214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

THE SECOND BOOKE 415
agros divisere atque dedere
Pro facie cuiusque et viribus ingeniOqae:
Nam facies muitum valuit, viresque vigebant. 1
They lands divided, and to each man shared
As was his face, his strength, his wit compared,
For face and strength were then
Much prized amongst men.
I am of a stature somewhat under the meane. This
default hath not only uncomlinesse in it, but also incommoditie
: Yea even in those which have charge and
commandement over others; for the authoritie which a
faire presence and corporall majestic endoweth a man
withal is wanting. Caius Marius did not willingly
admit any Souldiers in his bands that were not six foot
high. The Courtier hath reason to require an ordinary
stature in the gentleman he frameth, rather than any
other: and to avoid all strangenesse that may make
him to be pointed at. But if he misse of this mediocritie,
to chuse that he rather offend in lownes than in tallnes.
I would not doe it in a militarie man. Little men, saith
Aristotle, are indeed pretty, but not beauteous, nor
goodly ; and in greatnes is a great soule knowne as is
beauty in a great and high body. The Ethiopians
and Indians, saith he, in chusing of their Kings and
Magistrates, had an especiall regard to the beautie and
tallnes of the persons. They had reason, for it breedeth
an awfull respect in those that follow him, and a kinde
of feare in his enemies, to see a goodly, tall, and handsome
man march as chiefe and general! in the head of
any armie, or front of a troupe :
Ipse inter primos prcestanti corpore Turnus
Vertitur, arma tcnens, et toto veitice supia est,*
Turnus, a goodly man, mongst them that led,
Stood arm'd, then all they higher by the head.
Our great, divine, and heavenly King, all whose
circumstances ought with much care, religion, and
reverence, to be noted and observed, hath not refused
the bodies commendation. Speciosus forma proe filiis
¹ LUCR. 1. v. 11, 20. , ² VIRG. AEn. 1. vii. 725.