Why the

action

which

has reason to take it for an affront. If you are a
coward, and yet honoured for being a man of valour,
is it you whom they mean? They take you for
another person.
I should be as fond of that man,
who pleases himself with the compliments and con-
gees that are made to him, as if he were the head
of the company, when he is one of the meanest in
the train. Archelaus, king of Macedonia, walking
along the street, a person threw water on him, for
which, his attendants said, he ought to punish him.
Nay, but," said the king, " he did not throw the
"water upon me, but on the man he took me to
"be." To one who informed Socrates, that the
people spoke ill of him, "Not at all," said he,

66

for there is nothing in me of what they say." As for my part, whoever should commend me for being a good pilot, or very modest, or very chaste, should owe him no thanks. And in like manner, whoever should call me traitor, robber, or drunkard, I should be as little offended. They, who do not know themselves, may feed their vanity with false applause; but not I, who see myself, and look into the very bottom of my heart, and very well know what belongs to me. I am content to be less commended, provided I am better known. I might be reckoned a wise man in such a sort of wisdom as I take to be folly. I am chagrined that my Essays serve the ladies only as a common moveable, or furniture for the ball. This chapter will advance me to the closet. I love a little private conversation with them; for that which is public, is without favour and without savour. In farewells we are warmed with a more than ordinary affection for the things we take leave of. I take my final leave of this world's joys. These are our last embraces.

But, to come to my subject, what is the reason that the act of generation, an action so natural, so brings us necessary, and so justly the men's prerogative, what has it done that people dare not speak of it without a blush, and that it should be excluded from all

into the

world, is excluded

gular dis

serious and regular discourse? We boldly pronounce from seri-
the words "kill, rob, betray," but the other we dare ous and re-
not mention so as to be heard. Does it mean that courses?
the less we exhale of the fact in speech, we have the
more authority to swell it in thought? For it is happy
that the words which are least spoken or written, and
most kept in, are the best understood, and the most
generally known. Every age, all ranks, know them
as well as they do bread. They are imprinted in
every one, without being expressed, and without
voice and form. And the sex that is bound to say
least of it, does it most. It is an action which we
have lost in the sanctuary of silence, out of which it
is a crime to force it, instead of accusing and judg-
ing it; neither dare we to lash it, but by periphrasis,
and in picture. A great favour to a criminal to be so
detestable that justice reckons it unjust to touch and
see him, and to be obliged to the severity of his con-
demnation for his liberty and security. Is it not the
case here as it is with books, which sell and spread
the more for being suppressed? For my part, I am
ready to take Aristotle at his word, who says that
bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach
to old age. These verses are the doctrine of the old
school, to which I adhere much rather than to the
modern, as its virtues appear to me greater, and its
vices less:

Ceux qui par trop fuyant Venus estrivent`
Faillant autant que ceux qui trop la suivent.*
They err no less, who Venus too much shun,
Than those who to her altars always run.

Tu dea, tu rerum naturam sola gubernas,
Nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras
Exoritur, neque fit lætum, nec amabile quicquam.†
Thou deity, by whom all nature's sway'd,
Without whose power nothing can spring to light,
Or beautiful, or lovely to the sight.

Verses, Amyot's translation of Plutarch, chap. 5. +Lucret. lib. i. ver. 22.

are in a

great con

nection with Ve pus.

Pallas and I cannot imagine who could set Pallas and the the Muses Muses at variance with Venus, and make them cold towards love; for I know no deities that tally better, or are more indebted to one another. He who will not own that the Muses have amorous imaginations, will rob them of the best entertainment they have, and of the noblest subject of their composition; and whoever shall deprive love of the communication and service of poetry, will disarm it of its best weapons. By these means they charge Pallas, the god of familiarity and benevolence, and the Muses, who are the tutelar deities of humanity and justice, with the vice of ingratitude and disrespect. I have not been so long cashiered from the suit and service of that deity, but my memory still retains its strength and power:

Agnosco veteris vestigia flammæ.*

Of my old flame there yet remain some sparks.
Nec mihi deficiat calor hic hyemantibus annis.
I have some heat left in my winter age.

