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other, that he reputeth his owne witte onely to be in perfection, and contemneth all other counsayle. Undoughtedly this is an horrible and perylouse vice, and very familiar with them whiche be of moste noble courages. By it many a valyaunt capitayne and noble prince haue nat onely fallen them selfes, but also brought all their contrayes in daungeour and often tymes to subuercion and ruyne.

The wise kinge Salomon sayeth, Amonge proude men be all way contentions, and they that do all thinges with counsayle, be gouerned by wisedome.

I nede nat to reherce examples out of olde writars what damage haue ensued of obstinacie, consideryng that euery historye is full therof, and we styll haue it in dayly experience. But of one thinge am I suer, where obstinacie ruleth, and reason lacketh place, there counsaile auayleth nat, and where counsayle hathe nat auctoritie and fraunches, there may no

Proue. xi. thinge be perfecte. Salomon sayenge that where

as be many counsayles, there is the people in

• As showing the similarity of treatment of the same subject by philosophers far removed from each other in point of time, it is interesting to observe that Hume has a chapter headed 'Of Greatness of Mind,' (answering to Elyot's 'Of Magnanimity' and to the De Magnanimitate' of Pontanus), in which he examines the passions of pride and humility, and considers the vice or virtue that lies in their excesses or just proportion.'-See Philos. Works, vol. ii. p. 381, ed. 1826.

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▸ Montaigne expresses the same opinion: 'L'obstination et ardeur d'opinion est la plus seure preuve de bestise.'-Essais, tom. iv. p. 39, ed. 1854, and again, 'L'affirmation et l'opiniastreté sont signes exprez de bestise.'-Ibid. p. 266.

• See Prov. xiii. 10.

a I.e. Freedom. Really the French word franchise Anglicised. 'Je me fie ayseement à la foy d'aultruy; mais malayseement le feroy ie, lorsque ie donnerois à iuger l'avoir plustost faict par desespoir et faulte de cœur, que par franchise et `fiance de sa loyauté.'—Montaigne, Essais, tom. i. p. 34, ed. 1854. Chaucer uses the very same form as our author in The Frankeleynes Tale.

'And in his hert he caught of this gret routhe,

Consideryng the best on euery syde,

That fro his lust yet were him lever abyde,

Than doon so high a cheerlissch wrecchednesse

Agayns fraunchis of alle gentilesce.'

Poetical Works, vol. iii. p. 25, ed. 1866.

!

suertie. Nowe will I declare the residue of Tullies sentence concernynge inordinate desire of soueraignetie, whiche is proprely called Ambition.

CHAPTER XVI.

Of an other vice folowing Magnanimitie, called Ambition. IT was nat without a hygh and prudent consideration that certayne lawes were made by the Romaynes, whiche were named the lawes of Ambition, wherby men were restrayned in the citie to optayne offices and dignities in the publike weale, either by gyuinge rewardes, or by other sinistre labour or meanes. And they, which by

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Lord Berners in his translation of Froissart's account of the speech in which the ambassador, Laurence Fougasse, describes to the Duke of Lancaster the offer of the crown of Portugal to the Grand Master of Avis, by the people of Lisbon in 1384, uses precisely the same form of the word, though the meaning is that of 'privileges.' 'Then they sayd, Mayster Denyce (so he was called as then) we wyll make you kynge of this royalme . . . We had rather ye sholde take all that we haue, to ayde and to maynteyne us and our fraunches, then the Castellyans sholde be maysters ouer us.'-Froissart's Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 140. And again, in describing the flight of the Duke of Ireland in 1388, the same writer says, 'So that to saue hymselfe he was fledde into Hollande, and taryed there but a small season in the towne of Dordreght; yet he was fayne to departe and to go to Trecte, a fraunches towne for all maner of people, payeng for that they take.'-Ibid. p. 439. Where the original has 'car la cité d'Utrec est franche à recevoir toutes gens.'-Froissart, tom. iii. p. 14; Panthéon Littéraire ed.

See Prov. xi. 14.

