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678 REFORM BY FORCE OF REASON, NOT BY DECAY OF APPETITES.

that years have brought me, so far prevail with me now, that I cannot discern pleasure in vice. Now that I am no more in my flourishing age, I judge as well of these things as if I was. I am not to be made to do any thing by persecutions and afflictions, but curse them. That is for people that are not to be rous'd but by a whip; my reason is much more active in prosperity, and much more distracted, and put to't to digest pains than pleasures. I see best in a clear sky. Health does premonish me, as more chearfully, so to better purpose than sickness. I did all that in me lay to reform and regulate my self from pleasures at all times, when I had health and vigour to enjoy them. I should be troubled and ashamed, that the misery and misfortune of my age, should be perferr'd before my good, healthful, spritely, and vigorous years; and that men should esteem me, not for what I have been, but by that miserable part of my self, where I have as it were ceas'd to be. In my opinion 'tis the happy living, and not (as said Antisthenes) the happy dying, in which human felicity consists. I will present my self uniformly throughout. Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future, and if I am not much deceiv'd, I am the same within that I am without. 'Tis one main obligation I have to fortune, that the succession of my bodily estate has been carried on according to the natural seasons; I have seen the grass, the blossoms, and the fruit, and now see the tree wither'd happily however, because naturally. I bear the infirmities I have the better, because they came not till I had reason to expect them; and because also they make me with great pleasure remember that long felicity of my past life. My wisdome peradventure may have been the same in both ages; but it was more active, and of better grace whilst young and spritely, than now it is when broken, peevish, and uneasie. I renounce then these casual and painful reformations. God must touch our hearts, and our consciences must amend of themselves, by the force of our reason, and not by the decay of our appetites. Pleasure is in it self neither pale nor discoloured, to be discern'd by him and decay'd eyes. We ought to love temperance for its self, and because God has commanded that and chastity; but what we are reduc'd to by catarrhs, and that I am oblig'd to the stone for, is neither chastity nor temperance. A man cannot boast that he despises and resists pleasure, if he cannot see it; if he knows not what it is, cannot discern its graces, forces, and most alluring beauties; I know both the one and the other, and may therefore the better say it; but methinks our souls in old age are subject to more troublesome maladies and imperfections than in youth. I said the same when young, and that I was reproach'd with the want of a beard, and I say so now that my gray hairs give me some authority; we call the difficulty of our humours, and the disrelish of present things, wisdom, but in truth we do not so much forsake vices as we change them, and in my opinion.

for worse. Besides, a foolish and feeble pride, and impertinent prating, froward and unsociable humours, superstition, and a ridiculous desire of riches when we have lost the use; I find more envy, injustice, and malice. Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay. In observing the wisdom of Socrates, and many circumstances of his condemnation I should dare to believe, that he in some sort himself purposely by collusion contributed to it, seeing that at the age of seventy years, he suffered the lofty motions of his wit to be so crampt, and his wonted lustre to be so obscur'd. What strange metamorphoses do I see every day make in many of my acquaintances! 'Tis a potent malady, and that naturally and imperceptibly steals into us, and vast provision of study, and great precaution are requir'd to evade the imperfections it loads us with, or at least, to obstruct their progress. I find, that notwithstanding all my retrenchments, it gets foot by foot upon me; I make the best resistance I can, but I do not know to what at last it will reduce me; but fall out what will, I am content the world may know when I am fall'n, from whence I fell.

CHAP. XCVII.-OF THREE COMMERCES.

