In the multitude of people [is] the king's honour: but in the want of people [is] the destruction of the prince.
Ver. 28. In the multitude of the people is the king's honour.] For that is a sign of peace, plenty, prosperity, and just government, as in Solomon's days, when "Israel and Judah were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating, and drinking, and making merry." 1Ki 4:20 And as in Augustus's days, when Christ, the Prince of Peace, was born into the world, cuncta atque continua totius generis humani aut pax fuit, aut pactio. a Ferdinand III, King of Spain, reigned full thirty-five years, in all which time, nec fames nec pestis fuit in regno suo, saith Lopez, there was neither famine nor pestilence throughout that kingdom. b What incredible waste of men hath war lately made in Germany, that stage of war; in Ireland; and here in this kingdom, besides what formerly! In the civil dissensions between the houses of York and Lancaster, were slain eighty princes of the blood royal, and twice as many natives of England as were lost in the two conquests of France. The dissensions between England and Scotland consumed more Christian blood, wrought more spoil and destruction to both kingdoms, and continued longer, than ever quarrel we read of did between any two people of the world. c "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings," &c. Tu vero, Herodes sanguinolente, time, as Beza covertly warned Charles IX, author of the French massacre. d Many parts of Turkey lie unpeopled, most of the poor being enforced with victuals and other necessaries to follow their great armies in their long expeditions; of whom scarce one of ten ever return home again, there by the way perishing if not by the enemy's sword, yet by want of victuals, intemperateness of the air, or immoderate painstaking. e Hence the proverb, Wherever the Great Turk sets his foot, there grass grows not any more.
a Flor. Hist., lib. iv.
b Gloss. in prolog., part i.
c Daniel's Hist.
d Camden's Elisab., 165.
e Turkish Hist.