The First Discourse.

IT's a singular opinion of some Philosophers, That a Wise man stands not in need of any body; and whatsoever is separate from him, is to him of no use. Where­by they take away Friendship from the number of necessary things, placing it simply amongst those which are delightful. Yet others more civil then they, I mean the Phi­losophers of Plato's family, and those of Aristotle's, did believe, that without Friend­ship Felicity were imperfect and deficient, Vertue weak and impotent. They said, Friends were the most profitable and the [Page 2] most desireable of all outward goods: They considered them not as the sports and musings of a Wise man in picture, but as the helps and props of a man of this world.

There is none but God only who can be fully content in himself, of whom we ought to speak in such high and magnifick terms. It's he alone, who being rich in his own essence, enjoys a most happy solitude, which abounds in all kind of good: He only who can operate without instruments, as he can act without labor: He who draws forth all from within his nature; for as much as things are thence in such a manner pro­duced, that yet they forbear not to continue therein. Men on the contrary can neither live, nor live well; neither be Men, nor be happy without one another: They are linked together by a common necessity of Commerce.

It's not sufficient for every Particular to be but One, unless he endeavour some way or other to multiply himself by the help of others. And to consider us all in general, it seems that we are rather so many divided Parts which Society reunites, then so many several entire Bodies.

Those who are offended, demand justice; the weak stand in need of help; and the afflicted, of consolation: But all men uni­versally want Counsel; it's the great Ele­ment of a Civil life; it's hardly less neces­sary then fire and water. And those two [Page 3] means wherewith Nature hath furnished us for action, relate to this end; REASON and SPEECH, which were principally given us for COƲNSEL. Beasts are carried away by the swift impetuosity of their natures, and by the presence of the first object: Men have the conduct of them­selves by Deliberation and by Discourse: Having the gift to seek and to choose, they may instantly pass from the present to the future, and from the first to the second, and stop there if they so find it fit.

Pyrates make use of Counsel, nor do the Savages live without it. With far more rea­son is it therefore entertained amongst Civi­lized people. But every-where wise men must borrow it from others, because their own wisdom is to be suspected to them in things which respect themselves. Man is so near himself, that he can find no place be­twixt both, no free space for to debate the counsel he would give himself: He cannot hinder those two Reasons which deliberate in him, from confounding themselves in communication; That which proposeth, being too much mixed with that which concludes.

He who counsels therefore, must be an­other person distinct from him who is coun­sell'd. There must be a proportionable distance betwixt the objects, and those fa­culties which judge of them: And as the most quick-sighted can never see themselves, [Page 4] so the most piercing Iudgments want perspicuity when it concerns their own interests. What natural knowledge so­ever we have, and what light soever comes down on us from above, yet ought we not to reject humane means, nor to despise this advantage of reason, and this great illustration of the truth which is gain­ed by Conference.

Let us acknowledge the imperfection of Man severed from Man, and the prevalencie of Society above Solitude. Since the Friend of God, and the Conductor of his people, although a miraculous cloud march'd before him by day, although a Pillar of fire did the same by night, placing themselves in the place where they were to encamp, did not forbear to take a Guide, to serve him in other difficulties which during the journey might occur; should any man after this not ask for a Guide, nor seek assistance? Who is it that can trust so much to the ad­vantages of his birth? who is it that can so negligently sleep on those favors which he expects from heaven, as to imagine that the assistance of others is useless? as to be­lieve that his fortune alone and his onely wisdom are sufficient for a good Govern­ment and a good Conduct?

Those who are raised far above the com­mon condition of men, have raised them­selves by some degrees. It is not Chance which cast them above others; nor is it [Page 5] their own Vertue which hath done all: They often meet with the services of some one person, amongst the wonders of their lives. And it's visible through the course of all Ages, that those Princes who have gotten most, are those who have been the best se­conded. Of so many Examples, a crowd of which are to be found in History, I shall only make choice of that on which we yesterday discoursed, and which oblig'd his Highness for this day to make me speak.

VEspasian had lived under the Tyranny of Nero, and had saved himself from his hands by miracle: But he contented not himself with his own safety, after that Monster was dead; He took heart and un­dertook greater matters for the publick good. Observing that there were other Ne­ro's which threatned the World, and that new Monsters unchain'd themselves, he hazarded himself to preserve the World, by seising on the Empire: He embraced the Protection of the people of Rome, the glory whereof was almost all fallen, either by the sword, or by poison, and the rem­nant which was left was daily exhausted to fill Islands and Dungeons. He had stop­ped there, at his good will and good in­tentions; He had seen all the last Lights of the Senate extinguished, and the Common­wealth perish before his face, but for the powerful sollicitations, and the vigorous [Page 6] pursuits of Mutius, who as it were by force plac'd the Crowe on his head, and in de­spight of him made him Emperor.

He at first stagger'd the mind of Vespasiar. which was then fixed on present occur­rents, although he approved them not; nor durst he be the Author of that Change which he desired. And after having cast him into an irresolution, he urged him with so many reasons, and perswaded him with so much eloquence, that he at last constrain'd him to make an end of the design, and to engage himself in the Publick cause by an open Declaration.

Now it's fit you should know, that Mutius was not a man who engaged in a Party with fair words only and good wishes; but presently he fortifies Vespasian with men and with money; He acquired him Pro­vinces and brought him Legions: He spared not his own person; when he thought it fit, he laid his life at stake, and would needs be the Executor of most of those things which he counselled.

Princes which are to be made, cannot be without such persons; and Princes already made, have great use of them. There never was any One so strong, who by his own strength could bear the burthen of the whole Government: Never was there any so jealous of his Authority, as to be able to reign alone, and to be indeed a Monarch, to take the word in the rigor of its mean­ing. [Page 7] Neither is it other then a pastime and invention of the Platonians, to slatter Roy­alty and place it above humane condition, to say, That God endowed Kings with two spirits, that they might govern well. Plato often sports himself after this manner; He philosophiseth poetically, and mixeth Fable with his Theologie. This double spirit is of his concession: And it were better to ex­plicate it of the Kings spirit, and of that of his Counsellor, then to have recourse to Miracles, which must never be made use of but in case of necessity, not even for the honor and for the glory of Kings.

It is certain, they have a burden so dis­proportionable to the weakness of One, that did they not trust to the support of many, they would from the very first step which they took catch but a most certain fall. Did they not call their friends to their succor, and did they not divide the Globe of the Earth, they would soon be punished for the temerity of their Ambition, and sink under the weight of their own Fortune. That multitude of Cares which from all parts assaults them, would not afford them a free respiration; The crowd of Affairs would stifle them at the very first Audience they gave.

There are several degrees of Servants, which all have a place in the Administra­tion of a State. There are Spirits of a mean capacity, which untangle, which prepare [Page 8] and dispose affairs: These are fit to begin the work; they make way, and take away the difficulties which embroil things. These Spirits are employed by the Prince for every day, and he dischargeth himself on them only of the grosser functions of his Royalty.

There are other Spirits of a higher ele­vation, which he may trust in more im­portant employments, and afford a more noble share in his designs. These govern under him and with him; nor are they evil Pilots in the sweet seasons, nor on those seas which suffer but little agitation.

But how happy is that Prince, and how is he lov'd by Heaven, if in his time he meets with spirits of the first rank, souls equal with Intelligences in light, in force, in sub­limeness! Men whom God creates expresly, and whom he extraordinarily sends to pre­vent or force the evils of their Ages, to di­vertor to calm the storms of their Countries!

They are the Tutelar Angels of King­doms, and the Familiar spirits of Kings: They are the Seconds to the Alexanders and to the Caesars; They ease the Prince in all his toils; They with him partake saving Disquiets, without which there would be no Tranquility in the World. If in the States wherein we live there are such per­sons, let us bless their Watchings, which are so necessary to the Publick Repose, under whose protection we sleep securely and at [Page 9] ease. These excellent Watches, are they not the cause (my Lord) for which the Grecian Poe [...]s gave the Night the name of Wise and Counsellor? For so I fancie it; and the Gram­marians do somtimes give the Poets further­fetch'd explications.

The Poets, Your Highness knows it better then I, were the first antient Preceptors of Humane kind; they taught them the first Principles of Policie and of Morality. Here then, as elswhere, they have discovered and pointed out the Truth unto us. The Phi­losophers have since displaid it, and brought it to its full light. Having acknowledged this necessity of Society, and the defects which accompany Solitude; besides their Jupiter the Counsellor, and their Minerva the Counsellor, besides the Gods and Demons who alwayes went in company of their Hero's, they have yet besides that given them Men to assist them in their enter­prises, or other Hero's to undertake and act with them. Whilst Hercules cuts off the heads of the Hydra, Iolas applies fire to it, to hinder them from springing up again. Diomedes doth nothing without Ʋ ­lysses. Agamemnon's actions arise from the counsels of Nestor: And this Prince being to make a wish which might comprehend all others, desires neither more powerful forces then his own, nor that wealth he had not, nor the destruction of the Empire of Asia, nor the greatening of that of Greece, [Page 10] but only Ten men which were like unto Nestor, Agamemnon shewing us thereby, That the fear he was in to lose Nestor, in respect of his extreme age, made him apprehend he should want men to substitute in his place. And Homer makes it appear, That one Ne­stor may sometimes be found in an Age; but that ten Nestors are only to be wished.

This wish did nothing wrong the me­mory of Agamemnon; Greece never re­proach'd him for having suffered himself to be governed by Nestor; Nor was the King of Kings esteemed for that less wise or less worthy of the Soveraign authority. On the contrary, it is an Axiom in the Po­liticks, which passeth for the Proposition of an eternal truth, and is as old as Policie it self; THAT AN UNABLE PRINCE CAN NEITHER BE WELL COUN­SELL'D NOR WELL SERV'D.

If to receive Counsel, presupposeth some advantage to him who gives it; the infe­riority (on the other side) of him that re­ceives it, forbears not to have its merit: He in his turn is the Superior; He retakes the first place, when he sets his hand to the work, and when by the execution of de­liberated things he changeth Rules into Examples, and fair words into good effects. For although it hath been sometimes said in Rome, That Lelius was the Poet, and that Seipio was the Actor; And that it should be true, That he who composeth Verses, act [Page 11] more nobly then he who recites them; yet is it not therefore true, That that person who executeth glorious undertakings, pro­duceth a less relevated operation then he who only counsels them. The Counsellor preserves his advantage but during the be­ginning of things, but loseth it in their e­vent; and even in the commencement of them he hath it not entirely: Nor doth he who is counsell'd remain useless and with­out motion, during that time the Counsel­lors action lasts.

Nature seems to prove what we say, and hath form'd I know not what lineaments in the soul of man: where the Intellect, which we call the Patient, which is the seat of Learning, although it be enlightned by the light of the Intellect-Agent, yet suffers not in that manner, but that it acts also of it self. It judgeth of the Knowledge which it hath received; it revolves, it removes, it displays, it disperseth in it self this Knowledge: After having compared it with others, it from thence recollects consequences and conclu­sions. And so we may say, it works in com­pany; and if it suffer, it's with the fairest kind of passion, which neither spoils nor corrupts, as that of a Wound or Burn; but finisheth and perfects, as that of Illumi­nation in the Air, and of the Reception of Images in the Eyes.

Let us speak less subtilly, and in a more popular phrase; Let us conclude, that it's [Page 12] necessary to have hands, that one may pro­fitably make use of tools; and to have Pru­dence, to use as one ought that of another man's. Wisdom it self is irresolute and but little assured, when she wants approbation, and is reduced to her own testimony. A concerted Reasoning despoils us not at all of the first apprehension we have of the truth of things. And our Aristotle hereupon tells us, That Salt doth not at all harm Sea­fish; and that Oil seasons Olives. A stupid and interessed Courtier puts affairs in dis­order, and ruines in stead of building up. But a wise and faithful Minister, who e­qually divides his affection between the King and the State, renders the greatest services to both of them, and with reason according to my opinion may call himself The Temperament of the power of One, and the Common good of the Republick. But my particular opinion were slight, nor would it have force sufficient to form and conclude this Discourse, did I not confirm it by the acknowledgments of the Publick towards persons so useful to the general good of the world, and by those resplendent proofs of affection and esteem which Princes them­selves have rendred to the wisdom and fi­delity of their Ministers.

I omit Greece, where they have reigned with their Kings: I forbear Persia, where their Kings rul'd by them, and where they were called The Kings eyes; That is to say, [Page 13] as an excellent person explicates it, The Kings eyes which are always open and al­ways watching for the Kingdoms safety, which at one and the same time look for­wards, backwards, to the right and to the left.

I shall only insist on Rome; where the Emperors, to correct that bitterness which is to be found in the words of Servitude and Subjection, have honored such like Servants with the title of Friends; They have call'd them their Companions; sometimes, the Companions of their cares, the Companions of their wars and of their victories. And even thought fit that the People should call them so.

They have caused Statues to be erected to them near their own; They have made them depositories of their swords, with permission to use them against themselves, if the good of the State required it, and if they rendred themselves unworthy of the power they had. They have caused Money to be coined, whereon was the Image of one of the Generals of their Ar­mies with these words about it; BEL­LISARIƲS THE GLORY OF THE ROMANS. And there is to this day to be seen a Silver-Medal, on the one side whereof is represented the Figure of Valentia, and on the other that of one of his Subjects seated in a Con­sular chair, holding papers in his right [Page 14] hand, and a truncheon in his left, with an Eagle perching on it. In the History of the Caesars there is also to be seen that proud Monument consecrated to the memory of a great Minister; TO MILITHEƲS THE FATHER OF PRINCES, AND TUTOR OF THE RE­PUBLICK.

The Inscription is singular, and the qua­lity of the Princes Father nothing common, at that time when the seat of the Empire had not yet been transferred from Rome to Constantinople: For after that, this quality was conferred as a Title of Office; and vulgarly, those who had the principal di­rection of affairs, were called THE FA­THERS OF THE EMPIRE, AND OF THE EMPEROR.

The History written since Constantine, speaks nothing else but of the Dignity of the Patriciate. Poetry it self could not be silent; and there are yet some jeering Ver­ses which the Poet Claudian made against Eutropius the Eunuch, Consul and Patriciate of the Empire. His fall is celebrated in the books of that Age; and S. John Chrysost [...]m hath made almost an entire Homily thereof. Those jeering Verses particularly touch at the confiscation of his goods; And this is near upon the sense, if my memory fail me not. Why doest thou weep at the loss of thy wealth, which will fall into the hands of thy Son? The Emperor will be thy Heir; and it [Page 15] so became thee to be the Emperors Father. I have recovered my memory, and the French hath reminded me of the Latine.

Whereupon remembring my self, That the Cross of Jesus Christ had possest it self of the place of the Roman Eagles, and that then the Emperors were become dome­sticks of the Faith, and members of the Church, of strangers and of persecutors which they were before; I thought they might have borrowed that term from the Holy Writ, and from the discourse of the Patriarch Joseph.

That great Minister glorifies himself in Genesis; THAT GOD HAD GIVEN HIM FOR A FATHER TO PHA­RAOH, (although perhaps he was younger than he) THAT HE WAS ESTA­BLISH'D PRINCE OVER ALL THE ROYAL FAMILY, AND LORD OF ALL THE COUN­TRY OF EGYPT. And the same sacred History tells us a little before, That Pharaoh took off his ring from his finger, and put it on Joseph's; That he caused him to ride in a Triumphal chariot; That he commanded by a publick cry, That all the world should fall down before him; That he told him in a full and general Assembly, [Page 16] THOU ART NOR MORE NOR LESS THEN PHARAOH; NEITHER HAVE I ANY THING MORE THEN THOU HAST, BUT MY NAME AND MY THRONE.

Nothing can be added to so illustrious a testimony of so well counsell'd a Princes resentment: And pray what can be said or imagined beyond it? You see that the high­est Idea which I could possibly conceive of the dignity of the Ministry, is authorised by the most antient of all the examples of that nature: It's impossible to go further in History; and I must confess (my Lord) I am sensible of some temptation of vain­glory, for that a great Prophet explains me by the mouth of a great King.

THE SECOND DISCOURSE.

THis truth being established, That Kings cannot reign without Mi­nisters; it's almost as true, That they cannot live without Favo­rites. Good stays not in the place of its source; it will run and spread it self abroad: And it is but a commenc'd good, unless it be increased by communication, and unless it finish by dilating it self. But let us adde something which is more strange, and yet is as certain: It hath been long since as­sured us by Reason, That were a man alone in Heaven, and that it were not in his power to participate it with another, he would be weary of his own felicity, and would descend from Heaven to Earth.

Upon which ground I say, That the wisest Princes in the world, That the Au­gustans and the Antonines, if they return'd again, That the Constantines and Theodosi­usses, may have legitimate affections, and reasonably love this man more then that.

[Page 18] LET YOUR PEOPLE BE YOUR FAVORITE, was Advice formerly given to a great Prince, but by a Philosopher somwhat too severe. To deny Kings the sweetest use of their Wills, and to despoil them of the most humane of the Passions, were to be the Tyrant of Kings, and not suffer them to be Men: It were to tie them to the greatness of their condition, and to nail them to their Thrones. What a severity were it, that we would never have them appear in a shape like ours? that they should never divest themselves of that gra­vity which incommodates them? Is it a crime to have a Confident, in whose com­pany a man may after labor seek repose, and divertisement after business?

Vertue is not so austere, nor so savage: she destroys not Nature, she only corrects its imperfection: she knows how to render Justice, but she also knows how to do an act of Grace. In Charity she affords a place to whomsoever; the Stranger is received there as a Guest, and the Barbarian as well as a Grecian: But she reserves Friendship for a small number; she espouseth not all she embraceth.

In Heaven, where the Idea's and the first forms of things are to be found, are there not beneficent Aspects and favorable Incli­nations rather towards these, then those▪ whence there are born on Earth the Pre­destinate and the Elect? Was there not a [Page 19] chosen People which was preferr'd before all other Nations; which was called The portion and the inheritance of the Lord? The Lord told them, I WILL BE THY GOD, AND THOU SHALT BE MY PEOPLE. In the family of the Patriarchs, this preference was ever found on one side, whilst all the rest were excluded? The Cadets carried away the right of Elder brothers; and the Advan­tage of Nature gave place to the Decrees of God.

