502 The virtue of Cato of Utica preferable in military exploits, and the utility of his public vo "cations;" but the virtue of the younger, befides, that it were blafphemy to compare any to him in vigour, was much more pure, for who can acquit the cenfor of envy and ambition, after he had dared "to offend the honour of Scipio, a man, in goodness and all excellent qualities, infinitely beyond him, or to that of Cato the cenfor, "any other of his time?" Cato the cenfor took to learn Greek too late in life. That which they report of him, amongst other things, that, in his extreme old-age, he fet "himfelf to learn the Greek tongue, with "fo greedy an appetite, as if he was to "quench a long thirst," does not seem to make for his honour; it being properly what we call being twice a child. "All things have their feafon," good and bad, and a man may fay his Pater-nofter out of time; as they accufed T. Quintus Flaminius*, " that, being general of an army, he was feen praying apart in the time of a "battle that he won." + Imponet finem fapiens, et rebus honeftis ‡. The wife man limits even decent things, Eudemonidas, seeing Xenocrates, when very old, ftill very intent upon his fchool lectures, "When § will "this man be wife, said he, if he yet learn?" and Philopæmon, to those who cried up king Ptolemy, for inuring his perfon, every day to the exercife of arms; "It is not, faid he, commendable in a king of his age "to exercife himself in thofe things, he ought now "really to employ them, The young are to make their "preparations, the old to enjoy them, fay the fages;" and the greatest vice they obferve in us is," that our de. "fires inceffantly grow young again; we are always be"ginning again to live." *See Plutarch's Comparison of him to Philopamon, fect. 2. + Juv. fat. vi. ver. 344. The words which Montaigne applies here to his own defign, have another meaning in the original. § Plutarch's Notable sayings of the Lacedæmonians. Our Our ftudies and defires fhould fometimes be fenfible of old-age: we have one foot in the grave, and yet our appetites and pursuits fpring up every day. Tu fecanda marmora Locas fub ipfum funus, et fepulcri When death, perhaps, is near at hand, The longest of my defigns is not above a year's extent; I think of nothing now but my end; abandon all new hopes and enterprises; take my laft leave of every place I depart from, and every day difpoffefs myself of what I have. Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi, nec acquiritur; plus fupereft viatici, quam via: "I now shall neither lofe, nor get; I have more wherewith to de"fray my journey, than I have way to go. Vixi, et quem dederat curfum fortuna peregi ‡. I've liv'd, and finish'd the career Which fortune had prefcrib'd me here. To conclude; it is the only comfort I find in my oldage, that it mortifies in me feveral cares and defires, wherewith life is disturbed; the care how the world goes; the care of riches, of grandeur, of knowledge, of health, and myself. There are fome who are learning to speak, at a time when they fhould learn to be filent for ever. A man may always ftudy, but he must not always go to School. What a contemptible thing is an old man learning his A, B, C! Diverfos diverfa juvant, non omnibus annis, Omnia conveniunt. For feveral things do feveral men delight, What study fuits beft with old age, If we muft ftudy, let us follow that ftudy which is fuitable to our prefent condition, that we may be able to answer as he did; who being asked, "to what end he studied in "his decrepid age? that I may go the better off the stage, "faid he, and at greater eafe." Such a study was that of the younger (ato, at feeling his end approach, when he was reading Plato's difcourfe of the immortality of "the foul" not as we are to believe, that he was not, long before, furnished with all forts of provision for fuch a departure; for, of affurance, an established will and inftruction he had, more than Plato had in all his writings; his knowledge and courage were, in this refpect, above philofophy. He employed himfelf thus, not for the fervice of his death, but as a man whose fleep is not once difturbed in the importance of fuch a deliberation; he alfo, without choice and change, continued his ftudies with the other customary actions of his life. The night that he was denied the prætorship he fpent in play that wherein he was to die he fpent in reading the lofs either of life, or of office, was all one to him. I CHA P. XXIX. FIND, by experience, that there is a vaft difference betwixt the starts and fallies of the mind, and a refolute and conftant habit; and very well perceive, there is nothing we may not do, nay, even to the furpaffing the divinity itself, fays a