Our Studies and Defires fhould fometimes be fenfible of Old-age: We have one Foot in the Grave, and yet our Appetites and Purfuits fpring up every Day. When Death, perhaps, is near at Hand, Our Defires ought to be mortified with Old age. The longest of my Designs is not above a Year's Extent; I think of nothing now but my End; abandon all new Hopes and Enterprises; take my laft Leave of every Place I depart from, and every Day difpoffefs myself of what I have. "Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi, nec acquiritur; plus fupereft viatici, quam via: I now fhall neither lofe, nor get; I have more wherewith to defray my Journey, than I have Way to go. Vixi, et quem dederat curfum fortuna peregi °. i. e. I've liv'd, and finifh'd the Career Which Fortune had prefcrib'd me here. To conclude; 'tis the only Comfort I find in my Oldage, that it mortifies in me feveral Cares and Defires, wherewith Life is difturbed; the Care how the World goes; the Care of Riches, of Grandeur, of Knowledge, of Health, and myself. There are fome who are learning to speak, at a Time when they fhould learn to be filent for ever. A Man may always ftudy, but he must not always go to School. What a contemptible Thing is an old Man learning his A, B, C! Diverfos diverfa juvant, non omnibus annis, i. e. K k 4 a Sen. Epift. 77. • Æneid. m Hor. lib. ii. Ode 18, v. 17, &c. lib. iv. v. 653. i. e. For feveral Things do feveral Men delight, If we must study, let us follow that Study which is What Study fuitable to our prefent Condition, that we fuits beft with may be able to answer as he did; who being Old-age. asked, To what End he ftudied in his decrepid Age? That I may go the better off the Stage, faid be, and at greater Eafe.' Such a Study was that of the younger Cato, at feeling his End approach, when he was reading Plato's Difcourfe of the Immortality of the Soul: Not as we are to believe, that he was not, long before, furnished with all forts of Provifion for fuch a Departure; for, of Affurance, an established Will and Inftruction he had, more than Plato had in all his Writings; his Knowledge and Courage were, in this refpect, above Philofophy. He imployed himself thus, not for the Service of his Death, but as a Man whofe Sleep is not once disturbed in the Importance of fuch a Deliberation; he alfo, without Choice and Change, continued his Studies with the other cuftomary Actions of his Life. The Night that he was denied the Prætorfhip, he spent in Play : That wherein he was to die he fpent in Reading: The Lofs either of Life, or of Office, was all one to him. I Man feldom attains to a CHAP. XXIX. Of VIRTUE, FIND, by Experience, that there is a vaft Difference betwixt the Starts and Sallies of the Mind, and a refolute and conftant Habit; and very well perceive, there is nothing we may not do, Capacity of nay, even to the furpaffing the Divinity itacting feadily felf, fays a certain Perfon, forafmuch as it is and regularly, more for a Man to render himself impaffible according to the Principles or difpaffionate, than to be fuch by his oriof folid Virtue. ginal Condition; and even to be able to conjoin to Man's Imbecillity and Frailty a godly Refolution and and Affurance. But this is by Fits and Starts: And, in the Lives of thofe Heroes of Times paft, there are fometimes miraculous Sallies, and fuch as feem infinitely to exceed our natural Strength, but they are indeed Sallies; and 'tis hard to believe, that these fo elevated Qualities can be fo thoroughly imprinted on the Mind, that they fhould become common, and, as it were, natural to it : It accidentally happens, even to us, who are the most imperfect of Men, that fometimes our Mind gives a Spring, when roufed by the Difcourfes or Examples of others, much beyond its ordinary Stretch; but 'tis a kind of Paffion, which pufhes and pricks it on, and, in some fort, ravishes it from itfelf: But, this Whirlwind once blown over, we fee, that it infenfibly flags and flackens itself, if not to the lowest Degree, at least so as to be no more the fame; infomuch as that, upon every trivial Occasion, the lofing of a Bird, or the breaking of a Glafs, we suffer ourfelves to be moved little lefs than one of the common People. I am of Opinion, that, Order, Moderation, and Conftancy excepted, all Things are to be done by a Man that is, in general, very deficient. Therefore, fay the Sages, in order to make a right Judgment of a Man, you are chiefly to pry into his common Actions, and furprise him in his every-day Habit.' Pyrrho tried, in vain, to conform his Life to his Doctrine. Pyrrho, he who erected fo pleasant a Syftem of Knowledge