CHAPTER XXV——OF THE

EDUCATION OF CHILDREN
TO MADAME DIANE DE FOIX, Comtesse de
Gurson

I never yet saw that father, but let his son be never so decrepit or deformed, would
not, notwithstanding, own him: not, nevertheless, if he were not totally besotted, and
blinded with his paternal affection, that he did not well enough discern his defects; but
that with all defaults he was still his. Just so, I see better than any other, that all I write
here are but the idle reveries of a man that has only nibbled upon the outward crust of
sciences in his nonage, and only retained a general and formless image of them; who
has got a little snatch of everything and nothing of the whole, ‘a la Francoise’. For I
know, in general, that there is such a thing as physic, as jurisprudence: four parts in
mathematics, and, roughly, what all these aim and point at; and, peradventure, I yet
know farther, what sciences in general pretend unto, in order to the service of our life:
but to dive farther than that, and to have cudgelled my brains in the study of Aristotle,
the monarch of all modern learning, or particularly addicted myself to any one
science, I have never done it; neither is there any one art of which I am able to draw
the first lineaments and dead colour; insomuch that there is not a boy of the lowest
form in a school, that may not pretend to be wiser than I, who am not able to examine
him in his first lesson, which, if I am at any time forced upon, I am necessitated in my
own defence, to ask him, unaptly enough, some universal questions, such as may
serve to try his natural understanding; a lesson as strange and unknown to him, as his
is to me.
I never seriously settled myself to the reading any book of solid learning but
Plutarch and Seneca; and there, like the Danaides, I eternally fill, and it as constantly
runs out; something of which drops upon this paper, but little or nothing stays with
me. History is my particular game as to matter of reading, or else poetry, for which I
have particular kindness and esteem: for, as Cleanthes said, as the voice, forced
through the narrow passage of a trumpet, comes out more forcible and shrill: so,
methinks, a sentence pressed within the harmony of verse darts out more briskly upon
the understanding, and strikes my ear and apprehension with a smarter and more
pleasing effect. As to the natural parts I have, of which this is the essay, I find them to
bow under the burden; my fancy and judgment do but grope in the dark, tripping and
stumbling in the way; and when I have gone as far as I can, I am in no degree
satisfied; I discover still a new and greater extent of land before me, with a troubled
and imperfect sight and wrapped up in clouds, that I am not able to penetrate. And
taking upon me to write indifferently of whatever comes into my head, and therein
making use of nothing but my own proper and natural means, if it befall me, as oft-
times it does, accidentally to meet in any good author, the same heads and
commonplaces upon which I have attempted to write (as I did but just now in
Plutarch’s “Discourse of the Force of Imagination”), to see myself so weak and so
forlorn, so heavy and so flat, in comparison of those better writers, I at once pity or
despise myself. Yet do I please myself with this, that my opinions have often the
honour and good fortune to jump with theirs, and that I go in the same path, though at
a very great distance, and can say, “Ah, that is so.” I am farther satisfied to find that I
have a quality, which every one is not blessed withal, which is, to discern the vast
difference between them and me; and notwithstanding all that, suffer my own
inventions, low and feeble as they are, to run on in their career, without mending or
plastering up the defects that this comparison has laid open to my own view. And, in
plain truth, a man had need of a good strong back to keep pace with these people. The
indiscreet scribblers of our times, who, amongst their laborious nothings, insert whole
sections and pages out of ancient authors, with a design, by that means, to illustrate
their own writings, do quite contrary; for this infinite dissimilitude of ornaments
renders the complexion of their own compositions so sallow and deformed, that they
lose much more than they get.
The philosophers, Chrysippus and Epicurus, were in this of two quite contrary
humours: the first not only in his books mixed passages and sayings of other authors,
but entire pieces, and, in one, the whole Medea of Euripides; which gave Apollodorus
occasion to say, that should a man pick out of his writings all that was none of his, he
would leave him nothing but blank paper: whereas the latter, quite on the contrary, in
three hundred volumes that he left behind him, has not so much as one quotation.—
[Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Chyysippus, vii. 181, and Epicurus, x. 26.]
I happened the other day upon this piece of fortune; I was reading a French book,
where after I had a long time run dreaming over a great many words, so dull, so
insipid, so void of all wit or common sense, that indeed they were only French words:
after a long and tedious travel, I came at last to meet with a piece that was lofty, rich,
and elevated to the very clouds; of which, had I found either the declivity easy or the
ascent gradual, there had been some excuse; but it was so perpendicular a precipice,
and so wholly cut off from the rest of the work, that by the first six words, I found
myself flying into the other world, and thence discovered the vale whence I came so
deep and low, that I have never had since the heart to descend into it any more. If I
should set out one of my discourses with such rich spoils as these, it would but too
evidently manifest the imperfection of my own writing. To reprehend the fault in
others that I am guilty of myself, appears to me no more unreasonable, than to
condemn, as I often do, those of others in myself: they are to be everywhere reproved,
and ought to have no sanctuary allowed them. I know very well how audaciously I
myself, at every turn, attempt to equal myself to my thefts, and to make my style go
hand in hand with them, not without a temerarious hope of deceiving the eyes of my
reader from discerning the difference; but withal it is as much by the benefit of my
application, that I hope to do it, as by that of my invention or any force of my own.
Besides, I do not offer to contend with the whole body of these champions, nor hand
to hand with anyone of them: ‘tis only by flights and little light attempts that I engage
them; I do not grapple with them, but try their strength only, and never engage so far
as I make a show to do. If I could hold them in play, I were a brave fellow; for I never
attack them; but where they are most sinewy and strong. To cover a man’s self (as I
have seen some do) with another man’s armour, so as not to discover so much as his
fingers’ ends; to carry on a design (as it is not hard for a man that has anything of a
scholar in him, in an ordinary subject to do) under old inventions patched up here and
there with his own trumpery, and then to endeavour to conceal the theft, and to make
it pass for his own, is first injustice and meanness of spirit in those who do it, who
having nothing in them of their own fit to procure them a reputation, endeavour to do
it by attempting to impose things upon the world in their own name, which they have
no manner of title to; and next, a ridiculous folly to content themselves with acquiring
the ignorant approbation of the vulgar by such a pitiful cheat, at the price at the same
time of degrading themselves in the eyes of men of understanding, who turn up their
noses at all this borrowed incrustation, yet whose praise alone is worth the having. For
my own part, there is nothing I would not sooner do than that, neither have I said so
much of others, but to get a better opportunity to explain myself. Nor in this do I
glance at the composers of centos, who declare themselves for such; of which sort of
writers I have in my time known many very ingenious, and particularly one under the
name of Capilupus, besides the ancients. These are really men of wit, and that make it
appear they are so, both by that and other ways of writing; as for example, Lipsius, in
that learned and laborious contexture of his Politics.
But, be it how it will, and how inconsiderable soever these ineptitudes may be, I
will say I never intended to conceal them, no more than my old bald grizzled likeness
before them, where the painter has presented you not with a perfect face, but with
mine. For these are my own particular opinions and fancies, and I deliver them as only
what I myself believe, and not for what is to be believed by others. I have no other end
in this writing, but only to discover myself, who, also shall, peradventure, be another
thing to-morrow, if I chance to meet any new instruction to change me. I have no
authority to be believed, neither do I desire it, being too conscious of my own
inerudition to be able to instruct others.
Some one, then, having seen the preceding chapter, the other day told me at my
house, that I should a little farther have extended my discourse on the education of
children.—[“Which, how fit I am to do, let my friends flatter me if they please, I have
in the meantime no such opinion of my own talent, as to promise myself any very
good success from my endeavour.” This passage would appear to be an interpolation
by Cotton. At all events, I do not find it in the original editions before me, or in
Coste.]—
Now, madam, if I had any sufficiency in this subject, I could not possibly better
employ it, than to present my best instructions to the little man that threatens you
shortly with a happy birth (for you are too generous to begin otherwise than with a
male); for, having had so great a hand in the treaty of your marriage, I have a certain
particular right and interest in the greatness and prosperity of the issue that shall
spring from it; beside that, your having had the best of my services so long in
possession, sufficiently obliges me to desire the honour and advantage of all wherein
you shall be concerned. But, in truth, all I understand as to that particular is only this,
that the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of
children. For as in agriculture, the husbandry that is to precede planting, as also
planting itself, is certain, plain, and well known; but after that which is planted comes
to life, there is a great deal more to be done, more art to be used, more care to be
taken, and much more difficulty to cultivate and bring it to perfection so it is with
men; it is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the
trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up. The
symptoms of their inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so
uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid judgment or
conjecture upon them. Look at Cimon, for example, and Themistocles, and a thousand
others, who very much deceived the expectation men had of them. Cubs of bears and
puppies readily discover their natural inclination; but men, so soon as ever they are
grownup, applying themselves to certain habits, engaging themselves in certain
opinions, and conforming themselves to particular laws and customs, easily alter, or at
least disguise, their true and real disposition; and yet it is hard to force the propension
of nature. Whence it comes to pass, that for not having chosen the right course, we
often take very great pains, and consume a good part of our time in training up
children to things, for which, by their natural constitution, they are totally unfit. In this
difficulty, nevertheless, I am clearly of opinion, that they ought to be elemented in the
best and most advantageous studies, without taking too much notice of, or being too
superstitious in those light prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years,
and to which Plato, in his Republic, gives, methinks, too much authority.
Madam, science is a very great ornament, and a thing of marvellous use, especially
in persons raised to that degree of fortune in which you are. And, in truth, in persons
of mean and low condition, it cannot perform its true and genuine office, being
naturally more prompt to assist in the conduct of war, in the government of peoples, in
negotiating the leagues and friendships of princes and foreign nations, than in forming
a syllogism in logic, in pleading a process in law, or in prescribing a dose of pills in
physic. Wherefore, madam, believing you will not omit this so necessary feature in
the education of your children, who yourself have tasted its sweetness, and are of a
learned extraction (for we yet have the writings of the ancient Counts of Foix, from
whom my lord, your husband, and yourself, are both of you descended, and Monsieur
de Candale, your uncle, every day obliges the world with others, which will extend
the knowledge of this quality in your family for so many succeeding ages), I will,
upon this occasion, presume to acquaint your ladyship with one particular fancy of my
own, contrary to the common method, which is all I am able to contribute to your
service in this affair.
The charge of the tutor you shall provide for your son, upon the choice of whom
depends the whole success of his education, has several other great and considerable
parts and duties required in so important a trust, besides that of which I am about to
speak: these, however, I shall not mention, as being unable to add anything of moment
to the common rules: and in this, wherein I take upon me to advise, he may follow it
so far only as it shall appear advisable.
For a, boy of quality then, who pretends to letters not upon the account of profit (for
so mean an object is unworthy of the grace and favour of the Muses, and moreover, in
it a man directs his service to and depends upon others), nor so much for outward
ornament, as for his own proper and peculiar use, and to furnish and enrich himself
within, having rather a desire to come out an accomplished cavalier than a mere
scholar or learned man; for such a one, I say, I would, also, have his friends solicitous
to find him out a tutor, who has rather a well-made than a well-filled head;—[“‘Tete
bien faite’, an expression created by Montaigne, and which has remained a part of our
language.”—Servan.]— seeking, indeed, both the one and the other, but rather of the
two to prefer manners and judgment to mere learning, and that this man should
exercise his charge after a new method.
‘Tis the custom of pedagogues to be eternally thundering in their pupil’s ears, as
they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the business of the pupil is only to repeat what
the others have said: now I would have a tutor to correct this error, and, that at the
very first, he should according to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test,
permitting his pupil himself to taste things, and of himself to discern and choose them,
sometimes opening the way to him, and sometimes leaving him to open it for himself;
that is, I would not have him alone to invent and speak, but that he should also hear
his pupil speak in turn. Socrates, and since him Arcesilaus, made first their scholars
speak, and then they spoke to them—[Diogenes Laertius, iv. 36.]
“Obest plerumque iis, qui discere volunt,
auctoritas eorum, qui docent.”

