The French Academy
L’Academie Française was published in four volumes from 1578-98 and in English translation from 1584-1618. It has numerous parallels with The Anatomie of the Minde and Anti-Machiavel, and resembles Francis Bacon’s Essays, bearing titles “Of Ambition,” “Of Hope,” “Of Prosperity and Adversity,” etc. As with Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, it features four young French gentlemen secluded for purposes of study. In the dedication to Henri III, the author speaks of having attended the Estates General in 1576-7, as did Bacon. He begins: “Sir, if we credit the saying of Plato, commonwealths begin then to be happy, when kings exercise philosophy, and philosophers reign.” Anti-Machiavel:
There cannot come a better and more profitable thing to a people than to have a prince wise of himself; therefore, said Plato, men may call it a happy commonwealth when either the prince can play the philosopher, or when a philosopher comes to reign there.
Bacon’s Advancement of Learning:
Although he might be thought partial to his own profession, that said ‘then should people and estates be happy, when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings’; yet so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and governors there have ever been the best times.
As an example, The French Academy cites “Francis I, a prince of most famous memory, [who] so loved and favored letters and the professors of them that he deserved the name of the restorer of sciences and good arts” (in the Introduction we noted that the History of the Royal Society (1667) depicted Bacon as Artium Instaurator, “restorer of the arts”). Anti-Machiavel said “the restoration of good letters, which Francis I brought into France, did more to celebrate and immortalize his name in the memory of all Christian nations, than all the great wars and victories his predecessors had.”
As with Anti-Machiavel, The French Academy attributes France’s troubles to foreign influence:
The ruin and destruction of this French monarchy proceeds of no other second cause (our iniquity being the first) than of the mixture which we have made of strangers with ourselves. Wherein we are not contented to seek them out under their roofs, unless we also draw them unto us and lodge them under our roofs, yea prefer them before our own countrymen and citizens in the offices and honorable places of this kingdom.
An English intelligence paper sometimes credited to Francis (or Anthony) Bacon, “Notes on the Present State of Christendom” (1582), reported
division in [France] for matters of religion and state, through miscontentment of the nobility to see strangers advanced to the greatest charges of the realm, the offices of justice sold, the treasury wasted, the people polled, the country destroyed, hath bred great trouble, and like to see more.
Parallels
As You Like It:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
French Academy:
Now, among them that have most diligently observed the secrets of man’s nature, there have been two sundry opinions concerning the division of the ages of man. Some have made seven parts, adding decrepit or bedridden age after old age, and they would ground their principal reason of this division upon this, that the number of seven is a universal and absolute number.
~
French Academy:
These are those good reasons, which ought to sound often in the ears of young men, and be supplied little by little through the study of good letters, and Moral Philosophy of ancient men, until they have wholly in possession that place of manners, which is soonest moved and most easily led, and are lodged therein by knowledge and judgement, which will be as a guard to preserve and defend that age from corruption.
Troilus and Cressida:
Not much unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought unfit to hear moral philosophy. The reasons you allege do more conduce to the hot passions of distermper’d blood than to make up a free determination ‘twixt right and wrong.
Advancement of Learning:
Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded wherein he saith that young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy, because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience.
~
Much Ado About Nothing:
There was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently, However they have writ the style of the Gods, And made a push at chance and sufferance.
Bacon, letter to the Earl of Essex:
It is more than a philosopher morally can digest… I esteem it like the pulling out of an aching tooth, which I remember when I was a child and had a little philosophy, I was glad when it was done.
Bacon, “Of Anger”:
To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not: let not the sun go down on your anger.
French Academy:
Among all the ancients, the Stoic Philosophers were most zealous and precise observers of all points concerning this virtue of patience; which they grounded upon the fatal cause of necessity, requiring such exactness and perfection thereof in men, that they would have a noble heart to be no otherwise touched with adversity than with prosperity, nor with sorrowful things than with joyful. For this cause Aristotle said that virtue only was to be wished; and therefore that it was all one to be sick or sound, poor or rich; briefly, that in all other human and necessary uses of nature, there was no more evil in one kind than in another. Whereby it seems that these Philosophers delighted in painting out a picture of such patience as never was, nor shall be among men, except first they should be unclothed of all human nature, or become as blockish and senseless as a stone.
~
French Academy:
And as the heat buried in the veins of a flint seems rather dead than alive, if the sparkles be not drawn forth by the steel, so this immortal portion of celestial fire, being the fountain and first motive of all knowledge, remains without any profit or commendable action, if it be not sharpened and set on work.
