UCSB LIBRARY SELECT EDITION VOL. v. VTEIiLS AND LILLY, COURT-STRUT- 1820. BY LORDS BACON AND CLARENDON. TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. BOSTON: WXLLB AND LILLY, COURT-STRICT. 1820. MORAL, ECONOMICAL, AND POLITICAL, BY FRANCIS EACON, BARON OF VERULAM, VISCOXJNT.ST. ALBAJi, AND LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. MDCCCXX. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR. THE illustrious author of these Essays is so generally known as a man and a writer, that any particular account of him on the pre- sent occasion would be superfluous. To dwell, indeed, on the in- cidents of my Lord Bacon's life would be an unpleasant and mor- tifying task : for ever must it be deplored by the lover of literature and his species, that the possessor of this extraordinary intellect should have been exposed to the dangers of a situation to which hu firmness was unequal ; and, withdrawn from the retirement of his study, where be was the fisrt of men, should have been thrown into the tumult of business, where he discovered himself to be among the last. The superiority, it it true, of his talents rendered him every where eminent > and when we see him acting at court, in the senate, at the bar, or on the bench, we behold an engine of mighty force, sufficient, as it would appear, to move the world but when we carry our research into bis bosom, we find nothing there but the ebullition and froth of some common or corrupt pas- sions ; and we are struck with the contrast between the littleness within, and the exhibition of energy without. But peace be .to the failings of this wonderful man ! they who alone were affected by them, his contemporaries and himself, have long since passed to their account ; and existing no more as the statesman or the judge, he survives to us only in his works, as the father of experimental physics, and a great luminary of science. In his literary character be must always be contemplated with as- tonishment ; and we cannot sufficiently wonder at the riches or the powers of his mind ; at that penetration which no depth could elude ; that comprehension for which no object was too large ; that 8 vigour which no laboui- could exhaust ; that memory which BO pressure of acquisitions conW subdue. By his two great works, * Chi the Advancement of Learning." and " TT New Oman of the Sciences," written amid the distraction of business and of eares. sufficient of then 'selves to have occupied the whole of any other mind, 'did this mighty genius first break the sharVles of that scholastic philosophv. which Ion? had crmh'd the human intellect ; and diverti"? the attention from words to thine*, from theory to experiment, demonstrate the road to that height of science on which the moderns are now seated, and which the ancients were tinahle to re^ch But those grand displays of his fjenius and knowledge Mr now chiefly reearded. as thev presert to the cnrioiwan illi-strious evi. dence of the powers of the human mind Bavin? awakened and directed the exertions of Fnrope. the useful r.cvt of these wntings *as in a preat degree been superseded hv the labours of the them out, because they will be like the late new halfpence, which, though the silver were good, yet the pieces were small ; but since they would not stay with their master, but would needs travel abroad, I have pre- ferred them to you that are next myself; dedicating them, such as they are, to our love, in the depth whereef, I assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities translated upon myself, that her majesty might have the service of so ac'ive and able a mind ; and I might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies, for which I am fittest : so commend I you to the preserva- tion of the Divine Majesty. Your entire loving brother, FRANCIS BACON. From my chamber at Gray't Inn, thitSOth of January 1597. 11 TO MY LOVING BROTHER, SIR JOHN CONSTABLE, KT. MY last Essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Mr. Anthony Ba- con, who is with God. Looking among my papers this vacation, I found others of the same nature : which if I myself shall not suf- fer to be lost, it seemetb the world will not, bythex>ften printing of the former. Missing my brother, I found you next ; in respect of bond, both of near alliance, and of straight friendship and socie- ty, and particularly of communication in studies ; wherein I must acknowledge myself beholden to you : for as my business found rest in my contemplations, so my contemplations ever found rest in your loving conference and judgment : so wishing you all good, I remain Your loving brother and friend, 112. FRANCIS BACON. Right Honourable my very good Lord THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, His Grace Lord High Admiral of England. EXCELLENT LORD, SOLOMON says, " A good name is as a precious ointment ;" and I assure myself such will your Grace's name be with posterity : for your fortune and merit both have been eminent ; and you have planted things that are like to last. I do now publish my Essays ; 12 which of all my other works, hare been most current ; for that, as it stcii.s, iiit-j coine home to men's business aixi bosoms. I bare enUugeu Uieiu both in number and weight; so that iluy art iiid-ed a new work : I thought it tlu-refore agreeable to my affection and bligitioD to your Grace, to prefix your uame before them, both in English and Latin : tor I do conceive, that thf Latin volume of them, being in the universal language, my last as lo;ig us books last." My Instauratiou 1 dedicated to the King ; my History of Henry the Seventh, which I have now translated in>o Latin, and m> por- tions of Natural History, to the Prince ; and these I dedicatt to your Grace, beinij of the best fruits, that, by the good Uicrease which God gives to my pen and labours, I could yield, Orod lead TOUT Grace by the hand. Tour Grace'i most obliged and faithful servant, FRANCIS ST. ALB AN. ESSAYS. I. OF TRUTH. WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affect- ing free will in thinking, as well as in act- ing: and though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as t was in those of the an- cients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that, when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural, though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should VOL. v. 2 14 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the mer- chant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not shew the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imagina- tions as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy, " vinum daemonum," because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie, that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in. men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth OF TRUTH. 15 which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love making, or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his sab- bath work, ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit First he breathed light upon tho face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect, that was otherwise in- ferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, " It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships toss'd upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the ad- ventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below:" so always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swel- 16 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. ling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in chari- ty, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. To pass from theological and philoso- phical truth to the truth of civil business, it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it: for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious: and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a dis- grace, and such an odious charge, ' l If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men: for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man." Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of OP DEATH. 17 men: it being foretold, that when "Christ cometh," he shall not "'find faith upon earth." II. OF DEATH. MEN fear Death as children fear to go into the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is some- times mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and dis- solved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense: and by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, " Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa." Groans, and convulsions, and 18 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks and obsequies, and the like, shew death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there ' is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terri- ble enemy when a man hath so many atten- dants about iiim that can win the combat of Tiim. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupieth it; nay; we read, after Otho the emperor had slam himselt, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die out of mere compas- sion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, nice- ness and satiety: " Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest. man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weari- ness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the ap- proaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus C3sar died in a compliment: " Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale." Tiberius in dissimulation, as Taci- OF DEATH. 19 tus saith of him, " Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant:" Ves- pasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool, " Ut puto Deus fio:" Galba with a sen- tence, " Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani," holding forth his neck: Septimus Severus in dispatch, " Adeste, si quid inihi restat agendum," and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, " qui .finem wtae- extremum inter munera ponat naturae." It is- as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is, good, doth avert the dolours of death: but, above all, believe it, the sweetest can- ticle is, "Nunc ditiiittis," when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expecta- tions. Death hath this also, that it operi- eth the gate to good fame, and extinguishetb envy: " Exstinctus amabitur idem." 20 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. III. OF UNITY IN RELIGION. RELIGION being the chief bond of human society^ it is a happy thing when itself is well contained within the true bond of unity. The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any constant belief: for you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion will endure no mix- ture nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few words concerning the unity of the church; what are the fruits thereof; what the bonds; and what the means. The fruits of unity (next unto the well- pleasing of God, which is all in all) are two; the one towards those that are without the church, the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain, that heresies and schisms are of all 'others the greatest scandals; yea, more than corruption ef manners: for as in the natural body a OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 21 P wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humour, so in the spiritual: so that nothing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity; and, therefore, whensoever it cometh to that pass that one saith, " ecce in deserto," another saith, " ecce in penetralibus;" that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of here- tics, and others in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears, " nolite exire," " go not out. 1 ' The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) saith, " If an heathen come in, and hear you speak with several tongues, will he not say that you are mad?'' and, certainly, it is little better: when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it doth avert them from the church, and maketh them " to sit down in the chair of the scorners." It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. There is a master of scof- fing, that in his catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, " The Morris- Dance of Heretics:" 22 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. for, indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings and depraved politics, who are apt to contemn holy things. As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which contained) infinite blessings; it established! faith; it kindleth charity; the outward peace of the church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth the labours of writing and reading controversies into treatises of mortification and devotion. Concerning the bonds of unity, the true placing ofthem 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 following and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans and luke- warm persons think they may accommodate N points of religion by middle ways, and taking part of both, and uitiy reconcilements, as if they would make an arbitrement between God and man. Both these extreme* are to be avoided; which will be done if the league of, Christians, penned by our Saviour him- self, were in the two cross clauses thereof OP UNITY IN RELIGION. 23 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 distin- guished 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 gene- rally. Of this I may give only this advice, ac- cording to my small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God's church by two kinds of controversies; the one is, when the matter of the point controverted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the church's ves- ture was of divers colours; whereupon he saith, <: in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit," they be two things, unity and uniformi- ty; the other is, when the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an over great subtilty and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ig- 24 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. norant men differ, and know well within himself, that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree: and* if it come so to pass in that dis- tance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth of both? The nature of such controversies is excel- lently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he giveth concerning the same, " devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientise." Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms so fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or unities: the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colours will agree in the dark: the other, when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries in fun- damental 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. Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware, that, in the procuring or OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 25 muniting of religious unity, they do not dis- solve 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 persecu- tions to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or inter- mixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions; to authorize con- spiracies and rebellions; to put the sword into the people's hands, and the like, tend- ing 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: ' Taut urn religio potuit suadtre malorum." What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France, or the powder treason of England? He would have been 26 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. seven times more epicure and atheist than he was; for as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put i into the hands of the common people; let that be left unto the anabaptists, and other furies. It was great blasphemy, when the devil said, " 1 will ascend and be like the Highest; 1 ' but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in saying, 1 will descend, and be like the prince ot darkness:" and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, butchery ot people, and subversion of states and governments?. Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the like- ness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set out of the bark of a Chris- tian church a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins, therefore it is most necessary that the church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and all learnings, both Chris- tian and moral, as by their mercury rod to damn, and send to hell for ever, those facts and opinions tending to the support of the same, as hath been already in good pai done. Surely in councils concerning reli- gion, that counsel of the apostle would be OF REVENGE. 27 prefixed, " Ira horuinis non implet justitiam Dei:" and it was a notable observation of a wise father, and no less ingenuously confess- ed, that those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences, were commonly interested therein themselves for their own ends. 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 him- self profit, or pleasure, or honour, of the 28 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. 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 t thorn or brier, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The mos 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 as there is no law to punish, else a man s ene- my is still before hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desiroi the party should know when it cometh: this is the more generous; for the delight seem- eth 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 o: 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, 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 alsoj and so of friends in a proportion, is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, OP ADVERSITY. 29 keeps his own wounds green, which other- wise would he3l and do well. Public re- venges are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Caesar; 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 vindicative persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end unfortunate. V. OF ADVERSITY. [T 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 secunda- rutn optabilia, adversarum mirabilia." Cer- tainly, if miracles be the command over na- ture, 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, securi- tatem Dei." This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more VOL. v. 3 30 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. allowed; and the poets, indeed have bees busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange action of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be with- out mystery; nay, and to have some ap- proach to the state of a Christian "that Her- cules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an ear- thern pot or pitcher, lively describing f hns- tian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves oi the world. But to speak in a mean, the virtue of pros- perity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in moral is the more heroical vir'tue. Prosperity is the blessing of the old Testament, adversity is the bless ing of the New. which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation c God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testa- ment, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many herse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath la- boured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. / ros P e ' rity is not without many fears and dist* and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and em- broideries, it is more pleasing to have a OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION. 31 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 pre- cious odours, most fragrant where they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. VI. OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION. DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth, and to do it: therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the greatest dissem- blers. Tacitus saith, "Livia. sorted well with the arts of her husband, and dissimulation pf 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 close- ness of Tiberius:" these properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation and closeness, 32 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. 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 be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be shewed al half lights, and to whom and when (which indeed are arts of state, and arts of lite, 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 gene- rally 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 open- ness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity: but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passi* well when to stop or turn; and { such times when they thought the case in- deed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opin- ion spread abroad, of their good faith and clearness of dealing, made them almost mvi- There be three degrees of this hiding and veilin- of a man's self; the first, closeness, reservation, and secresy, when a man leav- OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION. 33 eth 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, secresy, 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 bab- bler ? But if a man be thought secret, it in- viteth discovery, as the more close air sucketh in the more open; and, as in con- fessing, 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 secresy. Besides (to say truth) nakedness is uncome- ly, as well in mind as in 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 com- monly vain and credulous withal: for he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he kppweth not; therefore get it down. 34 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. that a habit of secresy 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 weak- ness, and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's words. . For the second, which is dissimulation, it followeth many times upon secresy -by a ne- cessity; so that he that will be secret, must b a dissembler in some degree: for men are U>o cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifle rent carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying the balance on either side. They will so beset a man with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of 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 dissimula- tion, which is, as it were, but the skirts, or train of secresy. But for the third degree, which is sirnul; tion and false profession, that I hold more culpable, and less politic, except it be i OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION. 35 great and rare matters: and, therefore, a ge- neral custom of simulation (which is this last degree), is a vice rising either of a natural falseness, 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 dissimu- lation are three: first, to lay asleep opposi- tion, and to surprise; for where a 'man's intentions are published, it is an alarm 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 fake a fall: the third is, the better to discover the mind of another; for to him that opens him- self men will hardl}- shew themselves averse; but will (fair) 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 truth;" as if there were no way of discovery but by simulation. There be also three disadvan- ges to set it even; the first, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a shew of fearfulness, which, in any business, doth spoil the feathers of round flyingupto th* 1 36 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. mark; the second, that it puzzleth and per- plexeth 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 depriv- eth a man of one of the most principal instru- ments for action, which is trust and belief. The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame aud opinion; secresy 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 they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remem- brance of death. The perpetuity by gene- ration is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men: and surety a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from child- less men, which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have, failed: so the care of posterity OP PARENTS AND CHILDREN. 37 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. The difference in affection of parents to- wards their several children, is many times unequal, and sometimes unworthy, espe- cially in the mother; as Solomon saith, " A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an un- gracious son shames the mother." A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made wantons; but in the midst some that are as it were forgotten, who, many times, nevertheless, prove the best. The illiberality of parents, in allow- ance towards their children, is an harmful error, and makes them base; acquaints them with shifts; makes them sort with mean company; and makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty, and" therefore the proof is best when men keep their au- thority towards their children, but not their purse. Men have a foolish manner (both parents, and schoolmasters, and servants), in creating and breeding an emulation be- tween brothers during childhood, which 38 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. many times sorteth to discord when they are men, and disturbeth families. The Italians make little difference between children and nephews, or near kinsfolks; but so they be of the lump they care not, though they pass not through their own body; and, to say truth, in nature it is much a like matter; in- somuch that we see a nephew sometimes re- sembleth an uncle, or a kinsman, more than his own parents, as the blood happens. Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take, for then they are most flexible; and 1 them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as thinking they will take best to that which they have most mind to. It is true, that if the affection, or aptness, of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it; but generally the precept is good, " optimum elige, suave et facile illud fciciet consuetude." brothers are commonly fortunate, but sel- dom or never where the elder are disinhe- rited. VHI. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE. HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impedi- OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE. 39 ments'to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have pro- ceeded 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 trans- mit 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, be- cause 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, " Yea, but he hath a great charge of children;" as if it were an abatement to his riches: but the most ordi- nary cause of a single life is liberty, espe- cially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every re- straint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Hnmarried men are best friends, best mas- 40 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. ters, best servants; but not always best sub- jects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition. 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 hor- tatives, put men in mind of their wives and children; and 1 think the despising of mar- riage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly wife and chil- dren are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they may 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 tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore con- stant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, "vetulam suam praetuht immortalitati." Chaste women are oiten 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; OF ENVY. 41 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 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 husband's kind- ness 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 the}' will be sure to make good their own folly. 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 pre- sence of the objects, which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such thing 42 LORD BACON V ESSAYS. there be. We see, likewise, the scripture caUeth envy.an evil eye; and the astrologers ca the evil influences of the stars evil spect- so that still there seeineth to be SnowWd, in the act of envy, an ejacu- laUon, or irradiation of the eye: nay some ave 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 i; L that sets an edge upon envy : and beside,, at such times, the spirits of the person en- vld do come forth most into the outward parts, and so meet the blow. P But leaving these curiosities (though not unworthy to be thought on in fit P ace), we will handle what persons are apt to envy others; what persons are most subject o be envied themselves; and what is the ditier ence between public and private envy. A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others; for men's minds W either feed upon their own good, or Tpon others evil; and who wanteth the one W4ll prey upon the other; and whoso = ou of hope to attain another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing an- other's fortune. OP ENVY. 43 A man that is busy and inquisitive is com- monly 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 en- vious 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 of a miracle: as it was in Narses the eunuch, and Agesilaus and Tamerlane, that were lame men. 44 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. 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 theni; 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 are 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 vas the more vile and malignant towards his brother Abel, because, when his sacrifice was better accepted, there was no body to look on. Thus much for those that are apt to envy. Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy. First, persons of eminent \ OF ENVY. 45 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 compar- ing of a man's self; and where there is no cotnparison, no envy; and therefore kings are not envied but by kings. Nevertheless, 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 to 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 " per saltum." Those that have joined with their honour great travels, cares, or perils, are less sub- ject to envy; for men think that they earn their-honours hardly, and pity them some- VOL. v. 4 46 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. times: and pity ever healeth envy: where- fore you shall observe, that the more deep and sober sort of politic persons, in their greatness, are ever bemoaning themselves . what a life they lead, chanting a "quanta patimur;" not that they feel it so, but only to abate the edge of envy: but this is to be understood of business that is laid upon men, and not such as they call unto themselves; for nothing increaseth envy more than an unnecessary and ambitious engrossing ot business; and nothing doth extinguish envy more than for a great person to preserve all other inferior officers in their full rights and pre-eminences of their places; for, by that means, there be so many screens between him and envy. Above all, those are most subject to envy, which carry the greatness of their fortunes in an insolent and proud manner: being never well but while they are showing how great they are, either by outward pomp, or by triumphing over all opposition or com- petition: whereas wise men will rather do sacrifice to envy, in suffering themselves, sometimes of purpose, to be crossed and overborne in things that do not much con- cern them. Notwithstanding so much is true, that the carriage of greatness m < OF ENVY. 47 plain and open manner (so it be without ar- rogancy and vain glory), doth draw less envy than if it be in a more crafty and cun- ning fashion; for in that course a man doth but disavow fortune* and seemeth to be con- scious of his own want in worth, and doth but teach others to envy him. Lastly, to conclude this part, as we said in the beginning that the act of envy had somewhat in it of witchcraft, so there is no other cure of envy but the cure of witch- craft; and-that is, to remove the lot (as they call it), and to lay it upon another; for which purpose, the wiser sort of great persons bring in ever upon the stage somebody upon whom to derive the envy that would come upon themselves; sometimes upon ministers and servants, sometimes upon colleagues and associates, and the like; and, for that turn, there are never wanting some persons of violent and undertaking natures, who, so they may have power and business, will take it at any cost. Now, to speak of public envy: there is yet some good in public envy, whereas in private there is none; for public envy is as an ostracism, that eclipseth men when they grow too great: and therefore it is a bridle also to great ones to keep within bounds. 48 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. This envy, being in the Latin word " in- vidia," goeth in the modern languages by the name of discontentment; of which we shall speak in handling sedition. It is a dis- ease in a state like to infection: for as infec- tion spreadeth upon that which is sound, and tainteth it; so, when envy is gotten once into a state, it traduceth even the best ac- tions thereof, and turneth them into an ill odour; and therefore there is little won by intermingling of plausible actions: for that doth argue but a weakness and fear of envy, which hurteth so much the more, as it is likewise usual in infections, which, if you fear them, you call them upon you. This public envy seemeth to bear chiefly upon principal officers or ministers, rather than upon kings and states themselves. But this is a sure rule, that if the envy upon the minister be great, when the cause of it in him is small; or if the envy be general in a manner upon all the ministers of an es- tate, then the envy (though hidden) is truly upon the state itself. And so much of pub- lic envy or discontentment, and the diffe- rence thereof from private envy, which was handled in the first place. We will add this in general, touching the affection of envy, that of all other affec- OF LOVE. 49 tions it is the most importune and continual; for of other affections there is occasion given but now and then; and therefore it was well said, " Invidia festos dies non agit:" for it is ever working upon some or other. And it is also noted, that love and envy do make a man pine, which other affections do not, be- cause they are not so continual. It is also the vilest affection, and the most deprav- ed; for which cause it is the proper attri- bute of the devil, who is called " The envi- ous man, that soweth tares amongst the wheat by night;" as it always cometh to pass, that envy worketh subtilly, and in the dark, and to the prejudice of good things, such as is the wheat. x. OF LOVE. THE stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man; for as to the stage, love is even matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mis- chief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remainetb, either ancient or recent), there is not one that hath beep 50 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. transported to the mad degree of love, which shews, that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus An- tonius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was in- deed a voluptuous man, and inordinate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely), that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept. It is a poor say- ing of Epicurus, " Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus;" as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble ob- jects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye, which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love: neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said " That the arch flatterer, with whom all the pretty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self;" certainly the lover is more; OF LOVE. 51 for there was never a proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, " That it is impossible to love and to be wise." Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved, but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciprocal; for it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciprocal, or with an inward, or secret contempt; by how much more the men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself. As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them: " That he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pal- las;" for whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quilteth both riches and wisdom. This passion hath its floods in the very times of weakness, which are, great prosperity and great adversity, though this latter hath been less observed; both which times kindle love, and make it more fer- vent, and therefore shew it to be the child of folly. They do best, who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, anJ 52 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. maketh men that, they can no ways be true to their own ends. 1 know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think it is, but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man's nature a secret inclina- tion and motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and "charitable, as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friend- ly love perfecteth it; but wanton love cor- nipteth and embaseth it. XI. OF GREAT PLACE. MEN in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is labo- rious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by in- men come to dignities. The stand- OF GREAT PJLACE. 53 ing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing: " Cum non sis qui fueris, non esse cur velis vivere?" Nay, retire men cannot when they would, neither will they when it were reason; but are impa- tient of privateness even in age and sickness, which require the shadow; like old towns- men, that will he still sitting at their street door, though thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persona had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy; for if they judge by their own feel- ing, they cannot find it: but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contra- ry within: for they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. Certainly, men in ' r sca d;il rf former times and persons; but vet set it down to thyself, as well to create ^od pre. cedents asto f ol | w them. Reduce things the fi rst lns t,tution, and observe wherein T ?1 J u aVC de g e nerated; but yet ask counsel of both times; of the ancient time OF GREAT TLACE. 