“I think, then, that such divine princes as these have been sent by God on earth, and by Him made to resemble one another in youth, in martial power, in state, in beauty and bodily shape, to the end that they may be of one accord for this good purpose also. And if there must ever be any envy or emulation among them, it may be solely in wishing to be each the first and most fervent and zealous for so glorious an enterprise. “But let us leave this discourse and return to our subject. I say, then, messer Cesare, that the things which you wish the prince to do are very great and worthy of much praise; but you ought to understand that if he does not know that which I have said he ought to know, and has not formed his mind after that pattern and directed it to the path of virtue, he will hardly know how to be magnanimous, generous, just, courageous, foreseeing, or to possess any of those other qualities that are looked for in him. Nor yet would I have him such merely for the sake of being able to exercise these qualities: for just as those who build are not all good architects, so those who give are not all generous; because virtue never harms any man, and there are many who rob in order to give away, and thus are generous with the property of others; some give to those they ought not, and leave in misfortune and distress those to whom they are beholden; others give with a certain bad grace and almost spite, so that men see they do so on compulsion; others not only make no secret of it, but call witnesses and almost proclaim their generosities; others foolishly empty the fountain of their generosity at a draught, so that it can be no more used again. [Illustration: PRINCE HENRY OF WALES AFTERWARDS HENRY VIII OF ENGLAND 1491-1547 ] Reduced from Walker and Boutall’s photograph of an anonymous portrait (no. 157) in the National Portrait Gallery at London. Painted on copper, and formerly owned by Mr. Barrett at Lee Priory, Kent, the picture was acquired by the Gallery from the Messrs. Graves in 1863. 40.—“Hence in this, as in other things, it is needful to know and to govern one’s self with that foresight which is the necessary companion of all the virtues; which being midway are near the two extremes—that is, the vices; and thus he who does not know, easily runs into them. For just as it is difficult to find the central point in a circle, which is the mean, so is it difficult to find the point of virtue set midway between the two extremes (vicious, the one because of excess, the other because of deficiency); and to these we are inclined, sometimes to one and sometimes to the other. We perceive this in the pleasure or displeasure that we feel within us, for by reason of the one we do that which we ought not, and by reason of the other we fail to do that which we ought; but the pleasure is much the more dangerous, because our judgment allows itself to be easily corrupted by it.