ESSAYS Or rather, ENCONIUMS, Praises of SADNESS: AND OF THE EMPEROR JULIAN the Apostata.  
By Sir WILLIAM CORNEWALLIS, the younger Knight.  
AT LONDON, Printed by George Purslowe, for Richard Hawkins, and are to be sold at his Shop in Chancery lane, near Sergeant's Inn. 1616.   

To the READER.  
IF those precepts that advise the preventing of the infirmities of the mind, have been ever more safe and sweet, than theirs that like laws hold their peace until they have them in their power, and then pluck them up by the roots: is he that prescribes temperance be the best Physician: he the best Pilot that foresees a storm: he the best Statesman, that understands the dangers of his Country in their bud and greenness: and in a word they the happiest Counsellors, that seek to keep us out of the contingency of peril: it is not impossible (Reader) but I may be of some use to thee: But I praise Sadness, so doth the Physician his medicine, which howsoever thy taste abhors, thy reason desires, and being once down, thou art content to forget the loathsomeness, and regard the operation. I will commend my prescription to thee no further, then that it cannot hurt; what good it may do, let thy experience resolve thee; which the warranty of the safety may invite thee to: If it wants those graces and embellishments that he hath need of, that adventures on an innovation; let a plain true tale be accepted better than a filled falsehood; especially since through the cloud of mine Ignorance truth shows thee light enough, to direct thy way, though not to delight thee in thy journey: I seek not honour from thee, nor am I the subject of thine opinion; thy censure shall only concern thyself: for me, though I should hold my cloak the faster for the wind; yet shall I never yield it to the Sun; he that feels not their present power, needs not fear the future, and I am armed against both, either with a knowledge or a dullness of proof: And so I leave thee to thine own judgement if thou hast one; or if thou hast not, to live like the Mole by hearing: Farewell.   

THE PRAISE OF SADNESS.  
THey that have blessed their time with drawing into their own bosoms the consideration of the world and her mutabilities; and kept them there, to strengthen their reason against the vanity & waywardness of their affections and passions, know already, I may offend opinion, but not truth, undertaking as impertinent a work, as he that intended to praise Hercules: to these I address not myself, unless they will please to perfect me, since I cannot them. But to those I am directed, that either the smiles of Fortune have deprived of the true knowledge of the condition of man, or youth hath not yet ripened; or such vulgar and earthly creatures, whose judgement dazzled with beholding the outward splendour of Fortune's Minions (the miserablest of all) cannot or will not see with what terrible cares and discontentments, the purple rob is lined.  
I know, but fear not, the danger of cherishing and defending so unwelcome a guest as sadness; so shunned, so abhorred: For since I am well assured, they have condemned rather her countenance, than herself: and that both her judge, jury, and hangman, hath been that acrie monster Opinion; that taketh all upon trust, and answers nothing with reason; I was the rather inclined to be her friend, because opinion was her enemy; the first proof of her goodness, 
The first proof of her goodness.  since she is hated, by so false and obstinate an enemy to wisdom and judgement.  
First then, because our human weakness, and chiefly those that I desire to instruct, understand best by contraries; as health is best known by sickness, plenty by want, it is fit I show them what mirth is made of: and over what a troop she commands; that beholding her, and her band disrobed and anatomised, weary and ashamed of the sight, they may by putting off their preiudicat obstinacies, be made first hearers, and consequently obeyors, of a worthier conductor.  

What Mirth is.  That mirth is a natural quality of man's, I deny not, but withal, I think it one of those that he hath little cause to boast of; it is true that he makes mirth and sadness the balance of his affections and passions, and is weighed by them: thus he accounts his win and lose, and the same is expressed in sadness or mirth: but whether most of these supposed winners, are not rather betrayed, then supported; loosened, disordered, and corrupted; then strengthened, grounded, & instructed, I think there is no man that hath well observed himself, and his passages considerately, but will affirm. Who can doubt of this, that knows the slightness of her composition? children make her of babies, and hobby-horses: young men of sports, hawks, horses, dogs, or worse: old men of riches, Statesmen of adorers, honour, and advancement; Women of gay clothes, many lovers, and flattering glasses: it is one God they adore, though worshipped in several shapes: and though the difference amongst them makes them despisers of one another's choice; yet to the vninteressed beholder, they play all at one game, though not all for one sum. Et que veneraris et quae despicis, unus exae quabit cinis.  
We have touched the aim, and end: Let us now see the pursuers and adorers of mirth; and they that make her the goddess of their actions, a people either so light and imperciptible, as nothing can come beyond their senses: or so opinionative and obstinate, or rather so drunk with pleasure, as they will not know, what they may and must: or a third sort, that clap mirth between them and their consciences, for fear of corrosives, that keep her up like a ball, and run after her, to be the further off from themselves, who might know, though Vinum, cantus, somnus, commot iunculas illas primas, non raro sanarunt irae doloris, amoris at nunquam aegritudinem, quae radices egit et fixit pedem, to caracterize these further then in generality, were needless: for what shall the picture need, where the original is so common? with what other are brothell-houses, and Taverns stuffed? Voluptas, humile, servile, imbecillem, caducum; cuius Statio et formices et popinae sunt, what are the inhabitants of theatres, meetings, feasts, triumphs, but such as either acknowledge no God so willingly as Mirth and Pleasure; or such as dare not come home into themselves, for fear of their errors and miscarriage?  
In the mean time, O poor reason, at how base a price art thou sold? Or art thou but a name without an essence? Or a broken Reed that the will of man dares not stay itself upon, for fear of falling? Or else what a blue-eyed choice is theirs, that for the most idle, momentary, and sick effects of mirth, and pleasure, impawn not only their time, (which is unredeemeable) but themselves, which they think too well sold to repurchase.  
But now it is fit I hasten to them, who seek not mirth, but are sought of her: for such is the lust of Fortune's benefits, as whilst the body feeleth herself able to purchase her desires, and to gorge her senses, she abandons herself to all sensualities, and rejoiceth in her own fullness: to you then, upon whom none but fair winds have ever blown in this career of your supposed happiness: can you see for all your high and overtopping places, your end and resting place? Or are you not rather the arrows of the Omnipotent arm, that are yet flying, not at yours, but at his mark: and are no more owners of your own purposed ends, than you were guilty of your own beginnings? In the mean time effeminated with your prosperity, and as it were still sucking upon the breast of Fortune, if she turns her back and retires, how miserable doth she leave you? Still bleating after the teat, and like those nice creatures, that become tame with taking their bread from others hands, unable to administer to yourselves the least help or comfort.  
We do see that Nature and all her productions support them and herself by incessant changes, and revolutions; generation and corruption being to the earth like rivers to the sea, in a restless current, and perpetual progress: do we see the flourishing and falling, not only of Kings and Princes; but of Kingdoms and Commonwealths, Cities, Trophies, and whatsoever the vain imagination of man hath contrived for the overcoming of time? and can we upon some small remnant of Fortune's bounty, think to establish a perpetuity of mirth and pleasure? No, no, he that takes not this time to provide for a world, and in the midst of his pleasures doth not think how frail and transitory they are, will pay dearly for his jollity; when surprised by death, or some disaster, they leave him in an instant, so much more miserable than others; as he hath depended upon such uncertainties: without which, his life is most loathsome unto him, and with which, death most fearful and abhorred.  
But to what end is all this tendered to the adorers and lovers of mirth? Their heads and hearts are all ready filled with their own delights: which must be consumed by affliction, before the precious balm of Sadness can either enter or work. Fabius said, he feared more Minutiuses victories than overthrows: which may be rightly applied to the general disposition of man, his successes infecting him with an ignorant confidence, intoxicating his reason with presumption and ostentation, which are such daily effects of worldly prosperities, as they that think themselves Lords, are often the unworthiest sort of slaves: and their opinionative happiness, the most wretched misery: not unlike the mad Athenian, that imagined himself possessed of all, when indeed he was true honour but of his own distemper & lunacy.  
