Classic Poem

Since we cannot attain to greatness, says the Sieur de Montaigne,
let us have our revenge by railing at it; this he spoke but in jest.
I believe he desired it no more than I do, and had less reason, for
he enjoyed so plentiful and honourable a fortune in a most 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 sequestered from it and made one of the principal
officers of state. But the reader may think that what I now say is
of small authority, because I never was, nor ever shall be, put to
the trial; I can therefore only make my protestation.


If ever I more riches did desire
Than cleanliness and quiet do require;
If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat,
With any wish so mean as to be great,
Continue, Heaven, still from me to remove
The humble blessings of that life I love.


I know very many men will despise, and some pity me, for this
humour, as a poor-spirited fellow; but I am content, and, like
Horace, thank God for being so. Dii bene fecerunt inopis me,
quodque pusilli finxerunt animi. I confess I love littleness almost
in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house,
a little company, and a very little feast; and if I were ever to
fall in love again (which is a great passion, and therefore I hope I
have done with it) it would be, I think, with prettiness rather than
with majestical beauty. I would neither wish that my mistress, nor
my fortune, should be a bona roba, nor, as Homer used to describe
his beauties, like a daughter of great Jupiter, for the stateliness
and largeness of her person, but, as Lucretius says, "Parvula,
pumilio, {Greek text which cannot be reproduced}, tota merum sal."

Where there is one man of this, I believe there are a thousand of
Senecio's mind, whose ridiculous affectation of grandeur Seneca the
elder describes to this effect. Senecio was a man of a turbid and
confused wit, who could not endure to speak any but mighty words and
sentences, till this humour grew at last into so notorious a habit,
or rather disease, as became the sport of the whole town: he would
have no servants but huge massy fellows, no plate or household stuff
but thrice as big as the fashion; you may believe me, for I speak it
without raillery, his extravagancy came at last into such a madness
that he would not put on a pair of shoes 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 pound-pears. He kept a
concubine that was a very giantess, and made her walk, too, always
in a chiopins, till at last he got the surname of Senecio Grandio,
which, Messala said, was not his cognomen, but his cognomentum.
When he declaimed for the three hundred Lacedaemonians, who also
opposed Xerxes' army of above three hundred thousand, he stretched
out his arms and stood 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," says he, "is all mine own. He who took away
the sight of the sea with the canvas veils of so many ships . . . "
and then he goes on so, as I know not what to make of the rest,
whether it be the fault of the edition, or the orator's own burly
way of nonsense.

This is the character that Seneca gives of this hyperbolical fop,
whom we stand amazed at, and yet there are very few men who are not,
in some things, and to some degree, grandios. Is anything more
common than to see our ladies of quality wear such high shoes as
they cannot walk in without one to lead them? and a gown as long
again as their body, so that they cannot stir to the next room
without a page or two to hold it up? I may safely say that all the
ostentation of our grandees is just like a train, of no use in the
world, but horribly cumbersome and incommodious. What is all this
but spice of grandio? How tedious would this be if we were always
bound to it? I do believe there is no king who would not rather be
deposed 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 small disparagement to
them), as it were for refuge, to the most contemptible
divertisements and meanest 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 satisfactory as the
keeping of little singing birds, and hearing of them and whistling
to them. What did the emperors of the whole world? If ever any men
had the free and full enjoyment of all human greatness (nay, that
would not suffice, for they would be gods too) they certainly
possessed it; and yet one of them, who styled himself "Lord and God
of the Earth," could not tell how to pass his whole day pleasantly,
without spending constant two or three hours in catching of flies,
and killing them with a bodkin, as if his godship had been
Beelzebub. One of his predecessors, Nero (who never put any bounds,
nor met with any stop to his appetite), could divert himself with no
pastime more agreeable than to run about the streets all night in a
disguise, and abuse the women and affront the men whom he met, and
sometimes to beat them, and sometimes to be beaten by them. This
was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures; his chiefest in the day
was to sing 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 Caesarian race of deities, should be brought to so
shameful and miserable an end, but only cried out, "Alas! what pity
it is that so excellent a musician should perish in this manner!"
His uncle Claudius spent half his time at playing at dice; that was
the main fruit of his sovereignty. I omit the madnesses of
Caligula's delights, and the execrable sordidness of those of
Tiberius. Would one think that Augustus himself, the highest and
most fortunate of mankind, a person endowed too with many excellent
parts of nature, should be so hard put to it sometimes for want of
recreations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding-stones with
little Syrian and Moorish boys, whose company he took delight in,
for their prating and their wantonness?


