Essays, or discourses, vol. 2 (of 4)

I. I do not know, my Son, whether to congratulate or condole with you on the information you give me, of his Majesty having honoured you with a Judge’s robe. I contemplate you a...

XXV. From what has been premised, it is evident that a Judge can never properly receive from a suitor any compliment or acknowledgment, on account of having dispatched his cause...

XLIX. The honour of the Judges also requires this should be done, because the vulgar, when they see mulcts laid on with a heavy hand, and do not perceive the money arising from...

XVI. But besides flattering lies, there are many others which are hurtful in various ways, notwithstanding we find them classed among the jocose and officious ones. A coward bra...

XI. The same that happens in point of food, happens with respect to everything else, for whether it proceeds from the force of habit or the proportion of temperament or disposit...

XXXIII. I do not condemn that affection for our native soil, which does not operate to prejudice a third person. Aristotle’s employing his favour with Alexander, to procure the...

VIII. But to come to the acceptation that is given to the word Urbanity in these present times, and to the sense in which it seems now to be generally understood in Spain, it si...

XXXIII. I have availed myself many times of this resource at court; where I have made no scruple to declare, that I was born and bred in a small country town; and that I early e...

LVIII. We shall describe these people, by giving the character and behaviour of Philotimus. Philotimus is a man, who at all times is dinning in people’s ears the professions of...

LXXIX. Even with respect to the particular faculty or science men study, they never can get over, or pass beyond the fence rail which nature has placed before them; they read mu...

I. I Enter upon a serious and difficult undertaking; in the prosecution of which, it is not one ignorant vulgar person only I shall have to contend with, for setting about to de...

XXVIII. A certain philosopher, being asked what tint gave the most graceful hue to a woman’s countenance, answered with much truth and perspicuity, modesty; and I am really of o...

XLVII. In Europe, although in no part of it the women are military people by profession, we may venture to give the name of Amazons to those who upon different occasions, have f...

LXXV. It appears by this author, that, not satisfied with considering the women as equal to the men in their intellectual capacities, he inclines to allow them some advantage ov...

XCVIII. I am not ignorant, that the inhabitants of Bœotia were antiently looked upon, as a most rude, dull people, and that _Bœoticum Ingenium_ and _Bœtica Sus_, were proverbial...

CXXII. Lady _Maria Madalena Gabriela de Montemar_, daughter of the duke de Montemar, and a Benedictine nun, who was born with all the natural qualifications or dispositions, nec...

CXL. To this, we shall add the authority of Aristotle, who in various places teaches, that in all the animal species, expressly including the human, the females are more penetra...

VI. O good God! is this the sort of music, which expressed from the breast of the great Austin, while he was still wavering between God and the world, sighs of compunction, and...

XXVII. I now say, this diminution of figures, instead of perfectioning music, entirely spoils and ruins it; for two reasons: the first is, that it will be very difficult to find...

XLVIII. Thus much in general for modern Spanish poetry; but the worst is, that you hear these sort of compositions in the sacred canticles; which are often so bad, that it would...

XVII. In the second place, I do not assent, that music, on account of its being somewhat the more simple, is the less delicious or pathetic. I acknowledge, that the variety in t...