certain perfon, forafmuch as it is more for a man to render himself impaffible or difpaffionate, than to be fuch by his original condition; and even to be able to conjoin to man's imbecillity and Man feldom attains to a capacity of acting steadily and regularly, according to the principles of folid virtue. frailty frailty a godly refolution and affurance. But this is by fits and starts: and, in the lives of thofe heroes of times past, there are sometimes miraculous fallies, and fuch as feem infinitely to exceed our natural ftrength, but they are indeed fallies; and it is hard to believe, that these fo elevated qualities can be fo thoroughly imprinted on the mind, that they fhould become common, and, as it were, natural to it: it accidentally happens, even to us, who are the most imperfect of men, that fometimes our mind gives a fpring, when roufed by the difcourfes or examples of others, much beyond its ordinary ftretch; but it is a kind of paffion, which pushes and pricks it on, and, in fome fort, ravifhes it from itfelf: but, this whirlwind once blown over, we fee, that it infenfibly flags and flackens itself, if not to the loweft degree, at least so as to be no more the fame; infomuch as that, upon every trivial occafion, the lofing of a bird, or the breaking of a glafs, we fuffer ourselves to be moved little lefs than one of the common people. I am of opinion, that, order, moderation, and conftancy excepted, all things are to be done by a man that is, in general, very deficient. "Therefore, fay the Sages, in order to make a right judgment of a man, you are chiefly to pry into his common actions, and furprife him in his every"day habit." Pyrrho tried, in vain, to conform his life to his doctrine. Pyrrho, he who erected so pleasant a fyftem of knowledge upon ignorance, endeavoured, as all the reft, who were really philofophers did, to make his life correfpond with his doctrine and because he maintained the imbecillity of human judgment to be fo extreme, as to be incapable of any choice or inclination, and would have it perpetually wavering and fufpending, confidering and receiving all things as indifferent, it is faid, "that he always comported himfelf after the fame "manner and countenance: if he had begun a difcourfe, he would always end what he had to fay †, Diog. Laert. in Pyrrho's life, lib. ix fect. 63. +Yet Montaigne fays, in the 12th chapter of this volume, that they who reprefent Pyrrho in this light, extend his doctrine beyond what it really was; and that, like a rational man, he made ufe of all his corporeal and spiritual faculties as rule and reafon. though "though the perfon he was speaking to was gone away: "and, if he walked, he never turned out of his way for "any impediment, being preserved from precipices, the "joftle of carts, and other like accidents, by the care of "his friends; for, to fear, or to avoid any thing, had "been to contradict his own propofitions, which deprived the fenfes themselves of all certainty and "choice: fometimes he fuffered incifions and cauteries "with fo great conftancy, as never to be feen fo much "as to wink his eyes." It is fomething to bring the foul to these imaginations; more to join the effects to it, and yet not impoffible; but to conjoin them with fuch perfeverance and conftancy as to make them habitual, is certainly, in attempts fo remote from the common ufance, almoft incredible to be done. Therefore it was, "that being, one day, found at his houfe terribly fcolding at his fifter, and being reproached, that he therein "tranfgreffed his own rules of indifference:""what, faid he, muft this foolish woman alfo ferve for a tefti"mony to my rules?" Another time, "being to defend "himfelf against a dog: it is, faid he, very hard totally "to put off man; and we must endeavour and force "ourselves to encounter things, firft by effects, but at "the worst by reafon and argument." Extraordinary notions produced by a fudden refolution. About seven or eight years fince, a countryman, yet living, at a village but two leagues from my houfe, having been long tormented with his wife's jealoufy, coming, one day, home from his work, and the welcoming him with her accuftomed railing, he entered into fo great a fury, that, with a fickle he had yet in his hand, he "totally cut off all those parts that she was jealous of, " and threw them in her face." And, it is faid, "that a young gentleman of our nation, brifk and amorous, "having, by his perfeverance, at last mollified the heart " of a fair miftrefs, enraged, that, upon the point of "fruition, he found himfelf unable to perform, and that, non viriliter Iners fenile penis extulit caput Tib. lib. iv. eleg. Pen. ad Priapum in veterum Poet. Catalectis. fo |