CHAP. II.] WISE CONDUCT EXEMPLIFIED. 305 



a few absurdities, that may be committed without vice, in 

 order to reserve a liberty, and confound the observation of 

 little defects. 



XII. Scornful men ensnare a city, but wise men prevent calamity.* 

 It may seem strange, that in the description of men, 

 formed, as it were, by nature, for the destruction of states, 

 Solomon should choose the character, not of a proud and 

 haughty, not of a tyrannical and cruel, not of a rash and 

 violent, not of a seditious and turbulent, not of a ioolish or 

 incapable man, but the character of a scorn er. Yet this 

 choice is becoming the wisdom ol that king, who well knew 

 how governments were subverted, and how preserved. For 

 there is scarce such another destructive thing to kingdoms, 

 and commonwealths, as that the counsellors, or senators, who 

 sit at the helm, should be naturally scorners ; who, to show 

 themselves courageous advisers, are always extenuating the 

 greatness oi dangers, insulting, as iearful wretches, those 

 who weigh them as they ought, and ridiculing the ripening 

 delays of counsel and debate, as tedious matters of oratory, 

 unserviceable to the general issue of business. They de 

 spise rumours as the breath of the nibble, 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 

 counsels and precautions that regard tuturity 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 foun 

 dations of political government at once a thing which de 

 serves the greater attention, as it is not eflected 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 servantt 

 wicked.* 



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 ser 

 vants ; and now some search into his fears, and increase 

 i Prov. xxii, & r PI-JV. xyix. 12 



2 * 



