348 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



show themselves courageous advisers, are always extenu 

 ating the greatness of dangers, insulting, as fearful wretches, 

 those who weigh them as they ought, and ridiculing the 

 ripening delays gf counsel and debate, as tedious matters 

 of oratory, unserviceable to the general issue of business. 

 They despise rumors as the breath of the rabble, and things 

 that will soon pass over, though the counsels of princes are 

 to be chiefly directed from hence. They account the power 

 and authority of laws but nets unfit to hold great matters. 

 They reject, as dreams and melancholy notions, those coun 

 sels and precautions that regard futurity at a distance. 

 They satirize and banter such men as are really prudent 

 and knowing in affairs, or such as bear noble minds, and 

 are capable of advising. In short, they sap all the founda 

 tions of political government at once a thing which de 

 serves the greater attention, as it is not effected by open 

 attack, but by secret undermining; nor is it, by any means, 

 so much suspected among mankind as it deserves. 



XIII. The prince who willingly hearkens to lies, has all his servants wicked 17 



When a prince is injudiciously disposed to lend a credu 

 lous ear to whisperers and flatterers, pestilent breath seems to 

 proceed from him, corrupting and infecting all his servants; 

 and now some search into his fears, and increase them with 

 fictitious rumors; some raise up in him the fury of envy, 

 especially against the most deserving; some, by accusing of 

 others, wash their own stains away; some make room for 

 the preferment and gratification of their friends, by calum 

 niating and traducing their competitors, etc. And these 

 agents are naturally the most vicious servants of the prince. 

 Those again, of better principles and dispositions, after find 

 ing little security in their innocence, their master not know 

 ing how to distinguish truth from falsehood, drop their 

 moral honesty, go into the eddy winds of the court, and 

 servilely submit to be carried about with them. For as 

 Tacitus says of Claudius, &quot;There is no safety with that 



&quot; Prov. xxix. 12. 



