CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE LIVES OF ALCIBIADES AND CORIALANUS. By Marquis Virgilio Malvezzi, One of the Supreme Council of War, to His Catholic MAJESTY. Dedicated to the King, his Master. Englished by ROBERT GENTILIS, Gent.  
LONDON, Printed by William Wilson for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at the Prince's Arms in Saint Paul's Churchyard. 1650.   

SIR,  
MY pen having soared in the sublime Sphere of your glories, stoops now and perches upon these branches withered thorough antiquity: not to abide here, but to rest, and raise my flight again towards the Sun; on which fixing mine eyes continually I show myself to be the true issue of mine ancestors: The sight is Aquiline, because it looks upon the Sun; the quill is like it because it flies with the Eagle. Of itself it would stay among hedge, and briers; under your great wings it raiseth itself up towards heaven. I dedicate these rests and reposes to whom I dedicated my travails. I owe all to your Majesty acknowledging all to proceed, both from the greatness of your Magnanimous breast, and the liberality of your Royal hand, my rest, my motion, my vocations, mine employments. The book is little; the gift nothing, but the little makes the great to shine, and the nothing is the only basis of one of the Creator's greatest works. I beseech your Majesty to accept of it, and in true imitation of Omnipotency, whilst with a strong hand you abate the bold attempts of great ones, disdain not with a favourable look to raise the humility of little ones: God preserve your Majesty for the good of Christendom.  
Marquis Uirgilio Malvezzi.   

TO THE TWO ILLUSTRIOUS, and Excellent Ladies Anne and Arabella Wentworths; Daughters to that Heroic and Noble THOMAS Earl of Strafford.  
IT had not been a question in Moral Philosophy whether Heroich virtue may be in women, had you (most virtuous Sisters) lived in that age. For as in the days of that ever renowned Queen Elizabeth, a Scholar merrily arguing upon that theme, made this Syllogism.  

Regina Elizabetha est mulier,  
Sed virtus heroica est in Regina Elizabetha,  
Ergo virtus heroica potest esse in muliere.   
The major needed no proof, and the minor he bid the respondent deny if he durst; so now may I make the same argument:  

You two most excellent Ladies are women  
But in each of you are Heroic virtues. Erg. etc.   
The major is manifest, the minor none that knows you can deny. Nature is predominant in births: and great inclinations to vice or virtue come into the world with children from their parents dispositions: How can the issue then of such ancestors be otherwise then endowed with admirable qualities? Look on all sides of your Genealogy in the direct, and collateral lines, both of Consanguinity and affinity we see refined and eminent spirits. Do not great strafford's excellencies survive his fate, and do they not daily revive in your most honourable brother. Was not your Right Noble Mother a rare pattern of virtue. And what Encomium shall I find worthy of that boundless Ocean of eminently qualified Nobility the Countess Dowager of Clare your most honoured Grandmother, truly learned herself, and a Patroness of Learning, A Model of Oeconomie to all Ladies of this age (absit dicto invidia) and whose piety makes her already in her contemplations, a citizen of heaven. Your right honourable Uncle the Earl of Clare; his pious and virtuous sister the Lady Elinor your Aunt. Your most honourable cozen the Lady Clinton, whose nature, virtues, and matron-like wisdom in her youthful age deserves admiration. I will not to yourselves relate your own, for coram laudare vituperare est: and I fear lest those who know you not, being not able to conceive nature could produce such perfectly mature fruits upon such tender stems, should falsely tax me with slattery; I will therefore conclude, with humbly beseeching you to accept of this my small gift, and suffer my weak translation to see light under your Patronage. It is a small token of grateful acknowledgement of the manifold obligements wherewith I am everlastingly tied unto you. Divers imperfections there may be, to which I humbly desire you to give this favourable construction, that I would have done better if I could, and presented you with a greater gift had I had it. Live long and happy crowned with your own worth on earth, and with glorious immortality in heaven; which shall be the continual wish, and hearty prayers of  
Your Honour's most humble & obliged servant, ROBERT GENTILIS.   

To the Reader.  
I Have cursorily discoursed upon eight of those famous and noted men's lives which Plutarch writ; When I had employment, they were my vacancies to rest: when I was idle they were mine employments. Contemplation is man's greatest repose, idleness his worst employment: for it is not idleness, but a waking man's dream, a delirium of one that is in health, and an high way to that of the sick. Man strives in vain to be idle, the Imaginative faculty hinders him, when discourse employs him not, imagination drags him, he that will not have it wander, skip, nor fly about, let him fix and stay it. I have finished of the Universal history of Monarchy, I print them not, by reason of the vehement tempest which troubleth Europe. A rule, let it be never so strait, if it be laid in a stirring water, will seem crooked to them who give more credit to the troubled means then to the real object. I will stay till the Sea is calm, and lay open that which the tempest hideth. I will in the mean time finish these other lives, if God doth not first end mine. Ancient things (as the Philosopher saith) are despised as fabulous, and modern are neglected as too well known. The subjests I write of were in those days when History was not dead, neither doth it now live in all men. These discourses may peradventure come into divers men's hands, to whom the History is not new. The stile is various, the conceits (I hope) not common to delight thee with the one, and gain thee with the other.   

