“A tyrant will enter like a saint, till he find himself fast under foot, and then will suffer his unruly affections to burst forth.”  He advises the prince to act contrary to Nero, who, at first, “with his tender-hearted wish, vellem nescire literas,” appeared to lament that he was to execute the laws.  He, on the contrary, would have the prince early show “the severitie of justice, which will settle the country, and make them know that ye can strike:  this would be but for a time.  If otherwise ye kyth (show) your clemencie at the first the offences would soon come to such heapes, and the contempt of you grow so great, that when ye would fall to punish the number to be punished would exceed the innocent; and ye would, against your nature, be compelled then to wracke manie, whom the chastisement of few in the beginning might have preserved.  In this my own dear-bought experience may serve you for a different lesson.  For I confess, where I thought (by being gracious at the beginning) to gain all men’s heart to a loving and willing obedience, I by the contrarie found the disorder of the countrie, and the loss of my thanks, to be all my reward.”

James, in the course of the work, often instructs the prince by his own errors and misfortunes; and certainly one of these was an excess of the kinder impulses in granting favours; there was nothing selfish in his happiness; James seemed to wish that every one around him should participate in the fulness of his own enjoyment.  His hand was always open to scatter about him honours and wealth, and not always on unworthy favourites, but often on learned men whose talents he knew well to appreciate.  There was a warmth in the king’s temper which once he himself well described; he did not like those who pride themselves on their tepid dispositions.  “I love not one that will never be angry, for as he that is without sorrow is without gladness, so he that is without anger is without love.  Give me the heart of a man, and out of that all his actions shall be acceptable.”  The king thus addresses the prince:—­

On the Choice of Servants and Associates.

“Be not moved with importunities; for the which cause, as also for augmenting your Maiestie, be not so facile of access-giving at all times, as I have been.”—­In his minority, the choice of his servants had been made by others, “recommending servants unto me, more for serving, in effect, their friends that put them in, than their maister that admitted them, and used them well, at the first rebellion raised against me.  Chuse you your own servantes for your own vse, and not for the vse of others; and, since ye must be communis parens to all your people, chuse indifferentlie out of all quarters; not respecting other men’s appetites, but their own qualities.  For as you must command all, so reason would ye should be served of all.—­Be a daily watchman over your own servants, that they obey your laws precisely:  for how can your laws