THE Printer to the Rcader.  
THe Title alone, and the author's name who composed this Discourse, cannot but be a sufficient inducement to the reading thereof; and whosoever reads, cannot but infinitely ●steem it; and had I been persuaded by some very intelligent persons who had perused the Copy, I had ushered ●t with no other Preface; Yet having heard them say, That this most excellent Author never composed a Piece more exact, more regular, or more eloquent; And a Gentleman, a ●insman of his, from whom I had ●his Copy, who had it also from himself, assuring me that of all the Pieces of his Cabinet he looked upon none with more affection, and commonly called his masterpiece: Neither did I think I ought to have concealed t●● knowledge hereof from the Reader, for our mutual benefit. All his Friends and Kindred indeed know, that having composed it in the fairest flower of his Youth, he persuaded himself that beyond all his other Pieces, it ought to establish his Reputation; And they all witness that he 〈◊〉 published it more than Twenty ye●● since, but only that he took that 〈◊〉 to bring it to the highest perfection 〈◊〉 was capable of.  
There is another Piece former● misprinted with his Entertainment now more fitly joined to his A●ristippus, as treating of the sam● subject, which the Reader may 〈◊〉 equally glad to see polished and reviewed by the Authors last Touche●   

THE PREFACE.  
IN the year 1618. the former Landgrave of Hessen, Grandfather to him who now is, went by order of his physicians to the Spaw-waters; upon his return passing the Frontiers of France, and hearing that the Duke of Espernon was in his Government of Metz, he had a great desire to see the man whose history he had so often heard, whereby he understood him to be a man whom virtue had raised, and who could not be cast down by Fortune; whose disgraces had been more glorious and more sparkling than his more favourable condition who had the courage to oppose a party which was like to have subverted the State, who had merited the favours of a King, to whom he was war●ing in nothing but to have been bor● in a better age.  
The Landgrave moved with admiration by so long and lasting a virtue, judged this illustrious old man worthy of hi● euriosity, and did him the honour to visit him at Mentz; by mishap the gout seized on him the next day after his arrival, which although it used to treat him gently, it being rather indeed a forced repose then a true grief, yet was he obliged to receive it like a sick person, and to keep his bed so long as it lasted. This Fit retained him longer than he intended, in a place where he could not otherwise have been tired; which gave us also the means the better to consider him.  
Being a Prince who loved learning, he employed his spare hours, and the intervals of his grief, either in reading good Books, or conversing with such learned men who best understood them. There was then one with his Highness whom he particularly esteemed, and who in effect was no ordinary person, whom he usually called HIS ARISTIPPUS, and sometimes his LEARNED wiseman, to explicate that name of Aristippus, which he had given him.  
He was a Gentleman of an exquisite judgement and of a consummate Experience of the Catholic Religion, a French man by birth, and originally from Germany, of Fity five years of age or thereabouts: He had the gift to please, and was learned in the Art of persuading. Besides he knew both the old and the new Court; and having observed in divers Journeys which he had made, the manners and natural inclination of Princes and of their Ministers, there was to be found hoarded up in him a treasure of the things of our time, beside other knowledges, which he had drawn from Antiquity, and acquired by Meditation.  
I was so happy as at first sight to contract a friendship with him; he presented me to the Landgrave, and gave a good Character of me to his whole Court, he gained also his Highness good liking that I should assist at those Entertainments which they had after their repasts. At his coming out of Germany they had chosen Corn. Tacitus to be the Companion of their travels, nor were they ill accompanied; he had diverted them at the spa, and on the way, and when they were arrived at Metz they were at the beginning of Vespasians Reign▪ Aristippus was Reader, and Interpreter; after having read, he made reflections on the things read sometimes in few words, and with light touches on them, and sometimes making stops and discourses at length, as either the matter required, or as the Landgrave exacted it from him. It was a pleasure to hear a Philosopher discourse of the Court; and if that Sophister who rendered himself ridiculous before Hannibal, had not spoken worse concerning War, I cannot fancy that Hannibal would ever have scorned him.  
Public Affairs are often foul and full of ordure, whereby with the least touch a man contaminates himself, but the speculation is more honest than the management of them; that's performed with innocency and purity: the Pictures of Dragons and Crocodiles having no venom which offends the sight, may have colours which rejoice the eyes. And I must confess, the world which in itself so much disgusts me, would in the conversation of Aristippus seem to be delightful and full of divertisement.  
In this rich and learned conversation, as in a Tower neighbouring Heaven, and built on the shore, we securely regarded the agitations and tempests of the world. We were spectators of all the parts which were acted through Europe: Aristippus formed arguments of those which were yet to be acted, & his acquired as well as natural prudence, which knew all both the past and present, taught us also some new things for the future. He had chained me to his tongue from the beginning to the end of his Entertainment, and I heard him with an attention so little diverted, that not the least word of his escaped me; but to make way for what he was to speak the next day, retiring myself into my Chamber, in the evening I wrote down the Discourses of the afternoon, and discharged myself on the paper of a burden of Pearls and Diamonds, as honest Monsieur de Coeffeteau, to whom I the next morning used to communicate them, was wont to call them.  
At that time I had as much reason to commend the fidelity of my Memory as I have now cause to complain of the treacheries wherewith it now afflicts me. Senecae the Father tells us of the wonders of his, in the Preface to his Controversies; I dare not go so far as he, nor will I prefer any thing of mine, which scents of the Mounteback. But it's very true that the same year these conversations of Aristippus were enjoyed, having heard a Sermon of two hours long, after my return from Church I wrote it entirely out, without indeed subjecting myself scrupulously to the words, neither did I lose the least part of the substance of the things.  
There are witnesses still alive of what I say. I can name some of eminent quality, who are full of life. Nor need any man think it strange, that after such an effort of Memory, which was then thought no small matter, I should remember seven Discourses of a mean size which Aristippus made in seven days one after another. One line of Vespasian's History served him for a Text to begin, and the landgraves' entreaties obliged him not to leave off in haste.  
To speak of the merit of the Discourses I think it nothing necessary; Nor will I allege the approbation they have had both on this and on that side of the Mountains. It will suffice to say that they have been read by those who correct Edicts and Ordinances. and that the Cardinal Richelieu, having carried them with him into Italy, returned them to me at Paris as he came from that fatal voyage of lions; nor was this performed only with very civil words, but with most obliging notes; wherewith he had marked the margin of the Manuscript: This pleaseth me; Nothing could have been said more prettily. This may be called excellent. I know whom he means, &c.  
These kind of marks which he usually made on the compositions of other men, were well known to those who saw him in his privacies, and who are admitted into his Cabinet, during his hours of leisure and divertisement. So that his Eminency had so much goodness as not to take to himself any thing that's to be read in these seven Discourses. He distinguished times and places, and did me the favour to consider, That when Aristippus spoke at Metz, himself at that time was but Bishop of Lucon, and that Monsieur Luynes was not as yet Constable of France.  
BUt it's not a time to relate the adventures of Discourses, since they are not yet finished, and that they are yet to make another voyage to the furthest parts of the North. Nor ought their elegy to be drawn from the Testimonies rendered them in France and Italy. They must expect the judgement of the QUEEN in Sweden to whom I send them; Being enlightened to the height she is, she will better know them by their appearance then by the relation of others, and presupposing that she desires them, it's more fit at first to content her curiosity, then to tire her patience with a long Preface.  
Let's not use so much artifice in presenting this Present of ours, and let's bring Aristippus to appear before her as soon as possible: Let's not offend ourselves with the uselessness of Dialogues, which most commonly embrasseth what's necessary. It spends too much time in Civilities and compliments, in Good Morrows and Good Evenings. I thought it fit therefore to cut off all superfluities, and present things pure and simple, as I have preserved them with care amongst my papers, after having collected them with pleasure from the mouth of Aristippus.  
But before I proceed, It will not be improper to do even as Aristippus would do if he were still in the world, and were himself his own Historian; having begun with a name which will afford felicity to the Book, without delay let's render it those homages which are due unto it.  
The virtue of CHRISTINA deserves somewhat extraordinary; but the present time is too poor for such an acknowledgement. We must seek honours for her in old Rome, and in the Country of Triumphs; and why should we not in this place renew the ancient custom of acclamations, which were the triumphs of every day? These require no pomp, as others do, and their expense may be made even by Poverty itself.  
Let us therefore praise, let us bless the Daughter of the Great Gustavus, the Great, the incomparable Christina, for the good examples which she gives to so wicked an Age, for having made an end of War, and for having made a Peace, for knowing how to reign, and for her not being ignorant of any thing which deserved to be known. It's Christina who hath opposed Barbarism, who returned, who hath retained the Muses who were flying away. It's she who Sovereignly understands the Sciences and the Arts. She sets a price on the operations of the Mind. As she receives the applause of all People, she returns Oracles in all Languages; From whose opinions there is no Appeal, not even for Posterity.  
If this be so, and that she approve my Book, either it will be sure of public approbation, or it will not stand in need of it. But we must not do that wrong to the public to think that it is capable of a contrary thought to that of CHRISTINA. The World would never displease a person which doth it that honour and embellisheth it so much, by contradicting a person so sound in judgement, and so well grounded in Opinion.   

Aristippus: A DISCOURSE Concerning the COURT; Divided into Seven Parts.  

The First Discourse.  
IT's a singular opinion of some Philosophers, That a Wise man stands not in need of anybody; and whatsoever is separate from him, is to him of no use. Whereby they take away Friendship from the number of necessary things, placing it simply amongst those which are delightful. Yet others more civil than they, I mean the Philosophers of Plato's family, and those of Aristotle's, did believe, that without Friendship Felicity were imperfect and deficient, virtue weak and impotent. They said, Friends were the most profitable and the most desirable of all outward goods: They considered them not as the sports and musings of a Wise man in picture, but as the helps and props of a man of this world.  
There is none but God only who can be fully content in himself, of whom we ought to speak in such high and magnific terms. It's he alone, who being rich in his own essence, enjoys a most happy solitude, which abounds in all kind of good: He only who can operate without instruments, as he can act without labour: He who draws forth all from within his nature; for as much as things are thence in such a manner produced, that yet they forbear not to continue therein. Men on the contrary can neither live, nor live well; neither be Men, nor be happy without one another: They are linked together by a common necessity of Commerce.  
It's not sufficient for every Particular to be but One, unless he endeavour some way or other to multiply himself by the help of others. And to consider us all in general, it seems that we are rather so many divided Parts which Society reunites, than so many several entire Bodies.  
Those who are offended, demand justice; the weak stand in need of help; and the afflicted, of consolation: But all men universally want Counsel; it's the great Element of a Civil life; it's hardly less necessary than fire and water. And those two means wherewith Nature hath furnished us for action, relate to this end; REASON and SPEECH, which were principally given us for counsel. Beasts are carried away by the swift impetuosity of their natures, and by the presence of the first object: Men have the conduct of themselves by Deliberation and by Discourse: Having the gift to seek and to choose, they may instantly pass from the present to the future, and from the first to the second, and stop there if they so find it fit.  
Pirates make use of Counsel, nor do the Savages live without it. With far more reason is it therefore entertained amongst civilised people. But everywhere wise men must borrow it from others, because their own wisdom is to be suspected to them in things which respect themselves. Man is so near himself, that he can find no place betwixt both, no free space for to debate the counsel he would give himself: He cannot hinder those two Reasons which deliberate in him, from confounding themselves in communication; That which proposeth, being too much mixed with that which concludes.  
He who counsels therefore, must be another person distinct from him who is counselled. There must be a proportionable distance betwixt the objects, and those faculties which judge of them: And as the most quick-sighted can never see themselves, so the most piercing judgements want perspicuity when it concerns their own interests. What natural knowledge soever we have, and what light soever comes down on us from above, yet ought we not to reject human means, nor to despise this advantage of reason, and this great illustration of the truth which is gained by Conference.  
Let us acknowledge the imperfection of Man severed from Man, and the prevalency of Society above Solitude. Since the Friend of God, and the Conductor of his people, although a miraculous cloud Marched before him by day, although a Pillar of fire did the same by night, placing themselves in the place where they were to encamp, did not forbear to take a Guide, to serve him in other difficulties which during the journey might occur; should any man after this not ask for a Guide, nor seek assistance? Who is it that can trust so much to the advantages of his birth? who is it that can so negligently sleep on those favours which he expects from heaven, as to imagine that the assistance of others is useless? as to believe that his fortune alone and his only wisdom are sufficient for a good Government and a good Conduct?  
Those who are raised far above the common condition of men, have raised themselves by some degrees. It is not Chance which cast them above others; nor is it their own virtue which hath done all: They often meet with the services of some one person, amongst the wonders of their lives. And it's visible through the course of all Ages, that those Princes who have gotten most, are those who have been the best seconded. Of so many Examples, a crowd of which are to be found in History, I shall only make choice of that on which we yesterday discoursed, and which obliged his Highness for this day to make me speak.  
VEspasian had lived under the Tyranny of Nero, and had saved himself from his hands by miracle: But he contented not himself with his own safety, after that Monster was dead; He took heart and undertook greater matters for the public good. Observing that there were other Nero's which threatened the World, and that new Monsters unchained themselves, he hazarded himself to preserve the World, by seizing on the Empire: He embraced the Protection of the people of Rome, the glory whereof was almost all fallen, either by the sword, or by poison, and the remnant which was left was daily exhausted to fill Islands and Dungeons. He had stopped there, at his good will and good intentions; He had seen all the last Lights of the Senate extinguished, and the commonwealth perish before his face, but for the powerful solicitations, and the vigorous pursuits of Mutius, who as it were by force placed the crow on his head, and in despite of him made him Emperor.  
He at first staggered the mind of Vespasiar. which was then fixed on present occurrents, although he approved them not; nor durst he be the Author of that Change which he desired. And after having cast him into an irresolution, he urged him with so many reasons, and persuaded him with so much eloquence, that he at last constrained him to make an end of the design, and to engage himself in the public cause by an open Declaration.  
Now it's fit you should know, that Mutius was not a man who engaged in a Party with fair words only and good wishes; but presently he fortifies Vespasian with men and with money; He acquired him Provinces and brought him Legions: He spared not his own person; when he thought it fit, he laid his life at stake, and would needs be the Executor of most of those things which he counselled.  
Princes which are to be made, cannot be without such persons; and Princes already made, have great use of them. There never was any One so strong, who by his own strength could bear the burden of the whole Government: Never was there any so jealous of his Authority, as to be able to reign alone, and to be indeed a Monarch, to take the word in the rigor of its meaning. Neither is it other than a pastime and invention of the Platonians, to slatter Royalty and place it above human condition, to say, That God endowed Kings with two spirits, that they might govern well. Plato often sports himself after this manner; He philosophiseth poetically, and mixeth Fable with his theology. This double spirit is of his concession: And it were better to explicate it of the King's spirit, and of that of his Counsellor, then to have recourse to Miracles, which must never be made use of but in case of necessity, not even for the honour and for the glory of Kings.  
It is certain, they have a burden so disproportionable to the weakness of One, that did they not trust to the support of many, they would from the very first step which they took catch but a most certain fall. Did they not call their friends to their succour, and did they not divide the Globe of the Earth, they would soon be punished for the temerity of their Ambition, and sink under the weight of their own Fortune. That multitude of Cares which from all parts assaults them, would not afford them a free respiration; The crowd of Affairs would stifle them at the very first Audience they gave.  
There are several degrees of Servants, which all have a place in the Administration of a State. There are Spirits of a mean capacity, which untangle, which prepare and dispose affairs: These are fit to begin the work; they make way, and take away the difficulties which embroil things. These Spirits are employed by the Prince for every day, and he dischargeth himself on them only of the grosser functions of his Royalty.  
There are other Spirits of a higher elevation, which he may trust in more important employments, and afford a more noble share in his designs. These govern under him and with him; nor are they evil Pilots in the sweet seasons, nor on those seas which suffer but little agitation.  
But how happy is that Prince, and how is he loved by Heaven, if in his time he meets with spirits of the first rank, souls equal with Intelligences in light, in force, in sublimeness! Men whom God creates expressly, and whom he extraordinarily sends to prevent or force the evils of their Ages, to divertor to calm the storms of their Countries!  
They are the Tutelar Angels of Kingdoms, and the Familiar spirits of Kings: They are the Seconds to the Alexanders and to the Caesars; They ease the Prince in all his toils; They with him partake saving Disquiets, without which there would be no tranquillity in the World. If in the States wherein we live there are such persons, let us bless their Watchings, which are so necessary to the public Repose, under whose protection we sleep securely and at ease. These excellent Watches, are they not the cause (my Lord) for which the Grecian Poe●s gave the Night the name of Wise and Counsellor? For so I fancy it; and the Grammarians do sometimes give the Poets furtherfetched explications.  
The Poets, Your Highness knows it better than I, were the first ancient Preceptors of human kind; they taught them the first Principles of policy and of Morality. Here then, as elsewhere, they have discovered and pointed out the Truth unto us. The Philosophers have since displayed it, and brought it to its full light. Having acknowledged this necessity of Society, and the defects which accompany Solitude; besides their Jupiter the Counsellor, and their Minerva the Counsellor, besides the Gods and Demons who always went in company of their Hero's, they have yet besides that given them Men to assist them in their enterprises, or other Hero's to undertake and act with them. Whilst Hercules cuts off the heads of the Hydra, Jolas' applies fire to it, to hinder them from springing up again. Diomedes doth nothing without Ulysses. Agamemnon's actions arise from the counsels of Nestor: And this Prince being to make a wish which might comprehend all others, desires neither more powerful forces then his own, nor that wealth he had not, nor the destruction of the Empire of Asia, nor the greatening of that of Greece, but only Ten men which were like unto Nestor, Agamemnon showing us thereby, That the fear he was in to lose Nestor, in respect of his extreme age, made him apprehend he should want men to substitute in his place. And Homer makes it appear, That one Nestor may sometimes be found in an Age; but that ten Nestor's are only to be wished.  
This wish did nothing wrong the memory of Agamemnon; Grease never reproached him for having suffered himself to be governed by Nestor; Nor was the King of Kings esteemed for that less wise or less worthy of the sovereign authority. On the contrary, it is an Axiom in the politics, which passeth for the Proposition of an eternal truth, and is as old as policy itself; THAT AN UNABLE PRINCE CAN NEITHER BE WELL counselled NOR WELL served.  
If to receive Counsel, presupposeth some advantage to him who gives it; the inferiority (on the other side) of him that receives it, forbears not to have its merit: He in his turn is the Superior; He retakes the first place, when he sets his hand to the work, and when by the execution of deliberated things he changeth Rules into Examples, and fair words into good effects. For although it hath been sometimes said in Rome, That Lelius was the Poet, and that Scipio was the Actor; And that it should be true, That he who composeth Verses, act more nobly than he who recites them; yet is it not therefore true, That that person who executeth glorious undertakings, produceth a less relevate operation than he who only counsels them. The Counsellor preserves his advantage but during the beginning of things, but loseth it in their event; and even in the commencement of them he hath it not entirely: Nor doth he who is counselled remain useless and without motion, during that time the Counsellors action lasts.  
Nature seems to prove what we say, and hath formed I know not what lineaments in the soul of man: where the Intellect, which we call the Patient, which is the seat of Learning, although it be enlightened by the light of the Intellect-Agent, yet suffers not in that manner, but that it acts also of itself. It judgeth of the Knowledge which it hath received; it revolves, it removes, it displays, it disperseth in itself this Knowledge: After having compared it with others, it from thence recollects consequences and conclusions. And so we may say, it works in company; and if it suffer, it's with the fairest kind of passion, which neither spoils nor corrupts, as that of a Wound or Burn; but finisheth and perfects, as that of Illumination in the Air, and of the Reception of Images in the Eyes.  
Let us speak less subtly, and in a more popular phrase; Let us conclude, that it's necessary to have hands, that one may profitably make use of tools; and to have Prudence, to use as one ought that of another man's. Wisdom itself is irresolute and but little assured, when she wants approbation, and is reduced to her own testimony. A concerted Reasoning despoils us not at all of the first apprehension we have of the truth of things. And our Aristotle hereupon tells us, That Salt doth not at all harm Sea-fish; and that Oil seasons Olives. A stupid and interessed Courtier puts affairs in disorder, and ruins in stead of building up. But a wise and faithful Minister, who equally divides his affection between the King and the State, renders the greatest services to both of them, and with reason according to my opinion may call himself The Temperament of the power of One, and the Common good of the republic. But my particular opinion were slight, nor would it have force sufficient to form and conclude this Discourse, did I not confirm it by the acknowledgements of the public towards persons so useful to the general good of the world, and by those resplendent proofs of affection and esteem which Princes themselves have rendered to the wisdom and fidelity of their Ministers.  
I omit Greece, where they have reigned with their Kings: I forbear Persia, where their Kings ruled by them, and where they were called The King's eyes; That is to say, as an excellent person explicates it, The King's eyes which are always open and always watching for the kingdom's safety, which at one and the same time look forwards, backwards, to the right and to the left.  
I shall only insist on Rome; where the Emperors, to correct that bitterness which is to be found in the words of Servitude and Subjection, have honoured such like Servants with the title of Friends; They have called them their Companions; sometimes, the Companions of their cares, the Companions of their wars and of their victories. And even thought fit that the People should call them so.  
They have caused Statues to be erected to them near their own; They have made them depositories of their swords, with permission to use them against themselves, if the good of the State required it, and if they rendered themselves unworthy of the power they had. They have caused Money to be coined, whereon was the Image of one of the Generals of their Armies with these words about it; Bellisarius THE GLORY OF THE ROMANS. And there is to this day to be seen a Silver-Medal, on the one side whereof is represented the Figure of Valentia, and on the other that of one of his Subjects seated in a Consular chair, holding papers in his right hand, and a truncheon in his left, with an Eagle perching on it. In the History of the Caesars there is also to be seen that proud Monument consecrated to the memory of a great Minister; TO Militheus THE FATHER OF PRINCES, AND TUTOR OF THE republic.  
The Inscription is singular, and the quality of the Prince's Father nothing common, at that time when the seat of the Empire had not yet been transferred from Rome to Constantinople: For after that, this quality was conferred as a Title of Office; and vulgarly, those who had the principal direction of affairs, were called THE FATHERS OF THE EMPIRE, AND OF THE EMPEROR.  
The History written since Constantine, speaks nothing else but of the Dignity of the Patriciate. Poetry itself could not be silent; and there are yet some jeering Verses which the Poet Claudian made against Eutropius the Eunuch, Consul and Patriciate of the Empire. His fall is celebrated in the books of that Age; and S. John Chrysost●m hath made almost an entire Homily thereof. Those jeering Verses particularly touch at the confiscation of his goods; And this is near upon the sense, if my memory fail me not. Why dost thou weep at the loss of thy wealth, which will fall into the hands of thy Son? The Emperor will be thy Heir; and it so became thee to be the Emperor's Father. I have recovered my memory, and the French hath reminded me of the Latin.  
Direptas quid plangis opes, quas Natus habebit?  
Non aliter poteras Principis esse Pater.  
Whereupon remembering myself, That the Cross of Jesus Christ had possessed itself of the place of the Roman Eagles, and that then the Emperors were become domestics of the Faith, and members of the Church, of strangers and of persecutors which they were before; I thought they might have borrowed that term from the Holy Writ, and from the discourse of the Patriarch Joseph.  
That great Minister glorifies himself in Genesis; THAT GOD HAD GIVEN HIM FOR A FATHER TO PHARAOH, (although perhaps he was younger than he) THAT HE WAS established PRINCE OVER ALL THE ROYAL FAMILY, AND LORD OF ALL THE COUNTRY OF EGYPT. And the same sacred History tells us a little before, That Pharaoh took off his ring from his finger, and put it on Joseph's; That he caused him to ride in a Triumphal chariot; That he commanded by a public cry, That all the world should fall down before him; That he told him in a full and general Assembly, THOU ART NOR MORE NOR LESS than PHARAOH; NEITHER HAVE I ANY THING MORE than THOU HAST, BUT MY NAME AND MY THRONE.  
Nothing can be added to so illustrious a testimony of so well counselled a Prince's resentment: And pray what can be said or imagined beyond it? You see that the highest Idea which I could possibly conceive of the dignity of the Ministry, is authorised by the most ancient of all the examples of that nature: It's impossible to go further in History; and I must confess (my Lord) I am sensible of some temptation of vainglory, for that a great Prophet explains me by the mouth of a great King.   

