that were made Emperors; who from private men by corrupting the
soldiers, attaind to the Empire. These subsist meerly upon the will, and
fortune of those that have advanced them; which are two voluble and
unsteady things; and they neither know how, nor are able to continue in
that dignity: they know not how, because unless it be a man of great
understanding and vertue, it is not probable that he who hath always
liv'd a private life, can know how to command: neither are they able,
because they have not any forces that can be friendly or faithful to
them. Moreover those States that suddenly fall into a mans hands, as all
other things in nature that spring and grow quickly, cannot well have
taken root, nor have made their correspondencies so firm, but that the
first storm that takes them, ruines them; in case these, who (as it is
said) are thus on a sudden clambred up to be Princes, are not of that
worth and vertue as to know how to prepare themselves to maintain that
which chance hath cast into their bosoms, and can afterwards lay those
foundations, which others have cast before they were Princes. For the
one and the other of these wayes about the attaining to be a Prince, by
Vertue, or by Fortune, I will alledge you two examples which have been
in the dayes of our memory. These were Francis Sforza, and Caesar Borgia;
Francis by just means and with a great deal of vertue, of a private man
got to be Duke of Millan; and that which with much pains he had gaind,
he kept with small ado. On the other side Caeesar Borgia (commonly termed
Duke Valentine) got his state by his Fathers fortune, and with the same
lost it; however that for his own part no pains was spar'd, nor any
thing omitted, which by a discreet and valorus man ought to have been
done, to fasten his roots in those Estates, which others armes or
fortune had bestowed on him; for (as it was formerly said) he that lays
not the foundations first, yet might be able by means of his
extraordinary vertues to lay them afterwards, however it be with the
great trouble of the architect, and danger of the edifice. If therefore
we consider all the Dukes progresses, we may perceive how great
foundations he had cast for his future power, which I judge a matter not
superfluous to run over; because I should not well know, what better
rules I might give to a new Prince, than the pattern of his actions; and
however the courses he took, availd him not, yet was it not his fault,
but it pro