  If all the rest were alike, then should honestie+ and innocencie at least belong to the ancient, for she was exceedingly well placed with simplicities+.  But I will shorten this discourse, which haply would draw me further than I would willingly follow: yet thus much I will say more, that onely humilitie+ and submission is able to make a perfect honest+ man.  Every one must not have the knowledge of his dutie referred to his owne judgement, but ought rather to have it prescribed unto him, and not be allowed to chose it at his pleasure and free will: otherwise, according to the imbecilitie of our reasons, and infinite varietie of our opinions, we might peradventure forge and devise such duties unto ourselves, as would induce us (as Epicurus saith) to endevour to destroy and devoure one another. {bourgeois_individualism+} The first law that ever God gave unto man was a law of pure obedience.  It was a bare and simple commandement whereof man should enquire and know no further: forasmuch as to obey is the proper dutie of a reasonable soul, acknowledging a heavenly and superiour benefactor.  From obeying and yeelding unto him proceed all other vertues, even as all sinnes derive from selfe-overweening. Contrariwise, the first temptation that ever seized on human nature was disobedience, by the devils instigation, whose first poison so far insinuated it selfe into us, by reason of the promises he made us of wisdome and knowledg:  Eritis sicut Dii scientes bonum et malum:/1  'You shall be like Gods, knowing both good and evill.'
And the Syrens, to deceive Vllysses, and alluring him to fall into their dangerous and confounding snares, offer to give him the full fruition of knowledge.  The opinion of wisdome is the plague of man. {intellectual_snobbery+} That is the occasion why ignorance is by our religion recommended unto us as an instrument fitting beleefe and obedience:  Cavete, ne
-----
1 Gen. iii. 5. 

Quis vos decipiat per Philosophiam et inanessseductiones, secundum elementa mundi:/1 'Take heed lest any man deceive you by Philosophie and vaine seducements, according to the rudiments of the world.' All the Philosophers of all the sects that ever were doe generally agree in this point, that the chiefest felicitie, or summum onum, consisteth in the peace and tranquillitie of the soule and bodie: but where shall we finde it?

Ad summum sapiens uno minor est Iove, dives;
Liber, honoratus, puIcher, Rex denique Regum:
Praecipue sanus, nisi cum pituita molesta est./2

In summe, who wise is knowne,
Is less than Jove alone,
Rich, honorable, free, faire, King of Kings,
Chiefely in health, but when fleagme trouble brings.

It is they that store and supply us with all such things as may make us live happily and well, and instruct us how to passe our time without sorrow or offence.  Seemeth not this goodly orator to speake of the Almighties and everliving Gods condition?  And touching effects, a thousand poore seelie women in a countrie towne have lived and live a life much more reposed, more peaceable, and more constant than ever he did. {Wordsworth+}

     -----Deus ille fuit Deus, inclyte Memmi,
Qui princeps vitae rationem invenit eam, quae
Nunc appellatur sapienta, quique per artem,
Fluctibus e tantis vitam tantisque tenebris,
In tam tranquillo et tam clara luce locavit.

Good sir, it was God, God it was, flrst found
That course of man's life, which now is renown'd
By name of wisdome; who by art reposed,
Our life in so cleare light, calme so composed,
From so great darknesse, so great waves opposed.