And when the Son of God himself came into the world, besides the Seventy two Disciples who were of his train, and who had devoted themselves unto him, he call'd Twelve Apostles, to render him a more particular subjection, and be nearest to his person. Even amongst those, there were Three to whom he declared himself more familiarly then to the rest: He shewed them those marks of his Divinity, which he hid from their companions; He communicated many secrets of the future, during the agi­tation of his approaching death, and a­mongst the disquiets of his last thoughts.

Besides this, he witnessed more tender­ness for one of the three, then for the two others. S. John without difficulty calls him­self the Beloved and the Favorite of his Master: He every-where glorifies himself of that favor; And methinks he used it with liberty enough, whenas he slept in [Page 20] the bosom of so great and dreadful a Master. Consider him but in the Picture of the Holy Supper, and see how he carelesly rests his head on a place whereto the Seraphins con­veigh their looks with devotion.

Since the Author and Consummator therefore of Vertue as well as of Faith, hath had his Inclinations and his Friendships, and would not always command Nature; A Prince ought not fear to love after an Example of such Authority which yields him a full permission; And by the princi­ples of a more wise Philosophy then was that of Zeno or of Chrysippus, he may be sensible, without being call'd Intempe­rate.

The motions of his Soul need only be just and well regulated. Let him do good, but let him observe a proportion and mea­sure in the distribution of the good he doth. Let him not presently thrust into his Council those whose conversation was grateful to him: We ought to make a difference betwixt persons which delight us, and those which are profitable to us; betwixt the recreations of the Mind, and the necessities of a State. And if he take not an especial care in the examen of the different Subjects he imployes, he will make Equivokes for which his Age will suffer, and which will be reproch'd him by the Ages to come.

[Page 21] Courtiers are the Matter, and the [...]ince is the Artist; who can easily [...]ender this matter fairer, but not better [...]en it is: He can add unto it colours [...]nd shape in the outside, but cannot give [...] any interior goodness: He may make [...] Idol and a false God of it; but he can [...]either make a Spirit of it, nor an able [...]an.

Even in Christendom such Idols are to [...]e seen: There have been always un­worthy persons happy; Monkies have [...]een caressed in Kings Cabinets, and ap­ [...]arell'd in cloth of gold; In Egypt there [...]ave been Beasts seen on the Altars; Every where there have been Defects and Vices [...]dor'd. What I am about to tell Your Highness, I have learn'd from You; and [...] find it worthy of the spirit of Marcus Intonius the Philosopher. There is an Au­ [...]hority which is blind and dumb, which nei­ther knows nor understands; which appears only and which dazles; which is pure re­ [...]n'd Authority, without any mixture of [...]ertue or of Reason. There are Grandees who are only remarkable by their Great­ [...]ess; and their Greatness is all without [...]hem, and altogether separate from their per­ [...]ons.

These Great ones (my Lord) make me [...]emember certain fruitless Mountains, which [...] formerly saw travelling about the world, which produce neither herb nor plant; [Page 22] They touch Heaven, and serve the Earth for no use; Their sterility makes their height accursed. These, after the same manner, are not less unprofitable then they are great; and I look upon them as [...] the vain Monsters of the power and mag­nificence of Kings; like the Colosses which they have raised, and the Pyramids which they have built: They are the burdens and hinderances of their Kingdoms, which weigh down all the parts of the State; They are superfluities which occupy more room then necessary things. This is to be understood, considering them in a weakness which is innocent, and before they have added the injury of their Actions to the unworthiness of their Persons.

These are the fair works of Fortune; these are the slights and extravagancies of this Goddess, who is without eyes and without judgment; to whom Rome hath given so many Names, and dedicated so many Altars. You have heard of some hy­pocondriacal Queens who have faln in love with a Dwarf, a Moor, even a Bull and a Horse. Fortune is much of the same humor of these giddy-brain'd Princesses; she com­monly selects the most ill-favored and the most ill-shap'd: when the Pretorship is in question, she preferrs Vatinius his Kings-evil before the Vertue of Cato: And that we may say nothing that's worse, she pra­ctiseth Profuseness, nor doth she pay Deb [...]s.

[Page 23] But we speak of a phantasm, when we [...]peak of Fortune. The force of the Stars, [...]nd the necessity of Destiny, are also other phantasms which the opinions of men form, after which I have no mind to run. Let us seek some more apparent cause of this fa­ [...]or, which seems to have no cause; And as bear as we can, let us observe the birth of this same perverse Authority.

What we seek, is it not a transport of Passion, which without reasoning escapes from the animal part, and stops at the first pleasing object, and at the first satisfaction of the Will?

Is it not a sport and a fancy of Power, [...]n exercise and an employment of Royalty, which takes a pleasure to do strange things; To astonish the world by Prodigies, To change the fate of the little and miserable, To paint and guild the dust?

Is it not on the contrary a serious and deliberate error, a cheat to true fidelity, done to ones self by ones self, help'd by the imposture of Appearance, which some­times disguiseth men in such a manner, that they are to be known by none but God? It's certain, that most commonly they wear such doubtful marks, and what appears of them is so false, that he alone who hath made them knows their true value.

But the Effect, which we take so much pains to draw from the obscurity of the Causes, should it not be a Present made by [Page 24] Occasion? For, it's she who commonly offers Servants to Princes; She obligeth them to take what comes to hand, and what comes in sight. Their impatience being un­able to suffer delay, and their softness being an enemy to all manner of trouble; to spare themselves the tediousness of enquiry, and the difficulties of choice, they set to work the nearest Instruments, and retain as it were by custom those whom they took but by chance.

To conclude: This Favor which raiseth it self to this height without any foundati­on, should it not rather be an effect of self­love and a complaconcie, which no man re­fufeth to his own opinions? Should it not be our honor which we conceive engag'd in the perfection of our work? Should it not be a leven of that natural pride hid in the minds of men, which particularly swells the hearts of Kings, when the maintaining of a fault which they have committed is in question, that so they might not confess that they can erre.

Whatsoever this Favor is, it's none of Vertues creatures, not so much as of the vertue of Blood; Merit hath no share in it, not even the merit of the Race. The freed men by Claudius; the Servants of Constan­tine's Children; the Governors of those of Theodosius; the [...]usebius's and the Eutro­pius's, are no legitimate Favorites, far less legitimate Ministers. And truly, I pity the [Page 25] Empire, and am asham'd of the Emperor, when I see the Empire & Emperor in such servile mercenary hands. With horror I look on those base spectacles of unhappy Reigns, those monstrous productions of evil times; Blind times, times full of darkness, unhappy in Princes, and barren of Men. And in your opinion, was there ever any solitary person so estranged from Court, who was so little interessed in the things of this world, who without disdain could look on things so disjointed, and see the world overturned after such a manner? Was there ever so calm a Contemplative, who without emo­tion could see people of nought wrest into their hands the conduct of great States, and seat themselves at the stern, although they ought only to have been at the oar? Yet hath this been seen, and that often too. The Consulare was profan'd more then once by infamous persons; And he who under anothers reign must have been hid amongst the Baggage, hath had the com­mand of an Army.

But besides the Eusebiusses and the Eutro­piusses, the History of the Empire of the O­rient wants not many such shameful exam­ples: It shews us miserable Eunuchs, who had only learn'd how to comb women and how to spin, lifted up all at once to be Heads of the Council and Captains General. And other more recent Histories produce such as were Barbers, Tailors, Grooms of [Page 26] the Chamber the evening before, the next morning chang'd into Chamberlains, Am­bassadors &c. employed about the most im­portant Negotiations and most illustrious Offices of their Country. So that what­soever our Man can say, He who admires the Court and the Arts of Court, audacious Ignorance hath often presided in the Con­duct of humane things. Although he swears that he hath seen rays about the face of Monsieur the Duke of ***, this false light is but a deception of the sight and an illusi­on of his mind. Fools have often held the places of Wise men; and there was a time when those who ought to have dictated the Laws and pronounc'd Oracles, could nei­ther write nor read. It was not that their common sense was the clearer, for not be­sng imbroil'd in any stranger knowledges. They neither had the goods of Nature, nor any acquir'd goods: They only had what commonly follows natural and acquired goods; I would say, a good opinion of themselves, accompanied with the despising of others. Although it is not the common course to know affairs by revelation, and that they are to be learn'd by Experience, unless we can outgo Experience by the strength of Reason. They perswaded them­selves, that Authority supplied all that; and that immediately after their promotion God was obliged to endow them with a spirit of well-governing, and to render the [Page 27] Princes election valid by a sudden illumina­tion of his Ministers.

Yet it is not so to be ordered. It's all what God hath been pleased to do for the Ministers of his only Son, of whom we have said somewhat at the beginning of this Discourse. It's whereby he mocks proud Philosophy: He hath confounded humane Prudence, by taking those new and gross souls to be the Considents of his Secrets, filling them very full (as an antieut Chri­stian says) because he found them very empty. He hath taken from their cabins and from their shops, those whom he would make the Kings and Doctors of Nations. Other Ignorants must never pretend to be so enlightned; Nor that in stead of the Spirit of Prophecie, explicating of the Scri­ptures, and the gift of Tongues, they should expect from hence the knowledge of past things, the penetration into things to come, the light which disembroils the intrigues of the Court, the science of making War, and the dexterity of treating Peace.

Besides, they commonly succeed very ill in a Prosession which they never learn'd, and in the exercise whereof they have in­discreetly cast themselves without the help of any preparative discipline, without any ground of experience, without knowing so much as the first elements of Civil wisdom. You must make use of Address and of Me­thod, to conduct a Boat and to guide a [Page 28] Chariot: You must know the ways, if you will go for a Guide. I have seen Rules and Precepts how to discharge the office of a Porter, and that of a Jaylor, although they are two employments which are of no great difficulty. You must therefore learn all the Trades, and study all the Arts, even the least and those which are most [...]asie. And shall he who is to direct humane kind, need no instruction? shall the World be governed by Chance and Adventure? May wethus with three Dice play for the safety of Nations and Kingdoms?

This is indeed unworthily to be in stead of God; it's to act Phaeton in the World, and unequally to dispence light [...]and heat on the face of the earth; It's to endanger the burning of one part, and the freezing of the other. Ignorant Favorites every day run this hazard, and are engaged in this continual danger; I mean, of losing them­selves and of losing their Country, even when they have refin'd their Ignorance by the Customs of Court; and that two or three good successes which come from the pure liberality of God, have made them have a good opinion of themselves, and made them believe they did the good which they did but receive.

All their Actions are then out of frame; they are the false Measures of a false Rule. In stead of knowing where to stop at such a point of Occasion, so much enquired after [Page 29] by the wise, and so necessary for the per­fecting of affairs, they always either go be­fore or after it; either they pass beyond it, or they attain it not. To day, out of anger, they declare a War; To morrow, out of cowardliness, they beg a Peace: They flat­ter the natural Enemies of their Country, and offend the antient Allies of the Crown. In Spain they would give Liberty of Con­science; In France they would introduce the Inquisition. The Frontiers are naked and disarmed, and they sortifie the Heart of the State. They have a mind to raze the Citadel at Amiens, and to build one at Or­leans.

But the Elections which they make of others, are very worthy of that which was made of them. For an Ambassage to Rome they propose to the Prince an expert Cap­tain of a Troop, who hath signaliz'd him­self in divers battels. Upon their recom­mendation, an old Prodigal is plac'd in the Exchequer, who in his youth spent all he had, but who speaks admirably well of Oe­conomy. They require the Charge of Chief Justice for a man who is indeed of the Long­robe, but renown'd for his little knowledge in Learning. Of the same form he was who liv'd at I'aris in our fathers days, when the Ambassadors of Poland arriv'd there; they having complemented this man in Latine, he prav'd them to excuse him for not returning them an answer, Because he [Page 30] never had had the curiosity to learn the P [...]lo­nian language.

You smile, my Lord, and are astonished at the great literature of this man of the Long-robe. He made many other Equi­voques, and some are told of him which are nothing ungrateful. It was he who thought Seneca was a Doctor of the Canon-Law, and that in his Book de Beneficiis he had fully handled all matters concerning Benefices. One *** of that time made him believe that Morea was the Moors Country. And there is nothing more true, then that he sought a whole day in his Map for Deme­cracy and Aristicracy, thinking to find them as well as Dalmatia and Croatia.

It were a pleasure to be Learned under such a Reign, and the Muses may have great hopes of protection from such like Ministers. But let us proceed and not consider the in­terest of the Muses, whose fate it is to be poor and ill used under all kind of Govern­ments, and by all manner of Ministers.

These understand Men and Business, as you see. After having dissipated the Revenues of the State in evil and ridiculous expences, that they may appear parcimonious, they suffer an important Occasion to be lost for want of Fifty crowns, which they will not allow for the dispatch of an Extraordinary Courier: They expect the day of the Ordi­nary Post, and imagine that Occasion will stay for him as well as they do. A Politick [Page 31] Doctor who hath whistled them to his lure, and put into them five or six words out of our Taci [...]us, for having alleaged it a hun­dred times a day on every accident, hath recommended unto them Secrecie and Dis­simulation. This lesson being taught them, they make a Mystery of every thing; they express themselves but by casts of their eys, and by motions of their heads: At least they speak only in the ear, even when they praise their Master, and say, That he is the greatest Prince in the world.

This religion of Silence hath gain'd up­on their minds with so much [...]uperstition, that they scruple to give necessary Orders to those who are to execute them, so much are they afraid to discover what was re­solv'd in Council. They attentively hearken to an Alchymist, who promiseth them mountains of gold: With open arms they receive a Banish'd person, who with ease discovers to them the Conquest of his own Country: And trusting on the faith of one or other, they imbarque themselves in some great Design, and begin a huge War, which the second day after they are tir'd withall. They do a thousand such like things. And if these Examples are not to be found in this Age, they were certainly in the past. If these Ignorant presumptuous, if these ri­diculous Almighty-men have not been in France and Germany, there have been of them in Spain and in Italy.

[Page 32] The misery of the Times, (It's better to accuse the Time then the Prince) this pub­lick misery, which hath caus'd Money to be made of Iron and of Leather, which hath set a value on the vilest things, hath also brought in request such men, and in­troduc'd them into the Cabinet of Kings; whither they have drawn along with them all the ordure of their births, and all the vitious habits which servile minds were ca­pable of. For this is one Chapter of their their History, which ought not to be for­gotten. And it's certain, that their Inno­cence never lasted much longer at Court, then that of the first Man's did in the terre­strial Paradise.

At first, although perhaps they were not born wicked, they did believe they ought to become so, and so discharg'd themselves of their Consciences, that with less encum­brance they might manage the affairs of State. Moreover, they thought that Pride was well becoming their dignity; That should they appear the same they formerly were, their condition would be nothing chang'd, and their Civility would replace them into that Equality whence they had newly forc'd themselves with so much trouble. Thus they apprehended not to fall into hatred, that they might shun con­tempt: They have made themselves feared, being not able to make themselves respect­ed. They esteemed that there was no way [Page 33] left to blot out the memory of their anti­ent baseness, but by the present object of their Tyranny; nor could they hinder the People from laughing at their infirmi­ties, but by employing them to weep for their own miseries, and complain of their cruelties.

With these fair Maxims and these Anti­poliges which I have rough-cast, they have govern'd the world; but they govern'd it after a strange manner: They have over­thrown what they would have maintain'd; they have broken what they had a design to fix: They have caus'd as many ruines, as they intended to make establishments; they have spoil'd as many things, as they have undertaken. The falls of Princes, and the loss of States, have been the successes of their Administration. Having seised on the Soveraign power, (I consider them again in their innocent infirmity) they have exercised it as children do knives, who most commonly hurt themselves, and offend therewith their Mothers and the [...] Nurses.

IF the Temerity of such persons hath not always been unhappy: If they have ar­rived at the Port, steering a Course which in appearance estranged them the farther off, (For it's most certain that these mira­cles have been seen; and I know some who have saved themselves by actions, [Page 34] which should indeed have lost them:) yet must we not confide in this blind Felicity which guided them; we must look upon them as persons transported with a vio­lent imagination, who pass over Rivers in their sleep, without knowing how to swim and run over Precipices without taking a false step. We must admire them as DIVINE BEASTS, and not imitate them as REASONABLE MEN. This word I had from that good man Alexander [...]icolomini, when I visited him as I pass'd the Seine, and found him on that green bed which Thuanus speaks of.

If you ever are Favorites, (with his Highness's permission I shall address my words to these two young Gentlemen who hear me) never propose to your selves such like examples. They are very dangerous, how splendent soever they are: They are Flambeaux lighted on shelves, they shipwrack young Pylots: They are Ad­dresses which lead their followers to death, which serve only to deceive Posterity, to teach men Error, to give credit and repu­tation to Imprudence.

THE THIRD DISCOURSE.

AS those whom we left yesterday want a requisite Capacity, and have a very short and limited Un­derstanding, There are others to be found who have it too spacious and too far extended, and who reason with excess. I speak of those Speculative persons who commonly aim beyond the End; who quit the Road, to find By-ways; who wander, that they may the sooner arrive whither they intend.

Let us, if you please, call them Extractors of Essences. They bring their Advice to the Alimbeck, and reduce it to nothing by the force of subtilising it: They evaporate in smoke the most solid Affairs. Let us call them State-Hereticks; which in Policie would do, what Origen did in Religion. They follow the shadows and images of things, in stead of linking themselves to their bodies and to their reality. They im­brace Probability, because they have paint­ed [Page 36] and embellish'd it after their mode: But they reject the Truth, because it's none of their invention, and that it hath its foun­dation in itself.

