Book I. falfe, which we ourselves however believe to be true; and that the Latin Word mentiri, i. e. contra mentem ire, means to go and act against the Confcience; and that therefore this only touches those who speak contrary to what they know, who are the Perfons I point at. Now thefe do either wholly invent a Story out of their own Heads, or elfe marr and difguife one that has a real Foundation. When they difguife and alter, by often telling the fame Story, they can scarce avoid contradicting themselves, by Reafon that the real Fact having firft taken Poffeffion in the Memory, and being there imprinted by the Way of Knowledge and Science, it will be ever ready to prefent itself to the Imagination, and to diflodge Falfhood, which cannot have so fure and fettled a Footing there as Certainty; and because the Circumftances which they first heard, evermore running in their Minds, make them forget thofe that are forged or foifted in. As to what they wholly invent, forafmuch as there is no contrary Impreffion to give a Shock to their Forgery, there feems to be the lefs Danger of their Tripping; and yet even this also, by Reason it is a meer Phantom, and not to be laid Hold of, is very apt to efcape the Memory, if it be not very perfect. I have had very pleasant Experience of this, at the Expence of fuch as profefs only to accommodate their Difcourfe to the Bufinefs they have in Hand, or to the Humour of the great Men with whom they converfe; for the Circumftances to which they are ready to facrifice their Honour and Confcience, being fubject to several Changes, their Language muft needs vary at the fame Time: From whence it happens, that, of the fame Thing, they tell one Man, it is this, and another, it is that, giving it different Forms and Colours; and if by Accident thofe Men compare Notes upon Informations fo contrary, what becomes of this fine Art? Befides, they are fuch Fools, that they often contradict themfelves; for what a Memory need they have, to retain so many different Forms as they have forged upon one and the fame Subject! I have known many, in my Time, very ambitious of the Reputation of this fine Sort of Wisdom; but they do not fee, that if there be a Reputation in it, it can anfwer no End.

Lying a very bateful Vice.

In plain Truth, Lying is a curfed Vice. We are Men who have no other Tie upon one another but our Word. If we confidered the horrid Confequences of a Lie, we fhould profecute it with Vengeance, as the worst of Crimes.

Lying, and Stubbornness, two Vices that ought early to be fuppreffed in Children.

I perceive how abfurdly Children are ufually corrected for innocent Faults, and are made to smart for rafh Actions that are of no Significance or Confequence. The Faculty of Lying, and what is fomething of a lower Form, Stubbornnefs, feem to be Faults that ought, in every Inftance, to be checked both in their Infancy and Progrefs, they being Vices which are apt to grow up with them; and, after the Tongue has contracted a Habit of Lying, it is fcarce to be imagined how impoffible, almost, it is to draw it out of the falfe Track; from whence it comes to pafs, that we fee fome, who are otherwise very honest Men, not only fubject, but meer Slaves to this Vice. I have an honeft Lad to my Taylor, who I never heard fpeak Truth, not even when it might have been to his Advantage. If Falfhood had, like Truth, only one Face, we should be upon better Terms; for we should then take the contrary of what the Liar fhould fay for certain Truth; but the Reverse of Truth has a hundred thousand Forms, and a Field without Limits. The Pythagoreans make Good to be certain and finite, and Evil, infinite and uncertain; there are a thousand Ways to mifs the White, and only one to hit it. For my own Part, I am not fure that I could prevail with my Confcience to fecure myself from manifeft and extreme Danger by an impudent and folemn Lie. One of the ancient Fathers faid, That we bad better be in Company with a Dog that we know, than with a Man whofe Language we do not understand. Ut externus non alieno fit bominis vice *. So that two Perfons of different Nations are not Men with Regard to each other; or as a Foreigner, to one who understands not what he says,

This a Paffage out of Pliny, which Montaigne has mangled to adapt it to his Sentiment. It runs in Pliny, Ut externus alieno penè non fit hominis vice, Nat. Hift. lib. vii. c. 1. So that two Perfons of different Countries are not fearce Men with Regard to one another.

cannot be faid to fupply the Place of a Man. And how much less fociable is false speaking than Silence?

