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Document-specific information
Creator: Edward Pudsey
Title: Four original sheets of Edward Pudsey's Commonplace Book
Date:
Repository: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK
Call number and opening: ER82/1/21, fols. 1-4
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Counsell Antimachiavell
discipline & reformacion of manners affected & attempted once in
sporte & ieast will soone quaile: But Corrupted at the beginninge
passing in play will end in earnest. solon
Intermixing good thinges with bad as poysoners doe which neuer caist lumps
of poyson, least it bee perceiued, ‘but subtilly inCorporat it with &c.
hee had forgotten more then the other had euer learned. Anniball & Phormio
Passiue avarice. Charles the 5th chosen Emperor at the age of 20 yeares.
The Prince which can well Comand ys well obeyed, for a prudente
Comandment draweth after it withall an obedience.
Yt is more expedient to the Com: we. that the prince be wicked & his
Counsell good then that the prince bee good & his Counsell wicked. ffor=
The successor of a bad prince ys oft made good by feare.
one wicked man may bee well corrected by many good men, but many
wicked men not by one good.
Alexander seuerus wold not allow the sale of offices saying he that buyeth
selleth And if I suffer any man to buy an office I cannot condemn him whon he
selleth for it wer a shame for me to punish him, which selleth again that which hee bought.
They that fauor a man make his manneres good & his knowledg greater then it is.
Thoug a prince be not wise yet hauing wise Councellores he shalbe accou=
nted so, the effectes of all thinges beeing attributed vnto princes. comines
A prince hath a double power an Absolute and a Ciuil.
Gaule was the first prince that cut it self from the Empyre.
The Emperors are called Augusti, to increase & not diminish thempire.
Conspiracoes differ from other crymes, they may bee punished after the bee
Comitted, but the higher power executed who shall punishe.
fflatterers the principall causes of Princes corrupcions Flauius vopiscus
Plutarch saith the reason that flatteres please Princes ys that naturallye
men but esspeciallye princes do too much loue them selues and loue of
ones self obfuscateth & blindeth Iudgment, so that wee can neuer truly iudg that which
wee loue. A flatterer teles his prince many goodly thinges to his prayse.
hee belieeues it & perswades him self; of many praiseable thinges in him
Besides the flatterers helpes him self with taking for the subiect of his prayses
such vyces as are in alliance & neighborhood with their vertues. for if the
Prince be cruell he termes it iustice, yf lustfull humaine. &c
Alexander the ram: Emperor inhibited vpon great paines that none shod dare to
present himself before his face which knew himself to be or indeed was of euill
fame and reputation. Craterus the kinges of frend & hephestion the frend of Alexander
They which make a Prince becom a foole deserue wel to receiue part
of his follye as Caligula such flattereres as in his sicknes vowed themselfes
for his recouerye.
