EPISTLE LXVIII. On Eafe and Retirement. IAPPROVE of your defign, Lucilius: conceal yourself, if you please, in eafe and retirement; but take care to conceal this too. Know that what you propofe, is allowed, if not from any precept of the ftoics; yet by example (a): nay, I doubt not, but that I could prove, if you defired me, that you might do the fame according to precept. We recommend not the being concern'd in the public affairs of every government (b), nor at all times (c), without paufe or intermiffion during life (d). Moreover, when we have given the wife man a republic, worthy of him, i. e. the world: he cannot be faid to be absent from the fame, though he has thought proper to retire; nay, perhaps having left a small corner, he enters a great and spacious palace; where being feated, as it were, in heaven, he learns, in what a low and mean place he fate when he ascended the chair of state, or the tribunal (e). Believe me, Lucilius, a wife man is never more in action than when engaged in the contemplation of things both human and divine. * But to return to what I was faying in the beginning of this epiftle, in order to perfuade you to keep your retreat a fecret. There is no reafon, you should honour it with the name of philofophy (ƒ); find out fome other pretext; afcribe it to an ill state of health, or a weak constitution, or laziness: to glory in ease, is an idle ambition. Some animals, the better to lie concealed, confound their tracks, round about the place where they lodge: you must do the fame; otherwife there will be those, who will perfecute you: many país negligently over what is visible; but search after what is hidden and abstruse: things, when under feal, tempt a thief; what lies expofed feems vile and of no account: the housebreaker paffeth by an open door. The common people have all all the fame fort of manners and every blockhead the fame: they will defire to break in upon your privacy: it is good therefore not to boast of it: now, there is a kind of oftentation, in shutting one's felf up too close, so as never to appear in fight. One man will keep himself clofe at Tarentum; another at Naples; another for fome years hath not stepped over his own threshold. But fuch a one only calls a crowd about his door, who makes his retirement the fubject of idle stories, and the common talk. When you retire, it must not be with a defign, that others should talk of you; but that you should commune with yourself. And what must the subject be? Why, that which men make the general subject of their converfation, in freely speaking of their neighbours, viz. your own character. Indulge not too good an opinion of yourself: accustom yourself to speak and hear the truth: but chiefly reflect upon whatever weakness you are most sensible of yourself. There is scarce any man but who knows his own infirmity; one man therefore finds an evacuation neceffary to ease his ftomach, another is continually eating to ftrengthen him; another thinks fit to lower his corpulency by abstinence: fome who are afflicted with the gout abftain from the luxury of wine and the bath; regardless in all other refpects, they are chiefly intent upon preventing the painful disorder they are most subject to. So in the mind there are fome crazy parts (g), which in time must be taken care of in order for their cure. And what is my employ, think you, in my retirement? Why, I am endeavouring to cure this ulcerated part. Were I to fhew you a fwoln foot, a livid hand, or the dry nerves of a contracted ancle, you would permit me, to lie in one pofture, and indulge my disease: but much greater is the complaint within, which .I cannot fhew you. There is a load and an impofthume in my breast. Prithee, do not praise me, do not say, “what a great man! he bath defpifed all things, and having condemn'd the frantic errors of human life "be is retired." I have condemned nothing but myfelf. There is no reafon you should defire to come to me to learn fomewhat for your good; you are mistaken, if you think any help is to be had here: I am not a physician, but a fick patient; I had rather you should fay of me, as you are was are going away: alas! I took this man for one very happy and learned; I all attention to him; I have received nothing from him I defired; nothing to make me wish to come again. If fuch your opinion, if fuch your language, I should think, you had made fome progrefs: I had rather my retirement should want an apology, than be envied. Do you really then, Seneca, recommend eafe and retirement? This founds as if coming from Epicurus. Be it fo; Iftill recommend retirement to you; wherein you may be employed in greater and more commendable things than thofe you have quitted. To knock at the proud doors of the great,—to note in your memorandum book fuch old men, as have no heirs at law (4), to be in high reputation at court,—these are but invidious privileges, of no long duration; and, if you think right, beneath the notice of a man of honour. One man excells me in the business of the forum; another hath better pay for his services, whereby he rifes to the dignity of the equeftrian or fenatorial order; another is attended with more clients; I cannot match this man in his train of followers, nor that in popularity; and what then? Provided I could conquer torture, I should/fr. not so much regard the being excelled and conquered by man. I wish, Lucilius, you had been fo happy as to have taken this refolution long ago. I wish we had not deferred to think of an happy life, till now we are come within fight