worsted or of serge, of white, black, or scarlet. Their breeches were
of velvet, of the same color with their stockings, or very near,
embroidered and cut according to their fancy. Their doublet was of
cloth of gold, cloth of silver, velvet, satin, damask, or taffeta, of
the same colors, cut embroidered, and trimmed up in the same manner.
The points were of silk of the same colors, the tags were of gold
enameled. Their coats and jerkins were of cloth of gold, cloth of
silver, gold tissue, or velvet embroidered, as they thought fit. Their
gowns were every whit as costly as those of the ladies. Their girdles
were of silk, of the color of their doublets. Every one had a gallant
sword by his side, the hilt and handle whereof were gilt, and the
scabbard of velvet, of the color of his breeches, the end in gold, and
goldsmith's work. The dagger of the same. Their caps were of black
velvet, adorned with jewels and buttons of gold. Upon that they wore a
white plume, most prettily and minion-like parted by so many rows of
gold spangles, at the end whereof hung dangling fair rubies, emeralds,
etc.
But so great was the sympathy between the gallants and the ladies,
that every day they were appareled in the same livery. And that they
might not miss, there were certain gentlemen appointed to tell the
youths every morning what colors the ladies would on that day wear;
for all was done according to the pleasure of the ladies. In these so
handsome clothes, and habiliments so rich, think not that either one
or other of either sex did waste any time at all; for the masters of
the wardrobes had all their raiments and apparel so ready for every
morning, and the chamber-ladies were so well skilled, that in a trice
they would be drest, and completely in their clothes from head to
foot. And to have these accouterments with the more conveniency, there
was about the wood of Thelema a row of houses half a league long, very
neat and cleanly, wherein dwelt the goldsmiths, lapidaries,
embroiderers, tailors, gold-drawers, velvet-weavers, tapestry-makers,
and upholsterers, who wrought there every one in his own trade, and
all for the aforesaid friars and nuns. They were furnished with matter
and stuff from the hands of Lord Nausiclete, who every year brought
them seven ships from the Perlas and Cannibal Islands, laden with
ingots of gold, with raw silk, with pearls and precious stones. And if
any pearls began to grow old, and lose somewhat of their natural
whiteness and luster, those by their art they did renew by tendering
them to cocks to be eaten, as they used to give casting unto hawks.
All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but
according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their
beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labor, sleep, when
they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them,
none did constrain them to eat, drink, nor do any other thing; for so
had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of
their order, there was but this one clause to be observed: _Fay ce que
vouldras_.
Because men that are free, well born, well bred, and conversant in
honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth
them unto virtuous actions and withdraws them from vice, which is
called honor. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint
they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble
disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake
off the bond of servitude; for it is agreeable with the nature of man
to long after things forbidden.
JOHN CALVIN
Born in France in 1509, died in Geneva in 1564; studied in
Paris and Orleans; became identified with the Reformation
about 1528; banished from Paris in 1533; published his
"Institutes," his most famous work, in Latin at Basel in
1536, and in French in 1540; settled at Geneva in 1536;
banished from Geneva in 1538; returned to Geneva in 1541;
had a memorable controversy with Servetus in 1553; founded
the Academy of Geneva in 1559.
OF FREEDOM FOR THE WILL[16]
God has provided the soul of man with intellect, by which he might
discern good from evil, just from unjust, and might know what to
follow or to shun, Reason going before with her lamp; whence
philosophers, in reference to her directing power have called [Greek:
to hêgemonichon]. To this he has joined will, to which choice belongs.
Man excelled in these noble endowments in his primitive condition,
when reason, intelligence, prudence, and judgment not only sufficed
for the government of his earthly life, but also enabled him to rise
up to God and eternal happiness. Thereafter choice was added to direct
the appetites and temper all the organic motions; the will being thus
perfectly submissive to the authority of reason.
[Footnote 16: From "The Institutes." Calvin's work was translated into
English by Thomas Norton and published in 1561. An abridgment,
translated by Christopher Fetherstone, was published in Edinburgh in
1585, and another abridgment by H. Holland in London in 1596. Many
other translations of Calvin's writings appeared in the sixteenth
century. John Allen issued a version of the "Institutes" in 1830,
which has been held in esteem.]
In this upright state, man possest freedom of will, by which if he
chose he was able to obtain eternal life.
