Complete Works of Matthew Prior

by Matthew Prior

  Charles. This Fellow presses me hard, and I grow weary of his Company. I’l e’en draw down my main Argument, my great Battering Piece upon him, and strike him dead at once. Well Clenard. what ever there may be of Solid or fickle, pleasurable or Painful in power: He that having Exerted it can lay it down is a great Man. Now, this You know I did. I abdicated all my Dominions, retired to a Monestary and contented my Self with a Pension of Two hundred Thousand Crowns a Year.

  Clenard. A Physitian, who cures himself of a Dropsy, has great Skill, but a Man who never had the Distemper has sounder Health. Well Sir, at first view this abdication of yours has the appearance of a great Action. But if it was wisdom it came very late. Disappointments Deseas es and Vexations preceded it, and the rising Fortune of Harry the Second helpt it on mightily. Qui sta bene non se more You know: Your Resolution of quitting the World shewed very Plainly you were Uneasy in it. Nay your self confessed in the Harrangue you made to the States of Bruxelles, when you took your last Farewel of them, that the greatest Prosperity you had in the World had been mixt with so much greater Adversity, that you could not say that You ever had enjoyed any real Satisfaction in it. Besides there are Pretty odd Stories about that matter, as if You resolved upon your retreat too rashly, and repented it at leasure. Do you remember what Your Son Philip answered to Cardinal Grainville, when the Cardinal said to him “It is now a Year Sir, since your Father Abdicated.” “It is a Year then said Philip, that he was first sorry for so doing.” Do You remember the Young Monk of St. Just, where you were retired and waked him too soon in a Morning. What, said he after you have disturbed the rest of Mankind are you come to plague us in our Cloyster. Can nothing be quiet where you are? So that you found the Same reflection returned particularly upon You, after Your Abdication, that had generally been made before, and that —

  Charles. Why thou art not well full nor fasting, would thou neither have me in the World, nor out of it?

  Clenard. Nay, since You were so much in the World that you made your self and every Body else weary of it, I think you were in the right to go out of it as fast as you could. One would not advise a Fellow to Climb to the top of a Spire, where he is every moment in Danger of falling, only that he may have the Chance of saving his life by leaping down upon a feather bed. But now your Abdication at best shewed, either that you could not stand longer upon the Pinacle, or were tyred with standing there so long) So your head turned, Your hand slipt, and down came you. Prythée, Charles, remember these two Verses.

  None climb so high, or fall so low,

  As those who know not where they go.

  Charles. Whither in Gods Name art Thou running on?

  Clenard. Only to finish my Story and my Comparison. I had my Eyes in my head, I looked before I leaped, I never endeavored to Climb too high, so I was never constrained to fall too low. I always walked like a Man Erect upon my Feet, and as I took not too much upon my Self, so I never relinquished what I had once taken. I had my Share of Credit in the World, because I proportioned my Action to the End desired. And as that End was always lawful, when it was obtained it became Laudable. I never went so far to Sea, but I had stil my Eye upon the Shoar, nor loaded my Ship so deep that I was forced to throw my Goods over-board in the Tempest. I did not divide my Estate in my life time between a Brother and a Son, who had both from that moment the Power in their hands of using me ill for so doing. I prudently kept what I had till! Dyed, and my Goods were not scuffled for, before my Will was opened, and as in life I had not been guilty of Oppression or injury towards Mankind I had no Occasion for a Discipline of Knots and Wiers to quicken my Repentance, and prepare me for Death. Now which of us two was the happyest Man?

  Charles. Go to, You are a prating Fellow.

  Clenard. I am so, and You are a Silly Combatant to fight me at my own Weapon. Every Man to his Trade, Charles, You should have Challenged me at long Pike, or broad Sword: In a Tilt or Tournament You might probably have had the better of me. But at Syllogisme or Paradox —

  Charles. Confound Your Jargon.

  Clenard. Calm Your Passion, I have no Design to offend You, But You Heroes never rightly know Your Friends from Your Enemies.

  Sir Egledemore that Valiant Knight He put on his Sword, and he would go fight not three pence matter against whom. In one word good Emperor, we will fairly referr our Dispute to Dionysius, if we can find him yonder upon the Greek Walk; He that was both a Prince and a Schoolmaster, may very properly decide it. As in the Ancient Poets I remember a curious Question of another kind, who had most pleasure the Man or the Woman, was refered to Cæneus, as a Person, whose immediate Experience ought to be relyed on.

  It comes et juvenis quondam nunc fœmina I’l Translate that for You too, for I am in a mighty good humour.

