218 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



describing the principal difference of princes' best servants, 

 that some in affection love their person, and others in 

 duty love their crown. 



Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error ordinary 

 with counsellors of princes, that they counsel their masters 

 according to the model of their own mind and fortune, 

 and not of their masters; when upon Darius' great offers 

 Parmenio had said, ' Surely I would accept these offers, 

 were I as Alexander ' ; saith Alexander, ' So would I, 

 were I as Parmenio.' Vfct lW\V 



Lastly, weigh -thaJLquick and acute reply which he made 

 when he gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, and 

 was asked what he did reserve for himself, and he answered, 

 ' Hope ' ; weigh, I say, whether he had not cast up his 

 account aright, because c hope ' must be the portion of all 

 that resolve upon great enterprises. For this was Caesar's 

 portion when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then 

 utterly overthrown with largesses. And this was likewise 

 the portion of that noble prince, howsoever transported 

 with ambition, Henry duke of Guise, of whom it was 

 usually said, that he was the greatest usurer in France, 

 because he had turned all his estate into obligations. 



To conclude therefore : as certain critics are used to say 

 hyperbolically, c That if all sciences were lost, they might 

 be found in Virgil ' ; so certainly this may be said truly, 

 there are the prints and footsteps of learning in those few 

 speeches which are reported of this prince : the admiration 

 of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the 

 Great, but as Aristotle's scholar, hath carried me too far. 



As for Julius Caesar, the excellency ;of his learning 

 needeth not to be argued from his education, or Es~cbm^~ 

 pany, or his speeches ; but in a further degree doth declare 

 itself in_J^_snitir^sj^ whereof some are extant 



and permanent, and some unfortunately perished. For first, 

 we see there is left unto us that excdkntjhistory O f hk own 

 wars, which he intitled only a Commentary, wherein all 

 succeeding times have admired thevsoTid weight oFmafter;^ 

 and the .real passages, and vliY e ^7 i ma g es xoP acionS"ancT 

 persons, expressed in "the greatest propriety of words and 



