Scripture speaketh of, That the King's Heart is inscrutable. For Multitude of Jealousies, and Lack of some predominant desire that should marshall and put in order all the rest, maketh any Man's Heart hard to finde or sound. Hence it comes likewise that Princes, many times, make themselves Desires, and set their Hearts upon toyes:[1] Sometimes upon a Building: Sometimes upon Erecting of[2] an Order; Sometimes upon the Advancing of a Person; Sometimes upon obtaining Excellency in some Art or Feat of the Hand; As Nero for playing on the Harpe, Domitian for Certainty of the Hand with the Arrow, Commodus for playing at Fence, Caracalla for driving Chariots, and the like. This seemeth incredible unto those that know not the Principle, That the Minde of Man is more cheared and refreshed by profiting[3] in small things then by standing at a stay[4] in great. We see also that Kings, that have been fortunate Conquerours in their first yeares, it being not possible for them to goe forward infinitely, but that they must have some Checke or Arrest in their Fortunes, turne in their latter yeares to be Superstitious and Melancholy; As did Alexander the Great, Dioclesian, And in our memory, Charles the Fift; And others: For he that is used to goe forward, and findeth a Stop, falleth out of his owne favour, and is not the Thing he was.
To speake now of the true Temper of Empire:[5] It is a Thing rare, and hard to keep: For both Temper and Distemper consist of Contraries. But it is one thing to mingle Contraries, another to enterchange them. The Answer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of Excellent Instruction. Vespasian asked him, What was Nero's overthrow? He answered, Nero could touch and tune the Harpe well; But in Government, sometimes he used to winde the pins too high, sometimes to let them downe too low. And certaine it is that Nothing destroieth Authority so much as the unequall and untimely Enterchange of Power Pressed too farre, and Relaxed too much. This is true, that the wisdome of all these latter Times
