Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

or Stones, or for Fencing, and Shoes with leaden Soles to make him the lighter afterwards for running and leaping." Of his Vaulting he has left fome Memorandums, which are fomewhat miraculous. I faw him, when he was paft fixty Years of Age, make a mere Jeit of our Activity, throw himself, in his Fur Gown, into the Saddle, turn himself round a Table upon his Thumb, and he scarce ever went up into his Chamber without meafuring three or four Stairs by one Step. As to what I was faying juft now, he declared there was scarce one Woman of Quality of ill Fame in a whole Province. He told of ftrange Privacies, fome of them his own, with virtuous Women, without any manner of Sufpicion. And, for his own Part, he folemnly fwore he came as pure as a Virgin to his Marriage-bed, and yet it was after having long ferved in the Wars beyond the Mountains, of which he has left a Journal, of his own Hand-writing, wherein he has given a regular and very circumftantial Account of all Paffages both relating to the Public and to himself: And he was married in the Year 1528, at the mature Age of Thirty-three, as he was on the Road coming home from Italy.

We will now return to our Bottle. The Infirmities of

old Age, which have Need of fome Support Drinking is the and Refreshment, might well create in me a laft Pleasure Defire of the Power to take my Bottle; for it which Man is. is, in a manner, the last Pleasure which a long capable of en« Course of Years fteals from us. The natural joying. Heat (as the good Fellows fay) first takes Place in the Feet, and that is in the State of Infancy; from thence it ascends to the middle Region, where it fettles a long Time, and produces what I think to be the only true Pleasure which the Body is capable of feeling, and in Comparison of which all other Pleafures are fleepy: At length, like a Vapour which exhales itself as it afcends, it rifes to the Throat, which is its laft Stage. Nevertheless, I cannot understand where is the Pleasure of Drinking beyond quenching Thirst, and how a Man can forge, in his Imagination, an Appetite that is artificial and against Nature. My Stomach would not bear fo much, it having enough to do to digest what it takes in out of mere Neceffity. My Conftitution will not VOL. II.

C

admit

admit of Drinking but after Eating, and for this Reason my last Draught is always the largest: And because in old Age our Palates are furred with Phlegm, or vitiated by fome other Badness of Constitution, Wine feems better to us, as our Pores are thereby laid open and cleanfed; at leaft I very feldom relifh the firft Glass well. Anacharfis ¶ was amazed that the Greeks fhould drink larger Glaffes at the End of a Meal than at the Beginning; but I fuppofe they did it for the fame Reafon as the Germans do it, who then begin their Drinking-bout.

The Ufe of Wine denied to Children, and permitted to Men grown.

[ocr errors]

Plato will not allow that Children fhould drink Wine before the Age of Eighteen, and that any Man thould be drunk with it before Forty; but after Forty he gives them Leave to indulge themfelves in it, and to take a pretty large Dofe, at their Feafts, of the Effence of Dionyfius, that good Deity who reftores Gaiety to the Countenance, and Youth to old Men; who fooths and foftens the Paffions of the Soul, as Iron is foftened by the Fire; and who, in his Laws, allows fuch Drinking-matches to be useful, (provided there be a Chairman or Prefident to reftrain and regulate them) Drunkenness being a clear and certain Trial of every Perfon's Temper, and withal fit to inspire thofe in Years with Mettle to divert themfelves in Dancing and Mufic, Things of great Ufe, and which they have not the Spirit to attempt when fober. Plato fays further, that Wine is capable of giving Temperance to the Soul, and Health to the Body.

Nevertheless, thefe Reflections, partly borrowed from the Restrictions re- Carthaginians, pleafe him, viz. That it be fpaquired in the ringly § ufed in Expeditions of War. That Use of Wine. every Magiftrate and every Judge † abstain

from it when he is doing the Business of his Office, or about

Diog. Laert. in the Life of Anacharfis, lib. i. fect. 104.

De Legibus, lib. ii. p. 581.

One of the Names of Bacchus.

to

This Conftruction of ufing it sparingly is, according to fome Editions, particularly that from which Mr. Cotton tranflated, but it should have been, that they wholly abstain from Wine; for Plato fays, that he approves the Carthaginian Law, which orders, that no fort of Wine be drank in the Camp, nór any Thing but Water. De Legibus, lib. ii, towards the End,

Or, as 'tis faid, more properly, in Plato, during the Year of their Ma. giftracy. Id. ibid.

to hold a Council on public Affairs. That they should not drink Wine by Day, which is for other Bufinefs; nor that** Night in which 'tis proposed to get Children. They fay that Stilpo the Philofopher, when oppreffed with Age, actually haftened his End, by drinking pure § Wine; and that the like Caufe, though not with the fame Design, dispatched alfo the Philofopher + Arcefilaus, whofe Strength was alfo much decayed by Age.

But 'tis an old and a pleasant Queftion, Whether a wife Man is to be overcome by the Strength of Wine?

++ Si munitæ adhibet vim fapientiæ ¶?

Pure Wine an Enemy 10 old Age.

The most regu lar Souls liable 10 be difordered by various Ac

cidents.

