science. At least, when I was in the same case, I perceived no such thing. for making spoke of his history. This is also deemed to me a little mean in Tacitus,* Blamed by that, being to say he had exercised a certain ho- Montaigne nourable office of the magistracy, he excused him- an apology self by saying that he did not mention it by way of for having ostentation. This seems a little too low an expres- himself in sion for such a genius as his was; since for a man not to do himself justice, implies some want of courage; one of a rough and lofty judgment, which is also safe and sound, makes use of his own example upon all occasions, as well as those of others; and gives evidence as freely of himself as of a third person. We are to supersede these common rules of civility in favour of truth and liberty. I presume not only to speak of myself, but of myself alone. When I write of any thing else, I mistake my way, and lose my subject: yet I am not indiscreetly enamoured with or so bigotted to, and enwrapped up in myself, that I cannot distinguish and consider myself apart, as I do a neighbour, or a tree. It is equally a failing for a man not to discern all his ability, or to say more than he sees in himself. We owe more love to God than to ourselves, and know him less; yet we speak of him as much as we please. If the writings of Tacitus make any discovery of The cha his qualities, he was a great man, upright and bold; racter of not of a superstitious, but of a philosophical, and be judged generous virtue. Tacitus to of by his writings. A man may think him bold in his stories; as where Tacitus, he says that a soldier carrying a bundle of wood, his and all bishands were so frozen, and stuck so fast to it, that to be com torians are they were severed by it from his arms. I always, in mended for relating such things, submit to such great authorities.† extraordiWhat he says also of Vespasian, that by the favour nary facts of the god Serapis, he cured a blind woman in Alex-lar ru * "Domitianus edidit ludos seculares, iisque intentius affui, sa"cerdotio Quindecimvirali præditus, actum Prætor, quod non "jactantia refero," &c. Tacit. Annal. lib. xi. cap. 11. Tacit Annal. lib. xiii. cap. 35. + Hist. lib. iv. cap. 81. and popu mours. andria, by anointing her eyes with his spittle, and I know not what other miracles: he does it by the example and duty of all good historians, who keep registers of such events as are of importance. Among public accidents are also common rumours and opinions. It is their part to relate the things commonly believed, not to regulate them. This is the province of the divines and the philosophers, who are the guides of men's consciences. Therefore it was that this companion of his, and as great a man as himself, very wisely said, Equidem plura transcribo quàm credo: nam nec affirmare sustineo, de quibus dubito, nec subducere que accepi:* "Indeed I set "down more things than I believe; for as I cannot "endure to affirm things whereof I doubt, so I can"not smother what I have heard." And this other; Hæc neque affirmare neque refellere operæ pretium est-famæ rerum standum est :† "It is not worth "while to affirm, or to confute these matters; we "must stand to report:" and as he wrote in an age when the belief of prodigies began to decline, he says, he would not, nevertheless, omit to insert in his annals, and to give a place to things received by so many worthy men, and with so great a reverence of antiquity. This was well said. Let them deliver us history more as they receive than believe it. I, who am a monarch of the subject I treat of, and who am accountable to nobody, do not, however, believe every thing I write. I often hazard the sallies of my fancy, of which I am very diffident, as well as certain quibbles, at which I shake my ears; but I let them take their chance. I see that by such things some get reputation: it is not for me alone to judge. I present myself standing, and lying on my face, my back, my right side and my left, and in all my natural postures. Wits, though equal in force, are not always equal in taste and application. This is what * Q. Curtius, lib. ix. chap. 1, translated by Vaugelas. my memory has furnished me with in gross, and with uncertainty enough. All judgments in the gross are weak and imperfect. CHAPTER VIII. Of Vanity. pleasant dertaking of his own THERE is not perhaps any vanity more express, Monthan to write of it so vainly. That which the divi- taigne's nity has so divinely delivered of it to us, ought to be apology carefully and continually meditated by men of un- for his nnWho sees not that I have taken a this register derstanding. road, in which I shall incessantly and easily jog on, humours. so long as I can come at ink and paper? I can give no account of my life by my actions; fortune has placed them too low: I must do it by my fancies. And yet I have seen a gentleman who only communicated his life by the workings of his belly: you might see in his house a regular range of closestoolpans of seven or eight days standing: that was all his study, all his discourse; all other talk stunk in his nostrils. These here, but