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'They attended to their duties, but still, as ESSAY XV. preferring rather to discuss the commands of Of Seditions their rulers, than to obey them.' Disputing, excusing, cavilling upon mandates and directions, is a kind of shaking off the yoke and assay of disobedience; especially if in those disputings they which are for the direction speak fearfully and tenderly; and those that are against it audaciously.

Also, as Machiavel noteth well; when princes, that ought to be common parents, make themselves as a party and lean to a side, it is as a boat that is overthrown by uneven weight on the one side; as was well seen in the time of Henry the Third of France; for first, himself entered league for the extirpation of the Protestants, and presently after the same league was turned upon himself. For when the authority of princes is made but an accessory to a cause, and that there be other bands that tie faster than the band of sovereignty, kings begin to be put almost out of possession.

Also, when discords and quarrels and factions are carried openly and audaciously, it

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ESSAY XV. is a sign the reverence of government is lost. Of Seditions For the motions of the greatest persons in a government ought to be as the motions of the planets under the primary motive power, according to the old opinion, which is, that every one of them is carried swiftly by the highest motion, and softly in their own motion; and therefore, when great ones in their own particular motion move violently, and as Tacitus expresseth it well, 'too freely to remember their own rulers,' it is a sign the orbs are out of frame: for reverence is that wherewith princes are girt from God, who threateneth the dissolving thereof; 'I will unloose the girdles of kings.'

So when any of the four pillars of government are mainly shaken or weakened, which are religion, justice, counsel, and treasure, men had need to pray for fair weather. But let us pass from this part of predictions, concerning which, nevertheless, more light may be taken from that which followeth, and let us speak first of the materials of seditions; then of the motives of them; and thirdly of the remedies.

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Concerning the materials of seditions, it is ESSAY XV. a thing well to be considered; for the surest of Seditions way to prevent seditions, if the times do bear it, is to take away the matter of them; for if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds; much poverty and much discontentment. It is certain, so many overthrown estates, so many votes for troubles. Lucan noteth well the state of Rome before the civil war: 'Hence devouring usury, and interest accumulating in lapse of time, hence shaken credit, and warfare, profitable to the many.'

This same warfare profitable to the many' is an assured and infallible sign of a state disposed to seditions and troubles; and if this poverty and broken estate in the better sort be joined with a want and necessity in the mean people, the danger is imminent and great for the rebellions of the belly are the worst. As for discontentments, they are in the politic body like to humours in the natural, which are apt to gather a preternatural heat and to inflame; and let no

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ESSAY XV. prince measure the danger of them by this, Of Seditions whether they be just or unjust? for that were to imagine people to be too reasonable, who do often spurn at their own good; nor yet by this, whether the griefs whereupon they rise be in fact great or small; for they are the most dangerous discontentments where the fear is greater than the feeling: 'To grief there is a limit, not so to fear.' Besides, in great oppressions, the same things that provoke the patience do withal mate the courage; but in fears it is not so. Neither let any prince or state be secure concerning discontentments, because they have been often, or have been long, and yet no peril hath ensued for as it is true that every vapour or fume doth not turn into a storm, so it is nevertheless true that storms, though they blow over divers times, yet may fall at last; and, as the Spanish proverb noteth well, 'the cord breaketh at the last by the weakest pull.'

The causes and motives of seditions are, innovation in religion; taxes; alteration of laws and customs; breaking of privileges; general oppression; advancement of unworthy

persons; strangers; dearths; disbanded sol- ESSAY XV. diers; factions grown desperate; and whatso-Of Seditions ever in offending people joineth and knitteth them in a common cause.

For the remedies, there may be some general preservatives, whereof we will speak : as for the just cure, it must answer to the particular disease; and so be left to counsel rather than rule.

The first remedy or prevention is to remove, by all means possible, that material cause of sedition whereof we spake, which is, want and poverty in the estate: to which purpose serveth the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufactures; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulating of prices of things vendible; the moderating of taxes and tributes; and the like. Generally, it is to be foreseen that the population of a kingdom, especially if it be not mown down by wars, do not exceed the stock of the kingdom which should maintain them. Neither is the population to be reckoned only by number; for a

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