"
(20) Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply which he made when he
gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was asked what
he did reserve for himself, and he answered, "Hope." Weigh, I say,
whether he had not cast up his account aright, because hope must be
the portion of all that resolve upon great enterprises; for this was
Caesar's portion when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then
utterly overthrown with largesses. And this was likewise the
portion of that noble prince, howsoever transported with ambition,
Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was usually said that he was the
greatest usurer in France, because he had turned all his estate into
obligations.
(21) To conclude, therefore, as certain critics are used to say
hyperbolically, "That if all sciences were lost they might be found
in Virgil," so certainly this may be said truly, there are the
prints and footsteps of learning in those few speeches which are
reported of this prince, the admiration of whom, when I consider him
not as Alexander the Great, but as Aristotle's scholar, hath carried
me too far.
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