a and is affifting to me wherever I go: it comforts me in ald age and folitude; it eafes me of the weight of idle time and delivers me at any hour from difagreeable company; and it blunts the edge of pain, if it be not extreme, and has not the entire poffeffion of me. To divert my felf from an uneafy thought, it is but to run to my books; they prefently drive it out of my mind, by turning its attention to them: and though they fee that I only have recourse to them for want of other more real, natural, and lively benefits, they do not reflect on me for it, but always receive me with the fame countenance. "He may well go on foot," they fay, "who leads his horse in "his hand." And our James, king of Naples and Sicily, who, while handfome, young, and healthy, caufed himself to be carried up and down in a hand-barrow, upon a forry mattrafs, dreffed in a veft of grey cloth, and a cap of the fame; yet attended in great royal pomp with horse-litters, led horfes of all forts,, gentlemen and officers; put on an aufterity that was effeminate and unfteady. The fick man is not to be pitied who has his cure in his pocket. In the experience and practice of this, which is a very true fentence, confifts all the benefit which I receive from books; and yet in fact I make as little use of them, in a manner, as they who know them. not. I enjoy them as mifers do their hoards, by knowing that I have them to ufe when I pleafe. With this right of poffeffion my mind is fatisfied, and at reft. I never travel without my books, be it in time of war or of peace; yet fometimes for feveral days or months, I do not look into them. I will read by and by, I fay to myfelf, or tomorrow when I am in the humour. Mean while the time runs away without any inconvenience to me; for it is impoffible to say how tranquil and easy I am in this confideration, that I have them by me, to divert myself with them whenever I please; and in the thought of what an affiftance they are to me in life.-This is the best viaticum I have yet known for this mortal pilgrimage, and I extremely pity thofe men of understanding who are unprovided with it; yet I rather accept of any other kind of amufement, be it ever fo light, because this cannot fail me. When The fituation of brary. When I am at home I the oftener vifit my library, from which I at once furvey all the operations of my family. It is over the entrance into my houfe, from whence I have a view under me of my court-yards and garden, and of most of the offices of my houfe. There I turn over one book, then another, on various fubjects, without order, and without defign. One while I ruminate, another while I copy and dictate, as I walk to and fro, fuch whimfies as these in my Effays. It is in the third story of a tower, of which the first is my chapel, the fecond a chamber with its closets, where I often lie to be retired; above it is a great wardrobe. This was formerly the most useless part of my house. I there pafs away the moft of the days of my life, and most of the hours in the day, but am never there at night. At the end of it there is a very neat clofet, with pleasant window-lights, and a fire-place. And was I not more afraid of the trouble than of the expence, the trouble, which drives me from all application to bufinefs, I could eafily join to it on each fide, and on the fame floor, a gallery of 100 paces in length, and 12 in breadth; there being walls already raised, though for another defign, to the height that is requifite. Every retired place fhould have a walk in it. For if I fit ftill my thoughts fleep. My fancy does not operate fo well as when it is put in motion by that of my legs. They who study without a book are all in the fame condition. The form of my study is round, and has no more level than what is taken up by my table and chair; fo that I have a view of all my books in five rows of fhelves, quite round me. It has three noble and free profpects, and is fixteen paces in diameter. I am not fo conftantly there in the winter, for my house is perched upon an eminence, as its name imports, and this part of it is most exposed to the wind, which pleases me the better, for not being so easy of accefs, and a little remote, as well for the benefit of exercife as for being more retired. It is there that I am in my kingdom, as we fay; and there I endeavour to render myself fole monarch, and to fequefter this corner from all fociety, conjugal, filial, and civil. Every where else I E 2 have * have but a verbal authority, and of a confufed effence. Miferable is that man, in my opinion, who has no place at home where to be by himself, to entertain himself alone, or to conceal himself from others. Ambition fufficiently plagues its profelytes by keeping them always in fhew, like a ftatue in a market-place, Magna fervitus eft magna fortuna ; "a great fortune is a great flavery:" those who poffefs it have scarce a retirement for the neceffities of nature. I have thought nothing fo fevere, in the aufterity of life which our friars affect,as what I fee in fome of their fraternities; namely, to have a perpetual fociety of place by rule, and numerous