Mr. George Long says, 'The Romans attempted by legislation to make men politically honest, and they succeeded as well as we have done, and no better. Some early "leges" or enactments on the offence of Ambitus are mentioned. The Lex Cornelia Bæbia, B.C. 181, incapacitated candidates, who were convicted of bribery, from being candidates again for ten years. This law only punished the briber, so far as we know, and wisely did not touch him who took the bribe. Polybius, in his sixth book, seems to speak of bribery at elections when he says, that among the Carthaginians men obtain magisterial offices by open bribery, or by openly giving, but among the Romans, death is the penalty for this offence. Polybius wrote after the enactment of the Lex Cornelia Bæbia, but we cannot

that lawe were condemned, were put to dethe without any fauour.a

Verely it was a noble lawe, and for all places necessary, considerynge what inconuenience hapneth by this vayne and superfluous appetite. Witnesses amonge the Romaynes Sylla, Marius, Carbo, Cinna, Pompei, and Cesar, by whose ambicion mo Romaynes were slayne than in acquiringe the empyre of all the worlde; as it may appere by the onely ambicion of Sylla, who condemned and caused to be slayne foure score thousande Romaynes, beside many mo that were slaine admit, even if we assume that we know nothing about the penalties contained in this Lex, that death was ever the penalty at Rome for bribery, or any kind of corruption effected by money.'-Decline of Rom. Rep. vol. i. p. 334, ed. 1864.

From what has been said in the last note, it might be supposed that Sir Thomas Elyot had obtained his information on this subject from Polybius, some portion of which had already been published when The Governour was written; but Dr. Leonhard Schmitz tells us that 'the first part which was printed in Greek was the treatise on the Roman army, which was published by Ant. de Sabio at Venice, in 1529, with a Latin translation by Lascaris, and in the following year, 1530, the Greek text of the first five books, with the translation of Perotti, appeared at Hagenau, but without the treatise on the Roman army, which had probably not yet found its way across the Alps.' It was not until a few years afterwards a discovery was made of some extracts from the other books of Polybius,' and these extracts contain the greater part of the sixth book, and portions of the following eleven. The manuscript containing them was brought from Corfu, and they were published together with the first five books, which had already appeared at Basle, in 1549.' Hence it is impossible that at this time Sir T. Elyot could have been acquainted with the contents of the sixth book, and it remains an open question from what source he could have derived his authority for the statement in the text. This passage is borrowed from Patrizi, who says, 'Testes sint apud Romanos Sylla, Cinna, Carbo, Marius, Pompeius, Cæsar et alii complures, quorum ambitione multo plures Romanorum civium ceciderunt, quàm in propagatione imperii totius orbis terrarum.'-De Regno et Reg. Instit. lib. iv. tit. 20.

• In this statement the author has servilely followed and been misled by the writer mentioned in the last note, who says, 'Quum L. Sylla per ambitionem venustus, faustus, fælix, in marmoribus scribi studet, nefandam tabulam illam suspendit, per quam circiter octoginta millia hominum proscribuntur, damnantur, trucidanturque.'-Patrizi, ubi supra. He has therefore exaggerated the number given by Valerius Maximus in the following passage: Quatuor millia et septingentos diræ proscriptionis edicto jugulatos in tabulas publicas retulit.'—Lib. ix. cap. 2, § 1. Mr. George Long says: Valerius Maximus is the only authority that has recorded the whole number of the proscribed and murdered, whose names were entered on the public records. He says that it was four thousand seven hundred ;

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in the batayles betwene him and the bothe Marius. Also Pompei and Julius Cesar, the one suffrynge no peere, the other no superior, by their ambicion caused to be slaine betwene theim people innumerable, and subuerted the best and moste noble publike weale of the worlde. And finally, hauynge litle tyme of reioysinge their unlefull desire, Pompei, shamefully fleinge, had his hede striken of by the commaundement of Ptolomee, kynge of Egipt, unto whome, as unto his frende, he fledde for socour; Cesar, the vainquisshour, was murdred in the Senate with daggers by them whome he moste specially fauoured.

b

I coulde occupie a great volume with histories of them whiche, couaytinge to mounte into excellent dignities, dyd therby brynge in to extreme perylles bothe them selfes and their contrayes. For as Tacitus sayeth, wonderfull elegantly, with theim whiche desire soueraignetie, there is no meane place betwene the toppe and the stepe downe. To the but the number was much increased by those who were secretly assassinated from motives of revenge or lucre.'-Decline of Rom. Rep. vol. ii. p. 359.