55 what is best; and of the latter time what is fittest. Seek to make thy course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect; but be not too positive and pe- remptory; and express thyself well when thou digressest from thy rule. Preserve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of jurisdiction; and rather assume thy right in silence and mouths; and, on the other side, it is a most certain oracle of time, that those states that continue long in that profession (as the Ro- mans and Turks principally have done) do wonders; and those that have professed arras but for an age have, notwithstanding, com- monly attained that greatness in that age which maintained them long after, when their profession and exercise of arms hath grown to decay. Incident to this point is for a state to have those laws or customs which may reach forth unto them just occasions (as may be pretended) of war; for there is that jus- tice imprinted in the nature of men, that they enter not upon wars (whereof so many calamities do ensue), but upon some, at the least specious, grounds and quarrels. The Turk hath at hand, for cause of war, the propagation of his law or sect, a quarrel that he may always command. The Ro- mans, though they esteemed the extending the limits of their empire to be great ho- nour to their generals when it was done, yet they never rested upon that alone to begin a war: first, therefore, let nations that pretend to greatness have this, that they be sensible of wrongs, either upon borderers, merchants, or politic ministers; and that OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 149 they sit not too long upon a provocation: secondly, let them be pressed and ready to give aids and succours to their confede- rates; as it ever was with the Romans; inso- much, as if the confederates had leagues defensive with divers other states, and, upon invasion offered, did implore their aids severally, yet the Romans would ever be the foremost, and leave it to none other to have the honour. As for the wars, which were anciently made on the behalf of a kind of party, or tacit conformity of state, I do not see how they may be well justified: as when the Romans made a war for the liberty of Grajcia; or, when the Lacedaemonians and Athenians made a war to set up or pull down democracies and oligarchies: or when wars were made by foreigners, under the pretence of justice or protection, to deliver the subjects of others from tyranny and op- pression and the like. Let it suffice, that no estate expect to be great, that is not awake upon any just occasion of arming. No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic; and, cer- tainly, to a kingdom, or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise. A ci- vil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever; but a foreign war is like the heat of exer- 150 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. cise, and serveth to keep the body in health; for, in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate, and manners corrupt; but how- soever it be for happiness, without all ques- tion for greatness, it maketh to be still for the most part in arms: and the strength of a veteran army (though it be a chargeable business), always on foot, is that which com- monly giveth the law; or, at least, the re- putation amongst all neighbour states, as may be well seen in Spain; which hath had, in one part or other, a veteran army almost continually, now by the space of six score years. To be master of the sea is an abridgment of a monarchy. Cicero, writing to Atticus of Pompey his preparation against Caesar, saith, "Consilium Pompeii plane Themisto- cleum est; putat enim, qui mari potitur, eura rerum potiri;" and, without doubt, Pompey had tired out Caesar, if upon vain confidence he had not left that way. We see the great effects of battles by sea: the battle of Actium decided the empire of the world; the battle of Lepanto arrested the greatness of the Turk. There be many examples, where sea-fights have been final to the war: but this is when princes, or states, have set up their rest upon the battles; but thus much is OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 151 certain, that he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will; whereas those that be strongest by land, are many times, nevertheless, in great straits. Surely, at this day, with us of Europe, the vantage of strength at sea (which is one of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great Britain) is great; both because most of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass; and be- cause the wealth of both Indies seems, in great part, but an accessary to the command of the seas. The wars of later ages seem to be made in the dark, in respect to the glory and ho- nour which reflected upon men from the wars in ancient time. There be now, for martial encouragement, some degrees and orders of chivalry, which, nevertheless, are conferred promiscuously upon soldiers and no soldiers, and some remembrance perhaps upon the escutcheon, and some hospitals for maimed soldiers, and such like things; but, in ancient times, the trophies erected upon the place of the victory; the funeral lauda- tives and monuments for those that died in the wars; the crowns and garlands personal; the style of emperor, which the great kings 152 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. of the world after borrowed; the triumphs of the generals upon their return; the great donatives and largesses upon the disbanding of the armies, were things able to inflame all men's courages; but, above all, that of the triumph amongst the Romans was not pageants, or gaudery, but one of the wisest and noblest institutions that ever was; for it contained three things, honour to the gene- ral, riches to the treasury out of the spoils, and donatives to the army: but that honour, perhaps, were not fit for monarchies; ex- cept it be in the person of the monarch himself, or his sons; as it came to pass in the times of the Roman emperors, who did iinpropriate the actual triumphs to them- selves and their sons, for such wars as they did achieve in person, and left only for wars achieved by subjects, some triumphal gar- ments and ensigns to the general. To conclude: no man can by care taking (as the Scripture saith), *' add a cubit to his stature," in this little model of a man's body; but in the great fame of kingdoms and com- monwealths, it is in the power of princes, or estates, to add amplitude and greatness to their kingdoms; for by introducing such or- dinances, constitutions, and customs, as we hare now touched; they may sow greatness OF REGIMEN OP HEALTH. 153 to their posterity and succession: but these things are commonly not observed, but left to take their chance. XXXI. OF REGIMEN OF HEALTII. THERE is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health; but it is a safer conclusion to say, " This agreeth not well with me, therefore I will not continue it;" than this, " I find no offence of this, therefore I may use it:" for strength of na- ture in youth passeth over many excesses which are owing a man till his age. Dis- cern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still ; for age will not be defied* Beware of sudden change in any great point of diet, and, if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it; for it is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one. Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try, in any thing thou shalt judge hurtful, to discontinue it by little and little; but so, as if thou dost find any incon- venience by the change, thou come back to 154 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. it again: for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome, from that which is good particularly, and fit for thine own body. To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting. As for the passions and studies of the mind, avoid envy, anxious fears, anger, fretting inwards, sub- tile and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhila- rations in excess, sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, va- riety of delights rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novel- ties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature. If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be too strange for your body when you shall need it; if you make it too familiar, it will work no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh. I commend rather some diet for certain sea- sons, than frequent use of physic, except it be grown into a custom; for those diets alter the body more, and trouble it less. Despise no new accident in your body, but ask opi- nion of it. In sickness, respect health prin- cipally; and in health, action: for those that put their bodies to endure in health, may, OF SUSPICION. 155 ill most sicknesses which are not very sharp, be cured only with diet and tendering. Cel- sus could never have spoken it as a physician, had he not been a wise man withal, when he giveth it for one of the great precepts of health and lasting, that a man do vary and interchange contraries; but with an inclina- tion to the more benign extreme: use fasting and full eating, but rather full eating; watch- ing and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise, and the like: so shall nature be cherished, and yet taught masteries. Physicians are some of them so pleasing and conformable to the humour of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular in proceeding according to art for the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or, if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort; and forget not to call as well the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty. XXXII. OF SUSPICION. SUSPICIONS amongsf thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight: 156 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. certainly they are to be repressed, or at the least well guarded; for they cloud the mind, they lose friends, and they check with busi- ness, whereby business cannot go on current- ly and constantly: they dispose kings to ty- ranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy: they are de- fects, not in the heart, but in the brain; for they take place in the stoutest natures: as in the example of Henry the Seventh of England; there was not a more suspicion? man, nor a more stout: and in such a compo- sition they do small hurt; for commonly they are not admitted but with examination, whe- ther they be likely or no? but in fearful natures they gain ground too fast. There is nothing makes a roan suspect much, more than to know little; and, therefore, men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not to k6ep their suspicions in smother. What would men have? do they think those they employ and deal with are saints? do they not think they will have their own ends, and be truer to themselves than to them? therefore there is no better way to moderate suspicions, than to account upon such suspicions as true, and yet to bri- dle them as false: for so far a man ought to make use of suspicions, as to provide, as it OF DISCOURSE. 157 that should be true that he suspects, yet it may do him no hurt. Suspicions that the mind of itself gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished, and put into men's heads by the tales and whis- perings of others, have stings. Certainly, the best mean to clear the way in this same wood of suspicion, is frankly to communicate them with the party that he suspects; for thereby he shall be sure to know more of the truth of them than he did before; and withal shall make that party more circum- spect, not to give further cause of suspicion; but this would not be done to men of base natures; for they, if they find themselves once suspected, will never be true. The Italian says, " Sospetto licentia fede;" as if suspicion did give a passport to faith; but it ought rather to kindle it to discharge itself. XXXIII. OF DISCOURSE. SOME in their discourse desire rather com- mendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise to know what might be said, and not what should be thought. Some have certain common places YOL. V. 11 158 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. and themes, wherein they are good, and want variety; which kind of poverty is for the most part tedious, and, when it is once per- ceived, ridiculous. The honourablest part of talk is to give the occasion; and again to moderate and pass to somewhat else, for then a man leads the dance. It is good in dis- course, and speech of conversation, to vary and intermingle speech of the present occa- sion with arguments, tales with reasons, ask- ing of questions with telling of opinions, and jest with earnest: for it is a dull thing to tire, and as we say now, to jade any thing too far. As for jest, there be certain things which ought to be privileged from it; namely, reli- gion, matters of state, great persons, any man's present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pity; yet there be some that think their wits have been asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is piquant, and to the quick; that is a vein which would be bridled; " Faroe, puer, stimuli*, fortiiu utere Ions." And, generally, men ought to find the differ- ence between saltness and bitterness. Cer- tainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had OF DISCOURSE. 159 uced be afraid of others' memory. He that questioneth much shall learn much, and con- tent much; but especially if he appl} his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh; for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and him- self shall continually gather knowledge; but let his questions not be troublesome, for that is fit for a poser; and let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak: nay, if there be any that would reign and take up all the time, let him find means to take them off, and bring others on: as musicians use to do with those that dance too long galliards. If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not. Speech of a man's self ougfet to be seldom, and well chosen. I knew one was wont to say in scorn, "He must needs be a wise man, he speaks so much of him- self:" and there is but one case wherein a man may commend himself with good grace, and that is in commending virtue in another, especially if it be such a virtue vvhereunto himself pretendeth. Speech of touch to- wards others should be sparingly used; for discourse ought to be as a field, without coming home to anj man. I knew two 160 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. noblemen, of the west part of England, whereof the one was given to scoff, but kept ever royal cheer in his house; the other would ask of those that had been at the other's table, "Tell truly, was there never a flout or dry blow given?" To which the guest would answer, "Such and such a thing passed." The lord would say, "I thought he would mar a good dinner." Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or in good order. A good continued speech, with- out a good speech of interlocution, shews slowness; and a good reply, or second speech, without a good settled speech, shevveth shallowness and weakness. As we see in beasts, that those that are weakest in the course, are yet nimblest in the turn; as it is betwixt the greyhound and the hare. To use too many circumstances, ere one come to the matter, is wearisome; to use none at all, is blunt. XXXIV. OF PLANTATIONS. PLANTATIONS are amongst ancient, primitive, and heroical works. When the world was OF PLANTATIOXS. 161 young, it begat more children; but now it is old, it begets fewer: for I may justly account new plantations to be the children of former kingdoms, I like a plantation in a pure soil; that is, where people are not displanted to the end to plant in others; for else it is rather an extirpation than a plantation. Planting of countries is like planting of woods; for you must make account to lose almost twenty years profit, and expect your recompense in the end: for the principal thing that hath been the destruction of most plantations, hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as it may stand with the good of the plan- tation, but no farther. It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men, to be the peo- ple with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be liizy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plan- tation. The people wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, labour- ers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, sur- 162 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. geons, cooks, and bakers. In a country of plantation, first look about what kind of vic- tual the country yields of itself to hand; as chesnuts, walnuts, pine-apples, olives, dates, plums, cherries, wild honey, and the like, and make use of them. Then consider what victual, or esculent things there are, which grow speedily, and within the year; as pars- nips, carrots, turnips, onions, radish, arti- chokes of Jerusalem, maize, and the like: for wheat, barley, and oats, they ask too much labour; but with pease and beans you may begin, both because they ask less la- bour, and because they serve for meat as well as for bread ; and of rice likewise cometh a great increase, and it is a kind of meat. Above all, there ought to be brought store of biscuit, oatmeal, flour, meal, and the like, in the beginning, till bread may be had. For beasts or birds, take chiefly such as are least subject to diseases, and multiply fastest; as swine, goats, cocks, hens, tur- keys, geese, house-doves, and the like. The victual in plantations ought to be ex- pended almost as in a besieged town; that is, with certain allowance: and let the main part of the ground employed to gardens or corn, be to a common stock; and to be laid in, and stored up, and then delivered out in OF PLANTATIONS. 163 proportion; besides some spots of ground that any particular person will manure for his own private use. Consider, likewise, what commodities the soil where the planta- tion is, doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to defray the charge of the plantation; so it be not, as was said, to the untimely prejudice of the main business, as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia. Wood commonly aboundeth but too much; and therefore timber is fit to be one. If there be iron ore, and streams whereupon to set the mills, iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth. Making of bay-salt, if the climate be proper for it, would be put in experience: growing silk likewise, if any be, is a likely commodity: pitch and tar, where store of firs and pines are, will not fail; so drugs and sweet woods, where they are, cannot but yield great profit ; soap-ashes likewise, and other things that may be thought of; but moil not too much under ground, for the hope of mines is very uncer- tain, and useth to make the planters lazy in other things. For government, let it be in the hands of one, assisted with some coun- sel; and let them have commission to ex- ercise martial laws, with some limitation; and, above all, let men make that profit of 164 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. being in the wilderness, as they have God always, and his service before their eyes: let not the government of the plantation de- pend upon too many counsellors and under- takers in the country that planteth, but upon a temperate number; and let those be ra- ther noblemen and gentlemen, than mer- chants; for they look ever to the present gain: let there be freedoms from custom, till the plantation be of strength; and nol.only free- dom from custom, bnt freedom to carry their commodities where they may make their best of them, except there be some special cause of caution. Cram not in people, by sending too fast company after company; but rather hearken how they waste, and send supplies proportionably; but so as the num- ber may live well in the plantation, and not by surcharge be in penury. It hath been a great endangering to the health of some plantations, that they have built wlong the sea and rivers, in marish and unwholesome grounds: therefore, though yon begin there to avoid carriage and other like discommodi- ties, yet build still rather upwards from the stream, than along. It concerneth likewise the health of the plantation that they have good store of salt with them, that they may u?e it in their victuals when it shall be neces- OF RICHES. 165 sary. If you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with trifles and gingles, but use them justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless; and do not win their favour by helping them to in- vade their enemies, but for their defence it is not amiss; and send oft of them over to the country that plants, that they may see a better condition than their own, and com- mend it when they return. When the plan- tation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as with men; that the plantation may spread into generations, and not be ever pierced from without. It is the sinfullest thing in the world to forsake or destitute a plantation once in forwardness; for, besides the dishonour, it is the guilti- ness of blood of many commiserable persons. XXXV. OF RICHES. I CANNOT call riches better than the baggage of virtue; the Roman word is better, "im- pedimenta;" for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue; it cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory; of great 166 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit; so saith Solomon, "Where much is, there are many to consume it ; and what hath the owner but the sight of it with his eyes?" The personal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of them; or a power of dole and donative of them; or a fame of them ; but no solid use to the owner. Do you not see what feigned prices are set upon little stones and rarities? and what works of ostenta- tion are undertaken, because there might seem to be some use of great riches ? But then you will say, they may be of use to buy men out of dangers or troubles; as Solomon saith, "Riches are as a strong hold in the imagination of the rich man:" but this is excellently expressed, that it is in imagination, and not always in fact: for, cer- tainly, great riches have sold more men than they have bought out. Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly; yet have no abstract or friarly contempt of them; but distinguish, as Cicero saith well of Rabirius Postumus, i( in studio rei ampliticanda? apparebat, non avaritiae praedam, sed instrumentum bonitati quaeri." Hearken also to Solomon, and be- OF RICHES. 167 ware of hasty gathering of riches; "Qui fes- tinat ad divitias, non erit insons." The poets feign, that when Plutus (which is riches) is sent from Jupiter, he limps, and goes slowly; but when he is sent from Pluto, he runs, and is swift of foot; meaning, that riches gotten by good means and just labour pace slowly; but when they come by the death of others (as by the course of inherit- ance, testaments, and the like), they come tumbling upon a man: but it might be appli- ed likewise to Pluto, taking him for the devil: for when riches come from the devil fas by fraud and oppression, and unjust means), they come upon speed. The ways to enrich are many, and most of them fool: parsimony is one of the best, and yet is not innocent; for it withholdeth men from works of liberality and charity. The improvement of the ground is the most natural obtaining of riches; for it is our great mother's bless- ing, the earth; but it is slow: and yet, where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly. I knew a nobleman of England that had the greatest audits of any man in my time, a great gra- zier, a great sheep master, a great timber man, a great collier, a great corn master, a great lead man, and so of iron, and a num- 168 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. her of the like points of husbandry; so as the earth seemed a sea to him in respect of the perpetual importation. It was truly observed by one, "That himself came very hardly to little riches, and very easily to great riches;" for when a man's stock is come to that, that he can expect the prime of mar- kets, and overcome those bargains, which for their greatness are few men's money, and be partner in the industries of younger men, he cannot but increase mainly. The gains of ordinary trades and vocations are honest, and furthered by two things, chiefly, by diligence, and by a good name for good and fair dealing; but the gains of bargains are of a more doubtful nature, when men shall wait upon others' necessity; broke by servants and instruments to draw them on; put off others cunningly that would be bet- ter chapmen, and the like practices, which are crafty and naughty: as for the chopping of bargains, when a man buys not to hold, but to sell over again, that commonly grind- eth double, both upon the seller and upon the buyer. Sharings do greatly enrich, if the hands be well chosen that are trusted. Usury is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst, as that whereby a man doth eat his bread, "in sudore vultus alie- OF RICHES. 169 ni;" and besides, doth plough upon Sun- days: but yet certain though it be, it hath flaws; for that the scriveners and brokers do value unsound men to serve their own turn. The fortune, in being the first in an invention, or in a privilege, doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches, as it was with the first sugar man in the Canaries: therefore, if a man can play the true logician, to have as well judgment as invention, he may do great matters, es- pecially if the times be fit: he that resteth upon gains certain, shall hardly grow to great riches; and he that puts all upon ad- ventures, doth oftentimes break and come to poverty: it is good, therefore, to guard adventures with certainties that may uphold losses. Monopolies, and coemption of wares for re-sale, where they are not restrained, are great means to enrich; especially if the party have intelligence what things are like to come into request, and so store himself beforehand. Riches gotten by service, though it be of the best rise, yet when they are gotten by flattery, feeding humours, and other servile conditions, they may be placed amongst the worst. As for fishing for testaments and executorships (as Taci- tus saith of Seneca, " testamenta et orbos 170 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. tamquam indagine capi,") it is yet worse, by how much men submit themselves to meaner persons than in service. Believe not much them that seem to despise riches, for they despise them that despair of them; and none worse when they come to them. Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and some- times they fly away of themselves, some- times they must be set flying to bring in more. Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the public; and mode- rate portions prosper best in both. A great estate left to an heir, is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on nim, if he be not the better established in years and judgment: likewise, glorious gifts arid foundations are like sacrifices without salt; and but the painted sepulchres of alms, which soon will putrefy and corrupt in- wardly: therefore measure not thine ad- vancements by quantity, but frame them by measure: and defer not charities till death; for, certainly, it a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so, is rather liberal of another man's than of his own. OF PROPHECIES. 171 XXXVI. OF PROPHECIES. I MEAN not to speak of divine prophecies, nor of heathen oracles, nor of natural pre- dictions; but only of prophecies that have been of certain memory, and from hidden causes. Saith the Pythonissa to Saul, "To- morrow thou and thy sons shall be with me." Virgil hath these verses from Ho- mer: " At domus /Ene; cunctU doiniimbitur oris, Et iiati iiatorura, et qui nascentur ab illis." JEn. ill. 07. A prophecy as it seems of the Roman, empire. Seneca the tragedian hath these verses: ' Venient annis Ssecula seris quibus Oceanus Vineula rerum laxet, et ingens Pateat 'IVIiiu, Tiphysque novos Detegat orbe ; nee sit tsnjs Ultima Thule :" a prophecy of the discovery of America. The daughter of Polycrates dreamed that Jupiter bathed her falher, and Apollo an- ointed him; and it came to pass that he was crucified in an open place, where the sun 172 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. made his body run with sweat, and the rain washed it. Philip of Macedon dreamed he sealed up his wife's belly; whereby he did expound it, that his wife should be Darren; but Aristander the soothsayer told him his wife was with child, because men do not, use to seal vessels that are empty. A phan- tom that appeared to M. Brutus in his tent, said to him, "Philippis iterum me videbis." Tiberius said to Galba, "Tu quoque, Galba, degustabis imperium." In Vespasian's time there went a prophecy in the East, that those that should come forth of Judea, should reign over the world; which though it may be was meant of our Saviour, yet Tacitus expounds it of Vespasian. Domi- tian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was growing out of the nape of his neck; and indeed the succession that followed him, for many years, made golden times. Henry the Sixth of England said of Henry the Seventh, when he was a lad, and gave him water, "This is the lad that shall enjoy the crown for which we strive." When I was in France, I heard from one Dr. Pena, that the queen mother, who was given to curious arts, caused the king her husband's nativity to be calculated under a false name; and the astrologer gave OF PROPHECIES. 173 a judgment, that he should be killed in a duel; at which the queen laughed, thinking her husband to be above challenges and duels: but he was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff of Montgomery going in at his beaver. The trivial pro- phecy which I heard when I was a child, and queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was, " When bempe is span England's done :" whereby it was generally conceived, that after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of that word hetnpe (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, ^and Elizabeth), England should come to utter confusion; which, thanks be to God, is veri- fied in the change of the name; for the king's style is now rio more of England but of Britain. There was also another prophecy before the year of eighty-eight, which I do not well understand. " There shall be wen upon a day, Between the Baugfa and the May, The black fleet of Norway. When that is eome and gone, England build houses of lime and stone, I For after wan shall you hare none." VOL. V. 12 174 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. It was generally conceived to be meant of the Spanish fleet that came in eighty-eight: for that the king of Spain's surname, as they say, is Norway. The prediction of Regi- omontanus, " Octogesiraus octants mirabilis annul," was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great fleet, being the greatest in strength, though not in number, of all that ever swam upon the sea.' As for Cleon's dream, I think it was a jest; it was, that he was devoured of a long dragon; and it was expounded of a maker of sausages, that troubled him exceedingly. There are numbers of the like kind: especially if you include dreams, and predictions of astrology; but I have set down these few only of cer- tain credit, for example. My judgment is, that they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fire-side: though when I say despised, I mean it as for belief; for otherwise, the spreading or pub- lishing of them is in no sort to be despised, for they have done much mischief; and I see many severe laws made to suppress them. That that hath given them grace, and some credit, consisteth in three things. OF AMBITION. 175 First, that men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss; as they do, generally, also of dreams. The second is, that probable conjectures, or obscure tradi- tions, many times turn themselves into pro- phecies: while the nature of man, which coveteth divination, thinks it no peril to foretell that which indeed they do but col- lect: as that of Seneca's verse; for so much was then subject to demonstration, that the globe of the. earth had great parts beyond the Atlantic, which might be probably con- ceived not to be all sea: and adding thereto the tradition in Plato's Timaeus, and his At- lanticus, it might encourage one to turn it to a prediction. The third and last (which is the great one), is, that almost all of them, being infinite in number, have been impos- tures, and by idle and crafty brains, merely contrived and feigned, after the event past. XXXVII. OF AMBITION. AMBITION is like choler, which is an humour that maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped: but if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becometh a dust, and thereby malign and venomous: so ambitious mn, 176 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. if they find the way open for their ris- ing, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be check- ed in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and mat- ters with an evil eye, and are best pleas- ed when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince or state: therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so, as they be still progressive, and not retrograde, which, because it cannot be without incon- venience, it is good not to use such na- tures at all; for if they rise not with their service,, they will take order to make their service fall with them. But since we have said, it were good not to use men of ambitious natures, except it be upon ne- cessity, it is fit we speak in tvhat cases they are of necessity. Good commanders in the wars must be taken : be they never so ambi- tious; for the use of their service dispenseth with the rest; and to lake a soldier without ambition, is to pull oft' his spurs. There is also great use of ambitious men in being screens to princes in matters of danger and envy; for no man will take that part ex- cept he be like a seeled dove, that mounts ana mounts, because he cannot see about OF AMBITION. 177 him. There is use also of ambitious men in pulling down the greatness of any subject that overtops; as Tiberius used Macro in the pulling down of Sejanus. Since, there- fore, they must be used in such cases, there resteth to speak how they are to be rid- dled, that they may be less dangerous: there is less danger of them if they be of mean birth, than if they be noble; and if they be rather harsh of nature, than gracious and popular: and if they be rather new raised, than growing cunning and fortified in their greatness. It is counted by some a weak- ness in princes to have favourites; but it is, of all others, the best remedy against ambi- tious great ones; for when the way of plea- suring and displeasuring lieth by the fa- vourite, it is impossible any other should be over great. Another means to curb them i?, to balance them by others as proud as they: but then there must be some middle coun- sellors, to keep things steady; for without that ballast the ship will roll too much. At the least, a prince may animate and inure some meaner persons to be, as it were, scourges to ambitious men. As for the hav- ing of them obnoxious to ruin, if they be of fearful natures, it may do well; but if they 178 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. be stout and daring, it may precipitate their designs, and prove dangerous. As for the pulling of them down, if the affairs require it, and that it may not be done with safe- ty suddenly, the only way is, thfi interchange continually of favours and disgraces, where- by they may not know what to expect, and be, as it were, in a wood. Of ambitions, it is less harmful the ambition to prevail in great things, than that other to appear in every thing; for that breeds confusion, and mars business: but yet it is less danger to have an ambitious man stirring in business, than great in dependences. He that seeketh to be eminent among able men, hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public: but he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers, is the decay of a whole age. Honour hath three things in it; the vantage ground to do good; the approach to kings and principal persons; and the rais- ing of a man's own fortunes. He that hath the best of these intentions, when he as- pireth, is an honest man; and that prince, that can discern of these intentions in ano- ther that aspireth, is a wise prince. Gene- rally, let princes and states choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty than OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. 