XXxI. 7.] THE SECOND BOOK. 199 
learning indeed solid and fruitful) that active men would 
or could become writers. 
8. In which kind I cannot but mention, honoris causa, 
your Majesty’s excellent book touching the duty of a king: 
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 writings that 
I have read; not distempered in the heat of invention, 
nor in the coldness of negligence; not sick of dizzi- 
ness, 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 described, 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, Zhat 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 notwithstanding, 
in your book of a free monarchy, 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: 