These Gentlemen fancie, That every­where there is Subtility and Design; and that all the Actions of Man are premedi­tated: Nothing presents it self to sight, whereof they seek not the mystical and allegorical sense: These subtile Interpre­ters of other mens thoughts, never stop at the letter: And when two Princes with all their strength and with all the power of their States assault one the other, it's be­liev'd they hold Intelligence to cozen the rest of the Princes. They make Judgments very like those sportful ones which were made at Athens; That the death of King Philip was not to be believ'd; and that he had expresly caused himself to be kill'd, to en­trap the Athenians.

By this [...]ll encounter we may perceive how far a perverse subtility will go, and what the spirit of Greece is and of these Spe­culatives. But there have been Speculators in all Countries; there have ever been Al­chymists and Bellows blowers, who have distill'd humane things, who have given more liberty then they ought to their con­jectures and suspitions. Because Jurius Brutus counterfeited the Fool, they have misdoubted all other Fools: They fancied that all Changelings imitated Brutus; That [Page 37] apparent Simplicity was a hidden Artifice: That those who knew nothing, dissembled their Knowledge; That the silence of those who said nothing, was a cover for dan­gerous thoughts.

It was the opinion which a Roman Prince had of a certain weak-witted man of his time, whom the Pages hiss'd, and whom no body esteem'd but himself: The History relates, That he apprehended his secret vertues; and that the universal scorn of the Court, and five and twenty years Impertinencies in deeds or words before the face of all the world, could never secure him from that man.

From the same Principle of False subtili­tie, those Visions spring which our Man finds to be so ingenious, and which to me seem so ridiculous, which the Doctors ad­mire, and I cannot endure. At this pas­sage Aristippus addressing his speech to the two Gentlemen who heard him; Do you think (says he) that like these subtile Doctors, Hannibal would not have taken Rome, for fear it would no longer be profitable to Carthage, and lest thereby he should have been oblig'd to finish that War which he had a minde to perpetu­ate? Did Augustus, in your opinion, choose Tiberius for his Successor, that his loss might thereby be regretted, and thereby to seek glory after his death, by the com­parison of a life so much different from his? [Page 38] Do you believe that the Counsel which was found amongst his Memorials, to place good men in the Empire, was an effect of his envy against Posterity? Was he afraid that some after-time another man should be a greater Lord then he, and the Commander of more Subjects? Is it credible, that the same Augustus made Love only out of Maxims of State, and courted the Ladies of Rome but only to learn their Husbands secrets? Is there any likelihood, that his soul should move only according to rule and compass? That all his actions were bal­lanc'd, and that all his vices were studied?

In my conceit, this is to make the World more subtile then it is. 'Tis to interpret Princes, as some Grammarians explain Ho­mer, who find what is not in him, and ac­cuse him for a Philosopher and a Physitian, in some places, where he only is a forger of tales and a composer of songs. Let's some­times content ourselvs with the literal sense; Let's not seek a Sacrament under every syllable and under every point: Let's not be so indulgent to our own minds, nor so curious in searching into another man's. We need not go so far to seek the Truth, nor take things so high: We need not re­late to hidden causes, and the Counsels of the past Age, present Successes, or which happen'd by Chance, or which a slight Oc­casion hath brought to pass.

The Stoicks, who would not that the [Page 39] leaf of a tree should move without the particu­lar order of Providence, nor that a wise man should lift up his finger without the leave of Philosophy; judg'd not more advantagiously of God, and of that Person who was near­est God, then these Refiners presume of a Man, who is often less then a mean one; who hath but a quarter or half a share of the Reasonable; who all his life never thought of being wise, nor of drawing near God. There is no Mean whereby to ajust their Opinions to our common capa­city; They cannot descend to us. In the judgment which they make of Men, they cannot presuppose a humane infirmity, that is to say, a Principle of errors and of saults: A disease born with us, from which nor Alexander nor Caesar were exempt; A defect which draws after it so many other defects in the persons of the most perfect, in the conduct of the wise, and if you please, even in that of Solomon himself.

Great Events are not always produced by great Causes. The Springs are hid, and the Machines appear; and when the Springs are discovered, we are astonish'd to see them so small and so weak; we are ashamed of the high opinion we had of them. A jea­lousie of love betwixt particular persons, hath been the cause of a general War; Names given or taken by chance, The Green and Red, at the Games of the Circus, have made parties and factions which have [Page 40] torne in pieces the Empire. The Motto or the body of a Device, the fashion of a [...] very, the relation of a Domestick, a Ta [...]e told at the Kings going to bed, is in ap­pearance nothing; and yet this Nothing hath been the beginning of Tragedies, wherein so much blood hath been shed, and so many heads made slie. It's but a Cloud which passeth, and a stain in some corner of the Air, which vanisheth rather then abides: And yet it's this light Vapor, it's this almost imperceptible Cloud which raiseth those fatal Tempests which States are sensible of, and which shake the very foundations of the Earth. Yet some foer­merly have imagin'd, that it was their Masters Interests which enflam'd all the World, when it was only their Servants Passions.

I doubt not but the King of Persia made most specious pretences to justifie his Arms when he came into Greece, and but that his Manifests told wonders of his intenti­ons: He wanted neither Pretences nor Right: He forgot not, that the great King came only to chastise the petty Tyrants, and that he offer'd the People a rich and plentiful liberty, in stead of a poor and barren servitude. He falsified his design several ways; and yet swore, perhaps, that this design was immediately inspir'd him from the immortal Gods, and that the Sun was the primary Author of it. Not [Page 41] withstanding some Manifests which he dis­persed abroad, and some color of Justice and of Religion which he color'd his En­terprise withall; This was the truth of the business:

A Grecian Physitian, the Queens Dome­stick, having a mind to review the Port of Pyreum, and to cat the figs of Athens, put this fancy of War into his Mistresses head, and got her to engage her Husband in the Design. So that the King of Kings, the powerful and redoubted Xerxes, raised an Army of Three hundred thousand Com­batants, cut the Mountains, dryed up Rivers, overburthen'd the Sea, for no­thing but to bring back a Mountebank into his Country; methinks this gallant person might well have gone the journey with less expence, and with a less nume­rous company.

But there presents it self to my memory (my Lord) another thing which deserves to be known, which you will find no­thing ungrateful. It happen'd in the King­dom of Macedonia, more then fourscore years before the birth of King Philip; at the time of that famous Conspiracie, which of one State made two, and divi­ded the Court, the Towns, and Fami­lies.

It was Melcagers Wife, Governor of a Frontier-town and General of the Cavalry, who oblig'd her Husband to revolt, and that [Page 42] sor a very worthy subject. The King having heard of the spirit and gallantry of that wo­man, he had a mind to see her one day pri­vately. It was nothing difficult for him to obtain a favor which she easily granted to lesser great Lords, and to less civil persons then himself: She accustom'd not herself to tire the constancie of her Lovers, nor to cause any of them to die for despair. The King being come to the place assign'd, and by misfortune finding her to be no such thing as he had fancied her, he at first sight witness'd his disgust, and went away pre­sently with very little satisfaction. This af­front was so briskly resented by her who took it, and who had no ill opinion of her own merit, that from that very hour she vowed revenge: And being unable to ef­fect it better then by corrupting her Hus­bands fidelity, and debauching him from the service of his Master, she to that end im­ployed all the charms both of her mind and countenance. She on so credulous a spirit made use of the most subtile inventions which an artificial soul is capable of. And you need not doubt but in the heat of her revenge she would have had an infinite many Husbands, to have engag'd an in­finite number of Enemies against the King, and to have demanded satisfaction with more swords of the offence which she be­liev'd she had received.

Thus did Meleager quit the service of his [Page 43] King, and imbark himself in the Party of a Tyrant, without knowing what motion [...]rove him, nor what passion he reveng'd. He acted a person he understood not; He was his Wives soldier, and thought himself one of the chief Heads of the League. So easie, you see, it is for a man to deceive self in the judgment which he makes of the actions of men; since men themselves who act, are themselves he first deceiv'd, the true cause being not always known unto them. They are often blind instruments, and are without knowledge of the interests or passions of another.

The Speculatives of Macedonia forbore not to publish palusible and specious reasons for Meleagers revolt. Some say, that a re­proach which the King cast on him in pre­sence of the Thessalian Ambassadors, did so deeply strike him to the heart and made so wide a wound, that it could never be cur'd, That the caresses and favors which he re­ceiv'd since that, were useless plaisters ap­plied to his wounded heart; and the re­membrance of an injury, took from him the sense of a thousand benefits. Others al­leage the refusal of an Office he had de­manded for his Son; which indeed was not given to another, but was suppress'd, to keep him from entring into his family. There were some who excused this his change by the love he bore his Country and his zeal for the antient Religion, which [Page 44] pretence the Tyrant took to make war with the King. All Histories hereupon exercise their subtilities, and were all sal [...]ly ingenious and subtile. They sought the source of this ill, some on this side, and some on that, and none found it; None of them spoke of Meleager's Wives di [...]dain, which was the onely cause of her Husbands defection; which indeed was never disco­vered till by the after-age, and long after the Kings, the Tyrants, and Meleager's death.

THese two Inrodes which we have made into Greece and Macedon, were in our way, and I dare believe they were nothing displeasing to Your Highness. But I believe further, That You judge as well as I, that it's much more fit to divulge Visions in Hi­story then at the Council; and that Sub­tility, when it's amiss, is less dangerous when it relates things done, then when we deliberate what is to be done. And here, that we may say nothing which can be worse, It's the cause why things are not done at all.

The People of Athens are too able to de­ceive the People of Thebes: Those plant their nets so high, and these flie so low, that they must do something extraordinary to be taken. I say moreover, The Athenians sometimes employ their subtilities to make themselves believe so, and thereby deceive themselves. From their false. Principles [Page 45] they must necessarily draw false Conclusions, and can never negotiate happily, nor ever bring their Adversaries about to them, keeping themselves always in terms so far from them, and coming so little near them, that they are so far from joyning together, that they cannot so much as know one an­other.

It's hard to hear better Orators, or to see Opinions better debated. But you must look for no more: They therein place all their care and all their industry: They make it so much their study, as if Discourse were the principal end of Deliberation, and some­what above Action it self. They had rather make their Eloquence appear to the ruine of the State, then to preserve it without speaking word. They esteem it a greater advantage to bear away the bell in Council from the rest of their Companions, then to beat their Enemies in the field▪ So that they accompt as nothing the disgraces of War, hoping always to have their revenge at the next Treaty. And yet there they meet with some Mind of seel which is in­capable of perswasion, which will cut what it cannot untie, and with a firm and con­stant Negative break all their snares and all their wiles, without troubling it self to un­ravel them.

Witness that Governor of Figeac, who be­ing at a Conference which Queen Catherine held with the Deputies of the King of Navar [Page 46] and the Huguenot Party; which was to make them quit, before the time agreed on, those Places of security which had been put into their hands: She had brought from Paris a man almighty in words, to whose Rhetorick nothing till then had been im­possible. He from the beginning makes him­self admir'd by the Assembly: In pursuit he raiseth sweeter passions in the hearts of the Deputies; and after having overcome their minds, he gains their wills: And al­ready the most mistrustful had forgotten the Massacre, and would no longer have any Places of security: They acquiesced on the word of the King, and the Treaty was about to be concluded to the great satis­faction of the Queen; when in a moment all their labor was lost, and all her Orators Eloquence was overthrown, by that brisk answer which the Governor of Figeac made. This Princess had address'd herself to him with a triumphing Mine; and having asked him (rather to crown a thing done, and to gain applause, than that she thought she wanted his opinion) what he thought of the Speech he had heard: MADAM, an­swer'd he, with a voice so strong, that it broke the Articles of the already half-concluded Treaty, METHINKS THIS GENTLEMAN HERE HATH STUDIED VERY WELL; BUT NEITHER MY COMPA­NIONS NOR MY SELF ARE [Page 47] OF OPINION TO PAY FOR HIS STUDY WITH OUR HEADS.

Yet this Gentleman, of whom I shall speak in another place, was a very expert Negotiator, who had in other occasions succeeded most happily; And although he reign'd in the Art of Well-speaking, yet was he not of those men who can do nothing but speak: He made this Science serve a better, and preferr'd not with them the glories of his Mind before the good of his Masters service.

Our Men in effect are rather Declamators then Ministers; rather Sophists then Coun­sellors. They are not so much offended at the ill success of affairs, as they are pleased with the honor they have gotten for having well oration'd on every one of the debated Propositions, and for having made them­selves admir'd by the Deputies and by the Assembly. Their vanity easily consolates their misfortunes. It's sufficient for them to treat on the Deliberative Gender accord­ing to the precepts of Quintilian, and to know how to manage things through all those ways which Aristotle teacheth. These are the bounds of their Ambition: If they have not sinn'd against the Rules of Art, they are fully satisfied. And therein I find them like a Physitian of Milan, whom I knew at Padua: This man being content with the possession of his Science, and (as [Page 48] he said) of the enjoyment of the Truth, did not particularly enquire into Medicine the Cure of Diseases: Nay, he once boasted, That he had kill'd a man with the fair­est Method in the world; E morto, said he, canonicamente, e con tutti gli ordini.

In easie businesses they sow thorns, that they may reap them. In the least Occur­rent which presents it self, they raise a thousand difficulties: They find as many Expedients, and most commonly form no Resolution: The very many things which they see in every Subject, taking from them the liberty of choice; and Abun­dance rendring them poor. They entangle themselves in the multitude of their Rea­sons, and most commonly stop at the worst. And this is the reason: It's because the worst is the last Endeavor of their already tired Fancy; and that it having been to seek beyond Common sense, which was already drawn dry, it seems to be more theirs then the rest which were drawn from that publick spring, or which they had taken from Experience.

At this rate, what a good thing is That sobriety of knowledge and of understanding, so much esteem'd by the sacred Scriptures? Let's confess it to the shame of Humane Reason, and of the Subtility of the So­phists: A great Mind being alone, is a great Instrument to commit faults; And [Page 49] if a necessary Judgment weigh it not down and clear it not, to subject it to use and accommodate it to example and practice, doubtless its penetrating vivacity would be far more fit to agitate Metaphysical Questi­ons then to give good Counsel, then to un­dertake or to act as one ought. In effect, humane actions must be humanely mana­ged, that is to say, by possible and fami­liar means, in a way which holds from the Body as well as from the Mind; with Reasons which sometimes fall under sense, and which do not always abide in the upper Region of the soul.

Those Refiners who act otherwise, are good to embroil Negotiations, and are nothing worth to bring affairs to con­clusion: They are excellent Disorderers to confound a State, but ill Ministers to govern it. They succeed in Disorder, and as the Spirits of the Air they mingle themselves amongst Thunder; but they have no more force as soon as a Calm appears, the point which dazeled us being but a light of Lightening; it's very dangerous to make use of such like address in the variety of accidents, and in the several distortings of a civil life.

But were it a true and continual light whereby they are guided, were it the Sun it self which conducted them, it makes not that they must always find the end they seek, and that they must arive whither they tend. [Page 50] And of this, my Lord, I should have some­what else to say, if the noise of a Coach and of several voices which I hear, did not give me notice that this is that hour of Audience which Monsieur the Duke of Espernon hath demanded of Your High­ness.

THE FOURTH DISCOURSE.

THE Landgrave fail'd not to be brought the next day at the ordi­nary hour into the Chamber ap­pointed for Conversation. After having witness'd to Aristippus the satisfacti­on which his last Discourse had given him, he desired him not to fall on a new subject, till he had finish'd what he had left im­perfect. Aristippus obeyed him, and spake much after this manner.

A Man cannot believe how Reason wan­ders; I speak of that which is most right and the most enlightned: A [...]d how much Men deceive themselves; I mean the most able and the most intelligent: That there is a great distance betwixt Words and Things; and that it is not the same thing to bring forth, as it is to conceive; to execute, as it is to discourse. In Conce­ption and in Discourse, it seems as if all laugh'd, and that all would please us. To a [Page 52] Mind employed in a delightful Exercise, in the search of what it desires, and in be­lieving what is sought, there is nothing but joy, nothing but what tickles us. In this condition it receives them as the first de­lights of Love; it relisheth those sweets which spring from new Opinions, and from the discovery of the Truth, or of somewhat which resembles it. So long as the Mind thinks, and so long as it reasons, no body disquiets it in the possession of its Object: It masters Designs and Enterprises; it runs after fair Idea's which suffer themselves to be taken at pleasure; and meeting neither with contradiction nor resistance, it enjoys the purity of an Intellectual Good, which was never yet alter'd by Action▪

But neither is this all: It must at last quit these enchanted places, and issue out of these vast spaces, to enter into the true World. You must set your hands to the work, and come to Action after Meditation Then it is that things take a new face, when they are no longer so fair, nor so easie: Then it is, that the Soul is in labor and suf­fers the throws of travel: Then it is, that painful Effects follow voluptuous Reason­ings; and that what appeared a Friend and favorable in thought, revolts and becomes an Adversary in the operation. It's then no longer a Merchant at the Port, who trades by the Map, and proposeth to himself gain without danger, and a voyage without a [Page 53] storm: It's a maker of Vows in the midst of a Tempest, who now repents that he ever parted from home; who casts his wares into the waves, who seeks for a plank to save his own life. The winds do not rise against words and deliberations, throw not them­selves against shelves: The Cabinet is a place of peace and rest, where we trace out and where we design things absent, and objects which are far off. Besides, Picture may re­present a thing, and yet not be it; There is always a difference: And there needs but a beginning of Passion, but the weak boilings of Anger, but a light tincture of Shame, but a slight grimace to spoil all the resemblance, and to make another thing, even a contrary thing of what we esteem'd the same, or at least like it.

I shall leave you, my Lord, to think on the second part of this Comparison, and conclude, That Affairs have days, byasses and postures; which are neither to be seen nor observ'd but in the affairs themselves, which embroil all the draughts and all the notions which out of it could possibly have been form'd of it. There are certain motions and certain times which render our own know­ledge unknown unto us: Study cannot prevent them, Discourse cannot sever them from action: They hold and link themselves so fast unto it, that there is no way left to sunder them; and on the other side, they pass so quick and so imperceptibly, that it's im­possible to copy them.

