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about, his chance is to meet with many false and feigning desires that wander singly up and down, in his likeness. By them, in their borrowed garb, Love, though not wholly blind, as Poets wrong him, yet having but one eye, as being born an archer aiming, and that eye not the quickest in this dark region here below, which is not Love's proper sphere, partly out of the simplicity and credulity which is native to him, often deceived, imbraces and consorts him with these obvious and suborned striplings, as if they were his mother's own sons; for so he thinks them, while they subtilly keep themselves most on his blind side. But after a while, as his manner is, soaring up above the shadow of the earth, he darts out the direct rays of his then most piercing eyesight upon the impostures and trim disguises that were used with him, and discerns that this is not his genuine brother, as he imagined. He has no longer the power to hold fellowship with such a personated mate; for straight his arrows lose their golden heads, and shed their purple feathers, his silken braids untwine and slip their knots, and that original and fiery virtue given him by fate goes out, and leaves him undeified and stript of all his force, till finding Anteros at last, he kindles and repairs the almost faded ammunition of his Deity by the reflection of a co-equal and homogeneous fire. J. MILTON

166.

PROSPEROUS USURPATION. I tremble for the cause of liberty, from such an example to kings. I tremble for the cause of humanity, in the unpunished outrages of the most wicked of mankind. But there are some people of that low and degenerate fashion of mind, that they look up with a sort of complacent awe and admiration to kings, who know to keep firm in their seat, to hold a strict hand over their subjects, to assert their prerogative, and by the awakened vigilance of a severe despotism to guard against the very first approaches of freedom. Against such as these they never elevate their voice. Deserters from principle, listed with fortune, they never see any good in suffering virtue, nor any crime in prosperous usurpation.

E. BURKE

167. LISBON UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF JUNOT, MARCH A.D. 1808. As the government was now effectually converted into a military usurpation, it became easy to sim,

FOL. CENT,

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plify its operations; and most of the persons formerly employed in civil departments were dismissed from office. Some were at once turned off; others had documents given them entitling them to be reinstated upon vacancies; a few had some trifling pension promised. All who depended for employment and subsistence upon foreign trade were now destitute. Whole families were thus suddenly reduced to poverty and actual want. Their trinkets went first; whatever was saleable followed: things offered for sale at such a time were sold at half their value, while the price of food was daily augmenting. It was a dismal thing to see the mint beset with persons who carried thither the few articles of plate with which they had formerly set forth a comfortable board, and the ornaments which they had worn in happier days. It was a dismal thing to see men pale with anxiety pressing through crowds who were on the same miserable errand, and women weeping as they offered their little treasure to the scales. Such was the state to which one of the most flourishing cities in Europe was reduced!

R. SOUTHEY

168. ASEM THE MAN-HATER AND THE GENIUS. As they walked further up the country, the more he was surprised to see no vestiges of handsome houses, no cities, nor any mark of elegant design. His conductor perceiving his surprise, observed: "That the inhabitants of this new world were perfectly content with their ancient simplicity; each had a house, which, though homely, was sufficient to lodge his little family; they were too good to build houses, which could only increase their own pride and the envy of the spectator; what they built was for convenience, and not for show.' 'At least then,' said Asem, 'they have neither architects, painters nor statuaries in their society; but these are idle arts and may be spared. However, before I spend much more time here, you shall have my thanks for introducing me into the society of some of their wisest men; there is scarce any pleasure to me equal to a refined conversation; there is nothing of which I am so enamoured as wisdom.'-'Wisdom,' replied his instructor, 'how ridiculous! we have no wisdom here, for we have no occasion for it; true wisdom is only a knowledge of our own duty and the duty of others to us; but of what use is such wisdom here, where each intuitively performs what is right

in himself and expects the same from others? If by wisdom you should mean vain curiosity and empty speculation, as such pleasures have their origin in vanity, luxury or avarice, we are too good to pursue them.'

O. GOLDSMITH

169. AUTHORITY—ITS INFLUENCE WITH THE LEARNED AND UNLEARNED. The reason why the simpler sort are moved with authority is the conscience of their own ignorance; whereby it cometh to pass that having learned men in admiration, they rather fear to dislike them than know wherefore they should allow and follow their judgments. Contrariwise with them that are skilful authority is much more strong and forcible; because they only are able to discern how just cause there is why to some men's authority so much should be attributed. For which cause the name of Hippocrates (no doubt) were more effectual to persuade even such men as Galen himself, than to move a silly empiric. So that the very selfsame argument in this kind which doth but induce the vulgar sort to like, may constrain the wiser to yield. And therefore not orators only with the people, but even the very profoundest disputers in all faculties have hereby often with the best learned prevailed most.

