fieri, solitoque urbis sigillo communiri curarunt.
Anno ab urbe condita exocCCXXXI. Post Christum
natum MDLXXXI. III. idus Martii.

Horatius Fuscus Sacri S. P. Q. R. scriba.
Vincent. Martholus Sacri S. P. Q. R. scriba.

Being before burgess of no city at all, I was glad to be created free of the most noble city that ever was, or ever will be. If other men would consider them selves as attentively as I do, they would, as I do, discover themselves to be full of vanity and foppery; and rid myself of it I cannot, without making myself away. We are all leavened with it, as well one as another; but they who are sensible of it, have the better bargain, and yet I know not whether they have or no.

love to

observe

This opinion, and common custom to observe why man others more than ourselves, has very much relieved does not us. It is a very displeasing object: we see nothing know and in it but misery and vanity. Nature, that we may himself. not be dejected with the sight of our own deformities, has wisely projected our optic organ outward. We go forward with the current, but to turn back towards ourselves is a painful motion; thus is the sea agitated and troubled when the waves are repelled against one another. Observe, says every one, the motion of the heavens; the revolution of public affairs; observe the quarrel of such a person; feel such a one's pulse; mind another's last will and testament; in short, be always looking high or low, or on one side, or before or behind you. It was a paradoxical command anciently given us by the god at Delphos: "Look into yourself, discover yourself,

keep close to yourself; call back your mind and will, that elsewhere consume themselves, into "yourself; you run out, you waste yourself; collect "yourself; support yourself; men betray you, men spoil you, men steal you from yourself." Dost not thou see that this world keeps all its views con

cr

fined within, and its eyes open to contemplate itself? It is always vanity for thee, both within and without; but it is less vanity when less extended. Excepting thee (Oman), said that god, every thing studies itself first, and has bounds to its labours and desires, according to its need. There is nothing so empty and necessitous as thou who embracest the universe; thou art the explorator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction; and after all, the fool in the play.

fections in

CHAPTER IX.

Of managing the Will.

Montaigne FEW things, in comparison of what commonly afkept his affect other men, move, or to speak more properly, a moderate captivate me: for it is but reason they should constate. cern a man, provided they do not wholly engross

him. I am very solicitous, both by study and argument, to enlarge this privilege of insensibility, which in me is naturally far advanced, so that I espouse, and am consequently moved with few things. I have a clear sight, but I fix it upon very few objects; have a sense delicate and tender, but an apprehension and application hard and dull; I am very unwilling to engage myself. As much as in me lies, I employ myself wholly for myself; and in this very subject, would rather choose to curb and restrain affection from plunging entirely into it, it being a subject that I possess at the mercy of others, and over which fortune has more right than I. Even so far as to health, which I so much value, it were necessary for me, not so passionately to covet and desire it, as to think diseases insupportable. There ought to be a medium between the hatred of pain,

my

and love of pleasure. And Plato prescribes the very thing.

strove a

tached him

But against such affections as carry me away from Why he myself, and fix me elsewhere; against those, I say, gainst those I oppose myself with all my force. It is my opinion, which atthat a man should lend himself to others, and only to what give himself to himself. Were my will easy to be was foreign engaged and swayed, I would not stick there: I am too tender both by nature and habit,

Fugax rerum, securaque in qtia natus,*

I fly from business as from a disease
Having been bred in negligence and ease.

for hot and obstinate disputes wherein my adversary
would at last have the better; and the issue, which
would render my heat of argument disgraceful, would
perhaps vex me to the last degree. Should I set
myself to it as earnestly as others do, my soul would
never be able to bear the emotion and alarms, which
those feel who grasp so much, and it would immedi-
ately be distracted by this inward agitation. If some-
times I have been put upon the management of other
men's affairs, I have promised to take them in hand,
but not into my lungs and liver; to charge myself
with them, not to incorporate them: to take pains,
but not to be passionate in them; I have a regard
to them, but I will not brood over them: I have
enough to do to order and govern the domestic
throng that I have in my own veins and bowels,
without harbouring and loading myself with a crowd
of other men's affairs, and have enough of my own
proper and natural business to mind, without calling
in the concerns of others. Such as know how much
they owe to themselves, and how many offices they
are bound to of their own, find, that nature has cut
them out work enough of their own to keep them
from being idle. Thou hast business enough at
home, look to that. Men let themselves out to

Ovid. de Trist. lib. iii. eleg. 2, ver. 9.

to himself.

.*

hire; their faculties are not for themselves, but are employed for those to whom they have enslaved themselves; this common humour pleases not me. We must be thrifty of the liberty of our souls, and never let them out but upon just occasions, which if we judge aright, are very few. Do but observe such as have accustomed themselves to be at every one's call and command; they are so upon all, as well little as great, occasions, in what does not concern them, as well as in what does. They intrude themselves indifferently wherever there is business, and are without life, when not in some bustle of affairs. In negotiis sunt negotii causâ :* "They only seek "business for business' sake." It is not so much that they desire to go, as it is that they cannot stand still like a rolling stone from a hill, that stops not till it is at the bottom. Business, in a certain sort of men, is a mark of understanding and dignity. Their minds are not easy but in agitation, as children that must be rocked in a cradle. They may pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends, as troublesome to themselves. No one is lavish of his money to another, but every one is ready to give him his time and his life. There is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of these things, of which to be thrifty, would be both commendable and useful. I am of a quite contrary humour. I look to myself, and commonly covet with no great ardour what I do desire, and desire little: I employ and busy myself likewise but rarely and temperately. Whatever they aim at and take in hand, they do it with their utmost desire and with vehemency. There are so many wrong steps in life, that for the greater safety, we must a little lightly and superficially slide through the world, and not plunge into it over head and ears, Pleasure itself is painful at the bottom;

Incedis per ignes

Suppositos cineri doloso.†

Seneca, epist. 22.

† Hor. lib. ii. ode 1, ver, 7.

Thou upon glowing coals dost tread,
Under deceitful ashes hid.

serve the

mayor of

The parliament of Bourdeaux chose me mayor of Montaigne their city, at a time when I was far from France, and ser much farther from any such thought: I entreated office of to be excused; but I was told that I was to blame, Bourthe king having also interposed his command in that deaux. affair. It is an office that ought to be looked upon the more honourable, as it has no salary nor advantage but the bare honour of its execution: it continues two years, but may be extended by a second election, which very rarely happens; but it did to me, though it never did so but twice before: viz. some years ago to Monsieur de Lansac, and lately to Monsieur de Biron, mareschal of France, in whose place I succeeded, and left mine to Monsieur de Matignon, mareschal of France also, proud of so noble a fraternity;

Uterque bonus pacis bellique minister.*

Both fit for governing in peace and war.

Fortune would have a hand in my promotion, by this particular circumstance which she put in of her own, not altogether vain; for Alexander disdained the ambassadors of Corinth, who offered him the freedom of their city; but when they informed him that Bacchus and Hercules were also in the register, he thankfully accepted it.

gave of

trates of

At my arrival, I faithfully and conscientiously re- The chapresented myself to them such as I find myself to racter he be: a man without memory, without vigilance, with- himself to out experience, and without vigour; but likewise the magis void of hatred, ambition, avarice, and violence; that Bourthey might know what they were to expect from my service. And because the knowledge they had of my deceased father, and the honour in which they held his memory, were their only motives to confer this favour upon me, I plainly told them, that I

Eneid, lib. xi. ver. 658.

deaux.