(28.) Already in ancient times courts granted pensions and bestowed favours on musicians, dancing-masters, buffoons, flute-players, flatterers, and sycophants; they possess undoubted merits, and their talents are recognised and well known, for they amuse the great and give them a little breathing-time during the intervals of grandeur. It is well known that Fabien is a fine dancer, and that Lorenzani[744] composes beautiful anthems; but who can tell if a pious man be really virtuous? There is no pension to be got for him from the kingʼs private purse, nor from the public treasury; and this is quite right, for piety is easy to counterfeit; and if it were rewarded, it would expose the prince to honour dissimulation and knavery, and to pension a hypocrite. (29.) It is to be hoped the piety of the court, such as it is, will at least oblige prelates to reside in their dioceses.[745] (30.) I am convinced that true piety is the source from which repose flows; it renders life bearable and death without sting; hypocrisy does not possess such advantages. (31.) Every hour in itself, and in respect to us, is unique; when once it is gone, it is entirely lost, and millions of ages will not bring it back again; days, months, and years, are swallowed up and irrevocably lost in the abyss of time; time itself shall be destroyed; it is but a point in the immense space of eternity, and will be erased. There are several slight and frivolous periods of time which are unstable, pass away, and may be called fashions, such as grandeur, favour, riches, power, authority, independence, pleasure, joy and superfluities. What will become of such fashions when time itself shall have disappeared? Virtue alone, now so little in fashion, will last longer than time. [Illustration] XIV. OF CERTAIN CUSTOMS. (1.) Certain people want a fortune to become ennobled.[746] Some of these would have been ennobled[747] if they could have put off their creditors half a year longer. Others, again, are commoners when they lay down, and rise noblemen.[748] How many noblemen are there whose relatives are commoners? (2.) Some man disowns his father, who is known to keep an office or a shop, and only mentions his grandfather, who has been dead this long time, is unknown and cannot be found now; he enjoys a large income, has a grand post, great connections, and wants nothing but a title to become a nobleman.