XXXVII. OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. These things are but toys to come amongst such serious observations; but yet, since princes will have such things, it is better they should be graced with elegancy than daubed with cost. Dancing to song is a thing of great state and pleasure. I understand it that the song be in quire, placed aloft, and accompanied with some broken music; and the ditty fitted to the device. Acting in song, especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace ; I say acting, not dancing (for that is a mean and vulgar thing); and the voices of the dialogue would be strong and manly (a bass and a tenor, no treble), and the ditty high and tragical, not nice or dainty. Several quires placed one over against another, and taking the voice by catches anthem wise, give great pleasure. Turning dances into figure is a childish curiosity; and generally let it be noted, that those things which I here set down are such as do naturally take the sense, and not respect petty wonderments. It is true, the alterations of scenes, so it be quietly and without noise, are things of great beauty and pleasure; for they feed and relieve the eye before it be full of the same object. Let the scenes abound with light, especially coloured and varied: and let the masquers, or any other that are to come down from the scene, have some motions upon the scene itself before their coming down; for it draws the eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure to desire to see that it cannot perfectly discern. Let the songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings or pulings. Let the music likewise be sharp and loud, and well placed. The colours that show best by candle-light are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green; and oes,7 or spangs, as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory. As for rich embroidery, it is lost and not discerned. Let the suits of the masquers be graceful, and such as become the person when the vizars are off: not after examples of known attires; Turks, soldiers, mariners, and the like. Let antimasques not be long; they have been commonly of fools, satyrs, baboons, wild men, antics, beasts, sprites, witches, Ethiopes, pigmies, turquets, nymphs, rustics, Cupids, statues moving, and the like. As 7 Montagu and Spiers take the liberty of altering this word to ouches. for angels, it is not comical enough to put them in antimasques; and anything that is hideous, as devils, giants, is, on the other side, as unfit. But chiefly, let the music of them be recreative, and with some strange changes. Some sweet odours suddenly coming forth, without any drops falling, are, in such a company as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment. Double masques, one of men, another of ladies, addeth state and variety; but all is nothing, except the room be kept clear and neat. For justs, and tourneys, and barriers, the glories of them are chiefly in the chariots, wherein the challengers make their entry; especially if they be drawn with strange beasts, as lions, bears, camels, and the like: or in the devices of their entrance, or in the bravery of their liveries, or in the goodly furniture of their horses and armour. But enough of these toys. XXXVIII. OF NATURE IN MEN. Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. Force maketh nature more violent in return; doctrine and discourse maketh nature less importune, but custom only doth alter and subdue nature. He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great nor too small tasks: for the first will make him dejected by often failings, and the second will make him a small proceeder, though by often prevailings. And, at the first, let him practice with helps, as swimmers do with bladders, or rushes; but, after a time, let him practice with disadvantages, as dancers do with thick shoes. For it breeds great perfection if the practice be harder than the use. Where nature is mighty, and therefore the victory hard, the degrees had need be; first to stay and arrest nature in time; like to him that would say over the four and twenty letters when he was angry: then to go less in quantity: as if one should, in forbearing wine, come from drinking healths to a draught at a meal: and, lastly, to discontinue altogether. But if a man have the fortitude and resolution to enfranchise himself at once, that is the best: Optimus ille animi vindex, lædentia pectus 8 Ovid. R. Amor. 293. Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend nature as a wand to a contrary extreme, whereby to set it right: understanding it where the contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man force a habit upon himself with a perpetual continuance, but with some intermission. For both the pause reinforceth the new onset; and, if a man that is not perfect be ever in practice, he shall as well practice his errors as his abilities, and induce one habit of both; and there is no means to help this but by seasonable intermissions. But let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far; for nature will lie buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion, or temptation. Like as it was with Æsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her. Therefore, let a man either avoid the occasion altogether, or put himself often to it, that he may be little moved with it. A man's nature is best perceived in privateness, for there is no affectation; in passion, for that putteth a man out of his precepts; and in a new case or experiment, for there custom leaveth him. They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations; otherwise they may say, multum incola fuit anima mea, when they converse in those things they do not affect. In studies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it: but whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set times; for his thoughts will fly to it of themselves; so as the spaces of other business or studies will suffice. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other. XXXIX. OF CUSTOM AND EDUCATION. Men's thoughts are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed. And therefore as Machiavel well noteth (though in an evil favoured instance), there is no trusting to the force of nature, nor to the bravery of words, except it be corroborate by custom. His instance is, that for the achieving of a desperate conspiracy, a man should 9 Vid. Disc. sop. Liv. iii. 6. not rest upon the fierceness of any man's nature, or his resolute undertakings; but take such a one as hath had his hands formerly in blood. But Machiavel knew not of a friar Clement, nor a Ravaillac, nor a Jaureguy, nor a Baltazar Gerard; yet this rule holdeth still, that nature, nor the engagement of words, are not so forcible as custom. Only superstition is now so well advanced that men of the first blood are as firm as butchers by occupation: and votary resolution is made equipollent to custom even in matter of blood. In other things, the predominancy of custom is everywhere visible; insomuch as a man would wonder to hear men profess, protest, engage, give great words, and then do just as they have done before: as if they were dead images and engines, moved only by the wheels of custom. We see also the reign or tyranny of custom, what it is. The Indians (I mean the sect of their wise men) lay themselves quietly upon a stack of wood, and so sacrifice themselves by fire: nay, the wives strive to be burned with the corpses of their husbands. The lads of Sparta, of ancient time, were wont to be scourged upon the altar of Diana, without so much as queching. Iremember, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's time of England, an Irish rebel condemned put up a petition to the deputy that he might be hanged in a withe, and not in a halter, because it had been so used with former rebels. There be monks in Russia, for penance that will sit a whole night in a vessel of water, till they be engaged with hard ice. Many examples may be put of the force of custom, both upon mind and body. Therefore, since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavour to obtain good customs. Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years: this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom. So we see, in languages the tone is more pliant to all expressions and sounds, the joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth than afterwards; for it is true, the late learners cannot so well take the ply, except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix, but have kept themselves open and The first two and the last of these persons severally assassinated Henry III. (1589), Henry IV. of France (1610), and the Prince of Orange (1584), whose life Jaureguy had attempted in 1582. 2 Vid. Cic. Tuscul. Disp. ii. 14. prepared to receive continual amendment, which is exceeding rare. But if the force of custom simple and separate be great, the force of custom, copulate and conjoined and collegiate is far greater. For there example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth, glory raiseth; so as in such places the force of custom is in his exaltation. Certainly, the great multiplication of virtues upon human nature resteth upon societies well ordained and disciplined. For commonwealths and good governments do nourish virtue grown, but do not much mend the seeds. But the misery is, that the most effectual means are now applied to the ends least to be desired. 3 XL. OF FORTUNE. It cannot be denied but outward accidents conduce much to fortune: favour, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue. But chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands. Faber quisque fortunæ suæ, saith the poet. And the most frequent of external causes is, that the folly of one man is the fortune of another. For no man prospers so suddenly as by other's errors. Serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco. Overt and apparent virtues bring forth praises: but there be secret and hidden virtues that bring forth fortunes, certain deliveries of a man's self, which have no name. The Spanish name, desemboltura, partly expresseth them: when there be not stonds nor restiveness in a man's nature; but that the wheels of his mind keep way with the wheels of his fortune. For so Livy after he had described Cato Major in these words, In illo viro tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, ut quocum 3 Dr. Spiers quotes a passage from the treatise De Republica Ordinanda, in which this adage is found, and attributed to Appius. As Bacon quotes that work more than once in the Advancement of Learning, there can be no doubt he had read it. But from his language in another place (Adv. of Learn. ii. 23, 8), I am inclined to think that he had forgotten where he had met with the phrase, and thought it had grown out of a passage in Plautus (Trin. ii. 2, 87). The point is of no consequence, except as an example of his neglect or inability to verify his quotations. Most probably, like many men of tenacious memory, he was better able to recall the words of a passage that had struck him than the name of the book whence it came. |