a little more decent, are the excrements of an old mind, sometimes hard, sometimes loose, and always indigested; and when shall I have done representing the continual agitation and mutation of my thoughts, on whatever subject comes into my head, seeing that Diomedes* * Here Montaigne seems to have relied simply upon his memory, and to have mistaken Diomedes for Dydimus the grammarian, who, as Seneca says, wrote four thousand books on questions of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient grammarians. In some of these books was an inquiry into Homer's native country; in others, who was the true mother of Æneas; in some, whether Anacreon was the greater whore-master, or drunkard; in others, whether Sappho was a common strumpet: and the like things which were better unlearned, if you knew them. Seneca, epist. 88. Sorry ought to be by the Jaws, and why. wrote six thousand books upon the sole subject of grammar? What then must be the product of loquacity, if the world was stuffed with such a horrible load of volumes to facilitate pronunciation and free utterance? So many words about words only. O Pythagoras, why didst not thou lay this tempest! They accused one Galba of old for living idly; he made answer, "That every one ought to give account of his "actions, but not of his leisure."* He was mistaken, for justice takes cognizance of, and passes censure even upon those that pick straws. But there should be some restraint of law against scribblers foolish and impertinent scribblers, as well as against suppressed vagabonds and idle persons; which, if there was, both I and a hundred others would be banished the kingdom. I do not speak this in jest: scribbling seems to be a symptom of a licentious age. When did we write so much as since our civil wars? When the Romans so much, as when their commonwealth was running to ruin? Besides that the refining of wits does not make people wiser in state policy. This idle employment springs from hence, that every one applies himself negligently to the duty of his vocation, and is diverted from it. The corruption of the age is a fund to which each of us contribute. Some treachery, others injustice, irreligion, tyranny, avarice and cruelty, according as they are in power; and the weaker sort, of which I am one, contribute folly, vanity, and idleness. It seems as if it were the season for vain things when the hurtful oppress us. In a time when doing ill is so common, to do nothing but what signifies nothing is a kind of com This was a saying of the emperor Galba, in his life by Suetonius, sect. 9. It must be allowed here, either that Montaigne did not quote this from the original, or that his memory failed him; for, if he had meaned the emperor Galba, he would not have called him, as he here does, one Galba of old. This is so palpable, that in the edition of his Essays, printed at Paris in 1602, by Abel l'Angelier, in that part of the index referring to this passage, care is taken to point out expressly, that the Galba here mentioned is to be dis tinguished from the emperor of this name. mendation. It is my comfort, that I shall be one of the last that shall be called to account; and whilst the greater offenders are taken to task, I shall have leisure to amend; for it would, methinks, be against reason to prosecute little inconveniences, whilst we are infected with the greater. As the physician, Philotimus, said to one who presented him his finger to dress, and who he perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an ulcer in his lungs : Friend," said he, "this is not a time for you to "be paring your nails."* men amuse most abuse And yet I saw, some years ago, a person whose Howstatesmemory I have in very great esteem, who in the the people very height of our great disorders, when there was while they neither law nor justice, nor magistrate that perform- them. ed his office, any more than there is now, published I know not what pitiful reformations about clothes, cookery, and chicanery in law. These are amusements wherewith to feed a people that are ill used, to show that they are not totally forgot. Those others do the same, who insist upon a strict prohibition of the forms of speaking, dances, and games, to a people totally abandoned to all sort of execrable vices. It is no time to bathe and clean a man's self when he is seized with a violent fever. It is for the Spartiates only to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they are just upon the point of running head-long into some extreme danger of their life. wiser and For my part, I have yet a worse custom, that if Montaigne my shoe go awry, I let my shirt and my cloak do so more mo too; I scorn to mend myself by halves: when I am derate in in a bad plight, I feed upon mischief; I abandon than advermyself through despair; let myself go towards the sity. precipice, and, as the saying is, "throw the helve after the hatchet." I am obstinate in growing worse, and think myself no more worth my own care; I am either good or ill throughout. It is a favour * Plutarch, in his Treatise how to distinguish the Flatterer from the Friend, chap. 31. prosperity |