[Page 54] The Romans meant this, when they said, That a man ought to deliberate with Occasion, and in the presence of Affairs; That a man ought to consult with his Enemy, and resolve himself at sight of his Mine and looks: That the Gladiator took Counsel in the Ampitheater; That often Counsel was rather to be ravish'd then to be taken.

This is principally to be understood in War and Military actions. But there is a War (which is hardly cr [...]dible) even in peac [...]able and disarmed Actions: We must fight every-where, one way or other. And Doubt, Objection, Contrary Reason do not always assault us in the Front nor openly; they often lie in wait for us and in Am­bushes.

Those Difficulties which were hid from our mind, in an instant present themselves to the fight. Time breeds its hinderances, Men often cause theirs. One onely Cir­cumstance changeth all the nature of an Occasion. After we have concluded, That this, or that will happen; nor this, nor that happens, but a third Event, which puts Foresight in disorder, and Conjecture to confusion.

The defect is in the Matter, not in the Undertaker. The Act may be well under­stood, and the Design well laid; but the In­struments may be to blame, the Marble and the Copper may be corrupted. Besides, a thousand accidents, I know not what, may [Page 55] come no man know from whence: There may come misfortunes from Heaven above, and from below the Earth; A Thunder­clap may ruine the materials, a subterra­nean Wind may make your work flie in the air. And if you will believe an antient Poet, The Gods will sometime recreate themselves; they make it their pleasure and their pastime to sport with the Thoughts of Men.

Good and Ill Policie are equally subject to these latter inconveniences; nor can we assure ourselves of any thing against Heaven: B [...]t without the Heavens intermedling, the Policie we speak of forbears not to be un­happy. In building them, it sees the falls and ruines of its works; or rather it sees only the Maps and the Projects, because it rather designs then builds. It figures Busi­ness and Undertakings, as formerly Re­publicks and Princes have been fancied, which had only a being in the Mind, and could never be but by Miracle. In effect, what are these Affairs and these Enterprises but bold and magnifick Dreams, which flat­ter the Imaginative part, and unprofitably amuse Reason? What are they but admi­rable Tales, and impossible Histories?

After this manner the Speculatives com­pose Romances in their Counsels, and form Propositions somewhat like those of that Artist who was so famous in the History of Alexander: You know he found Colossuses which were little, and Pyramides which [Page 56] were low. He would have made a Statue, which in one of its hands should have borne a City, and pour a River out of the other.

These men also dote magnificently, and their thoughts are no less vast nor less irre­gular. There is no proportion of that Great­ness which they conceive, to the Meanness of what is feasible. Matters are not capable of their forms; and their Peeces cannot be acted, because they cannot be fitted for the Theater; there needs too many Engine [...] and too many Machines; there are no Actors in all Europe to act such Parts: The repre­sentation of them would be difficult to a King of Persia, and yet for such they chose the Prince of Miranda.

Do not fancie, my Lord, that I intend to laugh. The first journey I made into Italy, I met with one of these gallant Spirits, who proposed the Conquest of Greece, and was but little more powerful then he whom I but now mentioned. But Your Highness may observe, if you please, by the way, That this brave Man's Father was a Neapolitan, and his Mother of Florence, and that they had taken care he should be bred at the Court of Rome. It's true, they chose a means very proportionable to the end, and they did raise a great Enemy against the Great Turk: Must he not have been confident of a great many Miracles, to have thought to have done any thing with such small Forces?

[Page 57] Yet must I in his favor confess the truth; I never met with so fruitful, nor so hot a Fancy as his; There never was so quick a discourse, which ran over more, or which with more difficulty could return to its source. But this fertility and this capacity did nothing but furnish matter to his Ex­travagancie, and give but the more scope to his fond thoughts: The farther his Reason went, the farther it stragled from his end.

After a long Conference I had with him, I knew that the great Design, which he call'd The Interest of God, and the Business of the Virgin Mary; which he was going about to sollicite in the Court of Princes; had no other foundation but the desire of an Intelligence with the Cossa [...]ues, the hope of some Revolt in some place or other, the word of a Greek Hermit, and the Vision of a Melancholy person. Yet was he, as I at first told you, a very good Wit; There was a great deal of pleasure to hear him: And out of Constantinople and Greece, about which his extravagancie rowl'd, he forbore not in other matters to be wise enough. I have heard him de­liver Oracles, and speak things which me­thought were Revelations; so far did I find them beyond the common reach of a hu­mane spirit. He err'd only in subtility; he had too much of that which lifts up and moves▪ and too little of that which settles and [Page 58] fixeth it self. His very Reason was agitated; He dictated Dispatches at dinner; He slept with his eyes open: And I shall tell you, my Lord, from one of his Domesticks who is yet living, and who commonly lay in my chamber, That from his open eyes there commonly issued such frightful rays, that he was often frighted with them, and was never well accustomed to them.

To a Man of this Temper, the same ad­vice to govern himself well might be given, as was to one for his health. One must tell him, if he would give the World leave to speak; ‘Thicken your blood a little, tem­per your Fire with your Plegme: Make not use of all your Reason; Be not alto­gether Intelligence, and all Light: Make your self a Beast sometimes; that is to say, stop at the nearest object; and enjoy this day, without tormenting your self too much about to morrow. Suffer not your mind to be overcharg'd with this infinite Foresight, which seeks out evils as far the ends of the Earth, and even to the last of Posterity; which throws it self so far into the future, that it forgets the present, and forsakes those things which are, for those which may be▪’

Did you never hear speak of the Soul of that Philosopher, which commonly went out of his Body to run races and to take journies? Once when this wandring Soul would have return'd as it was w [...]nt to do▪ [Page 59] it found no more a Body in condition to receive it, his having been assassinated du­ring that interval of time it was away. If Greece be not a lyar, this poor Philosopher meditated longer then he ought to have done, and his Meditation cost him his life.

But this is the moral sense of the Fable; which tells us, that if we will live, we must not altogether unlink our selves from our bodies, nor separate our selves from matter. Our Reason must not estrange us from our own present interest, and from the business in agitation: It must not think to flie at all, and carry all before it; Nor fancie to beat the Turk with words, or conquer the World with subtilities.

In some occasions let's take a Septentri­onal soul, mixt of more earth then fire; and let's quit this Oriental spirit, whose fire is so subtile, that it rather seems an illusion then a truth. Let's mistrust the Eloquence of Athens, and the Wisdom of Florence; since this hath been nothing profitable to those who practised it, and her Doctors are become slaves for teaching it. I shall go yet further: what beyond the Mountains is call'd The French Fury, hath more then once prof [...]ably succeeded; I do not say in the Field and in War; I say at Rome, I say in the Conclave▪ which is the great Business of Rome, which is the Camp of Policie, which is the Theatre of Prudence.

But here is wherewith very much to [Page 60] astonish the perpetual subtility and the end­less Ratiocinations which our Distillers of Tacitus his Maxims make. Here are four words (without more ado) in opposition to all the babble of that insolent Policie, which in despight of Destiny, even to the exclusion of Jupiter, would preside over the Government of humane things.

Prudence it self counsels us, that we should not always take its Counsels: she ad­vertiseth us, that she meddles not with the regulating of extremities, nor with the conduct of Despair: she in some encounters dispenseth us from those things, which in others she ordered us. Without offending her, we may cross the fields when there is danger on the right and left, and try whe­ther an excess may not cure us, when other remedies have ill operated; and cast our selves into the arms of an Enemy, when she is no longer able to defend us.

Thus, as you see, with the consent of Prudence, one may be Imprudent. And to this purpose it will not be unhandsom for me to tell Your Highness, what one day happen'd to me as I was in Treaty with a French Lord, who till then had been ex­tremely happy, and yet with some elu­ctancie had taken party in an Occasion wherein it was necessary to hazard some­what. Being urg'd to conclude and [...]esolve, Yes, said he; but if I do it, I shall yield much to Fortune. I could not avoid answering [Page 61] him, You owe as much (Sir) to Fortune, you have receiv'd as much from her: You cannot therefore give her much, you can only return her somwhat.

And indeed, as Fortune commonly goes where she useth to go, and will not lose her first benefits; so she will also have those she favors confide in her, she will have them make some advance, and not demand a reason of her for all she doth. A man must not always be so regular and so methodi­cal; A man must be bold, to be happy: But it is not properly those whom we speak of to day, who want courage and boldness. We may look on those wise timerous per­sons in our next Conference, wherein I shall endeavor out of my memory to design their Picture; Your Highness hath so ordered me to do, since you oblig'd me absolutely to remember all what I most willingly would have forgot.

THE FIFTH DISCOURSE.

THE Court hath been govern'd by another kind of Men; and there are still some of them to this day. The People call them Wise men: And in effect they want neither Sense nor Experience; They know the Nature of Affairs, and the Possibility of every thing. But commonly their Knowledge remains hid in their mind, and produceth but a vain and idle Contemplation, which is fertile only in barren thoughts. It's a Vertue which finisheth in itself; It's a Power which is never reduc'd into Act: whether it be that they feel themselves not strong enough to undertake the good which they see, and that their eyes are better then their hearts▪ or whether their advantage being more cer­tain in the present, they prefer it before a good which is not yet.

Howsoever it be, They advise themselves, rather then counsel their Master; They answer his sentiments, and not his demands. [Page 63] And if they fear the rigor of the Times, or the incommodity of the Ways, they would decline proposing him a journey in January, or perswading him to pass the Alps, if their business lay at Paris. Their advice issues all from the inferior part; they are all terre­strial and material: Interest always carries it with them beyond Honor or Reason. Be­ing sensible of no more powerful temptation in their souls then that of Gain, they ground their opinions on the same baseness and on the same considerations that a Farmer or a Receiver would do, were he but seated in the same place.

Let the Ship which carries them perish, if it will, and let the Publick run the ha­zard; They easily comfort themselves for the shipwrack of the State, so as there be but a Skiff in which they may but gain the shore and secure their own family. We should very much deceive our selves, if we took them for those violent Zealots, who would be Anathema's for their Brethren, and who earnestly desire to be blotted out of the Book of life, so as those of their own Nation were pardon'd.

Yet a man cannot absolutely say, that they have ill designs against the State, and that they desire its ruine: They reserve only to themselves their first and most tender af­fections: Excepting their own Interest, I believe their Masters would be very dear unto them. But the mischief is, that they [Page 64] are never without their Interest, no more then from themselves; They find it where­soever they cast their eyes: Their particular Profit presents it self every where, as his own shape did to that Antient sick person, who perpetually had it before him. They cannot divide themselves from Business, to look on it with the least freedom of Judg­ment: They cannot extract out of their soul their Reason simple and pure, without mixing it with their passions. So that al­though they discover a Conspiracie which is hatching, yet they oppose it not, for seat of offending the Conspirators, and to leave their Children such powerful Enemies▪ They have not courage enough to utter a bold Truth, if it be never so little danger­ous in respect of the establishment of their fortune, although most important to their Masters service.

A wretched and miserable Prudence▪ They consider not, that a Spy who gives advice, is not more mischievous then a Sen­tinel who says nothing; And that they are as well the cause of the Princes loss by their silence, as the others by their treachery. They consider not, that leaving him to that danger whence they could withdraw him, they do no less contribute to his ruine then those who drive and precipitate him into it. They perceive not, that Infidelity do [...] no hurt, which Weakness is not as capable to perform.

[Page 65] This being so, my Lord, Is it not of them the Spirit of God would speak in chap. 22. of the Revelation, when it placeth the Timerous in the number of Poisoners and Assassinates, and other execrable men, when it condemns them all to the second death, to that death which is so strange and terri­ble, to that lake burning with fire and brim­stone?

I know not the true intention of the Holy Ghost, and will not assure you that they are comprised under that rigorous sen­tence: But yet I very well perceive, that they are the last and the worst of all Cow­ards; and that it is not so shameful to flie in a Battel, as to give a timerous Counsel. For at the least, if we fall into misfortune in war, a man may excuse himself either from the disadvantage of the Place, or from the number of the Enemies, or lay the fault on his own Men; and as Dust, the Wind and the Sun merit the glories of the Victo­rious, so also are they guilty of the loss of the Vanquish'd. At worst, a man justifies himself by accusing Fortune, which in all Ages hath been esteemed the Mistress of Event, and the Soveraign Arbiter of Bat­tells.

It is not so with Politick Assemblies, whereinto this blind Power is not admit­ed; where the Mind acts freely and without constraint; where Prudence quietly exer­ciseth its operations, and finds none of [Page 66] those obstacles and impediments which op­pose themselves to the effects of valor. For which cause, all the excuses of Soldiers and of Captains have no place amongst Coun­sellors and Ministers. A wise man cannot warrant success; but he ought to answer for his Intentions and for his Advice.

There's therefore no baseness like to that which begins at our Chamber, and removes not simply by the approaches and presence of Danger, but which cannot endure the onely imagination of it, but which shakes at the least mention made of it. And to speak truth, It must needs proceed from the entire annihilation of that liberty which is born with Man, and from the last cor­ruption of that Principle of Generosity, and of that sense of Honor which we all have; since it's the cause we even deny to own or to consent to the Truth, seeing in that con­dition a Man is not so much as capable of the proposition of a difficult Good. There is no way left to obtain so much from them, as to set a good face on it, even in a place of security, to do so much as declare them­selves, without danger, for the good of their Country; to dispute their Rights in a chair, and serve but for its tongue. A strange thing They would rather accept of Servitude, under the title of Peace, then to resolve on a Defence which were to be effected with the arms and the blood of other Men.

We may also observe some Men, who ex­pect [Page 67] till ill Fortune be arriv'd, that they may be astonish'd at it: They have a bold spirit, although they have a timorous soul. These Men speak high, when there is Time and Ground enough betwixt them and the Danger. Cicero was after this manner cou­ragious: Never did the least word escape him, which was not worthy of the Great­ness of the Commonwealth. He at least was valiant in the Senate; and he, me­thinks, protests in some of his Letters, That had he been invited to the Feast of the Ides of March, he should have had no­thing left.

Such a Citizen is not fit to fight a Duel; He would not willingly in his doublet en­gage himself amongst Musket-shot. He takes more care then other Men for the preser­vation of his life, because he esteems it worth more then theirs, and that it's nothing un­handsom to fear the loss of a thing so pre­cious. He fears Death, or, to speak more civilly, Nature fears it in him; but he fears neither Envy nor Hatred; but he equally despiseth the threats of Great men, and the murmure of the People. If his Forces are not sufficient to throw down Tyranny, he makes use of his voice and of his breath to stir up others to the recovery of their li­berty: He at least calls Men to Arms as loud as he can, and contradicts Ill, if he cannot resist it. All his opinions flie high for the Greatness and Glory of his Master. He pro­fesseth [Page 68] enmity with all the enemies of the State: Disgrace and Poverty are nothing grievous, when he suffers them for a good cause; And Death it self, if it surprise him not, and gives him but time to consider i [...] well, he at last resolves to receive it like an honest man, and puts on valor out of ne­cessity: By a long and serious meditation he forms to himself an acquired Courage which is no less staid then the natural.

Our Prudent persons arrive not at this height. Besides Death, they admit of so many other kinds of extremity, that they still meet with some one or other which stops them the very first step they make re­wards Good. They despair, before they ought so much as to be afraid: They have always very great motives and very strong considerations, very important causes, (these are the terms which they use) that thereby they may avoid the performance of their duty. And because there is no Maxim in Policie, which is not combated by another Maxim as certain and as probable as that, and that the Future hath as many shapes and faces as our imagination can fancie; They turn it about to look upon i [...] only on that side which terrifies them, and so with Reason defend themselves against Reason. They always consider, that the actions of men are exposed to many in­conveniences; and never consider, that all the ill which may happen, happens not: [Page 69] whether it be that God by his grace diverts it, or that we by our address shun it, or whether the imprudence of the contrary party breaks the blow; it being most cer­tain, that our faults often cast us into dan­gers, from whence those of our Enemies withdraw us. But they taking things at worst, and presupposing as certain all doubt­ [...]ul accidents, they regulate their deliberati­ons as if they necessarily were all to happen, and commonly act not at all, because they [...]ain would act but too securely. Or perhaps they do not dive so deep into business; and very seldom it is they bring them to the last point: They content themselves with a light mediocrity of success, and with the begin­nings of good hap; they dare not promise themselves the continuation of them to the end in the least thing: So that with this their cold and heavy wisdom they may defer the fall, but they cannot escape it; they shore up the ruines which they are not able to rele­vate: They at most gain but some days, or weeks, and keep their affairs in hand till some who are more bold operate on them more efficaciously. It's an observation of Aristotle, That as the vivacity of Alcibiades his mind became extravagant towards his children, the solidity of Phocion's chang'd into matter of weight when it descended from him to his race. But let's say more then Aristotle; That the wisdom of these Mi­nisters is not so long a time in degenerating [Page 70] into weakness, into languors, and into cow­ardise. Before it pass thus corrupted to their children and to their posterity, it spoils its self from its very issuing out of the soul, and before ever it come to action. It appears weak in their Propositions and in their Counsels, which can be call'd neither pru­dent nor wise, without speaking impro­perly, without doing an injury to such fair Names, without offence to true Wis­dom.

What an error it is! As if Wisdom could never be couragious; That it must always fear, and always tremble. These new Wise men are acquainted with the Wise men of Antiquity: They have read Aristotle as well as we, and yet have not profited by that old Oracle which Aristotle reports; THAT A MAN MUST CALL DANGER TO THE RELIEF OF DANGER, AND SAVE HIMSELF FROM ONE EVIL BY ANOTHER EVIL.

How deplorable soever the condition of the present is, they cannot resolve them­selves for Novelty or Change: They would rather suffer Change then make, and expect it, then prevent it. In stead of obeying the Oracle, and tempting a second Danger, they accustom and make themselves familiar with the first: In stead of doing an endeavor to withdraw themselves from an evil course which they are fallen into, they [Page 71] seek a supportable posture to abide in. They are engag'd in Evil so, as the Evil presseth them not, and so as they recoil to the last extremity: It's sufficient for them, so as Death be remitted to another time, and that they in the mean time may enjoy only the intervals of an ill life. Doubtless they would be of the opinion of a Spanish Poet, who said, That a Quartan Ague was a good thing, because a man was secure to live a year with it, at least to live six moneths, at least from a sudden death.

