solution, and good Fortune, wherein (tho' we had not had the Authority of Hannibal to assure us) he was the chief of Men; the uncommon Beauty and State of his Person, even to a Miracle, his majestic Port, and awful Deportment, in a Face so Young, To Ruddy, and so Radiant : 5 :: Qualis ubi Oceani perfufus Lucifer undâ, Quem Venus ante alios eftrorum diligit ignes, i. e. So does the Day-ftar from the Ocean rife, And diffipates the fullen Shades of Night. Whoever, moreover, considers the Excellency of his Knowledge and Capacity, the Duration and Grandeur of his Glory, pure, clear, without Spot or Envy; and that, even long after his Death, it was a religious Belief, that his very Medals brought good Fortune to all that carried them about them; and that more Kings and Princes have writ his Acts, than other Historians have written the Acts of any other King or Prince whatever; and that, to this very Day, the Mahometans, who despise all other Histories, admit of, and honour his alone, by a special Privilege : Whoever, I say, will feriously confider all these Particulars, will confefs, that I had reason to prefer him before Cefar himself, who alone could make me doubtful in my Choice: And it cannot be denied, but that there was more of his own Conduct in his Exploits, and more of Fortune in those of Alexander. They were, in many Things, equal, and, peradventure, Cefar had the Advantage in some par. ticular Qualities. They were two Fires, or two Torrents, to ravage the World by several Ways; Et velut immissi diverfis partibus ignes • Æneid, lib. viii. v. 589, ? Ibid. lib. xii. v, 521, i. e. And like to Fires in sev'ral Parts apply'd They bear all down before them where they go. But thơ' Cafar's Ambition was, in itself, more moderate, it was so mischievous, having the Ruin of his Country, and the universal Devastation of the World for its abominable Object; that, all Things collected together, and put into the Balance, I cannot but incline to Alexander's Side. The third Great Man, and, in my Opinion, the most Excellent of all, is EPAMINONDAS: Of Glory he Epaminondas, has not near fo much as the other two (which the Third, and alfo is but a Part of the Substance of the the most ExThing :) Of Valour and Resolution, not of cellent. that Sort which is pushed on by Ambition, but of that which Wisdom and Reason can plant in a regular Soul, he had all that could be imagined: Of this Virtue of his he has, in my Thoughts, given as ample Proof, as Alexander himself, or Cefar: For, although his military Exploits were neither so frequent, nor so renowned, they were yet, if duly confidered in all their Circumstances, as important, as vigorous, and carried with them as manifest a Testimony of Boldness, and military Capacity, as those of any whatever. • The Greeks have done him the Honour, without Contradiction, to pronounce him the greatest Man of their Nation, and to be the first Man of Greece is easily to be the first of the World. the Greeks. His Honour by His Know ledge. As to his Knowledge and Capacity, we have this ancient Judgment of him, That never any Man knew so much, and spake so little as he : For he was of the Pythagorean Sect: But, when he did speak, never any Man spake better; being an excellent and most perfuafive Orator. But, as to his Manners and Confcience, he has vastly furpassed • Plutarch of Socrates's Familiar Spirit, c. 23. His Manners. furpassed all Men that ever undertook the Management of Affairs; for in this one Thing, which ought chiefly to be considered, which alone truly denotes us for what we are, and which alone I counter-balance with all the rest put together, he comes not short of any Philosopher whatever, not even of Socrates himself. Innocency, in this Man, is a Quality, peculiar, fovereign, constant, uniform, and incorruptible; compared to which, it appears, in Alexander, fubaltern, uncertain, variable, effeminate, and accidental. Antiquity has judged, that, in thoroughly fifting all His confumthe other great Captains, there is found, in mate and uni- every one, some peculiar Quality that illufform Virtue. trates him. In this Man only there is a full and equal Virtue and Sufficiency throughout, that leaves nothing to be wished for in him, in all Offices of Human Life, whether in private or public Employments, either of Peace or War, in order for living and dying with Grandeur and Glory. I do not know any Form or Fortune of a Man that I so much honour and love. 