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;

Yet the battle of Pharsalia, the most important of all the engagements between these rivals, 'was honourably distinguished in the annals of civil warfare from the close of the day no more blood was shed; the fugitives were spared, and the supplicants received mercy. Nor, indeed, was the carnage of the combat proportioned to its results.'- Merivale, Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. p. 299. Appian observes that the loss among the auxiliary troops was not counted, for they were not thought worth the reckoning; but there fell of the Italians on Cæsar's side 30 officers and 200 legionary soldiers, or, as others state, 1,200. On the side of Pompeius there fell 10 senators, of the cavalry about 40 men of rank, and of the rest of the army the number of 25,000, which Appian considers to be an exaggeration. Asinius Pollio, who commanded under Cæsar in the battle, says that there were found 6,000 Pompeians on the field.'-Decl. of Rom. Rep. vol. v. p. 211.

Or rather of his advisers, for the king was only a minor, ('O μèv oûv ПTOλeμαῖος ἦν κομιδῇ νέος, says Plutarch,) and under the guardianship of the eunuch Pothinus, next to whom in power and influence was Achillas, a man of singular audacity, and the commander of the royal forces. 'These men,' says Merivale, 'had acquired a complete ascendency over their tender charge, and they used their influence unscrupulously for the furtherance of their private schemes.'— Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. p. 307, ed. 1850.

'Imperium cupientibus nihil medium inter summa et præcipitia.'-Hist. lib. ii. cap. 74.

whiche wordes Tulli agreinge, sayeth that hygh autorities shulde nat moche be desired, or rather nat to be taken at some tyme, and often tymes to be left and forsaken."

Ci. offi. i.

Sextus

So dyd Sylla, whome I late spake of, and Diocletian, Emperour of Rome, who after that he had gouerned Aurelius. the empyre xxv yeres honorably (if he had nat ben polluted with the bloode of innumerable Christen men) he willingly abandoned the crowne and dignitie emperiall, and lyued nyne yeres on his priuate possessions. And on a tyme he beinge desired of Herculius and Galerius, unto whome he had resigned the empyre, to take eftsones on him the gouernaunce, abhorrynge it as a pestilence, aunswered in this wise, I wolde ye dyd see the herbes that I haue with myne owne handes sowen and sette at Salona, suerly ye wolde nat than in this wise aduise me. Also Octauius Augustus, whiche in

'Nec vero imperia expetenda, ac, potius, aut non accipienda interdum, aut deponenda nonnunquam.'-De Off. lib. i. cap. 20.

The reference in the margin is to the work of Sextus Aurelius Victor, generally known by the title of Epitome, which consists of forty-eight chapters, commencing with Augustus and concluding with Theodosius. It was first printed at Strasburg in 1505, and again by Aldus at Venice in 1516, at the end of his edition of Suetonius.

• Imperavit annis viginti quinque.'-Victor. Epit. cap. 39.

d Professor Ramsay says: By far the worst feature of this reign was the terrible persecution of the Christians. The conduct of the prince upon this occasion is the more remarkable, because we are at first sight unable to detect any motive which could have induced him to permit such atrocities. . . . It is not improbable that his intellect was seriously affected, and that his malady may have amounted to absolute insanity.'

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'The severe illness which afflicted Diocletian in A.D. 304 was probably the chief cause determining him on the most celebrated act of his life-his abdication. His health made rest necessary for him; and he may naturally have desired to preside over the steps which required to be taken in order to secure the continuance of his system after he himself should have quitted life.'-Rawlinson, Manual of Ancient Hist. p. 523, ed. 1869.

'Vixit annos sexaginta octo, ex quis communi habitu prope novem egit.'— Victor, Epit. 39. Milner says, 'He lived seven years a private life,' whilst Professor Ramsay says, 'He passed the remaining eight years of his life in philosophic retirement.'

* Diocletianus vero apud Nicomediam sponte imperiales fasces relinquens, in

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