164 Bacon 



learning indeed solid and fruitful, that active men would 

 or could become writers. 



In which kind I cannot but mention, honoris causa, your 

 Majesty s excellent book touching the duty of a king; 1 

 a work richly compounded of divinity, morality, and 

 policy, with great aspersion of all other arts; and being, 

 in mine opinion, one of the most sound and healthful writ 

 ings that I have read ; not distempered in the heat of inven 

 tion, nor in the coldness of negligence ; not sick of dizziness, 2 

 as those are who leese themselves in their order; nor of 

 convulsions, as those which cramp in matters impertinent ; 

 not savouring of perfumes and paintings, as those do who 

 seek to please the reader more than nature beareth; and 

 chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable 

 to truth and apt for action; and far removed from that 

 natural infirmity, whereunto I noted those that write in 

 their own professions to be subject, which is, that they 

 exalt it above measure: for your majesty hath truly de 

 scribed, not a king of Assyria or Persia in their extern glory, 

 but a Moses or a David, pastors of their people. Neither 

 can I ever leese out of my remembrance, what I heard 

 your majesty, in the same sacred spirit of Government, 

 deliver in a great cause of judicature, which was, That 

 kings ruled by their laws as God did by the laws of nature ; 

 and ought as rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative, 

 as God doth his power of working miracles. And yet not 

 withstanding, in your book of a free monarchy, 3 you do 

 well give men to understand that you know the plenitude 

 of the power and right of a king, as well as the circle of his 

 office and duty. Thus have I presumed to allege this 

 excellent writing of your majesty, as a prime or eminent 

 example of tractates concerning special and respective 

 duties : wherein I should have said as much, if it had been 

 written a thousand years since : neither am I moved with 

 certain courtly decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise 

 in presence ; no, it is flattery to praise in absence ; that is, 

 when either the virtue is absent, or the occasion is absent ; 

 and so the praise is not natural, but forced, either in truth 



1 Sc. the Basilicon Doron. 



2 Dizziness Latin Vertigines. The edition 1605 has dusinesse, 

 1629 and 1633, businesse. 



3 Sc. &quot; The True Law of Free Monarchies.&quot; 