CONSIDERATIONS upon the Lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus.  
DEath is equal in all men; oblivion and glory make the difference (said one) who sought renown by temerity, Making glory and oblivion contraries, and judging him only to be inglorious, who was forgotten, as if oblivion were not by some much more to be desired, then to have the memory of them to vive.  
Some do so abhor the being out of the world, that to stay in it death is horrid unto them, even then when it should be most desired and accepted, as the only remedy and period of all their miseries and evils. And though necessity would force him out of it, yet is he desirous to remain in it, and when sometimes he should desire an everlasting oblivion, he seeks eternal fame even out ofnotorious infamy. Nothing is so tormenting to him as death, and he judges it far better to leave an abominable memory behind him, then to die unremembered; As it were in despite of fate fantastically besotted with his body, though extremely afflicted; and desirous to survive in others memories, though with shame. And the worst remembrance is more acceptable unto him, than none at all.  
Annihilation is an enemy to man, not so much in respect of being nothing, as of not being what he is. We shall not peradventure find a subject so unfortunate, that would be contented to be changed into another individium, no not to exchange his fortune; because the changing would be the annihilating of him. Yet it seems harsh, that a man should have a recourse to wickedness to make him remain in the world; to that which is not, and to nothing, because he would not be so: and yet some do it, and attain to it; whether it be because some writers willingly set down any thing that is great or notorious, sometimes to raise their stile with the relation, sometimes to attract men's attentions with the rumour, and with the great motion, awake, please, and raise up the understanding: they awake it, but violently; they raise it, but to something which naturally, and directly it abhors; they please it, but often times corrupt it; or whether it proceed from that all men take delight in such kind of relations; the most wicked are comforted through the similitude; the less bad extenuate their badness by comparing it; the contrariety increases the good man's merit. Great actions, though bad, do in the matter, communicate with good ones, and with advantage, because they do not find it limited as these last do, and so they deceive: and those who think they can give instruction to others by laying them open and blaming them, are oftentimes deceived: They might do some good in teaching of moral virtues, if virtue, as it hath a particular form to distinguish it from vice, had also a particular matter to work upon. Virtue's matter is open and manifest, vices is for the most part hidden and concealed, and he is sometimes deceived in it that operates, and he also that almost continually sees the operating. One should not peradventure lose his labour in the teaching of moral virtues, if there were no means to teach their contraries, and that one might learn only by example of imitation, and not of shunning and avoiding: There being only one rectitude, makes it a secure judge of obliquity. It's having latitude makes it a deceitful judger of rectitude: Nature is inclined to evil, and evil actions include a certain acritude in themselves, and if they be great, and have a prosperous success, cause more to follow, then to beware of them, and make more emulators than enemies.  
They merit but little of posterity, that will relate evil actions causing that to be heard, which themselves would unwillingly have seen. Many evil things would be thought to have been impossible to be done, did not Historians set them down as done: and how much better were it (to avoid falling into them) to live deceived, then warned? Simplicity is a great virtue, and ignorance is wisdom. True it is, that if the knowledge of the will which is done be taken away, it makes a man sometimes run into it; but if the manner of doing it be concealed, it always keeps one innocent. There are times wherein books would be canceled and some men who ought not to be mentioned; and seeing it is not in our power to forget them, let us at least not mention them. The ancient Romans did so, but to what purpose was it? if writers made mention in their Annals, even of those men whom the Senate had canceled out of its books: undoing that which the Commonwealth had done, by relating that it had done it. Is it not to be admired that those seven brave men, which affected fame and renown, by erecting wonders in the world, could not attain to it: and he that impiously burned but one of them for that purpose, did get it in despite of all Greece, which then strove with its uttermost might to have him blotted out of all men's memories. A pestilent body leaves a contagious corpse behind, and though men leave being wicked, yet they leave not producing of more, and a delict when it is done, and past, serves yet for an example.  
An infected body often communicates its infirmity, but never its health, though it be never so tightly cured. I know not whether it be because that nature in providence drives away the evil from itself, and thriftily reserves that which is good; Or by reason that evil proceeds from any cause, and that which is good from a sound and entire one only. The perfect mixed will have what is wholesome, unwholesomeness p●oceeds from a corrupt mixed, in the first humility, bounded by the natural heat, is fixed, in the latter it flies unbounded; This comes forth with its malignity, and being a fumid vapour it takes hold, and cleaves too, the other retains what is good, and if it doth chance to come forth, being a dry exhalation it doth not fasten nor take hold. This which befalls the body, is also practised in the mind: A good fame and renown resembles rest, the bad and great is like motion, one is like a clear and calm stream, which (though it be deep) glides smoothly in its channel: the other like a fierce torrent, which swelled and troubled, runs violently precipitous with much noise. Cur corrupt nature inclines to evil, violently forceth itself to any good: And seeing rest leaves no such impression as motion, a clear smooth stream draws not with such violence, as a troubled rough one, and nature defends itself from its contrary, and followeth its like, we need not wonder if good examples seldom cure, but evil ones do for the most partinfect.  
The renown which remained of Alcibiades, the membrance of his Counrry, Parents, Nurse, & Tutors, when there was not any memory left to posterity of any of his companions, no not so much as of their names, causeth Plutarch to esteem him to be a man of eminent virtue.  
Of such men (I know not whether it be because all things which belong to a great one are esteemed great, or peradventure infamous) the Country, Parentage, and Tutors, are much enquired after, and sometimes also what influence of the heavens he was borne under. Or because we should conceive, that greatness is not attained, is not the purchase of man himself, but the gift of the influences of heaven, of the nature of such a temperature, of the assistance of Tutors, and as accidental not to be valued in him: As if he did not in himself include the seed of greatness; and that to become conspicuous he must be aided by the nature of the soil, the influence of the stars, the temperature of his Parents, and the education of his Tutors; as if he were a plant no way excelling another, were it not planted in a better earth, nourishing by a more industrious hand, and hath a more benign influence of the heavens. Man is prone to deprive himself of his understanding, and will, and annihilate (I was almost going to say) his free will, unman himself, and grow beast, leaving to emulate Angels, and making himself like to a horse or mule. Can he then, think you, alter nature, gain a new temperature, and command that influence, which he cannot change?  
The great-man came into the world; amongst the Jews, he who indeed only deserved the name of man; presently his Country, Parents, and Tutors, are enquired after. His Country they know to be Nazareth, whence no good can come, his Father they believe to be a Carpenter; they do not find he had any Masters or Tutors; because they will not consent that man should found unto himself this greatness, And not acknowledging it to proceed from Divinity, because they cannot attribute it, to the nature of his Country, nor education of his Tutors, they will have him possessed by a Devil.  
What worse country was there then Bethsaida, what better countrymen than Peter, Andrew, John, James, and Philip. There could be no better Tutors and Mastors framed to teach virtuous actions, and give good documents, than Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca; nor pupils and Scholars that could make less use of them then Alcibiades, Dionysius the Titant, Alexander the great, and Nero. What father could be more Philosophical than Marcus Aurelius: And more learned and eloquent than the Roman Orator; and who was a more brutish Son then ●ommodus, or more ignorant than Tullus. Tully forgot that which he had by experience found to be true in his own family; and judging nature (which for the most part errs) to be always in a certainty, pretended th' Ethics to be the work of Aristotle's son, imagining so eminent a Father could not have a son, but of a sovereign understanding: And suffering himself to be overcome by the force of that argument, the invalidity of which he himself had experimented, seemed to believe his son's case to be rather the limitation or exception of that rule, than the confirmation of another contrary one.  
He that sets down the Problem, rests not at making learned Fathers infortunate in their children, but goes further yet, and affirms ignorant men to be happy, as if engendering of evil, were the counterpoise of a good understanding; and the comfort of ignorance, the begetting of wisdom. He frames hereby an exception to two approved rules; Namely that no man can give that which he himself is not owner of: And that goodness is of its own nature communicable. One exception makes for ignorant men, if they can bestow understanding (which they themselves want) upon their children. And the other is adverse to learned men, if they cannot communicate unto their issue the greatest good they possess.  
He saith, also that the wise man is always working with his intellect; he is not attentive in the act of generation, nor takes no great delight therein; he ejects seed without spirit, with a moderate pleasure, contemplation distracting him from it. But a blunt fellow, wholly immerged in the act, casts forth abundant vigorous stuffie seed and full of spirit.  
But this proves rather the ability of the body, than the virtue of the mind, and that the one should have children of a soft and weak constitution, and the other of a strong and robustious; the greater abundance of seed, causeth not more plenty of brain: if the greater quantity of spirit, produceth not a larger portion of understanding. If it be a stuffie seed nature frames thereof much bone, and a massy cranium, and these being thick hinder the intellects contemplation, and like a soggy and dark mist hide the beauty of the images from it: The understanding requires mild and tender organs, and there they will be heard; subtle and clear spirits, and there they will be thick and cloudy. The Philosopher from the robustiousnesse of the complexion, argues a weakness of the intellect, and concludes a strong one, in a weak constitution.  
How true soever the Problem be in that part which concerns ignorant Parents; I will go another way to unfold that which belongs to learned fathers, because many, though not peradventure most times, we see it confirmed by experience. Amongst creatures, man hath the most brain; amongst men the wisest; or he that may be so. The matter is viscous and cold, it hath need of much aid to draw nourishment unto it, and much spirit to digest it; These are instruments of the natural heat: The soul makes them hers, and taking them away from concocting, raiseth them to contemplate; if not against, yet out of, and beyond their own nature, and because she would have them reach unto that which they do not, she subtilizeth them, dasheth them together and tormenteth them; they being subtilised, evaporate, tormented do waste, and weary are corrupted. The natural heat wanting for a time its instruments, and having gotten it again weak, it works not being made unable, and grown feeble. Man's proper place is the earth, raised up into the air he is disordered, in the water he drowns, in the fire he burns; The spirits place is the body, which soaring above the matter, afflicts, and destroys itself. The seed (according to the most eminent Physician) for the most part proceeds from the brain, if this be weakened it will not be powerful to beget a male, if there be one begotten it is on the woman's side. Hippocrates saith, that those who are borne oftwo masculine seed, prove Heroes: Those that are borne but of one, if it be the man's, it foretokens greatness, if it be the woman's, they become effeminate. If this solution doth not please thee, say that the forming power, makes use of the seed to make the spermaticall parts, and of the menstruous blood for the sanguine. Of man's weakened seed it will make a very weak brain of the vigorous blood of the woman, a strong liver and heart. The rational part will be inferior to the irascible and concupiscible, so the man will prove ignorant, and vicious. These documents will unfold several Problems: This is the reason why brute beast are not so subject to catharres as men; because they have a lesser mass of brain: They need lesser quantity of spirits to concoct, and preserve them better, because they employ them not in contemplation. A Philosopher by chance was deceived in the solution of this Problem he attributed the cause to man's upright figure, which being like a Limbeck, easily attracts the vapours unto it. He knew not that distillation is not only by ascent, but also by descent and in a plain. If a Limbeck be not like the figure of a brute beast, it may be like a serpentine or winding still: and the former distillation being more subtle, the latter grosser a beast's head will be more aggravated, than a man's. Behold how the good son is the father's glory, and the bad one the mother's sorrow, either because he is born of her seed; or because the root springs out of her blood, she predominating in the production of the heart, and liver, fountains of all ill regulated passions. Behold why the sons of those who have the most sublime understanding, have but a little, and the daughters much: when the woman seed prevails, there is an effeminate male brought forth, and when the man's, a manly female. And finally behold why Mothers love their daughter's children better than their sons, and the Fathers the contrary. The males concur in generation with the sperma●icall part, the females with the mass of blood. The forming power makes use of the father's seed to frame him, and frames her out of the menstruous blood. The Mother acknowledgeth her blood in the one, and the father his seed in the other, and every one bears most affection to that where it hath the greatest part. If thou dost not acquiesce and rest satisfied with these my reasons for the solution of the first Problem take it from the education; either because learned Fathers, so much regard their spiritual sons that they are careless of the other which are fleshly and carnal. Or because they are unwilling to settle them to their studies, knowing none is taken notice of except he be eminent and finding by experience how difficult it is to attain to that eminency: and that if it be attained to; we thereby lose our vigour and complexion, and if not we lose our time also, and remain unhappy, not having so much as the comfort of having shortened our life in exchanging a few years of it, for a long and glorious remembrance. The children look upon the Parents as their only scope and aim, hold it a difficult thing to go beyond them, and inglorious to come short of them: and hold it more pleasant and easy quietly to enjoy the fruits of their labours, then to imitate them: And despairing to arrive to their height and eminency, if it was profitable: and if it was not profitable, not caring to endeavour, in the former case they forsake learning to embrace case and pleasure; in the latter they contemn it as barren and fruitless.  
If thou be not satisfied by this reason of education, proceed to the temperament; Great understandings an subject to black choler, becoming so, rather than being borne such, and this temperature increasing, with a mournful metamorphosis transforms a wise man into a mad man. When these men beget children, melancholy is already in the last degree of its perfection; The son becomes his heir as he is then, not as he was, and begins where the Father ends; and this humour growing to its wont pass, and wanting but little of being mad, in a few years he wholly becomes such; hence it happens that Socrates children, his coolness making him prudent were utterly stupid: and Alcibiades whose heat made him rash and temerary, his children became frantic.  
Plutarch rehearses some actions of Alcibiades when he was yet a child, I will likewise consider them, this age being fitter than any other, to search into the nature of subjects, which nature appears plain, when the subject is neither capable of discourse nor operation. But this is not (you may say) the knowing of a man's nature, well may it be the knowing of his body. It is at that time a perfect mixed, as for its being, though not sufficiently mixed, to be fitted for operation. Experience of itself is not that which maketh aged men prudent, neither doth ignorance alone, make young men rash and inconsiderate These have not the soul so free as to withstand the passions of the body, the others body is not so strong as to hinder the motions of the soul. What can an almost mere impotency work, or how can the other withstand being utterly impotent. In a youth one cannot know what way he will take when he is a man; Yet it might be known had he not a rational soul, or were it not so fettered by the temperament: The wise man acknowledged himself ignorant in the search of what it would do, if it were freer, because it is impossible to conjecture what that will be, which is not, nor hath not been. When thou seest it in being, thou wilt be able to discourse (with the assistance of that which is) of what it shall be; yet it is always difficult to warrant, or ascertain any such thing. The actions of a child are not sufficient to teach thee his nature: there is the universal, and the particular nature; the former is proper to the age, the latter to the individuum: thou shalt know the one, by that which he operates not according to the other; either he adds to it, or takes from it: And though he seems with time to change it, he doth not; he may sometimes overcome it, but never change it, wand'ring through many universals, but always with its own particular. The nature is the same at all times according to the more or less, sometimes rising, sometimes fa●ling. It deceives us, because we do not know the difference in the operation, which is caused by the augmentation and diminution of the degrees: nor yet the various consonancy, which the ever constant nature of the individuum, hath with the differing natures of age. It seems new to us, though it be but changed not altered. Nature guides beasts, Reason should guide men: They do not ordinarily give it the total and absolute command, neither do they wholly debar it from it: They lose themselves in an exceeding bad mixture of reason ill guided, and nature bad●y followed. It were better totally to abandon themselves to nature, at least for those who make no further use of reason, then only to hinder nature. There ●s one belonging to the Moral Philosopher, which is it that inclines, because it is corrupt, for the most part, it inclines to evil. Another belongs to the Physical Philosopher, and that is it which teacheth, and being provident, most times it teacheth well. The third belongs to the Physician, and that is it which heals, and because blind, sometimes also it kills. We should resist that nature which inclines, and for the most part we● follow it. We should follow that which teacheth, and for the most part we cross it. We should assist that which heals, and for the most part we hinder it.  
Alcibiades contending with another boy, makes use of his teeth and nails; peradventure to shame him whom he could not hurt; and being not able to strike, would mark him. His enemy taxeth him for being womanish, he glories to be Lion-like. Nailes commonly serve men & beasts to cover the extremities of the veins, sinews, and arteries, that the natural, animal, and vital Spirits might not evaporate that way; They also serve many beasts in particular for offensive and defensive arms. If nature doth not purge the humours by convenient ways, it is either too weak, or too much oppressed. If a man vents his wrath with unsitting or unbeseeming weapons, either his rage swelling too high makes him mad, or his weakness casts him down. The sh●pe of the mouth, the situation of it, the weakness of the teeth are all evident signs that nature did not place it there for his defence: and who will imagine the nails to be man's arms, seeing that when he will fight, he hides them? and whereas other creatures strike with an open paw, he only fights with a closed fist? but what a poor weapon is a fist? They surely esteem it as nothing, who daily complain of nature, saying it was prodigal to brute beasts, and niggardly to man in furnishing him with food, arm●s, and raiment. The favour it hath shown in giving him understanding seems to appease him; and as if he had it given him to counterpoise the want of other things, and not to make him noted above others; he calls that an exchange, which is a mere gift. Can either gentility and Christianity be forgiven such an error? truly no. Nature hath been wanting in nothing to man: but he chose hath been wanting to nature. What need had he of raiment, that did not know himself to be naked? What use for Weapons, when every thing did voluntarily obey him, and when he had no Enemy? And as for food, he had it given him; He sinned in eating of that also which was denied him; And if he lost himself in that which was given him, why doth he complain for that which he hath not received?  
But it was not so womanish in Alcibiades to fight with such Instruments as were not given him by Nature for that purpose; as to d●sh against the ground those which Nature had invented to delight: he is angry with Flutes, because playing upon them disfigures his beauty: and peradventure that happened because he spoyle● their harmony, playing less than was requisite, and deforming himself more than he needed to have done. I pardon such a conceit concerning Musical wind Instruments in a young, tender, and wanton youth, and in a Court Philosopher, a Politician, a Peripatetic, talking with Senators and Princes; when I see vocal Music set at naught, for the same, or peradventure no reason at all, by a Stoic mofal Philosopher. The wind Music doth not deform the Visage, it reforms, yea, consormes it: and the vocal, which is correspondent to the hearing altereth the proportion of the face to conform it to the e●e: The one requires settledness to be well looked upon, and the other receives its perfection from motion: One unfolds the beauty of the Visage, the other both lays open, and accompanies the sweetness of the voice. Where there is a sound, motion necessarily hath proceeded, and the motion is with measure if the sound be harmonious. Sometimes also it is voluntarily accompanied with the head, eyes, and mouth and that with delight, though without necessity if it be with proportion: That motion which offends, produces no harmonious sound or doth not accompany it proportionably. But singing doth not cause a bodily motion only in him that sings, it causeth it also in him that hearkens, if he doth not st●ive against it, the Spirits will howsoever move; let them be never so much coerced and restrained, and harmony is so linked to motion that I canno: but believe they were so in the first Movers motions. He that will not grant such a thing in the superior heavens, will not howsoever deny it in the lowest, in which if he do admit of it, by what reason can he deny it in the greater. Those who bel●eve a motion in the heavens, and confess them to be solid: that grant a sire in the concavity of the Moon, and that it is kindled by attrition, cannot deny a sound, and if they grant an●, what a one shall it be? of a most swift, equal, and simple motion? ●f a sublime body, perfectly spher call, and noble in the highest degree? and of an infinite mover? Certainly, it is harmonious, and in so eminent a degree, that f●om i● all inferior harmonies receive their first origine▪ as all motions do its motion. Why doth not fire contend with the air, and how comes it that it doth not consume it? Why, is it not impossible for it to be contained within the Universe and not consume it? By the preservation of nature? It is well said. By the virtue which the place gives to the thing placed? Better: And it will peradventure be best of all, to say, that being ravished by the harmony of the Celestial Spheres, attentive only to the raising of itself towards them, it forbears contending, because it would not give over advancing: nor shall we in so doing attribute more power to the heavens, then ancient fables did to Orpheus: nor appropriate any other nature to fire then that which all Philosophers ascribe unto it, namely, of mounting upwards, especially in its own sphere, where having no need of fuel, it hath no occasion to stoop for food. He that will not grant influences without motion or light if he will have the heavens several and various motions to serve this lower world for some other use besides carrying the light about; Let him not deny them harmony; he that admits of influences, doth already grant it. The Conjunctions, Sextiles, Quadrates, Trines and Opposites will produce it, which are unisons, thirds, fourth's, fifths, and sevenths: And if here beneath a perfect unison increase the harmony, an imperfect one spoils it; certainly above, the conjunctions of good are excellent, and of bad ones exceeding evil. In the heavens a quadrate, and an opposite make a dissonancy, on earth a fourth and a seventh. Harshness are here corrected with the fifth and third; there the Sextile and the Trine of benevolent rays, contrary to misfortunes, have force and power to strengthen.  
Alcibiades was very eloquent, and his lisping added a kind of grace to his eloquence, because it was contrary to it. There is greater pleasure in hearing Beasts speak, though they speak ill, than men though they speak better: The one overcomes, the other do but follow Nature. Man takes great delight, and (which I more wonder at) hath a great instinct from Nature itself to oppose it. The delight would be less, the profit greater, if he did it for profit rather than pleasure. God commanded him to manure the Earth where it was barren, and that where it brought forth thorns, he should cause bread to grow: The Precept was to labour, not to take pleasure: but he where he should grow fruitful becomes barren, and where he should receive the bread of grace, he feeds the thorns of sin. He feels within himself that instinct of opposing nature. He knows his happiness consists in the overcoming of it; but equivocating therein, and either for want of understanding, or through a wilful misunderstanding, whereas he should strive against his own inward, he opposeth the outward Nature, where he finds Hills he makes Plains, where Plains he raises Hills; in pleasant places he seeks horrid ones, and brings pleasantness into places of horror; he seconds that which he ought to withstand, and that which he should follow he opposes; and when he thinks he triumphs over another's nature, his own nature triumphs over him. This is a Stratagem of the particular nature to set us at odds with the universal; And that she may remain quiet within, she causeth us to strive abroad. Like to a cunning politic Tyrant, who having a valiant and fierce Subject within his City, by whom he fears to have violence or opposition offered him; if he can find no other remedy he sends him into the field to fight with the Enemy, to the end, that venting his violence and fantasticalness abroad, he may have plenary power to tyrannize at home at his pleasure. God is angry with us that we should at the same time reform that which he himself had framed; and conform ourselves to that which we had deformed. He had (as we may say suffered Solomon to run unpunished while he gave himself in prey to women, worshipped Idols, loved a figure of flesh, which would quickly return to dust, better than himself: but no sooner did he put his hand to levelling of Mountains, but presently he caused rebellions to be raised against him, and decreed the rending of his Kingdom from him: It seeming strange to him that man should not be content to follow his own bid nature, but he must also persecute the good, and to be a King where he should obey, and instead of a Vassal become a Tyrant. Peradventure also that little kind of lisping wrought the same effect in Alcihiades, as a small spot doth in a fair face; a remiss stile interlaced amidst lofty Dictates and pithy Speeches; Not because contraries compared, and placed near one another show their lustre more plainly, but because it gives envy satisfaction, which taketh pleasure in defects; or by reason it takes away that astonishment which instead of delighting, confounds. I do not say that imperfection can make perfect, that a defect can increase beauty, and therewith delight. A spot in a beautiful face, a sentence of remiss stile in a flourishing speech, add not grace to a visage, nor beauty to a dictate, they do not increase delight; they entertain it, because they extinguish, and then renew it; The continued action of an Agent increases the effect; he that stands nearest the ●re warms and dries himself most. Our natural power is limited to a certain measure. When the continued presence of the delightful object doth exceed, the delight ceases, and coming to the extreme of what it can contribute, it delights no longer. He that will renew his pleasure, must begin with pain, and go out of the natural state to return into it. Let him look upon the spot; Go out into the cold; run over the remiss and meaner stile; Then return to behold the beauty of the face; to enjoy the sweetness of the heat; admire the beauty of the speech, and efficacy of the phrase; He that looks upon a fair piece limmed by a Master workman's expert hand, is much delighted thereby, yet after the first violence it fails and diminishes; because it is come to the extreme it vanishes. But he that is admitted to see the admirable working of an excellent Pencil upon a plain and smooth board, continues sometimes grieved at the framing of an imperfection, then delighted with seeing it perfected; And all those proceedings being full of reformed deformities refined, are full of relight keeping the imagination in continual motion, through the Novelties. A Musician cannot please better than by erring. He passes through dissonancies, and frames Pauses, and with the one takes the hearer out of his natural state and with the other he ends an operation. Then he begins again to sing, goes on in consonancy, to renew the operation, to return the hearer into his natural state by delighting him. What do fools & natural idiots in great Nobleman's Palaces? Their imperfection serves to draw the Nobleman out of the natural state into which wise and understanding men's discourses had brought him, that he may afterwards return unto it with more delight. Finally, it is true that man desires to find defect, even in those things which are pleasing to him, and that he rejoices when he hath found it; peradventure seeming unto him that he hath gotten command over him that hath it, and that he may reap the delight of pardoning, without feeling the damage of being offended; Nature also, may be, sets him in the way to seek it, to bring him through the knowledge of him who hath the defect, to the knowing of him who hath none. No sooner doth any delectable object present itself to man, but he turns towards it, intending to please himself; and finding it (though never so great) uncapable to satisfy him, persisting nevertheless in his desire, because he will not believe it is impossible to be attained, he seeks the reason why he hath not attained it. If he finds the defect he rejoices, it not lying in the unsatiabilitie of the desire, but in the deficiency of the object. He hopes to find one totally perfect, and that when he hath found it, he shall be satisfied. Then because of the deficiency which he finds in all carthly things, he raiseth up himself to believe, that there is a primary cause without defect: and finding it not to his satisfaction in this world, he thinks he shall find it in heaven. And so behold the Creature serves for an instrument to bring man to seek out the Creator; not only by what is perfect in it, but also by that which wants perfection. There one may perceive there is a God, and that the creature is not he: If the creature were totally perfect, who would deny it Godhead? Flatterers, who have fawned upon it have even adored it for such; and simple people, who have believed it perfect, have offered incense to it as Celestial.  
Alcibiades was playing in the street with some of his Companions, there happens a country Fellow to come along with a Cart, which passing by would spoil their sport. He tries (but in vain) by calling to him to make him stay; He runs not away cowardly like the rest; He seeks not rashly to stop him by force. Cunningly he lies down in the high way, forcing him either to stay his Cart, or to drive it over him. The best instrument to hinder an action, is the producing of fear; the worst to provoke wrath. If he resists the Country F●llow, he angers him. By casting himself upon the ground, he affrights him; He stays him with astonishment, though he cannot do it with curt●sie. Yet notwithstanding Alcibiades shows himself in this action rashly ambitious, as well as cunning. For a small matter he adventures himself in a great danger. Dangers in such cases are much desired, even as thirst, and itching desires of the flesh are welcome to those who totally yield up themselves into Bacchus, and Venus' hands, not because they are willing to stay in the tormenting sense of these passions, but because they will proceed in the pleasure of satisfying them, which proves greater by the provocation. If upon great commotions depend great delights; and if fear be the strongest passion that is in man, what pleasure shall he not find in the passing from dangers to secureness? You will find wrath, hatred, envy, desire of domination to be most weak passions, if you compare them with fear. This chimerical passion is of greater force than those real ones, if we will believe an eminent Politician. Many and true provocations (saith he) had Otho to adventure himself to obtain the Empire. Desire of domination, a riot even burdensome to a Prince, Poverty scarce to be tolerated by a private man, Anger and hatred towards Galba, Envy against Piso. He feigned but one only of these passions to make him the more to affect it and that was Fear. What makes Tyranny so pleasing, but the love of danger. Where it is great, he can desire no more; where it is but small, he increases it; where there is none, he feigns it. Yet the tragic scene of these men is full of blood unjustly spilt, sometimes of guilty, sometimes of half guilty, and sometimes of innocent men. I should say only of innocent, for the greatest fault that Tyrants punish, deserves the the name of the greatest innocency. But if if this man be not yet grown so inhuman, as to feign a fear where there is none; yet he seldom reserves so much humanity as not to grudge and bemoan himself, because there is none. Tiberius comes into the Senate house, he finds all the Senators to second his thoughts, and flattter his actions: No body Contradicts him, no man provokes him, He goes forth angry, and enraged: Calls them base men, prepared for slavery. He was troubled and molested (saith the Author) with such base servility, he was ashamed (said I) of having caused it: He was sorry (I now say) that he had lost that fear, which was the Seminary of his delights Plato and Tacitus also knew peradventure that to be true which I said, though they did not explain it. They call a Tyrant unhappy; not by reason of any outward fear, which he with pleasure and delight satisfies by the death of sometimes one, sometimes another Citizen: But by reason of the inward fear, which insensibly gnawing his entrails lets him neither find rest, nor hope for remedy. If the grief and pain of this did not counterpoise, yea go beyond the pleasure and delight of the other, we should amongst the Pagans reckon more Tyrants than Princes. There is a Character imprinted in man's Nature by God, which we call Conscience, to the end that even who those may fear him who not know him. Contenting himself rather with not being known, than not feared, to the end that the world should not be lost for want of fear, nor men arrive to the extreme of wickedness.  
Alcibiades becomes Socrates his Scholar. He addicts himself with much fervency to the learning of Sciences, and with as much eagerness follows vices. He studied greatness, more than goodness; to counterpoise, not to forgo his defects; going forwards in acquiring virtue as a means to satisfy his ambition. Which he cannot attain to by being admired by the lesser number, namely, the wise; if at the same time he be abhorred by the greater number, which are the ignorant. He would be like the bad, because many, and because he would not become an enemy to many, for not being like them. He had his intent with reproach, whereas he might have had it with commendation, if he had outwardly habited himself with the vulgars' qualities, which are not vices; and inwardly with wise men's that are virtues. This had joined in him those two so contrary elements, the wise, and ignorant, in the same manner as the air links the elements of fire and water together. He that will gain a man let him not be his adversary, or at the least let him not show himself to be so, for otherwise he will fly him. If he cannot make himself semblable, let him feign to be so, if he means to be followed. Resemblance is of great virtue, every one celebrates it, and peradventure none understand it. The like doth not attract the like, because it is the like, but because the similitude is joined with superiority; otherwise iron might draw iron; and if by virtue of resemblance it should receive force from the loadstone, it also might do it. He is deceived in Physic that thinks Rhubarb draws bilious humours, because it hath a resemblance to them. ●he resemblance causeth it to find no resistance; but the superiority draws In Music the unison, which merely resembleth is disliked and rejected as dissonant, and the eight is admitted and approved as harmonious, it adding nothing to the resemblance but superiority. In policy to be of one and the same Province, of the same Language, and custom, if there be no superiority, brings forth a Republic or Commonwealth, if there be a superiority, it produces a Principality. The Tribe of juda sees David grown great, they say he is their brother, and follow him: he was so before, and yet no man stirred. He that thinks love to grow from resemblance, what reason can he give for its being seldom interchangeable (being it should always be so) unless superiority added unto it persuade the interchange. This instinct of similitude, either of suffering one's self to be drawn, or of voluntarily following superiority, often proceed from a desire of advancing to a greater perfection, or of preserving that degree which one hath received from it, for which purpose the resembling eminent is held a more fit Instrument then any other. So the coldness of the earth which is not entire, is preserved by that of the water, which is ful●y perfect; the humidity of the water, by that of the air; the heat of the air by that of the fire, and all these by the virtual qualities of the heaven, which the inferior ones eminently contain.  
Alcibiades invited with other Nobles by Nicetus to supper, contemns the invitation; He makes himself drunk at home, th●n go●s to his friend's house, takes away the one half of his pla●e, and without any more ado returns to his own ho●se. The guests wonder at Alcibiades insolency, and admire Nicetus patience. He answers that he ought to thank him fo● that part which he had left him. All troubles have their comforts and many poisons their antidotes. He that instead of eating the viper's back, eats its head and tail, will not be cured; he that with an ill look, looks upon trouble. when he might do it with a good one, will not be comforted. One that were in love as Nicetus was, with him that causeth the trouble, would take an occasion to thank him for it; and he that hath been so, hath done it Man doth not look upon troubles with a good countenance, because he contents not himself to come out of trouble at even hand, by only remaining comforted: He is desirous to gain; sometimes compassion, and with a female weakness makes moan; sometimes repute and esteem, and with a manly courage endures it. This last though for the most part he show a good countenance, and the other see it, yet will he not seem to others to take notice of it: If any shows it him he is vexed; thinking that by slighting the occasion he derogates from the greatness of his power. Of these two ways of passing over troubles the Female is the most common, peradventure because Pusillanimity is more easy than Fortitude. True it is, that it is a vice; but in this case the obtaining of the reward, namely compassion, will not let it seem so. Men had also rather compassionate then admire: with compassion one benefits a wretched man without any loss, yea, with game, with admiration he pays an homage due to a great worth, even to his own disgrace. The one is the daughter of that which the catastrophe in the world useth to bestow; the other of that which our weakness cannot attain: to the first one goeth voluntarily, to the other he is dragged. The understanding afflicts itself in the acts of compassion; if there be any delight, it is in the sense. In that of admiration it rejoices, and the inferior part is afflicted in it. And although they be both oftentimes ways to take away the tormenting passion of envy: yet the leaving of it by growing great, or by seeing one's self outgon is every different It is man's nature to behold with an ill countenance those afflictions which God sends him, and to make them greater than they are; And with a good look, those which he procures to himself, and make them less, to avoid shame and gain compassion. He knows that when they proceed merely from God's providence, they are tokens of affection, when from our own imprudency; of punishment; and to show his love greater, and his wrath lesser, in the one case he increases, and in the other he lessens it; and always to the loss and damage of truth. Which truth we ought not to wonder that nature hath placed according to Heraclitus his opinion in a deep well or according to Democritus in an obscure cave. She did it to employ us all our life time in searching for it, and when we have found it, we seek after nothing more than how to corrupt it; Man provokes God by complaining of evil fortune more than he ought, and by not attributing to him in prosperity, so much as he should. He knows not he had it before it is gone; and sometimes it goes away because it was not known. And when with repentance we should call ourselves ingrateful: with temerity giving new offence, we call fortune unstable, and which is worse, we make it so. Finally man finds such unsavouriness in the mean and so much acrimony in the extreme, that ordinarily he draws back most from the first when he hath not arrived unto it, and advances forward most when he is come to it, or gone beyond it, because he will not stay at it, or because he would still go further from it: whence comes that the young man shortens his years. the old man increases them. His domestic and familiar figure (saith Quintilian) is hyperbole, because he is an enemy to truth. But this cannot be, for truth is the object of man's most noble power, it is not each one's equality, it is reserved only for the best, that which he sees in this world is sufficient to move his desire, but because it is not so much as will satisfy it, he is perplexed. He would have it to be so, but cannot really make it so; he doth it as much as he can with hyperbole: so that he lieth, not in hatred, but in behalf of truth corrupting that which is not his object, to make it become so.  
Alcibiades hath many Athenian Nobles that make love to him, and offer him great presents; he contemns them. A Country fellow falls in love with him, sells all he hath, and presents the money to him. Alcibiades accepts of his love, and his gift; and with that money makes him presently gain a Talon. He hath reason to make more esteem of the Country Fellows affection, then of the Nobles. It was greater, and sincerer: He that gives not all he hath to the beloved person, loves him not above all things; he loves that better which he hath reserved for himself. The passions of simple men are plain, those of Nobles are mixed with ambition: The love of the one is mere love, that of the other hath pride coined with it. The one seeks only to delight himself, the others to subject also, yea, & more than subject; haughtiness prevailing in them above affection, whilst sometimes through jealousy, by the death of the beloved, they have deprived themselves of delight, because they would not endure a Companion. They say that love enters not an abject and degenerous breast, but links itself only to noble hearts. It is true of that part of love which is pride, the peculiar sin of great ones. Love is a Tyrant, not only because he tyrannises over him whom he conquers, but because he also imprints in in him the Character of tyrannising. They decline love to be a desire of enjoying the thing beloved. But it is also a desire to captivate its body and soul, and to take away free will from it. He that said, Lucifer sinned through pride, said well. He that said he sinned through excess, though he did not unfold it well, did not peradventure speak totally ill. The Angel saw God, not as he is, for than he would have loved him of necessity, and in an ordinary way, and had not sinned: He loved him voluntarily, and disorderly, and sinned. For it being made manifest to him, that God would be humanated (as we may say) and man Goddisied, changing virtue into passion: adding pride to love; to the desire of enjoying, the desire of tyrannising; willing to be only alone, or suffer no equal, he forsook the love of God; jealous, armed himself with hatred against mankind, to hinder it, as his rival, from enjoying the clear sight of the beatifical object.  
But how stands Socrates amidst this multitude of lovers? He peradventure believed that where there was so much beauty, there was also a great disposition to virtues. I mean not speculative but moral: Even as amongst Brutes, that which is the fairest, performs best its proper natural operation; the Lion hath most valour, the Greyhound most swiftness; so to the understanding of many, the fairest man should best perform those operations which are proper to man; who being a compound of soul and body, his said operations belong rather to the practical, then to the speculative intellect. The speculative goes to the knowledge of the first truth, the practic to the well directing of the operations according to true wisdom: the one shall see its object only at home, the other can only attain unto it in its way. And how should Nature give us our end in this world, which though we labour for never so hard, we cannot attain in it. But in what manner can that saying agree with Alcibiades actions, who being exceeding beautiful, was notwithstanding ambitious, dishonest and lascivious? They may say that the Prognostic is not so infallible in man, who operates by election, as in beasts who work according to nature: and that you can hardly so know beauty, as to distinguish the Masculine from the seminine. That which proceeds from the facility which nature finds in working with the humid▪ and that which it finds in operating with the temperate. That which hath its influence from Venus, and that which hath it from Sol, and jupiter: The one is seen to incline the inferior part to condescend to embracements. The other makes prudent, adds Majesty, and respect, and brings up the superior part to a chaste desire of heavenly beauty. The one belongs to the feeling, the other to the mind; The first false, the other a true mark of a wise mind. If Socrates did consider what Alcibiades was, he might quickly know from what fountain his beauty was derived. Some one attributed so much to this beauty, which we term Masculine, and which being perfect is a sign of a most tightly tempered body, that he affirmed, that if any such were, and once being did endure; it would make the subject thereof most calm and happy, its senses perfect, its understanding eminent, its passions moderate, and, without repining, obedient to reason. I never did grant it any superiority in Sciences, once I condescended to yield it in moral actions: Now I deny it in all, and will grant it no superiority, but in those virtues only which serve for the body, the appetitive, the attractive, the concoctive, the retentive, and the expulsive. To speculation the body is a burden, and opposes itself to the working of it: The stronger it is, the more it withstands, and it is strongest, when it is most temperate. In a dry, lean, withered body, which is almost no body at all, you shall find passions almost quite extinguished; the understanding in a manner Angelical, a perfect operation; and most excellent speculation. In bruit beasts the case is different, because the reason is likewise so. They have need of the body's assistance, if they will operate well; man needs none but only not to be hindered by it. In beasts the stronger it is, the more it helps, in men when it is weakest, it hinders least. But be it how it will▪ me thinks S●crates did not deserve much commendations in this manner of arguing. For if from the beauty of the creature, which is never perfect neither in man nor woman, but in all frail and fading, we argue concerning the creatures beauty; we shall judge Fidias and Apelles beauties, far to exc●ed the divine, when we set before our eyes their statues and pictures, drawn with excellent lines and colours▪ and of a more lastinng substance than ourselves. You will s●y these have no soul; Then we m●st not ascend to the contemplation of God from lineaments and colours, but from the soul. The body you'● say is the shadow of the mind and soul; I deny it, and will always hold internal beauty, which consists in the miraculous framing & organizing of this bodily fabric, equally composed by the Almighty in all men to be a more fit, and secure ladder, for man to climb up with his understanding towards his Creator, than the external; which differing in each one, consists in three or four lineaments, and a few colours. I will say that Galen took a better way than Socrates, though each of them proceeded according to his own art. The one being a Physician, attributed unto the use of the parts the chief praise for the knowledge of God's greatness. The other a Sculptor, forgetting that he was a Philosopher also, attributed it to the lineaments. The Angel (saith a wise man) is the shadow of God, the soul, the Angels, the body, the souls. And then he wonders, that seeing neither Go●, nor the Angel busy themselves upon the consideration of their shadow to their own prejudice; the soul should forget and lose itself in loving, and following its shadow. But it is not true, because this is not the true shadow. He had argued much better, if he had gone on by degrees thus. The Angel is God●s shadow, Man the Angels, the Beast man's, and Plants the Beasts. Those who fall in love with lineaments and colours, in relation to the soul, where that is corrupt, frame a true case, more deplorable than the fabulous tale of Narcissus. He was enamoured of his own shadow, they of another man's; in one there was a true and real beauty of body▪ in the other a false supposed one of the mind. Plato in a place calls Socrates a hunter, as if he went investigating Gods beauty by means of that of Alcibiades. He knew he had erred, if that beauty was joined with a deformity of the soul, and to cover Socrates his defect, he feigned virtue in Alcibiades: bearing greater affection to his Master, then to truth. He calls him bonae indolis, in whose life there is nothing constantly to be found, but uncleanness. What then? Shall we blame Socrates, and tax him with dishonesty? far be it from us. He loved Alcibiades, and Alcibiades him with a chaste and sincere love, both drawn thereunto by the harmonious proportion of defect and superabundancy. Socrates had a most beautiful mind, a lean, dry, squalid body, bairy, bald and melancholy. Alcibiades a most beautiful body, a lascivious, dishonest, intemperate, ambitious mind. The old man with his eyes enjoyed the young ones beauty; he by the ear participated of the old man's virtue. A wonderful exchange, more pleasing in Socrates, and more profitable in Alcibiades, and in both equally honest.  
Alcibiades gives Hipponicus a box on the ear, to make sport, and a jest amongst his companions; yet those which write of ridiculousness, exclude pain out of it: Peradventure it ought not to be excluded, when the person is more ridiculous than the act painful, as we daily see it practised in Jesters: a box on the ear is sensible in a child, in elder years it doth not pain Nature, because it will not take away the vigour of the punishment, where it hath not given a spirit sensible of resentment, hath given a tender flesh to feel it; and where an obtuse sense of the pain, an apprehensive feeling of the disgrace. The blow of the box is not so sensible to an old man, as his person is ridiculous to a young one; there being oftentimes an apparent deformity seen in them without any apparent pain. Alcibiades could not have m●de a jest of the blow, nor framed mirth out of it, had he not first drawn it from the person But if (according to the Philosopher's opinion) Compassion be the daughter of Fear, by reason of that which may in like manner befall us, how can the young man laugh at the old, and not rather compassionate him. And if seeing a defect in another which we have not ourselves, is a cause of comfort rather than grief in us: whence groweth our pleasure in speaking and hearing others evil spoken of? And And how ought old men be grieved at the follies they see in young men? Youth should grieve at the defects of old age, and old men laugh at the ignorance of youth. But they are not sorry that a young man wants wisdom but only that he doth not know it, and esteem it; because they exceeding in this noble virtue, the daughter, and only comfort of old Age, they are grieved to see that Talon despised for which only they can be respected and reverenced. Young men laugh at old men, because the deformity which they see present, being greater than the grief, moves their imagination stronglier than the future, on which oftentimes they do not think, and which they know not whether it will happen or no; or hope it will be better. What a barbarous thing is a young man? Let him that will be safe from him, eat him: he walks in unknown ways, and (I had almost said) like a thing mixed of Man and Beast; the degree of the mixture is unknown, what he will be, is impenetrable: sometimes they are like Beasts, because they do not make use of reason; sometimes worse, because they abuse it. The overmuch heat hinders wisdom in youth, too much coldness extinguishes it in old age: sometimes it never comes, but man passes from immaturity to rottenness; and when it does come, it is always late, and lasts but a little. It is almost the only one amongst sublunary things, which doth not receive the proportion of Periods, a Beginning, a Being, an Increase, and Declining. Quintilian wonders why all men being made by Nature to be good, few are such. I (to not wonder at it) do rather consider whence it proceeds, that the superior, part for the most part, is not so; and whereas it is made to command, it obeys. Peradventure the advantage of years is a great cause of it; in which our sense doth with ease tyranny over us, without meeting with any opposition, or let from the soul, and because they are the first years, it takes strong root, and being many, it frames a habit. Then comes Reason in, and finds the Tyrant already in possession, fortified, and rooted: It must fight against that which he is, and that which he hath done: it must subdue the forces of sense, overcome the resistance of habit, and destroy that Nature to frame a new one. But why do we not at the first, as soon as we are born, attain to reason? Peradventure because we would then presently operate without a guide; and wanting experience, we should precipitate. Learned and wisemen (induced by a case which happened in our days, and being singular, and almost monstrous, makes no precedent) have believed, that a Subject may securely pass over from speculation to practice without any further experience. I will here set down my opinion therein, with all due respect and reverence to famous Writers of great merit. If truth only w●re the object of our understanding, and not that also which is like unto it, there would be no error. And if all things could be demonstrated, there would be no opinions; the deficiency of the one, and super-abundancy of the other, ruin the world. The understanding despairing of demonstrating the truth, gives itself over to vanity, and goes in quest of opinion, and not being able to acquiesce in it, he raises himself higher, and seeks to stir up admiration through novelty, seeing he cannot teach and direct with truth. He esteems himself to be a brave man in Sciences that makes not the clearest, but the hardest argument, which though it doth not convince, yet it overcomes the understanding as if the one's wisdom consisted in the others ignorance; and truth, which should be the easiest for the understanding to find, (as the centre of ponderous things) is sought out by difficult & obscure things. How many things are there daily seen, which because we know not how they are, nor how they are done, do astonish and breed admiration in us, for nothing else, but only because we take the lof●iest, and most difficult way to understand what they are, and how performed. And afterward, if the Artificer do divulge it, we find it to be an easy and plain way, we acknowledge the error, we cease our admiration, and remain ashamed.  
The like would happen in questions concerning Sciences: if truth were discored to us, and that God did not hide it from man, showing him this great Fabric of the World, keeping him still in disputes, not letting him understand it, because he will mortify him.  
The Politic truth of the future, being then ordinarily concealed, how shall such an understanding find it, which is accustomed to elevate itself above the matter, to seek extravagant ways, to subtilise, distinguish, invent and imagine, that if it doth not penetrate into it, it happens because it doth not raise & elevate itself sufficiently: Then in our case, it finds itself in a lowly & gross matter, not hard to be attained, because the understanding doth not reach unto it, but because for the most part it goes beyond it. One going from Sciences, where he is scholar, that follows the opinions of those that went before him; and he a master that invents, and coming to the politic, where Experience is Mistress, and he a Master that follows it, shall commit as many errors, as the things are which he invents, despairing of ever warranting or asserting any thing, if he doth not turn from being a Master to be a Scholar, forsaking speculation, which is an enemy to Experience.  
But above all others, he shall seldom prove able in politic affairs, that is accustomed to interpret the holy Scripture. The difficulty proceeds not only from the difference of t●mes, God then making for the most part, the secondary causes obedient to merit: and now letting them oftentimes run in favour of injustice; but likewise from the difference which is between the Divine and Humane intellect: the one infinite, the other finite; this an accident, that a substance. The holy Ghost doth not speak a word for one thing alone, his sense may be interpreted for any thing that is pious; for he means it all. He gives scope of altering thoughts, interpret and enlarge the old, invent new, teach with the doctrine, and delight with the variety, without prejudice of truth. But man doth, and saith one thing only for it, and and not always for that which he should do or say.  
In what case then shall that man find himself, who comes from interpreting the Divine meaning, which is so large, and so good, and goeth to interpret that of men, which is always short, and for the most part evil; seeing that in the one he cannot err, without he digress; and in the other men have often erred, because they have not digressed. I do not say that discourse is not necessary for man, I exclude it in speculative Sciences, and admit it in what belongs to practice; snow to be snow, aught to be white, and so ought a woman to be fair; and yet notwithstanding if snow were as a woman, it would not be white; and if a woman were of the colour of snow, she would not be fair. And though a great wise man compared a man that wanted Science, and had Experience, to an Empiric Physician, and the learned man to the Methodical: yet he was deceived in the comparison; because Sciences have nothing to do with the Policy, whereas Theory is necessary for Physic; And if he proves any thing, it is that in Physic; besides Experience, Discourse is necessary, and judgement much more than in Sciences: but in practice it is produced, and being produced, is refined.  
To these speculative men there often happens that which befalls many Theorical Physicians, who coming to operate, will first try experience, rather than follow those experiments which have already been made; and thereupon they begin with killing of patients: yet therein he differs from the Politician: For the Physician killing many, sometimes learns how to heal the rest; but the Politician beginning to kill one, doth always almost engage himself to kill an infinite number, and from overthrowing one piece of State, to oververthrow all the World: for after he is entered into a way, in which the subtlety of discourse, always accompanied with acritude did set him, rather than soundness of judgement, he so engages himself in it, that he cannot turn back sometimes without precipitating.  
I conclude, that Experience is Mistress of Policy; and because she is Mistress, the Politician must needs be her Disciple, and consider it before he practise it: He that at the first thrusts himself upon it, may lose himself before he gives Experience leave to teach him. In the opinion of wise men, errors do teach more than any other thing; yet they have one difficulty, they begin with doing harm, and do not always leave way for a remedy, many oftentimes losing themselves in the first error which they commit. I grant that errors do teach, and that they are profitable, but not by being put in execution, but only thought upon: not running the danger, but gathering the fruit.  
Peradventure the silence which Pythagoras enjoined his scholars, was to this intent, he would not have them discredit themselves in divulging their errors, he gave them leave to think on them, but would not suffer them to come upon the stage, until such time as by those in which they had been silent, they had learned to not commit them. So the Physician which goeth to practise with his Master, seeing that which is done, and considering what he himself should do, in the good and the evil which he sees, and in that which he thinks, giving as it were, Physic in abstracto, in his own fantasy and imagination from that which he sees others do, without any discredit to his own person; and from that which he thinks he should do, were it his case, without any damage to the patient. Sometimes certain, sometimes erring, learns to be sure without erring. This advantage have Commonwealths above Princes: young men enter into Magistracies, and like the Pythagoreans they hearken and are silent, they learn and do not operate, until the instruction and experience of old men have fully instructed them: with art they supply the defects of Nature, which makes it impossible for children to operate, by denying them the use of reason; and they will not suffer young men to operate, because they should not abuse reason. The first age is not the dangerous age, seeing that being blind, it suffers itself to be guided, and therefore seldom stumbles: it is the second that is dangerous, which having its eyes open, sees little, admits no guide & easily runs headlong  
This barbarous action of Alcibiades, troubled the whole City of Athens: in the Cowardly it moved fear because the like might befall them; in rash men wrath, as if it had already happened to them; valiant men stomach it; and wise men were grieved at it. It bred shame in the offender's friends, and hatred in his that was offended: in Hipponicus a desire of revenge; in Alcibiades, repentance: He goes to his enemy's house, puts himself into his hands, confesses he hath erred, bids him take satisfaction. The offence which he had committed could not be excused, neither by wrath, for he was not provoked; nor ignorance, because he knew him: it was folly and contempt; he purged the contempt with the quality of the act; and the folly with the manner. The free putting himself into his hands, was the greatest satisfaction that could be given, being done willingly, not violented by any extrinsecall mover; nor troubled by any intrinsical passion of fear; it loseth much of its efficacy, when it is done by compulsion. Alcibiades went not with any fear, but boldly, without being persuaded thereunto; more careful to regain his lost reputation, or ambitious to increase it; than just to restore it to him from whom he had taken it. For the particular, it had been better if he had gone with a perturbed mind & will; by means of fear, he had showed to have esteemed him more in the satisfaction, than contemned him with the offence. It was better for the public that he should go of his own accord, because the repenting of the action being of its nature evil, he secures and warrants all; but by the fear of him that is offended, only those who may cause themselves to be feared as much.  
Alcibiades knew he had given the Citizens of Athens occasion to talk of him in serious matters, and to divert them (saith Plutarch) from those to pleasant ones, he cuts off the tail, ears, and nostrils of a very beautiful dog which he had. It was not diverting, but deriving, and an ill deriving. The diversion of a thing is made while the matter flows, and is undertaken on the contrary side. The derivation is, when it is already flown, and another new one succeeds into the evacuated subject. Alcibiades action is of the same matter as the rest of his actions were, though not of the same form. It is like, and not contrary: The fluxion follows, and the subject threatens itself to be greater, making itself known to be full of fantastical humours. His intention was not to blot out the remembrance of his old actions, but to renew it, loving to make himself be talked of, with a report and fame of being extravagant. The doing of a semblable action, doth not cause the former to be forgotten▪ but rather calls it to remembrance, if not with more force, yet with more delight than it would do, if it were the same again; because man oftentimes showeth himself a greater friend to the resemblance, then to the thing itself, and willingly comes to the knowledge of truth by the means of falsehood.  
From hence proceeds the delight in hearing of Metaphors, seeing of Pictures, the representations of Mymicks, and Stage-players. What terrible beast, or displeasing carcase, or horrible Monster can there be, but the picture of it will be delightful? What man so deformed in bodily parts, and abominable in those of the soul, but a mymick imitation of him is pleasant▪ What mutilated, rough, lisping or stammering tongue and speech, but will be applauded in him that counterfeits it? And if any one inquire the reason of it, Quintilian would say it were, because man is an enemy to truth. Aristotle would say it is because he loves to learn, and when of himself he learns the thing he hath conceived, he delights therein, as in his own birth, a thing of his own bringing forth: this delight he attains to, in imitation, when it is represented unto him: because thereby he apprehends as it were by argumentation, the truth of the imitated Idol. I confess the thought is acute. And I question not but it is applauded. I doubt whether it be because it is good, or for want of a better. The understanding rejoices not much at any small thing, obtained with small labour. He intends greater for himself, and with less delight. Peradventure he takes not so much pleasure in learning, as in the manner how, which is by the motion passing in an instant from the false object, to the knowledge of the true one. Hence proceeds the strength and powerful effect, fetching its original from a knowledge attained unto by circumstances. Hence comes the smiles at the meeting of a friend: Let Aristotle say what he will (in mine opinion) that sudden and great change, to which Hippocrates ascribes so much delight, namely, from falsehood to truth, and from the absence to the presence of the beloved object, is that which causes the rejoicing, which may be proved by this, that if it be foreseen, the rejoicing is not so great. But since Alcibiades his actions, which were altogether extraordinary, and we conjecture extravagant, what his inclination was, it will n●t be displeasing to search further into it. That Princes and Commonwealths may beware of such kinds of subjects, which use to usurp the liberty of the one, and cause the other to lose their dominions. There is great difference between acting of an extravagancy by election, and doing of it by nature, even as there is between a horses bound which he is taught by a Rider, and one which he naturally makes when he is madded. Sometimes it is fitting to have a subject of great worth come with some extravagancies upon this world's theatre, which making a noise may draw unto him men's attentions to behold this new beauty: It serves for a sudden crack or clap to attract men's ears and eyes to the hearing and beholding of some great matter, which being distracted another way, they should not peradventure see nor hear. Some actions also seem to be performed best, when they are done extravagantly (such are the first rewards, and first punishments) to the end that being deeply rooted in the imagination, they may leave the love of virtue, and hat●ed of vice, for a long time imprinted therein; which are the columns upon which stands the Fabric of the world. Whereupon me thinks that manner of bringing criminal men to their capital punishment, which they use in some places to be very strange, they carry them to die singing with flowers, as it were in triumph, taking (as much as may be) away the fear, and horror of death from them: Doing thereby great prejudice to two effects, which are the two main ends and aims of malefactors punishments, namely to punish their facts who have offended, and by their example to terrify others from committing the like: they take almost quite away the force of the one, and very much sweeten the other. But peradventure this custom is not so hurtful to Civil Art, as it is favourable to the Military.  
But to return to my purpose; The extravagant action, for the most part, finds applause, it brings novelty with it, it cheers the mind, adds vigour to the body, raiseth up the understanding with the motion, and suddenness, and if it doth not give their Spirits their being, yet it stirreth them up to operation, and the more vehement it is, the greater force it adds to them, as experience daily showeth us in frantic men, and that not without admiration. How far different is this motion which novelty causeth in the spirits, and produceth mirth, from that which is produced by mirth? It is more meek, and hath operation for its end, imagination for its guide, and the understanding for its means: Whereas the other moultered being vehehement, runs and flies without stay or guide. I know not whether it be because in grief the spirits retire to the heart, and in great joys they dilate themselves, that those two passions produce such effects, as some men are of opinion. Or whether by the raising, abating, repose, motion, sometimes lost, sometimes unruly. In my conceit all the damage proceeds from their ceasing to operate: in fear, because they lose their motions; in joy, because they alter it; in the latter, the imagination gives them motion, and doth not set them a working; in the former, it takes away both motion and operation. Man dies through grief, because the motion of the spirits ceases, without which they being unable to work, and being not fed, easily dissolved, by reason of their subtleness they are soon corrupted, What good sinned we in weeping? It doth not vent our grief, but it is a sign that the spirits begin to work, and that they have operation enough to sustain them. A man dies for joy, because in that act, the imagination in an instant moves all the spirits with a swift motion▪ and then losing itself, forsakes them, and gives over setting them to work: whereupon they being in a most violent motion, and having none to direct, restrain, or curb them, finding every thing abandoned, fly out and evaporate that way which they find open and enlarged. Nature seldom gives so strong an affliction or grief, but that it is accompanied with some small parcel of pleasure. Or any joy so sincere, but that it hath some kind of mixture of distaste: to the end, that in one part there may be somewhat to excite the spirits, and in the other to sustain the imaginative faculty: that it may not quite abandon itself to the overthrowing of the individuum. Even as the heaven works and operates in this lower world by its motion, and light, so do the spirits in the body. The world would perish, if it did not receive light and motion from the heavens; and the body, if it had not the like from the spirits. Finally, extravagant actions make so much noise amongst People, that the entering into them, though it be with choice and election, and the prosecuting of them, though in a fitting and convenient way, brings by the plausibleness of them eminent danger along to engage man in the persisting in them, though they be evil: And if this be so in him who operates by election, how will it be in him that operates by nature. They have hot and subtle spirits, the heat causeth them to rise, and mount the subtileness to penetrate: they have acute speculation, and surpass others in understanding: their conceits are not common, but oftentimes monstrous. It is likewise so with the forming power, when it works upon hot and dry matter; for being carried on by heat it grows up in height so much, that wanting it afterwards to spread abroad, it frames a long, but not great body; because slenderness takes away the proportion which is needful for a true and perfect greatness, Heat always puts forwards as much as it can for the advantage of sublimeness; it never turns back to reflect whereby it endammages Prudence, which needs some coldness to examine that which dryness hath penetrated, and in case it find it not ordered and settled, may correct, change, or forsake it. The actions of such an understanding shall always be great, sometimes good, and sometimes evil: Going always upward, and never reflecting upon what is past, they will be great by nature, but good by accident: An exquisite temperature for a speculation which is above us, unfit for practice amongst ourselves, and every way dangerous to introduce erroneous opinions, which will be very hurtful, if they be put in practice.  
Alcibiades being admitted to the government of the commonwealth, ambition leads him to encounter with Pheaces and Nicias, who were the most powerful, with an intent to make himself greater.  
Because the world should not be idle, Nature hath scattered amongst mankind Emulation and Necessity, Gaine and Glory: he that hath not these last two can hardly set forward to action, because the desire of knowing truth which is in all men, moves them to speculation, before it employs them in operation. True it is, that to keep the affections of both in a kind of moderation, she took care that small gain should suffice to satisfy Necessity; and little glory to overcome Emulation, she making herself the measure of the one, and appointing Equality to be the measure of the other. When man thrusts on his desires to immoderate things, he ought not to complain of that nature which made him, but of that which he himself hath made; because that having overcome the Emulator which she had given him, and being grown up above the state in which he was borne, he should find rest, and want an object to spur him on any further, if he did not frame to himself a new one. A desire of little, proceeds from nature, and from us comes the not being satisfied with much: And seeing she could not with this Law stay the course of humane ambition, she hath broken it in such manner, that though it go on in infinitun, yet it doth it by means of small and finite objects. Those who from treading upon the dust, have raised themselves to trample upon thrones, have by the way found many objects; in the attaining of which they have believed that happiness to consist, which they have not found even in the last object when they have attained unto it. Verily it is strange that Man, who in this world, hath no object (be it never so great) which attained unto can content his desire, should think he can content them with lesser, when he doth but contemplate them. The one proceeds from the natural anxiety of over-topping his Emulator, the other from framing a new one to ourselves in what state soever we be; thence it is, that a new happiness gives content at the first, until we find in it somewhat to emulate or to envy, which never failing, the desire likewise of growing greater never fails; which commonly aiming at one's equal, or him that is next before him, comes one way to be short, and the other way infinite. I confess, Nature sometimes brings forth (but very seldom) such magnanimous breasts, who aiming at a higher degree then that they were born in, do at the very first propose unto themselves that object, which is highest & furthest from them. So a Soldier of the meanest condition, fixes upon a General's place for his scope: and such motions, though they seem contrary to them which I have spoken of, yet they are not so: The diversity consists not in the substance, but in the manner, taking the dead and not the living for objects, and always an equal if not him that is, yet him that was such: falling into imitation of them, who were of a mean estate as well as they, and from thence either by valour or virtue were raised to high degrees. He is unfortunate that is borne thus, unless he become very happy; For either he lives despairing in a continual affliction, or rashly casts himself into some manifest danger, being not stayed nor appeased with that deceitful, yet profitable, hope of an approaching happiness. Heroes are indeed framed out of such constitutions, if valour be not wanting, or Fortune averse. There is difference in a Traveller's pace, when he sees his place of rest far off, and when he is close by it. One way must be taken to attain to a thing, as a medium, and another way to come to it as an end. He that hath attained to it, if he will make use of it for a medium, having aimed at it as an end, many times quite deprives himself of the use of it. Whence comes, that many having attained to some reasonable degree of felicity, striving to rise to an higher, have overthrown themselves quite; for of necessity changing their end, they must change all; and in changing, it is easy to come to ruin.  
Alcibiades spurred on by ambition, no sooner is admitted to be one of the Senate, but he strives to become great, and make himself respectful by contending with great ones. Power deserves this name, not only because it may do what it pleases, but also because it may hinder others from doing the like. The one lightens the heaviest Sceptre, and the other makes heavy the lightest chain. The forbidden thing seems best for this purpose, and it is so, seeing that the attaining of it frees from the bond which tied the freedom of the will. Hence it is, that the manner of introducing a law by example, is far more excellent than the doing of it by punishment or penalty. Hence proceeds, and hath its original, the hatred which Potentates (though they be not offended by him) bear to him that is greater; and the rage which causeth them to turn the world up-side-downe to overthrow him, under the false precence of a lost, or endangered Liberty; as if not only the not being free, but also the possibility of not being so, were slavery.  
This n●me is ill understood, and ill used. Slavery itself doth not take away a man's freedom: the wise Servant is freer than the foolish Master. Liberty and necessity are not inconsistent: An action done through outward violence, though it be not of free will, seeing he hath not power to do the contrary, yet it may be a free action, seeing that both will and understanding concur therein; and therefore those shall be free subjects who frame and level both their understandings and wills to their Lords. From this spring proceeds the great worth of that man in God's eye, who endures troubles and sorrows, by reason that oftentimes a forced and constrained act, which hath no merit at all in it, becomes free and meritorious. And this is (or I am deceived) a better grounded, and more effectual reason than Seneca's, where he intends to prove, that a wise man is uncapable of becoming a slave; because that working along with the current which runs with the actions of the understanding and the will, he always freeth himself, and finds rest in all things. Socrates would not be defended, his Reason was, because he would die free, and not forced. But because men of this constitution, and marked with this Noble Character, are very rare (by an unknown motion of Nature, which in its actions is a longing desire and anxiety to preserve the freedom of will) domination is hatred. And thence it comes, that he who is mightiest, either in City, Senate, or Court, wounds the eyes of him who comes newly thither with so much force, that it imprints thereon a dolorous character. If he meets with an unadvised harebrained man, he openly opposes him, and declares himself to be his enemy: If with a subtle one, he makes himself his companion, and chokes him under colour of friendship. The one is like the Summer heat, which gently disperseth the natural heat, with another semblable to it. The other like a Winter cold, with its contrariety, oppresses it. The first way is hard to begin well, if he presently gets not the upper hand: the second to end, if he do not attain at all to it. The operation by way of similitude, finds less resistance, because it seeks only free passage, and not the ruin. That by contrariety finds a greater, because it aims only at annihilation: And therefore the water is easily overcome by the air, and hardly destroyed by fire. Caesar had three great enemies, Cato totally opposite; Pompey his semblable, and Brutus mixed. Cato gave him occasion of shame, not of fear; Pompey went near to overthrow him; Brutus killed him with being semblable to him, but could not overthrow him by his being different. But if Sylla, Pompey, Caesar, and so many other men of worth and valour, happily came to be great, by becoming friends to those who were greater. How can Alcibiades his way be commended, who went about it by opposing them? Those Romans found the great ones divided, the Athenian agreed and united. Where there is partiality, or faction, it is best to become a friend; and an opposite where there is no enemy. It is too hard to sight against two, or more, if they be opposites; in Physic, Morality, or in Policy, if two unite against him that sets upon them (which comes ordinarily to pass) makes the issue of the undertaking impossible.  
The want of the chief instrument, namely, discontented persons, makes the beginning of the enterprise hard. And in such a state of affairs, though you make some such, yet they do not long last such; because that he who discontents himself with one, quickly is contented with another. The enmity of great ones makes a man to be esteemed generous, and is the true way, either to rise or ruin quickly. It is difficult to enter into it, without losing one's self in the very first steps, but if thou get but a little way on, thou wilt soon have a companion, and find help. Every one applauds thee, because a new valour causeth as much admiration, as a new star doth gazing. Envious men assist him, because they are ashamed to yield; the offended, because they seek revenge; the discontented, satisfaction; and all in general, because they unwillingly bow to that great one; and being brought under, they rejoice when thy find one that will not bow to him. They take heart from the example, and favour him as one that should free them from sordid slavery and abject suffering. They are deceived in believing, that if they make him superior, they can without any resistance, bring him again to an equality. But if they were not deceived, and did believe they rather change, than take away their bondage; yet they would assist him. They do not much hate, neither are there so many discontented at this new valour, because it is more innocent. Envy is not yet come in, and the change of domination is oftentimes judged to be a kind of liberty.  
The passing of the disease from one part to another in a sick man, gives some hope of recovery; it shows that Nature is yet strong, and the humour not so stubborn, or so strongly knit together, but that it may be loosened and extirpated. For a subject to attain to be the greatest man in the World, in a City, or in a Court, is not so hard a matter as for one to keep himself so. He that is growing up, is helped on, he that is grown up, is abandoned, and left to himself; and every one becomes an enemy to him that is decaying.  
It is so easy a matter to cut off a rising power in its beginning, that if man had not a natural instinct to help him that is growing up, none would become great: And it is so hard to bring down him that is gotten up, that if nature did not likewise incline man to destroy him, greatness would still remain in the same place. In augmentations men are never quiet, until they have brought the Subject to the highest pitch: when they have brought him thither, they never rest till they see him decline: And when he is declining, until they have ruined him. Actions which are done in favour of him that riseth, in hatred of him that is risen, in damage of him that is falling, though they be never so well measured by understanding Politicians, yet nature makes them exorbitant, and without measure. Let the Pilot be never so skilful, the currant of this instinct doth insensibly take off his hand, and in the end of his voyage brings him quite to another place than that whither he intended to come ashore. The Heaven which is an universal cause; Nature which is fruitful, Necessity which binds, Practise which teaches, Example which persuades, men which encourage, Envy which provokes, frame a contrary to him.  
If the heaven become particular, Nature barren, the bond suffer violence, swiftness give not time to Practice, difference leave no place for example, nor superiority for envy; either he stays, or he changes himself, or dies, stayed, changed and killed by reserving nature. God will not have us to enjoy so much happiness as we should if the world were all one man's: For men's sins it is he suffers so many Princes, and Commonwealths upon earth.  
It begun when one alone commanded it, and will end when it arrives again where it begun. And therefore it necessary, that he should lose himself that aims at an universal Monarchy; either because he cannot attain it, and so he shall lose himself alone; or together with the world after he hath attained to it.  
The Emulators, and Enviors of Alcibiades and Nicias greatness, not knowing the hurt they did the Commonwealth, desiring by Ostracism, to banish one of them out of the City, which was manifestly to give it in prey to the other who remained, made choice for the setting forward of this business of one Hyperbolus, a man so full of infamy, that he felt it not, being so covered over with it, that he had no sound part left him by which he might judge of it.  
Such was Alcibiades his circumspectness and vigilancy that he turned the Ostracism upon Hyperbolus himself. The people were ashamed that the Ostracism should fall upon so infamous a person: being a punishment which made a man sufferable, and almost to be desired: its reward being to be thereby declared the best man, and therefore after that time it was no more used, and it was very fitting, that law which had begun with the best should end with the worst.  
Excellency or perfect goodness, seems to be an unfortunate thing. In Physic Galen saith, it is not to be found. Hippocrates if he grant any such thing, doth presently again disallow it In policy they will not admit of it amongst forms of state, unless it be transitorily. A Common wealth banisheth any thing that resembles it; a Tyrant kills it. In humane actions they call it an enemy to goodness; nature is sometimes blamed as ignorant, because it cannot reach to the making of it up: and sometimes they accuse it as envious, because after it hath begun it, it cuts it off green. If it belonged to the body, Arithmetically there were no place to receive it. If Geometrically, no air whereby it might breathe no food to feed upon without offending it. If it belong to the mind, it must of necessity be excluded out of the Commonwealth. The excellent and perfect one is not yet come upon earth; and he cannot be a fitting Citizen of any other; therefore it must either grant him the command over all, or kill him. When the perfect one came into the world and was borne amongst us, he would not accept of the first, because his kingdom was not of this world; and he came for the latter: Scarce was he borne, but the Tyrant seeks to slay him. Scarce is he known, but the Tribes cry him up King; and the rulers crucify him. Man is borne to iniquity, saith Eliphaz, the Temanite, and this doth not proceed saith he from the dust, from which spring the senses, for then beasts also would be wicked. Not from the soul governess and guide of the body, say I, for then the infant, and the mad man would sin. But from that which moves the understanding and the will, by St Paul called Spirit, by the Philosopher's Mind, and by us commonly Reason. The child because he wants it, receives by that defect more secureness then Man. The mad man because he hath lost it, hath an advantage above the wise man. The one cannot sin, the other can not choose but sin. To be great in heaven, we must become as the little ones of the earth; to be wise, we must become fools; yet with this difference, that where they do not sin through defect, we should not sin through virtue: and where they do not undeserve wanting the use of reason, we should merit in rightly using it. This food, this heavenly Nectar, if it meets with a clear and resplendent mind, doth seed, and elevate it wonderfully, if an impure, and troubled one, it doth above measure offend and depress it. He which is best, be it either in the species, or in the individuum, if once he begin to be bad, becomes the worst. Angels are worse than Men, Men worse than Beasts. Amongst Angels, he that was the greatest, amongst men, he that is the best; the best & most excellent is only contrary to the worst, and the best only can attain to be worst. This possibility was the guilding which the inventors of the Ostracism gave malice. They covered the vice of envy, with the virtue of providence. But it is not a virtue when it is overmuch, it is a vice, and the less it resembles it, the more it is such. It shows ill in God's sight, as if man did put his whole confidence in himself, and none in him. Of this Tyrants are framed; For this wars arise, and with this the world is pulled off of the hinges. How many men are dead, by preventing future things, and by physicking themselves with prevention? How many Cities, Provinces, and Kingdoms have lost themselves to prevent a future thing, which was not, nor would not have been. I would liken over much Providence, to the Judiciary, but that is more harmful, more rash, more uncertain: and worse; because it cannot be hindered. Thou shalt indeed find some that have been killed by a Tyrant, by reason of what the Astrologers advised, and the stars threatened him. Other some that have undertaken great, and new things, persuaded thereunto by the happy influences of their births. These are but some, but their number is infinite whom providence hath caused to be killed or spurred on to new businesses. Both go on in divining future things. But providence is the rashest, because it draws the principal out of itself, and the other seeks it in the stars, where he thinks the Creator hath placed it. They are both false, Astrology less false, because it makes use of celestial things. Providence more false, because it is grounded upon terrestrial. God is not pleased with man who remits all things to him; and is displeased when he remits nothing at all to him. Seldom will he operate without man, and never likes that man should operate without him. The one is tempting of God by obliging him; The other is a provoking of him by refusing to be obliged to him. This most vile Law was ordained, by Ignorance and Malignity, the Nobles, the People, Ambition, Jealousy, Envy, and Fear. The People seek after security, the Nobles after honour, and both with their private passions overthrow the public weal. A subject of great worth is ever hateful to his equals, but not always disinherited by his inferiors. If it were possible for him to free himself from envy, he might easily free others from fear. The People love him, and exalt him while they believe he may profit or at least not endamage their security. The Noble always hates him, because he is always a hindrance to his honour, and being ashamed to show his envy so naked and plain, he clothes and covers it with fear, to imprint likewise in the People's hearts this his dissembled and feigned character. It is not withstanding a fear in both of them, though it be not a vice in both; in great ones it is a fear of not losing their glory, in the mean ones their liberty. And if the People be permitted to oppose him who takes away their liberty, why should the Noble be denied the opposing of him that takes away his glory? Peradventure it is because the one is assayed directly, the other reslectively. Liberty cannot be defended, but only by directly opposing him that seeks to entrap it; Glory may be maintained by getting before him, who diminishes it. The way to great actions would be lost, or they which attempt them would lose themselves without attaning to them, if the opposing one's self to him that tramples upon him did not not bring blame and infamy along with it, and the surmounting of him praise and honour. Envy which reigned in us, one part of the world more than in Greece, sometimes banishing worthy and eminent, subjects sometimes hindering them from attaining to their aims, suffered not that noble and excellent Country to obtain any great conquests, whereas the Roman Commonwealth in a small time attained to the universal Monarchy. The Grecian valour was great, but inferior to the Italian; the Italian wits were eminent, but not equal to the Grecian. In the one the brain was greater than the heart; in the others the heart greater than the brain. Where the understanding surmounts valour, there is most envy, where valour outgoes the understanding, most emulation.  
The one vilified seeks by subtlety to bring down him that is grown up above him; the other encouraged by valour seeks to overcome and surmount him. Envy (saith Aristotle) grows from the sir●ilitude; I say moreover, that it grows like a plant from its seed, and as man from humane seed. The semblable causeth great delight, and is not parted from without much, distaste, unless it be done willingly to increase, or at least not to diminish it, which will be when it happens to decrease, if not really, yet in conceit. The first effect that it produces, meeting with a breast not quite opposite to virtue, is Emulation, which pricks on the desire to go forward. Not to get away from him who is gone beyond him that which he hath gotten, but to attain himself to the getting of the same. If he doth not attain to it, he oftentimes proceeds to a desire to have the other want it, and then th' emulation becomes envy, which if it remain in him, in a short time provokes him to wrest it from him, and turns to rage and hatred.  
And this is a vice, proper, and peculiar to man's nature; Horses and Mules to which are likened the worst of men are not subject to it; nor the good Angels, to whom the best and most excellent men come near, no nor the Devil himself, who amongst all bad ones is the worst. It is much that one degree only which distinguishes us from our equal, by reason of his, or our own advancing, should move the passions of joy or grief with so much violence, and that many degrees, when they carry our superior far up above us, or raise our inferior after us, do not produce the same effect. Peradventure these, though they increase, yet they do not go out of the latitude of the Sphere. The difference is in the more, or less: The motion is an alteration, but an equal cannot move to step forward, but presently and in an instant he becomes a superior.  
He makes no motion, but it is general, no difference but specifical. If motion be the cause of joy and grief, and the greatest and most sudden motion causeth the greatest; how should the growing at distance, and advancing from equality, seeing it must be a sudden act for defect of latitude, and great, by reason of the alteration of the species, but produce Joy and Grief in an eminent degree?  
This law was defective in the manner of putting it in execution, it was by the people's particular votes, not digested or considered upon by conference: Every one in particular sent Hyperbolus into exile; All joined together were ashamed of it: It was not the whole commonalty that exiled him; yet was it they who blamed the exiling of him. The whole, to be more than the parts, requires an union; if that fails, it will not take effect, if it divides, it corrupts. It loseth its name, and also its virtue. The voice of this community united is called God's voice, of each one in particular is like the devils. Pliny wonders that such a joined multitude should daunt an Orator, who would speak boldly to any of those men particularly. And why doth he not also marvel, that a bundle of rods cannot be bend nor bowed, and each several rod may with ease be broken to pieces.  
Strength is a virtue of union, most manifest in the people's unity, which resembles the Divine; where it goes with violence to overcome, it breaks and shivers whatsoever opposes it; when it is bend to judge, it strikes terror; when united together, it pours forth prayers; it forceth (I had almost said) the very heavens. Man is affrighted, astonished, trembles, and loses himself in the presence of the object which he loves, at the King's feet to whom he bows, at the sight of the people to whom he speaks: not for any thing that he sees which is humane, but for that is represented to him which is Divine: he discovers in his beloved a beam of Divine beauty, in the Assembly of the people, Divine unity; in the King's greatness, Divine Majesty and Ompotency.  
From this manner of voting likewise proceeded that dangerous error of little Secrecy: They showed the blow before they struck, whereas that should have preceded swifter than a Thunderbolt, not only the noise, but even the flash. It is too dangerous to startle and affright a subject whom we may have cause to fear. The interessed party, be they never so wise and cautelous, stands always vigilant and attentive to the damage which may befall him.  
If too much care be the daughter of Suspicion it is the enemy of Truth: It troubles the imagination; and this being troubled, though it doth not make that to be, which is not, yet it makes it seem to be so And what man is so circumspect, that in the passing of months (I will not say of years) can be so wary in his actions, as that none of them shall give an extreme watchful man some cause to doubt or mistrust?  
The next degree to watchfulness, is Suspicion and mistrust: it would be far better if it were to trust and belief; He that trusts, is bound presently to secure himself of the subject. And because he gives him not time to move if he is a traitor, or to become one, if he be not so, he commonly attains very well and happily to what he intends.  
He that mistrusts before he can resolve himself, endeavoureth to find the truth; and let him go about it as warily as he can, when he comes to use the means, he discovers his intention, the subject that perceives it, presently finding himself lost, if he hath not a truly Christian breast, or is not a most subtle Moral Philosopher, who to avoid the stain of fin, or note of infamy, will rather than become guilty, expose himself to the danger of dying innocent, will hold it a kind of pusillanimity not to die guilty. And if he be a Traitor, he will at that very instant discover himself; if faithful, he will become treacherous. The former hath the greatest advantage, who hath the means already prepared, and presently comes to a trial, finding the other unprovided, wavering, and doubtful, between credulity and distrust: Whereas the other taken upon a sudden, unprovided of means, and wanting time, which he cannot take, unless he likewise give it the other, is often oppressed before he be prepared, in preparing himself, or at least ill prepared.  
To take away and banish one only, was not not a right Cure, it rather increased the Disease. To take away that humour out of the Body, which is not offensive, and leave that which is offensive, is (according to understanding Physicians) one of the chief causes of malignant Fevers. If a Subject in a City, exalt himself above the rest, what can be done better, then to give him an opposite? And what worse than to remove him from him? If he doth not frame himself, or Nature give him one, let Art bring him in one. The Ostracism banishing one only, did let the other loose, made him Lord of the City, and gave him opportunity to become a Tyrant.  
Two great disasters (according to Astrology) make one good Fortune. Physicians do not take away the Bilis, or Choler, where they fear the Dropsy, nor the Pituita, or Phlegm, where they fear a Plethora. Contraries mingled, do not hurt the Body, which they overthrew being divided. Whilst Caesar and Pompey both remained in Rome, the Commonwealth did not perish: The one's going out, and the others remaining within, ruined it.  
To take away the best, was as much as to let the worst loose. In this Aristotle himself was puzzled, he would not likewise have him to remain in the City, where he cannot place him but as King. He sends him into the Woods, he compares him to jove, he would not have man worthy to be his Companion, and yet he makes him a companion of wild beasts. He was peradventure deceived: In describing an excellent man, he seems to attribute unto him the worst of vices. If he be ambitious, or foolish, he is not excellent: if he be wise and modest, he will shun and refuse, not affect the Sceptre; he will subject himself to the Laws, as if he had need of them; to Magistrates, as inferior to them, to obedience, as if he were not borne to command. It is contradictory to do ill, and be excellent. The instance which Aristotle gives of a voice exceeding the rest in a choir of Music, if he doth not take away discretion from him that hath it, the voice will not take away the harmony from the rest. That of one member bigger than another, hath nothing to do with goodness, but with Monstrosity, it is as far from Excellency in goodness, as it is near exceeding badness. He that gave the humours of the body for an example, where if one exceeds the rest, though it be a good one, yet it diseases the body; he mistook the greatest for the best, and took the humours for the natural heat, which be it never so great, doth not burn nor consume, but foment, preserve, and vivify. He were but a very ignorant Physician that would expel it, and so is he a Politician, that will banish the best out of a City. Some cannot suffer the best, nor endure the worst. They fear one for their own sake, the other for the Commonwealth's; They envy the former, and are ashamed of the latter. They seek after indifferent subjects, which may not dishonour the Public, nor put them in danger: and this they cannot attain unto, because nature produces but few such, and taking away the best, they raise up a worst, as out of a mixed, if the predomin ant be taken away. The Cretans proved it, they no sooner had banished the best, but they found themselves in the hands of the worst. What is the driving of a great man out of the City, but adding the adherence of strangers, to the applause which he hath gained amongst the Citizens. Caesar would not give Senators leave to travel long out of Italy, when they were once above twenty years of age. Augustus not out of Rome: Tiberius kept them also within the City, whom he had chosen for Governors of Provinces.  
