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OF ANGER.

essential part of justice; and an overspeaking judge is no well turned cymbal. It is no grace to a judge first to find that which he might have heard in due time from the bar; or to show quickness of conceit in cutting off evidence or counsel too short, or to prevent information by questions, though pertinent. The parts of a judge in hearing are four: to direct the evidence; to moderate length, repetition, or impertineney of speech; to recapitulate, select, and collate the material points of that which hath been said, and to give the rule, or sentence. Whatsoever is above these is too much, and proceedeth either of glory and willingness to speak, or of impatience to hear, or of shortness of memory, or of want of a staid and equal attention. It is a strange thing to see that the boldness of advocates should prevail with judges; whereas they should imitate God, in whose seat they sit ; who represseth the presumptuous, and giveth grace to the modest: but it is more strange, that judges should have noted favourites, which cannot but cause multiplications of fees, and suspicion of by-ways. There is due from the judge to the advocate some commendation and gracing, where causes are well handled and fair pleaded, especially towards the side which obtaineth not: for that upholds in the client the reputation of his counsel, and beats down in him the conceit of his cause. There is likewise due to the public a civil reprehension of advocates, where there appeareth cunning counsel, gross neglect, slight information, indiscreet pressing, or an overbold defence; and let not the counsel at the bar chop with the judge, nor wind himself into the handling of the cause anew after the judge hath declared his sentence; but, on the other side, let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion to the party to say, his counsel or proofs were not heard.

Thirdly, for that that concerns clerks and ministers. The place of justice is a hallowed place; and therefore not only the bench, but the footpace and precincts, and purprise thereof, ought to be reserved without scandal and corruption; for, certainly, grapes (as the scripture saith), "will not be gathered off thorns and thistles;" neither can justice yield her fruit with sweetness amongst the briars and brambles of catching and pulling clerks and ministers. The attendance of courts is subject to four bad instruments: first, certain persons that are sowers of suits, which make the court swell and the country pine: the second sort is of those that engage courts in quarrels of jurisdiction, and are not truly amici curiæ," but "parasiti curiæ," in puffing a court up beyond her bounds for their own scraps and advantage: the third sort is of those that may be accounted the left hands of courts; persons that are full of nimble and sinister tricks, and shifts, whereby they pervert the plain and direct courses of courts, and bring justice into oblique lines and labyrinths:

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and the fourth is the poller and exacter of fees; which justifies the common resemblance of the courts of justice to the bush, whereunto, while the sheep flies for defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of the fleece. On the other side, an ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary in proceeding, and understanding in the business of the court, is an excellent figure of a court, and doth many times point the way to the judge himself.

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Fourthly, for that which may concern the sovereign and state. Judges ought, above all, to remember the conclusion of the Roman twelve tables, "Salus populi suprema lex:" and to know that laws, except they be in order to that end, are but things captious, and oracles not well inspired: therefore it is a happy thing in a state, when kings and states do often consult with judges: and again, when judges do often consult with the king and state: the one, where there is matter of law intervenient is business of state; the other, when there is some consideration of state intervenient in matter of law; for many times the things deduced to judgment may be meum and "tuum," when the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate: I call matter of estate, not only the parts of sovereignty, but whatsoever introduceth any great alteration or dangerous precedent; or concerneth manifestly any great portion of people: and let no man weakly conceive that just laws and true policy have any antipathy; for they are like the spirits and sinews, that one moves with the other. Let judges also remember, that Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both sides : let them be lions, but yet lions under the throne: being circumspect, that they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty. Let not judges also be so ignorant of their own right, as to think their is not left them, as a principal part of their office, a wise use and application of laws; for they may remember what the apostle saith of a greater law than theirs: "Nos scimus quia lex bona est, modo quis ea utatur legitime."

OF ANGER.

To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: "Be angry, but sin not: let not the sun go down upon your anger." Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and habit, "to be angry," may be attempted and calmed; secondly, how the particular motions of anger may be repressed, or, at least, refrained from doing mischief; thirdly, how to raise anger, or appease anger in another.

For the first there is no other way but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life: and the best time to do this, is to look back upon

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OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.

anger when the fit is thoroughly over. Seneca saith well," that anger is like rain, which breaks itself upon that it falls." The scripture exhorteth us "to possess our souls in patience;" whosoever is out of patience. is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees:

"Animasque in vulnere ponunt.”

Anger is certainly a king of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns, children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn than with fear ; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

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For the second point, the causes and motives of anger are chiefly three: first, to be sensible of hurt; for no man is angry that feels not himself hurt; and, therefore, tender and delicate persons must need be oft angry, they have so many things to trouble them, which more robust natures have little sense of: the next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered to be, in the circumstances thereof, full of contempt: for contempt is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much or more than the hurt itself and, therefore, when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much: lastly, opinion of the touch of a man's reputation doth multiply and sharpen anger; wherein the remedy is, that a man should have, as Gonsalvo was wont to say, "telam honoris crassiorem." But all refrainings of anger, it is the best remedy to win time, and to make a man's self believe that the opportunity of his revenge is not yet come; but that he foresees a time for it, and so to still himself in the mean time and reserve it.

