Now they that have thus grounded their choice within themselves, and rendered it immovable and difficult to be changed, must set themselves to contemplate that disposition of the citizens which, being compounded (as it were) of all their natures, appears most prevalent among them. For the endeavoring presently to form the manners and change the nature of a people is neither easy nor safe, but a work requiring much time and great authority. But as wine in the beginning is overcome by the nature of the drinker, but afterwards, gently warming him and mixing itself in his veins, assimilates and changes him who drinks it into its own likeness, so must a statesman, till he has by his reputation and credit obtained a leading power amongst the people, accommodate himself to the dispositions of the subjects, knowing how to consider and conjecture those things with which the people are naturally delighted and by which they are usually drawn. The Athenians, to wit, are easily moved to anger, and not difficultly changed to mercy, more willing to suspect quickly than to be informed by leisure; and as they are readier to help mean and inconsiderable persons, so do they embrace and esteem facetious and merry speeches; they are exceedingly delighted with those that praise them, and very little offended with such as jeer them; they are terrible even to their governors, and yet courteous to their very enemies. Far other is the disposition of the Carthaginians, severe, rigid, obsequious to their rulers, harsh to their subjects, most abject in their fear, most cruel in their anger, firm in their resolutions, untractable, and hard to be moved by sportive and pleasant discourse. Should Cleon have requested them to defer their assembly, because he had sacrificed to the Gods and was to feast certain strangers, they would not have risen up, laughing and clapping their hands for joy; nor, if Alcibiades, as he was making an harangue to them, had let slip a quail from under his cloak, would they have striven who should catch her and restore her to him again, but would rather have killed them both on the place, as contemning and deriding them; since they banished Hanno for making use of a lion to carry his baggage to the army, accusing him of affecting tyranny. Neither do I think, that the Thebans, if they had been made masters of their enemies’ letters, would have foreborne looking into them, as did the Athenians, when, having taken the messengers of Philip who were carrying a letter superscribed to Olympias, they would not so much as open it, or discover the conjugal secrets of an absent husband, written to his wife. Nor yet do I believe that the Athenians on the other side would have patiently suffered the haughtiness and disdain of Epaminondas, when, refusing to answer an accusation brought against him, he rose up from the theatre, and went away through the midst of the assembly to the place of public exercises. And much less am I of opinion that the Spartans would have endured the contumely and scurrility of Stratocles, who persuaded the people to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to the Gods, as having obtained the victory, and afterwards, when, being truly informed of the loss they had received, they were angry with him, asked them what injury they had sustained in having through his means spent three days merrily. Courtly flatterers indeed, like to quail-catchers, by imitating the voices and assimilating themselves to the manners of kings, chiefly insinuate into their favors and entrap them by deceit; but it is not convenient for a statesman to imitate the people’s manners, but to know them, and make use of those things toward every person by which he is most likely to be taken. For the ignorance of men’s humors brings no less disorders and obstacles in commonweals than in the friendships of kings.