THE SECOND BOOK. 145 



covereth the hill ; &quot; yet there is small doubt but that men can 

 write best and most really and materially in their own profes 

 sions ; and that the writing of speculative men of active matter 

 for the most part doth seem to men of experience, as Phormio s 

 argument of the wars seemed to Hannibal, to be but dreams 

 and dotage. Only there is one vice which accompanieth them 

 that write in their own professions, that they magnify them 

 in excess. But generally it were to be wished (as that which 

 would make learning indeed solid and fruitful) that active men 

 would or could become writers. 



(8) In which kind I cannot but mention, honwis 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 dizziness, as those are who leese them 

 selves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp 

 in matters impertinent ; not savouring of perfumes and paint 

 ings, 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, &quot;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.&quot; 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 pre 

 sumed 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 

 BO the praise is not natural, but forced, either in truth or in 

 time. But let Cicero be read in his oration pro Marcelto, 



