It was anciently noted, and long confirmed by the
actions of the French, that in their first assaults their courage
was more than that of men, and for the rest less than that of
women, which nevertheless, through the amendment of their
discipline, we see now to be otherwise. I will not say but that
some man or nation upon an equal improvement of this kind may be
lighter than some other; but certainly education is the scale
without which no man or nation can truly know his or her own
weight or value. By our histories we can tell when one Marpesian
would have beaten ten Oceaners, and when one Oceaner would have
beaten ten Marpesians. Marc Antony was a Roman, but how did that
appear in the embraces of Cleopatra? You must have some other
education for your youth, or they, like that passage, will show
better in romance than true story.
"The custom of the Commonwealth of Rome in distributing her
magistracies without respect of age, happened to do well in
Corvinus and Scipio; for which cause Machiavel (with whom that
which was done by Rome, and that which is well done, are for the
most part all one) commends this course. Yet how much it did
worse at other times, is obvious in Pompey and Caesar, examples
by which Boccalini illustrates the prudence of Venice in her
contrary practice, affirming it to have been no small step to the
ruin of the Roman liberty, that these (having tasted in their
youth of the supreme honors) had no greater in their age to hope
for, but by perpetuating of the same in themselves; which came to
blood and ended in tyranny.
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