Chapter 46

“Semper enim quod postremum adjectum est, id rem totam videtur traxisse.” [“For always that which is last added, seems to have accomplished the whole affair.”--Livy, xxvii. 45.] Many at Rome thought, and would usually say, that the greatest of Scipio’s acts were in part due to Laelius, whose constant practice it was still to advance and support Scipio’s grandeur and renown, without any care of his own. And Theopompus, king of Sparta, to him who told him the republic could not miscarry since he knew so well how to command, “Tis rather,” answered he, “because the people know so well how to obey.” As women succeeding to peerages had, notwithstanding their sex, the privilege to attend and give their votes in the trials that appertained to the jurisdiction of peers; so the ecclesiastical peers, notwithstanding their profession, were obliged to attend our kings in their wars, not only with their friends and servants, but in their own persons. As the Bishop of Beauvais did, who being with Philip Augustus at the battle of Bouvines, had a notable share in that action; but he did not think it fit for him to participate in the fruit and glory of that violent and bloody trade. He with his own hand reduced several of the enemy that day to his mercy, whom he delivered to the first gentleman he met either to kill or receive them to quarter, referring the whole execution to this other hand; and he did this with regard to William, Earl of Salisbury, whom he gave up to Messire Jehan de Nesle. With a like subtlety of conscience to that I have just named, he would kill but not wound, and for that reason ever fought with a mace. And a certain person of my time, being reproached by the king that he had laid hands on a priest, stiffly and positively denied he had done any such thing: the meaning of which was, he had cudgelled and kicked him. CHAPTER XLII OF THE INEQUALITY AMOUNGST US. Plutarch says somewhere that he does not find so great a difference betwixt beast and beast as he does betwixt man and man; which he says in reference to the internal qualities and perfections of the soul. And, in truth, I find so vast a distance betwixt Epaminondas, according to my judgment of him, and some that I know, who are yet men of good sense, that I could willingly enhance upon Plutarch, and say that there is more difference betwixt such and such a man than there is betwixt such a man and such a beast: [“Ah! how much may one man surpass another!” --Terence, Eunuchus, ii. 2.] and that there are as many and innumerable degrees of mind as there are cubits betwixt this and heaven. But as touching the estimate of men, ‘tis strange that, ourselves excepted, no other creature is esteemed beyond its proper qualities; we commend a horse for his strength and sureness of foot, “Volucrem Sic laudamus equum, facili cui plurima palma Fervet, et exsultat rauco victoria circo,” [“So we praise the swift horse, for whose easy mastery many a hand glows in applause, and victory exults in the hoarse circus. --“Juvenal, viii. 57.] and not for his rich caparison; a greyhound for his speed of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her gesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year: all these are about him, but not in him. You will not buy a pig in a poke: if you cheapen a horse, you will see him stripped of his housing-cloths, you will see him naked and open to your eye; or if he be clothed, as they anciently were wont to present them to princes to sell, ‘tis only on the less important parts, that you may not so much consider the beauty of his colour or the breadth of his crupper, as principally to examine his legs, eyes, and feet, which are the members of greatest use: “Regibus hic mos est: ubi equos mercantur, opertos Inspiciunt; ne, si facies, ut saepe, decora Molli fulta pede est, emptorem inducat hiantem” [“This is the custom of kings: when they buy horses, they have open inspection, lest, if a fair head, as often chances, is supported by a weak foot, it should tempt the gaping purchaser.” --Horace, Sat., i. 2, 86.] why, in giving your estimate of a man, do you prize him wrapped and muffled up in clothes? He then discovers nothing to you but such parts as are not in the least his own, and conceals those by which alone one may rightly judge of his value. ‘Tis the price of the blade that you inquire into, not of the scabbard: you would not peradventure bid a farthing for him, if you saw him stripped. You are to judge him by himself and not by what he wears; and, as one of the ancients very pleasantly said: “Do you know why you repute him tall? You reckon withal the height of his pattens.”--[Seneca, Ep. 76.]