could, and make it flourish as much as possible; that he
should love his people, and be beloved of them; that he should live
among them, govern them gently, and let other kingdoms alone, since that
which had fallen to his share was big enough, if not too big for him.
Pray how do you think would such a speech as this be heard?"--"I
confess," said I, "I think not very well."

"But what," said he, "if I should sort with another kind of ministers,
whose chief contrivances and consultations were, by what art the
prince's treasures might be increased. Where one proposes raising the
value of specie when the king's debts are large, and lowering it when
his revenues were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a
little, and in a little receive a great deal: another proposes a
pretence of a war, that money might be raised in order to carry it on,
and that a peace be concluded as soon as that was done; and this with
such appearances of religion as might work on the people, and make them
impute it to the piety of their prince, and to his tenderness for the
lives of his subjects. A third offers some old musty laws, that have
been antiquated by a long disuse; and which, as they had been forgotten
by all the subjects, so they had been also broken by them; and proposes
the levying the penalties of these laws, that as it would bring in a
vast treasure, so there might be a very good pretence for it, since it
would look like the executing a law, and the doing of justice. A fourth
proposes the prohibiting of many things under severe penalties,
especially such as were against the interest of the people, and then the
dispensing with these prohibitions upon great compositions, to those who
might find their advantage in breaking them. This would serve two ends,
both of them acceptable to many; for as those whose avarice led them to
transgress would be severely fined, so the selling licenses dear would
look as if a prince were tender of his people, and would not easily, or
at low rates, dispense with anything that might be against the public
good. Another proposes that the judges must be made sure, that they may
declare always in favour of the prerogative, that they must be often
sent for to Court, that the king may hear them argue those points in
which he is concerned; since how unjust soever any of his pretensions
may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction
to others, or the pride of singularity, or to make