[“The authority of those who teach, is very often an impediment to

those who desire to learn.”—Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 5.]

It is good to make him, like a young horse, trot before him, that he may judge of his
going, and how much he is to abate of his own speed, to accommodate himself to the
vigour and capacity of the other. For want of which due proportion we spoil all; which
also to know how to adjust, and to keep within an exact and due measure, is one of the
hardest things I know, and ‘tis the effect of a high and well-tempered soul, to know
how to condescend to such puerile motions and to govern and direct them. I walk
firmer and more secure up hill than down.
Such as, according to our common way of teaching, undertake, with one and the
same lesson, and the same measure of direction, to instruct several boys of differing
and unequal capacities, are infinitely mistaken; and ‘tis no wonder, if in a whole
multitude of scholars, there are not found above two or three who bring away any
good account of their time and discipline. Let the master not only examine him about
the grammatical construction of the bare words of his lesson, but about the sense and
let him judge of the profit he has made, not by the testimony of his memory, but by
that of his life. Let him make him put what he has learned into a hundred several
forms, and accommodate it to so many several subjects, to see if he yet rightly
comprehends it, and has made it his own, taking instruction of his progress by the
pedagogic institutions of Plato. ‘Tis a sign of crudity and indigestion to disgorge what
we eat in the same condition it was swallowed; the stomach has not performed its
office unless it have altered the form and condition of what was committed to it to
concoct. Our minds work only upon trust, when bound and compelled to follow the
appetite of another’s fancy, enslaved and captivated under the authority of another’s
instruction; we have been so subjected to the trammel, that we have no free, nor
natural pace of our own; our own vigour and liberty are extinct and gone:
“Nunquam tutelae suae fiunt.”

[“They are ever in wardship.”—Seneca, Ep., 33.]

I was privately carried at Pisa to see a very honest man, but so great an Aristotelian,
that his most usual thesis was: “That the touchstone and square of all solid
imagination, and of all truth, was an absolute conformity to Aristotle’s doctrine; and
that all besides was nothing but inanity and chimera; for that he had seen all, and said
all.” A position, that for having been a little too injuriously and broadly interpreted,
brought him once and long kept him in great danger of the Inquisition at Rome.
Let him make him examine and thoroughly sift everything he reads, and lodge
nothing in his fancy upon simple authority and upon trust. Aristotle’s principles will
then be no more principles to him, than those of Epicurus and the Stoics: let this
diversity of opinions be propounded to, and laid before him; he will himself choose, if
he be able; if not, he will remain in doubt.
“Che non men the saver, dubbiar m’ aggrata.”

[“I love to doubt, as well as to know.”—Dante, Inferno, xi. 93]

for, if he embrace the opinions of Xenophon and Plato, by his own reason, they will
no more be theirs, but become his own. Who follows another, follows nothing, finds
nothing, nay, is inquisitive after nothing.
“Non sumus sub rege; sibi quisque se vindicet.”

[“We are under no king; let each vindicate himself.”

—Seneca, Ep.,33]

Let him, at least, know that he knows. It will be necessary that he imbibe their
knowledge, not that he be corrupted with their precepts; and no matter if he forget
where he had his learning, provided he know how to apply it to his own use. Truth
and reason are common to every one, and are no more his who spake them first, than
his who speaks them after: ‘tis no more according to Plato, than according to me,
since both he and I equally see and understand them. Bees cull their several sweets
from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they find them, but
themselves afterwards make the honey, which is all and purely their own, and no more
thyme and marjoram: so the several fragments he borrows from others, he will
transform and shuffle together to compile a work that shall be absolutely his own; that
is to say, his judgment: his instruction, labour and study, tend to nothing else but to
form that. He is not obliged to discover whence he got the materials that have assisted
him, but only to produce what he has himself done with them. Men that live upon
pillage and borrowing, expose their purchases and buildings to every one’s view: but
do not proclaim how they came by the money. We do not see the fees and perquisites
of a gentleman of the long robe; but we see the alliances wherewith he fortifies
himself and his family, and the titles and honours he has obtained for him and his. No
man divulges his revenue; or, at least, which way it comes in but every one publishes
his acquisitions. The advantages of our study are to become better and more wise.
‘Tis, says Epicharmus, the understanding that sees and hears, ‘tis the understanding
that improves everything, that orders everything, and that acts, rules, and reigns: all
other faculties are blind, and deaf, and without soul. And certainly we render it
timorous and servile, in not allowing it the liberty and privilege to do anything of
itself. Whoever asked his pupil what he thought of grammar and rhetoric, or of such
and such a sentence of Cicero? Our masters stick them, full feathered, in our
memories, and there establish them like oracles, of which the letters and syllables are
of the substance of the thing. To know by rote, is no knowledge, and signifies no more
but only to retain what one has intrusted to our memory. That which a man rightly
knows and understands, he is the free disposer of at his own full liberty, without any
regard to the author from whence he had it, or fumbling over the leaves of his book. A
mere bookish learning is a poor, paltry learning; it may serve for ornament, but there
is yet no foundation for any superstructure to be built upon it, according to the opinion
of Plato, who says, that constancy, faith, and sincerity, are the true philosophy, and the
other sciences, that are directed to other ends; mere adulterate paint. I could wish that
Paluel or Pompey, those two noted dancers of my time, could have taught us to cut
capers, by only seeing them do it, without stirring from our places, as these men
pretend to inform the understanding without ever setting it to work, or that we could
learn to ride, handle a pike, touch a lute, or sing without the trouble of practice, as
these attempt to make us judge and speak well, without exercising us in judging or
speaking. Now in this initiation of our studies in their progress, whatsoever presents
itself before us is book sufficient; a roguish trick of a page, a sottish mistake of a
servant, a jest at the table, are so many new subjects.
And for this reason, conversation with men is of very great use and travel into
foreign countries; not to bring back (as most of our young monsieurs do) an account
only of how many paces Santa Rotonda—[The Pantheon of Agrippa.]—is in circuit;
or of the richness of Signora Livia’s petticoats; or, as some others, how much Nero’s
face, in a statue in such an old ruin, is longer and broader than that made for him on
some medal; but to be able chiefly to give an account of the humours, manners,
customs, and laws of those nations where he has been, and that we may whet and
sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others. I would that a boy should be
sent abroad very young, and first, so as to kill two birds with one stone, into those
neighbouring nations whose language is most differing from our own, and to which, if
it be not formed betimes, the tongue will grow too stiff to bend.
And also ‘tis the general opinion of all, that a child should not be brought up in his
mother’s lap. Mothers are too tender, and their natural affection is apt to make the
most discreet of them all so overfond, that they can neither find in their hearts to give
them due correction for the faults they may commit, nor suffer them to be inured to
hardships and hazards, as they ought to be. They will not endure to see them return all
dust and sweat from their exercise, to drink cold drink when they are hot, nor see them
mount an unruly horse, nor take a foil in hand against a rude fencer, or so much as to
discharge a carbine. And yet there is no remedy; whoever will breed a boy to be good
for anything when he comes to be a man, must by no means spare him when young,
and must very often transgress the rules of physic:
“Vitamque sub dio, et trepidis agat
In rebus.”