What they do therefore, is not to reign, is not to conquer, is not to triumph; It's only to live, and that also after a strange manner: It's to spend the time from morn­ing till after-noon, and so to draw on till the next day. Their Government is neither Peace, nor War, nor a Truce: It's a Rest of Idleness; it's a dead sleep which by artifice they procure the People, which is neither good nor natural.

They know not how to cure, but only how to paint the sick and make them look well. They would reclaim Rebellion by Caresses; they glut it with benefits and with gratifications: But they thereby ren­der it more powerful, and nothing the better; They increase it's force, nor do they diminish its malice: They sometimes take from it some Men which are to be sold, and such Advantages as serve to no purpose, and they perceive not that it is to cultivate [Page 72] disorder thus lightly to touch its branches and its buds, and not to put the iron to the hody and to the root.

All their Experience is but the History of Misfortunes, which happen'd to those who durst, and did undertake. All what is not easie, they call impossible; and fear magni­fying objects, and almost infinitely multiply­ing every individual, when three Malcon­tents retire themselvs from Court with their Train, they fancy an Army of Enemies in the field, which draws along with it Towns and Communalties without resistance: And afterwards they do not put themselves in posture to chastise them, but they seek to sweeten them; and in stead of visiting them with Canons and Soldiers, they send them Gown-men, employed with Offers and Commissions, and promise them far more then they could hope for by the Victory.

Thus they oblige a Prince to descend from his throne to treat with his Subjects, They make a Soveraign a Private person, and a Legislator an Advocate. By this breach they break that distance which separates him from the People, and change Power into Equality: The Guilty ascend the Tri­bunal, and deliberate concerning their own fact with the Judge; they name the place of the Conference, and it's accepted▪ they choose for this Parley such persons as they most confide in, and they are granted them: And they there speak neither of [Page 73] Grace nor of Pardon; these terms would be of too harsh sound and would offend their ears. But the offended Master solemnly declares, That all was done for the good of his service, and thinks himself beholding to those unfaithful servants for the injuries they have done him.

To conclude, the Design of these men be­ing onely to license the Company, and to divide the Allyes: they grant them more then they demand; they are prodigal of the Publick Faith; they husband not the Kings name; and after this manner they bring him to the brink of two extremities equally dangerous: For whether it be, that he will keep his word by the ruine of his Affairs, or whether he will establish his. Affairs by the violation of his word, he is still reduced to a most deplorable condition, either to hazard his State by being faithful, or to forfeit his Honor that he may continue King.

But if before all this, whilst things being still whole, he desires to take a generous re­solution, and worthy of himself, if he will no longer have his bounty a rent and a certain revenew to Rebels; if he be wearied to see his Coffers exhausted to pay his Enemies Ar­mies, and every day to purchase what he never gets; then do these able Counsellors represent unto him with several gestures and grimaces that he must not sharpen bu­siness; That wise men yeild to the violence of times, as the gods do to the necessity of [Page 74] Fate: That Princes which reigned before him never durst stir that stone: That it were presumption to think to do better then our Fathers have done; That War is an ill means to reform a State; That to pluck a body in pieces to make it new again, is the remedy of a Magician; That to burn a house to make it clean, is the advice of an Enemy, and the resolution of a furious per­son.

Neither is this all, They in pursuit pro­duce great Common-Places in praise of Peace and Repose; they employ all the skill of the Rhetorician to exaggerate the miseries of war; They forget not the profanation of Temples, nor the violation of Divine and Humane Laws, to make their own Cowardize relish in his mind, under speci­ous terms; and to perswade him that they have Reason, they never confess they are affraid. They live thus near the Prince, and maintain themselves betwixt him and the Rebels by the that common necessity which there is of their Mediation to manage this filthy Trade, and to preserve two Parties in a State, that so the one may not destroy the other.

They are also most commonly a friend to strangers: What need we dissemble, they far more apprehend to render their Neigh­bor ungrateful to the King, then to disserve the King their Master, so that during their Ministery, no man must speak of protecting [Page 75] the weak against the oppression of the strong, of awaking pretensions which are asleep, of undertaking any thing out of the Kingdom▪ what Justice, what Fitness, what Facility so ever seems to perswade such an Enterprize. They condemn the memory of Charls the Eighth, and curse the Voyages of Italy; They even deride those of the Holy Land▪ till even they offend the piety of former Ages; not fearing to repeat after an impi­ous fellow engaged in the latter, That they were the Feavors of those times, and Popular diseases; That they were from the youthful­ness of our Princes, and from the heat of Li­ver in our Counsellors. One of them main­tained, That Alexander had never been; That his History was but a Romance, that that of Amadis was not more fabulous, nor more unlikely.

If their soft counsels do not always pre­vail over their Masters Vigor and good incli­nations; if some sensible injury which can­not be dissembled oblige the State to a pub­lick resentment; then when they cannot blame the thing in its principle, they decry it with all their power in its consequences and effects; And as if the Victory were not worth the charge of the War, upon the taking of a Town from the Enemy, they say, That it's to lose to gain, after that manner; so many honest men sacrificed to the vanity of one (this one perhaps, is a Prince of the Blood, or a Son of France) so many millions transported [Page 76] out of the Kingdom for the gaining of a paltry place; the expence of the Artillery alone would perfect our ruine, did we make but such ano­ther Conquest.

Such kind of Ministers would not have pleased themselves at Carthage with the Victories of Hannibal in Italy; They cried out in Council upon the arrival of good news, when they poured forth bushe [...]s full of those Roman Knights Rings who had been killed in the War; Let him keep his iron Rings, and his paper Trophies, and send us back our Men and our money; the Affairs of the Republick were never either more flourish­ing or more ruinous; It never had more reputa­tion abroad, nor more misery within its own bowels.

Such Ministers have caused the end of two Empires, and have lost Rome and Constanti­nople, by the fatal faintness of their Counsels; They have opened the door to all the Bar­barians, They have shamefully purchased peace either from the Goths or Vandals, or o­ther Northern people, whence all the ill in the world comes: They made no account of the dishonour of the Empire, and the in­famy of the Roman Name: So as by the sweetness of the word, they might correct the bitterness of the thing; and so when they paid Tribute to their Enemies, they might be suffered to say that they gave a Pension to their Allyes; They minded not the fortune of the future, nor what would [Page 77] become of Posterity, so as they might but live as long as the State which they governed could last.

Yet let us once more pardon them, and not accuse them of Treason. I believe they would not sell and deliver up their Master; but they are not angry that the world should know that they can do it; upon some occa­sions they make no difficulty of setting a price on him; they suffer him to be traffick­ed for: They even afford Merchants some Patterns, although they will not part with the whole Piece. It's one of their Maxims, THAT ONE MAY SOMETIMES DECEIVE THE PRINCE FOR HIS OWN GOOD. And when they hold intelligence with the Ministers of other Princes, they call that To labor for the ge­neral good of Christendom, and to maintain Peace betwixt the Crowns.

In our Fathers days it was believed, that Barbarossa and Andreas Doria did not mis­understand one another; yet cannot any man therefore say, but that the one was a good servant to Soliman, and the other to Charls; But they had need of one the other to make their services valued by their Masters, and to keep the place they held: The Turk commended the Christian, and spoke of him as of the onel [...] man who trou­bled him: The Christian rendred the like to the Turk, in terms altogether as obliging, and as advantagious. And a slave of Algier up­on [Page 78] this subject spake very pleasantly to a Viceroy of Sicilia, That a Raven never pick­ed out the eyes of another bird of his own kind▪ And that if Doria were ruined▪ Barbarossa would have little [...]redit at the Port of the Grand Signor; as also, Doria would descend more then one step lower in the Emperors Court by the ruine of Barbarossa.

They helped and favored one another therefore reciprocally, for the continuation of the War which was their Trade and their Business: And since ambitious men▪ who consequently love honor, were capable of such a kind of traffick, I leave you to ima­gine, if men loving onely their own interest, and knowing nothing else that's honest and profitable would not be glad to preserve their Authority by such a Commerce; would they not, do you think, render them­selves necessary, that they might continue? would they not for Peace, which would be a golden Harvest to them, and a Harvest which never fails, do what others did for War, whose Vintage [...]s so uncertain, and whose fruits are so sharp and bitter?

THese are the proceedings of our Wise­men in the Administration of the State, and in the high Region of the Ministry; but when they go lower, and that their duty is more easie, they therein acquit themselves no better of what they ought. The affairs of par­ticulars who depend on them, take the same [Page 79] course with the publick. In sure and easie oc­casions, wherein they might at an easie rate shew their strength, they cannot chuse but make their natural weakness appear; they would not lose the friendship of those whose goods they have ravished; and at one and the same time, they fear and offend the same persons; they entertain all the world with general answers, and such as precisely do not oblige. A man never goes unsatisfied away from them, they never brave nor re­ject any man; they afford a man nothing but fair words and fair hopes.

To him who demands Justice, they re­turn Civilities and Complements; they pre­sent him who hath need of bread with Roses and Violents; after having held a man a whole year in length, promising you all sa­tisfaction from day to day, at last when you press them to a conclusion, they desire you to tell them, and thereby make it appear, that as often as you spoke unto them, they never intended to hearken unto you.

A Pretender in the Court of Rome, having treated them after this manner, and return­ing home, as he went, met with a Gallows at his going out of Bologne (where the Court of Rome then was) and having a while staid before the Gallows to look on a man who had been newly hanged, there, they say he cried out all at once with a loud voyce, HOW HAPPY DO I ESTEEM THEE MY FRIEND TO HAVE NOTHING TO [Page 80] DO IN THE PLACE WHENCE I COME? You see whom, for their sakes men of bu­siness envy, and whereto they oblige men to go seek felicity; and indeed Death for Death, and one Hangman for another; a sudden Death, and a ready Hangman, were yet better then all this.

Thus do they tire the patience of Solli­citors, thus they revenge the importunity of Supplicants, nor do they make them­selves angry to make them despair: Wherein to speak the truth, their proceeding hath I know not what that's rare and worthy of consideration; Nothing can be imagined more sweet and more calme then their Ma­lice; their poison is composed of as much Sugar as Arsenick, and the equality of their humor is like to the calme of that River, where the lighter bodies go to the bottom without so much as the appearance of one cloud in the air, nor one breath of wind which moves them.

A man of this make is a learned Artisan of calumnies; he never wants playster nor colours; he can admirably well prepare and polish an ill turn; he blames with Elogies and not with Invectives; in appearance he bears testimony of some great Desert, and in ef­fect he breeds suspitions of any mans great Reputation. You would say that he grieves for those he accuseth, and pities those he in­tends to ruine; Rhetorick teacheth us gros­ly to speak ill, he hath found out a way far [Page 81] more quaint to do the same thing; this is called, to strike without listing up ones arme; it's to hurt without drawing blood, or the appearance of a blow. He disguiseth himself in a friend to hate one with the more security; and that he might be thought charitable at the same instant that he assassi­nates, he kills no body, till he hath first made his funeral Oration.

‘He tells the Prince, the eyes of all men are turned towards him; the Souldiers call him their Father, and the People think he is their intercessor towards your Majesty; it's in his power alone to prevail with this universal favor, and the possessi­on of so many hearts, to form a party which may carry his name; yet I believe he would not fail in his duty, and that all his are good intentions. The Astrologers and the Poets promise him a Kingdom; but besides that, they are people who ne­ver keep promise, its perhaps a Kingdom beyond Sea; perhaps he must travel to the conquest of it to the farthest extremities of the Earth; yet it's likely that he will con­tent himself with the place which your Majesty hath given him about you; His ambition will be more wise and more mo­dest then that of other ambitious persons. Perhaps Sir, his designs will respect his Majesties Crown, and the Laws of his Country.’

The Princes jealousie being kindled by [Page 82] these magnifick excuses, and with this ap­parent sweetness, mixt with this bitter rail­lery, Mistrust with esteem enters his soul. But there is yet something to be done; The work is happily begun, but he must not stay there; the dissembling Courtier goes on▪ He adds, ‘That whatever may be said, and what Crime soever is alleadged he can ne­ver resolve to condemn a man who hath served him so well; that Philip and Alexan­der must in such a case consult with himself, and with the immortal gods; he must con­sider whether there be more danger for him to dispatch a deserving servant, then there is danger in declining it; You can­not lose him without a notable interest of State; You cannot preserve him without the evident danger of your person: Look Sir, which of the two is nearest, your State or your Person: Consider whether it's better always to mistrust that man, or assure your self of him by those means which are in your power. A Sovereign, can he be in safety, whilst there is a parti­cular person who can corrupt the Senate, desbauch the Legions, and make the Peo­ple revolt?’

Thus without making high exclamations, or employing violent figures, he perswades a timerous Soul, and drives fear into cruel­ty. Thus cruelty seems sweet, and appears officious and doing good. By poi [...]oned praises, and a thousand times worse then [Page 83] dry Slander, he adviseth to death, still in saying, that he will not advise; he dischar­geth himself from the envy of the Murther, by the byas which he useth in making his proposition; he chargeth his Enemy whilst he shuns the odious name of his Accuser; When he hath perfected his destruction, giving him his last blow, he still dissembles his hatred, he still feigns himself good and compassionate.

But withal, he is so much affraid least he should not dye, and least the League should prove the stronger, that after having cast either Philip or Alexander into extreme re­solutions, he causeth another game to be plaid on the other side; he advertiseth him whom he hath destined to ruine, ‘That he hath no means left to serve him any lon­ger in the Palace against an infinite many secret enemies, who do him very ill Of­fices; That for his part he knows no more the present, and knows not what to think of the future, seeing the Prince in such strange humors, and so far estranged from the first sweetness of his Nature; That he esteems those happy which are retired to their own Homes, and who have quitte [...] the Court, where good men have lost a place, being onely now able to be wit­nesses of the violence of the wicked: That himself is ready to take his leave, that at least he may not by his presence seem to approve the evil which he cannot hinder [Page 84] by his counsels; and that neither his eyes nor his ears share in those things which are preparing.’

THis is but a little shew of that great Trade of Juggling which is exercised at Court; and it's near upon what (besides our Tacitus) a Manuscript History which we have seen would say by its PESSIMƲM INIMICORƲM GENƲS LAV­DANTES; It's the explanation or para­phrase of a passage out of Ammianus Mar­cellinus, when he speaks of the Court of the Emperor Constantius; and it shall be again if you please of those two verses in the Divine Jerusalem, which the late King Henry the Great esteemed so much and so worthy of Mounsieur. ***

It's particularly in the Country of these two Verses where are excellent Cheats to be found: And I call to mind one of the principal Ministers of the first Court of Christendom, who past Master [...] in this rare Science. As far off as ever he saw a man whom he newly came from doing an ill of­fice unto, he cried aloud to him I HAVE SERVED YOU SIR: And with these Maxims of Deceit he a long time go­verned the World. He grew extremely [Page 85] old in refusing and in granting nothing, in saying neither I nor no; in receiving both parties with the same serene countenance; Let him die then when he pleaseth; this Ro­man so little worthy of old Rome, so far from the candor and sincerity of the antient Fabri­tius, with truth it might be inscribed over his Tomb, THAT HE DID LYE THREESCORE YEARS AND TEN, and that the Comedy he acted lasted all his life.

It's true, that we learn from some exam­ples that formerly men lived happily enough under those soft and languishing Govern­ments, and that they have not always been fatal to their Countries: But we must take heed in History whether the administration we commend, is not the consequence of a better Reign, whether it be not the remain­ing heat of a fire which is no more, and the motion of a shake which is quiet: We must observe whether they are not the Fa­thers Vertues which uphold the Childrens Infirmities; and their Patrimony which fur­nisheth desbauches. For in effect, after a long continued order, Business moves al­most of it self, and Policy cannot so soon re­ceive a turn, being still sensible of that good impression which some great Prince hath left behind him. Besides, it's the nature of the things of this World to require time, and with trouble to pass from one condition to another. So that if it hath hapned that [Page 86] the Commonwealth remain stable under such weak, feeble and ill assured Powers, it was perhaps obliged for its repose to those good and solid foundations which had long since been established, although that above it no­thing appeared but straw and earth. It was not so much the fruit of the present Government, as the remains of the former happy conduct of Affairs.

THE SIXTH DISCOURSE.

TO this scrupulous and mistrustful Wisdom we may oppose a certain brutal Vertue, if it be lawful to call it so; but the better to make it known, and to define it by describing it, might we not call it a passionate, untutor'd impetuous Probity, which rather follows the Fury of Nature, then the Discipline of Rea­son, and hath more Courage then Address?

At first it seems to be Vigor, and it proves Rudeness; it might be taken for Force, and yet 'tis but Violence; wherein the Mind fix­eth it self, intending to stiffen it self, and be­comes immoveable, by meaning to be too stable: Now it imports a man very much to know how to turn and bend his Mind, ac­cording to the exigence of occasions, and the variety of those subjects which present themselves. If we render it supple and ma­nageable, if it be not capable of several forms; in a world, so changeable as this, its use which ought to be universal, and not [Page 88] have any defined object, finds its bounds at the very beginning of his carreer; It stops at some encounters, which ought to be in its choyce, and extends it self but to a very small number of things. And those things happening but very rarely, those Ministers on the other side, who are every day to be in action, they cannot with one onely Drug make all kind of operations, and with the same fire cool again, what they before heated.

I confess they have a good heart, and their intentions may be good; but they want both art and method for the conduct of these advantages of birth. They are made all of a piece; and if there be some overture of difficulty to be made, instead that they should stoop their heads, they must have the wall raised; They must constrain Time. Men, and Business to obey them, and to fol­low them: Thus never entring into another sence, being ever unable to shift place, ac­knowledging no other Reason but their own, they are not very fit to govern States, where it's necessary to take new advice up­on the novelty of those accidents which hap­pen, and where sometimes the Pylot may learn somewhat from the Passengers.