Politic Writers have blamed the letting of a subject grow great in the City, more than the banishing, of him when he was grown so. Aristotle desires a remedy from the Laws, others seek it from Art. They keep them idle who have any sign of great worth: they transplant those who have gained great reputation in one place, into another. If riches gained it him, they cause him to spend them; if valour in wars, they call him home to the City; if he be reputed of great understanding, or rashly valiant, they employ the one in affairs which may overthrow him, and expose the other to dangers, in which he may hazard the loss of himself; If he attained thereunto by being officious, and serviceable, they deny him those bones and favours which he asketh. And generally upon the least occasion, they punish them all most severely. But all this hath more outward show than safety. There is neither Law nor Art can hinder the rising off him, whom Nature doth, even from his birth, accompany with such beams of happiness, that either he finds no resistance, or forces his way through, wheresoever he meets with it; good things prove excellent to him, and he can turn bad into good. All kind of food serves him for nourishment, and each poison is a remedy to him. These kind of balls, the harder they are dashed against the ground, they higher the bound up towards heaven. Herod the great, by Hireanus his first persecuter of him, got the Tetrarchy; by the second, the Principality; by the third, he made himself Lord of his own native Country, by the assistance of the Romans. Occasions oftentimes will not permit them to be kept idle. If the tumults of Naples had gone forward, the Spaniards had determined to send the great Captain thither again.  
The business of Portugal would not suffer the Duke of Alva to be idle, though he were in prison. And the wars of Germany forced the Militia to be returned in Waldestein's hands. Transplanting; and changing of place, giveth way for the gaining of new reputation, and doth not diminish the old. It had not a veiled Tiberius to have transplanted Germanicus out of the North into the East, if his death had not helped him. By great expenses a man, for the most part, gains applause; want of money, doth not endamage a subject that is in credit, and few great ones have lost themselves thereby. Caesar's friends were deceived therein: for he then became Lord of the Commonwealth, when they thought his debts would have ruined him.  
To call one home from an army to the City, is as much as to add the people's favour to that of the Soldiers. Domitian finding he was not thereby able to deal with Agricola, was constrained to make use of poison; and Tiberius met with a Subject that would not part from it. To put them upon businesses in which they may lose their credit, or endanger the losing of their lives, is a matter full of hazard and adventure. Wise men will come off in their affairs well enough, howsoever the businesses prosper, and valiant men for the most part overcome dangers be they never so great; building their greatness, where others had prepared a precipice for them: It so happened to Saul with David, and to Seleucus with jugurth. To deny them those boons and favours which they crave, and oppress their friends, moves them to indignation, and doth not abate their power. The Prince of Orange, and the Duke of Ariscot, have testified that sufficiently. Tiberius' increased the people's love to Germanicus, more by persecuting him, than if he had cherished him. If it fell out well with Agesilaus, touching Lysander, it was because the goodness of the Subject helped him. To punish, and not utterly extinguish great ones, is a great error in policy: small errors in them, aught to be connived at, and great faults punished with death. There is no medium to be used towards such, between cherishing and killing, If Astyages in stead of kill Arpagus son, had put the father to death, he had not lost his Kingdom. And if if Croesus had taken away Demetrius his life, when he put out his eyes, he had not lost himself. Let it be as it will, certainly it is barbarous & inhuman in Comon-wealths & Princes, to make laws to hinder such as undertake actions worthy of everlasting fame, and a glorious memory, that are valorous and virtuous, both in being and acting, when they should rather enact such, as might encourage men thereunto. He that invented this most wicked Law of Ostracism, was an enemy to God, Man, and Nature, and a ruiner of all good Laws.  
It a●mes not so much at destroying of tyranny▪ as at the exercising of it with security, whether it be in Prince, Nobles, or People, taking away honourable and regardful subjects, whose valour and worth are the Sanctuary to which wronged subjects fly, and whose presence is the only curb to make Princes and Senators ashamed of committing wickedness. There never was any Commonwealth more abounding in worthy men than that of Rome, while i● slourished; nor that made better use of them than it did while it stood uncorrupted. The people did with extraordinary applause, honour a Citizens great virtue, and punished with most severe justice, the defects of the same man, if he chanced to alter his nature. When they perceived Melius to aspire to tyranny, Manlius to attempt it, & Appius Claudius to have already attained it, it did not help Melius, hat he had freed them from famine, Manlius, that he had vindicated them from ssavery, nor Appius, that he had been popular: But they threw two of them down headlong from the Tarpeian Rock, and conspired the death of the other.  
In the good time of the Commonwealth, eminent virtue was much esteemed, and not feared; because that as soon as it aimed at sinister ends, it lost together with its name, both favour and applause. And whereas it was reverenced whilst it was sincere, when once it came to be counterfeit, it was condemned. The greatest dangers it ran itself into, was, not for having kept their best Citizens amongst them, but exiled them: As when Coriolanus came to conquer Rome, and Furius Camillus was not there to defend it.  
Let Commonwealths be so framed, that all the parts thereof may be contented; and let Princes rule their Subjects with a Fatherly affection, that no desire of change may grow up; and in so doing, they both may cherish and prefer subjects of great worth. They shall enjoy their virtue, while it is upright, without fear; because it will be easy to chastise and punish it, if once it grow corrupted.  
Alcibiades, to make use of his Talon, and satisfy his unlimited ambition, and desire of glory, hinders the Athenians peace, and goes to War with the Laacedemonians, puts his native Country in hazard, and brings it to a precioice. Some subjects are born in Cities, with most excellent inclinations and endowments. Amongst those that want them, as well as amongst those that are full of them, some know it, and some are ignorant of it. One that is good for nothing, and knows he is so, doth no hurt, because he will not adventure himself; neither could he do any great hurt, if he did not know himself, so he were known; for than he would not be put to any trial. Indeed, if he be not known, there may be some danger in him, yet if he doth not overthrow the Commonwealth, or the Prince, upon his first trial, before a second they will be undeceived, and know what he is. He that hath excellent parts, and knows not of it, is the better: and he that hath them and knows it, oftentimes proves the worst. And the later is like a medicine, which finding no excrements to expel, and break its force, joins with the humours, & finding noithng to heal, corrupts the former. The former is like Nature, which shows not her greatest force, but upon greatest occasions. One like flame set to wood, having taken power by the matter, bold and confident, shows out his form. The other unseen, like fire hidden in a stone, wants the collision of occasion, to manifest and disclose it. The one ambitious and proud, to pass on a potentia ad actum, hunts after occasions, many times he takes them great, and sometimes they present themselves so, sometimes they become so although they were once but mean, whereby he loses himself, and often times brings the ruin of the State along with his own. The other being humble seeks not after them, and if they join with him, they draw forth his good parts by the power of the matter.  
He is the securer by so much, as there is difference between the taking and seeking after occasions. The one raises himself with the greatness of affairs, the other is depressed: one endangers the State, the other draws it out of dangers. He that doth not know his own worth, dies unfortunate, if occasions do not seek and find him out: sois he that knows it, if he doth not find them. In States that have no occasions, it were good there were no such men; or if there be, that they would not grow ambitious. The soil which brings forth such trees, if it have not room wherein they may spread abroad their branches, must seek and get some: so must leave a way open for violence and ●ury to vent itself at. For if they find no way, they will make one; and there is a great deal of difference between a way rend open by ambition, and one framed with prudency. If a hammer worketh out a door, way, or passage in a wall, it doth it with design and intent. A piece of Ordnance shakes, and oftentimes throws the Wall down, but will never make a regular overture. Nature spoke to Scipio Nasica, obscurelv; It showed him that it was not good to destroy Carthage; he understood the thing, but not the sense and meaning of it: He thought Rome would have need of it, to keep Emulation and Fear alive in the Romans breasts, that they might not lose themselves in idleness and carelessness. But it did want it indeed, because occasions of employment should not be wanting to the proudest and ablest Nation in the Universe, whose desire of glory was unlimited, and had no stay for its unbridled valour. And because these occasions were not wanting for a great while after (whatsoever Nasica prognosticated) the Roman Commonwealth, survives long after the ruining of Carthage.  
Spain wants not ambitious Subjects of great excellency, and of most able valour; but it thrives by them, because it abounds in occasions, sometimes by Sea, sometimes by Land; being by reason of the large extent of its Dominions, always envied, feared, and assaulted.  
France, while it wanted this good fortune of having occasions proffered it, and yet abounded in such subjects, was forced to disquiet and trouble itself, or others. But it is far better to recommend the cure of such a plague to the Laws, which are always alive, than to divert it with occasions, which fail either soon or late in every Dominion, be it never so great and large.  
The desire of worldly glory, is wise men's madness, and the fools wisdom, and beguiles all. It is an excrement, but beneficial; a Mercury, which laid upon the breast, without doing any hurt, defends it from the most pestiferous qualities with its own venomous one. The asylum, and last refuge of Reason, which being to the uttermost weakened and tired by opposing the senses, hath its recourse thither, to avoids its utter destruction. A virtue, which leaving its mildness and sweetness, and becoming sour, turns to vinegar, rather dead than corrupted.  
If Reason fights against it, it is in a fair combat; if it be conquered, it saves its life, though it be taken prisoner. It troubles man, and he troubles the world if he finds it quiet; and if he finds it troubled, he suffers it not to perish. Nature hath environed Glory with a hedge composed of most sharp thorns of troubles, full of grief and tormenting labours, to hinder man with the difficulty, from that which he could not persuade him to with reason. And not content therewith, because he should not set upon it, she taught him, that it might be obtained by slighting and contemning it. But desire of this glory being once possessed of man, makes him seem to be no more flesh and blood, but turned all into spirit. He encounters with heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fire, sword, and bullets, and even death itself, to not die and live glorious in men's memories; and still when he attains to it, he remains rather undeceived than satisfied.  
True it is, that hereby the superior part showeth its odds and and advantage, whereby it surmounts the senses: and drawing such an one out of darkness, like a lamp of true Glory, shows how small the relish of the senses is in objects, in comparison of that which a glorified understanding extends, and communicates unto them. But what seeks man with this longing desire of worldly glory, but divine glory, by an erroneous and false way? In stead of placing it in the seeking out of God's Truth, Goodness and Bounty, he places it in the emulation of a great one.  
This is not following him that calls us, it is treading of our enemy's footsteps; it is renouncing the being GOD'S true Issue, and transforming ourselves into the Devil's adopted children.  
It is corrupting the best desire that Nature hath given us, to bring in the worst instead of it. It was the vanity of the first ambitious Creature, who instead of turning towards the Divine Essence, to contemplate it, turned towards its greatness, to go beyond it; and being troubled, (as ambitious creatures use to be) on the one side with passion, and on the other side a little perspicuous by his knowledge; finding by the one, that he could not set his Throne above the stars, and obtain superiority in heaven, he suffered himself to be drawn another way, and set it on the side of the North, to attain to it on earth. But God to turn man away from following such perverse footsteps, abased Worldly Glory, and greatness: to make even the most humble upon the Earth, the greatest in Heaven, and the most despised, the most glorious.  
Socrates in a Battle saved Alcibiades life: A little while after Alcibiades saves his. Man is the most mutable of all Creatures, because being composed of most mixts, hath most things in him to change. He hath virtue from Nature, but that passes not the first brunt, nor yet comes to it, if it be preocupated. He that blames the rendering of benefits as soon as they are received, makes the way to Ingratitude easy.  
It is temerity to delay or hinder Nature when it operates well, hoping to do a better cure with the ignorance of Art. There would not be so many ingrateful men, if they had not time to become ingrateful. Few are virtuous by habit, and few but are so in a kind of Fit, and upon a sudden.  
To take away from this all the praise, is not peradventure warrantable, if it be not a habitual, it is a natural virtue, if it be not greater, yet it is more general: it is good al●o, if not better, it is greater, more vehement then regulated. He that doth a good turn is so affectionate in the doing of it, that he would do more, and if occasion served, he would multiply it: He that receiveth it is so tender, that if he could in that instant, he would render it greater. The heat being past, the first always increases the account, thesecond diminishes it.  
The one doth not pay it wholly, the other doth not cancel it, though it be paid. He that did know these vehemencies, would also take notice of the motions, and sometimes he doth; but because discourse must proceed to attain to it, it is not attained because the motions are past. The wise man's worth consists not so much in knowing the time, as it doth in foreseeing it, because that the passage from knowledge to operation, which requires time, puts him beside the time.  
The People construed Alcibiades vices to be virtues, sometimes the resemblance caused them to err and believe them to be such, because they themselves were likewise such, and did err therein. All that is done conformable to its Genius, it applauds, and whatsoever is contrary, be it good or evil, it likewise abhors. Love also on the other side did deceive them, a passion which makes a thing seem what it is not, and much more doth ignorance do it, which makes one indeed to believe it. The People want the true measure of virtue, which, is mediocrity, and they do not penetrate into the substance which is to operate according to right reason: they are not informed of the circumstances, how much, when, and how.  
They make use of excess for a measure, of quantity alone for a circumstance; of the matter, for the essence, and judge the greatest action to be best; Hence it is, that the rash and foolehardy man is rather applauded then the valiant, the prodigal rather than the liberal. The little difference that is between virtue and vice hath also a share in this mistake, where vice is accompanied with ambition; because, that though the subject suffer himself to be hurried away by the senses, to vices, ye he so carrries himself therein, that amongst the vices now and then shines forth some act (not through virtue, but through vehemency) sometimes of liberality, sometimes of magnanimity, sometimes of fortitude, sometimes of affability.  
And sometimes also in the midst of incontinency (a thing which seems very strange, and yet is true) he shows signs of great continency. The root is not really in virtue, as if it were not yet utterly extinguished; it is in the embers of it, heated by the vice of ambition.  
A great virtue is a special means to have a great vice born withal, and pardoned, like to a glance of light which it brings along with it, and with the splendour makes the judgement to e●re: there can be no eminent understanding without some parcel of folly. It is set down by wise men for an infallible axiom. The reason of it is not easily given. There be understandings which seem to be great, and are rather unbrideled and wild ones. They draw men away before they can follow them. They run and in a manner fly, moved by a heat, which doth not only warm, but inflame and set them on fire: the Carrier is swift. It is a horse which runs loose, and hath not wisdom sitting upon him to govern and guide him.  
This kind of understanding is peradventure one of those which Seneca calls uncontinent, and which St Paul desires might be sober: Attributes which seem metaphorical, and are most proper; because that manner of speculation, is a note of the manner of operating, seeing that the same heat which let lose the reins, to the higher part, sets the lower also at liberty. And as the unbrideled understanding, goes where it ought not to go, so the senses set at liberty, run whither they will.  
Men who clearly see the defects of the inferior part, and in the superior can discern nothing but what is great, they judge that subject to abound in many virtues, and many vices, when that is also a vice in him, which seems not to be so. Other understandings there be, which are so attentive and fixed upon speculation, that being wholly set upon it, dividing in a manner the soul from the body, raise themselves with the former, and grow careless os the latter; and whilst they endeavour to show the greater part to be man, they discover the other to be beast. To this ancient Poets had a relation, when they represented Satyrs, their upper parts like men, and the lower like goats; Whilst the understanding is busy in speculation, the senses run and skip about like goats, having none to direct or rule them.  
Mean understandings do not raise themselves so high as to make such a division and whereas the other are men, and beasts, these are men-beasts: and if they do not attain to be such eminent subjects, they do not likewise come to be such great beasts. Behold whence proceeds the inequality of eminent understandings, because that, according to Plato, they have a parcel of madness in them. Alcibiades was one of the first sort, and so was almost all the Heroes, Diogenes, and most part of the Philosophers were of the second. I know not by what spirit Galen was moved, when instead of defending such a man's knowledge, he defended his folly and incontinency.  
Alcibiades advises the Athenians, to make war against the Sicilians: He had no other reason to do it, but his own desire of glory, and to surpass his emulator. He that suffers himself to be overcome by this passion, is never quiet, nor suffers any one else to be so. The appetite of the taste already satisfied with food, runs not to the desiring of new, though better; and if it doth run to it, it is not nature, but intemperancy that persuades it. Having received it, into the stomach, it is satisfied; if it remains there too long, it loathes it: if it quickly digests, he returns to desire more.  
The appetite of glory goes likewise to the object, although mistaken; Scarce is it touched by natural heat to digest it; but poison-like it stupefies the understanding, which scarce discovers it, but it loathes it. If one should take it away from it when it hath had it but a little while, it would again return to desiring of it. But those things which serve for an object to humane ambition, have volatile spirits soaring upon the superficies, and not fixed in the substance: the understanding quickly takes them out, and suddenly consumes them.  
The thing remains, not living, but a carcase; which because it remains, is not desired; and because a carcase doth not satisfy; seeing that nature for a short time is contented with a little, and is not for ever satisfied with an infinite. It is a great damage, to not enjoy at all the glory one hath acquired, and worse to keep it but for an instant, the one incites to greater things, and the other oftentimes hinders from attaining them.  
Unfortunate man▪ that cannot be content with a little ● unless novelty trouble the discourse, nor with much, unless ra●e and fury take it away. All is but madness. whereof the one is bound fast, because it lasts, the other would be bound, if it lasted. That which the wisest man in the world cannot do, a mad man sometimes doth it.  
One doth not content himself with the state wherein he is, the other is contented with that which he hath not: because he is deceived by a fixed desire which doth not set the defect before him, he imagines he hath it as he desires, and hath not so much free understanding left, as to reason upon it, how it would be, if he had obtained it, and so to refel the deceits of imagination, with arguments of reason. Nature would show, that worldly happiness doth not consist in having it, but in the manner of considering; that he only hath it, who contemplates things in their inside, and possesses in that which he gains, the good which caused him to desire it.  
They both err, the mad man with delight, the wise man with trouble; one in believing he hath obtained wherewith to content himself; the other because he knows not that he hath obtained it.  
The Athenians make Alcibiades head of the enterprise, which himself had set forward, and persuaded them to. An ordinary way of proceeding both in Commonwealths & Principalities, because other men will not accept of that charge, as another man's business. Or peradventure, he is judged fittest to be employed in it, as having most interest in the good issue of it, or as better informed of the means to attain unto it. I know not whether those influences, which made the counsel acceptable, cause the person also which gave it to be applauded: or whether it be, because when any one gives consent to a thing, the understanding being rather violently drawn thereunto, then persuaded to it by reason, he believes there is in him that persuades somewhat which is above reason; and therefore without any further enquiry, he will recommend the issue of that which he had voted, not knowing what it was, to him that persuaded him to it. Yet notwithstanding, the Athenians considering Alcibiades to be rash and violent, to restrain and mitigate these qualities in him, assigned him Nicias, a wise and stayed subject, for a companion. Because wise men presuming upon their own wisdom, not knowing how little it avails in sublunary things, will thereby direct those things also which they have begun through the impulsion and violence of fate. Or because we being composed of a nature which being an enemy of simple and unmixed things, hath every thing mingled in it; cannot be quiet ourselves, until we have produced a mixed; But whatsoever be the cause, the issue thereof which hath always been unfortunate, should make us not to adhere to any such manner of opinion; which is either ill argued upon by the understanding, or little favoured by heaven: What can be gotten by it, but the depriving ourselves of good, forsaking that advantage which by each quality, several, might be obtained.  
The stayed and prudent man, causes the rash and hare brained to lose that fortune which assists and favours bold men: The rash man spoils the prudent man's counsels and advices, not suffering them to come to maturity, but preventing them with fury and violence. The primary qualities of the elements are qualified, controlled, and corrected by themselves: man's qualities remain entire; they are continually justling & encountering one another, but never join nor qualify themselves. The rash man gives an onset, the prudent man will not second him: One goes as it were with feet of lead to engage himself, the other flies into an engagement with wings of fire: The prudent man thinks he shall utterly lose himself, unless he forsake his companion, and sometimes goes back, when by going on, he might have conquered. Tacitus relates the virtues and vices of Mutian and Vespasian.  
He doth not say they would have made a good compound, being in two several subjects, but if they had been both joined in one: he will have a mixed made by Nature, and not by Art, where the parts grow near, but do not unite, or at least not mix: each holds & keeps its inclinations to its proper ends. And though the first virtues, from which the accidents have their original, be sometimes dashed to pieces, yet the last remains entire, so that in operating they frame as many characters as they are themselves, always different, and for the most part contrary. The knowledge of the first qualities, and ignorance of the second, loses both the Physician and the patient: if we did not want this knowledge, the medicines which were most mixed, would be the best, for our body is more mixed than than any other, by this means bearing the worldly imperfection, to make a difference between it and heavenly perfection: for there the most pure and simple are the best; and here the most mixed and mingled are excellentest.  
The Athenians not content that they had sent Nicias & Alcibiades to the enterprise of of Sicilia, do appoint Varianus also for that service. Two contraries had need have a third, to the end that if they cannot be united one to another, they may be both joined in him; which he may easily attain to, if he participate of both their qualities. So the air, by means of its heat, is united to fire; by means of its moistness, to water: water by its coldness, unites itself to the earth: by its moistness, to the air: From whence grows the rawly-composed order of this great universe. But because Varianus was not so, but was likewise full of rage & boldness, this seemed to be rather a putting the enterprise into the hands of temerity, than securing it, unless that were the way to secure it. A prudent man is not sitting to undertake bold attempts, which are beyond Reason, they are to be achieved by the hands of a daring fierce man, or not at all. Prudence hath measure for is actions; temerity is unlimited, in using it sometimes are performed extravagant & unlooked for achievements. He that makes use of it, hath an advantage to assault by way of surprise to amaze, to disorder, to confound, binding the understanding either to lose itself, or take a sudden resolution in a thing which was never discoursed upon. It runs violently upon some inaccessible way, and finds it without defence, because every one stands armed against Wisdom, and lies open to Temerity. Therefore wise men for fear of this, make a golden bridge for him that flies, and Conquerors make a way for them that run. One may err (it is true) by temerity, but one shall sometimes do the like through prudence.  
The wise man casts himself into the arms of reason, the rash man puts himself into the hands of Heaven: And because things have seldom that end which other men judge, he errs seldomer that hath not discoursed upon affairs, than he that hath judged of the events. The understanding is within us, imprisoned in the body, and entangled amongst the senses; Nature is without, loose, free, and not subject to erring. The Philosopher defines Temerity to be an act without reason. He might peradventure be deceived: An unfortunate act is out of the bounds of reason, but a fortunate one is above it. An impulse of nature, which always aims at truth, is more available than a motion of the understanding, which discourses upon likelihoods; and if nature errs, it is because one making no difference between our particular nature, and the universal, believes that impulse to be superior to reason, which is without any, as if the senses, and the heavens did move in the same manner. Others, confiding too much in their own understanding, hold all that to be a defect in the inferior part, which is dissonant from the superior; as if there were not a supreme which they sometimes do not know, and sometimes oppose erring for the most part, by fearing not to err. It is too hard for the one to forget that they have understanding and for the other to discern the impulses of a not erring nature, from the provocation of a corrupt one.  
Alcibiades was noted for, and accused of impiety, as if totally irreligions in some actions, he had made a mock of the Gods, and had by night cut off the heads of all Mercuries Statues▪ which were set up in divers places of Athens. A wise man among the Gentiles, wept at the ignorance of his times, in which they worshipped so many, and such ridiculous Gods: And raising himself, by the power of his understanding, to a more sublime Sphere, easily penetrated into the knowledge of one only ●ne. A Subject raised to a high Fortune, seeing those who were but men, dei●●ed for their worthy and eminent actions, sometimes esteeming himself equal, and sometimes superior to them, aimed at and many times attained to, adoration as well as they. The simple man living in the public credulity, blindly believed whatsoever his ancestors had set before him. But he that was not so weak, as to condescend to falsehood, nor vet so wise as to know the truth, made use of others credulity, to believe nothing.  
The Philosopher was of opinion, that such as were raised by fortune, were endowed with piety and obsequiousness towards the Gods, above other men. And yet Tacitus teaches the contrary, when he says, That miseries are tolerated, and prosperity corrupts us. And if you look into Holy Writ, you will there find sentences much differing from Aristotle's opinion. There you shall read examples of Kings, both of the twelve, and of the ten, and of the two Tribes, who erred in their greatest prosperities; most of them having before with much virtue and constancy endured afflictions.  
Many Subjects set worldly glory before their eyes, & many the Divine: you shall see both of them afflict their bodies to attain to it, thinking to make the said body to enjoy it, after they have attained it. But because the Divine is out of this world, and the worldly in it, the one doth not unchaine and let lose his senses, but when he cannot sin; and the other sins because he hath let them lose.  
Man is not unhappy only, in respect of his not finding really such an object as may content him; but is more infortunate in regard of that little time during which, novelty makes him believe that he hath found it. It is not so much as to fix him in content, and yet sufficient to make him fall inconsiderate. But if he should withstand the first assault of Novelty, he would have much ado to avoid that of Greatness: For, being arrived to highest degrees of good fortune, and finding great opposition in the advancing, and not losing the desire of a new delight, almost despairing to attain to it with satisfaction of the passions of the mind, glutted with the present, he hath recourse to the satisfaction of the sense, and casts himself headlong into intemperancy. Plunged in this, because he will not cross his present pleasures with the object of future torments; whereas before he sought the false immortality of his name, he shakes off the true one of the soul and (as much as in him lieth) takes away the being from that God whom he before called upon for assistance, because he would avoid the fear of him when he is wrathful. Let him do what he will he cannot avoid the having his sweet delights made bitter by that which is not in his power to shun, and that which he imagined his brutishness would bring him ●o; namely, the torment of conscience, and horror of annihilation.  
I approve of Pythagoras' opinion better than of Aristotle's; One said, That fortunate men were most pious and religious, The other at ributeth the same to unfortunate ones. These, when they feel themselves running into miseries implore the Divine assistance to keep them from them; being fallen into them, they pray him to remove them: and when they are come to despair of any redress in this world, they pray him to reward them in the other.  
Some presumptuous, ignorant, and brutish man, will in this case (I confess) blaspheme God, and grow outrageous, as if he were not able to inflict any greater punishment upon him; or call him unjust, as if he had already done more to him, than he ought to have done; or to deny him, not knowing this to be a warning to him; or being ashamed of being punished. But few and foolish are those which attain to so much impiety.  
There is no wretched and afflicted man, but will seek to be comforted; and what comfort can there be in this wretched man: but that of attaining happiness in the world to come? How then against both Reason and his own interest, will he deny so great an assistance to himself by believing and working evil? should not despair then rather cause him to s●eke for no ease in this world, and cast himself wholly into the hands of God, to comfort himself with the future hope of the beatifical vision? The spirits of a man puffed up with happiness, are troubled like unto ones who raised high above the earth, is astonished and giddy, and for the most part falls down precipitously. He finds his friends false, deceiving him with flattery, or with obsequious●es corrupting him. Occasions of sin superabound, voluptuousness and all manner of delights incline him to it, and then what marvel is it if he falls? and for the most part irrecoverably, every thing helping him to fall, and nothing to recover himself. Nothing comes under the unfortunate man's roof but truth, there are none to flatter or be obsequious to him, his spirits are cast down, and rather subject to waste of themselves, than to be corrupted: the temperature becomes melancholy, it afflicts dries up, mortifies, and hurts every thing but the understanding; so that the inclination to sin, failing with the occasions makes the way easy for the maintaining of Virtue.  
There can be no Reason given of an ill ordered and corrupted Commonwealths actions, they are directed by ignorance and malice: if they hit right, it is by chance. I acknowledge it was a manifest folly to undertake the Sicilian War, and to send three Captains thither to manage it, and that it was malice to call home Alcibiades after he had happily enterprised it: But whether it were good to send him away from it accused, distasted, and not appeased, not absolved. I know not. The commonwealth of Rome used to do so, and the Monarchy of Spain hath followed it, and both have done it wi●h prosperous success. Nature sometimes produces Traitors, occasion often, & Princes most commonly. Nature imprints a Character almost indelible; No good turn, nor deed, will serve against it; imprisonment hinders it, and the Axe cancels it. The occasion yields facility, which powerfully accompanies the desire of domination. The Prince either with suspicions obliges to procure safety, or with injuries revenge: revenge is sometimes produced by wrath, sometimes by hatred, and sometimes by man's reputation. Wrath cannot be discoursed of, because it is without discourse, its end is to do evil: it runs inconsiderately through the means to attain to it, and for the most part is sorry afterward that it hath attained it. Hatred governs its actions with understanding, though corrupted by passion. It is like wrath in the end and aim, but different in the means to attain to it: it discourses upon the means, and without ever repenting, joys that it hath attained it. Reputation some desire to vindicate it, and some to revenge themselves for the prejudice done to it. The latter cannot be done without hatred and wrath; the former must be void of both: the ones end is to endamage; the others, though it seem not, nor indeed be not the same; and that it is many times done by way of benefits and good turns, yet cannot be attained to without doing of damage. The one goes against the State and the person; the other in the State's behalf: and if it be against the Person, it is no further then to discredit it. Revenging ones self is not a recovering of reputation, but a satisfying of two most wicked passions Wrath & Hatred. Vindicating of it recovers it with satisfaction of the best and noblest of passions namely, Ambition. What joy and triumph, think ye, entered into the breast of Furius Camillus, when he overthrew the Gauls, who had besieged the Capitol, and freed from slavery those that had banished him. And how could he more gloriously revenge and vindicate his reputation, than by seeing sorrow and repentance written in the hearts of them who had wronged him. That Roman spoke foolishly, who being called home from banishment, and seeing an A●my put into his hands by those who had persecuted him, said, that as soon as he met with the enemy, he would fight with him; because that if he were overcome, he should work a great revenge by loving his Army; and if he overcame, he should gain great glory. If he revenge himself of him that took away his reputation, he doth not revenge nor vindicate it. He vindicates it when he takes no revenge. But this most noble seed springs up only in magnanimous & generous breasts, and they are sell doom found but in well-ordered Commonwealths & Kingdoms. The air, and temperament sometimes produce rebellious men, but the quality of the form much more. It was hard to find a bad Citizen in Rome while it was well-ordered, and a good one when it was corrupted. The goodness of the government causes affection to the public; the badness ruins it; yea, and changes it into a private. Those Princes which have Armies, habituated to fidelity, need not fear either an offended or an ambitious Commander. He will not hurt, if he bear a noble mind, nor cannot if he be treacherous. If a Kingdom be not tyrannical, nor a Commonwealth corrupted, they shall oftentimes meet with such as Furius Camillus, and the Duke of Alva; and with ill natures exasperated with a Waldestein, and a Colonel Henry de Berg. This latter willing to betray the King of Spain, was forced to m●ke him lose the Buss: first to go to Velue, and there do a greater service, if our men had known how to make good use of it.  
Waldestein plotting to betray the Emperor, even the very first hour that he had trusted him w●th his Army, after he had offended him, could never bring his evil intent to pass, but was always constrained when he was unwilling to do one good office, to perform another, and oftentimes a better, and at last discovered himself without doing any hurt. But such a Prince, or Commonwealth, is not only secure from the wrath and hatred of Commanders, but even from their ambition, the fidelity of the Army being an obstacle to both; which thing may be thought hindered Prospero Colonna, and the Duke of Parma, if they any way attempted such businesses (which I will not assirme) in the State of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Low Countries.  
Alcibiades resolved to fly to the Lacedæmonians, hearing the report which was raised against him in Athens; and would not believe he could dazzle the people's eyes, or charm their ears, with beauty or eloquence, unprofitable weapons against wrath and fury; as ancient Fables have sufficiently set down in the case of the most beautiful and eloquent Orpheus, slain by the enraged Priestesses of Bacchus.  
Those, saith Plutarch, who loved Alcibiades a Citizen, hated him when he was in the Army. The object present is far different from the absent, the thought upon, from the seen. One cannot so perfectly conceive it absent, but that it changes when it is really seen; and being changed, it must also alter and trouble the understanding; and this altered and troubled, will necessarily have a different operation.  
The face of man hath somewhat of Divine in it: A Prince denies it his subject, to take away that pleasure from him, for the punishment of some fault. One enemy will not see another's ●ace, to avoid that delight which is contrary to hatred. Some things are written in a letter, which would not be spoken by word of mouth; and some speak largely in a man's absence, who in his presence will stand mute: and if they do persist in their former speeches, it is not by their own absolute will, but because they are obliged to do so through shame of being reputed malicious and pusillanimous; or are forced thereunto by a viol●nt and fiery career, which reason is not able to stop in the midst of its course.  
The law of Nature, which binds a man to love his neighbour; the resemblance, which doth not, in a manner, suffer one to abhor him, doth either diminish the hatred, or increase the Synderesis & connexion. Wherefore some, because they will not lay down their rancour, or will not have their conscience distracted, eat the sight of that face which would pacify their mind, if it were humane, or pierce their heart though never so savage. Those qualities which belong to the exterior senses, require the presence, to move the subject effectually: for absence either much diminishes, or quite cancels them. The understanding would participate of those delights, & in its contemplation of them, finds them full of imperfections: He represents these imperfections to the inferior part. If the object be present, for the most part he finds it blind, or not willing to see them. But if it be remote, and gone out of the Sphere of the senses, though not out of that of the understandings, they easily open their eyes to receive the light of truth. But if the qualities concern the sovereign and chief virtue, as eminency in valour, or learning, presence abases it; where the understanding and the will turn, one to that which is good, and the other to that which is true; that being neither true nor good, which is not beautiful, it runnos towards the beauty: and because it considers it in that manner as it usually receives it, it errs in the conceiving of it, taking the features and beauties of the body, in stead of the beauteous endowments of the mind. The error lasts with the absence, presence undeceives; and when it doth not find the subject, (which happens so for the most part) such, as it had conceived it, it will persuade the understanding, that the subject is neither the most valorous, nor the most learned; that he is neither true nor good, because he is not the greatest, nor the fairest. He that operates being dragged along by a passion, either sigures it greater, to make it excusable, or feigns another to away what is shameful in it. If he errs through love, he describes, it extreme; because others should judge nature to be oppressed, and not inclined. If he operates through envy, he cloaks it with fear, and makes show of a faint heart, to conceal a malicious one; and will persuade he follows Nature, which obliges one to defend himself, when he goeth against it, in hating that which is good. But he doth not hate it, before he defames it. Envy and a worm resemble one another, they close with the best part of a fruit, or of a man, they stop not before they have corrupted the one really, and the other imaginarily: and whereas the worm feeds and rests in the corruption, envy is fed and tossed up and down by that which is imagined.  
Evil is hated and not envied; goodness is not hated, but envied. Rancour is without any real object, it runs towards goodness, but towards that which is apparent, and not the true, it sees virtue and valour in him whom it emulates. First, an equality seemed inglorious to him; now inferiority appears shameful; if it be in a great spirit, it still goes on in emulation; if it be in a faint heart, it embraces envy, a vice inseparable from pusillanimity, it looks upon the honour which the other gets, and that which himself loses. If he imagines him to be an enemy, proud, rash, and presumptuous, he believes nothing can give him better content, then to overcome him: desires nothing more than by advancing his own Trophy, to abase and bring him low, and employs his virtue and valour in nothing else. But if afterward he sees him before his eyes, beautiful, eloquent, valiant, & affable, not boasting of his valour, but moderating his virtue, and reassume the same posture in which he was by nature set, and forsake that which he had fabricated to himself; It is impossible for him to retain his hatred; because qualities, though they be natural, if they meet with a contrary that is greater, in its presence they must receive it, though the form drive it out altered, but not corrupted. Modesty moderates envy, but doth not extinguish it. Misery turns it into compassion, and eminency into amazement.  
That Proposition of the Master, that hatred is irreconcilable, seems directly opposite to the other proposition, That the cause ceasing, the effect ceases; and yet they are both true. Hatred and love peradventure cannot be framed in us, without the help of Nature. The freedom of will reacheth not thereunto, it may overcome it, but not destroy it; bridle it, but not change it: whence comes, that sometimes we operate with one, as though we hated him, and yet we love him; as though we loved him, and yet we hate him. The causes of operations are external, of passions internal. The change of qualities changes the operating; and that of the substance, extinguishes the being. And because it is thought that we have two Natures in us, one of Flesh, and the other of Spirit, and both of them in the same individuum, the one may love, and the other hate, because Love and Hatred are not contraries, if they meet with two contraries; otherwise to love one's Neighbour, and hate sin, could not consist together.  
Alcibiades attires and clothes himself with the Lacedæmonians virtues, and will thereby persuade, that he hath disrobed himself of all manner of vices. This Metamorphosis, though it last not very long is not used but by great understanding only, assaulted by vehement passions of Glory and Fear.  
Rome had at one time two Emperors, Otto, who was made in the City, Vitellius, who was set up by the Army, both of them vicious. The one presently forsakes his old and usual course of life; the other follows it still: Otto was wont to deny his own affections, to promote his interests, so that the power of commanding, excited and stirred up virtue in him: and in Vitellius it increased his defects. The former being incontinent, and ambitious; the latter, intemperate, and simple. Otto adventured to assume the Empire, because he could not live private: Vitellius accepted of it, because he knew not how to refuse it; and not knowing how to seek after the delight of the understanding, abandoned himself to that of the senses. The Roman Senate was amazed at Otto's forsaking his vices, and at his counterfeited virtue. The same being done by Alcibiades, might have given the Lacedæmonians cause of suspicion, if not of fear, seeing they might be sure the vices would return greater in bulk, and more violently, through the acrimony which they would acquire by being so long stopped and dissembled. Even so it befalls him that thinks to help a swift running stream which overflows his meadows, without turning it another way, only with making the banks up, he may stay it for a while, but on a sudden he turns it all upon himself, and whereas before it would gently have overflowed his land, it bears down trees by the roots, overthrows buildings, and beats down all that comes in its way, that opposition having gotten together a greater heap of waters, and made them more violently sierce. Those that restraining their passions, retain & keep in their smallest and meanest ones, if they did go calmly along with them, they might in part vent out their evil genius, without expecting the last fury, and violence, which a feigned virtue being unabled to resist, they blindly and furiously are precipitated in it. So had Otto done, if death had not prevented him; and so did Alcibiades, wickedly committing adultery with Agis the King of Sparta his wife. Agis was not very circumspect, seeing he did not perceive, that some great end must of necessity be hidden under so great a change, which he ought to believe had taken its original from an unlimited ambition, and to mistrust that thereby and through his luxury, he would one day get away from him (two indivisible things) his wife, and his kingdom: and indeed he got away the one, and in all likelihood laid a plot to gain the other, seeing he used that means to attain thereunto, which others have happily put in practice to do the like.  
First to make his valour known, then to publish the adultery, and finally to make show that he contemned Agis, what was it else, then to endeavour to gain his kingdom: inviting by this means discontented persons to side with him, animating, and securing them? But I know not whether Tacitus did well understand from whence proceeded that fear, when he ascribed it to disguised and cloaked vices, and falsified virtues. Ottoes vices were lust, idlennesse, and gormandizing, which were indeed to be wished of him, yet not to be feared, if they had returned to him: Virtue's though false carry for the most part their corruption within them, glistering and shining on the outside, as if they were true and pure virtues, and are more pernicious to them that make use of them, then to those for whose sakes, and against whom they are employed. And howsoever, they do less hurt in this manner feigned, than an open, impudent shamelessness in vices. The Senate (in mine opinion) seeing Otto thus plunged in passions, not thinking that he could leave them, though peradventure he might disguise and alter them, feared lest instead of idleness, he would take delight in labour and affairs, and in stead of luxury he would be filled with fear, and jealousy, and through one take away the Magistrates authority, and through the other the most honourable men's lives.  
There are some respects which bind m●e upon occasion of Alcibiades lust, to speak what I think of Princes soiled with such a defect. If the good temperature of a man consists in a perfect symmetry of the first elements, which blended together may compose a mixed, in which neither heat nor cold; nor moisture, nor drought be prevalent, its quality will be lukewarm a mean between hot and cold, its operations moderate, it will cause the subject to be of a healthful complexion, of calm senses, indifferent, moral, no eminent Philosopher, rather void of vices, then endowed with any eminent virtues. Such a man to be maintained in health, must still he under the Physician's hand; and the Physician had need to be an Esculapius. I marvel at one of the ancient Sag●s or wise men who ca●ls such a kind of man happy, yet says at the same time, that this man must have his sleep, his rest, his motion his food, his thoughts, his breathing, all measured and limited so that he shall not have so much as a f●ee moment left to himself▪ as if happiness (according to Maecenas his disorderly opinion) consisted only in living, though most unhappy. This complexion is not to be wished to a Prince, and if he had it, it ought not to be maintained in him, seeing that to preserve it, he ought to be wholly his own, to become a slave to the Physician, whereas, a Prince should never be so far his own as to make himself a slave to his subjects. If then there be no such temperament to be found, and if there be any such, either it cannot or ought not be maintained, we must needs consequently fall into some excess, which may serve for nourishment, and root both to vice and virtue; because as jacob and Esau were borne both of one Mother, so from the self same temperament, may proceed both a great virtue, & a great vice. He that was of opinion, that there could be no great virtue in a man, unless there were also some great vice, was not peradventure deceived, if he meant of a natural inclination thereunto. And if any vice be a sign of a great understanding, it is that of luxury, which useth to be great, where it finds the fire of the Flava bilis or yellow choler, and the acritude of the atra or black.  
We see that those brute beasts, which have most humane knowledge, and seem almost to discourse, as Apes and the like are exceeding luxurious, and that at all times; beyond the custom of other beasts. And to this peradventure, the ancient inventors of fables had a relation, when they feigned all the Gods much addicted to this defect of lust, as the Poets also did their Heroes. If I were to frame unto myself a Prince according to mine own mind, I would have him continent by virtue, and not by nature. For the natural continency proceeds from coldness of the temperament, and always excludes acrimony, and coldness without acrimony causeth stupidity, and not prudency, which requires melancholy; not the dregs, but the flower of blood: not that which is borne adust, and carries imprinted in the acrimony of its ashes, the character of the efficient, as the learnedest and wisest men of the world have believed. And St Paul continually complains of the troubles which the acrimony of the prick in the flesh did bring him into. Lust is always bad for him that is subject to it, but it is not always hurtful to a Commonwealth. If it doth not pass from the person to the office, it is the defect of the man, and not of the Prince, seeing that in this case he may be a good Politician, though a bad Moralist. There have been some in our days, that have in their youth run themselves a little out, in amorous passions yet they have guided themselves therein with so much prudency, that our Ancestors would have termed those passions virtues, as they did Cato's drunkenness: And truly it is no small matter for one that is irregular himself, to be continent, and to overcome that passion by which he is overcome. It is in a manner a freeing the superior pa●t from it, and confining it, within th'ignoble part of the senses, and an absolute way to make it appear, that nature hath the predominance over evil. Then the Physician may stand idle, and administer no Physic for fear of doing hurt. Crudities cannot be stirred without doing hurt, and that which is concocted needs no cure. It is no great matter for a man that is free and loose to overcome his enemy, but to do it when he is shackled and bound, without unshackling or unbinding is very much. If it were lawful for me to relate some things which have happened in our days, it would surely cause, such as have too sharply in this point touched the reputation of a Sovereign Prince, and his favourite, to recant and change their opinions: they would find and hear such things, that to admit of an extraordinary virtue, they would wink at a small vice, judging it not to be a real but a feigned vice, and rather an affectation, than a passion.  
That cannot be a good horse that hath not been a cross Colt, but all kind of crossness in a Colt is not a sign that he will prove a good horse. Some Colts will be bounding, leaping, and running, not to draw their necks out of the collar, or to shun their labour, but to show their generous mettle, and spirit; to be sportful, and frolic, and not to refuse the bit. And other some again will use the same tricks out of a resty and slothful spirit, only to shun work, and labour, and though a slander by can hardly find any difference in their motion, yet he that governs and rides them can easily perceive it.  
The land which brings forth wild plants is not always bad yet it is always unmanured. A bad weed doth sometimes betoken the goodness of the land. Let it then be lawful for me to conclude, that great lust is oftentimes a sign of a great understanding, and that amongst the defects of a Prince, luxury is one of the least, if so he do in some part suppress it, by not committing therein any violent or unjust act; and in all this, I mean of such actions only as he commits in his youthful years; Every one hath some defects which are proper to that age, as well of the body, as of the mind.  
The Physician, whose worth will not suffer any man to believe that he erred, was wont to say, that diseases are most dangerous, when they come in unseasonable seasons: the malignity and greatness of them showing itself in that, that the adverse season of the year could not suppress nor control them: And as a disease which comes in its proper season is least to be feared, so is a defect which comes in an Age befitting it, less to be condemned. It is no strange thing that a young man should be given to Women, but it is to be admired that he should therein carry himself prudently: For prudency belonging not properly to youthful years, especially where there is lust; we must imagine that he who can counterpoise luxury in the Age which is proper for it, will extinguish it quite when he comes to riper years, in which he properly becomes prudent.  
And in this case it seems a chief Officer; or Favourite, ought rather to seek to cherish prudency in his Prince, than hinder his lust. For it being cherished and assisted, having gathered strength, will quite extinguish the lust; which being contraried and opposed, will always increase. Seneca had an in●ent to do so; but it did not take effect, neither could Agrippina do it, and fell for want of prudency.  
Every one knows the evil effects which an untimelyy correction produces. And a great Saint set down in writing, that sometimes it endangers the increasing of the evil: And this is true not only in those who will not be overswayed by any, because they are incensed to anger thereby; but in them also who intent to overcome themselves, because they disdain to be persuaded by others to that which they intent of themselves to do. A Painter whilst he is limming, sometimes leaves a fault in a place, and runs over the other parts with an intent to mend that error. He that sees him work (if he be a wise man) although he perceives the error, holds his peace, knowing the Artist to be so skilful, that he both knows it, and will mend it. If he be a fool, he points at it, and produceth rage and disdain in the Painter, and sometimes in such excess, that he leaves it unmended, and chooses rather to leave an error, then to applaud an impertinency. And this is the reason why few Painters will admit any to see them work, or judge of their works before they be perfected: there being nothing more distasteful to a choice spirit then to have a fault showed him, and be persuaded to amend it, when he knew it himself, and had an intent so to do.  
Alcibiades goes to the Median Court, and finds favour in the eyes of Tisaphernes, Socrates was the most affable and courteous Gentile that was, Tisaphernes, as Barbarous and Alcibiades gains the love of both. We will say peradventure that he was of a temperate habit. Such a Subject (according to Hippocrates) of such a temper, engenders with all constitutions, be they cold, or hot, moist or dry, because he corrects them all, if it be always true in engendering, yet it is not continually true in loving. It is not sufficient that he can correct, if the other doth not desire to be corrected. He will hate him, if peradventure he prefer pleasure to profit, and whereas he should abhor that contrary which is furthest from him, he abhors that most which is nearest, which is the fault of an erring nature. There can be no delight where there is no truth; he is deceived that sets it upon falsehood. The opposite contrary, because it is likewise a vice, rather confirms than takes away the error. Truth resides in the middle, whereupon some shun it, because they will not lose their delight, to be undeceived.  
The habit, which hath its distemperature from nature, loves its semblable. Nature cannot love its destruction, it would love it, if it loved the contrary. She hates i●, because she is blind, because she would not die, and yet it dies, and which is more, with it dies the individuum, The habit, through a distemperate accident, loves its contrary. In this case the interest of nature, and of the individuum are the same. That which happens in the failings of the temperature, happens also in the defects of the mind. If one be cruel naturally, he loves its semblable; if by accident, its contrary; From the first, proceeds he that runs along with the passions; from the second he that doth not restrain himself. The one loves vice, and hates the remedy, the other cannot endure neither the vice nor the remedy, But to go on from the temperament, to the influence of those stars which produce it; that which was loveworthy in Alcibiades, might be thought to have been caused by his being borne at that time, when the benign stars of jupiter, and Venus, showed their fortunate brightness upon the Horizon, were it not that a violent death, admits of no fortunes in th● ascendent, nor the irregulate habits, a jove for a significator. He had peradventure in the Eastern angle Virgo with sol, and Mercury with Virgo, and Mercury heated by the beams of sol, and peradventure retrograde. He was lovely, and had an impediment in his speech. He betook himself to all manner of sciences; Prevailed in eloquence; he would learn all things, and do any thing. He would accommodate himself to every man's fashions. And Cameleon like take any colour, He was inconstant, sometimes good, and sometimes bad, even as he chanced to meet with good or bad men. Qualities, which Astrologians say, Mercury inclines to, being situate in that part of the heavens. He produces a most humid temperature, he accommodates himself to all, like Air and Water, which having no proper shape, receive any.  
The Athenians stood in great fear of Tisaphernes preparations. Alcibiades knew of their fear; He thought he would make use of it. He writ to the Nobility, that if they would take the Government upon them, and suppress the Commons, he would cause Tisaphernes to alter his purpose. All embraced this motion, Phrinicus only opposed it, knowing that it was done with an intent, to breed discord between the Senate and the Plebeians, to return into his own native Country. But because this advice was contrary to likelihood, and given by one who was thought to be an enemy to Alcibiades, it was not accepted.  
It is hard to go against the present, in the behalf of the future. Truth hath no greater an enemy than likelihood, and that which is, then that which will be. We should not dispute against the senses if they could not err; and much less against reason, if it did not err. Amongst themselves sometimes they correct themselves, if at the same time they deceive not themselves, but the senses guided by a great likelihood, and reason being thereby dragged along, they both fall into error, and there is none to raise them up. In tricks of legerdemain, who would not be deceived, if notice given, or experience did not hinder it? and who is not deceived, though he be warned, if the Artist be arrived to any excellency? Sometimes we must not only feign that we do not see, nor understand, but also believe we do not see nor understand, that which seems to us, we both see and understand.  
Who shall persuade him that is possessed of a good and healthful body, replenished with the best humours that can be in man, not endamaged by any action, that he hath need to take Physic, if experience had not taught it Hippocrates, and his authority, us?  
None would go about to persuade it, and questionless no man would suffer himself to be persuaded thereunto. No more than we should be able to persuade a Monarch, or a Commonwealth, which had obtained some great conquest, that it were very useful for him, or it to yield up again what it had conquered. There would be requisite for such a purpose a Politic Hypocrates, full of knowledge, experience, and authority, and peradventure he would hardly be able to persuade it. Scipio Nasica was of great esteem in the Commonwealth of Rome; yet was he not able to dissuade the ruining of Carthage. Such is the power of likely hood, it is hard to meet with an understanding that can find out truth, a heart that will advise it, and a Prince that will follow it. Such an advice, is for the most part unfortunate: when it is not accepted of, it wants its effect; when it is accepted, it is not seen; and because it goes against a thing which is seen, it is not believed. The Author comes to be blamed for ignorance and malice. Hannibal was advised (and peradventure it was done with wisdom) to not go to Rome after the defeat of Cannae, and because he did not go, he was taxed with ignorance. Hunno would have persuaded the Carthaginians, (peradventure through malice) in the midst of victories, when Rome seemed even ready to fall, to seek after peace, and because he could not persuade it, he was esteemed wise. It is ordinary for human malice, to judge that advice to be best, which hath not been accepted: And for its ignorance to refuse to be cleared in matters which have likelihood in them, any way but by the evil success.  
To give counsel against likelihood requires a great understanding, or a great passion. The one cannot persuade, unless it it be known; the other, if it be not concealed. It is sufficient for the understanding to be reputed; Passion must be feared, and may make it, but not persuade it, to be executed; being known it loses its credit, and yet it is always known; being little it is not effectual, and being great it cannot be concealed. The happy man will not think upon the future, for fear of grieving himself, the envious will for his comfort.  
That which is, keeps him in torment; Only the hope that it will not last, revives him. The understanding subtilizeth itself, to make it be believed, and if there be any reason▪ it finds it out, if there be none, it feigns one; whence comes, that others do not believe it, through the difficulty there is in discerning the true birth of the understanding from the feigned and fantastical one of the desire.  
Alcibiades having intelligence in the City of Selibria, made a match to be brought into it by a signal given by fire, suspicion that one of the conspirators would discover the treaty, caused an anticipation. He not being prepared, and seeing the signal given, ran thither with a few, giving order for the rest to follow. But being come into the City, he found so much opposition that he was not able to resist the too advantageous power.  
He causeth a trumpet to be sounded: Commands the Citizens to lay down their arms, if they value their lives. When a man is in danger and hath his sword in his hand all the spirits retired to the heart, and having in a manner forsaken the brain, it is an easy matter to be deceived; whence proceeds the danger which is in speaking, whilst one is skirmishing, so that many times erterprises have been lost after they have been in a manner attained, and won only by a word miss-understood.  
The Selibrians, hear the enemies within the walls, they imagine they are all there: they hear a trumpet which doth courteously, and friendly invite them to yield: their brain is not apt to search out the matter, and find out the deceit, and having their weapons in their hands to defendtheir City, and their lives, judging it impossible to defend the one, and seeing the way opened to secure the other, they accept of the proffer.  
The commanding and resolute speech and voice did cooperate greatly in this sanatick terror: the command causes obedience, the resolvedness terrifies, especially where disobedience is death.  
To not believe it they must of necessity have had time to discourse upon it: and therefore the imminent punishment giving no time to discourse, they were forced to believe. Seeing then it was hard to avoid the danger, and canvasse the matter, and harder to go against the senses without canvasing of it: that was believed to secure life, which without discourse could not choose, but be believed, and could not be discoursed without hazard of life.  
When the Roman Army commanded by Germanicus at the River of Rhine mutined, Mennius reduced that part which was most violent & insolent, with resolute & commanding words, which separated the universal from the particular, a thing which terrifies the more, forcing a man in his thoughts, to forsake that union, which makes him insolent, and bold. He takes hold of the eagle, or ensign, and boldly cries, he that doth not follow me is an enemy to Caesar. Saul being slighted by a part of the Israelites, takes two Oxen, and hews them in pieces, sends the pieces into all the quarters of Israel, and sends them word, that so shall his Ox be served that doth not follow him; The commanding and resolute message which made the public cause particular, wrought in such manner, that all Israel followed him. Alcibiades assaulted by a sudden chance, instead of hazarding himself with those few Soldiers which followed him, and casting himself into the midst of the danger, hath recourse to deceit▪ And that makes me to esteem him rather subtle, then valiant. Seeing that nature being suddenly brought into a straight, flies presently for relief to that part from which it hopes for most assistance.  
If it be from the brain, we lay by strength, if from strength, we make no use of wit. And if wit had been laid aside, and not made use of in this case, how could he have found out such a subtle device, as could hardly have been contrived being out of danger, and settled in mind? In a great passion we leave art, and fly to nature.  
The one needs attention when it operates; the other needs none. And because in great passions man oftentimes abandons himself, that passion than prevails which operates, though it be abandoned.  
Nature and art taken in a straight, especially by fear, cannot help but hinder one another. The one is not followed by discourse, and the other being abandoned cannot make use of it. Nature hath left but few void of defence, but she seldom suffers sagacity, and valour, to be in one subject. To whom she hath given a heart to fight, she hath not given swiftness to escape. Amongst dogs, that kind which is most swift, is most cowardly.  
The Fox must by an extreme necessity be forced to fight, and a Lion to run away. Yet he will not wholly recommend his safety to flight, now and then he will turn his claws to assist with that which nature hath granted him, that which necessity forces him to.  
The dog by running away puts himself in disorder, because he doth not make use of those weapons, in which lies his defence. Wherefore nature instead of helping hinders him, because that running with its spirits to that part wherein his safety should consist, & fear driving them to that part in which it should not be, he must of necessity lose himself.  
The hare which is esteemed the most fearful of all creatures, seeing itself set upon by so unequal an enemy ●aints not, but runs most swiftly when it is hardest pursued; wherefore we must imagine, that it is the lustiness of her heart that carries her, or confesses that the Providence of nature assists her.  
The same People which a little while since condemned Alcibiades as a traitor receive him now as a deliverer, and ere long will drive him away again as an enemy. They love, and have no sooner done loving, but they hate, and no sooner done hating, but they love.  
The furthest is nearest to them, for they run from one extreme to another. They hold no mean, saith Tacitus, either they fear, or makes themselves to be feared. Either they serve humbly, or command proudly, saith Livy. The People operate according to sense, which always leads to vice.  
Reason is that which leads to virtue. But as the people being accustomed to sense, which goes from one extreme to another, runs along with counsels of the same quality, so wise men accustomed by virtue to run on in a mean, follow the same way in their advices, and because that neither the mean, nor the extreme advices are always to be followed, therefore the wise man erveth as well when he should take the extreme, as the People, when they should embrace the mean. Policy which turns the would upside down, confounds motality. It altars sometimes its place, sometimes it ●●●●nce.  
A Metaphysical Philosopher is not good in a Commonwealth: the Moral would sail well in a calm, in a tempest he loseth himself. Policy is an art by itself, no man hath yet rightly learned it. Many know how to do that which should be done, none what is to be done. He that knows not the motions of Fortune, is no good Politician; and he that knows them, will also know God: He is not seen in the face, but only in the back; because (as I may say) there is nothing of his operating known, but what is past. Not to make u●e of prudence, is brutishness; trusting to it, is arrogancy. A man to operate well, though he be full of knowledge, hath need of somewhat more; he can neither learn, nor teach, nor know he hath it, unless experience shows it him, nor knows not what it is, after he hath had experience of it. If this be not true, that was frustratory, and of no availment to Socrates, (who was the wisest amongst the Gentiles) which he believed to be a Daemon, and in which he trusted, more than in his own prudency. This is not the only unknown quality in the world, its contrary is likewise so: And where the good serves to give the greater light, the bad is employed to put it out. Both are ocasions of the loss of wisdom; and he that loses it, knows not wherefore. The first works upon it, the other against it: the one with profit, the other with damage; the one blind, the other enlightened. The people goes on, and is not stayed by discourse, the end of its voyage is, where it can go no further. A great understanding causeth constancy; a weak one, obstinacy; because the one suffers not itself to be overcome by Sophistical fallacies, the other understands not the truth of Arguments. The people is distempered, how then shall it know that which is temperate, seeing that he who writ thereof, will have none but its semblable know it. An obstinate person is hard to be removed, it is a great violence that must do it; and that being great, throws all to the ground which it finds a foot, and sometimes draws from one extreme to another. If then Mediocrity is hard to find; found, to be known; and known, to subsist: and the extreme manifests itself, we need not marvel, if the people do not know Mediocrity. These Phantasms draw mine imagination to another place of Plutarch: He declares Cato be unapt for Sciences, by reason of his great constancy. If he means, that when he had taken an opinion, he would not alter it; if it were good, he was not unable; if bad, why should he be called constant? I do not believe it was inability, will it might well be. He did not love virtue above constancy; and because knowledge is nothing but opinion, and opinion gives way to instability, he contemned that knowledge which admitted not of constancy. The not knowing the foresaid secret, which is hidden even from many wise men, is the cause that the people call Alcibiades traitor, because he had not taken the City of Andria: they reputed him to be a most valiant Captain, because he could all as he would, and would not any thing which he did not obtain. It was unknown to them that there was a medium between working through ignorance, and working through malice. This is produced by a mass of circumstances, from a mixture of actives and passives, from a difference of time, which furiously assaults a man. The people hath no glory of its own, its glory depends on another's, it consists in the election; and because it is a great honour to have chosen well, and an infamy to have chosen ill: when enterprises do not fall out well, because they will not receive both loss and shame, they many times c●ll him tra●tor who is either ignorant or unfortunate. They do not ascribe the evil successes of enterprises to accidents because they are incapable of knowing them, nor ●o ignorance, when it hath framed so vast a conceit and is against their honour that have made the election: they will rather a scribe it to treason, which being an internal quality, that cannot be known, leaves the opinion still a foot, without endamaging their glory that made the election. A noble person instead of receiving honour by another's glory, receives disgrace thereby, and is known with envy: and if any other great person operates amiss, he will not attribute it to treason; nor much less to fortune, because they both leave the reputation untouched, which is the mark that envy aims at. He ascribes it to ignorance or cowardliness, to abuse that valour and wisdom which tormented him: and from thence it proceeds, that in an Aristocracy, errors spring for the most part from envy, and in a Democracie from suspicion. Evil will takes the reputation from the man, not from the Artist. Ignorance from the Artist, not from the man.  
If an eminent Painter, draws a portraiture defectively, the Common sort say he would not do it better, his emulator that he could not, his friend that he was not in the humour nor right vein of working. He that loves him will rather admit that he was drunk, then ignorant, to sustain his ability and talon; He that hates him, will sooner say he was ignorant than drunk, seeking to overthrow him. In nature art, and all other things belonging to understanding a fault committed out of malice, and wilfulness, is not so bad as one committed for want of ability, or through ignorance. But in such things as belong to manners, and moral actions, it is quite contrary. He that will see the difference between the judgement of Nobles that are touched with envy, and the People's which are taken with admiration, let him consisider, that Plutarch speaking thereof, saith, that Alcibiades had no will to overcome, and brings forth Nicias, a Noble man, accusing him for the same ill success to the people, and saying, that he did it through ignorance, carelessness, folly and vanity, attributing it not to his evil heart, but to his ill understanding, and other things which might disparage his wisdom. A great reputation is an enemy to him that hath no merit; to him that hath it not equal to his reputation, and also to him that hath it but equal. It is only favourable to him that hath a talon surpassing that great esteem. He enjoys not only that which he hath but also that which he hath not, but hopes to attain unto▪ And because humane felicity doth not consist in obtaining the greater things, but in the greatest hope of obtaining them; because that a continued act in a small time, produces a habit, from which springs satiety or insensibility, and he shall be more happy than the other, whose merit and repute is equal. It is a great misfortune for a man to have worth, and want repute; and far greater to have repute, and want worth. The fear of the future disgrace, spoils his present pleasure. He cannot ground his delight upon that which is false, if he doth not deceive himself, he expects shame from being undeceived. Although he finds not himself faulty for having deceived, yet he would be happy in some measure, if he could but call in that error which he cannot perpetuate in others; because the knowledge of ones self (which is man's chief virtue) is the Hangman which torments him. Finally, a great repute is the greatest help a man can have that will not operate: and the greatest damage for him that is put to the Test, and is tried; for either he proves according to expectation, and then he gains nothing, or proves beneath the expectation, and loses all he had gained.  
Reputation is not diminished by degrees, nor cannot be broken piecemeal: if it be not reserved entire, it quite abandoneth one. If a particular man hath gotten it, let him be content with having it; if a Prince, let him not, if he can avoid it, put it to a trial. It is better to die ingreat repute than put it to adventure; to leave it doubtful in the world what would have followed, than to put one's self in danger of what will follow. Voluntarily one ought not put it to trial, but being forced thereunto, adventure himself with it; and upon occasion of losing it, lose himself also. Not only that victory which Alcibiades got over the City of Selibria, but all the rest of his actions likewise, discover him rather to have been full of cunning subtlety, than of wisdom. From whence, in my opinion. proceeded the instability of his fortune.  
Wisdom infused by the gift of grace, hath somewhat in it that is Angelical, and sets a man in the way to be rather a Citizen of heaven, than a Ruler in the world. Cunning and subtlety hath something of Diabolical in it, and is made for hell. Acquired wisdom m●kes a man apt for all things; but he that should always take it in a strict way, in many affairs might use it with much disadvantage, by reason of men's malice. Hence it com●s, that it is not alwaves one and th● same, but is divided into Moral, Political, economical, and Military. In all of them is required a candidness of heart, if the end ●e good. But if you except the Moral, it is because the means a●e not direct, and then becomes sagacity, which is a part and species of wisdom. For an oblique means doth not always take away the virtue, when it tends to a good end, and that the means itself it not vicious.  
A General of an Army deceives an enemy by some wile, to overcome him. The Physician the Patient, to cure him; and yet the wisdom of these men consists in well mixing the Actives with the Passives. All this seems to be in those words, Be ye as wise as Serpents, and as innocent as Doves. That Serpent could not be called wise, which in another place is said to be the most subtle Beast of the seld. If Subtlety with candidness of heart, were not wisdom, inferior indeed to moral wisdom in a moral private life; but most necessary in a Politic, Military, and Economical Government. And this subtlety is not peradventure so befitting a Moral man, as a Politician.  
The moral man's end is the good of the individuum; which end, the more virtuous the operations are, the larger it is. The Politic man's end is the good of the species, which oftentimes doth not admit of pure mere virtue without adding somewhat to it, or taking somewhat from it. It changes if not the nature, yet the circumstances, in passing from him that lives to himself, to him that lives for others; because there is great difference between a Governor, or Ruler, and a Tutor.  
A. Prince must not make use of vice in governing, nor yet of such virtues as ruin the people. Clemency, liberality, mercy, fortitude, and all other virtues, are commendable in a private man. In a Prince I commend rigour above clemency, parsimony above liberality, roughness above mercy; and cautel above fortitude. Rigour will preserve his peace at home, parsimony will defend him from external war, without endangering the blood of his subjects, or emptying unmeasurably his Exchequers. Roughness will preserve justice, and prevent so many ill effects which compassion produces: to which we must imagine Aristotle had a relation, when in his Poetic (which is also a part of his Politics) he made so principal a business the instruction of Princes, to let them learn Tragic Poems, as a thing that would purge their dispositions from mercy. Finally, cautelousness will not suffer him to expose his life, which is of such value, to gain a vain and unprofitable repute of being valorous. David whilst he was a private man, did always show great signs of valour; but being once King, he suffered himself to be persuaded by joab, to absent himself from danger. And when the Lord intending to punish him, propounded three things unto him, whether he would endure seven years' famine, fly three months before his enemies, or have three days pestilence in the land; he chose the last, quite against the virtue of fortitude, but yet in favour of the public good; judging (as St. Ambrose saith) his absence would be more hurtful to the people, than the pestilence. True it is, that when he saw the Angel turn his sword upon the people, he cried out, that he should turn it against him that was guilty, and spare the innocent. But this was not fortitude digested by reason, it was a violence incited by a tender and valorous nature. Saint Ambrose saith, That in his choice he followed wisdom; in his grief, piety. I will unfold this question, by saying. That the Proposition which God made to David, was to keep him far off: that which David made to the Angel, was to kill him. He will not accept of going far off, and desires death, because that by his absence, the people's light was put out, and they would be left without a guide in the dark: whereas his death had been but a putting out of one light, to give way to another. The former seems always to be evil, the latter is not always so, but many times is turned to a greater good. It may also be said, that when David made his first choice, he grounded it upon a hope he had, that he he might appease God by Prayer; which foundation, when he found it prove vain, he altered his desire. Nothing makes a man better than prudency, and nothing keeps him more secure than sagacity. This sagacity would be dangerous, if it were naturally rooted in the breast of a General, born there, and not acquired: For those who are endowed therewith in this manner, never go about to try either force or fortune, until the case be quite desperate, and for the most part, the time past, either to make use of force, or adventure one's self upon chance. A General's sagacity is different from a Politicians. The one is not good in the City; wherefore Military men are little available in a Senate. The other is pernicious in the field: wherefore they send Gownsmen, & Councillors to lose and ruin enterprises. In one of these sagacities valour should prevail; in the other, sagacity itself must have the upper hand. The Politician ought not betake himself to force till sagacity quite fails; and the Military man will hardly make use of sagacity, whilst he can work with violence.  
Alcibiades hath recourse to Pharnabazus, favourite to Artaxerxes, King of Persia, & presently becomes bound to him in a most strict bond of amity. He had I know not what of attractive in him, which alluring men's minds, bewitched them. A lively Spirit, from which proceeds activity, and abundance of means to work by. If we seek the celestial causes thereof, it proceeds from the constitution of the Planets, from the swiftness of the motions, from Mercury set in his dignities. If we seek the elementary causes, we will say, it proceeds from thesire, which producing its nature in the Spirits, participateeh his motion unto them from the centre to the superficies. Therefore in such kind of people, the spirits are perceived at the circumference, by the motions of the head and hands; and most of all, by the splendour of the eyes, out of which they send forth sparkles. And by reason that no cause, (if we speak of celestial ones) concurres more in this fabric, than Mercury, swift in his dignities; therefore it proves most like him. They draw him with wings at his feet, at his head, or his hair. The Poets do not make him loves Courcellor, but his Messenger, and sometimes his Minister to deceive. His Mineral is Mercury, which always moves, and is like silver, but is not silver, which deceives the eyes of those that look upon it, with i●s splendour, and ruins them that handle it with its poison. The Alchemists seeing it false, because it is movable, seek to take away its motion, and fix it. Astrologians believe not it hath any happy influence in the understanding, though it be never so forunate. They desire not to find him in his own house and exaltation, but rather in Satur's, or at least favoured with his presence and beams, to cut off his wings with the slowest Planets Sith. When they give him the company of any stars, to make him have a happy influence, it is of the lesser ones. The overmuch motion which it gives the spirits in beginning of an action, doth not admit of a prosecution of it; and the overmuch light doth puzzle and resolve them. If Philosophers desire a temperament for a great understanding, they do not commend that which is of fire, nor that of earth; not melancholy, no● Bilis alone; if any Bilis, that which is black, which is the Astrologers Mercury in the house of Saturn: and the Quicksilver fixed by the Alchemists fire. The Mercurials with their swiftness run over all things, with their splendour they see them: and because they run, they cannot discourse; and because their motion is from the centre to the circumference, they spread and dilate themselves abroad, they do not grow deeper, nor take root. And having many objects before their eyes, they have always some new thing to propose, whereby they seem fruitful, yet are but barren, bringing forth abortive embrioes; & if they come to be children, they are monstrous ones. I bear with Princes, sometimes they put themselves into such men's hands, in compain comparison of which, all others seem dull and obtuse. Whilst a Melancholy man gives one reason, they will give a thousand. If one answer serves not, they will give two, or three, they confound, and delight with variety: with their engines and inventions they gain admiration; with their words, great spirit, and effectual operation, as it were a fury, they astonish. Rhetoric, Poetry, Music, and other Arts, do consist of, I know not what, set on the outside; the judgement whereof seems to belong to the senses; Energy, Number, Sweetness of voice, and variety of colouring. Although they consist of somewhat else which is more internal; to apprehend which is required great skill in those Arts; and an eminent understanding to judge of it. The ignorant man, presently runs to the sense, and judges with the eye, and ear, commending according to his sight and hearing, many times that which deserves no commendation, and never blaming that which is blame-worthy. Appearance deceives him, because he fixes himself upon the accidents and commands them; and not penetrating to the knowledge of the substance, he discommends it not, because he does not know it. Seneca speaks of some Orators, whose orations pronounced by themselves seemed excellent, and at the very first, gained applause; but being read, and examined, were of no worth. He confesses they forced his understanding, and he commends them, not because they deserved it, but because they bound him to it. The same thing there is in pictures; for there are some coloured in such sort, that at the first sight, they do constrain the judgement of ignorant, & sometimes of understanding men also, yet with this difference, that the first still continue and persevere in their opinions, and these alter it as soon as they have examined the business. Such kinds of qualities, which so violently attract, in Policy, Rhetoric, Poetry, Painting, and other Arts, do proceed, as I said, from a kind of Fury, which is seen in the visage of an active man, and in the visage and gesture of the Orator. Tacitus was not content with calling it a River, but increases the Epithet with the name of High sounding, to express the noise with which it violently runs. Seneca calls it Impetuous, and doth not say it inclines, but ravishes the minds of hearers. The same Fury, though it be not seen, nor heard in Painters, yet it is seen imprinted in the works. The works of Tintoretto, though they be inferior to Raphael's pictures, yet with these qualities they take away their advantage. They are both good, but at the first glance, if you do not take time, you will applaud Tintorettoes most; if you consider them well, Raphael's. He that coloureth best, shall find greater applause at the vulgars' hands, than he that designs and draws best, although he colour well also. So likewise falls it out in Poetry and Rhetoric, that which prevails in that part that belongs most to the sense being highliest applauded: For that presently represents itself to the eye of man; and the sight straightway carries it to the understanding, and without letting it have time to discourse upon it, obliges it to give judgement on appearances side. A man fit for great employment, aught to be endowed with wisdom, to know what he is to undertake; and with activeness to go through with business when he hath deliberated upon it. If you find two subjects, one most wise and sufficient, but not very active; the other most active, though not so wise, activity being easier to know, than prudence, and immediately perceived in the visage, gestures and eyes of him that is endowed therewith Prudence being invisible, as internal and concealed virtue, which is not discovered, but only in occasions; surely wise men will pass their verdicts on the active man's side, & he shall be put upon all the employments. Let Princes beware of these lively Spirits, of these beautiful tinctures, this harmony of verse, this stream of eloquence, for fear lest it take away their judgement, to the endangering and utter ruin of the State.  
Alcibiades above all other things, was noted for inequality, he was eloquent in a degree above man, fairer than woman, eminent in understanding, liberal and pleasing; but unjust, lustful, and tyrannical. Those who have such a mixture of great vices, and great virtues, sometime precipitate and fall almost as soon as they are born; sometimes also they make a great noise in the world, when they happen upon times which will bear with such vices, and stand in need of such virtues. Alcibiades met with a popular Commonwealth, fitted to his inequality, that applauded his liberality and beauty, suffered itself to be persuaded by his eloquence admired his resolution, humorousnesse and valour, did run along with him in his vices of luxury, surfeiting, tyranny and injustice; which were pleasing to people, so long as they were employed against the Nobility. Nero, who was blemished with such defects, and yet gained the Roman people's applause, more than any other Roman Emperor. Indeed it was by reason that he met with times differing from Alcibiades times, the Senate then being predominant over the people, which lived depressed, and without authority, his ruin could not be prevented; whereas Alcibiades did not take so much harm within the Commonwealth, in getting honours, as abroad in managing of affairs; for although his temperament was well enough accommodated and fitted to the state which the City was in, yet he found it otherwise in foreign affairs, whereby he was necessitated to fall. And though he did rise again divers times assisted by his great and good parts, yet being at the last overborn by his evil ones, he remained oppressed. Equality is not only judged to be an endowment of a wise man, but also a sign that he is one, seeing it is he that commands the stars. If a heaven variable in its motions, moves above us, the stars always varying in their aspects, have their influences upon us, and an air mutable every moment, doth encompass us, and we are ourselves framed of an unequal temperament, who shall be able to keep himself continually in the same tone, in despite of heavens, stars, elements and temperaments? Certainly a wise man shall. We are made a spectacle to God and men, said St. Paul. And is it not a worthy spectacle, to see a wretched man, a handful of earth, a point, a nothing, to oppose the vastness of the heavens, the influences of the stars, the mass of the Elements, his own nature, and conquer them all? Equality signorizes over the influences, because it constantly goes always against them: inequality is commanded by them, because it always follows them various.  
Finally, after so many Catastrophes Alcibiades by the Lacedæmonians deceits, and Farnabazus his treachery, ended his life by the Sword. When Nature fights with a disease, and shows itself sometimes superior, and sometimes inferior, it betokens and argues weakness in it, at last it remains conquered, the disease increasing in malignity, and nature decreasing in strength, which it loses even then when it overcomes. Relapses for the most part are deadly, because that nature overcame not the disease at first, but only when it used its last endeavour, and when the disease riseth again above its nature wanting a new and greater endeavour, must of necessity succumb & perish: Even so, man wrestling with Fortune, and sometimes being superior, sometimes inferior, must needs at last remain inferior, & be overcome, For an unfortunate man to strive against Fortune, for the first time is ignorance, being once beaten down, to rise again and return to the combat is obstinacy, but to prosecute, and follow it, is mere and absolute folly. What ease would it be to a man to know himself the very first hour to be unfortunate? he would shun the resort of men, to make himself a Companion of wild beasts, and in stead of Cities and Palaces, Caves, and Woods would be his habitation. And if Fortune did seek him out, instead of giving him her hand, she would turn her back to him. He would have his recourse to night, to not behold the light which is so tormenting to him, the Sun, and Heavens that are so contrary, and would also wish the night dark, that he might not see in it those star●s which threaten him damage and ruin. Happiness shows ill in a man's eyes in the dark, and unhappiness in the light. It had been better for such a one to not have been borne, or to have died as soon as he was borne. But since to not be borne did not lie in his hands, nor dying doth not; let him hide himself, to make men believe that he is not borne, and that he lives as if he were dead. Surely if he did know his evil fortune, he would withdraw into the woods, and if it were known to others, he would be forced to retreat thither. We can hardly make ourselves believe we have it, unless we make more than one essay, but others may easily know that we have it, without having experimented it. Great Princes, Kings, and Monarches, in whose hands seems at first to lie the giving and taking away of their subjects fortune, if they did withstand the motions which they inwardly feel, they would know the quality of fortune by the inward effect which moves in them. And how behooveful would it be to recoil and set by unfortunate men ere they were scarce known, and to bring fortunate men out into the light, they having no need of any other trial, but what they feel within themselves of instinct or loathing. Fortunate men overcome fortune with following it, the unfortunate with yielding to it. How many times doth nature kill a man, no diseases assaulting nor engaging him, because it doth assault and engage them. There a●e (according to the opinion of learned men) certain venomous humours, which remain a long time in a man's body without hurting it, because nature hath laid them aside in some ignoble part, far from the heart, and hath not meddled with them, nor stirred them; which humours if she once set upon, she is lost. And unfortunate man would live secure all the days of his life; if seeing he cannot any way move fortune, he would recoil, and remove himself, not coming to trial with her, to assault her. Man daily calls fortune unconstant, and yet learns not to cease his admiration when he sees her inconstancy. If he he doth not know her to be such why doth he give her that attribute? and if he doth know it, why doth he wonder at it when he sees it inconstant? This always accompanies ignorance, and doth not admit of providence.  
What is there firm in the world? The earth to day brings forth a plant, and makes show as if would raise it up as high as heaven. Go by, and come again that way within a few days, and you shall see it turned to ashes, and quite abandoned as soon as it is perfected. Behold a Tree that hath happily brought its fruit to maturity, and hath born it all the while it was imperfect, and as soon as it is come to perfection suffers it either to wither, or rot: These things are daily seen, and yet no man wonders at such an inconstancy. But if we do but think of an Alexander the great, extolled and raised up to the skies, then when he is at the height left in the hands of an unfortunate death; his Monarchy first divided, and then destroyed; Then we cry out against fortune, and call it inconstant. If all worldly things are subject to these kinds of motions, and changes, why do we ascribe them to fortune more than to any thing else; Truly because it hath least part in it; and is therein more inconstant, because it hath no certainty in its inconstancy, wherefore we complain of its good deeds, and our own ignorance is the cause of our wondering: it being not always inconstant, but we not knowing when it will be so.  
Men have to this day sought the cause why it comes to pass that subjects raised by fortune, are by the same in an instant cast down: and that she shows her power most adverse there, where her favours have been most conspicuous; and no body hath yet been able to give a just reason for it: not so much because they could not give a resolution of the Problem, as because they have not framed nor stated the Problem right: but have laid it fal●e. For many, yea very many who have been raised by fortune, have remained so all their life time, and it hath followed them to their very graves. The reason of this diversity of effects, is that, which must be sifted out. jupiter and Venus do not alone influx fortunes, but Mars and Saturn likewise have their influences; and with them the fixed stars of the first greatness, all of them (except Spica Virgins) defiled with the violent qualities of these malevolent ones.  
The way is different, and the manner contrary. Some do raise men, are raised by Violence, Misfortune, Sword, Fire, Blood, Slaughters, and Battles. Some again, by means of Sciences, Virtues, Counsels and Prudence are brought mildly up to degrees of eminency. Out of the first are framed Tyrants, and Generals of Armies; out of the latter, Lawgivers, Councillors, Princes, Priests. Each have their Catastrophes according to their nature, when once the Aspect turns from being friendly to be adverse. But the damages and harms which are influxed by jupiter and Venus are not Tragical; The change of State is not sudden, and even the death itself is mild. Saturn and Mars do every thing violently. Look but upon the seven Kings of Rome in its very first beginning, and you shall see them all (except Numa Pompilius) die violent deaths. In them you shall for the most part see the violence of misfortunes involved amongst destructions & blood. In this the mildness of jupiter, & Venus, Council, prudency, and Religion. Consider many peaceful Princes; Legislators, Councillors, and Priests, risen to the very height of happiness: And on the other side many Princes that have been Warriors, Tyrants, Generals of Armies; And in these you shall find, for the most part, Tragic Catastrophes, in the other, very seldom any violent ones. But the infortunate man hath not only nature, and the stars adverse to him, but men also, whose envy he stirreth up against him through his pride; and even God himself moving him to wrath with his wickedness. Yet his fortune may wither a little, and yet not be quite corrupted, he may by his prudency oversway the stars, with humility mitigate men, and with piety appease God. Finally, if Alcibiades had not the delight of an unsavoury and continued happiness, he had it of a sharp, and often renewed one. The habit of a Wrestler (as the wise man said) being arrived to the very height of goodness cannot be increased, but it will perish, nor cannot be kept at a stay but it will change, nor change without growing worse.  
The remedy is to diminish it, that it may be increased again. Even so happiness being arrived to the height, must descend: and if you stay till the descent comes accidentally, it often turns to a precipice: If it comes by wisdom and foresight, it occasions a new delight by rising again.  
There is no way for one to rise when he is at highest, but first he must come down lower; Fortune is favourable when chance carries him down gently, and it is an eminent understanding, which will disposes his will to it. There is no great delight in being happy, it requires a motion, the pleasure is in the becoming so, and he that oftenest and most times becomes such hath received most pleasure. Such a happiness doth that man attain unto, that humbles himself when he is come to the highest degree: he enjoys a perpetual delight, and yet doth not forsake his stand, living in a continual motion. He always humbles himself, and is still raised up. But even as Hypocrates was (in mine opinion) deceived, judging it a good habit, to be full of blood, so are they also who judge those men happy that are full of blood. If any man had represented, and set before the eyes of Caesar, and Alexander the great, and others who were then; or are now like unto them, the way, and means, whereby they had attained to their happiness; hearing nothing but outcries, howl, and horrid lamentations, seeing nothing but slaughters, ruins of Cities, desolation of Provinces, Inhabited places made desolate, fruitful places barren, themselves encompassed, with fire, dead carcases, and blood: it would surely strike a terror into them. What happiness is that then the cause of which affrights and terrifies even him that hath attained to it?  
FINIS.   

