interests and happiness; be often visible to them; easy of access to the proper authorities; free in his carriage; courteous in his language; and affable in his general demeanour. The name and rank of king will confer fullness of effect on these qualities moderately displayed; and a king, as such, may always calculate on the acclamations of his people, with very slight restraints on his passions, and moderate concessions to their prejudices and predilections.

XXXVII.

A sovereign should be duly sensible of the extensive influence of his actions, and of the constant dependence of great numbers on his movements and conduct; he ought, therefore, to discipline himself into habits of regularity; to be subject himself to the despotism of time, paying respect to those who respect him, by keeping his engagements with unvarying punctuality. Habit deprives regularity of its irksomeness; and due economy of time will enable princes to be exact, without neglecting business, or killing horses, to overtake moments which had been frivolously wasted.

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XXXVIII.

It is alone sufficient glory for a man to be sovereign of a nation, and he can add nothing to it by the transient splendour of his palaces, his attire, or his retinue; and every display of this factitious nature will be considered by mankind as an attempt to delude by the shadow, instead of conferring the substance, and as the gratification of a little mind and a vain-glorious spirit. New palaces should not be built, nor old ones enlarged, till all the cottages of industry are worthy the residence of human beings in a civilized country.

XXXIX.

Pride, the vice of upstarts, will seldom degrade an hereditary sovereign; and it must have been a fabulous libel on Philip of Macedon, to allege that he found it necessary to keep a monitor to exclaim, "Remember, Philip, thou art mortal!" Every inspiration of air, every animal want, every submission to the eternal powers of nature, every act of receiving sustenance, every twinge of pain, and every night's oblivion of sleep, must operate as constant correctives of any false and foolish assumptions of arrogance, conceit,

and pride, which may possess and intoxicate weak, childish, and imbecile princes.

XL.

The word of a prince should be his bond, and the pledge of his honour be held sacred; for nothing can render him so contemptible as evasions, equivocations, and falsehoods; or any conduct which leads his subjects to consider him otherwise than as a standard of integrity in all his transactions, and as the personification of truth and honour, of which the usages of society consider him at once the guardian and fountain.

XLI.

Ingratitude, and forgetfulness of services, are crimes often chargeable on courts and princes, owing to the rapid succession of events, and the importunities of new suitors, by which former circumstances are obliterated, and remote services forgotten. Princes should, however, be made aware that their creditors for services, or promises, have as tenacious memories as creditors in matters of account, though the courtesies of expectants may render them less openly clamorous; and, there

fore, to protect themselves against charges of ingratitude, every sovereign, who desires to do his duty, ought to keep a faithful register of names, services, and promises, and consult this record as often as opportunities arise of filling up vacant appointments, or distributing the honours of the state. And this register, so intimately connected with the obligations of the crown, ought to be transmitted by every prince to his successor, and by him be respected as a solemn legacy of duties to be performed.

XLII.

To shield a sovereign against the inordinate expectations of persons who have rendered any service to himself, or the state, and to correct the delusions under which many expectants become victims, it is advisable to refer, whenever desired, all such claims to the arbitration of honourable men under the same forms as those by which awards are made in private disputes; but, to secure satisfactory decisions, lawyers ought never to be employed as arbitrators, or quibbling will supersede justice; nor mere dependents on government, or the claimant will not be sa

tisfied, and the design of the reference be defeated.

XLIII.

Every sovereign, who proposes that a rational result should follow his arrangements, will beware that no commissions, societies, or corporations, are constituted, the members of which have internal power to fill up vacancies that arise in their own body; for the love of their own ascendency will determine them never to admit any associates but those who flatter them, and are their inferiors in intellect and character; and, by consequence, after two or three renewals, or generations, all such self-elected bodies become a nuisance to the community, a caricature of authority, and a disgrace to the sovereign who so improperly constituted their body.

XLIV.

As every sovereign would wish that himself and his hereditary successors should enjoy freedom of conscience in his communion with God, so he ought to permit no hierarchy to dictate to him in matters of religious faith,