fide? Methinks I fee those paladins of the ancient times prefenting themselves to the jufts and tournaments, with their bodies and armour inchanted. Briffon, running against Alexander, purposely committed a fault * in his career, for which Alexander chid him, but he ought to have whipped him. Upon this account Carneades faid, That the fons of princes learned nothing right but "how to ride the managed horfe, by reason that in all "other exercifes every one bends and yields to them; "but a horse, being neither a flatterer nor a courtier, "makes no more fcruple to fling the fon of a king than "the brat of a porter." Homer was forced to confent that Venus, fo perfect, foft, and delicate a beauty, should be wounded at the battle of Troy, for the fake of afcrib. ing courage and boldness to her, qualities never known in those who are exempt from danger. The gods are made to be angry, to fear, to run away, to be jealous, to grieve, and to be tranfported with paffion, to honour them with the virtues that amongst us are compofed of thofe imperfections. He that does not participate in the hazard and difficulty, cannot pretend to an intereft in the. honour and pleasure that attend hazardous actions. It is pity, you should have fuch a power that all things give way to you. Your fortune throws fociety and good fellowship too far from you, and plants you in too great a folitude. That eafinefs, that mean facility of making all things floop to you, is an enemy to all manner of plea fure. It is fliding, not going; it is fleeping, not living. Conceive a man accompanied with omnipotence, you plunge him in an abyfs, and put him under a neceffity of begging moleftation and oppofition from you as an alms. His being and his welfare are in a ftate of indigence. The good qualities of kings are dead and loft, for these are only to be perceived by comparison, and we put them. Plutarch, in his treatife, How a Flatterer may be diftinguished from a Friend, where this man, who fuffered Alexander to conquer him, is called Criffon inftead of Briffon as it is fpelt in all the editions of Mon, taigne that I have met with. Indeed, in Plutarch's tract, entitled, Of the Satisfaction or Tranquility of the Mind, it is fpelt Bgirov, in the Paris edit. fol. anno 1624. But it is an error of the prefs, becaufe in the Latin verfion, which accompanies it, Xylander has put Crifon. + Plutarch, ibid. chap. 15. Qut. out of the way of it. Their ears are fo tingled with a continual uniform approbation, that they have scarce any knowledge of true praife. Have they to do with the greatest fool of all their subjects? They have no way to take advantage of him: by his faying, "it is because he " is my king," he thinks he has faid enough to imply that he therefore fuffered himself to be overcome. This quality ftifles and confuses the other true and effential qualities, which are funk deep in the kingfhip, and leaves them nothing to fet themselves off but actions that are actually contiguous and fubfervient to royalty, viz. the functions of their office. It is fo much to be a king, that he is only fo by that very denomination. This ftrange luftre that furrounds him, conceals him, and robs us of the view of him. Our fight is thereby repelled and diffipated, being engroffed and dazzled by this glaring fplendor. The fenate awarded the prize of eloquence to Tiberius, but he refused it, as thinking that, though the award had been ever fo juft, he could not have a true relifh of it from a judgment so restrained. How the faults As we yield them all the advantages of of kings are hid honour, fo do we footh and give a fanction from their eyes. to their very defects and vices, not only by approbation, but even by imitation. Every one of Alexander's attendants carried their heads on one fide as he did. And the flatterers of Dionyfius ran foul of one another in his prefence, ftumbled at, and kicked up every thing in their way, to denote that they were as purblind as he. Even ruptures have fometimes been a recommendation to favour. I have actually feen deafness affected; and, where the fovereign hated his wife, Plutarch obferved that the courtiers actually divorced theirs, whom they loved. And, what is yet more, uncleanness, and all manner of diffolution, difloyalty, blafphemy, cruelty, herefy, fuperftition, irreligion, effeminacy, and Plutarch, Of the Difference between the Flatterer and the Friend. Plutarch only fays, that he knew a man who, because his friend divorced his wife, turned away his wife alfo, whom, nevertheless, he went to vifit, and fent for fometimes privately to his houfe, which was difcovered by the very wife of his friend. Plutarch, Of the Difference betwixt the Flatterer and the Friend, chap. 8. of Amyct's translation. worfe worfe crimes, if worse there can be, have at times been the reigning fashion; and by an example yet more pernicious than that of the flatterers of Mithridates, who, * because their sovereign pretended to the honour of being a good phyfician, came to him to have incifions and cauftics applied to their bodies; for those others fuffered their fouls, a more noble and delicate part, to be cau terifed. But, to conclude the fubject I began with, Adrian, the emperor, difputing with the philofopher Favorinus about the meaning of a word, Favorinus foon yielded him the point; for which his friends blaming him, "You talk fimply," faid he, "would you make "me believe that he who commands thirty legions, is "not a man of more learning than I am?" + Auguftus wrote verfes against Afinius Pollio; " And I," faid Pollio, "fay nothing, for it is not prudent to take up the "pen against him who has power to profcribe." And these were both in the right. For Dionyfius, because he could not equal Philoxenus in poetry, and Plato || in reasoning, condemned the one to the quarries, and fent the other to the ifle of Ægina to be fold for a slave. * Plutarch, ibid. chap. 13. † Ælii Spartiani Adrianus Cæfar, p. 7 &. 