THE SECOND DISCOURSE.  
THis truth being established, That Kings cannot reign without Ministers; it's almost as true, That they cannot live without favourites. Good stays not in the place of its source; it will run and spread itself abroad: And it is but a commenced good, unless it be increased by communication, and unless it finish by dilating itself. But let us add something which is more strange, and yet is as certain: It hath been long since assured us by Reason, That were a man alone in Heaven, and that it were not in his power to participate it with another, he would be weary of his own felicity, and would descend from Heaven to Earth.  
Upon which ground I say, That the wisest Princes in the world, That the Augustans and the Antonines, if they returned again, That the Constantine's and Theodosiusses, may have legitimate affections, and reasonably love this man more than that.  
LET YOUR PEOPLE BE YOUR favourite, was Advice formerly given to a great Prince, but by a Philosopher somewhat too severe. To deny Kings the sweetest use of their Wills, and to despoil them of the most human of the Passions, were to be the Tyrant of Kings, and not suffer them to be Men: It were to tie them to the greatness of their condition, and to nail them to their Thrones. What a severity were it, that we would never have them appear in a shape like ours? that they should never divest themselves of that gravity which incommodates them? Is it a crime to have a Confident, in whose company a man may after labour seek repose, and divertisement after business?  
Virtue is not so austere, nor so savage: she destroys not Nature, she only corrects its imperfection: she knows how to render Justice, but she also knows how to do an act of Grace. In Charity she affords a place to whomsoever; the Stranger is received there as a Guest, and the Barbarian as well as a Grecian: But she reserves Friendship for a small number; she espouseth not all she embraceth.  
In Heaven, where the ideas and the first forms of things are to be found, are there not beneficent Aspects and favourable Inclinations rather towards these, than those▪ whence there are born on Earth the Predestinate and the Elect? Was there not a chosen People which was preferred before all other Nations; which was called The portion and the inheritance of the Lord? The Lord told them, I WILL BE THY GOD, AND THOU SHALT BE MY PEOPLE. In the family of the Patriarchs, this preference was ever found on one side, whilst all the rest were excluded? The Cadets carried away the right of Elder brothers; and the Advantage of Nature gave place to the Decrees of God.  
And when the Son of God himself came into the world, besides the Seventy two Disciples who were of his train, and who had devoted themselves unto him, he called Twelve Apostles, to render him a more particular subjection, and be nearest to his person. Even amongst those, there were Three to whom he declared himself more familiarly then to the rest: He showed them those marks of his Divinity, which he hid from their companions; He communicated many secrets of the future, during the agitation of his approaching death, and amongst the disquiets of his last thoughts.  
Besides this, he witnessed more tenderness for one of the three, then for the two others. S. John without difficulty calls himself the Beloved and the favourite of his Master: He everywhere glorifies himself of that favour; And methinks he used it with liberty enough, whenas he slept in the bosom of so great and dreadful a Master. Consider him but in the Picture of the Holy Supper, and see how he carelessly rests his head on a place whereto the Seraphins convey their looks with devotion.  
Since the Author and Consummator therefore of virtue as well as of Faith, hath had his Inclinations and his Friendships, and would not always command Nature; A Prince ought not fear to love after an Example of such Authority which yields him a full permission; And by the principles of a more wise Philosophy then was that of Zeno or of Chrysippus, he may be sensible, without being called Intemperate.  
The motions of his Soul need only be just and well regulated. Let him do good, but let him observe a proportion and measure in the distribution of the good he doth. Let him not presently thrust into his Council those whose conversation was grateful to him: We ought to make a difference betwixt persons which delight us, and those which are profitable to us; betwixt the recreations of the Mind, and the necessities of a State. And if he take not an especial care in the examen of the different Subjects he employs, he will make Equivokes for which his Age will suffer, and which will be reproached him by the Ages to come.  
Courtiers are the Matter, and the ●●ince is the Artist; who can easily ●ender this matter fairer, but not better ●en it is: He can add unto it colours ●nd shape in the outside, but cannot give 〈◊〉 any interior goodness: He may make 〈◊〉 Idol and a false God of it; but he can ●either make a Spirit of it, nor an able ●an.  
Even in Christendom such Idols are to ●e seen: There have been always unworthy persons happy; monkeys have ●een caressed in King's Cabinets, and ap●arell'd in cloth of gold; In Egypt there ●ave been Beasts seen on the Altars; everywhere there have been Defects and Vices ●●dor'd. What I am about to tell Your Highness, I have learned from You; and 〈◊〉 find it worthy of the spirit of Marcus Intonius the Philosopher. There is an Au●hority which is blind and dumb, which neither knows nor understands; which appears only and which dazzles; which is pure re●●n'd Authority, without any mixture of ●ertue or of Reason. There are Grandees who are only remarkable by their Great●ess; and their Greatness is all without ●hem, and altogether separate from their per●ons.  
These Great ones (my Lord) make me ●emember certain fruitless Mountains, which ● formerly saw travelling about the world, which produce neither herb nor plant; They touch Heaven, and serve the Earth for no use; Their sterility makes their height accursed. These, after the same manner, are not less unprofitable than they are great; and I look upon them as● the vain Monsters of the power and magnificence of Kings; like the Colosses which they have raised, and the Pyramids which they have built: They are the burdens and hindrances of their Kingdoms, which weigh down all the parts of the State; They are superfluities which occupy more room then necessary things. This is to be understood, considering them in a weakness which is innocent, and before they have added the injury of their Actions to the unworthiness of their Persons.  
These are the fair works of Fortune; these are the slights and extravagancies of this Goddess, who is without eyes and without judgement; to whom Rome hath given so many Names, and dedicated so many Altars. You have heard of some hypocondriacal Queens who have fallen in love with a Dwarf, a Moor, even a Bull and a Horse. Fortune is much of the same humour of these giddy-brained Princesses; she commonly selects the most ill-favoured and the most ill-shaped: when the praetorship is in question, she prefers Vatinius his Kings-evil before the virtue of Cato: And that we may say nothing that's worse, she practiseth Profuseness, nor doth she pay Deb●s.  
But we speak of a phantasm, when we ●peak of Fortune. The force of the Stars, ●nd the necessity of Destiny, are also other phantasms which the opinions of men form, after which I have no mind to run. Let us seek some more apparent cause of this fa●●or, which seems to have no cause; And as bear as we can, let us observe the birth of this same perverse Authority.  
What we seek, is it not a transport of Passion, which without reasoning escapes from the animal part, and stops at the first pleasing object, and at the first satisfaction of the Will?  
Is it not a sport and a fancy of Power, ●n exercise and an employment of Royalty, which takes a pleasure to do strange things; To astonish the world by Prodigies, To change the fate of the little and miserable, To paint and guild the dust?  
Is it not on the contrary a serious and deliberate error, a cheat to true fidelity, done to one's self by one's self, helped by the imposture of Appearance, which sometimes disguiseth men in such a manner, that they are to be known by none but God? It's certain, that most commonly they wear such doubtful marks, and what appears of them is so false, that he alone who hath made them knows their true value.  
But the Effect, which we take so much pains to draw from the obscurity of the Causes, should it not be a Present made by Occasion? For, it's she who commonly offers Servants to Princes; She obligeth them to take what comes to hand, and what comes in sight. Their impatience being unable to suffer delay, and their softness being an enemy to all manner of trouble; to spare themselves the tediousness of enquiry, and the difficulties of choice, they set to work the nearest Instruments, and retain as it were by custom those whom they took but by chance.  
To conclude: This favour which raiseth itself to this height without any foundation, should it not rather be an effect of self-love and a complacency, which no man refuseth to his own opinions? Should it not be our honour which we conceive engaged in the perfection of our work? Should it not be a leven of that natural pride hid in the minds of men, which particularly swells the hearts of Kings, when the maintaining of a fault which they have committed is in question, that so they might not confess that they can err.  
Whatsoever this favour is, it's none of virtue's creatures, not so much as of the virtue of Blood; Merit hath no share in it, not even the merit of the Race. The freed men by Claudius; the Servants of Constantine's Children; the Governors of those of Theodosius; the ●usebius's and the Eutropius', are no legitimate favourites, far less legitimate Ministers. And truly, I pity the Empire, and am ashamed of the Emperor, when I see the Empire & Emperor in such servile mercenary hands. With horror I look on those base spectacles of unhappy Reigns, those monstrous productions of evil times; Blind times, times full of darkness, unhappy in Princes, and barren of Men. And in your opinion, was there ever any solitary person so estranged from Court, who was so little interessed in the things of this world, who without disdain could look on things so disjointed, and see the world overturned after such a manner? Was there ever so calm a Contemplative, who without emotion could see people of nought wrest into their hands the conduct of great States, and seat themselves at the stern, although they ought only to have been at the oar? Yet hath this been seen, and that often too. The Consulare was profaned more than once by infamous persons; And he who under another's reign must have been hid amongst the Baggage, hath had the command of an Army.  
But besides the Eusebiusses and the Eutropiusses, the History of the Empire of the Orient wants not many such shameful examples: It shows us miserable Eunuchs, who had only learned how to comb women and how to spin, lifted up all at once to be Heads of the Council and captain's General. And other more recent Histories produce such as were Barbers, Tailors, Grooms of the Chamber the evening before, the next morning changed into Chamberlains, Ambassadors &c. employed about the most important Negotiations and most illustrious Offices of their Country. So that whatsoever our Man can say, He who admires the Court and the Arts of Court, audacious Ignorance hath often presided in the Conduct of human things. Although he swears that he hath seen rays about the face of Monsieur the Duke of***, this false light is but a deception of the sight and an illusion of his mind. Fools have often held the places of Wise men; and there was a time when those who ought to have dictated the Laws and pronounced Oracles, could neither write nor read. It was not that their common sense was the clearer, for not besng imbroil'd in any stranger knowledges. They neither had the goods of Nature, nor any acquired goods: They only had what commonly follows natural and acquired goods; I would say, a good opinion of themselves, accompanied with the despising of others. Although it is not the common course to know affairs by revelation, and that they are to be learned by Experience, unless we can outgo Experience by the strength of Reason. They persuaded themselves, that Authority supplied all that; and that immediately after their promotion God was obliged to endow them with a spirit of well-governing, and to render the Prince's election valid by a sudden illumination of his Ministers.  
Yet it is not so to be ordered. It's all what God hath been pleased to do for the Ministers of his only Son, of whom we have said somewhat at the beginning of this Discourse. It's whereby he mocks proud Philosophy: He hath confounded human Prudence, by taking those new and gross souls to be the Considents of his Secrets, filling them very full (as an antieut Christian says) because he found them very empty. He hath taken from their cabins and from their shops, those whom he would make the Kings and Doctors of Nations. Other Ignorants must never pretend to be so enlightened; Nor that in stead of the Spirit of prophecy, explicating of the Scriptures, and the gift of Tongues, they should expect from hence the knowledge of past things, the penetration into things to come, the light which disembroils the intrigues of the Court, the science of making War, and the dexterity of treating Peace.  
Besides, they commonly succeed very ill in a procession which they never learned, and in the exercise whereof they have indiscreetly cast themselves without the help of any preparative discipline, without any ground of experience, without knowing so much as the first elements of Civil wisdom. You must make use of Address and of Method, to conduct a Boat and to guide a Chariot: You must know the ways, if you will go for a Guide. I have seen Rules and Precepts how to discharge the office of a Porter, and that of a jailor, although they are two employments which are of no great difficulty. You must therefore learn all the Trades, and study all the Arts, even the least and those which are most ●asie. And shall he who is to direct human kind, need no instruction? shall the World be governed by Chance and Adventure? May wethus' with three Dice play for the safety of Nations and Kingdoms?  
This is indeed unworthily to be in stead of God; it's to act Phaeton in the World, and unequally to dispense light●and heat on the face of the earth; It's to endanger the burning of one part, and the freezing of the other. Ignorant favourites every day run this hazard, and are engaged in this continual danger; I mean, of losing themselves and of losing their Country, even when they have refined their Ignorance by the Customs of Court; and that two or three good successes which come from the pure liberality of God, have made them have a good opinion of themselves, and made them believe they did the good which they did but receive.  
All their Actions are then out of frame; they are the false Measures of a false Rule. In stead of knowing where to stop at such a point of Occasion, so much inquired after by the wise, and so necessary for the perfecting of affairs, they always either go before or after it; either they pass beyond it, or they attain it not. To day, out of anger, they declare a War; To morrow, out of cowardliness, they beg a Peace: They flatter the natural Enemies of their Country, and offend the ancient Allies of the Crown. In Spain they would give Liberty of Conscience; In France they would introduce the Inquisition. The Frontiers are naked and disarmed, and they sortifie the Heart of the State. They have a mind to raze the Citadel at Amiens, and to build one at Orleans.  
But the Elections which they make of others, are very worthy of that which was made of them. For an Ambassage to Rome they propose to the Prince an expert Captain of a Troop, who hath signalised himself in divers battles. Upon their recommendation, an old Prodigal is placed in the Exchequer, who in his youth spent all he had, but who speaks admirably well of economy. They require the Charge of Chief Justice for a man who is indeed of the Long-robe, but renowned for his little knowledge in Learning. Of the same form he was who lived at I'aris in our father's days, when the Ambassadors of Poland arrived there; they having complemented this man in Latin, he praved them to excuse him for not returning them an answer, Because he never had had the curiosity to learn the P●lonian language.  
You smile, my Lord, and are astonished at the great literature of this man of the Long-robe. He made many other Equivoques, and some are told of him which are nothing ungrateful. It was he who thought Seneca was a Doctor of the Canon-Law, and that in his Book de Beneficiis he had fully handled all matters concerning Benefices. One*** of that time made him believe that Morea was the Moors Country. And there is nothing more true, then that he sought a whole day in his Map for Demecracy and Aristicracy, thinking to find them as well as Dalmatia and Croatia.  
It were a pleasure to be Learned under such a Reign, and the Muses may have great hopes of protection from such like Ministers. But let us proceed and not consider the interest of the Muses, whose fate it is to be poor and ill used under all kind of Governments, and by all manner of Ministers.  
These understand Men and Business, as you see. After having dissipated the Revenues of the State in evil and ridiculous expenses, that they may appear parsimonious, they suffer an important Occasion to be lost for want of Fifty crowns, which they will not allow for the dispatch of an Extraordinary Courier: They expect the day of the Ordinary Post, and imagine that Occasion will stay for him as well as they do. A politic Doctor who hath whistled them to his lure, and put into them five or six words out of our Taci●us, for having alleged it a hundred times a day on every accident, hath recommended unto them secrecy and Dissimulation. This lesson being taught them, they make a Mystery of every thing; they express themselves but by casts of their eyes, and by motions of their heads: At least they speak only in the ear, even when they praise their Master, and say, That he is the greatest Prince in the world.  
This religion of Silence hath gained upon their minds with so much ●uperstition, that they scruple to give necessary Orders to those who are to execute them, so much are they afraid to discover what was resolved in Council. They attentively harken to an alchemist, who promiseth them mountains of gold: With open arms they receive a banished person, who with ease discovers to them the Conquest of his own Country: And trusting on the faith of one or other, they embark themselves in some great Design, and begin a huge War, which the second day after they are tired withal. They do a thousand such like things. And if these Examples are not to be found in this Age, they were certainly in the past. If these Ignorant presumptuous, if these ridiculous Almighty-men have not been in France and Germany, there have been of them in Spain and in Italy.  
The misery of the Times, (It's better to accuse the Time than the Prince) this public misery, which hath caused Money to be made of Iron and of Leather, which hath set a value on the vilest things, hath also brought in request such men, and introduced them into the Cabinet of Kings; whither they have drawn along with them all the ordure of their births, and all the vicious habits which servile minds were capable of. For this is one Chapter of their their History, which ought not to be forgotten. And it's certain, that their Innocence never lasted much longer at Court, then that of the first Man's did in the terrestrial Paradise.  
At first, although perhaps they were not born wicked, they did believe they ought to become so, and so discharged themselves of their Consciences, that with less encumbrance they might manage the affairs of State. Moreover, they thought that Pride was well becoming their dignity; That should they appear the same they formerly were, their condition would be nothing changed, and their Civility would replace them into that Equality whence they had newly forced themselves with so much trouble. Thus they apprehended not to fall into hatred, that they might shun contempt: They have made themselves feared, being not able to make themselves respected. They esteemed that there was no way left to blot out the memory of their ancient baseness, but by the present object of their Tyranny; nor could they hinder the People from laughing at their infirmities, but by employing them to weep for their own miseries, and complain of their cruelties.  
With these fair Maxims and these Antipoliges which I have rough-cast, they have governed the world; but they governed it after a strange manner: They have overthrown what they would have maintained; they have broken what they had a design to fix: They have caused as many ruins, as they intended to make establishments; they have spoiled as many things, as they have undertaken. The falls of Princes, and the loss of States, have been the successes of their Administration. Having seized on the sovereign power, (I consider them again in their innocent infirmity) they have exercised it as children do knives, who most commonly hurt themselves, and offend therewith their Mothers and the●● Nurses.  
IF the Temerity of such persons hath not always been unhappy: If they have arrived at the Port, steering a Course which in appearance estranged them the farther off, (For it's most certain that these miracles have been seen; and I know some who have saved themselves by actions, which should indeed have lost them:) yet must we not confide in this blind Felicity which guided them; we must look upon them as persons transported with a violent imagination, who pass over Rivers in their sleep, without knowing how to swim and run over Precipices without taking a false step. We must admire them as DIVINE BEASTS, and not imitate them as REASONABLE MEN. This word I had from that good man Alexander ●icolomini, when I visited him as I passed the Seine, and found him on that green bed which Thuanus speaks of.  
If you ever are favourites, (with his Highness's permission I shall address my words to these two young Gentlemen who hear me) never propose to yourselves such like examples. They are very dangerous, how splendent soever they are: They are Flambeaux lighted on shelves, they shipwreck young pilots: They are Addresses which lead their followers to death, which serve only to deceive Posterity, to teach men Error, to give credit and reputation to Imprudence.   

