To Monsieur Girard, Secretary to M. the Duke D'Espernon. LETTER IX.
SIR, your last Letters have exceedingly comforted mee, and you have such things for me, that they make me forgetfull of all my
Nevv epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac. Translated out of French into English, by Sr. Richard Baker Knight. Being the second and third volumes
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- Nevv epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac. Translated out of French into English, by Sr. Richard Baker Knight. Being the second and third volumes
- Author
- Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.
- Publication
- London :: Printed by T. Cotes [and John Dawson] for Fra. Eglesfield, Iohn Crooke, and Rich. Serger, and are to be sold at the Gray-hound in Pauls Chuch-yard [sic],
- 1638.
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"Nevv epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac. Translated out of French into English, by Sr. Richard Baker Knight. Being the second and third volumes." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A02322.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 13, 2024.
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Page 167
miseries. With such a friendship, I can mocke at ill fortune, and it makes mee taste content∣ments, which good fortune knowes not of. It is true, that your absence is a perpetuall coo∣ling Card to my joy; and possessing you but in spirit, it requires a very strong imagination, to desire nothing else. Shall wee never come to be Citizens of one Citie? Never to be Her∣mits in the same Desart? Shall my Counsayle be alwayes twenty myles from me? and must I be alwayes forced to passe two Seas to fetch it when I need it? I hope your justice will doe me reason, and that Heaven will at last heare the most ardent of all my prayers; but in the meane time, whilst I stay waiting for so perfect a contentment, I would be glad to have of it, now and then, some little taste: which, if it be not in your power to give mee; at least lend it mee for some few dayes, and come and sit as supreme President, over both my French, and Latin. I promise you, I will never appeale from you to any other; onely for this once, give mee leave to tell you, that the word Lu∣dovix, which you blame as too new, seemes to me a more Poeticall and pleasing word, than either the Aloysius of the Italians, or our Lu∣dovicus; and besides, It savours of the Anti∣quitie of our Nation; and of the first language of the Gaules; witnesse these words, Ambio∣rix, Eporedorix, Orgetorix, Vercingetorix, &c. In which you see the Analogie to be plaine; yet more than this, I have an Authoritie, which
Page 168
I am sure, you will make difficultie to allow: you know Monsieur Guyet, is a great Master in this Art; but perhaps you know not that hee hath used this very word Ludovix, before I u∣sed it; for I tooke it from excellent Verses of his:
Non tulit hoc Ludovix, justa puer acer ab ira,
Etpatriae casum sic videamus, ait.
For other matters Sir, you may adde to that which was last alledged in the cause of Ma∣dam Gourney, this passage out of the divine Je∣rusalem, where Aladin calles Clorinda the In∣tercessour of Sophronia, and of her lover,
Habbian vita Rispose & libertade
E Nulla a tanto Intercessor si neghi.
I kisse the hands of that faire creature you love, and am with all my soule.
Sir,
Your, &c.
At Balzac, 20. Septemb. 1635.