An Ambassador King Francis I. boafted, that he nonpluffed caught in a Lie Francifco Taverna, Ambaffador of Francis Sforby Francis I. za Duke of Milan, a Man of great Fame for his Eloquence, by this Means. The Ambaffador had been dispatched to excufe his Mafter to the King for an Action of great Confequence, which was this; the King, in order to maintain fome Correfpondence ftill in Italy, out of which he had been lately driven, and particularly in the Dutchy of Milan, had thought fit to have a Gentleman on his Behalf, to refide conftantly near the Duke; an Ambaffador in Effect, but in Appearance as a private Man, who pretended to refide there for his own Affairs. The Reason of this was, that the Duke, who depended much more upon the Emperor, (at a Time efpecially when he was treating of a Marriage with his Niece, Daughter to the King of Denmark, and fince Dowager of Lorrain) could not be known to have any Correfpondence or Intelligence with us, without hurting his Intereft confiderably. For this Commiffion à Milanefe Gentleman was thought proper, viz. one Merveille, who was an Equerry to the King. This Perfon being difpatched with private Credentials, and the Inftructions of Ambaffador, befides other Letters of Recommendation to the Duke, in Favour of his own private Concerns, for a Mafk and a Cloak, he ftaid fo long at the Duke's Court, that the Emperor took Umbrage at it; which was the Occafion, as we fuppofe, of what followed after, viz. that under Pretence of a Murder by him committed, his Trial was difpatched in two Days, and his Head ftruck off in the Dead of the Night *. The King applying to all the Princes of Chriftendom, and even to the Duke himself, to demand Satisfaction, Taverna came to the Court of France with a long counterfeit Story, had his Audience at the Morning Council, where, for the Support of his Caufe, he made a plaufible Harangue, concluding, that his Mafter had never looked upon this Merveille for any other than a private Gentleman, and his own Subject, who came to Milan only about his own Affairs,

Bellay's Memoirs, lib. iv, fol. 153, &c. Edit. of Paris, 1573.

and

Another Am

and had never lived there in any other Character; abfolutely difowning that he had ever heard that he was one of the King's Houfhold, or fo much as known to his Majefty, fo far was he from taking him for an Ambaffador. The King, in his Turn, urging feveral Objections and Queftions to him, and fifting him every Way, gravelled him at laft, in the Circumftance of the Execution being performed in the Night, and as it were by Stealth. To this the poor Man, being confounded, made Anfwer, in order to fhew his Complaifance, That, out of Refpect to his Majefty, the Duke would have been very forry that fuch an Execution fhould have been performed in the DayTime. Any one may imagine how he was reprimanded when he came home, for having fo grofsly prevaricated with a Prince of fo nice a Difcernment as King Francis. Pope Julius II. having fent an Ambaffador to the King of England to animate him against King Francis, the Ambaffador having had his Audience, and the King, in his Anfwer, obferving the Difficulties that would attend the making fuch Preparations as would be abfolutely neceffary to cope with fo powerful a King, and mentioning fome Reafons, the Ambassador abfurdly replied *, That he himself had also considered them, and had indeed mentioned them to the Pope. From this Speech of his, fo different from his Errand, which was to push him immediately upon a War, gave the King of England the first Glimpfe of a Conjecture, which was afterwards verified, that the faid Ambaffador was in his Heart a Friend to France; of which the King of England having advertifed the Pope, his Estate was confiscated, and he had like to have fuffered Death.

bajador caught in a Miftake by Henry VIII. King of Eng

land.

*Erafmus, in a Book of his called Lingua, mentions this Fact, as a Thing that happened while he was in England. He fays, that, being detected in Converfation with the French Ambaffador by Night, he was committed to Prison, all his Estate confifcated, and that, if he had fallen into the Hands of Julius, he would fcarce have escaped with his Life. But the Confequence of this Lapfus lingue was, that the King, who, perhaps, by putting off the Affair, might have compofed the Difference, haftened the War. Operum Erafmi, in Folio, printed at Leyden, 1703. tom. iv. col. 684.

TH

CHA P. X.

Of Readiness or Slowness in Speech.

One ne furent à tous toutes graces données.

HUS we fee, as to the Gift of Eloquence, some have a Facility and Readiness of Speech, and that which is termed a quick Delivery, fo fluent, that they are never at a Paufe; and others there are flow of Speech, who never utter a Sentence but what has been laboured and premeditated.

Preacher.

cate.

As the Diverfions and Exercifes of the Ladies are fo regulated, as to make the best Display of their greatest Beauty, fo in these two different Advantages of Eloquence, of which the Preachers and Lawyers of our Age feem to be the chief Profeffors, if my Opinion was to be taken, I The flow Spea. fhould think the flow Speaker would be more ker fit to be a proper for the Pulpit, and the other for the Bar; because the Preacher's Function allows him as much Time as he pleafes to prepare himself; and, befides, his is one continued Thread of Difcourfe, withThe ready one out Intermiffion; whereas, it is the Advocate's to be an Advo- Intereft to enter the Lifts extempore, and the unexpected Anfwers of the adverfe Party throw him off his Biafs, fo that he is immediately forced to ftrike into a new Path. Yet, at the Interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis, at Marfeilles, it happened quite contrary, that M. Poyet, a Man who had been bred up all his Life to the Bar, and was in high Repute, being commiffioned to make the Harangue to the Pope, and having fo long ftudied it beforehand, that, it is faid, he brought it quite ready with him from Paris; the Pope, on the very Day that it was to be spoke, for Fear left he fhould intend to fay fomething that might difguft the Ambaffadors of the other Princes that were about him, fent the King a Topick which he thought fitteft both for the Time and Place, but fuch a Topick as was quite different from that which Monfieur Poyet had taken fo much Pains about;

fo