Timon of Athens:
The fire i’ the flint
Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself and like the current flies
Each bound it chafes.
Troilus and Cressida:
There were wit in this head, and ‘twould
Out” – and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as
fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking.
Julius Caesar:
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb
That carries anger as the flint bears fire,
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.
~
French Academy:
Thales said that nothing in all the world was more common than Hope, because it abides with them also that have no other goods.
Measure for Measure:
The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.
~
French Academy:
Samson betrayed by Dalilah, Solomon became brutish through his concubines, Ahab rooted out through Jezebel, Mark Antony slew himself for the love of Cleopatra, the destruction of Troy because of Helena, the Pandora of Hesiod, the pitiful death of Hercules by Deiamra, and many other miserable events procured chiefly by women, and plentifully declared in histories.
Love’s Labour’s Lost:
Love is a devil. There is not evil angel but Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid’s butt shaft is too hard for Hercules’ club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard’s rapier.
~
French Academy:
Thales, one of the Sages of Greece, minding to show that it was not good for a man to marry when one asked him why he married not, being in the flower of his age, said that it was not yet time. Afterward, being grown to further age and demanded the same question, he answered, that the time was past.
Bacon, Apophthegms:
Thales being asked when a man should marry, said young men not yet, old men not at all.
~
French Academy:
And to those whose minds are not well disposed, neither riches, nor strength, nor beauty can be judged good, but the greater increase arises of them, the more harm they may procure to him that possesses them
As You Like It:
Know you not, master, to some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies? No more do yours; your virtues, gentle master, are sanctified and holy traitors to you. Oh, what a world is this, when what is comely envenoms him that bears it!
~
French Academy:
Was there ever any captain among the Romans greater than Julius Caesar? Yet was he of a weak and tender complexion, subject to great headaches, and visited sometimes with the falling sickness.
Julius Caesar:
Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foam’d at the mouth, and was speechless.
Brutus. ‘Tis very like; he hath the falling-sickness.
~
As You Like It:
Your “if” is the only peacemaker; much virtue in “if.”
French Academy:
And when they were to answer anything propounded on a sudden, avoiding all superfluous speech, their answers were very witty and well contrived, their words very significant and short, having in them both grace and gravity joined together. As when Philip king of Macedonia wrote unto them, that if he entered within Laconia, he would overthrow them topsy-turvy; they wrote back unto him only this word, If.
~
French Academy:
This was wisely noted by Philippides, when Lysimachus the king asked him what part of his goods he would have imparted unto him. “What you please Sir” (said he), “so it be no part of your secrets.”
Pericles:
Well, I perceive he was a wise fellow and had good discretion that, being bid to ask what he would of the King, desired he might know none of his secrets.
~
Troilus and Cressida:
They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand. The still and mental parts
That do contrive how many hands shall strike
When fitness calls them on and know by measure
Of their observant toil the enemy’s weight –
Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity.
They call this bed work, mappery, closet war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine,
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.
French Academy:
Fabius the Greatest comes first to my remembrance, to prove that the resolution of a courageous heart, grounded upon knowledge and the discourse of reason, is firm and immutable. This Captain of the Roman army, being sent into the field to resist the fury and violence of Hannibal, who being Captain of the Carthaginians, was entered into Italy with great force, determined for the public welfare and necessity to delay and prolong the war, and not to hazard a battle but with great advantage. Whereupon certain told him that his own men called him Hannibal’s schoolmaster, and that he was jested at with many other opprobrious speeches, as one that had small valor and courage in him; and therefore they counseled him to fight, to the end he might not incur any more such reprehensions and obloquies. I should be (said he again to them) a greater coward than now I am thought to be, if I should forsake my deliberation necessary for the common welfare and safety, for fear of their girding speeches and bolts of mockery, and obey those (to the ruin of my country) whom I ought to command. And indeed afterward he gave great tokens of his unspeakable valor, being sent with three hundred men only to encounter with the said Hannibal; and seeing that he must of necessity fight for the safety of the Commonwealth, after all his men were slain, and himself hurt to death, he rushed against Hannibal with so great violence and force of courage, that he took from him the diadem or frontlet, which he had about his head, and died with that about him.
~
French Academy:
As the remembrance of an evil is kept a long time, because that which offends is very hardly forgotten, so we commonly see that the memory of benefits received is as suddenly vanished and lost, as the fruit of the good turn is perceived.
Troilus and Cressida:
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done.
~
French Academy:
This is that which Possidonius teaches us, saying that anger is nothing else but a short fury.