--The pedestal is no part of the statue. Measure him without his stilts; let him lay aside his revenues and his titles; let him present himself in his shirt. Then examine if his body be sound and sprightly, active and disposed to perform its functions. What soul has he? Is she beautiful, capable, and happily provided of all her faculties? Is she rich of what is her own, or of what she has borrowed? Has fortune no hand in the affair? Can she, without winking, stand the lightning of swords? is she indifferent whether her life expire by the mouth or through the throat? Is she settled, even and content? This is what is to be examined, and by that you are to judge of the vast differences betwixt man and man. Is he: “Sapiens, sibique imperiosus, Quern neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent; Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores Fortis; et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus, Externi ne quid valeat per laeve morari; In quem manca ruit semper fortuna?” [“The wise man, self-governed, whom neither poverty, nor death, nor chains affright: who has the strength to resist his appetites and to contemn honours: who is wholly self-contained: whom no external objects affect: whom fortune assails in vain.” --Horace, Sat., ii. 7,] such a man is five hundred cubits above kingdoms and duchies; he is an absolute monarch in and to himself: “Sapiens, . . . Pol! ipse fingit fortunam sibi;” [“The wise man is the master of his own fortune,” --Plautus, Trin., ii. 2, 84.] what remains for him to covet or desire? “Nonne videmus, Nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut, quoi Corpore sejunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur, Jucundo sensu, cura semotu’ metuque?” [“Do we not see that human nature asks no more for itself than that, free from bodily pain, it may exercise its mind agreeably, exempt from care and fear.”--Lucretius, ii. 16.] Compare with such a one the common rabble of mankind, stupid and mean-spirited, servile, instable, and continually floating with the tempest of various passions, that tosses and tumbles them to and fro, and all depending upon others, and you will find a greater distance than betwixt heaven and earth; and yet the blindness of common usage is such that we make little or no account of it; whereas if we consider a peasant and a king, a nobleman and a vassal, a magistrate and a private man, a rich man and a poor, there appears a vast disparity, though they differ no more, as a man may say, than in their breeches. In Thrace the king was distinguished from his people after a very pleasant and especial manner; he had a religion by himself, a god all his own, and which his subjects were not to presume to adore, which was Mercury, whilst, on the other hand, he disdained to have anything to do with theirs, Mars, Bacchus, and Diana. And yet they are no other than pictures that make no essential dissimilitude; for as you see actors in a play representing the person of a duke or an emperor upon the stage, and immediately after return to their true and original condition of valets and porters, so the emperor, whose pomp and lustre so dazzle you in public: “Scilicet grandes viridi cum luce smaragdi Auto includuntur, teriturque thalassina vestis Assidue, et Veneris sudorem exercita potat;” [“Because he wears great emeralds richly set in gold, darting green lustre; and the sea-blue silken robe, worn with pressure, and moist with illicit love (and absorbs the sweat of Venus).” --Lucretius, iv. 1123.] do but peep behind the curtain, and you will see no thing more than an ordinary man, and peradventure more contemptible than the meanest of his subjects: “Ille beatus introrsum est, istius bracteata felicitas est;” [“The one is happy in himself; the happiness of the other is counterfeit.”--Seneca, Ep., 115.] cowardice, irresolution, ambition, spite, and envy agitate him as much as another: “Non enim gazae, neque consularis Submovet lictor miseros tumultus Mentis, et curas laqueata circum Tecta volantes.” [“For not treasures, nor the consular lictor, can remove the miserable tumults of the mind, nor cares that fly about panelled ceilings.”