179 of rising, and such as love business rather upon conscience than upon bravery; and let them discern a busy nature from a willing mind. XXXVIII. OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. THESE things are but toys to come amongst such serious observations; but yet, since princes will have such things, it is better they should be graced with elegancy, than daubed with cost. Dancing to song is a thing of great state and pleasure. I under- stand it that the song be in quire, placed aloft, and accompanied with some broken music; and the ditty fitted to the device. Acting in song, especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace; I say acting, not dancing (for that is a mean and vulgar thing); and the voices of the dialogue would be strong and manly, (a bass and a' tenor; no treble,) and the ditty high and tragical, not nice or dainty. Several quires placed one overagainst another, and taking the voice by catches anthemwise, give great pleasure. Turning dances into figure is a childish curiosity; and generally let it be noted, that those things which I here set down are such as do natu- 180 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. rally take the sense, and not respect petty wonderments. It is true, the alterations of scenes, so it be quietly and without noise, are things of great beauty and plea- sure; for they feed and relieve the eye be- fore it be full of the same object. Let the scenes abound with light, especially colour- ed and varied; and let the masquers, or any other that are to come down from the scene, have some motions upon the scene itself be- fore their coming down; for it draws the eye strangely, and markes it with great pleasure to desire to see that it cannot perfectly dis- cern. Let the songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings or pulings: let the music likewise be sharp and loud, and well placed. The colours that shew best by candle-light are white, carnation, and a kind of sea- water green; and ouches, or spangs, as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory. As for rich embroidery, it is lost and 'not discerned. Let the suits of the masquers be graceful, and such as become the person when the vizards are off; not af- ter examples of known attires; Turk?, sol- diers, mariners, and the like. Let anti- masques not be long; they have been com- monly of fools, satyrs, baboons, wild men, antics, beasts, spirits, witches, Ethiopes. OP NATURE IN MEN. 181 pigmies, turquets, nymphs, rustics, Cupids, statues moving, and the like. As for angels, it is not comical enough to put them in anti- masques: and any thing that is hideous, as devils, giants, ^, on the other side, as unfit; but chiefly, let the music of them be recrea- tive, and with some strange changes. Some sweet odours suddenly coming forth, without any drops falling, are, in such a company as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment. Double masques, one of men, another of ladies, addeth state and variety; but all is nothing, except the room be kept clean and neat. For justs, and tourneys, and barriers, the glories of them are chiefly in the cha- riots, wherein the challengers make their entry; especially if they be drawn with strange beasts: as lions, bears, camels, and the like; or in the devices of their entrance, or in bravery of their liveries, or in the goodly furniture of their horses and armour. But enough of these toys. XXXIX. OF NATURE IN MEN. NATURE is often hidden, sometimes over- come, seldom extinguished, Force maketb 182 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. nature more violent in the return; doctrine and discourse maketh nature less importune; but custom only doth alter and subdue na- ture. He that seeketh victory over his na- ture, let him not set himself too great nor too small tasks; for the first will make him dejected by often failing, and the second will make him a small proceeder, though by often prevailing: and at the first, let him practise with helps, as swimmers do with bladders, or rushes; but, after a time, let him practise with disadvantages, as dancers do with thick shoes; for it breeds great per- fection if the practice be harder than the use. Where nature is mighty, and there- fore the victory hard, the degrees had need be, first to stay and arrest nature in time; like to him that would say over the four and twentv letters when he was angry; then to go less in quantity: as if one should, in for- bearing wine, come from drinking healths to a draught at a meal; and lastly, to discon- tinue altogether: but if a man have the for- titude and resolution to enfranchise himself at once, that is the best: " Optimus ille aiiimi vindex Isedentjs pectui Vincula qui rupit, dedoluitque semel." OF NATURE IN MEN. 183 Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend nature as a wand, to a contrary extreme, whereby to set it right; understanding it where the contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man force a habit upon him- self with a perpetual continuance, but with some intermission; for both the pause reinforceth the new onset: and, if a man that is not perfect be ever in practice, he shall as well practise his errors as his abilities, and induce one habit of both; and there is no means to help this but by sea- sonable intermission: but let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far; for na- ture will lie buried a great time, and yet re- vive upon the occasion, or temptation; like as it was with jEsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her: therefore, let a man either avoid the occa- sion altogether, or put himself often to it, that he may be little moved with it. A man's nature is best perceived in pri- vateness; for there is no affectation in passion; for that putteth a man out of his precepts, and in a new case or ex- periment, for there custom leaveth him. They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations; otherwise they may 184 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. say, "multum incola fuit anima mea," when they converse in those things they do not affect. In studies, whatsoever a man com- mandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it; but whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set times; for his thoughts will fly to it of themselves, so as the spaces of other business or studies will suffice. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasona- bly water the one, and destroy the other. XL. OF CUSTOM, AND EDUCATION. MEN'S thoughts are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opi- nions; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed: and, therefore, as Machia- vel well noteth, (though in an ill-favoured instance), there is no trusting to the force of nature, nor to the bravery of words, except it be corroborate by custom. His instance is, that for the achieving of a desperate con- spiracy, a man should not rest upon the fierceness of any man's nature, or his reso- lute undertakings; but take such an one as hath had his hands formerly in blood: but OF CUSTOM AND EDUCATION. 185 Machiavel knew not of a friar Clement, nor a Ravillac, nor a Jaureguy, nor a Baltazar Gerard; yet this rule holdeth still, that na- ture, nor the engagement of words, are not so forcible as custom. Only superstition is now so well advanced, that men of the first blood are as firm us butchers by occupation; and votary resolution is made equipollent to custom even in matter of blood. In other things, the predominancy of custom is every where visible, insomuch as a man would wonder to hear men profess, protest, engage, give great words, and then do just as they have done before, as if they were dead images and engines, moved only by the wheels of custom. We see also the reign or tyranny of custom, what it is. The In- dians, (I mean the sect of their wise men,) lay themselves quietly upon a stack of wood, and so sacrifice themselves by fire: nay, the wives strive to be "burned with the corpse of their husbands. The lads of Sparta, of ancient time, were wont to be scourged upon the altar of Diana, without so much as squeaking. I remember, in the beginning of queen Elizabeth's time of England, an Irish rebel condemned, put up a petition to the deputy that he might be hanged in a wyth, and not in a halter, because it had 186 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. been so used with former rebels. There be monks in Russia, for penance, that will sit a whole night in . a vessel of water, till they be engaged with hard ice. Many ex- amples may be put of the force of custom, both upon mind and body: therefore, since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavour to ob- tain good customs. Certainly, custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years: this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom. So we see, in languages the tone is more pliant to all ex- pressions and sounds, the joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth, than afterwards; for it is true, the late learners cannot so well take up the ply, except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix, but have kept themselves open and prepared to receive continual amendment, which is exceeding rare: but if the force of custom, simple and separate, be great, the force of custom, copulate and conjoined and collegiate, is far greater; for their example teacheth, com- pany comforteth, emulation quiekeneth, glory raiseth; so as in such places the force of cus- tom is in its exaltation. Certainly, the great multiplication of virtues upon human nature OF FORTUNE. 187 resteth upon societies well ordained and dis- ciplined; for commonwealths and good go- vernments do nourish virtue grown, but do not much mend the seeds: but the misery is, that the most effectual means are now ap- plied to the ends least to be desired. XLI. OF FORTUNE. IT cannot be denied but outward accidents conduce much to fortune; favour, oppor- tunity > death of others, occasion fitting vir- tue: but chiefly, the mould of a man's for- tune is in his own hands: " Faber quisque fortunae suae," saith the poet; and the most frequent of external causes is, that the folly of one man is the fortune of another; for no man prospers so suddenly as by others' errors; " Serpens nisi serpentem comederit non fit draco." Overt and apparent virtues bring forth praise; but there be secret and hidden virtues that bring forth fortune; cer- tain deliveries of a man's self, which have no name. The Spanish name, " disembol- tura," partly expresseth them, when there be not stands nor restiffness in a man's na- ture, but that the wheels of his mind keep way with the wheels of his fortune; for se 188 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. Livy (after he had described Cato Major in these words, " In illo viro, tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, ut quocumque loco natus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videre- tur,") falleth upon that he had " versatile ingehium:" therefore, if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a meeting, or knot, of a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so are there a number of little and scarce discerned vir- tues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate: the Italians note some of them, such as a man would little think. When they speak of one that cannot do amiss, they will throw in into his other con- ditions, that he hath " Poco di matto;"" and, certainly, there be not two more fortunate properties, than to have a little of the fool, and not too much of the honest: therefore extreme lovers of their country, or masters, were never fortunate: neither can they be; for when a man placeth his thoughts without himself, he goeth not his own way. An hasty fortune maketh an enterprizer and remover; (the French hath it better, " entreprenant," or "remuant;") but the exercised fortune OF FORTUNE. 8 maketh the able man. Fortune is to be honoured and respected, and it be but for her daughter?, Confidence and Reputation; for those two felicity breedeth; the first within a man's self, the latter in others towards him. All wise men, to decline the envy of their own virtues, use to ascribe them to Providence and Fortune; for so they may the better assume them: and, besides, it is greatness in a man to be the care of the higher powers. So Caesar said to the pilot in the tempest, " Caesarem portas, et fortunaro ejus." So Sylla chose the name of " Felix," and riot of "Magnus:" and it hath been noted, that those who ascribe openly too much to {heir own wisdom and policy, end unfortunate. It is written, that Timotheus, the Athenian, after he had, in the account he gave to the state of his government, often interlaced this speech, " and in this fortune had no part," never prospered in any thing he undertook after- wards. Certainly there be whose fortunes are like Homer's verses, that have a slide and easiness more than the verses of other poets; as Plutarch saith of Timoleon's for- tune in respect of that of Agesilaus or Epaminondas: and that this should be, uo doubt it is much in a man's self. VOL. r. 13 190 LORD BACONS ESSAYS. XLII. OF USURY. MANY have made witty invectives against usury. They say that it is pity the devil should have God's part, which is the tithe; that the usurer is the greatest sabbath-breaker, be- cause his plough goeth every Sunday; that the usurer is the drone that Virgil speaketh of: " Ignavum fucos pecus a prsesepibus arcent ;" that the usurer breaketh the first law that was made for mankind after the fall, which was, "in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum;'' not, " in sudore vultus alieni;" that usurers should have orange-tawny bonnets, because they do judaize; that it is against nature for money to beget money, and the like. I say this only, that usury is a " con- cessum propter duritiem cordis:" for since there mut be borrowing and lending, and men are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury must be permitted. Some others have made suspicious and cunning propositions of banks, discovery of men's estates, and other inventions; but few have spoken of usury usefully. It is good to set OF USURY. 191 before us the incommodities and commodi- ties of usury, that the good may be either weighed out, or culled out: and warily to provide, that, while we make forth to that which is better, we meet not with that which is worse. The discommodities -of usury are, first, that it makes fewer merchants; for were it not for this lazy trade of usury, money would not lie still, but it would in great part be employed upon merchandizing, which is the " vena porta" of wealth in a state: the second, that it makes poor merchants; for as a farmer cannot husband his ground so well if he sit at a great rent, so the mer- chant cannot drive his trade so well, if he sit at great usury: the third is incident to the other two; and that is, the decay of customs of kings, or estates, which ebb or flow with merchandizing: the fourth, that it bringeth the treasure of a realm or state into a few hands; for the usurer being at certainties, and the other at uncertainties, at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box; and ever a state flourisheth when wealth is more equally spread: the fifth, that it beats down the price of land; for the employment of money is chiefly either merchandizing, or purchasing; and usury waylays both: the 192 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. sixth, that it doth dull and damp all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring, if it were not for this slug: the last, that it is tne canker and ruin of many men's estates, which in pro- cess of time breeds a public poverty. On the other side, the commodities of usury are, first, that howsoever usury in some respect hindereth merchandizing, yet in some other it advanceth it; for it is cer- tain that the greatest part of trade is driven by young merchants upon borrowing at inte- rest; so as if the usurer either call in, or keep back his money, there will ensue pre- sently a great stand of trad;\- the second is, that, were it not for this easy borrowing upon interest, men's necessities would draw upon them a most sudden undoing, in that they would be forced to sell their means, (be it lands or goods,) far under foot, and so, whereas usury doth but gnaw upon them, bad markets would swallow them quite up. As for mortgaging, or pawning, it will little mend the matter: for either men will not take pains without use, or if they do, they will look precisely for the forfeiture. J re- member a cruel monied man in the country, that would say, " The devil take this usury, it keeps us from forfeitures of mortgages OF USURY. 193 and bonds." The third and last is, that it is a vanity to conceive that there would be ordinary borrowing without profit; and it is impossible to conceive the number of incon- veniences that will ensue, if borrowing be cramped: therefore to speak of the abolish- ing of usury is idle; all states have ever had it in one kind or rate or other: so as that opinion must be sent to Utopia. To speak now of the reformation and re- glement of usury, how the discommodities of it may be best avoided, and the commodi- ties retained. It appears, by the balance of commodities and discommodities of usury, two things are to be reconciled; the one that the tooth of usury be grinded, that it bite not too much; the other that there be left open a means to invite monied men to lend to the merchants, for the continuing and quickening of trade. This cannot be done, except you introduce two several sorts of usury, a less and a greater; for if you re- duce usury to one low rate, it will ease the common borrower, but the merchant will be to seek for money: and it is to be noted, that the trade of merchandize being the most lucrative, may bear usury at a good rate: other contracts not so. To serve both intentions, the way would 194 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. be briefly thus: that there be two rates of usury; the one free and general for all; the other under licence only to certain persons, and in certain places of merchandizing. First, therefore, let usury in general be re- duced to five in the hundred, and let that rate be proclaimed to be free and current; and let the state shut itself out to take any penalty for the same: this will preserve borrowing from any general stop or dryness ; this will ease infinite borrowers in the country; this will, in good part, raise the price of land, because land purchased at sixteen years' purchase will yield six in the hundred, and somewhat more, whereas this nate of interest yields but five: this by like reason will encourage and edge industrious and profitable improve- ments, because many will rather venture in that kind, than take five in the hundred, especially having been used to greater profit. Secondly, let there be certain persons licens- ed to lend to known merchants upon usury, at a high rate, and let it be with the cau- tions following: let the rate be, even with the merchant himself, somewhat more easy than that he used formerly to pay; for by that means all borrowers shall have some ease by this reformation, be he merchant or whosoever: let it be no bank, or common OF USURY. 195 stock, but every man be master of his own money; not that I altogether dislike banks, but they will hardly be brooked, in regard of certain suspicions. Let the state be an- swered some small matter for the license, and the rest left to the lender; for if the abatement be but small, it will no whit dis- courage the lender; for he, for example, that took before ten or nine in the hundred, will sooner descend to eight in the hundred, than give over this trade of usury, and go from certain gains to gains of hazard. Let these licensed lenders be in number indefi- nite, bui restrained to certain principal cities and towns of merchandizing; for then they will be hardly able to colour other men's monies in the country: so as the license of nine will not suck away the current rate of five; for no man will lend his monies far off, nor put them into unknown hands. If it be objected that this doth in a sort authorise usury, which before was in some places but permissive; the answer is, that it is better to mitigate usury by declaration, than to suffer it to rage by connivance. &i~. 1 ' :- :> ' : j.'tvt-J <> I- or T'lh- ]96 LORD BACON'S ESSAV.S. XLHT. OF YOUTH AND AGE. A MAM that is young in years may be oltl in hours, if he have lost no time; but that hap- peneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second: for there is a youth in thoughts r.s well as in ages; and yet the invention of young men is more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into their minds bet- ter, and, as it were, more divinely. Nature? that have much heat, and great and violent desires and perturbation?, are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian of their years: as it was with Julius Caesar and Septimus Severus; of the latter of whom it is said, "juventutem egit, erroribus, imo furoribus plenam;'' and yet he was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list: but reposed natures may do well in youth, as it is seen in Augustus Cassar, Cosmes, duke of Florence, Gaston de Fois, and others. On the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an excellent composition for business. Young men are titter to invent than to judge; litter for ex- ecution than for counsel; and titter for nevr projects than for settled business; for the experience, of age, in things that fall within OF rot'TH AND AGE. 197 the compass of it, directetli them: bnt in new things abuseth them. The errors of voung men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Voung men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and de- trrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown incon- veniences ; use extreme remedies at first; and that, which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them, like an unrea- dy horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full pe- riod, but content themselves with a medio- crity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both; and good for succession, that young: men may be learners, while men in age are actors; and, lastly, good for external acci- dents, because authority followeth old men, and favour and popularity youth: but, for 198 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabhin upon the text, "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams," inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream: and, certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxica- teth: and age doth profit rather in the pow- ers of understanding, than in the virtues of the will and affections. There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes: these are, first, such, as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned: such as was Hermogenes the rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtle, who afterwards waxed stupid : a second sort is of those that have some na- tural dispositions, which have better grace in youth than in age; such as is a fluent and luxurious speech ; which becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully saith of Horten- sius, "Idem manebat, neque idem decebat:'' the third is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are magnanimous more than tract of years can uphold; as was Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy saith in effect, "Ultima primis cedebant." OF BEAUTY. XLIV. OF BEAUTY. 199 VIRTUE is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features; and that hath rather dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect; neither is it almost seen, that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue; as if nature were rather busy not to err, than in labour to produce excel- lency; and therefore they prove accomplish- ed, but not of great spirit; and study rather behaviour than virtue. But this holds not always: for Augustus Caesar, Titus Vespa- sianus, Philip le Belle of France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ismael the sophy of Persia, were all high and great spirits, and yet the most beautiful men of their times. In beauty, that of favour is more than that of colour; and that of de- cent and gracious motion more than that of favour. That is the best part of beauty which a picture cannot express; no, nor the first sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer, were the more trifler; whereof the one would make a per- 200 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. sonage by geometrical proportions : t the consideration of factions is to be neglected. Mean men, in their rising, must adhere; but great men, that have strength in themselves, were better to maintain themselves indiffer- ent and neutral: yet even in beginners, to adhere so moderately, as he be a man of the one faction, which is most passable with the other, commonly giveth best way. The lower and weaker faction is the firmer in conjunction; and it is often seen, that a few that are stiff, do tire out a greater number that are more moderate. When one of the factions is extinguished, the remaining subdi- videth; as the faction between Lucollus and the rest of the nobles of the senate (which they called "optimates ') held out awhile agninst the faction of Pompey and Caesar; but when the senate's authority was pulled down, Caesar and Pompey soon after brake. The faction or party of Antonius and Octa- vianns Caesar, against Brutus and Cassius, held out likewise fora time; but when Bru- tus and Cassius were overthrown, then soon after Antonius and Octavianus brake and subdivided These examples are of wars, but the same holdetb in private faction?: and, therefore, those that are seconds in 232 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. factions, do many times, when the faction subdivideth, prove principals ; but many times also they prove cyphers and cashier- ed: for many a man's strength is in opposi- tion; and when that faileth, he groweth out of use. It is commonly seen that men once placed, take in with the contrary faction to that by which they enter: thinking, belike, that they have their first sure, and now are ready for a new purchase. The traitor in faction lightly goeth away with it, for when matters have stuck long in balancing, the winning of some one man casteth them, and he getteth all the thanks. The even car- riage between two factions proceedeth not always of moderation, but of a trueness to a man's self, with end to make use of both. Certainly, in Italy, they hold it a little sus- pect in popes, when they have often in their mouth "Padre commune:" and take it to be a sign of one that meaneth to refer all to the greatness of his own house. Kings had need -beware how they side themselves, and make themselves as of a faction or party; for leagues within the state are ever pernicious to monarchies; for they raise an obligation paramount to obligation of sovereignty, and make the king "tanquam unus ex nobis;" as was to be seen in the league of France. OF CEREMONIES AND RESPECTS. 233 When factions are carried too high and too violently, it is a sign of weakness in princes, and much to the prejudice both of their authority and business. The motions of factions under kings, ought to be like the motions (as the astronomers' speak), of the inferior orbs, which may have their proper motions, but yet still are quietly carried by the higher motion of "primum mobile." LIII. OF CEREMONIES AND RESPECTS. HE that is only real, had need have exceed- ing great parts of virtue; as the stone had need to be rich that is set without foil: but if a man mark it well, it is in praise and commendation of men, as it is in gettings and gains: for the proverb is true, "That light gains make heavy purses;" for light gains come thick, whereas great come but now and then: so it is true, that small matters win great commendation, because they are continually in use and in note : whereas the occasion of any great virtue cometh but on festivals; therefore it doth much add to a man's reputation, and is (as queen Isabella said), like perpetual letters commendatory, to have good forms: to attain them, it almost 234 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. sufficeth not to despise them; for so shall a man observe them in others; and let nim trust himself with the rest; for if be labour too much to express them, he shall Jose their grace; which is to be natural and unaf- fected. Some men's behaviour is like a verse, wherein every syllable is measured; how can a man comprehend great matters, that breaketh his mind too much to small observations? . Not to use ceremonies at all, is to teach others not to use them again; and so diminisheth respect to himself; especially they are not to be omitted to strangers and formal natures: but the dwelling upon them, and exalting them above the moon, is not only tedious, but doth diminish the faith and credit of him that speaks: and, certainly, there is a kind of conveying of effectual and imprinting passages amongst compliments, which is of singular use, if a man can hit upon it. Amongst a man's peers, a man shall be sure of familiarity; and therefore it is good a little to keep state; amongst a man's inferiors, one shall be sure of reve- rence; and therefore it is good a little to be familiar. He that is too much in any thing, so that he giveth another occasion of socie- ty, .naketh himself cht-ap. To apply one- self to others, is good; so it be with demon- OF PRAISE. 255 stration, that a man doth it upon regard, and not upon facility. It is a good precept, generally in seconding another, yet to add somewhat of one's/own: as if you will grant his opinion, let it be with some distinction; if you will follow his motion, let it be with condition; if you allow his counsel, let it be with alleging farther reason. Men had need beware how they be too perfect in compli- ments; for be they never so sufficient other- wise, their euviers will be sure to give them that attribute, to the disadvantage of their greater virtues. It is loss also in business to be too full of respects, or to be too curi- ous in observing times and opportunities. Solomon saith, " He that considereth the wind shall not sow, and he that looketh to the clouds shall not reap." A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. M^n's behaviour should be like their appa- rel, not too strait or point device, but free for exercise or motion. LIV. OF PRAISE. PRAISE is the reflection of virtue, but it is as the glass, or body, which giveth the reflection; if it be from the common peo- 236 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. pie, it is commonly false and nought, and rather followeth vain persons than virtuous: for the common people understand not many excellent virtues: the lowest virtues draw praise from them, the middle virtues work in them astonishment or admiration; but of the highest virtues they have no sense of perceiving at all; but shews and " species virtutibus similes," serve best with them. Certainly, fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid-; but if persons of quality and judgment concur, then it is (as the scripture saith), " Nomen bonum instar unguenti fragrantis; 1 " it filleth all round about, and will not easily away; for the odours of ointments are more durable than those of flowers. There be so many false points of praise, that a man may justly hold it in suspect. Some praises proceed mere- ly of flattery; and if he be an ordinary flat- terer, he will have certain common attri- butes, which may serve every man; if he be a cunning flatterer, he will follow the arch- flatterer, which is a man's self, and wherein a man thinketh best of himself, therein the flatterer will uphold him most: but if be be an impudent flatterer, look wherein a man is conscious to himself that he is most defec- OF PRAISE. 237 live, and is most out of countenance in him- self, that will the flatterer entitle him to per- force, " spreta conscientia." Some praises come of good wishes and respects, which is a form clue in civility to kings and great per- sons, " laudando praecipere;" when by tel- ling men what they are, they represent to them what they should be: some men are praised maliciously to their hurt, thereby to stir envy and jealousy towards them; " pes- simura genus inimicorum laudantium;" inso- much as it was a proverb amongst the Gre- cians, that, " he that was praised to his hurt, should have a push rise upon his nose;' 1 as we say, that a blister will rise upon one's tongue that tells a lie; certainly, mode- rate praise, used with opportunity, and not vulgar, is that which doth the good. Solo- mon saith, " he that praiseth his friend aloud rising early, it shall ni to him no bet- ter than a curse." Too much magnifying of man or matter doth irritate contradiction, and procure envy and scorn. To praise a man's self cannot be decent, except it be in rare cases; but to praise a man's office or profession, he may do it with good grace, and with a kind of magnanimity. The car- dinals of Rome, which are theologues, and friars, and schoolmen, have a phrase of no- VOL. v. 16 238 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. table contempt and scorn towards civil busi- ness, for they call all temporal business of wars, embassages, judicature, and other em- ployments, sherrerie, which is under-sherif- fries, as if they were but matters for under- sheriffs and catch-poles; though many times those under-sheriffries do more good than their high speculations. St. Paul, when he boasts of himself, doth oft interlace, " I speak like a fool;" but speaking of his call- ing, he saith, " maguificabo apostolatum meum." tV. OF VAIN GLORY. IT was prettily devised of yEsop, the fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel, and said, "what a dust do I raise!" So are there some vain persons, that, whatsoever goeth alone, or moveth upon greater means, if they have never so little hand in it, they think it is they that carry it. They that are glorious must needs be factious; for all bravery stands upon comparisons- They must needs be violent to make good their own vaunts; neither can they be secret, and therefore not effectual; but according to the French proverb, "beaucoup de bruit, peu OF VAIN GLORY. 239 de fruit; "much bruit, little fruit." Yet, certainly, there is use of this quality in civil affairs: where there is an opinion and fame to be created, either of virtue or greatness, these men are good trumpeters. Again as Titus Livius noteth, in the case of Antiochus and the jEtolians, there are some- times great effects of cross lies; as if a man that negociates between two princes, to draw them to join in a war against a third, doth extol the forces of either of them above measure, the one to the other: and some- times he that deals between man and man raiseth his own credit with both, by pre- tending greater interest than he hath in either: and in these, and the like kinds, it often falls out, that somewhat is produced of nothing; for lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance. In military commanders and soldiers, vain glory is an essential point; for as iron shar- pens iron, sp by glory one courage sharpen- eth another. In cases of great enterprise upon charge and adventure, a composition of glorious natures doth put life into business; and those that are of solid and sober natures, have more of the ballast than of the sail. In fame of learning the flight will be slow 240 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. without some feathers of ostentation: "Qui de contemnenda gloria libros scribunt, no- men suum inscribunt." Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, were men full of ostentation: certain- ly, vain glory helpeth to perpetuate a man's memory; and virtue was never so be- holden to human nature, as it received its due at the second hand. Neither had the fame of Cicero, Seneca, Plinius Secundus, borne her age so well if it had not been joined with some vanity in themselves; like unto varnish, that makes ceilings not only shine, but last. But all this while, when I speak of vain glory, I mean not of that pro- perty that Tacitus doth attribute to Muci- anus, "Omnium, quae dixerat feceratque, arte quadam ostentator:" for that proceeds not of vanity, but of natural magnanimity and discretion; and, in some persons, is not only comely, but gracious: for excusations, cessions, modesty itself, well governed, are but arts of ostentation; and amongst those arts there is none bstter than that which Plinius Secundus speaketh of, which is to be liberal of praise and commendation to others, in that wherein a man's self hath any perfection: for, sailh Pliny, very wittingly, "In commending another you do yourself right;" for he that you commend is either OF HONOUR AND REPUTATION". 241 superior to you in that } r ou commend, or in- ferior; if he be inferior, if he be to be com- mended, you much more; if he be superior, if he be not to be commended, you much less. Vain glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts. LVI. OF HONOUR AN'D REPUTATION. THE winning of honour is but the revealing; of a man's virtue and worth without disadvan- tage; for some in their actions do woo and affect honour and reputation; which sort of men are commonly much talked of, but in- wardly liltle admired: and some, contrari- wise, darken their virtue in the shew of it; so as they be undervalued in opinion. If a man perform that which hath not been at- tempted before, or attempted and given over, or hath been achieved, but not with so good circumstance, he shall purchase more honour than by affecting a matter of greater difficulty, or virtue, wherein he is but a follower. If a man so temper his actions, as in some one of them he doth content every faction or combination 242 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. of people, the music will be the fuller. A man is an ill husband of his honour that en- tereth into any action, the failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying of it through can honour him. Honour that is gained a.nd broken upon another hath the quickest reflection, like diamonds cut with fascets; and, therefore, let a man contend to excel any competitors of his honour, in outshooting them, if he can, in their own bow. Discreet followers and servants help much to reputation: " Omnis fama a domes- ticis emanat." Envy, which is the canker of honour, is best distinguished by declaring a man's self in his ends, rather to seek merit than fame: and by attributing a man's suc- cesses rather to divine Providence and feli- city, than to his own virtue or policy. The true marshalling of the degrees oi sovereign honour are these: in the first place are " conditores imperiorum," founders of states and commonwealths; such as were Romulus, Cyrus, Csesar, Ottoman, Ismael: in the se- cond place are " legislatores," lawgivers; which are also called second founders, or " perpetui principes," because they govern by their ordinances after they are gone; such were Lycur^u?, Solon, Justinian, Edgar, Alphonsus of Castile, the wise, that made OP HONOUR AND REFUTATION. 243 the " Siete patridas:" in the third place ace " liberatores," or " salvatores;" such as compound the long miseries of civil wars, or deliver their countries from servitude of strangers or tyrants; as Augustus Ca3sar, Vesp;isianus, Aurelianus, Tbeodoricus, King Henry the Seventh of England, King Henry the Fourth of France: in the fourth place are " propagatores," or " propugnatores imperil," such as in honourable wars en- large their territories, or make noble de- fence against invaders: and, in the last place, are " patres patria?,'' which reign justly, and make the times good wherein they live; both which last kinds need no examples, they are in such number. Degrees of hon- our in subjects are, first, " participes cura- rum," those upon whom princes do dis- charge the greatest weight of their affairs; their right hands, as we may call them: the next are " duces belli," great leaders; such as are princes' lieutenants, and do them notable services in the wars: the third are " gratiosi," favourites; such as exceed not this scantling, to be solace to the sovereign, and harmless to the people: and the fourth, " negotiis pares;" such as have great places under princes, and execute their places with sufficiency. There is an honour, likewise, 244 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. which may be ranked amongst the greatest, which happeneth rarely; that is, of such as sacrifice themselves to death or danger for the good of their country; as was M. Regu- lus, and the two Decii. LVH. OF JUDICATURE. JCDGES ought to remember that their office is "jus dicere," and not "jus dare^ 3 to in- terpret law, and not to make law, or give law; else will it be like the authority clnim- ed by the church of Rome, which under pretext of exposition of scripture, doth not stick to add and alter; and to pronounce that which they do not find, and by shew of an- tiquity to introduce novelty. Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reve- rend than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. "Cursed (saith the law) is he that removeth the land- mark." The mislayer of a mere stone is to blame; but it is the unjust judge that is the capital remover of landmarks, when he defineth amiss of land and property. One foul sentence doth more hurt than many foul examples; for these do but corrupt the OF JUDICATURE. 