Again, I cannot forbear blaming and discommending illiterate princes, who generally are led by the nose by certain lawyers and priests, whom they keep commonly about them, and indeed not without reason (for as they are very serviceable to a prince, and an ornament to his court, when they are persons of honour and probity, so they are as dangerous if they prove otherwise), who have always some law or precedent in their mouths, which they wrest and pervert as they please: but a wise prince, and one that has read history, will never be deluded; nor will any courtier be so audacious as to tell a lie in his presence. Believe me, God never designed the office of a king to be executed by beasts, or such as glory and pride themselves in giving such answers as these, “I am no scholar, I refer business wholly to my council, and commit all things to their management,” and then devote themselves entirely to their pleasures, without further reason or expostulation. Had they been better educated in their youth, they would have been wiser, and have earnestly desired that their person and their virtues might have been valued and esteemed by all good men. I do not say all princes employ such ill-conditioned people, but most of those whom I had ever the honour to converse with, had always abundance of them. I have known indeed, upon an exigence of affairs, some wise princes that understood how to cull and select their ministers, and employ them frankly and without complaint; but of this sort I knew none comparable to the king my master, than whom no prince better understood the merit of brave and learned persons, nor more readily advanced such to the highest posts of honour and advantage. He was not unlearned himself; he delighted much in asking questions; and would know a little of everything: his judgment and natural parts were excellent, which is better and more preferable than all that we can learn in this world; for all the books that ever were written, are only so many helps and assistances to our memory by the recapitulation of passages of old. For this reason a man has a greater insight into affairs by reading one single book in three months’ time, than can be observed or understood by the age or experience of twenty men living successively one after another. So that, to finish this digression, I am of opinion that God cannot send a greater curse or affliction upon any nation than an unlearned and inconsiderate prince; for from hence all other misfortunes and miseries arise, and in the first place wars and division, by his committing to other persons his own peculiar authority (of which he ought to be more tender than of anything besides); and from this division famine and mortality arise, and all the dreadful consequences attending upon war; by which one may perceive how much all good subjects have reason to lament when they see the education of their young princes so miserably neglected, and left wholly in the power and management of