[“Let him live in open air, and ever in movement about something.”
—Horace, Od. ii., 3, 5.]

It is not enough to fortify his soul; you are also to make his sinews strong; for the
soul will be oppressed if not assisted by the members, and would have too hard a task
to discharge two offices alone. I know very well to my cost, how much mine groans
under the burden, from being accommodated with a body so tender and indisposed, as
eternally leans and presses upon her; and often in my reading perceive that our
masters, in their writings, make examples pass for magnanimity and fortitude of mind,
which really are rather toughness of skin and hardness of bones; for I have seen men,
women, and children, naturally born of so hard and insensible a constitution of body,
that a sound cudgelling has been less to them than a flirt with a finger would have
been to me, and that would neither cry out, wince, nor shrink, for a good swinging
beating; and when wrestlers counterfeit the philosophers in patience, ‘tis rather
strength of nerves than stoutness of heart. Now to be inured to undergo labour, is to be
accustomed to endure pain:
“Labor callum obducit dolori.”

[“Labour hardens us against pain.”—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 15.]

A boy is to be broken in to the toil and roughness of exercise, so as to be trained up

to the pain and suffering of dislocations, cholics, cauteries, and even imprisonment
and the rack itself; for he may come by misfortune to be reduced to the worst of these,
which (as this world goes) is sometimes inflicted on the good as well as the bad. As
for proof, in our present civil war whoever draws his sword against the laws, threatens
the honestest men with the whip and the halter.
And, moreover, by living at home, the authority of this governor, which ought to be
sovereign over the boy he has received into his charge, is often checked and hindered
by the presence of parents; to which may also be added, that the respect the whole
family pay him, as their master’s son, and the knowledge he has of the estate and
greatness he is heir to, are, in my opinion, no small inconveniences in these tender
years.
And yet, even in this conversing with men I spoke of but now, I have observed this
vice, that instead of gathering observations from others, we make it our whole
business to lay ourselves open to them, and are more concerned how to expose and set
out our own commodities, than how to increase our stock by acquiring new. Silence,
therefore, and modesty are very advantageous qualities in conversation. One should,
therefore, train up this boy to be sparing and an husband of his knowledge when he
has acquired it; and to forbear taking exceptions at or reproving every idle saying or
ridiculous story that is said or told in his presence; for it is a very unbecoming
rudeness to carp at everything that is not agreeable to our own palate. Let him be
satisfied with correcting himself, and not seem to condemn everything in another he
would not do himself, nor dispute it as against common customs.
“Licet sapere sine pompa, sine invidia.”

[“Let us be wise without ostentation, without envy.”

—Seneca, Ep., 103.]

Let him avoid these vain and uncivil images of authority, this childish ambition of
coveting to appear better bred and more accomplished, than he really will, by such
carriage, discover himself to be. And, as if opportunities of interrupting and
reprehending were not to be omitted, to desire thence to derive the reputation of
something more than ordinary. For as it becomes none but great poets to make use of
the poetical licence, so it is intolerable for any but men of great and illustrious souls to
assume privilege above the authority of custom:
“Si quid Socrates ant Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem
fecerunt, idem sibi ne arbitretur licere: magnis enim illi et
divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur.”

[“If Socrates and Aristippus have committed any act against manners
and custom, let him not think that he is allowed to do the same; for
it was by great and divine benefits that they obtained this
privilege.”—Cicero, De Offic., i. 41.]

Let him be instructed not to engage in discourse or dispute but with a champion
worthy of him, and, even there, not to make use of all the little subtleties that may
seem pat for his purpose, but only such arguments as may best serve him. Let him be
taught to be curious in the election and choice of his reasons, to abominate
impertinence, and consequently, to affect brevity; but, above all, let him be lessoned
to acquiesce and submit to truth so soon as ever he shall discover it, whether in his
opponent’s argument, or upon better consideration of his own; for he shall never be
preferred to the chair for a mere clatter of words and syllogisms, and is no further
engaged to any argument whatever, than as he shall in his own judgment approve it:
nor yet is arguing a trade, where the liberty of recantation and getting off upon better
thoughts, are to be sold for ready money:
“Neque, ut omnia, qux praescripta et imperata sint,
defendat, necessitate ulla cogitur.”

[“Neither is their any necessity upon him, that he should defend

all things that are prescribed and enjoined him.”
—Cicero, Acad., ii. 3.]

If his governor be of my humour, he will form his will to be a very good and loyal
subject to his prince, very affectionate to his person, and very stout in his quarrel; but
withal he will cool in him the desire of having any other tie to his service than public
duty. Besides several other inconveniences that are inconsistent with the liberty every
honest man ought to have, a man’s judgment, being bribed and prepossessed by these
particular obligations, is either blinded and less free to exercise its function, or is
blemished with ingratitude and indiscretion. A man that is purely a courtier, can
neither have power nor will to speak or think otherwise than favourably and well of a
master, who, amongst so many millions of other subjects, has picked out him with his
own hand to nourish and advance; this favour, and the profit flowing from it, must
needs, and not without some show of reason, corrupt his freedom and dazzle him; and
we commonly see these people speak in another kind of phrase than is ordinarily
spoken by others of the same nation, though what they say in that courtly language is
not much to be believed.
Let his conscience and virtue be eminently manifest in his speaking, and have only
reason for their guide. Make him understand, that to acknowledge the error he shall
discover in his own argument, though only found out by himself, is an effect of
judgment and sincerity, which are the principal things he is to seek after; that
obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in mean souls; that to
revise and correct himself, to forsake an unjust argument in the height and heat of
dispute, are rare, great, and philosophical qualities.
Let him be advised, being in company, to have his eye and ear in every corner; for I
find that the places of greatest honour are commonly seized upon by men that have
least in them, and that the greatest fortunes are seldom accompanied with the ablest
parts. I have been present when, whilst they at the upper end of the chamber have
been only commenting the beauty of the arras, or the flavour of the wine, many things
that have been very finely said at the lower end of the table have been lost and thrown
away. Let him examine every man’s talent; a peasant, a bricklayer, a passenger: one
may learn something from every one of these in their several capacities, and
something will be picked out of their discourse whereof some use may be made at one
time or another; nay, even the folly and impertinence of others will contribute to his
instruction. By observing the graces and manners of all he sees, he will create to
himself an emulation of the good, and a contempt of the bad.
Let an honest curiosity be suggested to his fancy of being inquisitive after
everything; whatever there is singular and rare near the place where he is, let him go
and see it; a fine house, a noble fountain, an eminent man, the place where a battle has
been anciently fought, the passages of Caesar and Charlemagne:
“Qux tellus sit lenta gelu, quae putris ab aestu,
Ventus in Italiam quis bene vela ferat.”

[“What country is bound in frost, what land is friable with heat,

what wind serves fairest for Italy.”—Propertius, iv. 3, 39.]

