In the same language they express their fears, And quote Plato and Aquinas in things the first they meet could determine as well. The learning that cannot penetrate their souls, hangs still upon the tongue. If those of quality will be persuaded by me, they shall content themselves with setting out their proper and natural treasures; they conceal and cover their beauties under others that are none of theirs : 'tis a great folly to put out their own light, to shine by a borrow'd lustre they are interr'd and buried under the article Capsula tota. It is because they do not sufficiently know, that the world has nothing fairer than themselves, 'tis for them to honour the arts, and to paint painting. What need have they of any thing, but to live beloved and honour'd? They have, and know but too much for this. They need do no more, but rouze and heat a little the faculties they have of their own. When I see them tampering with rhetorick, law, logick, and the like; so improper and unnecessary for their business, I begin to suspect, that the men who inspire them with such things, do it that they may govern them upon that account. For what other excuse can I contrive? It is enough that they can, without our instruction, govern the graces of their eyes to gayety, severity, and sweetness, and season a denial either with anger, suspence, or favour, and that they need not another to interpret what we speak for their service. With this knowledge they command with the switch, and rule both the regents and the schools. But if nevertheless they think much to give place to us in any thing whatever, and will out of curiosity have their share in books; poetry is a diversion proper for them, 'tis a wanton and subtle, a dissembling and prating art, all pleasure, and all show like themselves. They may also extract several conveniences from history. In philosophy, out of the moral part of it, they may select such instructions as will teach them to judge of our humours and conditions, to defend themselves from our treacheries, to regulate the ardour of their own desires, to manage their liberty, lengthen the pleasure of life, and mildly to bear the inconstancy of a servant, the rudeness of a husband, and the importunity of years, wrinkles, and the like. This is the utmost of what I would allow them in the sciences. There are some particular natures that are private and retir'd: my natural way is proper for communication, and apt to lay me open; I am all without, and in sight, born for society and friendship: the solitude that I love my self, and recommend to others, is chiefly no other, than to withdraw my thoughts and affections into my self; to restrain and check, not my steps, but my own cares and desires; resigning all foreign solitude, and mortally avoiding servitude and obligations; and not so much the crowd of men, as the crowd of business, 684 I COVET THE SOCIETY OF SINCERE AND INGENUOUS MEN. Local solitude, to say the truth, does rather give me more room, and set me more at large; I more willingly throw my self upon affairs of state, and the world, when I am alone. At the Louvre, and in the bustle of the court, I fold my self within my own skin. The crowd thrusts me upon my self. And I never entertain my self so wantonly, so licentiously, nor so particularly, as in places of respect, and ceremonious prudence: our follies do not make men laugh, but our wisdom. I am naturally no enemy to a court-life, I have therein past a good part of my own, and am of an humour to be cheerful in great companies, provided it may be by intervals, and at my own time: but this softness of judgment whereof I speak, ties me by force to solitude, even in my own house, in the middle of a numerous family, and a house sufficiently frequented. I see people enow, but rarely such with whom I delight to converse. And I there reserve both for my self and others an unusual liberty there is in my house no such thing as ceremonies, ushering or waiting upon them down to the coach, and such other troublesome ceremonies as our courtsie enjoyns, (O servile and importunate custom !) every one there governs himself according to his own method; let who will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up in my closet, without any offence to my guests. The men, whose society and familiarity I covet, are those they call sincere and ingenuous men, and the image of these makes me disrelish the rest. It is, if rightly taken, the rarest of our forms, and a form that we chiefly owe to nature. The end of this commerce is simply privacy, frequentation and conference, the exercise of souls, without other fruit. In our discourse all subjects are alike to me; let there be neither weight, nor depth, 'tis all one, there is yet grace and pertinancy, all there is tincted with a mature and constant judgment, and mixt with bounty, freedom, gayety and friendship. 'Tis not only in talking of the affairs of kings and states, that our wits discover their force and beauty, but every whit as much in private conferences. I understand my people even by their silence and smiles; and better discover them perhaps at table, than in the council. Hippomachus said very well, "that he could know the good wrestlers, by only seeing them walk in the street." If learning will please to step into our talk, it shall not be rejected, not magisterial, imperious, and importunate, as it commonly is, but suffragan and docile in it self. We there only seek to divert ourselves, and to pass away our time; when we have a mind to be instructed and preach'd to, we will go seek it in its throne. Let it debase it self to us for once, if it so please; for useful and profitable as it is, I presuppose that even in the greatest need, we may do well enough without it, and do our business without its assistance. A well descended soul, and practis'd in the conversation of men, will of her self, render herself agreeable to all. Art is nothing but the counter-part and register of what such souls produce. The conversation also of beautiful and well-bred women, is also for me a most sweet commerce: "nam nos quoque oculos eruditos habemus."-Cicero. If the soul has not therein so much to enjoy, as in the first, the bodily senses, which also participate more of this, bring it to a proportion near to, though, in my opinion, not equal to the other. But 'tis a commerce wherein a man must stand a little upon his guard, especially those of a vigorous constitution, as I am. "The burnt child dreads the fire." I there scalded my self in my youth, and suffered all the torments that poets say are to befal all who precipitate themselves into love without order and judgment. It is true, that whipping has made me wiser since. Quicumque Argolica de classe Capharea fugit, Ovid. Trist l. 1. El. 1. O' th' Græcian fleet, who would Caphareus flee 'Tis folly to fix all a man's thoughts upon it, and madness to engage in it with a furious and indiscreet affection; but on the other side, to engage there without love and without inclination, like comedians, to play a common part, without putting anything to it of his own but words, is indeed to provide for his safety; but withall, after as scandalous a manner, as he who should abandon his honour, profit, or pleasure, for fear of danger; for it is most certain that from such a practice, they who set it on foot can expect no fruit that can please or satisfie a noble soul. A man must of necessity have in good earnest desir'd that which he in good earnest expects to have a pleasure in enjoying; I say, though fortune should unjustly favour their dissimulation, which oft falls out, because there is none of the sex, let her be as ugly as the Devil, who does not think her self well worthy to be belov'd, and that does not preferr her self before other women, either for her youth, the colour of her hair, or her graceful motion, (for generally there are no more foul than fair.) Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that ours, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre, but when puerile and beardless, confus'd and mixt with theirs. 'Tis said, that such as are preferr'd to the Grand Signior upon the account of beauty, which are an infinite number, are at the farthest dismiss'd at two and twenty years of age. Reason, prudence, and offices of friendship are better found amongst men, and therefore it is, that they govern the affairs of the world. The commerce of books, is much more certain, and much more our own. It yields all other advantages to the other two; but has the constancy and facility of its service for its own share: it goes side by side with me in my whole course, and every where is assisting to me: it comforts me 686 1 NEVER TRAVEL WITHOut books, eithER ÎN PEACE OR WAR. in my age and solitude; it eases me of a troublesome weight of idleness, and delivers me at all hours from company that I dislike: and it blunts the point of griefs, if they are not extream, and have not got an entire possession of my soul. To divert my self from a troublesome fancy, 'tis but to run to my books, they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts; and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more real, natural, and lively conveniences; they always receive me with the same kindness. "He may well go a foot," they say, "who leads his horse in his hand." And our James, king of Naples and Sicily, who, handsome, young, and healthful, caus'd himself to be carried up and down on a barrow, extended upon a pittiful mattrice in a poor robe of gray cloth, and a cap of the same; but attended withal with a royal train of littors, led-horses of all sorts, gentlemen and officers, did yet herein represent a tender and unsteady austerity. The sick man is not to be lamented, who has his cure in his sleeve. In the experience and practice of this sentence, which is a very true one, all the benefit I reap from books consists; and yet I make as little use of it almost as those that know it not: I enjoy it as a miser does his money, in knowing that I may enjoy it when I please: my mind is satisfied with this right of possession. I never travel without books, either in peace or war; and yet sometimes I pass over several days, and sometimes months, without looking on them: I will read by and by, say I to my self, or to morrow, or when I please, and in the interim time steals away without any inconvenience. For it is not to be imagin'd to what degree I please my self, and rest content in this consideration, that I have them by me, to divert my self with them when I am so dispos'd, and to call to mind what an ease and refreshment they are to my life. 'Tis the best viaticum I have yet found out for this human journey, and very much lament those men of understanding who are unprovided of them. And yet I rather accept of any other sort of diversion, how light soever, because this can never fail When at home, I a little more frequent my library, from whence I at once survey all the whole concerns of my family: 'tis situated at the entrance into my house, and I thence under me see my garden, court, and base-court, and into all the parts of the building. There I turn over now one book, and then another, of various subjects, without method or design: one while I meditate, another I record, and dictate as I walk to and fro, such whimsies as these I present you here. 'Tis in the third story of a tower, of which the ground-room is my chappel, the second story an apartment with a withdrawing room and closet, where I often lie to be more retir'd. Above it is a great wardrobe, which formerly was the most useless part of the house. I there pass away both the most of the days of my life, and most of the hours of those days. In the night I am never there. There is within me. it a cabinet handsome and neat enough, with a fire-place very commodiously contriv'd, and light very finely fitted. And was I not more afraid of the trouble than the expence, the trouble that frights me from all business, I could very easily adjoyn on either side, and on the same floor, a gallery of an hundred paces long, and twelve broad, having found walls already rais'd for some other design, to the requisite height. Every place of retirement requires a walk. My thoughts sleep if I sit still; my fancy does not go by it self, as when my legs move it: and all those who study without a book are in the same condition. The figure of my study is round, and has no more flat wall than what is taken up by my table and my chairs; so that the remainining parts of the circle present me a view of all my books at once, set up upon five degrees of shelves round about me. It has three noble and free prospects, and is sixteen paces diameter. I am not so continually there in winter; for my house is built upon an eminence, as its name imports, and no part of it is so much expos'd to the wind and weather as that, which pleases me the better, for being of a painful access, and a little remote, as well upon the account of exercise, as being also there more retir'd from the crowd. 'Tis there that I am in my kingdom, as we say, and there I endeavour to make my self an absolute monarch, and to sequester this one corner from all society both conjugal, filial, and civil. Elsewhere I have but verbal authority only, and of a confus'd essence. That man in my opinion is very miserable, who has not at home where to be by himself, where to entertain himself alone, or to conceal himself from others. Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in shew, like the statue of a publick place. "Magna servitus est magna fortuna."-Seneca de Consol. ad Polyb. c. 26. "A great fortune is a great slavery." They have not so much as a retirement for the necessities of nature. I have thought nothing so severe in the austerity of life that our chu ch men affect, as what I have observ'd in some of their societies; namely, to have a perpetual society of place by rule, and numerous assistants amongst them in every action whatever; and think it much more supportable to be always alone, than never to be so. If any one shall tell me, that it is to undervalue the muses, to make use of them only for sport, and to pass away the time; I shall tell him, that he does not know the value of sport and pleasure so well as 1; if I forbear to add further, that all other end is ridiculous. I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be it spoken, I only live for my self; to that all my designs do tend, and in that terminate. I studied when young for ostentation; since, to make my self a little wiser; and now for my diversion, but never for any profit. A vain and prodigal humour I had after this sort of furniture, not only for the supplying my own need and defects, but moreover for ornament and outward show, I have since quite bereav'd my self of. Books have |