66

ing of a word, Favorinus soon yielded him the
point; for which his friends blaming him, "You
"talk simply," said he, "would you make me be-
"lieve that he who commands thirty legions is not
a man of more learning than I am?"* Augustus
wrote verses against Asinius Pollio; "And I," said
Pollio, "
say nothing, for it is not prudent to take
up the pen against him who has power to pro-
"scribe." And these were both in the right; for
Dionysius, because he could not equal Philoxenus
in poetry, and Plato in reasoning,t condemned the
one to the quarries, and sent the other to the isle of
Ægina to be sold for a slave.

CHAPTER VII.

Of the Art of Discoursing.

IT is the custom of our justice to condemn some The end of

for a warning to others. To condemn them for no punishother reason but because they have done amiss, were how the

Ælii Spartiani Adrianus Cæsar, p. 7 and 8, Hist. Aug. + Or rather because he was not able to bear the slight opinion which Philoxenus showed of his poetry. Diodorus of Sicily, lib. xi. cap. 2, says, that one day, at supper-time, as they were reading some worthless poems of this tyrant, that excellent poet Philoxenus, being charged to give his opinion of them, was too free in his answer to please Dionysius, for which the tyrant was so much incensed against him that he ordered him to be sent immediately to the quarries.

Montaigne is mistaken here with regard to Plato, who was sold a slave in the island of Ægina, by order of Dionysius the tyrant, because he had spoken too freely to him; as Diodorus of Sicily says positively, lib. xv. cap. 2, and more particularly also Diog. Laert. in the Life of Plato, lib. iii. sect. 18, 19. In these two last notes the fault I have found with Montaigne I might, indeed, have as well placed to the account of Plutarch, who says the very same thing as Montaigne, in his treatise Of Contentment, or Peace of the Mind, chap. 12, yet I cannot but think that Plutarch has here been guilty of some inaccuracy of expression.

ments; and

vices of

some men

downright stupidity, as Plato says, for what is done may serve cannot be undone; but it is to the end they may of for instruc- fend no more, and that others may not commit the

tion to others.

like offence. We do not reform the man whom we hang, but we reform others by him. I do the same. My errors are sometimes natural, and neither to be corrected nor remedied; but the benefit which virtuous men do the public, by making themselves imitated, I may do, perhaps, in making my conduct avoided:

Nonne vides Albi ut malè vivat filius, utque

Barrus inops? magnum documentum, ne patriam rem
Perdere quis velit.*

Don't you behold the wealthy Albus' son,
How wretchedly he lives, how he's undone?
There's Barrus too, how shabby is he grown!
Barrus, the greatest rake of all the town:
A good instruction for young heirs, that they
Should not their patrimony fool away.

Whilst I proclaim and condemn my own imperfec-
tions, another person will be taught to fear them.
The parts that I most esteem in myself derive more
honour from accusing, than from recommending
myself; which is the reason I the oftener relapse
and stick to them. But, when all is said and done,
a man never speaks of himself without loss. Self-
condemnation is always believed, but self-praise
never. There may, perhaps, be some of my own
constitution, who instruct me better by contra-
riety than by similitude, and more by avoiding than
imitating me. This was that sort of discipline
which the elder Cato had in his thoughts, when he
said, that "Wise men have more to learn of fools,
"than fools of wise men :" and that ancient player
upon the harp, who, Pausanias said, used to compel
his scholars to go and hear one that lodged opposite
to him, who played very ill, that they might thereby
learn to hate his discords and false measures.

Hor. lib. i. sat. 4, ver. 109, &c.

The

horror of cruelty more inclines me to mercy than any example of clemency could possibly do. A good riding-master does not so much mend my seat in the saddle, as an attorney or a Venetian gondolier on horseback; and a sorry speaker reforms my language better than a good one. The silly look of another person always advertises and advises me; and that which is pungent awakes and rouses much better than what is pleasing. It is fit time for us to reform the backward way by disagreement rather than by agreement, by discord rather than accord. As I learn little by good examples, I make use of bad, which are very common. I have endeavoured to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive, as constant as I see others fickle, as affable as I see others rough, as good as I see others wicked; but I proposed to myself measures invincible.

conversa

The most fruitful and natural exercise of the The usefulmind, in my opinion, is conversation, the use of of which I find to be more agreeable than any other tion, exercise in life. For this reason, were I now forced to make my choice at this instant, I think I would agree rather to lose my sight, than my hearing, or my speech. The Athenians and the Romans also held this exercise in great honour in their academies and the Italians to this day retain some footsteps of it to their great advantage.

instructive

books.

