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THEiUNIVERSAL REFORMATION. 55
greatness of principalities be limited, it being impossible
that overgrown kingdoms should be governed with that
exact care and justice which is requisite to the people's
good, and which princes are bound to observe. There never
was a vast monarchy which was not in a short time lost by
the negligence of its governors."
Here Periander ended, whom Solon thus opposed :
" The
true cause, Periander, of our present mischiefs which you
have mentioned with such liberty of speech was not omitted
by us out of ignorance, but out of prudence. The dis-
orders you speak of began when the world was first
peopled, and you know that the most skilful physitian
cannot restore sight to one born blind. I mention this
because it is much the same thing to cure an infirm eye as
to reform antiquated errors. For as the skilful physitian
betakes himself to his cauters the first day he sees the dis-
tempered eye water, but is forced to leave that patient in
deserved blindness who neglected to seek a cure till his
sight was quite lost, so reformers should oppose
abuses with
severe remedies the very first hour that they commence, for
when vice and corruption have got deep rooting, it is wiselier
done to tolerate the evil, then to go about to remedy it out
of time, with danger to occasion worse inconveniences, it
being more dangerous
to cut an old wen then it is mis-
becoming to let it stand. Moreover, we are here to call
to mind the disorders of private men, and to use modesty
in so doing, but to be silent in what concerns princes, for
they having no superiours in this world it belongs onely to
God to reform them, He having given them the prerogative
to command, us the glory to obey. Subjects, therefore,
should correct the faults of their rulers onely by their own
godly living, for the hearts of princes being in the hands