LII. From hence it follows, that the most opportune time to exhibit to the world treatises upon just and right policy, is that in which such policy is practised. It is then you should sow, for then you have a favourable prospect, that the seed will produce a good crop hereafter; and even then you may enjoy the produce in part; for the reigning Prince being confirmed that the road he pursues is right, is fortified in his good purposes. To him such doctrine serves as a cordial, and to future ages it acts as a preservative.
THE VALUE OR SUPERIOR EXCELLENCE OF NOBILITY.
With some Remarks on the Power or Influence of High Blood.
I. He would do great service to the nobility, who could separate their vanity from their quality; for it is almost as difficult to find this dignity free from that vice, as it is to find silver in the mines without a mixture of earth. Splendour of ancestry is a fire, which produces much smoke in descendants. There is nothing of which people should be less vain than their high origin, and there is nothing of which they are more so. The best pens in all ages, both sacred and profane, have laboured to persuade, that there is no pride worse founded than that which is built upon high birth. The world perseveres in its error, and there is no flattery better received, than that which compliments a man on the grandeur of his race; nor is there any adulation more hacknied and transcendent; to be convinced of which, you need only read epistles dedicatory to books. Flattery in them, commonly guides the pen, and you will hardly find one, which omits to lay great stress on the nobleness and antiquity of the family of the person to whom he consigns the protection of his book; and they do this, because it is pretty well known, there is scarce any man so candid or modest, as not to be pleased with this eulogium.
II. From hence spring those wild and extravagant genealogies, fabricated by some flatterers, in order to compliment, and by that means, cultivate the favour and protection of great and powerful people. Basil the first, emperor of the East, was a man of obscure birth. The patriarch Phocio, finding himself out of his good graces, endeavoured to regain his favour, by forming a genealogical chain, which made him descended from Tiridates king of Armenia, who reigned in that country eight centuries anterior to Basil. The descent which Abraham Bzovius gives to pope Sylvester the second, which began in Timenus king of Argos, who flourished more than a thousand years before Christ, in all likelihood was not fabricated by Bzovius, but was probably found among some papers written in the life-time of that pope, by some person who composed the thing to flatter him. Roderig Flaharti wrote, a little while since, the history of some transactions relating to Ireland, in which he assigns two thousand seven hundred years of antiquity to the kings of England in their possession of the throne.
III. If you ascend two generations anterior to Rodulfus count of Augsburg, there is no family of more doubtful origin than that of the house of Austria. Upon coming to the grandfather of Rodulfus, historians find themselves surrounded with such thick darkness, that they don’t know which way to turn themselves; nor is it a point beyond contest, who the grandfather of Rodulfus was. Notwithstanding this, there have not been wanting Spanish historians, who, by running up the line of their ancestors, have, without touching or tripping, traced them to the destruction of Troy. Penafiel de Contreras, an author of Grenada, went further than this; for, as Mothe le Vayer informs us, he fabricated a genealogical chain of one hundred and eighteen successions, and made Philip the third descend in a right line from Adam; and because the duke of Lerma, Philip’s favourite at that time, should not be under less obligations to his pen, he formed another of a hundred and twenty-one from Adam to the duke, entwining the sovereign and favourite with two kings of Troy and with Æneas, by means of their two sons Iulus and Asaracus, from one of which he made the king descend, and from the other the duke.
IV. There have not been wanting in other nations those who have flattered their princes to the same excess. John Messanius derived the succession of the kings of Sweden, without the least interruption, from the primitive father of mankind; and William Slater did the same thing, in compliment to James the first of England.
V. Truly one would be apt to think, that such fulsome incense must stink in the nose of the idol to which it is offered; for Vespasian despised some flatterers, who derived him from the stock of Hercules; and Cardinal Mazarin treated with great scorn, one who traced his origin to Titus Geganius Macerinus, and Proculus Geganius Macerinus, ancient consuls of Rome. Thus those lose the fruits of their adulation, who pour it forth without bounds.
VI. But to return to our subject: I repeat, that there is no pre-eminence people have less reason to boast of, than that of nobility; every other is personal, and proper to a man’s self; this is derived, and may be deemed the reflection of a borrowed light. Nobility is a mere extrinsic denomination, and if you would make it an intrinsic one, it must be done by rational means. The virtue of our forefathers was their own, not ours; and Ovid, in the following compendious sentence, expressed all that is capable of being said on the subject:
Nam genus, & proavos, & quæ non fecimus ipsi,