Timon of Athens:
They say, my lords, “Ira furor brevis est”; But yond man is ever angry.
~
French Academy:
Timon the Athenian, detesting much more than all these the imbecility of man’s nature, used and employed all his skill to persuade his countrymen to abridge and shorten the course of their so miserable life, and to hasten their end by hanging themselves upon gibbets, which he had caused to set up in great number, in a field that he bought for the same purpose, unto whose persuasions many gave place.
Timon of Athens:
Tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither ere my tree hath felt the ax,
And hang himself.
~
French Academy:
But to the end we confound not together that which is simply divine, with that which is human, I think we ought to make a double hope; the first true, certain, and infallible, which concerns holy and sacred mysteries; the other doubtful, respecting earthly things only.
Troilus and Cressida:
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promised largeness. Checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest reared,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infects the sound pine and diverts his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
~
French Academy:
Sir, if we credit the saying of Plato, commonwealths begin then to be happy, when kings exercise philosophy, and philosophers reign.
Anti-Machiavel:
I am content to presuppose that it is certain that there cannot come a better and more profitable thing to a people than to have a prince wise of himself; therefore, said Plato, men may call it a happy commonwealth when either the prince can play the philosopher, or when a philosopher comes to reign there.
~
French Academy:
The desire which Plato had to profit many caused him to sail from Greece into Sicily, that by grave discourses and wise instructions he might stay and contain within the bounds of reason the young years of Dionysius, prince of that country, who through unbridled liberty and power not limited waved hither and thither without restraint. Afterward, when he began to be in love with the beauty of learning, he left off little by little his drunkenness, maskings, and whoredoms, wherein before he gloried; insomuch that his court was wholly changed upon a sudden, as if it had been inspired from heaven. But within a while after, Dionysius giving ear to flatterers, banished Plato; to whom when he took his leave of him, the tyrant said, I doubt not, Plato, but you will speak ill of me when you are in the University among thy companions and friends. Whereupon the philosopher smiling and observing that freedom of speech which he had always used towards him, made this answer. I pray God, Sir, there may never be so great want of matter to speak of in the University, that we need to speak of thee.
Anatomie of the Minde:
It is written of Dionysius, a most cruel tyrant, that as long as he perceived himself to be well reported of, he was a good man, but when the privy talk to his defamation came to his ears, he then began to leave his good nature, and to exercise all kind of cruelty toward his subjects, and became the most cruel Prince that ever was.
~
French Academy:
It is a hard matter (said Socrates) for a man to bridle his desire, but he that addeth riches therunto, is mad.
Anti- Machiavel:
Who could then bridle vices and iniquities, which are fed with much wealth, and no less liberty?
~
French Academy:
He that has but half an eye may see that there are a great many amongst us of those foolish men of whom David speaks, Who say in their hearts that there is no God. In the forefront of which company, the students of Machiavel’s principles and practicers of his precepts may worthily be ranged. This bad fellow, whose works are no less accounted of among his followers than were Apollo’s oracles amongst the heathen, nay than the sacred Scriptures are among sound Christians, blushed not to belch out these horrible blasphemies against pure religion, and so against God the author thereof…
Anti-Machiavel:
For what shall I speak of religion, whereof the Machiavellians had none, as already plainly appears; yet they greatly labored also to deprive us of the same… he is of no reputation in the court of France who has not Machiavelli’s writings at the fingers’ ends, both in the Italian and French tongues, and can apply his precepts to all purposes, as the oracles of Apollo.
~
French Academy:
For the ruin and destruction of this French monarchy proceeds of no other second cause (our iniquity being the first) than of the mixture which we have made of strangers with ourselves. Wherein we are not contented to seek them out under their roofs, unless we also draw them unto us and lodge them under our roofs, yea prefer them before our own countrymen and citizens in the offices and honorable places of this kingdom… they have left us nothing but new manners and fashions of living in all dissoluteness and pleasure; except this one thing also, that we have learned of them to dissemble, and withal to frame and build a treason very subtly. Such is the provision wherewith our French youth is commonly furnished by their Italian voyages.
Anti-Machiavel:
For besides the examples we read in histories, we know it by experience, seeing at this day all France fashioned after the manners, conditions, and vices of foreigners that govern it, and who have the principal charges and estates. And not only many Frenchmen are such beasts to conform themselves to strangers’ complexions, but also to gaggle their language and disdain the French tongue as a thing too common and vulgar.
~
French Academy:
This is that which at length (as Crates the philosopher said very well) stirs up civil wars, seditions, and tyrannies within cities; to the end that such voluptuous men, and ambitious of vainglory, fishing in a troubled water, may have wherewith to maintain their foolish expenses, and so come to the end of their platforms.
