dals, or to bear the faces and inscriptions of the great. Indeed, it
is fit for armour, to bear off insults, and preserve the wearer in the
day of battle; but the danger once repelled, it is laid aside by the
brave, as a garment too rough for civil conversation; a necessary guard
in war, but too harsh and cumbersome in peace, and which keeps off the
embraces of a more humane life.

For this reason, my Lord, though you have courage in an heroical degree,
yet I ascribe it to you but as your second attribute: mercy,
beneficence, and compassion claim precedence, as they are first in the
Divine nature. An intrepid courage, which is inherent in your Grace, is
at best but a holiday kind of virtue, to be seldom exercised, and never
but in cases of necessity: affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word
which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, I
mean good-nature, are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind, and
staff of life; neither sighs, nor tears, nor groans, nor curses of the
vanquished, follow acts of compassion and of charity, but a sincere
pleasure and serenity of mind, in him who performs an action of mercy,
which cannot suffer the misfortunes of another without redress, lest
they should bring a kind of contagion along with them, and pollute the
happiness which he enjoys.

Yet since the perverse tempers of mankind, since oppression on one side,
and ambition on the other, are sometimes the unavoidable occasions of
war; that courage, that magnanimity, and resolution, which is born with
you, cannot be too much commended. And here it grieves me that I am
scanted in the pleasure of dwelling on many of your actions; but [Greek:
aideomai Troas] is an expression which Tully often uses, when he would
do what he dares not, and fears the censure of the Romans.

I have sometimes been forced to amplify on others; but here, where the
subject is so fruitful that the harvest overcomes the reaper, I am
shortened by my chain, and can only see what is forbidden me to reach,
since it is not permitted me to commend you, according to the extent of
my wishes, and much less is it in my power to make my commendations
equal to your merits. Yet in this frugality of your praises there are
some things which I cannot omit without detracting from your character.
You have so formed your own education, as enables you to pay the debt
you owe your country; or, more properly speaking, both your countries,
because you we