Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	answer_v	great_a	king_n	1,075	5	3.7673	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51327	Utopia written in Latin by Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England ; translated into English.; Utopia. English	More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 1478-1535.; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1684 (1684)	Wing M2691; ESTC R7176	83,905	208

of the wise Institutions both here and there and had spoken as distinctly of the Customs and Government of every Nation through which he had past as if he had spent his whole Life in it Peter being struck with admiration said I wonder Raphael how it comes that you enter into no King's Service for I am sure there are none to whom you would not be very acceptable for your Learning and Knowledg both of Men and Things is such that you would not only entertain them very pleasantly but be of good use to them by the Examples that you could set before them and the Advices that you could give them and by this means you would both serve your own Interest and be of great use to all your Friends As for my Friends answered he I need not be much concerned having already done all that was incumbent on me toward them for when I was not only in good Health but fresh and young I distributed that among my Kindred and Friends which other People do not part with till they are old and sick and then they unwillingly give among them that which they can enjoy no longer themselves I think my Friends ought to rest contented with this and not to expect that for their sakes I should enslave my self to any King whatsoever Soft and fair said Peter I do not mean that you should be a Slave to any King but only that you should assist them and be useful to them The change of the Word said he does not alter the Matter But term it as you will replied Peter I do not see any other way in which you can be so useful both in private to your Friends and to the Publick and by which you can make your own Condition happier Happier answered Raphael is that to be compassed in a way so abhorrent to my Genius Now I live as I will to which I believe few Courtiers can pretend and there are so very many that court the Favour of great Men that there will be no great loss if they are not troubled either with me or with others of my temper Upon this I said I perceive Raphael that you neither desire Wealth nor Greatness and indeed I value and admire such a Man much more than I do any of the great Men in the World Yet I think you would do a thing well-becoming so generous and so philosophical a Soul as yours is if you would apply your Time and Thoughts to Publick Affairs even though you may happen to find that a little uneasy to your self and this you can never do with so much advantage as by being taken into the Council of some great Prince and by setting him on to noble and worthy Things which I know you would do if you were in such a Post for the Springs both of Good and Evil flow over a whole Nation from the Prince as from a lasting Fountain So much Learning as you have even without practice in Affairs or so great a practice as you have had without any other Learning would render you a very fit Counsellor to any King whatsoever You are doubly mistaken said he Mr. More both in your Opinion of me and in the Judgment that you make of things for as I have not that Capacity that you fancy to be in me so if I had it the Publick would not be one jot the better when I had sacrificed my quiet to it For most Princes apply themselves more to warlike Matters than to the useful Arts of Peace and in these I neither have any knowledg nor do I much desire it They are generally more set on acquiring new Kingdoms right or wrong than on governing those well that they have and among the Ministers of Princes there are none that either are not so wise as not to need any assistance or at least that do not think themselves so wise that they imagine they need none and if they do court any it is only those for whom the Prince has much personal Favour whom by their Faunings and Flatteries they endeavour to fix to their own Interests and indeed Nature has so made us that we all love to be flattered and to please our selves with our own Notions The old Crow loves his Young and the Ape his Cubs Now if in such a Court made up of Persons that envy all others and do only admire themselves one should but propose any thing that he had either read in History or observed in his Travels the rest would think that the Reputation of their Wisdom would sink and that their Interests would be much depressed if they could not run it down And if all other things failed then they would fly to this That such or such things pleased our Ancestors and it were well for us if we could but match them They would set up their Rest on such an Answer as a sufficient confutation of all that could be said as if this were a great Mischief that any should be found wiser than his Ancestors But tho they willingly let go all the good Things that were among those of former Ages yet if better things are proposed they cover themselves obstinately with this excuse of reverence to past Times I have met with these proud morose and absurd Judgments of Things in many places particularly once in England Was you ever there said I Yes I was answered he and staid some months there not long after the Rebellion in the West was suppressed with a great slaughter of the poor People that were engaged in it I was then much obliged to that reverend Prelate Iohn Morton Archbishop of Canterbury Cardinal and Chancellor of England a Man said he Peter for Mr. More knows well what he was that was not less venerable for his Wisdom and Vertues than for the high Character he bore He was of a middle stature not broken with Age his looks begot Reverence rather than Fear his Conversation was easy but serious and grave he took pleasure sometimes to try the force of those that came as Suiters to him upon Business by speaking sharply tho decently to them and by that he discovered their Spirit and presence of Mind with which he was much delighted when it did not grow up to an impudence as bearing a great resemblance to his own temper and he look'd on such Persons as the fittest Men for Affairs He spoke both gracefully and weightily he was eminently skilled in the Law and had a vast Understanding and a prodigious Memory and those excellent Talents with which Nature had furnished him were improved by Study and Experience When I was in England the King depended much on his Councils and the Government seemed to be chiefly supported by him for from his Youth up he had been all along practised in Affairs and having passed through many Traverses of Fortune he had acquired to his great cost a vast stock of Wisdom which is not soon lost when it is purchased so dear One day

