Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Concerning the bounds of unity, the true placing | points: for truth and falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image; they may cleave, but they will not incorporate.

of them importeth exceedingly. There appear to
be two extremes: for to certain zealots all speech
of pacification is odious. "Is it peace, Jehu ?”.
"What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee
behind me." Peace is not the matter, but fol-
lowing, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodi-
ceans and lukewarm persons think they may ac-
commodate points of religion by middle ways,
and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements,
as if they would make an arbitrement between
God and man. Both these extremes are to be
avoided; which will be done if the league of
Christians, penned by our Saviour himself, were
in the two cross clauses thereof soundly and
plainly expounded: "He that is not with us is
against us ;" and again, "He that is not against
us is with us;" that is, if the points fundamental,
and of substance in religion, were truly discerned
and distinguished from points not merely of faith,
but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is
a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and
done already; but if it were done less partially,
it would be embraced more generally.

Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware that, in the procuring or muniting of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal; and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of religion: but we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, or like unto it: that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state;, much less to nourish seditions; to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword into the people's hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God; for this is but to dash the first table against the second; and so to consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed:

Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God's church by two kinds of controver"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." sies; the one is, when the matter of the point What would he have said, if he had known of controverted is too small and light, not worth the the massacre in France, or the powder treason of heat and strife about it, kindled only by contra- England? He would have been seven times more diction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, epicure and atheist than he was; for as the temChrist's coat indeed had no seam, but the church's | poral sword is to be drawn with great circumspecvesture was of divers colours; whereupon he tion in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous saith, "in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit," to put it into the hands of the common people; they be two things, unity and uniformity; the let that be left unto the anabaptists, and other fuother is, when the matter of the point controverted ries. It was great blasphemy, when the devil is great, but it is driven to an over great subtilty said, "I will ascend and be like the Highest;" and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and ingenious than substantial. A man that is of bring him in saying, "I will descend, and be judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear like the prince of darkness:" and what is it betignorant men differ, and know well within him-ter, to make the cause of religion to descend to the self, that those which so differ mean one thing, cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, and yet they themselves would never agree: and butchery of people, and subversion of states and if it come so to pass in that distance of judgment, governments? Surely this is to bring down the which is between man and man, shall we not Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in think that God above, that knows the heart, doth the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set out of not discern that frail men, in some of their con- the bark of a Christian church a flag of a bark of tradictions, intend the same thing and accepteth pirates and assassins; therefore it is most necesof both? The nature of such controversies is ex- sary that the church by doctrine and decree, cellently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning princes by their sword, and all learnings, both and precept that he giveth concerning the same, Christian and moral, as by their Mercury rod to "devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones damn, and send to hell forever, those facts and falsi nominis scientiæ." Men create oppositions opinions tending to the support of the same, as which are not, and put them into new terms so hath been already in good part done. Surely in fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern councils concerning religion, that council of the the term, the term in effect governeth the mean- apostle would be prefixed, "Ira hominis non iming. There be also two false peaces, or unities: plet justitiam Dei ;" and it was a notable observathe one, when the peace is grounded but upon an tion of a wise father, and no less ingenuously implicit ignorance; for all colours will agree in confessed, that those which held and persuaded the dark: the other, when it is pieced up upon a pressure of consciences, were commonly interested direct admission of contraries in fundamental therein themselves for their own ends.

B

IV. OF REVENGE. REVENGE is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out: for as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law, but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon: and Solomon, I am sure, saith, "It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence." That which is past is gone and irrecoverable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labour in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like; therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy; but then, let a man take heed the revenge be such there is no law to punish, else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh: this is the more generous; for the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent: but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. “You shall read,” saith he, "that we are commanded to forgive our enemies, but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends." But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune: "Shall we," saith he, "take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also?” and so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Public revenges and for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Cæsar; for the death of Pertinax; for the death of Henry the Third of France; and many more. But in private revenges it is not so; nay, rather vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.

V. OF ADVERSITY.

It was a high speech of Seneca, (after the manner of the Stoics,) that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired: "Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia." Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than

the other, (much too high for a heathen,) "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God:" Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei." This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed; and the poets, indeed, have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian, "that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus, (by whom human nature is represented,) sailed the length of the describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher, lively frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world." But to speak in a mean, the virtue of fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virprosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is tue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testacarrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer ment, adversity is the blessing of the New, which revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best disco

ver virtue.

