to haue taken it.  Euen so if one that standeth vpon his merite, and spares to craue the Princes liberalitie in that which is moderate and fit for him, doth vndecently.  For men should not expect till the Prince remembred it of himselfe and began as it were the gratification, but ought to be put in remembraunce by humble folicitations, and that is duetifull, & decent, which made king Henry th’eight her Maiesties most noble father, and for liberality nothing inferiour to king Alexander the great, aunswere one of his priuie chamber, who prayd him to be good & gracious to a certaine old Knight being his seruant for that he was but an ill begger, if he be ashamed to begge we wil thinke scorne to giue.  And yet peraduenture in both these cases, the vndecencie for too much crauing or sparing to craue, might be easily holpen by a decent magnificence in the Prince, as Amazas king of AEgypt very honorably considered, who asking one day for one Diopithus a noble man of his Court, what was become of him for that he had not sene him wait of long time, one about the king told him that he heard say he was sicke and of some conceit he had taken that his Maiestie had but slenderly looked to him, vsing many others very bountifully.  I beshrew his fooles head quoth the king, why had he not sued vnto vs and made vs pruie of his want, then added, but in truth we are most to blame our selues, who by a mindeful beneficence without sute should haue supplied his bashfullnesse, and forthwith commaunded a great reward in money & pension to be sent vnto him, but it hapned that when the kings messengers entred the chamber of Diopithus, he had newly giuen vp the ghost:  the messengers sorrowed the case, and Diopithus friends sate by and wept, not so much for Diopithus death, as for pitie that he ouerliued not the comming of the kings reward.  Therupon it came euer after to be vsed for a prouerbe that when any good turne commeth too late to be vsed, to cal it Diopithus reward.

In Italy and Fraunce I haue knowen it vsed for common pollicie, the Princes to differre the bestowing of their great liberalities as Cardinalships and other high dignities & offices of gayne, till the parties whom they should seeme to gratifie be so old or so sicke as it is not likely they should long enioy them.

In the time of Charles the ninth French king, I being at the Spaw waters, there lay a Marshall of Fraunce called Monsieur de Sipier, to vse those waters for his health, but when the Phisitions had all giuen him vp, and that there was no hope of life in him, came from the king to him a letters patents of six thousand crownes yearely pension during his life with many comfortable wordes:  the man was not so much past remembraunce, but he could say to the messenger trop tard, trop tard, it should haue come before, for in deede it had bene promised long and came not till now that he could not fare the better by it.