WE must not rivet our selves so fast to these humours and complexions. Our chiefest sufficiency is to know how to apply our selves to divers employments. 'Tis to be, but not to live, to keep a man's self tied and bound by necessity to one only course. Those are the bravest souls that have in them the most variety, and that are most flexible and pliant; of which here is an honourable testimony of the elder Cato: "Huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit, ut natum ad id unum diceres, quodcumque agerit.”—Livius, l. 34. “This man's parts were so convertible to all uses, that a man would think he were born only for whatever he did." Might I have the liberty to dress my self after my own mode, there is no so graceful fashion to which I would be so fixt, as not to be able to disengage my self from it. Life is an unequal, irregular, and multiform motion. 'Tis not to be a friend to a man's self, much less a master; 'tis not to be a slave so incessantly, to be so led by the nose by ones own inclinations, that a man cannot turn aside nor writhe his neck out of the collar. I speak it now in this part of my life, wherein I find I cannot disengage my self from the importunity of my soul, by reason that it cannot commonly amuse it self, but on things wherein it is perplex'd, nor employ it self but intirely,

680

MEDITATION IS A POWERFUL AND FULL STUDY.

and with all its force. Upon the lightest subject can be offer'd, it makes it infinitely greater, and stretches it to that degree, as therein to employ its utmost power, wherefore its idleness is to me a very painful labour, and very prejudicial to my health. Most men's minds require foreign matter to exercise and enliven them; mine has rather need to sit still and repose it self; "Vitia otii negotio discutienda sunt.”— Senec. Epist. 56. "The vices of sloth are to be shaken off by business;" for its chiefest and most painful study, is to study it self. Books are to it a sort of employment that debauches it from its study. Upon the first thoughts that possess it, it begins to bustle and make trial of a vigour in all senses, exercises its power of handling, sometimes making trial of its force, and then fortifying, moderating and ranging itself by the way of grace and order. It has of its own wherewith to rouze its faculties: nature has given to it, as to all others, matter enough of its own to make advantage of, and subjects proper enough, where it may either invent or judge. Meditation is a powerful and full study to such as can effectually employ themselves. I had rather forge my soul than furnish it. There is no employment, either more weak or more strong, than that of entertaining a man's own thoughts, according as the soul is. The greatest men make it their whole business, “quibus vivere est cogitare."-Cice. Thus. l. 5. “To whom to live is to think." Nature has also favour'd it with this privilege, that there is nothing we can do so long, nor any action to which we more frequently, and with greater facility addict our selves. 'Tis the business of the gods", says Aristotle, and from whence both their beatitude and ours proceed. The principal use of reading to me, is, that by various objects it rouzes my reason, and employs my judgment, not my memory. Few entertainments then detain me without force and violence; it is true, that the beauty and neatness of a work take as much, or more, with me, than the weight and depth of the subject; and forasmuch as I slumber in all other communication, and give but a negligent attention, it often falls out, that in such mean and pitiful discourses, I either make strange and ridiculous answers unbecoming a child, or more indiscreetly and rudely maintain an obstinate silence. I have a melancholick and pensive way, that withdraws me into my self, and to that a stupid and childish ignorance of many very ordinary things; by which two qualities I have obtain'd, that men may truly report five or six as ridiculous tales of me, as of any other whatever. But to proceed in my subject; this difficult complexion of mine, renders me very nice in my conversation with men, whom I must cull and pick out for my purpose, and unfit for common society. We live and negociate with the people; if their conversation be troublesome to us, if we disdain to apply our selves to mean and vulgar souls, (and the mean and vulgar are oft as regular, as those of the finest thread; and all wisdom is folly, that does not accommodate it self to the common