It were here unseasonable to introduce the question concerning the
secret predestination of God, because we are not considering what
might or might not happen, but what the nature of man truly was. Adam,
therefore, might have stood if he chose, since it was only by his own
will that he fell; but it was because his will was pliable in either
direction, and he had not received constancy to persevere, that he so
easily fell. Still he had a free choice of good and evil; and not only
so, but in the mind and will there was the highest rectitude, and all
the organic parts were duly framed to obedience, until man corrupted
its good properties, and destroyed himself. Hence the great darkness
of philosophers who have looked for a complete building in a ruin, and
fit arrangement in disorder. The principle they set out with was, that
man could not be a rational animal unless he had a free choice of good
and evil. They also imagined that the distinction between virtue and
vice was destroyed, if man did not of his own counsel arrange his
life. So far well, had there been no change in man. This being unknown
to them, it is not surprizing that they throw everything into
confusion. But those who, while they profess to be the disciples of
Christ, still seek for free-will in man, notwithstanding of his being
lost and drowned in spiritual destruction, labor under manifold
delusion, making a heterogeneous mixture of inspired doctrine and
philosophical opinions, and so erring as to both.
But it will be better to leave these things to their own place. At
present it is necessary only to remember that man at his first
creation was very different from all his posterity; who, deriving
their origin from him after he was corrupted, received a hereditary
taint. At first every part of the soul was formed to rectitude. There
was soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose the good. If any
one objects that it was placed, as it were, in a slippery position
because its power was weak, I answer, that the degree conferred was
sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely the Deity could not
be tied down to this condition,--to make man such that he either could
not or would not sin. Such a nature might have been more excellent;
but to expostulate with God as if he had been bound to confer this
nature on man, is more than unjust, seeing he had full right to
determine how much or how little he would give. Why he did not sustain
him by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his counsel; it is ours
to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had received the power, if
he had the will, but he had not the will which would have given the
power; for this will would have been followed by perseverance. Still,
after he had received so much, there is no excuse for his having
spontaneously brought death upon himself. No necessity was laid upon
God to give him more than that intermediate and even transient will,
that out of man's fall he might extract materials for his own glory.
JOACHIM DU BELLAY
Born about 1524, died in 1560; surnamed "The French Ovid"
and "The Apollo of the Pléiade"; noted as poet and prose
writer; a cousin of Cardinal du Bellay and for a time his
secretary; wrote forty-seven sonnets on the antiquities of
Rome; his most notable work in prose is his "Défense et
Illustration de la Langue Françoise."
WHY OLD FRENCH WAS NOT AS RICH AS GREEK AND LATIN[17]
If our language is not as copious or rich as the Greek or Latin, this
must not be laid to their charge, assuming that our language is not
capable in itself of being barren and sterile; but it should rather be
attributed to the ignorance of our ancestors, who, having (as some one
says, speaking of the ancient Romans) held good doing in greater
estimation than good talking and preferred to leave to their posterity
examples of virtue rather than precepts, have deprived themselves of
the glory of their great deeds, and us of their imitation; and by the
same means have left our tongue so poor and bare that it has need of
ornament and (if we may be allowed the phrase) of borrowed plumage.
[Footnote 17: From the "Défence et Illustration de la Langue
Françoise." Translated for this collection by Eric Arthur Bell. Du
Bellay belonged to a group of sixteenth-century writers known as the
Pléiade, who took upon themselves the mission of reducing the French
language, in its literary forms, to something comparable to Greek and
Latin. Mr. Saintsbury says they "made modern French--made it, we may
say, twice over"; by which he means that French, in their time, was
revolutionized, and that, in the Romantic movement of 1830, Hugo and
his associates were armed by the work of the Pléiade for their revolt
against the restraints of rule and language that had been imposed by
the eighteenth century.]
But who is willing to admit that the Greek and Roman tongues have
always possest that excellence which characterized them at the time of
Homer, Demosthenes, Virgil, and Cicero? And if these authors were of
the opinion that a little diligence and culture were incapable of
producing greater fruit, why did they make such efforts to bring it to
the pitch of perfection it is in to-day? I can say the same thing of
our language, which is now beginning to bloom without bearing fruit,
like a plant which has not yet flowered, waiting till it can produce
all the fruit possible. This is certainly not the fault of nature who
has rendered it more sterile than the others, but the fault of those
who have tended it, and have not cultivated it sufficiently. Like a
wild plant which grows in the desert, without ever being watered or
pruned or protected by the trees and shrubs which give it shade, it
fades and almost dies.
If the ancient Romans had been so negligent of the culture of their
language when first they began to develop it, it is certain that they
could not have become so great in so short a time. But they, in the
guise of good agriculturists, first of all transplanted it from a wild
locality to a cultivated one, and then in order that it might bear
fruit earlier and better, cut away several useless shoots and
substituted exotic and domestic ones, mostly drawn from the Greek
language, which have grafted so well on to the trunk that they appear
no longer adopted but natural. Out of these have sprung, from the
Latin tongue, flowers and colored fruits in great number and of much
eloquence, all of which things, not so much from its own nature but
artificially, every tongue is wont to produce. And if the Greeks and
Romans, more diligent in the culture of their tongue than we are in
ours, found an eloquence in their language only after much labor and
industry, are we for this reason, even if our vernacular is not as
rich as it might be, to condemn it as something vile and of little
value?
