XIV. Those who have a just idea of the Deity, cannot fall into so gross an error; but we don’t on that account cease to err. It is true, we do not worship conquerors as deities, but we celebrate them as heroes. What is this, but debasing so noble an epithet? True heroes are wrought and fashioned by virtue, and therefore we should reject all those as spurious and ill-made, which are fabricated in the workshops of ambition. A great and a bad man are contradictions in terms. Agesilaus answered wisely, to one who was extolling the greatness of the King of Persia, and at the same time took occasion to insinuate a remark on the smallness of the kingdom of Sparta, compared to the Persian empire. His reply was: _He only can be greater than me, who is better than me._ He could not have spoke more to the purpose, if he had read the celebrated saying of St. Austin, in the following words: _In his, quæ non mole, sed virtute, præstant, idem est majus esse, quod melius esse. With regard to those things, which are estimated, not by the bulk, but by the virtue or excellence of them, that is greatest, which is best._ XV. Let a Theodosius, a Charles the Great, a Godfrey of Bulloign, a George Castriotus, be celebrated as heroes; and, in fine, all those in whom Fortune assisted Valour, and Valour Justice; those, who only drew their swords in the cause of Heaven, or for the good of the public; those, who in wars take to themselves the toil and the danger only, and leave untouched as the property of others, the fruits and acquisitions; those, who are pacific by inclination, and warriors through necessity; finally, all those, who, as an example to posterity, have by their actions, impressed an idea on the minds of men, that they were just, clement, wise, and animated Princes, in whose sceptres justice reigned, and whose swords never wounded their own consciences. XVI. But discard from the stock of heroes, those crowned Tigers called conquering Princes, and let them be numbered with the delinquents. Throw down their statues, and translate their images, from the Palace to the dens of wild beasts, that the copies at least may be placed among company, and in such a situation, as suited the characters of the originals. I will in this place give a general trait or description of all conquering Princes, which I find delineated in very lively colours, in the words of a Prince on his death-bed, to whom they gave this epithet, which was William the First of England.