To young men there belongs more pity, aswell because nature hath her hand in this their thirst of pleasure: they being yet by the heat of blood, and the quickness of their spirits, and the strength of their senses, jolly and gamesome: as also that it must be time, and the wounds and scars, gotten by their wretched carelessness, that must make them capable of advice: since (as Plutarch saith) their heady passions and pleasures set over them, more cruel and tyrannous Governors, than those that had the charge of their minorities: now who is it that leadeth this distracted dance, of youth, but mirth? for whose sake and pleasures they are inseparable companions: what is irregular, indiscreet, unlawful, dishonest; nay, what laws, either of man's natures, or Gods, are in these apprehensions, strong enough to contain them within their bounds? Galba in his adoption of Piso, amongst his other praises saith; you whose youth hath needed no excuse: a commendation so rare and glorious, as there needed no more to illustrate his name and fame to all posterity; for who else, unless fettered and chained with nature or fortune, but in their first wearing the fresh garment of youth, have not soiled and spotted it; as their whole life after (though painfully and industriously directed) hath not been able to wipe out their faults, and refresh the gloze of their reputation? hence it is, that Delicta inventutis meae & ignorantias meas ne memineris Domine, is taught by all, and used by all; so inevitable a disease is youth: of which we need no witness, since every man's conscience doth justify it; the generality and antiquity, having made it venial: and by consent, we bind none from these slips and stumbles, but old men and and women: the rest pass the musters so far from checking, as they produce many of their follies as the marks of spirit, and generosity: and by their will would make of an old vice, a young virtue: who can hope now to deliver this flourishing season of youth, from these Caterpillars? since mirth and pleasure allures; opinion animates; and community hides them from the sight of themselves and actions: this it is that makes nothing more currannt, then to pay one another with our faults, and no man trusts so much to his own virtue, as to his neighbours or Companions vices; we repose ourselves in the defect of others, and no man strives further, then to be comparatively good: we advance ourselves upon ruins, and think ourselves well, because another is worse: O lame shift! O drunken remedy! I will then say but this, to those young men that will hear me, Since you know not the way to true happiness and contentment; ask not of them that are yet in the race; but of them that have passed it: propose unto yourselves some pattern to imitate, (nisi ad regulam pravam non corrigas) and to strengthen your judgements, behold those that have already acted their parts: take one of these admirers of mirth and pleasure; and an other that hath ever made his reason the taster of all his actions: and compare these together, and then choose which of them you would be: there cannot thus far off be so corrupted a judgement, as not to know the best; the difference is then a little time, & hoc quod senectus vocatur, pauci sunt circuitus amorum: Behold then the match, for a few years to boot, this vicious hateful person is taken, that devoured his own honour and reputation: and with his pleasure swallowed even his very soul, and that lives now but in his infamy: rather than that well ordered spirit, that hath left a true and perfect circle of a discreet governed life and death, and left the world heir of many rich and worthy examples: who in this consideration, but must cry out with the Psalmist, O what is man, that thou art so mindful of him, & c? or why having taken our judgements thus halting, should we reply upon it? carrying us through the world; that in our entrance hath thus stumbled and fallen: he hath then the first sign of recovery, that in this his beginning mistrusts his own ways; and dares offer his wounds to the Surgeon: it is an incurable ignorance, that dares not put itself to mending. Plato would have offenders repair to the judge and Magistrate, as to the Physicians of the soul, and submit themselves to punishment, as to the medicine of recovery, but this was too high an imagination for practice; yet thus far we may go, and upon the ground; and not in the air: having, upon a due examination, found it fit to mistrust ourselves, it follows even in common reason, not to throw ourselves rashly into any action: but to assist our weakness with gaining consideration time: this disarms our passions of their violence, for their motion being out of heat, and never going but running, being once stayed, and overtaken by reason, they after willingly submit themselves unto her▪ and are easily managed: It is an axiom in Philosophy, that our first motions are not in our own power: which is true no longer than we list: for he that will not embark himself, without a pause and deliberation, dissolves the Acrimony of his affections; and makes them of the cruelest Tyrants the most profitable servants. It is true, our ignorance and sloth make every thing terrible unto us: and we will not because we dare not, and dare not because we will not: this makes us submit ourselves to any thing that doth either flatter or threaten us: and like some sottish weaklings, that give the reins of their government, into the hands of their wives or servants; thinking than they buy their peace, when they sell it: thus do they grow upon us, and by composition, not force, become masters of the place; being just so strong as we are weak. The scouts of Antigonus relating unto him the multitude of his enemies, and advising by way of information the danger of a conflict, that should be undertaken with so great an unequality: he replied, And at how many do you value me? In this civil wars of ourselves the first disorder and consequently our overthrow proceeds from a false valuation of our own strength: we are content to embrace our own true natural worth, so we may have leave to yield ourselves to some furious passion or soothing affection: but would we now take a true knowledge of our own value, we might easily redeem ourselves: God and nature have not dealt so tyrannically with man, as to give him charge of that he cannot hold: if we lose the game it must be by play: wherefore since we are likely to be besieged by the world, and her allurements; lest famine or treason surprise, let us turn out of the walls, all unprofitable pleasures; and know betimes that mirth becometh neither the fortune, nor condition of man: so is he environed with dangers, and so subject to intrappings, omnis vita supplicium est, there is no day, hour, or moment, that brings a certain cessation of arms: but to the contrary, our life is a continual warfare, representing unto us incessant dangers and perils: wherefore we must always stand upon our guard, and keep a strait watch upon ourselves; not only examining the humours that go in and out, their errands, and pretences: but even every motion and thought; for of so many different pieces is the little world of man compounded: so stirring, so infatigable, so full of changes and counter-changes, so suddenly elevated, as soon dejected: and in a word, such a composition of contrarieties; as he that doth not continually observe himself, and steadily fix his eyes upon all his actions; shall suddenly grow a stranger to himself, and be utterly ignorant of his own proceed: if this than be a time for mirth, we may easily imagine; who doth not alone call all the parts and faculties of man from their duties and charge, to feast and glut themselves with sensualities; but returneth them so corrupt and debaunched, as like Hannibal's army, after their wintering in Campania, they cannot be known for the same men; so have they melted their courages with delicacy, and with riot made themselves impatient, and almost incapable of discipline. To conclude, such is the weakness of man, and so strong are his bodily inclinations, as if he doth not divert or break the force of his affections, reason alone is not able to resist them: wherefore as Plato allowed old men, mirth and wine, to revive nature almost tired in her long journey, and to refresh their spirits benumbed with the coldness of their dwelling: by the same reason, it is forbidden youth, whose blood being now at the hottest, by the least addition, or increase, falls into the diseases of excess, the most violent and unresistible extremes: we see than it is prescribed but for a medicine, and by the difference of the constitutions of young men and old, it can be no more wholesome for the one, then dangerous for the other: howsoever since it is prescribed medicinably, the too frequent use, must either destroy the operation, or leave only the malignant quality alive and uncorrected, unto those whom the outside of Fortune dazzles and allures, there is nothing to be said by way of advice; being such, as neither nature, nor education hath favoured, but are left to act the base and illiberal parts upon this stage of the world: this is the multitude, the vulgar, the people that are bought and sold, and reckoned by the hundred and the thousand, and bear no price single and alone; a madness it were then, to think to move and convert them together, when our Saviour that fed 5000. of them, and as many heard him, could neither with the admirableness of his miracles, nor the excellency of his doctrine prevail with them all, and return them all believers: this were sufficient to deter me even from but touching upon this quicksand, were they not the harbour of opinion, where she is still rescued from the lovers of truth: neither is it impossible that some, yet of her and their party, upon a truer information may forsake and be ashamed of their station, or to be a piece of the body of this great Beast.  
There is nothing can enter into consideration more strange and improbable, then to see even the most active and understanding spirits, to refer themselves and their proceed to the multitude, to esteem themselves at their price, exceeds their memories and powers of satisfaction. The young man that thought to escape the being seen in a Tavern, with retiring further into it, was justly reprehended for going further in: but such is the nature of vice, it hath an alluring look, and a detaining tail, our desires first allure us to things unlawful, and when we are there, our fear bars us in; but if every man knew how much more right he might have from his own tribunal, if he will freely and sincerely give his reason her own power, and how justly an unabused conscience will proceed, and how sweetly and securely he sleeps, that hath received from them his quietus est, he would for ever disclaim the censure of opinion; and with Photion mistrust himself, because the people praised him: erubuit quasi peccasset quod placuerit: and as the Prince of morality adviseth, Non respuit quid homines turpe iudicent aut miserum, not it, qua populus; sed ut scidera contrarium mundo iter intendunt, ita hic adversus opinionem omnium radit: but thus far had I gone out of the way, had I not pursued opinion.  
To come now near our purpose, in examinations, circumstances are not neglected, if they any way conduce to the end of our inquiry: thus judges and Magistrates make their uses & advantages of names, and countenances, though it be impossible to make either so much as accessary: first than we find, that Sadness hath ever been received as a witness of truth; as In Sadness amongst honest men, is taken for an infallible asseveration: whereas mirth hath so little credit, as when rashness or falseness hath made an escape, by the tongue, the refuge is to lay it to mirth's charge: who as a licenced Buffone, hath often leave to pass the bounds of modesty & truth: again, mirth is so like drunkenness, that they are at this day, but as two names of one thing, and merry, means drunk, and drunk merry: whereas sober expresseth a discreet temper, to raise and deject themselves at the pleasure of their breaths, to take warrant from their countenances: and in a word, to live and die at their appointments: when single, they scorn and despise them, and think even their best thoughts scarce worthy of their footboy, yet the pattern and piece differeth not; and any one as far as sufficiency expresseth the whole, as Physicians say of the diseases of the body that are, and the same may come from different causes: so this of the mind, which proceedeth either from the laying their ambitious hopes upon popularity, or such as guilty of their own intentions, dare not put themselves upon the trial of their consciences.  
A third sort there are, that feed, and cloth, and talk, and walk, and have delivered themselves and their behaviour to be brought up by Opinion; these since they cannot be separated from the multitude, neither can be, nor are worth the singling: for those that Ambition hath persuaded to this popular folly, they are worthy to be deceived: and were it not, that in all inordinate desires reason is first vanquished, they could not but know; this beast is tame but in fair weather; they love that part of you which they understand, which is your fortune, love and friendship gins in the soul, and ends in the body: and theirs begin in the body and ends in the fortune: the two lignaments that tie the men to a justness and decorum in all their actions, are wit and honesty; which they being defective in, can no more love truly; then he can speak that is borne dumb. Wherefore further than commiseration, and the common duties of humanity, it is a madness to be popular: for as they say, the chief strength of the Lion lieth in his tail, so theirs in their mouths; which as it devours all you give, so they go no further to pay for all they take. It is true, Vbicunque homo est, ibi beneficio locus ect: thus far charity commands, and further is ridiculous, or dangerous, or both: in Princes unto whom they belong as a charge, and who hath power to make them fear, if they will not love, popularity is no vice, but a part of use, and as dangerous for them to neglect, as for a private man and a subject to follow and affect.  
We have nothing more common and in practice amongst decayed beauties, banquerouted by time or accidents, then to hide it from others eyes with art, and from their own with false glasses: no otherwise is it with them, that from the reflection of opinion behold the state and condition of their minds; surely he is afraid to hear truth, that dares not inquire of himself: it is against our wills, if we transport to foreign eyes, or ears, any wares that are not substantial, or at least formal: they are in the dark, and visible but to ourselves, that are fit for reformation: and as we know best their beget and births, so are they the natural subjects for our own consciences to work upon: it is long since received, that in one, and the self same man, there may be a good man, and an ill Citizen; men and laws take knowledge of vice, no farther than their own interest: diseases that threaten but one, are opposed but by one, they are contagious and infectious, that are resisted by generality. They then that go to opinion, to know the temper and disposition of their minds, go to the market, rather to sell then to buy: and love better to paint the walls and outsides of themselves, then to rectify and repair their inward errors and defects: but far worse it is with them that dare not come to trial, where their facts and actions are known, which is at home: is not this like children, which shunning the reprehension and chastisements of one fault, multiply it to many? Or like the careless debtor, that suffers the interest to outgrow the principal? How truly doth this prove the cowardice of vice, or rather the sottishness, since he considers not, that as fast as he runs from fear, the same haste he makes to desperation, where they inevitably end, that never reckon with themselves, till the sum unimpeached by drink or any other excess?  
For the continuance, what men carry more mistrust before them, than those, that have worn out the sobriety of an honest look, with a continual girning or laughing? a mark of natures, so seldom failing, as it is in every observation held, for an irrecoverable defect either of wit or honesty: of such stuff are commonly flatterers, time-pleasers, & faunguists made: people so obnoxious to virtue and worth, as were it not that they breed & live only upon the lust of Fortune, it were impossible to keep them from a general extirpation. For it is they that have bereaved greatness and riches of innocency, and made it of a dead and indifferent instrument in the power of the disposer, to have hatched more monsters than all the brood of vices beside: and in a word have been the visablest and chiefest procurers of the heavy sentence of our Saviour against rich men; that it is easier for a Camel to pass through a needle's eye, then for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.  
