btained a singular secret from him. Dionysius liked the invention, and
accordingly caused six hundred crowns to be counted out to him.
--[Plutarch, Apothegms.]--It was not likely he should give so great a
sum to a person unknown, but upon the account of some extraordinary
discovery, and the belief of this served to keep his enemies in awe.
Princes, however, do wisely to publish the informations they receive of
all the practices against their lives, to possess men with an opinion
they have so good intelligence that nothing can be plotted against them,
but they have present notice of it. The Duke of Athens did a great many
foolish things in the establishment of his new tyranny over Florence:
but this especially was most notable, that having received the first
intimation of the conspiracies the people were hatching against him, from
Matteo di Morozzo, one of the conspirators, he presently put him to
death, to suppress that rumour, that it might not be thought any of the
city disliked his government.

I remember I have formerly read a story--[In Appian's Civil Wars, book
iv..]--of some Roman of great quality who, flying the tyranny of the
Triumvirate, had a thousand times by the subtlety of as many inventions
escaped from falling into the hands of those that pursued him. It
happened one day that a troop of horse, which was sent out to take him,
passed close by a brake where he was squat, and missed very narrowly of
spying him: but he considering, at this point, the pains and difficulties
wherein he had so long continued to evade the strict and incessant
searches that were every day made for him, the little pleasure he could
hope for in such a kind of life, and how much better it was for him to
die once for all, than to be perpetually at this pass, he started from
his seat, called them back, showed them his form,--[as of a squatting
hare.]--and voluntarily delivered himself up to their cruelty, by that
means to free both himself and them from further trouble. To invite a
man's enemies to come and cut his throat, seems a resolution a little
extravagant and odd; and yet I think he did better to take that course,
than to live in continual feverish fear of an accident for which there
was no cure. But seeing all the remedies a man can apply to such a
disease, are full of unquietness and uncertainty, 'tis better with a
manly courage to prepare one's self for the worst that can happen, and to
extract some consolation from this,