  Ambiguous Caenus has both Sexes try’d, Let him or her the doubtful point decide.

  Charles. I’l Yeild to no Decission I tell you. I am tyred with your Pedantry. I was always subject only to my own Will, and can be tryed by nothing else.

  Clenard. So that we End just where we began.

  Making the Circle of their Reign compleat These Suns of Empire where They rise They set.

  But however, Charles, if Princes are Governed only by their own Will, you must confess at least it was a Mad World that we lived in.

  Charles. Adieu, Messire Clenard.

  Clenard. Adieu Monseigneur Charles.

  Charles. But hark You, one word more, pray dont take the least Notice to any of my Fellow Princes of the Discourse we have had.

  Clenard. After all I confess that Injunction is pretty hard, but however I’l obey it. Provided You remember what I have said, I’l endeavor to forget it.

  A Dialogue between Mr John Lock and Seigneur de Montaigne.

  Lock. Is it not wonderfull that after what Plato and Aristotle Des-cartes and Malbranch have written of Human understanding, it should be reserved to me to give the most Clear and distinct Account of it?

  Montaigne. Plato and Aristotle are great Names, but as You disclaim Authority you have no right to quote them, the a great deal may be said even upon their subject, if the Ambiguity of many Greek words, and the Prejudice we have in favor of Antiquity were removed. But as for Des-cartes, Malbranch and Your self, Is it not more wonderfull that any of You should be Satisfied with your own Writings, or have found readers to admire them? To deal plainly with You, this single reflection upon Human understanding charges it with a weakness that all your Books do not sufficiently account for.

  Lock. Short and pithy in good faith! by that sprightly way of thinking as wildly as your imagination can suggest, and by your expressing that thought as flowingly as your Tongue can throw it off, I should judge You to be Michael Montaigne.

  Montaigne. Seigneur de Montaigne, if you please, Knight of the Order of St. Michael, and some time Mayor of Bourdeaux.

  Lock. Yes, Sir, I know your Person by your insisting so much upon Your Titles, and! And the same strain run with a most voluble impetuosity almost thro every Chapter of your Book; As you see the Simplicity of my mind in my very Title page, where I only call my Self John Lock, Gentleman.

  Montaigne, Diogenes when he trod upon Platos robe (whom you named just now) and was asked what he meant by it, said he contemned the Pride of Plato; A stander by Answered, that there was more Pride in Trampling upon the Purple than in wearing of it. Honor you know is my Idol, so I tell you who I am, and where I live what! Possess and how I act, because I think our Vanities may be so managed as to Sustain our Virtues. Now you divest the Mind from these Human trappings, and strip off her Cloaths to shew her stark naked. The perfection therefore of your Humility would have appeared in Your giving Us a Book without any Name at all. If you had come out like the whole Duty of Man in your Language I would have said something to You. But so it is with us, we would be humble and we are proud, we fell into contrary Excesses, and are guilty of one Vice by a mistaken Design of avo[i]ding another. There is some Crany some winding Meander in every Mans brain, which he himself is the last
that finds out.

  Lock, It is for that very reason, good Seigneur de Montaigne, that I searched my own head, and dissected my understanding, with so great Diligence and Accuracy, that I cannot but think the Study of many Years, very usefully bestowed on that subject. I will give You some Account of it: First I found out, and explained that an Idea is the object of the Human understanding, that you may call it Idea, Phantasm, Notion, or Species.

  Montaigne, Which is that any Man may speak either Greek or Latin, as he pleases; then Sir, you proceed.

  Lock, O, most happily! in proving that we have no innate Speculative or Practical Principles; That Complex proceed from simple Ideas, that Ideas of reflection come later than those of Sensation, that uncompounded appearances —

  Montaigne, O, Sir, I know all that as well as if I had been one of your Disciples. Two simple Ideas are the least that can possibly be allowed to make one Complex, many more may chance to be thrown into the Bargain, and a whole set of them may be resolved again into their Native Simplicity to the Tune of

  Ex plico fit plicui, Soho, Solutumg.

  But jerne, Lock, what canst thou mean, if these words expressed any real things, or subsisted any where but in the Writers brain (and faith I cant tell what impression they can make the[re] neither) but if they are, I say, any thing, or can signify any thing, what matters it 3 pence if all you have said be true or no.

  Lock, If you could correct that Gascon fire of Yours I would tell You that I use these terms as instruments and means to Attain to Truth. You know the Antient Philosophers said Truth lay at the bottom of a Well.

