indolet; tum ob affectum maternum magis mollem et tenerum, tum fortasse indulgentiae suae conscia, qua eum corruperit et depravaverit.' Works, i. 754.

P. 49, 1. 26. the precept] Conf. 'Verily the precept of the Pythagoreans serveth to right good stead in this case (viz. of exile) to be practised. Choose, say they, the best life: use and custom will make it pleasant enough unto thee.' Plutarch, Morals, p. 225.

VIII. .

OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE.

(HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.)[Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and 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 10 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,

a impertinences] i.e. that with which they have no concern. Lat. nihil ad se pertinentia. Conf. for word-'It is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were propounded to him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question demanded.' Works, iii. 486.

b because] i. e. in order that. Lat. ut habeantur tanto ditiores. For this use of 'because,' conf. It is the care of some only to come off speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because they may seem men of dispatch.' Essay 25.

'Let it not touch the water, because it may not putrify.' Works, iii. 818.

с

perhaps they have heard some talk, Such an one is a great rich man, and another except to it, Yea, but he hath a great charge of children; as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and /shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects, for they are 10 light to run awaya, and almost all fugitives are of that con dition. A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly, in their hortatives, put men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly, wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they be many times more charitable because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their

• humorous] i.e. full of fancies or conceits. Lat. phantasticis. Ital. bizarri. Fr. qui sont trop addonnés à complaire à leurs propres humeurs. Conf. It utterly betrayeth all utility for men to embark themselves too far in unfortunate friendships, troublesome spleens, and childish and humourous envies or emulations.' Works, iii. 471.

COR. 'He makes congies to his wife
in geometrical proportions.
MIT. Is't possible there should be
any such humourist?'

Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his
Humour, act ii. sc. I.

This sense of humour and humorous

is preserved in The Spectator. Vide Papers 616 and 617.

a light to run away] Lat. ad fugam expediti. But the sense may perhaps be, simply,-apt or ready to run away,with no added notion of unencumbered. Conf. Essay 51, note, on 'lightly' = usually and Shakespeare's 'false of heart, light of ear,' i. e. ready to give ear to any tale. King Lear, act iii. sc. 4.

e exhaust] i.e. exhausted. This omission of the participial ending is not unfrequent with Bacon. Conf. e. g. Essay 20, elaborate'= elaborated, and Essay 11, observe wherein and how they have degenerate'; and Essay 51, 'they hold it a little suspect in Popes.'

tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands; as was said of Ulysses, Vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati. Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise, which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses; so as a man may have a quarrel to marry when 10 he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? A young man not yet, an elder man not at all. It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husbands' kindness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in their patience; but this never fails if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent, for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

P. 51, 1. 2. for they are] The argument is not obvious. That a wife and children are impediments to great enterprises is no proof that

mistresses] The French (Gorges), maitresses, has here the ambiguity of the English word. The Latin gives dominae; the Italian le padrone. The obvious objections to this rendering are that it robs the sentence of such approximation to truth as the lower interpretation would leave in it, and that it is inconsistent with the words that follow-so as a man may have a quarrel' (i.e. a reason to give himself) 'to marry when he will.' A young

man would hardly think it an inducement to marriage that he would be compelled thereby to submit himself to a domina, as such. The word, in Bacon's day, bore the same two-fold sense which it bears now. Conf. e. g. 'Which hath turned Metis the wife to

Metis the mistress, that is the councells of State to which princes are solemnly married, to councells of gracious persons.' Essay Of Councell, in the MS. date 1607-12; vide Arber, Harmony of Essays, p. 318.

So in Raleigh's Instructions to his son, cap. ii. 'Be sure of this, that how many mistresses soever thou hast, so many enemies thou shalt purchase to thyself.... for howsoever a lewd woman please thee for a time, thou wilt hate her in the end, and she will study to destroy thee.'

в a quarrel] i.e. a reason to give himself. Lat. ansa. I can find no precise parallel to this use of the word. Quarrel reason of dispute, is common enough.

the man who has them has given hostages to fortune. The reasoning would hold better in an inverse order-Wife and children are impediments to great enterprises, for the man who hath them hath given hostages to fortune. Possibly the phrase 'hath given hostages to fortune' may be taken as a rhetorical flourish=is at a disadvantage in his efforts after fortune.

1.6. Yet it were great reason] Conf. the opening passage of the second book of the Advancement of Learning. 'It might seem to have more convenience, though it come often otherwise to pass (excellent king), that those which are fruitful in their generations, and have in themselves the foresight of immortality in their descendants, should likewise be more careful of the good estate of future times; unto which they know they must transmit and commend over their dearest pledges.' Works, iii. 321.

