Beneath his protection goodness is secure; malice, violence, deceit, dishonesty, all vices in a word, fly from his presence, and crimes and outrages receive the punishment they deserve.
The Romans had their censors appointed to regulate morals, and to keep the nation firm in the path of duty and the customs of their sires, but among us no censor is required, as the life of our Sovereign supplies his place. His bright example shows us what to follow and what to avoid.
He is extremely kind towards men of worth and learning, who are trained in the pursuits which do the State good service. In dealing with men of this description he lays aside his royalty and treats them, not as a master, but as an intimate friend on a footing of perfect equality, as one who would be their companion and rival in striving after what is right, making no distinction between those who owe their high position to the credit they derive from the glory of their ancestors, and those who have been elevated by their own merits and have proved their worth. With them he enjoys passing the time he has to spare from business, which, however, is but little. These are the men he values, holding, as he does, that it is of great public importance that merit should occupy the position which is its due.
He is naturally eager for information, and desirous of knowing everything worthy of a human being’s attention, and therefore always has some subject about which he wishes to hear the opinion of men of learning, from time to time interposing some shrewd and pointed observation of his own, to the great admiration of his hearers. Thus he has acquired no mean store of useful information, so that it is impossible to ask him a question on any subject with which he is wholly unacquainted.
He knows several languages. Spanish, as his mother tongue, takes the first place, then come French, German, Latin, and Italian. Although he can express anything he means in Latin, yet he has not learnt it so accurately as not to infringe, at times, the rules of grammar, a fault to be blamed in a man of letters, but not, in my humble judgment, to be hardly criticised in an Emperor.[268]
No one will deny that what I have said so far is true, but perchance some will regret that he has not paid more attention to warlike enterprises, and won his laurels on the battle-field. The Turks, such an one will say, have now for many years past been playing the tyrant in Hungary, and wasting the land far and wide, while we do not give any assistance worthy of our name. Long ago ought we to have marched against them, and allowed fortune by one pitched battle to decide which was to be master. Such persons, I grant, speak boldly, but I question if they speak prudently. Let us go a little deeper into the matter. My opinion is that we should judge of the talents of generals or commanders rather from their plans than from results. Moreover, in their plans they ought to take into account the times, their own resources, and the nature and power of the enemy. If an enemy of an ordinary kind, with no great prestige, should attack our territories, I frankly confess it would be cowardly not to march against him, and check him by a pitched battle, always supposing that we could bring into the field a force equal to his. But if the enemy in question should be a scourge sent by the wrath of God (as was Attila of yore, Tamerlane in the memory of our grandfathers, and the Ottoman Sultans in our own times), against whom nothing can stand, and who levels to the ground every obstacle in his way; to oppose oneself to such a foe with but scanty and irregular troops would, I fear, be an act so rash as to deserve the name of madness.
Against us stands Solyman, that foe whom his own and his ancestors’ exploits have made so terrible; he tramples the soil of Hungary with 200,000 horse, he is at the very gates of Austria, threatens the rest of Germany, and brings in his train all the nations that extend from our borders to those of Persia. The army he leads is equipped with the wealth of many kingdoms. Of the three regions, into which the world is divided, there is not one that does not contribute its share towards our destruction. Like a thunderbolt he strikes, shivers, and destroys everything in his way. The troops he leads are trained veterans, accustomed to his command; he fills the world with the terror of his name. Like a raging lion he is always roaring around our borders, trying to break in, now in this place, now in that. On account of much less danger many nations, attacked by superior forces, have left their native lands and sought new habitations. When the peril is small, composure deserves but little praise, but not to be terrified at the onset of such an enemy, while the world re-echoes with the crash of kingdoms falling in ruins all around, seems to me to betoken a courage worthy of Hercules himself.[269] Nevertheless, the heroic Ferdinand with undaunted courage keeps his stand on the same spot, does not desert his post, and stirs not an inch from the position he has taken up. He would desire to have such strength that he could, without being charged with madness and only at his own personal risk, stake everything on the chance of a battle; but his generous impulses are moderated by prudence. He sees what ruin to his own most faithful subjects and, indeed, to the whole of Christendom would attend any failure in so important an enterprise, and thinks it wrong to gratify his private inclination at the price of a disaster ruinous to the state. He reflects what an unequal contest it would be, if 25,000 or 30,000 infantry with the addition of a small body of cavalry should be pitted against 200,000 cavalry supported by veteran infantry. The result to be expected from such a contest is shown him only too plainly by the examples of former times, the routs of Nicopolis and Varna, and the plains of Mohacz, still white with the bones of slaughtered Christians.[270]
A general must be a novice indeed, who rushes into battle without reckoning up his own strength or that of the enemy. And then what follows when too late? Why, simply that excuse, unpardonable in a general, which is ushered in by the words, ‘But I never thought’[271]....
It makes an enormous difference what enemy we have to encounter; I should not ask you to accept this assertion if it were not supported by the evidence of the greatest generals. Cæsar, indeed, the greatest master of the art of war that ever existed, has abundantly demonstrated how much depends on this, and has ascribed to the good fortune of Lucullus and Pompey that they met with such cowardly enemies, and on this account won their laurels at a cheap and easy rate. On the only occasion that he met with such a foe in Pharnaces, speaking as if in jest of an exploit, which had cost him no pains, and therefore deserved no praise, he showed the easiness of his victory by his despatch, ‘Veni, vidi, vici.’ He would not say the same thing if he were now-a-days to wage war with those nations; in his time they were enervated and made effeminate by luxury, but now they lead a frugal and hardy life, are enured to hunger, heat, and cold, and are trained by continual toil and a rigorous system of discipline to endure every hardship and to welcome every danger.