f me) I had not
observed you to hearken to it as if you had no mind to lose any part of
it. I might have contracted it, but I resolved to give it you at large,
that you might observe how those that despised what I had proposed, no
sooner perceived that the Cardinal did not dislike it but presently
approved of it, fawned so on him and flattered him to such a degree, that
they in good earnest applauded those things that he only liked in jest;
and from hence you may gather how little courtiers would value either me
or my counsels."

To this I answered, "You have done me a great kindness in this relation;
for as everything has been related by you both wisely and pleasantly, so
you have made me imagine that I was in my own country and grown young
again, by recalling that good Cardinal to my thoughts, in whose family I
was bred from my childhood; and though you are, upon other accounts, very
dear to me, yet you are the dearer because you honour his memory so much;
but, after all this, I cannot change my opinion, for I still think that
if you could overcome that aversion which you have to the courts of
princes, you might, by the advice which it is in your power to give, do a
great deal of good to mankind, and this is the chief design that every
good man ought to propose to himself in living; for your friend Plato
thinks that nations will be happy when either philosophers become kings
or kings become philosophers. It is no wonder if we are so far from that
happiness while philosophers will not think it their duty to assist kings
with their counsels." "They are not so base-minded," said he, "but that
they would willingly do it; many of them have already done it by their
books, if those that are in power would but hearken to their good advice.
But Plato judged right, that except kings themselves became philosophers,
they who from their childhood are corrupted with false notions would
never fall in entirely with the counsels of philosophers, and this he
himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius.

"Do not you think that if I were about any king, proposing good laws to
him, and endeavouring to root out all the cursed seeds of evil that I
found in him, I should either be turned out of his court, or, at least,
be laughed at for my pains? For instance, what could I signify if I were
about the King of France, and were called into his cabinet council, where
several wise men, in his hearing, were proposing many expedients; a