Anti-Machiavel:
And would to God that the French nation had never been of that nature and condition to do well unto strangers, without first knowing and trying their behaviors and manner of life. We should not then see France to be governed and ruled by strangers, as it is; we should not feel the calamities and troubles of civil wars and dissentions, which they enterprise to maintain their greatness and magnitude, and to fish in troubled water.
~
French Academy:
But whatsoever my speech has been hitherto, my meaning is not to find fault with the right use of hospitality, which ought to be maintained and kept inviolable in every well-established commonwealth. In this respect France has been commended above all nations for entertaining and receiving all sorts of people; provided always that they be not preferred before our own children, and that they be contented to obey and live according to the common laws of the country.
Anti-Machiavel:
For hospitality is recommended unto us by God, and it is a very laudable virtue for men to entertain strangers and entertain them well; but strangers also ought to content themselves to be welcomed and entertained in a country or town, without aspiring to master or hold offices and estates. The French nation is that which of all Christendom receives and loves strangers most, for they are as welcome all over France as those of their own nation.
~
French Academy:
What ought they to do, that say they are all members of that one head, who recommends so expressly unto them meekness, mildness, gentleness, grace, clemency, mercy, good will, compassion, and every good affection towards their neighbor? All which things are comprehended under this only sacred word of Charity.
Anti-Machiavel:
True charity is joined unto faith, pity, and all other virtues
~
French Academy:
Notwithstanding, wisely applying themselves to places and persons, they can in their serious discourses intermingle some honest pastimes, but yet not altogether without profit. As Plato in his foresaid feast interlaces certain comical speeches of love, howbeit all the rest of the supper there was nothing but wise discourses of philosophy.
Anti-Machiavel:
But seeing we are entered into this talk, we will look deeper into the matter to draw out some good resolution from this question, by the way only of a tentative and pleasant disputation, and not of a full determination hereof. For as Cato says, amongst serious things joyous and merry things would be sometimes mixed.
~
French Academy:
Kings, princes and magistrates, who because they see and hear for the most part by other men’s eyes and ears, ought necessarily to have such friends, counsellors, and servants about them, as will freely tell them the truth, as hereafter we may discourse more at large.
Anti-Machiavel:
And to attend while the prince himself begins the matter first to his council, would be in vain; for he cannot propose what he does not know, and it is a notorious and plain thing that the prince, who is always shut up in a house or within a troupe of his people, sees not nor knows how things pass, but what men make him see and know.
~
French Academy:
Francis I, a prince of most famous memory, so loved and favored letters and the professors of them that he deserved the name of the restorer of sciences and good arts, sparing neither care nor means to assemble together books and volumes of sundry sorts and of all languages for the beautifying of his so renowned a library, which was a worthy monument of such a magnifical Monarch; whose praiseworthy qualities we see revived in our king, treading in the selfsame steps.
Anti-Machiavel:
We see that the restoration of good letters, which Francis I brought into France, did more to celebrate and immortalize his name in the memory of all Christian nations, than all the great wars and victories his predecessors had… In our time Francis I imitated the example of this great and wise emperor, establishing public lectures at great wages in the University of Paris, a thing whereof his memory has been and shall be more celebrated through the world than for so many great wars he valiantly sustained during his reign… You have gloriously crowned that work, which that great king Francis your grandfather did happily begin, to the end that arts and sciences might flourish in this kingdom.
~
French Academy:
It is a usual speech in the mouths of men altogether ignorant of the beauty and profit of Sciences, that the study of letters is a bottomless gulf, and so long and uneasy a journey that they who think to finish it, oftentimes stay in the midway, and many being come to the end thereof find their minds so confused with their profound and curious skill, that instead of tranquility of soul, which they thought to find, they have increased the trouble of their spirit.
Anti-Machiavel:
For there are at this day infinite persons who so much please themselves in profane authors, some in poets, some in historiographers, some in philosophy, some in physic, or in law, that they care nothing to read or else to know anything for the salvation and comfort of their souls. Some care not at all for it, others reserve that study until they have ended the studies of other sciences, and in the meanwhile the time runs away, and often it comes to pass that when they leave this world, their profane studies are not ended, nor the study of holy letters commenced, and so they die like beasts.
~
French Academy:
Through want of skill and ignorance he falls into a worse estate than he was in before, and as we commonly say, from a gentle ague into a pestilent and burning fever.
Anti-Machiavel:
They were fallen from a shaking fever into a hot ague, as the French proverb is.
