The French academie Fully discoursed and finished in foure bookes. 1. Institution of manners and callings of all estates. 2. Concerning the soule and body of man. 3. A notable description of the whole world, &c. 4. Christian philosophie, instructing the true and onely meanes to eternall life. This fourth part neuer before published in English. All written by the first author, Peter de la Primaudaye, Esquire, Lord of Barre, Chauncellour, and Steward of the French Kings house.

1. It is a good family, when all the parts and members thereof, are well and wisely gouerned.

A wise Graecian sayde, that wee must not call a house a good house, because it is faire and sumptuously built, nor because it hath a great reuenue belonging vnto it, but it * 1.1 must be iudged in that respect, by the domesticall things and ornaments that are within it, that is the children, the wife, and the seruants: to whom the master of the house communicating and distributing part of that which he hath, they being wise and well con∣ditioned, whether they dwell in a cellar, or vnder the shelter of a tree, it may bee tearmed a good and a happy house. In like sort, as from the head, the sinewes spring and haue their originall, and are the instruments of feeling and moouing, and that by them the braine sendeth the vitall spirits into all the parts of a mans body, without the which the members therof cannot vse nor exercise any natural faculty of feeling or moouing. So frō the father or master of the family, the other parts thereof ordinarily, receiue the custome of man∣ners and conditions, specially when he is wise, well advised, and vseth al the care, diligence, and industry that hee can, well and orderly to gouerne those whom God hath giuen him in charge to bring vp. Therefore, euery good gouernour, father or master of a family, ought to begin the right and true gouernment of his house from himselfe: shewing grauity, modesty, chastity, sobriety, peaceablenesse, piety, feare of God, and loue to his family, & by the effects of his duty, giuing good exāple to, & encoraging euery mēber therof, to labor, to

doe well. But specially, and before all, he must haue a great care of his children, for that on them dependeth the principall discharge of his duetie towards God, and his countrey, to∣gether with the honor, reputation, and setling of his house in time to come, that is, when he instructeth and bringeth vp his children well, vertuously and Christian like; wherein the wife also is obliged to her husband, that so shee may obtaine, and merite the worthy name of a mother.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Anacharsis.