The time will come perhaps, and I hope it will be for the good of the
French, when the language of this noble and powerful kingdom (unless
with France the whole French language is to be buried),[18] which is
already beginning to throw out its roots, will shoot out of the ground
and rise to such a height and size that it will even emulate that of
the Greeks and the Romans, producing like them, Homers, Demostheneses,
Virgils, and Ciceros, in the same way that France has already produced
her Pericles, Alcibiades, Themistocles, and Scipio.
[Footnote 18: Du Bellay here refers to the unhappy political state of
France during his short life of thirty-six years. He was born one year
before the defeat of Francis I at Pavia. When twenty years old, Henry
VIII in league with Charles V had invaded France. Fourteen years later
the country was distracted by disastrous religious wars which led up
to the massacre of St. Bartholomew a few years after his death.]
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
Born in France in 1583, died in 1592; educated at a college
in Bordeaux; studied law; attached to the court of Francis
II in 1559, and to the person of Henry III in 1571; traveled
in Germany, Italy and Switzerland in 1580; made mayor of
Bordeaux in 1581; published his "Essays" in 1580, the first
English translation, made by Florio, appearing in 1603.
I
A WORD TO HIS READERS[19]
Reader, loe here a well-meaning Booke. It doth at the first entrance
forewarne thee, that in contriving the same, I have proposed unto my
selfe no other than a familiar and private end: I have no respect or
consideration at all, either to thy service, or to my glory; my forces
are not capable of any such desseigne. I have vowed the same to the
particular commodity of my kinsfolks and friends: to the end, that
losing me (which they are likely to do ere long) they may therein
find some lineaments of my conditions and humors, and by that meanes
reserve more whole, and more lively foster, the knowledge and
acquaintance they have had of me. Had my intention beene to forestal
and purchase the worlds opinion and favor, I would surely have adorned
my selfe more quaintly, or kept a more grave and solemne march. I
desire therein to be delineated in mine owne genuine, simple and
ordinarie fashion, without contention, art or study; for it is my
selfe I pourtray. My imperfections shall therein be read to the life,
and my naturall forme discerned, so farre-forth as publike reverence
hath permitted me. For if my fortune had beene to have lived among
those nations, which yet are said to live under the sweet liberty of
Natures first and uncorrupted lawes, I assure thee, I would most
willingly have pourtrayed my selfe fully and naked. Thus, gentle
Reader, my selfe am the groundworke of my booke: It is then no reason
thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine a Subject.
Therefore farewell.
[Footnote 19: From the preface to the "Essays," as translated by John
Florio. A copy of Florio's "Montaigne" is known to have been in the
library of Shakespeare, one of the few extant autographs of the poet
being in a copy of this translation now preserved in the library of
the British Museum.
Montaigne is usually linked with Rabelais as to his important place in
the history of French prose. The two have come down to us very much as
Chaucer has come down in English literature--as a "well undefiled."
Montaigne secured in his own lifetime a popularity which he has never
lost, if, indeed, it has not been increased.]
II
OF SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE[20]
There are some particular natures that are private and retired: my
natural way is proper for communication, and apt to lay me open; I am
all without and in sight, born for society and friendship. The
solitude that I love myself and recommend to others, is chiefly no
other than to withdraw my thoughts and affections into myself; to
restrain and check, not my steps, but my own cares and desires,
resigning all foreign solicitude, and mortally avoiding servitude and
obligation, and not so much the crowd of men, as the crowd of
business. Local solitude, to say the truth, rather gives me more room,
and sets me more at large; I more readily throw myself upon the
affairs of state and the world, when I am alone; at the Louvre, and in
the bustle of the court, I fold myself within my own skin; the crowd
thrusts me upon myself; and I never entertain myself so wantonly, with
so much license, or so especially, as in places of respect and
ceremonious prudence: our follies do not make me laugh, but our wisdom
does. I am naturally no enemy to a court life; I have therein passed a
good part of my own, and am of a humor cheerfully to frequent great
company, provided it be by intervals and at my own time: but this
softness of judgment whereof I speak, ties me perforce to solitude.
Even at home, amidst a numerous family, and in a house sufficiently
frequented, I see people enough, but rarely such with whom I delight
to converse; and I there reserve both for myself and others an unusual
liberty: there is in my house no such thing as ceremony, ushering, or
waiting upon people down to the coach, and such other troublesome
ceremonies as our courtesy enjoins (O servile and importunate custom!)