245 stream, the other corrupteth the fountain: so saith Solomon, " Fons turbatus, et vena 7orrupta est Justus cadens in causa sua coram aiversario." The office of judges may have reference unto the parties that sue, into the advocates that plead, unto the clerks ard ministers of justice underneath them, anl to the sovereign or state above them. nrst, for the causes or parties that sue. There be, (saith the scripture), " that turn judjment into wormwood;" and surely there be Uso that turn it into vinegar; for injus- tice naketh it bitter, and delays make it sour. The principal duty of a judge is, to suppress force ind fraud; whereof force is the more pernicbus when it is open, and fraud when it is cloie and disguised. Add thereto con- tentioussuits, which ought to be spewed out, as the su-feit of courts. A judge ought to prepare Ks way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way, by raising valleys and taking down hills: so when there ap- peareth on ither side an high hand, violent prosecutionycunning advantages taken, com- bination, pover, great counsel, then is the virtue of a jidge seen to make inequality equal; that h; may plant his judgment as upon an even ground. " Q,ui fortiter emun- git, elicit sangVinem;" and where the wine \ 246 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. press is hard wrought, it yields a harsh wine, that tastes of the grape-stone. Judges must beware of hard constructions, and strain- ed inferences; for there is no worse torturi than the torture of laws: especially in case of laws penal, they ought to have care tint that which was meant for terror be not turn- ed into rigour; and that they brine; not upn the people that shower whereof the scrip- ture speaketh, " Pluet super eos laqueo*;" for penal laws pressed, are a showei of snares upon the people: therefore let p^nal laws, if they have been sleepers of lorg, or if they be grown unfit for the presenttime, be by wise judges confined in the execution: "Judicis officium est, ut res, ita fcmpora rerum," &c. In causes of life anl death judges ought, (as far as the law pernitteth), injustice to remember mercy, and to cast a severe, eye upon the example, but merciful eye upon the person. Secondly, for the advocates ;nd counsel that plead. Patience and graviy of hearing is an essential part of justice; md an over- speaking judge is no well-tunec cyntbal. It is no grace to a judge first to fi;d that which he might have heard in due Jme from the bar; or to show quickness of :onceit in cut- ting off evidence or counse too short, or OF JUDICATURE. 247 to prevent information by questions, though pertinent. The parts of a judge in hearing are four: to direct the evidence; to mode- rate length, repetition, or impertinency of speech; to recapitulate, select, and collate the material points of that which hath been' said, and to give the rule, or sentence. Whatsoever is above these is too much, nnd proceedeth either of glory and willingness to speak, or of impatience to hear, or of shortness of memory, or of want of a stay- ed and equal attention. It is a strange thing to see that the boldness of advocates should prevail with judges; whereas they should imitate God, in whose seat they sit, who represseth the presumptuous, and givetfa grace to the modest: but it is more strange, that judges should have noted favourites, which cannot but cause multiplication of fees, and suspicion of by-ways. There is due from the judge to the advocate some commendation and gracing, where causes are well handled and fair pleaded, especially towards the side which obtaineth not; for that upholds in the client the reputation of his counsel, and beats down in him the con- ceit of his cause. There is likewise due to the public a civil reprehension of advo- cates, where there appeareth cunning coun- 248 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. sel, gross neglect, slight information, indis- creet pressing, or an overbold defence; and let not the counsel at the bar chop with the judge, nor wind himself into the handling of the cause anew after the judge hath declared his sentence; but, on the other side, let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion to the party to say, his counsel or proofs were not heard. Thirdly, for that that concerns clerks and ministers. The place of justice is an hal- lowed place; and therefore not only the bench, but the footpace and precincts, and purprise thereof, ought to be preserved without scandal and corruption; for, certain- ly, grapes, (as the scripture saiih), " will not be gathered off thorns or thistles;" neither can justice yield her fruit with sweet- ness amongst the briars and brambles of catching and pulling clerks and ministers. The attendance of courts is subject to four bad instruments: first, certain persons that are sowers of suits, which make the court swell, and the country pine: the second sort is of those that engage courts in quarrels of jurisdiction, and are not truly "amici curiae," but " parasiti curiae," in puffing a court up beyond her bounds for their own scraps and advantages: the third sort is of those that OF JUDICATURE. 249 may be accounted the left hands of courts: persons that are full of nimble and sinister tricks and shifts, whereby they pervert the plain and direct courses of courts, and bring justice into oblique lines and labyrinths: and the fourth is the poller and exacter of fees; which justifies the common resemblance of the courts of justice to the bush, whereunto, while the sheep flies for defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of the fleece. On the other side, an ancient clerk, skilful in prece- dents, wary in proceeding, and understand- ing in the business of the court, is an excel- lent figure of a court, and doth many times point the way to the judge himself. Fourthly, for that which may concern the sovereign and estate. Judges ought, above all, to remember the conclusion of the Ro- man twelve tables, " Salus populi suprema lex:" and to know that laws, except they be in order to that end, are but things captious, and oracles not well inspired: therefore it is an happy thing in a state, when kings and states do often consult with judges: antl again, when judges do often consult with the king and state: the one, where there is mat- ter of -law intervenienl in business of state; the other, when there is some consideration of state intervenient in matter of law; for 250 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. many times the things deduced to judgment may be "meum" and "tuum," when the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate: I call matter of es- tate, not only the parts of sovereign- ty, but whatsoever introduceth any great alteration, or dangerous precedent; or con- cerneth manifestly any great portion of people: and let no man weakly conceive that just laws, and true policy, have any antipathy; for they are like the spirits and sinews, that one moves with the other. Let judges also remember, that Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both sides: let them be lions, but yet lions under the throne: being circumspect, that they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty. Let not judges also be so ignorant of their own right, as to think there is not left them, as a principal part of their office, a wise use and application of laws; for they may re- member what the apostle saith of a greater law than theirs: "Nos scimus quia lex bona est, raodo quis ea utatur legitime." LVIII. OF ANGER. To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a "bravery of the Stoics. We have better ora- OF ANGER. 251 cles: "Be angry, but sin not: let not the sun go down upon your anger." Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and habit, "to be angry," may he attempered and calmed; secondly, how the particular motions of anger may be repress- ed, or, at least, refrained from doing mis- chief; thirdly, how to raise anger, or appease anger in another. For the first, there is no other way but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life: and the best time to do this, is to look back upon an- ger when the fit is thoroughly over. Sene- ca saith well, "that anger is like rain, which breaks itself upon that it falls." The scrip- ture exhorteth us "to possess our souls in patience;" whosoever is out of patience, is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees; ' animasqne in vulnene ponunt." Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those sub- jects in whom it reigns, children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn 252 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. than with fear; so that they may seem ra- ther to he above the injury than below it; which is a thing easily clone, if a man will give law to himself iu it. For the second point, the causes and mo- tives of anger are chiefly three: first, to be too sensible of hurt; for no man is angry that feels not himself hurt; and, therefore, tender and delicate persons must needs be oft angry, they have so many things to trou- ble them, which more robust natures have little sense of: the next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered to be, in the circumstances "thereof, full of con- tempt: for contempt is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much, or more, than the hurt itself; and, therefore, when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much: lastly, opinion of the touch of a man's repu- tation doth multiply and sharpen anger; wherein the remedy is, that a man should have, as Gonsalvo was wont to, say, "telam honoris crassiorem." But in all refrainings of anger, it is the best remedy to win time, and fo make a man's self believe that the opportunity of liis revenge is not yet come; but that he foresees a time for it, and so to still himself in the mean time, and reserve it. OF ANGER. 253 - To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be two things whereof you must have special caution: the one, of extreme bitterness of words, espe- cially if they be aculeate ,and proper; for "communia maledicta" are nothing so much; and again, that in anger a man reveal no se- crets; for that makes him not fit for society: the other, that you do not peremptorily break off in any business in a fit of anger; bdt howsoever you shew bitterness, do not act any thing thaHs not revocable. For raising and appeasing artger in ano- ther,-it is done chiefly by choosing of times, when men are frowardest and worst disposed to incense them; again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt: aud the two reme- dies are by the contraries: the former to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry business, for the first impres- sion is much; and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the in- jury from the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion, or what you will. VOL. v. 17 254 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. L1X. OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. SOLOMON saith, "There is no new thing upon the earth:" so th;t as Plato had an imagina- tion that all knowledge was but remem- brance; so Solomon giveth his sentence, "That all novelty is but oblivion;" whereby you may see, that the river of Lethe run- neth as well above ground as below There is an abstruse astrologer that saith, if it were not. for two things that are constant, (the one is, that the fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and never come nearer together, nor go farther asunder; the other, that the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time), no individual would last one moment: certain it is that matter is in a perpetual flux, and never at a stay. The great winding-sheets that bury all things in oblivion are two; deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely ^dispeople, but destroy. Phaeton's car went but a day; and the three years' drought in the time of Elias, was but particular, and left people alive. As for the great burnings by light- nings, which are often in the West Indies, they are % but narrow; but in the other two destructions, by deluge and earthquake, it is OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 255 farther to be noted, that the remnant of peo- ple which happen to be reserved, are com- monly ignorant and mountainous people, that can give no account of the time past; so that the oblivion is all one as if none had been left. If you consider well of the people oT the West Indies, it is very probable that they are a newer, or a younger people than the people of the old world; and it is much more likely that the destruction that hath heretofore been there, was not by earth- quakes, (as the ^Egyptian priest told Solon, concerning the island of Atlantis, that it was swallowed by an earthquake), but rather, that it was desolated by a particular deluge : for earthquakes are seldom in those parts: but on the other side, they have such pour- ing rivers, as the rivers of Asia, and Africa, and Europe, are but brooks to them. Their Andes likewise, or mountains, are far higher than those with us; whereby it seems, that the remnants of generations of men were in such a particular deluge saved. As for the observation that Machiavel hath, that the jealousy of sects doth much extin- guish the memory of things; traducing Gre- gory the Great, that he did what in him lay to extinguish all heathen antiquities; I do not find that those zeals do any great effects, 256 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. nor last long; as it appeared in the succes- sion of Sabinian, who did revive the former antiquities. The vicissitude, or mutations, in the su- perior globe, are no fit matter for this pre- sent argument. It may be Plato's great year, if the world should last so long, would have some effect, not in renewing the state of like individuals, (for that is the fume of those that conceive the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon these things below, than indeed they have), but in gross. Comets, out of question, have likewise pow- er and effect over the gross and mass of things: but they are rather gazed upon, and waited upon in their journey, than wisely ob- served in their effects; especially in their respective effects; that is, what kind of co- met, for magnitude, colour, version of the beams, placing in the region of heaven, or lasting, produceth what kind of effects. There is a toy, which 1 have heard, and I would not have it given over, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low Countries, (I know not in what part), that every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of years and weathers come about again; as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 257 little heat, and the like; and they call it, the prime: it is a thing I do the rather mention, because, computing backwards, 1 have found some concurrence. But to leave these points of nature, and to come to men. The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions; for those orbs rule in men's minds most. The true religion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. To speak, there- fore, of the causes of new sects, and to give some counsel concerning them, as far as the weakness of human judgment can give stay to so great revolutions. When the religion formerly received is rent by discords, and when the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal, and withal the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous, you may doubt the Springing up of a new sect: if then also there should arise any extravagant and strange spirit to make himself author thereof; all which points held when Ma- homet published his law. If a new sect have not two properties, fear it not, for it will not spread: the one is the supplant- ing, or the opposing of authority establish- ed; for nothing is more popular than that: 258 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. the other is the giving license to pleasures and a voluptuous life: for -as for specula- tive heresies, (such as were in ancient times the Arians, and now the Arminians), though they work mightily upon men's wits, yet they do not produce any great alteration in states; except it be by the help of civil oc- casions. There be three manner of planta- tions of new sects; by the power of signs and miracles; by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles, because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature: and I may do the like of superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely there is no better way to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses; to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions; and ra- ther to take off the principal aathors, by winning and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and bitterness. The changes and vicissitudes in wars are many, but chiefly in three things; in the seats, or stages of the war, in the weapons, and in the manner of the conduct. Wars, iu ancient time, seemed more to move from east to west; for the Persians, As- OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 259 Syrians, Arabians, Tartars, (which were the invaders), were all eastern people. It is true, the Gauls were western; but we read but of two incursions of theirs; the one to Gallo Graecia, the other to Rome: but east and west have no certain points of hea- ven ; and no more have the wars, either from the east or west, any certainty of ob- servation: but north and south are fixed; and it hath seldom or never been seen that the far southern people have invaded the northern, but contrariwise; whereby it is manifest that the northern tract of the world is in nature the more martial region: be it in respect of the stars of that hemisphere, or of the great continents that are upon the north; whereas the south part, for aught that is known, is almost all sea; or, (which is most apparent), of the cold of the north- ern parts, which is that, "which, without aid of discipline, doth make the bodies hardest, and the courage warmest. Upon the breaking and shivering of a great state and empire, you may be sure to have wars; for great empires, while they stand, do enervate and destroy the forces of the natives which they have subdued, rest- ing upon their own protecting forces; and then, when they fail also, all goes to ruin. 260 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. and they become a prey; so it was in the decay of the Roman empire, and likewise in the empire of Alrnaigne, after Charles the Great, every bird taking a feather; and were not unlike to befall to Spain, if it should break. The great accessions and unions of kingdoms do likewise stir up wars: for when a state grows to an overpower, it is like a great flood, that will be sure to overflow; as it hath been seen in the states of Rome, Turkey, Spain, and others. Look when the world hath fewest barbarous people, but such as commonly will not marry, or gene- rate, except they know means to live, (as it is almost every where at this day, except Tartary), there is no danger of inundations of people: but when there be great shoals of people, which go on to populate, without foreseeing means of life and sustentation, it is of necessity that once in an age or two they discharge a portion of their people upon other nations, which the ancient north- ern people were wont to do by lot; casting lots what part should stay at home, and what should seek their fortunes. When a warlike state grows soft and effeminate, they may be sure of a war: for commonly such states are grown rich in the time of their degenerat- ing; and so the prey inviteth, and their de- cay in valour encourageth a war. OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 261 As for the weapons, it hardly falleth under rule and observation: yet we see even they have returns and vicissitudes; for certain it is, that ordnance was known in the city of the Oxydraces, in India; and was that which the Macedonians called thunder and light- ning, and magic; and it is well known that the use of ordnance hath been in China above two thousand years. The conditions of weapons, and their improvements, are, first, the fetching afar off; for that outruns the danger, as it is seen in ordnance and mus- kets; secondly, the strength of the percus- sion; wherein likewise ordnance do exceed all arietations, and ancient inventions: the third is, the commodious use of them; as that they may serve in all weathers, that the carriage may be light and manageable, and the like. For the conduct of the war: at the first, men rested extremely upon number; they did put the wars likewise upon main force and valour, pointing days for pitched fields, and so trying it out upon an even match; and they were more ignorant in ranging and arraying their battles. After they grew to rest upon number, rather competent than vast; they grew to advantages of place, cun- ning diversions, and the like; and they grew more skilful in the ordering of their battles. 262 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandize Learning hath its infancy, when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then its youth, when it is luxuriant and juve- nile; then its strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and, lastly, its old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust; but it is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest we become giddy: as for the philology of them, that is but a circle of tales, and therefore not fit for this writing. A FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY OF FAME. THE poets make Fame a monster : they describe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously: they say, look how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she halh underneath, so many tongues, so many voices, she pricks op so many ears. This is a flourish; there follow excellent parables; as that she gathereth strength in going; that she goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her head in the clouds; that in the day-time she sitteth in a watch-tower, and flypth most by night; that she mingleth things done with thing? not done; and that she is a terror to great cities: but that which passeth ull the rest is, they do recount that the Earth, mother of the giants that made war against Jupiter, and were by him de- stroyed, thereupon in anger brought forth 264 LORD BACON'S ESSAYS. Fame; for certain it is, that rebels, figured by the giants and seditions fames and jibels, are but brothers and sisters, masculine and feminine: but now if a man can tame this mon.ster, and bring her to feed at the hand and govern her, and with her fly other ra- vening fowl and kill them, it is somewhat worth: but we are infected with the style of the poets. To speak now in a sad and se- rious manner, there is not in all the politics a place less handled, and more worthy to be handled, than this of fame; we will there- fore speak of these points: what are false fames; and what are true fames; and how they may be best discerned ; how fames may be sown and raised; how they may be spread and multiplied; and how they may be checked and laid dead; and other things con- cerning the nature of fame. Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose' to move the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cassar took Pom- pey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations by a fame that he cunning- OF FAME. 265 ly gave out, how Caesar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would for- sake him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continually giving out that her husband Augustus was upon reco- very and amendment ; and it is an usual thing with the bashaws, to conceal the death of the Great Turk from the janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constan- tinople, and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made Xerxes, king of Persia, post apace out of Grrecia, by giving out that the Grecians had a purpose to break his bridge of ships which he had made athwart the Hellespont. There be a thousand such like examples, and the more they are the less they need to be repeated, because a man meeteth with them every where : wherefore let alt wise governors have as great n watch and care over fames, as they have of the actions and designs themselves. THE REST WAS NOT FINISHED. INDEX. L Of Troth ........13 II. . . Death 17 HI. . . Unity in Religion ...... 90 IV. . . Revenge 87 V. . . Adversity 29 VI. . . Simulation and Dissimulation 31 VII. . . Parents and Children ..... 36 i'lll. . . Marriage and Single life ... 38 IX. . . Envy ..41 X. . . Love -..-...-49 XI. . . Great Place ....... 52 XII. . . Boldnen 57 XIII. . . Goodness, and Goodness of Nature - - 60 - XIV. . . A King - - 64 XV. . . Nobility ........68 XVI. . . Seditions and Troubles .... 70 XVII. . . Atheism 82 XVIII. . . Superstition ...... 86 XIX. . . Travel 89 XX. . . Empire ... ..-.92 XXI. . . Counsel 00 XXIL . . Delays .07 XXIII. . . Cunning .......109 XXIV. . . Wisdom for a Man's Self .... 115 XXV. . . Innovations .--.... H7 XXVI. . . Dispatch ....... 119 XXVII. . . Setmmg Wise ...... 122 XXVIII. . . Friendship . - ... . . .134 XXIX. . . Expeuse 136 XXX. . . The True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates 138 268 INDEX. No. Page XXXI. Of Regimen of Health 153 XXXII. . . Suspicion 155 XXX11I . .Discourse 157 XXXIV. . . Plantations 160 XXXV. . . Riches 16* XXXVI. . . Prophecies 171 XXXVII. . . Ambition 175 XXXV1IL . . Masques and Triumphs - ... 179 XXXIX. . . Natun in Men 181 XL. . . Custom and Education .... 184 XLI. . . Fortune 187 XL1I. . . Usury 19O XLI1I. . . Youth and Age 196 XLIV. . . Btauty ....... 199 XLV. . . Deformity . - f - - - .201. XLVI . . Building - 203 XL VII. . . Gardens 209 - XLVI1I. . . Negotiating 220 XLIX. . . Followers aiid Frieiids ..... 222 L. . . Suitors .......225 LI. ..Studies - -"" 2J8 Lit. . . Faction ..... . 330 LIII. . . Ceremonies and Respects ... -233 1.1 V . . . Praise - . - - - - . . . 235 LV . Vain Glory - 238 LVI. . . Honour and Reputation .... 241 LVII. . .Judicature ....... 244 LVI1I. . . An^tr ........ 250 LIX. . . Vicissitude of Things ..... 254 LX, A Fragment of an Essay on Fame ... 26S MORAL AND ENTERTAINING, RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD, EARL OF CLARENDON. MDCCCXX. As an historian, LORD CLARENDON'S reputation is t66 firmly fixed now to be affected by either praise or ceh sure : If, as a moral writer, lie appear with less advan- tage than his illustrious predecessor, his style, and its lengthened periods, will readily he endured, for the sound- ness of his opinions and the integrity of his mind. Until within these few years his ESSAYS, which now form a suitable companion to those of LORD BACON, were not disengaged from the bulky folio in which only they were to be found : in this edition, it has been thought pro- per to omit three, which, fiOin their extreme length, rather claim to be considered as dissertations : their titles are, " On an active and contemplative Life, and when and nhy the one ought to be preferred btfore the other ;" " Of the Reverence due to Antiquity;" " Against the multiplying Controversies, by insisting upon Particulars thut ure not necessary to .the Point in Debate." These are together eqiivil in quantity to the remaining twenty-two, which form the contents of the present volume. Sept. 1819. ESSAYS. I. OF HUMAN NATURE. Montpellier, 1608. THE perpetual fear and agony and appre- hension, which wicked men always feel within themselves, is the argument that Epicurus made, that human nature' is so far from being inclined to ill, that it abhors all kind of wickedness; "quia infixa nobis ejus rei aversatio est, quam natura damnavit, ideo nunquam fides latendi fit etiam latenti- bus;" and the frequent discoveries of very enormous crimes after long concealments, merely from the unquietness of the offen- ders' own breasts, manifests how far our nature is from being delighted with works of darkness, that it cannot rest till they be exposed to light. If we did not take great pains, and were not at great expense to cor- rupt our nature, our nature would never 6 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. corrupt us: We administer all the helps ot' industry and art to provoke our appetites, and to inflame our blood, and then we ac- cuse nature for leading us into excesses; we kindle that fire that kindles our lust with a licentious diet, and then fan it into a flame with obscene discourses, and revile nature that it will not permit us to be chaste; we provoke and cherish our anger with unchris- tian principles of revenge, and then inveigh against nature for making us choleric: when, God knows, the little good we have in us, we owe only to the integrity of our nature; which hath restrained us from many vices which our passions would hurry us into. Very many men have remained or become temperate, by the very nauseating and aver- sion that nature hath to surfeits and exces- ses; and others have been restrained from making wicked attempts, by the horror and trembling that nature hath suggested to them in the approach. Many excellent men have grown to rare perfections in knowledge and in practice, to great learning, great wisdom, great virtue, without ever having felt the least repugnance in their nature to interrupt them in their progress; on the contrary their inclinations have been strengthened, their vivacity increased, from the very itn- OF HUMAN NATURE. V pulsion of their nature: but we may reasona- bly believe, that never man made a great progress in wickedness, so as to arrive at a mastery in it, without great interruption and contradiction from his natural genius: inso- much as we see men usually take degress in wickedness, and come riot to a perfection in it per saltum ; which can proceed from noth- ing but the resistance it finds from the nature of man. And if we do seriously con- sider, how few men there are who endea- vour by art or industry to cultivate that por- tion which nature hath given them, to im- prove their understanding, and to correct any infirmity they may be liable to, by so much as abstaining from any vice which corrupts both body and mind; we must con- clude that they owe that which is good in themselves to nature, since they have noth- ing by their own acquisition. We cannot justly be reproached, that in this magnifying and extolling nature, we do too much neg- lect and undervalue the influence of God's grace; nature is as much the creation of God as grace is; and it is his bounty that he created nature in that integrity, and hath since restored it to that innocence, or annex- ed that innocence to it, if it be not mali- ciously ravished, or let loose, from it. All 8 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. the particulars mentioned before may pro- perly be called the operation of nature, be- cause they have been often found in those who have had no light of grace, and may be still thought to be the supply of nature in those who seem not to walk by that light; nor is the price of grace at all advanced, or the way to attain it made more clear and easy, by such an affected contempt of na- ture, which makes us only capable of the other. II. OF LIFE. Jertey, 1047. ^'So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," was the ejaculation of Moses, when he was in full contemplation of the provi- dence and power of God, and of the frailty and brevity of the life of man: And though, from the consideration of our own lime, the days allotted for our life, we cannot make any proportionable prospect toward the providence and power of God, no more than we can make an estimate of the large- ness and extent of the heavens by the view of the smallest cottage or molehill upon the earth; yet there cannot be a better expedient, at the least an easier, a thing we believe we can more easily practise, to bring ourselves to a due reverence of that providence, to a due apprehension of that power, and there- upon to a useful disposition of our time in this world, how frail and short soever it is, than by applying ourselves to this advice of Moses, to "learn to number our days." There is not a man that reads, or hears this lead, but thinks the lesson may be learned with little pains; nay, that he hath it so per- fect, that he needs not learn it: and yet if the best of us would but fix our minds upon it. sadly "number our days," the days which we have or shall have in this world, we could not but, out of that one single notion, make ourselves much the fitter for the next; and if the worst of us would but exercise ourselves in it, but "number our days," we should even in spite of the worst cozen our- selves into some amendment of life, into some improvement of knowledge, into some reformation of understanding: it would not be in our power, nor in His who is ready to assist us in any evil, to continue so weak, so wilful, so wicked as we are; but we should insensibly find such an alteration, as, how much soever we contemn now, we shall thank ourselves for obtaining. 19 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. They who understand the original, tell us, that the Hebrew verb, which our interpre- ters translate into number, hath a very large signification, (as that language which is con- tracted into fewest words extends many words to a marvellous latitude of sense), and that as well as to number, it signifies to weigh, and to ponder, and, thirdly, to order, and appoint; so that to number, or any other single word, I believe, in any other tongue, is far from expressing to the full the sense of that Hebrew verb; except we could find a word that might signify to reckon to exa- mine, and consider the nature and the use of every unit in that reckoning, and then to order and appoint it accordingly. And no doubt it was such a numbering, with that circumstance of deliberation, and the other of direction and determination, which Moses here prescribed; and so the duty may seem larger, and at first more full of difficulty, than it did; and that we are not to rest merely in the arithmetical sense of it. But as the setting out is oftentimes more trouble- some than the whole journey, and the first disposal of the mind to sobriety and virtue, is more difficult than any progress after in it; so if we but really and severely execute this injunction in the usual and vulgar acceptation OF LIFE. 1 1 of the word, no more but " number our days," by the rules of arithmetic, we should make a progress in 'the other acceptances too; and we should find evident comfort and ""benefit from the fruit we should gather from each of those branches. Without diminishing or lessening the value of a long life, with the meditation that a thousand years are but as yesterday in His sight who made the years and the days; or that not only the longest life that ever any man hath lived, but even the life that the world hath lived since the creation, is but a moment in comparison of that eternity which must be either the reward or punish- ment of the actions of our life, how short SOP ver it is: if we did but so " number our days" as to consider that we experimentally find the shortness of them; if we did but number the days we have lived, and by that pregnant evidence of our memory, how soon they are gone, and how insensibly, con- clude how very soon so much more time, which possibly would bring us to the utmost of Moses's account of eighty years, will like- wise pass away; we could not think the most sure and infallible purchase of twenty or thirty years of life, and the unquestiona- ble fruition of the most heightened pleasures 12 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. the appetite or fancy can imagine during that term, without any abatement by the interpo- sition of the infirmities and weakness of na- ture, or the interruption of accidents, so near worth the consenting to any thing that may impair the conscience, or disturb the peace or quiet of the mind, that it were a valuable consideration for the interruption of a night's test, for the parting with six hours of our sleep; which, though any man could spare, is so much time of our least faultiness: I say, it were not possible serious- ly to make this estimate in our thoughts, to revolve the uncertainty and brevity of our Ufe, but we should also take an account of ourselves, weigh and ponder the expense of every article of this short precious time, for which we must make so large and exact an account to Him that hath trusted us with it; we should not but (which is no more than the original verb for which we read number signifies) do, what one who we are not wil- ling to believe as good a Christian as our- selves long since advised us, "pretinm tem- pori ponere, diem aestimare," consider that every hour is worth at least a good thought, a good wish, a good endeavour; that it is the talent we are trusted with to use, employ, and to improve: if we hide this talent in the OF LIFE. 13 dark, that the world cannot see any fruit of it, or such fruit as we ourselves are afraid to see; if we bury it in the earth, spend it in worldly and sensual designs and attempts; we are those ungrateful and unthrifty stew- ards, who must expiate this breach of trust in endless torments. And if we were gotten thus far, we could not but, in spite of the most depraved faculty of our understanding, of the most perverse inclination of our appe- tite, or act of our will, order and dispose of this time right; which is the full extent of the word. So that in truth, if we do not weigh and consider to what end this life is given to us, and thereupon order and dis- pose it right, pretend what we will to the arithmetic, we do not, we cannot so much as number our days in the narrowest and most limited signification. It is a sharp meditation and animadversion of one, whose writings are an honour to our nation, that the incessant and Sabbathless pursuit of a man's fortune and interest (although therein we could refrain from doing injuries or using evil arts) leaves not the tribute of our time which we owe to God, who demandeth we see a tenth of our substance, and a seventh (which is more strict) of our time; and (says he) it is to small purpose to have an 14 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. erected face toward Heaven, and a grovel- ling spirit upon earth. If they who please themselves with believing that they spend their time the least amiss; who have so fir the negative practice of conscience, that they abstain from acts of inhumanity and injustice, and avoid doing harm to any body; , nay, if they make such a progress into the active part of conscience, as to delight in the civil acts of humanity, and the diffusive acts of charity: I say, if this handful of the world that is thus innocent (and what dismal account must the other part take of them- selves then) would seriously examine and revolve the expense of their own time, they would even wonder at the little good, they find in themselves, and not be able to tell to the well-spending of what part of their time those good inclinations are to be imputed. We think it a commendable thing (and value ourselves much upon it) to take great pains, to use much industry, to tnake ourselves fine gentlemen, to get lan- guages, to learn arts; it may be some for which we are the worse: and we acknow- ledge, that that is not to be done, nay, any exercise of the body to be learned, or the most mechanic trade, without great pains and industry; but to make ourselves Christians, OP LIFE. 1ST to know God, and what~he expects from us, and what will be acceptable to him, we take not the least pains, use not the least industry. 