What an unhappy regularity it is to go out-right, and not to turn from a Gulf which is in the midst of the way; to go over shelves, to have the honor not to go aside; to reject a good resolution because another [Page 89] proposed it? Yet your generous Impru­dents fall every hour into these Gulfs, and continually rush themselves on those shelves; being unable to arrive at the first glory of Vertue which is not to fail, they neglect the second, which is to know how to amend ones faults; because they cannot be Perfect, they will not be Penitent.

Whatsoever the cause be, good or ill, which they at first embrace, they hold on with a blind obstinacy, wherewith they maintain it, and dispute as violently for the least of their Sentiments, as for the Religion of their Fathers; They would willingly be Martyrs for their own Opinions; they al­ways continue a commenced evil, to shew that they undertake with Judgment what they do with Perseverance.

If a Proposition which they have advanced by way of discourse, and which they do not believe to be true, comes to be contested, they from that very time, interess them­selves in its defence; afterwards they half perswade themselves to it; in pursuit of rea­soning, they hold it altogether assured, and quit it not till from a problematick question, which it was at the beginning of the Con­ference, they have in conclusion made it a a point of Faith.

If they are desired to consider that the E­nemies are powerful and numerous; They answer, They are a great many Men, but few Souldiers; That they are not true E­Enemies, [Page 90] but a mutinous Rascality: If it be remonstrated that a passage cannot be made for the Army by that place which they pur­posed, they labor and torment themselves so much about it, that it seems as if they pre­tended to make it pass there by the onely force of their words.

I do not here fancy things which are not; I do not create Artificial Men: I know some, My Lord, and I could name them to you, who act in Council after this manner, who will yield neither to evident Reason, nor to an established Custom, nor to a received Practice.

They oppose the singularity of their Opi­nion to the consent of People, and to a crowd of Examples. The Briefs and the Bulls of Popes, the Edicts and Declarations of Kings are for other men, they are not concerned; They break all publick Acts when they agree not with their particular sence.

Have we not first seen in Flanders, and since in Italy, a Spanish Minister, who was of this humor; he could never resolve to acknowledge for King of France the late K. Henry the Great; he could never call him otherwise then the Bearnois, or the Prince of Bearne, when he meant him a favor. The League was dead, and without hopes of ever reviving. The Peace of Vervins was publish­ed, and all its Articles executed; The Kings Reconciliation had been solemnly made with [Page 91] the Holy See; The K. of Spain had sent him Ambassadors, and had receiv'd his. Yet all this could not make the spirit of the Minister stoop; He would be more averse to France then Spain, and more Catholick then the Church. His opiniastrecy excommunicated him whom the Pope had absolved. And he still remained on these terms till the year 1610. the very evening before when this Bearnois was ready to make himself Master of a considerable part of Europe, and who knows whether he would not have begun with the Dutchy of Millan, which this Mi­nister was then Governor of, purposely to have made him change his note?

THose Wisemen we yesterday made the examen of, assure nothing at all, durst not swear it were day at high noon, are not certain whether those things which they see are objects or illusions; when a man inquires their Sentiment, they always say I THINK, never I KNOW, and in businesses which are most clear, a man can draw nothing from them but PER­HAPS, IT MAY BE SO, and WE MUST CONSIDER, which proceeds according to Aristotle from an opinion they have conceived of the world, which is gene­rally ill, and from appearances; So that they may be sometimes deceived, but they are indeed seldom deceived. If they lose it's be­cause they play but too well; It's themselves [Page 92] and their misfortune which they ought to complain of, and not of the advantages and wiles of their Enemies. They also first seek Safety and afterwards Profit; They govern themselves by a reasonable Discourse, which concludes with profit and certainty; Nor do they live according to moral Institu­tion, which proposeth what's honest and hazzardous.

You may fancy quite the contrary of the others we now speak of, who express them­selves in affirmative terms, who decide the most doubtful and the most imbroyled af­fairs with a THIS IS SO, it CAN­NOT BE OTHER WISE, THERE IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSI­TY THAT IT MUST HAPPEN SO; these commonly quit the greatest of their interests for the least of their Passions, they prefer praise to Presents, and thanks before Rewards; they promise themselves wonders from the future and from fortune; they make their doubts their suspitions, their hopes valid even to infinity.

Yet let us confess the truth to the advan­tage of the men of this day, they are far more worth then those of yesterday in Aristotles Judgment, Timerous persons are defective, for as much as they aspire not to those things the Magnanimous are worthy of, and for as much as they aspire not even to those of which themselves are worthy; But the Audacious are excessive onely in that [Page 93] they aspire to those things which the Mag­nanimous are, and not they worthy of. I speak of Magnanimity as you may perceive with the rigor of Philosophers, and not with a Poetical licence, who might well call this days Men Magnanimous, since they so call their Gyants, their Phaeton, and their Ca­paneus.

It's certain, that this Boldness and this Fierceness do not always displease the world; In some encounters they have gain­ed approbation and praise; They have been esteemed and have succeeded in the person of that Roman, who seems so honest a Man to my Lord the Duke d'Espernon, and to Mon­sieur the Marshal Desdiguieres; your Highness is pleased that I should remember you of the stile wherewith he wrote to the Em­peror.

The fidelity of that Roman was without reproach, and yet he was accused in his ab­sence, and found an Informer against him at Court; He commanded an Army in Ger­many, and had great credit and authority in his Province, and among the Souldiery: Being advertised of what had past at Rome, and of the ill offices which were rendred him in the Pallace, he wrote a bold and proud Letter to the Emperor, the last words whereof were much like to these, ‘My Fi­delity hath been pure and intire hitherto, nor will I change it unless I am forced thereunto; but whosoever comes to suc­ceed [Page 94] me in my command, I am resolved to receive him, as if he had enterprized a­gainst my life, LET US IF YOU PLEASE CAESAR AGREE, LET THE WHOLE EMPIRE BE YOURS, AND MINE MY GOVERNMENT.’

Such men hardly hold intelligence with the Enemy, but they easily bandy against their Master; they are never Rebels out of a formed design, and out of a malitious inclina­tion, but they may be made so by disdain and resentment; they want not Fidelity so long as they are trusted; These do no dis­service, but will serve after their own mode; They will be Arbiters both of their duty and of their obedience.

One of these persons (whom you know my Lord) would prove unto me, it's not long since, that he served his Master in disobeying him; it was at an entertainment which lasted four hours betwixt us, when I gave him a visit at his Government from your Highness. By a nice distinction which he made of the King and of the State, he told me, that very lately and upon an occasi­on which was not yet past, He had gone out-right to the good of the State with­out having hearkened to several different voyces, which would have stopped him by the way, alleadging to him the Kings rame. Whereto he added, grounding himself or a principle which he took somewhat high: [Page 95] That the King his first Master, Father to the King that now is, had commanded him before his death, that if such a time happened, and such an accident occur'd, he should not fail to do such a thing, what contrary order soever were brought him from Court to hinder him; That he thought he was obliged in Conscience to follow the intentions of the greatest and wisest Prince in the world, nor did he apprehend he could err by conforming himself to the senti­ments of him who never committed faults.

But I pray go on to verifie that secret com­mand, which is yet come to the knowledge of no man, nor even to the Queen Dowager of the late King. To know of a truth of this, the charms of Magick must be imploy­ed, the soul of the greatest and wisest Prince of the the Earth must be raised; of him who committed no faults; and it must be enqui­red whether that Minister who alleadgeth this, alleadge it not falsely. It's a raillery to think still to belong to Philip under the reign of Alexander; to endeavor to per­swade ones Master that a man hath reason to disobey; That opiniastrecy hath merit; That it's sufficient to serve well, howsoever though against the will of him we serve.

Let such persons who thus will serve their own way, be always if it be possible two hundred leagues from Court. Let them be employed, if it may be so, in obscure places, where ill examples being not so much look­ed upon, are not so dangerous: But it would [Page 96] not be well to call them near the persons of a Prince, where respect is no less necessary then service, and where they would be his Tutors rather then his Counsellors.

These are excellent men I do not deny it, but this excellency under the power of ano­ther is not in its right place. They love the State and their Country, but they hate De­pendence and Subjection; their end is right, but the means are oblique, and seem contra­ry to their end; For making the good of the Monarchy their object, they use all the licence which may be used in a popular Go­vernment. Further yet, In serving they will serve like Soveraigns; themselves have told me, in their entertainments of near four hours, That they were too old to submit themselves to the first elements of their duty. When smiling at what they told me, I went farther and told them, They were too great to learn that lesson which a Doctor of the Court gave his Son in the Grecian history, MY CHILDE, MAKE THY SELF LITTLE. Good Governors of Pro­vinces, and good Guardians of the Fron­tier, good Porters of the Realm, so long as you please; But I grant not, that you are good Ministers of State, and good Courtiers after the same manner.

There are Affairs in which a man may take several parties, and some diversly by­assed which offer themselves, of which we are to chuse that which is most proper to [Page 97] manage it well. In such businesses they bring the same passion, and are born away with the same miscarriages which we have already observed on the subject of News. A man can never see them out of one extremi­ty or other. They would rather fall then de­scend; they desire all or nothing; they seek Death or Victory: Yet methinks it's much to carry away three quarters, when one cannot obtain the whole; That betwixt Death and Victory there should be Peace, which is a good of an inestimable value, which ought to be sought for by the Van­quished, and desired by the Victorious.

But what is seemly with us, nothing per­swades them, nor have they an ear for our remonstrances; there is no way to divert their imagination from its object, and to make them change their aim, they are ene­mies to all accommodation, and so bound to those rules which they prescribe them­selves, and to that rigor of exact Justice which exasperates them, that it's impossible to render them capable of Equity. It's not possible to make them take a reward for a thing when it's lost. They would have the same, and not the like; They combate the sence of the Law with terms of Law, and in­jure themselves by doing themselves right; They make me remember those Brothers so much celebrated in History, who being equal­ly to divide a Succession, broke a glass to di­vide it, & cut a Suit in two, that each of them might have his half.

[Page 98] If these go not so far, and if this be to speak too much; Let's at least say, that in business they know not of how great use these tem­peraments are, and how profitably be em­ployed for the perfection of Affairs, by joyn­ing things at a distance, and by facilitating those which are difficult. They understand not these Relaxations, these Adjustments, as they speak now in Italy. This necessary mean which seems often to come from Hea­ven, and which is needful to conclude bar­gains with particular persons, and with far more reason▪ Treaties of Peace betwixt Princes, Leagues Offensive and Defensive, Negotiations, wherein the safety of People are concerned, and the fortune of King­doms.

Our sullen vertuous persons will not ad­mit of these Tempers, nor of this Mean: In a State which dies of old age, they would do the same as if they governed in a newly esta­blished Commonwealth in the purity of its institution, and in the vigor of its first Or­ders. They speak of nothing but of an ab­solute Power, but of the Autority of the Se­nate, but of the force of the Laws, although they are things which grow old as well as other things, and which growing old grow weak.

Hearken unto Cato's opinion in Caesars cause, ‘He says we must load him with chains (he doth not say, we must first seise upon him) we must send him in that condi­tion [Page 99] to our Alleys whom he hath offended, that they may do themselves right, and that he may be punished for his unjust Victories. These MUSTS are very dif­ficult to be put in execution, if Favor over­power Reason; we must, continues he, have him come and plead his own cause in per­son, and give us an account of his nine years Command; All must be done accor­ding to Law, that's to say, according to my intrpretation, we must hazard all the Laws to observe Formalities.’

I perswade my self Your Highness thinks this austere Commonwealths man to blame, although never man was more praised then he; Cicero was not only his particular friend, he was his publick Admirer; after his death, he did somewhat more then make his Fune­ral Oration; and what he did, made way for Caesars two Anti Cato's: Yet Cicero speaking confidently to Pomponius Atticus confesseth, that the vertue of that man whom he so much admired was unprofitable for his Coun­try. He confesseth that that Divine man, for so he called him, was out of use, and knew not how to accommodate himself to the con­dition of those times; That when he gave his opinion in Council, He thought he had been in Plato's Republick, and not among the Lees of Romulus his People

This word of Cicero explains a Verse of Virgil, which your Scholasticks take no no­tice of, yet it deserves the reflections of a [Page 100] Courtier. In the description of his Hero's Buckler, wherein divers figures were engra­ven, when he would have represented that part of Hell which is inhabited by sacred Souls, he makes Cato to precide with a So­veraign Authority, and gives him a Jurisdicti­on over Just and Happy People.

And as a Poet who is a friend of ours hath translated it,

And thus in English.

To take the thing according to the letter was to offend the Family of the Caesars; nor could their Enemy be beatified, but that their Cause must be condemned. But in my opinion Virgil and the Caesars herein under­stood one the other; doubtless he had disco­vered to Augustus the secret of his fiction, which in appearance praiseth, and which in effect mocks him; which shews us that Cato's vertue was of the other world and not of this: Virgil would quaintly, and in a figu­red manner express, that Cato was to go seek Citizens which were all good and vertuous. [Page 101] That he must make himself an express Peo­ple to be worthy of him; That Cato could not find a place, unless in a Society which was not to be found on earth.

There in effect it is, where the Cato's must go to practice their Paradoxes, and vent their generous Maxims; we do not live here in that Country; we live not in the Country of Idea's and of Perfection, where Souls are discharged of their Bodies, are cured of their Passions, are purged from the rest of their humane Infirmities. Who ever say a Repub­lick composed of Philosphers, much less of Stoicks only▪ It's long since the World hath lost its innocency; we are in the corruption of Ages, & in Natures declension. All is weak, all is sick in the Assemblies of Men; if there­fore you would govern happily, if with suc­cess you would labor for the good of the State, accommodate your self with the de­fects and imperfections of your matter; dis­patch your self of this incommodious vertue, which our Age is not capable of; support what you cannot reform, dissemble those faults which are not to be corrected; meddle not with those Evils which discover the im­potency of the Remedies, which decry Me­dicine, and renders Physitians ridiculous; Re­spect those fatal Diseases which are sent from high, wherein something is to be remarked which is strange and unknown, When the finger of God appears, it must needs make the hand of man afraid.

[Page 102] In good time, if you can satisfie the honor and dignity of the Crown, yet do not lose the Crown to preserve its honor and digni­ty; Do not so tie your selves to what's sa­vagely, rigorously and philosophically ho­nest, that you cannot quit your selves of it, lest necessity should exact from you what's more humanely, more sweetly, and more popularly honest. Consider, that Reason is less pressing in Policy then in Morality, that its extent is incomparably more large and more free, when it intends to make People happy, then when we are onely concerned to make particular persons good. There are Maxims which are not just in their own na­ture, yet which their use justifies. There are filthy Remedies, and yet they are Remedies. These salutiferous compositions are made with Humane Blood, with Ordure, and o­ther vile things: But health is still fairer then these things are vile; poison it self sometimes heals, and in such a case neither is poison an evil.

Be not my Masters too honest, nor too just Cato's; Contend not the prize of your bo­dies against this guilty person who hath an Army to defend himself from your Serge­ants; Of a Mutineer, make him not despe­rate. In the name of God force not this new Caesar to pass the Rubicon; to make himself Master of his Country, to speak these remark­able words looking on the slain men of a Battel which he won, These men willed [Page 103] their own mishap. After having done great things, I had had Commissioners appointed over me, had I not made use of my Souldi­ers; I had been condemned, had not my in­nocency been armed; I was threatned with chains and with prison; I had been deliver­ed to the Barbarians, had not my Cause been as strong as it was good.

It's a Monster, I must confess it; It's a mo­ral Prodigy to see a Citizen impose Laws o­ver a Town, to see a Subject treat with his Prince; yet such like Prodigies cannot often be exp [...]ated but by dissimulation and by in­dulgence: When such kind of Monsters can­not be subdued, we must endeavor to tame them. Were it but to grant an armed Victor a justification of what was past to make him lay down his arms, why should you opini­aster your self further, as to force him take an Abolition? Insist not on the punctilioes of forms and words; give him as full and ad­vantagious an Acknowledgement as he can desire; let himself dictate it, and do you write it; let it be written in gilt Paper, and altogether perfumed with his praises.

I have elsewhere read with some manner of indignation, a Letter of John Matthew Giberti Bishop of Verona, and Pope Clement the Seventh his Datary, it's addrest to his Masters Nuncio with the King of Hungary▪ And by this Letter he witnesseth, ‘That the Pope extremely desires the reconcilia­tion of the Kingdom of Bohemia with the [Page 104] holy See, but that he this Datary, foresaw a very great impediment which might combate this extreme desire of his Holi­ness; it was that it did not become the Grandeure & Dignity of the Church to sue to Kings or Kingdoms: And that in a bu­siness of so great reputation order was not to be overthrown, nor the fitness of things to be violated. That for that purpose it were fit to finde out some means to oblige the Bohemians first of all to begin this practice, and make the advance of it; that presenting themselves to Cardinal Cam­pegno (who was Legate in Germany) they should be received with open arms; but not presenting themselves, the Legate could not move towards them, nor the Judge sollicite the parties. That what they demand ought to be granted, but that they were not to be offered what they did not demand.’ Is it not true, that this man was a great Husband of the point of Honor? This ridiculous nicety displeaseth me in this pro­cedure of John Matthew Giberti, who other­wise was an excellent man.

I am not onely angry but vexed, that our Demosthenes should be of the number of these men; I could wish it had been some other body who had said in the Council of Athens, on the subject of a little Isle neighboring with Samothracia, which was in contest be­twixt the Athenians and King Philip, ‘If the King will restore you the Isle, and that [Page 105] the Treaty import the word Surrender, I would advise you to take it; but not if he pretends to give it you, and if he should call the restitution of what he hath usurped over you a Benefit.’

