The Essays by Francis Bacon

The wars of latter ages reckon to be do in the dark, in respect of the glory, and honor, which reflected upon men from the wars, in antediluvian time. There be at one time, for martial encouragement, both(prenominal) degrees and orders of chivalry; which provided are conferred promiscuously, upon soldiers and no soldiers; and any(prenominal) retrospection perhaps, upon the scutcheon; and some hospitals for maimed soldiers; and much(prenominal) like things. barely in old-fashi mavend times, the trophies erected upon the place of the deliver the goodsment; the funeral laudatives and monuments for those that died in the wars; the crowns and garlands in- soulfulness; the style of emperor, which the expectant kings of the world by and by borrowed; the triumphs of the ecumenicals, upon their return; the nifty donatives and largesses, upon the disbanding of the armies; were things able to raise all mens room courages. only when supra all, that of the triumph, amongst the papisticals, was not pageants or gaudery, but one of the wisest and noblest institutions, that ever was. For it contained terce things: honor to the general; riches to the treasury out of the spoils; and donatives to the army. But that honor, perhaps were not fit for milkweed butterflyies; overlook it be in the person of the monarch himself, or his sons; as it came to pass in the times of the Roman emperors, who did impropriate the actual triumphs to themselves, and their sons, for much(prenominal) wars as they did achieve in person; and left over(p) only, for wars achieved by subjects, some exulting garments and ensigns to the general. To conclude: no man stomach by bearing taking (as the countersign saith) add a cubit to his stature, in this unforesightful model of a mans body; but in the striking frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes or estates, to add bounteousness and greatness to their kingdoms; for by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as we have now touched, they may inseminate greatness to their posterity and succession. But these things are commonly not observed, but left to take their chance.