MARQUIS VIRGILIO MALVEZZI, HIS CORIOLANUS, To the most Reverend Father, Sforza Pallavicino, Of the Society of Jesus.  
Most Reverend Father,  
I Dedicated my Alcibiades to King Philip the fourth: I now dedicate Coriolanus to your most reverend Fatherhood. What a happiness do I enjoy, to have the greatest Monarch of the world to be my Master: And the greatest wit, and most sublime understanding to my Nephew. If these two lines, which adorn my Writings, were but graven upon my Tombstone, they would fully satisfy my ambition, namely, HERE LIETH THE SERVANT TO KING PHILIP, AND UNCLE TO FATHER PALAVICINE. The goer by would therein read the happiness of my birth, and the worthiness of my choice. And how can these my Writings be but secure, protected by the greatest worldly power, and defended by the greatest learning? I believe my affinity will not derogate from mine attestation, in witnessing that which your works have manifested to the world. I would (I had almost said) renounce my kindred, rather than betray my judgement; and leave being an Uncle, rather than to not be a Trumpet of the eminency of your understanding, and most rarely singular qualities. I would beseech your most reverend Paternity, to esteem of that in me, which is none of mine; namely, your being my Nephew, and I in the mean time, will glory to have added the Title of Servant to the Character of Uncle. So, affectionately kissing your hands, I rest,  
Your most Reverend Fatherhoods most bounden Servant, and most devoted Uncle, Virgilio Malvezzi Bononia April 2. 1648.   

