derstood but by the found of trumpet. Ambition is not a vice of little people, and of fuch abilities as ours. One faid to Alexander, your father will leave you a great dominion, eafy and peaceable; this youth was emulous of his father's victories, and the juftice of his government, and did not wish to have enjoyed the empire of the world in ease and peace. Alcibiades in Plato, had rather die exceeding young, beautiful, rich, noble, and learned, than to continue in fuch an effeminate state. This disease is perhaps excufable in fo ftrong and fo capacious a mind. When thefe poor mean fouls enlarge themfelves, and think to spread their fame, for having given right judgment in an affair, or continued the dif cipline of keeping the guard of a gate of their city; the more they think to exalt their heads, the more they fhew their tails. This little well-doing has neither body nor life; it vanishes in the firft mouth, and goes no farther than from one street to another. Talk of it in God's name to your fon, or your fervant; like that old fellow, who having no other auditor of his praifes, nor commender of his valour, boafted to his chamber-maid, crying out, O Perret, what a gallant brave man has thou to thy mafter! At the worft talk of it to yourself, like a counsellor of my acquaintance, who having difgorged a whole bundle of law cafes, full of paragraphs, with very great heat, and as great folly, coming out of the councilchamber to the piffing place, was heard very confcientiously to mutter betwixt his teeth, Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, fed nomini tuc da gloriam; "not unto us, O "Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the glory. He who can get it of nobody elfe, may pay himself out of his own purfe. Fame is not proftituted at fo cheap a rate. Rare and exemplary actions, to which it is due, would not endure the company of this prodigious croud of little temporary performances. Marble may exalt your titles as much as you pleafe, for having repaired a rood of a ruinous wall, or cleanfed a' public aqueduct, but no men of fenfe will do it. Renown does not attend every good deed, if novelty and difficulty be not conjoined in it. Nay, fo much as mere eftimation, mation, according to the Stoics, is not due to every ac tion that proceeds from virtue; neither will they allow him so much as thanks, who out of temperance forbears to meddle with any old blear-eyed hag. Such as have known the admirable qualities of Sicipio Africanus, deny him the glory that Panætius attributes to him, of being abftinent from gifts as a glory not fo much his, as that of the age he lived in. We have pleafures fuitable to our fortunes, let us not ufurp those of grandeur. Our own are more natural, and by fo much more folid and fure, as they are more low. If not for that of confcience, yet at least for ambition fake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honour and renown, fo low and beggarly, that it makes us afk it as an alms from all forts of people: Qua eft ifta laus que poffit è macello peti?"What praise is that which is to be got at "the fhambles?" by abject means, and at any cheap rate foever. To be fo honoured is difhonour. Let us learn to be no more greedy, than we are capable of honour. To be puffed up with every action that is innocent, or of use, is only for thofe with whom fuch deeds are extraordinary and rare; they will value it as it cofts them. How much more a good effect makes a noise, so much I abate of the goodness of it; and fufpect that it was more performed to be talked of, than upon the account of its goodness: being expofed upon the ftall, it is half fold. Thofe actions have much more grace, that flip from the hand of the performer negligently, and without noife; and which fome honeft man afterwards chufes out, and raises from the fhade, to produce it to the light for their own fakes. The vaineft man in the world faid, mihi quidem laudabiliora videntur omnia, quæ five venditatione, & fine populo tefte fiunt ; "all things truly † "feem more laudable to me, that are performed without "oftentation, and without the teftimony of the people.” I had nothing to do but to preferve and to continue, which are filent and fenfible effects. Innovation is of great • Cicero de Fin. Bon. & Mal. lib. xi, cap. 15. Quæft. lib. ii. cap. 26. + Cicero Tufc. luftre, luftre, but it is interdicted at this time, when we are preffed upon, and have nothing to defend ourselves from but novelties. To forbear doing, is often as generous as to do, but it is not fo confpicuous; and the little good I have in me is almost entirely of this kind. In fine, occafions in this employment of mine, have been confiftent with my humour, and I thank them for it. Is there any one who defires to be fick for the fake of feeing his phyfician employed? And fhould not that phyfician be whipped, who wished the plague amongst