nd he that standeth at a stay, when others rise, can
hardly avoid motions of envy. On the other side, nobility extinguisheth
the passive envy from others, towards them; because they are in
possession of honor. Certainly, kings that have able men of their
nobility, shall find ease in employing them, and a better slide into
their business; for people naturally bend to them, as born in some sort
to command.

Of Seditions And Troubles

SHEPHERDS of people, had need know the calendars of tempests in state;
which are commonly greatest, when things grow to equality; as natural
tempests are greatest about the Equinoctia. And as there are certain
hollow blasts of wind, and secret swellings of seas before a tempest, so
are there in states:

--Ille etiam caecos instare tumultus
Saepe monet, fraudesque et operta tunescere bella.

Libels and licentious discourses against the state, when they are
frequent and open; and in like sort, false news often running up and
down, to the disadvantage of the state, and hastily embraced; are
amongst the signs of troubles. Virgil, giving the pedigree of Fame,
saith, she was sister to the Giants:

Illam Terra parens, irra irritata deorum, Extremam (ut perhibent) Coeo
Enceladoque sororem Progenuit.

As if fames were the relics of seditions past; but they are no less,
indeed, the preludes of seditions to come. Howsoever he noteth it right,
that seditious tumults, and seditious fames, differ no more but as
brother and sister, masculine and feminine; especially if it come to
that, that the best actions of a state, and the most plausible, and
which ought to give greatest contentment, are taken in ill sense, and
traduced: for that shows the envy great, as Tacitus saith; conflata
magna invidia, seu bene seu male gesta premunt. Neither doth it follow,
that because these fames are a sign of troubles, that the suppressing
of them with too much severity, should be a remedy of troubles. For the
despising of them, many times checks them best; and the going about
to stop them, doth but make a wonder long-lived. Also that kind of
obedience, which Tacitus speaketh of, is to be held suspected: Erant
in officio, sed tamen qui mallent mandata imperantium interpretari quam
exequi; disputing, excusing, cavilling upon mandates and directions, is
a kind of shaking off the yoke, and assay of disobedience; especially if
in those disputings, they which are for the direction, speak fearfully
a