means of a good revenue, is not the only reason of the boastings and complaints of Du Haillan, and those who are like him; pride has a great share in it. They fancy that the public will have a great esteem, both for their persons and their works, if it be known that they have had large pensions; but in this they are much mistaken. Some few, I confess, may be imposed on by this outward appearance, and argue fallaciously thus: "Such an author has got noble employs, and rides in his coach, therefore he has a great deal of merit, and his works are good;" but the public is seldom caught thus, and, however, it is a charm but of short continuance. Posterity judges of books by the books themselves; if they be good, it doth not despise them, though it should be said at the beginning of the preface that the author died with hunger: if they be bad, they are despised, though it should appear in the first page that the author was an earl, or a marquis, and left a million. "What is it you fear? Why do you torment yourself?" might one have asked Du Haillan: " you are allowed to say that you have not spared your care or pains to render your work perfect; your duty obliged you to great fatigues and it is a civility to the public to declare in a preface, that you have done all you could to merit their approbation. You ought to have stopped there, and not to have urged the greatness and value of your labours as a just cause of demanding greater recompences, and complaining that you had not been sufficiently paid. Are you afraid that future ages should know that your studies and researches have put the history of France in a very fine light, but have not enriched you? What injury can that do to your memory? If it be said that you were not industrious to heap up riches, they will suppose you wanted a quality which is none of the best; your glory will not suffer by it: sleep at rest. If it be said that this industry was not above your capacity, but that you did not

care to employ it, being content with your books and your studies, and to consecrate your time to the instruction of the public; would not this be an excellent eulogy? would it not be a prejudice in favour of your works? If the contempt of riches, and your continual application to writing good books, expose you to the danger of dying poor, you ought to wish that it may be put in your epitaph. This would be equivalent to a title of honour or nobility in the republic of learning; this would be a glorious way to immortality. Never fear the judgment of posterity upon it; if they who were careless of recompensing your labours are censured for their ingratitude and injustice, what is that to you? It is a censure which doth not concern you.-Art. HAILLAN.

SFORZA.

CATHERINE SFORZA, grand-daughter of Francis Sforza, duke of Milan, was a lady of great courage, but she did an action which savoured much more of a man's boldness than of a woman's modesty. Her subjects having made themselves masters of the castle of Rimini, she gave them her children as hostages to recover it, and then she threatened with death those who had occasioned the insurrection. They answered her that they would kill her children; thereupon she turned up her shift, and said, "here is wherewithal to get others: barbarously destroy the innocent hostages that are in your hands, I consent to it, provided my justice inflict upon you such a punishment as your wickedness deserves."* The author from whom I have this, and whom I have quoted in the margin of this article, had been relating the action of a Lacedemonian woman, who seeing her sons run away from

* Balthasar Bonifacius Historiæ Ludicræ, lib. v. cap. iv. pag. 127.

a fight, shewed them her nakedness, and asked them whether they would get again into the same womb out of which they came when they were born, or whether they expected she should put them under her gown, that the enemies who pursued them might not see them." She added to this question such a smart reprimand for their want of courage, that they returned to the fight and got the victory.

Catherine was the natural daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and was married to Jerom Riario, lord of Forli, and of Imola, by whom she had, among other children, Octavio Riario, who was lord of the same states which he held of the holy see. She had the government in her hands, as being her son's guardian, and knew well how to advance her interest during the tumults occasioned by the French expedition into Italy in 1494, and the years following. She defended herself with great courage in the fortress of Forli, against the duke of Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, in the year 1500; but not being able to resist the violent assaults of his troops, she was made a prisoner and sent to Rome, where she was confined to the castle of St Angelo, but was set at liberty soon after by the intercession of Ives d'Allegre, and was privately married to John de Medicis, which was one of the reasons why she did great services to the Florentines, and to Ludovic Sforza, duke of Milan, who was well affected towards the Medicis. Catherine had by that second husband, John de Medicis, who was the father of Cosmo de Medicis, the first great duke of Tuscany. Boccalini has a witty conceit about it. He feigns that Catherine Sforza having declared that she had the courage to shew the mould wherein she took upon herself to form other children, desired, that since she had been very much commended by all historians for that action, Apollo would be pleased to assign her a proper place upon Parnassus. The judges were divided in their opinions; some of them

looked upon it as brutishly immodest. "Ad alcuni atto di sfcacciatezza, e di bruta impudicitia parve quello, che cosi nobil signora haveva raccontato." Apollo judged that a regular observation of modesty belonged to private women; but that princesses were obliged upon some occasions to shew their virility. A counsellor gave his opinion in this manner: "the place, whence John de Medicis, father of the great Cosmo, sprang, certainly deserved to be exposed to the public view. Ben degno di esser veduto da ogn' uno era quel luogo, donde era uscito il famoso Campione Giovan' de Medici padre di quel gran Cosimo, &c."

A French historian commends her very much; he says, "she was very handsome, and a widow at twenty-two years of age, having one only son in the cradle, and that the inhabitants of Imola and Forli were so happy under her administration, that they had no occasion to lament the loss of her husband." He observes" that this only son of her's was but fourteen years old in 1494, and enlarges upon the military qualities she discovered during the siege of Forli. Take notice that she never recovered her states; the duke of Valentinois was invested with them, and they were re-united to the holy see after the death of Alexander VI.---Art. SFORZA.

SIMONIDES.

His answer concerning God.

THE answer which Simonides gave to a prince who asked him the definition of God, is very famous. Hiero, tyrant of Sicily, desired that poet to tell him what God is. The poet answered him that it was not a question that could be immediately answered, and that he wanted a whole day to think upon it. When that term was over, Hiero asked for the answer, but Simonides desired two more days to consider of

it. This was not the last delay he asked: he was often called on to give an answer, and every time he desired double the time he had last demanded. The tyrant wondering at it, desired to know the reason of it; "I do so," answered Simonides, "because the more I examine the matter, the more obscure it appears to me." I am going to give the same account of this in Latin, to the end it may be seen, that Cicero in the person of Cotta the pontiff, declares that in the like case, he would give the same answer as Simonides did. "Nec ego nunc ipse aliquid afferam melius; ut enim modo dixi, omnibus fere in rebus, et maxime in physicis, quid non sit, citius, quam quid sit dixerim. Roges me; quid aut qualis sit Deus: auctore utar Simonide; de quo cum quæsivissit hoc idem tyrannus Hiero, deliberandi caussâ sibi unum diem postulavit. Cum idem ex eo postridie quæreret, biduum petivit; cum sæpius duplicaret numerum dierum, admiransque Hiero quæreret cur ita faceret, Quia quanto, inquit, diutius considero, tanto mihi res videtur obscurior. Sed Simonidem arbitror (non enim Poëta solum suavis, verum etiam cæteroqui doctus, sapiensque traditur, quia multa venirent in mentem acuta, atque subtilia, dubitantem quid eorum esset verissimum, desperasse omnem veritatem*... Neither can I now offer any thing better; for as I have just said in all subjects, and especially in physics, I can more readily tell what a thing is not, than what it

is.

Ask me what, or what kind of a being is God; I will answer in the words of Simonides, who when the tyrant Hiero had asked him this question, required a day to consider of it. When next day he asked him the same question, Simonides required two days more: when he had often doubled the time he required, and Hiero being surprised, asked him the reason of it, 'It is,' says he, because the longer I

* Cicero de Natura Deorum, lib. i, pag. 83, Edit. Lescaloperii.