The Essays, vol 10 | Page 8

another man's. This province of ours
is, in plain truth, a little more decried than the other parts of the
kingdom; and yet we have several times seen, in our times, men of
good families of other provinces, in the hands of justice, convicted of
abominable thefts. I fear this vice is, in some sort, to be attributed to the
fore-mentioned vice of the fathers.

And if a man should tell me, as a lord of very good understanding once
did, that "he hoarded up wealth, not to extract any other fruit and use
from his parsimony, but to make himself honoured and sought after by
his relations; and that age having deprived him of all other power, it
was the only remaining remedy to maintain his authority in his family,
and to keep him from being neglected and despised by all around," in
truth, not only old age, but all other imbecility, according to Aristotle,
is the promoter of avarice; that is something, but it is physic for a
disease that a man should prevent the birth of. A father is very
miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the
need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection; he must
render himself worthy to be respected by his virtue and wisdom, and
beloved by his kindness and the sweetness of his manners; even the
very ashes of a rich matter have their value; and we are wont to have
the bones and relics of worthy men in regard and reverence. No old age
can be so decrepid in a man who has passed his life in honour, but it
must be venerable, especially to his children, whose soul he must have
trained up to their duty by reason, not by necessity and the need they
have of him, nor by harshness and compulsion:
"Et errat longe mea quidem sententia Qui imperium credat esse gravius,
aut stabilius, Vi quod fit, quam illud, quod amicitia adjungitur."
["He wanders far from the truth, in my opinion, who thinks that
government more absolute and durable which is acquired by force than
that which is attached to friendship."--Terence, Adelph., i. I, 40.]
I condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul that is designed
for honour and liberty. There is I know not what of servile in rigour and
constraint; and I am of opinion that what is not to be done by reason,
prudence, and address, is never to be affected by force. I myself was
brought up after that manner; and they tell me that in all my first age I
never felt the rod but twice, and then very slightly. I practised the same
method with my children, who all of them died at nurse, except
Leonora, my only daughter, and who arrived to the age of five years
and upward without other correction for her childish faults (her
mother's indulgence easily concurring) than words only, and those very

gentle; in which kind of proceeding, though my end and expectation
should be both frustrated, there are other causes enough to lay the fault
on without blaming my discipline, which I know to be natural and just,
and I should, in this, have yet been more religious towards the males, as
less born to subjection and more free; and I should have made it my
business to fill their hearts with ingenuousness and freedom. I have
never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more
cowardly, or more wilfully obstinate.
Do we desire to be beloved of our children? Will we remove from them
all occasion of wishing our death though no occasion of so horrid a
wish can either be just or excusable?
"Nullum scelus rationem habet."
["No wickedness has reason."--Livy, xxviii. 28]
Let us reasonably accommodate their lives with what is in our power.
In order to this, we should not marry so young that our age shall in a
manner be confounded with theirs; for this inconvenience plunges us
into many very great difficulties, and especially the gentry of the nation,
who are of a condition wherein they have little to do, and who live
upon their rents only: for elsewhere, with people who live by their
labour, the plurality and company of children is an increase to the
common stock; they are so many new tools and instruments wherewith
to grow rich.
I married at three-and-thirty years of age, and concur in the opinion of
thirty-five, which is said to be that of Aristotle. Plato will have nobody
marry before thirty; but he has reason to laugh at those who undertook
the work of marriage after five-and-fifty, and condemns their offspring
as unworthy of aliment and life. Thales gave the truest limits, who,
young and being importuned by