Produced by David Widger
Translated by Charles Cotton
Edited by William Carew Hazilitt
1877
VII. Of recompenses of honour.
VIII. Of the affection of fathers to their children.
IX. Of the arms of the Parthians.
X. Of books.
XI. Of cruelty.
They who write the life of Augustus Caesar,—[Suetonius, Life ofAugustus, c. 25.]—observe this in his military discipline, that he waswonderfully liberal of gifts to men of merit, but that as to the truerecompenses of honour he was as sparing; yet he himself had beengratified by his uncle with all the military recompenses before he hadever been in the field. It was a pretty invention, and received intomost governments of the world, to institute certain vain and inthemselves valueless distinctions to honour and recompense virtue, suchas the crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle, the particular fashion of somegarment, the privilege to ride in a coach in the city, or at night with atorch, some peculiar place assigned in public assemblies, the prerogativeof certain additional names and titles, certain distinctions in thebearing of coats of arms, and the like, the use of which, according tothe several humours of nations, has been variously received, and yetcontinues.
We in France, as also several of our neighbours, have orders ofknighthood that are instituted only for this end. And 'tis, in earnest,a very good and profitable custom to find out an acknowledgment for theworth of rare and excellent men, and to satisfy them with rewards thatare not at all chargeable either to prince or people. And that which hasalways been found by ancient experience, and which we have heretoforeobserved among ourselves, that men of quality have ever been more jealousof such recompenses than of those wherein there was gain and profit, isnot without very good ground and reason. If with the reward, which oughtto be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other commoditiesand add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an increase ofestimation, would debase and abate it. The Order of St. Michael, whichhas been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater commodity than thatit had no communication with any other commodity, which produced thiseffect, that formerly there was no office or title whatever to which thegentry pretended with so great desire and affection as they did to that;no quality that carried with it more respect and grandeur, valour andworth more willingly embracing and with greater ambition aspiring to arecompense purely its own, and rather glorious than profitable. For, intruth, other gifts have not so great a dignity of usage, by reason theyare laid out upon all sorts of occasions; with money a man pays the wagesof a servant, the diligence of a courier, dancing, vaulting, speaking,and the meanest offices we receive; nay, and reward vice with it too, asflattery, treachery, and pimping; and therefore 'tis no wonder if virtueless desires and less willingly receives this common sort of payment,than that which is proper and peculiar to her, throughout generous andnoble. Augustus had reason to be more sparing of this than the other,insomuch that honour is a privilege which derives its principal essencefrom rarity; and so virtue itself:
"Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?"
["To whom no one is ill who can be good?"-Martial, xii. 82.]
We do not intend it for