1

Here was I surrounded and taken, drawn into the heart of a neighbouring forest, dismounted, robbed, my trunks rifled, my casket taken, and my horses and equipage divided amongst new masters. We had here a very long contest about my ransom, which they set so high, that it was plain I was not known to them. They were, moreover, in a very great debate about my life; and, in truth, there were several alarming circumstances that threatened me with the danger I was then in:

Tunc animis opus, Enea, tunc pectore firmo.*

Then, then, Eneas, was there need

Of an undaunted heart indeed.

I still insisted upon the letter of the truce, that they should only have the gain of what they had already taken from me, which was not to be despised, with out promise of any other ransom. After we had

been two or three hours in this place, and after they had mounted me on a pitiful jade that was not likely to run away from them, and committed me to the guard of fifteen or twenty harquebusiers, and dispersed my servants to others, having given order that they should carry us off prisoners several ways; when I was got some two or three musket-shot from the place,

Jam prece Pollucis, jam Castoris implorala:↑

Whilst I implor'd Castor and Pollux aid.‡

this sudden and unexpected alteration happened. I saw the chief of them return to me with milder language, making search amongst the troopers for my lost baggage, and causing as much as could be reco vered to be restored to me, even to my casket: but the best present they made me, was my liberty; for the rest did not much concern me at that time.

* Virg. Æneid. lib. vi. ver. 261. + Catullus, lib. xvi, ver. 65. Or as Montaigne might have said in his own language: after Í had made a vow to all the saints in Paradise, or as we protestants say, in the Romish Calendar.

The simplicity of his

visible in

his eyes and his lan

The true cause of so sudden a change, and of this second thought, without any apparent impulse, and of so miraculous a repentance, at such a time, in a serious and deliberate enterprise, and which was become just by custom (for at the first dash I plainly confessed to them of what party I was, and whither I was going), is what I do not yet rightly apprehend. The most eminent amongst them, who pulled off his vizor, and told me his name, said to me over and over again, that I was obliged for my deliverance to my countenance, and the frankness and courage of my speech, which rendered me unworthy of such a misfortune, and he desired me to be in no dread of the like again. It is possible that the divine Bounty chose to make use of this mean instrument for my preservation. It moreover defended me the next day from other and worse ambushes, which even these had given me warning of. The last of these two gentlemen is yet living, to give an account of the story; the first was killed not long ago.

If my face did not answer for me, if men did not intention, read in my eyes and words, the innocence of my inwhich was tention, I had not lived so long without quarrels, and without giving offence, considering the indiscreet liberty I take, right or wrong, to say whatever vented his comes into my head, and to judge rashly of things. freedom in This practice may with reason appear uncivil, and from being ill-adapted to our way of conversation; but I have

guage, pre

discourse

resented.

never met with any who have judged it outrageous or malicious, or that took offence at my liberty, if he had it from my own lips. Words repeated have another kind of sense, as well as sound. Neither do I hate any person whatever; and am so slow to -offend that I cannot do it, to serve reason itself. And when occasion has called me to condemn criminals, I have rather failed in the strictness of justice. Ut magis peccari nolim, quam satis animi ad vindicanda peccata habeam :* So that I have more con

Titus Livius, lib. xxix. cap. 22.

"I was for being reproached

cern for men's offences, than a heart to punish "them." Aristotle, it is said, was reproached for Aristotle having been too merciful to a wicked man.* "indeed," said he, " merciful to the man, but not to merciful. "his wickedness." Ordinary judgments are exasperated to punishment by the horror of the crime. But this cools mine. The horror of the first murder makes me fear the second, and the deformity of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation of it. That may be applied to me, who am but a knave of clubs, which was said of Charillus, king of Sparta,t "He cannot be good, because he is not severe to "the wicked." Or thus; for Plutarch delivers it both these ways, as he does a thousand other things, variously, and contrary to one another; "He must "needs be good, because he is so even to the "wicked." Even as in lawful actions, I do not care to be concerned when others are offended by them; so, to say the truth, in lawful things, I do not make conscience enough of employing myself when others approve them.

CHAPTER XII.

Of Experience.

THERE is no desire more natural than that knowledge: we try all the ways that can lead us to

*Diog. Laert, in the Life of Aristotle, lib. v. sect. 17.

of Why expe not a sure

Plutarch, of the Difference between the Flatterer and the Friend, chap. 10.

I cannot imagine from which of Plutarch's tracts Montaigne took this reflection; but in the treatise of Envy and Hatred Plutarch gives it us exactly as it is in the preceding note, viz. "How "should he be good, when he is not rigid to the wicked" chap, 3.

rience is

means to it; where reason is wanting, we therein employ experience:

inform us of the truth of things.

Of what

multiplici

Per varios usus artem experientia fecit,
Exemplo monstrante viam.*

By various proofs experience art has form'd,
Example being guide.

which is a means much more weak and cheap. But
truth is so great a thing, that we ought not to dis-
dain any medium that will guide us to it. Reason
has so many forms, that we know not which to ad-
here to; experience has no fewer. The conse-
quence we would draw from the comparison of
events is uncertain, by reason they are always un-
like. There is no quality so universal in this image
of things as diversity and variety. The Greeks, the
Latins, and we, for the most express example of si-
militude, have pitched upon that of eggs. And yet
there have been men, particularly one at Delphos,
who could distinguish marks of difference amongst
eggs so well, that he never mistook one for another;
and, having many hens, could tell which had laid
it.t Dissimilitude intrudes itself into our works; no
art can arrive at a perfect similitude. Neither Pe-
rozet, nor any other cardmaker, can so carefully
polish and blanch the backs of his cards, that some
gamesters will not distinguish them by only seeing
them shuffled by another: resemblance does not so
much make one, as difference makes another. Na-
ture has obliged herself to make nothing like to
another.

And yet I am not much pleased with his opinion, site who thought by the multitude of laws to curb the ty of laws. authority of judges, by retrenching them. He was not aware that there is as much latitude in the interpretation of laws, as in their form; and they deceive themselves, who think to lessen and stop our

Manilius, lib. i. ver. 61.

† Cic. Acad. Quæst. lib. iv. cap. 18.

debates by summoning us to the express words of the Bible: since human wit finds as large a field for controverting the sense of another, as for delivering his own; and, as if there were less animosity and bitterness in glossing than inventing. We see how much he was deceived; for we have more laws in France, than in all the rest of the world besides and more than would be necessary for the regulation of all the worlds of Epicurus: Ut olim flagitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus:* " So that as formerly we

were plagued with vices, we are now as sick of "the laws:" yet we have left so much to the opi nion and decision of our judges, that there never was so full and uncontrolled a liberty. What have our legislators got by culling out a hundred thousand particular cases and facts, and by adding to those, a hundred thousand laws? This number holds no manner of proportion with the infinite diversity of human actions; the multiplications of our invention will never reach the variety of examples. Add to them a hundred times as many more, yet it will never happen that, of events to come, any one will fall out, that, in the millions of events so chosen and recorded, shall so tally with any one, and be so exactly coupled and compared with it, that there will not remain some circumstance and diversity which will require a variation of judgment. There is little relation between our actions that are in perpetual mutation, and the laws that are fixed and immove able; the most to be desired, are those which are the most rare, the most simple, and general: and I am farther of opinion, that we were better to have none at all, than to have them so numerous.

nature bet

. Nature always gives them better, than those are The laws of which we make ourselves; witness the picture of ter than the poets' golden age, and the state wherein we see our own. nations live, who have no other. Some there are, Passengers who, for their only judge, take the first passer by for judges.

* Tacit. lib. iii. cap. 25.

made use of