In the contemplating Sadness, and mirth, me thinks, I see the true forms of the two Ladies that offered themselves to Hercules, at his entrance into the way of the world, Virtue, and Pleasure, the first with a settled composed countenance (not unlike the South sea) full of peace, certainty, and truth: no overruling passion disordering or raising the least billow, or moving the smallest breath of perturbation: the other like a shop that sets out the best wares to the view, and offers many pleasing morsels to the senses, and at the first seems to resemble bounty itself in freeness and sweetness; but alas, she is too soon won to be constant, she brings not in your reckoning, till you have consumed what she set before you, and then you shall know they are too dear, when it is too late to refuse them: her smiles and allurements, are like the sunshine days of winter, storm-breeders: her clearness, warmth, and calmness, produce ever clouds and tempests; repentance, griefs and anxieties of the soul; and as Physicians hold, a continual requiring stomach an infallible Symptomie of a corrupt and diseased body: so may be said of the lovers of Mirth, that pass from one pleasure to another, and dare not let their brains settle, lest they should see their own deformities, their corrupted manners and the leprosy of their minds.  
Hitherto Sadness hath gotten but a pre-eminence, and hath but proved herself better than a worse; not approved her own goodness: it is now time, to display her in her own excellency, not such a one as reverts all things upon itself, and regards no quality that returns not laden with profit; but such a communative goodness, as grows not poor by imparting; but redoubles it own strength, riches, and splendour, with lending, assisting and dividing it influence on others: but before I offer her, and her qualities to the view, it is necessary I decipher her: Philopamen, for want of an interpreter, was set to cleave wood by his hostess, for his own entertainment: the eye is a nice, busy & undertaking sense, if reason or judgement prepare not her way.  
I mean not then, under the name of Sadness, to defend effeminate bewailings and lamentations; let them a gods-name, that subject themselves to this weakest impatience, be also subject to the Lycian law; that bound these kind of lamentors to be arrayed like women; nor am I an approver, of a ridgid, sour, morose austerity, since it is seldom other than the vizard of envy, or vainglory: such were Nero his Philosophers, nec deerant qui voce vultuque tristi inter oblectamenta Regia spectari cuperent: neither is it a small motive to their condemnation, that the novice and inquirer after virtue is deterred, to see her disciples so overclouded and drowned in heaviness: rather like the followers of a Funeral, than her minions and beloved, whose power and bounty doth not alone extend itself unto all deservers, but makes all lives, fortunes, and accidents, not alone tolerable and to be endured; but sweet, wholesome, easy and oft times glorious, and exemplare: neither will I praise a sorrow, that as Pythagoras saith, eats his own heart; that abandons the rudder in a storm, and dares not live for fear of dying.  
Wise men know, it is the condition of humanity to be tossed with contrary winds, and those are the seasons of distinction between wise men and fools: every man looks gaily in a holiday fortune, but to be basely set by, and to shine through an obscure fortune, illustrates the riches and preciousness of the mind: man hath not the throwing of the dice, but the playing of the cast: he is Lord over his intentions, the other part reacheth up to heaven: where successes and effects are delivered back, not according to the appetite of man, but the inscrutable wisdom of God, and upon that we ought to rest ourselves, not only with patience, but with comfort; that the only fountain of knowledge hath taken it into his own hands, of whose better disposing, it were the greatest impiety and infidelity to make the least doubt or question: but it is sadness that prepares us for the acting of this and the rest of our life truly; and as we ought: who must not be understood to be of the descent of Niobe, still labouring in tears and exclamations: nor a vainglorious or envious Philosopher, that big with his own profession, labours to proclaim it in his looks: nor a silent fretting sorrow, that will needs marry his afflictions: 
A true description of Sadness.  but Sadness whose portraiture I would present from the general state and nature of man, hath drawn herself into an habit or posture; in some places fit to resist the incursions of her enemies: in others to divert them, and sometimes like a wise Conqueror; making them of the cruelest foes, assured friends or loving subjects: her outside is sober, calm, constant, modest, and for the most part silent; her inside full of peace, industry and resolution.  
To reduce these into a shorter and sounder way, what knowledge, art, or science is there, more necessary and important, then that which is wholly devoted to the ordering of our life? this doth Sadness most aptly and effectually: first instructing, then adorning, and lastly, governing the life of man, with so much tranquillity, certainty, and happiness, as if we will trust either reason or example, we shall find no lives to carry so continual a contentment as these: nor none so often, and so continually miscarry as the contrary.  
Since then in these are comprehended the whole course of man's life, we will draw the picture of Sadness within this compass: so shall I not praise her more than profit my Reader: or if I fail, an unskilful Painter may spoil a picture, but not a face; which a worthier undertaking, may purchase glory, by the spoils of my imperfections: since it is not then with man, as with other creatures, that are endowed with the greatest part of their understanding, at the very entrance into the World, which being bounded and limited within a self preservation, extends no further than to a present consideration of them and theirs: as it is a natural property infused rather into their being, then into them; & rather to the profit of nature, and her conservation, then for their particular benefit: as at the first it is strait, and narrow, so time ripens it not, nor dilates it: far otherwise it is with man, whose reason grows with him, and whose judgement (as not compatible with his youth) is delivered unto him when he comes to age: at least his minority is but the seed-time: in his Autumn comes his harvest, that is the time of his instruction; this of use.  

Women enemies to true Sadness.  Now, whether it be from the pride of man, that loves not to look so low as his infancy, or the contempt he hath to impart his time to a poor lump of flesh, or that since Nature hath forced him upon women, he thinks to turn the imperfections of time upon the imperfections of Nature, and that they are fittest to breed & hatch their puling wayward weaknesses: whether from one, or from all, or from some more hidden cause: certain it is, that to the most men in particular, & to the commonwealth in general, there ariseth great loss, by sacrificing these their first years, unto their tuitions: from hence it comes, that when Poets would set up a mark for imitation, they durst never trust a woman, so much as with their nursing; but borrowed of their imagination, either a Goddess or a Nymph, or rather than fail, a meaner creature. Some Philosophers would allow them, no more interest in our conception, then to receive cherish, foster, and redeliver us: but alas, the large portion of the imperfections that we inherit from them, assures us the contrary: but since it is so much; as time, reason, instruction, and whatsoever the wit of man can apply, can never utterly expel; hardly correct, or temper: what a stupid carelessness, reigns over the world, to increase our defects, by enlarging their time of government.  
But neither to offend them, nor stay further from my subject; their dispositions will not take the rich colour of Sadness, which ever yields that tranquillity & settledness of mind, that can propose the end, and prosecute the way, without diversion, or error: at least, without those that disjoin our intentions; and overthrow our purposes: whereas (the very springs of passions & affections) take & change their forms, at the pleasure of every representation, not upon a deliberated judgement; but according to the consultation and conclusions of their senses.  
Thus when we may see the power of Sadness, for instruction; since they that want it, are not to be trusted with education, yet not to leave enemies behind us, though I wish we might observe their order, that set wild birds eggs, under those that are domestic and tame, to alter their wild condition into their foster-mothers more mild and familiar: and so could wish our dry nurses were men, & such as could teach them words made of reason, as well as wind; and though there be many severe, (if not malicious) censures given us, by our forefathers, against them in all ages, and by all countries, and by all professions; of which infinite concurrence of censures, I will give but one instance, nelle cose di consiglio in una d●nna, e capace di poterlo dare ne meno di pigliarlo per se e tanto p●ggio da teneclo secreto mat; yet doubt I not, but they are owners of such perfections, as bounded, and kept in their own circumference, are of much use and pleasure: and they are to be honoured by us, no less than our mother earth, from whom we no sooner come, but we strive to return again: to conclude, since we cannot be without them, it is great reason, they should be entertained with a due respect: which is rather sweetly, then seriously: let them have their own interest religiously answered; and for more, since it but corrupts them, and shackles us; whatsoever old men and mad men do, or have done; wise men for their sakes, will attend their charge, with more circumspection.  
If then we desire to frame a man that shall deserve his being, and to be master of himself and time: let us begin betimes, to set such Governors over him, as may both by their examples, and instructions, daily reflect upon him, and infuse into him the grace, and most instructive influence of Sadness, for by this means he lives fortified against the grand corrupter of youth Pleasure: and the violent enemy of Age, Grief. Surely the beam that keeps the cogitations of man even, is none other than Sadness: for he that thinks to buy his peace with accumulating riches, or to be too strong for fortune, with making himself powerful, doth but apply an outward medicine for an inward disease: which though it may sometimes ease, seldom cures: but Sadness, that keeps us at home, daily shows us the brittle frailty of all exterior things (which makes us like an Army pestered with too much carriage, neither fit to fly nor fight) unites our inward powers, defends our reason, from the vapours and mists of our affections; and standing between the extremes of mirth and sorrow, is the only perfect moderator of our human actions. Cato, though he had many learned slaves, would not commit the education of his son to them, but himself became his instructor: which I attribute to no other consideration, then that he rather chose, to frame him to a well composed Sadness, then to be excellent in any Art or Profession: ut modestior, non ut lepidior fiat, a perfection fit for a mechanic earner, than a true owner of himself: since it is the forming of the mind, not the tongue or hand, that can prefer us to true felicity.  
Now that we may touch as it were with our finger how much Sadness confers, towards a perfect instruction; what is more proper and peculiar to the forming and framing of the mind to wisdom and goodness, than first to keep out vice, and then so to work, prepare, and temper the mind, as it shall be always fit to receive & contain the wholesome documents of virtue and honesty? Which doth Sadness, so naturally and effectually, as all other things, that offer themselves for this use, are in comparison, lefthanded, and stepmothers to education.  
First then, as one saith prettily in his imagined wife, that he would have her, of a denying behaviour; as if a fort accessively situated, could not be impregnable, since assaultable: and as he saith therefore, he comes too near, that comes to be denied, and as Ovid, that great trader into those parts, could never find armour of proof for Chastity, but not to be proved, casta est quam nemo rogavit, she's chaste, whom no tongue yet did taste: so doubtless, he shall pass the narrow way of Virtue, with fewer impediments, that his owner of this sober preventive behaviour, than those alluring countenances, which keep open house for all comers: one Philosopher would have bolsters made, to stop the ears of young men, from contagious noisome sounds; but he that hath made Sadness his Porter, shall not need them, since his very presence deters and checks their lose imaginations, and they dare not confess themselves to him, that hath their condemnation written in his face: hoc secum certe tulisset, neminem coram Catonem peccare. peddlers open their wares willingest to women and children: in a word, as they say the Amethyst prevents drunkenness, so is Sadness the preservative against the entrance of a number of vices.  
Will we then frame a man fit to command and obey? to govern others and direct himself? a man so squared by the unfaileable rules of wisdom and judgement, as to know how to become all places, and to use all fortunes? Bind his tender youth to a disposition tempered with Sadness: for this man can neither seduce his minority with ill examples, nor mar his waxed age, with a false impression, too common a condition of these dissolute times: where our children with their milk, and their very first words, suck in obscene speeches, and dissolute behaviour: and imitation, and custom, hath given them the very habit of vice, before they have either loved, or chosen them.  