Every one there governs himself according to his own method; let who
will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up in my
closet, without any offense to my guests.
[Footnote 20: From the Essay entitled "Of Three Commerces," in Book
III, Chapter III; translated by Charles Cotton, as revised by William
Carew Hazlitt.]
The men, whose society and familiarity I covet, are those they call
sincere and able men; and the image of these makes me disrelish the
rest. It is, if rightly taken, the rarest of our forms, and a form
that we chiefly owe to nature. The end of this commerce is simply
privacy, frequentation and conference, the exercise of souls, without
other fruit. In our discourse, all subjects are alike to me; let there
be neither weight, nor depth, 'tis all one: there is yet grace and
pertinency; all there is tinted with a mature and constant judgment,
and mixt with goodness, freedom, gaiety, and friendship. 'Tis not only
in talking of the affairs of kings and state, that our wits discover
their force and beauty, but every whit as much in private conferences.
I understand my men even by their silence and smiles; and better
discover them, perhaps, at table, than in the council. Hippomachus
said very well, "that he could know the good wrestlers by only seeing
them walk in the street." If learning please to step into our talk,
it shall not be rejected, not magisterial, imperious, and importunate,
as it commonly is, but suffragan and docile itself; we there only seek
to pass away our time; when we have a mind to be instructed and
preached to, we will go seek this in its throne; please let it humble
itself to us for the nonce; for, useful and profitable as it is, I
imagine that, at need, we may manage well enough without it, and do
our business without its assistance. A well-descended soul, and
practised in the conversation of men, will of herself render herself
sufficiently agreeable; art is nothing but the counterpart and
register of what such souls produce.
III
OF HIS OWN LIBRARY[21]
It goes side by side with me in my whole course, and everywhere is
assisting me: it comforts me in my old age and solitude; it eases me
of a troublesome weight of idleness, and delivers me at all hours from
company that I dislike: it blunts the point of griefs, if they are not
extreme, and have not got an entire possession of my soul. To divert
myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis but to run to my books; they
presently fix me to them and drive the other out of my thoughts; and
do not mutiny at seeing that I have only recourse to them for want of
other more real, natural, and lively commodities; they always receive
me with the same kindness. He may well go afoot, they say, who leads
his horse in his hand; and our James, King of Naples and Sicily, who,
handsome, young and healthful, caused himself to be carried about on a
barrow, extended upon a pitiful mattress in a poor robe of gray cloth,
and a cap of the same, but attended withal by a royal train of
litters, led horses of all sorts, gentlemen and officers, did yet
herein represent a tender and unsteady authority: "The sick man is not
to be pitied, who has his cure in his sleeve." In the experience and
practise of this maxim, which is a very true one, consists all the
benefit I reap from books; and yet I make as little use of them,
almost, as those who know them not: I enjoy them as a miser does his
money, in knowing that I may enjoy them when I please: my mind is
satisfied with this right of possession. I never travel without books,
either in peace or war; and yet sometimes I pass over several days,
and sometimes months, without looking on them: I will read by and by,
say I to myself, or to-morrow, or when I please; and in the interim,
time steals away without any inconvenience. For it is not to be
imagined to what degree I please myself and rest content in this
consideration, that I have them by me to divert myself with them when
I am disposed, and to call to mind what a refreshment they are to my
life. 'Tis the best viaticum I have yet found out for this human
journey, and I very much pity those men of understanding who are
unprovided of it. I the rather accept of any other sort of diversion,
how light soever, because this can never fail me.
[Footnote 21: From the essay entitled "Of Three Commerces," Book III,
Chapter III. The translation of Charles Cotton, as revised by William
Carew Hazlitt.]
When at home, I a little more frequent my library, whence I overlook
at once all the concerns of my family. 'Tis situated at the entrance
into my house, and I thence see under me my garden, court, and
base-court, and almost all parts of the building. There I turn over
now one book, and then another, on various subjects without method or
design. One while I meditate, another I record and dictate, as I walk
to and fro, such whimsies as these I present to you here. 'Tis in the
third story of a tower, of which the ground room is my chapel, the
second story a chamber with a withdrawing-room and closet, where I
often lie, to be more retired; and above is a great wardrobe. This
formerly was the most useless part of the house. I there pass away
both most of the days of my life and most of the hours of those days.
In the night I am never there. There is by the side of it a cabinet
handsome enough, with a fireplace very commodiously contrived, and
plenty of light: and were I not more afraid of the trouble than the
expense--the trouble that frights me from all business, I could very
easily adjoin on either side, and on the same floor, a gallery of an
hundred paces long, and twelve broad, having found walls already
raised for some other design, to the requisite height.