R. HOOKER

170. THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE. A commonwealth, with such civil and military institutions, was not formed to make conquests. While its subjects were disarmed, and its nobles excluded from military command, it carried on its warlike enterprises with great disadvantage. This ought to have taught the Venetians to rest satisfied with making selfpreservation and the enjoyment of domestic security the objects of their policy. But republics are apt to be seduced by the spirit of ambition as well as kings. When the Venetians so far forgot the inferior defects in their government as to aim at extensive conquests, the fatal blow which they received in the war excited by the league of Cambray, convinced them of the imprudence and danger of making violent efforts in opposition to the genius and tendency of their constitution.

W. ROBERTSON

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171. COMMON INSENSIBILITY TO THE GRANDEUR OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. If any artist, I do not say had executed, but had merely conceived in his mind the system of the sun,

and the stars and planets, they not existing, and had painted to us in words or upon canvas the spectacle now afforded by the nightly cope of heaven and illustrated it by the wisdom of astronomy, great would be our admiration. Or had he imagined the scenery of this earth, the mountains, the seas and the rivers; the grass and the flowers and the variety of the forms and masses of the leaves of the woods, and the colours which attend the setting and the rising sun, and the hues of the atmosphere, turbid or serene, these things not before existing, truly we should have been astonished, and it would not have been a vain boast to have said of such a man, 'Non merita nomo di creatore, sennon Iddio ed il Poeta.' But now these things are looked on with little wonder, and to be conscious of them with intense delight is esteemed to be the distinguishing mark of a refined and extraordinary person. The multitude of men care not for

them.

P. B. SHELLEY

172. THE PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT are two-fold; internal, or the goods of the mind; and external, or the goods of fortune. The goods of the mind are natural or acquired virtues, as wisdom prudence and courage. The goods of fortune are riches. There be goods also of the body, as health beauty strength; but these are not to be brought into account upon this score, because if a man or an army acquire victory or empire, it is more from their discipline arms and courage, than from their natural health beauty or strength, in regard that a people conquered may have more of these and yet find little remedy. The principles of government then are in the goods of the mind or in the goods of fortune. To the goods of the mind answers authority; to the goods of fortune, power or empire. A learned writer may have authority though he have no power; and a foolish magistrate may have power, though he have otherwise no esteem or authority. The difference of these two is observed by Livy in Evander, of whom he says, that he governed rather by the authority of others than by his own power.

E. BURKE

173. DARIUS HYSTASPES-HIS NARROW ESCAPE OUT OF SCYTHIA. When as therefore Darius had wearied himself and wasted his provisions in those desolate regions, wherein he found neither ways to direct him, victuals to refresh him, nor any houses, fruitful trees or living creatures, nor anything at all, which either he himself might make use of, or by destroying it might grieve his enemies, he began to perceive his own folly, and the danger into which he had brought him. Yet, setting a good face upon a bad game, he sent brave messages to the Scythian, bidding him to cease his flight, and either to make trial of his valour and fortune in plain battle; or, if he acknowledged himself the weaker, then to yield by fair means and become his subject, giving him earth and water, which the Persians used to demand as a sign that all was yielded unto them. To this challenge the Scythian returned an hieroglyphical answer; sending a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows: which dumb-shew Darius interpreting by his own wish, thought that he did yield all the elements wherein those creatures live, and his weapons withal into his hands. But Gobryas, one of the seven princes who had slain the Magi, construed their meaning aright, which was thus: O ye Persians, get ye wings like birds, or dive under the water, or creep into holes in the earth, for else ye shall not escape our arrows. And this interpretation was soon verified by the Scythians themselves, who assailed the Persian camp, drave the horsemen into the trenches, and vexed the army with continual alarms day and night; were so fearless of this great monarch, and so little regarded him, that within his hearing and even in his sight they did not forbear the pastime of coursing a hare, which they had started by chance.

SIR W. RALEGH

174. A PERFECT DEMOCRACY is the most shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person he can be made subject to punishment. Certainly the people at large never ought: for as all punishments are for example towards the conservation of the people at large, the people at large can never become the subjects of punishment by any human hand. It is, therefore, of infinite importance that they should not be suffered to imagine that their will, any more than that of kings, is the standard of right and wrong. They

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