eheaded
before him, as he once caught grief with a cough that came upon him
by standing long bareheaded before the king.

But let it be that these commodities be somewhat, such as they be.
Yet then consider whether any incommodities be so joined with them
that a man might almost as well lack both as have both. Goeth
everything evermore as every one of them would have it? That would
be as hard as to please all the people at once with one weather,
since in one house the husband would have fair weather for his corn
and his wife would have rain for her leeks! So those who are in
authority are not all evermore of one mind, but sometimes there is
variance among them, either for the respect of profit or the
contention of rule, or for maintenance of causes, sundry parts for
their sundry friends, and it cannot be that both the parties can
have their own way. Nor often are they content who see their
conclusions fail, but they take the missing of their intent ten
times more displeasantly than poor men do. And this goeth not only
for men of mean authority, but unto the very greatest. The princes
themselves cannot have, you know, all their will. For how would it
be possible, since almost every one of them would, if he could, be
lord over all the rest? Then many men, under their princes in
authority, are in such a position that many bear them privy malice
and envy in heart. And many falsely speak them full fair and praise
them with their mouth, who when there happeth any great fall unto
them, bark and bite upon them like dogs.

Finally, there is the cost and charge, the danger and peril of war,
in which their part is more than a poor man's is, since that matter
dependeth more upon them. And many a poor ploughman may sit still
by the fire while they must arise and walk.

And sometimes their authority falleth by change of their master's
mind. And of that we see daily, in one place or another, such
examples and so many that the parable of that philosopher can lack
no testimony, who likened the servants of great princes unto the
counters with which men do reckon accounts. For like as that
counter that standeth sometimes for a farthing is suddenly set up
and standeth for a thousand pound, and afterward as soon is set
down beneath to stand for a farthing again; so fareth it sometimes
with those who seek the way to rise and grow up in authority by the
favour of great princes--as they rise up high, so fall they down
again as low.

How