ESS A YS CIVIL AND MORAL. 21 



of their nobility, shall find ease in employing them, and a better slide 

 into their business : for people naturally bend to them, as born in 

 some sort to command. 



XV. OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES. 



Shepherds of people had need know the kalcndars of tempests in 

 state ; which are commonly greatest when things grow to equality : as 

 natural tempests are greatest about the cquinoctia. And as there arc 

 certain hollow blasts of wind, and secret swellings of seas, before a 

 tempest, so are there in states : 



I He etiam cxcos instare tumultus 

 Saepc monct, fraudcsquc ct opcrta tumescere belln. 



Libels and licentious discourses against the state, when they arc 

 frequent and open, and in like sort false news often running up and 

 down to the disadvantage of the state, and hastily embraced, are 

 amongst the signs of troubles. Virgil giving the pedigree of Fame, 

 saith, she was sister to the giants. 



* II lair. Terra parens, ira irritata Deorum, 

 Kxtrcnum, lit pcrhibent, Ca.-o Encclacloquc sororcm 

 Progenuit. 



As if fames were the relicks of seditions past: but they arc no less 

 indeed the preludes of seditions to come. Howsoever he notcth it 

 right, that seditious tumults, and seditious fames, differ no more, but 

 as brother and sister, masculine and feminine ; especially if it come 

 to that, that the best actions of a state, and the most plausible, and 

 which ought to give greatest contentment, are taken in ill sense and 

 traduced: for that shows the envy great, as Tacitus saith; &quot;conilata 

 magna invidia, sen bene, scu male, gcsta prcmunt.&quot; Neither doth it 

 follow, that because these fames are a sign of troubles, that the sup 

 pressing of them with too much severity would be a remedy of 

 troubles. For the despising of them many times checks them l^cst : 

 and the going about to stop them, doth but make a wonder long-lived. 

 Also that kind of obedience which Tacitus speaketh of, is to be held 

 suspected ; u Erant in ofticio, sed tamen qui mallent mandata impe- 

 rantium interpretari quam exequi ;&quot; disputing, excusing, cavilling 

 upon mandates, and directions, is a kind of shaking off the yoke, and 

 assay of disobedience : especially if in those disputings, they which 

 arc for the direction, speak fearfully and tenderly and those that arc 

 against it, audaciously. 



Also, as Machiavel notcth well, when princes, that ought to be 

 common parents, make themselves as a party, lean to a side, it is as a 

 boat that is overthrown by uneven weight on the one side : as was well 

 seen in the time of Henry the Third of France ; for first, himself 

 entered league for the extirpation of the protcstants ; and presently 

 after the same league was turned upon himself. For when the 

 authority of princes is made but an accessary to a cause, and tlui 