compared to God as he will deeme himselfe wrong to be depressed in the ranke of other creatures.  So much are we more jealous of our owne interest than of our Creators.  But we must tread this foolish vanitie under foot, and boldly shake off and lively reject those fond ridiculous foundations whereon these false opinions are built.  So long as man shall be perswaded to have meanes or power of himselfe, so long will he denie and never acknowledge what he oweth unto his Master: he shall alwaies (as the common saying is) make shift with his owne:  He must be stripped unto his shirt.  Let us consider some notable example of the effect of Philosophie.  Possidonius having long time been grieved with a painfull-lingring diseease which with the smarting paine made him wring his hands and gnash his teeth, thought to scorne grief with exclaiming and crying out against it: 'Doe what thou list, yet will I never say that thou art evil or paine.  He feeleth the same passions that my lackey doth, but he boasteth himselfe that at least he conteineth his tongue under the lawes of his sect.  Re succumbere non oportebat verbis gloriantem;/1  'It was not for him to yeeld in deeds, who had so braved it in words+.' Arcesilas lying sicke of the gowt, Carneades comming to visit him, and seeing him to frowne, supposing he had been angrie, was going away again, but he called him back, and shewing him his feet and breast, said unto him, 'There is nothing come from thence hither.  This hath somewhat a better garb;' for he feeleth himselfe grieved with sicknesse, and would faine be rid of it, yet is not his heart vanquished or weakned thereby, the other stands upon his stifnesse (as I feare) more verball than essentiall And Dionysius Heracleotes being tormented with a violent smarting in his eies, was at last perswaded to quit these Stoicke+ resolutions.      Be it supposed that Learning and Knowledge should worke those effects they speake of, that is, to blunt and abate the sharpnesse of those accidents or mischances that follow and attend us; doth she any more than
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1 CIC.  Tusc.  Qu. 1. ii. c. 25. 

what ignorance effecteth much more evidently and simply?  The Philosopher Pyrrho being at sea, and by reason of a violent storme in great danger to be cast away, presented nothing unto those that were with him in the ship to imitate but the securitie of an Hog which was aboard, who, nothing at all dismaied, seemed to behold and outstare the tempest.  Philosophie after all her precepts gives us over to the examples of a Wrestler or of a Muletier, in whom we ordinarily perceive much lesse feeling of death, of paine, of grief, and other conveniences, and more undaunted constancie, than ever Learning or Knowledge could store a man withall, {common+} unlesse he were born and of himselfe through some naturall habitude prepared unto it.  What is the cause the tender members of a childe or limbs of a horse are much more easie and with lesse paine cut and incised than ours, if it be not ignorance?  How many, only through the power of imagination, have falne into dangerous diseases?  We ordinarily see diverse that will cause themselves to be let bloud, purged, and dieted, because they would be cured of diseases they never felt but in conceit; when essentiall and true maladies faile us, then Science and Knowledge lend us hers:  This colour or complexion (said she) presageth some rheumatike defluxion will ensue you:  This soultring-hot season menaceth you with some febricant commotion; this cutting of the vitall line of your left hand warneth you of some notable and approaching indisposition.  And at last she will roundly addresse herselfe unto perfect health; saying this youthly vigour and suddain joy cannot possibly stay in one place, her bloud and strength must be abated, for feare it turne you to some mischiefe.  Compare but the life of a man subject to these like imaginations, unto that of a day-laboring swaine, who followes his naturall appetites, who measureth all things onely by the present sense, and hath neither learning nor prognostications, who feeleth no disease but when he hath it: whereas the other hath often the stone imaginarily before he have it in his reines: as if it were not time 

enough to endure the sicknesse when it shall come, he doth in his fancie prevent the same, and beadlong runneth to meet with it.  What I speake of Physicke, the same may generally be applied and drawne to all manner of learning.  Thence came this ancient opinion of those Philosophers who placed chiefe felicitie in the knowledge of our judgements weaknesse.  My ignorance affords me as much cause of hope as of feare: and having no other regiment for my health than that of other men's examples, and of the events I see elsewhere in like occasions whereof I find some of all sorts: and relie upon the comparisons that are most favourable unto me.  I embrace health with open armes, free, plaine, and full, and prepare my appetite to enjoy it, by how much more it is now lesse ordinarie and more rare unto me: so far is it from me that I, with the bitternesse of some new and forced kind of life, trouble her rest and molest her ease.  Beasts do manifestly declare unto us how many infirmities our mindes agitation brings us.  That which is told us of those that inhabit Bresill, who die onely through age, which some impute to the clearnesse and calmnenesse of their aire, I rather ascribe to the calmenesse and clearnesse of their mindes, void and free from all passions, cares, toiling, and unpleasant labours, as a people that passe their life in a wonderfull kind of simplicitie and ignorance, without letters, or lawes and without Kings or any Religion. {noble_savage+} Whenc comes it (as we daily see by experience) that the rudest and grossest clownes are more tough, strong, and more desired in amorous executions; and that the love of a Muletier is often more accepted than that of a perfumed quaint courtier?  But because in the latter the agitation of his mind doth so distract, trouble, and wearie the force of his bodie, {Hamlet+} as it also troubleth and wearieth it selfe, who doth belie, or more commonly cast the same down even into madnesse, but her own promptitude, her point, her agilitie, and, to conclude, her proper force?  Whence proceeds the subtilest follie but from the subtilest wisdome? {PlainDealer+} As from the extremest 

