nary emotions of the soul, besides attributing it to a divine
ecstasy, love, martial fierceness, poesy, wine, they have not also
attributed a part to health: a boiling, vigorous, full, and lazy health,
such as formerly the verdure of youth and security, by fits, supplied me
withal; that fire of sprightliness and gaiety darts into the mind flashes
that are lively and bright beyond our natural light, and of all
enthusiasms the most jovial, if not the most extravagant.

It is, then, no wonder if a contrary state stupefy and clog my spirit,
and produce a contrary effect:

"Ad nullum consurgit opus, cum corpore languet;"

["When the mind is languishing, the body is good for nothing."
(Or:) "It rises to no effort; it languishes with the body."
--Pseudo Gallus, i. 125.]

and yet would have me obliged to it for giving, as it wants to make out,
much less consent to this stupidity than is the ordinary case with men of
my age. Let us, at least, whilst we have truce, drive away incommodities
and difficulties from our commerce:

"Dum licet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus:"

["Whilst we can, let us banish old age from the brow."
--Herod., Ep., xiii. 7.]

"Tetrica sunt amcenanda jocularibus."

["Sour things are to be sweetened with those that are pleasant."
--Sidonius Apollin., Ep., i. 9.]

I love a gay and civil wisdom, and fly from all sourness and austerity of
manners, all repellent, mien being suspected by me:

"Tristemque vultus tetrici arrogantiam:"

["The arrogant sadness of a crabbed face."--Auctor Incert.]

"Et habet tristis quoque turba cinaedos."

["And the dull crowd also has its voluptuaries." (Or:)
"An austere countenance sometimes covers a debauched mind."
--Idem.]

I am very much of Plato's opinion, who says that facile or harsh humours
are great indications of the good or ill disposition of the mind.
Socrates had a constant countenance, but serene and smiling, not sourly
austere, like the elder Crassus, whom no one ever saw laugh. Virtue is a
pleasant and gay quality.

I know very well that few will quarrel with the licence of my writings,
who have not more to quarrel with in the licence of their own thoughts:
I conform myself well enough to their inclinations, but I offend their
eyes. 'Tis a fine humour to strain the writings of Plato, to wrest his
pretende