us, that he might put his art in practice? I was never of that wicked humour, though common enough, to defire that the trouble and diforders of this city fhould fet off and do honour to my government; I heartily contributed all I could to their tranquility and eafe. He who will not thank me for the order, the fweet and filent calm that accompanied my adminiftration, cannot however deprive me of the fhare of it that belongs to me by the title of my good fortune. I am of fuch a compofition, that I would as willingly be happy as wife; and had rather owe my fucceffes purely to the favour of Almighty God, than to any operation of my own. I had fufficiently published to the world my unfitness for fuch public offices; but I have fomething in me yet worse than incapacity; which is, that I am not much difpleafed at it, and that I do not much go about to cure it, confidering the courfe of life that I have propofed to myself. Neither have I fatisfied myself in this employment, but I have very near arrived at what I expected from my own performance, and yet have much furpaffed what I promised them with whom I had to do: for I'am apt,to promife fomething less than what I am able to perform, and than what I hope to make good. I affure myself that I have left no impreffions of offence or hatred behind me, and that I will leave a regret or defire of me amongst them. I at least know very well that I never much affected it. méne -méne buie confidere monftro, Méne falis placidi vultum, fiuiufque quietos Me doft thou bid to truft the treach'rous deep! The year cut ten days fhorter. CHA P. XI. I Of Cripples. Tis now two or three years ago that they made the year ten days fhorter in France. How many changes may we expect to follow this reformation? This was properly removing heaven and earth at once; and yet nothing ftirs from its place: my neighbours ftill find their feafons of fowing and reaping, and of trading, together with the lucky and unlucky days, juft at the fame inftant, where they had time out of mind affigued them. There was no error perceived in our old ufage, nor is there amendment found in the new. So great an uncertainty there is throughout; fo grofs, obfcure and dull is our perception! It is faid, that this regulation might have been carried on with lefs inconvenience, by fubtracting for fome years, according to the example of Auguftus, the Biffextile, which is upon the whole a day of hindrance and confufion, till we had exactly fatisfied that debt; which is not performed neither by this correction, and we yet remain fome days in arrear: and furely by the fame means care might be taken for the future, by ordering, that after the revolution of fuch a year, or fuch a number of years, this fupernume rary day might be always eclipfed, fo that we could not Virgil. Æneid. lib. v. ver, 849, hence henceforward exceed four and twenty hours in our mifreckoning.. We have no other account of time bur years; the world has for many ages made ufe of that only, and yet it is a measure that to this day we have not fixed upon; fuch a one, that we ftill doubt what form other nations have varioufly given to it, and what was the true use of it. What does this faying of fome mean, "that the heavens, in growing old, prefs nearer towards "us, and put us to an uncertainty even of hours and "days? And that which Plutarch says of the months, "that aftrology had not, in his time, determined the "motion of the moon?" So, what a fine condition are we in to keep records of things paft! The vanity of the human anderstanding, which often feeks for the caufes of a there is a cer- I was just now ruminating, as I often do, what a free and roving thing human reafon is. I ordinarily fee, that men, in things propofed to them, are more curious to find out the reafon of a thing, than to find out the truth of it. They flip over fuppofitions, but nicely examine confequences. They leave the things and fly to the causes. Pleafant difputants! The knowledge of caufes only concerns him who has the conduct of things, not us, who are only to undergo them, and who have a full and complete ufe of them according to our need, without penetrating into their original and effence. Neither is wine more pleafant to him that knows its firft qualities. On the contrary, both the body and foul alter and interrupt the right they have of the use of the world, and of themfelves, by mixing with it in the opinion of learning. Effects concern us, but the means not at all. To determine and to distribute appertain to the fuperior and the governor, as it does to the fubject and the learner to accept it. Let me refume our cuftom. They commonly begin thus: "how is fuch a thing done" Whereas they fhould fay, "is fuch a thing done?" By our talk we are able to create an hundred other worlds, and to find out the beginnings and contexture; it needs neither matter nor foundation. Let the tongue |