But this falls not out to the pupils that are governed by men of this carriage: for since it is resolved, that this Sadness is not an accident of their complexions, but a guard hammered out of their discourse and the issue of a happy matched discretion and experience: they do already so well know, that all the allurements of vice offer themselves, but like players and jugglers, to show you sport, and to gain by you: and this word recreation, is but the outside of times wasteful and wilful consumption: and that not only the hours so spent, are utterly lost; but which is far worse, this continual excitation of the bestial part of man, provokes his lusts and sensualities unto an unquenchable dropsy.  
Doubtless, as complexions are apt to the infection of bodily diseases, one than the other; so behaviours to the contagion of the mind: mirth is made of pleasure, and with pleasure all vices are baited; whereas this Sadness is the complexion of a mind that knoweth this, and therefore hates and disdains Mirth: I know experience is the chiefest evidence, that age can produce to prove their right to wisdom; but that which makes their judgements strong enough, to make their experience of more use, than a bare tale, is a decay of their senses, grown too weak to trade for themselves, and the fit to be set to our reason to make up a true harmony of all the parts, to the good and preservation of the whole: the same effect hath Sadness with young men, that this decay of nature hath with old; for when the consenting part, or will of man, is so rectified with a sad consideration of the true value of all that the senses present unto her; well may they long to please themselves, with their several objects: but when that desire hath no other advocate but itself; it soon languisheth and forsaketh it suit: Eschines advice to an inquirer after the best course of life, was, to go to the Church willingly, to the Wars upon necessity, but to Feasts upon no terms: what was this, but to praise the conservation of Sadness, which in these assemblies, is for the most part betrayed: and in the heat of Wine, meat, and company, melted, into the customs of dissolute mirth? which made the wise Roman complain, that he never came amongst men, but returned less man, then when he went out.  
This made the Philosopher that fell a sleep at a feast, hold his tongue with one hand, and with the other, the part that they say women love best, but not to speak of: as the two taps, at which Mirth and Pleasure are drawn out.  
But may I not seem to go too much of one hand, when proposing instructions, I incline rather to preventions than additions: surely if the nature of man were so pure & simple, as it had no participation nor commixture with contrarieties & repugnances, there were no way but one; and that one direct: but as he is first in his mass, or corporial substance, the issue or production of the 4 grand Heterogimical bodies, and after by the several and most differing powers of his reason and will, as unlike in their likeness and natures, as light and darkness: there being as much to shun, as to follow: I hope I shall not err in my way, if the situation of the end proposed, draws me sometimes about, since I undertake to conduct, not the eye, but the understanding.  
Neither will my Reader (I hope) hold himself deceived, if Sadness alone, and by itself, only brings not in all the materials necessary to the composing of a perfect man, and the framing a happiness to the full extent of our earthly condition: for such an extract is not to be drawn, from a knowledge so overclouded as mine, let it suffice then and it will: (my indifferent judge) that it is of so much use and importance, as though with it only you cannot make this purchase, yet without it, if it be not impossible, yet at least most difficult, and withal, that though the soul in her revolving and travels, may meet those solid considerations, that are most like herself, wherein as in a glass she beholds her own beauties: yet are they transitory, and but the flashes of her agitation: the habitual possession of the graces of the mind, being to be fixed upon no body, that Sadness hath not first prepared. This made so many of the Ancients, and of those most memorable, for the excellencies of the mind: some to throw away their wealth, others to refuse riches, the graces of Princes, and the favour of the people: others pull out their own eyes, and some to abandon the society of man; and even he that might truliest be entitled, Deliciae humani generis, he that had the attribute, 
Socrates.  to fetch virtue from Heaven, and to place her in Cities; to bring her from the paradise of the gods, and transplant her in the breasts of men: no doubt embraced a wilful poverty; nay even life itself, which he was offered at the easiest rate, he would not yet accept of, as too delicate and nice a thing, for a worthy and heroic spirit, to make account of. If now we enter into the consideration of the motive that made these men shun what all the world so earnestly pursue: what could it be but to keep these wants afoot, continually to admonish them, of their condition, and to cut off all ways, by which mirth or pleasure might make their approaches or come to the assault.  
Alexander in the excess of abundance, killed Clitus, Fabritius in his poverty, refused the golden bribes of the Samnites; upon abundance waits mirth and pleasure, and upon them all, the leprosies and deformities of our minds.  
There is not so incorrigible a creature as man in prosperity, nor so modest and reform as they that Fortune hath not rocked but waked, the consequence of which being Mirth and Sadness: behold them in their operations, and we must reject the one, as a most dangerous poison, and embrace the other, for the most precious preservative.  
If yet I have not proved Sadness, instruction itself: yet I hope she doth not look with so disfigured a countenance, as when Opinion paints her: and though I cannot say, she is the end of knowledge, yet I may well maintain her the beginning: since it is Sadness only that prepares the understanding, and makes every man, Idoneus auditor, fit to philosophize, and to be disciples in the school of Virtue.  
If now it be determined and truly, that the graces and beauties of the soul, aught to have the place and honour, above those of the body: and the sweetness, beauty and lovely proportion of the body, to be preferred before the effeminate deckings, that the body doth rather carry then enjoy: since it often happens, that a foul and deformed carcase hath a fair and rich wardrobe: and if all these in their original estimations, were first valued, not for their own sakes, but as the Ambassadors of those inward qualities and excellencies, that such complexions, shapes, and proportions, inseparably foreshew: Sadness, I doubt not, both for her outward loveliness, and inward virtue and use, will be allowed for an adornment, 
Sadness adorneth.  that doth not alone please the eye, but the more judicial and intellectual parts.  
First then, though I am not ignorant, these merry companions are the most acceptable to the most: yet not always to the best, and if they be at times welcome to the understanding sort, 
Mirth not always acceptable to the best.  they are received to their tables, not counsels: and used rather for sauce for their meat, then seasoning for their judgements: and are, as was said of Athens, places that though many desired to be entertained in, yet few to inhabit: from whence cometh this, but that as they are adorers of mirth, they are haters of all sad and serious considerations 〈◊〉 to keep life in laughter, the whole stream●● 〈◊〉 their wits is spent, upon the motion of their tongues: In a word, they sacrifice their earnest to ●est, their friends to their humour, and to present satisfactions, all the duties of humanity, honesty, and discretion: and if so; where shall we lay hold of them, or to what use would they serve, but to such a one, as all honest natures cannot but scorn and disdain? whereas the sad and sober behaviour makes it one way to allowances, and if it gets not acquaintances so fast, it wins friends faster; and though perhaps it be not always so readily entertained, yet it is evermore respected: and reason, since the one with his incessant motion wears out itself, loads the ear, and loathes the eye; whereas the other, in his reservedness, maintains his understanding, in his united vigour: and not troubling his brain with his tongue, falls not into the disadvantages of many words: but still holding more in his breast then upon his shoulders, is strong enough for any assault, and prepared to make the best use of company and conference. Surely, if behaviour be of such estimation, as beauty without it is deformed; and deformity with it is lovely, and agreeable to all eyes: if behaviour be the soul of the form, Sadness is the soul of the soul: for such a composed settled smoothness, as distastes not to day; pleaseth to morrow, and gets by continuance: no fashion wins so universally and continually, as that which hath received the true tincture of Sadness, for it suppresseth the inconstancy, and busy turbulence of the passions and affections: it receives nothing upon trust, or at the first sight; and therefore is always one: neither being troubled with the floods and ebbs of fortune: the vanity of the world, the ill employed power of greatness, nor the fluctuary motions of the humorous multitude; or at least, if he be sensible of their irregularities and confusions, yet his thoughts are not written in his face: his countenance is not significant: whereas the face and disposition of mirth ever resembles his last thoughts; and upon every touch, or taste of that which is displeasant, and follows not the stream of his appetite, it deforms itself, and like the Moon, is in as many changes, as his fortune: now if the wrangling of children be troublesome, the waywardness of men must, to a stranger, be ridiculous; and to the acquaintance odious: and consequently Sadness a goodly ornament, that neither displeaseth others, deforms itself, nor at any time passeth the bounds of judgement and discretion; and though he must, as he is man, have many thoughts to repent, yet few actions. Primum argumentum compositae mentis existimo, posse consistere & secum morari, as it is commonly taken for a sign of a strong estate, and a settled disposition, to keep a certain house, and to love home: and that such men are the best, both comforters and counsellors, of their mean and needy neighbours: so is it, with those minds that retire into their own meditations, and scatter not themselves upon the irresolute and inconstant invitations of opinion; being most profitable in their examples; and most sound, in their counsels; outwardly goodly marks of direction, for them that are ignorant in their course: and within, most happy and safe harbours and havens for them, that either by weather, or weakness, or any other, either suspicion or knowledge of impediment, dare not put out into the vast and profound mutabilities and dangers of this Ocean of the World: if now a mole on the cheek be an ornament to beauty; Sadness is the same to wit; and if wit, like quicksilver, be too nimble for it own conservation, Sadness doth more than contain it: for it refines, and fixes it: jewels and rich apparel adorn the Possessor, and exact from strange eyes a reverence and respect: Sadness, the grave and ever becoming rob of judgement, represents to all understandings the venerable account of all so adorned: if the all concealing apparel of women, that measured by their modesty, leaves nothing for the incursions, of greedy wanton eyes to make spoil of, and doth not only proclaim their souls fairer than their bodies, but their bodies fairer than they are: with leaving the face, eye and hand, as a broken sentence to be perfected by imagination: Sadness doth the same; for the interior parts doubling and redoubling the perfections of the mind, in such sort, that even fools that Nature hath even hidden under this behaviour, have often escaped censure; and under title of a hidden fellow hath hidden a most empty and senseless: for who can tell the contents of a clasped book, or inventory, or a locked Wardrobe? Now as it conceals the fool, it illustrates the wise man. For as the Sun breaking through a cloud, let's fall the golden tresses of his beams upon the gloomy eyrie morning, after his absence, with a much more resplendent majesty, then when continually unmasked, he prostitutes his beauties unto every eye, and makes not only the Shepherd, but his flock weary of his company, and seek shade and shelter to hide themselves from his too fast fixed sight: even so the well weighed motions of the sad behaviour commands attention, and the staidness of his carriage prepares a consent before hearing, as due to him that lets nothing pass without due consideration.  
To conclude, if one of the greatest Philosophers determined silence, a more excellent quality than eloquence: I have the aid of his authority, since Sadness is the seat of silence, where she only resides in safety, and where without all noise, trouble or tumult, she enjoys the intelligence and contemplations of the soul: which the children of mirth cannot hear; for their own noise: nor taste, their mouths are so furred with bodily pleasures.  
And now I will appeal to the eye, if these ligniaments and features of Sadness, be not more goodly and becoming then those of mirth: surely if they be not more delightful, they are more contenting: the difference of which, I refer to the judicial, and to those that value things by their nearness, and resemblance of those of Heaven.  
