"Hic tantum Boreæ curamus frigora, quantum
Aut numerum lupus, aut torrentia flumina ripas."
The meaning is, however, doubtless correctly explained by Heyne: "Ut numerato pecori parcat." "Quia solam considerat lupus prædam," says Servius. The sense of the passage is, that after the shepherd has "told his tale," after he has counted his sheep, the wolf does not care how much he deranges the reckoning.
For the advice of Parmenio to attack Darius by night, and the refusal of Alexander to steal the victory, see Arrian, Exp. Alex. iii. 10.; Plut. Alex. 31., Curt. iv. 13.
"Neither is money the sinews of war, as it is trivially said.">[ "Nervi belli, pecunia infinita," Cic. Phil. v. 2. Machiavel, like Bacon, questions the truth of this dictum, Disc. ii. 10.
"Solon said well to Crœsus (when in ostentation he showed him his gold), 'Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold.'">[ This saying is not in Herodotus, or in Plutarch's Life of Solon. Query, In what ancient author is it to be found?
"Even as you may see in coppice-woods; if you leave your staddles too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes.">[ The same illustration is used by Lord Bacon, in his History of Henry VII.: "Like to coppice-woods, that, if you leave in them staddles too thick, they will run to bushes and briars, and have little clean underwood" (vol. iii. p. 236., ed. Montagu). The word staddle means an uncut tree in a coppice, left to grow. Thus Tusser says, "Leave growing for staddles the likest and best." See Richardson in v., and Nares' Glossary in Staddle, where other meanings of the word are explained.
"The device of King Henry VII.">[ See Lord Bacon's History, ib. p. 234.
"Nay, it seemeth at this instant they [the Spaniards] are sensible of this want of natives; as by the Pragmatical Sanction, now published, appeareth.">[ To what law does Lord Bacon allude?
"Romulus, after his death (as they report or feign), sent a present to the Romans, that above all they should intend arms, and then they should prove the greatest empire of the world.">[ See Livy, i. 16., where Romulus is described as giving this message to Proculus Julius. A similar message is reported in Plut. Rom. 28.