Who does more earnestly long for
a change, than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who
run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness, as those who have
nothing to lose, hope to gain by them? If a king should fall under such
contempt or envy, that he could not keep his subjects in their duty, but
by oppression and ill usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable,
it were certainly better for him to quit his kingdom, than to retain it
by such methods, as makes him while he keeps the name of authority, lose
the majesty due to it. Nor is it so becoming the dignity of a king to
reign over beggars, as over rich and happy subjects. And therefore
Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, said, he would rather
govern rich men, than be rich himself; since for one man to abound in
wealth and pleasure, when all about him are mourning and groaning, is to
be a gaoler and not a king. He is an unskilful physician, that cannot
cure one disease without casting his patient into another: so he that
can find no other way for correcting the errors of his people, but by
taking from them the conveniences of life, shows that he knows not what
it is to govern a free nation. He himself ought rather to shake off his
sloth, or to lay down his pride; for the contempt or hatred that his
people have for him, takes its rise from the vices in himself. Let him
live upon what belongs to him, without wronging others, and accommodate
his expense to his revenue. Let him punish crimes, and by his wise
conduct let him endeavour to prevent them, rather than be severe when he
has suffered them to be too common: let him not rashly revive laws that
are abrogated by disuse, especially if they have been long forgotten,
and never wanted; and let him never take any penalty for the breach of
them, to which a judge would not give way in a private man, but would
look on him as a crafty and unjust person for pretending to it. To these
things I would add, that law among the Macarians, a people that lie not
far from Utopia, by which their king, on the day on which he begins to
reign, is tied by an oath confirmed by solemn sacrifices, never to have
at once above a thousand pounds of gold in his treasures, or so much
silver as is equal to that in value. This law, they tell us, was made by
an excellent king, who had more regard to the riches of his country than
to his own wealth; and therefore provided against the heaping up of so
much treasure,