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and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts; but only prick in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.

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OF EMPIRE.

Ir is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire, and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case with kings, who being at the highest, want matter of desire, which makes their minds more languishing; and have many representations of perils and shadows, which make their minds the less clear and this is one reason also of that effect which the scripture speaketh of, "That "the king's heart is inscrutable:" for multitude of jealousies, and lack of some predominant desire, that should marshal and put in order all the rest, maketh any man's heart hard to find or sound. Hence it comes likewise, that princes many times make themselves desires, and set their hearts upon toys: sometimes upon a building; sometimes upon

erecting of an order; sometimes upon the advancing of a person; sometimes upon obtaining excellency in some art or feat of the hand; as Nero for playing on the harp; Domitian for certainty of the hand with the arrow; Commodus for playing at fence; Caracalla for driving chariots, and the like. This seemeth incredible unto those that know not the principle, that the mind of man is more cheered and refreshed by profiting in small things, than by standing at a stay in great. We see also that kings that have been fortunate conquerors in their first years, it being not possible for them to go forward infinitely, but that they must have some check or arrest in their fortunes, turn in their latter years to be superstitious and melancholy; as did Alexander the Great, Dioclesian, and in our memory Charles the Fifth, and others; for he that is used to go forward, and findeth a stop, falleth out of his own favour, and is not the thing he

was.

To speak now of the true temper of empire, it is a thing rare and hard to keep; for both temper and distemper consist of contraries but it is one thing to mingle contra

ries, another to interchange them. The answer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent instruction. Vespasian asked him, what was Nero's overthrow? he answered, Nero could touch and tune the harp well, but in government sometimes he used to wind the pins too high, sometimes to let them down too low; and certain it is, that nothing destroyeth authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power pressed too far, and relaxed too much.

This is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times in princes' affairs, is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mischiefs, when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them aloof: but this is but to try masteries with fortune; and let men beware how they neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be prepared; for no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The difficulties in princes' business are many and great; but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind; for it is common with princes, (saith Tacitus,) to will contradictories; "Sunt plerumque regum vo"luntates vehementes, et inter se contrariæ;"

for it is the solecism of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the

means.

Kings have to deal with their neighbours, their wives, their children, their prelates or clergy, their nobles, their second nobles or gentlemen, their merchants, their commons, and their men of war; and from all these arise dangers, if care and circumspection be not used.

First, for their neighbours, there can no general rule be given (the occasions are so variable,) save one which ever holdeth; which is, that princes do keep due centinel, that none of their neighbours. do overgrow so, (by increase of territory, by embracing of trade, by approaches, or the like,) as they become more able to annoy them than they were; and this is generally the work of standing counsels to foresee and to hinder it. During that triumvirate of kings, king Henry the eighth of England, Francis the first, King of France, and Charles the fifth emperor, there was such a watch kept that none of the three could win a palm of ground, but the other two would straightways balance it, either by confedera

tion, or, if need were, by a war; and would not in any wise take up peace at interest: and the like was done by that league, (which Guicciardine saith, was the security of Italy,) made between Ferdinando, king of Naples, Forenzius Medices, and Ludovicus Sforsa, potentates, the one of Florence, the other, of Milan. Neither is the opinion of some of the schoolmen to be received, that a war cannot justly be made, but upon a precedent injury or provocation; for there is no question, but a just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of a

war.

For their wives, there are cruel examples of them. Livia is infamed for the poisoning of her husband; Roxolana, Solyman's wife, was the destruction of that renowed prince, Sultan Mustapha, and otherwise troubled his house and succession; Edward the second of England's queen had the principal hand in the deposing and murder of her husband. This kind of danger is then to be feared chiefly when the wives have plots for the raising of their own children, or else that they be advoutresses.

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