you might do a great deal of good to Mankind by the Advices that you would give and this is the chief Design that every good Man ought to propose to himself in living for whereas your Friend Plato thinks that then Nations will be happy when either Philosophers become Kings or Kings become Philosophers No wonder if we are so far from that Happiness if Philosophers will not think it fit for them to assist Kings with their Councels They are not so base minded said he but that they would willingly do it many of them have already done it by their Books if these that are in Power would hearken to their good Advices But Plato judged right that except Kings themselves became Philosophers it could never be brought about that they who from their Childhood are corrupted with false Notions should fall in intirely with the Counsels of Philosophers which he himself found to be true in the Person of Dionysius Do not you think that if I were about any King and were proposing good Laws to him and endeavouring to root out of him all the cursed Seeds of Evil that I found in him I should either be turned out of his Court or at least be laughed at for my pains For Instance What could I signify if I were about the King of France and were called into his Cabinet-Council where several wise Men do in his hearing propose many Expedients as by what Arts and Practices Milan may be kept and Naples that has so oft slip'd out of their hands recovered and how the Venetians and after them the rest of Italy may be subdued and then how Flanders Brabant and all Burgundy and some other Kingdoms which he has swallowed already in his Designs may be added to his Empire One proposes a League with the Venetians to be kept as long as he finds his account in it and that he ought to communicate Councils with them and give them some share of the Spoil till his Success makes him need or fear them less and then it will be easily taken out of their Hands Another proposes the hireing the Germans and the securing the Switzers by Pensions Another proposes the gaining the Emperor by Mony which is Omnipotent with him Another proposes a Peace with the King of Arragon and in order to the cementing it the yielding up the King of Navar 's Pretensions Another thinks the Prince of Castile is to be wrought on by the hope of an Alliance and that some of his Courtiers are to be gained to the French Faction by Pensions The hardest Point of all is what to do with England a Treaty of Peace is to be set on foot and if their Alliance is not to be depended on yet it is to be made as firm as can be and they are to be called Friends but suspected as Enemies Therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness to be let loose upon England on every occasion and some banished Nobleman is to be supported underhand for by the League it cannot be done avowedly who has a pretension to the Crown by which means that suspected Prince may be kept in awe Now when things are in so great a Fermentation and so many gallant Men are joining Councils how to carry on the War if so mean a Man as I am should stand up and wish them to change all their Councils to let Italy alone and stay at home since the Kingdom of France was indeed greater than that it could be well governed by one Man So that he ought not to think of adding others to it And if after this I should propose to them the Resolutions of the Achorians a People that lie over against the Isle of Vtopia to the South-east who having long ago engaged in a War that they might gain another Kingdom to their King who had a Pretension to it by an old Alliance by which it had descended to him and having conquered it when they found that the trouble of keeping it was equal to that of gaining it for the conquered People would be still apt to rebel or be exposed to Forreign Invasions so that they must always be in War either for them or against them and that therefore they could never disband their Army That in the mean time Taxes lay heavy on them that Mony went out of the Kingdom that their Blood was sacrificed to their King's Glory and that they were nothing the better by it even in time of Peace their Manners being corrupted by a long War Robbing and Murders abounding every where and their Laws falling under contempt because their King being distracted with the Cares of the Kingdom was less able to apply his Mind to any one of them when they saw there would be no end of those Evils they by joint Councils made an humble Address to their King desiring him to chuse which of the two Kingdoms he had the greatest mind to keep since he could not hold both for they were too great a People to be governed by a divided King since no Man would willingly have a Groom that should be in common between him and another Upon which the good Prince was forced to quit his new Kingdom to one of his Friends who was not long after dethroned and to be contented with his old One. To all this I would add that after all those Warlike Attempts and the vast Confusions with the Consumptions both of Treasure and of People that must follow them perhaps upon some Misfortune they might be forced to throw up all at last therefore it seemed much more eligible that the King should improve his ancient Kingdom all he could and make it flourish as much as was possible that he should love his People and be beloved of them that he should live among them and govern them gently and that he should let other Kingdoms alone since that which had fallen to his share was big enough if not too big for him Pray how do you think would such a Speech as this be heard I confess said I I think not very well But what said he if I should sort with another kind of Ministers whose chief Contrivances and Consultations were by what Art Treasure might be heaped up Where one proposes the crying up of Mony when the King had a great Debt on him and the crying it down as much when his Revenues were to come in that so he might both pay much with a little and in a little receive a great deal Another proposes a pretence of a War that so Money might be raised in order to the carrying it on and that a Peace might be concluded as soon as that was done and this was to be made up with such appearances of Religion as might work on the People and make them impute it to the piety of their Prince and to his tenderness of the Lives of his Subjects A third offers some old musty Laws that have been antiquated by a long disuse and which as they had