affiftants among them in every action whatever; and I think it fomewhat more tolerable to be always alone, than never to be fo. The Mufes are the fport, and pastime of the mind. If any one fhall tell me, that it is undervaluing the Mufes to make use of them only for mirth and paftime, I fhall say he does not know the value of pleasure, play, and paftime, fo well as I do; I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be it fpoken, I only live for myfelf; in that all my defigns terminate. I ftudied, when young, for the fake of oftentation, afterwards for wifdom, and now for my recreation, but never for gain. A vain and prodigal longing I had for this fort of furniture, to sub. ply my own neceffity, and to drefs and adorn me; but I have long fince weaned myfelf of it. The inconventTM encies attached i which books give. Books have many charming qualities to fuch as know how to chufe them; but to the pleasure ther is no good without its evil. This is a pleasure, not more pure and untainted than others; it has its inconveniencies, and great ones too. The foul is exercifed in it, but the body, the care of which I ought not to forget, remains in the mean time without action, grows heavy and ftupid. I know of no excefs more prejudicial to me, or more to be avoided in this my declining age. Thus have I given you my three favourite, and particular occupations. I fpeak not of the duties I owe to mankind by civil obligation. * Senec. Confolatio ad Polybium, cap. 26. СНАР. I CHA P. IV. Was once employed to console a lady, who was truly afflicted; for moft of their mournings are affected and ceremonious. Uberibus femper lachrymis, femperque paratis, They always have a dam for present use, The usefulness of adminiftring diverfion by may of comfort It is going the wrong way to work to oppofe this paffion, for oppofition only provokes it, and makes them more forrowful. The evil is exafperated by the warmth of argument. We fee in common discourse, that what flips unguardedly from a man, if another goes to controvert it, the former takes it in dudgeon, and juftifies what he had faid; efpecially if it be a matter wherein he is interefted. Befides, in fo doing, you enter upon your work in a rough manner; whereas the first vifits of a phyfician, to his patient, ought to be gentle, gay, and pleafant. Never did an ill-looking fullen phyfician do any thing to purpose. On the contrary therefore a man muft, in order to make his way, footh the patient's complaints, and exprefs fome approbation and excufe for them. By this difcretion you gain credit to proceed farther; and, by an eafy and infenfible gradation, you fall into a reafoning that is more folid and proper for their cure. I, whofe chief aim it was to deceive those bystanders who had their eyes fixed upon me, thought fit to palliate the difeafe; though indeed I find, by experience, that I have an aukward and unlucky hand Juv. fat. vi, ver. 272, &c. at perfuafion. My arguments are either too poignant, too dry, or too blunt and lifelefs. After I had for a while applied myfelf to her grievance, I did not attempt to cure it by ftrong and lively arguments, either because I had them not to ufe, or because I thought to gain my point better another way; neither did I fet about the choice of the various methods of confolation prescribed by philofophy; as that what we complain of is no evil, according to Cleanthes +; that it is a flight evil, as the Peripatetics fay; that to complain thus is neither just nor laudable, according to Chryfippus; nor the method prescribed by Epicurus, more fuitable to my tafte, viz. fhifting the thought from things that are afflicting to those that are pleasant; nor like Cicero, to make a collection of all these together, in order to 'difpenfe them occafionally. But, by foftly weakening the force of my arguments, and turning them by degrees fometimes to fubjects nearer to the prefent cafe, and at other times to those that were a little more remote; as fhe attended to me, I infenfibly deprived her of her forrow, and kept her calm and quite compofed as long as I was with her. I diverted the complaint; but they who fucceeded me in the fame fervice found no amendment in her, for I had not gone to the root. The method of diverting the enemy, employ ed fuccefsfully in war and in negociations. Perhaps I may have glanced elsewhere on fome kind of public diverfions and the practice of military diverfions, which Pericles made ufe of in the Peloponnefian war, and of a thousand more fuch in other places, for drawing off the enemy's forces from a country, is too frequent in hiftory. It was an ingenious ftratagem by which the Sieur de Himbercourt faved both himself and others, in the city of Liege, when the duke of Burgundy, who befieged it, made him enter into it to execute the articles that were agreed to for the furrender. The towns-people, who aflembled in the night for that purpose, began to mutiny against the agreement, and many of them refolved to † Cicer. Tufc. Quæft. lib. iii. cap. 31. You will find this story at full length in the Memoirs of Philip de Comines, lib. ii. cap. 3. fall |