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

To Mounsieur Tissandier. LETTER XXIII.

SIR, you shall receive by this bearer the rest of the workes of—: or to speake more properly, the continuation of his Follies. They are now as publike; as those Du grand preuost diuin, que vous auez visite autres fois dans les fame uses petites maisons. Hee useth me still with the same pride and insolencie he was wont: and you would thinke that hee were at the toppe of the Empyriall heaven, and I at the bottome of hell; so farre he takes himselfe to be above mee: but I doubt not, ere long, his pride shall be abated, and his insolencie morti∣fied. He shall shortly be made to see, that he is not so great a man as he thinkes himselfe; and

if hee have in him but one sparke of naturall justice; hee shall confesse he hath triumphed without cause, and must be faine to give up all the glory he hath gotten unlawfully:

Turno tempus erit magno cum optaverit 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Intactum Pallanta:

Mounsieur de—, is still your perfect friend, and he never writes to me, but hee speakes of you. He is at this present at Venice, where he meditates quietly the agitation of all the world besides; and where he enjoyes the honest plea∣sures which Italy affoords to speculative Philo∣sophers. But Sir, what meane you by speaking of your teares; and of the request you make unto me? Doe you not mocke mee, when you pray me to comfort you for the death of your Grandfather; who had lived to see so many Families, so many Sects, so many Nations, both to be borne and die: a man as old as Here∣•…•… it selfe: the League was younger than hee; which when the Cardinall of Lorraine first conceived; hee caused a Booke to be printed, wherein hee advertized France of the concep∣tion of this Monster. You weepe therefore for the losses of another age; it is Anchyses or La∣ertes you weepe for; at least it is for a man who did but suffer life, and was in a continuall com∣bate with death. He should long agoe have bin one of the Church Triumphant, and therefore you ought to have beene prepared for either the losse, or the gaine that you have made?

Mounsieur 〈◊〉〈◊〉 was not of your humour; I send you one of his Letters, where you shall see, hee was as much troubled to comfort him∣selfe for the life of two Grandmothers that would not die, as hee was for the death of a brother that died too soone. I commend your good nature; but I like not your Lamentations; which should indeede, do him you sorrow for, great wrong, if they should raise him againe to be in the state in which you lost him. It may suffice to tell you, that he is much happier than I; for he sleepes, and I wake; and he hath no more commerce with men unreasonable and inhumane, and that are but Wolfes to one an∣other. You know I have cause enough to speake thus; but out of this number, I except certaine choise persons; and particularly your selfe, whom I know to be vertuous; and whose I am,

Sir,

Most humble, &c.

At Paris, 3. Decem, 1628.