Lastly, for government, though the world be not made of Atoms, yet the body of man's reputation, is the concurrence of his speeches, actions and passions: which ought to advise all men, not to neglect the least motion, either of mind or body: lest it fastens a deformity upon all: shall we expect this from mirth? it were in vain, and to prescribe it, were lost labour; it is composed wholly of contrarieties: for take a quantity of idle breath, sublimated into a jest, a proportion of laughter, some mimic tricks, either of the face or the body, and boil them so thoroughly in wine, that you cannot know one from another, and you have the most received receipt of mirth: but who will undertake to give assurance, that this inspired crew, shall not violate the dignity of men: and so govern themselves, that shame and derision shall not have more right to them, than they to themselves?  
Ulysses drank of Circe's cup, and was not transformed: the moral is, a wise man may wash his mouth, but not quench his thirst, with pleasure: for, he that aims only at mirth and pleasure, hits sorrow and repentance; as well because it makes him rash and inconsiderate in his courses, when to buy mirth, he sells all the respects and duties that he owes to inestimable virtue, and his own preservation: as that it being to the mind, as a stoave to the body, that so opens the pores, as the least air gives a blow to the health, so the least adversity or frown of fortune, dejects their minds, and lays them open, either to a ravening fury, or a base bewailing: wherefore he that will not seal the worst of sorrow, let him beware of devoting himself to mirth, for they only feel the water intolerable cold, that go into it extraordinary hot. The Philosophers that imposed silence upon their Scholars for their first instruction, could intend nothing else, but the settling and composing the mind: from whence ariseth that habit of Sadness, that gave them power of themselves; and withal of all things that came within the bounds of their knowledge: if not to gain by, yet not to lose.  
To what end should I produce the witness of many famous ancients, from whom scarce a smile was ever drawn, and yet were such, as never lost oppurtunity; that presented itself, to do others good, or themselves right: nor ever lost that power, force, and tranquillity of their own minds, in any of Fortune's transmutations, that is wont so to overcome the reason of men, as like transformed creatures, there can be nothing more different than them to themselves? Neither will I authorize my opinion, by the example of our blessed Saviour, who was never seen to laugh: nor salomon's sacred counsel, that it was better to go to the house of mourning, than mirth, lest the worldly man, that makes provision only for the building of his Babel, cast me off as an unseasonable and impertinent counsellor: though it shall then (gentle Reader) insensibly, and without thy trouble prepare thee for the best work of thy life, which is the life eternal: yet whilst thou wilt be attentive to thy temporal employments, it is also of most effectual importance.  
Desirest thou to be reputed wise? It is her visiblest form; not to be importuned with vain and idle company? they fear Sadness too much to follow thee.  
To be the safe Cabinet of thy own and thy friends secrets? Sadness is the parent of silence, silence of secrecy.  
To be temperate? where Sadness is Porter, few vain desires are admitted.  
Not to be precipitate in thy actions? Where Sadness keeps the lists of consideration, always clear and free, from the intrusions of passion, the soul cannot but govern all things by the regular and judicial power of reason, as she that knows time call to consultations, shuts out repentance.  
In a word, if there be any way to be troad in by our feet of clay, we are out of the reach of Fortune, out of the power of our passions, and in the full possession of ourselves, we may live in a continual calm: where from the height of a clear & impregnable judgement, we may safely and insensibly behold the world, by this time so far under us, as all such vain desires, as had wont to make us suitors and followers to her, have lost sight of their enamoured objects, it is by the way of Sadness: who doth not alone enrich us by that it brings, but preserves us so by keeping out all inordinate appetites, distempered affections, and those humours of blood and opinion, who where they are favoured, do usually destroy and expel, not only all honest and virtuous actions, but even the very thoughts that do but seem to be well affected.  
Thus have I (good Reader) presented to thy acquaintance the sweetest, and best conditioned companion of the life of man, which if you will but believe upon trial, I desire no more: be not seduced by opinion, and thou mayst be as happy as this world can make thee: for though the outward power makes men great, yet is the inward, that makes men virtuous, and virtue only that produceth a happiness, that can endure the test of all times and changes.  
Neither must I omit to answer them that would hide their base choice in the confusion of words, and so will have their mirth to be joy; but he is worse than blind that knows them not a sunder, mirth being rather an apish unquietness, than a  contentment: beside, it lives not of itself, it depends upon fortune, upon time, health, and many outward accidents; and lives but upon borrowing, whereas joy being as the shadow of virtue, or the effect of the inward and inseparable cause of a good life, is never from home, never in a cloud, never subject to alteration, always one, and therefore not only always happy, but therefore happiness itself: and yet to make the difference more apparent, behold their pictures drawn by two excellent Masters, res severa est verum gaudium, which if Sadness resembles not more lively than mirth, let your judgement determine, and now for mirth, I am sure this was made, it is so like her, risu inepto, res ineptior nulla est; if you define mirth without laughing, you speak of somewhat else, and leave your errand behind you, but it hath been so often determined, that they are so far from all one, as they are not so much as alike: as further to labour in so manifest a truth, will rather obscure, then enlighten it.  
I will then include this question in this definitive sentence, falso de laetitia opinantur siquidem ab utrisque gaudio scilicet & natura, diversa est, it hath not only lost the challenge to joy, but to nature; he then that drew man within the compass of animal risibile, was rather a confessor to good companions, than a wise survey or of the little world of man.  
And now to conclude, if thou hast but Melancholy enough to suspend thy opinion, whatsoever thou art, thou hast me in the power of thy censure: I doubt not but you shall be beholding to your judgement, to free me from the heresy of Paradoxes.  
If some other think, that I have restrained the liberty of man, in commending Sadness unto him: let him know, I have not determined it the end, but the way only; an entry or passage, that of the other side, hath a world much more spacious and pleasant, then that of this side, comprehended by mirth: which is little, poor and transitory: if yet there be some that will bring this evidence for their liberty, Laetitia twenem, fraus decet tristis senem, it is but like a licence to eat flesh in Lent, for them that are weak and sickly; or like a law that prohibited all persons to wear gay clothes, and jewels, but players and courtesans: which was then taken for a mark of scorn, not for a privilege of grace and advantage: which if they shall please to take so too, they shall have the less to answer for, and I shall neither have lost my labour, nor their favour: if not, I must yet challenge the allowance of the wisest, which are the oldest, who if they should yield to an extreme, would rather ratify that Philosopher that ever wept, than this that took no more pity of himself, and of the madness of mankind, then to spend his life in laughter.  
FINIS.   

THE PRAISE OF the Emperor julian the APOSTATA: His Princely virtues, and final Apostasy.  
I Dare not affirm him temperate, that shuns surfeits; nor him grave, that despiseth lightness; nor him valiant, that loves to converse with danger: It is no precious thing, my opinion, and yet I am afraid to spend it: let Physicians, a God's name, be thought trim fellows for determining of the lives of men, as if they had come yesterday from the Fates; for my part, except I may have leave to pass through the inside of them, I can say nothing: for all these are no more a kin to Virtue, than baseness may challenge of Nobility, because their names sound alike: it being not Temperance, not gravity, not Fortitude; except the cause that moves these effects, be virtues. The World affords not a more apt example than this Emperor, the History of whose life is full of so many excellent things, as hardly he that is a votary against the world, and hath nothing to think of, but keeping his vow, may equal him in all these outward appearances, that favourable judgements call the way to heaven; but in the depth of impiety; again, not the most reprobate, 
His temperance.  comparable: yet was he so temperate, as he never surfeited nor vometed oftener, than he was made Caesar, and that of cheese: in the provocations of the flesh none chaster, 
His chastity & thrift.  no unthrift of his treasure, and time, in public sports, a common disease of greatness: 
Not given to pleasure.  no lascivious pleasure did rust and consume his time, so covetous was he of it, as the very nights he divided into upholding his body, the bettering his mind, the serving his country; he needed not Alexander's ball of metal to awake him, for the thinness of his diet required not much sleep, 
His moderate diet.  whereas the other was a good fellow, and gave his hot constitution leave to lead him to banquets and quaffings. 
His valour.  For his valour, ask all the Histories of his time, and you shall find they make so great a noise about no body: but all these help him not, so irreligious a heart possessed them, proceeding most of them out of his education, some from his nature, none from virtue: how justly then may we suspect our opinions of men that carry the form of the exactest lives? Me thinks it were well, if they were let alone until the next world: for it is to be doubted, whether praises be not like rain that increaseth weeds, as well as nourisheth the corn: for it begets Hypocrites, and for the truly virtuous, they neither care for it, nor need it: if all men were of my mind, they that are good, and they that never came nearer than a desire to be thought so; should shortly be discerned one from another: for his soft pacing, his grave attire, and constant countenance, shall not work a whit upon me, no, not a speech well read, with the head and the fingers finely placed; no, not the naming vice in choler, and putting off his Hat when virtue is called; no, not the defying the World, nor challenging the combat of concupiscence: these are but words of course, but promises, but nothing: Promittas facito, quid enim promittere laedit? pollicitis dives, quilibetiesse potest: But this it is to write without the hope of gaining by a Maecenas, or the ambition of method; my matter, my style, hang disjointed, and unsemented, neither of them keeps their place, but gallops, and trots and ambles; the reason, I never gave Tully an hour for any of his Rhetoric: I send not my words a-wooing, I care not, so they can get to their journeys end, though they cannot caper, nor dance: there is a grace in the sound of words, but it is not mine, I give my thoughts clothes suddenly, and so fit, that they may be understood; but whether they be in fashion and well shaped, is not my care: I am of too rude a nature to be so nice, and mine ears are so harsh, that I could never yet understand the sweetness of the sound of opinion; but to that I take in hand.  
First, let me not be condemned for my Subject: he was an ill man, that was his loss, but this ill was only ill at the journeys end; for most of his actions were good here, and had been good for ever, if they had not served an ill master: but at the worst, Virtue is not so proud as not to extract what may be made good, out of ill for there is a spirit in vice, that being cunningly drawn out, will serve even the best: so full it is of a quick and piercing vigour: he hath a poor Library to behold, that reads only the good; let him turn over all, that desires to be profound; let him earn Virtue with digging it out of vice, and he will keep it the better: let him fetch it out of the entrails of ill, that will glory of his conquest; from those soft ministers of the mind, the Arts which make the soul read to the body, and make practice but a slight, through the minds foreknowledge.  