8, Hift. Aug. Or rather because he was not able to bear the flight opinion which Philoxenus fhewed of his poetry. Diodorus of Sicily, lib. xi. cap.2. fays, that one day, at fupper-time, as they were reading fome worthlefs poems of this tyrant, that excellent poet Philoxenus, being charged to give his opinion of them, was too free in his anfwer to please Dionyfi. us, for which the tyrant was fo much incenfed against him that he ordered him to be fent immediately to the quarries. Montaigne is mistaken here with regard to Plato, who was fold a flave in the island of Ægina, by order of Dionyfius the tyrant, because he had spoken too freely to him; as Diodorus of Sicily fays politively, lib. xv. cap. 2. and more particularly allo Diog. Laert. in the life of Plato, lib. iii. fect. 18, 19. In thefe two laft notes the fault I have found with Montaigne I might, indeed, have as well placed to the account of Plutarch, who fays the very fame thing as Montaigne in his treatife Of Contentment, or Peace of the Mind, chap. 12. yet I cannot but think that Plutarch has here been guilty of fome inaccuracy of expreffion. VOL. III. N CHAP. The end of pu- CHA P. VIII. Of the Art of Difcourfing. I' Tis the custom of our juftice to con Idemn a to demn fome for a warning to others. To condemn them for no other reafon but because they have done amifs, were downright ftupidity, as Plato fays, for what is done cannot be undone; but it is to the end they may offend no more, and that others may not commit the like offence. We do not reform the man whom we hang, but we reform others by him. I do the fame, My errors are fometimes natural, and neither to be corrected nor remedied; but the benefit which virtuous men do the public, by making themselves imitated, I may do, perhaps, in making my conduct avoided. Nonne vides Albi ut malè vivat filius, utque Barrus inops? magnum documentum, ne patriam rem Don't you behold the wealthy Albus' fon, A good instuction for young heirs, that they Whilft I proclaim and condemn my own imperfections, another perfon will be taught to fear them. The parts that I moft efteem in myfelf derive more honour from accufing, than from recommending my felf; which is the reason I the oftner relapfe and ftick to them. But, when all is faid and done, a man never fpeaks of himself without lofs. Self-condemnation is always believed, but felf-praise pever. There may perhaps, be fome of my own conftitution, who inftruct me better by contrariety than by fimi Hor. lib. i. fat. 4. ver. 109, &c. litude, This litude, and more by avoiding than imitating me. was that fort of difcipline which the elder Cato had in his thoughts, when he faid, that " wife men have more to "learn of fools, than fools of wife men :" and that ancient player upon the harp, who, Paufanias faid, ufed to compel his fcholars to go and hear one that lodged oppofite to him, who played very ill, that they might thereby learn to hate his difcords and falfe measures. The horror of cruelty more inclines me to mercy than any example of clemency could poffibly do. A good riding-master does not fo much mend my feat in the faddle as an attorney, or a Venetian gondolier on horfeback; and a forry fpeaker reforms my language better than a good one. The filly look of another perfon always advertises and advises me; and that which is pungent awakes and roufes much better than what is pleafing. It is fit time for us to reform the backward way by disagreement rather than by agreement, by difcord rather than accord. As I learn little by good examples, I make use of bad, which are very common. I have endeavoured to render myfelf as agreeable as I fee others offenfive, as conftant as I fee others fickle, as affable as I fee others rough, as good as I fee others wicked; but I propofed to myfelf measures invincible. The usefulness The most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opinion, is converfa- of converfation. tion, the use of which I find to be more agreeable than any other exercife in life. For this reafon, were I now forced to make my choice at this inftant, think I would agree rather to lofe my fight than my hearing, or my fpeech. The Athenians and the Romans alfo held this exercife in great honour in their academies: and the Italians to this day retain fome foofteps of it to their great advantage. It is an exercife more inftuctive than the study The ftudy of books is a languid, fee. ble motion, that does not warm, whereas conversation at once inftructs and exercises. If I difcourfe with a man of strong sense, and a fhrewd difputant, he fmites me hip and thigh, N 2 of books. goads |