~
French Academy:
Whereunto also the precepts and discourses of learned and ancient philosophers may serve for our instruction and pricking forward; as also the examples (which are lively reasons) of the lives of so many notable men, as histories, the mother of antiquity, do as it were represent alive before our eyes.
Anti-Machiavel:
And you, good Edward, imitate the wisdom, sanctimony, and integrity of your father, the Right Honorable Lord Nicholas Bacon, Keeper of the broad Seal of England, a man right renowned; that you may lively express the image of your father’s virtues in the excellent towardness which you naturally have from your most virtuous father. If you both daily ruminate and remember the familiar and best known examples of your ancestors, you cannot have more forcible persuasions to move you to that which is good and honest.
~
French Academy:
If we compare worldly goods with virtue (calling that good which usurps that name, and is subject to corruption); first, as touching those which the philosophers call the goods of fortune, and namely nobility, whereon at this day men stay so much; what is it but a good of our ancestors?
Anti-Machiavel:
I will also note another notable vice which runs current among gentlemen at this day, which is that they make so great account of their nobility of blood that they esteem not the nobility of virtue; insomuch that it seems to some that no vices can dishonor or pollute the nobility and gentry which they have from their ancestors. But they ought well to consider that to their race there was a beginning of nobility, which was attributed to the first that was noble in consideration of some virtue that was in him.
~
French Academy:
Ambition truly is the most vehement and strongest passion of all those wherewith men’s minds are troubled; and yet many notable and virtuous men have so mastered it by the force of their temperance that oftentimes they accepted offices and estates of supreme authority, as it were by compulsion and with grief; yea some altogether contemned and willingly forsook them.
Anti-Machiavel:
Besides all this, in the election of counsellors and magistrates he did ever suspect those who sought offices, and held them for ambitious and dangerous people to the common weal. But they who he could know to be good men and worthy of public charge, and never sought it, these were they who he esteemed most sufficient; and the more they excused themselves from accepting offices, so much the more were they constrained unto them.
~
French Academy:
The custom that Aurelius Severus used is much more praiseworthy. For when he sent governors into the provinces, he caused their names to be published many days before, to the end that whosoever knew anything in them worthy of reprehension, he should give notice thereof; and they that reported truly, were promoted to honor by him and slanderers grievously punished.
Anti-Machiavel:
And upon that point, it seems to me that the manner of proceeding which Alexander Severus used to choose his counsellors and his magistrates, is very good and merits well to be imitated and drawn into consequence… And the better to be informed of the reputation of persons whereof he had proffers by his wise friends, he caused to be set up in common streets and great public areas, where many ways meet, certain posts to fix bills upon them, whereupon was written certain exhortations unto the people, that if any man had anything to say against such and such a man (which he named) wherefore they might not be received and admitted to such and such an office, that he should denounce it. And so made those commands by placards, to the end he might better discover and be advertised of the virtues and vices of persons.
~
French Academy:
Caligula, a most cruel emperor, never had secure and quiet rest, but being terrified and in fear awoke often, as one that was vexed and carried headlong with wonderful passions. Nero, after he had killed his mother, confessed that while he slept he was troubled by her, and tormented with Furies that burned him with flaming torches.
Anti-Machiavel:
What repose could Nero have, who confessed that often the likeness of his mother, whom he slew, appeared to him, which tormented and afflicted him; and that the furies beat him with rods and tormented him with burning torches. What delicateness or sweetness of life could Caligula and Caracalla have? who always carried coffers full of all manners of poisons, as well to poison others as themselves in case of necessity, for fear they should fall alive into the hands of their enemies.
~
Anti-Machiavel:
The governor of Judea, called Petronius, would have placed an image of Caligula in the great temple of Jerusalem; but the Jews, who extremely detested images, would not suffer him; whereby there was likely to have been a great sedition.
French Academy:
Caligula, a Roman emperor, sent Petronius into Syria with commandment to make war with the Jews if they would not receive his image into their temple. Which when they refused to do, Petronius said unto them that then belike they would fight against Caesar, not weighing his wealth or their own weaknesses and inability.
~
French Academy:
Alexander the Great, being by the states of all Greece chosen general captain to pass into Asia and to make war with the Persians, before he took ship he inquired after the estate of all his friends to know what means they had to follow him. Then he distributed and gave to one lands, to another a village, to this man the custom of some haven, to another the profit of some borough town, bestowing in this manner the most part of his demeans and revenues. And when Perdicas, one of his lieutenants, demanded of him what he reserved for himself: he answered Hope.