THE THIRD DISCOURSE.  
AS those whom we left yesterday want a requisite Capacity, and have a very short and limited Understanding, There are others to be found who have it too spacious and too far extended, and who reason with excess. I speak of those Speculative persons who commonly aim beyond the End; who quit the Road, to find byways; who wander, that they may the sooner arrive whither they intend.  
Let us, if you please, call them Extractors of Essences. They bring their Advice to the alembic, and reduce it to nothing by the force of subtilising it: They evaporate in smoke the most solid Affairs. Let us call them State-Hereticks; which in policy would do, what Origen did in Religion. They follow the shadows and images of things, in stead of linking themselves to their bodies and to their reality. They embrace Probability, because they have painted and embellished it after their mode: But they reject the Truth, because it's none of their invention, and that it hath its foundation in itself.  
These Gentlemen fancy, That everywhere there is subtlety and Design; and that all the Actions of Man are premeditated: Nothing presents itself to sight, whereof they seek not the mystical and allegorical sense: These subtle Interpreters of other men's thoughts, never stop at the letter: And when two Princes with all their strength and with all the power of their States assault one the other, it's believed they hold Intelligence to cozen the rest of the Princes. They make judgements very like those sportful ones which were made at Athens; That the death of King Philip was not to be believed; and that he had expressly caused himself to be killed, to entrap the Athenians.  
By this ●ll encounter we may perceive how far a perverse subtlety will go, and what the spirit of Greece is and of these Speculatives. But there have been Speculators in all Countries; there have ever been alchemists and Bellows blowers, who have distilled human things, who have given more liberty than they ought to their conjectures and suspicions. Because Jurius Brutus counterfeited the Fool, they have misdoubted all other Fools: They fancied that all Changelings imitated Brutus; That apparent Simplicity was a hidden Artifice: That those who knew nothing, dissembled their Knowledge; That the silence of those who said nothing, was a cover for dangerous thoughts.  
It was the opinion which a Roman Prince had of a certain weak-witted man of his time, whom the Pages hissed, and whom nobody esteemed but himself: The History relates, That he apprehended his secret virtues; and that the universal scorn of the Court, and five and twenty years' Impertinencies in deeds or words before the face of all the world, could never secure him from that man.  
From the same Principle of False subtlety, those Visions spring which our Man finds to be so ingenious, and which to me seem so ridiculous, which the Doctors admire, and I cannot endure. At this passage Aristippus addressing his speech to the two Gentlemen who heard him; Do you think (says he) that like these subtle Doctors, Hannibal would not have taken Rome, for fear it would no longer be profitable to Carthage, and lest thereby he should have been obliged to finish that War which he had a mind to perpetuate? Did Augustus, in your opinion, choose Tiberius for his Successor, that his loss might thereby be regretted, and thereby to seek glory after his death, by the comparison of a life so much different from his? Do you believe that the Counsel which was found amongst his Memorials, to place good men in the Empire, was an effect of his envy against Posterity? Was he afraid that some aftertime another man should be a greater Lord than he, and the Commander of more Subjects? Is it credible, that the same Augustus made Love only out of Maxims of State, and courted the Ladies of Rome but only to learn their husband's secrets? Is there any likelihood, that his soul should move only according to rule and compass? That all his actions were balanced, and that all his vices were studied?  
In my conceit, this is to make the World more subtle than it is. 'Tis to interpret Princes, as some Grammarians explain Homer, who find what is not in him, and accuse him for a Philosopher and a physician, in some places, where he only is a forger of tales and a composer of songs. Let's sometimes content ourselus with the literal sense; Let's not seek a Sacrament under every syllable and under every point: Let's not be so indulgent to our own minds, nor so curious in searching into another man's. We need not go so far to seek the Truth, nor take things so high: We need not relate to hidden causes, and the Counsels of the past Age, present Successes, or which happened by Chance, or which a slight Occasion hath brought to pass.  
The Stoics, who would not that the leaf of a tree should move without the particular order of Providence, nor that a wise man should lift up his finger without the leave of Philosophy; judged not more advantageously of God, and of that Person who was nearest God, than these Refiners presume of a Man, who is often less than a mean one; who hath but a quarter or half a share of the Reasonable; who all his life never thought of being wise, nor of drawing near God. There is no Mean whereby to ajust their Opinions to our common capacity; They cannot descend to us. In the judgement which they make of Men, they cannot presuppose a human infirmity, that is to say, a Principle of errors and of faults: A disease born with us, from which nor Alexander nor Caesar were exempt; A defect which draws after it so many other defects in the persons of the most perfect, in the conduct of the wise, and if you please, even in that of Solomon himself.  
Great Events are not always produced by great Causes. The Springs are hid, and the Machines appear; and when the Springs are discovered, we are astonished to see them so small and so weak; we are ashamed of the high opinion we had of them. A jealousy of love betwixt particular persons, hath been the cause of a general War; Names given or taken by chance, The Green and Red, at the Games of the Circus, have made parties and factions which have torn in pieces the Empire. The Motto or the body of a Device, the fashion of a 〈◊〉 very, the relation of a domestic, a Ta●e told at the Kings going to bed, is in appearance nothing; and yet this Nothing hath been the beginning of Tragedies, wherein so much blood hath been shed, and so many heads made sly. It's but a Cloud which passeth, and a stain in some corner of the Air, which vanisheth rather then abides: And yet it's this light vapour, it's this almost imperceptible Cloud which raiseth those fatal Tempests which States are sensible of, and which shake the very foundations of the Earth. Yet some foermerly have imagined, that it was their Master's Interests which inflamed all the World, when it was only their Servants Passions.  
I doubt not but the King of Persia made most specious pretences to justify his Arms when he came into Greece, and but that his Manifests told wonders of his intentions: He wanted neither Pretences nor Right: He forgot not, that the great King came only to chastise the petty Tyrants, and that he offered the People a rich and plentiful liberty, in stead of a poor and barren servitude. He falsified his design several ways; and yet swore, perhaps, that this design was immediately inspired him from the immortal Gods, and that the Sun was the primary Author of it. Not withstanding some Manifests which he dispersed abroad, and some colour of Justice and of Religion which he coloured his Enterprise withal; This was the truth of the business:  
A Grecian physician, the Queen's domestic, having a mind to review the Port of Pyreum, and to cat the figs of Athens, put this fancy of War into his mistress's head, and got her to engage her Husband in the Design. So that the King of Kings, the powerful and redoubted Xerxes, raised an Army of Three hundred thousand Combatants, cut the Mountains, dried up Rivers, overburthen'd the Sea, for nothing but to bring back a Mountebank into his Country; methinks this gallant person might well have gone the journey with less expense, and with a less numerous company.  
But there presents itself to my memory (my Lord) another thing which deserves to be known, which you will find nothing ungrateful. It happened in the Kingdom of Macedonia, more than fourscore years before the birth of King Philip; at the time of that famous conspiracy, which of one State made two, and divided the Court, the Towns, and Families.  
It was Melcagers' Wife, Governor of a Frontier-town and General of the Cavalry, who obliged her Husband to revolt, and that for a very worthy subject. The King having heard of the spirit and gallantry of that woman, he had a mind to see her one day privately. It was nothing difficult for him to obtain a favour which she easily granted to lesser great Lords, and to less civil persons than himself: She accustomed not herself to tire the constancy of her Lovers, nor to cause any of them to die for despair. The King being come to the place assigned, and by misfortune finding her to be no such thing as he had fancied her, he at first sight witnessed his disgust, and went away presently with very little satisfaction. This affront was so briskly resented by her who took it, and who had no ill opinion of her own merit, that from that very hour she vowed revenge: And being unable to effect it better then by corrupting her husband's fidelity, and debauching him from the service of his Master, she to that end employed all the charms both of her mind and countenance. She on so credulous a spirit made use of the most subtle inventions which an artificial soul is capable of. And you need not doubt but in the heat of her revenge she would have had an infinite many Husbands, to have engaged an infinite number of Enemies against the King, and to have demanded satisfaction with more swords of the offence which she believed she had received.  
Thus did Meleager quit the service of his King, and embark himself in the Party of a Tyrant, without knowing what motion ●●rove him, nor what passion he revenged. He acted a person he understood not; He was his Wives soldier, and thought himself one of the chief Heads of the League. So easy, you see, it is for a man to deceive self in the judgement which he makes of the actions of men; since men themselves who act, are themselves he first deceived, the true cause being not always known unto them. They are often blind instruments, and are without knowledge of the interests or passions of another.  
The Speculatives of Macedonia forbore not to publish palusible and specious reasons for Meleager's revolt. Some say, that a reproach which the King cast on him in presence of the Thessalian Ambassadors, did so deeply strike him to the heart and made so wide a wound, that it could never be cured, That the caresses and favours which he received since that, were useless plasters applied to his wounded heart; and the remembrance of an injury, took from him the sense of a thousand benefits. Others allege the refusal of an Office he had demanded for his Son; which indeed was not given to another, but was suppressed, to keep him from entering into his family. There were some who excused this his change by the love he bore his Country and his zeal for the ancient Religion, which pretence the Tyrant took to make war with the King. All Histories hereupon exercise their subtleties, and were all sal●ly ingenious and subtle. They sought the source of this ill, some on this side, and some on that, and none found it; None of them spoke of Meleager's Wives di●dain, which was the only cause of her husband's defection; which indeed was never discovered till by the after-age, and long after the Kings, the Tyrants, and Meleager's death.  
THese two inroads which we have made into Greece and Macedon, were in our way, and I dare believe they were nothing displeasing to Your Highness. But I believe further, That You judge as well as I, that it's much more fit to divulge Visions in History then at the Council; and that subtlety, when it's amiss, is less dangerous when it relates things done, than when we deliberate what is to be done. And here, that we may say nothing which can be worse, It's the cause why things are not done at all.  
The People of Athens are too able to deceive the People of Thebes: Those plant their nets so high, and these fly so low, that they must do something extraordinary to be taken. I say moreover, The Athenians sometimes employ their subtleties to make themselves believe so, and thereby deceive themselves. From their false. Principles they must necessarily draw false Conclusions, and can never negotiate happily, nor ever bring their Adversaries about to them, keeping themselves always in terms so far from them, and coming so little near them, that they are so far from joining together, that they cannot so much as know one another.  
It's hard to hear better Orators, or to see Opinions better debated. But you must look for no more: They therein place all their care and all their industry: They make it so much their study, as if Discourse were the principal end of Deliberation, and somewhat above Action itself. They had rather make their Eloquence appear to the ruin of the State, then to preserve it without speaking word. They esteem it a greater advantage to bear away the bell in Council from the rest of their Companions, then to beat their Enemies in the field▪ So that they account as nothing the disgraces of War, hoping always to have their revenge at the next Treaty. And yet there they meet with some Mind of seel which is incapable of persuasion, which will cut what it cannot untie, and with a firm and constant Negative break all their snares and all their wiles, without troubling itself to unravel them.  
Witness that Governor of Figeac, who being at a Conference which Queen Catherine held with the Deputies of the King of Navarre and the Huguenot Party; which was to make them quit, before the time agreed on, those Places of security which had been put into their hands: She had brought from Paris a man almighty in words, to whose rhetoric nothing till then had been impossible. He from the beginning makes himself admired by the Assembly: In pursuit he raiseth sweeter passions in the hearts of the Deputies; and after having overcome their minds, he gains their wills: And already the most mistrustful had forgotten the Massacre, and would no longer have any Places of security: They acquiesced on the word of the King, and the Treaty was about to be concluded to the great satisfaction of the Queen; when in a moment all their labour was lost, and all her orator's Eloquence was overthrown, by that brisk answer which the Governor of Figeac made. This Princess had addressed herself to him with a triumphing Mine; and having asked him (rather to crown a thing done, and to gain applause, than that she thought she wanted his opinion) what he thought of the Speech he had heard: MADAM, answered he, with a voice so strong, that it broke the Articles of the already half-concluded Treaty, METHINKS THIS GENTLEMAN HERE HATH STUDIED VERY WELL; BUT NEITHER MY COMPANIONS NOR myself ARE OF OPINION TO PAY FOR HIS STUDY WITH OUR HEADS.  
Yet this Gentleman, of whom I shall speak in another place, was a very expert Negotiator, who had in other occasions succeeded most happily; And although he reigned in the Art of Well-speaking, yet was he not of those men who can do nothing but speak: He made this Science serve a better, and preferred not with them the glories of his Mind before the good of his Master's service.  
Our Men in effect are rather Declamators than Ministers; rather Sophists than Counsellors. They are not so much offended at the ill success of affairs, as they are pleased with the honour they have gotten for having well orationed on every one of the debated Propositions, and for having made themselves admired by the Deputies and by the Assembly. Their vanity easily consolates their misfortunes. It's sufficient for them to treat on the Deliberative Gender according to the precepts of Quintilian, and to know how to manage things through all those ways which Aristotle teacheth. These are the bounds of their Ambition: If they have not sinned against the Rules of Art, they are fully satisfied. And therein I find them like a physician of Milan, whom I knew at Padua: This man being content with the possession of his Science, and (as he said) of the enjoyment of the Truth, did not particularly inquire into Medicine the Cure of Diseases: Nay, he once boasted, That he had killed a man with the fairest Method in the world; E morto, said he, canonicament, e con tutti gli ordini.  
In easy businesses they sow thorns, that they may reap them. In the least Occurrent which presents itself, they raise a thousand difficulties: They find as many Expedients, and most commonly form no Resolution: The very many things which they see in every Subject, taking from them the liberty of choice; and Abundance rendering them poor. They entangle themselves in the multitude of their Reasons, and most commonly stop at the worst. And this is the reason: It's because the worst is the last endeavour of their already tired Fancy; and that it having been to seek beyond Common sense, which was already drawn dry, it seems to be more theirs than the rest which were drawn from that public spring, or which they had taken from Experience.  
At this rate, what a good thing is That sobriety of knowledge and of understanding, so much esteemed by the sacred Scriptures? Let's confess it to the shame of human Reason, and of the subtlety of the Sophists: A great Mind being alone, is a great Instrument to commit faults; And if a necessary judgement weigh it not down and clear it not, to subject it to use and accommodate it to example and practice, doubtless its penetrating vivacity would be far more fit to agitate Metaphysical Questions then to give good Counsel, then to undertake or to act as one ought. In effect, human actions must be humanly managed, that is to say, by possible and familiar means, in a way which holds from the Body as well as from the Mind; with Reasons which sometimes fall under sense, and which do not always abide in the upper Region of the soul.  
Those Refiners who act otherwise, are good to embroil Negotiations, and are nothing worth to bring affairs to conclusion: They are excellent Disorderers to confound a State, but ill Ministers to govern it. They succeed in Disorder, and as the Spirits of the Air they mingle themselves amongst Thunder; but they have no more force as soon as a Calm appears, the point which dazzled us being but a light of lightning; it's very dangerous to make use of such like address in the variety of accidents, and in the several distortings of a civil life.  
But were it a true and continual light whereby they are guided, were it the Sun itself which conducted them, it makes not that they must always find the end they seek, and that they must arrive whither they tend. And of this, my Lord, I should have somewhat else to say, if the noise of a Coach and of several voices which I hear, did not give me notice that this is that hour of Audience which Monsieur the Duke of Espernon hath demanded of Your Highness.   

THE FOURTH DISCOURSE.  
THE Landgrave failed not to be brought the next day at the ordinary hour into the Chamber appointed for Conversation. After having witnessed to Aristippus the satisfaction which his last Discourse had given him, he desired him not to fall on a new subject, till he had finished what he had left imperfect. Aristippus obeyed him, and spoke much after this manner.  
A Man cannot believe how Reason wanders; I speak of that which is most right and the most enlightened: and how much Men deceive themselves; I mean the most able and the most intelligent: That there is a great distance betwixt Words and Things; and that it is not the same thing to bring forth, as it is to conceive; to execute, as it is to discourse. In Conception and in Discourse, it seems as if all laughed, and that all would please us. To a Mind employed in a delightful Exercise, in the search of what it desires, and in believing what is sought, there is nothing but joy, nothing but what tickles us. In this condition it receives them as the first delights of Love; it relisheth those sweets which spring from new Opinions, and from the discovery of the Truth, or of somewhat which resembles it. So long as the Mind thinks, and so long as it reasons, nobody disquiets it in the possession of its Object: It masters Designs and Enterprises; it runs after fair ideas which suffer themselves to be taken at pleasure; and meeting neither with contradiction nor resistance, it enjoys the purity of an Intellectual Good, which was never yet altered by Action▪  
But neither is this all: It must at last quit these enchanted places, and issue out of these vast spaces, to enter into the true World. You must set your hands to the work, and come to Action after Meditation Then it is that things take a new face, when they are no longer so fair, nor so easy: Then it is, that the Soul is in labour and suffers the throws of travel: Then it is, that painful Effects follow voluptuous Reasonings; and that what appeared a Friend and favourable in thought, revolts and becomes an Adversary in the operation. It's then no longer a Merchant at the Port, who trades by the Map, and proposeth to himself gain without danger, and a voyage without a storm: It's a maker of Vows in the midst of a Tempest, who now repents that he ever parted from home; who casts his wares into the waves, who seeks for a plank to save his own life. The winds do not rise against words and deliberations, throw not themselves against shelves: The Cabinet is a place of peace and rest, where we trace out and where we design things absent, and objects which are far off. Besides, Picture may represent a thing, and yet not be it; There is always a difference: And there needs but a beginning of Passion, but the weak boilings of Anger, but a light tincture of Shame, but a slight grimma to spoil all the resemblance, and to make another thing, even a contrary thing of what we esteemed the same, or at least like it.  
I shall leave you, my Lord, to think on the second part of this Comparison, and conclude, That Affairs have days, biases and postures; which are neither to be seen nor observed but in the affairs themselves, which embroil all the draughts and all the notions which out of it could possibly have been formed of it. There are certain motions and certain times which render our own knowledge unknown unto us: Study cannot prevent them, Discourse cannot sever them from action: They hold and link themselves so fast unto it, that there is no way left to sunder them; and on the other side, they pass so quick and so imperceptibly, that it's impossible to copy them.  
The Romans meant this, when they said, That a man ought to deliberate with Occasion, and in the presence of Affairs; That a man ought to consult with his Enemy, and resolve himself at sight of his Mine and looks: That the Gladiator took Counsel in the Ampitheater; That often Counsel was rather to be ravished then to be taken.  
This is principally to be understood in War and Military actions. But there is a War (which is hardly cr●dible) even in peac●able and disarmed Actions: We must fight everywhere, one way or other. And Doubt, Objection, Contrary Reason do not always assault us in the Front nor openly; they often lie in wait for us and in Ambushes.  
Those Difficulties which were hid from our mind, in an instant present themselves to the fight. Time breeds its hindrances, Men often cause theirs. One only Circumstance changeth all the nature of an Occasion. After we have concluded, That this, or that will happen; nor this, nor that happens, but a third Event, which puts Foresight in disorder, and Conjecture to confusion.  
The defect is in the Matter, not in the Undertaker. The Act may be well understood, and the Design well laid; but the Instruments may be to blame, the Marble and the Copper may be corrupted. Besides, a thousand accidents, I know not what, may come no man know from whence: There may come misfortunes from Heaven above, and from below the Earth; A thunderclap may ruin the materials, a subterranean Wind may make your work fly in the air. And if you will believe an ancient Poet, The Gods will sometime recreate themselves; they make it their pleasure and their pastime to sport with the Thoughts of Men.  
Good and Ill policy are equally subject to these latter inconveniences; nor can we assure ourselves of any thing against Heaven: B●t without the Heavens intermeddling, the policy we speak of forbears not to be unhappy. In building them, it sees the falls and ruins of its works; or rather it sees only the Maps and the Projects, because it rather designs than builds. It figures Business and Undertakings, as formerly republics and Princes have been fancied, which had only a being in the Mind, and could never be but by Miracle. In effect, what are these Affairs and these Enterprises but bold and magnific Dreams, which flatter the Imaginative part, and unprofitably amuse Reason? What are they but admirable Tales, and impossible Histories?  
After this manner the Speculatives compose Romances in their Counsels, and form Propositions somewhat like those of that Artist who was so famous in the History of Alexander: You know he found Colossuses which were little, and pyramids which were low. He would have made a Statue, which in one of its hands should have borne a City, and pour a River out of the other.  
These men also dote magnificently, and their thoughts are no less vast nor less irregular. There is no proportion of that Greatness which they conceive, to the Meanness of what is feasible. Matters are not capable of their forms; and their pieces cannot be acted, because they cannot be fitted for the theatre; there needs too many Engine● and too many Machines; there are no Actors in all Europe to act such Parts: The representation of them would be difficult to a King of Persia, and yet for such they chose the Prince of Miranda.  
Do not fancy, my Lord, that I intend to laugh. The first journey I made into Italy, I met with one of these gallant Spirits, who proposed the Conquest of Greece, and was but little more powerful than he whom I but now mentioned. But Your Highness may observe, if you please, by the way, That this brave Man's Father was a Neapolitan, and his Mother of Florence, and that they had taken care he should be bred at the Court of Rome. It's true, they chose a means very proportionable to the end, and they did raise a great Enemy against the Great Turk: Must he not have been confident of a great many Miracles, to have thought to have done any thing with such small Forces?  
Yet must I in his favour confess the truth; I never met with so fruitful, nor so hot a Fancy as his; There never was so quick a discourse, which ran over more, or which with more difficulty could return to its source. But this fertility and this capacity did nothing but furnish matter to his extravagancy, and give but the more scope to his fond thoughts: The farther his Reason went, the farther it straggled from his end.  
After a long Conference I had with him, I knew that the great Design, which he called The Interest of God, and the Business of the Virgin Mary; which he was going about to solicit in the Court of Princes; had no other foundation but the desire of an Intelligence with the Cossa●ues, the hope of some Revolt in some place or other, the word of a Greek Hermit, and the Vision of a Melancholy person. Yet was he, as I at first told you, a very good Wit; There was a great deal of pleasure to hear him: And out of Constantinople and Greece, about which his extravagancy rolled, he forbore not in other matters to be wise enough. I have heard him deliver Oracles, and speak things which methought were Revelations; so far did I find them beyond the common reach of a human spirit. He erred only in subtlety; he had too much of that which lifts up and moves▪ and too little of that which settles and fixeth itself. His very Reason was agitated; He dictated Dispatches at dinner; He slept with his eyes open: And I shall tell you, my Lord, from one of his domestics who is yet living, and who commonly lay in my chamber, That from his open eyes there commonly issued such frightful rays, that he was often frighted with them, and was never well accustomed to them.  
To a Man of this Temper, the same advice to govern himself well might be given, as was to one for his health. One must tell him, if he would give the World leave to speak; Thicken your blood a little, temper your Fire with your Plegme: Make not use of all your Reason; Be not altogether Intelligence, and all Light: Make yourself a Beast sometimes; that is to say, stop at the nearest object; and enjoy this day, without tormenting yourself too much about to morrow. Suffer not your mind to be overcharged with this infinite Foresight, which seeks out evils as far the ends of the Earth, and even to the last of Posterity; which throws itself so far into the future, that it forgets the present, and forsakes those things which are, for those which may be▪  
Did you never hear speak of the Soul of that Philosopher, which commonly went out of his Body to run races and to take journeys? Once when this wandering Soul would have returned as it was w●nt to do▪ it found no more a Body in condition to receive it, his having been assassinated during that interval of time it was away. If Greece be not a liar, this poor Philosopher meditated longer than he ought to have done, and his Meditation cost him his life.  
But this is the moral sense of the Fable; which tells us, that if we will live, we must not altogether unlink ourselves from our bodies, nor separate ourselves from matter. Our Reason must not estrange us from our own present interest, and from the business in agitation: It must not think to fly at all, and carry all before it; Nor fancy to beat the Turk with words, or conquer the World with subtleties.  
In some occasions let's take a Septentrional soul, mixed of more earth than fire; and let's quit this Oriental spirit, whose fire is so subtle, that it rather seems an illusion than a truth. Let's mistrust the Eloquence of Athens, and the Wisdom of Florence; since this hath been nothing profitable to those who practised it, and her Doctors are become slaves for teaching it. I shall go yet further: what beyond the Mountains is called The French Fury, hath more than once prof●●ably succeeded; I do not say in the Field and in War; I say at Rome, I say in the Conclave▪ which is the great Business of Rome, which is the Camp of policy, which is the Theatre of Prudence.  
But here is wherewith very much to astonish the perpetual subtlety and the endless Ratiocinations which our Distillers of Tacitus his Maxims make. Here are four words (without more ado) in opposition to all the babble of that insolent policy, which in despite of Destiny, even to the exclusion of Jupiter, would preside over the Government of human things.  
Prudence itself counsels us, that we should not always take its Counsels: she advertiseth us, that she meddles not with the regulating of extremities, nor with the conduct of Despair: she in some encounters dispenseth us from those things, which in others she ordered us. Without offending her, we may cross the fields when there is danger on the right and left, and try whether an excess may not cure us, when other remedies have ill operated; and cast ourselves into the arms of an Enemy, when she is no longer able to defend us.  
Thus, as you see, with the consent of Prudence, one may be Imprudent. And to this purpose it will not be unhandsome for me to tell Your Highness, what one day happened to me as I was in Treaty with a French Lord, who till then had been extremely happy, and yet with some eluctancy had taken party in an Occasion wherein it was necessary to hazard somewhat. Being urged to conclude and ●esolve, Yes, said he; but if I do it, I shall yield much to Fortune. I could not avoid answering him, You owe as much (Sir) to Fortune, you have received as much from her: You cannot therefore give her much, you can only return her somewhat.  
And indeed, as Fortune commonly goes where she useth to go, and will not lose her first benefits; so she will also have those she favors confide in her, she will have them make some advance, and not demand a reason of her for all she doth. A man must not always be so regular and so methodical; A man must be bold, to be happy: But it is not properly those whom we speak of to day, who want courage and boldness. We may look on those wise timorous persons in our next Conference, wherein I shall endeavour out of my memory to design their Picture; Your Highness hath so ordered me to do, since you obliged me absolutely to remember all what I most willingly would have forgot.   

