to extend to the expending vast sums, provided the money is laid out from laudable motives, and on objects, that are really conducive to the public utility. Thus Louis the Fourteenth did an act of magnificence, in building the Hospital of Invalids at Paris, and did a much superior one, by constructing the canal, that makes a navigable communication between Languedoc and Bourdeaux; because the great expences that attended executing these works, were incurred to promote the public good, and actually were great advantages to the public at large; but the palaces that were built by Nero and Caligula, which occupied as much ground as two large towns might have stood on, do not deserve to be called works of magnificence; because the vast sums that were laid out in constructing them, were by no means expended to promote the public good, but only to gratify the ostentatious vanity of two profuse men. The emperor Adrian was magnificent, by forgiving at once, the payment of all that was owing to him for the sixteen preceding years, by Rome, Italy, and all the imperial provinces; but Alfonso the Twelfth of Castile was prodigal (provided the story that is told of him, and circulated in so many books respecting this matter is true) in expending a vast sum of money, for the redemption of Baldwin, emperor of Constantinople; as the first case concerned the whole Roman empire; and Spain was not at all interested in the last. XXXVII. Finally, A prince may exercise not only his liberality, but his magnificence also, by bestowing great donations, upon here and there an individual of signal and superior merit, (but I would be understood to mean such merit as has been beneficial to the state) because in doing this, his attention may be supposed, as not confined to rewarding the virtue of a single man; but to the exciting the emulation of many. And considered in this light, what Spain gave to Colon, did not exceed the bounds of justice and moderation; what she gave to Cortez was little; and what she gave to the great Captain next to nothing. When a prince or nation should exercise magnificence, if the donation they bestow is not equal to the merit of the person it is conferred on, or the dignity of the party who confers it, it can never deserve to be termed liberality, for there is no middle way in these cases, and if the gift does not amount high enough to be deserving of the epithet of magnificence, it declines to the other extreme, and sinks into parsimony. PARADOX IV. _There is more Objection made to promoting People to important Employments on account of their Youth, than there ought to be._