58 BACON'S ESSAYS 



able in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only 

 themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the 

 public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant to a 

 prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs 

 pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own 

 ends ; which must needs be often eccentric to the ends of 

 his master or state. Therefore let princes, or states, choose 

 such servants as have not this mark ; except they mean 

 their service should be made but the accessary. That 

 which maketh the effect more pernicious is that all propor- 

 tion is lost. It were disproportion enough for the servant's 

 good to be preferred before the master's ; but yet it is a 

 greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shall 

 carry things against a great good of the master's. And 

 yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, 

 generals, and other false and corrupt servants ; which set 

 a bias upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, 

 to the overthrow of their master's great and important 

 affairs. And for the most part, the good such servants 

 receive is after the model of their own fortune; but the 

 hurt they sell for that good is after the model of their 

 master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme 

 self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were 

 but to roast their eggs ; and yet these men many times 

 hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to 

 please them and profit themselves ; and for either respect 

 they will abandon the good of their affairs. 



Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a 

 depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure 

 to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom 

 of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and 

 made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that 

 shed tears when they would devour. But that which is 

 specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says 01 

 Pompey) are sui amantes, sine rivali, are many times unfor- 

 tunate. And whereas they have all their times sacrificed 

 to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices 

 to the inconstancy of fortune ; whose wings they thought 

 by their self-wisdom to have pinioned. 