READER,  
I Do not profess myself so considerate, as that I could not err in mine advertisements: neither am I so unchristian, that I would have any man's reputation to suffer, being any way touched by my ignorant mistakes. I have therefore thought it good to recall two passages in a book I set forth whilst I lived in Spain, called The Scale. Whereof the one tends somewhat to the disparagement of the Duke of Savoy, where I related there was a report that he complied with the King of France, in yielding of Susa upon composition. The other was concerning the Governor of the Bush, through whose avarice I said the Town was lost. As for the first, though I did not report it of mine own head, yet it is so far from truth, that I should imagine I did wrong the sincerity Duke Charles used therein, if I did not affirm the report to be false, raised by some malicious, and interessed persons. As for the second, I have seen the Cardinal Infante his Letters which testified that the Governor was wanting in nothing that belonged to him for the securing and defending of that place. Therefore Reader if thou findest any other places in any parts of my books, where I have plainly, and unjustly touched any man's reputation, I intent here to recall it in general, and will be ready to do it in particular, whensoever mine errors shall be made known to me. And wheresoever the sense is dubious, I shall desire to have it favourably interpreted.   

CORIOLANUS.  
CORIOLANUS his eminent virtues, which mingled with some defect, made it rather greater than equal, obliges Plutarch to attribute the cause of the one to the goodness of his nature, and of the other to the defect of education. From the one he infers, that good soil may overcome bad tillage: from the other, that let the soil be never so good, yet if it continually have bad tillage, it will bring forth some bad plant. The soil is the Mind, the tillage, Learning, which being of a temperate complexion, corrects all excesses, and cures all contrarieties. It raiseth those that are too low, humbles them that are too stout; where it finds any hard thing, it softens it; where any soft, it hardens it: resembling the Sun, which with the same beams melts the Ice, and hardens the mire. This doctrine is so delightful, that it hath been able to attract the eyes which it could not dazzle. I have a long time looked upon it with astonishment, knowing that by consenting to it, I should betray mine understanding; and doubting lest by opposing it, I should seem to question a truth; and by arguing against education, which hath commonly been approved of, (and most of all by the wisest) I should be reputed rash and temerary, though by right I should be applauded for it. But if a good Citizen ought to expose his life to save the public, why should he not also adventure his reputation for the common service? This will be also so much the easier, because I mean not to direct my shafts against the thing itself, but against the manner; commending, with others, Education: but not that Education which is commonly practised.  
I represent unto myself two trees of the same kind but in several places; one wild in the forest, yet in good soil: the other growing in a Garden, amidst the tendernesses of tillage and husbandry. I see the boughs of the latter more beautiful and springing up, its fruit fairer and bigger; but the boughs ready to break at every blast of wind, & the fruit rot in a short time, and affording but a weak kind of nourishment. I see in the former, rougher boughs, lesser fruit, and not so beautiful; but the boughs resisting the fury of the North winds, and the fruit not easily corrupted, and strong for nourishment. The roughness of the tree of the forest, yields I know not what kind of stateliness, so that Majesty added to the horridness, brings forth a kind of reverence with delight. The tenderness of the other, moveth delight with its beauty; but in such a manner, that it doth in some kind make the beholder grow tender with looking on it. The tree of the forest is like a vigorous, sinewy, well-limbed man, with strong muscles. A garden tree resembles a young and tender maiden. And if this be true, education being like a garden, will make the masculine vigour grow effeminate, take a-away the horridness which produces fear, the Majesty which causeth reverence, and will change the Sex, and metamorphose Man into Woman. Many Princes have found it so, who having conquered fierce & stubborn nations, have not taken more pains in any thing to keep them under the yoke of bondage, than in polishing what was rough, tame what was wild, and effeminate by manuring and trimming in a Garden, the masculine conditions of those wild, but robustious plants; yet I do not mean to vilify Education but rather intent to speak in commendation of it, not digressing from the example of Agriculture, which Plutarch sets down.  
A husbandman sometimes meets with an excellent soil, to sow Corn upon: and if he does but even as it were, break it up with the Plough, and sows but a little quantity of seed upon it, it will yield a fruitful and abundant harvest: because the goodness of the soil, not oppressed by the multitude of seed, doth beyond measure increase that little, and being not softened with overmuch tilling, it strengthens the stem, and with great fertility comes to maturity. But if the unskilful husbandman too carefully manures and tills it, and sows a great deal of seed upon it, at the first coming up, he shall see an abounding crop sprung, which being grown up with the fruit shall lie upon the ground, and being laid will be overgrown with weeds, and shall gather great ears, but empty and putrified.  
A husbandman sometimes meets with a soil that is so barren, that he leaves it in the hands of nature, after he hath tilled it, and sown it with very good seed, and it will bring forth grass instead of Corn, and cockle instead of Wheat.  
But if he chance to meet with an indifferent soil, there he uses all the art and skill he hath in husbandry; there he soweth seed in abundance, and whereas in excellent soil, with little art hindering as it were nature, in indifferent soil, with great Art., assisting it, hereapes a most plentiful and abounding Harvest. This is an instruction for men. Let not an evil nature be too much tilled, nor fed with seed, it is offended by being fed, and too much tillage offends it; either the seed doth not fadge and take root there, or it turns to poison. Let an indifferent nature have a great deal of education, and a good one but a little, if you will not have it grow weak and effeminate. The ancient Romans, whilst the excellent soil lasted, did not tenderly till it with learning, because they would not weaken the sturdiness of their Citizens, nor cause their corn to lie upon the ground through too much rankness, but did educate them rustically, in a Military way, and so they brought forth a plentiful generation of Heroic persons. The curious dressing of a Garden is fit for Tulips, and such kinds of Flowers, which for the most part delight the eye, but are without savour, sent, or substance: and such are those men, who brought up in Music, singing, and dancing, serve for ornament, but are fruitless and vain in a Commonwealth.  
The advantage which an excellent soil being but roughly tilled, hath above that which is carefully manured and fed, will more plainly appear, in passing over two other parts, we multiply the comparison. Titianus was questionless an admirable Painter; sometimes he was so accurate in the Draughts of his Pencil, and so exact in his limming, that it seemed he would make the very hairs numerable: and sometimes he would content himself with drawing of some pictures with few and rough strokes. An understanding Spectator of such a different proceeding in his Art, will in the one find a feminine trimness; in the other, a masculine sturdiness. He will pass over the first with praise, the latter he will fix upon with admiration; he will have a sweet inclination to the first, but the last will violently and forcibly draw along his admiration and affection.  
What was Cato (whom Antiquity was never weary of commending) but a plant growing in an excellent soil, a Picture drawn with rough strokes? And the two Brutes, one of which expelled the Tyrant, and the other slew him, who will not say but they were trees of the forest? The second was inferior to the first in fortune, because he exceeded him in knowledge. He knew the defect after he had been hurt by it; and when he lay a dying, he styled all Sciences vain. Lucius, hardened by the savageness of the forest, killed his own Children. Marcus, softened with the delicacy of tillage suffers Caesar's friends to live, losing that Commonwealth with his learning, which the other had built up with his ignorance. The people of Rome who hoped for liberty through Marcus his valour, feared he would lose the beauty of his forestick horridness, by means of manuring; Caesar almost assured himself that he had lost it. They were both deceived, for with that part of savageness which remained, he could: kill Caesar, and ruin the Commonwealth with that softness which he had acquired.  
When education is contrary to nature, if it doth produce a new character of its own, yet can it hardly quite cancel that which it found, it may mitigate, but not overcome it. One subject made basis to two contraries, sometimes operating according to nature, sometimes to education, works with opposite motions, and with that inequality loses itself. If Marcus Brutus had been wholly soft, he had not undertaken so cruel an act: if he had been wholly rough, he had happily achieved and performed it.  
Plutarch confesses the truth, in denying it. This herb the more it is trodden the sweeter in smells, this dust the more it is stamped upon, the more it rises.  
He commends learning, because it softens the mind, and this is effeminating of it, because it reduces to a mediocrity, and that is annihilating of greatness. He also granteth, that the Romans education, aimed only at the bringing in of the virtue of fortitude.  
The crown of Oak, which Coriolanus gained in his young years gives us to understand, what plants they would have to grow in the Commonwealth, and in what manner manured.  
But why had the Oak this prerogative? Peradventure, saith Plutarch, by reason of the the Arcadians who honoured it, Or of jupiter who decked himself with it, or because of the sturdiness, or fruitfulness of the tree. Or peradventure they considered the virtue of the Oak, which lying under water doth not corrupt, or soften, but grows as hard as stone, whereas if part of it stand above water in the air, it rots in a short time; As if they would signify thereby, that in a man of worth and valour, virtue doth increase, by his being continually plunged in employments; and chose it withers and fades away, when any part of him is exposed to sensuality.  
Those who would have the reward of the Oaken crown to come again, let them take away Meum & Tuum. Let them turn this, into a Golden age: and without producing an acorn age, they shall see the Oaken Crowns spring up in abundance.  
It is so consonant to reason that all crimes should be punished, and all virtues rewarded, that it serves for an argument to know there is a heaven, and a hell; because that good and evil things being not rewarded and punished by God in this world, seeing it is necessary they should be rewarded, it argues that of necessity there must be places in the other world to do it. He is notwithstanding a pernicious and irreligious Prince that will imitate God in this particular. He takes away (as much as in him lies) the efficacy of the argument, because he takes away the necessity of doing it, seeing he hath not another world, to reward or punish them in, whom he hath not rewarded nor punished in this world. The happiness of worldly government consists in not suffering any virtue to go unrewarded, nor any offence unpunished.  
One of the greatest disorders that the corruption of rewards hath produced, making treasuries unable to undergo that burden, hath been the (in some sort) obliging Princes and Commonwealths to reward virtues with an impunity of offences.  
Unfortunate is that virtuous act, abominable that reward, if the recompense must be, the bearing with offences: if rewarding must be forbearance of punishing, either virtue must go without reward, or turn to vice to attain it.  
No body makes any question, but that rewards and punishments are they which bear up States: upon these two pillars, did God lay the foundations of the world, promising glory to those who did well, and threatening evil doers, with everlasting torments; and if this were not sufficient, if he met with people that believed neither heaven nor hell, he set a reward and a punishment within man himself, imprinting in his very entrails the law of Nature, which should persuade him to good, and dissuade him from evil.  
And because all natural operations are pleasing, and contrary ones painful; man doth in his own very acting receive his reward, and his punishment, from whence proceeds that inward joy which comforts good men, and afflicts bad ones.  
But since man through sin was divided, and withdrew from this law, the senses imbued with another contrary one, more sharp and vehement, he was forced, to go and assist the natural law, which borne in the soul, was oppressed by that law which came from without in the members to counterpoise and overcome it; assisting it with outward punishments and rewards, which though they be needful in all nations and all sorts of people, yet are they not required for all men, of the same kind.  
The rewards of inferior people, is money, of Nobles honour, the punishment for the one death: for the other infamy. In former times great spirits were satisfied, with the reward of an Olive, or Oaken garland: a ring, a chain, a feather, a scarf, and for greater matters with a triumph: and the denial of a triumph after it was deserved was a punishment sufficient: and this was done at such times as it was the vulgar sort of people's reward to divide the spoil amongst the Soldiers, and the conquered land among the people.  
Such were the proceedings in Commonwealths composed of Optimacy, and especially in that of Rome, where it may be easily known, by those that read the histories of it, that the rewards were such, and the like of punishments by such as examine the said histories: Where they shall find, that whole Armies have been tithed, putting each tenth man to death, for faults which have been committed in them: and never any Nobles put to death for losing of battles, or ill guiding of their Armies, or any other offence, until we come to Spurius Melus, whose crime was against the State: Whereby we must needs conclude, that either in Rome they neglected one fundamental Pillar of Government, which is punishment, in the Nobility or that for them infamy and disgrace was a sufficient one.  
The Rewards were altered, when desire of wealth came in: not because Noble minds altered their object, and giving over the desire of glory, did wholly cast themselves upon their own interests; but because the object itself was altered; and yet not changed quite, but only communicated to another. The Ring, the Chain, the Laurel, the Olive Garland, were not the objects of generous minds, no more are riches now at this time; but they had the first for honour, and these last for that which they had gained. For the honour consisting not in him that is honoured, but in the honourer; it is not in a man's choice what to be honoured with, or to be rewarded more by one thing than by another: he must only look what thing is most honoured by common applause. Thence grows the ordinary error of subjects, who in applying themselves, do not follow their own genius, but ambition, which calls men to that, where glory is reputed greatest. But the same thing is not in repute in every place, nor in the same place at all times, nor the something, in the same manner. Roman virtues were vices amongst the Parthians.  
In Rome Eloquence was first contemned, then afterwards honoured: sometimes Asiaticall, sometimes laconical, sometimes plain, sometimes garnished Eloquence was applauded; sometimes that which pleased the ear, sometimes that which best persuaded the mind: and all this comes to pass, because the true object of the principal powers of the soul, being wanting in the world (even like a sick man, that cannot find rest in any place) we always change our place, because we will not despair of finding it. It was the people that placed honour in riches, because the object of want hindering the object of ambition, they turned to honouring of that which might relieve them.  
A right effect of Nature, which not to be defective, makes that to be most desired which is most necessary: Wherefore it was judged by wise and understanding men, That the desire and appetite of food, was more vehement in man, than any other passion; and therefore if he had many objects to turn to, and many passions to satisfy, he would first look upon, and satisfy the passion of hunger.  
But because honour is expected from the vulgar, more than from the Nobility, (who being emulators, and envious, will rather seek to disgrace than applaud) and they being corrupt, or necessitated, honour him most that is wealthiest: it was needful to procure to be one of the greatest among these, to be the most honoured. After applause came Trains of followers, from them sprang factions and dissensions, and these caused the ruins of Commonwealths and kingdoms.  
M●ny Philosophers knew riches to be the root of all evils: Wherefore when Lycurgus went about to secure his Commonwealth, the first thing he did, was banishing Gold and Silver out of it, and causing Leather to be made use of instead of it. Deceiving himself in this because he did not know, that he did not change the error, but only did abase it by reducing it from a beautiful, to a vile and abject matter: the excellency of the metals, being not the reason why Gold and Silver are had in such esteem; but because coin and money is made thereof, which is of greatest value: so that the way had been to take money quite away, which could not possibly be done, unless he had likewise taken away me●m & tuum, viz. every man's propriety. Wherefore Plato having better considered upon it, resolved to put it quite out of his Common-wealth, not erring in the finding of the error, but erring in that he believed that it might be corrected. Princes did likewise concur in yielding repute to riches, by honouring those that had wealth; and, many times, not so much because they are necessary to get honour, (for it may also be gotten by valour) but because Princes are always richest, but not always valiantest, it was reason in State to hold wealth up in men's esteem, to not augment the reputation of others, and fall into contempt themselves, it being also a common desire in man, that the thing which they have most of, should be most in esteem.  
Then Princes in Monarchical government are participant of this error, the Senate in Commonwealths, and People in all kind of States: and therefore together with the corruption of the common wealth, came the corruption of rewards into Rome, neither suffices it, though the one part stands sirme, if so be the other falls, nor is it sufficient to have an excellent Prince, if he meet with corrupt People: So that it seems to be a very hard thing to bring in a reformation of rewards, and being once brought in, it is impossible it should last, without reforming the whole world, which is run on so far●e, that he that would now return to the ancient customs, would sooner be styled avaricious then prudent. Peradventure the Romans did ill in not changing the punishments with the rewards: They did indeed receive some change at the discretion of Tyrants, and that was when Cinna, Marius, Silla, Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Antony, and Augustus came in, the Axe beginning then to fall upon the most eminent and noted Citizens heads, to wreak, and vent their hatred, and secure their fear, which, if they had born respect to civil justice only, and not to their despotical interest, there could not have wanted gentler, and milder means, and every way as effectual to save it from contempt. All that imbrue their hands in blood for hatred, are Tyrants, and all those as do it for fear, if they cannot be called Tyrants (the fear being grounded upon reason) may very well be esteemed unfortunate Princes. The corruption of rewards was then introduced by the want, and corruption of the People, and Policy of the Sovereigns: The corruption of punishments by the Tyranny of Princes, and treachery of the Nobles. It is easy where Princes are excellent, and the Nobility faithful, to continue and preserve punishments, in that perfection as they were, in the primitive times of the Roman commonwealth; and this is even the same manner as is now used in Spain, where infamy and disgrace are sufficient punishments for Noble men's Politic evil actions, which concern the Prince's service; The debarring them the Prince's sight, Removing them from the Court, leaving them in oblivion, is as much & as efficacious in that most happy Country, as banishing, imprisoning, and beheading in other Kingdoms.  
Those who blame this manner of proceeding, that the effect, which the example should be, are peradventure deceived. For an irregulare and temerary mind it will not be sufficient, and for a generous breast it needs not.  
But because all nations do not conform themselves in giving the preeminency and superiority of this thing which we call reputation, to one and the same thing; Some attributing it to Wealth, some to Nobility, many to Wisdom, and some to beauty: some extolling the great man, and some the most valiant, it will not be amiss a little to argue and search out, to which of these it is due. And because amongst so many different opinions we cannot have the decision from man, we will take it from nature, and bow to that virtue, in which nature hath placed the command.  
Lawyers are of opinion, that there is no natural servitude, and that all men are borne free. And though Aristotle seem to say the contrary, yet he doth not mean to yield to any more than a character which shall show not what another is, but what he should be; therewith setting out; not the act, but the inclination. Ptolemy meant the same thing in the division of the signs, into commanding and obeying ones, and no man will deny such instincts, who reading Hostories, will consider so many Nations, which without any outward violence to force them, or art to persuade them, have voluntarily submitted themselves to the command of him, whom they have held in greatest repute.  
But in assigning of that virtue, which naturally is commanding, I will take leave to differ and recede from Aristotle's opinion; for whilst he seeks to set down what men ought to command, and who to obey, making (or else I err) an evil distinction of men; He doth not resolve the question well, by saying that some are borne with much strength, and little understanding; others with much understanding and little strength, the one kind being fit to serve, and the other to command, the first shall be borne to servitude, the last to command.  
He leaves out one part of men who are borne with both these, and another who have neither of them, and are incapable either of serving or commanding.  
He to whom nature hath given only a great understanding, was made but to contemplate and teach, if he were made to command, it was only in a School. He that hath valour only, whom we call temerary, troubles all the world, and is nothing but violence. To the third, namely to him that hath both, the Sceptre, in my opinion is due, and to him indeed, for the most part, People have granted it, when it hath been in their power to give it: as to Saturn, jupiter, Hercules, Romulus,, and so many others; The Gentiles so highly esteeming him that hath those two characters of valour and wisdom (which both go to the framing of true Fortitude) that where they have found them both united, they have even adored them. I do indeed find that sometimes men have also submitted themselves to a man, who hath been only of an eminent understanding, as to Pythagoras, Lyeurgus and N●ma Pompilius. But I hold this dominion to be but little more natural than the other, which hath only valour appropriated to it, though one be given, the other violently taken, this latter called Tyrannical, and the other▪ Kingly. Peradventure they are both tyrannical, one offering (as I may say) no less violence with his art, to the soul, than the other doth with his force to the bodies. And if we consider well the dominion which is obtained by understanding, it always brings along with it, one of the attributes of the violent, namely of not being durable. Wherefore those that are such; to keep themselves long in command, have had their recourse to art, when the favour of nature hath failed them, feigning to have had some commerce with the Gods. So that in mine opinion we may say, that the understandingest doth command by cunning, the most rash by violence, and he that is endowed with true Fortitude, by nature.  
And indeed nature whose chief aim is to preserve the Species, inclines man to obey him who may best preserve him: And because he that hath fortitude is such a one, he shall before others be set in this natural state, free from all violence: and men will obey him in whom they shall see this virtue shine more than in others.  
Coriolanus, did not so much desire to be honoured himself, as to be commended to his Mother, he esteemed of honours, because they caused joy in her. But why should others joy increase ours, whether it be that of our Parents, and Kindred's, or our friends?  
Man is so set upon the satisfying of his passions, and the passions, are so joined and linked together, and also desirous to be satisfied, that the perfectly pleasing of one's passion, or the being content with having pleased it, is not ordinarily attained unto, when the rest are froward and distasted. For satisfaction of the sense of tasting, savoury meat would be sufficient.  
But he that will have it perfumed, seeks to content the smelling also. If he desires colour, handsomeness, and shape; he seeks to have the eye also pleased therewith; and that the hearing likewise may have its delight, he will eat his meat where there is playing and singing. Neither there doth the sensuality of man, composed of soul and body, rest, though his body wallow in delights, the passions of the soul must also have some food, feeding his ambition with fineness of Table-linnen, richness of vessels, number of attendants, invention, disposition and singularity.  
In the sense of feeling, man should be content with softness: but he will have beauty for the eyes, he desires perfumes to please the smell, Nobility and virtue to appay his ambition; and to content his irascicall part, could he not also satisfy himself with the death of his enemy? No; fully to please the passions of his mind (though he oftentimes do it with loss and danger) he will vaingloriously have it known that it was he that slew him; and the greater his innocency was, the more he rejoices in his revenge. These examples are so clear, that they put it out of all question, that man's desire is not content with the satisfaction of the passions of the body, if he doth likewise in some sort partly satisfy his ambition. The same (as I believe) happens as truly (though not so plainly) in the satisfying of ambition. Cold and unsavoury seem the advancements to honours and dignities, all increases of greatness (let them be of never so great moment) seem despicable, if there be not some content likewise given to the two chief passions of the body, Irascible, and Concupiscible. Thereunto hath regard, the desire of having at that time, both those we love, and those we ha●e, alive, that we may rejoice at the grief which we see in the one, and the pleasure which we espy in the other.  
That is a kind of revenge belonging to the Irascible, and this a kind of benefit done to him who is beloved, which may be reduced to the Concupiscible. He will think himself unfortunate, who arriving to any happiness, hath not these two spectators, a friend and an enemy. Hence proce●ds the original cause of his excessive delight, who comes to great preferment in his father's life time, because that in this case both the foresaid affections are satisfied, the son being both beloved & also emulated by the father. And though the emulation be not so apparent, yet sometimes there is as much of it, as there is of love, less discovered but sometimes more sharp: whereupon he did very well, that made it the chief of his joys, that his Father and his mother had seen him ride in triumph.  
And it is no marvel, if he did desire the presence of the one more than of the other, because in the other wants emulation: And indeed the delight is more perfect, which we receive from the love that belongs to both, than from the emulation which belongs particularly to the Father, it failing (unless it be by reflection) of any desire which may produce grief.  
But how can it be, that a man's joy increasing by his friends rejoicing, his sorrows should decrease by his friends grieving at his sorrows? St. Thomas saith, that the friends grief is considered, not as a real thing, but as a mark and sign of one: not as a dolorous passion, but as a sign of love, whereby the comfort is received. To this learned saying might also be added, That a friend being beloved as one's self, we desire that all his actions should be perfect; wherefore it doth trouble us to see him rejoice in our calamities, and we are glad when with his sorrow he sympathizes with us in them. The former being a sign of his slighting us, and the other of his constancy in affection. Add to this finally, the delight a man takes when he finds he hath made a happy choice of a friend, and grief which oppresses him if he proves false.  
Sannieticus, King of Egypt, being taken prisoner by Cambyses, sees his daughter in a servile habit drawing of water, his son guarded by armed men to his death, he looks upon them both with dry eyes. Afterwards he sees one of his friends half naked, and almost starved, begging food to keep him alive, he abandons himself to grief, weeping and lamentation. The solution of this knot is very difficult. Cambyses desires to know the reason, and causeth Sanneticus to be examined about it: as if he that does a thing, always knew the reason why he doth it. He many times is ignorant of it, and oftentimes whereas the action produces the effects, he makes it to be produced by the effects, either to conceal the true cause, or to boast of a wisdom which he hath not, but only preposterous, ascribing the work of Fortune to his own prudency. The captive King answers, That he having no grief to equal to the two first calamities, had sacrificed it to the third, as worthy of it. Others will say, that the two first brought him to the highest pitch of suffering; and the third forced him to run headlong into lamentation. Neither of these solutions satisfy me: One savours of Poetry, and the other is not altogether Philosophical. The greater grief (according to Hypocrates doctrine) doth not suffer the lesser to be felt, than it was either greater, or of another nature: greater only would not have been sufficient to extract tears, it would rather have hindered the eyes from weeping: it was of another nature, namely, a mixture of joy and grief: the first with its heat being able to make and open that passage which the last with its cold had closed up to tears.  
None that loves, but if he love vehemently, sometimes when he raves and dotes most, will consider his friend in the midst of his troubles and dangers, with some kind of pleasure; whereby he believes to show and manifest the sincerity of his affection, either by taking him out of his afflictions, or bearing him company in his miseries. If this desire being but only speculated, and contemplated, doth please one, what will it do when it is put in practice? It will produce a grief full of delight, which rather causes a kind sweetened tenderness, than affliction or sorrow of the heart, from which we must confess it draws tears, but very pleasing ones. Hence proceeds, that sometimes he that really falls into troubles and misfortunes, beholds with dry eyes, others who participate thereof only through affection, pour out Oceans of tears. There being wanting in him that part of pleasure which opens the cataracts of tears, kept in and sealed up, through the sharpness of grief: whereas the other, because the grief is not properly his own, but only bred in him through his friend's affliction, being as it were produced by imitation, hath also a kind of delight almost continually mixed with it.  
An excellent Actor, who on stage relates some Tragic Scene, feels a kind of grief in himself; and if he doth not, he doth not tightly act his part; and if he doth, who can deny, but that it is with a most sweet and pleasing grief, which hath its original from a most pleasant imitation.  
All these ways as being accidental, peradventure increase not the substance of the joy: they may peradventure dilate it, but not sink, nor make it grow deep, unless it be when our friends▪ joy surpasses ours, either by the strongness of his apprehending it, or the faintness of his temperament; for than it works in us, according to the degree which it hath atttained unto. What truehearted man can see a friend in his t●oubles grieve more than himself, but it must increase and augment his grief; and will rather seek to comfort his friend, than be comforted by him: grief working in him no more as a sign, but as a thing real; and because greater, therefore increasing. Coriolanus therefore had reason to desire, that his famous actions should be related to his mother, any thing that increased her joy, gihim much satisfaction; because the feminine temperament being more apt to receive affections, he could perceive it greater in her than in himself; and measuring the greatness of the action, by the degrees of the content which it produced, he found the action greater in his mother's rejoicing, than in his own.  
Coriolanus desires the Consulship of the people, and when he sues for it, he puts off his Robe, the custom of those times was such. Whether it was (saith Plutarch) to show his scars, and cause his valour to oblige them, or to show himself submiss, and so persuade them with a seasonable humbleness, because in those day's virtues were more prevalent with the people than wealth.  
I cannot be persuaded this should be the intent of this custom. The scars might have been shown without putting off his his Robe, or the putting it off would not have sufficed. A suppliant humility is good with a man's equals, not with his inferiors, in whom it breeds a kind of loathing, to see a great man, who should command them abase himself so much.  
It seems that a man, as if he did imprint those qualities which are in himself, in his garment, when he thinks they might be available to him, he puts it on, and when he believes they will do him hurt, he puts it off. Those Fathers which remained in Rome, when it became a prey to the Gauls, did put on their Senatoriall habits, which for a while bridled the Gauls insolency. That Fabius, who passed untouched amongst the enemies, puts on his Priestly habit, and sacrifices. Leo the Pope put on his Pontifical habit, and appeases the wrath of the barbarous Tyrant. chose, David's child falls sick, he rends and lays away his garments. Job feels his sorrows increasing, and puts them off. Neither is that enough in great afflictions, many proceed further, pulling off their hair, and even tearing their flesh: every thing than represents itself to them full of that quality which doth at that time torment them. And they would make themselves believe, that they could diminish it by pulling off their garments, throwing away their hair, and pouring out their blood, as if together with them they did put off, throw away, and pour forth part of the tormenting grief which afflicts them.  
The Senatoriall dignity was hateful to the people, because they could not divest themselves of the degree, they put off the Robe, as if in that lay the whole hatred, if not part of it. For the showing a sudden change from a Commander to a suppliant, from a man clothed in Robes to a devested one, did much avail to put off hatred, and gain compassion. A Catastrophe (though false) did violently incline the minds to a kind of tenderness; as in a Tragedy we see sometimes circumstances almost forcibly draw tears from the hearer's eyes, though they know all is but feigned and fabulous. I have seen the King my Master on that day we celebrate the commemoration of the washing of the Apostles feet, when he hath laid away his Cloak and Rapier, to fit him-himselfe for so pious a mystery, draw abundance of tears from the beholder's eyes. The putting off the Robe did abate a great deal of the people's hatred; and that which the laying away of the Robe had not done, the Catastrophe altered. And because he that hath a fellow-feeling, desireth also to assist, and the compassion being greatest where the greatest change is, and the greatest change being in him that deserves most: the people desired to raise him that was of greatest merit, and exalt him to the Consular dignity. They had assuredly done it in our case; being resolved to bestow it upon Coriolanus, if he appearing the next day with a great train of Senators at his heels, had not destroyed his first show of humility, by this second of pride, taking away the compassion, and giving way for them to kindle their anger a new, and therewith their hatred, which changed those tender thoughts of raising him, into as many sharp inclinations to oppress him.  
Virtue can only be judged of naked: all kinds of accoutrements deform it, it is an ornament to all things, and to itself both ornament and substance. He that will not loathe her, let him behold her unarrayed; and he that will judge of her, let him view her naked. The Trojan Shepherd had not been deceived, had he beheld the three Goddesses naked: He had given sentence on Pallas side, had not her helmet, spear, shield, and the rest of her armour puzzled him.  
Virtue is both good and fair. Goodness, and beauty are the objects through which, will, satisfaction, and love pass to the understanding. How can you conceive virtue to be otherwise but fair and good if ●ou consider it as virtue: and in what other shape can you consider it, if it doth not appear naked unto you. Hate, Rage and Envy cannot touch it, they are moths which stick only on the garments, worms that inhabit putrefaction only; strip her of applauses, wealth, and all other vain habiliments, if thou wilt have her be secure, and enamourthee. This virtue which being once known, violently stirs up love, taketh impression in men's hearts (sometimes in the Great ones, sometimes in the People's) by very different ways. Some would have it remain within the sphere of mediocrity, some would raise it up to the concave of the Moon. It is not always envy which desires it low, nor love that continually desires to have it exalted. Sometimes it happens, because a Great one would come into a strict league of friendship with it, and the People would by its means enjoy an honourable servitude. He that is possessed of such a noble gem may communicate it to some by a relation of friend to friend; too others of Master, to Servant. The one to be perfect requires equality; the other to be pleasing, a kind of distance. The greater the Master is, the more honourable is the servant: and the more cordial the friend is, the greater equality is between them. But the connexion which the People hath with a person of eminent virtue, is like a servant to his Lord, and he is desirous to exalt him. But the great ones is as one friends to another, and he doth not desire to have him advanced. Aristotle though he makes equality too necessary in friendship; sometimes attributing it to superabundancy, sometimes to want, as if he discovered the truth out of its due distance, and with a hindered and obstructed means; seems to contradict himself, and pretend it to proceed from a great equality.  
He either was or would be deceived, he needed to have been neither, if he had affirmed that both these causes united, did produce a most strict league of friendship. Superabundancy, and want, if one of them alone be divided into two subjects, brings forth either slavery, or its image. The poor, is the rich man's slave, and the Scholar the Masters, and if he be not, he is like some such thing.  
Of two superabundancies and two wants, there is framed an almost indissoluble bond of friendship. The People that find in themselves nothing but defect, go towards virtue, and desire to have it made great, because they will serve it. The great one who with the defect of virtue, hath superabundancy of honour and wealth, would find him out who hath superabundance of what he wants, with defect of his superabundance, and desires to have him low, because he would make him his friend. And if this latter comes also to be exalted to honours and wealth, the other loses his superabundancy, and remains with deefct only: He hath nothing whereon to found the harmonious equality which produces friendship; and because he abhors the character of being a servant, he hates that virtue exalted, which he venerated when it was humble. If there be a great pleasure in the world, it consists in doing a benefit, and if there be any greater, it is in requiting it.  
Therefore that must needs be exceeding great which is produced by the harmonious interweaving, of abundance, and defect, where the benefit is at the same time done and requited.  
Plutarch calls Coriolanus proud and impatient; I agree to it. He attributes the cause of it to want of study, I descent from it: Because learning doth not only not hinder these passions, but according to St. Paul's saying, produces Pride, and according to solomon's, Impatience; I attribute it to his being born in the Roman Commonwealth, which more desirous to increase then to preserve itself as it was made more of valour, esteem in its Citizens thereof Patience. Wherefore at the last keeping one still alive, it fell for want of the other. True it is, that as it is not against the law of Patience, that one upon occasion, when there is need, should violently oppose one that operates ill, no more is it of the essence of valour, to repair all damages, and revenge all offences. But the Romans cared not for these qualifications.  
That Valour was more useful to them, which operated, then that which suffered. And because for that part of valour, which looks after revenge, wrath was very useful, and very hurtful to that which belongs to suffering; it is not to be wondered, that some of them had the vice of impatience coupled with the virtue of fortitude. Seneca would not admit this doctrine of wrath: he would have it rooted out, as if our nature were so perfect, that it wanted no instigation, to make it operate well, nor no curb to keep it from working evil.  
He that will see how man ought to make use of wrath, which we also call choler, let him consider what use nature makes of that choler which is called Bilis. I meddle not with that part which is called Nutritive, which subtilizes the blood, that it may the easilier nourish the parts, which feeds the heart, and the musculous flesh, which tempers the cold of the Pituitous humour, with Melancholy. I will speak only of the Excremental Bilis; There is one natural, and another without nature, or extra naturam: One reserved in the Gall bag, that is to cleanse and absterge the pituitous humours together with the ordures; because like a medicament it instigates, and provokes the expulsive virtue, to send forth that which is not to be retained, and which being retained would kill. The other breeds Dysenteries, Diareas, Deliriums', Frenzies, perfect Tertians, and an infinite of such diseases: And even just so it is with wrath. One kind of wrath is a passion which like that unbridled Bilis running on furiously, brings one to a precipice: The other regulated by the understanding, and set apart for some occasion, serves to instigate the virtue of valour: and as Nature's excremental Bilis is necessary to expel the excrements; which nature would not move to do if it were not instigated; so likewise this wrath is necessary for man to drive that away from him which the understanding hath concocted, and judged fit to be driven out.  
But nature doth not make use of the Bilis only to expel excrements only, but also of the serous matter to distribute the blood; of melancholy to excite the appetite, to retain the food, and sustain the body; Of the sharp and serous humour to mix with the seed to provoke to generation, and preserve the kind. Although that serous humour be that which causeth hydropsy, though the Atra Bilis produces quartans, Cancers, Hypocondries, Rage and Madness; though that from the sharp subtle humour, the greatest part of the Cutancall diseases have their beginning: So the mind likewise makes use of Wrath for Fortitude: of Ambition for Magnanimity; and yet the one produces rashness, the other pride. That straightness of mind which causes avarice, being dilated, makes up parsimony: From that largeness of breast, from which springs Prodigality, if it be but a little restrained, there proceeds liberality. Finally, the good or hurt that these humours of the body, and passions of the mind do produce, proceeds from their being regulated or not regulated; the humours by Nature, and the passions by Reason. From the making use of the same humour, both for virtue and for vice, though in a divers manner, comes, that ignorance is oftentimes deceived, and malice confounds vice and virtue, calling prodigality, liberality; rashness, fortitude; and pride, magnanimity.  
It is worthy consideration, and yet not easy to know, why Nature hath made choice of evil humours to make use of, to exercise the best and principal parts of the body: when as it might have disposed the generative virtue, the expulsive, the retentive, the appetitive, and the distributive, in such manner, that they might have operated without having need of spur or instigation. And if they had need of any, why did give it them of such imperfect matter? This knot which by a Gentile is indissoluble, may be resolved by a mean understanding, so that it be Christian, when it shall consider, that Natura Naturans, did not create man in such a fashion. There was no ill humour resident in him, every thing was good; all parts obeyed, without any resistance; all virtues operated without any instigation. It was Adam and not Nature that placed good and eulll in the same subject; and if it were Nature, it was Natura Naturata, corrupted by him who disobeying his Creator's commands, broke the order of obedience, and put every thing in confusion. The evil of the Bilis, of melancholy, and other humours, proceeds from Adam's sin & retains the character of disobedience. But if vanity made Seneca contrary to Aristotle, truth did agree them together again. He confirms what I have said, he saith, It is good to make use of wrath as a servant, and that it is naught to be subject to it, as to a Lady and Mistress.  
Patience consists not in the not feeling of pain, seldom in doing as if one felt it not, but always in feeling it as it ought to be felt. There is no such thing as insensibility of pain: if there be it is not a strongness of heart but a weakness of the mind. He that pretends to have such an insensibility, deceives, because he hath it not; and he that hath it, deceives himself, because he raves, and so doth the former too, being sick with ambition▪ though not of a Fever. It is bad in prosperity but in adversity monstrous: in the one we must use violence to ourselves to keep it away, & in the other we must source it to come. It is contrary to the ambitious humour, and therefore a time of misery is fitting for it.  
Where that which should cure, hurts, it is a sign that the disease is long, or mortal. Where the disease comes out of its due season either the humour is malignant, or abounding. The comfort of the afflicted is only to be born with, the ambitious man is only hated. Insensibility is a vain ostentation, when it is not a hurtful madness, which makes the evil worse instead of remedying it. His aim that offends is ordinarily to give distaste and to cause grief; which until he hath attained to, he cannot be quiet: and to overcome a feigned non-feelingnesse of grief, attempts a greater mischief. The operation of Virtue ought to be long, and slow, to make a difference between a habit and a violent passion. Singularity doth not become it; for either it makes it ambitious, and it changes full of, or affectation, and it grows faint and weak. Diogenes comes into Plato's house, he wonders that it is not a Tub: he sees his Bed, and is scandalised and offended, because it is soft: and when he was to go by it, not satisfied with contemning it, in a fierce, violent, and proud rage, treads and stamps upon it. The Germane Legions cry up Vitellius for Emperor, they see him necessitous of money; with the same heat and violence as they had from a private man raised him to be a Prince, they will also of poor make him rich, every one strives to bring him gold and silver, and whatsoever he hath, that is precious. The most wretched, that had nothing in his possession for the present to give, gave him whatsoever he had due to him. Tacitus considers the action, and to find out the form, he goes not to the matter, which is capable of contrary forms, he goes in quest of the Motor; and after he hath called it sometimes Inclination sometimes Violence, at last to show how adverse he is from esteeming it to be Liberality, he breaks out, and calls it by the name of Avarice.  
The female Sex, though endowed with a weak heart and very mean understanding, is also subject to impatience, as well as a very valiant man: I would say it were because the delicateness of the instruments that are subservient to the understanding, are likewise common to them with man, the moistness of the brain, and the softness of the flesh: were it not that those instruments are rather unsinewed and weak, than delicate: the moistness rather fluid than viscous: the softness rather watery than aereal. It will be peradventure more warrantable, to assign the cause of it to pride, and wrath, qualities which produce impatiency, and to which that Sex is very prone, And by means of the one, they communicate with men of great wit; by the other, with such as have a great heart. But if wrath be so predominant in women. how come they to want valour? Say that it is because their choler proceeds from a pallid Bilis, which abounds in that Sex, and being serous, and fluid, it yields no firmness nor consistency. And likewise that their spirits are movable, and few; because movable, they run swiftly to the heart, and quickly kindle the fire; because they are few, they cannot feed nor maintain it, and it goes quickly out. From hence doth female instability take its origine, those unquiet spirits letting go presently that which they have received, and being but few, they know not how to retain it. This may also be a reason why they do not hit upon the truth, unless it be on a sudden. They send those spirits suddenly to the brain; and if they be capable of apprehending the truth, they do it in that very instant: and if not, failing of new spirits, they want means to attempt a stronger operation, and so they do not find it: and if they have found it, yet they want spirits to discuss it, and so they lose it. Their brain either doth not reach to the truth, or it doth not stay and fix there. Many men also touched with such a defect, after they have found the truth, if they go about to bolt land sift it out carefully, do lose it: they have as many spirits as will reach to it, and not enough to follow and prosecute it. A most acute and learned Author gives another reason; Truth, saith he, is a most bright light, it suffers itself to be looked upon, but not to be examined. He that looks upon the Sun, sees it not at the first sight; but if he six his looks upon it, he loses both Sun and sight. This reason is more fair than sound, and is averred by an example more beautiful than fit. The thing which is too sensible, doth not appay the senses, but destroy them: their object is a mean, and too great a one is an enemy to them. The understanding runs towards the greatest intelligible, it doth not stand upon the mean one: neither doth any other truth limit it, than that which is unlimited. The distance which is between the material and the immaterial, takes away the proportion: to frame the example. The great sensible having taken possession of a sense, makes the knowledge of a lesser impossible for it, because it is a substance. The great intelligible makes it easy to the understanding, because it is a spirit.  
The Commonwealth of Rome might have taken a healthful Antidote out of this poison of Coriolanus, if they had kept him under a civil, not under a military Discipline: and if they had kept him under a military one, it should have been to obey, not to command. The City mended him, the Camp made him worse. Mortifications taught and directed him, applauses overthrew him. One may do amiss, through valour rooted in pride or in affection. One deserves punishment the other reward; the first is most pernicious to the Commonwealth, the other exceeding profitable. Time increases defect in the former; in the latter, virtue.  
Pomponius, Tribune of the people, accuses Manlius his son, which after was Manlius Torquatus, who though his father had distasted him, being advised rather by courage than by wit, tender in years, yet more tender in love, with a rural, yet affectionate resolution, comes out of the Country (where he dwelled continually) to the City, goes to the Tribunes house, calls him aside, and takes hold on him in such a manner, that he was not able to stir from him; and drawing a dagger, force's him either to promise to desist from his intention, and let fall his accusation, or to lose his life: The Tribune promises him, and desists. This case was divulged in Rome.: There was neither Plebeian, nor Patrician that blamed him. For his tememerity he had deserved death; for his love he was rewarded: they all hope he will (being instructed) learn to do that through the direction of virtue, which he had done by violence of Nature, and as much for his Country, as he had for his father. Where a man errs through valour and love, the matter deserves correction rather than punishment; and he that did it, deserves a reward rather than a penalty. Moses with this Character, full of divine zeal, kills an Egyptian, Peter cuts off Malchus his ear. The one is made the head of the old Law, conductor of the children of Israel and Pharaohs God: the other a head of the new law, a Pastor and head of the Church. Coriolanus his valour was grounded upon pride: for it could not be said it was grounded upon affection to his country, coming against it armed, and putting it into such straits, that it was very near lost.  
There are some defects in young men, which (I was going to say) are commendable, I will say, compatible; and some virtues (I will not say blame-worthy) yet are not to be desired. Where the action is not good because it is superabundant: and the error hath a kind of conformity with the years, time doth help, and it hurts where it is inconformable: and the sin is more in the quality than the quantity: more in the form than the matter. A tempetate liver in youth, is good for one to live healthful, to live long it is better to have it exceed in heat. It cools continually, & according as the man grows in years, it loses his superfluous heat, so that as the man grows old, it grows temperate. The hurtfulness of the excess is in the strength of age, which is able to resist it, & doth not kill. The profit of its temperateness is, when Nature hath most need of help, and sustains and assists it. But if the excess were in the quality of the heat, and in those years that it should be favourable, it should show itself nipping, whereas the one, because it always decreases with age, aught to be left to grow old; the other, because it always increases, must be rooted up: So those young men, who err through quantity of heat, should grow old in the City, and those extirpated, who precipitate by reason of their evil qualities. Of the first quality was Manlius Torquatus, and they reward him; of the second was the son of Brutus, and they kill him. If a young man of a fiery nature, be rash, the firecools, and before the time of operating comes, is reduced to a degree that he may operate well; but if he be prudent, cold being required for such an effect, and the temperament cooling with the increase of years, it may be feared, that before he arrives to the time in which he should make use of its virtue, he will degenerate into vice; and whereas in one case the rash man comes to attain true fortitude, in the other the valiant man becomes pusillanimous. Quintilian would have the Orator in his young age, rather bold than fearful: The latter would become cold, whereas the first years favouring him, will make him moderate. Boldness ought to overcome judgement, when it is time to learn; but when it is time to operate, it ought to be subdued. It will be more easy for Art to cool hardiness, than to heat judgement, because Nature is favourable to the one, and contrary to the other. All that which is violent, is difficult; yet with a difference between that which is against, and that which is conformable to Nature. One may easilier throw a stone toward the the Centre than the Circumference: for it is easier to follow than to oppose an inclination.  
If patience meet with greatness, or vigour of mind, it raiseth to that degree of glory towards which many with an unbridled insufferency (but in vain) directing themselves, find nothing but precipices. Suffering best befits him that can easiliest revenge himself, and gives most glory, where it finds greatest reputation. Where fear cannot be ascribed to baseness of heart, nor the not knowing, to dulness of brain; his contempt must be called magnanimity, and his dissimulation must be termed prudency. The least offences are not easiest to be endured, either because they most conceal the revenge, or because they sting more sharply, or because they are more frequently met with. These are they which ruin Princes, & overthrow Monarchies: they grow infallibly, and yet insensibly, and greatness coming in, gives no way to forbearance of revenge, without loss of reputation. There is a great difference between an offence being great at first, and its becoming such. One finds man cold, and free, the other heated and engaged: neither can he seem to grow careless of it, when it is grown up, that did not contemn it when it was but small. And having already lost the name of prudent, by prosecuting of it to that time, he will gain the name of Pusillanimous, if he than gives it over. A disease which becomes malignant by degrees, is more mortal than that which begun so. The Prince which will not bear with his subjects, endangers the changing his name of Prince, into Tyrant: and he that will not bear with strangers, endangers his kingdom to become a private man. A prince his own patience is not sufficient for the quiet of his kingdom, if his officers also be not endued with it, in whom it being equally requisite, it is far more difficult: A man may easily suffer in his own interests, who is impatient in his Lords. For the one, he hopes to reap glory and profit through his patience, and so bears. In the other, to gain it from revenge and so he puts forward. He that offends the Prince before his Officer, offends both the Prince and his Officer, whereby obliging him to two patiences, he makes the sufferance almost intolerable. These imagine that the zeal of their master's reputation moves them to a resentment, and oftentimes it is their own arrogancy, wherewith they embroil Princes, obliging them to wars, into which they are engaged more by others than their own impatiences; and this happens oftenest, where the States and Dominions are most remote. That remoteness which is most favourable to the Prince for his suffering, is contrary to the Officers. One doth not see the injuries, the other, the Prince.  
When Aristotle blames the Lacedæmonians for attributing every thing to the virtue of fortitude, said, that one virtue was not sufficient: and if one alone were to be chosen, Fortitude was not it. He named not that, to which he attributed the chief honour, if he had named it, in mine opinion, it had been patience, because virtually it contains all other virtues in it, as the seed doth both root, fruit, and stem. If moral virtues are ordained to good, in as much as they keep within the bounds of reason against the violence of passions, and when these do join with any vice, patience is the only guide of them, who can deny it to hold the first and supreme place amongst them?  
As the Physician cures the diseases of the body, so patience corrects the defects of the soul. They both work by removing the obstacles. I confess more like instrumental, then efficient causes. But if the Physician be said to occasion health, though it be not he, but nature; Patience shall likewise be called the productrix of all virtues.  
So that Coriolanus his impatience (for we must call him impatient, if we will not attribute the name of base to the Senate) put him in danger of his life; and though his great virtue, reverenced by the People, was sufficient to free him from death, yet by reason that was feared also, it was not able to keep him from banishment. One of the greatest and ordinariest errors, that crosses the good direction of Politic affairs, is that Princes and commonwealths either know not how, or through malignity will not, in time make use of that valour, which fortune hath abundantly bestowed upon some subject of theirs. Dominions are increased by the hand and means of a subject which is advantageously valorous and fortunate.  
Whose valour by bringing to pass the most difficultest enterprises, finds no obstacle able to resist it, all that he sees, he conquers: Whose fortune meets with no chance, but it proves favourable to him, all what he does not see is likewise assisting to him. Such a man is now and then borne in an estate of so low a degree, and himself so poor, that without ever doing any thing, or at least equal, or partly worthy, his fortune and valour; he dies inglorious, but seldom without leaving at least some little model, whereby others may as with prospective glass see what a Colossus they have neglected to build, through want of matter.  
That character which in a great statue attracts even the dimmest eyes to behold it, in a little one, is not seen many times by the most perspicuous sight. Sometimes also this man is borne in some conspicuous place, and of such a fortune, that at the very first flashing of his actions, he makes that beam shines out which lies enclosed in his breast. But those which rule Kingdoms, or govern Commonwealths, though they have good intentions, yet looking more upon the age then the fortune of the man, advancing him by degrees, seldom admit him to great affairs, where he might have performed some high and specially services, till it is too late, and he grown old, after he hath tired his fortune in actions of no moment, and his declining age hath made him good for little. To linger out fortune, of a great subject is a great error, yet not worthy of any severe punishment. Ignorance herein may be excused, Carelessness endured, but he that hinders it through envy, hatred and malice, calls God's wrath upon him; and sometimes sees it visibly come. Losing himself for want of him, whom he hath lost. Or to prevent his own ruin, bowing to him whom he hath despised.  
Such a man is happy, and by him his dominions, if he be borne a Prince. Most happy, if in such a time as enterprises are already set on foot, and he able to follow them. Or that obstacles be removed in such sort that they may not oblige him, to tyre his fortune upon them before he goes about them. If Henry the Fourth had found the Kingdom of France, entire, slourishing, peaceable within, and at wars abroad; as he found it divided, destroyed, unquiet, plunged in civil wars, what could he not have done with so much fortune and valour? he did much indeed, yet did he not a whit increase his dominions: He wasted himself in gaining his own, and when he begun to cast his mind upon other men's, both fortune and time failed him.  
If Gustavus King of Sweed could at the very first have employed all his fortune and power in Germany, and had not been entangled in the Muscoviters & Polish wars, I know not who could have hindered or crossed him from attaining to his vast and unlimited desires. If Alexander had been to begin the wars of Greece, & not found them, almost finished by his father, he had never come to be the Great, because he would not have had time to settle so great a Monarchy. By this means those King domes do much increase which successively meet with many warlike, valorous, & fortunate subjects, and by this means grew up the Turkish Monarchy. Assisting of confederates, is a great aid to the gaining of conquests, the violence of the enemy's fortune broken upon them, and tired out or ended, comes in relief; And by this means grew up the Commonwealth of Rome.  
Unhappy shall this our subject be, though irradiated with so many benign influences of the heavens, if he chance to be borne under a Tyrant. He hinders him, expels him, kills him.  
Tiberius overthrew Germanicus his fortune in Germany. Nero, Corbuloes in Armenia, Domitian Agricolaes' in England, and all of them the publicks fortune, because they would save their own? The Tyrant cannot think himself Lord, whilst he sees one before his eyes that should be so; and is so indeed by right, and nature; whereas the Tyrant is so but only by fortune. Indeed he is happy if he be borne under a Prince that hath his heart free; he runs into his familiarity, as the stone goes to the centre; The Prince receives him into it, as the defect doth superabundancy; both he, the Prince, and the state become happy. Wise and happy is that Sovereign, who knows how to join and add to the fortune which himself was borne in, a fortune to which another was borne.  
In free and sound Commonwealths it is a happiness for a man to be borne fortunate, and valiant, but not in corrupt ones; Envy, and Malice which were never rooted out of the Commonwealths of Greece, and particularly out of the Athenian, would not suffer it to come to that degree of greatness, to which the situation of the City, and valour of the Citizens did seem to promise to raise it.  
The Ostracism was the stone at which they stumbled. It persecuted the most eminent, and to do it with greater prejudice, whereas (if so be they feared such a man's fortune) they should have hindered and restrained it, they did not, but set it at liberty by banishing them, not only depriving themselves of so great an advantage, but also, and that for the most part giving it to their enemies; as if they had despised that fortune, and valour, when it was against them, which had affrighted them when it was on their side.  
This pestiferous worm came not into the Roman Senators minds, in a long time; and because it was a worm, it crept in with the corruption of the Commonwealth, wherefore finding it already great, it did not hinder the increase, but the lastingness of it.  
It is true that it quickly took root in the Tribunes, but because the People was free, they were fearful to deceive them; to the end that raging, and ignorant they should without being envious or malicious, work according to their envy and malice. But because the rage was quickly appeased, and gave way, that the light of truth, might of its own accord manifest itself, or that the Senate's dexterity should discover it, though it occasioned no small damage, and that more than once, yet it came not to that degree as it would have done, if it had been the People's so properly, as it was only by participation.  
He that will in our case see the Romans fortune, pass over to the enemy, in Coriolanus his person, let him consider the Volsci led by this man, with a more than Roman valour, and the Romans without him, more dastardly, and abject than the Volsci. And he that will see Envy and Malice punished, let him behold the Romans humbly suing at the obdurate conqueror's feet, making them know they were more indebted to a woman's tears for their Country's deliverance, then to their own valour or eloquence. How came the Gauls to conquer and take Rome, but because they found the City's fortune banished in the person of Furius Camillus; And what freed it again, but the return of him, whom they had exiled.  
Frances good fortune by sea, passed over into Spain with Doria, and with Bourbon their prosperity by land. Another time it was seen adhere to the Dukes of Guise, and Humene, if they had not sought to make it obedient to their own particular desires.  
Many have erred, because they have not in time known this fortune in their own Citizens, to make use of it: and many also because they have not perceived it in their enemies, to defend themselves against it. When they have seen it come against them, instead of shunning it like prudent, they have rashly gone to encounter it like foolhardy.  
When they should have followed the current of it, to keep it with them, they have opposed it to overthrow it. Hannibal's fortune came in its prime with him into Italy: like a fierce torrent it overthrew whatsoever withstood it. The Romans shockt with it four times, and it still increased: if they had persisted, they had been lost. They happened at last to put the managing of Martial affairs into the hands of Fabius Maximus, who thinking patience and circumspection more available in war then celerity and fury: not a purpose, but by chance, not knowing what he did, whilst he thought by military art to tyre out the Soldier's valour, he did wear out the General's fortune with a Politic document: I say by chance, because time, and occasion being changed, he rather obstinate then constant, would still persist in his first way of proceeding, did Prognosticate that the ruin of Rome would proceed from those things, from which its greatest increases had her beginning.  
He knew not that fortune there begun in Scipio, where it ended in Hannibal; and that it was time now to shock with that, which he had long given way to, and to put that fortune forward, which he meant to delay. Hannibal knew it, and did what he could to avoid the trial, to not shock against a budding and vigorous fortune, with his old, withered, and decayed success.  
The greatest conquests that ever the Romans had, were in the beginnings of their good fortune, while it was tender, and no way obstructed. The Carthaginians likewise availing themselves of Hannibal's fortune had notably advanced themselves. It gave them so much time, that had they not met with such an excessive power as they did, which was able to receive so many overthrows, without quite losing themselves, and overcome after so many losses first wearying out Hannibal's fortune, and then overthrowing it; they had doubtless attained to the Monarchy of the world. Wherefore Alexander's fortune was much to be admired, which being to last but a short time, happened to encounter with a Monarch would violently oppose it, and came to trial with it, not knowing how to give it way, to tyre it, and weary it out with delays.  
Coriolanus goes to Tullus, the head of the Volsci, relates his misfortunes to him, tells him what affronts had been offered him, exaggerates the longing desire of revenging them, desires assistance, with promise of victory. Tullus joyfully entertains him, put into hopes, doth assist him; mollified, gives him the command of the Army, and inconsiderate, commits the whole managing of the business to him.  
No sooner doth an object present itself to a man's eyes, by whose valour he thinks to free himself from any trouble, or obtain any great benefit, but presently he will give him whatsoever he can: and whatsoever he is not able at the present to give him, he promises more largely, than if he had already by his means avoided that danger which he seared, or obtained that benefit which he desired; because that a past evil loseth its terribleness, and a benefit already gotten its delightfulness. He values nothing he hath, to avoid that he would not should befall him, or to obtain that which he would have. He imagines he shall have all things, if he hath avoided the one, or gained the other, so he doth evil for the present, through deceitful hope of the future. And unfortunately manages what he hath in possession, through an erroneous opinion of what he desires. Sometimes a man shall find himself necessitated to suppress and bring down one, who had formerly done him service in oppressing of his enemy, or emulator: when he raised him, he had no thought of any thing but only of his desire. What he gave him, he weighed not but with the scale of passion. Even as a Physician that opposeth so much heat to a cold disease, as may be sufficient to drive the disease away, neither considering nature, whether it be able and strong, nor yet the season whether it be hot or cold, must with in a little while to control and oppose that heat which he himself hath caused: So he that raiseth a man as much as he thinks will be sufficient to oppress his enemy, making no reckoning of his worth, if it be great, or of the people's favour, if he chance to prove fortunate, will quickly become his emulator▪ & not long after that, his enemy. All is ill for him that gives, and sometimes also for him that receives. If the former hath not obtained what he desires, there comes repentance; if he hath obtained, and hath no more mind to give, there proceeds a weariness and loathing. If the other hath taken more than was given him, there is fear in him; if the people have assisted him, there is envy: So that a man is obliged either to leave that which he hath received, and so depart; or if he stay, to take that which was not given him.  
Coriolanus, who could not attain to that as he wanted, should have forsaken that which he had received; and rather absenting himself, leave a kind of admiration of him to survive, than abiding there, expose himself to envy, which to strangers is the way to precipice.  
Seneca received too much from Nero; he found his error too late, and bethought himself too late of retiring and leaving him. To conceal the fear of his Disciples brutishness, hath a recourse to Philosophy, and makes the cause of it to be his modesty; but Nero, to hide his cruelty and avarice, rejects his liberality, and under a pretence of justice, takes all again by cruelty. All Art and Cunning is vain for him that is not able to withstand and resist violence, and every thing proves successful to him that is able to use any force, and yet make men believe that he doth not commit any. He cares not for offering violence to the body only which is subject to him, he will also subject the mind, which is free, and to persuade he doth not do it where he can, he will endeavour to do it where he cannot.  
The people will exile Coriolanus; the Senate defends him; the people overcomes, the Senate mourns.  
Coriolanus comes a Conqueror to the Walls of the City, the people reputes, and would receive him: the Senate having altered its mind, would not admit him.  
A man works for some imaginary good, and oftentimes before he arrives to it, he stumbles at some evil which he did not think upon. Upon this the operator is at a stand dejected, thinking he was deceived also in that wherein he had guessed right. To remedy the evil which is already past, he deprives himself of the good which is to begin. For one, the time is past; and for the other, it is not yet come: He will correct the error when he hath already done all the hurt: He either changes the operation, or leaves it: if he changes it, he receives a new loss; if he leaves it, it doth not countervail that which he hath already received. Many times actions are begun when they should not, & given over when they should be most followed. An action ought not always to be intermitted, or left off, because it was ill done; nor always followed, because it is well done.  
He that finds prejudice in an action, runs presently to undo it. Nature inclines, and Art teaches us how to seek remedy from the contrary. But not every contrary is a remedy, that which is so, sometime is so concealed, that it seems to be a semblable.  
All the infirmities are not healed, and the reason is, because sometimes the nature, and sometimes the degree of the contrary, is unknown. When one should have recourse to the last of the forms, he flies for relief to the first of the qualities. Rational Physicians know, one ought to cure with the contrary, but they know not with which. They confound the diseases; they do not distinguish that which hath been brought in by the Essence from that which the Accidents only have introduced; the engendered from the altered. Opposed qualities are sufficient to expel the one, and the other requires a contrary fo●m.  
The Empyrickes, which will heal with the like, are deceived; either they cure not at all, or by a contrary. They say that one salt is a remedy for another, and do not consider that it doth not operate like salt, wherein consists the resemblance, but as the one is volatile, and the other fixed, from whence springs the contrariety. The Senate was the Fixed Salt, which cured the Commonwealth of Rome from the Volatile of Coriolanus. They will not consent to his return, whose banishment they bewailed. The people will have him recalled, whom they themselves had banished: their love to the Commonwealth, lest it should become a prey to the Tribunes, was the cause why the Senate defended Coriolanus, their own interest the cause why they pitied him. The same love, because they will not have it fall into his hands as a tyrant, makes them to not re-admit him now he is an enemy; and the same interest envies him now victorious. The fear which possesses the people, while he was a Citizen, is the cause they banish him. And a greater fear which they conceive of him, now he is an enemy, causes them to recall him. The most ordinary affections that take root in great ones, are Compassion and Envy; if they see their equal in an unhappy condition, they pity h●m; if happy, they envy him: the fear they have that the same thing may not befall them, makes them to pity him: the shame which possesses them, because they cannot reach to what he is attained stirs up envy in them. All is but an effect of equality. And though it may seem, that as more the corrival rises, the more he is to be envied: so likewise, the more he falls, the more he should be pitied. Yet this may not be true, seeing compassion may peradventure fail, as well as envy: which when the corrival is come to such a pitch of greatness, that he is quite beyond our reach, shame ceasing, (which is only in things possible) envy ceases likewise: So on the otherside, when the corrival is come to so low and unhappy a condition, that the other thinks it is impossible for him to fall so low; because the fear ceasing (which is not in things impossible) compassion likewise ceases. The same Coriolanus, whom the Senate compassionated in his miseries, envied him in his prosperities. Peradventure the harshness of this prank which he had played, together with his inbred valour; his having gotten foreign assistance, and his forgetting the love which he bore to his Country, might give the Senate cause enough to fear, that if he returned, he would become a tyrant, and the people who had driven him away, because he should not become one, now recalling him, did likewise make the world think, that being afraid of becoming a prey to the Volsci, they would accept of him.  
The people, to the utmost of their powers, make choice of subjecting themselves to their Countryman rather than to a stranger; but the Senate will rather submit to the enemy, than to their corrival: the different carriage of the Senate in this business, may also proceed from another cause. Coriolanus was valiant, free in speech, and surly; kinds of carriage which do not gain the love of the heart, though they overcome the understanding, & in a manner tyrannize over the will, causing themselves to be followed, like the Primum Mobile, rather drawing along, than enticing, or alluring. This is no violent motion proceeding from Nature; neither can it be called voluntary, because knowledge doth not precede it. Man goeth along in this motion, not against, but without his will, not knowing wherefore he goeth. He delights not in being carried away, and yet suffers it; he doth not love, but admire that thing which ravishes him, and obediently follows it, as its commanding genius. Of this kind of metal sometimes are favourites made, who by those as do not know this, are termed bewi●chers. Mne confess they know not the Devils cunning and yet they will pretend to penetrate into the secrets of Nature. If they meet with any thing they do not understand, they take away from one, to give to another; in one place they pull down, and in the other they raise: they abase themselves by seeking to rise: they call that Witchcraft which is a Gift; as if Nature could not, as well as the Devil produce wonderful things by Art in mixing actives with passives. This operation is mixed, as one should say, of violent, and of natural, of voluntary and involuntary; and thence it comes that it produces effects mixed of pleasure and distaste, of love and hate, with I know not what: of fear, accompanied with respect and admiration. The thing is beloved which ravisheth, and yet to be ravished, is hateful. We delight in him alive, whom we could wish, had not been born. We are glad to have him near, and yet should not be displeased to have him far from us; we can neither keep him, nor put him away, for we are willing both to have him, and to be without him. He that will thrive with his Lord, through his secret qualities, let him conceal the manifest ones; if the Genius be commanding, let him make himself obedient. How should Ebony cure the French Disease, and treacle the pestilent Fever, if their manifest qualities were not controlled?  
They would do as much prejudice with their extrinsecall qualities, as they would do good with their intrinsical form, What good would it do a Lord to see one lie at his feet, who should be seated above his head? If the getting above him, whom fortune of birth hath made equal to us, be one of the savouriest dainties that humane ambition feeds upon, what will it be to Lord it over them, to whom the nature of the Genius hath made us inferior. Whosoever observes this Rule, shall not need to fear any thing, but some extraordinary great accident which may produce some extraordinary violence: but seldom can we go against the genius: whence it comes, that some last always, and others are suddenly overthrown. Sejanus, after he had gained Tiberius his understanding, with commanding qualities, won his heart with obeying ones. But whether it were his outward quality of flattering and obsequiousness, that moved him, or the inward quality of his ambition and genius that drew him to it, he could not constantly persevere to the last. He made Tiberius for a while to stand in doubt, it seeming unto him that he did bu● stagger, at last finding no outward violence to overthrow him, he produced it in himself, going so far with his open qualities, that he took all power from the secret ones. Neither yet did Tiberius know how to free himself; he desired others should do it, sometimes calling upon the Senator's authority, and sometimes secretly upon Macro his malice, as one that will and will not, or would and durst not. The people of Rome endured the commanding Genius of Coriolanus. They loved him even at that time also, when suing for the Consulship humble and mild, he controlled the manifest qualities of pride, and harshness, so hurtful to him though deriving from him.  
And though he by and by after returned to his own nature, yet did not the people know how to free themselves from him, being as it were bewitched to him; if the Tribunes violence, had not opposed itself to the Semi-violence of Coriolanus his imperious Genius.  
The Senate which felt not the burden of such a kind of Character, because it did not the prejudice of the manifest qualities which proceed from it: though it made use of him sometimes for defence of the Common-wealth against the enemies, sometimes for their own against the People, yet were they fain to make use of the Tribunes violence, to be well rid of him: And▪ when he was driven away, they violently opposed the Tribunes, because they should not bring him in again.  
So much did this Genius prevail when it was present, and lose when it was absent. He that subjects himself to it, desires not to be freed, nor return into subjection, when he is free,  
I know not how truly Plutarch guessed, when he considered of the People's love, and hatred, towards Coriolanus and Alcibiades: in his Judgement there proceedings therein and usage of them was different. The ambition was the same, yet more tolerable in the Greek, because profitable, more blame worthy in the Roman, because Prejudicial. The former causing himself to be beloved, even when he did hurt, and the latter, gaining ill will, and being abhorred even when he did good.  
The ends which move men to seek the highest degrees of honour in their own Country are many times different, and for the most part contrary. Some aspire thereunto for their own proper interests, to make themselves eminent, and conspicuous above the rest. And some again for no other end but for the good of their Country and to be able to do great matters in the behalf of it. The one is always a vice, and is termed ambition, the other, when it is not a virtue, may be called pride. The first aiming at a vicious end, it cannot seem strange, if he proceeds towards it by such means; he flatters bows to the People, and vili●ies himself to grow great, not refusing to do any thing, be it never so base and servile, so it may but avail him towards the obtaining of domination. The last raiseth nor his fortune by any such means, virtue will not give way to it, nor Pride will not suffer him: Caesar, and Alcibiades were of the first, Cato and Coriolanus may be numbered amongst the latter. And if Plutarch looking upon Coriolanus his actions with a Greek eye, would not attribute unto him the name of magnanimous, and valiant: yet he might have termed him proud, but not ambitious.  
From such different ends, proceeds a divers manner of operating; from the divers operation, are produced various effects, in the people, and in those to whom they are done.  
Flattering bending, and humbling one's self, increases love in the People, and at the same time diminishes the conceit of him that does so; it detracts from his Majesty, and therewithal make him not so much to be admired. The people rejoice at it, because it is for their profit: but though they desire those men should be so, whom they make choice of to love; yet they do not desire them to be such whom they in end to revererce. So that when they will make choice of one to command them, they will choose him rather whom they admire, then him they love. Doing of great actions without flattering, or bowing to the people causes admiration in their breast, it does not suffer a tender love to take root in their hearts, but instead thereof it oftentimes breeds an awful love in them; for as Majesty cannot put on tenderness without abasing itself, so cannot a man put on Majesty without altering himself.  
But these loves are too different. The one resides in the concupiscible, the other in the intelligible part. The one is towards his equal, and if he be not so, it makes him so, and requires mildness. The other seems to be towards one's superior, and requires majesty.  
The first hath the person for its aim, the second his virtue. The tender love loseth itself or diminisheth, when the subject becomes Majestical; the awful and respectful love, when he comes to be low. The one easily turns to contempt, the other many times is changed into hatred. How could the name of marriage please Messalina in Siluius, without the Empire, while she could not enjoy him as a husband, unless he became Emperor? Peradventure she knew that the Majesty of that degree would take away the Adulterers love, and chan●e hers. That contempt would creep into Siluius his love, and reverence into hers; That she should be obliged to respect, where she only loved, and change the tenderness of affections, into obsequiousness of esteem. How could the Tribunes suspect Coriolanus for tyranny, seeing he had quite lost the People's hearts, by the harshness of the prank he had played them; if they had not feared, he would have made himself Master of their understandings by the greatness of of operations? Who spoke more freely to the Tribes, and more sharply rebuked them then our Saviour Christ, yet knowing that by virtue of the great miracles which he had wrought, he had bred in them an awful and respectful love, he goeth away, because they should not proclaim him King.  
Those who flatter the People, either are not at all called to command, if they be, they do not continue in it. He that attains to it by a tender love, let him prepare strong force to keep himself in, lest contempt and repentance beat him out again. He that is come to it through a respectful love, may by the same maintain himself in it. The people being once brought under obedience by the commanding genius, will commit no outrage, nor use any violence, unless it be first used to them. Alcibiades exceeding eloquent, acceptable in the People's sight, being accused dares not appear to defend himself. Coriolanus rough, and as unskilful in all good arts, as he was enemy to insinuations, hateful to the People, appears rather vaunting, then defending himself: resolved to make manifest the greatness of his mind and spirit rather than his innocency.  
He distrusts the love of tenderness that often uses to transform itself into contempt, and confides in that respectful love that admits not of contempt. He fears not hate, which is also compatible with such a kind of love; not that the being angry with a great virtue, totally excludes the reverencing of it, it floating lightly over any thing that is not pestilently produced by the grossness of ignorance or rancour of malice.  
What would Coriolanus have had more? How came it that he did not know himself in the highest point of the Epicicle, when he showed his fortune superior to Rome's, and the altering of hers at his disposal; when he had seen his emulators at his feet and his enemies at his discretion: when he had at the same time obtained the sweet taste of revenge; and the magnanimus honour of not having taken it? But this not knowing how to retreat is a thing as common to great subjects, as the desire itself of retiring.  
In greatest motions they discourse of rest, and amidst most turbulent business of a vacancy. Therein do they place their felicity, and it is in their hands to attain to it, and yet they do not. Peradventure they would rettire with satisfaction, and believe they shall, and put it off till that time, and still there is something wanting, that they can never attain to that satisfaction nor yet retiring; and being deceivers of themselves, live in continual trouble and motion: enjoying no other rest or peace, but a vain hope, and chimerical imagination that they shall enjoy it.  
Sometimes again it is neither deceit nor ignorance, but aught to be imputed to generosity of heart, and constancy of mind. If fortune, though never so great, cannot be given over with satisfaction, yet fear must at last make it be abandoned; and if to attain unto it, is required, an enforced valour, an undaunted mind, a breast of steel; who can forsake it cowardly, that hath valiantly attained to it? He will pretend to be master of it, and will believe that it cannot change nor alter: He will imagine himself superior to it, and will not be daunted at it, though it do change.  
He will believe it firm, and yet will be glad to have it alter; not refusing to avoid the disgust of a calm. to launch himself into a tempestuous sea, choosing rather to run with hazard, than not to stir at all: and will be willing to struggle with contrary winds rather than see himself abandoned by prosperous ones. Man's life is a Warfare, take combating from him, and you take away life; neither is that taken away, but changed, an in●ernal enemy using to step in, when an outward one fails, and a civil war commonly succeeding a foreign one. But grant there be a great subject of so calm a mind, as will be content with the estate wherein he finds himself how will the content last, if the state doth not? and how shall not the one change, if the other changes continually? Fortune hath no nail to fix it: if it doth not go forward, it must go backward. Renown hath a worm in its entrails, which never leaves gnawing: it is scarce born, but it begins to diminish: when flying it is once come to our notice, the mouth doth not speed it away, as the ear received it, we naturally add somewhat of our own to it, to the end, that it may gain as much going, as it loses standing still: yet inwardly it diminishes, even as a man, who be he never so well fed in his youth, and seeming outwardly to grow, yet inwardly he every moment dies infallibly and remediless. The glory of man remains amongstus, when his carcase remains soulless: it extends further, 'tis true because envy ceases but it diminishes in itself, because compassion grows up, and afterwards contempt. A torrent which in time of rain runs most violently & stately, bearing down trees by the roots, and tearing up stones and rocks the sky being cleared up, is foordable by every passenger: his greatness is no more admired, his pride is, being so extreme in him, who within a few hours was to be reduced to so wretched a condition: So the mighty man, after he hath by valour won many battles taken Cities, overcome Nations, and filled the universe with the report of his glory, when Atropos cuts off the thread of his life, instead of obtaining praise, he stirs up admiration, men wondering how so much vanity and pride should reign in a body, which would shortly become the putrified food of stinking worms. As if the whole world could not have contained that body, which within a small time was to be enclosed within a few palms of the basest element.  
Envy follows humane glory, it shows where it is it doth not leave i● till it is not, it devours him that feeds it, and feeds him whom it would destroy. It increases and diminishes not at that sweetness which should produce satiety, adding acrimony to it, which revives the appetite.  
The glory of the dead runs; but coldly. It remains in the world, but withered, and wanting novelty, is not looked upon by reason of its oldness. Death gives a great blow, but the civil death gives the greater; it doth not utterly extinguish envy as the natural doth; nor doth not like it counterpoise that which it takes away, with the sense which it hath taken away. No marvel then, if others avoid retiring, because they will not strive with it.  
Death cannot stay and nail fast fortune's wheel from descending, yet it stays it that it may not precipitate. And seeing it very seldom lasts a man's age; happy is that man that lasts but fortune's time. And because the time of the one is not measured, and the others life is only looked after, we sometimes complain of death for pulling up of that green, when we should thank it, for gathering it when it is ripe. It is favourable to him whom it cuts off, when he is grown up into a high degree, and but newly arrived to it. It makes him to be imagined of infinite virtue, because it hath not been measured, nor the end of it seen. It attributes unto him the glory of that which he hath nor yet done, when peradventure he would have lost that which he had already gotten.  
Death which is one to all men, is not equally favourable to all, she cuts off one before he is ripe, she lets the other hang till he falls off rotten; and gathers but few in the flower of their ripeness. It is a great fortune to die, when fortune is at highest. One cannot long stand at a stay, it is impossible to advance, and to decrease is of necessity. He that cannot receive this favour from the original, let him seek it from the copy, and he that cannot die, let him retire, for any thing is better than to precipitate.  
If the Summum bonum of the body Politic were as manifest as that of the humane, and that we did know as well what fortune requires, as we know what nature desires; we might when we come to such a state leave for a time, and return to take it again, but knowing neither of both, few yield, when, what and so much, as they should yield. It seemed to a fortunate man, to be come to the height of happiness and to such a pitch, that he was to fear a downfall  
To avoid it, he throws a most precious gem into the Sea. E'er long it was brought to his Table again in a Fish's belly; fortune returned him that which he had given her, because it was not that which she would have had; he joyfully receives it again, and takes that for a favour which should have served him for an instruction.  
Coriolanus that could not leave his fortune, left his life: this happens for the most part to strangers, that have been called, or of themselves have crept up to the highest eminencies of a Commonwealth. The most valiant have lost their lives, the weakest have been banished; If there is in a Commonwealth an eminent Citizen, as Tullus was amongst the Volsci, when Coriolanus came in amongst them; as Agis was in Sparta when Alcibiades came thither, as the Prince of Orange was in Holland, when the Archduke Mathias, the Duke of Alencon,, and the Duke of Lancaster were called in there. Either they come in of themselves, by promising of some great mat●ers; and if they come off of their engagement well, they are sent away with admiration, if ill, with disgrace.  
Where they are brought in, they send them away too. If it were in case of necessity, when that is past, if it were to deceive any one, after that was performed: if to be deceived, when they were undeceived. When there is not in the Commonwealth any one Citizen more eminent than the rest, and in respect of domestic discords, they call in some noble man of great blood to govern them, or in regard of foreign wars, they send for some eminent Soldier to command them; let this man either prepare himself to be nothing at all our Lord and Master, or an exile: and because there are none that will be nothing, it being repugnant to an ambitious nature, and it being a hard matter to become Lord, being men greater in repute, than power, he must expect either from jealousy, banishment, or from fear, death. But if strangers be easily driven away, they are also as easily called in; for the opinion which fortune frames in absence and far off, is greater than that which one being present doth frame of himself, bearing along with it the greatness of the actions, without the abjectness of the matter. Because their object is more pure conceived by means of the ear, then by means of the eye; that which is heard, then that which is seen. For a man's actions represented by fame all at once, leave a kind of astonishment, whereas the other, being seen one by one, languish, the second being scarce come forth before the other be either dead or mortified.  
Because the Citizen discovers the defects in his youthful age, which defects leave behind them, if not a wound, yet at least a scar; from which thing the stranger is free, who only manifests and discovers himself in that which is perfect; Because envy hath no place in the former, nor admiration in the latter.  
Finally, it is peradventure with a truer and more ordinary, though a more concealed, and deep reason, for the natural instinct of hoping for greater remedy in our affairs, from the greater difficulty in attaining to it, following therein nature itself, which hath most concealed, and made less store of those things which are most precious, and given most glory to the hardest achievements.  
As for example, there grows an herb at our very foot, and a man stands close by us, the herbs are medicinal, and the man able to heal us, and defend us: Yet we will seek for such in remote countries, as if all our good consisted rather in the difficulty of obtaining, then in the quality of things: nature having imprinted in us, the genius of despising what is obvious & known, to believe that which is most obscure, to hope for that which is most difficult, to admire that which is furthest off, to make all that is great difficult to us, either because it hath made it so, or because we make it so to ourselves.  
Under a Prince it is not impossible, but it seldom happens, that a stranger should arrive to a chief degree of honour, unless the Prince be a Tyrant; or that he should continue there, unless the Prince become one. With the loss of life he concludes his being a favourite, if he doth not maintain himself in it by multiplying of banishments, and slaughters.  
But if the Prince be a Tyrant, such a one may often arrive to it, because the Tyrant fears the Citizens, and the favourite may continue, because the other makes him to be feared.  
Finally, Tullus through Jealousy, Malice, and hatred born to Coriolanus his virtue, under pretence that he had not prosecuted his enterprise to the destruction of his country, caused him to be murdered by a conspiracy of some who were his adherents.  
A man's Country hath in it a retentive quality for such as are borne in it, and an attractive one, for such as are travailed out of it. This consists in the pleasure and delight which the providence of Nature always communicates to needful things, and also in the air, the temperament, the influences, in the virtue, which the place afforded to the thing which is placed in it, and peradventure in a man's being used and accustomed thereunto, as much as in any thing else.  
The efficacy and force of this last being full of contrarieties, is hard to understand, and unfold. Sometime you shall hear the Philosophers say, that the understanding dejects and dulls itself in a known thing, and greedily turns to a new one. Sometimes you shall see an opinion laid hold of, which will not be left to turn to any other, although it be new.  
The sense of tasting is tried with assuefaction, and desires change of food. The same happiness in the sense of feeling; and likewise in the sense of smelling. The sense of seeing will seem to be glutted with the sight of a thing, and another which is not so beautiful, will seem fairer to it, because it is new. Sometimes a man being accustomed to one manner of clothing, will hardly be brought to another fashion, but it will seem ridiculous to him, and sometimes also he will change for it, as for a better. In moral things one shuns (God a mercy custom) that as a vice, which another embraces as a virtue.  
It is hard to find out any thing that will make a man love his own destruction. Hence grows the detestation of a contrary, though it have novelty to take its part. The understanding flies towards it, because its object is not only truth, but all truths, and as such it turns to it: if it finds it contrary, it turns from it as false, and as from an enemy. In fashions of clothes, the sight will not endure a fashion much discrepant from the wont and accustomed one, and the fashions altering daily, the change is not very sensible; whereby a man comes to be satisfied and persuaded by the novelty, without hitting upon (unless it be in a very long time) the contrary, which he would abhor. The taste feeds upon food, which in the beginning is unlike, but in the end semblable: the long use of it, makes the body like unto it, and consequently diminishes the delight, seeing the appetite would have the unlike: but yet you shall not see it for all this, run to that which is quite and immediately contrary. Assuefaction also likewise makes a great difference in the senses, namely, where they are merely spiritual, or any way material: for this helps satiety, and diminishes the taste, which may manifestly be perceived in the selfsame beauty, sometimes seen, and sometimes enjoyed.  
All the love Nature hath put in man towards his native Country, cannot hinder him from being drawn out of it either by necessity, interest, or ambition, or any other powerful motive. And truly, as for a man's health, when all other remedies fail, they use change of air; so for an averse Fortune, it is good to change the Climate: The air nurses the spirits, and with them (I had almost said) changes the understanding, because it altars its chief Instruments. Food causes a new temperament, and therewith new behaviours. The Climate changes the Influences, these the Inclinations, and all altered together, make an alteration of Fortune. Many go without it, because they will not follow it, and many because they cannot find it, forsaking sometimes that vocation in which they had it, and sometimes not discerning the true place where they might have attained to it. Most part are of opinion, that travel makes many worthy men: I see the effect of it, but cannot as yet discern whether it be a cause, or a signe and token of their worth. A cause, if by reason that one seeing himself destitute of many means, is forced to make use of his own virtue, which restrained between contraries, increases the more. A sign, if to overcome the many allurements of ones native soil, and forsake it, is required a great spirit, a valiant and magnanimous heart, whereby a man may come to attain to eminent glory.  
I believe there are but few so wicked, as to become enemies of their Country, though they may be enemies to those who prevail therein, and govern it. But seeing the Inhabitants are those who make a City, and not the Walls, he that is an enemy to them, seems, if not directly, yet indirectly, to be an enemy to his Country. By this deceit of believing that the hatred which one bears to the Prince, or Magistrate that governs, or to a predominant faction, be hating of the Country itself, or the City, many foreign Princes, and Commonwealths have suffered themselves to be deceived; who should first attentively have considered the causes & motives of those who have persuaded them to commence war against their own Country; assuring them, that whensoever those men have satisfied their own passions, they will forsake them.  
Many may be the causes which move a Countryman, or Citizen, to such disturbances; whereof desire of revenge is none of the least, when he becomes obliged thereunto by some great matters, which do breed hatred all at once as it uses to be against the cruelty, avarice, and luxury of the Prince, when the subjects are prejudiced in their lives, goods, and reputations. If the shame or damage meet with a stout and valiant spirit, it will never be appeased without revenge: And it is good fortune when he finds things in such a condition, that he may accomplish his intention with a conspiracy, by killing or expelling the Tyrant, which many times may prove to be rather for the good then hurt of his Country. As when Brutus expelled the Tarquin's for the rape of Lucrece, and Lucius Virginius procured the death of Appius Claudius, for defiling his daughter. For if these men's way be obstructed, that they cannot come to work their revenge themselves, they study how to make use of some others power: whence come the ruins not only of Princes, but also of whole States and Monarchies. So passed the Medes, Monarchy to the Persians, when Arpagus having no other means to revenge himself of Astyages, did set his Grandchild against him. A Prince may therefore securely take their parts who rise against their own Country, by reason of an irreconciliable hatred which they bear him that governs.  
Ambition and Interest are likewise principal causes for men to bring in foreign forces against their own Country, differing from hatred, because they are moved rather for some good to themselves, than for any prejudice to others. These causes incited many persons in the revolutions of France, sometimes to return to the places whence they had been driven, sometimes to obtain dignities, sometime to recover those which they had lost. If the Country also be in Arms, the conquest of it will hardly be obtained, if they will not have strangers become Lords thereof converting the fruits of the victory to the welfare of the discontented, changing but one enemy for another: the Princes being so by reason of the estate which they possess, and they become such that conquer it. The Guises whilst they thought they might adorn their Temples with the Crown of France, never forsook the Catholic Kings side; and as soon as they found the contrary, they forsook him. Great are the hopes which discontented persons conceive, and their maintainers: and those hopes being divers, if not contrary and hard to be concealed, quickly bring forth distastes: They go on increasing in the discontented these and by the same degrees they abate in the enemy, who seeks to appease the discontented with cunning & fair promises, the business serving them (if for no other end) to cause distrusts, which bring the subjects out of their resolutions into perplexities. Perplexity breeds suspicion, suspicion new distastes, and distastes breaches. Where jealousies once take root, we must not hope for any proceedings: the weakest do not so much wish for, as fear victories, and desire rather to obstruct than promote them. It sufficeth not that thou promise them that they shall have whatsoever shall be gained, if so be it must rest in their courtesy to give it: because in matters of State, none will trust to men's wills, if they be not obliged by force, or persuaded by some interest.  
There are some cases, in which it is convenient to be content with the loss which is received by the wars, and leave all the profit to ones friend. As when he settles him into his Country, with change of form, seeing it may be hoped, that his friendship is sincere in him who is so settled, because he is to be maintained in it against those who governed formerly. True it is, that the memory of that benefit, and therewithal the sincerity of the friendship, will last until such time as they can find means to secure themselves, without having need of his assistance. Then the least present interest cancels all former obligations, it seeming to many, that even benefits suffer prescription by the length of time; and being once grown old, do no longer bind to gratitude. The Spanish Monarchy hath more than once had experience of this misfortune, yet such a custom ought not to be left off, whensoever occasion shall present itself: Seeing the Politician ought not to look after eternity but many times be content with that, which profiteth him but for a time, and only for the present, so it do not bring any prejudice for the future along with it.  
To divide a kingdom amongst discontented persons, whose power may afterward be feared, seems to secure the firmness of of the side, and quietness of the State: but if he meet with subtle and witty subjects, that will not be dallied with, by fallacies of the present, they will know well enough, that those who have been able to divide a kingdom when it was entire can subdue it when it is divided. Philip the second was blamed because he did not take this course: but the wisdom of those of the house of Guise, was not easily deceived with slights, nor could they be appeased with a part. Those eminent and valiant subjects knowing well enough that they could not cancel the name of disturbers of their country's peace with any other name, but the name of King.  
There are likewise sometimes such extremely turbulent brains, that without any instigation of hatred, wrath, interest or ambition, have an irregulate desire of troubles and innovations: Enemies to whatsoever is, always contriving against the present government, in behalf of changes. Kingdoms yield more such spirits than Commonwealths: for he that goes about to prejudice liberty, thinks he goes against his own Country; and he that seeks to ruin a kingdom imagines he goes against another's Such a one was that julian who brought the Moors into Spain. The occasion which he pretended for the rape of his daughter, was already past, and he did this but only out of a mere and sudden desire of innovation which made him hasten to it on so fast. He that is called in by such kind of men, may be sure he shall not be abandoned, nor forsaken.  
Factions are also causes of bringing in strangers into a country, whether they strive one against another for the Government, or being both under one government, are only at odds amongst themselves; That side which sees itself oppressed, presently calls in the stranger, to raise itself over its corrival, and be revenged. They are both good occasions for thee to undertake, one with more security, and the other with more profit, because the latter calls thee in to make thee Lord, and the former that thou mightest make him Lord.  
There is another kind of faction in Kingdoms, Cities, or Provinces which is an enemy to those who are in authority, because it was obliged to those who formerly had the government, and this uses to be, where the Government hath been altered: as it was for a long time seen in Naples, between the Arragonian and Angiovin faction; And in this case he that is called in, may be more confident then in any other: especially if he have but any chimerical conjunction or affinity with those that were once Lords there.  
To take away the privileges of a Country, giveth occasion to call in strangers, not with an intent to make them Lords, but only to have their assistance in framing their Commonwealth, as the Low-Countries did making use of Germans, French, and English, and driving away all those whom they thought might any way aspire to principality.  
If you assist such to free them from their Lords, you need not fear that they will forsake you, but if you should pretend to rule over them yourself, you would find a hard task of it, unless their rebellion did proceed from hatred, to which choler being joined, there grows such a rage in the People, as causeth unadvised operations, wherein they proceed so far, before reason steps in, that they find themselves so deeply engaged, that they cannot give back, but are forced to follow as they begun for fear of ruining: and expose themselves to any condition, though it be far worse than their first, so it be not that which they had freed themselves from. With these one must be quick, and make sure work, before they return to their right understandings.  
There be also two ways to help strangers, when they are called in; the one is with forces, and that gives way to repentance, the other no way admitteth of any. Of the first we have spoken already: the second is, when the state hath some secret weakness, by means whereof it may be conquered; or when the preservation of it consists in some strong hold: and in this case there will be traitors found, interest may and will produce them; as also a sudden wrath or disdain, where an evil may be done in an instant, is able to make him become a Traitor, who never had an intent to be one, because that hurried on by a sudden and violent passion, rather than by any premeditated will, he will past all remedy, the attempt consisting in an action so swift, and mortal, that it may be performed at the very first dash, and being once performed it brings sudden ruin, which admits of no repentance.  
Alcibiades provoked against the Athenians, teaches the Spartans' how they should fortify the City of Decelea with walls, and put a garrison into it, if the ruin of his Country had consisted wholly in this, as it did in part, it had been ruined, and yet that first rage and violence of wrath being abated, when Tisaphernes would have destroyed it, he would not permit it. Coriolanus in his fury leads on the Volsci to the destruction of Rome: his fury being allayed, he desists.  
These repentings happen under Commonwealths sooner than under Kings, as well because the Country (as we said before) is judged as alien in a princely government, as also by reason that in a Commonwealth a subject seldom receives disgust from a whole City. Where there be factions of Nobles and Plebeians, the one is always in his favour, and by him affected, which will not suffer him to run precipitously to revenge.  
For this cause did peradventure Coriolanus, more than in pity of his Mother's tears, abandon the thoughts of ●uining his country. A stranger can repose but little confidence in such manner of subjects, if he doth not mean to give them the command, nay (I may so say) not if he would do it, as may be seen in Alcibiades, Themistocles, and Coriolanus.  
When I attentively consider the fashions and carriage of Coriolanus, I find them to be not much unlike Cato's, and worthy of greater glory: in as much as this last quite overthrew the Commonwealth, when peradventure he might in part have saved it, the other bore it up, when it lay in his hand to destroy it. Inflexibility or peradventure cruelty; Freedom of speech, or malice; Constancy in operating or peradventure obstinacy, Contempt of wealth and glory, or it may be hypocrisy; Greatness of mind, in not bowing to the People, or peradventure pride, Love of liberty, which might be hatred of the Tyrant, or envy, these were the virtues so much commended in Cato, and I find them almost all in Coriolanus, and valour in a more sublime degree joined to them. Cato had an intent to defend the Commonwealth from the power of one man alone; Coriolanus from all men's. It was just in both, and peradventure the cause equal, but not equally beseeming.  
The one would have a decrepit man grow young again; The other would not have a young man grow decrepit. In Cato's time the Commonwealth was total perverted, confounded, and full of discord, so far from its ancient institution, that it was impossible to bring it to it again. In Coriolanus days it was not far digressed from its ancient customs, and might easily have been reduced to them again.  
In the former's time the wisest men were of opinion that the only cure of the commonwealth was to reduce it into one man's hand. In the latters, that the best remedy was to keep it out of the hands of the people, that it might not perish. They both lost the Consulship, because they would not flatter; Caesar causes hands to be laid upon Cato, to carry him to prison, and for shame will not suffer him to be brought thither. Sicinius the Tribune takes hold of Coriolanus with intent to cast him down headlong from the Tarpeian rock, and repenting, surceases, Coriolanus is banished, Cato exiles himself. Cato joins with Pompey, more for rage, & in hatred to Caesar, than being persuaded thereunto by the love of his country, or zeal▪ of the Commonwealth, which he well knew would be the conquerors prey; and most to be lamented, if it became his, who was the more cautelous and concealed, and peradventure the worse man. What wonder is it then, if Coriolanus likewise enraged against the people, seeing the Senate vilified, & finding, no Pompey to side with, joins with Tullus? They exalt their own Citizens, the one with Romans, the other with Volscians. Cato is overcome, Coriolanus conquers. If the other had been victorious, it had not much strengthened the Commonwealth, neither did it lose itself, because this overcame. If the Nobility had followed Coriolanus, as it did Cato either he had returned into Rome victorious, and established a better form of Government; or being conquered, had left a more lasting Government behind him. Cato dies, because he could not make the City free. Coriolanus, because he would not bring it under subjection.  
If any man wonders that I should compare Coriolanus to Cato, let him in the first place, and much more admire, that Plutarch should compare him to Alcibiades, the one was altogether effeminate, the other manly. The Greek soft, and tender with Socrates' education, savoured of a School. The Roman harsh, and hardened, brought up in the camp, was composed of nothing but war. The first was ambitious, the last proud. One severely flattered the people, the other free, opposed them. Alcibiades framed himself to all men's fashions, Coriolanus intended to frame every one to his humours. One was beautiful, eloquent, and subtle; with his beauty, alured, with his eloquence persuaded, and with his subtlety deceived. The other stern in aspect, rough in speech, single in heart, alured not, persuaded not, nor did not deceive. Alcibiades loses himself like a vain man; Coriolanus like a solid. In their banishments, and in their deaths, wherein they seemed to be most like one another, they were contrary. They were both exiled, it is true, but one, because he would alter the form of the Commonwealth, the other, because he would not have it altered. They were both killed, I confess it, but Alcibiades for hatred of his vices, Coriolanus for envy of his virtues.   