Anti-Machiavel:
When Alexander the Great departed from Macedonia to go to the conquest of Asia, he had all the captains of his army appear before him and distributed to them almost all the revenue of his kingdom, leaving himself almost nothing. One of the captains, named Perdicas, said to him: “What then will you keep for yourself?” “Even hope,” answered Alexander.
~
French Academy:
Anaxarchus the philosopher, being taken prisoner by the commandment of Nero, that he might know of him who were the authors of a conspiracy that was made against his estate, and being led towards him for the same cause, he bit his tongue in sunder with his teeth and spit in his face, knowing well that otherwise the tyrant would have compelled him by all sorts of tortures and torments to reveal and disclose them. Zeno missing his purpose, which was to have killed the tyrant Demylus, did as much to him.
The Anatomie of the Minde:
Zeno the Stoic being cruelly tormented of a King of Cypress to utter those things which the king was desirous to know, at length because he would not satisfy his mind, bit off his own tongue, and spit the same in the tormentor’s face. But the constancy of Anaxarchus was more strange, for being taken of Nicocreon, a most cruel of all other Tyrants, and afterward hearing that by the commandment of the Tyrant he should in a mortar he bruised and broken into pieces, said most constantly unto him in this manner; Bruise and break this body of mine at thy pleasure O Tyrant, yet shalt thou never diminish any whit of Anaxarchus. Then the Tyrant because he could not abide his bold speech, commanded that his tongue should be cut out of his mouth. But Anaxarchus laughing at his madness, thought he should never have his mind, and therefore he bit out his own tongue and spit the same by mammocks upon the tyrant’s face.
~
Anatomie of the Minde:
what so savage as Xerxes, which appointed a great reward unto him, which invented a new pleasure never heard of before?
French Academy:
Xerxes, monarch of the Persians, was so intemperate and given to lust that he propounded rewards for those that could invent some new kind of pleasure; and therefore coming into Greece with an infinite number of men to subdue it, he was overcome and repulsed by a small number, as being an effeminate and fainthearted man.
~
French Academy:
Fabius the Greatest comes first to my remembrance, to prove that the resolution of a courageous heart, grounded upon knowledge and the discourse of reason, is firm and immutable. This captain of the Roman army being sent into the field to resist the fury and violence of Hannibal, who being captain of the Carthaginians, was entered into Italy with great force, determined for the public welfare and necessity to delay and prolong the war, and not to hazard a battle but with great advantage.
Anti-Machiavel:
Seeing this, the Roman Senate sent against Hannibal Fabius Maximus, who was not so forward (and it may be not so hardy) as Flaminius or Sempronius were; but he was more wise and careful, as he showed himself. On his arrival he did not set upon Hannibal, who desired no other thing, but began to coast him far off, seeking always advantageous places. And when Hannibal approached him, then would he show him a countenance fully determined to fight, yet always seeking places of advantage. But Hannibal, who was not so rash as to join with his enemy to his own disadvantage, made a show to recoil and fly, to draw him after him. Fabius followed him, but upon coasts and hills, seeking always not the shortest way, but that way which was most for his advantage.
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French Academy:
Scipio Africanus, general of the Romans, at the taking of the city of Carthage had a young damsel taken prisoner, of rare and excellent beauty. And when he understood of what great calling she came, and how her parents not long before had betrothed her to a great lord of Spain, he commanded that he should be sent for, and restored her unto him without abusing her in any respect, although he was in the flower of his age and had free and sovereign authority. Moreover, he gave for a dowry with her the money that was brought unto him for her ransom.
Anti-Machiavel:
Yet the example of clemency in Scipio Africanus is more notable than this of his father and uncle. After the deaths of his said father and uncle, this young lord full of all generosity and hardiness came to besiege New Carthage in Spain, and got it by assault… Among other hostages, there was a young lady of a great house brought to Scipio, who was of so great beauty that as she passed by she drew each man’s regard upon her. This lady was affianced to one Allucius, prince of the Celts. Scipio, taking knowledge of her parents and to whom she was affianced, and that Allucius extremely loved her, sent for them all… The said lady’s parents stepped forward and presented to him a great quantity of gold and silver for their daughter’s ransom, which though Scipio refused it, they pressed it so sore upon him that he accorded to take it, and bade them lay it before him. Scipio called Allucius and said to him, Good friend, besides the dowry which your father-in-law will give you, my desire is that you will take this silver at my hands as an increase of her dowry.
