that in virility love is a little out of its place, but much more in old age. Importunus enim transvolat aridas O'er wither'd oaks the wanton flies. Margaret, queen of Navarre, like a very woman as she was, extends the advantage of the women to a great length, ordering that thirty years of age should be the season for changing the title of beautiful into that of good woman. The shorter time that we allow to love to keep possession of us, it is so much the better for us. Do but observe its carriage. He is a beardless boy who knows not how they behave in his school contrary to all order.Study, exercise, and practice, are ways for insufficiency to proceed by. Novices are the regents in that school. Amor ordinem nescit :† "Love knows no "order." Doubtless, its conduct is more graceful when mixed with inadvertency and trouble. Miscarriages and disappointments give it a spirit and a grace. Provided it be sharp and eager, it is no great matter whether it be prudent. Do but observe how it goes staggering, tripping, and playing tricks. To guide it by art and wisdom is putting it in the stocks; and it is cramping its divine liberty to put it into clutches so hairy and callous. For the rest, I have often heard women represent this being as spiritual, and scorn to take any notice of what interest the senses have therein. Every thing is of service to it; but I can say, I have often seen that we have excused the weakness of their understandings for the sake of the beauty of their persons; but I never yet saw, that, for the sake of the beauty of the mind, * Horace, lib. iv. ode 13, ver. 9. + Mr. Cotton, in his translation, quotes St. Jerome for this, but does not mention chapter nor page. Anacreon said, long before him, that Bacchus, aided by love, was irregular in his frolics, odė 52, ver. ult. 1 how sedate and mature soever, the ladies were ever Num si quando ad prælia ventum est* For when to join love's battle they engage, The vices that are stifled in thought are not the worst. To conclude this notable commentary, which has escaped from me in a torrent of babble; a tor rent impetuous sometimes, and offensive: Ut missum sponsi furtivo munere malum * Geo. iii. ver. 97. The application which Montaigne here makes of Virgil's words very extraordinary, as will appear immediately to those who will be at the pains of consulting the original. Catull. ad Hortalum, carm. 63, ver. 19, &c. As a fair apple, by a lover sent To his mistress for a private compliment, A guilty blush her fair complexion dies. I say that males and females are cast in the same mould; and that education and custom excepted, the difference between them is not great. Plato calls upon both sexes indifferently to associate in all the studies, exercises, offices, and professions, military and civil, in his republic. And the philosopher Antisthenes says, "The virtue of both is the same." It is much more easy to accuse one sex, than to excuse the other, according to the proverb, which says, "Vice corrects sin." CHAPTER V. Of Coaches. IT is very easy to make it appear that great authors, when they treat of causes, not only mention those which they judge to be the true causes, but those also which they think are not so; provided they have any invention or beauty to recommend them. If what they say be ingenious, it is true and useful enough. We cannot be positive what is the chief cause, and, therefore, muster up several to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them: Namque unam dicere causam Non satis est, verùm plures unde una tamen sit.† * Diog. Laert. in the Life of Antisthenes, lib. vi. sect. 12. Lucret. lib. vi. ver. 703. And thus my muse a store of causes brings; Will you ask me whence comes the custom of blessing those who sneeze? We produce wind three several ways; that which sallies from below is filthy; that which is vented by the mouth bears some reproach of gluttony; the third eruption is sneezing, which because it comes from the head, and is without offence, we give it this civil reception. Do not laugh at this crafty distinction; for they say it is Aristotle's. I think I had read in Plutarch (who, of all the authors I know, is he who has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with science), giving for a reason of the rising of the stomach in those who go to sea, that it is occasioned by their fear; he having found out some reason, by which he proves that fear is capable of producing such an effect.t I, who am very much subject to this effect, know very well that it is not owing to this cause; and I know it not by argument, but by unavoidable experience. Without instancing what I have been told, that the same thing often happens to the beasts, especially to swine, when free from any apprehension of danger; and what an acquaintance of mine has told me of himself, that, being very subject to it, his inclination to vomit has gone off two or three times, being terrified to a great degree in a violent storm: as it happened to that ancient, who said, Pejus vexabar quàm ut periculum mihi succureret : "I was "too much disordered for the apprehension of danger to relieve me." I never was afraid upon the water; nor, indeed, elsewhere (and have often had just reasons for fear, if death be such a cause), so as to be disturbed and change countenance. Fear * In a tract, entitled Natural Causes, chap. 11. u ka izure και πορνόσμενη συγκινεί καὶ ἀναπέμπησε τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταραχής + Senec. ep. 53. springs sometimes as well from want of judgment as from want of courage. All the dangers which I have been in I have looked upon, without winking, with a free, solid, and entire countenance; and besides, to be afraid requires courage. It has formerly served me better than other courses, so to conduct and regulate my flight, that it was, if not without fear, yet without terror and astonishment. It was stirred indeed, but without amazement or stupefaction. Great souls go much farther, and represent flights, not only calm and temperate, but, moreover, intrepid. We will mention that which Alcibiades relates of Socrates, his companion in arms; "After our army was "routed, I found him and Lachez in the very rear "of those who fled, and viewed him at my leisure, "and in security, for I was mounted on a good "horse and he on foot; and thus we had fought. I "took notice in the first place with what delibera❝tion and resolution he fought, compared with "Lachez, and then the gallantry of his step nothing "different from his ordinary gait, his firm and regu"lar countenance, viewing and judging what passed "about him, looking one while on those, and ano"ther while upon other friends and enemies, after "such a manner as encouraged the one, and signi"fied to the other, that he would sell his life dear "to any one that offered to take it from him; and σε so they saved themselves, for such men are not so " liable to be attacked as those who run away are to "be pursued." That was the testimony of this great commander, which teaches us what we experience every day, that nothing throws us so much into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness to keep clear of them. Quo timoris minus est, co minus ferme periculi est: "Where there is the least fear, there is gc"nerally the least danger." When a man is ready to declare that he thinks of death, and foresees it, * Plato in his Banquet, p. 1206, of the Francfort edit. in 1602. Titus Livy, lib. xxii. cap. 5. |