Was it for this, that Rome's best blood he spilt,
With so much falsehood, so much guilt?
Was it for this that his ambition strove
To equal Caesar first, and after Jove?
Greatness is barren sure of solid joys;
Her merchandise, I fear, is all in toys;
She could not else sure so uncivil be,
To treat his universal majesty,
His new created Deity,
With nuts and bounding-stones and boys.


But we must excuse her for this meagre entertainment; she has not
really wherewithal to make such feasts as we imagine; her guests
must be contented sometimes with but slender cates, and with the
same cold meats served over and over again, even till they become
nauseous. When you have pared away all the vanity, what solid and
natural contentment does there remain which may not be had with five
hundred pounds a year? not so many servants or horses, but a few
good ones, which will do all the business as well; not so many
choice dishes at every meal; but at several meals all of them, which
makes them both the more healthy and dine more pleasant; not so rich
garments nor so frequent changes, but as warm and as comely, and so
frequent change, too, as is every jot as good for the master, though
not for the tailor or valet-de-chambre; not such a stately palace,
nor gilt rooms, nor the costlier sorts of tapestry, but a convenient
brick house, with decent wainscot and pretty forest-work hangings.
Lastly (for I omit all other particulars, and will end with that
which I love most in both conditions), not whole woods cut in walks,
nor vast parks, nor fountain or cascade gardens, but herb and flower
and fruit gardens, which are more useful, and the water every whit
as clear and wholesome as if it darted from the breasts of a marble
nymph or the urn of a river-god. If for all this you like better
the substance of that former estate of life, do but consider the
inseparable accidents of both: servitude, disquiet, danger, and
most commonly guilt, inherent in the one; in the other, liberty,
tranquillity, security, and innocence: and when you have thought
upon this, you will confess that to be a truth which appeared to you
before but a ridiculous paradox, that a low fortune is better
guarded and attended than a high one. If indeed, we look only upon
the flourishing head of the tree, it appears a most beautiful
object.


- Sed quantum vertice ad auras
AEtherias, tantum radice ad Tartara tendit.

As far up towards heaven the branches grow,
So far the root sinks down to hell below.


Another horrible disgrace to greatness is, that it is for the most
part in pitiful want and distress. What a wonderful thing is this,
unless it degenerate into avarice, and so cease to be greatness. It
falls perpetually into such necessities as drive it into all the
meanest and most sordid ways of borrowing, cozenage, and robbery,
Mancipiis locopules, eget aris Cappadocum Rex. This is the case of
almost all great men, as well as of the poor King of Cappadocia.
They abound with slaves, but are indigent of money. The ancient
Roman emperors, who had the riches of the whole world for their
revenue, had wherewithal to live, one would have thought, pretty
well at ease, and to have been exempt from the pressures of extreme
poverty. But yet with most of them it was much otherwise, and they
fell perpetually into such miserable penury, that they were forced
to devour or squeeze most of their friends and servants, to cheat
with infamous projects, to ransack and pillage all their provinces.
This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and
subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must
be cheated of a third part of their estates, two other thirds they
must expend in vanity, so that they remain debtors for all the
necessary provisions of life, and have no way to satisfy those debts
but out of the succours and supplies of rapine; "as riches
increase," says Solomon, "so do the mouths that devour it." The
master mouth has no more than before; the owner, methinks, is like
Genus in the fable, who is perpetually winding a rope of hay and an
ass at the end perpetually eating it. Out of these inconveniences
arises naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be
satisfied or contented with itself: still, if it could mount up a
little higher, it would be happy; if it could but gain that point,
it would obtain all its desires; but yet at last, when it is got up
to the very top of the peak of Teneriffe, it is in very great danger
of breaking its neck downwards, but in no possibility of ascending
upwards into the seat of tranquillity above the moon. The first
ambitious men in the world, the old giants, are said to have made an
heroical attempt of scaling Heaven in despite of the gods, and they
cast Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa, two or three mountains
more they thought would have done their business, but the thunder
spoiled all the work when they were come up to the third storey;


And what a noble plot was crossed,
And what a brave design was lost.