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French Academy:
Camillus, a Roman dictator, is no less to be commended for that which he did during the siege of the City of the Fallerians. For he that was schoolmaster of the chiefest men’s children among them, being gone out of the city, under color to have his youth to walk and to exercise themselves along the walls, delivered them into the hands of the Roman captain; saying unto him that he might be well assured the citizens would yield themselves to his devotion, for the safety and liberty of that which was dearest unto them. But Camillus, knowing this to be too vile and wicked a practice, said to those that were with him, that although men used great outrage and violence in war, yet among good men certain laws and points of equity were to be observed. For victory was not so much to be desired, as that it should be gotten and kept by such cursed and damnable means; but a general ought to war, trusting to his own virtue, and not to the wickedness of others. Then stripping the said schoolmaster, and bending his hands behind him, he delivered him naked into the hands of his scholars, and gave to each of them a bundle of rods, that so they might carry him back again into the city. For which noble act the citizens yielded themselves to the Romans, saying that in preferring justice before victory, they had taught them to choose rather to submit themselves unto them, than to retain still their liberty; confessing withal that they were overcome more by their virtue than vanquished by their force and power.
Anti-Machiavel:
Camillus, a Roman general, besieged the town of Falisques, the Romans’ enemies. The schoolmaster of Falisques enterprised a great wickedness and villainy; for making a countenance to lead, for sport and pastime, the youth of that town who were committed to him to be instructed, he straight brought them to Camillus’ camp, hoping he would give some good recompense, speaking in this manner. “Lord Camillus, I yield into your hands the town of Falisques, for I here bring you their dear and loving children, which to recover they will easily yield themselves to you.” To whom Camillus answered, “Wicked wretch, you do not address yourself to your like. We have by compacts no society with the Falisques, but by nature we have; we are not ignorant of the right of war and of peace, which we will courageously observe. We make not war upon young children, for even when we take towns, we pardon them, so do we also to them who bear arms against us. You would vanquish the Falisques by deceit and villainy, but I will vanquish them by virtue and arms, as I overcame the Veians.” After this, Camillus commanded to bind the schoolmaster’s hands behind him, and to give all the scholars rods in their hands, who whipped him naked into the town. As thus in this sort the children brought their master to the town, all the people ran to see the spectacle; which so changed their courage, before full of wrath and hatred against the Romans, that they straight sent delegates to Camillus to desire peace, admiring the Roman clemency and justice. Camillus, knowing that he alone could not enterprise to conclude a peace, sent the delegates towards the Senate of Rome, where on arriving they made this speech. “My masters, having been vanquished by an agreeable victory both to gods and men, we yield ourselves to you, knowing that our estate shall be better under your domination than in our own liberties and customs. The issue of this war will serve hereafter for a double example to all mankind, for it seems you better love loyalty in war than present victory. And we, being provoked by your kindness and loyalty, gladly and willingly yield you the victory. We offer ourselves your subjects, and we shall never repent ourselves of your domination, nor you of your loyalty.” The peace and alliance accorded to the Falisques, Camillus entered Rome in triumph, and was more esteemed to be a victor by clemency than if it had been by arms.
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French Academy:
Caracalla the emperor, traveling with his army towards the Parthians, under pretense of marrying the daughter of Artabanus their king, who came for the same purpose to meet him, he set upon him contrary to his faith, and put him to flight with an incredible murder of his men. But within a while after, being come down from his horse to make water, he was slain by his own men; which was noted as a just punishment sent from God for his unfaithfulness.
Anti-Machiavel:
[Caracalla] also played another part of treachery, under the pretext and show of marriage, with Artabanus, king of the Parthians. For he wrote letters to him whereby he signified that their empires were the two greatest empires of the world; and that being the son of a Roman emperor, he could not find a better wife than the daughter of the king of the Parthians. He therefore asked her hand in marriage, to join the greatest empires of the earth and to end their wars. The king at first denied Caracalla his daughter, saying that such a marriage was very unfit because of the diversity of their languages, manners, and habits; also because the Romans had never before allied or married with the Parthians. But upon this refusal Caracalla insisted and pressed him more strongly than before, and sent to Artabanus great gifts, so that in the end he gave to him his daughter. Caracalla, assuring himself that he would find no hostility in the Parthian country, boldly entered far into it with his army, saying he went but to see the king’s daughter. On the other side, Artabanus prepared himself and his retinue in as good order as was possible, without any army, to go meet his new son-in-law. What did this perfidious Caracalla? As soon as the two parties met, and Artabanus came near to salute and embrace him, he commanded his soldiers to charge upon the Parthians. The Romans attacked as if there had been an assigned battle, and there was a great slaughter made of the Parthians; but the king, with the help of a good horse, escaped with great difficulty and danger. He determined to revenge himself of that villainy and treachery; but Macrinus relieved him of that pain, and soon slew that monster Caracalla, who was already detested through all the world because of his perfidy.
