Nevv epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac. Translated out of French into English, by Sr. Richard Baker Knight. Being the second and third volumes

Another to him. LETTER XL.

SIR, I pitty your good fortune, the court that followes you at your Chamber would be to me an unsupportable honour, who would not give my mornings for all the Compliments of Paris. It is the flower and prime of the day that is taken from you; it is the time of medi∣tation and Prayer which flattery intruds upon. There is no Creditour nor Sergeant that you might not deale withall better cheape then with these troublesome friends. You are un∣fortunate to be so beloved, and a man of whom so many other have use, can be of little or no use to himselfe. It is better yet to passe for a clowne, then thus to prostitute ones selfe by civilitie, and better never to sacrifice to the graces, then to make ones selfe the beast for the Sacrifice. You would perhaps intermit this course, but the time is past for that; a breach would draw upon you a warre; and you would runne the fortune of that poore Saint, who was murthered with pricks of Pen∣knives, and cut in peeces by his Schollers. You would be the object of a Rhetoricall, an Histo∣ricall & a Poeticall persecution; and the muses which now court you would grow furies, and fall a tearing you, so that you have no remedy now but to hold it out, if you looke for safety

in the place you are in, you must ever bee the mediatour betweene Apollo and Poets; you must alwayes have a thousand businesses both in Prose and Verse, your chamber must be the passage alwayes from the Vniversitie to the Court. This backe doore whereof you have sent mee a Platforme, is in truth an excellent invention, but this will presently bee discove∣red, and you will gaine nothing by it, but to be beseiged in more places at once. Doe bet∣ter Sir, quit the place that is not tenable, and come save your selfe at———I am not so poore, but I can make you a reasemblance at least of the good cheere of Paris, and furnish you with innocent pleasures, such as Philoso∣sophie and Priesthood will allow of; It shall be for as short a time as you please; and onely to make an ill custome take another course. All the family desires this voyage, particularly——who is in good hope his sonne cannot prove ill, seeing you have no ill opini∣on of him, and for his daughter of whom you write mee so much good: I cannot stay my selfe from vowing to you, that shee is not al∣together unworthy of it; and perhaps would have deserved an Ayre with three couplets of your making, if shee had appeared in the time when you were the great Chaunter of France. But now that you have changed your course of life, there is no looking for any thing from you but spirituall discourse and Christian me∣ditations, which yet will serve as fitly for a Sex to which devotion belongs no lesse then

beauty. Bring therefore to us the Originall of your Pietie and of your Divinitie, at least shew some sorrow that you cannot doe it, that I may see my affection is not scorned, and that I am not without revenge,

Sir,

Your, &c.

From Balzac 1. Decemb. 1634.