You may by this believe how such Great Persons have amuzed themselves on trifles, and that this man prised the vanity of a word, more then the solidity of the thing. If the Emperor Charls would have made a present of the Dutchy of Millan to our last Kings, and had Demosthenes been of their Councel, he would have counselled them to have refused the Present for fear of doing wrong to the Rights they had to the Dutchy. He would rather have kept his just pretenti­ons, and have consolated himself with the hopes of the future, then to have enjoyed the advantage of the present, and to have ac­cepted the possession of a second Crown, up­on such terms as he did believe were not worthy of the first.

In the wicked world wherein we live, when they execute Justice on us, do we fan­cy it an act of Grace? Let's not be avariti­ous of terms and of appearances, so as the essential part remain. Let them carry away some Pictures and Weathercocks, so as they leave us the Walls and the Roof. Let them call it a Present, a Favor, an Alms if they please, when the piece is ours we may easi­ly give it a fairer name, and that which may please us better. Let us with honor have [Page 106] those Islands which belong to us; but let us have them at any rate; Let us rather ap­plaud our selves for a little wrong we have suffered then complain to posterity of a great injustice inflicted on us.

It were better not have a good and pier­cing sight in the discussion of ones Rights, lest we should therein discover but too much Justice; it were better not to be so able in a mans own business, lest a man should be thereby over-perswaded. This so subtil and delicate a sence of the injuries which we have received, is no very convenient thing, when the reparation we require is concern­ed. So high an opinion of the merit of the cause with difficulty submits it self to the Judgement and Decision of another. All this serves onely to render that impossible which we haue a design to do, to amuse a man in a place out of which he ought to go as soon as possible; these are not means to act, these are hindrances of action; these are not means to level the difficulties of a course, they are stones which lye before the end of it. They are in effect elevated qualities which com­monly accompany Nobleness of heart and Generosity. But they commonly do more hurt then good; At least, they are not for every days use, and those who are weak can­not use them profitably against those who are more strong.

I know not how they understand it; But methinks a Treaty cannot be more unhap­pily [Page 107] concluded or have a more sad success for the one of the parties, then when▪ after along Negotiation, after an infinite many words thrown in the wind, and writings which must be cast into the fire, it's obliged To appeal to another Age, and must bring home again all its Reason and all its Honor▪ It were far better to quit some of this Rea­son and of this Honor. Why not consent to an accommodation which were reasonable, in consideration of what's profitable, and which will be no ways dishonest in the ne­cessity of times, whereto Generosity it self and Nobleness of heart ought to accommo­date themselves?

LEt us not be blinded therefore with the Reputation of the Wisdom of the Greci­ans; let neither the one nor the other of the Orators of Athens perswade us; the Country, the Antiquity, the merit of those which have fail'd, instead to justifie their faults, renders them only the more visible and the more re­markable. Let's once in our lives make use of the liberty of our Judgement, which ought not always to be subalternate to that of the Grecians and Romans; it's a cause of consolation for our poor humanity, to see [...] that even in Hero's there hath been somewhat of the Man.

How much good it doth me (an excellent man formerly told me) to see that Hero's have fled, that wise men have committed fol­lies, [Page 108] that that great Orator made use of an ill term, that so great a Polititian hath delivered an ill opinion. These examples of weakness and infirmity were the spectacles and pass-times which sometimes were the divertise­ments of this excellent Man; who derided Demosthenes and his ridiculous point of Ho­nor; but he mocked Cleon far more with his extravagant Probity.

This Man having been called to the Go­vernment of the Republick, would signa­lize his coming to his Place, by I know not what kinde of good which was new and strange; the next day after his promotion, he sent to desire his friends to come to him, where being come, and every one with the hopes of sharing with him in his good fortune, he entertained them with a Dis­course which was unexpected to them all, and had almost made them all fall to the ground; He told them, That he had assem­bled them in his house to drive them thence, and to declare unto them, that truly as a private man he had been their friend; but being be­come Magistrate, he thought himself obliged to renounce their Friendship. He thought this Declaration was an original of Vertue, an act of heroick Probity, the fairest thing which could have been done at Athens▪ since the foundation of the Town, since These­us his time to that of Cleon; He did be­lieve that a States-man was a publick Ene­my, and that for the first essay of his [...]igor, [Page 109] he was to dispatch himself of all his inclina­tions and of all his friendships; That he was to break all the bonds of Nature and of So­ciety.

I have seen some of these counterfeit Just men on this side and beyond the mountains; I have seen some who to make their integri­ty admired, and to oblige the world to say, that Favour could work nothing on them, take up a strangers interest against one of his Kindred, or against a friend, although the reason was on his Friends or Kinsmans side; They have been ravished at the loss of a cause which was recommended to them by their Nephew or Cousen German; and the worst office which could be done a good business, was, such a recommendation. When divers Competitors pretended to one and the same Office, they demanded it for one they knew not, and not for him whom they judged worthy of it.

I protest again, that I do not enlarge the business, I am not an Exaggerator like him who related nothing but Prodigies to Your Highness, and had seen nothing of what he spake. I give you an account, my Lord, from my own experience, and I could name those I speak of; I have seen some who were so afraid of favouring any body, that they disapproved, that they blamed, that they condemned all the world, and most commonly without knowing wherefore. In them it was rather extravagancy then cru­elty, [Page 110] rather intemperance of tongue and choler which exhaled it self, then premedi­tate malice, or a design of harming any man▪ conceived in the Mind, and digested by time and by discourse. They would have called Julius Caesar a DRUNKARD, although an hour before they had said of him THAT A SOBER MAM HAD NEWLY RUINED THE REPUBLICK.

Your Highness hath heard of that Coun­sellor who commonly gave his opinion to the death, and sometimes also slept on the Flower-de-luces. One day the President of his Court gathering the Voices of the com­pany, and having demanded his, he answer­ed him suddenly, and being not yet quite awake, That he was of opinion that that ma [...]s neck should be cut off. But, says the President▪ the debate is about a field; Let it be mowed then, replied the Counsellor.

Once again, it's neither Malice nor Cruel­ty, it's Fancy, it's Peevishness, it's Choler which prevails in the Temperature of these Counsellors, which with its smoak blacks their first motions, and their first words: This adust humor imprints on their forehead a perpetual negative with which they sti [...]le the prayers even in the very hearts of their suppliants. They refuse things which were never demanded, which even were never intended to be demanded.

These Counsellors are not those which ought to be called to the Council of Kings, [Page 111] were they contrary to what they appear; yet were they not to be commended to have taken so little care for Vertues out-side, and for the appearance of good. Should they have a well-meaning Mind, their Mine would always spoil their good Deeds; their ill Humor would ruine all the merit of their good Actions. Observe how they habituate themselves with a frightful and inaccessible severity; how this fantasm of severity casts down and astonisheth the world. Observe how they study to disfigure their outsides, how they wear this vile vizard even at Weddings and at Feasts, where they affect it as well as elsewhere to shew themselves terrible and redoubtable.

If it were formerly spoken of a Grecian, a very honest and vertuous man, THAT HE HAD NOT SACRIFICED TO THE GRACES; it may be said likewise of such Spaniards or of such French men, very ho­nest and very vertuous persons, who not onely are less devout then this Grecian, but that going from indevotion to impiety, far enough from sacrificing to the Graces, they have cast down their Altars, they have set the Temples of these good Goddesses on fire, they labor with their utmost utterly to abo­lish the worship of them. Let's finish their elogy, and in the species represent the indi­viduals, which Your Highness hath observed in the several Courts where you have been.

It's impossible to come near them with­out [Page 112] being offended, they dart forth points and needles from all the parts of their body; their praises bite, their caresses scratch; and as there are some untoward persons who knock a­gainst those faces they would kiss; they af­ter the same manner cannot oblige without disobliging; they cannot promise but with eyes and brows which threaten, they grant favors and courtesies in the same tone with which others refuse them.

THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE.

HItherto we have assaulted no body, who could not defend himself; And if your Highness think it fit, let's even excuse those whom we have accused; let's not reproach men with the errors of their birth; let's be indulgent to humane infirmity; let's allow somewhat to the temperature of the body, which may mark the soul with its blemishes; let's be compatible with the weakness of minds, since we receive them as they are given us, and that we are not the chusers of [...] our selves.

The subtilty of the Understanding, the solidity of Judgment, a couragious Prudence, a considerate Boldness, are not voluntary things. They depend no more from our e­lection, then our healths or a fair proportion. We are responsible for our faults, but not for those of Nature; there is no man obliged to be able, but there is no body but is concerned to be good; and if we cannot furnish our selves [Page 114] for the glory of the Publick with Courage and with Wisedom, we at least ought to contribute our innocency for the repose of Common Society.

What shall we say then of those insolent Happy men, who combate with displaid co­lours, the authority of the Laws and of Justice, who in the Government of States produce a design formed for its ruine▪ which grow fat and become comely from the juyce and substance of exhausted Pro­vinces, who build up their own house with the wrack and dissipation of a whole King­dom?

What shall we say of those insufferable Varlets, who revenge their least quarrels with the hands and arms of their Master, who declare all those Guilty of High Teason who do not fall prostrate before them; who by a bloody and cruel Peace, all black with mourning and funerals, bring the people into d [...]spair, reduce the honester sort of men to be unable to save themselves but in a Revolt?

Finally, What shall we say of such base Courtiers who triumph and yet were never victorious, who enjoy in idleness the swears and pains of great Captains, who at a Co­medy or a Ball expect the news of the get­ting of some Battel, of the taking of Towns, of which the Generals must give them an ac­count?

Observe them in antient and modern Hi­story; [Page 115] observe how all to them is plunder, how all is prey, how they feed on all dead bodies (thus did they formerly speak at Rome) and left nothing but loss and afflicti­on to desolate Families, to Orphans and to Widows. For although they came only out of the dirt, to speak truly, of kind to no bo­dy, yet they believe themselves the Heirs of all the world. There is no Officer of the Crown, no Governor of a place, whose Succession they do not pretend unto, as be­longing to them. They think they are not in safety so long as there is a hole or a preci­pice in another Mans power.

Your Highness perswades me, that this Description pleaseth you; it's because you love the truth, how neglected or how much in disorder soever it be. You had found it fairer, and the pieces of this description had been better ajusted, had I but minded some­what more the Rules of Art; but the crowd of things often breaks compass and measure; I represent onely, without any design of trimming or of imbellishing; the world fur­nisheth me with all what I display, which is not ungrateful to your Highness. Let's once again, my Lord, consult the long ex­perience of this world, an experience which imbraceth so many Ages and so many Coun­tries: Let's enquire more particular news concerning those who govern it, in despight of it, of those People who have reigned without a Crown, without Right, and with­out Merit.

[Page 116] Such People commonly introduce them­selves in Court by low means, and sometimes by such as are but little honest. They some­times owe the commencement of their for­tune to a well danced Saraband, to agility of body, to the beauty of their face; they make themselves valued by shameful servi­ces, whose payment is not publickly [...] [...]e demanded, they put themselves in credit by the recommendation only of vice.

Their design being onely to make pl [...]asing Propositions, they enquire not whether they profit or harm, so as they please it sufficeth. And to establish this strict commerce, which they meditate with the Prince, they insinuate themselves into his Mind, by the intelligence which they endeavor to keep with his Passions: But having once possest themselves of his Mind, they seise on all the avenues, and leave not so much as an ente­rance for his Confessor. How weak and tender soever his inclinations may be to ill, they water it, and dress it with so much care that presently there springs up a great tree from a little seed, and a violent and opini­onated habit from a light disposition.

These are the Petroniusses and the Tigil­lio's about Nero; these are the Advocates of Voluptuousness, who plead its cause against Vertue, and often succeed better then Plea­sure it self, when she presented herself to young Hercules, and made him an Oration at the foot of the two ways.

[Page 117] It's incredible to think, how many charms they use without employing those [...] Magick, of which the people forbear not to accuse them. Good God, how ingenious are they to invent new pleusures to a sated and disgust­ed Soul, with what pungent sharpnesses do they awaken the sleeping lusts which lan­guish and can no more! For this purpose ra­ther then want extravagant appetites, stran­ger objects and unknown meats, they will seek them at the ends of the world, even be­yond the bounds of nature, even in the licen­tiousness of fables; To their sence, the Siba­rites were but gros [...]ly voluptuous for matter of delights, Naples and Capua the corrupters of Hannibal, understood nothing at all.

Nor do they at the first blow become Masters; Vertue and they for a time dis­p [...]teto gain favor in the Court of a Prince of eighteen years. Sometimes she gets the better, and sometimes she yields it them; They with her, share the Affections, the Mind, and the Time. Burrhus is hearkened unto, but they hinder him from being be­lieved. They are like Seneca's ballance, but at last they carry away all with them: The Epicure destroys as much in three days as the Stoick builds in five years; at least a man may say, that having taken the place, they by piece-meals undo the whole frame; they assault their Masters good parts, the one after another. From Venial sins wherein they find this young soul resuming the battel, and [Page 118] being upon his defence, they lead him from step to step to Tyranny and Sacriledge.

At first they content themselves to breath in his ears, That it is not necessary for a Prince to be so much an honest man, That its sufficient if he is not wicked; that he would put himself to too much trouble to make himself beloved; that he ought onely to hinder himself from being hated. That solid and perpetual Probity is too heavy and too difficult; But that its image which changeth not, hath the same splendor as the original, and produceth the same effect; That from time to time a vertuous action which is no great matter of cost, being fitly performed, may serve to entertain his re­putation. Thence they go farther, and leave him not in so fair a way; after having made him esteem Good as an indifferent thing [...] they make him approve Ill reasonable, they afford Vice the colour of Vertue.

If he have a mind to dispatch himself▪ of one of his Parents against the express defen­ces of the Religion of the State, which for bids us To shed the blood of the Empire; they counsel him to cause them to be strangled with a Bow-string, that one drop of it may not be spilt, and that Religion may be sa­tisfied. If there be an Incest in his thoughts, and that this Incest is combated with some remorse, they presently come to the relief of his disturbed spirit. They ease his pains by a wonderful subtilty, representing to him, [Page 119] [...]hat there is indeed no law which permits a Brother to lie with his Sister; but there is a fundamental Law of Monarchy, and Mistris of all the Laws which permits a Prince to do what he will.

To authorize these great escapes, great examples are not wanting, ‘They tell him it is not in Turky, and amongst Barbari­ans that he is to look for examples; Gods own People, the holy Nation will furnish you with more then enough. That King who built the Temple was also the foun­der of a Seraglio, and we at this day see at Constantinople, but a copy of what was formerly to be seen at Jerusalem. You con­tent your self with one woman onely, and he that was wise above others, the wise So­lomon had six hundred, which the holy Scripture calls legitimate, without reck­oning those which are otherwise. But you have heard speak of the last will of his Father David, and of those gallant things which he commanded by his Te­stament. I shall not exaggerate these things, consider only by how many deaths he counselled his Son to secure his own.’

‘In the Law of Grace you cannot find more sweetness; you stagger, you appre­hend, at the driving away of a Brother; the committing of a Cousen German to prison. The Great [...]onstantine, that most holy, most Religious and most Divine Emperor, as he hath been called by the [Page 120] mouth of Councils, hath done more without deliberation. Do you not know that he caused his own Son to die upon the first suspition which he had of him, It's true, he regretted his death, and acknowledged his innocency. But this acknowledgement came too late, and his regret lasted but Four and twenty hours; he thought himself quit by causing a Sta­tue to be erected to the deceased with this Inscription, TO MY SON CRISPUS, WHOM I CAUSED TO DIE UNJUST­LY.’

‘After this, do you make a difficulty to discharge your self of a burthen, which incommodates you, to take out of your way a man who disturbs you in the world, and who treads upon your heels, a Co­sin in the third or fourth degree, who hath a design to leap over all these degrees, that he may put himself in your place?’

‘Have you any consideration for the cha­racter and for the person of Church-men, who refuse to render you a blind obedi­ence; Charlemayn, who is oue of the Saints of the Church, and a Predecessor to the Kings of France, had not such a respect as you have. He killed with his own hands an Abbot in his Vesture at the Altar ready to say Mass, for having denied him I know not what.’

‘Do you reserve your absolute Authority? dare you not use force when the good of [Page 121] your affairs requires it; The example of the same Charlemaine will take from you all the scruples your conscience can make; although they tell you of his capitular de­grees, he knew neither a better nor greater right then that of Arms; the pom­mel of his sword served him for his Seal and Signet. Do not think that I would make you believe this; this is History, and is to be taken according to the letter. To this day there are still Priviledges found granted, and donation of Lands made by the good and orthodox Emperor, Rowland and Oliver being present, sealed with the pommel, and which he promised to war­rant with the edge of the same sword.’

There have been Favourites, I do not tell you where, but there have been Favourites, who have instructed Princes these dange­rous Lessons, and I have it from the Doctors themselves who made a collection for them of these fair Histories.

Being at last tired out with defending crimes which were without a Judge, and to excuse an all-powerful cruelty, they have freely told the Prince, That when there was no example to be found, he might make one; that what had formerly been unheard of, would being done cease, to be so; That it would be shameful for the So­vereign Authority to give an account of whatsoever it were, and misbecomming him who had Armies and Fleets to maintain h [...]s [Page 122] actions, to seek words and pretences to dis­guise them.

There is not a man (for this is the lan­guage of the Sejanusses and the Plautusses) innocent in all the parts of his life, and who in his soul hates not his Superiors; and consequently, the Prince cannot but con­demn the guilty, nor strike any but his Ene­mies: Consequently, he gratifies him whom he bereaves of his goods, in that he takes not away his honor, and leaves him his life. According to their principles, Loyalty is the vertue of a Merchant and not of a Sove­reign. They alleadge I know not what Po­et, That in Heaven they in the same scales put the oathes of Princes with those of Lovers: That the gods equally laugh at one as well as at the other; That Jupiter commands them to be thrown into the winde as vile things and of no concern.

Thus in a way of fooling and telling of fables, they quite perswade the Prince, that he is not obliged by his word; after having perswaded him that he is no longer subject to the fancies and visions of the Legislators; they maintain that it belongs to him a­fresh to define unto men what is good or ill▪ To declare to the world what for the future he will have to be just or unjust, to set a price and value upon every thing, as well in Morality as in Policy.