--Horace, Od., ii. 16, 9.] Care and fear attack him even in the centre of his battalions: “Re veraque metus hominum curaeque sequaces Nec metuunt sonitus armorum, nee fera tela; Audacterque inter reges, rerumque potentes Versantur, neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro.” [“And in truth the fears and haunting cares of men fear not the clash of arms nor points of darts, and mingle boldly with great kings and men in authority, nor respect the glitter of gold.” --Lucretius, ii. 47.] Do fevers, gout, and apoplexies spare him any more than one of us? When old age hangs heavy upon his shoulders, can the yeomen of his guard ease him of the burden? When he is astounded with the apprehension of death, can the gentlemen of his bedchamber comfort and assure him? When jealousy or any other caprice swims in his brain, can our compliments and ceremonies restore him to his good-humour? The canopy embroidered with pearl and gold he lies under has no virtue against a violent fit of the colic: “Nee calidae citius decedunt corpore febres Textilibus si in picturis, ostroque rubenti Jactaris, quam si plebeia in veste cubandum est.” [“Nor do burning fevers quit you sooner if you are stretched on a couch of rich tapestry and in a vest of purple dye, than if you be in a coarse blanket.”--Idem, ii. 34.] The flatterers of Alexander the Great possessed him that he was the son of Jupiter; but being one day wounded, and observing the blood stream from his wound: “What say you now, my masters,” said he, “is not this blood of a crimson colour and purely human? This is not of the complexion of that which Homer makes to issue from the wounded gods.” The poet Hermodorus had written a poem in honour of Antigonus, wherein he called him the son of the sun: “He who has the emptying of my close-stool,” said Antigonus, “knows to the contrary.” He is but a man at best, and if he be deformed or ill-qualified from his birth, the empire of the universe cannot set him to rights: “Puellae Hunc rapiant; quidquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat,” [“Let girls carry him off; wherever he steps let there spring up a rose!”--Persius, Sat., ii. 38.] what of all that, if he be a fool? even pleasure and good fortune are not relished without vigour and understanding: “Haec perinde sunt, ut ilius animus; qui ea possidet Qui uti scit, ei bona; illi, qui non uritur recte, mala.” [“Things are, as is the mind of their possessor; who knows how to use them, to him they are good; to him who abuses them, ill.” --Terence, Heart., i. 3, 21.] Whatever the benefits of fortune are, they yet require a palate to relish them. ‘Tis fruition, and not possession, that renders us happy: [“‘Tis not lands, or a heap of brass and gold, that has removed fevers from the ailing body of the owner, or cares from his mind. The possessor must be healthy, if he thinks to make good use of his realised wealth. To him who is covetous or timorous his house and estate are as a picture to a blind man, or a fomentation to a gouty.”--Horace, Ep., i. 2, 47.] He is a sot, his taste is palled and flat; he no more enjoys what he has than one that has a cold relishes the flavour of canary, or than a horse is sensible of his rich caparison. Plato is in the right when he tells us that health, beauty, vigour, and riches, and all the other things called goods, are equally evil to the unjust as good to the just, and the evil on the contrary the same. And therefore where the body and the mind are in disorder, to what use serve these external conveniences: considering that the least prick with a pin, or the least passion of the soul, is sufficient to deprive one of the pleasure of being sole monarch of the world. At the first twitch of the gout it signifies much to be called Sir and Your Majesty! “Totus et argento conflatus, totus et auro;” [“Wholly made up of silver and gold.”--Tibullus, i. 2, 70.] does he not forget his palaces and girandeurs? If he be angry, can his being a prince keep him from looking red and looking pale, and grinding his teeth like a madman? Now, if he be a man of parts and of right nature, royalty adds very little to his happiness; “Si ventri bene, si lateri est, pedibusque tuffs, nil Divitix poterunt regales addere majus;” [“If it is well with thy belly, thy side and thy feet, regal wealth will be able to add nothing.”--Horace, Ep., i. 12, 5.] he discerns ‘tis nothing but counterfeit and gullery. Nay, perhaps he would be of King Seleucus’ opinion, that he who knew the weight of a sceptre would not stoop to pick it up, if he saw it lying before him, so great and painful are the duties incumbent upon a good king.--[Plutarch, If a Sage should Meddle with Affairs of Stale, c. 12.]--Assuredly it can be no easy task to rule others, when we find it so hard a matter to govern ourselves; and as to dominion, that seems so charming, the frailty of human judgment and the difficulty of choice in things that are new and doubtful considered, I am very much of opinion that it is far more easy and pleasant to follow than to lead; and that it is a great settlement and satisfaction of mind to have only one path to walk in, and to have none to answer for but a man’s self; “Ut satius multo jam sit parere quietum, Quam regere imperio res velle.” [“‘Tis much better quietly to obey than wish to rule.” --Lucretius, V, 1126.]