Nicholas {74b}) loseth no less the
opportunity
of his cruelty than of his
benefits: for then to use his cruelty is too late; and to use his favours
will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so he loseth the thanks.
benefits: for then to use his cruelty is too late; and to use his favours
will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so he loseth the thanks.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
Nor let the common
proverb (of he that builds on the people builds on the dirt) discredit my
opinion: for that hath only place where an ambitious and private person,
for some popular end, trusts in them against the public justice and
magistrate. There they will leave him. But when a prince governs them,
so as they have still need of his administrations (for that is his art),
he shall ever make and hold them faithful.
_Clementia_. --_Machiavell_. --A prince should exercise his cruelty not by
himself but by his ministers; so he may save himself and his dignity with
his people by sacrificing those when he list, saith the great doctor of
state, Machiavell. But I say he puts off man and goes into a beast, that
is cruel. No virtue is a prince's own, or becomes him more, than this
clemency: and no glory is greater than to be able to save with his power.
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a
prince, as many funerals a physician. The state of things is secured by
clemency; severity represseth a few, but irritates more. {74a} The
lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out thicker; and the taking away
of some kind of enemies increaseth the number. It is then most gracious
in a prince to pardon when many about him would make him cruel; to think
then how much he can save when others tell him how much he can destroy;
not to consider what the impotence of others hath demolished, but what
his own greatness can sustain. These are a prince's virtues: and they
that give him other counsels are but the hangman's factors.
_Clementia tutela optima_. --He that is cruel to halves (saith the said St.
Nicholas {74b}) loseth no less the opportunity of his cruelty than of his
benefits: for then to use his cruelty is too late; and to use his favours
will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so he loseth the thanks.
Still the counsel is cruelty. But princes, by hearkening to cruel
counsels, become in time obnoxious to the authors, their flatterers, and
ministers; and are brought to that, that when they would, they dare not
change them; they must go on and defend cruelty with cruelty; they cannot
alter the habit. It is then grown necessary, they must be as ill as
those have made them: and in the end they will grow more hateful to
themselves than to their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the
merciful prince is safe in love, not in fear. He needs no emissaries,
spies, intelligencers to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no
treasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly what they do
in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that they need a cypher
for. He is guarded with his own benefits.
_Religio_. _Palladium Homeri_. --_Euripides_. --The strength of empire is in
religion. What else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troy so long
from sacking? Nothing more commends the Sovereign to the subject than
it.
proverb (of he that builds on the people builds on the dirt) discredit my
opinion: for that hath only place where an ambitious and private person,
for some popular end, trusts in them against the public justice and
magistrate. There they will leave him. But when a prince governs them,
so as they have still need of his administrations (for that is his art),
he shall ever make and hold them faithful.
_Clementia_. --_Machiavell_. --A prince should exercise his cruelty not by
himself but by his ministers; so he may save himself and his dignity with
his people by sacrificing those when he list, saith the great doctor of
state, Machiavell. But I say he puts off man and goes into a beast, that
is cruel. No virtue is a prince's own, or becomes him more, than this
clemency: and no glory is greater than to be able to save with his power.
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a
prince, as many funerals a physician. The state of things is secured by
clemency; severity represseth a few, but irritates more. {74a} The
lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out thicker; and the taking away
of some kind of enemies increaseth the number. It is then most gracious
in a prince to pardon when many about him would make him cruel; to think
then how much he can save when others tell him how much he can destroy;
not to consider what the impotence of others hath demolished, but what
his own greatness can sustain. These are a prince's virtues: and they
that give him other counsels are but the hangman's factors.
_Clementia tutela optima_. --He that is cruel to halves (saith the said St.
Nicholas {74b}) loseth no less the opportunity of his cruelty than of his
benefits: for then to use his cruelty is too late; and to use his favours
will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so he loseth the thanks.
Still the counsel is cruelty. But princes, by hearkening to cruel
counsels, become in time obnoxious to the authors, their flatterers, and
ministers; and are brought to that, that when they would, they dare not
change them; they must go on and defend cruelty with cruelty; they cannot
alter the habit. It is then grown necessary, they must be as ill as
those have made them: and in the end they will grow more hateful to
themselves than to their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the
merciful prince is safe in love, not in fear. He needs no emissaries,
spies, intelligencers to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no
treasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly what they do
in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that they need a cypher
for. He is guarded with his own benefits.
_Religio_. _Palladium Homeri_. --_Euripides_. --The strength of empire is in
religion. What else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troy so long
from sacking? Nothing more commends the Sovereign to the subject than
it.
