Tyrants, at once both to kill, and to make their AnTyrants conger felt, have pumped their Wit to invent trive to length- the most lingering Deaths: They will have en the Torments their Enemies dispatched, but not fo fast that of those they they may not have Leisure to taste their Venput to Death. geance: And herein they are mightily perplexed; for, if the Torments they inflict are violent, they are short; if long, they are not then so painful as they defire; and thus torment themselves, in contriving how to torment others. Of this we have a thousand Examples in -Antiquity, and I know not whether we, unawares, do not retain some Traces of this Barbarity.

lute Cruelty.

All that exceeds a simple Death, appears to me mere Executions of Cruelty; neither can our Justice expect, that Justice beyond he, whom the Fear of Death, by being bemerely putting headed or hanged, will not restrain, should to Death, abfo- be any more awed by the Imagination of a flow Fire, burning Pincers, or the Wheel : And I know not, in the mean Time, whether we do not - drive them into Despair; for in what Condition can the -Soul of a Man be, who expects Death four and twenty Hours together, whether he is broke upon a Wheel, or, after the old Way, nailed to a Cross? Jofephus relates, "That, in the Time of the War which the Romans made ' in Judea, happening to pass by where they had, three Days before, crucified certain Jews, he knew three of his own Friends amongst them, and obtained the Favour of having them taken down. Two of them, be 'fays, died, the third lived a great while after.'

Chacondilas, a Writer of good Credit, in the Records

Barbarous Punishments inflicted by the Emperor Mechmed.

he has left behind him of Things that happened in his Time, and near him, tells us, as one of the most excessive Torments, of what the Emperor Mechmed often practised,

viz. ' cutting off Men in the Middle, by the Diaphragma, with one Blow of a Scymeter; by which it followed, that they died, as it were, two Deaths at once, and both the one Part, says be, and the other were seen to stir, a great while after, with the Torment.' I do not think there was any great Suffering in this Motion: The Torments that are most dreadful to look on, are not always the greatest to endure; and, I think, those that other Historians relate to have been practifed upon the Epirot Lords, to be more cruel, who were 'con' demned to be flead alive, by piece-meal, in so mali ⚫ cious a manner, that they continued in this Misery a • Fortnight: As also these other two that follow.

6

Crafus, having caused a Gentleman, the Favourite of

Two more In

• his Brother Pantaleon, to be seized on, car-
' ried him into a Fuller's Shop ", where he stances of ex-
• caused him to be scratched and carded with cessive Cruelty.

• Cards and Combs belonging to that Craft, till he died.. • George Sechel, chief Commander of the Peasants of Po• land, who committed so many Mischiefs, under the Ti

tle of the Crufado, being defeated in Battle, and taken by the Vayvod of Transylvania, was three Days bound • naked upon the Rack, exposed to all forts of Torments that any one could inflict upon him; during which Time, many other Prisoners were kept fafting. At • last, while he was living, and looking on, they made • his beloved Brother Lucat, for whose Safety alone he ' intreated, by taking upon himself the Blame of all their ' evil Actions, to drink his Blood, and caused twenty of ' his most favoured Captains to feed upon him, tearing ' his Flesh in pieces with their Teeth, and swallowing the • Morfels: The Remainder of his Body and Bowels, as foon as he was dead, were boiled, and others of his Fol• lowers compelled to eat them."

4

S

All Things have their SEASON,

UCH as compare Cata the Cenfor with the younger Cato that killed himself, compare two beautiful Natures, and Forms much resembling one another. The first acquired his Reputation several Ways, and excelled

& Herodot. lib. i. p. 44.

in Military Exploits, and the Utility of his public VoThe Virtue of Cato of Utica preferable to that of Cato the Cenfor.

' cations; but the Virtue of the Younger, besides, that it were Blasphemy to compare any to him in Vigour, was much more pure, For who can acquit the Censor of Envy and

Ambition, after he had dared to offend the • Honour of Scipio, a Man, in Goodness and all excellent • Qualities, infinitely beyond him, or any other of his

• Time?'

That which they report of him, amongst other Things, Cato the Cen ' that, in his extreme Old-age, he fet himfor took to ' felf to learn the Greek Tongue, with so greelearn Greek ' dy an Appetite, as if he was to quench a too late in Life.c long Thirst,' does not seem to make for his Honour; it being properly what we call being twice a Child.

