OF EMPIRE 45 



of desire, which makes their minds more languishing ; and 

 have many representations of perils and shadows, which 

 makes their minds the less clear. And this is one reason 

 also of that effect which the Scripture speaketh of, ' That 

 the king's heart is inscrutable.' For multitude of jealousies, 

 and lack of some predominant desire that should marshal 

 and put in order all the rest, maketh any man's heart hard 

 to find or sound. Hence it comes likewise, that princes 

 many times make themselves desires, and set their hearts 

 upon toys ; sometimes upon a building ; sometimes upon 

 erecting of an order ; sometimes upon the advancing of 

 a person ; sometimes upon obtaining excellency in some 

 art or feat of the hand ; as Nero for playing on the harp, 

 Domitian for certainty of the hand with the arrow, 

 Commodus for playing at fence, Caracalla for driving 

 chariots, and the like. This seemeth incredible unto those 

 that know not the principle that the mind of man is more 

 cheered and refreshed by profiting in small things, than by 

 standing at a stay in great. We see also that kings that 

 have been fortunate conquerors in their first years, it being 

 not possible for them to go forward infinitely, but that they 

 must have some check or arrest in their fortunes, turn in 

 their latter years to be superstitious and melancholy ; as did 

 Alexander the Great ; Diocletian ; and in our memory, 

 Charles the Fifth ; and others : for he that is used to go 

 forward, and findeth a stop, falleth out of his own favour, 

 and is not the thing he was. 



To speak now of the true temper of empire; it is a 

 thing rare and hard to keep ; for both temper and dis- 

 temper consist of contraries. But it is one thing to mingle 

 contraries, another to interchange them. The answer of 

 Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent instruction. 

 Vespasian asked him, ' What was Nero's overthrow ? ' 

 He answered, c Nero could touch and tune the harp well ; 

 but in government sometimes he used to wind the pins too 

 high, sometimes to let them down too low.' And certain 

 it is that nothing destroyeth authority so much as the 

 unequal and untimely interchange of power pressed too far, 

 and relaxed too much. 



