for his tears whilst he considered himself. Miso, one of the seven
sages, of a Timonian and Democritic humour, being asked, "what he
laughed at, being alone?"--"That I do laugh alone," answered he. How
many ridiculous things, in my own opinion, do I say and answer every day
that comes over my head? and then how many more, according to the
opinion of others? If I bite my own lips, what ought others to do? In
fine, we must live amongst the living, and let the river run under the
bridge without our care, or, at least, without our interference. In
truth, why do we meet a man with a hunch-back, or any other deformity,
without being moved, and cannot endure the encounter of a deformed mind
without being angry? this vicious sourness sticks more to the judge than
to the crime. Let us always have this saying of Plato in our mouths: "Do
not I think things unsound, because I am not sound in myself? Am I not
myself in fault? may not my observations reflect upon myself?"--a wise
and divine saying, that lashes the most universal and common error of
mankind. Not only the reproaches that we throw in the face of one
another, but our reasons also, our arguments and controversies, are
reboundable upon us, and we wound ourselves with our own weapons: of
which antiquity has left me enough grave examples. It was ingeniously
and home-said by him, who was the inventor of this sentence:

"Stercus cuique suum bene olet."

["To every man his own excrements smell well."--Erasmus]

We see nothing behind us; we mock ourselves an hundred times a day; when
we deride our neighbours; and we detest in others the defects which are
more manifest in us, and which we admire with marvellous inadvertency and
impudence. It was but yesterday that I heard a man of understanding and
of good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the folly of another,