THE FIFTH DISCOURSE.  
THE Court hath been governed by another kind of Men; and there are still some of them to this day. The People call them Wise men: And in effect they want neither Sense nor Experience; They know the Nature of Affairs, and the Possibility of every thing. But commonly their Knowledge remains hid in their mind, and produceth but a vain and idle Contemplation, which is fertile only in barren thoughts. It's a virtue which finisheth in itself; It's a Power which is never reduced into Act: whether it be that they feel themselves not strong enough to undertake the good which they see, and that their eyes are better than their hearts▪ or whether their advantage being more certain in the present, they prefer it before a good which is not yet.  
Howsoever it be, They advise themselves, rather than counsel their Master; They answer his sentiments, and not his demands. And if they fear the rigor of the Times, or the incommodity of the Ways, they would decline proposing him a journey in January, or persuading him to pass the Alps, if their business lay at Paris. Their advice issues all from the inferior part; they are all terrestrial and material: Interest always carries it with them beyond honour or Reason. Being sensible of no more powerful temptation in their souls then that of Gain, they ground their opinions on the same baseness and on the same considerations that a Farmer or a Receiver would do, were he but seated in the same place.  
Let the Ship which carries them perish, if it will, and let the public run the hazard; They easily comfort themselves for the shipwreck of the State, so as there be but a Skiff in which they may but gain the shore and secure their own family. We should very much deceive ourselves, if we took them for those violent Zealots, who would be anathemas for their Brethren, and who earnestly desire to be blotted out of the Book of life, so as those of their own Nation were pardoned.  
Yet a man cannot absolutely say, that they have ill designs against the State, and that they desire its ruin: They reserve only to themselves their first and most tender affections: Excepting their own Interest, I believe their Masters would be very dear unto them. But the mischief is, that they are never without their Interest, no more than from themselves; They find it wheresoever they cast their eyes: Their particular Profit presents itself everywhere, as his own shape did to that ancient sick person, who perpetually had it before him. They cannot divide themselves from Business, to look on it with the least freedom of judgement: They cannot extract out of their soul their Reason simple and pure, without mixing it with their passions. So that although they discover a conspiracy which is hatching, yet they oppose it not, for seat of offending the Conspirators, and to leave their Children such powerful Enemies▪ They have not courage enough to utter a bold Truth, if it be never so little dangerous in respect of the establishment of their fortune, although most important to their Master's service.  
A wretched and miserable Prudence▪ They consider not, that a Spy who gives advice, is not more mischievous than a Sentinel who says nothing; And that they are as well the cause of the Prince's loss by their silence, as the others by their treachery. They consider not, that leaving him to that danger whence they could withdraw him, they do no less contribute to his ruin then those who drive and precipitate him into it. They perceive not, that Infidelity do●● no hurt, which Weakness is not as capable to perform.  
This being so, my Lord, Is it not of them the Spirit of God would speak in chap. 22. of the Revelation, when it placeth the timorous in the number of Poisoners and Assassinates, and other execrable men, when it condemns them all to the second death, to that death which is so strange and terrible, to that lake burning with fire and brimstone?  
I know not the true intention of the Holy Ghost, and will not assure you that they are comprised under that rigorous sentence: But yet I very well perceive, that they are the last and the worst of all Cowards; and that it is not so shameful to fly in a battle, as to give a timorous Counsel. For at the least, if we fall into misfortune in war, a man may excuse himself either from the disadvantage of the Place, or from the number of the Enemies, or lay the fault on his own Men; and as Dust, the Wind and the Sun merit the glories of the Victorious, so also are they guilty of the loss of the vanquished. At worst, a man justifies himself by accusing Fortune, which in all Ages hath been esteemed the Mistress of Event, and the sovereign Arbiter of battles.  
It is not so with politic Assemblies, whereinto this blind Power is not admitted; where the Mind acts freely and without constraint; where Prudence quietly exerciseth its operations, and finds none of those obstacles and impediments which oppose themselves to the effects of valour. For which cause, all the excuses of Soldiers and of Captains have no place amongst Counsellors and Ministers. A wise man cannot warrant success; but he ought to answer for his Intentions and for his Advice.  
There's therefore no baseness like to that which begins at our Chamber, and removes not simply by the approaches and presence of Danger, but which cannot endure the only imagination of it, but which shakes at the least mention made of it. And to speak truth, It must needs proceed from the entire annihilation of that liberty which is born with Man, and from the last corruption of that Principle of Generosity, and of that sense of honour which we all have; since it's the cause we even deny to own or to consent to the Truth, seeing in that condition a Man is not so much as capable of the proposition of a difficult Good. There is no way left to obtain so much from them, as to set a good face on it, even in a place of security, to do so much as declare themselves, without danger, for the good of their Country; to dispute their Rights in a chair, and serve but for its tongue. A strange thing They would rather accept of Servitude, under the title of Peace, then to resolve on a Defence which were to be effected with the arms and the blood of other Men.  
We may also observe some Men, who expect till ill Fortune be arrived, that they may be astonished at it: They have a bold spirit, although they have a timorous soul. These Men speak high, when there is Time and Ground enough betwixt them and the Danger. Cicero was after this manner courageous: Never did the least word escape him, which was not worthy of the Greatness of the Commonwealth. He at least was valiant in the Senate; and he, methinks, protests in some of his Letters, That had he been invited to the Feast of the Ides of March, he should have had nothing left.  
Such a Citizen is not fit to fight a Duel; He would not willingly in his doublet engage himself amongst Musket-shot. He takes more care than other Men for the preservation of his life, because he esteems it worth more than theirs, and that it's nothing unhandsome to fear the loss of a thing so precious. He fears Death, or, to speak more civilly, Nature fears it in him; but he fears neither Envy nor Hatred; but he equally despiseth the threats of Great men, and the murmur of the People. If his Forces are not sufficient to throw down Tyranny, he makes use of his voice and of his breath to stir up others to the recovery of their liberty: He at least calls Men to Arms as loud as he can, and contradicts Ill, if he cannot resist it. All his opinions fly high for the Greatness and Glory of his Master. He professeth enmity with all the enemies of the State: Disgrace and Poverty are nothing grievous, when he suffers them for a good cause; And Death itself, if it surprise him not, and gives him but time to consider i● well, he at last resolves to receive it like an honest man, and puts on valour out of necessity: By a long and serious meditation he forms to himself an acquired Courage which is no less stayed than the natural.  
Our Prudent persons arrive not at this height. Besides Death, they admit of so many other kinds of extremity, that they still meet with some one or other which stops them the very first step they make rewards Good. They despair, before they ought so much as to be afraid: They have always very great motives and very strong considerations, very important causes, (these are the terms which they use) that thereby they may avoid the performance of their duty. And because there is no Maxim in policy, which is not combated by another Maxim as certain and as probable as that, and that the Future hath as many shapes and faces as our imagination can fancy; They turn it about to look upon i● only on that side which terrifies them, and so with Reason defend themselves against Reason. They always consider, that the actions of men are exposed to many inconveniences; and never consider, that all the ill which may happen, happens not: whether it be that God by his grace diverts it, or that we by our address shun it, or whether the imprudence of the contrary party breaks the blow; it being most certain, that our faults often cast us into dangers, from whence those of our Enemies withdraw us. But they taking things at worst, and presupposing as certain all doubt●ul accidents, they regulate their deliberations as if they necessarily were all to happen, and commonly act not at all, because they ●ain would act but too securely. Or perhaps they do not dive so deep into business; and very seldom it is they bring them to the last point: They content themselves with a light mediocrity of success, and with the beginnings of good hap; they dare not promise themselves the continuation of them to the end in the least thing: So that with this their cold and heavy wisdom they may defer the fall, but they cannot escape it; they shore up the ruins which they are not able to relevate: They at most gain but some days, or weeks, and keep their affairs in hand till some who are more bold operate on them more efficaciously. It's an observation of Aristotle, That as the vivacity of Alcibiades his mind became extravagant towards his children, the solidity of Photion's changed into matter of weight when it descended from him to his race. But let's say more than Aristotle; That the wisdom of these Ministers is not so long a time in degenerating into weakness, into languors, and into cowardice. Before it pass thus corrupted to their children and to their posterity, it spoils its self from its very issuing out of the soul, and before ever it come to action. It appears weak in their Propositions and in their Counsels, which can be called neither prudent nor wise, without speaking improperly, without doing an injury to such fair Names, without offence to true Wisdom.  
What an error it is! As if Wisdom could never be courageous; That it must always fear, and always tremble. These new Wise men are acquainted with the Wise men of Antiquity: They have read Aristotle as well as we, and yet have not profited by that old Oracle which Aristotle reports; THAT A MAN MUST CALL DANGER TO THE RELIEF OF DANGER, AND SAVE HIMSELF FROM ONE EVIL BY ANOTHER EVIL.  
How deplorable soever the condition of the present is, they cannot resolve themselves for Novelty or Change: They would rather suffer Change then make, and expect it, then prevent it. In stead of obeying the Oracle, and tempting a second Danger, they accustom and make themselves familiar with the first: In stead of doing an endeavour to withdraw themselves from an evil course which they are fallen into, they seek a supportable posture to abide in. They are engaged in Evil so, as the Evil presseth them not, and so as they recoil to the last extremity: It's sufficient for them, so as Death be remitted to another time, and that they in the mean time may enjoy only the intervals of an ill life. Doubtless they would be of the opinion of a Spanish Poet, who said, That a Quartan Ague was a good thing, because a man was secure to live a year with it, at least to live six months, at least from a sudden death.  
What they do therefore, is not to reign, is not to conquer, is not to triumph; It's only to live, and that also after a strange manner: It's to spend the time from morning till afternoon, and so to draw on till the next day. Their Government is neither Peace, nor War, nor a Truce: It's a Rest of Idleness; it's a dead sleep which by artifice they procure the People, which is neither good nor natural.  
They know not how to cure, but only how to paint the sick and make them look well. They would reclaim Rebellion by Caresses; they glut it with benefits and with gratifications: But they thereby render it more powerful, and nothing the better; They increase its force, nor do they diminish its malice: They sometimes take from it some Men which are to be sold, and such Advantages as serve to no purpose, and they perceive not that it is to cultivate disorder thus lightly to touch its branches and its buds, and not to put the iron to the body and to the root.  
All their Experience is but the History of Misfortunes, which happened to those who durst, and did undertake. All what is not easy, they call impossible; and fear magnifying objects, and almost infinitely multiplying every individual, when three Malcontents retire themselves from Court with their Train, they fancy an Army of Enemies in the field, which draws along with it Towns and commonalties without resistance: And afterwards they do not put themselves in posture to chastise them, but they seek to sweeten them; and in stead of visiting them with Canons and Soldiers, they send them gownsmen, employed with Offers and Commissions, and promise them far more than they could hope for by the Victory.  
Thus they oblige a Prince to descend from his throne to treat with his Subjects, They make a sovereign a Private person, and a Legislator an Advocate. By this breach they break that distance which separates him from the People, and change Power into Equality: The Guilty ascend the Tribunal, and deliberate concerning their own fact with the Judge; they name the place of the Conference, and it's accepted▪ they choose for this Parley such persons as they most confide in, and they are granted them: And they there speak neither of Grace nor of Pardon; these terms would be of too harsh sound and would offend their ears. But the offended Master solemnly declares, That all was done for the good of his service, and thinks himself beholding to those unfaithful servants for the injuries they have done him.  
To conclude, the Design of these men being only to license the Company, and to divide the allies: they grant them more than they demand; they are prodigal of the public Faith; they husband's not the King's name; and after this manner they bring him to the brink of two extremities equally dangerous: For whether it be, that he will keep his word by the ruin of his Affairs, or whether he will establish his. Affairs by the violation of his word, he is still reduced to a most deplorable condition, either to hazard his State by being faithful, or to forfeit his honour that he may continue King.  
But if before all this, whilst things being still whole, he desires to take a generous resolution, and worthy of himself, if he will no longer have his bounty a rent and a certain revenue to Rebels; if he be wearied to see his Coffers exhausted to pay his enemy's Armies, and every day to purchase what he never gets; then do these able Counsellors represent unto him with several gestures and grimaces that he must not sharpen business; That wise men yield to the violence of times, as the gods do to the necessity of Fate: That Princes which reigned before him never durst stir that stone: That it were presumption to think to do better than our Fathers have done; That War is an ill means to reform a State; That to pluck a body in pieces to make it new again, is the remedy of a Magician; That to burn a house to make it clean, is the advice of an Enemy, and the resolution of a furious person.  
Neither is this all, They in pursuit produce great Common-Places in praise of Peace and Repose; they employ all the skill of the Rhetorician to exaggerate the miseries of war; They forget not the profanation of Temples, nor the violation of Divine and human Laws, to make their own cowardice relish in his mind, under specious terms; and to persuade him that they have Reason, they never confess they are afraid. They live thus near the Prince, and maintain themselves betwixt him and the Rebels by the that common necessity which there is of their Mediation to manage this filthy Trade, and to preserve two Parties in a State, that so the one may not destroy the other.  
They are also most commonly a friend to strangers: What need we dissemble, they far more apprehend to render their neighbour ungrateful to the King, then to disserve the King their Master, so that during their ministry, no man must speak of protecting the weak against the oppression of the strong, of awaking pretensions which are asleep, of undertaking any thing out of the Kingdom▪ what Justice, what Fitness, what Facility so ever seems to persuade such an enterprise. They condemn the memory of Charles the Eighth, and curse the Voyages of Italy; They even deride those of the Holy Land▪ till even they offend the piety of former Ages; not fearing to repeat after an impious fellow engaged in the latter, That they were the favours of those times, and Popular diseases; That they were from the youthfulness of our Princes, and from the heat of Liver in our Counsellors. One of them maintained, That Alexander had never been; That his History was but a Romance, that that of Amadis was not more fabulous, nor more unlikely.  
If their soft counsels do not always prevail over their Master's vigour and good inclinations; if some sensible injury which cannot be dissembled oblige the State to a public resentment; then when they cannot blame the thing in its principle, they decry it with all their power in its consequences and effects; And as if the Victory were not worth the charge of the War, upon the taking of a Town from the Enemy, they say, That it's to lose to gain, after that manner; so many honest men sacrificed to the vanity of one (this one perhaps, is a Prince of the Blood, or a Son of France) so many millions transported out of the Kingdom for the gaining of a paltry place; the expense of the Artillery alone would perfect our ruin, did we make but such another Conquest.  
Such kind of Ministers would not have pleased themselves at Carthage with the Victories of Hannibal in Italy; They cried out in Council upon the arrival of good news, when they poured forth bushe●s full of those Roman Knights Rings who had been killed in the War; Let him keep his iron Rings, and his paper Trophies, and send us back our Men and our money; the Affairs of the republic were never either more flourishing or more ruinous; It never had more reputation abroad, nor more misery within its own bowels.  
Such Ministers have caused the end of two Empires, and have lost Rome and Constantinople, by the fatal faintness of their Counsels; They have opened the door to all the Barbarians, They have shamefully purchased peace either from the Goths or Vandals, or other Northern people, whence all the ill in the world comes: They made no account of the dishonour of the Empire, and the infamy of the Roman Name: So as by the sweetness of the word, they might correct the bitterness of the thing; and so when they paid Tribute to their Enemies, they might be suffered to say that they gave a Pension to their allies; They minded not the fortune of the future, nor what would become of Posterity, so as they might but live as long as the State which they governed could last.  
Yet let us once more pardon them, and not accuse them of Treason. I believe they would not sell and deliver up their Master; but they are not angry that the world should know that they can do it; upon some occasions they make no difficulty of setting a price on him; they suffer him to be trafficked for: They even afford Merchants some Patterns, although they will not part with the whole Piece. It's one of their Maxims, THAT ONE MAY SOMETIMES DECEIVE THE PRINCE FOR HIS OWN GOOD. And when they hold intelligence with the Ministers of other Princes, they call that To labour for the general good of Christendom, and to maintain Peace betwixt the Crowns.  
In our father's days it was believed, that Barbarossa and Andreas Doria did not misunderstand one another; yet cannot any man therefore say, but that the one was a good servant to Soliman, and the other to Charles; But they had need of one the other to make their services valued by their Masters, and to keep the place they held: The Turk commended the Christian, and spoke of him as of the onel● man who troubled him: The Christian rendered the like to the Turk, in terms altogether as obliging, and as advantageous. And a slave of Algiers upon this subject spoke very pleasantly to a Viceroy of Sicilia, That a Raven never picked out the eyes of another bird of his own kind▪ And that if Doria were ruined▪ Barbarossa would have little ●redit at the Port of the Grand signior; as also, Doria would descend more than one step lower in the Emperor's Court by the ruin of Barbarossa.  
They helped and favoured one another therefore reciprocally, for the continuation of the War which was their Trade and their Business: And since ambitious men▪ who consequently love honour, were capable of such a kind of traffic, I leave you to imagine, if men loving only their own interest, and knowing nothing else that's honest and profitable would not be glad to preserve their Authority by such a Commerce; would they not, do you think, render themselves necessary, that they might continue? would they not for Peace, which would be a golden Harvest to them, and a Harvest which never fails, do what others did for War, whose Vintage●s so uncertain, and whose fruits are so sharp and bitter?  
THese are the proceedings of our Wisemen in the Administration of the State, and in the high Region of the Ministry; but when they go lower, and that their duty is more easy, they therein acquit themselves no better of what they ought. The affairs of particulars who depend on them, take the same course with the public. In sure and easy occasions, wherein they might at an easy rate show their strength, they cannot choose but make their natural weakness appear; they would not lose the friendship of those whose goods they have ravished; and at one and the same time, they fear and offend the same persons; they entertain all the world with general answers, and such as precisely do not oblige. A man never goes unsatisfied away from them, they never brave nor reject any man; they afford a man nothing but fair words and fair hopes.  
To him who demands Justice, they return Civilities and compliments; they present him who hath need of bread with Roses and Violents; after having held a man a whole year in length, promising you all satisfaction from day to day, at last when you press them to a conclusion, they desire you to tell them, and thereby make it appear, that as often as you spoke unto them, they never intended to harken unto you.  
A Pretender in the Court of Rome, having treated them after this manner, and returning home, as he went, met with a Gallows at his going out of Bologne (where the Court of Rome then was) and having a while stayed before the Gallows to look on a man who had been newly hanged, there, they say he cried out all at once with a loud voice, HOW HAPPY DO I ESTEEM THEE MY FRIEND TO HAVE NOTHING TO DO IN THE PLACE WHENCE I COME? You see whom, for their sakes men of business envy, and whereto they oblige men to go seek felicity; and indeed Death for Death, and one Hangman for another; a sudden Death, and a ready Hangman, were yet better than all this.  
Thus do they tire the patience of solicitors, thus they revenge the importunity of Supplicants, nor do they make themselves angry to make them despair: Wherein to speak the truth, their proceeding hath I know not what that's rare and worthy of consideration; Nothing can be imagined more sweet and more calm than their Malice; their poison is composed of as much Sugar as arsenic, and the equality of their humour is like to the calm of that River, where the lighter bodies go to the bottom without so much as the appearance of one cloud in the air, nor one breath of wind which moves them.  
A man of this make is a learned Artisan of calumnies; he never wants plaster nor colours; he can admirably well prepare and polish an ill turn; he blames with eulogies and not with Invectives; in appearance he bears testimony of some great Desert, and in effect he breeds suspicions of any man's great Reputation. You would say that he grieves for those he accuseth, and pities those he intends to ruin; rhetoric teacheth us grossly to speak ill, he hath found out a way far more quaint to do the same thing; this is called, to strike without listing up one's arm; it's to hurt without drawing blood, or the appearance of a blow. He disguiseth himself in a friend to hate one with the more security; and that he might be thought charitable at the same instant that he assassinates, he kills nobody, till he hath first made his funeral Oration.  
He tells the Prince, the eyes of all men are turned towards him; the soldiers call him their Father, and the People think he is their intercessor towards your Majesty; it's in his power alone to prevail with this universal favour, and the possession of so many hearts, to form a party which may carry his name; yet I believe he would not fail in his duty, and that all his are good intentions. The Astrologers and the Poets promise him a Kingdom; but besides that, they are people who never keep promise, it's perhaps a Kingdom beyond Sea; perhaps he must travel to the conquest of it to the farthest extremities of the Earth; yet it's likely that he will content himself with the place which your Majesty hath given him about you; His ambition will be more wise and more modest than that of other ambitious persons. Perhaps Sir, his designs will respect his majesty's Crown, and the Laws of his Country.  
The Prince's jealousy being kindled by these magnific excuses, and with this apparent sweetness, mixed with this bitter raillery, Mistrust with esteem enters his soul. But there is yet something to be done; The work is happily begun, but he must not stay there; the dissembling Courtier goes on▪ He adds, That whatever may be said, and what Crime soever is alleged he can never resolve to condemn a man who hath served him so well; that Philip and Alexander must in such a case consult with himself, and with the immortal gods; he must consider whether there be more danger for him to dispatch a deserving servant, then there is danger in declining it; You cannot lose him without a notable interest of State; You cannot preserve him without the evident danger of your person: Look Sir, which of the two is nearest, your State or your Person: Consider whether it's better always to mistrust that man, or assure yourself of him by those means which are in your power. A Sovereign, can he be in safety, whilst there is a particular person who can corrupt the Senate, desbauch the Legions, and make the People revolt?  
Thus without making high exclamations, or employing violent figures, he persuades a timorous Soul, and drives fear into cruelty. Thus cruelty seems sweet, and appears officious and doing good. By poi●oned praises, and a thousand times worse than dry Slander, he adviseth to death, still in saying, that he will not advise; he dischargeth himself from the envy of the murder, by the bias which he useth in making his proposition; he chargeth his Enemy whilst he shuns the odious name of his Accuser; When he hath perfected his destruction, giving him his last blow, he still dissembles his hatred, he still feigns himself good and compassionate.  
But withal, he is so much afraid lest he should not die, and lest the League should prove the stronger, that after having cast either Philip or Alexander into extreme resolutions, he causeth another game to be played on the other side; he advertiseth him whom he hath destined to ruin, That he hath no means left to serve him any longer in the Palace against an infinite many secret enemies, who do him very ill Offices; That for his part he knows no more the present, and knows not what to think of the future, seeing the Prince in such strange humours, and so far estranged from the first sweetness of his Nature; That he esteems those happy which are retired to their own Homes, and who have quitte● the Court, where good men have lost a place, being only now able to be witnesses of the violence of the wicked: That himself is ready to take his leave, that at least he may not by his presence seem to approve the evil which he cannot hinder by his counsels; and that neither his eyes nor his ears share in those things which are preparing.  
THis is but a little show of that great Trade of Juggling which is exercised at Court; and it's near upon what (besides our Tacitus) a Manuscript History which we have seen would say by its pessimum inimicorum Genus laudantes; It's the explanation or paraphrase of a passage out of Ammianus Marcellinus, when he speaks of the Court of the Emperor Constantius; and it shall be again if you please of those two verses in the Divine Jerusalem, which the late King Henry the Great esteemed so much and so worthy of Mounsieur.***  
Gran Fabbro di calumny, adorn in modi  
Novi, che sono accuse, & paion lodi.  
It's particularly in the Country of these two Verses where are excellent Cheats to be found: And I call to mind one of the principal Ministers of the first Court of Christendom, who past Master● in this rare Science. As far off as ever he saw a man whom he newly came from doing an ill office unto, he cried aloud to him I HAVE SERVED YOU SIR: And with these Maxims of Deceit he a long time governed the World. He grew extremely old in refusing and in granting nothing, in saying neither I nor no; in receiving both parties with the same serene countenance; Let him die then when he pleaseth; this Roman so little worthy of old Rome, so far from the candour and sincerity of the ancient Fabritius, with truth it might be inscribed over his Tomb, THAT HE DID lie THREESCORE YEARS AND TEN, and that the Comedy he acted lasted all his life.  
It's true, that we learn from some examples that formerly men lived happily enough under those soft and languishing Governments, and that they have not always been fatal to their Countries: But we must take heed in History whether the administration we commend, is not the consequence of a better Reign, whether it be not the remaining heat of a fire which is no more, and the motion of a shake which is quiet: We must observe whether they are not the father's virtues which uphold the children's Infirmities; and their Patrimony which furnisheth desbauches. For in effect, after a long continued order, Business moves almost of itself, and Policy cannot so soon receive a turn, being still sensible of that good impression which some great Prince hath left behind him. Besides, it's the nature of the things of this World to require time, and with trouble to pass from one condition to another. So that if it hath happened that the Commonwealth remain stable under such weak, feeble and ill assured Powers, it was perhaps obliged for its repose to those good and solid foundations which had long since been established, although that above it nothing appeared but straw and earth. It was not so much the fruit of the present Government, as the remains of the former happy conduct of Affairs.   

