ency of carriage but by drawing
their load themselves by force of arm, and knew not so much as the art of
scaffolding, nor any other way of standing to their work, but by throwing
up earth against the building as it rose higher, taking it away again
when they had done.

Let us here return to our coaches. Instead of these, and of all other
sorts of carriages, they caused themselves to be carried upon men's
shoulders. This last king of Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus
carried betwixt two upon staves of gold, and set in a chair of gold in
the middle of his army. As many of these sedan-men as were killed to
make him fall (for they would take him alive), so many others (and they
contended for it) took the place of those who were slain, so that they
could never beat him down, what slaughter soever they made of these
people, till a horseman, seizing upon him, brought him to the ground.

CHAPTER VII

OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS

Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge our selves by railing at
it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its
defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how
much to be coveted soever. Greatness has, in general, this manifest
advantage, that it can lower itself when it pleases, and has, very near,
the choice of both the one and the other condition; for a man does not
fall from all heights; there are several from which one may descend
without falling down. It does, indeed, appear to me that we value it at
too high a rate, and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we have
either seen or heard have contemned it, or displaced themselves of their
own accord: its essence is not so evidently commodious that a man may
not, with out a miracle, refuse it. I find it a very hard thing to
undergo misfortunes, but to be content with a moderate measure of
fortune, and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy matter. 'Tis,
methinks, a virtue to which I, who am no conjuror, could without any
great endeavour arrive. What, then, is to be expected from them that
would yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal,
wherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself,
and fruition of greatness? Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself
better, according to itself, than when it proceeds by obscure and
unfrequented ways.

I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as I can towards