ng, went on further, and
that we must be made to see and feel the danger before we would take the
alarm; but that even then we could not stick to it. But the Germans and
Swiss, more gross and heavy, had not the sense to look about them, even
when the blows were falling about their ears. Peradventure, he only
talked so for mirth's sake; and yet it is most certain that in war raw
soldiers rush into dangers with more precipitancy than after they have
been cudgelled*--(The original has eschauldex--scalded)

"Haud ignarus . . . . quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et praedulce decus, primo certamine possit."

["Not ignorant how much power the fresh glory of arms and sweetest
honour possess in the first contest."--AEneid, xi. 154]

For this reason it is that, when we judge of a particular action, we are
to consider the circumstances, and the whole man by whom it is performed,
before we give it a name.

To instance in myself: I have sometimes known my friends call that
prudence in me, which was merely fortune; and repute that courage and
patience, which was judgment and opinion; and attribute to me one title
for another, sometimes to my advantage and sometimes otherwise. As to
the rest, I am so far from being arrived at the first and most perfect
degree of excellence, where virtue is turned into habit, that even of the
second I have made no great proofs. I have not been very solicitous to
curb the desires by which I have been importuned. My virtue is a virtue,
or rather an innocence, casual and accidental. If I had been born of a
more irregular complexion, I am afraid I should have made scurvy work;
for I never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions,
if they were never so little vehement: I know not how to nourish quarrels
and debates in my own bosom, and, consequently, owe myself no great
thanks that I am free from several vices:

"Si vitiis mediocribus et mea paucis
Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si
Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos:"

["If my nature be disfigured only with slight and few vices, and is
otherwise just, it is as if you should blame moles on a fair body."
--Horatius, Sat., i. 6, 65.]

I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason. She has caused me to be
descended of a race famous for integrity and of a very good father; I
know not whether or no he has infused into me part