VI. OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMU

LATION.*

wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy, or heart to know when to tell truth, and to do it; therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith, "Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband, and dissimulation of her son; attributing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius :" and again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius, he saith," We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius :" these properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be distinguished; for if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can discern what things are to *See note C, at the end of the Essays.

him, that, without an absurd silence, he must shew an inclination one way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech. As for equivocations, or oraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long: so that no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation, which is, as it were, but the skirts, or train of secrecy.

be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what | on either side. They will so beset a man with. to be shewed at half lights, and to whom and questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of when, (which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them,) to him a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot attain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally to be close, and a dissembler for where a man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general, like the going softly by one that cannot well see. Certainly, the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn; and at such times when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad, of their good faith and clearness of dealing, made them almost invisible.

There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self; the first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy, when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is; the second dissimulation in the negative, when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that he is; and the third simulation in the affirmative, when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

For the first of these, secrecy, it is indeed the virtue of a confessor; and assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions, for who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery, as the more close air sucketh in the more open; and, as in confession, the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of many things in that kind; while men rather discharge their minds than impart their minds. In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides (to say truth) nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions, if they be not altogether open. As for talkers, and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal: for he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not; therefore set it down, that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral and in this part it is good, that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak; for the discovery of a man's self, by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's words.

But for the third degree, which is simulation and false profession, that I hold more culpable, and less politic, except it be in great and rare matters: and, therefore, a general custom of simulation, (which is this last degree,) a vice rising either of a natural fi lseness, or fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults; which because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation in other things, lest his hand should be out of use.

The advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three: first, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise for where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them: the second is, to reserve to a man's self a fair retreat; for if a man engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall: the third is, the better to discover the mind of another; for to him that opens himself men will hardly show themselves averse; but will fain let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought; and therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard, "Tell a lie and find a troth;" as if there were no way of discovery but by simulation. There be also three disadvantages to set it even; the first, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness, which, in any business doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark; the second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many, that, perhaps, would otherwise co-operate with him, and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends; the third, and greatest, is, that it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for action, which is trust and belief. The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign if there be no remedy.

VII. OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

THE joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears; they cannot utter the one, nor For the second, which is dissimulation, it fol- they will not utter the other. Children sweeten loweth many times upón secrecy by a necessity; labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter: so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate in some degree; for men are too cunning to suffer the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by a man to keep an indifferent carriage between generation is common to beasts; but memory, both, and to be secret, without swaying the balance merit, and noble works are proper to men: and

surely a man shall see the noblest works and | childless men; which, both in affection and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed; so the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses are most indulgent towards their children, beholding them as the continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work; and so both children and creatures.

means, have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times, unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are, who, though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences; nay, there are some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges; nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer; for, perhaps, they have heard some talk, "Such an one is a great rich man," and another except to it.

That difference in affection of parents towards their several children, is many times unequal, and sometimes unworthy, especially in the mother; as Solomon saith, "A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son shames the mother." A man shall see, where there is a house" Yea, but he hath a great charge of children;" as full of children, one or two of the eldest respect- if it were an abatement to his riches: but the ed, and the youngest made wantons; but in the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, midst some that are as it were forgotten, who, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous many times, nevertheless, prove the best. The minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as illiberality of parents, in allowance towards their they will go near to think their girdles and garters children, is an harmful error, and makes them to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are base; acquaints them with shifts; makes them best friends, best masters, best servants; but not sort with mean company; and makes them surfeit always best subjects; for they are light to run more when they come to plenty and therefore away; and almost all fugitives are of that condithe proof is best when men keep their authority tion. A single life doth well with churchmen, for towards their children, but not their purse. Men charity will hardly water the ground where it have a foolish manner (both parents, and school- must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges masters, and servants) in creating and breeding and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, an emulation between brothers during childhood, you shall have a servant five times worse than a which many times sorteth to discord when they wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly, are men, and disturbeth families. The Italians in their hortatives, put men in mind of their wives make little difference between children and ne- and children; and I think the despising of marphews, or near kinsfolks; but so they be of the riage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier lump, they care not, though they pass not through more base. Certainly wife and children are a their own body; and, to say truth, in nature it is kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, much a like matter; insomuch that we see a ne- though they may be many times more charitable, phew sometimes resembleth an uncle, or a kins- because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the man, more than his own parents, as the blood | other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted, happens. Let parents choose betimes the voca- (good to make severe inquisitors,) because their tions and courses they mean their children should tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natake, for then they are most flexible; and let tures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are them not too much apply themselves to the dis- commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysposition of their children, as thinking they will ses, "vetulam “vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati." take best to that which they have most mind to. Chaste women are often proud and froward, as It is true, that if the affection, or aptness of the presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It children be extraordinary, then it is good not to is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obecross it; but generally the precept is good, "op-dience, in the wife, if she think her husband timum elige, suave et facile illud faciet consue-wise; which she will never do if she find him tudo." Younger brothers are commonly fortunate, jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses, but seldom or never where the elder are disinhe- companions for middle age, and old men's nurses; rited. so as a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will: but yet he was reputed one of the wise men, VIII. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE.* that made answer to the question when a man should marry: He that hath wife and children hath given hos-elder man not at all." It is often seen, that bad :-"A young man not yet, an tages to fortune; for they are impediments to great husbands have very good wives; whether it be enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Cer- that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindtainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the ness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride public, have proceeded from the unmarried or in their patience; but this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against