friendships proceed the extremest enmities and from the soundest healths the mortallest diseases, so from the rarest and quickest agitations of our mindes ensue the most distempered and outrageous frenzies.  There wants but half a pegs turne to passe from the one to the other.  In mad mens actions we see how fitlie follie suteth and meets with the strongest operations of our minde.  Who knowes not how unperceivable the neighbourhood between follie with the liveliest elevations of a free minde is, and the effects of a supreme and extraordinarie vertue.  Plato affirmeth that melancholy mindes are more excellent and discipliuable; so are there none more inclinable unto follie.  Diverse spirits, are seen to be overthrowne by their owne force and proper nimblenesse.  What a start hath one/1 of the most judicious, ingenious, and most fitted under the ayre of true ancient poesie, lately gotten by his owne agitation and selfe- gladnesse, above all other Italian Poets that have been of a long time?  Hath not he wherewith to be beholding unto this his killing vivacitie? unto this clearnesse that hath so blinded him? unto his exact and far-reaching apprehension of reasons which hath made him voide of reason? unto the curious and laborious pursute of Sciences, that have brought him unto sottishnesse? unto this rare aptitude to the exercises of the minde, which hath made him without minde or exercise? I rather spited than pitied him when I saw him at Ferrara, in so piteous a plight, that he survived himselfe; misacknowledging both himselfe and his labours, which unwitting to him, and even to his face, have been published both uncorrected and maimed.  Will you have a man healthy, will you have him regular, and in constant and safe condition? overwhelme him in the darke pit of idlenesse and dulnesse.  We must be besotted ere we can become wise, and dazzled before we can be led.  And if a man shall tell me that the commoditie to have the appetite cold to griefes and wallowish to evils, drawes this incommoditie after it, it is also consequently the same
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1 TORQUATO TASSO. 

that makes us lesse sharpe and greedie to the enjoying of good and of pleasures:  It is true but the miserie of our condition beareth that we have not so much to enjoy as to shun, and that extreme voluptuousnesse doth not so much pinch us as a light smart:  egnius homines bona quam mala sentiunt:/1
'Men have a duller feeling of a good turne than of an ill;' we have not so sensible a feeling of perfect health as we have of the least sicknesse,'

     -----pungit
In cute vix sumnma violatum plagula corpus
Quando valere nihil quemquam movet.  Hoc juvat unum
Quod me non torquet latus aut pes; caetera quisquam
Vix queat aut sanum sese aut sentire valentem.

A light stroke that dooth scarce the top-skin wound,
Greeves the gall'd bodie, when in health to be,
Doth scarce move any: onely ease is found.
That neither side nor foot torementeth me:
Scarce any in the rest can feel he's sound.

Nimium boni est, cui nihil est mali.