Let him inquire into the manners, revenues, and alliances of princes, things in
themselves very pleasant to learn, and very useful to know.
In this conversing with men, I mean also, and principally, those who only live in the
records of history; he shall, by reading those books, converse with the great and heroic
souls of the best ages. ‘Tis an idle and vain study to those who make it so by doing it
after a negligent manner, but to those who do it with care and observation, ‘tis a study
of inestimable fruit and value; and the only study, as Plato reports, that the
Lacedaemonians reserved to themselves. What profit shall he not reap as to the
business of men, by reading the Lives of Plutarch? But, withal, let my governor
remember to what end his instructions are principally directed, and that he do not so
much imprint in his pupil’s memory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners
of Hannibal and Scipio; nor so much where Marcellus died, as why it was unworthy
of his duty that he died there. Let him not teach him so much the narrative parts of
history as to judge them; the reading of them, in my opinion, is a thing that of all
others we apply ourselves unto with the most differing measure. I have read a hundred
things in Livy that another has not, or not taken notice of at least; and Plutarch has
read a hundred more there than ever I could find, or than, peradventure, that author
ever wrote; to some it is merely a grammar study, to others the very anatomy of
philosophy, by which the most abstruse parts of our human nature penetrate. There are
in Plutarch many long discourses very worthy to be carefully read and observed, for
he is, in my opinion, of all others the greatest master in that kind of writing; but there
are a thousand others which he has only touched and glanced upon, where he only
points with his finger to direct us which way we may go if we will, and contents
himself sometimes with giving only one brisk hit in the nicest article of the question,
whence we are to grope out the rest. As, for example, where he says’—[In the Essay
on False Shame.]—that the inhabitants of Asia came to be vassals to one only, for not
having been able to pronounce one syllable, which is No. Which saying of his gave
perhaps matter and occasion to La Boetie to write his “Voluntary Servitude.” Only to
see him pick out a light action in a man’s life, or a mere word that does not seem to
amount even to that, is itself a whole discourse. ‘Tis to our prejudice that men of
understanding should so immoderately affect brevity; no doubt their reputation is the
better by it, but in the meantime we are the worse. Plutarch had rather we should
applaud his judgment than commend his knowledge, and had rather leave us with an
appetite to read more, than glutted with that we have already read. He knew very well,
that a man may say too much even upon the best subjects, and that Alexandridas justly
reproached him who made very good. but too long speeches to the Ephori, when he
said: “O stranger! thou speakest the things thou shouldst speak, but not as thou
shouldst speak them.”—[Plutarch, Apothegms of the Lacedamonians.]—Such as have
lean and spare bodies stuff themselves out with clothes; so they who are defective in
matter endeavour to make amends with words.
Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men,
for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight
limited to the length of our own noses. One asking Socrates of what country he was,
he did not make answer, of Athens, but of the world;—[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 37;
Plutarch, On Exile, c. 4.]— he whose imagination was fuller and wider, embraced the
whole world for his country, and extended his society and friendship to all mankind;
not as we do, who look no further than our feet. When the vines of my village are
nipped with the frost, my parish priest presently concludes, that the indignation of
God has gone out against all the human race, and that the cannibals have already got
the pip. Who is it that, seeing the havoc of these civil wars of ours, does not cry out,
that the machine of the world is near dissolution, and that the day of judgment is at
hand; without considering, that many worse things have been seen, and that in the
meantime, people are very merry in a thousand other parts of the earth for all this? For
my part, considering the licence and impunity that always attend such commotions, I
wonder they are so moderate, and that there is no more mischief done. To him who
feels the hailstones patter about his ears, the whole hemisphere appears to be in storm
and tempest; like the ridiculous Savoyard, who said very gravely, that if that simple
king of France could have managed his fortune as he should have done, he might in
time have come to have been steward of the household to the duke his master: the
fellow could not, in his shallow imagination, conceive that there could be anything
greater than a Duke of Savoy. And, in truth, we are all of us, insensibly, in this error,
an error of a very great weight and very pernicious consequence. But whoever shall
represent to his fancy, as in a picture, that great image of our mother nature, in her full
majesty and lustre, whoever in her face shall read so general and so constant a variety,
whoever shall observe himself in that figure, and not himself but a whole kingdom, no
bigger than the least touch or prick of a pencil in comparison of the whole, that man
alone is able to value things according to their true estimate and grandeur.
This great world which some do yet multiply as several species under one genus, is
the mirror wherein we are to behold ourselves, to be able to know ourselves as we
ought to do in the true bias. In short, I would have this to be the book my young
gentleman should study with the most attention. So many humours, so many sects, so
many judgments, opinions, laws, and customs, teach us to judge aright of our own,
and inform our understanding to discover its imperfection and natural infirmity, which
is no trivial speculation. So many mutations of states and kingdoms, and so many
turns and revolutions of public fortune, will make us wise enough to make no great
wonder of our own. So many great names, so many famous victories and conquests
drowned and swallowed in oblivion, render our hopes ridiculous of eternising our
names by the taking of half-a-score of light horse, or a henroost, which only derives
its memory from its ruin. The pride and arrogance of so many foreign pomps, the
inflated majesty of so many courts and grandeurs, accustom and fortify our sight
without closing our eyes to behold the lustre of our own; so many trillions of men,
buried before us, encourage us not to fear to go seek such good company in the other
world: and so of the rest Pythagoras was want to say,—[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 3.]—
that our life resembles the great and populous assembly of the Olympic games,
wherein some exercise the body, that they may carry away the glory of the prize:
others bring merchandise to sell for profit: there are also some (and those none of the
worst sort) who pursue no other advantage than only to look on, and consider how and
why everything is done, and to be spectators of the lives of other men, thereby the
better to judge of and regulate their own.
To examples may fitly be applied all the profitable discourses of philosophy, to
which all human actions, as to their best rule, ought to be especially directed: a
scholar shall be taught to know—
“Quid fas optare: quid asper
Utile nummus habet: patrix carisque propinquis
Quantum elargiri deceat: quern te Deus esse
Jussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re;
Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur.”

[“Learn what it is right to wish; what is the true use of coined

money; how much it becomes us to give in liberality to our country
and our dear relations; whom and what the Deity commanded thee to
be; and in what part of the human system thou art placed; what we
are ant to what purpose engendered.”—Persius, iii. 69]

what it is to know, and what to be ignorant; what ought to be the end and design of
study; what valour, temperance, and justice are; the difference betwixt ambition and
avarice, servitude and subjection, licence and liberty; by what token a man may know
true and solid contentment; how far death, affliction, and disgrace are to be
apprehended;
“Et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem.”

[“And how you may shun or sustain every hardship.”

—Virgil, AEneid, iii. 459.]

by what secret springs we move, and the reason of our various agitations and
irresolutions: for, methinks the first doctrine with which one should season his
understanding, ought to be that which regulates his manners and his sense; that
teaches him to know himself, and how both well to dig and well to live. Amongst the
liberal sciences, let us begin with that which makes us free; not that they do not all
serve in some measure to the instruction and use of life, as all other things in some
sort also do; but let us make choice of that which directly and professedly serves to
that end. If we are once able to restrain the offices of human life within their just and
natural limits, we shall find that most of the sciences in use are of no great use to us,
and even in those that are, that there are many very unnecessary cavities and
dilatations which we had better let alone, and, following Socrates’ direction, limit the
course of our studies to those things only where is a true and real utility:
“Sapere aude;
Incipe; Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam,
Rusticus exspectat, dum defluat amnis; at ille
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis oevum.”

[“Dare to be wise; begin! he who defers the hour of living well is

like the clown, waiting till the river shall have flowed out: but
the river still flows, and will run on, with constant course, to
ages without end.”—Horace, Ep., i. 2.]

‘Tis a great foolery to teach our children:

“Quid moveant Pisces, animosaque signa Leonis,
Lotus et Hesperia quid Capricornus aqua,”

[“What influence Pisces have, or the sign of angry Leo, or

Capricorn, washed by the Hesperian wave.”—Propertius, iv. I, 89.]

the knowledge of the stars and the motion of the eighth sphere before their own:
[“What care I about the Pleiades or the stars of Taurus?”
—Anacreon, Ode, xvii. 10.]

Anaximenes writing to Pythagoras, “To what purpose,” said he, “should I trouble
myself in searching out the secrets of the stars, having death or slavery continually
before my eyes?” for the kings of Persia were at that time preparing to invade his
country. Every one ought to say thus, “Being assaulted, as I am by ambition, avarice,
temerity, superstition, and having within so many other enemies of life, shall I go
ponder over the world’s changes?”
After having taught him what will make him more wise and good, you may then
entertain him with the elements of logic, physics, geometry, rhetoric, and the science
which he shall then himself most incline to, his judgment being beforehand formed
and fit to choose, he will quickly make his own. The way of instructing him ought to
be sometimes by discourse, and sometimes by reading; sometimes his governor shall
put the author himself, which he shall think most proper for him, into his hands, and
sometimes only the marrow and substance of it; and if himself be not conversant
enough in books to turn to all the fine discourses the books contain for his purpose,
there may some man of learning be joined to him, that upon every occasion shall
supply him with what he stands in need of, to furnish it to his pupil. And who can
doubt but that this way of teaching is much more easy and natural than that of Gaza,
—[Theodore Gaza, rector of the Academy of Ferrara.]—in which the precepts are so
intricate, and so harsh, and the words so vain, lean; and insignificant, that there is no
hold to be taken of them, nothing that quickens and elevates the wit and fancy,
whereas here the mind has what to feed upon and to digest. This fruit, therefore, is not
only without comparison, much more fair and beautiful; but will also be much more
early ripe.
‘Tis a thousand pities that matters should be at such a pass in this age of ours, that
philosophy, even with men of understanding, should be, looked upon as a vain and
fantastic name, a thing of no use, no value, either in opinion or effect, of which I think
those ergotisms and petty sophistries, by prepossessing the avenues to it, are the
cause. And people are much to blame to represent it to children for a thing of so
difficult access, and with such a frowning, grim, and formidable aspect. Who is it that
has disguised it thus, with this false, pale, and ghostly countenance? There is nothing
more airy, more gay, more frolic, and I had like to have said, more wanton. She
preaches nothing but feasting and jollity; a melancholic anxious look shows that she
does not inhabit there. Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a
knot of philosophers set chatting together, said to them,—[Plutarch, Treatise on
Oracles which have ceased]—“Either I am much deceived, or by your cheerful and
pleasant countenances, you are engaged in no, very deep discourse.” To which one of
them, Heracleon the Megarean, replied: “Tis for such as are puzzled about inquiring
whether the future tense of the verb ——— is spelt with a double A, or that hunt after
the derivation of the comparatives ——- and ——-, and the superlatives —— and
———, to knit their brows whilst discoursing of their science: but as to philosophical
discourses, they always divert and cheer up those that entertain them, and never deject
them or make them sad.”
“Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in aegro
Corpore; deprendas et gaudia; sumit utrumque
Inde habitum facies.”