'Tis true, that I look upon his obstinate Poverty, as it is set out by his best Friends, a little too His Obstinacy scrupulous and nice. And this is the only in Poverty. Action, tho' high in itself, and well worthy of Admiration, that I find so unpleasant as not to defire to imitate myself, to the Degree it was in him. Scipio Emilianus, would any attribute to him as brave and magnificent an End, and as profound and universal a Knowledge of the Sciences, is the only Person fit to be put into the other Scale of the Balance: Oh! what a Mortif Scipio Ami- bim. cation has Time given us, to deprive us of the Sight of two of the most noble Lives, which, by the common Consent of all the World, one the greatest of the Greeks, and the other of the Romans, were in all Plutarch! What a Subject! What a Workman! For a Man that was no Saint, but, as we say, a gal lant Man, of civil and ordinary Manners, and of a moderate Eminence, the richest Life that I know, and full of the most valuable The Figure and and defirable Qualities, all Things confidered, is, in my Opinion, that of Alcibiades. But, as to Epaminondas, I will here, for the Example of an excessive Goodness, add fome of his Opi- Humanity, &c. nions. He declared, That the greatest Sa- of Epaminontisfaction he ever had in his whole Life, das. < was, the Pleasure he gave his Father and Mother by his Victory at Leuftra';' wherein his Complaisance is great, preferring their Pleasure before his own, so just, and fo full of fo glorious an Action: He did not think it lawful to kill any Man for no Crime, even tho' it were to reftore the Liberty of his Country: Which made him so cool in the Enterprise of his Companion Pelopidas for the Relief of Thebes. He was also of Opinion, That • Men in Battle ought to avoid attacking a Friend that was on the contrary Side, and to spare him. And his Humanity, even towards his Enemies themselves, having rendered him suspected to the Baotians; for that, after he had miraculously forced the Lacedæmonians to open to him the Pass, which they had undertaken to defend at the Entrance of the Morea, near Corinth, he contented himself with having charged thro' them, without pursuing them to the utmoft: For this he had his Commission of General taken from him, which was very honourable for fuch an Account, and for the Shame it was to them, upon Neceffity, afterwards to restore him to his Command, and to own how much depended their Safety and Honour upon him: Victory, like a Shadow, attending him wherever he went; and, indeed, the Prosperity of his Country, as being from him derived, died with him ". Plutarch in the Life of Coriolanus, c. 2. And in his Treatise, to prove that there can be no merry Life, according to Epicurus. * Plutarch of Socrates's Damon, c. 4. Idem, ibid. c. 17. "Corn, Nepos in the Life of Epinionondas. CHAP L CHAP. XXXVII. Of the Resemblance of CHILDREN to their FATHERS. I N compounding this Farrago of so many different Pieces, I never set Pen to Paper, but when I have too much idle Time, and never any where but at home; fo that it is the Work of several Pauses and Intervals, as Occafions keep me sometimes many Months abroad. As to the rest, 1 never correct my first by any fecond Conceptions; I peradventure may alter a Word or fo, but 'tis only to vary the Phrase, and not to cancel my Meaning: I have a mind to represent the Progress of my Humours, that every Piece, as it comes from the Brain, may be seen: I could wish I had begun sooner, and taken Notice of the Course of my Mutations. A Servant of mine, that I imployed to transcribe for me, thought he had got a Prize by stealing several Pieces from me, which best pleased his Fancy; but it is my Comfort, that he will be no greater a Gainer, than I shall be a Lofer by the Theft. Disease which I am grown older, by seven or eight Years, since I beMontaigne's gan, neither has it been without fome new Patience in the Acquisition : I have, in that Time, been acquainted with the Cholic, and a long Course of Years hardly wears off without fome such Inconvenience. I could have been glad, that, of other Infirmities Age has to present long-lived Men, it had chosen some one that would have been more welcome to me, for it could not possibly have laid upon me a Disease, for which, even from my Infancy, I have had a greater Horror; and it is, in Truth, of all the Accidents of Old-age, the very Distemper of which I have ever been most afraid. I have often thought with myself, that I went on too far, and that, in so long a Voyage, I should infallibly, at last, meet with some scurvy Shock; I perceived, and oft enough declared, that it was Time to knock off, and that Life was to be cut to the Quick, according to the Surgeons Rule in the Amputation of a Limb; 3 |