1 am persuaded, if many of us, who have lived to good years, did faithfully compute in what particular meditations and actions we have spent our time, we should not be able, amongst the years we have spent in pursuing our pleasures, our profits, our ambition, the days and nights we have dedicated to our lusts, our excesses, the importunities and solicitations we have used to mend our for- tunes; we should not be able to set down one hour for every year of our life, I fear not one hour for our whole life, which we have solemnly spent to mend our Christiani- ty; in which we have devoutly considered the majesty and providence and goodness of God, the reason and the end of our own creation; that there is such a place as Heaven for the reward of those who do well, or Hell for the punishment of the wicked: for if we had spent but one hour in the contemplating those particulars, which are the first and most general notions of Christianity, it were not possible but we should be startled out of our lethargic lazi- ness, and should make some progress in the practice of Christianity, as well as in those 16 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. paths and roads that lead to our pleasure or profit. What is this inadvertency and in- -cogitancy, but to believe that, as we receiv- ed this badge of Christianity in our infancy when we knew not of it, so it will grow and increase upon us in our sleep and times of leisure, without taking notice of it? that the little water that was thrown upon our face in baptism, was enough to preserve the beauty of God's image in us, without any addition of moisture from ourselves, either by tears in our repentance, or so much as by sweat in our industry and labour? and to declare to all the world, that we bold the life of a Christian to be nothing else, but spending so many days as nature allows us, in a climate where the gospel of Christ is suffered to be preached, how little soever desired to be practised? If we would so " number our days, ".that is, so consider of them, as to order and dispose some part of our time, one hour in a day, one day in ten, but to think of God, and what he hath done for us; to remember that we are Christians, and the obligation that thereby lies upon us; that there will be a day of judgment, and that we must appear at that day: though it may be it would be a difficult thing at the first, in that set time, to apply our unexercised and OP LIFE. 17 uninformed thoughts to so devout and reli- gious an exercise as we should; yet, I say, if we would but so set apart a time for that purpose, as to resolve at that time constant- ly to do nothing else, how perfunctorily soever we did that, we should by degrees bring ourselves from sober and humble thoughts, to pious and godly thoughts, till we found ourselves so growing to perfect Christians, as to confess we were not worthy of that title before. Next the sadness of reviewing the expense of our time, in order to our service of God, and the health and prosperity of our souls; it is a melancholy consideration how we spend our time with reference to ourselves, to the obtaining that which we most desire, to consider how our time goes from us; for we are hardly active enough to be thought to spend it. We live rather the life of vege- tatives or sensatives, suffer ourselves to grow, and please and satisfy our appetites, than the lives of reasonable men, endued with faculties to discern the natures and dif- ferences of things, and to use and govern both. There is not a man in the world, but desires to be, or to be thought to be, a wise man; and yet, if he considered how little he contributes himself thereunto, he VOL. v. 19 18 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. might wonder to find himself in any tolerable degree of understanding. How many men are there, nay, in comparison of mankind, how few are there but such, who since they were able to think, and could choose whe- ther they would or no, never seriously spent two hours by themselves in so much as thinking what would make them wiser; but sleep anil eat and play, which makes the whole circle of their lives, and are not in seven years together (except asleep) one hour by themselves. It is a strange thing, to see the care and solicitude that is used to strengthen and cherish the body; the study and industry and skill to form and shape every member and limb to beauty and comeliness; to teach the hands and feet and eyes the order and gracefulness of motion; to cure any defects of nature or accident, with any hazard and pain, insomuch as we oftentimes see even those of the weaker sex, and less inclined to suffering, willingly endure the breaking of a bone that cannot otherwise be made straight; and all this ado but to make a hand- some and beautiful person, which at best is but the picture of a man or woman, without a wise soul: when to the information and improvement of that jewel, which is the es- sence of man; and which unconsidered, even OF LIFE. 19 that which we so labour for and are proud of, our beauty and handsomeness, is by many degrees inferior to that of a thousand beasts and other creatures; to the cultivating and shaping and directing of the mind, we give scarce a thought, not an hour of our life; never suppress a passion, never reform an affection; insomuch as (though never age had fewer wise men to shew to the world) we may justly wonder we are not all fools and idiots, when we consider how little we have contributed to make ourselves other: and doubtless if nature) whom we are ready to accuse of all our weaknesses and per- versenesses) had not out of her store boun- tifully supplied us, our own art and industry would never have kept up our faculties to that little vile height they are at. Neither in truth do many believe or understand that there needs any other diligence or art to be applied to the health of the mind, than the sober ordering and disposing of the body; and it is well if we can bring ourselves to that reasonable conclusion. Whereas when we prescribe ourselves a wholesome and or- derly course of diet, for the strengthening of our natures, and confirming our healths; if we would consider what diet to give our minds, what books to read for the informing 20 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. and strengthening our understandings, and conclude that it is as impossible for the mind to be improved without those supplies, as for the body to subsist without its natural food: if, when we allow ourselves recrea- tions and exercises, to cherish and refresh our spirits, and to waste and dispel humours, without which a well-tempered constitution cannot be preserved, we would allow some exercises to our minds, by a sober and frank conversation with learned, honest, and prudent men, \vhose informations, animad- versions, and experience might remove and expel the vanities and levities which infect our understandings: if when an indisposition or distemper of body, an ill habit of health, calls upon us to take a rougher course with ourselves, to vomit up or purge away those choleric and phlegmatic and melancholic hu- mours, which burn and cloy and suffocate the vital parts and passages; to let out that blood which is too rank, too corrupted for our veins, and to expel those fumes and va- pours which hurt our stomachs and ascend to our brains: if we would, I say, as dili- gently examine the distemper of our minds, revolve the rage and fury of our choler, the duloess and laziness of our phlegm, the sul- lenness and pride of our melancholy; if we OF LIFE. 21 would correct this affection, and draw out that passion; expel those fumes and vapours of ambition which disturb and corrupt our reason and judgment, by sober and serious meditation of the excellency and benefit of patience, alacrity, and contentedness; that this affection and this passion is not consis- tent with sobriety and justice, and that the satisfying them with the utmost licence brings neither ease nor quiet to the mind, which is not capable of any happiness but in, at least not without, its own innocence; that ambition always carries an insatiableness with it, wh x ich is a torment to the mind, and no less a disease than that is to the stomach: in a word, if we would consider, there is scarce a disease, an indisposition, a distem- per, by which the body is disturbed, to which, or some influence like it, the mind is not liable likewise; and that the remedies for the latter are much more natural, more in our power, than for the former; if we would use but half the diligence and indus- try to apply them which we do to the other we should find ourselves another kind of people, our understandings more vigorous, and our lives more innocent, useful, and be- neficial, to God, to ourselves, and to our country; and we should think we had learn- 22 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. ed nothing, till we had learned "so to num- ber our days that we might apply our hearts unto wisdom;" that wisdom, of which the fear of the Lord is the beginning, and of which the eternal blessing of God is the end and the reward. III. REFLECTIONS ON THE HAPPINESS WHICH WE MAY ENJOY, IN AND FROM OURSELVES. Montpellier, 1669. IT was a very just reproach that Seneca charged the world with so many hundred years ago, and yet was not more the disease of that than of this age, that we wonder and complain of the pride and superciliousness of those who are in place and authority above us; that we cannot get an admittance to them; that they are never at leisure that we may speak to them; when (says he) we are never vacant never at leisure to speak to ourselves; "Audet quispiam de alterius su- perbia queri, qui sibi ipse nunquam vacat?" and after all complaints and murmurs, the greatest and the proudest of them will be sometimes at leisure, maybe sometimes spo- ken with; "aliquando respexit, tu non inspi- cere te unquam, non audire dignatus es;" we REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 23 can never get an audience of ourselves, ne- ver vouchsafe to confer together. We are diligent and curious enough to know other men; and it may be charitable enough to assist them, to inform their weakness by our instruction, and to reform their errors by our experience: and all this without giving one moment to look into our own, never make an inspection into ourselves, nor ask one of those questions of ourselves which we are ready to administer to others, and thereby imagine that we have a perfect knowledge of them. We live with other men, and to other men; neither with nor to ourselves. We may sometimes be at home, left to ourselves, when others are weary of us, and we are weary of being with them; but we do not dwell at home, have no com- merce, no conversation with ourselves, nay, we keep spies about us that we may not have; and if we feel a suggestion, hear an importunate call from within, we divert it by company or quiet it with sleep; and when we wake, no man runs faster from an enemy than we do from ourselves, get to our friends that we may not be with ourselves. This is not only an epidemical disease that spreads every where, but effected and pur- chased at as great a price as most other of 24 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. our diseases, with the expense of all our precious time; one moment of which we are riot willing to bestow upon ourselves, though it would make the remainder of it more use- ful to us, and to others upon whom we pro- digally consume it, without doing good to them or ourselves: whereas, if we would be conversant with ourselves, and as ingenuous and impartial in that conversation as we pre- tend to be with other men, we should find that we have very much of that at home by us, which we take wonderful unnecessary pains to get abroad; and that we have much of that in our own disposal, which we en- deavour to 'Obtain from others; and possess ourselves of that happiness from ourselves, whether it concerns our ambition or any other of our most exorbitant passions or af- fections, which more provoke and less satisfy by resorting to other men, who are either not willing to gratify us, or not able to com- ply with oar desires; and the trouble and agony, which for the most part accompanies those disappointments, proceeds merely from our not beginning with ourselves before we repair to others. It is not the purpose and end of this discourse, to raise such seraphical notions of the vanity and pleasures of this world, as REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 25 if they were not worthy to be considered, or could have no relish with virtuous and pious men. They take very unprofitable pains, who endeavour to persuade men that they are obliged wholly to despise this world and all that is in it, even whilst ihey themselves live here: God hath not taken all that pains in forming and framing and furnishing and adorning this world, that they who were made by him to live in it should despise it; it will be enough if they do not love it so immoderately, to prefer it before Him who made it: nor shall we endeavour to extend the notions of the Stoic philosophers, and to stretch them farther by the help of Christian precepts, to the extinguishing all those affections and passions, which are and will always be inse- parable from human nature; and which it were to be wished that many Christians could govern and suppress and regulate, as well as many of those heathen philosophers used to <]o. As long as the world lasts, and honour and virtue and industry have reputation in the world, there will be ambition and emu- lation and appetite in the best and most ac- complished men who live in it; if there should not be, more barbarity aud vice and wickedness would cover every nation 26 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. of the world, than it yet suffers under. If wise and honest and virtuously-disposed men quit the field, and leave the world to the pillage, and the manners of it to the de- formation of persons dedicated to rapine, luxury, and injustice, how savage must it grow in half an age! nor will the best princes be able to govern and preserve their sub- jects, if the best men be without ambiticn and desire to be employed and trusted by them. The end therefore of this specula- tion into ourselves, and conversation with ourselves, is, that we may make our journey towards that which we do propose with the more success ; that we may be discreet in proposing reasonable designs, and then pursue them by reasonable ways; foresee all the difficulties which are probable to fall out, that so we may prevent or avoid them; since we may be sure to master and avoid them to a great degree by foreseeing them, and as sure to be confounded by them, if they fall upon us without foresight. In a word, it is not so to consult with ourselves, as to consult with nobody else; or to dispose us to prefer our own judgment before any other man's: but first, by an impartial con- ference with ourselves, we may understand first our own mind, what it is we would have, REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 27 and why we would have it, before we con- sult with others which way to compass it, that we may set both the matter we desire and the manner of obtaining it before our own eyes, and spend our passions upon ourselves in the disquisition. It is no wonder that when we are prodi- gal of nothing else, when we are over-thrifty of many things which we may well spare, we are very prodigal of our time, which is the only precious jewel of which we cannot be too thrifty, because we look upon it as nothing worth, and that makes us not care how we spend it. The labouring man and the artificer knows what every hour of his time is worth, what it will yield him, and parts not with it but for the full value: they are only noblemen and gentlemen, who should know best how to use it, that think it only fit to be cast away; and their not knowing how to set a true value upon this, is the true cause of the wrong estimate they make of all other things; and their ignorance of that proceeds only from their holding no correspondence with themselves, or think- ing at all before they begin their journey, before they violently set their affections upon this or that object, until they find they are out of the way, and meet with false 28 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. guides to carry them farther out. We should find much, ease in our pursuits, and probably much better success in our attempts and en- terprises in the world, if, before we are too solicitous and set our heart upon any design, we would well weigh and consider the true value of the thing we desire, whether it be indeed worth all that trouble we shall be put to, and all the time we are like to spend in the obtaining it, and upon it after we have obtained it: if this inquisition doth not divert us, as it need not to do, it will the better prepare and dispose us to be satisfied after we have it; whereas nothing is more usual than for men who succeed in their most im- patient pretences, to be more unsatisfied with their success than they were before; it is not worth what they thought or were persuaded it would be, so that their appetite is not at all allayed, nor their gratitude pro- voked, by the obligation; a little previous consideration would have better fitted the mind to contentedness upon the issue, or di- verted it from affecting what would not be acceptable when obtained. In the next pl-i-'p, we should do well prudently to con- sider, whether it be probable that we shall obtain what we desire, before we engage our affections and our passions too deeply in REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 2i> the prosecution of it; not that we may not lawfully affect and prosecute an interest in which it is very probable we may not succeed. Men who always succeed in what they go about, are often the worse for their success; however, we are not naturally delighted with repulses, and are commonly angry and sottishly offended with those who obtain that for themselves which we would fain have, and as unreasonably with those who favour them, though their merit be above our own; and therefore, besides the consideration of the probability that we may be disappointed of our end, we shall do well to consider likewise the opposition we are like to meet in the way, the power of those persons who are like to disfavour our pretences, and whether our exposing ourselves to their displeasure may not be a greater damage than the obtaining all that we desire will re- compense. These and the like reflections will cost us very little time, but infinitely advance and improve our understanding; and if we then conclude it fit to proceed, we shall do it with confidence, and be disturbed with no accident which encounters us, and be prepared to behave ourselves decently upon the repulse, which oftentimes prefers men better than they wished; a virtuous 30 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. mind appearing with more lustre in the re- jection than in the reception of good turns, and consequently reconciling him to those who knew him not enough before. These considerations will be most impar- tially and sincerely debated with ourselves, vet they may be properly enough and use- iully consulted with very true and faithful friends, if indeed we abound with such trea- sure. But there is another consideration so proper and peculiar for ourselves, and to be exactly weighed by ourselves, that the most faithful friend is rarely faithful enough to be trusted enough in the disquisition, and, which is worst of all, we do not wish or de- sire that he should be faithful; that is, whe- ther we are in truth fit and worthy of the thing we do affect ; if it be an honour, whether it be not too great for us; if it be an office, whether we are equal to it; that is, fit and capable to discharge and execute it, or can make ourselves so by the industry and diligence we are like to contribute towards it: this is the examination we come with least ingenuity to, and friends are inge- nuous in assisting us in; and yet is of that importance, that much of the happiness of our life consists in it, many having; been made unhappy and even very miserable by REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 31 preferment, who were in good reputation without it. Tully makes it a necessary ingredient in, or a necessary concomitant of friendship itself, "Tantum cuique tribuen- dum est, primum, quantum ipse efficere pos- sis, deinde etiam quantum quern diligas atque adjuves, possit sustinere;" it is a very impru- dent and unjust thing to oblige a friend to do that out of his friendship to thee, which either he cannot do, or not without great prejudice to himself; but it is an impudent violation of friendship, to importune him to procure a favour to be conferred upon thee which thou canst not sustain; to put the com- mand of a ship into thy hand, when thou knowest neither the compass nor the rudder. There are as great incongruities and incapa- cities towards the execution of many offices, which do not appear so gross to the first discovery. This scrutiny cannot be so rigidly and effectually made without well weighing, in the first place, the infinite pre- judice that befalls ourselves, if we are in- competent for that place or office which we have by much solicitation obtained, and the unspeakable and irreparable prejudice we have brought upon our friends who obtained it for us. How many men have we known, who, from a reservedness in their nature, 32 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. have been thought to observe much, and by saying little have been believed to know much; but when they have got themselves into an office, and so been compelled to speak and direct, have appeared weak and ignorant, and incapable of performing their duty; and so must either be removed, to their own shame and reproach, or be con- tinued, to the public detriment and -dishon- our? How much better had it been for such men to have remained unknown and secure under the shadow of their friends' good opinion, than to have been exposed to the light, and made known only by the discovery of their incredible ignorance 1 We have known many men who, in a place to which they have been unhappily promoted, have appeared scandalously insufficient; but being removed to another have discharged it with notable abilities: yet there was nothing new in himself; if he had asked advice of him- self, he w,ould have known nil that hath fallen oat since so much to his prejudice. He who hath credit with his prince, or with his friend, to prefer or recommend a man to his near and entire trust, hath a great trust him- self reposed in him, which he is obliged to di.- - ii ii 1 ^' '-vith the utmost circumspection and tidelity; and if he be swayed by the con- REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 33 ticleuce and importunity, or corrupted by his own affection, and recommends thee to an employment, which when thou art pos- sessed of thou canst not discharge, with what confusion must he look upon him whom lie hath deceived and betrayed, or can he ever look again to be depended upon or ad- vised with upon the like affair? Doing good offices and good turns (as men call it) looks like the natural effect of a noble and a gene- rous nature. Indeed the inclination to it is an argument of generosity; but a precipitate entering upon the work itself, and embrac- ing all opportunities to gratify the pretences of unwary men, is an evidence of a light and easy nature, disposed, at other men's charges, to get himself well spoken of. They who revolve these particulars, can- not but think them worthy a very serious examination; and must discern, that by en- tering into this strict consultation with them- selves in or before the beginning of any bu- siness, they shall prevent much trouble and labour which they shall not be able after- wards to avoid: nor can they prudently or so successfully consult with others, before they first deliberate with themselves the very method and manner of communicating with another, how much a friend soever, VOL. v. 20 34 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. what concerns one's self requiring as much consideration as the matter itself. But there is another benefit and advantage that results from this intercourse and acquaintance with ourselves, more considerable than any thing which hatli been said, which is, that from this communication he takes more care to cultivate and improve himself, that he may be equal and worthy of that trust which he reposes in himself, and fit to consult with and govern himself by; he gets as much in- formation from books and wise men, as may enable him to answer and determine those doubtful questions which may arise; he extin- guishes that choler and prejudice which would interrupt him in hearing, and corrupt him in judging what he hears. It is a notable injunc- tion that Seneca imposes, who knew as well as any man what man could bring himself to, " Dum te efficis euro, coram quo peccare won audeas;" the truth is, he hath too little reverence for himself, who dares do that in his own presence, which he would be asham- ed, or not dare to do before another man; and it is for want of acquaintance with our- selves, and revolving the dignity of our crea- tion, that we are without that reverence. Who, that doth consider how near he is of kin to God himself, and how excellently he REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 35 is qualified by him to judge aright of all the delusions and appearances of the world, if he will employ those faculties he hath adorn- ed him with; that nobody is able to deceive him, if he doth not concur and contribute to the deceiving himself: I say, who can consi- der and weigh this, and at the same time bury all those faculties of the discerning soul in sensual pleasures, laziness, and senseless in- activity, and as much as in his power, and God knows there is too much in his power, to level himself with the beasts that perish? It is a foolish excuse we make upon all occasions for ourselves and other men, in our laboured and exalted acts of folly and madness, that we can be no wiser than God hath made us, as if the defects in our will were defects in his providence; when in truth God hath given us all that we will make ourselves capable of, that we will re- ceive from him, He hath given us life, that is time, to make ourselves learned, to make ourselves wise, to make us discern and jgdge of all the mysteries of the world: if we will bestow this time, which would supply us with wisdom ;;nd knowledge, in wine and women, which corrupt the little understand- ing that nature hath given us; if we will barter it away for skill in horses, dogs, and 36 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. hawks; and if we will throw it away in play and gaming; it is from our own villany that we are fools, and have rejected the effects of his providence. It is no wiser an allega- tion, that our time is our own, and we may use it as we please: there is nothing so much our own that we may use it as we please; we cannot use our money, which is as much, if not more, ou'r own than any thing we have, to raise rebellion against our prince, or to hire men to do mischief to our neigh- bours; we cannot use our bodies, which, if any thing, are our own, in duels or any unlawful enterprize: and why should we then believe that we have so absolute and sovereign a disposal of our time, that we may choose whether we will dispose it to any thing or no? It were to be wished that all men did believe, which they have all great reason to do, that the consumption and spending of our time will be the great inqui- sition of the last and terrible day; when there shall be a more strict enquiry how the most dissolute person, the most debauch- ed bankrupt, spent his time, than how he spent his estate; no doubt it will then mani- festly appear, that our precious time was not lent us to do nothing with, or to be spent upon that which is worse than nothing; and REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 37 we shall not be more confounded with any thing, than to find that there is a perfect re- gister kept of all that we did in that time; and that when we have scarce remembered the morrotv what we did yesterday, there is a diary in which nothing we did is left out, and as much notice taken when we did nothing at all. This will be a sad animad- version when it is too late, and when pro- bably it may appear that the very idle man, he who hath ne*er employed himself, may be ia a very little better condition than he who hath been worst employed; when idle- ness shall be declared to be a species of wickedness, and doing nothing to be the ac- tivity of a beast. There cannot therefore be too serious or too early a reflection upon the good husbandry of this precious talent, which we are entrusted with, not to be laid out in vain pleasures whereof we are asham- ed as soon as we have enjoyed them, but in such profitable exchanges that there may be some record of our industry, if there 'be none of our getting. The truth is, if incogitance and inadver- tence, not thinking at all, not considering any thing (which is degrading ourselves as much as is in our power from being men, by renouncing the faculties of a reasonable 38 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. soul) were not our mortal disease, it might be believed that the consumption of our time proceeds only from the contempt we have of wisdom and virtue; for in order to any thing else we employ it well enough. How can we pretend that we desire to be wise, when we do no one thing that is in order to it; or that we love virtue, when we do not cultivate any one affection that would advance it, nor subdue any one pas- eion that destroys it? We see the skill and perfection in the meanest and lowest trade is obtained by industry and instruction and ob- servation, and that with all that application very much time is necessary to it; and can we believe that wisdom, which is the great- est perfection and highest operation of the soul, can be got without industry and labour? Can we hope to find gold upon the surface of the earth, when we dig almost to the centre of it to find lead and tin and the coar- ser metals? It is very wonderful, if it be not very ridiculous, to see a man take great pains to learn to dance, and not to be at lei- sure to learn to read; that man should set a very high esteem upon the decent motion and handsome figure of the body, and under- value the mind so much as not to think it worth any pains or consideration to improve REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 39 the faculties thereof, or to contribute to its endowments; and yet all men's experience supplies them with evidence enough, that the excellent symmetry of the body, a very handsome outside of a man, doth too fre- quently expose men to derision and noto- rious contempt, when so gross defects of the mind are discovered, as make the other beauty less agreeable by being more remark- able: whereas, on the contrary, the beauty of the mind doth very frequently reconcile the eyes and ears of all men to the most unpromising countenances, and to persons nothing beholden to nature for any comeli- ness; yet the wisdom and gravity of their words in persuading and convincing, and the sincerity and virtue of their actions, extort an esteem and reverence from all kind of men, that no comely and graceful outside of a man could ever attain to. It is not to be wished, that men took less care of their bodies than they do; they cannot be too soli- citous to preserve their health, and to con- firm it, f>v preventing those diseases which the excess and corruption of humours are naturally the causes of, with timely phvsic and seasonable application of remedies, and, above all, by strictand wholesome diet; health is so inestimable a blessing and benefit, that 40 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. \ we cannot take too much pains, nor stuch too much, to obtain and preserve at: but the grief is, that the whole care is laid out for the body, and none at all for the mind; that we are so jealous of every alteration in our constitution, of every light indisposition 01 our body, that we too commonly apply cures when there are no diseases, and cause the sickness we would prevent: when, at the same time, there are twenty visible diseases and distempers of our mind, which we never look after nor take care of, though they would be more easily cured than the other, and being cured, would yield that infinite pleasure and satisfaction to the body, that sickness itself could not deprive it of. Dost thou find laziness and excess of sleep affect thy body? And dost thou find exercise and moderate labour revive thy spirits, and in- crease thy appetite ? Examine thy mind, whether it hath not too much emptiness, whether it can cogitandi ferre laborem, whe- ther it can bear the fatigue of thinking, and produce any conclusion from thence; and then administer a fit diet of books to it, and let it take air and exercise in honest and cheerful conversation, with men that can descend and bow their natures and their understandings to the capacity and to the REFLECTIONS ON HAPPINESS. 41 indisposition and weakness of other men. A sour and morose companion is as unnatu- ral a prescription to such a patient, as the exercise of tennis is to a man who hath broken a vein, when any violent motion may be mortal. If thy mind be loose, and most delighted with vain and unclean dis- courses and unchaste desires, prescribe it a diet of contemplation upon the purity of the nature of -God, and the injunction he hath jiven us to live by, and the frequent con- niest men have made thereby upon their cwn most corrupt and depraved affections; aid let it have its exercise and recreation \vith men of that severity, that restrain all ill discourse by the gravity of their presence, an! yet of that candour as may make them agreeable to those who must by degrees be brtught to love them, and to find another kinl of pleasure, yet pleasure that hath a greiter relish in their company, than in those thej have been most accustomed to. Men, ^iveover the diseases of the mind as incura- ble; call them infirmities of nature, which cannat be subdued, hardly corrected; or substantial parts of nature, that cannot be cut oT, or divided from our humanity; that anger is the result of a generous nature, that will not, ought not to submit to injuries 42 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. and affronts; tfeat lust is so inseparable from our nature, that nothing but want of health can allay it; that there is DO other way to cure the disease but to kill the patient; that it proceeds not from any virtuous ha- bit of the mind, where these natural affec- tions and appetites do not prevail, but from some depraved constitution of the body, which stifles and suppresses those desires^ for want of that moisture and .heat that should nourish them; and that conscience hath no more to do in the conquest, thai courage hath an operation in him who takes an enemy prisoner who lies prostrate at hs feet: whereas all those, and other diseases of the mind, for diseases they are, are mu ether men's, his ways are of another fashion; 96 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience," (Wisdom Sol. ii. 15, 19,) hath been the doctrine and practice of the world from Solomon's time to the age in which we live; and whilst this conspira- cy continues, the best men will have need of good friends and powerful vindicators, which must be procured by private corre- spondences as well as public justice, and bj private obligations as an evident inclination and propensity to oblige ; for whatever secret veneration virtue hath for itself even from the worst men, it seldom finds protec- tion from the best. We cannot be too jealous, we cannot sus- pect ourselves too much to labour under this disease, which cleaves the closer to us by our belief or confidence that we are quite without it. We may very properly say of pride as the philosopher said of flattery, "Apertis et propitiis auribus recipitur, et in praecordia ima descendit; eo ipso gratiosa quod laedit;" it tickles when it hurts us, and administers some kind of pleasure and de- light when it is even ready to destroy us. Few men are displeased to hear themselves well spoken of, though it be to themselves; and many proud men feel a kind of satisfao * OF ANGER. 91 tion in being treated with respect upon their death-bed, of which there have been many instances. Nor can those deliberate direc- tions for the form and method of the funeral, the provision for mourners, and the struc- ture of a tomb, flow from any thing in those se;ison heathen philosophers; but they may be ashamed if from those re- flections their piety be not indeed both in- structed and exalted: and if their mere rea- son could raise and incite them to so great a reverence for virtue, and so solicitous a pursuit of it, we may well blush if our very reason, so much informed by them, be not at least equal to theirs; and being endowed and strengthened with clear notions of religion, it doth not carry us higher than they were able to mount, and to a perfection they were not able to ascend to. We miy learn from them to undervalue life so much, as not af- fect it above the innocence of living or lir- ing innocently; we may so far learn from them to contemn death, as not to avoid it with the guilt or infamy of living. But then the consideration of heaven and hell, the re- ward and punishment which will inevitably attend our living and dying well or ill, will both raise and fix onr thoughts of life and death in another light than they were accus- tomed to; neither of those Lands of Promise having been contained in their map or in any degree been exposed to their prospect; and nothing but the view of those landmarks can infuse into us a just esteem of life, and a just apprehension of. death. Christianity 122 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. then doth neither oblige UP not to love life, or not to fear death, but to love life so little, that we may fear death the less. Nothing can so well prepare us for it, as a continual thinking upon it; and our very reason me- thinks should keep us thinking of that which we know must come, and cannot know when; and therefore the being much surprised with the approach of it is as well a discredit to our reason as to our religion; and beyond an humble and contented expectation of it religion requires not from us: it being im- possible for any man who is bound to'pay money upon demand, not to think of having the money ready against it is demanded; nor doth any man resolve to make a jour- ney, without providing a viaticum for that journey; and this preparation will serve our turn; that " libido moriendi" is no injunc- tion of Christianity; and we know in the primitive times, that as great pains were taken to remove those fears and apprehen- sions out of the hearts of Christians, which terrified them out of their religion, by pre- senting to them the great reward and joy and pleasure which they were sure to be possessed of who died for their religion; so there was no less to restrain them from being transported with such a zeal, as made OP CONTEMPT OF DEATH. 1Z.5 them, out of the affectation of martyrdom, to call for it, by finding out and reproaching the judges, and declaring their faith unask- ed, that they might be put to -death; to be contented to die when they could not hon- estly avoid it, was the true martyrdom. We need not seek death out, it will come in its due time: and if we then conform de- cently to its summons, we have done what is expected from us. There are so many commendable and ffcorthy ends for which we may desire to live, that we may very lawfully desire that our death may be de- ferred. St. Paul himself, who had been so near heaven that he was not sure that he had not been there, was put to a stand, and corrected his impatience to be there again, with the consideration of the good he might do by living and continuing in this world; "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a de- sire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you," Phil. i. 23, 24 He knew well his own place there which was reserved for him, but he knew as well that the longer his journey thither was deferred, he should have the more company there; and this made his choice of life, even upon the comparison, very war 124 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. rantable. Men may very piously desire to live, to comply with the very obligation of nature in cherishing their wives and bring- ing up their children, and to enjoy the blessings of both: and that he may contri- bute to the peace and happiness and pros- perity of his country, he may heartily pray not to die. Length of days is a particular blessing God vouchsafes to those he favours most, as giving them thereby both a task and opportunity to do th* more good. They who are most weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die are such who have lived to no purpose; who have rather breathed than lived. They who pre- tend to the apostle's ecstasy, and to desire a dissolution from a religious nauseating the folly and wickedness of this world, and out of a devout contemplation of the joys of heaven, administer too much cause of doubt- ing, that they seem to triumph over nature more than they have cause, and that they had rather live till the next year than die in this. He who believes the world not worthy of him, may in truth be thought not worthy of the world If men are not wil- ling to be deprived of their fortunes and preferments and liberty, which are but the ordinary perquisites of life, they may very justifiably oe unwilling to be deprived of OP CONTEMPT OF DEATH. 