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Rh ‘Be ruled by me, for in extremity

We ought to make bar of no policy.’

To these add this aphorism from Machiavelli’s equally sagacious, and almost equally learned and able, countryman and contemporary, Guicciardini—an aphorism supported by words from Thucydides, Polybius, Lucan, and others, and by citation of a lesson from History: ‘The vicissitude of things and change of times, begets new counsailes and deliberations in States, and enforceth necessarily the knitting or dissolving of Alliance between them. What is usefull to day, may be hurtfull to morrow, as showers that are seasonable in the Spring, and unwelcome in the Harvest. Wherefore, to temporise by levelling and adapting our actions to the occasion present and presented, is requisite policy.’ Gather these sententiae; or