VI. OF " SINCE GREATNESS. INCE we cannot attain to greatness (fays the Sieur de Montagne) let us have our revenge by railing at it" this he spoke but in jeft. I believe he defired it no more than I do, and had less reafon; for he enjoyed so plentiful and honourable a fortune in a moft excellent country, as allowed him all the real conveniences of it, separated and purged from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition, I should think it hard measure, without being convinced of any crime, to be fequeftered from it, and made one of the principal officers of state. But the reader may think that what I now fay is of small authority, because I never was, nor ever fhall be, put to the trial: I can therefore only make my protestation, If ever I more riches did defire Than cleanliness and quiet do require : I know very many men will defpife, and fome pity me, for this humour, as a poor-fpirited fellow; but I am content, and, like Horace, thank God for being fo. Di bene fecerunt, inopis me quódque pufilli I confess, I love littleness almoft in all things. A little convenient eftate, a little chearful houfe, a little company, and a very little feaft; and, if I were ever to fall in love again (which is a great paffion, and therefore, I hope, I have done with it) it would be, I think, with prettiness, rather than with majestical beauty. I would neither with that my mistress, nor my fortune, should be a bona roba, nor, as Homer ufes to defcribe his beauties, like a daughter of great Jupiter for the ftateliness and largenefs of her person; but, as Lucretius fays, Parvola, pumilio, Xagirav μía, tota merum fal †. Where there is one man of this, I believe there are a thousand of Senecio's mind, whofs ridiculous affectation of grandeur Seneca the elder ‡ defcribes to this effect: Senecio was a man of a turbid and confused wit, who could not endure to speak any but mighty words and fentences, till this humour grew at laft into fo notorious a habit, or rather difeafe, as became the fport of the whole town: he would have no fervants, but huge, maffy fellows; no plate or houthold-ftuff, but thrice as big as the fashion: you may believe me, for I fpeak it without raillery, his extravagancy came + Lucr. iv. 1155» * 1 Sat. iv. 17. at laft into fuch a madness, that he would not put on a pair of fhoes, each of which was not big enough for both his feet: he would eat nothing but what was great, nor touch any fruit but horse-plums and poundpears he kept a concubine, that was a very giantess, and made her walk too always in chiopins, till at last,. he got the furname of Senecio Grandio, which Meffala faid, was not his cognomen, but his cognomentum ♪ when he declaimed for the three hundred Lacedæmonians, who alone oppofed Xerxes's army of above three hundred thoufand, he ftretched out his arms, and flood on tiptoes, that he might appear the taller, and cried out, in a very loud voice; "I rejoice, I rejoice." We wondered, I remember, what new great fortune had befallen his eminence. "Xerxes (fays he) is all He, who took away the fight of the fea, with the canvas veils of fo many fhips”—and then he goes on fo, as I know not what to make of the reft, whether it be the fault of the edition, or the orator's own burly way of nonfenfe, mine own. This is the character that Seneca gives of this hyperbolical fop, whom we ftand amazed at, and yet there are very few men who are not in fome things, and to fome degrees, Grandios. Is any thing more com mon, than to fee our ladies of quality wear fuch high fhoes as they cannot walk in, without one to lead them; and a gown as long again as their body, so that they cannot ftir to the next room without a page or two to hold it up? I may fafely fay, that all the oftentation of our grandees is, just like a train, of no ufe in Z 2 the the world, but horribly cumbersome and incommodious. What is all this, but a spice of Grandio? how tedious would this be, if we were always bound to it! I do be lieve there is no king, who would not rather be depofed, than endure every day of his reign all the ceremonies of his coronation. * The mightiest princes are glad to fly often from these majestic pleasures (which is, methinks, no fmall difparagement to them) as it were for refuge, to the moft contemptible divertisements and meaneft recreations of the vulgar, nay, even of children. One of the most powerful and fortunate princes of the world, of late, could find out no delight so fatisfactory, as the keeping of little finging birds, and hearing of them, and whiftling to them. What did the emperors of the whole world? If ever any men had the free and full enjoyment of all human greatnefs (nay that would not fuffice, for they would be gods too), they certainly poffeffed it and yet one of them, who styled himself lord and god of the earth, could not tell how to pafs his whole day pleasantly, without spending constantly two or three hours in catching of flies, and killing them with a bodkin, as if his godfhip had been Beelzebub ‡. One of his predeceffors, Nero (who never put any bounds, nor met with any stop to his appetite) could divert himself with no pastime more agreeable, than to * Louis XIII.-The Duke de Luynes, the Constable of France, is faid to have gained the favour of this powerful and fortunate prince by training up fingingbirds for him. ANON. Beelzebub fignifies the Lord of flies. COWLEY. run : run about the streets all night in a difguife, and abufe the women, and affront the men whom he met, and fometimes to beat them, and fometimes to be beaten by them this was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures. His chiefeft in the day was, to fing and play upon a fiddle, in the habit of a minstrel, upon the public stage: he was prouder of the garlands that were given to his divine voice (as they called it then) in those kind of prizes, than all his forefathers were, of their triumphs over nations: he did not at his death complain, that so mighty an emperor, and the last of all the Cæfarian race of deities, should be brought to fo fhameful and miferable an end; but only cried out, Alas, what pity it is, that fo excellent a musician fhould perish in this manner *!" His uncle Claudius fpent half his time at playing at dice; and that was the main fruit of his fovereignty. I omit the madneffes of Caligula's delights, and the execrable fordidnefs of thofe of Tiberius. Would one think that Auguftus himself, the highest and most fortunate of mankind, a perfon endowed too with many excellent parts of nature, fhould be fo hard put to it fometimes for want of recreations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding-ftones, with little Syrian and Moorish boys, whofe company he took delight in, for their prating and their wantonness? Was it for this, that Rome's beft blood he spilt, * "Qualis artifex pereo!" Sueton. Nero. |