To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be two things whereof you must have special caution: the one of extreme bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate and proper; for "communia maledicta" are nothing so much; and again, that in anger a man reveal no secrets; for that makes him not fit for society: the other, that you do not peremptorily break off in any business in a fit of anger; but howsoever you show bitterness, do not act any thing that is not revocable.

For raising and appeasing anger in another, it is done chiefly by choosing of times, when men are frowardest and worst disposed to incense them; again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt: and the two remedies are by the contraries: the former to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry business, for the first impression is nuch; and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from

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OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. SOLOMON saith, "there is no new thing upon the earth:" so that as Plato had an imagination that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Solomon giveth his sentence, "that all novelty is but oblivion;" whereby you may see, that the river of Lethe runneth as well above ground as below. There is an abstruse astrologer that saith, if it were not for two things that are constant (the one is, that the fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and never come nearer together, nor go farther asunder; the other, that the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time), no individual would last one moment: certain it is, that matter is in a perpetual flux, and never at a stay. The great winding sheets that bury all things in oblivion are two; deluges and earthquakes. As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople, but destroy. Phaeton's car went but a day; and the three years' drought, in the time of Elias, was but particular, and left people alive. As for the great burnings by lightnings, which are often in the West Indies, they are but narrow; but in the other two destructions, by deluge and earthquake, it is farther to be noted, that the remnant of people which happen to be reserved, are commonly ignorant and mountainous people, that can give no account of the time past; so that the oblivion is all one, as if none had been left. If you consider well of the people of the West Indies, it is very probable that they are a newer or a younger people than the people of the old world; and it is much more likely that the destruction that hath heretoiore been there, was not by earthquakes (as the Egyptian priest told Solon, concerning the island of Atlantis, that it was swallowed by an earthquake), but rather, that it was desolated by a particular deluge: for earthquakes are seldom in those parts: but on the other side, they have such pouring rivers, as the rivers of Asia and Africa and Europe are but brooks to them. Their Andes likewise, or mountains, are far higher than those with us; whereby it seems, that the remnants of generations of men were in such a particular deluge saved. As for the observation that Machiavel hath, that the jealousy of sects doth much extinguish the memory of things; traducing Gregory the Great, that he did what in him lay to extinguish all heathen antiquities; I do not find that those zeals do any great effects, nor last long; as it appeared in the succession of Sabinian, who did revive the former antiquities.

The vicissitude, or mutations in the superior globe are no fit matter for this present

OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.

argument. It may be Plato's great year, if the world should last so long, would have some effect, not in renewing the state of like individuals (for that is the fume of those that conceive the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon these things below than indeed they have), but in gross. Comets, out of question, have likewise power and effect over the gross and mass of things: but they are rather gazed upon, and waited upon in their journey, than wisely observed in their effects; especially in their respective effects; that is, what kind of comet for magnitude, colour, version of the beams, placing in the region of heaven, or lasting, produceth

what kind of effects.

There is a toy which I have heard, and I would not have given it over, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low Countries (I know not in what part), that every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of years and weathers, come about again; as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with little heat, and the like; and they call it the prime: it is a thing I do the rather mention, because, computing backwards, I have found

some concurrence.

But to leave these points of nature, and to come to men. The great vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions; for those orbs rule in men's minds most. The true religion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. To speak, therefore, of the causes of new sects, and to give some counsel concerning them, as far as the weakness of human judgment can give stay to so great revolutions.

When the religion formerly received is rent by discords, and when the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal, and withal the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous, you may doubt the springing up of a new sect: if then also should arise any extravagant and strange spirit to make himself author thereof; all which points held when Mahomet published his law. If a new sect have not two properties, fear it not, for it will not spread: the one is the supplanting, or the opposing of authority established; for nothing is more popular than that; the other is the giving license to pleasures and a voluptuous life for as for speculative heresies (such as were in ancient times the Arians, and now the Arminians), though they work mightily upon men's wits, yet they do not produce any great alteration in states; except it be by the help of civil occasions. There be three manner of plantations of new sects; by the power of signs and miracles: by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles, because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature: and I may do the like of superlative and admirable holiness of

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life. Surely there is no better way to stop the rising of new sects and schisms than to reform abuses; to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors, by winning and advancing them, than to enrage them by

violence and bitterness.