THE SIXTH DISCOURSE.  
TO this scrupulous and mistrustful Wisdom we may oppose a certain brutal virtue, if it be lawful to call it so; but the better to make it known, and to define it by describing it, might we not call it a passionate, untutored impetuous Probity, which rather follows the Fury of Nature, than the Discipline of Reason, and hath more Courage than Address?  
At first it seems to be vigour, and it proves Rudeness; it might be taken for Force, and yet 'tis but Violence; wherein the Mind fixeth itself, intending to stiffen itself, and becomes immovable, by meaning to be too stable: Now it imports a man very much to know how to turn and bend his Mind, according to the exigence of occasions, and the variety of those subjects which present themselves. If we render it supple and manageable, if it be not capable of several forms; in a world, so changeable as this, its use which ought to be universal, and not have any defined object, finds its bounds at the very beginning of his career; It stops at some encounters, which ought to be in its choice, and extends itself but to a very small number of things. And those things happening but very rarely, those Ministers on the other side, who are every day to be in action, they cannot with one only Drug make all kind of operations, and with the same fire cool again, what they before heated.  
I confess they have a good heart, and their intentions may be good; but they want both art and method for the conduct of these advantages of birth. They are made all of a piece; and if there be some overture of difficulty to be made, instead that they should stoop their heads, they must have the wall raised; They must constrain Time. Men, and Business to obey them, and to follow them: Thus never entering into another sense, being ever unable to shift place, acknowledging no other Reason but their own, they are not very fit to govern States, where it's necessary to take new advice upon the novelty of those accidents which happen, and where sometimes the pilot may learn somewhat from the Passengers.  
What an unhappy regularity it is to go outright, and not to turn from a Gulf which is in the midst of the way; to go over shelves, to have the honour not to go aside; to reject a good resolution because another proposed it? Yet your generous Imprudents fall every hour into these Gulfs, and continually rush themselves on those shelves; being unable to arrive at the first glory of virtue which is not to fail, they neglect the second, which is to know how to amend one's faults; because they cannot be Perfect, they will not be Penitent.  
Whatsoever the cause be, good or ill, which they at first embrace, they hold on with a blind obstinacy, wherewith they maintain it, and dispute as violently for the least of their Sentiments, as for the Religion of their Fathers; They would willingly be Martyrs for their own Opinions; they always continue a commenced evil, to show that they undertake with judgement what they do with Perseverance.  
If a Proposition which they have advanced by way of discourse, and which they do not believe to be true, comes to be contested, they from that very time, interest themselves in its defence; afterwards they half persuade themselves to it; in pursuit of reasoning, they hold it altogether assured, and quit it not till from a problematick question, which it was at the beginning of the Conference, they have in conclusion made it a a point of Faith.  
If they are desired to consider that the Enemies are powerful and numerous; They answer, They are a great many Men, but few soldiers; That they are not true EEnemies, but a mutinous Rascality: If it be remonstrated that a passage cannot be made for the Army by that place which they purposed, they labour and torment themselves so much about it, that it seems as if they pretended to make it pass there by the only force of their words.  
I do not here fancy things which are not; I do not create Artificial Men: I know some, My Lord, and I could name them to you, who act in Council after this manner, who will yield neither to evident Reason, nor to an established Custom, nor to a received Practice.  
They oppose the singularity of their Opinion to the consent of People, and to a crowd of Examples. The Briefs and the Bulls of Popes, the Edicts and Declarations of Kings are for other men, they are not concerned; They break all public Acts when they agree not with their particular sense.  
Have we not first seen in Flanders, and since in Italy, a Spanish Minister, who was of this humour; he could never resolve to acknowledge for King of France the late K. Henry the Great; he could never call him otherwise then the Bearnois, or the Prince of Bearne, when he meant him a favour. The League was dead, and without hopes of ever reviving. The Peace of Veruins was published, and all its Articles executed; The King's Reconciliation had been solemnly made with the Holy See; The K. of Spain had sent him Ambassadors, and had received his. Yet all this could not make the spirit of the Minister stoop; He would be more averse to France then Spain, and more Catholic than the Church. His opiniastrecy excommunicated him whom the Pope had absolved. And he still remained on these terms till the year 1610. the very evening before when this Bearnois was ready to make himself Master of a considerable part of Europe, and who knows whether he would not have begun with the duchy of Milan, which this Minister was then Governor of, purposely to have made him change his note?  
THose Wisemen we yesterday made the examen of, assure nothing at all, durst not swear it were day at high noon, are not certain whether those things which they see are objects or illusions; when a man inquires their Sentiment, they always say I THINK, never I KNOW, and in businesses which are most clear, a man can draw nothing from them but PERHAPS, IT MAY BE SO, and WE MUST CONSIDER, which proceeds according to Aristotle from an opinion they have conceived of the world, which is generally ill, and from appearances; So that they may be sometimes deceived, but they are indeed seldom deceived. If they lose it's because they play but too well; It's themselves and their misfortune which they ought to complain of, and not of the advantages and wiles of their Enemies. They also first seek Safety and afterwards Profit; They govern themselves by a reasonable Discourse, which concludes with profit and certainty; Nor do they live according to moral Institution, which proposeth what's honest and hazardous.  
You may fancy quite the contrary of the others we now speak of, who express themselves in affirmative terms, who decide the most doubtful and the most embroiled affairs with a THIS IS SO, it CANNOT BE OTHER WISE, THERE IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY THAT IT MUST HAPPEN SO; these commonly quit the greatest of their interests for the least of their Passions, they prefer praise to Presents, and thanks before Rewards; they promise themselves wonders from the future and from fortune; they make their doubts their suspicions, their hopes valid even to infinity.  
Yet let us confess the truth to the advantage of the men of this day, they are far more worth than those of yesterday in Aristotle's judgement, timorous persons are defective, for as much as they aspire not to those things the Magnanimous are worthy of, and for as much as they aspire not even to those of which themselves are worthy; But the Audacious are excessive only in that they aspire to those things which the Magnanimous are, and not they worthy of. I speak of Magnanimity as you may perceive with the rigor of Philosophers, and not with a Poetical licence, who might well call this days Men Magnanimous, since they so call their giants, their Phaeton, and their Capaneus.  
It's certain, that this Boldness and this Fierceness do not always displease the world; In some encounters they have gained approbation and praise; They have been esteemed and have succeeded in the person of that Roman, who seems so honest a Man to my Lord the Duke d'Espernon, and to Monsieur the Marshal Desdiguieres; your Highness is pleased that I should remember you of the stile wherewith he wrote to the Emperor.  
The fidelity of that Roman was without reproach, and yet he was accused in his absence, and found an Informer against him at Court; He commanded an Army in Germany, and had great credit and authority in his Province, and among the soldiery: Being advertised of what had past at Rome, and of the ill offices which were rendered him in the palace, he wrote a bold and proud Letter to the Emperor, the last words whereof were much like to these, My Fidelity hath been pure and entire hitherto, nor will I change it unless I am forced thereunto; but whosoever comes to succeed me in my command, I am resolved to receive him, as if he had enterprised against my life, LET US IF YOU PLEASE CAESAR AGREE, LET THE WHOLE EMPIRE BE YOURS, AND MINE MY GOVERNMENT.  
Such men hardly hold intelligence with the Enemy, but they easily bandy against their Master; they are never Rebels out of a formed design, and out of a malicious inclination, but they may be made so by disdain and resentment; they want not Fidelity so long as they are trusted; These do no disservice, but will serve after their own mode; They will be Arbiters both of their duty and of their obedience.  
One of these persons (whom you know my Lord) would prove unto me, it's not long since, that he served his Master in disobeying him; it was at an entertainment which lasted four hours betwixt us, when I gave him a visit at his Government from your Highness. By a nice distinction which he made of the King and of the State, he told me, that very lately and upon an occasion which was not yet past, He had gone outright to the good of the State without having harkened to several different voices, which would have stopped him by the way, alleging to him the King's rame. Whereto he added, grounding himself or a principle which he took somewhat high: That the King his first Master, Father to the King that now is, had commanded him before his death, that if such a time happened, and such an accident occured, he should not fail to do such a thing, what contrary order soever were brought him from Court to hinder him; That he thought he was obliged in Conscience to follow the intentions of the greatest and wisest Prince in the world, nor did he apprehend he could err by conforming himself to the sentiments of him who never committed faults.  
But I pray go on to verify that secret command, which is yet come to the knowledge of no man, nor even to the Queen Dowager of the late King. To know of a truth of this, the charms of magic must be employed, the soul of the greatest and wisest Prince of the the Earth must be raised; of him who committed no faults; and it must be inquired whether that Minister who allegeth this, allege it not falsely. It's a raillery to think still to belong to Philip under the reign of Alexander; to endeavour to persuade one's Master that a man hath reason to disobey; That opiniastrecy hath merit; That it's sufficient to serve well, howsoever though against the will of him we serve.  
Let such persons who thus will serve their own way, be always if it be possible two hundred leagues from Court. Let them be employed, if it may be so, in obscure places, where ill examples being not so much looked upon, are not so dangerous: But it would not be well to call them near the persons of a Prince, where respect is no less necessary than service, and where they would be his Tutors rather than his Counsellors.  
These are excellent men I do not deny it, but this excellency under the power of another is not in its right place. They love the State and their Country, but they hate Dependence and Subjection; their end is right, but the means are oblique, and seem contrary to their end; For making the good of the Monarchy their object, they use all the licence which may be used in a popular Government. Further yet, In serving they will serve like sovereigns; themselves have told me, in their entertainments of near four hours, That they were too old to submit themselves to the first elements of their duty. When smiling at what they told me, I went farther and told them, They were too great to learn that lesson which a Doctor of the Court gave his Son in the Grecian history, MY child, MAKE thyself LITTLE. Good Governors of Provinces, and good Guardians of the Frontier, good Porters of the Realm, so long as you please; But I grant not, that you are good Ministers of State, and good Courtiers after the same manner.  
There are Affairs in which a man may take several parties, and some diversely biased which offer themselves, of which we are to choose that which is most proper to manage it well. In such businesses they bring the same passion, and are born away with the same miscarriages which we have already observed on the subject of News. A man can never see them out of one extremity or other. They would rather fall then descend; they desire all or nothing; they seek Death or Victory: Yet methinks it's much to carry away three quarters, when one cannot obtain the whole; That betwixt Death and Victory there should be Peace, which is a good of an inestimable value, which ought to be sought for by the Vanquished, and desired by the Victorious.  
But what is seemly with us, nothing persuades them, nor have they an ear for our remonstrances; there is no way to divert their imagination from its object, and to make them change their aim, they are enemies to all accommodation, and so bound to those rules which they prescribe themselves, and to that rigor of exact Justice which exasperates them, that it's impossible to render them capable of Equity. It's not possible to make them take a reward for a thing when it's lost. They would have the same, and not the like; They combat the sense of the Law with terms of Law, and injure themselves by doing themselves right; They make me remember those Brothers so much celebrated in History, who being equally to divide a Succession, broke a glass to divide it, & cut a Suit in two, that each of them might have his half.  
If these go not so far, and if this be to speak too much; Let's at least say, that in business they know not of how great use these temperaments are, and how profitably be employed for the perfection of Affairs, by joining things at a distance, and by facilitating those which are difficult. They understand not these Relaxations, these Adjustments, as they speak now in Italy. This necessary mean which seems often to come from Heaven, and which is needful to conclude bargains with particular persons, and with far more reason▪ Treaties of Peace betwixt Princes, Leagues Offensive and Defensive, Negotiations, wherein the safety of People are concerned, and the fortune of Kingdoms.  
Our sullen virtuous persons will not admit of these Tempers, nor of this Mean: In a State which dies of old age, they would do the same as if they governed in a newly established Commonwealth in the purity of its institution, and in the vigour of its first Orders. They speak of nothing but of an absolute Power, but of the authority of the Senate, but of the force of the Laws, although they are things which grow old as well as other things, and which growing old grow weak.  
harken unto Cato's opinion in Caesar's cause, He says we must load him with chains (he doth not say, we must first seize upon him) we must send him in that condition to our Alleys whom he hath offended, that they may do themselves right, and that he may be punished for his unjust Victories. These MUSTS are very difficult to be put in execution, if favour overpower Reason; we must, continues he, have him come and plead his own cause in person, and give us an account of his nine years' Command; All must be done according to Law, that's to say, according to my intrpretation, we must hazard all the Laws to observe Formalities.  
I persuade myself Your Highness thinks this austere Commonwealths man to blame, although never man was more praised than he; Cicero was not only his particular friend, he was his public Admirer; after his death, he did somewhat more than make his Funeral Oration; and what he did, made way for Caesar's two Anti-cato: Yet Cicero speaking confidently to Pomponius Atticus confesseth, that the virtue of that man whom he so much admired was unprofitable for his Country. He confesseth that that Divine man, for so he called him, was out of use, and knew not how to accommodate himself to the condition of those times; That when he gave his opinion in Council, He thought he had been in Plato's republic, and not among the Lees of Romulus his People  
This word of Cicero explains a Verse of Virgil, which your scholastics take no notice of, yet it deserves the reflections of a Courtier. In the description of his Hero's Buckler, wherein divers figures were engraven, when he would have represented that part of Hell which is inhabited by sacred Souls, he makes Cato to precide with a sovereign Authority, and gives him a Jurisdiction over Just and Happy People.  Secretosque Pios, his dantem jura Catonem. 
And as a Poet who is a friend of ours hath translated it,  Aux Justes assemblez Caton donne des Loix. 
And thus in English.  The blessed withdrawn, where Cato gives the Laws. 
To take the thing according to the letter was to offend the Family of the Caesars; nor could their Enemy be beatified, but that their Cause must be condemned. But in my opinion Virgil and the Caesars herein understood one the other; doubtless he had discovered to Augustus the secret of his fiction, which in appearance praiseth, and which in effect mocks him; which shows us that Cato's virtue was of the other world and not of this: Virgil would quaintly, and in a figured manner express, that Cato was to go seek Citizens which were all good and virtuous. That he must make himself an express People to be worthy of him; That Cato could not find a place, unless in a Society which was not to be found on earth.  
There in effect it is, where the Cato's must go to practise their Paradoxes, and vent their generous Maxims; we do not live here in that Country; we live not in the Country of ideas and of Perfection, where Souls are discharged of their Bodies, are cured of their Passions, are purged from the rest of their human Infirmities. Who ever say a republic composed of Philosphers, much less of Stoics only▪ It's long since the World hath lost its innocency; we are in the corruption of Ages, & in nature's declension. All is weak, all is sick in the Assemblies of Men; if therefore you would govern happily, if with success you would labour for the good of the State, accommodate yourself with the defects and imperfections of your matter; dispatch yourself of this incommodious virtue, which our Age is not capable of; support what you cannot reform, dissemble those faults which are not to be corrected; meddle not with those Evils which discover the impotency of the Remedies, which decry Medicine, and renders physicians ridiculous; Respect those fatal Diseases which are sent from high, wherein something is to be remarked which is strange and unknown, When the finger of God appears, it must needs make the hand of man afraid.  
In good time, if you can satisfy the honour and dignity of the Crown, yet do not lose the Crown to preserve its honour and dignity; Do not so tie yourselves to what's savagely, rigorously and philosophically honest, that you cannot quit yourselves of it, lest necessity should exact from you what's more humanly, more sweetly, and more popularly honest. Consider, that Reason is less pressing in Policy then in Morality, that its extent is incomparably more large and more free, when it intends to make People happy, then when we are only concerned to make particular persons good. There are Maxims which are not just in their own nature, yet which their use justifies. There are filthy Remedies, and yet they are Remedies. These salutiferous compositions are made with human Blood, with Ordure, and other vile things: But health is still fairer than these things are vile; poison itself sometimes heals, and in such a case neither is poison an evil.  
Be not my Masters too honest, nor too just Cato's; Contend not the prize of your bodies against this guilty person who hath an Army to defend himself from your Sergeants; Of a Mutineer, make him not desperate. In the name of God force not this new Caesar to pass the Rubicon; to make himself Master of his Country, to speak these remarkable words looking on the slain men of a battle which he won, These men willed their own mishap. After having done great things, I had had Commissioners appointed over me, had I not made use of my soldiers; I had been condemned, had not my innocency been armed; I was threatened with chains and with prison; I had been delivered to the Barbarians, had not my Cause been as strong as it was good.  
It's a Monster, I must confess it; It's a moral Prodigy to see a Citizen impose Laws over a Town, to see a Subject treat with his Prince; yet such like Prodigies cannot often be exp●ated but by dissimulation and by indulgence: When such kind of Monsters cannot be subdued, we must endeavour to tame them. Were it but to grant an armed Victor a justification of what was past to make him lay down his arms, why should you opiniaster yourself further, as to force him take an Abolition? Insist not on the punctilios of forms and words; give him as full and advantageous an Acknowledgement as he can desire; let himself dictate it, and do you write it; let it be written in gilt Paper, and altogether perfumed with his praises.  
I have elsewhere read with some manner of indignation, a Letter of John Matthew Giberti Bishop of Verona, and Pope Clement the Seventh his Datary, it's addressed to his Master's Nuncio with the King of Hungary▪ And by this Letter he witnesseth, That the Pope extremely desires the reconciliation of the Kingdom of Bohemia with the holy See, but that he this Datary, foresaw a very great impediment which might combat this extreme desire of his Holiness; it was that it did not become the Grandeure & Dignity of the Church to sue to Kings or Kingdoms: And that in a business of so great reputation order was not to be overthrown, nor the fitness of things to be violated. That for that purpose it were fit to find out some means to oblige the Bohemians first of all to begin this practice, and make the advance of it; that presenting themselves to Cardinal Campegno (who was Legate in Germany) they should be received with open arms; but not presenting themselves, the Legate could not move towards them, nor the Judge solicit the parties. That what they demand aught to be granted, but that they were not to be offered what they did not demand. Is it not true, that this man was a great Husband of the point of honour? This ridiculous nicety displeaseth me in this procedure of John Matthew Giberti, who otherwise was an excellent man.  
I am not only angry but vexed, that our Demosthenes should be of the number of these men; I could wish it had been some other body who had said in the Council of Athens, on the subject of a little Isle neighbouring with Samothracia, which was in contest betwixt the Athenians and King Philip, If the King will restore you the Isle, and that the Treaty import the word Surrender, I would advise you to take it; but not if he pretends to give it you, and if he should call the restitution of what he hath usurped over you a Benefit.  
You may by this believe how such Great Persons have amuzed themselves on trifles, and that this man prised the vanity of a word, more than the solidity of the thing. If the Emperor Charles would have made a present of the duchy of Milan to our last Kings, and had Demosthenes been of their council, he would have counselled them to have refused the Present for fear of doing wrong to the Rights they had to the duchy. He would rather have kept his just pretensions, and have consolated himself with the hopes of the future, then to have enjoyed the advantage of the present, and to have accepted the possession of a second Crown, upon such terms as he did believe were not worthy of the first.  
In the wicked world wherein we live, when they execute Justice on us, do we fancy it an act of Grace? Let's not be avaricious of terms and of appearances, so as the essential part remain. Let them carry away some Pictures and Weathercocks, so as they leave us the Walls and the Roof. Let them call it a Present, a favour, an Alms if they please, when the piece is ours we may easily give it a fairer name, and that which may please us better. Let us with honour have those Islands which belong to us; but let us have them at any rate; Let us rather applaud ourselves for a little wrong we have suffered then complain to posterity of a great injustice inflicted on us.  
It were better not have a good and piercing sight in the discussion of one's Rights, lest we should therein discover but too much Justice; it were better not to be so able in a man's own business, lest a man should be thereby over-persuaded. This so subtle and delicate a sense of the injuries which we have received, is no very convenient thing, when the reparation we require is concerned. So high an opinion of the merit of the cause with difficulty submits itself to the Judgement and Decision of another. All this serves only to render that impossible which we have a design to do, to amuse a man in a place out of which he ought to go as soon as possible; these are not means to act, these are hindrances of action; these are not means to level the difficulties of a course, they are stones which lie before the end of it. They are in effect elevated qualities which commonly accompany Nobleness of heart and Generosity. But they commonly do more hurt then good; At least, they are not for every days use, and those who are weak cannot use them profitably against those who are more strong.  
I know not how they understand it; But methinks a Treaty cannot be more unhappily concluded or have a more sad success for the one of the parties, than when▪ after along Negotiation, after an infinite many words thrown in the wind, and writings which must be cast into the fire, it's obliged To appeal to another Age, and must bring home again all its Reason and all its honour▪ It were far better to quit some of this Reason and of this honour. Why not consent to an accommodation which were reasonable, in consideration of what's profitable, and which will be no ways dishonest in the necessity of times, whereto Generosity itself and Nobleness of heart ought to accommodate themselves?  
LEt us not be blinded therefore with the Reputation of the Wisdom of the Grecians; let neither the one nor the other of the Orators of Athens persuade us; the Country, the Antiquity, the merit of those which have failed, instead to justify their faults, renders them only the more visible and the more remarkable. Let's once in our lives make use of the liberty of our Judgement, which ought not always to be subalternate to that of the Grecians and Romans; it's a cause of consolation for our poor humanity, to see● that even in Hero's there hath been somewhat of the Man.  
How much good it doth me (an excellent man formerly told me) to see that Hero's have fled, that wise men have committed follies, that that great Orator made use of an ill term, that so great a politician hath delivered an ill opinion. These examples of weakness and infirmity were the spectacles and pass-times which sometimes were the divertisements of this excellent Man; who derided Demosthenes and his ridiculous point of honour; but he mocked Cleon far more with his extravagant Probity.  
This Man having been called to the Government of the republic, would signalise his coming to his Place, by I know not what kind of good which was new and strange; the next day after his promotion, he sent to desire his friends to come to him, where being come, and every one with the hopes of sharing with him in his good fortune, he entertained them with a Discourse which was unexpected to them all, and had almost made them all fall to the ground; He told them, That he had assembled them in his house to drive them thence, and to declare unto them, that truly as a private man he had been their friend; but being become Magistrate, he thought himself obliged to renounce their Friendship. He thought this Declaration was an original of virtue, an act of heroic Probity, the fairest thing which could have been done at Athens▪ since the foundation of the Town, since Theseus his time to that of Cleon; He did believe that a statesman was a public Enemy, and that for the first essay of his ●igor, he was to dispatch himself of all his inclinations and of all his friendships; That he was to break all the bonds of Nature and of Society.  
I have seen some of these counterfeit Just men on this side and beyond the mountains; I have seen some who to make their integrity admired, and to oblige the world to say, that Favour could work nothing on them, take up a stranger's interest against one of his Kindred, or against a friend, although the reason was on his Friends or kinsman's side; They have been ravished at the loss of a cause which was recommended to them by their Nephew or x German; and the worst office which could be done a good business, was, such a recommendation. When divers Competitors pretended to one and the same Office, they demanded it for one they knew not, and not for him whom they judged worthy of it.  
I protest again, that I do not enlarge the business, I am not an Exaggerator like him who related nothing but Prodigies to Your Highness, and had seen nothing of what he spoke. I give you an account, my Lord, from my own experience, and I could name those I speak of; I have seen some who were so afraid of favouring anybody, that they disapproved, that they blamed, that they condemned all the world, and most commonly without knowing wherefore. In them it was rather extravagancy than cruelty, rather intemperance of tongue and choler which exhaled itself, than premeditate malice, or a design of harming any man▪ conceived in the Mind, and digested by time and by discourse. They would have called Julius Caesar a DRUNKARD, although an hour before they had said of him THAT A SOBER MAM HAD NEWLY RUINED THE republic.  
Your Highness hath heard of that Counsellor who commonly gave his opinion to the death, and sometimes also slept on the flowers-de-luce. One day the precedent of his Court gathering the Voices of the company, and having demanded his, he answered him suddenly, and being not yet quite awake, That he was of opinion that that ma●s neck should be cut off. But, says the precedent▪ the debate is about a field; Let it be mowed then, replied the Counsellor.  
Once again, it's neither Malice nor Cruelty, its Fancy, its Peevishness, its Choler which prevails in the Temperature of these Counsellors, which with its smoke blacks their first motions, and their first words: This adust humour imprints on their forehead a perpetual negative with which they sti●le the prayers even in the very hearts of their suppliants. They refuse things which were never demanded, which even were never intended to be demanded.  
These Counsellors are not those which ought to be called to the Council of Kings, were they contrary to what they appear; yet were they not to be commended to have taken so little care for virtue's outside, and for the appearance of good. Should they have a well-meaning Mind, their Mine would always spoil their good Deeds; their ill humour would ruin all the merit of their good Actions. Observe how they habituate themselves with a frightful and inaccessible severity; how this phantasm of severity casts down and astonisheth the world. Observe how they study to disfigure their outsides, how they wear this vile vizard even at Weddings and at Feasts, where they affect it as well as elsewhere to show themselves terrible and redoubtable.  
If it were formerly spoken of a Grecian, a very honest and virtuous man, THAT HE HAD NOT SACRIFICED TO THE GRACES; it may be said likewise of such Spaniards or of such French men, very honest and very virtuous persons, who not only are less devout than this Grecian, but that going from indevotion to impiety, far enough from sacrificing to the Graces, they have cast down their Altars, they have set the Temples of these good Goddesses on fire, they labour with their utmost utterly to abolish the worship of them. Let's finish their elegy, and in the species represent the individuals, which Your Highness hath observed in the several Courts where you have been.  
It's impossible to come near them without being offended, they dart forth points and needles from all the parts of their body; their praises bite, their caresses scratch; and as there are some untoward persons who knock against those faces they would kiss; they after the same manner cannot oblige without disobliging; they cannot promise but with eyes and brows which threaten, they grant favours and courtesies in the same tone with which others refuse them.   

THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE.  
HItherto we have assaulted nobody, who could not defend himself; And if your Highness think it fit, let's even excuse those whom we have accused; let's not reproach men with the errors of their birth; let's be indulgent to human infirmity; let's allow somewhat to the temperature of the body, which may mark the soul with its blemishes; let's be compatible with the weakness of minds, since we receive them as they are given us, and that we are not the choosers of 〈◊〉 ourselves.  
The subtlety of the Understanding, the solidity of judgement, a courageous Prudence, a considerate Boldness, are not voluntary things. They depend no more from our election, than our healths or a fair proportion. We are responsible for our faults, but not for those of Nature; there is no man obliged to be able, but there is nobody but is concerned to be good; and if we cannot furnish ourselves for the glory of the public with Courage and with wisdom, we at least ought to contribute our innocency for the repose of Common Society.  
What shall we say then of those insolent Happy men, who combat with displayed colours, the authority of the Laws and of Justice, who in the Government of States produce a design formed for its ruin▪ which grow fat and become comely from the juice and substance of exhausted Provinces, who build up their own house with the wrack and dissipation of a whole Kingdom?  
What shall we say of those insufferable Varlets, who revenge their least quarrels with the hands and arms of their Master, who declare all those Guilty of High Treason who do not fall prostrate before them; who by a bloody and cruel Peace, all black with mourning and funerals, bring the people into d●spair, reduce the honester sort of men to be unable to save themselves but in a Revolt?  
Finally, What shall we say of such base Courtiers who triumph and yet were never victorious, who enjoy in idleness the swears and pains of great Captains, who at a Comedy or a Ball expect the news of the getting of some battle, of the taking of Towns, of which the Generals must give them an account?  
Observe them in ancient and modern History; observe how all to them is plunder, how all is prey, how they feed on all dead bodies (thus did they formerly speak at Rome) and left nothing but loss and affliction to desolate Families, to Orphans and to Widows. For although they came only out of the dirt, to speak truly, of kind to nobody, yet they believe themselves the Heirs of all the world. There is no Officer of the Crown, no Governor of a place, whose Succession they do not pretend unto, as belonging to them. They think they are not in safety so long as there is a hole or a precipice in another man's power.  
Your Highness persuades me, that this Description pleaseth you; it's because you love the truth, how neglected or how much in disorder soever it be. You had found it fairer, and the pieces of this description had been better ajusted, had I but minded somewhat more the Rules of Art; but the crowd of things often breaks compass and measure; I represent only, without any design of trimming or of imbellishing; the world furnisheth me with all what I display, which is not ungrateful to your Highness. Let's once again, my Lord, consult the long experience of this world, an experience which embraceth so many Ages and so many Countries: Let's inquire more particular news concerning those who govern it, in despite of it, of those People who have reigned without a Crown, without Right, and without Merit.  
Such People commonly introduce themselves in Court by low means, and sometimes by such as are but little honest. They sometimes owe the commencement of their fortune to a well danced Saraband, to agility of body, to the beauty of their face; they make themselves valued by shameful services, whose payment is not publicly 〈◊〉 ●e demanded, they put themselves in credit by the recommendation only of vice.  
Their design being only to make pl●asing Propositions, they inquire not whether they profit or harm, so as they please it sufficeth. And to establish this strict commerce, which they meditate with the Prince, they insinuate themselves into his Mind, by the intelligence which they endeavour to keep with his Passions: But having once possessed themselves of his Mind, they seize on all the avenues, and leave not so much as an entrance for his Confessor. How weak and tender soever his inclinations may be to ill, they water it, and dress it with so much care that presently there springs up a great tree from a little seed, and a violent and opinionated habit from a light disposition.  
These are the Petroniusses and the tigillios about Nero; these are the Advocates of Voluptuousness, who plead its cause against virtue, and often succeed better than Pleasure itself, when she presented herself to young Hercules, and made him an Oration at the foot of the two ways.  
It's incredible to think, how many charms they use without employing those 〈◊〉 magic, of which the people forbear not to accuse them. Good God, how ingenious are they to invent new pleusures to a sated and disgusted Soul, with what pungent sharpnesses do they awaken the sleeping lusts which languish and can no more! For this purpose rather than want extravagant appetites, stranger objects and unknown meats, they will seek them at the ends of the world, even beyond the bounds of nature, even in the licentiousness of fables; To their sense, the Sibarites were but gros●ly voluptuous for matter of delights, Naples and Capua the corrupters of Hannibal, understood nothing at all.  
Nor do they at the first blow become Masters; virtue and they for a time disp●teto gain favour in the Court of a Prince of eighteen years. Sometimes she gets the better, and sometimes she yields it them; They with her, share the Affections, the Mind, and the Time. Burrhus is harkened unto, but they hinder him from being believed. They are like Seneca's balance, but at last they carry away all with them: The Epicure destroys as much in three days as the Stoic builds in five years; at least a man may say, that having taken the place, they by piece-meals undo the whole frame; they assault their Masters good parts, the one after another. From Venial sins wherein they find this young soul resuming the battle, and being upon his defence, they lead him from step to step to Tyranny and sacrilege.  
At first they content themselves to breath in his ears, That it is not necessary for a Prince to be so much an honest man, That its sufficient if he is not wicked; that he would put himself to too much trouble to make himself beloved; that he ought only to hinder himself from being hated. That solid and perpetual Probity is too heavy and too difficult; But that its image which changeth not, hath the same splendour as the original, and produceth the same effect; That from time to time a virtuous action which is no great matter of cost, being fitly performed, may serve to entertain his reputation. Thence they go farther, and leave him not in so fair a way; after having made him esteem Good as an indifferent thing● they make him approve Ill reasonable, they afford Vice the colour of virtue.  
If he have a mind to dispatch himself▪ of one of his Parents against the express defences of the Religion of the State, which for bids us To shed the blood of the Empire; they counsel him to cause them to be strangled with a bowstring, that one drop of it may not be spilled, and that Religion may be satisfied. If there be an Incest in his thoughts, and that this Incest is combated with some remorse, they presently come to the relief of his disturbed spirit. They ease his pains by a wonderful subtlety, representing to him, ●hat there is indeed no law which permits a Brother to lie with his Sister; but there is a fundamental Law of Monarchy, and Mistress of all the Laws which permits a Prince to do what he will.  
To authorise these great escapes, great examples are not wanting, They tell him it is not in Turkey, and amongst Barbarians that he is to look for examples; God's own People, the holy Nation will furnish you with more then enough. That King who built the Temple was also the founder of a Seraglio, and we at this day see at Constantinople, but a copy of what was formerly to be seen at Jerusalem. You content yourself with one woman only, and he that was wise above others, the wise Solomon had six hundred, which the holy Scripture calls legitimate, without reckoning those which are otherwise. But you have heard speak of the last will of his Father David, and of those gallant things which he commanded by his Testament. I shall not exaggerate these things, consider only by how many deaths he counselled his Son to secure his own.  
In the Law of Grace you cannot find more sweetness; you stagger, you apprehend, at the driving away of a Brother; the committing of a x German to prison. The Great ●onstantine, that most holy, most Religious and most Divine Emperor, as he hath been called by the mouth of Councils, hath done more without deliberation. Do you not know that he caused his own Son to die upon the first suspicion which he had of him, It's true, he regretted his death, and acknowledged his innocency. But this acknowledgement came too late, and his regret lasted but Four and twenty hours; he thought himself quit by causing a Statue to be erected to the deceased with this Inscription, TO MY SON CRISPUS, WHOM I CAUSED TO DIE UNJUSTLY.  
After this, do you make a difficulty to discharge yourself of a burden, which incommodates you, to take out of your way a man who disturbs you in the world, and who treads upon your heels, a x in the third or fourth degree, who hath a design to leap over all these degrees, that he may put himself in your place?  
Have you any consideration for the character and for the person of churchmen, who refuse to render you a blind obedience; charlemain, who is one of the Saints of the Church, and a Predecessor to the Kings of France, had not such a respect as you have. He killed with his own hands an Abbot in his Vesture at the Altar ready to say Mass, for having denied him I know not what.  
Do you reserve your absolute Authority? dare you not use force when the good of your affairs requires it; The example of the same Charlemagne will take from you all the scruples your conscience can make; although they tell you of his capitular degrees, he knew neither a better nor greater right than that of Arms; the pommel of his sword served him for his Seal and Signet. Do not think that I would make you believe this; this is History, and is to be taken according to the letter. To this day there are still privileges found granted, and donation of Lands made by the good and orthodox Emperor, Rowland and Oliver being present, sealed with the pommel, and which he promised to warrant with the edge of the same sword.  
There have been Favourites, I do not tell you where, but there have been Favourites, who have instructed Princes these dangerous Lessons, and I have it from the Doctors themselves who made a collection for them of these fair Histories.  
Being at last tired out with defending crimes which were without a Judge, and to excuse an all-powerful cruelty, they have freely told the Prince, That when there was no example to be found, he might make one; that what had formerly been unheard of, would being done cease, to be so; That it would be shameful for the Sovereign Authority to give an account of whatsoever it were, and misbecoming him who had Armies and Fleets to maintain h●s actions, to seek words and pretences to disguise them.  
There is not a man (for this is the language of the Sejanusses and the Plautusses) innocent in all the parts of his life, and who in his soul hates not his Superiors; and consequently, the Prince cannot but condemn the guilty, nor strike any but his Enemies: Consequently, he gratifies him whom he bereaves of his goods, in that he takes not away his honour, and leaves him his life. According to their principles, Loyalty is the virtue of a Merchant and not of a Sovereign. They allege I know not what Poet, That in Heaven they in the same scales put the oaths of Princes with those of Lovers: That the gods equally laugh at one as well as at the other; That Jupiter commands them to be thrown into the wind as vile things and of no concern.  
Thus in a way of fooling and telling of fables, they quite persuade the Prince, that he is not obliged by his word; after having persuaded him that he is no longer subject to the fancies and visions of the Legislators; they maintain that it belongs to him afresh to define unto men what is good or ill▪ To declare to the world what for the future he will have to be just or unjust, to set a price and value upon every thing, as well in Morality as in Policy.  
THus are Tyrants made, from this stock Monsters are engendered; from such Commencements we come to set Rome on fire, to butcher the Senate, to dishonour Nature with desbauches, and declare War against it by Parricides. These compliant persons are the first causes of so many miseries; and did not these winds blow, we should be sensible of none of these tempests. It is not without a cause therefore, that we speak with some emotion, and that being in a good condition for that matter by Your Highness's good conduct; Humanity invites us to be compatible of the sufferings of deceased States and of afflicted People. But let us not content ourselves to lament them; Let's turn our pity into indignation.  
Since that in the world there is no Good of so great use, and which so universally communicates itself as a good Prince; nor no Ill which disperseth itself more, and which is more pernicious than an ill Prince: There are nowhere punishments great enough in all the extent of human Justice for those persons who change this good into ill, and who corrupt so salutiferous and so excellent a thing; they had far better have poisoned all the wells and all the fountains in their Countries; should they infect even the Rivers themselves, water might be gotten from elsewhere, even Heaven would still furnish us with some drops: But here of necessity, we must either drink water or poison; against those domestic Ills we are not permitted to use Foreign Remedies. We are obliged to continue miserable by the Laws of our Religion, and to obey furies and mad men, not only out of fear but also for conscience sake.  
For which cause, since the persons of Princes, whatever they be, aught to be inviolable and sacred, and that the characters of God's finger makes an impression which we ought to reverence on what matter soever it be engraven. Let us turn all our hatred against those flatterers which cast us into these miseries without redemption: Let us lay it on those evil Counsellors which give us ill Princes, which provoke innocents to murder, and murderers to burn Temples For in effect, their pernicious advice endears ever those resolutions which have been taken. Their Maxims of Fire and Blood assure and fortify Malice when it is as yet timorous and doubtful; they sharpen what cuts, they precipitate what is falling, they encourage the violent when they run after the prey, they inflame the desires of the avaricious for our Goods, and those of Impudent persons for our Wives.  
NOw if they meet with natures which are not susceptible of those strong Passions, and which are in anequal degree distant from and from virtue. If they light on these soft Princes, who are without sting or offence, and have no inclination to ill, their nature inclining them so to idleness as not to suffer them to stir out of their places. It's still the worse for those people who are to live under them, for abusing the simplicity of their pliant Master, and taking the advantage which their spirit hath over his, they reign themselves openly. And observing it but as the right and title of their unjust Dominion, to the weight of Tyranny they add the shame there accrues for suffering it from a particular person.  
You cannot imagine the wiles and artifice they use to attain hereunto, and totally to subject to themselves the Prince. First, the method is to spur him up with glory in the establishment of their fortune. They give him to understand through several Trunks, that his Predecessors who were nothing more powerful than he, made some far greater Creatures of theirs. That it's far better to raise up new People, who have no dependence, and who shall only hold from his Majesty, then to use persons of a good birth, and of a known Probity, whose affections and party are already made; That it concerns his honour not to leave his works imperfect, to labour for their embellishment after having established their solidity. That he ought to put them in a condition that they may not be ruined but by themselves: That if he yields to the desires of his grandees, who will endure no Companions; and if he contents the complaints of his People, who are Enemies to all growing Greatness, he will not for the future have the power to do any good; he will be forced to call an Assembly of the state's General to dispose of the least Office in the Kingdom. Last of all, that he cannot abandon a person who hath been so dear unto him, without condemning the conduct of many years, and rendering a public testimony either of his past blindness or of his present fickleness.  
It's certain, that having begun to love a thing, for the love of itself, time presently adds our own interest to the merit of the thing; the desire we have that all the world should believe that all our elections are good, makes that action out of necessity, which before was voluntary; so that what hath been done against Reason, being not to be justified but by Constancy, we never think we have done enough; and upon this belief which we have, were we resolved to discontinue our affection, yet it seems we are obliged to defend our judgement.  
Now if these considerations can shake stable minds, and sometimes make wisemen fail, we need not be astonished if they easily overthrow a weak Prince, who makes use only of borrowed reason, and who will yield himself to be persuaded by a very mean eloquence, so as it do but favour his inclination.  
And now he is engaged in the making of this Subject whom he loves Great; he speaks of him no more, but as his enterprise, and his end in it; he is without minding it become an Idolater; he adores what he hath made, and is like the Statuaries of Athens, who of their own Works made their gods. His thoughts which should be employed for Glory, and have no other object but the Safety of the People, are all at an end in this gallant De●ign; he opens him his coffers, and pours out treasures on him as well in despite of others as to benefit him. He hath already conferred on him all the Offices of his Kingdom, and all the Ornaments of his Crown; he hath nothing left to give him but his own Person; which at last he doth with so absolute and so total a resignation, that in the very Monasteries there is not an example of a will more subjected, and more perfectly renouncing itself.  
He appears but when his presence is necessary to authorise Counils, in which he never bore a part, and he is content to show himself for no other purpose; he is amuzed with petty divertisements unworthy of his condition and of his age; but did they give him babies to play withal, neither would he be offended; his domestics are every day changed, and he likes it well; they take from about him all that speaks, and he guesseth not why; they make him altogether a new Court, and he admits of it; they ruin under several pretences all that's ●minent and virtuous in the State, and he consents thereunto.  
Against those who are less suffering, and harder to be brought under the yoke, open arms and force is employed; Those that are rich and peaceable, are assaulted by accusers and calumnies; To those whose services maintain them, and whose fidelity is without reproach, they grant ruining Commissions, or ill Armies to assault strong places, that they may lose their reputation or may lose themselves. Some are driven away with an absolute command to retire themselves, others are banished by an embassy; and in the place of all, as many as there are of them, the ambitious Courtier placeth persons at his devotion, who never look farther than their Benefactor, and stop at the next cause of their fortune.  
Thus is the poor Prince at mercy and discretion of his favourite, casts not forth a sigh but a Spy renders him an account, utters not one word but what is told him again▪ So that in the midst of the Court he is sensible of the irksomeness of a solitude; he sees nothing about his person of his acquaintance, and hath not one only faithful ear to whom he may say, I suffer. But besides that he is so far engaged that there is no way for him to release himself; the other hath made all the world either his Enemy, or suspected, that he may have none but him to trust. By having long had the possession of Affairs, which he communicates with no man, he alone understanding all, and knowing the State, he at last becomes a necessary evil, which neither can the Prince be cured of but by a dangerous remedy.  
After this manner, in an absolute Peace being well with all his neighbours, no forregn Army appearing on the frontier, without stroke striking, or having ventured further, then from the Palace to the street, he sees himself miserably fallen into another man's power, which is after the loss of a battle, the worst thing which could happen him. The unhappy moment which first engaged him to commence his affection, and to believe more than he ought, hath reduced him to this deplorable extremity. And to speak home, the battle of Pavia was not so funeral to Francis the First, nor the taking of Rome to Clement the Seventh: For if their disgrace was great, at least, neither was it voluntary: If they lost their Liberty, they in their affliction preserved the greatness of their Courage; and if they were taken Prisoners, 'twas by a great Emperor, who was their enemy, and not by one of their petty Subjects. There is no captivity so miserable, so base, nor so infamous as that of a Prince who suffers himself to be taken in his Cabinet, and by one of his own; He could not have exercised a more cowardly patience, nor be more shamefully unhappy.  
I shall go further yet, when a King eats his People to the very bones, and lives in his own State as in an enemy's Country, he doth not so far estrange himself from the duty of his Place, as when he obeys another. There is a great difference betwixt Tyranny and Royalty; yet it resembles it a great deal more than Servitude. It's at lest some kind of Government, and one way of commanding men, although it be not the most perfect. But for a Sovereign to give himself as a prey to three or four pet●y Fellows, and not reserve so much as the disposition of his own Will, to follow his own Inclinations, nor the use of his own Judgement in the knowledge of affairs: In such a case I know not what name to give him, and there cannot be a more miserable Interregnum then his life, during which he doth nothing, and yet doth all those evils which happen to the People.  
In this condition, he is civilly dead, and hath as it were deposed himself. It's only his Effigies which is used in public, which out of custom, and for a show hath some duties paid unto it, and to whom many useless Congees are made. Men are no longer bound to the legitimate and natural power. They follow another which is stranger and usurped; which is in a violent way born from the first, and in adultery. Royalty is forsaken to run after favour, of which the Arabians say, That it's a girl which often kills her own Mother.  
What a brave thing it was in former times to see a King of Castille, who durst not walk abroad, nor put on a new suit without the permission of Alvare de Luna! all favours which others demanded of him, he was obliged to obtain from him; the most he could do was to recommend his Servants to his Favo●●●e, and to do good offices towards him, for those whom he loved. What a brave thing it would be to see such a Courtier as he was, who revoked the elections of his Prince, restored those again to their places which his Master had endowed. What a brave thing it were, that he should not like that his Master should once in his life read a paper which he presented him to sign, and that he should complain it was to offend his Fidelity, and forget his past Services!  
But it was a braver and far more excellent thing for this man who governs his Master's mind, and sovereignly commands over his Subjects, for himself to obey a Mistress. What if it should happen, that Love should govern the politics, and that the Fortune of a whole Kingdom were the pastime of a debauched Woman? For it's too true, that such persons have strangely derided the authority of the Laws and the Majesty of Empire more than once; they have trampled under foot Crowns and sceptres; they have taken pleasure and sported themselves with the violation of Justice, and have exercised cruelty with afflicting and rendering human kind miserable.  
Let us for once pass by those Histories which with their remembrance terrify and wound the imagination: Let's not mention the blood which those Women have caused to be spilled: Let's suppress the frightfulness and formidableness of their Tragedies; and let's produce but one little touch of the bravery of their humour. Not long since there appeared one, who was risen to so high a degree of insolency, that having been solicited about a certain business, which had been represented unto her just and facile to be done, that she might the more willingly employ herself therein, she answers with a fierceness worthy of her Nation, and of that Country whence come all our rodomontadoes, That she used not her credit so lavishly, that another might serve in so slight an occasion, and do just and possible things, for her part she accustomed herself only to undertake those which were unjust and impossible.  
How many Mischiess do you think follow such an one? How many violences are committed under the shadow of 〈◊〉 unjust Fortune? And the Courtie● hath not a Groom who believes it not to be his right to treat evil such persons who are free, and by alleging only their Master's name to commit outrages with impurity? Are there any people about him, who at least do not plunder if they forbear from murdering; who do not make sale of a sight, or of an audience of his; who every not themselves with the refuse of his Avarice, and with the superfluities of his house?  
All this while the Prince sins not, and yet he forbears not to be guil●● His ignorance is unpardonable; his Patience is not virtue, and the disorder which either he knows not of, or which he suffers, is imputed to him before God even as if himself had made it. With a great deal of reason therefore, that Prince, who was according to God's own heart, in express terms, desires him, and that in the fervency of his most ardent prayers, THAT HE WOULD CLEANSE HIM FROM SECRET FAULTS AND ACQUIT HIM FROM THE SINS OF OTHERS; This last word, signifies it not, that Kings ought not to content themselves with a personal and particular Innocency; That it matters nothing for them to be Just, if they lose themselves by the Injustice of their Ministers?  
And to this purpose, I will not let slip a pretty escape which a religious man of Italy in our father's days made, preaching before a Prince of that Country; being in the middle of his Sermon, wherein he had discoursed of the duties of Sovereigns, and not minded to tire himself with staying too long in the general Thesis, he all at once breaks forth in these words, which he addressed to him who heard him.  
I saw, my Lord, a strange Vision last night; Methought the earth opened before me, and I distinctly looked into the centre thereof, I considered the torments of the other life, and all that terrible train of God's Justice, since which, my Imagination is scarce well reassumed Amongst the wicked of the past ages; I knew many of these Detractors, murderers, Impious persons and Hypocrites ran thither in great troops, and crowded at the brim of this Gulf; but having observed in their lives the visible marks of their Reprobation, I thought it not strange to see them arrive whereto I had seen them march; what astonished me most extremely above all, was, that I perceived you there my Lord, in this unhappy throng which was at the brink of destruction; and even as I was thus affrighted and interdicted by the novelty of so unexpected an encounter, I cried out to Your Highness, Is it possible that a man should damn himself by praying to God, and that you should go to hell, yo●▪ my Lord, who are the best and the most religious Prince in the world? Whereunto Your Highness Answered me with a sigh, I DO NOT GO FATHER, BUT I AM LED THITHER.  
THe fertility of this subject is so great, that it will furnish us with Discourse for all the next week, but we must end with this, and conclude, That the distance is great enough betwixt the Sovereign and private Persons, to raise them up very high, and yet leave them room enough below him. its GOOD THAT HE WHO IS NEAREST THE PRINCE SHOULD BE EXTREMELY DISTANT FROM HIM; its FIT THERE SHOULD BE MANY THINGS WHICH THE BEST BELOVED MAY NOT REACH.  
Justice admirs of favour, we have long since confessed it; Reason destroys not Humanity, opposeth not itself against honest affections, it condemns not Familiarity and Confidence. Philosophy and Christianity agree in all these with Nature; and the Son of God when he made himself Man hath by his example authorized all this: Let there therefore be a favourite at Court, Heaven and Earth allow of it; Let there be a man, we would have it so, who is the Princes Confident; But let there not be a man who day and night besiegeth the King; who by a violent usurpation appropriates him to himself; he who will have to himself alone a good which ought to belong to all the world, exerciseth the same Injustice as if he hid the Sun from the world, as if he shut up Churches to all the People in it.  
Let the Prince send forth as long as he please a reflection of his Greatness on those Subjects who have found favour in his sight; Let him communicate unto them the rays of his power; But let him not transfer it entirely into their persons; let him never cast off from himself his Globe of light; Let his Liberality enrich particular persons, so as it do not impoverish the Kingdom; Let his Benefits abundantly flow in some places, so as he remain Master of the Spring. The Oracle of the Low Countries upon this subject, made me this answer, that knowing and wise man Justus Lipsius, when I consulted with him at Louvain.  
Must the King and he who reigns be still two different persons? Must he correct all their Edicts, and change a word in all their days? Where there is the tenth or fifteenth of our Reign, must he blot out our Reign, and make it our Servitude, or at least our subjection; It never was the intention of him who founded Monarchies, that sovereignty should be so basely abused, as to make it change place, that it should never be where it ought to be. Sovereign Power is of the nature of those things, which are so much ours, that we cannot give them to another, nor separate them from ourselves. It's legitimate so long as it remains in the hands of those who have received it from the Laws of the State. But the same Law will have it so, that it cannot pass from one to another, unless it be by means of birth, or the election of the People. Here ends that answer of the Oracle of Louvain.  
Our wise Predecessors were herein wise, as well as in other things; As they did not make the Crown elective in favour of themselves; they would not make it a propriety in favour of the King, nor so absolutely intrust it to him, that it should be in his power to institute an Heir, examples whereof may be seen in the Histories of other Countries; They would not the King should have the power to resign the Kingdom at his pleasure, and to whom he pleased; That he could deligate the whole or any part. But on the contrary, by a Law which is of the same age and of the same force as the Salic, they ordained it should be unalienable and indivisible.  
And those Politicians who have taken most liberty; those insolent and temerous Doctors which have entered a process against their Judges, having had the boldness in their writings to touch the Lord's Anointed, and to treat of the deposing of Kings; expressly intimate this case wherein Subjects are not obliged to acknowledge their Prince, When himself, say they, acknowledgeth a foreign Authority, and makes himself Tributary to another. So incompatible with Royalty, have they esteemed all manner of subjection and dependence; and what is Royalty, say they▪ but the vain Magnificence of a Feast, but a monster of ceremony, if he who exerciseth it hath a Superior or a Companion?  
For my part I wade not so far: I am satisfied to say, that in Presumption there is somewhat more noble than in weakness; and that such like excesses are less to blame then such like defaults: Those who march at a venture in an unknown Country, and who bind themselves too much to their opinions, are of far more value than those who follow blind Guides, and who out of too much docility fail. In fables there are Hero's which have been mad, but there are none which have been weak; Sometimes there appears the overflowing of their passions, but the stupidity of their minds is never mentioned.  
In effect, what would it be, my Lord, to be at one and the same time at the highest rise of human things, and at the lowest stage amongst men● To be called His Majesty, and His Highness, and to be possessed of nothing but what's little and low; To need a Curator on the Throne, and a pedagogue in Council. O God send this evil to those of Asia.  
But we must speak more like Christians, and more charitably; Let's conclude with a Prayer which shall comprehend Asial with Europe, and which embraceth the general good of the World. LORD TURN AWAY FROM ALL STATES AN EVIL WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF SO MANY OTHER EVILS, DENY NOT sovereigns THE SPIRIT OF COMMAND AND CONDUCT, WHICH IS FIT FOR THEM TO GOVERN; GIVE THEM UMDERSTANDING ENOUGH TO COUNSEL THEMSELVES WELL, AND TO CHOOSE THEIR counselors AS THEY OUGHT.    

