dle to
be brought up in a poor village of his, and there continued me all the
while I was at nurse, and still longer, bringing me up to the meanest and
most common way of living:

"Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter."

["A well-governed stomach is a great part of liberty."
--Seneca,Ep., 123.]

Never take upon yourselves, and much less give up to your wives, the care
of their nurture; leave the formation to fortune, under popular and
natural laws; leave it to custom to train them up to frugality and
hardship, that they may rather descend from rigour than mount up to it.
This humour of his yet aimed at another end, to make me familiar with the
people and the condition of men who most need our assistance; considering
that I should rather regard them who extend their arms to me, than those
who turn their backs upon me; and for this reason it was that he provided
to hold me at the font persons of the meanest fortune, to oblige and
attach me to them.

Nor has his design succeeded altogether ill; for, whether upon the
account of the more honour in such a condescension, or out of a natural
compassion that has a very great power over me, I have an inclination
towards the meaner sort of people. The faction which I should condemn in
our wars, I should more sharply condemn, flourishing and successful; it
will somewhat reconcile me to it, when I shall see it miserable and
overwhelmed. How willingly do I admire the fine humour of Cheilonis,
daughter and wife to kings of Sparta. Whilst her husband Cleombrotus, in
the commotion of her city, had the advantage over Leonidas her father,
she, like a good daughter, stuck close to her father in all his misery
and exile, in opposition to the conqueror. But so soon as the chance of
war turned, she changed her will with the change of fortune, and bravely
turned to her husband's side, whom she accompanied throughout, where his
ruin carried him: admitting, as it appears to me, no other choice than to
cleave to the side that stood most in need of her, and where she could
best manifest her compassion. I am naturally more apt to follow the
example of Flaminius, who rather gave his assistance to those who had
most need of him than to those who had power to do him good, than I do to
that of Pyrrhus, who was of an humour to truckle under the great and to
domineer over the poor.

Long sittings at table both trouble me and do me harm; for, be it that I