125 life itself, upon which those conveniences depend; and death is accompanied with many things, which we are not obliged soli- citously to covet. We are well prepared for it, when by continual thinking upon it we are. so prepared, as not to be in any de- gree terrified with the approach of it, and at the resigning our life into his hands who gave it ; and a temper beyond this is rather to be imagined than attained, by any of those rules of understanding which accompany a man that is in good health of body and mind; and the sickness and infirmity of either is more like to amaze and corrupt the judg- ment, than to elevate and inspire it with any rational, transcendent, and practical speculation*. The best counsel is to pre- pare the mind by still thinking of it, " Illis gravis est, quibus est repentina, facile earn sustinet qui semper exspectat." No doubt it must exceedingly disorder all their facul- ties, who cannot endure the mention of it, and do sottishly believe (for many such sots there are) that they shall die the sooner, if they do any of those things which dying people used to do, and which nobody ought to defer till that season: and there cannot be a better expedient to enable men to pass that time with courage and moderate cheer- 126 roRD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. fulness, than so to have dispatched and set- tled all the business of the world when a man is in health, that he may be vacant, when sickness comes, from all other thoughts but such as are lit to be the companions of death, and from all other business but dying; which, as it puts an end in a moment to all that is mortal, so it requires the operation of more than is mortal, to make that last moment agreeable and happy. XI. OF FRIENDSHIP. Montpellier, 1870. FRIENDSHIP must have some extraordinary excellence in it, when the great philosopher as well as best orator commends it to :is to prefer before all things in the world; "Utami- citiam omnibus rebus humanis anteponatis:" and it must be very precious, when it was the circumstance that made David's highest affliction most intolerable, that his lover and his friend was put from him; and there could be no aggravation of the misery he endured, when his own familiar friend, in whom he trusted, was turned against him. This he- roiciil virtue is pretend* d to by all, but understood or practised by very few, which OF FRIENDSHIP. 127 needs no other manifestation, than that the choleric person thinks it an obligation upon his friend to assist him in a murder; the un- thrifty and licentious person expects that friendship should oblige him who pretends to love him, to waste all his estate in riots and excesses, by becoming bound for him, and so liable to pay those debts which his pride and vanity contract. In a word, there is nothing that the most unreasonable faction, or the most unlawful combination and con- spiracy, can be applied to compass, which is not thought by those who should govern the world to be the proper and necessary office of friendship; and that the laws of friendship are extremely violated and broken, if it doth not engage in the performance of all those offices, how unjust and unworthy soever. And thus the sacred name of friendship, and all the generous duties which result from it, are dishonoured and discredited, as if they could be applied to the propagation of vice, or to the support of actions inconsistent with discretion and honesty. The son of Sirach had no such imagination, when he pronoun- ces, that "a faithful friend is the medicine of life, and they that fear the Lord shall find him:" if he be a gift that God bestows upon them who fear him, they will not lose both 128 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAVS. the gift and the giver upon vile and un- worthy employments. Let us therefore, lest this precious blessed composition be driven out of the world, by the falsehood and violence of those who pretend to adore it, or withdraw itself from mankind, because there are so few breasts prepared to receive and entertain it, in the first place, examine what in truth friendship is; what are the obligations of it; and what persons, by the excellence or corruption of their natures, are capable -or incapable of being possessed of it, and receiving the effects of it. It may be, it is easier to describe, as most men have done who have writ of it, than to de- fine friendship; yet I know not why it may not rightly be defined to be, an union be- tween just and good men, in their joint in- terest and concernment, and for the advance- ment thereof: for it hath always been con- sented to, that there can be no friendship but between good men, because friendship can never be severed from justice; and con- sequently can never be applied to corrupt ends. It is the first law of friendship, if we believe Tully, who saw as far into it as an}' man since, "ut neque rogemus res turpes, nee faciamus rogati:" which puts an end to all their endeavours, who would draw any OF FRIENDSHIP. 129 corrupted liquor from so pure a fountain. Friendship neither requires nor consents to any thing that is not pure and sincere; they who introduce the least spot or crooked line into the draught and portraiture of friendship, destroy all its beauty, and render it so de- formed, that it cannot be known. Let us then examine, from the integrity of this definition and institution, what the obligations of it are, and what friends are bound under that seal to do or suffer for one another. I. The first and principal obligation is, to assist each other with their counsel and ad- vice; and because the greatest cement that holds and keeps them together, is the opi- nion they have of each other ? s virtue, they are to watch as carefully as is possible that neither of them swerve from the strict rules thereof; and if the least propensity towards it be discovered, to apply admonition and counsel and reprehension to prevent a lapse. He who sees his friend do amiss, commit a tres- pass upon his honour or upon his conscience, do that which he were better not do, or do that which he ought not to do, and doth not tell him of it, do all he can to reform him, hath broken the laws of friendship; since there is no one obligation to be named with it; so that it may be said to be so much the sole VOL. v. 26 130 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. use of friendship, that where that fails, the performance of all other offices is to no pur- pose; and it may be observed, that few men have ever fallen into any signal misfortune, at least not been lost in it, who have ever been possessed of a true friend, except it be in a time when virtue is a crime. Counsel and reprehension was a duty of the text in the Levitical law; " Thou shalt in any wise re- buke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upoa him," (Lev. xix. 17.) and Mr. Selden tell us of a Rabbi, that thought it one of the prin- cipal causes of the destruction of Jerusalem, because they had left off reproving one anoth- er, "Non excisa fuisset lerosolima, nisi quo- niam alter alterum non coarguebat;" and there is no doubt, the not exercising this es- sential part of friendship with that sincerity and plainness it ought to be, hath been, and is, the occasion of infinite mischief, and hath upon the matter annihilated friendship, and brought it under the reproach of being a pan- der, and prostituted to all the vile offices of compliance with the infirmities and vices of the person it regards, j It is thought to be a necessary office of friendship, to conceal the faults of a friend, and make them be thought much less than they are; and it is so: every man ought to be very tender of the reputa- OF FRIENDSHIP. 131 tion of one he loves, and to labour that he may be well thought of; that is his duty with reference to others: but he is neither to lessen or conceal it to himself, who can best provide for his reputation, by giving no cause for aspersion; and he, who in such cases gives not good counsel to his friend, be- trays him. i 2. The second office of friendship is, to assist the interest and pretence of his friend with the utmost power he hath, and with more solicitude than if it were his own, as in truth it is; but then Tully's rule is excel- lent, "Tantum cuique tribuendum est,primum quantum ipse efficere possis, deinde quantum quern diligas atque adjuves possit sustinere;" men are not willing to have any limits put to their desires, but think their friends bound to help them to any thing they think them- selves fit for. But friendship justly consi- ders what in truth .they are, not what they think themselves fit for; quantum possunt sustinere : friendship may be 'deceived, and overvalue the strength and capacity of his friend, think that he can sustain more than indeed his parts are equal to; but friendship is not so blind, as not to discern a total un- fitness, an absolute incapacity, and can ne- ver be engaged to promote such a subject. It can never prefer a man to be a judge, 132 LORD CLAREJfDON's ESSAYS. who knows nothing of the law; nor to be a general, who was never a soldier. Promo- tions, in which the public are concerned, must not be assigned by the excess of pri- vate affections; which, though possibly they may choose the less fit, must never be so seduced as not to be sure there is a com- petent fitness in the person they make choice of: otherwise friendship, that is compound- ed of justice, would be unjust to the public, out of private kindness towards particular persons; which is the highest injustice ima- ginable, of which friendship is not capable. 3. The third duty of friendship is entire confidence and communication, without which faithful counsel, the just tribute of frieadship can never be given; and there- fore reservation in friendship is like con- cealment in confession, which makes the ab- solution void, as the other doth the counsel of no effect. Seneca's advice is excellent, "Diu cogita, an tibi in amicitiam aliquis reci- piendus sit:" It is want of this deliberation, this long thinking tvhether such a man be capable of friendship, and whether thou thy- self art fit for it, that brings so much scandal upon it, makes friendships of a day, or ra- ther miscalls every short acquaintance, any light conversation, by the title of friendship; OF FRIENDSHIP. 133 of which rery many of those are incapable, woo are fit enough for acquaintance and com- mendable enough in conversation. When thou hast considered this well, which thou canst do without considering it long; cum placucritfitri, if thou resolvest that he is fit for thy friendship, tolo ilium pectorc ailmiltc, receive him into thy bosom; let him be pos- sessed of all thy purposes, all thy thoughts; to conceal any thing from him now is an af- front, and a disavowing him for thy friend. It is the reason the Roman church gives, why they define the reservation and concealment of any sin, or circumstance of it, in confes- sion of it, to be sacrilege, because it defrauds God of somewhat that was due to him from the penitent; and by the same reason, the not entirely communicating all thou knowest and all thou thinkest, is a lay sacri- lege, a retaining somewhat that is his due by the dedication of friendship: and without this sincere communication, the principal use of friendship is abated and withheld, and the true virtue thereof undiscovered, and the comfort that attends it. The fourth obligation in friendship is con- stancy, and continuing firm to the laws and obligations of it. Friendship is so much more a sacrament than marriage is, that in 134 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. many cases a friend is more to be trusted and relied upon than the wife of his bosom; and so is not to be cast off or dismissed, but upon the most discovered and notorious transgressions; and even then there will re- main some marks, yea and obligations, which can never be razed out or cancelled. Sci- pio had never patience so much as to hear that proposition of Bias the philosopher pro- nounced, " Ita amare oportere, nt aliquando esset osurus," that a man was to love his friend in such a manner, that he might hate him likewise if there were an occasion; which indeed was a barbarous advice of a rude Sto- ic, whose profession was not to appear like other men. It is possible that a friend may fall so far from the laws of virtue and justice, and commit such crimes and offences, that, like violating the integrity of the marriage- bed, may cause a separation even to the dis- solution'of friendship; but it is not possible for a friend to think he will do so till he hath done it notoriously: and even after that time, though the communication which constituted the friendship T>e interrupted, there remains still some inclination; and he thinks it just to pay such a penalty for the error and un- skilfulness of his election, that he hath still kindness and pity, and is never heard to load OF FRIENDSHIP. 135 his divorced friend with reproaches and se- vere censures; it is grief enough not to speak of it at all, but he can never be provoked to speak bitterly of him; the grateful memory of the past intercourse, and of some virtue that was in the object, will preserve him from that indecency. There cannot be a greater manifestation how falsely or weakly the common friendships of the age are found- ed and entered into, than by every day's ob- servation of men, who profess friendship this day to those against whom they declare to- morrow the most mortal and implacable ha- tred and malice; and blush not the next day to depress the same man with all the imagi- nable marks of infamy, whom the day before they extolled with all the commendations and praises which humanity is capable of: whereas, in truth, natural modesty should restrain men, who have been given to speak too well of some men, from speaking at all ill of the same persons, that their former ex- cess may be thought to proceed from their abundant charity, not from the defect of their judgment. Solomon thought friend- ship so sacred a tie, that nothing but the discovery of secrets, which is adultery in marriage, could separate from it; and sure- ly a greater violation of friendship cannot 136 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. be than such a discovery, and scarce any oth- er guilt towards the person of a friend can be equal to it. But friendship may be bro- ken and dissolved by faults committed against other persons, though of no immediate rela- tion to the friend himself. When men cease to be of the same virtue they were, or pro- fessed and seemed to be of, when that con- junction was entered into: if they cease to be just and pious, and fall into the practke of some notorious and scandalous vice; friendship is of so delicate a temper, that she thinks her own beauty impaired by those spots, and herself abandoned by that foul practice. If the avowing a friendship for a corrupt and wicked person be so scandalous, that the best men cannot bear the reproach of it, such a departure from probity and a good name will excuse and justify the others withdrawing from that virtuous relation, so much already abandoned by the impiety of the transgressor; yet there will remain such a compassion towards the person, which is very consistent with the detestation of the vice, that he shall receive all the offices of charity, kindness, and generosity, which cannot but still spring from some root or branch of the withered and decayed former friendship, that can never be totally extin- OF FRIENDSHIP. / ' 137 guished, though the lustre be faded and the rigour lost. Since, then, the temper and corn-position of friendship itself is so delicate and spiritual, that it admits no mere carnal ingredients, and the obligations of it are so inseparable and indispensable, we cannot but discern how many classes of men are utterly unca- pable of being admitted into that relation; or rather, how very few are worthy to be received into the retinue of friendship, which all the world lays a claim to. The proud man can very hardly act any part in friendship, since he reckons none to be his friends but those who admire him; and thinks very few wise enough to administer advice and counsel to him, nor will admit any man to have the authority of reprehen- sion, without which friendship cannot sub- sist. The choleric, angry, impatient man can be very little delighted with it, since he abhors nothing so much as contradiction; and friendship exercises no liberty more than that of contradicting, finding fault with any thing that is amiss, and is as obstinate in controuling as the most stubborn nature can be in transgressing. The licentious and lustful person is so transported with those passions which he calls love, that he abhors 138 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. nothing so much as the name of friendship; which he knows would he always throwing water upon that fire which be wishes should still inflame him, and endeavouring to ex- tinguish all those appetites, the satisfying whereof gives him all the pleasure he enjoys in life. And, lastly, to the covetous, unjust, and ambitious person, nothing can be so un- easy, so grievous, and so odious, as friend- ship; which affronts all their desires and pursuits with rude discourses of the wealth of contentedness, of the fame of integrity, and of the state and glory of humility, and would persuade them to make themselves happy, by renouncing all those things which they care for. There being then such an incongruity and unaptness in these several classes of men, which comprehend so large a part of mankind, to receive and give enter- tainment to this transcendent virtue, which is the ornament of life, that friendship seems to be reserved only for those, who, by being already persons of that rare perfec- tion and rectitude, can receive least benefit by it, and so is an impertinent cordial pre- pared only for their use who enjoy excel- lent health, and is not to be applied to the weak, sick, or indisposed, for their recove- ry or preservation; there is no doubt there OP FRIENDSHIP. 139 must be at least a disposition to virtue in all who would entertain, or be entertained in friendship: the several vices mentioned be- fore, exalted into habits, have more poison in them, than the antidote of friendship can expel or delights to contend with; there must be some declension of their vigour, before they will permit the patient the lei- sure to walk in the gentle and temperate air of any sober and serious conversation. But as there is no such perfection in nature, nor any such accomplishment of manners, no such quality and degree of life to which friendship is not exceedingly useful, and which doth not receive infinite benefit and advantage by it and from it; (and therefore if kings and princes are incapable of it, by the sublime inequality of their persons with men of a lower rank, for friendship does suppose some kind of equality, it is such an allay to their transcendent happiness, that they shall do well, by art and condescension, to make themselves fit for that which nature hath not made them;) so it may by degrees and faint approaches be entertained by, and have operation upon, even those depraved affections and tempers, which seem most averse from, and incapable of the effects and offices of it. t40 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. Friendship is compounded of all those soft ingredients which can insinuate them- selves and slide insensibly into the nature and temper of men of the most diiferent con- stitutions, as well as of those strong and ac- tive spirits which can make their way into perverse and obstinate dispositions; and be- cause discretion is always predominant in it, it works and prevails least upon fools. Wick- ed men are often reformed by it, weak men seldom. It doth not fly in the face of the proud man, nor endeavour to jostle him out of his way with unseasonable reprehensions; but watches fit occasions to present his own vices and infirmities in the persons of other men, and makes them appear ridiculous, that he may fall out with them in himself. It provokes not the angry man by peremp- tory contradictions; he understands the na- ture of the passion, as well as of the person, too well, to endeavour to suppress or divert it with discourses when it is in fury, but even complies and provokes it that he may extinguish it: "Simulabit iram, ut tanquam adjutor et doloris comes, plus auctoritatis in consiliis habeat;" a friend will pretend to have a greater sense of the indignity, that he may be of counsel in the revenge, and so will defer it till it be too late to execute it. , OB' FRIENDSHIP. 141 and till the passion is burned out with its own fire. Friendship will not assault the lustful person with the commendation of chastity; and will rather discourse of the diseases and contempt that will accompany him, than of the damnation that will attend him; it applies caution and lenitives to vice that is in rage and flagrant, the fever of which must be in remission before the sove- reign remedies of conscience are to be admin- istered. There is a weakness that contri- butes to health; and counsel must be as warily increased as diet, whilst there are dregs enough left of the disease to spoil the operation and digestion. Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physi- cian, the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother. Lastly, it will not endeavour to reform those who are covetous, unjust, or ambitious, by persuading them that po- verty is to be preferred before plenty; that it is better to be oppressed than to oppress; and that contempt is more to be affected than honour. Friendship is neither oblig- ed, nor obliges itself, to such problems; but leaves it to those who satisfy themselves in speaking what they think true, without car- ing whether it does good, or whether any 142 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. body believes them or no. Friendship may lose its labour, but it is very solicitous that it may not; and therefore applies such coun- sels as it may reasonably presume will not be cast up, though it may not carry away all the humour it is applied to. It will tell the covetous man, that he may grow very rich, and yet spend part of his wealth as he gathers it, generously upon himself, and charitably upon others; it will put him in mind of Solo- mon's observation, that "There is that scat- tereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it ten- deth to poverty," Prov. xi. 24. And how far the apprehension of that which he most endeavours to avoid, may work upon him, depends much upon the force and power of friendship; and it hath wrought a great cure, if it hath prevailed with him to make his money his servant, and to tlo the business of a servant, instead of being a slave to his money. It is not to be expected, that all the precepts and all the example of the strongest friendship shall have force enough to drive away all the malignity which pos- sesses these several distempered persons; it will be very much, and a sufficient evi- dence of the divine influence of friendship, if it prevails with the proud man to be less OF FRIENDSHIP. 143 proud, and to endure to be in that com- pany that doth not flatter him; if it makes the angry man so much ashamed, as to blush for his impertinent rage, and though he can- not suppress it, yet to excuse it; if he brings the lustful person to abhor unclean discour- ses, to live caute if not caste, and to endea- vour to conceal his sin, though it cannot guppress it; and if it can persuade the cove- tous man to be les? sordid towards himself, though not less avaricious towards others, it hath done great offices, and sown seed that may grow up to the destruction of many of the weeds which are left. And it hath been often seen, that many of these vices have been wonderfully blasted, and even withered away, by the discreet castigation of a friend; and rarely known that they have continued long in their full rage and vigour, when they have been set upon or undermined by skil- ful friendship. But 1 cannot here avoid being told, -that here is an excellent cordial provided for people in the plague, to whom nobody hath the charity to administer it; that since friend- ship can only be between good men, the several ill qualities which possess those per- sons have made them incapable of it, and so cannot receive those offices from it; if the 144 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAJS. proud and the angry, the lustful, revenge- ful, and ambitious person, be not capable of friendship, they can never receive bene- fit by it. It is very true, there cannot be a perfect entire friendship with men of those depraved affections, who cannot perform the functions of it; there cannot be that. con- fidence, communication, and mutual concern- ment between such persons, and those that are endowed with that virtue and justice which is the foundation of friends-hip: but men may receive the benefit and offices of friendship who are neither worthy nor ca- pable of entering into the society and obli- gation of it, or to return those offices they receive. It hath so much justice in it, that it is solicitous to relieve any body that is oppressed, though it hath proceeded from his own default; and it hath so much charity in it, that it is ready to give to whoever wants, though it could choose a better ob- ject. It is possible that a fast friendship with a worthy father may in such a degree descend to an unworthy son, that it may ex- tend itself in all the offices towards him which friendship uses to produce; though he can make no proportionable return, nor, it may be, cares not for that exercise of it. It is not impossible but that we may have OF FRIENDSHIP. 14 contracted friendship with men who theri concealed their secret vices, which would, if discovered, have obstructed the con- tract; or they may afterwards fall into those vices, which cannot but dissolve it, inter- rupt that communication and confidence which is the soul of it: yet in neither of those cases, we must not retire to such a distance, as not to have the former obli- gation in our view; we must so far sepa- rate as to appear at the farthest distance from their corruptions, but we must re- tain still a tender compassion for their persons, and still administer to them all the comfort and all the counsel that may restore them again to an entire capacity of our friendship; and if that cannot be, to prosecute them still with some effects of it, inflict upon ourselves, for our own oversight and want of prudence, more pa- tience and more application than we are bound to use towards strangers; in a word, friendship is so diffusive, that it will insi- nuate its effects to the benefit of any who are in any degree capable of receiving bene- fit from it. VOL. v. 27 t LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. XH. OF COUNSEL AND CONVERSATION. Mont pel Her, 1670. COUNSEL and conversation is a second edu- cation, that improves all the virtue and cor- rects all the vice of the former, and of na- ture itself; and whosoever hath the blessing to attain this benefit, and. understands the advantage of it, will be superior to all the difficulties of this life, and cannot miss his way to the next. Which is the more easy to be believed, by the contrary prospect, by the evidence of the infinite mischief which the corrupt and evil conversation and the com- pany of wicked men produces in the world, to the making impressions upon those who are not naturally ill inclined, but by decrees wrought upon, first to laugh at chastity, re- ligion, and virtue, and all virtuous men, and then to hate and contemn them; so that it is a miracle of some magnitude for any one to have much conversation with such people, to be often in that company, and afterwards heartily to forsake them; and he ought to look upon himself as a brand pulled and snatched out of the fire by the omnipotent arm of God himself. I know not how it comes to pass, but notorious it is, that men OF COUNSEL AND CONVERSATION". 14 of depraved principles and practice are much more active and solicitous to make proselytes, and to corrupt others, than pious and wise men are to reduce and convert; as if the devil's talent were more operative and productive, than that which God entrusts in ilie hands of his children, which seems to be wrapped up in a napkin without being employed: "Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually, he sovveth discord," says Solomon of his wicked man, (Prov. x. 14.) "Pravo corde architectatur malum," as one translation renders ft; he doth not do mischief by chance, or negli- gently, but deliberates how he may do it with more success; he builds it commodious- ly and speciously to the eye, that it may in- vite men to inhabit it; there is no industry nor art wanting to make it prosper, and to yield a good harvest: whereas good men are content to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of their own consciences; are very strict in all they say or do; and are severe examiners of their own actions, that they may be correspondent to their professions, and take themselves to be without any obligation to be inquisitive into the actions of ofher men. Which, though it be a good temper to restrain 148 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. that unlawful curiosity and censoriousness, which would dispose us to be remiss to- wards ourselves, and severe censure rs of the actions of other men, is far from the communicative duty which we owe to our brethren in an open and friendly conversation. "When thou art convert- ed, strengthen thy brethren," was an in- junction of our Saviour himself to St. Peter (Luke xxii 28.) God bestows conversion and any other perfections upon us, that we may convert and mend other men: charity is diffusive, and cares not what it spends, so it enriches others. There are two very erroneous opinions, which hinder and ob- struct those offices which should flow from the perfections of all men towards others: the first, that it is the office of the minis- ters and preachers to teach all men their duty to God, and to instruct them in the ways of a virtuous and innocent conversa- tion; the second, that men are generally little the better for advice, and care not to receive it, except from persons who have ome authority over them. For the first, the preachers need all the help other men can give them, towards the reforming of men's manners, without which they will be able to contribute but very little to their OF COUNSEL AMD CONVERSATION. 149 faith; and the chief reason that their faith is not better, is, because their manners are so bad, which the preachers can very hardly be informed of, nor easily take notice of when they are informed: the second pro- ceeds from too ill an opinion of mankind, which is much more tractable than it is thought to be, and hath an inward reve- rence for that virtue it doth not practise; and there is too much reason to believe, that vice flourishes more by the negligence of those who are enemies to it, than the cherishing it receives by those who prac- tise it; and if the others laboured so much as they ought to do to prevent the growth of it, to nip it in the bud before it be grown impudent, and plucking it up by the roots when it is grown so, by severe and sharp reprehension, the vigour of it would quickly decay; and nothing is so frequent as cures of this kind by honest conversa- tion, which insinuates itself into the minds of men insensibly, and by degrees gets autho- rity, and even a jurisdiction, over the hearts of the worst men: the hearing the ordinary discourses of sober and discreet men, the very being where they are, and looking upon them, works great effects; aliqnid, quod ex magno viro, vel tacen- 150 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS, te, proficias;" the very aspect of a vene- rable person, though he says nothing, leaves an impression upon the mind of any man who is not ulterh' abandoned to vice; and men of loose principles find another kind of spirit of mirth, and it may be another kind of sharpness of wit, in inno- cent and virtuous conversation, that may have some condescension to make itself delighted in, and thereupon care less for the company they have kept, and more for that they are fallen into. And it is a wonderful degree of recovery; when men have these recollections, they will quickly attain to the rest; he that hath redeemed himself out of ill company, or from taking delight in it, is far advanced towards a per- fect reformation. It was a very important circumspection that Epicurus prescribed to his disciple, to be more careful "cum quibus edas aut bibis, quam quid edas aut bibis;" no diet can be so mischievous as the company in which it is taken. And if the first cor- ruption be not sucked in from the domes- tic manners, a little providence might se- cure men in their first entrance into the world; at least, if parents took as much care to provide for their children's con- versation, as they do for their clothes, and OF COUNSEL AND CONVERSATION. 151 to procure a good friend for them as a good tailor. It is not looked upon as the business of conversation to mend each other, the fair- ness of it rather consists in not offending; the propagating part is not enough under- stood; if it were, men would take more joy, and feel a greater inward content, in making men good and pious and wise, than in any other kind of generation: which are but the vulgar acts of nature; but the mending and exalting the soul is so near a new act of creation, that it illustrates it; and this , illustration God expects from those whom he hath qualified for it, by giving them parts above other men, vir- tuous and good dispositions, and if he adds eminency of place too, which draws the eyes of men more upon them, and inclines them to submit to their advice and direc- tions. And it is no discharge of their duty to be innocent and entire themselves, if they do not make others so by their con- versation as well as their example: they are very good magistrates (and a common- wealth prospers much the better for hav- ing such) who are very strict and severe against offenders, and retain men within their duties, by punishing those who trans- 152 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. gress; but they are much better magis- trates, who, by their communication and instruction, and any other condescension, can lessen the number of delinquents; which, without doubt, is in every good man's power to do, according to their se- veral degrees, if they made it their business (and better business they cannot have,) to inform their friends and their neighbours before they commit faults, and -reclaim them after they have committed them by animad- versions and reprehensions. The malignity of man's nature is not so violent and im- petuous, as to hurry them at first, and at once, into any supreme and incorrigible love of wickedness: poor people begin first to be idle, which brings want upon them, before they arrive at the impudence of stealing; and if they were at first brought to be in love with industry, which is as easily learned, and it may be in itself as easy as idleness, the other mischief would be never thought of. The first ingredi- ents into the most enormous crimes, are ignorance, incogitance, or some sudden violent passion; which a little care in a charitable neighbour might easily inform and reform, before it grows up into rebel- lion, or contempt of religion. Every man WF COUNSEL AND CONVERSATION. 153 ought to be a physician to him for whose malady he hath a certain cure; and there is scarce a more infallible cure than counsel and conversation, which hath often recover- ed the most profligate persons; and hath so seldom failed, that an enormous man of dis- solute and debauched manners hath been rarely known, who hath lived in frequent conversation with men of wisdom and un- blameable lives. But it will be said, that such people will never like or endure that conversation. It may be, like ill physicians, we may too soon despair of the recovery of some patients, and therefore leave them to desperate experiments: we are too apt to look so superciliously upon the natural levi- ties and excesses of youth, as if they were not worth the pains of conversion; or that it would be best wrought by necessities, contempt, or prisons: either of which are very ill schools to reduce them to virtue. Such men will never decline the conversa- tion of their superiors, if they may be ad- mitted to it, though it may be they intend to laugh at it; but by this, in an instant, they depart from the pleasure of obscene and profane discourses, and insensibly find an alteration in their nature, their humour, and their manners; there being a sovereign and CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. a subtle spirit in the conversation of good and wise men, that insinuates itself into cor- rupt men, that though they know not how it comes about, they sensibly feel an amend- ment: "Non deprehendent quemadrnodum aut quando, profuisse deprehendent;" the}' cannot tell how or when, but they are sure they are restored. It is gre; inhibit acknowledgment, which is a branch of repentance, though it cannot be exacted by any earthly tribunal. He that performs this acknowledgment, and hath therewith made his repentance perfect, hath made his peace with God, and hath done his part to- wards doing it with men; and if it be refus- ed by them, he hath made himself superior or at least so equal to them, that his former injustice hath not so evil an aspect as to fright him, and they who were injured have only gotten an argument of repentance. If acknowledgment bore no other fruit but this, that it disburthens the breast of a weight that would sink it, and makes men stand upon the same level with those who were before superior to them; that it makes the re- proaches which were before due to them, turn afterwards to be guilt in the re- proacher; it would be a full recompense for any pains in the performance, and would pay a great debt with a little money: but when the thoughts of the heart can only be known to the searcher of the heart, and there is an evidence due to men of the in- tegrity of the heart, especially when the malice and corruption of it hath been too notorious; men owe it to themselves, to their reputation, to their peace of mind, to 196 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. make their sorrow for what they have done amiss as manifest as the worst of their ac- tions have been: and the more they are de- lighted with their repentance (as a greater joy and delight there cannot be in this world than in repentance), the more delight they take in full and frequent acknowledgment to those whom they have offended. Repen- tance is not a barren tree, that bears only leaves for shadow and repose; but a tree that "brings forth fruit meet for repen- tance:" without such fruit it must "be hewn down and cast into the fire," (Matt. iii. 7, 8.) and acknowledgment is the least precious fruit it can bear. Nothing so common amongst persons of the highest quality and degree, when death approaches, whose very aspect files off all those rough and un- smooth appearances, and mortifies all haugh- ty imagination of a faculty and qualifica- tion to do wrong, as for great men to ac- knowledge and ask pardon of their meanest servants, whom they have treated unkindly; and for princes themselves to confess inju- ries they have done, and to desire forgive- ness of their poorest subjects. And without doubt, what becomes a man upon his death- bed, would become him better in his full and perfect health; it may possibly do himself OP REPENTANCE. 