exercise as for being more retired. It is there that I am in my kingdom, as we say; and there I endeavour to render myself sole monarch, and to sequester this corner from all society, conjugal, filial, and civil. Every where else I have but a verbal authority, and of a confused essence. Miserable is that man, in my opinion, who has no place at home where to be by himself, to entertain himself alone, or to conceal himself from others. Ambition sufficiently plagues its proselytes by keeping them always in show, like a statue in a marketplace, Magna servitus est magna fortuna:* “ A great fortune is a great slavery:" those who possess it have scarce a retirement for the necessities of nature. I have thought nothing so severe, in the austerity of life which our friars affect, as what I see in some of their fraternities; namely, to have a perpetual society of place by rule, and numerous assistants among them in every action whatever; and I think it somewhat more tolerable to be always alone, than never to be so.

66

pastime of

If any one shall tell me, that it is undervaluing The Muses the Muses to make use of them only for mirth and are the pastime, I shall say he does not know the value of sport and pleasure, play, and pastime, so well as I do; I live the mind. from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be it spoken, I only live for myself; in that all my designs terminate. I studied, when young, for the sake of ostentation, afterwards for wisdom, and now for my recreation, but never for gain. A vain and prodigal longing I had for this sort of furniture, to supply my own necessity, and to dress and adorn me; but I have long since weaned myself of it.

veniences

attached

Books have many charming qualities to such as The inconknow how to choose them; but there is no good ched without its evil. This is a pleasure, not more pure to the and untainted than others; it has its inconveniences, which and great ones too. The soul is exercised in it, but books give.

* Senec. Consolatio ad Polybium, cap. 26.

pleasure

the body, the care of which I ought not to forget, remains in the mean time without action, grows heavy and stupid. I know of no excess more prejudicial to me, or more to be avoided in this my declining age. Thus have I given you my three favourite, and particular occupations. I speak not of the duties I owe to mankind by civil obligation.

The useful

CHAPTER III.

Of Diversion.

I WAS once employed to console a lady who was truly afflicted; for most of their mournings are af fected and ceremonious:

Uberibus semper lachrymis, semperque paratis,

In statione suâ, atque expectantibus illam,
Quo jubeat manare modo.*

They always have a dam for present use,
Ready prepar'd whene'er they draw the sluice,
On least pretence of joys, or griefs, or fears,
To sally out in false dissembling tears.

It is going the wrong way to work to oppose this ness of ad- passion, for opposition only provokes it, and makes diversion them more sorrowful. The evil is exasperated by the by way of warmth of argument. We see in common discourse,

ministering

comfort.

that what slips unguardedly from a man, if another goes to controvert it, the former takes it in dudgeon, and justifies what he had said; especially if it be a matter wherein he is interested. Besides, in so doing, you enter upon your work in a rough manner; whereas the first visits of a physician to his patient ought to be gentle, gay, and pleasant. Never did an ill-looking sullen physician do any thing to

* Juv. sat. vi. ver. 272, &c.

purpose. On the contrary, therefore, a man must, in order to make his way, sooth the patient's com plaints, and express some approbation and excuse for them. By this discretion you gain credit to proceed farther; and, by an easy and insensible gradation, you fall into a reasoning that is more solid and proper for their cure. I, whose chief aim it was to deceive those bystanders who had their eyes fixed upon me, thought fit to palliate the disease; though indeed I find, by experience, that I have an awkward and unlucky hand at persuasion. My arguments are either too poignant, too dry, or too blunt and lifeless. After I had for a while applied myself to aer grievance, I did not attempt to cure it by strong tnd lively arguments, either because I had them not o use, or because I thought to gain my point better another way; neither did I set about the choice of the various methods of consolation prescribed by philosophy; as that what we complain of is no evil, according to Cleanthes ;* that it is a slight evil, as the Peripatetics say; that to complain thus is neither just nor laudable, according to Chrysippus; nor the method prescribed by Epicurus, more suitable to my taste, viz. shifting the thought from things that are afflicting to those that are pleasant; nor like Cicero, to make a collection of all these together, in order to dispense them occasionally. But, by softly weakening the force of my arguments, and turning them by degrees sometimes to subjects nearer to the present case, and at other times to those that were a little more remote; as she attended to me, I insensibly deprived her of her sorrow, and kept her calm and quite composed as long as I was with her. I diverted the complaint; but they who succeeded me in the same service found no amendment in her, for I had not gone to the root.