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French Academy:
Antoninus and Geta, brothers and successors in the empire to Severus their father, could not suffer one another to enjoy so large a monarchy; for Antoninus slew his brother Geta with a dagger, that himself might rule alone.
Anti-Machiavel:
Severus intending to leave the government of the empire to his two sons together, flatterers about them disposed it otherwise… Those two young princes fell into so great and mortal enmity, that not only they hated all each other’s friends and servants, but also those who would have reconciled them. As soon as their father Severus was dead, Laetus, one of the marmosets of Bassianus, persuaded him to slay his brother and feign that he was assailed by him. This counsel was found good by Bassianus, who was audacious enough and ready to give the blow with his own hand. One morning he entered into the chamber of empress Julia, Geta’s mother, and finding him there he slew him between his mother’s arms.
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French Academy:
And it is greatly to be feared that such unskillful and ambitious men will in the end show themselves both in will and practice to be imitators of one Cleander, an outlandish slave, who being preferred by Commodus the emperor to goodly offices and great places of honor, as to be great master of his men of war and his chief chamberlain, conspired notwithstanding against his lord, seeking to attain to the imperial dignity by seditions which he stirred up in Rome between the people and the soldiers. But through good order taken, his enterprise took no effect, except the loss of his own head and destruction of his house.
Anti-Machiavel:
Cleander was another marmoset who succeeded in his place; who at the beginning made some show that he would do better, but soon did worse. He practiced many cruelties, and sold the estates and governments of provinces to those who would offer most. There happened at Rome then a great famine and pestilence. The people, who always lay the cause of public calamity upon the governors, bruited abroad that Cleander was the cause of the plague and the famine, and therefore should die. Cleander, to stop this rumor and cause the people to hold their peace, had the emperor’s horsemen rush through the town and suburbs, slaying and wounding innumerable. But the people began to take houses and fight from the windows so well that the horsemen were constrained to retire. Fadilla, the sister of Commodus, seeing this civil war commenced and raised by Cleander, went to find her brother, whom she found among his harlots. All bewept she fell on her knees before him, saying, “Sir, my brother, you are here taking your pleasures, and know not the things that pass, nor the danger wherein you are. For both yours and our blood is in peril, to be altogether exterminated by the war and civil stir Cleander has raised in the town. He has armed your forces, and has made them rush against the people, and has brought them unto a slaughter more than barbarous, filling the streets with Roman blood. If you do not soon put to death the author of this evil, the people will fall upon you and us, and tear us in pieces.” Saying these words, she tore her garments and was very sad, as it were desperate. Many also who were present increased the fear of Commodus by their persuasions; fearing some great danger to himself, he sent in haste for Cleander, who knew nothing of his complaint. As soon as he arrived, Commodus had his head cut off and carried on a pike through the town, and the sight of the head appeased the people.
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French Academy:
And lastly, for the upshot and perfection of all happiness and felicity in this world, he instructs him how he may lead a quiet and peaceable life in beholding the wonderful works of the divinity, which he is to adore and honor, and in the amendment and correction of his manners naturally corrupted, by squaring them after the pattern of virtue, that so he may be made worthy and fit to govern human affairs, for the profit of many; and at length attain to the perfection of a wise man, by joining together the active life with the contemplative in the certain hope and expectation of a second, immortal and most blessed life.
Anti-Machiavel:
Very true it is, that among Christians there must be some contemplatives, that is to say, studious people who give themselves to holy letters in order to teach others. But we do not find by the documents of that religion that there is allowed any idle contemplation of dreamers, who do nothing but imagine dreams and toys in their brains; but a contemplative life of laboring studious people is only approved, who give themselves to letters to teach others. For after they have accomplished their studies, they ought to put in use and action that which they know, bringing into an active life that which they have learned by their study in their contemplative life. And those who use this otherwise do not follow the precepts of the true Christian religion.
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French Academy:
For this cause the ancient Romans built two temples joined together, the one being dedicated to virtue and the other to honor; but yet in such sort that no man could enter into that of honor except first he passed through the other of virtue.
Anatomie of the Minde:
Marcellus building a temple, which he called the temple of Honor, did so place and situate the same, as none could have entrance thereunto, except first he came through Virtue’s temple. Signifying thereby, that the way to honor, is by virtue only, not by favor, money, nor other means.