This Prince came to the managing Arms, not with such a people whose weakness was fit to nourish a novice, but with those fierce and warlike; yet was he victorious, and made those that were wont to be feared, fear: Qui alijs terrore esse consueverat, ipsum sibi timere coegit: who allows not of such an excellent beginning? When I hear of any great Soldier, I ask his age, when if old, it takes away mine admiration; for upon a wise minority I look with greatest affection: But here comes a privy token to know intents by, Sed haec laus etiam miserrima ambitionis labe contaminata est, cum se Augustum salutari voluit: so greedy are those minds that intent only to serve their own turn; no sooner have they attained to an achievement commendable, but they enforce praises out of the mouths of men; they will swagger for titles and respect; yea, it becomes Lord, even of themselves; for reason of more weight, that in another man's case should have prevailed, with the eyes of ambition seems dwarfish, weak, and little. That wise and warlike servant to the kingdom of Spain, 
* The Duke of Alua.  the Duke of Alva, hath much of his glory dusked, by an Historian, that relates the 
(a) Don Antonio Prior of Crato, commonly called the King of Portugal.  Prior of Crato would have come to a good composition: but he would not hear of it, because it could not have been then said, he conquered Portugal with the sword: of such a value were a few idle words, as his master's profit and his own truth were thought things meet to give place to this wind, to this nothing: But behold how Fortune sometimes plays the same part that wisdom doth, and brings a successful end to false beginnings: unde bellum civil atrocissimum esset consecutum, nisi mors pene repentina constantium ante sustulisset: thus doth that blind guide make arguments to overthrow judgement: thus upon the death of Alexander de medicis, Cosimo was enthroned, being scarce out of the down of his childhood, without much pain or study, that had cost his predecessors much trouble, much care: so doth it please the divine wisdom, to demonstrate to mortal eyes their impotency; for it is he, there is no fortune, it is he that makes those things that seem to have idle beginnings, prove profitable at the end. Both these examples, though in some things different, yet agree in the demonstrating: those things that we understand not, and therefore call chances, have often as fair an end as things proposed; which is the will of heaven to teach us earthlings, that our purposes cannot go whither they are commanded, without his pleasure. At his Coronation, 
His Coronation.  & after, he seemed modestly to mislike his greatness, the common trick of ambition, who still desires to seem careless of what he chiefly thirsts after; if it be not so, it is as with us all, that like those things that are farthest off: he used often to protest, Nihil se amplius assecutum, quam ut occupatior interiret: a speech that, me thinks, draws the nature of his place lively, and withal, the happiness of his place; for there cannot be a more noble state, then that which perforce bids us to be industrious and busy; a more worthy business can there not be, than the employment of a Prince: he feels not death that dieth thus, he hath other business, then to breed thoughts of terror; and for them that find greatness, and yet make death terrible, it comes from the abuse of their authority: for they truly using it, are unsensible of smart, and fear not death, nor his worst countenance.  
After his possession of the Empire, he invaded Persia, drawn the more willingly, by a persuasion, that his body had gotten Alexander his soul, and should have his success. Good Lord, into what uncertain and ridiculous imaginations are they led, that have not the anchorhold of Religion! Went it no further, than this, it were most precious, for it keeps our thoughts in good order, which otherwise would make us all as wild as madmen: for we bred Monsters and misshapen things in our brain, which did not the conscience reduce into fashion (which conscience is the child of Divinity) we should not touch one another for fear of breaking: but sometime such a persuasion carrieth higher and handsomer than ever meant, enforcing imitation. I knew once a fellow, mean enough, and as meanly qualitied, being said to be like a great man, began to engender stirring thoughts, of spirit, of well doing, and, at the last, arrived at the pitch of an indifferent worthy fellow; but within a while this must be cast off. It is not amiss at the first to give children plums for learning their lesson, but afterwards they must love learning for knowledges sake, these for virtues. Of the happiness of his perfections, and then of his imperfections: his temperance 
His temperance.  carried with it a number of commodities; for besides health, it maintained the strength and vivacity of his spirit, which the abundance of eating and drinking is wont to quench; at least kill: his sleeps were thereby less (the drowner of the spirits) being the image of death, the maker of the understanding dull, 
His moderate sleep.  and senseless: but the best quality is the cooling of lust, which banqueting and excess is wont to kindle in the body, and the body to fire the mind; but this abstinence brings the other under, and curbs lust, which usually melteth away, and so becometh the maintainer of the life of man. His example is not of the least consequence, the life of the Prince being the book of the subject, 
The Prince's example, the subjects book.  from which nothing may withdraw them: though his abundance may seem to licence him, and exempt them, they will take it for no answer, 
Providence of time and treasure.  nor in truth is it sufficient, for I think they were lent him to do others good with, not himself hurt: provident in spending his treasure, parsimonious of his time, both strengtheners of himself, for by the first, he comes not to need others, by the last not to complain of time, for they live the shortest (though most years) that misspend it: a lamentable thing, even worse than mortality, for this death is worse than that: a great means of this, was the custom of delighting the people, 
His delighting the people.  and of honouring their gods with sundry public sports; and what might be the reason besides ignorance, in the Roman State upholding these, I can but guess; it might be with their Commonalty, as with our little children, who if not feed with sports will grow wayward and cry, so ticklish are popular States, where it is but a step from the best to the worst, that if they be not kept busy, they will mutiny and grow into mislikes; to do well they must be appointed their very thoughts, with feeding them with light stuff, far from the matter. Wherefore, if in no other respect, 
Monarchike government best.  the Monarchy is to be honoured as the Prince of government, and especially those of succession, where the ambitious and rebellious nature hath not so much to work upon, the people being ever most affectionate to the blood Royal, and God having expressly prohibited the using violence to his Anointed: the secret meaning of these sports was best known to the Romans, but of the diseases of them I have noted. 
2. Diseases in the Roman sports. The first disease.  2. In the time of Nero, and both of them me thinks likely to follow: The one of them was, when the Procurators, proconsuls, or other Magistrates, had abused the authority of their places, with pilling and taxing the subjects of the Empire, they came to Rome and made their peace, with giving the people the sight of sword-plaiers, or some such things. Here is the Prohibition: Edixit Caesar ne quis Magistratus, aut Procurator, qui Provinciam obtinert spectaculum gladietorum, aut ferarum, aut quod aliud ludicrum aederet; this is the medicine, the disease followeth: Nam ante non minus tali largitione, quam corripiendis pecunijs subiectos affligebant, dum quae libidine deliquerant, ambitu propugnant: It is a circumspection most behoveful for the Magistrate, to take away the means of getting these keys to open the people's heart with, which is to be certainliest performed, with stopping all springs, that would feed them, but the fountain of chief authority; for otherwise, they will like tame birds, readily come to the call of him that gives them meat. The other was, 
The second disease.  how apt the celebrations were to nourish a lascivious Prince, showing & directing the way to softness, & excess: which is well approved by this Empire of liberty and festivals, and the ancient Laconian strictness, where there was never riotous Prince; in the other, every second or third Emperor a Monster: 
Power in a wanton hand ruinates his charge.  there is not a more dangerous thing than power in a wanton hand, which every way ruinates his charge; for if it live to grow old, it becomes tyranny, in the mean time corrupts himself and Commonwealth: the natural man loving bodily pleasures, when cherished by the life of a lascivious Prince, the nature of it is doubled. Est vulgus cupiens voluptatum, & si eo Princeps trahat laetum: They are well contented with such a Governor, alas, their countenances are unfit guides for a Statesman; me thinks they are like the sense of taste, that never considereth the operation, but taste: fair otherwise was this Prince, which he lays to his education, though I think Nature had made him of too rough a mould to be carried with such lightness; yet might it be his familiarity with letters, which carrieth the mind so high, as most other things appear base and contemptible; this speech is the child of such a mind, turpe esse sapienti, cum habeat animam, captare laudes ex corpore: it is a speech worthy of the worthiest mouth, and proclaims to the ambitious where to buy the best glory and commendations. It resteth to tell what were the weights that made his vices 
His vices.  heaviest, the lightness of his nature, or inconstancy, his pursuit of unlawful knowledges, and lastly, his ambition and cueoting dominion. I do not cry fie of inconstancy, 
First his inconstancy, etc.  or curse it, for by the leave of age's settledness, there is never a Peasant in the world trains up youth better, I abhor it in age, and stop my nose at it; but youths best lectures are read by inconstancy; 
Praise of inconstancy in youth.  never stamp, mistress experience, at my opinion, for were it not lawful for age to forget, I should call you ingrateful, for Inconstancy was your nurse, and all the strange experiments you have passed, she carried you through. But when age gins to decline a body, it is time to leave it: he hath spent his time ill, that knows not then what to trust to, which known must be held to the death, yea and in death. 
Martyrdom one of the best deaths.  Martyrdom is one of the best fashioned cuts that Dame Atropos hath: me thinks, at that time Death playeth a gallant conductor, and leads us to an assault that passed, deserves triumph, his ill directed knowledges deserve the greatest blame, for all knowledges whatsoever that have poisoned man, 
His ill derived knowledge.  with the persuasion of standing only upon his own strength, are both feeble and impious; they are like legs that have only strength to carry the body, where it may destroy itself: amongst these Magic and Astrology, 
Magic and Astrology.  the studies of vain melancholic natures, 
Divell-binders.  but especially the divel-binders are the most sottish people in the world: for what can be more ridiculous then to think herbs, spells, and circles, can enforce infernal spirits to be ruled by mortal men, or that God will give a power to his Name abused? But Astrology is not so ill. The other Magic, is the game that the devil plays at fast and lose with man, but the abuse of knowledge, the disease of the finest metals, deserves more pity; of all the great troops that go this way, I find few arrived at an indifferent commendation; I cannot tell, they are cut off either by pride, vanity, or contempt; this is the cozenage of partiality; do you think there is such an excellency in having slubbered an Aristotle? Fie, no. If you understood Aristotle, you might be bettered; there is not such a virtue in genus and species, as you have set it down in your Inventory, they are but names; and Art itself but the stilts of a cripple: for if we could go without them, what should we do with them? Vanity, pride's minority, belongeth to this crew: such are those that having taken a doss of Cicero, presently learn their tongues to dance a Cinque-pace; these utter Orations so like Cicero's as they seem the same, so well can they enforce a circumstance and neatly slide from one limb of Rhetoric to another: away with this whorish eloquence, with this breath-marchandise, it becomes not the gravity of a professed scholar, no more than it doth a General, reckoned to be skilful at his needle. The last is Pride in grain, 
His contempt of others.  contempt; an humour sodden in self opinion, a disease killing the love of his country, & countrymen, the persuasion to make him to apply the riches of his mind to the benefit of others, but this is taken away; for contempt and love were never friends, and then he is no other than a buried Treasure: 
To know what contempt is.  This disease is to be known by separating his customs from the world, by an eye full of disdain, by a countenance borrowed from the picture of some old Philosopher: for no people am I more sorry, then for these, which abuse the picture of our first and most blessed state: they that desire cure, let them go to Seneca, Frons nostra, populo conveniat, and after more thoroughly, Id agamus, ut meliorem vitam sequamur quam vulgus, non ut contrariam: I am glad yet that Seneca's time was troubled with these inkhorn Bragards, as well as we.  