A Table of the chief heads discoursed upon in the Life of ALCIBIADES.  
Man's desire is to live in the memory of posterity; choosing rather to survive infamous, then to be choir forgotten. p. 1.  
men's vir●ous actions ought not to be recorded in Histories. p. 4  
Whether vice and virtue, proceeds from the Patents inclinations, or from the influence of stars, or the temperature of the climate in which a child is borne p. 6  
Whether by a child's actions one may judge of what his disposition will be when he comes to be a man 15  
Defects many times illustrate the perfections which are in a man 24  
Fear the strongest and most prevailing passion. 28  
Alcibiades embraces learning to foment his Ambition 31  
Alcibiades takes away half Nicetus his plate. 33  
The cause why Nicetus takes it patiently 33  
Alcibiades contemns the gifts of the Athenian Nobles, and accepts a country fellows. p. 36  
The reason thereof 37  
Of what nature the reciprocal love was, between Socrates and Alcibiades 38  
An outward beauty argues not inward virtue. 40  
A young man cannot naturally be wise, and in an old man wisdom decays 45  
Whether one may pass immediately from speculation to practise 46  
Divines seldom good Politicians 48  
Discourse unnecessary in speculative Sciences 49  
Experience Mistress of Policy 51  
Great difference between being extravagant by election, and being such naturally 56  
Seldom any grief but hath some pleasure in it: Or any joy without some grief 59  
Alcibiades no sooner admitted to the government of the Commonwealth, but presently he sals at odds with Phaeaces and Nicias 61  
Emulation and Necessity, Gaine and Glory, were produced by Nature, to keep men from idleness 61  
Why man's Emulation never ceases 62  
The name of Liberty is commonly misunderstood. 65  
Whether manifest opposition, or supplanting insinuation will soon ruin a man 66  
Open opposition dangerous at first only 68  
Growing powers easily kept from rising: but grown, hardly brought down 69  
Alcibiades, and Nicias being put upon the Ostracism, it falls upon Hyperbosus, a most vicious man 71  
Inconveniencies of overmuch providence 74  
Both the Nobles and the vulgar hate a great man, but for different reasons 77  
Why the Commonwealth of Athens grew not to such a height as the Roman 77  
Ostracism ill executed 79  
The power and efficacy of union 80  
Inconveniencies of banishing one great man, and leaving another at home 82  
Aristotle mistaken in the description of an excellent man 83  
Ways to suppress greatness. 85. yet all vain 88  
Powerful Subjects must be punished with death, or not at all, 88  
Ostracisine an absolutely pernicious law. 89  
Whether he that knows his own worth, he that knows it not, or a worthless man, be most dangerous in a Commonwealth 90  
Ingratefulness oftentimes springs from the delaying of gratitude 97  
Vices have sometimes appearance of virtues 98  
Too much circumspectness sometimes is hurtful. 105  
A third may moderate two contraries, if he participates of both, otherwise not 107  
Whether man be most pious in prosperity, or in adversity 109  
Some are naturally treacherous, some become so upon occasion given them 114  
Great difference between revenging a wrong, and vindicating one's reputation 114  
A man's presence continues love, and his absence causes it to be forgotten. 117  
Envy and pusillanimity inseparable 121  
Vices suddenly changed into virtues; give great cause of suspicion 123  
A Paradox concerning Luxury and Incontinency 126  
Faults and errors are many times better connived at, than reprehended 132  
Some natures will gain the love of all sorts of men 133  
An advice contrary to likelihood, is seldom accepted of 135  
Aloibiades takes Selibria by a stratagem 138  
A sudden resolution works wonderful effects. 139  
Nature seldom bestows valour and sagacity upon one person 142  
Policy is an Art by itself, which no man hath yet rightly learned 144  
Cato unapt for Sciences, and in what manner. 145  
An emulous equal carp at his corrivals skill, an inferior emulator at his person 146  
A fault committed out of malice and wilfulness, is not so shameful as one committed through inability, or ignorance 148  
Reputation is not lost by degrees, but either remains entire, or is quite lost 149  
Aloibiades cunning and subtle rather than wise. 150  
The difference between subtlety and Wisdom. 150  
Some things laudable in a private man, which are disallowed in a pulick person. 152  
A General's subtlety different from a Politicians. 154  
Aloibiades flies to Farnabazus 54  
Why he gained the love of all men Ibid  
In Arts some things are judged by the Senses and some by the understanding 187  
Aloibiades had many virtues and many vices. 160  
He met with a Common wealth which admired his virtues, and followed his vices. Ibid. His vices overthrew him in his foreign employments 161  
Aloibiades his death 162  
Man wrestling with Fortune, at last is overcome. 162  
Nothing firm in the world. 165  
Why some men continue fortunate, some not. 166  
Alcibiades often, though not continually forrunate 158  
Some cannot suffer the best, nor endure the worst. 84  
Too much care is the daughter of suspicion, and enemy of truth 81  
Compassion is the daughter of Fear 44  
Envy takes pleasure in defects. 24  
Perfect excellency is hated by most men 72  
The forbidden thing seems best 64  
No man can give that which he is not owner of. 9  
The desire of worldly glory is wise men's madness, and fool's wisdom, but beguiles all. 93  
Modesty moderates envy, extinguisheth it not. 121  
Prudence hath measure for its actions, but remerity is unlimited.  
The free putting a man's life into that man's hands whom he hath wronged, is the greatest satisfaction that can be given 108  
Temerity is an act without reason 108  
There can be no eminent understanding without some parcel of folly 99  
A great understanding causeth constancy, a weak one obstinacy 145  
He that is best, if once he begin to be bad, become● the worst. 73  
It is a great misfortune for a man to have worth, and want repute, and a far greater to have repute and want worth. 149  
Peauty and eloquence are unprofitable weapons against wrath or fury 117  
Youth should grieve at the defects of old age, and old men laugh at the ignorance of youth 44   

