CHAPTER XXIV.

On the art of moral calculation, and making a true estimate of things and persons.

A ROYAL person should early be taught to act on that maxim of one of the ancients, that the chief misfortunes of men arise from their never having learned the true art of calculation. This moral art should be employed to teach him how to weigh the comparative value of things, and to adjust their respective claims; assigning to each that due proportion of time and thought, to which each will, on a fair valuation, be found to be entitled. It will also teach the habit of setting the concerns of time in contrast with those of eternity. This last is not one of those speculative points on which persons may differ without danger, but one in which an erroneous calculation involves inextricable misfortune.

It is prudent to have a continual reference not only to the value of the object, but also to the probability there is of attaining it; not only to see that it is of sufficient importance to justify our solicitude; but also to take care, that designs of remote issue, and projects of distant execution, do not supersede present and actual duties. Providence, by setting so narrow limits to life itself, in which these objects are to be pursued, has clearly suggested to us, the impropriety of forming schemes. so disproportionate, in their dimensions, to our contracted sphere of action. Nothing but this doctrine of moral calculation will keep up in the mind a constant sense of that future reckoning, which, even to a private individual, is of unspeakable moment

but which, to a prince, whose responsibility is so infinitely greater, increases to a magnitude, the full sum of which, the human mind would in vain attempt to estimate. This principle will afford the most salutary check to those projects of remote vainglory, and posthumous ambition, of which, in almost every instance, it is difficult to pronounce whether they have been more idle or more calamitous.

History, fertile as it is in similar lessons, does not furnish a more striking instance of the mischiefs of erroneous calculation, than in the character of Alexander. How falsely did he estimate the possible exertions of one man, and the extent of human life, when, in the course of his reign, which eventually proved a short one, he resolved to change the face of the world; to conquer its kingdoms, to enlighten its ignorance, and to redress its wrongs! a chimera, indeed, but a glorious chimera, had he not, at the same time, and to the last hour of his life, indulged passions inconsistent with his own resolutions, and subversive of his own schemes. His thirty-third year put a period to projects, for which many ages would have been insufficient! and the vanity of his ambition forms a forcible contrast to the grandeur of his designs. His gigantic empire, acquired by unequalled courage, ambition, and success, did not gradually decay by the lapse of time; it did not yield to the imperious control of strange events, and extraordinary circumstances, which it was beyond the wisdom of man to foresee, or the power of man to resist; but naturally, but instantly, on the death of the conqueror, it was at once broken in pieces, all his schemes were in a moment abolished, and even the dissolution of his own paternal inheritance was speedily accomplished, by the contests of his immediate successors.

But we need not look back to ancient Greece for proofs of the danger of erroneous calculation, while

Louis XIV. occupies the page of history. This descendant of fifty kings, after a triumphant reign of sixty years, having, like Alexander, been flattered with the name of the great, and having, doubtless, like him, projected to reign after his decease, was not dead an hour, before his will was cancelled; a will not made in secret, and, like some of his former acts, annulled by its own inherent injustice, but publicly known, and generally approved by princes of the blood, counsellors, and parliaments. This royal will was set aside with less ceremony than would have been shewn, in this country, to the testament of the meanest individual. All formalities were forgotten; all decencies trodden under foot. This decree of the new executive power became, in a moment, as absolute as that of the monarch, now so contemptuously treated, had lately been. No explanation was given, no arguments were heard, no objections examined. That sovereign was totally and instantly forgotten

whose word

Might yesterday have stood against the world;
And none so poor to do him reverence.

The plans of Cæsar Borgia were so ably laid, that he thought he had put himself out of the reach of Providence. It was the boast of this execrable politician, that he had, by the infallible rules of a wise and foreseeing policy, so surely laid the immutable foundations of his own lasting greatness, that of the several possibilities which he had calculated, not one could shake the stability of his fortune. the pope, his father, should live, his grandeur was secure; if he died, he had, by his interest, secured the next election. But this deep schemer had forgotten to take his own mortality into the account. He did not calculate on that sickness, which would remove him from the scene, where his presence was

If

necessary to secure these events; he did not foresee that, when his father died, his mortal enemy, and not his creature, would succeed, and, by succeeding, would defeat every thing. Above all, he did not calculate that, when he invited to his palace nine cardinals, for whose supper he had prepared a deadly poison, in order to get their wealth into his own hands-he did not, I say, foresee, that

he but taught

Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor-

He did not think that, literally,

even-handed justice

Would give th' ingredients of the poison'd chalice
To his own lips.

He had left out of his calculation, that the pope, his father, would perish by the very plot which was employed to enrich him; while he, Borgia himself, with the mortal venom in his veins, should only escape to drag on a life of meanness and misery, in want and in prison; with the loss of his boundless wealth and power, losing all those adherents which that wealth and power had attracted.*

It is of the last importance, that persons of high condition should be preserved from entering on their brilliant career with false principles, false views, and false maxims. It is of the last importance, to teach them not to confound splendour with dignity, justice with success, merit with prosperity, voluptuousness with happiness, refinement in luxury with pure taste, deceit with sagacity, suspicion with penetration,

* Alexander VI. ended his infamous life August 8, 1503. The story of his death, as here related, was first given to the world by Guicciardini: but Odoric Raynald treats the whole as fabulous; and not without reason. He says that the pope died of a fever; and that his son, Cæsar Borgia, caught the infection, but recovered; and was slain in an assault upon a castle in Spain, in 1507.-ED.

prodigality with a liberal spirit, honour with Christian principle, Christian principle with fanaticism, or conscientious strictness with hypocrisy.

Young persons possess so little clearness in their views, so little distinctness in their perceptions, and are so much inclined to prefer the suggestions of a warm fancy to the sober deductions of reason, that, in their pursuit of glory and celebrity, they are perpetually liable to take up with false way-marks; and where they have some general good intentions respecting the end, to defeat their own purpose by a misapplication of means; so that, very often, they do not so much err through the seduction of the senses, as by accumulating false maxims into a sort of system, on which they afterward act through life.

One of the first lessons, that should be inculcated on the great, is, that God has not sent us into this world to give us consummate happiness, but to train us to those habits which lead to it. High rank lays the mind open to strong temptations; the highest rank to the strongest. The seducing images of luxury and pleasure, of splendour and of homage, of power and independence, are too seldom counteracted by the only adequate preservative, a religious education. The world is too generally entered upon as a scene of pleasure, instead of trial; as a theatre of amusement, not of action. The high-born are taught to enjoy the world, at an age when they should be learning to know it; and to grasp the prize, when they should be exercising themselves for the combat. They consequently look for the sweets of victory, when they should be enduring the hardness of the conflict.

From some of these early corruptions, a young princess will be preserved, by that very supereminent greatness, which, in other respects, has its