His ambition.  But this emperors coveting dominion, of which I shall speak like one in a dream, for I cannot think like a Prince, and I am glad of it, for they are thoughts too big for me, but as I guess, Ambition is more natural and profitable, in a Prince then private men: for the definition of utile & honestum with them, and us, is not all one, our states and our professions differ, and all one instrument will not serve us.  

JULIANS' Dialogue of the Caesars.  

His Dialogue of the Caesars.  I Desire to have the picture of famous men by mine ear not mine eye, I prefer the Historian, before the Painter, I get nothing by the fashion of his face, but by the knowledge of his life: the pen is the best pencil, which draws the mind, the other, that tells you the stature and proportion of the body may delight, not profit; give me therefore their works; if writers; if not, their lives written by others: thus think I of books (the issue of our minds) all which are not without some profit, for there is no soul altogether barren, but especially those that are able, and do write in earnest, those bind the whole world to them, for they dissolve their spirits, to make theirs more precious, and by the help of time have made that excellent cordial, that the soul digesting may recover, and be preserved against our natural disease ignorance. I sucked not long enough of my Schoolmaster to prove a Commentor, 
The Author's digression of himself.  I cannot fetch words from their swaddling bands, nor make them interpret the quality of the things known by them, I tracked them not, nor set a brand of them when I meet them, nor compare the words of one Author with another: if I can make joining work of the matter, I go contented, for I work not for words: and thus nature hath framed me, & I will not go to surgery for an alteration; for me thinks it becomes a gentle spirit well, to leave the dross and fly to the matter, he writes not under the hard restraint of fear or gain, but gallantly gives the World the travels of his mind, and it is gallantly, for a Mercenary liberallist is in little better state than a Renegado: let him then that courts his censurers with sweet titles for fear of bitterness, or him that sends his book of a voyage in hope of gain, tend this cutting up words and such stuff: but he that writes so purely as to want these, let him run into things of worth, and fetch secrets out of the entrails of actions: I have read History, but they seldom do any more than make the times confess; some upon History, most simple, some better, others dangerous; but this Dialogue hath of the virtue of both, and little of their idleness, full of excellent observation, and withal quick: so well did the stomach of mine understanding like it, that she boiled longer then ordinary, & here is the digestion.  
It is not my manner to be busy about the manner of the feast, the place, nor other circumstances, let it suffice the Author makes Romulus invite his successors to a feast, at whose entrance Sylenus, jupiters' buffoon hits them where they were left unarmed by Virtue.  
I promise neither method nor antiquity; but after my fashion thus: 
julius Caesar's entrance.  First julius Caesar enters, of whom Sylenus bids jupiter beware, lest he plots his deposing; for he is (saith he) great and fair; thus dangerous is the neighbourhood of Ambition: 
Caesar's ambition.  for all other affections that are wont to maintain amity are not here; for Ambition loves nothing but itself, nor pities, nor regards: so both commending his reason and passion to be slaves to this humour is good only for that, to all other dangerous. Besides the humour, he had two instruments belonging to it, he was great and fair; alas, what account should we make of our reason? since she suffereth the vainest occasions to beget the seriousest purposes. Is it not pitiful that Valour should be beholding to the Drum and Trumpet, and flying of the colours and the glittering of Armour? Yet is it, and I think few spirits, but amongst the rest have found these the inflamer of courage: no less absurd is the election of a Magistrate by his beauty; 
Not good to elect a Magistrate for his beauty.  yet is it common for that Whorish affection to prevail, the which ranked with this greatness overcoming sufficiency, when men whose evidence lieth in their titles; shall possess places where wisdom is behoveful, & patrias laudes sentiat esse suas. Of all which there is to be noted the baseness of our choice, the sluggishness of our reason, for not forbidding the banes. And lastly, how they throw themselves into the hands of Fortune, with managing these high things so basely. In the description of octavius entrance, 
octavius entrance.  I note Poetries power, he makes him appear in divers colours, which, me thinks, 
His Poetry, and Policy.  doth here more handsomely than the plain truth: for it had not been so fit to have said, Policy suits his form like the occasion, and altars as it altars: of him, Sylenus, Papae, quam varium hoc animal, such must be policy, for his trade is with the divers dispositions of man, and according to them must be divers.  
Then Tiberius with a grave & cruel countenance, 
Tiberius' entrance.  who, he after paints full of scars and scabs, as testimonies of his tyranny and intemperance, to whom Sylenus, Long alius mihi nunc, quam ante videres: 
His tyranny and intemperance.  But, me thinks, his Verse is not rightly applied, for Tyrants are ever deformed, marry, fear in their lives makes it inward, after their deaths apparent; thus prettily doth time mock mortality, first tying one party, and suffering the other to beat them, than the loosed, tied, and the tied loosed: thus tyranny and subjection: tyranny as long as it lasts buffets his underlings, but death at last gives the loser a time of revenge, when he woundeth their memories, without fear or danger.  
After Silenus assaults his abominable life in the Island Caprea, in no life do the blemishes of life appear so visibly as in Princes, whose height and power, as it may do much, so is it most observed. I wonder he lets him scape for Sejanus, his doting upon whom, was much more impardonable than the simple Claudius, because the former professed craft, the other always governed by smocks and slaves.  
At Claudius' entrance 
Claudius' entrance.  he repeats a Comedy, and after complains of Romulus, for suffering him to come without Nacissus, 
His committing his affairs to others.  Palantus, and his wife Messalina: thus it happens with them that bear the names of great places, and lay their execution upon others: thus with them that are so tender hearted as to be led by others: thus have I often observed servile conditions to undermine their masters, there being great loss in granting to the will of intercessors, for the gift is theirs, the thanks another's; wherefore it is the duty of discretion to reserve to themselves the occasion of importance, and he that giveth, to be unknown himself to him that he gives. Now comes Nero and his harp: 
Nero's entrance delighting with playing on the harp.  nothing is so fast tied to us as our faults, we are never mentioned without them, they hackney our names to death, and never leave spurring them till they have killed them. This man, saith Silenus imitates Apollo, in the mean time behold his misshapen course, that destinated to an Empire, pursues the faculty of a Musician: I never see any that profess skill in many things: in these high matters much less; one being enough for one: There follows a troop together, though Vindex shows the suppression of tyranny, is behoveful to the commonwealth, 
Galba.  but dangerous to the party. Galba was ever too little or too big, for his fortune, being thought fit for an Empire whilst private, when an Emperor, unworthy, and ended his slaves slave.  

Otho.  Otho might have been examined about the government of Lucitania, whether he possessed not that, to be dispossessed of Popaea. 
Vitellius.  For Vitellius let jupiter look his cheer be good, or else his palate will purse his host: Galba shows the difference between opinion and trial, and withal that there is no greater enemy to praise then expectation: Otho, that it is not impossible to possess great places for wild causes: Vitellius that there is nothing that discovers a lascivious mind so clearly, as power and authority. Vespasian 
Vespasian.  follows a Prince that Sylenus could find no fault with, but it seems, he had not read Dion, who relates the time of his whore's death: 
Given to women.  here is the odds of being near an Emperor, for a thousand better deserving women died in those times without mention: he saith he delighted much in her, neither becoming his age, office, nor wisdom, but I find none without some ail or other.  
It had been a good time for Sylenus, to have asked this, what it was he repent him of, whether it were his loving his brother's wife to wed, or not, hating his brother enough, or else his fearing the people, more than loving Berenice. Domitian 
Domitian. His cruelty.  had been better for a butcher's shop then a palace: for there it could hardly have been said of him, Solus est, ne musca quidem cum eo: now Trajan 
trajan.  appears, upon whose sight, 
Given to drink.  Sylenus gives jupiter warning to look to Ganymedes: he might also have bidden him be careful of his Nectar; for he loved his lector as well as boys. The grave fellow following must be in Aurelius, 
Aurelius.  according to my guess a fellow meeter to have made a private man then a Prince, 
Too mild.  one of his commendations was his sufferance: a good pretty praise for a subject, but nothing fit for a Prince, he was also pitiful, a procurer of love: but what of that, love thus obtained, is too familiar a Virtue for an Emperor. Pertinax bought his regality at a dear rate, his greatest fault was his ill husbandry, for as trees in their first growth are defended by briars, which afterwards vncut up, overthrow the flourishing of the tree; so an unlawful elected Prince, seldom escapes pluling down, by those that set him up; for covetousness being the cause of their combination, nothing can serve their unsatiable desires, nor be thought a sufficient recompense: ask Laetus else by the fortune of Plautianus. Here comes Severus 
Severus.  a Prince of indifferent worthiness, had not his virtue suffered shipwreck by his affections, 
Too affectionate to his children.  erant ei filii multo chariores quam cives, which though a private man may confess, whose government is but a household, it is a shame for a Prince, whose office as it resembles the gods in power, so should it in being free from partiality. Macrinus 
Macrinus.  entereth: a thing made by chance, and overthrown by chance, 
Improvident.  come from a base Progeny, and ruined by an infant. Alas, for this poor fellow that follows; Alexander 
Alexander.  that died because he loved his Parents well; this is he that would give any money for quietness, 
Given too much to peace.  and made Orators the supporters of his Empire. Debere unumquemque suis fortunis acquiescere, a speech fit for a warm chamber, and no business, questionless he sought not the Empire, but the Empire him: so do the Fates or chance, or if you will, more high and certain powers constitute ignorant men in high places, to distemper all, to give after the more grace to the reorderer. There follows more, but I will not follow all, nor stand upon the Author's Poetry, or by-speeches, I writ upon him, not him out, they that will have it more orderly, were best go thither for it.   

Comparison between Alexander and Caesar.  