ignorance) we must no more intermeddle either with other mens affairs or our own; and all business both publick and private, must be manag'd apart from the popular. The less forc'd, and most natural motions of the soul, are the most beautiful; the best employments, those that are least constrain'd. Good God! how good an office does wisdom to those whose desires it limits to their power! That is the most happy knowledge. "What a man can," was the sentence Socrates was so much in love withal, a motto of great substance; we moderate and adapt our desires to the nearest and easiest to be acquir'd things. Is it not a foolish humour of mine, to separate my self from a thousand to whom my fortune has conjoin'd me, and without whom I cannot live, to cleave to one or two that are out of my commerce, or rather a fantastick desire of a thing I cannot obtain? My gentle and easie manners, enemies of all sourness in conversation, may easily enough have secur'd me from the envy and animosities of men; I do not say so as to be belov'd, but never any man gave less occasions of being hated; but the coldness of my conversation, has reasonably depriv'd me of the good-will of many, who are to be excus'd, if they interpret it in another and worse sence. I am best at contradicting, and maintain rare and exquisite friendships; for by reason that I so greedily seize upon such acquaintance as fits my liking, I throw my self with such violence upon them, that I hardly fail to stick, and oft make an impression where I hit, as I have often made happy proof. I am in some sort cold and shy, for my motion is not natural, if not with full sail: besides, my fortune having train'd me up from my youth in, and given me a relish of one sole and perfect friendship, it has in truth given me a kind of nausity to meaner conversations, and too much imprinted in my fansie, that they are beasts of company, as the ancients said, but not of the herd. And also I have a natural difficulty of communicating my self by halves, and that reservation, servile, and jealous prudence requir'd in the conservation of numerous and imperfect friendships. And we are principally enjoin'd to these in this age of ours, when we cannot talk of the world, but either with danger or falsehood. Yet do I very well discern, that he who has the conveniences (I mean the essential conveniences) of life for his end, as I have, ought to fly these difficulties and delicacy of humour, as much as the plague. I should commend a soul of several stories, that knows both how to bend and to slacken it self; that finds it self at ease in all conditions of fortune, that can discourse with a neighbour, of his building, hunting, or any little contention betwixt him and another; that can chat with a carpenter or a gardener with pleasure. I envy those who can render themselves familiar with the meanest of their followers, and divert themselves with their own attendants; and dislike the advice of Plato, that men should always speak in a magisterial tone to their servants, whether men or women, without being sometimes facetious and fami

682 LET YOURSELF DOWN TO THOSE WITH WHOM YOU CONVERSE.

liar. For besides my reason, 'tis inhuman and unjust, to set so great a value upon this pitiful prerogative of fortune; and the governments, wherein less disparity is permitted betwixt masters and servants, seem to me the most equitable. Others study how to raise and elevate their minds, I, how to humble mine, and to bring it low; 'tis only vicious in extension.

Et pugnata sacro bella sub Ilio;

Narras, et genus Æaci
Quo Chium pretio cadum Mercemur, quis aquam temperet ignibus,
Quo præbente domum et quota Pelignis caream frigoribus, taces.
Hor. lib. 3. Ode 19.

Thou por❜st on Helvicus, and studiest in vain,
How many years past betwixt king and kings reign;

To make an old woman ev'n twitter for joy

At any eighty eight story, or the scuffle a Troy.

But where the good wine, and best fire is,
When the cruel north-wind does blow,
And the trees do penance in snow;
Where the poets delight and desire is,

Thou pitiful book-worm ne'er troublest thy brain.

Thus, as the Lacedæmonian valour stood in need of moderation, and of the sweet and harmonious sound of flutes to soften them in battel, lest they should precipitate themselves into temerity and fury; whereas all other nations commonly make use of harsh and shrill sounds, and of loud and imperious voices, to incite and heat the soldier's courage to the last degree: so, methinks, that contrary to the usual method, in the practice of our minds, we have for the most part more need of lead, than wings; of temperance and composedness, than ardour and agitation. But above all things, 'tis in my opinion, egregiously to play the fool, to put on the gravity of a man of understanding amongst those that know nothing: and, to speak in print, "savellar in punta di forchetta :" you must let yourself down to those with whom you converse; and sometimes affect ignorance: lay aside constraint and subtilty, 'tis enough in common conversation to preserve decency and order; as to the rest, flag as low as the earth, if they desire it. The learned oft stumble at this stone; they will be always shewing their utmost skill, and strow their writings all over with the flowers of their eloquence: they have in these days so fill'd the cabinets and ears of the ladies with it, that if they have lost the substance, they at least retain the words: so as in all discourse upon all sorts of subjects, how mean and common soever, they speak and write after a new and learned way:

Hoc sermone pavent, hoc iram, gaudia, curas,

Hoc cuncta effundunt animi secreta, quid ultra ?—Juven. Sat 6.

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