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10 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
our selves and other. Magnam rem puta, unum hominem
agere: 'Esteeme it a great matter to play but one
man.'
Since ambition may teach men both valor, temperance,
liberality, yea and justice: sith covetousnesse
may settle in theminde of a Shop-prentise-boy, brought
up in ease and idlenesses a dreadlesse assurance to
leave his home-bred ease, andforgoehis place of education,
and in a small barke to yeeld himselfe unto the
mercy of blustring waves, mercilesse windes and wrathfull
Neptune ; and that it also teacheth discretion and
wisdome ; And that Venus her self ministreth resolution
and hardinesse unto tender youth as yet subject to
the discipline of the rod, and teacheth the ruthlesse
Souldier the soft and tenderly effeminate heart of
women in their mothers laps:
Hac duct custodes furtim transgressa jacentes,
Adjuvenem tenebris sola puella venit, 1
The wench by stealeth her lodg'd guards having stript,
By this guide, sole, i'th darke, to'th yonker skipt;
It is no part of a well-grounded judgement simply to
judge ourselves by our exteriour actions : A man must
thorowly sound himselfe, and dive into his heart, and
there see by what wards or springs the motions stirre.
But forsomuch as it is a hazardous and high enterprise,
1 would not have so many to meddle with it as doe.
1 TIB. 1. ii. Eleg. i. 75.