P. 52, 1. 5. certain self-pleasing and humorous minds] Bacon had probably in his mind a passage in which Montaigne confesses that he himself was of this temper. 'Il (sc. le mariage) se treuve en ce temps plus commode aux ames simples et populaires, où les delices, la curiosité et l'oysifveté ne le troublent pas tant les humeurs desbauchees, comme est la mienne, qui hais toute sorte de liaison et d'obligation, n'y sont pas si propres :

Et mihi dulce magis resoluto vivere collo.'

Essays, bk. iii. chap. 5.

P. 53, 1. 3. Ulysses] Bacon seems here to have had in his memory two passages, one from Cicero, the other from Joannes Regius's Latin translation of Plutarch's dialogue, 'Quod bruta animalia ratione utantur.' The passage from Cicero corresponds more exactly than the other to Bacon's praetulit immortalitati. 'Ac si nos, id quod maxime debet, nostra patria delectat; cujus rei tanta est vis ac tanta natura, ut Ithacam illam in asperrimis saxulis, tanquam nidulum, affixam, sapientissimus vir immortalitati anteponeret,' &c. De Oratore, lib. i. cap. 44.

The passage from Plutarch comes nearer to the sense and it introduces the catch-word vetulam. Circe, replying to a remark of Ulysses, says, 'Quasi vero dudum his absurdiora in teipsum non commiseris, qui, relicta mecum immortali minimeque senescente vita, ad mortalem foeminam (ac potius, ut ego quidem sentio, jam vetulam) per mille adhuc incommoda properes.' Plut. Opera, H. Stephanus (1572). Latin version of p. 184 in the Greek.

That Bacon had Plutarch's dialogue in his mind appears from his remark in the Advancement of Learning, where he refers with. grave and contemptuous disapproval to the choice which he attributes to Ulysses, passing judgment in much the same terms and for much the same reasons as those used by a third speaker, Gryllus, later on in the dialogue. Bacon's words are: 'Nevertheless I do not pretend,

and I know it will be impossible by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of Aesop's cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem, or . . . of Ulysses, qui vetulam praetulit immortalitati, being a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency or of a number of the like popular judgments. For these things continue as they have been,' &c. Works, iii. 319. So in Plutarch, Gryllus reproaches Ulysses because 'consueta gaudens venere, quum sis mortalis, cum dea coire noluisti' (trans. of p. 1820 in Greek). The preceding words, which I do not venture to quote, are even more precisely to the point.

1. II. one of the wise men] Thales the wise, being importuned by his mother (who pressed hard upon him) to marry, prettily put her off, shifting and avoiding her cunningly with words: for at the first time, when she was in hand with him, he said unto her: Mother, it is too soon, and it is not yet time: afterwards, when he had passed the flower of his age, and that she set upon him the second time and was very instant: Alas, mother, it is now too late and the time is past.' Plutarch, Symposiaques, Bk. iii. Quest. 6. So in Diog. Laert., Life of Thales : Καὶ λέγουσιν, ὅτι τῆς μητρὸς ἀναγκαζούσης αὐτὸν γῆμαι, Νὴ Δία, ἔλεγεν, οὐδέπω καιρός. Εἶτα, ἐπειδὴ παρήβησεν, ἐγκειμένης, εἰπεῖν, οὐκέτι Kapós. Lib. i. sec. 26.

Montaigne notes the story and with more distinct approval. 'Thales y donna les plus vrayes bornes; qui, jeune, respondit à sa mere le pressant de se marier, "qu'il n'estoit pas temps"; et, devenu sur l'aage, "qu'il n'estoit plus temps."' Essays, bk. ii. chap. 8.

1. 17. but this never fails &c.] Bacon, elsewhere, generalizes on this subject. Conf. Another reprehension of this colour (viz. quod quis culpa sua contraxit, majus malum; quod ab externis imponitur, minus malum), is in respect of the well bearing of evils wherewith a man can charge nobody but himself, which maketh them the less. Leve fit quod bene fertur onus. And therefore many natures that are either extremely proud and will take no fault to themselves, or else very true and cleaving to themselves (when they see the blame of anything that falls out ill must light upon themselves), have no other shift but to bear it out well, and to make the least of it. . . . And therefore it is commonly seen, that women that marry husbands of their own choosing against their friends' consents, if they be never so ill used, yet you shall seldom see them complain, but to set a good face on it' (Colours of Good and Evil, viii). Works, vii. 87.