Qual l'alto Egeo, perche aquilone o noto
Cessi, che tutto prima il volse e scosse,
Non s'achetta ei però, ma'l sono e'l moto
Ritien de l'onde anco agitate e grosse.†

As when a storm, which late with furious blast,
Th' Ægean ocean heav'd, at length is past,
While the high waves subside into a plain,
Soft undulations move along the main.

But, as far as I understand of the matter, the abili
ties and valour of this god are more lively and ani-
mated, by the painting of poetry, than in their own

essence:

Et versus digitos habet. ‡

And there's harmony in verse to charm a Venus.

* Virg. Æneid. lib. iv. ver. 23.

+ Tasso's Gierusalem Liber. canto 12, stanza 65.
Juv. sat. 6, ver. 197.

Poetry represents a kind of air more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful, stark-naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil:

Dixerat, et niveis hinc atque hinc diva lacertis
Cunctantem amplexu molli fovet : ille repente
Accepit solitam flammam, notusque medullas
Intravit calor, et labefacta per ossa cucurrit.
Non secus atque olim, tonitru cum rupta corusco
Ignea rima micans percurrit lumine nimbos.
Ea verba loquutus,

Optatos dedit amplexus, placidumque petivit
Conjugis infusus gremio per membra soporem.*
She said, and round him threw her snow-white arms,
And warm'd him, wav'ring, with a soft embrace.
He quickly felt the wonted flame, which pierc'd
Swift to his marrow through his melting bones;
As when in thunder, lanc'd along the sky,

A streak of fire runs streaming through the clouds.

This having said,
After the wish'd embrace, he sunk to rest,
Softly reclin'd, on his fair consort's breast.

love ba

from mar

All the fault I find in these lines is, that he has The tranrepresented her a little too much in rapture for a ports of married Venus. In this discreet partnership the nished appetites are not usually so wanton, but more grave riage, and and dull. Love hates that its votaries should be why. swayed by any motive foreign to itself, and is but cool in such familiarities as are formed and maintained under any other title, as marriage is, wherein it is reasonable to think that kindred and the dowry should have as much, or more weight, than comeliness and beauty. Men, say what they will, do not marry for themselves; they marry as much, or more, for the sake of posterity and their families. The interest and usefulness of marriage concerns our descendants far beyond our time; and therefore I like the way of negotiating it by a third hand, and by the judgment of others, rather than by that of

* Eneid lib. viii. ver, 387, 392, 404, 405, 406.

That love

to be found

than virtue

the parties that are to be married: and how opposite
is all this to the conventions of love! It is a kind of
incest, as I think I have said elsewhere, to exert the
efforts and extravagancies of an amorous licentious-
ness in that venerable and sacred alliance.
A man,
says Aristotle, should accost his wife with prudence
and modesty, lest, by dealing with her too wantonly,
the pleasure should make her exceed the bounds of
reason. What he says with regard to conscience,
the physicians say with regard to health, that plea-
sure excessively hot, lascivious, and frequent, cor-
rupts the seed, and hinders conception. But it is
said, on the contrary, that to supply a languishing
congress, as that is naturally, with a due and prolific
heat, a man should offer at it but seldom, and at
notable intervals.

Quô* rapiat sitiens Venerem interiusque recondat.†

I see no marriages that sooner miscarry, or are disturbed, than those which are spurred on by beauty and amorous desires. The foundations should be more solid and constant, and they should be proceeded in with circumspection. This furious ardour in them is good for nothing.

They who think to do honour to the married state, is no more by joining love to it, are methinks like those who, in in the mar- favour of virtue, hold that nobility is nothing else ried state but virtue. They are indeed somewhat akin, but in nobility. they differ very much; and therefore to confound their names and titles is doing wrong to both. Nobility is a fine quality, and with reason introduced; but, forasmuch as it is a quality dependent on another, and which may fall to a man who is vicious and good for nothing, it is far below virtue in estimation. If it be virtue, it is a virtue that is artificial and apparent, depending on time and chance, differing in form according to the various countries, living

* Montaigne has explained this verse enough before he quoted it. + Virg. Geo, lib. iii. ver. 137.