The Essays, vol 9 | Page 5

We do not go, we are driven; like things that float, now leisurely, then
with violence, according to the gentleness or rapidity of the current:
"Nonne videmus, Quid sibi quisque velit, nescire, et quaerere semper
Commutare locum, quasi onus deponere possit?"
["Do we not see them, uncertain what they want, and always asking for
something new, as if they could get rid of the burthen." --Lucretius, iii.
1070.]
Every day a new whimsy, and our humours keep motion with the time.
"Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse Juppiter auctificas
lustravit lumine terras."
["Such are the minds of men, that they change as the light with which
father Jupiter himself has illumined the increasing earth." --Cicero,
Frag. Poet, lib. x.]
We fluctuate betwixt various inclinations; we will nothing freely,
nothing absolutely, nothing constantly. In any one who had prescribed
and established determinate laws and rules in his head for his own
conduct, we should perceive an equality of manners, an order and an
infallible relation of one thing or action to another, shine through his
whole life; Empedocles observed this discrepancy in the Agrigentines,

that they gave themselves up to delights, as if every day was their last,
and built as if they had been to live for ever. The judgment would not
be hard to make, as is very evident in the younger Cato; he who therein
has found one step, it will lead him to all the rest; 'tis a harmony of very
according sounds, that cannot jar. But with us 't is quite contrary; every
particular action requires a particular judgment. The surest way to steer,
in my opinion, would be to take our measures from the nearest allied
circumstances, without engaging in a longer inquisition, or without
concluding any other consequence. I was told, during the civil disorders
of our poor kingdom, that a maid, hard by the place where I then was,
had thrown herself out of a window to avoid being forced by a common
soldier who was quartered in the house; she was not killed by the fall,
and therefore, repeating her attempt would have cut her own throat, had
she not been prevented; but having, nevertheless, wounded herself to
some show of danger, she voluntarily confessed that the soldier had not
as yet importuned her otherwise; than by courtship, earnest solicitation,
and presents; but that she was afraid that in the end he would have
proceeded to violence, all which she delivered with such a countenance
and accent, and withal embrued in her own blood, the highest
testimony of her virtue, that she appeared another Lucretia; and yet I
have since been very well assured that both before and after she was
not so difficult a piece. And, according to my host's tale in Ariosto, be
as handsome a man and as worthy a gentleman as you will, do not
conclude too much upon your mistress's inviolable chastity for having
been repulsed; you do not know but she may have a better stomach to
your muleteer.
Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers into a great degree of
favour and esteem for his valour, gave his physicians strict charge to
cure him of a long and inward disease under which he had a great while
languished, and observing that, after his cure, he went much more
coldly to work than before, he asked him what had so altered and
cowed him: "Yourself, sir," replied the other, "by having eased me of
the pains that made me weary of my life." Lucullus's soldier having
been rifled by the enemy, performed upon them in revenge a brave
exploit, by which having made himself a gainer, Lucullus, who had
conceived a good opinion of him from that action, went about to

engage him in some enterprise of very great danger, with all the
plausible persuasions and promises he could think of;
"Verbis, quae timido quoque possent addere mentem"
["Words which might add courage to any timid man." --Horace, Ep., ii.
2, 1, 2.]
"Pray employ," answered he, "some miserable plundered soldier in that
affair":
"Quantumvis rusticus, ibit, Ibit eo, quo vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit;"
["Some poor fellow, who has lost his purse, will go whither you wish,
said he."--Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 39.]
and flatly refused to go. When we read that Mahomet having furiously
rated Chasan, Bassa of the Janissaries, because he had seen the
Hungarians break into his squadrons, and himself behave very ill in the
business, and that Chasan, instead of any other answer, rushed
furiously alone, scimitar in hand, into the first body of the enemy,
where he was presently cut to pieces, we are not to look upon that
action, peradventure, so much as vindication as a turn of mind, not so
much natural valour as a sudden despite. The man