5.

Promises bind faith more than threaten→ ings. But, indeed, a prince of judgment ought not to consider what his enemies promise or threaten; but what the promisers and threateners in reason will do, and in power can do; and the nearest conjecture thereunto, is what is best for their own benefit to do.

6.

For a wise man to take in hand that which his enemy may, with a word, overthrow, hath, in my conceit, great incongruity.

7.

Be none of those who think that all is done for which they have once given directions; but follow every-where your commandment with your presence, which witnesses of every man's slackness or diligence; chastising the one and encouraging the other; suffering not the fruit of any profitable counsel (for want of timely taking,) to be lost.

8.

Be not of the mind to make suitors magistrates: the unwilling worthy man is fitter to

rule than the undeserving desirer. The cunningest pilot does most dread the rocks.

9.

Great is the change, when a minister falls out with the prince that gave him power; for, in place of a multitude of followers, silence grows to be at his gate, and absence in his presence: the guess of his mind could prevail more before, than now many of his earnest requests.

10.

In matters of wisdom, the wise ought to be believed for the whole nation.

11.

One man's sufficiency is more available than ten thousand multitude; so evil-balanced are the extremities of popular minds; and so much natural imperiousness (or power) there rests in a well-formed spirit.

12.

Citadels of strange soldiers are the nests of tyranny, and the murderers of liberty.

13.

The saddest mishap that can befal a king

dom is, when it is governed by the worst kind of oligarchy; that is, when men are ruled indeed by a few, and are yet not taught to know what those few be whom they should obey.— For they, having the power of kings, but not the nature of kings, use the authority, as men do their farms, of which they see within a year they shall go out; making the king's sword strike whom they hate, the king's purse reward whom they love, and, which is worst of all, making the royal countenance serve to undermine the royal sovereignty: for, in this case subjects can taste no sweeter fruits of having a king, than grievous taxation to serve vain purposes; laws made rather to find faults than to prevent faults: the court of the prince, rather deemed as a privileged place of unbridled licentiousness, than as the abiding place of him who, as a father, should give fatherly example unto his people. Hence, grow a very desolation of all estates, while the great men (by the nature of ambition never satisfied) grow factious among themselves: and the underlings are glad indeed to be underlings to them they hate the least, to preserve them

3

from such as they hate the most. Men of virtue are suppressed, lest their shining should discover the other's filthiness. And at length virtue itself is almost forgotten, when it has no hopeful ends whereunto to be directed.Old men, long nustled in corruption, scorn them that would seek reformation. Young men, very fault-finding, but very faulty, are as given to new-fangleness, both of manners, apparel, and each thing else; by the custom of self-guilty evil, glad to change, though oft for the worse. Merchandise is abused; and towns decay, for want of just and natural liberty. Offices, even of judging souls, are sold; public defences neglected; and, in sum, wit is abused, rather to feign reason-why it should be amiss, than how it should be amended.

Remark.

While each individual considers his own interest as totally distinct from that of the general welfare, depredations on the public trust will continue to be made. The bright supremacy of honour-that fine spirit which

animated our ancestors to prefer their country's good before all other earthly advantages -is now no more; and the natural effect ensues: For honour is to the body-politic, what the soul is to man; we cannot describe exactly what it is, but it contains the principle of life; and when it departs, the frame to which it gave power and virtue, falls, corrupts, and dissolves to nothing.

KINGS AND TYRANTS.

1.

WHETHER your time call you to live or die, do both like a prince.

2.

Some froward princes, whose doings have been smoothed with good success, think nothing so absurd which they cannot make honourable.