[“You may discern the torments of mind lurking in a sick body; you
may discern its joys: either expression the face assumes from the
mind.”—Juvenal, ix. 18]

The soul that lodges philosophy, ought to be of such a constitution of health, as to

render the body in like manner healthful too; she ought to make her tranquillity and
satisfaction shine so as to appear without, and her contentment ought to fashion the
outward behaviour to her own mould, and consequently to fortify it with a graceful
confidence, an active and joyous carriage, and a serene and contented countenance.
The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of
things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene. ‘Tis Baroco and
Baralipton—[Two terms of the ancient scholastic logic.]—that render their disciples
so dirty and ill-favoured, and not she; they do not so much as know her but by
hearsay. What! It is she that calms and appeases the storms and tempests of the soul,
and who teaches famine and fevers to laugh and sing; and that, not by certain
imaginary epicycles, but by natural and manifest reasons. She has virtue for her end,
which is not, as the schoolmen say, situate upon the summit of a perpendicular,
rugged, inaccessible precipice: such as have approached her find her, quite on the
contrary, to be seated in a fair, fruitful, and flourishing plain, whence she easily
discovers all things below; to which place any one may, however, arrive, if he know
but the way, through shady, green, and sweetly-flourishing avenues, by a pleasant,
easy, and smooth descent, like that of the celestial vault. ‘Tis for not having
frequented this supreme, this beautiful, triumphant, and amiable, this equally delicious
and courageous virtue, this so professed and implacable enemy to anxiety, sorrow,
fear, and constraint, who, having nature for her guide, has fortune and pleasure for her
companions, that they have gone, according to their own weak imagination, and
created this ridiculous, this sorrowful, querulous, despiteful, threatening, terrible
image of it to themselves and others, and placed it upon a rock apart, amongst thorns
and brambles, and made of it a hobgoblin to affright people.
But the governor that I would have, that is such a one as knows it to be his duty to
possess his pupil with as much or more affection than reverence to virtue, will be able
to inform him, that the poets have evermore accommodated themselves to the public
humour, and make him sensible, that the gods have planted more toil and sweat in the
avenues of the cabinets of Venus than in those of Minerva. And when he shall once
find him begin to apprehend, and shall represent to him a Bradamante or an Angelica
—[Heroines of Ariosto.]—for a mistress, a natural, active, generous, and not a
viragoish, but a manly beauty, in comparison of a soft, delicate, artificial simpering,
and affected form; the one in the habit of a heroic youth, wearing a glittering helmet,
the other tricked up in curls and ribbons like a wanton minx; he will then look upon
his own affection as brave and masculine, when he shall choose quite contrary to that
effeminate shepherd of Phrygia.
Such a tutor will make a pupil digest this new lesson, that the height and value of
true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from
difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make
it their own; it is by order, and not by force, that it is to be acquired. Socrates, her first
minion, is so averse to all manner of violence, as totally to throw it aside, to slip into
the more natural facility of her own progress; ‘tis the nursing mother of all human
pleasures, who in rendering them just, renders them also pure and permanent; in
moderating them, keeps them in breath and appetite; in interdicting those which she
herself refuses, whets our desire to those that she allows; and, like a kind and liberal
mother, abundantly allows all that nature requires, even to satiety, if not to lassitude:
unless we mean to say that the regimen which stops the toper before he has drunk
himself drunk, the glutton before he has eaten to a surfeit, and the lecher before he has
got the pox, is an enemy to pleasure. If the ordinary fortune fail, she does without it,
and forms another, wholly her own, not so fickle and unsteady as the other. She can
be rich, be potent and wise, and knows how to lie upon soft perfumed beds: she loves
life, beauty, glory, and health; but her proper and peculiar office is to know how to
regulate the use of all these good things, and how to lose them without concern: an
office much more noble than troublesome, and without which the whole course of life
is unnatural, turbulent, and deformed, and there it is indeed, that men may justly
represent those monsters upon rocks and precipices.
If this pupil shall happen to be of so contrary a disposition, that he had rather hear a
tale of a tub than the true narrative of some noble expedition or some wise and learned
discourse; who at the beat of drum, that excites the youthful ardour of his companions,
leaves that to follow another that calls to a morris or the bears; who would not wish,
and find it more delightful and more excellent, to return all dust and sweat victorious
from a battle, than from tennis or from a ball, with the prize of those exercises; I see
no other remedy, but that he be bound prentice in some good town to learn to make
minced pies, though he were the son of a duke; according to Plato’s precept, that
children are to be placed out and disposed of, not according to the wealth, qualities, or
condition of the father, but according to the faculties and the capacity of their own
souls.
Since philosophy is that which instructs us to live, and that infancy has there its
lessons as well as other ages, why is it not communicated to children betimes?
“Udum et molle lutum est; nunc, nunc properandus, et acri
Fingendus sine fine rota.”

[“The clay is moist and soft: now, now make haste, and form the
pitcher on the rapid wheel.”—Persius, iii. 23.]

They begin to teach us to live when we have almost done living. A hundred students
have got the pox before they have come to read Aristotle’s lecture on temperance.
Cicero said, that though he should live two men’s ages, he should never find leisure to
study the lyric poets; and I find these sophisters yet more deplorably unprofitable. The
boy we would breed has a great deal less time to spare; he owes but the first fifteen or
sixteen years of his life to education; the remainder is due to action. Let us, therefore,
employ that short time in necessary instruction. Away with the thorny subtleties of
dialectics; they are abuses, things by which our lives can never be amended: take the
plain philosophical discourses, learn how rightly to choose, and then rightly to apply
them; they are more easy to be understood than one of Boccaccio’s novels; a child
from nurse is much more capable of them, than of learning to read or to write.
Philosophy has discourses proper for childhood, as well as for the decrepit age of
men.
I am of Plutarch’s mind, that Aristotle did not so much trouble his great disciple
with the knack of forming syllogisms, or with the elements of geometry; as with
infusing into him good precepts concerning valour, prowess, magnanimity,
temperance, and the contempt of fear; and with this ammunition, sent him, whilst yet
a boy, with no more than thirty thousand foot, four thousand horse, and but forty-two
thousand crowns, to subjugate the empire of the whole earth. For the other acts and
sciences, he says, Alexander highly indeed commended their excellence and charm,
and had them in very great honour and esteem, but not ravished with them to that
degree as to be tempted to affect the practice of them In his own person:
 “Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque,
Finem ammo certum, miserisque viatica canis.”

[“Young men and old men, derive hence a certain end to the mind,
and stores for miserable grey hairs.”—Persius, v. 64.]

Epicurus, in the beginning of his letter to Meniceus,—[Diogenes Laertius, x. 122.]

—says, “That neither the youngest should refuse to philosophise, nor the oldest grow
weary of it.” Who does otherwise, seems tacitly to imply, that either the time of living
happily is not yet come, or that it is already past. And yet, a for all that, I would not
have this pupil of ours imprisoned and made a slave to his book; nor would I have him
given up to the morosity and melancholic humour of a sour ill-natured pedant.
I would not have his spirit cowed and subdued, by applying him to the rack, and
tormenting him, as some do, fourteen or fifteen hours a day, and so make a pack-horse
of him. Neither should I think it good, when, by reason of a solitary and melancholic
complexion, he is discovered to be overmuch addicted to his book, to nourish that
humour in him; for that renders him unfit for civil conversation, and diverts him from
better employments. And how many have I seen in my time totally brutified by an
immoderate thirst after knowledge? Carneades was so besotted with it, that he would
not find time so much as to comb his head or to pare his nails. Neither would I have
his generous manners spoiled and corrupted by the incivility and barbarism of those of
another. The French wisdom was anciently turned into proverb: “Early, but of no
continuance.” And, in truth, we yet see, that nothing can be more ingenious and
pleasing than the children of France; but they ordinarily deceive the hope and
expectation that have been conceived of them; and grown up to be men, have nothing
extraordinary or worth taking notice of: I have heard men of good understanding say,
these colleges of ours to which we send our young people (and of which we have but
too many) make them such animals as they are.—[Hobbes said that if he Had been at
college as long as other people he should have been as great a blockhead as they.
W.C.H.] [And Bacon before Hobbe’s time had discussed the “futility” of university
teaching. D.W.]
But to our little monsieur, a closet, a garden, the table, his bed, solitude, and
company, morning and evening, all hours shall be the same, and all places to him a
study; for philosophy, who, as the formatrix of judgment and manners, shall be his
principal lesson, has that privilege to have a hand in everything. The orator Isocrates,
being at a feast entreated to speak of his art, all the company were satisfied with and
commended his answer: “It is not now a time,” said he, “to do what I can do; and that
which it is now time to do, I cannot do.”—[Plutarch, Symp., i. I.]—For to make
orations and rhetorical disputes in a company met together to laugh and make good
cheer, had been very unreasonable and improper, and as much might have been said
of all the other sciences. But as to what concerns philosophy, that part of it at least
that treats of man, and of his offices and duties, it has been the common opinion of all
wise men, that, out of respect to the sweetness of her conversation, she is ever to be
admitted in all sports and entertainments. And Plato, having invited her to his feast,
we see after how gentle and obliging a manner, accommodated both to time and place,
she entertained the company, though in a discourse of the highest and most important
nature:
“Aeque pauperibus prodest, locupletibus aeque;
Et, neglecta, aeque pueris senibusque nocebit.”

[“It profits poor and rich alike, but, neglected, equally hurts old
and young.”—Horace, Ep., i. 25.]