* See note D, at the end of the Essays.

their friends' consent, for then they will be sure to of a miracle: as it was in Narses the eunuch, make good their own folly. and Agesilaus and Tamerlane, that were lame

IX. OF ENVY.*

THERE be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate, or bewitch, but love and envy: they both have vehement wishes; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions; and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the objects, which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such thing there be. We see, likewise, the scripture calleth envy an evil eye; and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars evil aspects; so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, an ejaculation, or irradiation of the eye: nay, some have been so curious as to note, that the times, when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are, when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph; for that sets an edge upon envy: and besides, at such times, the spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the outward parts, and so meet the blow.

But leaving these curiosities, (though not unworthy to be thought on in fit place,) we will handle what persons are apt to envy others; what persons are most subject to be envied themselves; and what is the difference between public and pri

vate envy.

[ocr errors]

men.

The same is the case of men who rise after calamities and misfortunes; for they are as men fallen out with the times, and think other men's harms a redemption of their own sufferings.

They that desire to excel in too many matters. out of levity and vain glory, are ever envious, for they cannot want work; it being impossible, but many, in some one of those things, should surpass them; which was the character of Adrian the emperor, that mortally envied poets and painters, and artificers in works, wherein he had a vein to excel.

Lastly, near kinsfolks and fellows in office, and those that have been bred together, are more apt to envy their equals when they are raised; for it doth upbraid unto them their own fortunes, and pointeth at them, and cometh oftener into their remembrance, and incurreth likewise more into the note of others; and envy ever redoubleth from speech and fame. Cain's envy was the more vile and malignant towards his brother Abel, because when his sacrifice was better accepted, there Thus much for those was no body to look on. that are apt to envy.

Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy. First, persons of eminent virtue, when they are advanced, are less envied; for their fortune seemeth but due unto them; and no man envieth the payment of a debt, but rewards and liberality rather. Again, envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy; and therefore

A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others; for men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depress-kings are not envied but by kings. Nevertheless, ing another's fortune.

A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envious; for to know much of other men's matters cannot be, because all that ado may concern his own estate; therefore it must needs be that he taketh a kind of play-pleasure in looking upon the fortunes of others: neither can he that mindeth but his own business find much matter for envy; for envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not keep home: "Non est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus."

Men of noble birth, are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise; for the distance is altered; and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back.

Deformed persons and eunuchs, and old men and bastards, are envious: for he that cannot possibly mend his own case, will do what he can to impair another's; except these defects light upon a very brave and heroical nature, which thinketh to make his natural wants part of his honour; in that it should be said, "That an eunuch, or a lame man, did such great matters; affecting the honour * See note E, at the end of the Essays. VOL. I.-3

it is to be noted, that unworthy persons are most envied at their first coming in, and afterwards overcome it better; whereas, contrariwise persons of worth and merit are most envied when their fortune continueth long; for by that time, though their virtue be the same, yet it hath not the same lustre, for fresh men grow up that darken it.

Persons of noble blood are less envied in their rising; for it seemeth but right done to their birth: besides, there seemeth not much added to their fortune; and envy is as the sunbeams, that beat hotter upon a bank, or steep rising ground, than upon a flat; and, for the same reason, those that are advanced by degrees are less envied than those that are advanced suddenly, and " saltum."

“per

Those that have joined with their honour great travels, cares, or perils, are less subject to envy, for men think that they earn their honours hardly, and pity them sometimes; and pity ever healeth envy; wherefore you shall observe that the more deep and sober sorts of politic persons, in their greatness, are ever bemoaning themselves what a life they lead, chanting a “ quanta patimur;” not B 2

« AnteriorContinuar »