your maiesties most honorable coũcel, by whõ your highnes may so sufficiently vnderstãd all thinges conuenient, that lesse shal it nede to vnderstand by priuate readying, but yet not vtterly to refuse to read as often as occasion may serue, for bokes dare speake, when men feare to displease. But to returne agayne to my firste matter, if none other good thing maie be lerned at their maners, which so wrõgfully place their felicity, in so miserable a cõditiõ (that while they thinke them selfes happy, their felicitie must nedes seme vnluckie, to be by them so euill placed) yet this may men learn at them, by those .ij. spectacles to espye the secrete natures and dispositions of others, whiche thyng vnto a wise man is muche auailable. And thus will I omit this great tablement of vnhappie hap, and wil come to .iij. other sortes of a better degre, wherof the one putteth felicitie to consist in power and royaltie. The second sorte vnto power annexeth worldly wisdome, thinkyng him full happie, that could attayn those two, wherby he might not onely haue knowledge in all thynges, but also power to bryng his desires to ende. The thyrd sort estemeth true felicitie to consist in wysdom annexed with vertuouse maners, thinkyng that they can take harme of nothyng, if they can with their wysedome ouercome all vyces. Of the firste of those three sortes there hath been a great numbre in all ages, yea many mightie kinges and great gouernoures which cared not greately howe they myght atchieue their pourpose, so that they dyd preuayle: nor did not take any greatter care for gouernance, then to kepe the people in onely feare of them, Whose common sentence was alwaies this: _Oderint dum metuant_. And what good successe suche menne had, all histories doe report. Yet haue they not wanted excuses: yea Iulius Cæsar (whiche in dede was of the second sorte) maketh a kynde of excuse by his common sentence, for them of that fyrste sorte, for he was euer woonte to saie: ἐίπερ γὰρ ἀδικεῖμ χρὴ, τυραννΐδος περῒ κάλλιστομ ἀδικεῖμ, τ’ ἄλλα δ’ ἐυσεβεῖμ χρεῶμ. Whiche sentence I wysshe had neuer been learned out of Grecia. But now to speake of the second sort, of whiche there hathe been verye many also, yet for this present time amongest them all, I wyll take the exaumples of kynge Phylippe of Macedonie, and of Alexander his sonne, that valiaunt conquerour. First of kinge Phylip it appeareth by his letter sente vnto Aristotle that famous philosopher, that he more delited in the birthe of his sonne, for the hope of learning and good education, that might happen to him by the said Aristotle, then he didde reioyse in the continuaunce of his succession, for these were his wordes and his whole epistle, worthye to bee remembred and registred euery where. Φΐλιππος Αριστοτέλει χαίρειμ.