It is
then grown necessary, they must be as ill as those have made them:
and in the end they will grow more hateful to themselves than to
their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the merciful prince is
safe in love, not in fear. He needs no emissaries, spies,
intelligencers to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no
treasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly what
they do in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that they
need a cypher for. He is guarded with his own benefits.
Religio. Palladium Homeri.--Euripides.--The strength of empire is
in religion. What else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troy
so long from sacking? Nothing more commends the Sovereign to the
subject than it. For he that is religious must be merciful and just
necessarily: and they are two strong ties upon mankind. Justice
the virtue that innocence rejoiceth in. Yet even that is not always
so safe, but it may love to stand in the sight of mercy. For
sometimes misfortune is made a crime, and then innocence is
succoured no less than virtue. Nay, oftentimes virtue is made
capital; and through the condition of the times it may happen that
that may be punished with our praise.
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