f them obnoxious to ruin, if they be of fearful natures,
it may do well; but if they be stout and daring, it may precipitate
their designs, and prove dangerous. As for the pulling of them down,
if the affairs require it, and that it may be done with safety
suddenly, the only way is the interchange continually of favours and
disgraces; whereby they may not know what to expect, and be, as it
were, in a wood. Of ambitions, it is less harmful, the ambition to
prevail in great things, than that other, to appear in every thing;
for that breeds confusion, and mars business. But yet it is less
danger to have an ambitious man stirring in business, than great in
dependences. He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a
great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to
be the only figure amongst cyphers is the decay of an whole age.
Honour hath three things in it: the vantage ground to do good; the
approach to kings and principal persons; and the raising of a man's
own fortunes. He that hath the best of these intentions, when he
aspireth, is an honest man; and that prince that can discern of these
intentions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, let
princes and states choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty
than of rising; and such as love business rather upon conscience than
upon bravery: and let them discern a busy nature from a willing mind.

_Francis Bacon._

OF GARDENS

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of
human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man;
without which, buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks: and a
man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men
come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening
were the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering of
gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year; in
which, severally, things of beauty may then be in season. For December
and January and the latter part of November, you must take such things
as are green all winter: holly; ivy; bays; juniper; cypress-trees;
yew; pine-apple-trees; fir-trees; rosemary; lavender; periwinkle, the
white, the purple, and the blue; germander; flags; orange-trees,
lemon-trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram, warm
set. There followeth, for the latter part of January and February, the
mezereon-tree, which then blossoms;