The study of books is a languid, feeble motion, It is an exthat does not warm; whereas conversation at once ercise more instructs and exercises. If I discourse with a man than the of strong sense, and a shrewd disputant, he smites study of me hip and thigh, goads me on the right and left, and his imaginations give vigour to mine. Envy, glory, contention, stimulate and raise me above myself; whereas an unison of judgment is a quality that is a perfect nuisance in conversation. But as the mind gathers strength by the communication of vigorous and regular understandings, it is not to be expressed how much it loses and degenerates by the continual correspondence and company which we

Not to be able to

bear with

a very

trouble

the mind.

keep with such whose imaginations are vulgar and distempered. There is no contagion which spreads like that. I have sufficient reason to know the evil of it by dear experience. I love to discourse and dispute; but it is with few men only, and for my own sake; for to be put up as a spectacle before a great assembly, and to make a parade and boasting of a man's flow of wit and words, is, I think, very unbecoming a person of honour.

Nonsense is a contemptible quality; but not to be able to bear with it, and to fret and vex at it as I nonsense is do, is another sort of disease, altogether as troublesome as nonsense; and this is the very thing of Some dis- which I will now accuse myself. I enter into a contemper of ference and dispute with great freedom and ease, forasmuch as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and too hard for it to take any deep root. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, how contrary soever it be to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and extravagant that does not seem to me to be very suitable to the product of the human understanding. As for such of us, who deprive our judgment of the right of making decrees, we look upon the various opinions with indifference; and if we do not incline our judgments to them, yet we readily lend an ear to them. Where one scale of the balance is quite empty, I let the other waver under the dreams of an old woman: and I think myself excusable if I choose the odd number, Thursday rather than Friday; if I had rather be the twelfth or fourteenth than the thirteenth at table; if I had rather, on a journey, see a hare run by me than cross my road, and that my stocking be put on my left foot first. All such whimsies as are current about us, deserve least to be hearkened unto. As to me they are all mere vanity, and that is what they really import. Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions, considered in their weight, are, indeed, something more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself to proceed so far,

falls, perhaps, into the vice of obstinacy, for the sake of avoiding that of superstition. The contradictions of judgments, therefore, neither offend nor alter me; they only awake and exercise me. We shun correction, whereas we ought to put ourselves in the way of it, especially when it comes by way of conference, and not of authority. As to every opposition, we do not consider whether it be just, but how we shall, right or wrong, disengage ourselves from it. Instead of extending our arms, we thrust out our claws. I could suffer myself to be roughly handled by my friends telling me that I am a fool and a dreamer. I love to hear gentlemen speak, as they think, with courage. We must fortify and harden our organ of hearing against this ceremonious sound of words. I love a strong and manly familiarity and conversation; a friendship that is pleased with the sharpness and vigour of its communication, as love is with biting and scratching. It is not vigorous nor generous enough if it be not quarrelsome, if it be civilised and artificial, if it treads gingerly, and is afraid of a shock. Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione potest :* "Nor can there be any disputation with"out contradiction." When I am contradicted, it rouses my attention, but not my indignation. I incline towards him who contradicts and instructs me. The cause of truth ought to be the common cause of both the one and the other. What answer will he make? The passion of anger has already given a blow to his judgment. Anguish has taken possession of it before reason. It would be of service that our disputes were decided by wagers; that there might be a material mark put upon what we lost, to the end that we might keep an account of it, and that my man might tell me," My ignorance and obstinacy "cost me last year a hundred crowns at several "times." I cherish and caress truth in what hand

*Cic. de Finibus Bon. et Mal. lib. i.