The Table of the chief heads discoursed upon in the Life of CORIOLANUS.  
Coriolanus his defects attributed to want of education p 175  
Whether education to Learning, & Sciences be good for all sorts of men? p 176  
Why the Romans honoured their Citizens for some brave acts with Oaken Crowns 182  
All vices ought to be punished, and all virtues rewarded 183  
Impunible of offences is sometimes a reward p. 183  
The vulgars' reward is money, a Noble man's honour 185  
How rewards came to be altered 186  
The same things are not in esteem every where. 187  
Nature desires that most which is most necessary. 187  
Riches the root of evil 188  
Punishments changed by Tyrants 190  
In what consists reputation 191  
Who are fittest to command 193  
Coriolanus rejoiced to have his mother hear of his worthy actions 194  
Why another's joy increases ours 195  
Sannieticus King of Egypt 198  
Coriolanus desiring to be chosen Consul by the people, puts off his Senatoriall Robes 201  
Why he did so 202  
To judge of virtue truly, we must see it naked 204  
Coriolanus termed proud and impatient, and the cause of it 207  
The virtue of choler in man 208  
How humours in the body and passions in the mind, may produce good effects 210  
Wherein consists Patience 211  
Women subject to impatience, as well as men, and the cause thereof 213  
Why women being wrathful, are not valiant 214  
How the common wealth of Rome might have made good use of Coriolanus his imperfections 216  
Some defects are tolerable in young men, and some virtues improper for them 218  
Patience virtually contains all other virtues. 222  
A man's talents ought to be employed in due time. 224  
It is an unhappiness for a man of worth to be born under a Tyrant, or in a corrupt common wealth 226  
The Ostracisine hindered the increase of the Athenian common wealth 227  
The fortune of a Kingdom or common wealth may be transferred to another, in the person of one man 228  
A man's fortune decays as his vigour 229  
Coriolanus flies to the Volsci, and is entertained by them 231  
Man will give any thing, to attain his ends 231  
Sometimes a man seeks to oppress him, whom he hath raised. p. 232. and undo what he himself hath done. 234  
One contrary cures another, if the contrary be not mistaken 235  
Compassion and envy are the two ordinary passions of great ones 236  
Of favourites 238  
Some desire greatness for their own benefit, some for the good of the common wealth 242  
From different ends proceeds a different working towards them 243  
Some love the person, some its virtues 244  
Man's life a warfare 248  
Fortunes wheel cannot be fired 248  
A stranger admitted in another common wealth to high degrees is in great danger 255  
Every man hath a desire to his own country. 255  
No man can hate his own country, though he hate a prevailing party in it 256  
Divers causes may provoke a man to bring in strangers to oppress his native country 259  
A man may rashly do his country such a wrong as he cannot afterwards remedy 265  
Coriolanus more fit to be compared with Cato then with Albiciades 268  
Envy follows Humane glory 249  
It is a great fortune to die when fortune is at the highest 251  
How Sejanus gained Tiberius. 240    

