the reason they have often been seen, being but one or two, without arms, run madly against powerful enemies, at the price of certain death, and without any consideration of their own danger. So was our count Raimond of Tripoli, assassinated (which word is derived from their name) in the heart of his city, during our enterprises of the holy war; and likewise Conrade, marquis of Montferrat, the murderers going to their execution with great pride and glory, that they had performed so brave an exploit,

CHAPTER XXI.

Of a monstrous Child.

I SHALL tell the story simply, and leave it to the

physicians to reason upon it. Two days ago, I saw a child, which two men and a nurse, who called themselves the father, the uncle, and the aunt of it, carried about to get money by showing it, because it was so strange a creature. It was, as to all the rest, of a common form, and could stand upon its feet, walk and gabble much like other children of the same age: it had never, as yet, taken any other nourishment but from the nurse's breasts; and what, in my presence, they tried to put into its mouth, it only chewed a little, and spit out again without swallowing; the cry of it seemed, indeed, a little odd and particular, and it was just fourteen months old. Under the breast it was joined to another child, that had no head, and that had the spine of the back stopped up, the rest entire; it had one arm shorter than the other, because it had been broken, by accident, at their birth; they were joined breast to breast, as if a lesser child was to clasp its arms about the neck of one somewhat bigger. The

part where they were joined together, was not above four fingers broad, or thereabouts, so that if you turned up the imperfect child, you might see the navel of the other below it, and the joining was between the paps and the navel. The navel of the imperfect child could not be seen, but all the rest of the belly; so that all the rest that was not joined of the imperfect one, as arms, buttocks, thighs, and legs, hung dangling upon the other, and might reach to the mid-leg. The nurse, moreover, told us, that it urined at both bodies, and also that the members of the other were nourished, sensible, and in the same plight with that she gave suck to, excepting that they were shorter, and less. This double body, and the several limbs relating to one head, might be interpreted as a favourable prognostic to the king, of maintaining those various parts of our state under the union of his laws; but lest the event should prove otherwise, it is better to let it alone, for in things already past, there is no divination: Ut quum facta sunt, tum ad conjecturam aliqua interpretatione revocantur: "So as when they are come to

66

pass, they should then, by some interpretation, "be recalled to conjecture." As it is said of Epimenides, "That he always prophesied of things A man who "past." I have lately seen a herdsman, in Medoc, of about thirty years of age, who has no sign of any genital parts; he has three holes by which he incessantly voids his water; he is bearded, has desire, and loves to stroke the women.

had no genitals.

Whether

there are monsters

called.

Those that we call monsters, are not so to God, who sees, in the immensity of his work, the infinite properly so forms that he has therein comprehended: and it is to be believed, that this figure, which astonishes us, has relation to some other of the same kind, unknown to man. From a God of all wisdom nothing but what is good and regular proceeds; but we do

Cic. de Divin. lib. ii. cap. 31.
+ Aristotle's Rhetoric, lib. iii. cap. 12.

*

not discern the disposition and relation of things: Quod crebro videt, non miratur, etiamsi, cur fiat, nescit: quod antè non videt, id, si evenerit ostentum esse censet: "What man often sees, he does not ad"mire, though he be ignorant how it comes to pass; but, when a thing happens he never saw "before, that he looks upon as a prodigy." What falls out contrary to custom, we say is contrary to nature; but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her. Let, therefore, this universal and natural reason expel from us the error and astonishment which novelty brings along with it.

CHAPTER XXII.

Of Anger.

abandoned

of their pa

PLUTARCH is admirable throughout, but espe- Children cially where he judges of human actions: what fine indiscreetly things does he say in the comparison of Lycurgus to the goand Numa, upon the subject of our great folly invernment abandoning children to the care and government of rents. their fathers!" The most of our civil governments,' as Aristotle says, "leave, to every one, after the "manner of the Cyclops, the ordering of their "wives and children, according to their own foolish "and indiscreet fancy; and the Lacedæmonian and "Cretensian are almost the only governments that "have committed the discipline of children to the "laws." Who does not see, that, in a state, all depends upon their nurture and education? And yet they are indiscreetly left to the mercy of the parents, let them be as foolish and ill-natured as they will.

*Cic. de Divin. lib. ii. cap. 22.

Of the indiscretion

of

their chil

Amongst other things, how often have I, as I have of parents, passed along the streets, had a good mind to write a who punish farce, to revenge the poor boys, whom I have seen dren in the flayed, knocked down, and almost murdered, by madness of some father or mother, when in their fury, and mad passion. with rage? You see them come out with fire and fury sparkling in their eyes;

66

Rabie jecur incendente feruntur

Præcipites, ut saxa jugis abrupta, quibus mons
Subtrahitur, clivoque latus pendente recedit.*
With rapid fury they are headlong borne,

As when huge stones are from the mountains torn.

(And, according to Hippocrates, "The most dan-
gerous maladies are they that disfigure the counte-
nance") with a sharp and roaring voice, very often
against those that are but newly come from nurse,
and there they are lamed and stunned with blows,
whilst our justice takes no cognizance of it; as if
these were not the maims and dislocations of the
members of our commonwealth :

Gratum est quid patriæ civem, populoque dedisti,
Si facies ut patrice sit idoneus, utilis agris,
Viilis et bellorum et pacis rebus agendis.t

It is a gift most acceptable, when
Thou to thy country giv'st a citizen,

If thou take care to teach him with applause,
In war or peace how to maintain her cause.

There is no passion that so much perverts men's true
judgment, as anger. No one would demur upon
punishing a judge with death, who would condemn
a criminal from a motive of anger; why then should
fathers and school-masters be any more allowed to
whip and chastise children in their anger? This is
not correction, but revenge. Chastisement is in-
stead of physic to children; and should we bear with
a physician, that was animated against and enraged
at his patient?

* Juvenal, sat. vi. ver. 518.

+ Idem, sat. xiv. ver. 60, &a

of the per

in anger,

from what

If we would do well, we should never lay a hand The faults upon our servants whilst our anger lasts; whilst the son whom pulse beats high, and we feel an emotion in ourselves, we punish let us defer the business; for it is passion that com- seem to us mands, and passion that speaks then, not we: but different faults seen through passion, appear much greater to they are in us than they really are, as bodies when seen through reality. a mist. He that is hungry uses meat, but he that will make use of correction should have no appetite to it, neither of hunger or thirst. Besides, chastisements that are inflicted with weight and discretion, are much better received, and with greater benefit by him who suffers them. Otherwise he will not think himself justly condemned by a man transported with anger and fury, and will allege his master's excessive passion, his inflamed countenance, his unusual oaths, his turbulence, and rashness, for his own justification:

Ora tument ira, nigrescunt sanguine venæ,
Lumina Gorgonio sævius igne micant.*

Rage swells the lips, with black blood fills the veins,
And in their eyes fire worse than Gorgon's reigns.

Suetoniust reports, " That, Caius Rabirius having
"been condemned by Cæsar, the thing that most
"prevailed upon the people (to whom he had ap-
"pealed) to determine the cause in his favour, was,
"the animosity and vehemency that Cæsar had ma-
"nifested in that sentence."

sion on Pla

Saying is one thing, and doing is another; we are a digresto consider the sermon and the preacher apart. arch's good Those men thought themselves much in the right, nature and who in our times have attempted to shake the truth equity. of our church by the vices of her ministers; but she extracts her evidence from another source, for that is a foolish way of arguing, and would throw all

* Ovid. de Art. lib. iii. ver. 503, 504.

† Sueton. in Jul. Cæs. sect. 12.

12