AN ADVICE pronounced and since written.  
Wherein is the Extract of an entertainment, in which was discoursed of Ministers, and of the ministry of State. To Monsieur Girard, Official and Archdeacon of Angoulesm.  
YOu shall have your desire; for who can refuse a man who demands with so good a grace? Were not even this man my perfect friend, were he not my Reverend Father ● God, were he not the beginning of an ●rchbishop, and more than one half of a ●onsignor? Should not this man (patience little, for I am not yet at the end of this ●eriod) should not this man I say, so consi●erable in respect of his Character and De●rts have the power over me and my wri●ings, which a perfect friendship and fidelity of forty years require.  
I therefore now send you Sir, my Advice of the other day Augustus his favourite, of the last Edition reviewed, and the Letter to the Qu. of Sweden; you will please to communicate them to Monsieur the Governor since he seeks divertisement, and believes he may find it in my writings. But I shall entreat you to advertise him, that in the Advice nothing was added to what was spoken; should I reduce it into order, I should fals●●e the thing which was not treated with method, nor by the Rules of Art. Here it is as it passed in the liberty of conversation which followed the reading of the first and fifth Discourse of Aristippus.  
THe Prince ought not to follow his own inclinations when he is to choose his Ministers; herein he must away with capricio●s and fantasies: Let him in other things sport and divert himself as he pleaseth; in a choice of so high a concern he must use the severity of his judgement, and with the first bring with him the indifferency of his will; it ought to be a pure operation of Reason, free and despoiled of love or hate.  
After an exact search, and serious deliberation, after having been plena●ily satis●●ed on all those difficulties which he made 〈◊〉 himself, and which were made by others. He may conclude, That this particular persons leisure wa● the republics loss, and that that lost as much time as he spent in his repose. But in pursuit, having tried the person he chose, and having received those services he hoped for, if he will do what's just, he will make his Minister his favourite, and will not suffer him to desire any thing beyond the acknowledgement of an obliged Prince; it's just he should not impart common honours to an extraordinary virtue, that he should not avaritiously dispense his favours on a place whereon Heaven hath poured forth all hers.  
But do you remember Sir, that I spoke of Agrippa and of Moecenae who are long since dead, and have left behind them none of their race, although the earth be large, and the number of the people which inhabit it not small. Augustus could never have found through all its extent, two better or more efficacious instruments for those glorious Enterprises he designed: He had need of those two men to establish that eternal Peace he intended the Universe; these men were necessary for him to persuade obedience to people that were free, to make his arms revered by the vanquished, to render that Power which was terrible to all the world, grateful to every particular person.  
Besides which, they were friends worthy of Augustus, enlightened with the clearest lights of wisdom, when they were to deliberate; they burned with zeal and affection, when they were to execute things deliberated. Sometimes they followed the intentions of Augustus, otherwhiles they prevented them. They did not only obey his words and his commands, but even the signs he made and his desires. None but they could have born the splendour of so lively and active a virtue as his, far enough from being able to have upheld it, to fortify it as they did, and to cooperate with it.  
Is it not true, that a Prince who hath such Ministers may take some hours of rest without prejudice to the public repose, may take up the debates in his mind without disturbance to his affairs? I am confident you are of my mind, but you must also confess, that such Props as these are not in Sholes under one reign or in one Kingdom, not even in History, which embraceth several reigns and Realms. Such helps as these are rare presents from heaven. A man had need know how to choose; these kind of elections are not every day to be made; all Ages are not so happy as that of Augustus; And that man whom the world may sometimes stand in need of, perhaps may not be then born.  
THere are some Souls capable of Fear, which was the second point of our conversation, which otherwise are fair souls▪ and want not light; But they are without fire, or so ill kindled, so weak, and so languishing, that they appear to be without action; these Souls are only fit to exercise easy virtues, they know not how to act, but when they move without resistance; such Ministers to be sure will never trust to Chance; they would have a God for their security, and more than an Oracle for their assurance in the least of their undertakings; their Master may have courage, but the timorousness of their counsels blunts the edge of his courage, they always restrain, and never spur him forwards.  
Take heed, I beseech, you of those able Cowards Aristippus entertained us withal; observe how a new experiment puts their wisdom in disorder, how a simple report without an Author or foundation, casts them out of their ordinary situation; how grave and dissembling soever they are at the first alarm, their Mask falls, all their business is to be read in their faces, in the afternoon you may know the Dispatches they received in the morning (so that good wise Gentleman Mr. Conrart once told us) although they endeavour to palliate themselves with a constrained silence, the emotion of their mind still appears in their troubled looks.  
When our Philip de Comines learned from the mouth of the Duke of Venice, the League which was concluded against King Charles his Master betwixt that signory, the Pope, the King of the Romans, &c. this news which he nothing suspected, and during the time of his embassy did so surprise him, that if you will believe Cardinal Bembo, it almost made him quite lose his wits. And when he went out of the Senate with a Secretary of the signory, who had order to accompany him, My friend, said he, pray repeat what the Prince told me, for I have quite forgotten it; I no longer know what is become of my Memory, or of my Reason.  
This example is singular, whether it were by reason that such a secret was kept amongst so many Senators, and so many Ambassadors, who treated about this League or by reason of our Ambassadors surprise, who seeing them every day never was sensible of any thing which concerned their Treaty, yet ought he not for this lose the good reputation which he had otherwise so well deserved. A thunderclap in a serene sky, may well astonish a man who thinks not on a tempest. But there are men, and I know some, to whom every noise is a thunderbolt, and who are astonished at every thing. There are some men whom Confidence and Despair alternatively sometimes take and leave again in one day. So ha●e an agitation, and so misbecoming the dignity of a wise man (I speak of the wise of this world, not of the Stoically wise) is far estranged from that equality of mind, which ought to appear in all the several changes of human things; in the ebbings and flowings of Court. It is not Constancy which we are to witness amongst the extravagancies and sickleness of fortune? shall a Pil●● tremble and grow pale at sight of the first rising billow, shall he let the Rudder fall from his hands? shall he quit his place? shall he abandon the ship in a tempest if it cease not as soon as it pleaseth him?  
A funeral news may happen which may cause a universal astonishment, men may everywhere cry out, that all is lost; They may bring news that Hannibal is at the City gates, that a Province is revolted, that another is shaken. In this public consternation shall the Minister hide himself in the recesses of the Palace, to weep for the miseries of the State, to make vows amongst the women? On the contrary, were I to be credited, he ought to appear in public Piazzo's and in all other frequented places; he ought to be at every turn of ill fortune, and because he ought not to fear he deserves to be respected. A Poet hath gone before me, MERVITQVE TIMERI NON METVENS.  
Neither the audacity of evil Subjects, nor the debility of honest men, nor the murmurs of ignorant people, nor the discourses which he shall hear in his chamber of those who will wager his ruin in the Court below, will be able to disturb the serenity of his looks, which manifests a peace without and tranquillity within.  
By his good mine he will reassure affrighted hearts, he will keep himself erect over those ruins which may fall under him, je will never despair of the republic, but considering THAT MEN ARE AS OFTEN DECEIVED IN DESPAIR AS IN HOPE, AND THAT THE SICKNESSES WHICH SOME DIE OF, AND WHEREOF OTHERS ARE CURED, HAVE THE SAME BEGINNINGS; after having herein employed all possible remedies, and forgotten none of the secrets of Art, he will cast himself into the arms of Providence, and recommend his Affairs to God, this also I acknowledge from that good and wise Gentleman Mr. Conrart.  
THis a●●urance in astonished persons, and this calm in a tempest, must needs proceed from that strong constitution of mind which is nothing subject to those disorders which the Passions raise, and which are nothing shaken with what impetu●sities soever fortune clasheth with them. But whatsoever the Barbarians of the Court say, or if you had rather call them the enemies of learning, the study of Wisdom is no unprofitable help to Magnanimity and judgement.  
True and good philosophy, for there is one which is false and evil, renders death familiar unto us by a frequent meditation; it bereaves us of fear, and diminisheth ill; it teacheth us that the only faults which we commit, are the only mishaps which befall us; and the consolation which a man receives who is at no loss by his imprudence, but by the infidelity of others is to be preferred to the good successes of him who gains by his crimes and not by his virtues.  
That Minister of whom you fancy I have made this Picture, but which I reserve in my secret Repository, being called to the Government in such troublesome times, aught to uphold himself on these principles; he ought to pass from the Philosophy of words to that of actions; an unforeseen accident will never overthrow his Rules nor his Maxims, because there can be no accident which he foresees not, and smells not a far off. He will neither apprehend the danger of his person, nor the ruin of his fortune; he will apprehend nothing but blame and an ill reputation; And although Prudence be a virtue principally employed for the preservation of him who possesseth it; yet neither will Prudence hinder him from prizing several other goods more than his own life.  
But when things grow better, and times become less evil, he for that will not sleep out a calm, nor unbend himself from his former vigour. Our wiseman will go before all disorders, not only with quick and penetrating eyes, but also with a firm and an undaunted heart. If he sees some sign of change appear, and the least presage of a civil War, he will endeavour to stifle the Monster before its birth. It would be vain to represent unto him those inconveniencies which threaten him in particular, if he will oppose himself to a springing faction, he will pass by all those considerations which stop the greatest part of our other wisemen, and he will only mind the performance of his duty, without caring for the greatness of the danger he is engaged in.  
Were there a Son, or the Brother of a King, who were persuaded to embr●il themselves, he would never sharpen that Son or that Brother, far less would he flatter them: He will give counsel to the Father and the elder Brother which should neither be timorous nor cruel. And if any man seek to estrange from him the affection of these young Princes, he will rather serve them without their good will, then please them by disserving them: He will not so much respect what they would then seem to will, as what hereafter they would indeed; nor so much the interest of others, wherein others engage them, as he will their true and natural interests, which can never be separate from those of the King and Crown.  
After this manner he will undertake the public Cause with a courageous Pro●i●y▪ and will not make the least appearance 〈…〉 indiscreet zeal appear; his force will be without rudeness or sharpness; his fidelity to his Master without hatred; to his Master's Brother or Son he will manifest a respectful bol●ness, and full of modesty in those occasion▪ wherein others would ruin all by violence or negligence Howsoever as it was said at first, he must be resolved come what will to the worst can happen; to save the State he must be prodigal of himself, he is the Kings own man. He must not only engage himself in a dangerous action, the event whereof is doubtful, but devote himself to an assured death, if his Master's service exact it from him.  
It's this quality which is so necessary for a Minister To love the Prince's person as much as the State; the one and the other passion ought equally to possess his Soul, one without the other being deficient: we went yet further, and after having answered what was alleged in de Aubignys History concerning the Dukes of Joyeuse and Espernon. I thus return to our subject.  
IT hath been formerly spoken of two Macedonians, That the one loved Alexander, and that the other loved the King; it's not well done to part what ought to remain entire; why should we separate the King from Alexander, and divide that poor Prince in pieces? it were a violent division, and a violence even to Nature; it's to cut one body into two; the King's interests are inseparably united with those of the State, and I must confess that I cannot approve the meanness of Cardinal Birage, who usually said, I am not chancellor of France, I am the King's chancellor, he might as well ●ave added, And the Queen his Mother, whose Creature he was; not to take things at worse, methinks he is not to be commended for so ill an expression.  
Good Princes themselves protest, They belong to others, and owe themselves and all to the Commonwealth▪ Magistrates and other Officers with far more reason owe themselves unto it. They will never therefore at the same time give and take away the same thing; their souls are too noble to be capable of so base an avarice; will they repent themselves of their liberality? will they secretly take back a present which they solemnly made before all the world? for so I call the administration of Justice, of good Judges, and of good Laws.  
Unless then Melanois reckoned France as nothing, he could no way better than thereby have made it appear, that he was a stranger to it, and that to him it was altogether indifferent But let it not be displeasing to the Cardinal of Birague; the Minister ought to love the King and State both at once together. And if besides that, he love some other thing, his second affections must always rank themselves under the subjection and orders of the first.  
If he marry, he ought not to contract himself with any who is suspected by the State, or gives any cause of jealousy to his Prince▪ but for this its too too much, he ought to renounce his own Country, he ought to break all the bonds of Nature, he ought to sacrifice all for the good of the State, if the good of the State require it. He ought to make it appear, that in a Monarchy there may be a young Brutus, who prefers his duty before his Children, and can even lose them when its necessary ●or the King's service. He shall witness himself another Marquis of Pisani, who one day said of his only daughter, of she who since, and to this day is the wonder of her Age, If I knew that after my death she should be the wife of a man who were not the King's Servant, I would strangle her now persently with mine own hands.  
But if the Minister be unmarried, and if he keeps himself chaste, it will be so much the greater advantage to his Master's affairs, and they will be less subject to inconveniencies; it will be no small matter That to him who ought perpetually to labour either with courage or with his mind, defended pleasures are unknown, which have turned so many wise men into beasts, and led so many Victors in triumph; but the ground of it indeed were, that even he would be without legitimate passions which at least amuse and divert, if they do not debauch and corrupt. Domestic cares which usurp so much time from business will not rob an hour from such a Minister; he will never think of the establishment of his Family, he will not have one thought but for the Eternity of the State; his affection which would have been divided betwixt his Wise, his Sons and Sons in Law, which would have run into other successions, and other dependencies of marriage, so that the least part of it would but have come to his Master's share, w●ll then be united and gathered together in one only object; his soul being void of little cares will be altogether filled with those of the public, &c.  
ANd then neither will he be troubled to seek for venal tongues or mercenary pens. He will be far better praised by the public voice, then by those of particular persons. These will neither be starved, and beggarly Orators, nor di●●y and ragged Poets to speak well of him; but whole Provinces which have been eased of their burdens and taxes, great and goodly Cities whose ancient privileges have been preserved, Blessings and Applause will follow him everywhere; at the same time he will be called the Port of the Afflicted, and a ruining Shelf to those who are Violent; the people's comfort, and the terror of foreigners, by reason that he by his prudence will reduce them ●o reason, nor by his vanity will be offensive to them.  
Thus the Enemies of the State will admire the virtue of which they have cause to complain; And what would they not then give for a man who had given them so much trouble? with how many millions would they purchase one Minister? what promises what artifice would they not employ if they possibly could? I do not say altogether to debauch him, but even to sweeten him, were it never so little; there is nothing but they would do to soften the firmness of his heart, and to hinder his mouth from speaking the truth; but he who believes he possesseth the Spring of Pearls and the Root of Gold; that King who boasts to have the price of all things in his coffers, is not rich enough so much as to pay for the very silence of such a Minister as I fancy.  
Our Conference ended with a digression which was nothing displeasing to the company, and by two examples which are the one far enough from the other, but which both equally pleased you. Neither must I forget the last point of the other days' Advice.  
A Wife and Children are powerful hindrances to stop a man in his course to glory; whosoever hath them hath given hostages to Fortune, and undertakes nothing but with co●●traint, for fear of losing what he hath given; The sad representation of a widow's mourning, and his Children being under age, continually presents itself before his eyes, it enters into all its deliberations. And when his Mind makes its escapes by a generous motion, this second thought presently succeeds, which reduceth him into the road again of vulgar spirits. He marcheth into the Field only when the signal is given him from Court; he raiseth the siege before a place when it can hold out no longer in obedience to the secret orders he receives from his Wife. In the most honourable occasions he regrets the smoke of Ithaca, he sighs for the absence of Penelope; He prefers the wrinkles of an old woman, who expects him at home, before that immortality which is promised him if he will but remain with the Army.  
This same man being married, is grown another in Wedlock; formerly he believed it was piety to hazard himself for his Country, and now he believes its cruelty not to preserve himself for his Family. He no longer thinks on virtue, forasmuch as he cannot leave it in his Testament; he cares for nothing but Wealth, and Offices which may succeed from him to his; for which he hath such irregular desires, and such a blind ambition, that he no longer knows God nor the King, and sticks neither at Altars nor Thrones when his interest is concerned.  
Had not Stili●on been married his end had been more happy, than the first part of his life was sparkling The Emperor Yheodosius, to whom he had rendered very profitable and most signal services, judged him worthy of his Alliance, and gave him to Wife his Ncece Serena, who by adoption was his Daughter, he afterwards received a second mark of greatness, and had the honour to be Father in Law to the Emperor Theodosius; but he thought it a small matter that his Sister should be Emperatrice, & that his Son should still be his sister's Subject and remain but a private Person: The mischief was, he had this Son, and that he loved this Son more than his duty. Eucherius was the cause why Stelicon died guilty of high Treason, and an Enemy to the State; although he had formerly been the Prince's Tutor, and the state's Protector, although he had defended both the one and the other against the Treasons of Ruffinus, and the Enterprises of the Barbarians.  
PRrince Maurice of Orange was no ordinary man, and his actions deserve respect; he is particularly to be considered (these are the reflections of an Italian A cademick) although he professed himself of a Sect which not only permits Marriage, but ordains and commands it, yet would never marry; whether he believed he should never get Children which resembled him, or that he apprehended that if he had any, the consideration of his fortune 〈◊〉 make him undertake something to the prejudice of the public liberty, or whether he would not divide that affection which he thought he was obliged to preserve entire for his Country.  
THis was near upon my advice the other day; and since you thought it not fit to be lost in the air with the rattle of words, and that Monsieur our Governor will not be angry to see it in paper, you will oblige me to carry it to him, and to make him this small present from me; Were I in a condition to go abroad, I would ease you of the trouble, and spare your O●ation, but I know that the pains which you take for me are pleasant unto you, and that speeches cost you nothing.  
It's not the first time, my dear Sir, that I have better expressed myself by your mouth▪ then by mine own. You have oftener than once been my Ambassador (I use your own terms) as well towards Monsieur the Marshal d' Effiat, as to Monsieur the Count d' Auaux; you have made yourself heard by those good Lords, and have after a strange manner made me been valued. Let's go yet further on in the History; in confidence of me you have gone to Monsienr the Archbishop of Thoulouse, and Monsieur the Bishop of Lisieux. You promised them my Letters to oblige me to write unto them, and they came to you to meet them, when they knew you had any for them Before Jansenius or the Jansenists were spoken of, ●onsieur the Abbot of St. Cyran called you My A●ro●a; he received you with open arms, and you have been always well entertained by the illustrious persons of our age; he therefore in my opinion will not treat you less favourably than those; it's necessary for him to dive●t himself, and for that purpose you will come most opportunely after so many troublesome businesses and so many sad objects wherewith our Province hath been of late filled; ●he may untire his mind, and rejoice his sight with these our lines which you shall give him.  
For the Picture itself which you promised him, it's another story. It's not at all in my Cabinet as you fancy, it's still in the painter's Idea, and consequently it will be difficult for you to make good your promise. Such Pieces require leisure and meditation. An old Artist as I am, having some honour to lose, and being obliged to have a care to preserve the good opinion which men have of him, he ought to respect the judgement of the public, and not to abuse those favours which he hath received. Althongh I will paint no more, I have far less mind to daub.  
FINIS.   