He hath but too much good,
Whom no ill hath withstood.

exempted from this fever; and so of others.  I say therefore, that ifsimplicitie+ directeth us to have no evill, it also addresseth us according to our condition to a most happy estate.  Yet ought it not to be imagined so dull and heavie than the altogether senselesse.  And Crantor had great reason to withstand the unsensiblenesse of Epicurus, if it were so deeply rooted that the approching and birth of evils might gainsay it.  I commend not that unsensiblenesse which is neither possible nor to be desired.  I am well pleased not to be sicke, but if I be, I will know that I am so; and if I be cauterized or cut, I will feel it.  Verily, he that should root out the knowledge of evill should therewithall extirp the knowledge of voluptuousnesse, and at last bring man to nothing.  Istud nihil dolere, non sine magna mercede contingit immanitatis in animo, stuporis in corpore:/1 'This verse point, not to be offended or grieved with any thing, befals not freely to a man without either inhumanitie in his minde or senselesnesse in his bodie.'  Sicknesse is not amiss unto man, comming in her turne; nor is he alwaies to shun pain, nor ever to follow sensualitie.  It is a great advantage for the honour of ignorance that Science it selfe throwes us into her armes when she findes her selfe busie to make us strong against the assaults of evils: she is forced to come to this composition: to yeeld us the bridle, and give us leave to shrowd our selves in her lap, and submit ourselves unto her favour, to shelter us against the assaults and injuries of fortune.  For what meaneth she else when she perswades us to withdraw our thought from the evils that possesse us, and entertains them with foregon pleasures, and stead us as a comfort of present evils with the remembrance of forepast felicities, and call a vanished content to our help, for to oppose it against that which vexeth us?  Levationes, aegritudinum in avocatione a cogitanda molestia, et revocatione ad contemplandas voluptates ponit./2 'Eases of grief she reposeth either in calling from the thought of offence, or calling to the contemplations of some pleasures.
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1 CIC.  Tusc.  Qu. 1. iii. 2 Ibid. 

Unlesse it be that where force fails her, she will use policie and shew a tricke of nimblenesse and turne away, where the vigor both of her bodie and armes shall faile her.  For not onely to a strict Philosopher, but simply to any setled man, when he by experience feeleth the burning alteration of a hot fever, what currant paiment is it to pay him with the remembrance of the sweetnesse of Greeke wine?  It would rather empaire his bargaine.

Che ricordarsi il ben doppia la noia.

For to thinke of our joy,
Redoubles our annoy.

Suavis est laborum praeteritorum memoria./1

Of labours overpast,
Remembrance hath sweet taste

us, and record with pleasure and delight what soever was for us.' And this is true, Memini etiam quae nolo; oblivisci non possum quae volo:/1 'I remember even those things I would not; and can not forget what I would.' And whose counsell is this? his, Qui se unus sapientem profiteri sit ausus:/1 'Who only durst professe himselfe a wise man'

Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes
Praestrinaeit stellas, exortas uti aetherius Sol./2

Who from all mankind bare for wit the prize,
And dim'd the stars as when skies Sunne doth rise.

Iners malorum remedium ignorantia est./3

Of ills a remedie by chance,
And verie dull is ignorance.

     ----- potare, et spargere flores
Incipiam, patiarque vel inconsultus haberi./4

I will begin to strew flowers, and drinke free,
And suffer witlesse, thriftlesse, held to bee.

and contentedly with his families wanting of no dutie or office both towards his own houshold and strangers, verie carefully preserving himselfe from all hurtfull things: notwithstanding through some alteration of his senses or spirits, he was so possessed with this fantasticall conceipt or obstinate humour that he ever and continually thought to be amongst the Theatres, where he still saw all manner of spectacles, pastimes, sports and the best Comedies of the world.  But being at last by the skill of Physitians cured of this maladie, and his offending humour Purged, he could hardly be held from putting them in suite, to the end they might restore him to the former pleasures and contents of his imagination.

     ----- pol me occidistis amici,
Non servastis, ait, cui sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim menti gratissimus error./1

You have not sav'd me, friends, but slaine me quite,
(Quoth he) from whom so reft is my delight;
And errour purg'd, which best did please my spright.