197 good then, but undoubtedly it would not have done him less before, and his example would have been much more beneficial to others. As acknowledgment is necessary with re- ference to persons, so it is no less with refe- rence to places; they who have taught and published any doctrine which they then thought to be true, and have since been con- vinced of the error and falsehood of it, are bound to declare in the same places, or as publicly, such their conviction; and to take as much pains to convince their auditory of the error, as they did before to lead them into it. And this is an ingenuity becoming an honest man, and inseparable from repen- tance; and the greatest charity that can be showed towards those who renounce such publication, is, to believe that they are not sorry, nor repent what they have done; and there can be no obligation in conscience upon any man to say he is sorry when he is not sorry; but to believe that he doth repent, and yet not think tit to acknowledge that he doth so, is impossible. They who have preached sedition, and thereby led men into unwar- rantable actions by their authority; and they who have printed books, and by arguments from scripture or other authority, have im- 198 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. posed upon men's understandings, and per- suaded men to believe what is contrary to scripture, and to that authority which they have alleged, and are in their consciences now satisfied that they were then in the wrong; cannot reasonably believe that the asking God forgiveness in private, and ac- knowledging their error to him, is enough to constitute a Christian repentance that works onto salvation. If it be reasonable to be- lieve that the ill which we learn from cor- rupt roasters, or in evil conversation, shall, though not excuse us, in a great part be put upon their account who have so corrupted us, it must needs concern those instructors and seducers, to do the best they can to undo the mischief they have done, by giving timely notice to their proselytes, that it is not safe for them to follow that advice they have given them. The examples of great men, and the discourses of men eminent for learning and piety, have in all ages drawn many into the same actions and the same opinions, upon no other account than their submission to their authority and discourse; nor in truth can the major part of mankind propose a more perfect rule to walk by, than by following the examples of men reputed for persons of honor and integrity in their OF REPENTANCE. 199 actions, and submitting their understandings, in matters of opinion, to the direction of those who are eminent for learning, judg- ment, and sanctity; and Reason (which is the goddess all men now sacrifice to) hath done its full office, when it hath convinced them that it is most reasonable so to do. They therefore, who find themselves pos- sessed of this sovereign authority, though they do not affect it, and have it only by the voluntary resignation of those who will be so governed, had need to take the more care what they say and what they do; and as soon as they know they have said or done amiss, they are obliged in conscience to make it known to those, who they have reason to believe were led by them. A man who hath heard a doctrine preached by a man whose learning.he believed to be very great, and his integrity equal to his learning, or hath seen a sermon printed, and retains his reverence for him, which he hath reason to do after he is dead, and is as much swayed by his authority as if he were still alive; such a man is plainly betrayed, if this preach- er changed his opinion, repented that he ever preached that doctrine, and kept his repentance to himself, and concealed it from any of those who were misled and seduced 200 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. by him. Methinks, after St. Austin's exam- ple, men should not be ashamed of retrac- tions; nor could his example operate so little, if they were endued with his precious spirit of recollection and repentance. There is another branch of repentance, which it may be is more grievous than that of acknowledgment, which is reparation; an inseparable ingredient and effect of repen- tance: which needs startle men the less, be- cause conscience never obliges men to im- possibilities. He that hath stolen more than he is worth, is in the same condition with him who hath borrowed more than he can pay; a true and hearty desire to restore is and ought to be received as satisfaction: "If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die," (Ezek. xxxiii. 15.) Robbery and violence would be too gainful a trade, if a man might quit all scores by repentance, and detain all he hath gotten; or if the father's repentance might serve the turn, and the benefit of the transgression be transmitted as an inheritance to the son. If the pledge remain, it must be restored; the retaining it is committing a new iniquity, and forfeits any benefit of the promise; if he hath OF REPENTANCE. 201 it not, nor is able to procure it, his hearty repentance is enough without reparation: but to enjoy and to look every day upon the spoil, and yet to profess repentance, is an affront to God Almighty, and a greater sin than the first act of violence, when he did not pretend to think of him, and so did not think of displeasing him: whereas now he pretends to reconcile himself to God, and mocks him with repentance, whilst he re- tains the fruit of his wickedness with the same pleasure he committed it. He who is truly penitent, restores what he hathjeft to the person that was deprived of it, and pays the rest in devout sorrow for his trespass. It is a weak and a vain imagination, to think that a man who hath been in rebellion, and ' thereby robbed any man of his goods of what kind soever, and is sorry for it, can pacify God for his rebellion, and keep those goods still to himself, without the true owner's consent: he ought to restore them, though the other doth not ask them, or know where they are. Nor is his case better, who en- joys them by purchase or gift, or exchange from another man, without having himself any part or share in the rapine, if he knows that they were unjustly taken, and do of right belong to another: he is bound to re- 202 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. store them. Nor is a third excuse better than the other two; I was myself robbed by others, and am no gainer by what I have taken, but have only repaired what was one way or another taken from me: which would not be just, if I had robbed the same person who robbed me, except I could rescue my own goods again out of his hands; and jus- tice will not allow that, by any act of vio- lence, because I cannot be judge in my own interest: but to take what belongs to anoth- er man, because I know not who hath done the like to me, is so contrary to all the ele- ments of equity, that no man can pretend to repent and to believe it together. Instead of restoring the pledge, to hug it every day in my arms and take delight in it, whilst it may be the true owner wants it, or dares not de- mand it, is a manifest evidence that I think I do not stand in need of the pardon the pro- phet pronounces; or that I believe I can obtain it another way, and upon easier conditions. And, indeed, if it could fall into a man's na- tural conception or imagination how n man can think it possible to be absolved from the payment of a debt which he doth not ac- knowledge to be due, nor pretend to be wil- ling to pay if he were able; or how a man can hope to procure a release for a tres- F REPENTANCE. 203 pass, when he is able pay the damage, or some part thereof, yet obstinately refuses to do it at the time he desires the release; the- condition and obstinacy would be the less admirable. It is natural enough for power- ful and proud oppressors not to ask pardon for an injury, which they to whom it is done cannot call to justice for; and for a despe- rate bankrupt not to ask a release from a man, who hath no evidence of the debt which he claims, or means to recover it, if it were con- fessed: but to confess so much weakness as to beg and sue for a pardon, and to have so much impudence and folly as not to perform the condition, without which the pardon is void and of no effect; to ride upon the same horse to the man from whom he stole it, and desire his release without so much as offering to restore it, is such a circle of brutish madness, that it cannot fall into the mind of man endowed with reason, though void /of religion. Therefore it can- not be aj breach of charity to believe that men of that temper, who pretend to be sorry and to repent the having done that which they find not safe to justify, and yet retain to themselves the full bene- fit of their unrighteousness, do not in truth believe that they did amiss; and so are .204 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. no otherwise sorjy than men are who have lost their labour, and repent only that they ventured so much for so little profit: where- as if they felt any compunction of con- science, which is but a preparation to re- pentance, they would remember any suc- cess they had in their wickedness, as a bitter judgment of God upon them, and would run from what they have got by it, as from a strong enemy that encloses and shuts them up, that repentance may not enter into their hearts. There is another kind of reparation, and restitution, that is a child of repen- tance; a fruit that repentance cannot choose but bear; which is, repairing a man's re- putation, restoring his good name, which he hath taken or endeavoured to take from him by calumnies and slanders: which is a greater robbery than plundering a man's house, or robbing him of his goods. If the tongue be sharp enough to give wounds, it must be at the charge of balsam to put into them; not only such as will heal the wound, but such as will wipe out the scar, and leave no mark behind it. Nor will private acknowledgment to the person in- jured, be any manifestation or evidence of repentance; fear may produce that, out OF REPENTANCE. 205 of apprehension of chastisement; or good husbandry may dispose a man to it, to . avoid the payment of great damages by the direction of justice and the law: but true repentance issue*, out of a higher court, and is not satisfied with submitting to the censures of public authority; but inflicts greater penalties than a common judge can do, because it hath a clearer view and pros- pect into the nature of the offence, dis- cerns the malice of the heart, and every circumstance in the committing, and applies a plaister proportionable to the wound and to the scar. If the calumny hath been raised in a whisper, and been afterwards divulged without the advice or privity of the calumniator, it sends him in pursuit of that whisper, and awards him to vindicate the injured person in all places, and to all per- sons who have been infected by it; if it hath been vented originally in defamatory writings, which have wrought upon and perverted more men, than can be better informed by any particular applications how ingenuously soever made, it obliges men to write volumes, till the recognition be as public and notorious as the defamation; and it uses the same rigour, awards the same satisfaction, upon any other violation of 206 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. truth, by which men have been seduced or misled: whilst the poor penitent is so far from murmuring or repining at the se- verity of his penance, that he still fears it is not enough, that it is too light a punish- ment to expiate his transgression, and would gladly undergo even more than he can bear, out of the aversion he hath to the deformity of his guilt, and the glimmering prospect he hath of that happiness, which only the sincerity of his repentance can bring him to: he abhors and detesta that heraldry, which for honour sake would di- vert or obstruct his most humble acknowl- edgement to the poorest person he hath of- fended; and would gladly exchange all his titles and his trappings, for the rags and in- nocence of the poorest beggar. Repen- tance is a magistrate that exacts the strictest duty and humility, because the reward it gives is inestimable and everlasting; and the pain and punishment it redeems men from, is of the same continuance, and yet intolera- ble. There are two imaginations or fancies (for opinions they cannot be) which insinu- ate themselves into the minds of men, who do not love to think of their own desperate condition. One is, that a general asking God OP REPENTANCE. 207 forgiveness for all the sins he hath commit* ed, without charging his memory with mentioning the particulars, is a sufficient re- pentance to procure God's pardon for them all: the other, that a man may heartily re- pent the having committed one particular sin, and thereupon obtain God's favour' and forgiveness, though he practises other sins, which he believes are not so grievous, and so defers the present repentance of; that if he hath committed a murder, he can re- pent that, and resolve never to do the like again, and thereupon obtain his pardon, and yet retain his inclination to other ex- cesses. Which two kinds of suggestion are so gross and ridiculous (if any thing can be called ridiculous that hath relation to repentance), that no man is so impudent as to own them, though in truth some modern casuists are not far from teaching the for- mer; yet if we descend into ourselves, make that strict scrutiny and inquisition into eve- ry corner of our hearts, as true repentance doth exact from us, and will see performed by us, we shall find and must confess, that they are these, and such like trivial and la- mentable imaginations, which make us so unwary in all our actions, so uncircum- spect throughout the Course of our lives, 208 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. and are the cause that in a whole nation of transcendent offenders, there are so very few who become true penitents, or manifest their repentance by those signs and marks with which it is always and cannot but be attended. God forbid, that death-bed repentance should not do us good, or that death should ap- proach towards any man who is without repentance; he who recollects himself best before, will have work enough for re- pentance in the last minute; and it is pos- sible, and but possible, that he vrho hath never recollected himself before, may have the grace to repent so cordially then, and make such a saving reflection upon all the sins of his life, though he hath neither time nor memory to number them, that he may obtain a full remission of them. Re- pentance indeed is so strong a balsam, that one drop of it put into the most noisome wound perfectly cures it. But that men, who cannot but observe how a little pain or sickness indisposes and makes them unfit for any transaction; who know how often the torment of the gout in the least joint, or a sudden pang of the stone, h^ath distracted them even in the most solemn and premedi- tated exercise of devotion, that they have OF REPENTANCE. 209 retained no gesture or word fit for that sacrifice; I say, it is very strange that any such man, who hath himself undergone, or seen others undergo, such visitations, should believe it possible that upon his death- bed, in that agony of pain, in those inward convulsions, struggling, and torments of dis- solution, which are the usual forerunners and messengers of death, or can presume upon, or hope for such a composure of mind and memory in that melancholy season, as to recollect and reflect upon all those particulars of his mispent life, as his depart- ing soul must within a few minutes give an account, a very exact account of; and there- fore it cannot be otherwise, and how much soever we disclaim the assertion, we are in truth so foolish as to be imposed upon by that pleasant imagination, that there goes much less to repentance than severe men would persuade us, and that a very short time, and as short an ejaculation, which shall be very hearty, and which we still think so much of in our intentions that we are sure we cannot forget them, will serve our turn, and will carry us fairly out of this world, and leave a very good report of our Christianity with the standers-by, who will give a fair testimony. If we did not think VOL. v. 31 210 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. this, or did not think at all, which yet it may be is better than thinking this, we should not spend our time as we do, commit so ma- ny follies and wickednesses, and give no cause to the most charitable man to believe that we are in any degree sorry for either, when he sees us so constantly practise both, and live as we did really think that we are only to account for the last moment of our life, and therefore that it is enough if we provide that that shall be commendable and full of devotion. The other as extravagant imagination, that a man may repent so heartily one par- ticular sin, that he may be well satisfied that God hath accepted his humiliation and seal- ed his pardon, and yet retain and practice some other sins, of whose iniquity he is not yet thoroughly convinced, or of which he takes farther time to repent, hath got- ten so much credit with many of us, who are willing to persuade other men, and it may be ourselves, that we do heartily de- test and abominate some sin we have for- merly practised, and have cordially repent- ed it, though we do too much indulge some other natural infirmity, which leads us into great transgressions of another kind. If nothing of this argumentation did prevail OF REPENTANCE. 211 upon us, we could not at the same time pre- tend tobave, with agrievoussenseofourguilt, repented our rebellion, or any such act of outrage, and have washed our souls clean from that sin with our tears, when yet we retain our ambition, and have the same im- patient appetite for preferment that we had before, and which it may be led us into that rebellion; that we have thoroughly repent- ed every act of oppression that we have committed, though we have still avarice and desire to be rich, that hath not left us. It may be, the practice of repentance hath not been more obstructed by any thing, than by the customary discourse, and the senseless distinction, of true and false, perfect and im- perfect repentance; whereas, if it be not true and perfect, it is not repentance; if it be not as it should be, it is not at all. There are indeed many preparations, many- approaches towards it, which, well entered upon and pursued, will come to repentance at last; there must be recollection, and there must be sorrow, and sorrow stretched to the utmost extent, before it can arrive at repen- tance; and it must be repentance itself, none of those preparatives, that must carry us to heaven; and that repentance is no more ca- pable of enlargement and diminution, than 212 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. the joys of heaven are, which are still the same, neither more nor less. If we do re- pent any one sin we have committed, we can have no more inclination to commit any other, of hov/ different a kind soever from the other, than we could desire, if we were in heaven, to return to the earth again; it is sin itself, in all the several species of it, in all the masks and disguises that it hath ever presented itself to us in, which we detest, if we are arrived at repentance. And because, as hath been said before, we cannot make too strict a scrutiny into our own actions, nor take too much care in the compounding this precious cordial that must revive us and make us live after we are dead, we shall do well frequently to confer with pious men upon the most pro- per expedients to advance this duty in us; and because examples are more powerful motives towards any perfection than pre- cepts, we cannot do better than recollect as many of those as our own experience, or histories of uncontroverted veracity, or the observation of other men, can suggest to us; that by observing the steps they made to- wards it, and the manifestation they gave of it, we may the better comport ourselves to- wards the attaining our end, and the assur- OF REPENTANCE. 213 ance that we have attained it: and having forsome years li' r ed in a country, where there is as great evidence of sins committed, and as little of repentance as in an}' other coun- try; and having met with there a rare exam- ple of this kind, and so much the more rare as it is in a person of the most illustri- ous family in France, the house of the king himself, and a thing so known that there is no room to doubt the truth thereof; I think it ve- ry pertinent to the design of this short dis- course, to insert so much of it as to my under- standing may exceedingly work upon the minds of other men: the person is the prince of Conti, younger brother to the prince of Conde", next prince of the blood to the chil- dren of the crown, and to the king's own brother, who died in the year 1664, in Paris. This prince having great endow- ments of mind, but educated in all the li- cence of that nation, and corrupted with the greatest license of it, some years before his death had the blessing to make severe reflec- tions upon the past actions of his life; and thereupon imposed upon himself great strict- ness and rigour, in a notorious retirement from the court, in the conversation of the most pious and devout men, and in the exercise of all those actions of devotion which become u Christian resolution, ir the faith in which 214 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. he had been educated; and being in perfect health, but well knowing by the ill struc- ture of his body that he could not live, the crookedness and stooping of his head and shoulders making his respiration very diffi- cult, and increasing, suffocated him, he made his last will, beginning in these words: "This day, the 24th of May, 1664, I, Armand de Bourbon, prince of Conti, being in my house in Paris, sound in body and mind, and not willing to be surprised by death without making my will, do make this my present testament." And then making that profession of his religion, and disposing his soul in that manner as becomes a pious man in that church, whereof he was a very zealous member, he enters upon the dispo- sal of his estate, and used these words: "I am extremely sorry to have been so unhappy as to find myself in my younger age engaged in a war contrary to my duty; during which T permitted, ordered, and authorized violences and disorders without number; and although the king hath had the goodness to forget this failing, I remain nevertheless justly accountable before God to those corporations and particular per- sons, who then suffered, be it in Guienne, Xantoinge, Berry, la Marche, be it in OF REPENTANCE. 215 Champaigne, and about Damvilliers; upon which account 1 have caused certain sums to be restored, of which the Sieur Jasse, my treasurer, hath a particular knowledge; and I have passionately desired that it were in my power to sell all my estate, that I might give a more full satisfaction. But having upon this occasion submitted my- self to the judgment of many prelates and learned and pious persons, they have judged that I was not obliged to reduce myself alto- gether to the condition of a private man, but that I ought to serve God in my rank and qua- lity; in which nevertheless I have withdrawn as much as was possible from my household expenses, to the end that, during my life, I may restore every year as much as I can save of my revenues And I charge my heirs, who shall hereafter be named in this my will, to do the same thing, until the damages that I have caused be fully repair- ed, according to the instructions which shall be found in the bands of the Sieur Jasse, or in my papers. To this end, I desire the executors of my will, and her who shall be entrusted with the education of my children, to reduce and moderate, as much as may be, their expenses, that the foresaid restitutions may be continued every 216 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. year, according to my orders. And if it happen that my heirs and their issue have, either from the bounty of the king, or by any other way, riches enough to maintain them handsomely, I will and order that they sell all the estate .which they enjoy as being my successors;, and that they distribute the price of it amongst those provinces, and in those places,' which have suffered on the account of the said wars, following the or- ders contained in the said instructions, if the said places or persons have not been already sufficiently repaid by me, or by some other. And if it fall out that my children die without issue, so that my line be extinct, I intend likewise that my estate be sold, for to be wholly employed in the said restitutions, my collateral friends hav- ing enough elsewhere. "I desire that those papers which shall be found, writ or signed with my* hand, concerning affairs where I have doubted, if in point of conscience I were obliged to a restitution or not, be very carefully and rigorously examined; the which I pray my executors moreover, if it be found by notes written or signed with my hand, that I have verified or acknowledged my- self to be obliged to any restitution or OF REPENTANCE. 217 satisfaction whatever, I desire that they may be executed, as if every particular thing contained in them was expressly or- dered by this present will." Then he commits the education of his children (whom he makes his heirs) to his wife, and desires the parliament of Paris to confirm her in the tuition of his children; and then names his executors, who upon his decease are to become possessed of all his estate to the purposes aforesaid, and so signs the will with his hand the 4th of May, 1664, ARMANDE DE BOURBON. His paper of instructions was likewise published with bis will, that so the per- sons concerned might know to whom to repair. The words are these: "The or- der which I desire may be observed in the restitution which I am obliged to make in Guienne, Xantoinge, la Marche, Berry, Champaigne, and Damvilliers, &c. In the first place, those losses and damages which have been caused by my orders or my troops ought to be repaired before all oth- ers, as being of my own doing. In the second place, I am responsible, very justly, for all the mischiefs which the general dis- orders of the war have produced, although they have been done without my having 218 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. any part in them, provided that I have sa- tisfied for the first. I owe no reparation to those who have been of our party, except they can make it appear that I have sought and invited them to it; and in this case, it will be just to restore first of all to those innocent persons who have had no part in my failings, before that any thing can be given to those who have been our confede- rates: the better to observe this distributive justice, I desire that my restitutions may be made in such a manner, that they may be spread every where; to the end that it fall not out, that amongst many that have suffer- ed, some be satisfied and others have nothing. But since I have not riches enough for to repay at one time all those corporations and particular persons who have suffered, I desire, &c." and so decreed the method and order the payments should be made in; the whole of which, by his computation, would be discharged in twenty years; but if it so fell out, that the estate should be entirely sold, the whole payment was to be made at once; and it was a mar- vellous recollection of particular oppres- sions, which he conceived might have been put upon his tenants by his officers, some whereof were not remediable by law, by OF REPENTANCE. 219 reason of prescription, which he declared that he would not be defended by, but ap- pointed that the original right should be strictly examined; and if his possession was founded in wrong, he disclaimed the prescription, and commanded that satisfac- tion should be made to those who had been injured, even by his ancestors, and before his own time; and required, that any doubts which might arise upon any of his instructions, or in the cases in which he intended satisfac- tion should be given, might and should be ex- amined and judged by men of the strictest and most rigid justice, and not by men of loose principles. I do not naturally, in discourses of this nature, delight in so large excursions in the mention of particular actions performed by men, how godly and exemplary soever, be- cause the persons who do them are always without any desire that what they do should be made public, and because repentance hath various operations in minds equally vir- tuous: yet meeting very accidentally with this record, without having scarce ever heard it mentioned by any man in the coun- try, where there is room enough for prose- lytes of the same nature, and cause enough to celebrate the example, as I took great de- 220 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. light in examining and re-examining every particular, and not being an absolute stranger to the subject reflected upon, having been present in the same country at that time, I could not conclude this discourse more per- tinently, than with such an instance at large; presuming that it may make the same im- pression upon others that it hath upon me, and make us the more solicitous to call our- selves to an account for all commissions, and to pray to God to give us the grace to repent in such a way, and to such a degree, as may be most for his glory, our own salvation, and the edification of others towards the attain- ing the same. XIX. OF CONSCIENCE. Montpellier, March 0, 1070. THERE is not throughout the whole bible of the Old Testament, that term or word. Conscience, to be found; nor is it used in Scripture till the eighth chapter of the gos- pel written by St. John, when the Jews brought the woman that had been taken in adultery before our Saviour, whom they im- portuned to do justice upon her; and he, who knew their malice was more against OF CONSCIENCE. 221 him than the woman, said, "He that is with-** out sin amongst you, let him first cast a stone at her: and they which heard it, being con- victed by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even to the last," (ver. 7, 9.) Nor is the Greek word <7w3flr<5, which throughout the New Testament signifies conscience, ever used by the Septuagint, (as some learned men affirm) except only in the 10th chapter of Ecclesiastes, ver. 20, which is thus translat- ed, "Curse not the king, no not in thy thought." So that conscience seems to be the proper and natural issue of the Gospel, which introduced a stricter survey of the heart of man, and a more severe inquisition into the thoughts thereof, than the law had done. He who could not be accused by sufficient witnesses to have violated the law, was thought to be innocent enough; but the Gospel erected another judicatory, and an- other kind of examination, and brought men who could not be charged by the law, to be convicted by their own conscience; and therefore St. Paul, in his justification before Felix, after he had denied all that the Jews had charged him with, and affirmed that he had broken no law, added, "And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience 222 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. void of offence toward God and toward men," (Acts xxiv. 16.) his behaviour was so exact, that he did not only abstain from do- ing any man wrong, but from giving any man a just occasion to be offended vrith him. It is a calamity never enough to be lamented, that this legitimate daughter of the Gospel of peace should grow so prodigiously unnatu- ral and impetuous, as to attempt to tear out the bowels of her mother, to tread all chari- ty under foot, and to destroy all peace upon ,the earth; that conscience should stir men up to rebellion, introduce murder and de- vastation, licence the breach of all God's commandments, and pervert the nature of man from all Christian charity, humility, and compassion, to a brutish inhumanity, and delight in those acts of injustice and oppres- sion that nature itself abhors and detests; that conscience, that is infused to keep the breast of every man clean from encroaching vices, which lurk so close that the eye of the body cannot discern them, to correct and suppress those unruly affections and appe- tites, which might otherwise undiscerned corrupt the soul to an irrecoverable guilt, and hath no jurisdiction to exercise upon other men, but it is confined within its own natural sphere; that this enclosed con- OF CONSCIENCE. 223 science should break its bounds and limits, neglect the looking to any thing at home, and straggle abroad and exercise a tyrannical power over the actions and the thoughts of other men, condemn princes and magistrates, infringe all laws and order of government, assume to itself to appoint what all other shall do, and out of tenderness to itself, ex- ercise all manner of cruelty towards other men: I say that this extravagant presumption should take or claim any warrant from con- science, is worthy of the anger and indigna- tion of all Christians, and of a general com- bination to reclaim and bind up this unruly, destroying, ravenous underminer and de- vourer of souls. The apostle, when he pre- scribed this light to walk by, in the dark times of infidelity, ignorance, and persecu- tion, knew well enough how unlimited the fancy and pride and covertures of the heart of man were; and therefore he takes all pos- sible care to establish the power and juris- diction of kings and magistrates, and obedi- ence to laws under the obligation of conscience, and required subjection to all those, not only for wrath (for fear of punishment) but for conscience sake: and the same apostle thought it a very necessary prescription to Timothy, that he should keep his diocese to 224 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. the "holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith had made shipwreck;" that is, some men,J>y departing from the rules of con- science, by the suggestions of faith and re- ligion, they made shipwreck of that faith and religion which they meant to advance. Conscience is the best bit and bridle to re- strain the licence and excess which faith' itself may introduce and give countenance to: conscience can never lead us into any unwarrantable and unjust action; but that it is not enough, he whose conscience does not check and restrain him from entering into actions contrary to God's command- ments, may reasonably conclude that he hath no conscience, but that he lies under tempta- tion which -Cannot prevail without laying the conscience fiiaste, and rooting out all that God hath planted there; and a man may as reasonably pretend to commit adultery out of conscience, as to rebel or resist lawful authority by the obligation of conscience; and they who think themselves qualified for the latter by that impulsion, can never find reason to subdue a strong temptation to the other. Conscience may very reasonably restrain and hinder a man from doing that which would be consistent enough with con- OF CONSCIENCE. 225 science to be done; nay, it may oblige him to suffer and undergo punishment, rather than to do that which might be lawful for him. It is not necessary, though it were to be wished, that every man's conscience should be so sharp-sighted, as to-discern the inside of every doubt that shall arise; it may be too hard for me, when another man may be as much too hard for it, and then I ought not to dp what he lawfully and justly may do; but this is only the restrictive negative power of conscience, the affirmative power hath not|that iforce. Conscience can never oblige a man to do, or excuse him for doing, what is evil in itself, as treason, murder, or rebellion, under what specious pretences soever, which want of understanding and want of honesty suggest where there is want of conscience; and it is a very hard thing to assert, that any thing can proceed from the conscience of that man who is void of know- ledge, since there is some science necessary to be supposed, where there is a pretence to conscience. He who obstinately refuses, upon the ob- ligation of conscience, to do what the law under which he lives, and to which he owes subjection and obedience, requires him posi- tively to do, had need to be sure that his VOL, v. 32 226 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. doing of that which he is enjoined, and de- nies to do, is in itself sinful, and expressly forbid by the word of God. Doubting in this point is not excuse or warrant enough; the reverence he ought to have to the go- vernment and governors of his country, that the modest believing that a Christian king- dom or commonwealth cannot combine to- gether to damn themselves, and all who live under them, should have power and autho- rity enough to suppress and over-rule all doubts to the contrary. But if in truth the matter be so clear to him, that by obeying this law he becomes a rebel to God, I know not how his conscience can excuse him for staying and living under that government, and from making haste away to be under the protection of another government, where no such sinful action is required or enjoined; for no man can satisfy his own conscience, that though his courage, for the present, will support him to undergo the judgment and penalty that his disobedience is liable to, he may not in the end be weary of that submis- sion; and since the duty is still incumbent upon him, and may still be required of him, he may not at last purchase his peace and quiet with complying in doing that which lie knows is sinful and must offend God OF CONSCIENCE. 