[Page 123] THus are Tyrants made, from this stock Monsters are engendred; from such Commencements we come to set Rome on fire, to butcher the Senate, to dishonor Na­ture with desbauches, and declare War a­gainst it by Parricides. These compliant persons are the first causes of so many mi­series; and did not these winds blow, we should be sensible of none of these tempests. It is not without a cause therefore, that we speak with some esmotion, and that being in a good condition for that matter by Your Highness's good conduct; Huma­nity invites us to be compatible of the suffer­ings of deceased States and of afflicted Peo­ple. But let us not content our selves to la­ment them; Let's turn our pitty into indig­nation.

Since that in the world there is no Good of so great use, and which so universally communicates it self as a good Prince; nor no Ill which disperseth it self more, and which is more pernicious then an ill Prince: There are no where punishments great e­nough in all the extent of humane Justice for those persons who change this good into ill, and who corrupt so salutiferous and so ex­cellent a thing; they had far better have poisoned all the wells and all the fountains in their Countries; should they infect even the Rivers themselves, water might be gotten from elsewhere, even Heaven would still [Page 124] furnish us with some drops: But here of ne­cessity, we must either drink water or poi­son; against those Domestick Ills we are not permitted to use Foreign Remedies. We are obliged to continue miserable by the Laws of our Religion, and to obey furies and mad men, not onely out of fear but al­so for conscience sake.

For which cause, since the persons of Princes, whatever they be, ought to be in­violable and sacred, and that the characters of Gods finger makes an impression which we ought to reverence on what matter so­ever it be engraven. Let us turn all our ha­tred against those flatterers which cast us in­to these miseries without redemption: Let us lay it on those evil Counsellors which give us ill Princes, which provoke innocents to mur­ther, and Murtherers to burn Temples For in effect, their pernitious advice endears ever those resolutions which have been taken. Their Maxims of Fire and Blood assure and fortifie Malice when it is as yet timerous and doubtful; they sharpen what cuts, they pre­cipitate what is falling, they encourage the violent when they run after the prey, they inflame the desires of the Avaritious for our Goods, and those of Impudent persons for our Wives.

NOw if they meet with natures which are not susceptible of those strong Passions, and which are in anequal degree distant from [Page 125] and from Vertue. If they light on these soft Princes, who are without sting or offence, and have no inclination to ill, their nature inclining them so to idleness as not to suffer them to stir out of their places. It's still the worse for those people who are to live under them, for abusing the simplicity of their pliant Master, and taking the advantage which their spirit hath over his, they reign them­selves openly. And observing it but as the right and title of their unjust Dominion, to the weight of Tyranny they add the shame there accrues for suffering it from a particu­lar person.

You cannot imagine the wiles and artifice they use to attain hereunto, and totally to subject to themselves the Prince. First, the method is to spur him up with glory in the establishment of their fortune. They give him to understand through several Trunks, that his Predecessors who were nothing more powerful then he, made some far greater Crea­tures of theirs. That it's far better to raise up new People, who have no dependance, and who shall onely hold from his Majesty, then to use persons of a good birth, and of a known Probity, whose affections and par­ty are already made; That it concerns his honor not to leave his works imperfect, to labor for their imbellishment after having established their solidity. That he ought to put them in a condition that they may not be ruined but by themselves: That if [Page 126] he yields to the desires of his Grandies, who will endure no Companions; and if he contents the complaints of his People, who are Enemies to all growing Greatness, he will not for the future have the power to do any good; he will be forced to call an As­sembly of the States General to dispose of the least Office in the Kingdom. Last of all, that he cannot abandon a person who hath been so dear unto him, without condemning the conduct of many years, and rendring a publick testimony either of his past blindness or of his present fickleness.

It's certain, that having begun to love a thing, for the love of it self, time presently adds our own interest to the merit of the thing; the desire we have that all the world should believe that all our elections are good, makes that action out of necessity, which be­fore was voluntary; so that what hath been done against Reason, being not to be justifi­ed but by Constancy, we never think we have done enough; and upon this belief which we have, were we resolved to discon­tinue our affection, yet it seems we are obli­ged to defend our judgment.

Now if these considerations can shake stable minds, and sometimes make wisemen fail, we need not be astonished if they easily overthrow a weak Prince, who makes use onely of borrowed reason, and who will yield himself to be perswaded by a very mean eloquence, so as it do but favor his inclina­tion.

[Page 127] And now he is engaged in the making of this Subject whom he loves Great; he speaks of him no more, but as his enterprise, and his end in it; he is without minding it be­come an Idolater; he adores what he hath made, and is like the Statuaries of Athens, who of their own Works made their gods. His thoughts which should be employed for Glory, and have no other object but the Safe­ty of the People, are all at an end in this gallant De [...]ign; he opens him his coffers, and poures out treasures on him as well in dispight of others as to benefit him. He hath already conferred on him all the Offices of his Kingdom, and all the Ornaments of his Crown; he hath nothing left to give him but his own Person; which at last he doth with so absolute and so total a resignation, that in the very Monasteries there is not an example of a will more subjected, and more perfectly renouncing it self.

He appears but when his presence is ne­cessary to authorise Counils, in which he ne­ver bore a part, and he is content to shew himself for no other purpose; he is amuzed with petty divertisements unworthy of his condition and of his age; but did they give him babies to play withal, neither would he be offended; his Domesticks are every day changed, and he likes it well; they take from about him all that speaks, and he guesseth not why; they make him altoge­ther a new Court, and he admits of it; they [Page 128] ruine under several pretences all that's [...]mi­nent and vertuous in the State, and he con­sents thereunto.

Against those who are less suffering, and harder to be brought under the yoke, open arms and force is employed; Those that are rich and peaceable, are assaulted by ac­cusers and calumnies; To those whose ser­vices maintain them, and whose fidelity is without reproach, they grant ruining Com­missions, or ill Armies to assault strong places, that they may lose their reputation or may lose themselves. Some are driven away with an absolute command to retire themselves, others are banished by an Embassie; and in the place of all, as many as there are of them, the ambitious Courtier placeth per­sons at his devotion, who never look farther then their Benefactor, and stop at the next cause of their fortune.

Thus is the poor Prince at mercy and dis­cretion of his Favorite, casts not forth a sigh but a Spy renders him an account, ut­ters not one word but what is told him a­gain▪ So that in the midst of the Court he is sensible of the irksomness of a solitude; he sees nothing about his person of his ac­quaintance, and hath not one onely faithful ear to whom he may say, I suffer. But be­sides that he is so far engaged that there is no way for him to release himself; the other hath made all the world either his Enemy, or suspected, that he may have none but him [Page 129] to trust. By having long had the possession of Affairs, which he communicates with no man, he alone understanding all, and knowing the State, he at last becomes a ne­cessary evil, which neither can the Prince be cured of but by a dangerous remedy.

After this manner, in an absolute Peace being well with all his neighbors, no for­regn Army appearing on the frontier, with­out stroke striking, or having ventured fur­ther, then from the Palace to the street, he sees himself miserably fallen into another mans power, which is after the loss of a Bat­tel, the worst thing which could happen him. The unhappy moment which first en­gaged him to commence his affection, and to believe more then he ought, hath reduced him to this deplorable extremity. And to speak home, the Battel of Pavia was not so funeral to Francis the First, nor the taking of Rome to Clement the Seventh: For if their disgrace was great, at least, neither was it voluntary: If they lost their Liberty, they in their affliction preserved the greatness of their Courage; and if they were taken Priso­ners, twas by a great Emperor, who was their enemy, and not by one of their petty Sub­jects. There is no captivity so miserable, so base, nor so infamous as that of a Prince who suffers himself to be taken in his Cabinet, and by one of his own; He could not have exercised a more cowardly patience, nor be more shamefully unhappy.

[Page 130] I shall go further yet, when a King eats his People to the very bones, and lives in his own State as in an Enemies Country, he doth not so far estrange himself from the duty of his Place, as when he obeys ano­ther. There is a great difference betwixt Tyranny and Royalty; yet it resembles it a great deal more then Servitude. It's at least some kind of Government, and one way of commanding men, although it be not the most perfect. But for a Sovereign to give himself as a prey to three or four pet [...]y Fellows, and not reserve so much as the dis­position of his own Will, to follow his own Inclinations, nor the use of his own Judge­ment in the knowledge of affairs: In such a case I know not what name to give him, and there cannot be a more miserable In­terregnum then his life, during which he doth nothing, and yet doth all those evils which happen to the People.

In this condition, he is civilly dead, and hath as it were deposed himself. It's onely his Effigies which is used in publick, which out of custom, and for a shew hath some duties paid unto it, and to whom many use­less Congees are made. Men are no longer bound to the legitimate and natural power. They follow another which is stranger and usurped; which is in a violent way born from the first, and in adultery. Royalty is forsaken to run after favor, of which the A­rabians say, That it's a Girle which often kills her own Mother.

[Page 131] What a brave thing it was in former times to see a King of Castile, who durst not walk abroad, nor put on a new Sute without the permission of Alvare de Luna! all favours which others demanded of him, he was ob­liged to obtain from him; the most he could do was to recommend his Servants to his Favo [...]e, and to do good offices towards him, for those whom he loved. What a brave thing it would be to see such a Cour­tier as he was, who revoked the elections of his Prince, restored those again to their places which his Master had endowed. What a brave thing it were, that he should not like that his Master should once in his life read a paper which he presented him to sign, and that he should complain it was to offend his Fidelity, and forget his past Services!

But it was a braver and far more excellent thing for this man who governs his Masters mind, and soveraignly commands over his Subjects, for himself to obey a Mistriss. What if it should happen, that Love should go­vern the Politicks, and that the Fortune of a whole Kingdom were the pastime of a de­bauched Woman? For it's too true, that such persons have strangely derided the au­thority of the Laws and the Majesty of Em­pire more then once; they have trampled un­der foot Crowns and Scepters; they have ta­ken pleasure and sported themselves with the violation of Justice, and have exercised cruel­ty with afflicting and rendring Humane kind miserable.

[Page 132] Let us for once pass by those Histories which with their remembrance terrifie and wound the imagination: Let's not menti­on the blood which those Women have caused to be spilt: Let's suppress the fright­fulness and formidableness of their Trage­dies; and let's produce but one little touch of the bravery of their humor. Not long since there appeared one, who was risen to so high a degree of insolency, that having been sollicited about a certain business, which had been represented unto her just and facile to be done, that she might the more willingly employ herself therein, she answers with a fierceness worthy of her Na­tion, and of that Country whence come all our Rodomontado's, That she used not her credit so lavishly, that another might serve in so slight an occasion, and do just and possible things, for her part she accustomed herself on­ly to undertake those which were unjust and impossible.

How many Mischiess do you think follow such an one? How many violences are com­mitted under the shadow of [...] unjust For­tune? And the Courtie [...] hath not a Groom who believes it not to be his right to treat evil such persons who are free, and by al­leadging onely their Masters name to com­mit outrages with impurity? Are there any people about him, who at least do not plunder if they forbear from murthering; who do not make sale of a sight, or of an audi­ence [Page 133] of his; who enrich not themselves with the refuse of his Avarice, and with the su­perfluities of his house?

All this while the Prince sins not, and yet he forbears not to be guil [...] His ignorance is unpardonable; his Patience is not Vertue, and the disorder which either he knows not of, or which he suffers, is imputed to him be­fore God even as if himself had made it. With a great deal of reason therefore, that Prince, who was according to Gods own heart, in express terms, desires him, and that in the fervency of his most ardent prayers, THAT HE WOULD CLEANSE HIM FROM SECRET FAULTS AND ACQUIT HIM FROM THE SINS OF OTHERS; This last word, signifies it not, that Kings ought not to content them­selves with a personal and particular Inno­cency; That it matters nothing for them to be Just, if they lose themselves by the Inju­stice of their Ministers?

And to this purpose, I will not let slip a pretty escape which a religious man of Italy in our Fathers days made, preaching be­fore a Prince of that Country; being in the middle of his Sermon, wherein he had dis­coursed of the duties of Sovereigns, and not minded to tire himself with staying too long in the general Thesis, he all at once breaks forth in these words, which he ad­drest to him who heard him.

[Page 134] ‘I saw, my Lord, a strange Vision last night; Methought the earth opened before me, and I distinctly looked into the centre there­of, I considered the torments of the other life, and all that terrible train of Gods Justice, since which, my Imagination is scarce well reassumed Amongst the wick­ed of the past ages; I knew many of these Detractors, Murtherers, Impious persons and Hypocrites ran thither in great troops, and crowded at the brim of this Gulf; but having observed in their lives the visi­ble marks of their Reprobation, I thought it not strange to see them arrive whereto I had seen them march; what astonished me most extremely above all, was, that I perceived you there my Lord, in this un­happy throng which was at the brink of destruction; and even as I was thus af­frighted and interdicted by the novelty of so unexpected an encounter, I cried out to Your Highness, Is it possible that a man should damn himself by praying to God, and that you should go to hell, yo [...] ▪ my Lord, who are the best and the most re­ligious Prince in the world? Whereunto Your Highness Answered me with a sigh, I DO NOT GO FATHER, BUT I AM LED THITHER.’

THe fertility of this subject is so great, that it will furnish us with Discourse for all the next week, but we must end with [Page 135] this, and conclude, That the distance is great enough betwixt the Sovereign and private Persons, to raise them up very high, and yet leave them room enough below him. IT'S GOOD THAT HE WHO IS NEAREST THE PRINCE SHOULD BE EXTREME­LY DISTANT FROM HIM; IT'S FIT THERE SHOULD BE MANY THINGS WHICH THE BEST BELOVED MAY NOT REACH.

Justice admirs of favor, we have long since confessed it; Reason destroys not Humani­ty, opposeth not it self against honest affecti­ons, it condemns not Familiarity and Confi­dence. Philosophy and Christianity agree in all these with Nature; and the Son of God when he made himself Man hath by his example authorized all this: Let there therefore be a Favorite at Court, Heaven and Earth allow of it; Let there be a man, we would have it so, who is the Princes Con­fident; But let there not be a man who day and night besiegeth the King; who by a vi­olent usurpation appropriates him to him­self; he who will have to himself alone a good which ought to belong to all the world, exerciseth the same Injustice as if he hid the Sun from the world, as if he shut up Churches to all the People in it.

Let the Prince send forth as long as he please a reflection of his Greatness on those Subjects who have found favor in his sight; Let him communicate unto them the rayes of his [Page 136] power; But let him not transfer it entirely into their persons; let him never cast off from himself his Globe of light; Let his Li­berality enrich particular persons, so as it do not impoverish the Kingdom; Let his Benefits abundantly flow in some places, so as he remain Master of the Spring. The O­racle of the Low Countries upon this sub­ject, made me this answer, that knowing and wise man Justus Lipsius, when I consulted with him at Louvain.

‘Must the King and he who reigns be still two different persons? Must he correct all their Edicts, and change a word in all their days? Where there is the tenth or fif­teenth of our Reign, must he blot out our Reign, and make it our Servitude, or at least our subjection; It never was the in­tention of him who founded Monarchies, that Soveraignty should be so basely abu­sed, as to make it change place, that it should never be where it ought to be. So­vereign Power is of the nature of those things, which are so much ours, that we cannot give them to another, nor separate them from our selves. Its legitimate so long as it remains in the hands of those who have received it from the Laws of the State. But the same Law will have it so, that it cannot pass from one to ano­ther, unless it be by means of birth, or the election of the People. Here ends that answer of the Oracle of Louvain.’

[Page 137] Our wise Predecessors were herein wise, as well as in other things; As they did not make the Crown elective in favor of them­selves; they would not make it a propriety in favor of the King, nor so absolutely in­trust it to him, that it should be in his power to institute an Heir, examples whereof may be seen in the Histories of other Countries; They would not the King should have the power to resign the Kingdom at his plea­sure, and to whom he pleased; That he could deligate the whole or any part. But on the contrary, by a Law which is of the same age and of the same force as the Salick, they ordained it should be unalienable and indivisible.

And those Politicians who have taken most liberty; those insolent and temerous Doctors which have entred a process against their Judges, having had the boldness in their writings to touch the Lords Anointed, and to treat of the deposing of Kings; ex­presly intimate this case wherein Subjects are not obliged to acknowledge their Prince, When himself, say they, acknowledgeth a for­raign Authority, and makes himself Tributa­ry to another. So incompatible with Royal­ty, have they esteemed all manner of sub­jection and dependance; and what is Roy­alty, say they▪ but the vain Magnificence of a Feast, but a monster of ceremony, if he who exerciseth it hath a Superior or a Com­panion?

[Page 138] For my part I wade not so far: I am sa­tisfied to say, that in Presumption there is somewhat more noble then in weakness; and that such like excesses are less to blame then such like defaults: Those who march at a venture in an unknown Country, and who bind themselves too much to their o­pinions, are of far more value then those who follow blind Guides, and who out of too much docility fail. In fables there are Hero's which have been mad, but there are none which have been weak; Sometimes there appears the overflowing of their passi­ons, but the stupidity of their minds is ne­ver mentioned.

In effect, what would it be, my Lord, to be at one and the same time at the highest rise of Humane things, and at the lowest stage amongst men [...] To be called His Maje­sty, and His Highness, and to be possest of nothing but what's little and low; To need a Curator on the Throne, and a Pedagoge in Council. O God send this evill to those of Asia.

But we must speak more like Christians, and more charitably; Let's conclude with a Prayer which shall comprehend Asial with Europe, and which embraceth the general good of the World. LORD TURN AWAY FROM ALL STATES AN EVIL WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF SO MANY OTHER EVILS, DENY NOT SO­VERAIGNS [Page 139] THE SPIRIT OF COM­MAND AND CONDUCT, WHICH IS FIT FOR THEM TO GOVERN; GIVE THEM UMDERSTANDING ENOUGH TO COUNSEL THEMSELVES WELL, AND TO CHOOSE THEIR COUN­SELLORS AS THEY OUGHT.