All Things have their Season, Good and Bad, and a Man may say his Pater-nofter out of Time; as they accused T. Quintus Flaminius, 'that, being General of an Army, * he was seen praying apart in the Time of a Battle that ' he won.'

Imponet finem sapiens, et rebus honestis k.

i. e.

The wife Man limits event decent Things. Eudemonidas, seeing Xenocrates, when very Old, still very intent upon his School Lectures, 'When will this Man • be Wife, faid be, if he yet learn? And Philopamon, to those who cried up King Ptolemy, for inuring his Person, every Day, to the Exercise of Arms: 'It is not, faid

be, commendable in a King of his Age to exercise him• self in those Things, he ought now really to imploy them. The Young are to make their Preparations, the • Old to enjoy them, say the Sages; and the greatest Vice they observe in us is, That our Defires incessantly grow young again; we are always beginning again to live.

See Plutarch's Comparison of him to Philopamon, sect. 2.
Juv. Sat. vi. v. 344.

Our

* The Words which Montaigne applies here to his own Design, have

another Meaning in the Original.

Plutarch's Notable Sayings of the Lacedæmonians,

Our Studies and Defires should sometimes be sensible of Old-age: We have one Foot in the Grave, and yet our Appetites and Pursuits spring up every Day..

Tu secanda marmora
Locas fub ipfum funus, et fepulcri
Immemor, struis domosTM.

i. e.

When Death, perhaps, is near at Hand,
Thou fairest Marbles dost command

But cut for Use, large Poles to rear,
Unmindful of thy Sepulchre.

Our Defires ought to be mortified with Old-age.

The longest of my Designs is not above a Year's Extent; I think of nothing now but my End; abandon all new Hopes and Enterprises; take my last Leave of every Place I depart from, and every Day dispossess myfelf of what I have. " Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi, nec acquiritur; plus fupereft viatici, quam vie : ‘I now shall nei'ther lose, nor get; I have more wherewith to defray my Journey, than I have Way to go.

Vixi, et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi°.

i. e.

I've liv'd, and finish'd the Career

Which Fortune had prescrib'd me here.

To conclude; 'tis the only Comfort I find in my Oldage, that it mortifies in me several Cares and Defires, wherewith Life is disturbed; the Care how the World goes; the Care of Riches, of Grandeur, of Knowledge, of Health, and myself. There are fome who are learning to speak, at a Time when they should learn to be filent for ever. A Man may always study, but he muft not always go to School. What a contemptible Thing is an old Man learning his A, B, C!

Diversos diversa juvant, non omnibus annis,

Omnia conveniunt.

Kk4

i. e.

For feveral Things do several Men delight,
And all Things are not for all Ages right.

:

If we must study, let us follow that Study which is What Study suitable to our present Condition, that we fuits beft with may be able to answer as he did; who being Old-age. asked, To what End he studied in his de

crepid Age? That I may go the better off the Stage, • faid be, and at greater Eafe.' Such a Study was that of the younger Cato, at feeling his End approach, when he was reading Plato's Discourse of the Immortality of the Soul: Not as we are to believe, that he was not, long before, furnished with all forts of Provision for fuch a De parture; for, of Afsurance, an established Will and Instruction he had, more than Plato had in all his Writings; his Knowledge and Courage were, in this respect, above Philofophy. He imployed himself thus, not for the Service of his Death, but as a Man whose Sleep is not once disturbed in the Importance of such a Deliberation; he also, without Choice and Change, continued his Studieş with the other customary Actions of his Life. The Night that he was denied the Prætorship, he spent in Play: That wherein he was to die he spent in Reading: The Loss either of Life, or of Office, was all one to him.

I

CHAP. ΧΧΙΧ.

Of VIRTUE,

FIND, by Experience, that there is a vast Difference betwixt the Starts and Sallies of the Mind, and

Man Seldom attains to a Capacity of

acting peadily and regularly,

a refolute and conftant Habit; and very well perceive, there is nothing we may not do, nay, even to the surpaffing the Divinity itfelf, says a certain Person, forasmuch as it is more for a Man to render himfelf impassible or dispaffionate, than to be such by his original Condition; and even to be able to conjoin to Man's Imbecillity and Frailty a godly Resolution