'E Tp op--tim Yip inai, aL Tor/2

The sweetest life I wis,
In knowing nothing is. {ignorance=bliss+}

doth in generall tearmes allow, this last remedy which she ordaineth for all manner of necessities; that is, to make an end of that life which we cannot endure. {Hemingway+} Placet? pare: placet? quacunque vis exi. Pungit dolor? vel fodiat sane: si nudus es, da jugulum:  sin tectus armis vulcaniis, id est, fortitudine, resiste:/1 'Doth it like you? obey: doth it not like you? get out as you will; doth griefe pricke you? and let it pierce you too: if you be naked, yeeld your throat: but if you be covered with the armour of Vulcan, that is, with fortitude, resist.' And that saving, used of the Graecians in their banquets, which they aply unto it,  Aut bibat, aut abeat:/2 'Either let him carouse, or carry him out of the house:'  which rather fitteth the mouth of a Gascoine, who very easily doth change the letter B into V, than that of Cicero:

Vivere si recte nescis, discede peritis:
Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti:
Tempus abire tibi est, largius aequo
Ridat, et pulset lascivia descentius aetas:/3

Live well you cannot, them that can, give place;      Well have you sported, eaten well, drunke well: 'Tis time you part; lest wanton youth with grace
Laugh at, and knock you that with swilling dwell.

      ------ Democritum postquam matura vetustas
Admonuit memorem, motus lanquescere mentis.
Sponte sua letho caput obvius obtulit ipse./4

When ripe age put Democritus in minde,
That his mindes motions fainted, he to finde
His death went willing, and his life resign'd.

It is that which Anthisthenes said, that a man must provide himselfe either of wit to understand or of a halter to hang himselfe:  And that which Chrysippus alleaged upon the speech of the Poet Tyrtaius,

De la vertue, ou de mort approcher./1

Or vertue to approch,
Or else let death incroch.

Di citatorie piene e di libelli,
Dessamine, e di carte, di procure
Hanno mani e il seno, e gran fastelli
Di chiose, di consioli e di letture,
Per cui le faculta de' poverelli
Non sono mai ne le citta sicure,
Hanno dietro e dinanzi e d'ambi i lati,
Notai, procuratori, e advocate./1

Their hands and bosoms with writs and citations,
With papers, libels, proxies, full they beare,
And bundels great of strict examiunations,
Of glosses, counsels, readings here and there.
Whereby in townes poore men of occupations
Possesse not their small goods secure from feare,
Before, behind, on each sides Advocates,
Proctors, and Notaries hold up debates. {pedants+} {lawyers+}

man-kinde: is the way whereby man hath headlong cast himselfe downe into eternall damnation. {original_sin+} Pride is his losse and corruption: it is pride that misleadeth him from common waies; that makes him to embrace all new fangles, and rather chuse to be chiefe of a straggling troupe and in the path of perdition, and be regent of some erroneous sect, and a teacher of falsehood, than a disciple in the schoole of truth, and suffer himselfe to be led and directed by the hand of others in the ready beaten highway. It is haply that which the ancient Greeke proverb implieth, Seto-iaatuopia, Ka8a7rep 7rarp), -r Tv(p,; sef9e7-at: 'Superstition obaieth pride as a father.  Oh overweaning, how much doest thou hinder us?  Socrates being advertised that the God of wisdome had attributed the name of wise unto him, was thereat much astonished, and diligently searching and rouzing up himselfe, and ransacking the very secrets of his heart, found no foundation or ground for this divine sentence.  He knew some that were as just, as temperate, as valiant and as wise as he, and more eloquent, more faire and more profitable to their country.  In fine he resolved that he was distinguished from others, and reputed wise, onely because he did not so esteeme himselfe:  And that his God deemed the opinion of science and wisdome a singular sottishnes in man; and that his best doctrine was the doctrine of ignorance, and simplicitie+ his greatest wisdome.  The sacred writ pronounceth them to be miserable in this world that esteeme themselves. 'Dust and ashes,' saith he, 'what is there in thee thou shouldest so much glory of?  And in another place God hath made man like unto a shadowe, of which who shall judge when, the light being gone, it shall vanish away?  Man is a thing of nothing.  So far are our faculties from conceiving that high Deitie, that of our Creators works, those beare his marke best, and are most his owne, which we understand least.  It is an occasion to induce Christians to beleeve, when they chance to meet with any incredible thing, that it is so much the more according unto reason, by how much 

