*

of cruelty, did not we therewith confound things which nature has exempted from all feeling and pain, as the reputation and the inventions of our understanding, and if we did not inflict corporal punishment on the difcipline and monuments of the mufes. Now Labienus could not bear this lofs, nor furvive the offspring of his brain that was fo dear to him, but caufed himself to be conveyed to and fhut up alive in the funeral monument of his ancestors, where he made provifion to kill and bury himself all at once: it is not eafy to produce an instance of more vehement paternal affection than this. Caffius Severus, a man of great eloquence, and his familiar friend, feeing Labienus's books committed to the flames, cried out, that, by the fame fentence, they might as well condemn him to be burnt also, because he carried and retained all the contents thereof in his memory . The like accident happened to Cremutius Cordus, who was accused of having, in his books, commended Brutus and Caffius. That base, fervile, and corrupt fenate, worthy of a worfe mafter than Tiberius, condemned his writings to the flames. He was glad to die with them, and killed himself by fafting

And the books of Cremutius

Cordus.

Honeft Lucan being condemned to die by that mifcreant Nero, when he was in the agonies of Lucan's fondnefs for his death, most of that blood being already run poetry: out of the veins of his arms which he had caufed his furgeon to open, and a chilnefs having feized the extremities of his body, which began to approach to the vital parts, the last thing he had in his memory was fome verfes out of his book of the battle of Pharfalia, which he repeated, and they were the last words he spoke§. What was this but a tender and paternal leave which he took of his off-spring, reprefenting the farewels and close embraces which we give to our children when we are dying, and an effect of that natural inclination which calls to our remembrance, in this extremity, thofe things which we held moft dear in our life-time?

⚫ M. Annæus Senec. Controv. lib. v. from the beginning.
+ Idem, ibid.
Tacit. Annal. lib. iv.
Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. at the conclufion.

Can

Whether Epicu. rus would not

have preferred his writings to the children defcended from his loins.

Can we fuppofe, that Epicurus, who, when racked almoft to death, as he fays, with extreme pains of the cholic, comforted himself, however, that he had left fuch fine doctrine to mankind, would have entertained fo much fatisfaction in a number of children never fo well born and bred, had he had any, as he did in the production of his ineftimable writings? And that if it had been put to his choice to have left an ill-favoured untoward child behind him, or a filly ridiculous book, he would not have rather chofe, as any other man of his abilities would have done, to have incurred the firft misfortune rather than the laft. It would, perhaps, have been impiety in St. Auguftine, for example, after it had been propofed to him, on the one hand, to bury his writings, from which our religion has received fo great benefit, or to bury his children, in cafe he had any, if he had not rather chofe to have buried his children.

of the affection.

which Mon

taigne had for

his book.

For my own part, I know not whether I should not much rather have begot one perfectly formed by my converfe with the mufes, than by that with my wife. To this, fuch as it is, what I give, I give abfolutely and irrevocably, as men do to the fruit of their bodies. That little good which I have done for it, is no more at my own difpofal. It may know many things that I no longer know, and hold of me that which I have not retained; and, if I stood in need, I must borrow from thence, as much as a stranger. If I am wifer than my book, it is richer than me. There are few men addicted to poetry, who would not have been better pleafed to be the fathers of the Eneid, than of the finest youth in Rome; and who would not have borne the lofs of the latter more calmly than that of the former: for, according to Ariftotle, the poet especially, of all workmen, is the fondeft of his own performances.

It is scarce to be believed, that Epaminondas, who boafted, that he had left to pofterity two daughters, that would, one: day, do honour to their father, viz.

the

Epaminondas

for his two famous victories.

And of Phidias for his fineft ftatues.

the two noble victories which he had gained over the The fondness of Lacedæmonians) would have given his free confent to exchange them for the moft fhining beauties of all Greece; nor that Alexander and Cæfar ever wished to be deprived of the grandeur of their glorious exploits in war, for the advantage of having children and heirs, how perfect and accomplished foever. Nay, I make a great queftion, whether Phidias, or any other eminent ftatuary, would have been fo follicitous for the prefervation and continuance of his natural children, as of an excellent ftatue, which he had finished, according to art, with long labour and ftudy. And as to thofe vicious and furious paffions of love, that have fometimes flamed in the breafts of fathers to their daughters, or of mothers to their fons, the like is alfo found in this other fort of parentage; witness the story of Pygmalion, who having made the ftatue of a woman of fingular beauty, fell fo paffionately in love with this workmanship of his, that the gods, for the fake of indulging his paffion, were fain to put life into it.

Tentatum mollefcit ebur, pofitoque rigore
Subfidit digitis *,

Hard though it was, beginning to relent,
The iv'ry breaft beneath his fingers bent.

