(27) The second speech was thus:  Caesar did extremely affect the name of king; and some were set on as he passed by in popular acclamation to salute him king.  Whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname:  Non Rex sum, sed Caesar; a speech that, if it be searched, the life and fulness of it can scarce be expressed.  For, first, it was a refusal of the name, but yet not serious; again, it did signify an infinite confidence and magnanimity, as if he presumed Caesar was the greater title, as by his worthiness it is come to pass till this day.  But chiefly it was a speech of great allurement toward his own purpose, as if the state did strive with him but for a name, whereof mean families were vested; for Rex was a surname with the Romans, as well as King is with us.

(28) The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus, when Caesar, after war declared, did possess himself of this city of Rome; at which time, entering into the inner treasury to take the money there accumulate, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him.  Whereto Caesar said, “That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place.”  And presently taking himself up, he added, “Young man, it is harder for me to speak it than to do it—­ Adolescens, durius est mihi hoc dicere quam facere.”  A speech compounded of the greatest terror and greatest clemency that could proceed out of the mouth of man.

(29) But to return and conclude with him, it is evident himself knew well his own perfection in learning, and took it upon him, as appeared when upon occasion that some spake what a strange resolution it was in Lucius Sylla to resign his dictators, he, scoffing at him to his own advantage, answered, “That Sylla could not skill of letters, and therefore knew not how to dictate.”

(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the concurrence of military virtue and learning (for what example should come with any grace after those two of Alexander and Caesar?), were it not in regard of the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one other particular, as that which did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme wonder:  and it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from Socrates’ school into Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against King Artaxerxes.  This Xenophon at that time was very young, and never had seen the wars before, neither had any command in the army, but only followed the war as a voluntary, for the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend.  He was present when Falinus came in message from the great king to the Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of men, left to themselves in the midst of the king’s territories, cut off from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles.  The message imported that they should deliver up their arms and submit themselves to the king’s mercy.  To which message,