more it is against humane reason.  If it were according unto reason, it were no more a wonder; and were it to be matched, it re no more singular. Melius scitur Deus nesciendo, 'God is better knowen by our not knowing him,' saith S.  Augustine: and Tacitus, Sanctius est ac reverentius de actis deorum credere quam scire:/1  'It is a course of more holinesse and reverence to hold beleefe than to have knowledge of Gods actions.' And Plato deemes it to be a vice of impiety overcuriously to enquire after God, after the world, and after the first causes of things. Atque illum quidem parentem hujus universitatis invenire, difficile; et quum jam inveneris, indicare in vulgus, nefas:/2 ''Both it is difficult to finde out the father of this universe, and when you have found him, it is unlawfull to reveale Him to the vulgar,' saith Cicero.  We easily pronounce puissance, truth, and justice; they be words importing some great matter, but that thing we neither see nor conceive.  We say that God feareth, that God will be angry, and that God loveth.

Immortalia mortali sermone notantes,/3

Who with tearmes of mortality
Note things of immortality.

God?  How, temperance+, which is the moderation of corporall sensualities, which have no place at all in his God-head?  Fortitude+ patiently to endure sorrowes, and labours and dangers, appertaineth little unto him, these three things no way approaching him, having no accesse unto him.  And therefore Aristotle holds him to be equally exempted from vertue and from vice. Neque gratia, neque ira teneri potest, quod quae talia essent, imbecilla essent omnia:/1 'Nor can he be possessed with favor and anger; for, all that is so is but weake.'  The participation which we have of the knowledge, of truth, what soever she is, it is not by our owne strength we have gotten it; God hath sufficiently taught it us in that he hath made choice of the simple, common, and ignorant to teach us His wonderfull secrets.  Our faith hath not been purchased by us: it is a gift proceeding from the liberality of others.  It is not by our discourse or understanding that we have received our religion, it is by a forreine authority and commandement.  The weaknesse of our judgement helps us more than our strength to compasse the same, and our blindnesse more than our clear-sighted eies.  It is more by the meanes of our ignorance than of our skill that we are wise in heavenly knowledge.  It is no marvell if our naturall and terrestriall meanes cannot conceive the supernaturall or apprehend the celestial knowledge.  Let us adde nothing of our own unto it but obedience and subjection: for (as it is written) 'I will confound the wisdome of the wise, and destroy the understanding of the prudent.  Where is the wise? where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made the wisdome of this world foolishuesse? For seeing the world by wisdome knew not God, in the wisdome of God, it hath pleased Him, by the vanity of preaching, to save them that beleeve. Yet must I see at last whether it be in mans power to finde what he seekes for: and if this long search, wherein he hath continued so many ages, hath enriched him with any new strength or solid truth:  I am perswaded, if be speake in
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1 CIC.  Nat.  Deor. 1. i. 2 1 COR. i. 19-21. 

conscience, he will confesse that all the benefit he hath gotten by so tedious a pursuit hath been that he hath learned to know his owne weaknesse. That ignorance which in us was naturall, we have with long study confirmed and averred.  It hath happened unto those that are truly learned, as it hapneth unto eares of corne, which as long as they are empty, grow and raise their head aloft, upright and stout; but if they once become full and bigge with ripe corne, they begin to humble and droope downeward.  So men having tried and sounded all, and in all this chaos and huge heape of learning and provision of so infinite different things, found nothing that is substantiall, firme, and steadie, but all vanitie, have renounced their presumption, and too late known their naturall condition. {Pope+} It is that which Velleius upbraids Cotta and Cicero withall, that they have learnt of Philo to have learned nothing.  Pherecydes, one of the seven wise men, writing to Thales even as he was yeelding up the ghost, 'I have,' saith he, 'appoynted my friends, as soon as I shal be layed in my grave, to bring thee all my writings.  If they please thee and the other sages, publish them; if not, conceale them.  They containe no certainties nor doe they an