IT

CHA P. IX.

Of the Armour of the Parthians.

The ill cuftom of

T is a vicious and a very effeminate cuftom of the gentry of our time, not to take arms but in a cafe of extreme neceffity, and to lay them down again upon ever fo little appearance that the danger is over. From hence arife many diforders; for, every one crying out and running to his arms juft when he should take

not being armed till the enemy is at the gates.

Ovid. Metam, lib. x, fab, viii. ver. 41, 42.

the

the field, fome have their armour still to buckle on when their companions are already routed. Our ancestors were wont to give their head-piece, lance, and gantlet to be carried, and did not quit the reft of their equipage as long as there was any work to be done. Our troops are, at this time, all in diforder, and make but a bad appearance, by the confufion of the baggage and fervants, who cannot be far from their mafters, because they carry their arms. Titus Livius, fpeaking of our countrymen, fays", Intolerantiffima laboris corpora vix arma bumeris gerebant †, i. e. " Being moft impatient of "labour, they had much ado to carry their arms on their "fhoulders." Several nations at this day retain the ancient custom of going to war without any manner of covering, or fuch, at least, as affords little or no defence. Tegmina queis capitum raptus de fubere cortex. For helmets they their temples only bind With a light fcull-cap made of cork-tree rind. Alexander, the most adventurous commander that ever was, very feldom wore armour and fuch, among us, as flight it, fare never the worfe for it.

The armour of

the French too cumbersome by its weight, to be proper for defence.

Where one man is killed for want of armour, another falls by the embarrafiment, and weight of it, or by being crushed to pieces by fome violent concuffion, or rude encounter with another: for, in truth, to confider the weight and thickness of what we wear, it feems as if felf-defence was our only aim, and that it is rather a load upon us than a protection: we have enough to do to fupport the weight of it, being fo fettered and manacled as if we had nothing to contend with but our armour, and as if we had not the fame obligation to defend that, as that has to fhield us. Tacitus gives a ludicrous defcription of the foldiers among the

Tit. Liv. lib. x. cap. 28.

+ Though Livy fays nothing of the pains which the Gauls took to carry the armour, yet this follows very naturally. Perhaps he has faid it elfewhere exprefsly, and that here Montaigne has joined the two paffages in one, as he very often does.

Eneid. lib. vii. ver. 742.

§ Tacit. Annal. lib. iii.

ancient

ancient Gauls, who were thus armed for their own defence only, without the poffibility of hurting, or being hurt, nor of rifing again when they were once thrown down.

Lucullus perceiving certain foldiers of the Medes, that formed the front of Tigranes' army, who The heavy and uneafy armour were fhut up in weighty and uneafy arof the Medes. mour, as if in cages of iron, imagined, from thence, that he fhould easily defeat them, and, accordingly on them he began his attack. Now that our mufqueteers are come into credit, I fancy fomething will be invented to immure us, for our fafety, from them, and to draw us to the war fhut up in little caftles, like thofe which the ancients put upon the backs of elephants *. This humour is far different from that of young Scipiot, who feverely chid his foldiers for placing chevaux de frize under water, in that part of the ditch where it was expected that the garrifon of a town, which he had befieged, would fally out upon him, faying, "That they who be"fieged a town fhould think of attacking it, rather than "of fecuring themselves;" and he fufpected, with juft reason, that this ftratagem would make his foldiers not fo vigilant against a furprize. He also faid to a young fellow, who fhewed him a target that he was very proud of, ""Tis "really a fine target, my boy, but a Roman foldier ought

Montaigne was wrong in his conjecture, for now the foldiers apparel themselves for an attack, almoft in the fame manner as if they were going to a ball. The fashion, which regulates every thing in France, has introduced this custom there; the fantafticalness of which did not efcape the criticism of the judicious cenfor of this age, the celebrated la Bruyere: "How came men, fays he, to think, heretofore, that the end of "going to war was either to attack or defend ? And, who advised them "to the ufe of arms both offenfive and defenfive? What is it obliges "them now to lay thefe afide, and, whilst they put on boots to go to a "ball, to fupport, without armour, and in a doublet, the pioneers who 66 are expofed to all the fire from a counterfcarp? Were our fathers, "who did not think fuck conduct of fervice to the prince and the count"" ry, wife or foolish? And what heroes do we ourselves celebrate in our "history? A Guesclin, a Clisson, a Foix, a Boucicaut, who all wore ar"mour, and buckled on the cuirass?"

Valer. Max. lib. iii. in Romanis, fect. 2. If Montaigne took this from that author, he mistook him grofsly; for this author does not fay that they put chevaux de frize under the water, &c. but only that fome advised Scipio to do it.