By this method of instruction, my young pupil will be much more and better
employed than his fellows of the college are. But as the steps we take in walking to
and fro in a gallery, though three times as many, do not tire a man so much as those
we employ in a formal journey, so our lesson, as it were accidentally occurring,
without any set obligation of time or place, and falling naturally into every action, will
insensibly insinuate itself. By which means our very exercises and recreations,
running, wrestling, music, dancing, hunting, riding, and fencing, will prove to be a
good part of our study. I would have his outward fashion and mien, and the
disposition of his limbs, formed at the same time with his mind. ‘Tis not a soul, ‘tis
not a body that we are training up, but a man, and we ought not to divide him. And, as
Plato says, we are not to fashion one without the other, but make them draw together
like two horses harnessed to a coach. By which saying of his, does he not seem to
allow more time for, and to take more care of exercises for the body, and to hold that
the mind, in a good proportion, does her business at the same time too?
As to the rest, this method of education ought to be carried on with a severe
sweetness, quite contrary to the practice of our pedants, who, instead of tempting and
alluring children to letters by apt and gentle ways, do in truth present nothing before
them but rods and ferules, horror and cruelty. Away with this violence! away with this
compulsion! than which, I certainly believe nothing more dulls and degenerates a
well-descended nature. If you would have him apprehend shame and chastisement, do
not harden him to them: inure him to heat and cold, to wind and sun, and to dangers
that he ought to despise; wean him from all effeminacy and delicacy in clothes and
lodging, eating and drinking; accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir
Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man. I have ever from
a child to the age wherein I now am, been of this opinion, and am still constant to it.
But amongst other things, the strict government of most of our colleges has evermore
displeased me; peradventure, they might have erred less perniciously on the indulgent
side. ‘Tis a real house of correction of imprisoned youth. They are made debauched
by being punished before they are so. Do but come in when they are about their
lesson, and you shall hear nothing but the outcries of boys under execution, with the
thundering noise of their pedagogues drunk with fury. A very pretty way this, to tempt
these tender and timorous souls to love their book, with a furious countenance, and a
rod in hand! A cursed and pernicious way of proceeding! Besides what Quintilian has
very well observed, that this imperious authority is often attended by very dangerous
consequences, and particularly our way of chastising. How much more decent would
it be to see their classes strewed with green leaves and fine flowers, than with the
bloody stumps of birch and willows? Were it left to my ordering. I should paint the
school with the pictures of joy and gladness; Flora and the Graces, as the philosopher
Speusippus did his. Where their profit is, let them there have their pleasure too. Such
viands as are proper and wholesome for children, should be sweetened with sugar, and
such as are dangerous to them, embittered with gall. ‘Tis marvellous to see how
solicitous Plato is in his Laws concerning the gaiety and diversion of the youth of his
city, and how much and often he enlarges upon the races, sports, songs, leaps, and
dances: of which, he says, that antiquity has given the ordering and patronage
particularly to the gods themselves, to Apollo, Minerva, and the Muses. He insists
long upon, and is very particular in, giving innumerable precepts for exercises; but as
to the lettered sciences, says very little, and only seems particularly to recommend
poetry upon the account of music.
All singularity in our manners and conditions is to be avoided, as inconsistent with
civil society. Who would not be astonished at so strange a constitution as that of
Demophoon, steward to Alexander the Great, who sweated in the shade and shivered
in the sun? I have seen those who have run from the smell of a mellow apple with
greater precipitation than from a harquebuss-shot; others afraid of a mouse; others
vomit at the sight of cream; others ready to swoon at the making of a feather bed;
Germanicus could neither endure the sight nor the crowing of a cock. I will not deny,
but that there may, peradventure, be some occult cause and natural aversion in these
cases; but, in my opinion, a man might conquer it, if he took it in time. Precept has in
this wrought so effectually upon me, though not without some pains on my part, I
confess, that beer excepted, my appetite accommodates itself indifferently to all sorts
of diet. Young bodies are supple; one should, therefore, in that age bend and ply them
to all fashions and customs: and provided a man can contain the appetite and the will
within their due limits, let a young man, in God’s name, be rendered fit for all nations
and all companies, even to debauchery and excess, if need be; that is, where he shall
do it out of complacency to the customs of the place. Let him be able to do
everything, but love to do nothing but what is good. The philosophers themselves do
not justify Callisthenes for forfeiting the favour of his master Alexander the Great, by
refusing to pledge him a cup of wine. Let him laugh, play, wench with his prince: nay,
I would have him, even in his debauches, too hard for the rest of the company, and to
excel his companions in ability and vigour, and that he may not give over doing it,
either through defect of power or knowledge how to do it, but for want of will.
“Multum interest, utrum peccare ali quis nolit, an nesciat.”

[“There is a vast difference betwixt forbearing to sin, and not

knowing how to sin.”—Seneca, Ep., 90]
 I thought I passed a compliment upon a lord, as free from those excesses as any
man in France, by asking him before a great deal of very good company, how many
times in his life he had been drunk in Germany, in the time of his being there about
his Majesty’s affairs; which he also took as it was intended, and made answer, “Three
times”; and withal told us the whole story of his debauches. I know some who, for
want of this faculty, have found a great inconvenience in negotiating with that nation.
I have often with great admiration reflected upon the wonderful constitution of
Alcibiades, who so easily could transform himself to so various fashions without any
prejudice to his health; one while outdoing the Persian pomp and luxury, and another,
the Lacedaemonian austerity and frugality; as reformed in Sparta, as voluptuous in
Ionia:
“Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res.”

[“Every complexion of life, and station, and circumstance became

Aristippus.”—Horace, Ep., xvii. 23.]

I would have my pupil to be such an one,

“Quem duplici panno patentia velat,
Mirabor, vitae via si conversa decebit,
Personamque feret non inconcinnus utramque.”

[“I should admire him who with patience bearing a patched garment,
bears well a changed fortune, acting both parts equally well.”
—Horace Ep., xvii. 25.]

These are my lessons, and he who puts them in practice shall reap more advantage
than he who has had them read to him only, and so only knows them. If you see him,
you hear him; if you hear him, you see him. God forbid, says one in Plato, that to
philosophise were only to read a great many books, and to learn the arts.
“Hanc amplissimam omnium artium bene vivendi disciplinam,
vita magis quam literis, persequuti sunt.”

[“They have proceeded to this discipline of living well, which of

all arts is the greatest, by their lives, rather than by their
reading.”—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 3.]

Leo, prince of the Phliasians, asking Heraclides Ponticus—[It was not Heraclides of
Pontus who made this answer, but Pythagoras.]—of what art or science he made
profession: “I know,” said he, “neither art nor science, but I am a philosopher.” One
reproaching Diogenes that, being ignorant, he should pretend to philosophy; “I
therefore,” answered he, “pretend to it with so much the more reason.” Hegesias
entreated that he would read a certain book to him: “You are pleasant,” said he; “you
choose those figs that are true and natural, and not those that are painted; why do you
not also choose exercises which are naturally true, rather than those written?”
The lad will not so much get his lesson by heart as he will practise it: he will repeat
it in his actions. We shall discover if there be prudence in his exercises, if there be
sincerity and justice in his deportment, if there be grace and judgment in his speaking;
if there be constancy in his sickness; if there be modesty in his mirth, temperance in
his pleasures, order in his domestic economy, indifference in palate, whether what he
eats or drinks be flesh or fish, wine or water:
“Qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiae, sed legem vitae
putet: quique obtemperet ipse sibi, et decretis pareat.”

[“Who considers his own discipline, not as a vain ostentation of

science, but as a law and rule of life; and who obeys his own
decrees, and the laws he has prescribed for himself.”
—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 4.]

The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine. Zeuxidamus, to one who
asked him, why the Lacedaemonians did not commit their constitutions of chivalry to
writing, and deliver them to their young men to read, made answer, that it was
because they would inure them to action, and not amuse them with words. With such
a one, after fifteen or sixteen years’ study, compare one of our college Latinists, who
has thrown away so much time in nothing but learning to speak. The world is nothing
but babble; and I hardly ever yet saw that man who did not rather prate too much, than
speak too little. And yet half of our age is embezzled this way: we are kept four or
five years to learn words only, and to tack them together into clauses; as many more
to form them into a long discourse, divided into four or five parts; and other five
years, at least, to learn succinctly to mix and interweave them after a subtle and
intricate manner let us leave all this to those who make a profession of it.
Going one day to Orleans, I met in that plain on this side Clery, two pedants who
were travelling towards Bordeaux, about fifty paces distant from one another; and, a
good way further behind them, I discovered a troop of horse, with a gentleman at the
head of them, who was the late Monsieur le Comte de la Rochefoucauld. One of my
people inquired of the foremost of these masters of arts, who that gentleman was that
came after him; he, having not seen the train that followed after, and thinking his
companion was meant, pleasantly answered, “He is not a gentleman; he is a
grammarian; and I am a logician.” Now we who, quite contrary, do not here pretend to
breed a grammarian or a logician, but a gentleman, let us leave them to abuse their
leisure; our business lies elsewhere. Let but our pupil be well furnished with things,
words will follow but too fast; he will pull them after him if they do not voluntarily
follow. I have observed some to make excuses, that they cannot express themselves,
and pretend to have their fancies full of a great many very fine things, which yet, for
want of eloquence, they cannot utter; ‘tis a mere shift, and nothing else. Will you
know what I think of it? I think they are nothing but shadows of some imperfect
images and conceptions that they know not what to make of within, nor consequently
bring out; they do not yet themselves understand what they would be at, and if you but
observe how they haggle and stammer upon the point of parturition, you will soon
conclude, that their labour is not to delivery, but about conception, and that they are
but licking their formless embryo. For my part, I hold, and Socrates commands it, that
whoever has in his mind a sprightly and clear imagination, he will express it well
enough in one kind of tongue or another, and, if he be dumb, by signs—
 “Verbaque praevisam rem non invita sequentur;”

[“Once a thing is conceived in the mind, the words to express it

soon present themselves.” (“The words will not reluctantly follow the
thing preconceived.”)—Horace, De Arte Poetica. v. 311]

And as another as poetically says in his prose:

“Quum res animum occupavere, verbs ambiunt,”

[“When things are once in the mind, the words offer themselves
readily.” (“When things have taken possession of the mind, the
words trip.”)—Seneca, Controvers., iii. proem.]

and this other.

