as might impoverish the people. He thought that moderate
sum might be sufficient for any accident; if either the king had
occasion for it against rebels, or the kingdom against the invasion of
an enemy; but that it was not enough to encourage a prince to invade
other men's rights, a circumstance that was the chief cause of his
making that law. He also thought that it was a good provision for that
free circulation of money, so necessary for the course of commerce and
exchange: and when a king must distribute all those extraordinary
accessions that increase treasure beyond the due pitch, it makes him
less disposed to oppress his subjects. Such a king as this will be the
terror of ill men, and will be beloved by all the good.

"If, I say, I should talk of these or such like things, to men that had
taken their bias another way, how deaf would they be to all I could
say?"--"No doubt, very deaf," answered I; and no wonder, for one is
never to offer at propositions or advice that we are certain will not be
entertained. Discourses so much out of the road could not avail
anything, nor have any effect on men whose minds were prepossessed with
different sentiments. This philosophical way of speculation is not
unpleasant among friends in a free conversation, but there is no room
for it in the Courts of Princes where great affairs are carried on by
authority."--"That is what I was saying," replied he, "that there is no
room for philosophy in the Courts of Princes."--"Yes, there is," said I,
"but not for this speculative philosophy that makes everything to be
alike fitting at all times: but there is another philosophy that is more
pliable, that knows its proper scene, accommodates itself to it, and
teaches a man with propriety and decency to act that part which has
fallen to his share. If when one of Plautus's comedies is upon the stage
and a company of servants are acting their parts, you should come out in
the garb of a philosopher, and repeat out of 'Octavia' a discourse of
Seneca's to Nero, would it not be better for you to say nothing than by
mixing things of such different natures to make an impertinent
tragi-comedy? For you spoil and corrupt the play that is in hand when
you mix with it things of an opposite nature, even though they are much
better. Therefore go through with the play that is acting the best you
can, and do not confound it because another that is pleasanter comes
into your thoughts. It is even so in a commonwea