pains 265 For instance, what could I signify if I were about the king of France, and were called into his cabinet council, where several wise men do, in his hearing, propose many expedients; as, by what arts and practices Milan may be kept; and Naples, that has so oft slipped out of their hands, recovered; and how the Venetians, and, after them, the rest of Italy may be subdued; and then, how Flanders, Brabant, and all Burgundy, and some other kingdoms which he has swallowed already in his designs, might be added to his empire. One proposes a league with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he finds his account in it, and that he ought to communicate councils with them, and give them some share of the spoil, till his success makes him need or fear them less, and then it will be easily taken out of their hands. Another purposing the hiring the Germans, and the securing the Switzers by pensions. Another proposes the gaining the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him.66 Another proposes a peace with the king of Arragon, and, in order to the cementing it, the yielding up the king of Navarre's pretensions. Another thinks the prince of Castile is to be wrought on by the hope of an alliance; and that

65 Clarendon lived to be of this opinion, and bequeathed it as an inheritance to his sons. See the preface to his History,

passim.

66 Honest Iago understood this well: "put money in thy purse!" It is everywhere omnipotent, save against virtue, which resists because it does not need it. The good man is never a wor shipper of gold. He will use, but not be held captive by money; though for money he sometimes may.

some of his courtiers are to be gained to the French faction by pensions. The hardest point of all is what to do with England. A treaty of peace is to be set on foot; and, if their alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as firm as can be: and they are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occasion; and some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand, (for by the league it cannot be done avowedly,) who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe.67

"Now, when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining councils how to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I am should stand up, and wish them to change all their councils,-to let Italy alone, and stay at home, since the kingdom of France was indeed greater than that it could be well governed by one man, so that he ought not to think of adding others to it and if, after this, I should propose to them the resolution of the Achorians, a people that lie over against the isle of Utopia to the southeast, who, having long ago engaged in a war, that they might gain another kingdom to their king, who had a pretension to it by an old alliance by which it had descended to him; and having conquered it, when they found that the trouble of

67 We have lived to see a better state of things. No fear now of the Scots pouring in upon England; nor is there any banished nobleman, with a pretence to the crown, who can cause us a moment's uneasiness.

keeping it was equal to that of gaining it; for the conquered people would be still apt to rebel, or be exposed to foreign invasions, so that they must always be in war, either for them or against them, and that, therefore, they could never disband their army that in the mean time taxes lay heavy on them, that money went out of the kingdom, that their blood was sacrificed to their king's glory, and that they were nothing the better by it, even in time of peace; their manners being corrupted by a long war, robbing and murders abounding everywhere; and their laws falling under contempt, because their king, being distracted with the cares of the kingdom, was less able to apply his mind to any one of them; when they saw there could be no end of those evils, they, by joint councils, made an humble address to their king, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms he had the greatest mind to keep,-since he could not hold both;68 for they were too great a people to be governed by a divided king, since no man would willingly have a groom that should be in common between him and another, upon which the good prince was

68 Sir Thomas More, we see, was no patron of legitimacy or Divine right. He puts things on their proper footing, considering the prince as a magistrate appointed for the people's advantage,- -not for his own; and removable when, from any cause whatever, he becomes incapable of performing his duties as the laws require. Such were the opinions of Buchanan, of Milton, and of Locke; and they were recognised by the British constitution when James II. was driven ignominiously from the throne of these realms.

forced to quit his new kingdom to one of his friends, (who was not long after dethroned,) and to be contented with his old one. To all this I would add, that after all those warlike attempts, and the vast confusions, with the consumptions both of treasure and of people that must follow them, perhaps, upon some misfortune, they might be forced to throw up all at last. Therefore it seemed much more eligible that the king should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and make it flourish as much as was possible; that he should love his people, and be beloved of them; that he should live among them, and govern them gently; and that he should let other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share was big enough,—if not too big for him. Pray, how do you think, would such a speech as this be heard ?" "I confess," said I," I think not very well."

"But what," said he, " if I should sort with anotheir kind of ministers whose chief contrivances and consultations were, by what art treasure might be heaped up? Where one proposes the crying up of money, when the king had a great debt on him, and the crying it down as much when his revenues were to come in; that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a great deal. Another proposes a pretence of a war, that so money may be raised in order to the carrying it on, and that a peace might be concluded as soon as that was done; and this was to be made up with such appearances of religion as might work on the people, and make them impute it to

the piety of their prince,69 and to his tenderness of the lives of his subjects. A third offers some old musty laws, that have been antiquated by a long disuse; and which, as they had been forgotten by all the subjects, so they had been also broken by them: and that the levying of the penalties of these laws, as it would bring in a vast treasure, so there might be a very good pretence for it, since it would look like the executing of law, and the doing of justice. A fourth proposes the prohibiting of many things under severe penalties, especially such things as were against the interest of the people, and then the dispensing with these prohibitions upon great compositions, to those who might make advantages by breaking them. This would serve two ends, both of them acceptable to many; for as those whose avarice led them to transgress, would be severely fined; so the selling licences dear, would look as if a prince were tender of his people, and would not easily, or at low rates, dispense with any thing that might be against the public good.70 Another proposes, that the

79 This is worthy of Macchiavelli, and as instructive as a chapter in "Il Principe." It paints monarchs to the life.

70 We have here another Macchiavellian remark, which shows how carefully Sir Thomas More had read history. Raleigh had much the same opinion of princes. In that fine poem, said to have been written the night before his execution, but which bears the marks of very careful study and correction, he says:

"Tell Potentates they live,

Acting by others' actions;

Not loved-unless they give;

Not strong-but by their factions;

If Potentates reply,

Give Potentates the lie."