petent for the execution. And so Machiavel observes, it was an absurd inadvertency in those who conspired the assassination of Julius and Lorenzo de Medicis, in the church, presuming that they would come and sit together, and so provided three men very equal to the undertaking; two of them being gentlemen of known valour and resolution, and of implacable malice to the persons and to the family of the Medicis, and the third a priest of great strength, and wickedness enough to undertake, and courage to execute what he undertook: but the two brothers not coming together, and the article of time for the execution being agreed upon to be in the moment of the elevation, the conspirators were compelled to divide the work, and to design the priest to dispatch Lorenzo, who was first come, and sat near the altar in a crowd of persons of honour, without the least apprehension of danger, and committed the slaughter of the other to the two resolute persons. Julius came later to the church, and was in the embraces of the one, when he was struck into the heart with a dagger by the other; whereby all three falling together, and multiplying their strokes, not knowing that there was enough done before, one of them struck his dagger through his own thigh; and yet by the confusion and consternation the people were in, they both got out of the church, and left Julius dead

upon the place. The priest was not less intent upon his work, nor less resolved to perform it, and in the precise minute of that holy exercise, assaulted Lorenzo with his undiscerned and unsuspected dagger, and struck him into the throat; but though he reiterated his strokes, either by the posture that he himself or the other was in, or by not directing his blows to the most mortal places, Lorenzo made some defence with his hands, and after with his sword, till with the help of others he got into the sacresty, and barricadoed the door, till he found that the conspirators were employed rather to save their own lives, than to prosecute his; and so he retired to his house to take care of his wounds. Machiavel observes, that the miscarriage of this enterprise was the effect of the unaptness of the priest to be relied upon in such an affair; for though he was expert enough in many other sorts of villainy, he had not been often enough conversant in assassination, and so was more disturbed or discomposed in the execution of it, than an expert man would have been. Without doubt, all counsels, good or bad, do depend for the pursuance thereof upon so many circumstances, that there ought to be at least as much circumspection in the choice of proper instruments to conduct them, as in all the other deliberations.

Having now prosecuted this subject at least far

enough, and it may be said some things over and over; and that I may not be thought an enemy to contemplation, without which no great action was ever well or warrantably performed, I am willing to find a classis of men, whose virtues grow out of, and consequently may be divided between, the active and the contemplative life, and so give great perfection to both. My exception only is against those who fancy that a mind utterly uninformed and unexperienced, shall, by being dedicated to retirement and privacy, by that repose and contemplation, not only preserve a greater innocence, but attain to a greater perfection for the performance of those duties which are incumbent on us. Which I must always deny, and cannot conceive that thinking to any purpose is a fruit that grows out of solitude, but rather that it may be well called a faculty that is attained with great difficulty; and the want of which is the fountain and source from whence the most, if not the greatest, inconveniences flow in the actions of mankind; which methinks should appear very credible upon the observation of all men who hear the excuses which are every day made, and truly made, by those who do amiss, that they did not think of it; and it is a real disease that infests the bodies, and ruins the estates of more men than all the fevers which usually reign: and yet that kind of think

ing, though it might prevent many of the follies which happen, would not be enough to constitute that wisdom of which we are discoursing. The wise man that should reform and establish governments, without exposing them to apparent hazards and dangers, who would at the same time have an influence upon the spirits of princes, and compose the minds of the people, and produce a conformity in the obedience of the one to the wishes of the other, and bring all such other things to pass, from whence men come to be reputed wise and fortunate, must compound his life both out of action and contemplation, and they must as it were succeed each other, alternis vicibus. If a man who hath been well versed in the conduct of affairs, and the nature of men, would voluntarily quit the stage, and retire to a condition of chearful contemplation; and if he who hath conversed with few but with himself, or with others at that distance, that he may be said rather to know their names than the men, but is abundantly stocked with the best observations out of the best books, would retire from his retirement, and first make himself acquainted with men, and then with business by degrees; for there may be more poured in together than the vessel can receive and retain, which all men find who do not come gradatim, but per saltum, to employment; either of such men would be fit

to stand in a breach that threatens the ruin of a nation, would stand upon a precipice without stirring, and by his convincing reasons subdue the passions, and reform the irregularities of the most froward and insolent persons, when from such a recess, and after such an advance, they return to their former station. But, as I said be fore, this must be a voluntary recess, that may carry with it that serenity of mind that is fit to revolve all he hath done, and all that he hath seen done, and thereupon make such reflections impartially, that he may discern where the faults or oversights were, and thereby conclude what may with more discretion be done, or left undone, upon the like occasion. If this recess be constrained by the envy and power of an adversary, and so the man be looked upon as under a disgrace, and compelled to do that which he could not avoid the doing of, it will be a very difficult thing to preserve that tranquillity of mind which is necessary to the integrity of such cogitations and reflections; but he will rather call to mind the faults of other men than his own, and out of prejudice to the persons of others, not remember what he did amiss himself or if he be not so much oppressed with the mortification, but that he doth with ingenuity recollect his own errors, and think no worse of others than he ought to do, yet the effect it usually produces is rather a disinclination, an abhorrence of future activity,