The change and vicissitudes in wars are many, but chiefly in three things; in the seats or stages of the war, in the weapons and in the manner of the conduct. Wars, in ancient time, seemed more to move from east to west; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars (which were the invaders), were all eastern people. It is true, the Gauls were western; but we read but of two incursions of theirs; the one to Gallo-Græcia, the other to Rome: but east and west have no certain points of heaven; and no more have the wars, either from the east or west, any certainty of observation: but north and south are fixed; and it hath seldom or never been seen that the far southern people have invaded the northern, but contrariwise; whereby it is manifest that the northern tract of the world is in nature the more martial region: be it in respect of the stars of that hemisphere, or of the great continents that are upon the north; whereas the south part for aught that is known, is almost all sea; or (which is the most apparent), of the cold of the northern parts, which is that which, without aid of discipline, doth make the bodies hardest, and the courage warmest. : Upon the breaking and shivering of a great state and empire, you may be sure to have wars; for great empires, while they stand, do enervate and destroy the forces of the natives which they have subdued, resting upon their own protecting forces; and then, when they fail also, all goes to ruin, and they become a prey; so it was in the decay of the Roman empire, and likewise in the empire of Almaigne, after Charles the Great, every bird taking a feather; and were not unlike to befall to Spain if it should break. The great accessions and unions of kingdoms do likewise stir up wars: for when a state grows to an overpower, it is like a great flood that wil be sure to overflow; as it hath been seen in the states of Rome, Turkey, Spain, and others. Look when the world hath fewest barbarous people, but such as commonly will not marry, or generate, except they know means to live (as it is almost every where at this day, except Tartary), there is no danger of inundations of people: but when there be great shoals of people which go on to popu. late, without foreseeing means of life and sustentation, it is of necessity that once in an age or two they discharge a portion of their people upon other nations, which the ancient northern people were wont to do by lot; casting lots what part should stay at home, and what should seek their fortunes. When

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A FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY OF FAME.

a warlike state grows soft and effeminate, they may be sure of a war: for commonly such states are grown rich in the time of their degenerating; and so the prey inviteth, and their decay in valour encourageth a war.

As for the weapons, it hardly falleth under rule and observation: yet we see even they have returns and vicissitudes; for certain it is, that ordnance was known in the city of Oxydraces, in India; and was that which the Macedonians called thunder and lightning, and magic; and it is well known that the use of ordnance hath been in China above two thousand years. The conditions of weapons, and their improvements are, first, the fetching afar off; for that outruns the danger, as it is seen in ordnance and muskets; secondly, the strength of the percussion; wherein likewise ordnance do exceed all arietations and ancient inventions: the third is, the commodious use of them; as that they may serve in all weathers, that the carriage may be light and manageable, and the like.

For the conduct of the war: at the first, men rested extremely upon number; they did put the wars likewise upon main force and valour, pointing days for pitched fields, and so trying it out upon an even match; and they were more ignorant in ranging and arraying their battles. After they grew to rest upon number, rather competent than vast; they grew to advantages of place, cunning diversions, and the like; and they grew more skilful in the ordering of

their battles.

In the youth of a state arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Learning hath its infancy, when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then its strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and, lastly, its old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust; but it is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest we become giddy as for the philology of them, that is but a circle of tales, and therefore not fit for this writing.

A FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY OF FAME.

THE poets make Fame a monster: they describe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously: they say, look how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath, so many tongues, so many voices, she pricks up so many ears.

This is a flourish; there follow excellent parables; as that she gathereth strength in going; that she goeth upon the ground, and

yet hideth her head in the clouds; that in the daytime she sitteth in a watch tower, and flyeth most by night; that she mingleth things done with things not done; and that she is a terror to great cities: but that which passeth all the rest is, they do recount that the earth, mother of the giants that made war against Jupiter, and were by him destroyed, thereupon in anger brought forth fame; for certain it is, that rebels, figured by the giants and seditious fames and libels, are but brothers and sisters, masculine and feminine: but now if a man can tame this monster, and bring her to feed at the hand and govern her, and with her fly other ravening fowl and kill them, it is somewhat worth: but we are infected with the style of the poets. To speak now in a sad and serious manner, there is not in all the politics a place less handled, and more worthy to be handled, than of this fame; we will, therefore, speak of these points: what are false fames; and what are true fames; and how they may be best discerned; how fames may be sown and raised; how they may be spread and multiplied; and how they may be checked and laid dead; and other things concerning the nature of fame. Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose to move the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cæsar took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations by a fame that he cunningly gave out, how Cæsar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continually giving out that her husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment; and it is an usual thing with the bashaws to conceal the death of the Great Turk from the Janissaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constantinople, and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles

made Xerxes, king of Persia, post apace out of Græcia, by giving out that the Græcians had a purpose to break his bridge of ships which he had made athwart the Hellespont There be a thousand such like examples, and the more they are the less they need to be repeated, because a man meeteth with them every where; wherefore let all wise governors have as great a watch and care over fames, as they have of the actions and designs them selves.

THE REST WAS NOT FINISHED.

Printed and Published by J. Limbird, 143, Strand.

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