ESSAYS CIVIL AXD MORAL. 



him into their own quarrels. When a traveller rcturncth home, let 

 him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind 

 him, but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his 

 acquaintance which are of most worth. And let his travel appeal 

 rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture ; and in his dis 

 course, let him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell 

 stories : and iet it appear that he doth not change his country manners 

 for those of foreign parts ; but only prick in some flowers of that he 

 hath learned abroad, into the customs of his own country. 



XIX. OF F.MP1KK. 



It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desir?, and 

 many things to fear : and yet that commonly is the case of kings, who 

 being at the highest, want matter of desire, which makes their minds 

 more languishing: and have many representations of perils and shadows, 

 which makes their mine s the less clear. And this is one reason also of 

 that effect which the Scripture speakcth of, &quot;that the king s heart is in 

 scrutable.&quot; For multitude of jealousies, and lack of some predominant 

 desire, that should marshal and put in order all the rest, makelh any 

 man s heart hard to rind or sound. 1 Icncc 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; some 

 times 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; Cararalla for driving chariots, and the like. This 

 secmcth incredible unto those that know not the principle, That the 

 .nindof 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, Dioclcsian, .Mid in our 

 memory Charles the fifth, and others ; for he that is used to go 

 forward, and findcth a stop, fallcth 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 distemper consist of contraries. 

 Hut it is one thing to mingle contraries, another to interchange them. 

 The answer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent instructions. 

 Vespasian asked him, what was Nero s overthrow? He answered, 

 Nero could touch and tune the harp well, but in government some 

 times 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 

 j^laxed too much. 



This is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times, in princes 

 affairs, is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mischiefs, 



