had been so long oppressed, and whom he had now, all alone and unarmed, at his mercy.  He then advised that they should call these out, one by one, by lot, and should individually determine as to each, causing whatever should be decreed to be immediately executed; with this proviso, that they should, at the same time, depute some honest man in the place of him who was condemned, to the end there might be no vacancy in the Senate.  They had no sooner heard the name of one senator but a great cry of universal dislike was raised up against him.  “I see,” says Pacuvius, “that we must put him out; he is a wicked fellow; let us look out a good one in his room.”  Immediately there was a profound silence, every one being at a stand whom to choose.  But one, more impudent than the rest, having named his man, there arose yet a greater consent of voices against him, an hundred imperfections being laid to his charge, and as many just reasons why he should not stand.  These contradictory humours growing hot, it fared worse with the second senator and the third, there being as much disagreement in the election of the new, as consent in the putting out of the old.  In the end, growing weary of this bustle to no purpose, they began, some one way and some another, to steal out of the assembly:  every one carrying back this resolution in his mind, that the oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new and untried.

Seeing how miserably we are agitated (for what have we not done!)

              “Eheu! cicatricum, et sceleris pudet,
               Fratrumque:  quid nos dura refugimus
               AEtas? quid intactum nefasti
               Liquimus?  Unde manus inventus
               Metu Deorum continuit? quibus
               Pepercit aris.”

["Alas! our crimes and our fratricides are a shame to us!  What crime does this bad age shrink from?  What wickedness have we left undone?  What youth is restrained from evil by the fear of the gods?  What altar is spared?”—­Horace, Od., i. 33, 35]

I do not presently conclude,

                              “Ipsa si velit Salus,
               Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam;”

     ["If the goddess Salus herself wish to save this family, she
     absolutely cannot”—­Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43.]

we are not, peradventure, at our last gasp.  The conservation of states is a thing that, in all likelihood, surpasses our understanding;—­a civil government is, as Plato says, a mighty and puissant thing, and hard to be dissolved; it often continues against mortal and intestine diseases, against the injury of unjust laws, against tyranny, the corruption and ignorance of magistrates, the licence and sedition of the people.  In all our fortunes, we compare ourselves to what is above us, and still look towards those who are better:  but let us measure ourselves