Perhaps I may have glanced elsewhere on some The method kind of public diversions; and the practice of mili- of divert

*Cic. Tusc. Quæst. lib, iii. cap. 31,

ing the ene

ployed suc

my, em- tary diversions, which Pericles made use of in the Peecesfully in loponnesian war, and of a thousand more such in war and in other places, for drawing off the enemy's forces from

negotia

tions.

How Ata

a country, is too frequent in history. It was an ingenious stratagem by which the Sieur de Himbercourt saved both himself and others, in the city of Liege, when the duke of Burgundy, who besieged it, made him enter into it to execute the articles that were agreed to for the surrender. The townspeople, who assembled in the night for that purpose, began to mutiny against the agreement, and many of them resolved to fall foul upon the negotiators of it, whom they had in their power. He feeling the gust of this first storm of the people, who were about rushing into his quarters to kill him suddenly, sent out two of the inhabitants of the city (for he had some of them then present with him) to make an offer to the town-council of fresh and more favourable terms, which he had framed on the spot for the present occasion. These two men diverted the first storm, by the repair of the enraged rabble to the town-house, to hear and consider of the subject of their commission. The deliberation was short, and so a second storm arose with as much fury as the other; whereupon he dispatched four fresh mediators, of the same quality, protesting that they had now better conditions to offer to them, and such as would give them entire content and satisfaction; by which means the people were again repressed. In short, by thus diverting their fury with such a contrivance of amusements, as made them spend it in vain consultations, by which it was at last laid asleep, he spun out the affair to another day, which was the principal thing he wanted.

This other story is also of the same stamp. AtaJanta was lanta, a virgin of extraordinary beauty, in order to and there. disengage herself from a thousand or more suitors,

diverted,

* You will find this story at full length in the Memoirs of Philip de Comines, lib. ii. cap. 3.

who courted her in marriage, proposed this condi- by defeated
tion to them, that she would accept of him for a hus- in a race.
band that should equal her in running, provided
that they who came short of her should be put to
death. There were enough who thought the prize
very well worth such a risk, and who suffered the
penalty of this cruel bargain. Hippomanes, being
to take trial after the others, invoked the tutelar god-
dess of his amorous passion, and implored her assist-
ance, who, hearing his petition, furnished him with
three golden apples, and an instruction how to use
them. The field on which they ran being quite open,
as soon as Hippomanes perceived his mistress close
at his heels, he, as if by inadvertency, let fall one
of the apples, the beauty of which was so tempting
to the virgin, that she failed not to turn out of the
way to take it up.

Obstupuit virgo, nitidique cupidine pomi
Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.t
The nimble virgin, dazzled to behold
The shining apple rolling on the mold,

Stopp'd her career to seize the tempting gold.

He did the same, when he saw himself hard pressed, by the second and third apples, till, by thus diverting her, and making her go often out of her way, he won the race.

sion of the

When physicians cannot purge off a catarrh, they The diver divert and turn it to some other less dangerous part. mind to o And I find also that this is the most ordinary practice ther obfor diseases of the mind. The mind, says Cicero, is jects a usesometimes to be drawn off to other thoughts, pur- for the cure suits, cares, and occupations, and must often be of its discured, like sick persons, by the change of place.‡ It gives a little jostle to a man's disorders; it nei

* "Præmia veloci conjux thalamique dabuntur :
"Mors pretium tardis: ea lex certaminis esto."

Ovid, Met. lib. x. fab. 11. ver. 12, 13.

+ Idem, ibid. ver. 107, &c.

Cic. Tusc. Quæst. lib. iv. cap. 35,

ful method

orders.