“Ipsae res verbs rapiunt.”

[“The things themselves force the words to express them.”

—Cicero, De Finib., iii. 5.]

He knows nothing of ablative, conjunctive, substantive, or grammar, no more than

his lackey, or a fishwife of the Petit Pont; and yet these will give you a bellyful of
talk, if you will hear them, and peradventure shall trip as little in their language as the
best masters of art in France. He knows no rhetoric, nor how in a preface to bribe the
benevolence of the courteous reader; neither does he care to know it. Indeed all this
fine decoration of painting is easily effaced by the lustre of a simple and blunt truth;
these fine flourishes serve only to amuse the vulgar, of themselves incapable of more
solid and nutritive diet, as Aper very evidently demonstrates in Tacitus. The
ambassadors of Samos, prepared with a long and elegant oration, came to Cleomenes,
king of Sparta, to incite him to a war against the tyrant Polycrates; who, after he had
heard their harangue with great gravity and patience, gave them this answer: “As to
the exordium, I remember it not, nor consequently the middle of your speech; and for
what concerns your conclusion, I will not do what you desire:”—[Plutarch,
Apothegms of the Lacedaemonians.]—a very pretty answer this, methinks, and a pack
of learned orators most sweetly gravelled. And what did the other man say? The
Athenians were to choose one of two architects for a very great building they had
designed; of these, the first, a pert affected fellow, offered his service in a long
premeditated discourse upon the subject of the work in hand, and by his oratory
inclined the voices of the people in his favour; but the other in three words: “O
Athenians, what this man says, I will do.”—[Plutarch, Instructions to Statesmen, c. 4.]
— When Cicero was in the height and heat of an eloquent harangue, many were
struck with admiration; but Cato only laughed, saying, “We have a pleasant (mirth-
making) consul.” Let it go before, or come after, a good sentence or a thing well said,
is always in season; if it neither suit well with what went before, nor has much
coherence with what follows after, it is good in itself. I am none of those who think
that good rhyme makes a good poem. Let him make short long, and long short if he
will, ‘tis no great matter; if there be invention, and that the wit and judgment have
well performed their offices, I will say, here’s a good poet, but an ill rhymer.
“Emunctae naris, durus componere versus.”
 [“Of delicate humour, but of rugged versification.”
—Horace, Sat, iv. 8.]

Let a man, says Horace, divest his work of all method and measure,
“Tempora certa modosque, et, quod prius ordine verbum est,
Posterius facias, praeponens ultima primis
Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetae.”

[“Take away certain rhythms and measures, and make the word which
was first in order come later, putting that which should be last
first, you will still find the scattered remains of the poet.”
—Horace, Sat., i. 4, 58.]

he will never the more lose himself for that; the very pieces will be fine by
themselves. Menander’s answer had this meaning, who being reproved by a friend,
the time drawing on at which he had promised a comedy, that he had not yet fallen in
hand with it; “It is made, and ready,” said he, “all but the verses.”—[Plutarch,
Whether the Athenians more excelled in Arms or in Letters.]—Having contrived the
subject, and disposed the scenes in his fancy, he took little care for the rest. Since
Ronsard and Du Bellay have given reputation to our French poesy, every little
dabbler, for aught I see, swells his words as high, and makes his cadences very near as
harmonious as they:
“Plus sonat, quam valet.”

[“More sound than sense”—Seneca, Ep., 40.]

For the vulgar, there were never so many poetasters as now; but though they find it
no hard matter to imitate their rhyme, they yet fall infinitely short of imitating the rich
descriptions of the one, and the delicate invention of the other of these masters.
But what will become of our young gentleman, if he be attacked with the sophistic
subtlety of some syllogism? “A Westfalia ham makes a man drink; drink quenches
thirst: ergo a Westfalia ham quenches thirst.” Why, let him laugh at it; it will be more
discretion to do so, than to go about to answer it; or let him borrow this pleasant
evasion from Aristippus: “Why should I trouble myself to untie that, which bound as
it is, gives me so much trouble?”—[Diogenes Laertius, ii. 70.]— One offering at this
dialectic juggling against Cleanthes, Chrysippus took him short, saying, “Reserve
these baubles to play with children, and do not by such fooleries divert the serious
thoughts of a man of years.” If these ridiculous subtleties,
“Contorta et aculeata sophismata,”

as Cicero calls them, are designed to possess him with an untruth, they are
dangerous; but if they signify no more than only to make him laugh, I do not see why
a man need to be fortified against them. There are some so ridiculous, as to go a mile
out of their way to hook in a fine word:
“Aut qui non verba rebus aptant, sed res extrinsecus
arcessunt, quibus verba conveniant.”

[“Who do not fit words to the subject, but seek out for things
quite from the purpose to fit the words.”—Quintilian, viii. 3.]
 And as another says,
“Qui, alicujus verbi decore placentis, vocentur ad id,
quod non proposuerant scribere.”

[“Who by their fondness of some fine sounding word, are tempted to

something they had no intention to treat of.”—Seneca, Ep., 59.]

I for my part rather bring in a fine sentence by head and shoulders to fit my purpose,
than divert my designs to hunt after a sentence. On the contrary, words are to serve,
and to follow a man’s purpose; and let Gascon come in play where French will not do.
I would have things so excelling, and so wholly possessing the imagination of him
that hears, that he should have something else to do, than to think of words. The way
of speaking that I love, is natural and plain, the same in writing as in speaking, and a
sinewy and muscular way of expressing a man’s self, short and pithy, not so elegant
and artificial as prompt and vehement;
“Haec demum sapiet dictio, qux feriet;”

[“That has most weight and wisdom which pierces the ear.” (“That
utterance indeed will have a taste which shall strike the ear.”)
—Epitaph on Lucan, in Fabricius, Biblioth. Lat., ii. 10.]

rather hard than wearisome; free from affectation; irregular, incontinuous, and bold;
where every piece makes up an entire body; not like a pedant, a preacher, or a pleader,
but rather a soldier-like style, as Suetonius calls that of Julius Caesar; and yet I see no
reason why he should call it so. I have ever been ready to imitate the negligent garb,
which is yet observable amongst the young men of our time, to wear my cloak on one
shoulder, my cap on one side, a stocking in disorder, which seems to express a kind of
haughty disdain of these exotic ornaments, and a contempt of the artificial; but I find
this negligence of much better use in the form of speaking. All affectation,
particularly in the French gaiety and freedom, is ungraceful in a courtier, and in a
monarchy every gentleman ought to be fashioned according to the court model; for
which reason, an easy and natural negligence does well. I no more like a web where
the knots and seams are to be seen, than a fine figure, so delicate, that a man may tell
all the bones and veins:
“Quae veritati operam dat oratio, incomposita sit et simplex.”

[“Let the language that is dedicated to truth be plain and

unaffected.—Seneca, Ep. 40.]

“Quis accurat loquitur, nisi qui vult putide loqui?”

[“For who studies to speak accurately, that does not at the same
time wish to perplex his auditory?”—Idem, Ep., 75.]