  Montaigne, It may be so, but de Gentilhomme, you will never draw her out except your Tools are more accommodated to your Work. In short Sir, call ’em what you will, or tumble them where ever you please, they are but words, bring them together again, they will no more make things solid and usefull, than grains of Sand will make a rope.

  Lock, Before we go any further, tell me truly have You read my Book quite through, and with Care?

  Montaigne, Yes in good truth I have read it, and just as I read other books, with Care where they instruct me, with pleasure where they amuse me, and half asleep where they tire me. To convince You of the Truth of what I say, I will give you some of your own Axioms, almost in the order in which they lye.

  Lock, With Candor I beseech You.

  Montaigne, O, trust me as to that, upon my Honor. Colours come in only by the Eyes; all kind of Noises by the Ears; Tasts and Smels by the Nose and Palate; Touching from every Member (tho some indeed more sensible than others) by the Junction of two Bodies: Red is not blew; A sucking-bottle is not a Rod; A Child certainly knows that the Nurse that feeds it is neither the Catt it plays with, nor the Blackmore it is afraid of. Wormseed and Mustard are not Apples and Sugar; And there is an Essential difference between a Silly-bub & a Broomstaff.

  Lock, This I tell You is only my Substratum, the very rubbige upon which I build.

  Montaigne, A House of Cards is a stronger foundation.

  Lock, Hear me a little; from these plain Propositions I go on to greater Discoveries, that an Infant in the Cradle cannot make a Syllogism half so well as a Sophister in the Schools, and that a Hottentote is not so well Learned in the Bay of Sardignia as he would have been if his Friends had Educated him at Oxford or Cambridge.

  Montaigne. Who the Devil did not know all these undoubted truths before You set Pen to Paper, and ever questioned them since? there are a hundred things plain in themselves that are only made Ambiguous by your Comment upon them. I hold a Stone in my hand, and ask you what it is? You tell me it is a body. I ask You what is a body? you reply it is a Substance: I am troublesome enough once more to ask You what is Substance? you look graver immediately, and inform me that it is something whose Essence consists in extension, in such manner as to be capable of receiving it in Longitude Latitude and Profundity. The Devil is in it if I am not answered. I may sooner pave the Road between London and York than have a thorow knowledge of the least Pebble in the way, except I take this Jargon in full of all Accounts. Socrates, I have some where told You, asked Memnon what was virtue? There is, replyed Memnon, the virtue of a Man, and of a Woman, of a Child, and of an aged Person, of a Magistrate, and of a Private Citizen; and as he was going on, Socrates, interrupting him, said, I am mightily obliged to your Generosity: I asked concerning one Virtue, and you have already given me half a Dozen. Now, Mr. Lock, I apprehend clearer what is meant by Understanding, than I do by your Definition of it: The power of thinking; and I know better what the Will is, than when I hear you call it The power of Volition. A Plough-Boy says to his Father, Aye, aye, I understand that as well as You; and to his Mother, I wont do it because You bid me, yet he knows not, all this while, that he hath exercised the Two great and Principal Actions of his mind, as you call them, or if that Mind had two Allions or two and Twenty.

  You have heard of the Citizen turned Gentleman, Mr. Lock, who had a mind to be a Scholar, and was dabbling in Grammar. He discoursed a long time to his Wife of Regimen and Syntax, and at last asked her, Sweet heart, what is it I am talking now? on my Conscience quoth She, Husband, I think tis Nonsense. That may be he replyed, You simple Woman: But did not you know all this time that it was not Verse but Prose? Now the good Woman could not be more obliged to her Husband for this Piece of Learning then your Young Senators are to You for the Discovery of some of those incomparable Axioms, which you just now Quoted, when they find them amidst a heap of Metaphysical terms. How grateful are they to the Doctor, and in return for your Civility in giving them Six or Eight words together of which they can make common Sense, how joyfully do they let themselves be bambouzled thro as many Chapters? for among the variety of Errors, to which weak minds are subject, there is one very conspicuous; that they are most prone to admire what they do not perfectly understand, and are very apt to judge of the Depth of anothers thoughts by the obscurity of his Expression. Aristotle I have heard, vallued himself upon having a Tallent of concealing part of his meaning, or rendring the whole Ambiguous: for which damned Affectation I most heartily hate Aristotle, and all his Imitators in this kind. I do not say Mr. Lock, that you affect this Obscurity, but I beg your Pardon, while I take the Liberty to tell You, that you often fall into it: while you are sowing Words too Plentifully, you do not always foresee what a Crop they will bear.