“Nec gentibus ullis
               Commodat in populum, terra pelagique potentem,
               Invidiam fortuna suam.”

["Fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against
the people, masters of the seas and of the earth.”—­Lucan, i. 32.]

Everything that totters does not fall.  The contexture of so great a body holds by more nails than one; it holds even by its antiquity, like old buildings, from which the foundations are worn away by time, without rough-cast or mortar, which yet live and support themselves by their own weight: 

                   “Nec jam validis radicibus haerens,
                    Pondere tuta suo est.”

Moreover, it is not rightly to go to work, to examine only the flank and the foss, to judge of the security of a place; we must observe which way approaches can be made to it, and in what condition the assailant is:  few vessels sink with their own weight, and without some exterior violence.  Now, let us everyway cast our eyes; everything about us totters; in all the great states, both of Christendom and elsewhere, that are known to us, if you will but look, you will there see evident menace of alteration and ruin: 

         “Et sua sunt illis incommoda; parque per omnes
          Tempestas.”

["They all share in the mischief; the tempest rages
everywhere.”—­AEneid, ii.]

Astrologers may very well, as they do, warn us of great revolutions and imminent mutations:  their prophecies are present and palpable, they need not go to heaven to foretell this.  There is not only consolation to be extracted from this universal combination of ills and menaces, but, moreover, some hopes of the continuation of our state, forasmuch as, naturally, nothing falls where all falls:  universal sickness is particular health:  conformity is antagonistic to dissolution.  For my part, I despair not, and fancy that I discover ways to save us: 

                   “Deus haec fortasse benigna
                    Reducet in sedem vice.”

["The deity will perchance by a favourable turn restore us to our
former position.”—­Horace, Epod., xiii. 7.]

Who knows but that God will have it happen, as in human bodies that purge and restore themselves to a better state by long and grievous maladies, which render them more entire and perfect health than that they took from them?  That which weighs the most with me is, that in reckoning the symptoms of our ill, I see as many natural ones, and that Heaven sends us, and properly its own, as of those that our disorder and human imprudence contribute to it.  The very stars seem to declare that we have already continued long enough, and beyond the ordinary term.  This also afflicts me, that the mischief which nearest threatens us, is not an alteration in the entire and solid mass, but its dissipation and divulsion, which is the most extreme of our fears.