upon Ignorance, endeavoured, as all the reft, who were really Philofophers did, to make his Life correfpond with his Doctrine: And because he maintained the Imbecillity of human Judgment to be fo extreme, as to be incapable of any Choice or Inclination, and would have it perpetually wavering and fufpending, confidering and receiving all Things as indifferent, 'tis faid, That he always comported himself after the fame • Manner and Countenance P: If he had begun a Difcourfe, he would always end what he had to fay, tho P Diog. Laert. in Pyrrho's Life, lib. ix. fect. 63. the Yet Montaigne fays, in the 12th Chapter of this Volume, That they who reprefent Pyrrho in this Light, extend his Doctrine beyond what it really was; and that, like a rational Man, he made Ufe of all his corporeal and fpiritual Faculties as Rule and Reafon. Book II. • the Person he was speaking to was gone away: And, if ⚫ he walked, he never turned out of his Way for any Im• pediment, being preferved from Precipices, the Joftle of Carts, and other like Accidents, by the Care of his • Friends; for, to fear, or to avoid any Thing, had been ⚫ to contradict his own Propofitions, which deprived the • Senses themselves of all Certainty and Choice: Some• times he suffered Incifions and Cauteries with fo great Conftancy, as never to be seen so much as to wink his Eyes.' 'Tis fomething to bring the Soul to thefe Imaginations; more to join the Effects to it, and yet not impoffible; but to conjoin them with fuch Perfeverance and Conftancy as to make them habitual, is certainly, in Attempts fo remote from the common Ufance, almost incredible to be done. Therefore it was, that being, one Day, found at his House terribly scolding at his Sifter, and being reproached, that he therein tranfgreffed his • own Rules of Indifference: What, faid he, muft this • foolish Woman alfo ferve for a Teftimony to my Rules?" Another Time, being to defend himself against a Dog: It is, faid he, very hard totally to put off Man; and < we muft endeavour and force ourselves to encounter Things, first by Effects, but at the worst by Reason and • Argument.' Notions pro About feven or eight Years fince, a Countryman, yet Extraordinary living, at a Village but two Leagues from my House, having been long tormented with duced by a fud- his Wife's Jealoufy, coming, one Day, home den Refolution. from his Work, and fhe welcoming him with her accustomed Railing, he entered into fo great a Fury, that, with a Sickle he had yet in his Hand, he totally cut off all those Parts that she was jealous of, and threw them in her Face.' And, 'tis faid, That a young • Gentleman of our Nation, brifk and amorous, having, by his Perfeverance, at last mollified the Heart of a fair Mistress, enraged, that, upon the Point of Fruition, he found himself unable to perform, and that, non viriliter Iners fenile penis extulit caput, Tib. lib. iv. Eleg. pen. ad Priapum in Veterum Poet. Catalectis. fo fo foon as ever he came Home he deprived himself of it, and fent it to his Miftrefs; a cruel and bloody Victim for the Expiation of his Offence.' If this had been done upon a mature Confideration, and upon the Account of Religion, as the Priests of Cybele did, what should we have faid of fo choleric an Action? A Woman that drowned herfelf for being beat by her Hufband. • A few Days fince, at Bergerac, within five Leagues of my House, up the River Dordogne, a Woman having, over-night, been abufed and • beaten by her Husband, a peevish ill-conditioned Fellow, refolved to efcape from his ill Ufage at the Hazard of her Life; and going, fo foon as fhe was up the next Morning, to • vifit her Neighbours, as fhe was wont to do, fhe dropped a Hint of the Recommendation of her Affairs, fhe took • a Sister of hers by the Hand, led her to a Bridge, and af⚫ter having taken Leave of her, as it were in Jeft, without ⚫ any manner of Alteration or Change in her Countenance, fhe threw herself headlong into the River, and was there drowned. That which is the most remarkable, is, that this Refolution was a whole Night forming in her Head.' Voluntary Death of the But it is quite another Thing with the Indian Women for it being the Cuftom there for the Men to have many Wives, and for the best beloved of them to kill herself at her Hufband's Deceafe, every one of them makes it the Business of her whole Life to obtain this Privilege, and gain this Advantage over her Companions; and the good Offices they do their Husbands, aim at no other Recompence, but to be preferred in accompanying them in Death. Ubi mortifero jacta eft fax ultima leɛto, Propert, lib. iii, Eleg. 13. v. 17, &c. i. e. |