Credetne hoc olim ventura posteritas?
I would prayse you Great Prince, but having begun; where shall I make an end? since there remains not a Topic through all that kind, but one might write Decads of it, without offending the truth, were it as secure of your modesty; since I am as well to consider what your ears can suffer, as what is owing to your Virtues: On what heads shall I extend then my discourse? your Birth, Country, Form, Education, Manners, Studies, Friends, Honours and Fortune run through all partitions of the Demonstrative: An Orator could have nothing more to wish for, nor your Majesty to render you more accomplish’d.
Shall I consider then your Majesty as you were a Son to that glorious Father before his Apotheosis? As you were your self a Confessor after it; As you are now thus day in your Zenith and exaltation; and as we Augure you will by Gods blessing prove to your Subjects hereafter: For even through all these does our prospect lead us; Nor may it be objected that what shall be spoken of your Majesty, can be applied to any other; since the Fortune and Events of the rest of Princes, have been so differing from yours; as seeming to have been conducted by Men alone, and second Causes; yours only by God, and as it were by Miracle.
I begin then with your early Piety to that Kingly Martyr whose Sacred dictates did institute your tender years, and whose sufferings were so much alleviated by your Majesties early proficiency in all that might presage a hopefull and glorious Successor: For so did you run through all his Vicissitudes, during that implacable war, which sought nothing more then to defeat you of all opportunities of a Princely education, as fearing your future Virtues; because they knew the stock from whence you sprung, was not to be destroy’d by wounding the body, so long as such a Branch remained.
Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus
Nigræ feraci frondis in Algido,
Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso
Ducit opes, animumque ferro.
Whilst he Reign’d and Govern’d, you learn’d only to obey; Living your own Princely Impress; ICH DIEN. as knowing it would best instruct you one day how to Command, and which we now see accomplish’d: These then are the effects, when Princes are the Sons of Nobles; since only such know best to support the weight, who use to bear betimes, and by degrees; not those who rashly pull it on their shoulders; because they take it with less violence, less ambition, less jealousie: None so secure a Prince, as he that is so born.
But no sooner did that blessed Martyr expire, then our redivive Phœnix appear’d; rising from those Sacred Ashes Testator and Heir; Father and yet Son; Another, and yet the same; introsuming as it were his Spirit, as he breath’d it out, when singing his own Epicedium and Genethliack together, he seem’d prodigal of his own life to have it redouble’d in your felicity: Thus, Rex nunquam moritur. O admirable conduct of the Divine Providence, to immortalize the image of a just Monarch: Ipsa quidem, sed non eadem, quia & ipsa, nec ipsa est. Since that may as truly be apply’d to your Majesty, which was once to the wisest of Kings: Mortuus est Pater ejus, & quasi non mortuus, similem enim reliquit sibi post se.
But with how much prudence, is serenity attributed amongst the titles of Princes, and the beams of the sun to irradiate their Crowns; That the Scepter bears a Flower; since as that glorious planet produces, so does it also wither them; and there is nothing lasting, save their vertues, which are indeed their essential parts, and only immortal; For even yet did the clouds intercept our day with the continuance of so dismall a storm, as it obnubilated all those hopes of ours. It is an infinite adventure, if in a Princes Family Firmament
(once overcast) it ever grow fair weather again, but by a singular and extraordinary providence. I mention this to increase the wonder, and reinforce your felicity. Empires passe, Kingdomes are translated, and dominions cease: The Cecropides of old, the Arsacides, the Theban, Corinthian, Syracusian, and sundry more lasted nor to the fourth Age without strange and prodigious tragedies; but why go we so far back, when a few Centuries present us with so many fresh Revolutions? How many nests has the Roman Eagle changed? Bulgarian, Saracen, Latine; In the Comneni, Isaaci, Paleologi, &c. even till it dash’d it self in pieces against the Oetoman rock. What mutations have been in the house of Arragon? How many Riders has the Parthenopean horse unsaddl’d and flung? How many Sicily? What changes have been in Italy, What in France, and indeed through all Europe by Vandals, Saxons, Danes, Normans, by external invasion, internal Faction, Envy, Ambition, treachery and violence? The Consulate degenerated into Oligarchy, which occasion’d the Aventine sedition; Democraty into Ochlocraty under the Tribunes and wicked Gracchi; and Monarchy it self, (the very best of Governments) into Tyranny.