NOw to the comparison between Alexander and Caesar: Caesar loved a wench, as well as Alexander wine, both faults, but which most dangerous disputable, they both impair the understanding, the one with laying too much upon the head, the other with taking too much from the head: wine drowns reason, lust prefers his wench before the World: in wine Alexander killed Clitus, Caesar proclaims love letters in the Senate: both breaches likely to waste authority, but which of them most dangerous, I leave to the censurers, both of them doubtless full of danger, for they are the privy gates, whereat Conspirators get entrance. More early did Alexander begin to busy fame, but that was his fortune. Caesar more worthily, if not at last unworthily; for, he overthrew the hindrance of a mean state, and made way through the obscurity of his birth, which he confesseth difficult. Difficilius se principem civitatis a primo ordine in secundum, quam a secundo in novissimum detrudi; how he did this deserves note: I find all his actions, even his youngest, to be carried with great majesty, and an intent to lay the foundation of a reverend opinion of him in the hearts of men; his behaviour amongst the Pirates was one, the refusing the friendship of Lepidus another, he being the author of restoring the Tribunes office: these for example, upon which time will not suffer me to work my will, the wise observer may for me, and gain by it. Alexander was not idle in his child's age, his managing Bucephalus, argued courage; his use of Ambassadors, wisdom; the denying to run without Kings, majesty: but these were beautified with being the actions of a Prince, for they would not become Caesar half so well, because a private man; that Caesar wept at the sight of Alexander's picture, is no advantage, for he had the odds of him by birth: then both were happy, in not having the first growth of their endeavours, over-driped by men already great; Greece at this time, not having any great Soldier. Caesar in his first Consulship, being matched with a heavy fellow, that not able to keep way with his swiftness, and strength of his spirit, gave him leave to manage all matters alone, whereupon his two names served for the names of both the Consuls, Nonnulli vrbanorum cum quid per iocum testandi gratia signarent, non Caesare & Bibulo, sed julio & Caesare Consul actum scriberent: they tried how the world would like their authorities, by two different means. Alexander an absolute Prince invaded Greece, by which he made them understand that his youth deserved not contempt, and brought them to be assistants in the wars against Persia. Caesar lower, but no less politicly, he took the occasion of his daughter's death, and in an office of affection presented the people with pleasures and novelties: munus populo aepulumque pronuntiavit in filiae memoriam, quod ante eum nemo fecit; this was a taste of their like, a love letter of an Amorist, which if taken, more will be taken: Caesar seems in the difficulty of their conquests the worthier, no nation of Alexander's being comparable, either to the Gauls or Helvetians, but in the upshot alike, both the Persian & Pompey being greater in reputation then truth: they did well, as long as they went with the tide: it was the generation long before spent, that made the Persian diadem shine with Imperial title, the vigour of necessity, that is wont to move magnanimity, was taken away, and now left an overflowing of fortune, which makes men degenerate and become slothful. Pompey became great by the travels of Lucullus and others; neither his managing the civil wars was as it should be, nor his adversity rightly managed; so that, me thinks, beholding him, I behold nothing but a bubble of fortunes: for their particular valours, they were both valiant, in their military discipline, they differed, which might be by the difference of their adversaries, nature and country: in the special point of Arms they agreed, to encounter the hearts of men, as well as bodies. Therefore did Alexander deny Parmenio the invading his enemies by night, answering the conquests of their hearts generally, not of a particular army was the way: the Empire of Persia being abundant in men, could never have been overcome, if their discourse could have laid the Macedonian conquests upon any accident, but then vanquished, when fear should make them superstitiously add, to the valour of their enemies, and think basely of their own strengths: not thus, but to the same purpose, Caesar never misliked the multitude of his enemies, difficulty being ever a spur to his actions. That humour that Caesar possessed his Soldiers with, at the scorning life at the hands of Caesar's enemies, I find not in Alexander's, yet had he one of the chief instigators, the being still a Conqueror; for had Caesar sometimes lost, they would have grown weary. This branch came first from the root of success, seconded by some gallant spirits of Caesar's side, emulated by their followers, rewarded by Caesar; both held the hearts of the soldiers by liberality, the only means to make them apt for great matters, and his means that attempts great matters, that which we call the common good, this is a chief limb of, the engrossing which alienates the hearts of subjects more than any thing, and with those natures that must feel the effects of virtue, with their hand: no doubt liberality makes them daring, the contrary, Cowards: Alexander maintained this honestest, thanks to his Patrimony: for a spirit that aims at so great matters, cannot determine those things dishonest that are any thing available. Suetonius saith of Caesar, Vrbes diruit saepius ob praedam quam delictum, an impardonable fault, for though fury, smart, or rapine may carry the common Soldier past the bounds of reason; yet should the General's mind be still one, and behold nothing with so much love as justice, but this was the violence of Ambition, who dares displease right, than her assistants. Caesar, after his victories, used to give his soldiers an accustomed liberty, a precedent for all the success dangerous, for of all rewards and encouragements, liberty is the most dangerous to the giver. Contrariwise, Alexander then kerbed his Soldiers, doubting insolency, the destinate disease of success, which he did by giving education to the Persian youth, and after employing them, a design full of wisdom, for his conquests having laid all things at her feet, they had no need of his direction, but he of their loyalties, which had they found, and found before his possession of other strengths, doubtless they would have made him their slave, that counted himself Monarch of the World: but this I find it discommodious, to rely upon one assistant, for two are not so likely to fail as one; and to say truth, both will be the more true, because they are two. Equally did they subject their bodies to raise their reputations, they knew the force of example, and restrained appetite for honour's sake. Alexander would not add to the thirst of his companions, with the quenching of his own. Caesar in a strait lodging gave his friends the house, and lay himself in the air; I cannot say in the cold, for he that is wrapped in the fiery thoughts of ambition, cannot feel heat nor cold, nor any of these distemperatures: it is idleness that betrays us to the opinion of aches and infirmities; for he that employs his mind, carrieth his body about without feeling the burden: the use of these is an excellent remedy against envy, mean fortunes thinking greatness, loves greatness to nourish delicacy; but this is disproved by partaking with their extremities. Both entertained a sweetness of nature in bewailing the misery or death of their enemies, which, whether it came from the grounds of clemency, or otherwise to wrap some other purpose in, is hardly to be discerned, for there is no such counterfaiter to the life, as an aspiring disposition: Thus Caesar sat up the statues of Silla and Pompey; thus Alexander kindly and honestly entertained the wife and mother of Darius: Caesar took to mercy the relics of Pompey's overthrown Army: Alexander suffered the mother of Darius to solemnize the burials of his slain enemies, which compassion is the only balm to heal up the wound of revenge. Lastly, Caesar wept at the sight of Pompey's head: and Alexander sharply executed the murderer of Darius; In the first, I see how prettily dissimulation can apply herself sometimes; for surely Caesar felt no remorse in the hardness of his labours, such thoughts attend decayed estates, not the summer of fortune. In the other, one death serves two turns, for death rewarded him, and death mitigated the rancour, likely to spring out of the ashes of Darius. About conspiracies, Alexander spoke as Caesar thought, Satius est, alieno me mori scelere, quam metu meo, they might have lived longer, if they had been of another mind; yet I think they chose well, for they chose the easiest: for fear runs division upon death, every thought being an instrument of torment, at the end they meet in the last course of greatness: Alexander was a King, and would needs be a god: Caesar, because not a King, a King; thus do the baits of fortune cousin us, and stuff us with monstrous and unnatural thoughts; they died both violent deaths, the end of violent ambition: for who mislikes not that one should possess so much of honour, fame and dominion as would serve many?  
Octavius comes again, whose beginning to speak, resembles his life, busy in the separating envy and greatness, which he did by giving every state a taste of his government: by turns they felt it all, even the meanest and youngest, the surest strengthener of authority: only this Prince gave occasion leave to choose, which was to be entertained of peace or wars: an excellent temper, the which many of his Predecessors and Successors had lost by, whiles they regarded not which was most fit for their Countries, but which was most fitting their natures: it were too long to touch all the particulars of his life; let it suffice, they all tended to settle the troubled estate of his time, the testimonies of dishonour that the Romans suffered under Crassus and Anthony, by the hands of the Parthians, he solved, as much as the restoring the military ornaments, arrested by the Victor's might, which witnesseth wisdom is a more prevailing assister than strength; he enforced all the Knights of Rome, to yield an account of their lives, an ordinance, look on which side you will, full of health, for idleness brings barrenness; his Epistle to his adopted son illustrates another lamb of his wisdom: Noli in hac re nimium indignari, quenquam esse qui de me male loquatur, etc. These ill speakers are rather troublesome then dangerous, an humour arising rather out of some light passion or wanton gadding of the tongue, then from malice; who is more silent, more full of poison; over those care, but over the other, neglect is the best medicine: he refused the name of Dictator, though his authority far exceeded it, the only course to make greatness stand firmly; for by the common eye, names are more plainly seen, than executions, which silently enjoy a more ample and safe rule, than those that make their titles march before their power. Our Dialoguist omits some, and I some.  
Trajan speaks next, a Prince full of merits; especially in his warlike actions, but me thinks it was to the same end, that he made war upon a Country: sed revera id bellum suscepit adductus gloriae cupiditate; it often falls out thus, and as often that our dispositions without any great pains give us pretty graces: therefore say I, a young man not covetous, and an old man no lecher, deserves neither thanks nor marvel, but their exchange doth well, come they from what cause they will, they are well; he was an excellent Prince, and that title his subjects gave him, optimus cognominatus est, he deserved it for he abstained as much from depriving his subjects from their goods, as from unlawful slaughters, both the one and the other, the main virtues of a Prince, for to pill them, is no less horrible, than the tutor of an Infant to betray his charge, the other is bloody, which though their ielosies think the way of freedom, they are deceived; for an unjust death raiseth ten enemies out of one: Non ei unquam accidit (quod ●uenire in huiusmodi solet) ut millites feroces se & insolentes praebuerint, as great a praise as memory can give a Commander; for nothing is so sure an evidence of a wise man, as to bring his soldiers to fetch all their determinations from him, and not to let them entertain insolency, when victors; nor baseness, when vanquished; but still to read his will, and to hold that will a law: he carefully visited the wounded, honourably buried the dead, marched on foot with them, suffered part of their extremities. I like this better than the saluting them commilitones: suffer with them, give them, care for them; but no fellows, nor companions; these words kill all the actions of greatness, of commiseration, of pity, with contempt; for never can one man play two parts well, you cannot be their judge and companion; for this equality taketh away the regard of your sentence: love them, but do not play with them.  
Marcus enters, a slow wise fellow, whose opinion was; non decere Imperatorem, propere quicquam agere: I like consideration well, but not to stick fast upon a design; sure he was naturally a dull phlegmatic fellow; and so was honest whether he would or no, he saith little in this Dialogue, and little is said to him; but only he was a wise man, because he knew when to speak, and when to hold his peace, which is wisdom, but the lowest form of wisdom: for the highest is, when to do and not to do. Post hunc Constantium ut diceret, admonuerunt; under this Prince things of note were done; but not by him: thus search the divine natures into men's actions, the strength of whose sight, is neither to be deceived, nor corrupted; he rooted out two Tyrants, not he but himself the first, being weak and slothful, two diseases that make the thus diseased, uncapable of great matters; the other, being the impediment of fortune, had the impediment of age, a heavy clog and the opposite to expedition: both of them had both the mislike of God and men, and would have ruined themselves without help: he was subject to delicacy and luxury, which being vices uncountervailed with virtue, made him rejected of the gods, and banished into the orb of the Moon: the Author thinks he enforced not enough how behoveful these wars were to the world, rooting out Tyrants, (the curse of mankind) where Caesar and others made their ambition destroy their Countrymen, and subvert their Commonwealths; the rest, or at least many of them, picking quarrels with their neighbours to feed their own insatiable appetite: Si quis sinus obditus ultra, si qua foret tellus quae fuluum mittere aurum, hostis erat; but others faults mend not his, and perhaps it was his enemies that made his quarrel good, for be they never so worthy, ambitious Princes will find causes to be troublesome.