MODERN POLICY. 233 



the arts of ambition, by giving you the picture of a per- 

 son over covetous of glory : the piece is coarse, but yet 

 like ; drawn only in water colours, w hich some of greater 

 leisure and abilities may possibly hereafter lay in oil. 



You know, that the desires of man are vast as his 

 thoughts, boundless as the ocean, a bored tub is not more 

 insatiate.* It is pity that greatness should at any time 

 be out of the road of goodness ; and I would sometimes, 

 if I durst, with Socrates, curse him that first separated 

 profitable and honest. 



It does to me a little relish of paradox, that wherever 

 I come, Machiavel is verbally cursed and damned, and 

 yet practically embraced and asserted ; for there is no 

 kinsjdom but hath a race of men that are insrenious at the 

 peril of the public ; so that as one said of Galba, in re- 

 spect of his crooked body, Ingenium Galha male habitat; 

 so may I say of these, in regard of their crooked use ; 

 that wit could not have chosen a worse mansion, than 

 where it is vitiated, and made a pander to wickedness. 



If you ask me, w hat I mean to trouble the world, that 

 is already under such a glut of books, you may easily per- 

 ceive, that I consulted not at all with advantaging my 

 name, or wooing public esteem by what I now write ; I 

 knew there was much of naked truth in it, and thought it 

 might possibly be of some caution to prevent the insinua- 

 tion of pious frauds, and religious fallacies, into my na- 

 tive country ; if any plain hearted, honest man shall cast 

 away an hour in perusing it, he may perhaps find some- 

 thing in it resembling his own thoughts, and not altoge- 

 ther strange to his own experience. It is not the least 

 of our misfortunes, that sins and vices are oft-times en- 