To what a Degree of Vanity are we puffed by that good Opinion which we have of ourselves! The most regular and the moft perfect Soul in the World has but too much ado to keep its footing, left it be overthrown by its own Weakness: There is not one of a thousand that is right and fettled a Moment in a whole Life; and it may be a Question, whether, in the State of Nature, it can ever be: But to join Conftancy to it is its utmost Perfection; I mean, tho' nothing fhould difcompofe it, which a thousand Accidentsare capable of doing. That great Poet Lucretius fenced himself about with his Philofophy to a fine Purpofe, when, behold, he was put out of his Senfes by one Philtre or Lovepotion! Is it to be imagined, that an Apoplexy will not ftun a Socrates as much as a Porter? The Violence of a Diftemper has made fome People forget their own Names, and a flight Wound has turned the Brains of others. Be a Man ever fo wife, he is ftill but a Man, than whom what is there more frail, more wretched, and more nothing? Wisdom does not force our natural Difpofitions.

C 2

Sudores

Except, fays Plato, it be by Way of Exercife, or in Cafe of Sickness.. This Exception includes both Sexes, fuppofing them to give each other the Word.

[ocr errors]

• § Diog. Laert. in the Life of Stilpo, lib. ii. fect. 120.

+ Diog, Laert, in the Life of Arcefilaus, lib. iv. fect. 44.1.

++ Whether 'tis poffible to be merry and wife. This is a Parody rather than a Quotation.

Horat. lib. iii. Od. 28. v. 4.

[ocr errors]

Sudores itaque et pallorem exiftere toto
Corpore, et infringi linguam, vocemque aboriri,
Caligare oculos, fonere aures, fuccidere artus,
Denique concidere ex animi terrore videmus **.

i. e.

Palenefs and Sweat the fearful Man confounds,
The Tongue's deliver'd of abortive Sounds;
The Eyes wax dim, Ears deaf, the Knees grow lame,
Unable to fupport the trembling Frame;

And all Things fall to nothing, whence they came.

}

He can't help winking at the Blow that threatens him, and trembling, when at the Edge of a Precipice, like a Child; Nature having referved to herself these flight Tokens of her Authority, which are not to be forced by our Reafon, nor by the Virtue of the Stoics, to convince Man of his Mortality and Infirmity: He turns pale with Fear, red with Shame, and he groans with the Cholic, if not with a Voice loud and raving, yet, at least, with one that's weak and broken:

: Humani a se nihil alienum putet

i. e.

Let him not think himself secure at all,
From what may any other Man befal.

The Poets, who feign every Thing according to their Fancy, dare not fo much as exempt their Heroes from Tears:

3. Sic fatur lacrymans, claffique immittit habenas tt.

i. e.

Thus did he weeping fay, and then fet Sail,

"Tis enough for a Man to curb and moderate, his. Inclinations, for to banish them is not in his Power. Even our Plutarch,

** Lucret. lib. iii. v. 155, &c.

+ This is not the true Senfe of Terence's Words. Montaigne only ufes it here to exprefs his own Thought, by taking a Liberty very common with him, as I have already observed, and as will appear to all who will be at the Trouble to compare his Quotations with their Originals; and which, indeed, they ought to do, if they would be fenfible of the Beauty of the Applications which he makes of them at every Turn..

*Terence's Heautontimoroumenos, A&ti. Sc. 1. v. 250 tt Æneid. lib. vi. v. 1.

Plutarch, fo perfect and excellent a Judge of human Actions as he was, when he fees Brutus and Torquatus murder their own Children, began to doubt whether Virtue could extend fo far, and whether those Perfonages were not rather ftimulated by fome other Paffion. All Actions that exceed the ordinary Bounds are liable to finifter Interpretations; forafmuch as our Tafte can no more relish what is above it, than what is below it.

Inftances of d Conftancy which favours of Fury, according 40

to

Montaigne.

Let us leave this other Sect, which makes a plain Profeffion of Scornfulness: But when, even in that Sect, which is reckoned the mildeft, we hear thofe Rhodomontades of Metrodorus, Occupavi te, Fortuna, atque cepi, omnefque aditus tuos interclufi, ut ad me afpirare non poffes: i. e. For tune, thou art mine, I have thee faft, and have fo Shut up all thy Avenues, that thou canft not come at me: When Anaxarchus, being, by Order of Nicocreon, the Tyrant of Cyprus, put into a Stone Mortar, and pounded with an Iron Peftle, called out inceffantly, Batter, break, 'tis not Anaxarchus; 'tis his Sheath that you pound fo §. When we hear our Martyrs cry out to the Tyrant, from the Midft of the Flames, That || Side is roafted enough, flice it out, and eat it; 'tis quite done, fall to work with the ather Side. When we read in Jofephus, of that Child, whofe Flesh was pulled to Pieces by Pinchers, defying his raving Perfecutor Antiochus to do his worst, and calling out with a manly intrepid Voice, Tyrant, thou lofeft Time, I am ftill at Eafe; where is that Pain, where thofe Torments with which ⚫ thou didst threaten me? Is this all thou canst do? My Conftancy gives thee more Anguifh than I fuffer from thy Cruelty. O pitiful Coward, thou fainteft, and I grow ftronger. Make me complain; make me bend make me yield if thou canft. Encourage thy Guards and thy Executioners; behold they are faint-hearted, and can do no more: Arm them, enrage them.' Really,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The Stoic Sea, founded by Zeno.

Tufc. Quæft. lib. i. c. 9.

C 3

it

The Set of Epicurus. + Cicero's

$ Diog. Laert. in the Life of Anaxarchus, lib. ix. fect. 58, 59.

This is what Prudentius makes St Laurence fax, in his Book intitled

weg reparar, concerning Crowns. Hymn ii. v. 401, &c.

« AnteriorContinuar »