That eloquence prejudices the subject it would advance, that wholly attracts us to
itself. And as in our outward habit, ‘tis a ridiculous effeminacy to distinguish
ourselves by a particular and unusual garb or fashion; so in language, to study new
phrases, and to affect words that are not of current use, proceeds from a puerile and
scholastic ambition. May I be bound to speak no other language than what is spoken
in the market-places of Paris! Aristophanes the grammarian was quite out, when he
reprehended Epicurus for his plain way of delivering himself, and the design of his
oratory, which was only perspicuity of speech. The imitation of words, by its own
facility, immediately disperses itself through a whole people; but the imitation of
inventing and fitly applying those words is of a slower progress. The generality of
readers, for having found a like robe, very mistakingly imagine they have the same
body and inside too, whereas force and sinews are never to be borrowed; the gloss,
and outward ornament, that is, words and elocution, may. Most of those I converse
with, speak the same language I here write; but whether they think the same thoughts I
cannot say. The Athenians, says Plato, study fulness and elegancy of speaking; the
Lacedaemonians affect brevity, and those of Crete to aim more at the fecundity of
conception than the fertility of speech; and these are the best. Zeno used to say that he
had two sorts of disciples, one that he called cy——-ous, curious to learn things, and
these were his favourites; the other, aoy—-ous, that cared for nothing but words. Not
that fine speaking is not a very good and commendable quality; but not so excellent
and so necessary as some would make it; and I am scandalised that our whole life
should be spent in nothing else. I would first understand my own language, and that of
my neighbours, with whom most of my business and conversation lies.
No doubt but Greek and Latin are very great ornaments, and of very great use, but
we buy them too dear. I will here discover one way, which has been experimented in
my own person, by which they are to be had better cheap, and such may make use of
it as will. My late father having made the most precise inquiry that any man could
possibly make amongst men of the greatest learning and judgment, of an exact method
of education, was by them cautioned of this inconvenience then in use, and made to
believe, that the tedious time we applied to the learning of the tongues of them who
had them for nothing, was the sole cause we could not arrive to the grandeur of soul
and perfection of knowledge, of the ancient Greeks and Romans. I do not, however,
believe that to be the only cause. So it is, that the expedient my father found out for
this was, that in my infancy, and before I began to speak, he committed me to the care
of a German, who since died a famous physician in France, totally ignorant of our
language, and very fluent and a great critic in Latin. This man, whom he had fetched
out of his own country, and whom he entertained with a great salary for this only one
end, had me continually with him; he had with him also joined two others, of inferior
learning, to attend me, and to relieve him; these spoke to me in no other language but
Latin. As to the rest of his household, it was an inviolable rule, that neither himself,
nor my mother, nor valet, nor chambermaid, should speak anything in my company,
but such Latin words as each one had learned to gabble with me. —[These passages
are, the basis of a small volume by the Abbe Mangin: “Education de Montaigne; ou,
L’Art d’enseigner le Latin a l’instar des meres latines.”]—It is not to be imagined how
great an advantage this proved to the whole family; my father and my mother by this
means learned Latin enough to understand it perfectly well, and to speak it to such a
degree as was sufficient for any necessary use; as also those of the servants did who
were most frequently with me. In short, we Latined it at such a rate, that it overflowed
to all the neighbouring villages, where there yet remain, that have established
themselves by custom, several Latin appellations of artisans and their tools. As for
what concerns myself, I was above six years of age before I understood either French
or Perigordin, any more than Arabic; and without art, book, grammar, or precept,
whipping, or the expense of a tear, I had, by that time, learned to speak as pure Latin
as my master himself, for I had no means of mixing it up with any other. If, for
example, they were to give me a theme after the college fashion, they gave it to others
in French; but to me they were to give it in bad Latin, to turn it into that which was
good. And Nicolas Grouchy, who wrote a book De Comitiis Romanorum; Guillaume
Guerente, who wrote a comment upon Aristotle: George Buchanan, that great Scottish
poet: and Marc Antoine Muret (whom both France and Italy have acknowledged for
the best orator of his time), my domestic tutors, have all of them often told me that I
had in my infancy that language so very fluent and ready, that they were afraid to
enter into discourse with me. And particularly Buchanan, whom I since saw attending
the late Mareschal de Brissac, then told me, that he was about to write a treatise of
education, the example of which he intended to take from mine; for he was then tutor
to that Comte de Brissac who afterward proved so valiant and so brave a gentleman.
As to Greek, of which I have but a mere smattering, my father also designed to have
it taught me by a device, but a new one, and by way of sport; tossing our declensions
to and fro, after the manner of those who, by certain games of tables, learn geometry
and arithmetic. For he, amongst other rules, had been advised to make me relish
science and duty by an unforced will, and of my own voluntary motion, and to
educate my soul in all liberty and delight, without any severity or constraint; which he
was an observer of to such a degree, even of superstition, if I may say so, that some
being of opinion that it troubles and disturbs the brains of children suddenly to wake
them in the morning, and to snatch them violently—and over-hastily from sleep
(wherein they are much more profoundly involved than we), he caused me to be
wakened by the sound of some musical instrument, and was never unprovided of a
musician for that purpose. By this example you may judge of the rest, this alone being
sufficient to recommend both the prudence and the affection of so good a father, who
is not to be blamed if he did not reap fruits answerable to so exquisite a culture. Of
this, two things were the cause: first, a sterile and improper soil; for, though I was of a
strong and healthful constitution, and of a disposition tolerably sweet and tractable,
yet I was, withal, so heavy, idle, and indisposed, that they could not rouse me from
my sloth, not even to get me out to play. What I saw, I saw clearly enough, and under
this heavy complexion nourished a bold imagination and opinions above my age. I
had a slow wit that would go no faster than it was led; a tardy understanding, a
languishing invention, and above all, incredible defect of memory; so that, it is no
wonder, if from all these nothing considerable could be extracted. Secondly, like those
who, impatient of along and steady cure, submit to all sorts of prescriptions and
recipes, the good man being extremely timorous of any way failing in a thing he had
so wholly set his heart upon, suffered himself at last to be overruled by the common
opinions, which always follow their leader as a flight of cranes, and complying with
the method of the time, having no more those persons he had brought out of Italy, and
who had given him the first model of education, about him, he sent me at six years of
age to the College of Guienne, at that time the best and most flourishing in France.
And there it was not possible to add anything to the care he had to provide me the
most able tutors, with all other circumstances of education, reserving also several
particular rules contrary to the college practice; but so it was, that with all these
precautions, it was a college still. My Latin immediately grew corrupt, of which also
by discontinuance I have since lost all manner of use; so that this new way of
education served me to no other end, than only at my first coming to prefer me to the
first forms; for at thirteen years old, that I came out of the college, I had run through
my whole course (as they call it), and, in truth, without any manner of advantage, that
I can honestly brag of, in all this time.
The first taste which I had for books came to me from the pleasure in reading the
fables of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; for, being about seven or eight years old, I gave up
all other diversions to read them, both by reason that this was my own natural
language, the easiest book that I was acquainted with, and for the subject, the most
accommodated to the capacity of my age: for as for the Lancelot of the Lake, the
Amadis of Gaul, the Huon of Bordeaux, and such farragos, by which children are
most delighted with, I had never so much as heard their names, no more than I yet
know what they contain; so exact was the discipline wherein I was brought up. But
this was enough to make me neglect the other lessons that were prescribed me; and
here it was infinitely to my advantage, to have to do with an understanding tutor, who
very well knew discreetly to connive at this and other truantries of the same nature;
for by this means I ran through Virgil’s AEneid, and then Terence, and then Plautus,
and then some Italian comedies, allured by the sweetness of the subject; whereas had
he been so foolish as to have taken me off this diversion, I do really believe, I had
brought away nothing from the college but a hatred of books, as almost all our young
gentlemen do. But he carried himself very discreetly in that business, seeming to take
no notice, and allowing me only such time as I could steal from my other regular
studies, which whetted my appetite to devour those books. For the chief things my
father expected from their endeavours to whom he had delivered me for education,
were affability and good-humour; and, to say the truth, my manners had no other vice
but sloth and want of metal. The fear was not that I should do ill, but that I should do
nothing; nobody prognosticated that I should be wicked, but only useless; they
foresaw idleness, but no malice; and I find it falls out accordingly: The complaints I
hear of myself are these: “He is idle, cold in the offices of friendship and relation, and
in those of the public, too particular, too disdainful.” But the most injurious do not
say, “Why has he taken such a thing? Why has he not paid such an one?” but, “Why
does he part with nothing? Why does he not give?” And I should take it for a favour
that men would expect from me no greater effects of supererogation than these. But
they are unjust to exact from me what I do not owe, far more rigorously than they
require from others that which they do owe. In condemning me to it, they efface the
gratification of the action, and deprive me of the gratitude that would be my due for it;
whereas the active well-doing ought to be of so much the greater value from my
hands, by how much I have never been passive that way at all. I can the more freely
dispose of my fortune the more it is mine, and of myself the more I am my own.
Nevertheless, if I were good at setting out my own actions, I could, peradventure, very
well repel these reproaches, and could give some to understand, that they are not so
much offended, that I do not enough, as that I am able to do a great deal more than I
do.
Yet for all this heavy disposition of mine, my mind, when retired into itself, was not
altogether without strong movements, solid and clear judgments about those objects it
could comprehend, and could also, without any helps, digest them; but, amongst other
things, I do really believe, it had been totally impossible to have made it to submit by
violence and force. Shall I here acquaint you with one faculty of my youth? I had
great assurance of countenance, and flexibility of voice and gesture, in applying
myself to any part I undertook to act: for before—
“Alter ab undecimo tum me vix ceperat annus,”

[“I had just entered my twelfth year.”—Virgil, Bucol., 39.]

I played the chief parts in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente, and Muret,
that were presented in our College of Guienne with great dignity: now Andreas
Goveanus, our principal, as in all other parts of his charge, was, without comparison,
the best of that employment in France; and I was looked upon as one of the best
actors. ‘Tis an exercise that I do not disapprove in young people of condition; and I
have since seen our princes, after the example of some of the ancients, in person
handsomely and commendably perform these exercises; it was even allowed to
persons of quality to make a profession of it in Greece.
“Aristoni tragico actori rem aperit: huic et genus et
fortuna honesta erant: nec ars, quia nihil tale apud
Graecos pudori est, ea deformabat.”

[“He imparted this matter to Aristo the tragedian; a man of good

family and fortune, which neither of them receive any blemish by
that profession; nothing of this kind being reputed a disparagement
in Greece.”—Livy, xxiv. 24.]

Nay, I have always taxed those with impertinence who condemn these
entertainments, and with injustice those who refuse to admit such comedians as are
worth seeing into our good towns, and grudge the people that public diversion. Well-
governed corporations take care to assemble their citizens, not only to the solemn
duties of devotion, but also to sports and spectacles. They find society and friendship
augmented by it; and besides, can there possibly be allowed a more orderly and
regular diversion than what is performed m the sight of every one, and very often in
the presence of the supreme magistrate himself? And I, for my part, should think it
reasonable, that the prince should sometimes gratify his people at his own expense,
out of paternal goodness and affection; and that in populous cities there should be
theatres erected for such entertainments, if but to divert them from worse and private
actions.
To return to my subject, there is nothing like alluring the appetite and affections;
otherwise you make nothing but so many asses laden with books; by dint of the lash,
you give them their pocketful of learning to keep; whereas, to do well you should not
only lodge it with them, but make them espouse it