The Translator to the READER.  
HAving this void Page lef●, I thought good to set down therein this brief explanation of the word Ostracism, which thou shalt find in several places of it. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which signifies shells: For the Athenians intended to put it in use, the Citizens at the least to the number of six thousand (for otherwise it was no lawful nor full Assembly) at a day appointed, brought every man a shell, whereon was written the name of him, whom he would have banished, and threw it into a place prepared for that purpose: And the Magistrates telling the said shells, he whose name was found written upon most of them, was proclaimed banished for ten years. Vale.  
FINIS.   

Courteous Reader, These Books following are Printed for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at his shop at the Prince's Arms in Saint Paul's Churchyard  

Various Histories, with curious Discourses in Humane Learning, etc.  
1. THe History of the Banished Virgin, a Romance translated by I. H. Esq; Fol.  
2. The History of Polexander, Englished by William Brown Gent. Printed for T. W. and are to be sold by Hum. Moseley, in Folio.  
3. Mr James howel's History of Lewis the thirteenth King of France, with the life of his Cardinal de Richelieu, in Folio.  
4. Mr howel's Epistolae Hoelianae, familiar Letters, Domestic and Foreign, in six Sections, Partly Historical, Political, Philosophical first Volume with Additions. in 8ᵒ. 1650.  
5. Mr howel's New volume of Familiar Letters, Partly Historical, Political, Philosophical, the second Volume with many Additions. 1650.  
6. Mr howel's Third Volume of Additionall Letters of a fresher date, never before published, in 8ᵒ. 1650.  
7. Mr Howels Dodona's Grove, or the Vocal Forest, in 120. with Additions. 1650.  
8. Mr howel's, England's Tears for the present Wars, in 12ᵒ. 1650.  
9 Mr Howell Of the Pre-eminence and pedigree of Parliament, in 12º, 1650.  
10. Mr howel's Instruction for Foreign Travels, in 12o. with divers Additions. 1650.  
11. Mr. Howels Vote, or a Poem Royal presented to His Majesty, in 4ᵒ.  
12. Mr. Howels Angliae Suspiria & Lachrimae in 12ᵒ.  
13. Policy unveiled, or Maxims of state, done into English by the translator of Gusman the Spanish Rogue in 4ᵒ.  
14. The History of the Inquisition, composed by the R. F. Paul Servita the compiler of the History of the Council of Trent, in 4ᵒ.  
15. Biathanatos, a Paradox of Self-Homicide, by Dr. Io: Donne Deane of Saint Paul's London, in 4ᵒ.  
16. Marquis Virgillio Malvezzi's, Romulus and Tarquin, Englished by Hen. Earl of Monmouth in 12ᵒ.  
17. Marquis Virgillio Malvezzis, David persecuted, Englished by Rob. Ashley Gent. in 12ᵒ.  
18. Marquis Virgillio Malvezzi, Of the Success, and chief events, of the Monarchy of Spain, in the year 1639. of the Revolt of the Catalonians, Englished by Rob. Gentilis, 12ᵒ.  
19 Marquis Virgillio Malvezzi's considerations on the lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Englished by Robert Gentilis, in 12ᵒ. 1650.  
20. Gracious Privileges granted by the King of Spain unto our English Merchants, 4ᵒ  
21. History of Life and Death, or the Promulgation of Life, written by Francis Lord Verulam Viscount St Alban. in 12ᵒ.  
22. The Antipathy between the French and the Spaniard, Translated out of Spanish, in 120  
23. Mr. Birds Grounds of Grammar, in 8ᵒ.  
24. Mr Bulwers Philocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb man's friend, in 12ᵒ.  
25. Mr Bulwers Pathomyotomia, or a Dissection of the significative Muscles of the Affections of the Mind, in 12ᵒ.  
26. An Itinerary containing a Voyage made through Italy in the years 1646. 1647. Illustrated with divers Figures of Antiquities, never before published, by Io. Reymond. Gen. in 12ᵒ.  
27. The use of Passions, written by I. F. Senault, and put into English by Henry Earl of Monmouth, in 8ᵒ.  
28. Choice Music for three Voices, with a Through Base, composed by Mr Henry and Mr William Laws Brothers, & Servants, to His Majesty, with divers Elegies set in Music by several friends upon the Death of Mr William Laws. in 4ᵒ.  
29. Judicious and select Essays and observations written by the Renowned & learned Knight, Sir Walter Raleigh with his Apology for his Voyage to Guiana, in 80. 1650.   

Choice POEMS, with excellent Translations, and Incomparable Comedies and Tragedies, written by several Ingenious Authors.  
1. COmedies and Tragedies written by Francis Beaumond and John Flesher Gent. never printed before, and now Published by the Author's original Copies, containing 34. Plays and a Masque in Folio.  
2. Epigrammata Thomae Mori Angli, in 16ᵒ.  
3. Fragmenta Aurea, a collection of the Incomparable Pieces written by Sir john Suckling Knight, in 8ᵒ.  
4. All juvenals 16. Satyrs, Translated by Sir Robert Stapylton Knight, wherein is contained a Survey of the manners and Actions of Mankind, with Annotations. in 8ᵒ.  
5. Museus on the loves of Hero and Leander, with Leander's Letter to Hero, and her Answer, taken out of Ovid, with Annotations, by Sir Robert Stapylton Knight, in 12ᵒ.  
6. Poems etc. written by Mr. Edward Waller of Beckonsfield Esquire, in 8ᵒ.  
7. Pastor fido, the faithful Shepherd, a Pastor ill newly Translated out of the Original by Richard Fanshaw Esq; in 4ᵒ.  
8. Poems, with a Discovery of the Civil Wars of Rome, by Richard Fanshaw Esq; in 4ᵒ.  
9 Aurora Ismenia and the Prince, with Oronta the Cyprian Virgin, translated by Thomas Stanley Esq; the second Edition corrected and amended, in 8. 1650.  
10. Europa, Cupid crucified, Venus' Vigils, with Annotations, by Thomas Stanley Esq; in 8ᵒ. 1650.  
11. Medea, a Tragedy written in Latin by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Englished by Mr Edward Sherburne Esq; with Annotations, in 8ᵒ.  
12. Senecas' Answer to Lucilius his Quaere why Good men suffer misfortunes seeing there is a Divine Providence, translated into English Verse by Edward Sherburne Esquire. 8ᵒ  
13. Poems of Mr john Milton, with a Masque presented at Ludlow Castle before the Earl of Bridgwater then Precedent of Wales. in 8ᵒ.  
14. Poems etc. with a Masque called the Triumph of Beauty, by james Shirley. in 8ᵒ.  
15. Steps to the Temple, Sacred Poems, with the Delight of the Muses, upon several occasions, by Richard Crashaw of Cambridge, in 12.  
16. The Mistress, or several Copies of Love verses, written by Mr Abra. Cowley, in 8ᵒ.  
17. Divine Poems, written by Francis Quarles Senior, in 8ᵒ.  
18. The Odes of Casimire, translated by George Hills, in 12ᵒ.  
19 Arnalte and Lucenda, or the Melancholy Knight, a Poem translated by L. Laurence. in 4ᵒ.  
20. The Sophister, a Comedy, in 4ᵒ.  
21. The Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier, a Comedy written by Francis Beaumond and John Fletcher Gent. in 4ᵒ.  
22. The Tragedy of Thierry King of France, and his Brother Theodoret, written by Francis Beaumond & John Fletcher, Gen. 4ᵒ  
23. The Unfortunate Lovers, a Tragedy written by William Davenant Knight, in 4ᵒ.  
24. Love and Honour a Comedy written by William Davenant Knight, in 4ᵒ.  
25. Madagascar with other Poems written by William Davenant Knight, in 12ᵒ.  
26. The Country Captain and the Variety, Two Comedies written by a Person of Honour, in 12ᵒ.  
27. The Cid, a Tragicomedy. in 120. 1650.  
28. Cooper's Hill, a Poem by john Denham Esq; the 2. Edition, in 40. with Adit. 1650.  
29. Clarastella with other occasional Poems, Elegies, Epigrams, and Satyrs, written by Robert Heath, Esq; 1650.  
30. The Academy of Compliments, wherein Ladies, Gentlewomen, Scholars, and Strangers, may accommodate their Courtly Practice with Gentile Ceremonies, complimental, Amorous, high expressions, & Forms of speaking, or writing of letters, most in fashion, with Additions of many witty Poems, and pleasant new Songs, newly Printed. 1650.   

Several Sermons with other Excellent Tracts in Divinity, written by some most eminent and learned Bishops and Orthodox Divines.  
1. A Manual of Private Devotions and Meditations for every day in the week, by the right reverend Father in God Lancelot Andrews, late Lord Bishop of Winchester, in 24ᵒ.  
2. A Manual of Directions for the Sick, with many sweet Meditations and Devotions, by the Right Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrews, Lord Bishop of Winchester, in 24ᵒ.  
3. Ten Sermons upon Several Occasions, preached at Saint Paul's Cross, and elsewhere, by the Right Reverend Father in God, Arthur Lake late Bishop of Bath and Wells, in 4ᵒ.  
4. Six Sermons upon several occasions preached at the Court before the King's Majesty, and elsewhere, by that late learned and Reverend Divine, john Donne Dr in Divinity, and Deane of Saint Paul's London, in 4ᵒ.  
5. Precious Promises and Priveleges of the faithful, written by Richard Sibbes Doctor in Divinity, late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge, and Preacher of Grays-inn London, in 12ᵒ.  
6. Sarah and Hagar, or the sixteenth chapter of Genesis, opened in nineteen Sermons, being the first legitimate Essay of the Pious labours of that learned Orthodox and Indefatigable Preacher of the Gospel, Mr josias Shute B. D. and above 33. years' Rector of St Mary W●●ln●th, in Lombardstreet, in Folio.  
7. Christ's tears, with his love and affection towards Jerusalem, delivered in sundry Sermons upon Luke 19 v. 41, 42. by Ric. Maide● B. D. Preacher of the word of God, and lat. Fellow of Magdalen College in Cambridge, 4ᵒ  
8. Ten Sermons preached upon several Sundays & Saints days, by Peter Hausted M● in Arts, & Curate at Vppingham in Rutland in 4ᵒ  
9 18. Sermons preached upon the Incarnation & Nativity of our blessed Lord and Saviour jesus Christ, wherein the greatest mysteries of godliness are unfolded, to the capacity of the weakest Christian, by john Dawson, in 4ᵒ.  
10. Christian Divinity, written by Edmund Reeve, Bachelor in Divinity, in 4ᵒ.  
11. A description of the Newborn Christian, or a Lively Pattern of the Saint militant, child of God, written by Nicholas Hunt, 4ᵒ  
12. The Tyranny of Satan, in a Recantation Sermon at St Paul's Cross, by T. Gage, in 4ᵒ  
13. The True and absolute Bishop, wherein is showed how Christ is our only shepherd, and Bishop of our souls, by Nicholas Darton, in 4ᵒ.  
14. Divine Meditations upon the 91. Psalms, and on the History of Agag King of Amaleck, with an Essay of Friendship, written by an Honourable Person, in 12ᵒ.  
15. Lazarus his rest, a Sermon preached at the Funeral of that pious, learned, and Orthodox Divine, Mr Ephraim Udall, by Thomas Reeve Bachelor in Divinity, in 4ᵒ.  
16. An Historical Anatomy of Christia Melancholy, by Edmund Gregory, in 80.