A famous person of their offspring, the late giant of our nation,
when, from the condition of a very inconsiderable captain, he had
made himself lieutenant-general of an army of little Titans, which
was his first mountain; and afterwards general, which was his
second; and after that absolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was
the third, and almost touched the heaven which he affected; is
believed to have died with grief and discontent because he could not
attain to the honest name of a king, and the old formality of a
crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked
usurpation. If he could have compassed that, he would perhaps have
wanted something else that is necessary to felicity, and pined away
for the want of the title of an emperor or a god. The reason of
this is, that greatness has no reality in nature, but is a creature
of the fancy--a notion that consists only in relation and
comparison. It is indeed an idol; but St. Paul teaches us that an
idol is nothing in the world. There is in truth no rising or
meridian of the sun, but only in respect to several places: there
is no right or left, no upper hand in nature; everything is little
and everything is great according as it is diversely compared.
There may be perhaps some villages in Scotland or Ireland where I
might be a great man; and in that case I should be like Caesar--you
would wonder how Caesar and I should be like one another in
anything--and choose rather to be the first man of the village than
second at Rome. Our Country is called Great Britain, in regard only
of a lesser of the same name; it would be but a ridiculous epithet
for it when we consider it together with the kingdom of China.
That, too, is but a pitiful rood of ground in comparison of the
whole earth besides; and this whole globe of earth, which we account
so immense a body, is but one point or atom in relation to those
numberless worlds that are scattered up and down in the infinite
space of the sky which we behold. The other many inconveniences of
grandeur I have spoken of dispersedly in several chapters, and shall
end this with an ode of Horace, not exactly copied but rudely
imitated.


HORACE. LIB. 3. ODE 1.
Odi profanum vulgus, etc.

I.

Hence, ye profane; I hate ye all;
Both the great vulgar, and the small.
To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold,
Not yet discoloured with the love of gold
(That jaundice of the soul,
Which makes it look so gilded and so foul),
To you, ye very few, these truths I tell;
The muse inspires my song, hark, and observe it well.

II.

We look on men, and wonder at such odds
'Twixt things that were the same by birth;
We look on kings as giants of the earth,
These giants are but pigmies to the gods.
The humblest bush and proudest oak
Are but of equal proof against the thunder-stroke.
Beauty and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power
Have their short flourishing hour,
And love to see themselves, and smile,
And joy in their pre-eminence a while;
Even so in the same land,
Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers together stand;
Alas, death mows down all with an impartial hand.

III.

And all you men, whom greatness does so please,
Ye feast, I fear, like Damocles.
If you your eyes could upwards move,
(But you, I fear, think nothing is above)
You would perceive by what a little thread
The sword still hangs over your head.
No tide of wine would drown your cares,
No mirth or music over-noise your fears;
The fear of death would you so watchful keep,
As not to admit the image of it, sleep.

IV.

Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces;
And yet so humble, too, as not to scorn
The meanest country cottages;
His poppy grows among the corn.
The halcyon sleep will never build his nest
In any stormy breast.
'Tis not enough that he does find
Clouds and darkness in their mind;
Darkness but half his work will do,
'Tis not enough; he must find quiet too.

V.

The man who, in all wishes he does make,
Does only Nature's counsel take,
That wise and happy man will never fear
The evil aspects of the year,
Nor tremble, though two comets should appear.
He does not look in almanacks to see,
Whether he fortunate shall be;
Let Mars and Saturn in the heavens conjoin,
And what they please against the world design,
So Jupiter within him shine.

VII.

If of their pleasures and desires no end be fo