of death. But let us delay no longer. We have now learned many things, which we before thought would have proved vain and fantastical in the eye of reafon. As they are wont to do, who fet out late, and by their speed would recover the time they have loft, let us now spur on. This time of life best suits our ferious udies. It is now clarified: it hath quite master'd the vices that were untameable in the first heat of youth; there remains but little fire to be extinguished: and when, you fay, will that profit you, which you propofe to learn at the end of life? Or to what purpose do you learn it? Truly, to make a better exit; to die a better man (i). There is no time of life more proper for the attainment of a found mind, than that which by a long experience and a well exercifed patience, hath fufficiently humbled itself; and, having affuaged the affections and paffions, obliged it, feriously to think of what is good and falutary. This is the short time allotted allotted as for the attainment of wisdom; and whatever old man is fo happy as to attain it, let him own that he owes no small obligation to years. his (a) The chief of the ftoics, though they maintained that the affairs of government were most properly entrusted in the hands of the wife; yet would never voluntarily engage therein themfelves. Sen. (de beat. vit. c. 28) non quo miferint me illi, fed quo duxerint, ibo. Wherefore Plutarch condemns them, as not fuiting their lives to their own doctrine. (b) every government] Such, for inftance, as are in fo deplorable a ftate, as to give no hopes of their recovery. (c) nor at all times] As fome muft neceffarily be devoted to relaxation, or private studies. (α) Nor during life. Ως γαρ αθλητικῆς, ἔτω καὶ πολιτικῆς περιοδο καταλυπις τις ἐστί· Political as well as athletical engagements have their proper periods. At Rome a fenator after the fixtieth year of his age was not compelled to attend the house; and after the seventieth never fummoned. And both Plato and Aristotle think old age more proper for the function of the priestly office than for any other. From whence that celebrated verfe Έργα νέων, βολαί δ' ανδρῶν, ευχαὶ δὲ γερόντων. In deeds let youth, in council men engage, But prayer and facrifice beft fuit old age. M. A wife man looks upon himself as a citizen of the world; and, when you ask him where his country lies, points, like Anaxagoras, with his finger to the heavens. "To talk of our abstracting ourselves from matter, laying afide body, and being refolved, as it were, into pure intellect, is proud, metaphyfical, unmeaning jargon. But to abftract ourselves from the prejudices, habits, pleafures, and bufinefs of the world, is what many, though not all, are capable of doing. They who can do this, may elevate their fouls, in a retreat, to an higher station, and may take from thence such a view of the world, as Scipio took in his dream, Cic. fomn. Scip.) from the feats of the bleffed, when the whole earth appeared fo little to him, that he could scarce difcern that fpeck of dirt, the Roman Empire. Such a view as this will encrease our knowledge," &c. Bolingbroke on Retirement. (e) 'he wife man seems to abase himself when he mounts the chair of state, being hereby compelled to forego the fublime contemplation of heavenly things. There is an excellent Epigram wrote by the philofopher Themiftius (and not by Pallas, as fome injudiciously imagined) who when advanced to the Confulfhip, thus exhorts himself to defpife thefe worldly vanities, and afcend to the ftudy of philofophy : Αντυγος αιθερής υπερημενος, εἰς πόθον ἦλθες Αντυγος αργυρέης, διχος απειρεοπον Ηπα κάτω κρείσσων αναβὰς δ' εγενο μεγα χειρών High mounted in a filver car I ride; The wish'd-for fummit of ambitious pride. (f) I fee (f) I fee your vanity, faid Socrates to Antifthenes, in your threadbare coat, which you are so proud to fhew. See the like argument in Epp. 5. 14. 18. 103. (g) Caufariæ partes] A military term; fo, in Livy, Caufarii milites, & caufaria miffio, a furlow, or palport granted to a fick or wounded foldier. Vid. Mercurial. Var. Lect. vi. 1. (b) See Sen. de Benefic. vi. 33. (i) As Solon, when he was dying, defired fomething might be read to him, and being asked upon what account he made this request, answered, that he might die a more learned man. I WOULD by no means, Lucilius, have you rove from place to place (a) because such frequent moving bewrays an unstable and unsettled mind. You cannot improve your leisure time, till you cease to wander, and gape about you. You cannot bring your mind under any rule, before you put a you put a stop to the rambles of your body. And then, by the conftant application of proper remedies you may expect a cure: your retirement must not be broken in upon: your former life must entirely be forgot: let your eyes forego their usual practice and your ears be accustomed to more found difcourfe: as often as you presume to go out, you will meet with fomething that will recall your defires: as one that intends to throw off his affection, must shun every thing that is likely to remind him of his beloved object; for nothing so soon revives and grows fresh again as love: fo he that intends to caft off his inclination for such things as before inflamed his defire, must turn away both his eyes and ears from the object he would fain forfake. The affection is very apt to rebell: which way soever it turns, it will be invited to feize the tempting opportunity: there is no evil but what finds fome excufe to authorise it: covetoufnefs promifeth wealth; 4 luxury |