A TABLE of the most remarkable things in Aristippus.  

A.  
ACtion, It's easy to deceive one's self in the judgement which men make of actions, since those who perform them are first deceived, Page 42  
Agrippa, Augustus his Minister of State, 143.  
Alcibiades, the vivacity of his mind, 69, 70  
Ambition being not well regulated, causeth the loss of great persons, 156  
A famous Artisan whom Alexander's history mentions, 55, 56   

B.  
BArbarossa kept intelligence with Andreas Doria, 77  
Birague a Cardinal, his remarkable baseness, 152   

C.  
CAto an austere Commonwealths-man, but out of fashion, who could not fit himself to the manner of his times, 98, 99 A verse of Virgil well applied, 100  
Cicero was valiant and courageous, at least in the Senate. 67  
Citizens are seldom so now, 67, 68, A brave Citizen ought to be like Cicero. ibid.  
Cleon Governor of the Commonwealth of Athens mocked for his extravagant probity, 108  
Comines his astonishment and surprise, 145  
Conference. what natural knowledge soever we have, and what light soever comes from above, we are not to scorn a scrutiny of reason, and the greater light of truth which is gained by Conference. 2, 3, 4  
The Conquest of Greece proposed by a petit Prince of Italy. 56  
Of Counsel, it's the great element of a civil life, nor less necessary than fire or water, 2, 3  
Counsellors, There are some who out of a peevish and fantastic humour commonly think on death, and commonly sleep on the Flower-de-luces' 110. Such Counsellors are not to be called before Princes. 110, 111  
Court, Tricks and deceits used therein, 78, &c.  
He who takes and gives counsel is not esteemed less wise, 9, 10   

D.  
DEliberation. How that is to be understood which the Romans said, that we ought to deliberate with occasion, and in the presence of affairs, 54  
Demosthenes, appeared too punctilious in the Council of Athens, about that small Island which was in contest betwixt the Athenians and King Philip. 104, 105  
Andrew Doria kept intelligence with Barbarossa, although a good servant to the Emperor Charles 5. 77   

E.  
EQuivoques which were pleasant of a G●●●mans to what learning was unknown. P 29, 30.  
Events, Yhe greatest are not always produced from great Causes. 39  
An ecclesiastic Italian, his good and very expressed sally, preaching before a Prince of that Country 133 134   

F.  
favour is a Daughter which often kills her own Mother 130  
Favourites described, 113, 114. How they introduce and raise themselves in Court, and how by little and little they possess themselves of the Prince's mind, 116. What tricks and slights they use altogether to subject 〈◊〉 Prince, that they may reign themselves apparently 125. Of he unhappy captivity Princes are reduced unto by their Favourites, 126, 127. There can be no 〈◊〉 more unhappy than the life of such a Prince, who suffers himself after that manner to be governed by his Favourites, 129. A Prince in such a condition is civilly dead, and 〈◊〉 as it were deposed himself; it's his 〈◊〉 only which is made use of in public 130. An example of a King of Castille who du●st 〈◊〉 even go to walk, nor so much as put on a new Suit without his favourites leave. 131. Of the unhappy condition a Prince or State is reduced unto, when a Favourite himself obeys a Mistress, when Love governs the politics, ib. A good lesson for Kings and Princes touching the choice and raising up of their favourites and Ministers. 134, 135.  
favourites, Kings can hardly live without favourites, 17. It were a tyranny to hinder Kings from having them, 18. It's no crime to have a Confident, ibid. In Heaven there are benevolent Aspects, and favourable inclinations rather towards one then towards another, ibid. The Son of God even in this world hath had his favourites, 19 Of the prudence and discretion a Prince ought to have in the choice of his favourites and Ministers of State, 20. Prince's often deceive themselves in the choice they make, raising persons of no worth without virtue, without knowledge, and without experience to the Government and Administration of Affairs of State, 20, 21. Some fair thoughts touching those grandees who are only remarkable from their grandeur, 21, 22. Concerning the cause of this new favour, and of the birth of this evil Authority, 22, 23. This favour is none of virtue's Creature, nor so much as the virtues of the blood, 24, 25. These new men grown great deceive themselves, if they persuade themselves that God is obliged to send them his spirit of governing well, and to invalidate the Prince's election by the sudden illumination of his Ministers, 27. To govern well, instruction and experience are necessary, 20, 21. The good opinion which an ignorant favourite hath of himself, casts him into continual danger of losing himself and of losing the Country. 28, 29.  
Friendship, without it felicity is imperfect and defective, virtue is weak and impotent. 1  
Friends are the most profitable and most desirable of all outward goods 1, 2.  
Fortune and its productions are extravagant and ridiculous, 22  
Fortune is esteemed Mistress of Events, and Arbitrator of battles, 65. This blind power hath no admittance nor power in politic Assemblies, Ibid. Fortune will have those she favors trust in her. 61   

G.  
GIlberti Bishop of Verona and Datary to Pope Clement 7. appeared too punctilious, speaking about reconciling the Kingdom of Bohemia with the Church, 104  
Great men remarkable only for their greatness, 21. Like those high barren mountains which produce neither herb nor plant, 21, 22.  
Of God. That there is none but he who is plenarily content in himself, 2   

I.  
jealousy of love betwixt particular persons hath been cause of a great war, 39  
Ignorance is very dangerous in a person who hath the government and administration of Affairs of State, 21. Bold Ignorance hath often precided in the conduct of human things, 26  
Of Interest. It always overbears both honour and reason, 63. A man too much tied to his own interest, is not capable of the government and administration of the State, 62  
Joseph the patriarch a great Minister of State, wonderfully honoured by his Mr. Pharaoh, 15, 16  
Italy breeds excellent Cheats, 84, 85,  
judgements which are quickest want clearness in their own interests, 3, 4  
Justice when it's too severe is not always best, sometimes it's even pernicious and hurtful, 101, 102. When Justice is done we must imagine it's a favour, without standing on puntilioes, 105. It's better not to be so quick and clear-sighted in discussion of matters of right, for fear of finding therein too much Justice. 106   

K.  
KIngs, their condition is unhappy if reduced by favourites, vid. favourites, Kings are not to be contented with a personal and particular innocency; and it's to no purpose for them to be just if they lose themselves by the injustice of their Ministers. 133. A good instruction for Kings, for their choice and election of Ministers or favourites, 134, 135. The learned and wise Lipsius his answer on this subject. 136.   

L.  
ALvares de Luna the King of Castile's favourite to what height of insolency his favour and power arrived towards the Prince his Master, 131  
The extravagant and ridiculous Love of some hypochondriacal Queen, 22. Of the Love governing the politics when the woman is possessed of a favourites heart, 131   

M.  
marriage; A woman and her children are most powerful hindrances to stop a man who seeks after glory, 155.  
The Mind takes a wonderful pleasure in Rati●cination, 51, 52. What appears its f●ie●d and favourable in its thought, revolts and ●ecomes contrary in the operation. 52.  
Maxims to govern happily, and with success 〈◊〉 labour for the good of the State, 101. There are Maxims which are not just in their 〈◊〉 nature, but whose use justifies them, 102  
Maecenas Minister of State and favourite to Augustus, and of the facility of his manners. 143, 144.  
Meleager by the provocation of his Wife 〈◊〉 himself into a revolt, and engageth in the party of a Tyrant against the King his Master, without knowing of a truth what 〈◊〉 moved him thereunto, 41, 42, 43.  
Ministers of State, Kings and Princes cannot reign without them, 5. Princes to make, cannot be without them; and Princes made need them, 6. An explication of what Plato says, That God gave Kings two spirits to govern, 7. Several degrees of Servants, who all find place in the administration of a State, 7, 8. Fair eulogies of a true and perfect Minister of State, 8, 9 Besides those Gods and Demons wherewith the ancients accompanied their Hero's, they gave them men also to assist them in their undertakings, 9 A Prince who in time of need makes use of a Ministers counsel, is not to be esteemed less wise or less Sovereign, 10, 11. A wise and faithful Minister may call himself the Temperament betwixt the power of one person, and the public good of the Commonwealth, 12. In Greece Ministers of State reigned with their Kings, 12, 13. In Persia they are called the King's eyes, ibid. The Roman Emperors honoured them with the Title of Friends and Companions, ibid. They caused Statues to be erected for them, placing them near their own, and rendering them very great honours, 13, 14, A man without virtue, without knowledge, and without experience is not capable of the Government and administration of affairs of State, 20, 21. Knowledge and experience are necessary for well governing, 28. The good opinion which an ignorant Minister of State may have of himself is very dangerous, and may be of a pernicicus consequence, 26, 27. It's not necessary for a Minister of State to be very subtle, vide subtlety. A Minister ought not to be tied too much to his own interest, 62. The consideration of his own interest causeth Timidity, and captivates his liberty of speech and action, 62, 63. Those who have a passionate Probity, indocile and impetuous, are not fit to be placed near the person of a Prince; their employment thrives better at a distance, 94, 95. vide Probity passionate. Maxims which such are to learn who are called to the Government of State, 101. Some to seem virtuous, and not to be corrupted in their Offices, render themselves ridiculous out of an extravagant Probity, 108  
Of Ministers and of the ministry of State, 138, 139. A Prince's care in the choice of a Minister, 142, 143. Two true and perfect Ministers of State, 144, 145. It's a rare thing to see a brave Minister or favourite, ibid. The Picture of a true and perfect Minister, ibid. A Minister of State ought to have as well Boldness as wisdom, ibid. He ought to have an equality of mind, which ought to appear in the several changes of human things, in the ebbings and flowings at Court, 146 He ought to be constant and resolute, without being astonished at any ill news, or of any ill success, 147. Study and wisdom is no useless help to Magnanimity, and to the judgement of a Minister, 148, 149. He ought to love the Prince's person as well as his Estate, and both equally, 151. Meanness of Cardinal Birague, ibid. If a Minister marry, he ought not contract an alliance suspected to the State, no which causeth jealousy, 152, 153. He ought to renounce blood and Kindred, ibid. If he do not marry, it will be much for the advantage of his Master's affairs, ib. A Spanish Minister could never resolve to acknowledge the late Henry the Fourth, for King of Franc, always calling him the Bernois or the Prince of Bern, when he intended him a favour, 90, 91  
Mucianus Minister of State to the Emperor Vespasian, 5, 6.   

N.  
NEstor a good Minister of State, Agamemnon's wish, 9  
Night, why the Grecian Poets gave it the name of Wise and Counsellor, ibid.   

O.  
OCcasion is subject to change, 54  
Prince Maurice of Orange would never marry for several reasons, 157   

P.  
PIcture may represent a thing, but yet cannot be that thing, there must still be a difference, 53  
Of Photion, and the solidity of his mind, 69  
politic Assemblies, the mind ought in them to act freely without constraint, and prudence is quietly to exercise its operations, 65, 66  
Of the baseness of those who tremble at the re●ital of the least danger which restrains and hinders men from speaking their minds, 66  
A physician to the Queen of Persia was cause of that War which Xerxes made in Greece, 41. A physician boasted to have killed a Patient with the fairest method in the world, 47, 48  
The Marquis of Pisani greatly affectionated to the King's service, 153  
Poets were the ancient Preceptors of human kind. 9  
Policy forbears not to be unhappy without heaven's intermission, 55  
Presumption. In it there is something which is more noble than in weakness, and such excesses are less blameable than such like defaults, 138  
An extravagant Probity, 108  
A passionate, ridiculous and impetuous Probity, which may be otherwise called a Brutal virtue, 87. Those who have that natural obstinacy, and which do not nor will not know any other reason besides their own, are not very fit to govern a State, ib. They often fall into pits in the midst of a way, and incessantly fall on shelves only to have the honour not to go to the left, 88, 89. They express themselves in affirmative terms, and decide the most doubtful and the most embroiled business with a So it is, 91. They are to be preferred to the timorous, 92, 93. This boldness and rudeness have in some encounters been approved, and sometimes succeeded, 93, 94. Those who are naturally so, hardly correspond with an enemy, but they easily go back against their Master 94. They are not fit to be near a Prince's person, their employment is better at a distance, 95, 96. They love the state and their Country, but hate dependence and subjection, 96. They are good Governors of Provinces, and good Guardians of a Frontier, but they cannot be good Ministers of State, or good Courtiers, ibid. In business wherein they may choose their side, and wherein of many who offer themselves the fittest to manage them, aught to be chosen; they are commonly in one extreme or other, 96, 97. They are Enemies of all accommodation, and are not acquainted with those tempers or adjustments which are so profitably used for the perfection of business, 97, 98. In a State which dies of old age, they would the same thing, as if they governed a republic newly established, 98, 99 Like Cato give sentence against Caesar, 99 Such Maxims as to govern well, they ought to learn, 101. A man must not be too severe nor too ridged, but must sometimes accommodate himself to times and seasons, ibid. It's unnecessary to make puntilioes on words and forms: Great persons to blame upon that occasion, 103, 104. It's better not to have so good and penetrating a sight in the discussion of Rights, lest we discover but too much Justice, 106, 107. There are some who to appear virtuous and incorrupted in Office, rendered themselves ridiculous by an extravagant Probity, 108. There are some who for fear of favouring any man, disapprove, blame, and condemn all the world, and most commonly without knowing why, 109, 110. Such men are not to be called to the counsels of Kings, 110, 111  
Prudence, A man may be imprudent with the consent of Prudence, 60   

R.  
REason. Even the right and that which is most clear wanders often; and the most able and the most intelligent men are subjects of deceit, 51  
Remedies though filthy are still remedies, 102  
Royalty is ●not compatible with subjection, 138   

S.  
SEcr●sie. A singular example of a kept secret, 146  
Society. Men can neither live well, nor be men, nor be happy the one without the other, 2. Societies advantage above Solitude, ibid.  
Solitude. God only enjoys a most happy solitude, ibid.  
Stilicon unhappily ended his life, having been too ambitious for his children, 11, 156  
subtlety. Of those who entertain so vast and extended an intelligence, who reason with excess, 35. They are like extractors of essences, ibid. It's an error to think that wisdom cannot be courageous; that it ought always to fear and tremble, 70. Danger is to be invoked to the relief of danger, and we must get out of one evil through another, 70, 71. The ill conduct of wise Ministers, when some ill business happens, some trouble or some rebellion in the State, 71, 72. They are often also friends to strangers, and apprebend more to displease a neighbour King, then to disserve the King their Master, 74, 75. If a sensible injury which cannot be dissembled, oblige the State to a public resentment, they do not blame the thing in its principle, but in its consequences and effects, 75. They are like the Ministers of Carthage, who never comforted themselves with Hannibal's Victories in Italy, 76. Such Ministers were the cause of the loss of two Empires, they lost both Rome and Constantinople, ibid. They would neither sell nor deliver up their Master, but neither are they angry the world knows it's in their power, 77. They keep even sometimes intelligence with the Ministers of other Princes, although it be even in open war, 77, 78. In particular affairs they only give good answers in general, without precisely ever obliging any, and thus they can tire out the pateince of Solicitors, and often reduce them to despair, 78, 79. Nothing can be imagined more sweet or more quiet than their malice; they strike (as they say) without lifting up the arm, 80, 81 Women, the insolency of those who possess a powerful favourite or Minister of State; and how unhappy it renders a State, 131, 132. They are the heretics of State, 35. There are speculatives in all Nations, which afford more liberty than is fit to conjecture and suspicion, 36. Strange and ridiculous Visions produce in them a false subtilty,37. They presume too advantageously of a man who often proves less than mean, who possesseth but a quarter or one half of the reasonable part, 39 Great Events are not always produced by great Causes. Vide Events. Evil subtlety is the cause things are not effected, 44. It's not necessary for a Minister of State to have so much subtlety. 35, 44. A great mind alone is a great instrumentt to commit faults, 48  
Sobriety of knowledge, and of knowing is a good thing, 48, 49.   

T.  
TImerousness is dangerous and prejudicial to a Minister of State, or to a favourite, 144. 145  
Timero●s persons are placed in the number of poisoners and Assassins, how that's to be understood, 65. They are the last and worst of all ●●wards, ibid. A wiseman ought to expect without astonishment, till ill fortune be come, 67  
Treaty. It were expedient to quit somewhat our own reason and honour, rather than not to make a good and honest accommodation, 106  
Tyrants, how they by degrees make and form themselves, 117, 118   

W.  
WArs. The quarrels of valours often sets the world on fire, and not their Master's interests, 40. The war of the King of Persia against Greece was only undertaken to bring home a Muontebank, 41.  
Weakness of mind is a subject of consolation for our poor humanity, to see that something of the man was in their Hero's, 107.108  
A Woman despised by a King obligeth her Husband to revolt for to revenge herself, he being ignorant of what moved him thereunto, 41, 42  
Wisdom; the refutation of what some Philosophers say that a wise man needs nobody; and what is separate from him, is to no puppose, 1, 2.  
Court-Wise men counsel themselves instead of counselling their Master, 62, 63. A wise man cannot warrant success, but is to be responsible for his intentions and for his Advice, 66  
Our Prudent politicians should imitate the courage and magnanimity of Cicero, 67. Timerousness so possesseth their minds, that they despair before they ought to be afraid, 68 They regulate their deliberations, as if all doubtful actions must needs happen, and commonly act not at all, because they would act securely, 68, 69, They ought to consider that all that ill which might happen happen not always, ibid. They do not always sound the bottom of things, and seldom bring them to the last point, 69. Their Wisdom is precipitate as soon as out of their souls, and never comes to action, 69, 70.   
FINIS.