227 Almighty; and therefore methinks he should, at the same time he resolves to disobey a law that is fixed, and not very probable to be altered, quit the country where so much tyranny is exercised, and repair to another climate, where it is lawful to give unto Cae- sar what belongs unto Caesar, and to give un- to God what belongs unto God. And if his af- fection to his country will not suffer him to take that resolution, it is probable that his con- science is not so fully convinced of the impie- ty of the laws thereof; and the same affection should labour to receive that satisfaction, that he may be reconciled to give the obedience the laws require. The submitting to any present inconvenience or loss or damage, rather than do somewhat that is enjoined by public authority to be done; the preferring reproach and disgrace, before honour that must be attended with compliance and sub- mission to what is required of us, is no ar- gument that such refusal is an effect of con- science; pride, ambition, or revenge, will do the same, to raise a party that will ena- ble him to compass and bring that to pass which he most desires. We see nothing more common, than for men of much wit and no conscience, to impose upon those who have no wit and pretend to much con- 228 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. science, and lead them into ways which are too rough for their consciences to tread in, and to ends that they do not desire; and yet every step they make is an impulsion of their conscience: their conscience will not suffer them to take an oath, by which the wrong they have done may be discovered and repaired, yet that conscience will not compel them to do justice, nor restrain them from doing injury to their neighbours; it will neither oblige them to speak truth, that may prejudice a man they favour, nor to discover a fraud, by which they may be bound to re- paration. Conscience is made the refuge of all perverse and refractory men, when they will not observe the law, and the warrant and incitement to any wickedness when they are inclined to break it: whereas conscience is a natural restraint within us, to keep us from doing what our foul affections and passions may tempt us to; it may be too scrupulous, but it can never be presumptuous; it may hinder us from using the liberty we have, but it is too modest to lead us into any ex- cess; it is liable to fear, but never to rash- ness and impudent undertakings: "For this is thank- worthy, if a man for conscience to- wards God, endure grief, suffering wrongful- ly," says St. Peter, (i Peter ii. 19.) But con- OF CONSCIENCE. 229 science never carried a man into actions for which he is justly to suffer: that is true ten- derness of conscience, which is tender of other men's reputation, shy and wary what they think of others, and not that which, out of tenderness to itself, cares not how it wrongs and violates its neighbours. Con- science is the meekest, humblest thing that can be conceived of; and when we find any proud thoughts to .arise within us, such as ex- alt and magnify ourselves, and depress the reputation of our neighbour; when we have any unpeaceable inclination to disturb the quiet of the state, or the repose of those who live about us; we may be as sure that those suggestions do not proceed from conscience, as that the lusts of the flesh do not proceed from the warmth of the spirit. "The tree is known by the fruit, a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit;" and con- science is best known by the effects; if the product be wrath, malice, pride, and conten- tion, we may swear that conscience is not the mother of those children, which can pro- duce nothing but love, humility, and peace; and men have taken too much pains to enti- tle her to the other unnatural issue. I know not Low it comes to pass, except it be from a wanton affectation of the impropriety of 23 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. speech, that men find out epithets for con- science, which may entitle it to as many reproaches as men think fit to charge it with: they will have an erroneous conscience, which no doubt will contribute to as many evil actions as the heart or hand of man can be guilty of; and they might as well have called it an impious conscience; when in truth, if it be either impious or erroneous, it ceaseth to be conscience; it is not consistent with any of those destructive epithets, nor receives any ornament from the best which an be annexed to it. Conscience implies goodness and piety, as much as if you call it good and pious. The luxuriant wit of the school-men and the confident fancy of igno- rant preachers has so disguised it, that all the extravagancies of a light or a sick brain, and the results of the most corrupt heart, are called the effects of conscience: and to make it the better understood, the con- science shall be called erroneous, or cor- rupt, or tender, as they have a mind to sup- port or condemn those effects. So that, in truth, they have made conscience a disease fit to be entrusted to the care of the physi- cian every spring and fall, and he is most like to reform and regulate the operation of it. And if the madness and folly of men be OF CONSCIENCE. 231 not in a short time reformed, it will be fitter to be confined as a term in physic and in law, than to be used or applied to religion or sal- vation. Let apothecaries be guided by it in their bills, and merchants in their bargains, and lawyers in managing their causes; in all which cases it may be waited upon by the epithets they think fit to annex to it; it is in great danger to be robbed of the integrity in which it was created, and will not have pu- rity enough to carry men to heaven, or to choose the way thither. It were to be wish- ed, that some pains were taken to purge away that dross, which want of understand- ing, or want of honesty, have annexed to it, that so it may prove a good guide; or that that varnish may be taken from it, which the artifices of ill men have disfigured it with, that it be no longer the most desperate and dangerous seducer: lest conscience of grati- tude, for civilities and obligations received, dispose women to be unchaste; and con- science of discourtesies and injuries done, or intended to be done, provoke men to re- venge; and no villany that ever entered into the heart of man, but will pretend to be ushered thither by conscience. If it cannot be vindicated from these impure and impious laims, it is pity but it should be expunged 232 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. out of all discourses of religion and honesty, and never mentioned as relating to Chris- tianity: let it be assigned and appropriated to the politicians, to cover their reason of state with, and to disguise all treaties be- tween princes with such expressions, that they be no longer bound by these obliga- tions than they find the observation of them to be for their benefit or convenience; let it be applied only to the cheats and cozenings of this world; to the deceiving of women in marriages; to the overreaching heirs in mortgages and purchases; but let it never be mentioned in order to our salvation in the next world, or as if it could advance our claim to the kingdom of heaven. Solomon was the more inexcusable for de- parting from it, by his knowing what the calm and ease and tranquillity of it was; and he could not express it better than when be says, that "a good conscience is a continual feast." Now'therecan be no feast where there is not amity and peace and quiet; a froward, wayward, proud, and quarrelling conscience, can never be a feast, nor a good guest at a feast; therefore it cannot be a good conscience: anger and ill words break up any feast; for mirth, that is of the essence of a feast, and a great part of the good cheer, is banish- OF CONSCIENCE. 233 ed by any ill humour that appears. It is not the quantity of the meat, but the cheerful- ness of the guests, which makes the feast; it was only at the feast of the Centaurs, where they ate with one band, and had their drawn swords in the other; where there is no peace, there can be no feast. Charity and tender- ness is a principal ingredient in this feast: the conscience cannot be too tender, too ap- prehensive of angrying any man, of grieving any man; the feast is the more decently car- ried on never interrupted by this tenderness. But if it be tender at some times, scrupulous to some purposes, is startled to do somewhat against which it hath no objection, but that it is not absolutely necessary to be done, and at other times is so rough and boisterous, that it leaps over all bounds, and rushes into actions dishonest and unwarrantable, neither the tenderness nor the presumption hath the least derivation from conscience: and a man in a deep consumption of the lungs can as well run a race, as a tender conscience can lead any man into an action contrary to vir- tue and piety It is possible thnt the fre- quent appeals that are made upon several occasions to the consciences of ill men, do in truth increase their love of wickedness; that when they are told that their own conscien- 234 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. ces cannot but accuse them of the ill they do, and they feel no such check or control in themselves, they believe from thence that they do nothing amiss, and so take new cou- rage to prosecute the career they are in: it is a very hard thing to believe, that the worst men can do the worst things without some sense and inward compunction, which is the voice of their conscience; but it is easy to think that they may still and drown that voice, and that by a custom of sinning they inay grow so deaf as not to hear that weak voice; that wine may drive away that heavi- ness that indisposed them to mirth, and ill company may shut out those thoughts which would interrupt it: and yet, alas! conscience is not by this subdued; they have only made an unlucky trace, that it shall not beat up their quarters for some time, till they have surfeited upon the pleasure and the plenty of men; it will disturb and terrify them the more for the repose it hath suffered them to take. If the strength of nature, and the cus- tom of excesses, hath given the debauched person the privilege of not finding any sick- ness or indisposition from his daily surfeits, after a few years he wonders to find the -fa- culties of his mind and understanding so de- cayed that he is become a fool, and so muck OF CONSCIENCE. 235 more a fool if he does not find it before he comes to that age that usually resists all de- cay; and then every body sees, if he does not, the unhappiness of his constitution, that it was no sooner disturbed by those excess- es. If the lustful and voluptuous person, who sacrifices the strength and vigour of his body to the rage and temptation of his blood, and spends his nights in unchaste embraces, does not in the instant discover how much his health is impaired by those caresses, he will in a short time, by weakness and dis- eases, have good cause to remember those distempers: and so that conscience that is laid asleep by a long licentious life, and re- prehends not the foulest transgressions, doth at last start up in sickness or in age, and plays the tyrant in those seasons when men most need comfort, and makes them pay dear interest for their hours of riot, and for the charms they used, to keep it in that lethargy that it might not awaken them. And since it cannot be a feast, because it is not a good conscience; being an evil one, it must be fa- mine, and torment, and hell itself. ID a word, no man hath a good conscience, but he who leads a good life. 336 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. xx. OF WAR. Montpellier, 1070. As the plague in the body drives all per- sons away but such who live by it, search- ers, and those who are to bury the corpse, who are as ready to strangle those who do not die soon enough, as to bury them; and they who recover are very long tried with the malignity, and remain longer deserted by their neighbours and friends out of fear of infection; so war in a state makes all men abandon it but those who are to live by the blood of it, and who have the pillaging of the living as well as of the dead; and if it reco- ver, and the war be extinguished, there re- mains such a weakness and paleness, so ma- ny ghastly marks of the distemper, that men remain long frighted from tjieir old familia- rity, from the confidence they formerly had of their own security, and of the justice of that state, the war leaving still an ill odour behind it, and much infection in the nature and manners of those who are delighted with it. Of all the punishments and judgments that the provoked anger of the Divine Pro- vidence can pour out upon a nation full of OF WAR. 237 transgressions, there is none so terrible and destroying as that of war. David knew he did wisely when he preferred and chose the plague before either of the other judgments that he was to undergo for numbering the people, though it cost him no less than se- venty thousand subjects; so vast a number that three months pi ogress of the most vic- torious and triumphant enemy could hardly have consumed; and the one had been as much the hand of the Lord as the other, and could as easily have been restrained, or boun'd by his power: the arrow of pestilence was shot out of his own bow, and did all its execution without making the pride or ma- lice of man instrumental in it; the insolence whereof is a great aggravation of any judg- ment that is laid upon us, and health is res- tored in the same moment the contagion ceas- eth; whereas in war, the confidence and the courage which a victorious army contracts by notable successes, and the dejection of spirit and the consternation which a subdu- ed party undergoes by frequent defeats, is not at an end when the war is determine d, but hath its effects very long after; and the tenderness of nature, and the integrity of manners, which are driven away, or power- fully discountenanced by the corruption of 238 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. war, are not quickly recovered; but instead thereof a roughness, jealousy, and distrust introduced, that makes, conversation unplea- sant and uneasy; and the weeds which grow up in the shortest war can hardly be pulled up and extirpated without a long and unsus- pected peace. When God pleases to send this heavy calamity upon us, we cannot avoid it; but why we should be solicitous to em- bark ourselves in this leaky vessel, why our own anger, and ambition, and emulation, should engage us in unreasonable and unjust wars, nay, why, without any of these provo- cations, we should be disposed to run to war, and peridiiari periculi causa, will require bet- ter reason to justify us, than most that are concerned in it are furnished with. "Jugulan- tur homines ne nihil agatur," was the com- plaint and amazement of a philosopher, who krrew of none of those restraints which Chris- tianity hath laid upon mankind. That men should kill one another for want of some- what else to do (which is the case of all vo- lunteers in war) seems to be so horrible to humanity, that there needs no divinity to control it. It was a divine contemplation of the same philosopher, that when Providence bad so well provided for, and secured the peace between nations, by putting the sea F WAR. 239 between, that it might not be in their pow- er to be ill neighbours, mankind should be so mad as to devise shipping, to affect death so much sine spe sepulturce; and when they are safe on land, to commit themselves to the waves and the fierce winds, quorum felicitas est ad bella perfcrri; and that those winds which God had created, ad custodien- dam cadi terrarumque tempericm, and to che- rish the fruits and the trees of the earth, should be made use of so contrary to his in- tentions, ut legioncs, tquitemque gcstarent, and bring people (whom he had placed at that distance) together, to imbrue their hands in each other's blood; indeed it must be a very savage appetite, thai engages men to take so much pains, and to run so many and great hazards, only to be cruel to those whom they are able to oppress. They who allow no war at all to be law- ful, have consulted both nature and religion much better than they who think it may be entered into to comply with the ambition, covetousness, or revenge of the greatest princes and monarchs upon earth: as if God had only inhibited single murders, and left mankind to be massacred according to the humour and appetite of unjust and unreason- hie men, of what degree or quality soever 240 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. They who think it most unlawful, know well that force may be repelled with force; and that no man makes war, who doth only de- fend what is his own from an attempt of vio- lence; he who kills another that he may not be killed himself, by him who attempts it, is not guilty of murder by the law of God or man. And truly, they who are the cause and authors of any war that can justly and safely be avoided, have great reason to fear that they shall be accountable before the su- preme Judge for all the rapine and devasta- tion, all the ruin and damage, as well as the blood, that is the consequence of that war. War is a licence to kill and slay all those who inhabit that land, which is therefore called the enemy's, because he who makes the war hath a mind to possess it; and must there not many of the laws of God, as well as of man, be cancelled and abolished, before a man can honestly execute OF take such a licence? What have the poor inhabitants of that land done that they must be destroyed for cultivating their own land, in the country where they were born? and can any king believe that the names of those are left out of the records of God's creation, and that the injuries done to them shall not be con- OF WAR. 241 sidered? War is a depopulation, defaces all that art and industry hath produced, destroys all plantations, burns churches and palaces, and mingles them in the same ashes with the cottages of the peasant and the labourer; it distinguishes not of age, or sex, or dignity, but exposes all things and persons, sacred and profane, to the same contempt and con- fusion; and reduces all that blessed order and harmony, which hath been the product of peace and religion, into the chaos it was first in; as if it would contend with the Al- mighty in uncreating what he so wonderful- ly created, and since polished. And is it not A most detestable thing, to open a gap to let this wild boar enter into the garden of Christians, and to make all this havoc and devastation in countries planted and watered by the equal Redeemer of mankind, and whose ears are open- to the complaints of the meanest person who is oppressed? It is no answer to say that this universal suffer- ing, and even the desolation that attends it, are the inevitable consequences and events of war, how warrantably soever entered into, but rather an argument, that no war can be warrantably entered into, that may produce such intolerable mischiefs; at least if the ground be not notoriously just and necessa- v. 33 242 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. ry, and like to introduce as much benefit to the world as damage and inconvenience to a part of it; and as much care taken as is possible, to suppress that rage and licence, which is the wanton cause of half the de- struction. It may be, upon a strict survey and dis- quisition into the elements and injunctions of the Christian religion, no war will be found justifiable, but as it is the process that the law of nature allows and prescribes for jus- tice sake, to compel those to abstain from doing wrong, or to repair the wrong they have done, who can by no other way be in- duced to do either; as when one sovereign prince doth an injury to another, or suffers his subjects to do it without control or pun- ishment; in either of which cases, the in- jured prince, in his own right, or the rights of his subjects, is to demand justice from the other, and to endeavour to obtain it by all the peaceable means that can be used; and then if there be an absolute refusal to give satisfaction, or such a delay, as in the inconvenience amounts to a refusal, there is no remedy left, but the last process, which is force; since nothing can be in itself more odious, or more against the nature and in- stitution of sovereign power, than to d OF VfAft. 243 wrong, and to refuse to administer justice; and, therefore, the mischiefs which attend, and which cannot but fall upon the persons and fortunes of those who are least guilty of the injury and injustice, because the dam- age can very hardly reach the prince, but in his subjects, will be by the supreme Judge cast upon his account, who is the original cause and author of the first transgression. And if it be very difficult to find any other just cause to warrant so savage a proceeding as all war produces, what can we think of most of that war which for some hundred of years has infested the Christian World, so much to the dishonour of Christianity, and in which the lives of more men have been lost than might have served to have driven infidelity out of the world, and to have peopled all those parts which yet remain without in- habitants? Can we believe that all those lives are forgotten, and that no account shall be rendered of them? If the saving the life of any single person who is in danger to perish, hath much of merit in it, though it be a duty incumbent to hu- manity, with what detestation and horror must we look upon those, who upon delibe- ration are solicitous to bring millions of men together to no other purpose than to kill and destroy; and they who survive are 244 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. conducted as soon as may be to another butchery, to another opportunity to kill more men, whom they know not, and with whom they are not so much as angry. The grammarians have too much reason to de- rive helium, a belluis ; all war hath mtrcli of the beast in it; immune quiddam et belhia- rtim simile ; very much of the man must be put off that there may be enough of the beast: princes must be obeyed, and be- cause they may hnve just cause of war, their subjects must obey and serve them in it, without taking upon them to examine whe- ther it be just or no, Servi tuacst conditio; ra- tio ad te nihil; they have no liberty to doubt when their duty is clear to obey; but where there is none of that obligation, it is won- derful, and an unnatural appetite that dis- poses men to be soldiers, that they may know how to live, as if the understanding the advantage how to kill most men together, were a commendable science to raise their fortune; and what reputation soever it may have in politics, it can have none in religion, to say, that the art and conduct of a soldier is not infused by nature, but by study, ex- perience, and observation; and therefore that men are to learn it, in order to serve their own prince and country, which may be assaulted and invaded by a skilful enemy, and OF WAR. ~4o hardly defended by ignorant and unskilful officers; when, in truth, the man who con- scientiously weighs this common argument, will. rind thatit is made by appetite, to excuse, and not by reason to support, an ill custom; since the guilt contracted by shedding the blood of one single innocent man, is too dear a price to pay for all the skill that is to. be learned in that devouring profession; and that all the science that is necessary for a just defence may be attained without con- tracting a guilt, which is like to make the de- fence the more difficult. And we have in- stances enough of he most brave and effec- tual defences made upon the advantage of in- nocence, against the boldest, skilful, and inju- rious aggressor, whose guilt often makes his understanding too weak to go through an un- just attempt, against a resolute though less experienced defender. It must seem strange to any one, who considers that Christian religion, that is founded upon love, and charity, and humili- ty, should not only not extinguish this unruly appetite to war, but make the prosecution of it the more tierce and cruel; there having scarce been so much rage and inhumanity practised in any war, as in that between Christians, Tie ancient Romans, who fpr 246 LORD CLARENDON S ESSAYS. some ages arrived to the greatest perfection in the observation of the obligations of hon- our, justice, and humanity, of all men who had no light from religion, instituted a par- ticular triumph for those their generals who returned with victory without the slaughter of men. It were to be wished, that the modern Christian Romans were endued with the same blessed spirit, and that they be- lieved that the voice of blood is loud and importunate; they would not then think it their office and duty, so far to kindle this firebrand war, and to nourish all occasions to inflame it, as to obstruct and divert all overtures of extinguishing it; aud to curse and excommunicate all those who shall con- sent or submit to such overtures, when they are wearied, tired, and even consumed with weltering in each other's blood, and have scarce blood enough left to give them strength to enjoy the blessings of peace. What can be more unmerciful, more unwor- thy of the title of Christians, than such an aversion from stopping those issues of blood, and from binding up those wounds which have been bleeding so long? and yet we have seen those inhuman bulls let loose by two popes, who would be thought to have the sole power committed to them by Christ,, OP PEACE. 247 to inform the world of his will and pleasure; the one against the peace of Germany, and the other against that with the Low Coun- tries; by both which these his vicars gene- ral absolve all men from observing it, though they are bound by their oaths never to swerve from it. We may pious- ly believe, that all the princes of the world, who have wantonly, or without just and manifest provocation, obliged their subjects to serve them in a war, by which millions of men have been exposed to slaughter, fire, and famine, will sooner find remission of all the other sins they have committed, than for that obstinate outrage against the life of man, and the murders which have been com- mitted by their authority. XXI, OF PEACE. Montpellier, 1070. IT was a very proper answer to him who asked, why any man should be delighted with beauty? that it was a question that none but a blind man could ask; since any beautiful object doth so much attract the sight of all men, that it is in no man's pow- er not to be pleased with it. Nor can any 248 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. aversion or malignity towards the object, ir- reconcile the eyes from looking upon it: as a man who hath an envenomed and mor- tal hatred against another, who hath a most graceful and beautiful person, cannot hin- der his eye from being delighted to be- hold that person; though that delight is far from going to the heart; as no man's mal- ice towards an excellent musician can keep his ear from being pleased with his music. No man can ask how or why men come to be delighted with peace, but he who is without natural bowels, who is deprived of all those affections, which can only make life pleasant to him. Peace is that harmony in the state, that health is in the body. No honour, no profit, no plenty can make him happy, who is sick with a fever in his blood, and with defluctions and aches in his joints and bones; but health restor- ed gives a relish to the other blessings, and is very merry without them: no kingdom can flourish or be at ease, in which there is no peace; which only makes men dwell at home, and enjoy the labour of their own hands, and improve all the advanta- ges which the air, and the climate, and the soil administers to them; and all which yield no comfort, where there is no peace. God himself reckons health the greatest IUI. *V qui ^^va m OF PEACE. 249 blessing he can bestow upon mankind, and peace the greatest comfort and ornament he can confer upon states; which are a multi- tude of men gathered together. They who delight most in war, are so much ashamed of it, that they pretend Pacis gerere negotium ; to have no other end, to desire nothing but peace, that their heart is set upon nothing else. When Caesar was engaging all the world in war, he wrote to Tully, "Neque tutitis, neque honestius reperies quidquatn, quam ab omni contentione abesse;" there as nothing worthier of. an honest man than have contention with nobody. It was the highest aggravation that the prophet could find out in the description of the greatest wickedness, that " the way of peace they knew not;" and the greatest punishment of all their crookedness and perverseness was, that "they should not know peace." A greater curse cannot befal the most wicked nation, than to be deprived of peace. There is nothing of real and substantial comfort in this world, but what is the product of peace; and whatsoever we may lawfully and inno- cently take delight in, is the fruit and effect of peace. The solemn service of God, and performing our duty to him in the exercise of regular devotion, which is the greatest 250 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. business of our life, and in which we ought to take most delight, is the issue of peace. War breaks all that order, interrupts all that devotion, and even extinguished all that zeal, which peace bad kindled in us, lays waste the dwelling-place of God as well as ef man; and introduces and propagates opin- ions and practice, as much against heaven as against earth, and erects a deity that delights in nothing but cruelty and blood. Are we pleased with the enlarged commerce and society of large and opulent cities, or with the retired pleasures, of the country? do we love stately palaces, and noble houses, or take delight in pleasant groves and woods, or fruitful gardens, which teach and instruct nature to produce and bring forth more fruits, and flowers, and plants, than her own store can supply her with? all this we owe to peace; and the dissolution of this peace disfigures all this beauty, and in a short time covers and buries all this order and delight in ruin and rubbish. Finally, have we any content, satisfaction, and joy, in the conver- sation of each other, in the knowledge and understanding of those arts and sciences, which more adorn mankind, than all those buildings and plantations do the fields and grounds on which they stand? even this is OF PEACE. 251 the blessed effect and legacy of peace; and war lays our natures and manners as waste as our gardens and our habitations; and we can as easily preserve the beauty of the one, as the integrity of the other, under the curs- ed jurisdiction ot drums and trumpets. "if it be possible, as much aslieth in you, live peaceably with all men," was one of the primitive injunctions of 'Christianity, Rom. xii. 18, and comprehends not only particular and private men (though no doubt all gentle and peaceable natures are most capable of Christian precepts, and most affected with them) but kings and princes themselves. St. Paul knew well, that the peaceable in- clinations and dispositions of subjects could do little good, if the sovereign princes were disposed to war; but if they desire to live peaceably with their neighbours, their sub- jects cannot but be happy. And the plea- sure that God himself takes in that tem- per, needs no other manifestation, than the promise our Saviour makes to those who contribute towards it, in his sermon upon the mount, "Blessed are the peace- makers, for they shall be called the children of God," Matt. v. 9. Peace must needs be very acceptable to him, when the instru- ments towards it are crowned with such a 252 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. full measure of blessing; and it is no hard matter to guess whose children they are, who take all the pains they can to deprive the world of peace, and to subject it to the rage and fury and desolation of war. If we had not the -woful experience of so many hundred years, we should hardly think it possible, that men who pretend to embrace the gospel of peace, should be so unconcern- ed in the obligation and effects of it; and when God looks upon it as the greatest blessing he can pour down upon the heads of those who please him best, and observe his commands, "I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make. you afraid," Lev. xxvi. 6, that men study nothing more than how to throw off and deprive them- selves and others of this his precious bounty; as if we were void of natural reason, as welt as without the elements of religion: for nature itself disposes us to a love of society, which cannot be preserved without peace. A whole city on fire is a spectacle full of horror, but a whole kingdom on fire must be a prospect much more terrible; and such is every kingdom in war, where nothing flour- ishes but rapine, blood, and murder, and the faces of all men are pale and ghastly, out of the sense of what they have done, or of what OF PEACE* 253 they have suffered, or are to endure. The reverse of all this is peace, which in a mo- ment extinguishes all that fire, Binds up all the wounds, and restores to all faces their natural vivacity and beauty. We cannot make a more lively representation and em- blem to ourselves of hell, than by the view of a kingdom in war; where there is nothing to be seen but destruction and lire, and the discord itself is a great part of the torment: nor a more sensible reflection upon the joys of heaven, than as it is all quiet and peace, and where nothing is to be discerned but consent and harmony, and what is amiable in all the circumstances of it. And as far as we may warrantably judge of the inhabi- tants of either climate, they who love and cherish discord among men, and take delight in war, have large mansions provided for them, in that region of faction and disagree- ment; as we may "presume, that they who set their hearts .upon peace in this world, and labour to promote it in their several stations amongst all men, and who are instruments to prevent the breach of it amongst princes and states, or to renew it when it is broken, have infallible title to a place and mansion in heaven; where there is only peace in that perfection, that all other blessings are comprehended in it, and a part of it. 254 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. XXII. OF SACRILEGE. ir' On a Fast-day at Jersey, 1641. THE original and ground of the first institu* tion of fasts and solemn days of humiliation, was to deprecate God's judgment, and to re- move some heavy afflictions either actually brought upon or immediately threatened by him upon that people; and in order there- unto to make a faithful inquisition into all sins, and to enter into a covenant against those which seem to be most cordially em- braced by us, and consequently the most likely causes of the present calamities we groan under: so that though every act of de- votion should raise in us a detestation of all sins whatsoever, yet as a particular fast is commonly for the removal of a particular judgment, so the devotion of that day will not be too much circumscribed and limited, if it be intent upon the inquisition into the nature and mischief of one particular sin, and in the endeavour to raise up some fence and fortification that that sin may not break in upon us; especially if it be such a one, as either our own inclinations, or the iniquity and temper of the time in which we live, is like to invite us to. If the business of our fasts be only to inveigh and pray against the OF SACRILEGE. 255 sins we are least inclined to, we make them indeed days of triumph over other men's wickedness, not of humiliation for our own; and arraign them, not prostrate ourselves before God. If the parliament's fast days had been celebrated with a due and ingenu- ous disquisition of the nature and odiousness of hypocrisy, rebellion, and profaneness, in- stead of discourses against popery, tyranny, and superstition; which, though they are grievous sins, were not yet the sins of those congregations; and if the fast-days observed by the king's party had been spent in prayer for, and sincere study of temperance, justice, and patience in adversity, of the practical duties of a Christian, of the obligations of conscience to constancy and perseverance in our duty, and of the shame and dishonesty and impiety of redeeming our fortunes or lives with the breach of our conscience, instead of arguments against taking up arms against lawful authority, sedition, and schism; which, though they are enormous crimes, were not yet the crimes of those congrega- tions; both parties without doubt would not have been as constant to their own sins as to their fasts; as if all their devotions had been to confirm them in what they had done amiss, and in the end to shake hands in the 256 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. same sins, and determine all further dispute of oaths, by an union in perjury, a general taking the covenant, and to extinguish rebel- lion by an universal submission, and guilt in sacrilege. I have not yet met with any man so hardy as to deny that sacrilege is a sin; or to aver that, being a sin, a man may be guilty of it for any worldly consideration or advantage whatsoever; and yet, as if there were no such thing in nature, or as if it were only u term of art to perplex men in debates, men of all tempers, and scarce reconcileable in any other conclusion or design, are very frankly and lovingly united in this mystery of iniquity: which I cannot be so uncharita- ble as to believe proceeds from a vicious habit of the mind, but an inadvertency and incogitancy of the nature and consequence of the sin itself. It would not otherwise be, that a thing that hath been so odious from the beginning of the world amongst all brave nations, who have been endued but with the light of nature, and have made any pretence to virtue, that they could not fix a brand of more infamy upon the most exorbi- tant person in the practice of all vice, than to call him a sacrilegious person, should be now held of so little moment amongst Chris- OF SACRILEGE. 257 tians; and that when all things dedicated and separated for holy uses have been always accounted and reputed so sacred by men of all religions, or pretenders to religion, that where any violation hath been offered to the temples of any gods, when a country hath been pronounced to be destroyed with fire and sword, and all cruelty practised by or- der against all ages and sexes, the general of those armies has, by his sacrilege, lost the reward of his other conquests, and been punished with infamy and dishonour by those who have enjoyed the benefit of his victory, though they served not those Gods, or ac- counted them such whom he had spoiled: as we find frequent examples in the Roman story; who, besides that justice upon those accidents, celebrated some devotions to ab- solve their state from the guilt, and ordered reparation and restitution to be made to those deities which had been robbed and profaned; yet after sixteen hundred years study and profession of Christianity, those horrible crimes should pass by us, and we pass through them, not only without the least compunction of conscience, but with- out the least blush or apprehension of a fault. "Will a man rob God?" says the prophet Malachi, ch. iii. 8, none will be so impudent- VOL.. v. 34 258 LORD CLARENDON'S ESSAYS. ly wicked to say he will; "Yet ye have rob- bed me: but ye say, wherein have we robbed thee?" "In tithes and offerings," says the same spirit. Pretend what you will to reve- rence, and fear of God, if you take away what is consecrated, what is dedicated to him, you do no better than rob God himself; and rob him with all those circumstances which most offend and grieve him. Tremel- lius renders it "spoliatis me," but the vul- gar hath it "configitis me," which is worse: spoiling a man, supposes some great act of violence in the circumstance, but a man that is spoiled may be yet left at liberty to shift for himself, and may find relief again by others; but "configitis me," you have not been content to rob and to spoil me, but you have nailed me, you have bound me fast, that 1 cannot stir to keep- myself, nor t